PSA: Gou is NOT a psychopath

[dman_dustin]

Okay he's not a psychopath, but he sure is a Gary Stu. Catching everything without fail and nothing going wrong, impossible to fight that

Don't think Gary Stu can apply to someone whose goal is to capture every Pokemon, and thus in a 22 minute episode where we'll likely see only 150+ episodes with Go for the generation, he is guaranteed to capture at least one Pokemon.

Plus on top of that he is bad at battling, can't be gary stu in one thing while not being good in other things, hence the whole "Gary Stu has no flaws argument" Go has PLENTY of flaws.

The unlikability of Go's goal is simply because they chose THAT to be his goal, capture every Pokemon, EVERY Pokemon, so of course they have to do this.

And I personally wouldn't give a crap about it, if they didn't keep screwing Ash over every instance they get outside of an irrelevant battle tournament, which they cheated Ash out of a brand new brand new capture and just decided to go with "Mr. Mime is Ash's, enjoy him using it the first time, just so we don't have to give him a new Pokemon because its all about Go.

As I said in another forums, if Ash captures ONE brand new Pokemon, I wouldn't care if Go caught fifty Pokemon in a slide show presentation for the next episode. Just as long Ash has SOMETHING new.

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

Okay he's not a psychopath, but he sure is a Gary Stu. Catching everything without fail and nothing going wrong, impossible to fight that

He's not a Gary Stu either. Even if you ignore all of his flaws, his catch rate has nothing to do with how awesome he is, it's monster balls who do the all work.

 

[nickdt]

He's not a Gary Stu either. Even if you ignore all of his flaws, his catch rate has nothing to do with how awesome he is, it's monster balls who do the all work.

But without Gou throwing them, the Monster Balls cannot do the work.

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

But without Gou throwing them, the Monster Balls cannot do the work.

Any pokémon trainer can throw one of those. It's not a reason to call him a Gary Stu.

 

[Emelie]

Uhhhh, what??

He is not a villain so of course he is not a psychopath. Do you seriously think they would make a Pokémon main character evil? It would have been interesting though.

But he is probably socially awkward and maybe a little bit depressed depending on how you choose to interpret some of his lines ("You're just like the others..." and "Pokémon might lose their will to live!").

 

[Shadowlarvitar]

He's not a Gary Stu either. Even if you ignore all of his flaws, his catch rate has nothing to do with how awesome he is, it's monster balls who do the all work.

He's either a psychopath or a Gary Stu. Take your pick

 

[Everclear]

He's either a psychopath or a Gary Stu. Take your pick

He's neither. He's just a kid who's working towards his goal and is having an easy time of it because so far all of the Pokemon he's caught were weak as ****. Get back to me when he catches a legendary or a mythical with a normal Pokeball and then you can call him a Gary Stu for all I care.

 

[Karamazov]

At the risk of this thread flying off the rails, I have to say that I don't think he's a Gary Stu, either.

1. He's shown to be less physically adept than Ash.
2. He was completely swept in his first trainer battle.
3. He couldn't handle his lost and immaturely ran off.
4. Based on looks and what little he knew of Mr. Mime, he didn't think it could battle. He was proven wrong.
5. He was going to quit battling because of his bad experience, and it was up to Ash to show him how fun and exciting Pokemon battles can be.
6. The seventh episode was practically dedicated to showing off how Ash styles over Go as a trainer.
7. It was implied that he had trouble making friends outside of Koharu.

The only thing that's really questionable is his easy catches. But even then, that's due to luck than any skill or competence. It's just lazy writing than anything else - they want his captures to be quick and easy so they can focus on the rest of the episode.

 

[P_S_B]

they want his captures to be quick and easy so they can focus on the rest of the episode.

Then they need to start using balls with decent catch-rate modifiers. For example Stantler and Misdreavus were in a dark building so have him use Dusk balls or something. Watching him catch things first time with zero effort is genuinely insulting to anyone with bad catch luck, especially following Let's Go where 3-shake-breaks were more common than ever before.

 

[Karamazov]

Then they need to start using balls with decent catch-rate modifiers. For example Stantler and Misdreavus were in a dark building so have him use Dusk balls or something. Watching him catch things first time with zero effort is genuinely insulting to anyone with bad catch luck, especially following Let's Go where 3-shake-breaks were more common than ever before.

Oh, totes agreed. They even dabbled with this as far back as Johto, and Jessie also caught Mimikyu in a Luxury Ball. Though I wouldn't be surprised if they're using regular Poke Balls for convenience, so they won't have to remember all the different types of Balls whenever they bring these Pokemon out. Which is very lame, but whatever.

 

[LazySpy]

1. It was implied that he had trouble making friends outside of Koharu.

And his Pokemon, who like him for no reall reason.

But really, this concrete flaw wasn't dragging him down in this anime thus far, nor was it really the focus.

But your post made me notice something I haven't seen neither Gou defenders nor offenders talk about, and it's that he didn't fight much battles against trainers yet.

I do think that his Ketchum all destination was already ruined and in all the episodes thus far, he seems more of a Gary Stu than not, but there's still a tiny hint of hope that in the future, he might (might) be struggling against other trainers.

That would've been a really cool thing to happen actually.

Imagine that in the upcoming Dragonite episode, for instance, Gou attempts to catch a Dragonite, but fails as Dragy is too strong of a Pokemon for him. Gou is now determined to become a stronger trainer, and to that end, he begins battling with other trainers. But again, he fails, as his Pokemon turn out to be weaker than his opponents which drives Gou mad, but can also be sort of a setup for Gou's rivarlies.

... So Ash Catche'm goes in. He begins training with Gou, a prime opportunity to bring back Ash's reserves or have him catch his own Pokemon in order the make the training more varied.

It wouldn't fix every issue I had with this series, and it's an imperfect scenario, but I would take that over Gou's everyday Ketchum(p) routine.

 

[KyseL]

Are the "Go is a psychopath" claims some kind of meme that flew over my head or something? I seriously can't fathom someone actually believing in them. Gary Stu, on the other hand, is at the very least less outrageous, although I completely disagree with that as well. Go hasn't really proven to be exceptionally good at anything (bar being a complete nerd) and most of his accomplishments so far have been because nothing has really challenged him. When the Pokémon just sit there waiting to be caught there's honestly no point at which I can think to myself "oh, look, Go is super good at catching Pokémon". If anything, he's just been ridiculously lucky and aided by the circumstances more so than his own skill, bar some exceptions.

Like, I'm not saying that's good, but those are not flaws on his character, at least conceptually.

 

[nickdt]

Then they need to start using balls with decent catch-rate modifiers. For example Stantler and Misdreavus were in a dark building so have him use Dusk balls or something. Watching him catch things first time with zero effort is genuinely insulting to anyone with bad catch luck, especially following Let's Go where 3-shake-breaks were more common than ever before.

Yeah and even Excellent throws weren't guaranteed catches either.

 

[Karamazov]

And his Pokemon, who like him for no reall reason.

To be fair, this isn't exclusive to him, it's another quirk the anime and the games have. Often-times, Pokemon are caught and just automatically like or tolerate their trainers. Examples: Ash and Muk, Taillow, Starly, Tauros, Kingler, Pidove and Palpitoad; May's Wurmple; Cilan's Stunfisk; almost any time anyone catches a Pokemon through battling it, rather than befriending it beforehand.

Yeah, his issue with making friends hasn't been a major focus so far, but it has been addressed. - Him being a know-it-all was addressed in the first episode, with Koharu even stating that his attitude is why he doesn't have friends - something Go brushed aside because he only cared about Pokemon. In the third episode, he was quick to judge Ash and question their friendship, then get butthurt when Ash did the same. He took the spat he had with Ash more seriously and thought he wasn't friends with Ash, while Ash confidently thought they were still friends. Whereas Ash was able to make quick friends with Hoji, Go mistook Hoji's comment about him as an insult and instigated a fight.

There's clearly a pattern here: Go is smart, but immature and doesn't have a lot of experience with people. He's also kind of a brat. While he hasn't suffered majorly from it yet, it has had an impact on his character and put him in a negative light. At any rate, we're likely going to see more of it in the future, when they have time to address it. The show was the same way with Iris.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

The correct term is sociopath

 

[Rocket Messiah]

1. It was implied that he had trouble making friends outside of Koharu.

Thats the saving point for this runt for me ladies and gentleman, we need to know why he has no friends, why those words at Ash during episode 3? "You're one of those", this can be the development we really need not what we are doing now.

 

[Islander Princess]

Thats the saving point for this runt for me ladies and gentleman, we need to know why he has no friends, why those words at Ash during episode 3? "You're one of those", this can be the development we really need not what we are doing now.

100% agree with this. It was these traits that drew me to Gou in the first place. It's fine if his goal is to catch all of the Pokemon to get to Mew (granted I still wish it was more fleshed out than that) but I don't want that to be the only part of Gou that becomes focused on. I'm not saying that this needs to be totally expanded upon in the first 10 episodes, but it's something that I feel has definitely taken a backseat to him catching Pokemon right now, which is unfortunate.

Gou's interaction with Ash in the third episode was the perfect little hint of that. I really want to see that expanded upon over the course of the series. I think it will do Gou as a character well to see his flaws on display, understand why he has those flaws in the first place, and watch him overcome them while he works towards his goal.

 

[Almonds]

100% agree with this. It was these traits that drew me to Gou in the first place. It's fine if his goal is to catch all of the Pokemon to get to Mew (granted I still wish it was more fleshed out than that) but I don't want that to be the only part of Gou that becomes focused on. I'm not saying that this needs to be totally expanded upon in the first 10 episodes, but it's something that I feel has definitely taken a backseat to him catching Pokemon right now, which is unfortunate.

Gou's interaction with Ash in the third episode was the perfect little hint of that. I really want to see that expanded upon over the course of the series. I think it will do Gou as a character well to see his flaws on display, understand why he has those flaws in the first place, and watch him overcome them while he works towards his goal.

As you mentioned, there's only 9 episodes as of yet. The series will be going on for at least a year or two, so hopefully they build up a good character development over time.

 

[Vengeful Ghost]

I will accept Go as a psychopath/sociopath/whatever if we can accept that Ash is a Gary Stu.

 

[Rocket Messiah]

I will accept Go as a psychopath/sociopath/whatever if we can accept that Ash is a Gary Stu.

Fine by me

You know another problem I have with this punk? That he will not have what it takes to do what the anime has been doing with almost every character fot 20 years:

Releasing a Pokémon.

Releasing a Pokémon is a big deal in the show not only cause you lose a pokémon for your battles, also because you lose a friend, but why? Becasue is more important his happiness than your goal. Ash did it, Team Rocket did it. This dude cannot do it he needs every pokémon for no reason at all. You want to be happy? Nah I want Mew cause he is superstrong, and it's PINK.

Makes me wanna puke , all the efforts of 20 years of this. I cried like a baby the other day casue I watched Dustox goodbye, he wanted to be happy and he did but at what price...

And now comes this moron and catches Pokémon without any responsability or nothing to care. Pokémon are suposed to be living things not your private zoo you jerk

So maybe not a psycho, but he is a hearthless piece of work ,thats what he is

So im going to sleep after insulting a 10 year cartoon boy


Goodnight