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Controversial opinions

I really feel that Gou is not pulling his weight in the relationship.
Since one-sided bonds hit me in a personal level, I am unable to find something wholesome/likeable in Satoshi and Gou's friendship.

I blame the writers for rushing the pace and ruining what did have potential.

While I can understand why it might bother you on a personal level, I also think it's rather harsh to say that Goh isn't pulling his weight in the relationship. I think that actively ignores how much Ash cares about Goh and vice versa. Moments like Goh pushing Ash out of the way of the poachers' attack during the Suicune episode shows how much Goh cares about him too. This also seems like a rather harsh way to view a friendship, especially when not all friendships or relationships function on the same level. Ash's dynamics with all of his previous traveling companions were different, but they were all still friends. How believable those friendships were is subjective, but the characters would still be considered friends.

The notion that Goh has to pull his weight also just seems odd to me because I've never seen that kind of response to any of Ash's other friends. Not even Iris who I still think has the weakest connection to Ash compared to the rest of his friends. Saying that their relationship feels forced or rushed is an understandable complaint, but going as far as to say that Goh isn't pulling his weight or that their relationship is unhealthy just seems too harsh to me. It feels more like an excessive complaint more than anything else to me, especially when it increasingly feels like Goh can't do anything in the series without getting some kind of backlash. He could sneeze funny and it would be the newest thumbnail on the next video essay explaining why some fans don't like him.
 
Unpopular opinion:

I'll never understand people calling Goh a "Psychopath"

The Girl who literally beat Ash and mistreated her Psyduck doesn't get called a Psychopath (I love Misty but come on she was really harsh towards Psyduck in the OS)

The Guy who literally treated Chimchar like Dirt and later abandoned him doesn't get called a Psychopath

But the Guy whose shown to be attentive and caring towards all the Pokemon he catches whenever they need him is apparently a Psychopath????
 
Those type of videos are the main reason I am so glad that Sakugabooru's blog decided to make an article about SM's animation after the end of the series, because it puts people on perspective about what in reality SM's artsyle and animation were without any obvious bias like in a lot of the videos you mentioned:


Definitely! It's like, I'd see tons of these videos on my feed that I had to block because they all showed that same pic of Pikachu from the initial series preview. Every single video that used that pic told me one thing, these mf's don't know what a stretch frame is!! Lol.
 
Unpopular opinion:

I'll never understand people calling Goh a "Psychopath"

The Girl who literally beat Ash and mistreated her Psyduck doesn't get called a Psychopath (I love Misty but come on she was really harsh towards Psyduck in the OS)

The Guy who literally treated Chimchar like Dirt and later abandoned him doesn't get called a Psychopath

But the Guy whose shown to be attentive and caring towards all the Pokemon he catches whenever they need him is apparently a Psychopath????

Y’know the most disturbing part of that whole “psychopath” business (and the large amount of hate towards Goh in general) to me? Goh has CLEAR shades of being autistic—or at least, some form of neurodivergent—so what does all of this say about our fandom? And keep in mind, the last character who was hated this much was Iris, a BLACK character. I’m not saying that everyone who hates Iris or Goh is racist or anti-ND, but maybe the fact that they get so much more hate than other characters is indicative of some bigger problems than dodgy writing...

And to be clear, I’m not accusing anyone on this forum of hating Goh, Iris or any character for such reasons. However, it’s an issue I’ve seen discussed a lot in other places and which I personally think is important to consider (although looking back this forum, or at least this thread, wasn’t the best place to bring such a thing up).
 
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Y’know the most disturbing part of that whole “psychopath” business (and the large amount of hate towards Goh in general) to me? Goh has CLEAR shades of being autistic—or at least, some form of neurodivergent—so what does all of this say about our fandom? And keep in mind, the last character who was hated this much was Iris, a BLACK character. I’m not saying that everyone who hates Iris or Goh is racist or anti-ND, but maybe the fact that they get so much more hate than other characters is indicative of some bigger problems than dodgy writing...
Speaking as someone who had a problem with Iris's handling back in BW... yeah. Thanks so much for saying this. Even back then I felt that a lot of the hate she got for being "bratty" was way overblown (for goodness sake, Misty went as far as to physically assault Ash on several occasions while the worst Iris ever did was call him a "kid", yet for some reason only the latter gets crucified), and most of my problems with Iris had less to do with her as a person and more to do with the fact that I just felt her potential was being wasted, especially in regards to how her goal of becoming a Dragon Master was handled.

Goh I don't have as much problems with, though I do feel there's issues with the way he's handled (granted, the vast majority of them to me feel more like just byproducts of Journey's overarching flaws than anything inherent to Goh himself), calling him a psychopath is going way overboard on top of being a hilariously bad read of his character.
 
Don’t get me wrong, the Goh hate gets overblown in my opinion (I wasn’t really around any forums during BW so idk about Iris), but I think the vast majority of the dislike of his character has nothing to do with his race and especially nothing to do with a headcanon that he is neurodivergent.

I think a lot of people are unfair to him and a lot of the labels thrown his way are certainly exaggerated (Gary-Stu, psycho, writer’s-pet, greedy, poacher, bad friend, abusive...the list goes on). But I’d argue in good faith that the vast majority of this comes from a genuine place of distaste; not anything discriminatory. I don’t actually think that anyone on the BG forums is part of the small faction of the fandom that actually dislikes Goh for bigoted reasons. Those individuals are probably elsewhere like Twitter and Reddit.
 
Y’know the most disturbing part of that whole “psychopath” business (and the large amount of hate towards Goh in general) to me? Goh has CLEAR shades of being autistic—or at least, some form of neurodivergent—so what does all of this say about our fandom? And keep in mind, the last character who was hated this much was Iris, a BLACK character. I’m not saying that everyone who hates Iris or Goh is racist or anti-ND, but maybe the fact that they get so much more hate than other characters is indicative of some bigger problems than dodgy writing...
Speaking as someone who is neurodivergent, yeah, this is actually a problem. I don't mind valid criticism of Gou's character - but a lot of the vitriol that I've seen being thrown around for him, mostly in other places online, is kind of worrisome, because often it's bashing the things about him that I and many others can relate to personally. Even if it is unintentional and not meant as anything discriminatory, it does still send a bad message. I wasn't really online during BW, and I cannot speak on behalf of that, but I imagine it was probably a similar situation then.

This fandom has always had issues like this, and something needs to change IMO. :(
 
I actually agree with the part of Gou being a bad friend.
And I get that's due to his antisocial/introvert personality and lack of experience regarding relationships.

About the Gou-ry Stu thing: I find that amusing, and I use it just to joke.
My main issues are against the writers, but joking helps me blow off the steam faster.
 
Unpopular opinion:

I'll never understand people calling Goh a "Psychopath"

The Girl who literally beat Ash and mistreated her Psyduck doesn't get called a Psychopath (I love Misty but come on she was really harsh towards Psyduck in the OS)

The Guy who literally treated Chimchar like Dirt and later abandoned him doesn't get called a Psychopath

But the Guy whose shown to be attentive and caring towards all the Pokemon he catches whenever they need him is apparently a Psychopath????

I have yet to see someone call Goh a "psychopath", but if people are, then that's... not great. Like, it's easy to throw around words when talking about fictional characters, but do people even know what "psychopath" means when they use it?

Maybe it has to do in part with Gen 8 in general being so controversial, so now every aspect of the series has been more heated in terms of discussion of it.

Then again, I haven't watched a single episode of Journeys, so my only source of info on Goh is from secondary sources. For all I know, he could actually be a psychopath, but from what I've seen, he doesn't seem like one.

Also, to add my own unpopular opinion, I don't watch the anime for Ash, Team Rocket, and Co. I watch it (primarily) for side characters. I don't know how unpopular of an opinion that is, but eh, whatever. I don't really take the anime too seriously.
 
Goh has CLEAR shades of being autistic—or at least, some form of neurodivergent
I've thought the same myself. I have the Asperger's Syndrome, and like Goh, interacting with other people has not always been my strongest suit.
(for goodness sake, Misty went as far as to physically assault Ash on several occasions while the worst Iris ever did was call him a "kid", yet for some reason only the latter gets crucified)
Probably because of Nostalgia Goggles.
 
Y’know the most disturbing part of that whole “psychopath” business (and the large amount of hate towards Goh in general) to me? Goh has CLEAR shades of being autistic—or at least, some form of neurodivergent—so what does all of this say about our fandom? And keep in mind, the last character who was hated this much was Iris, a BLACK character. I’m not saying that everyone who hates Iris or Goh is racist or anti-ND, but maybe the fact that they get so much more hate than other characters is indicative of some bigger problems than dodgy writing...

While I don't think that the backlash towards either character has anything to do with their skin colors or neurodivergent headcanons, the fact that the two main characters who have had the most backlash from the online community have dark skin tones at least looks questionable on paper. There are valid issues on both characters, but a lot of it could be excessive, especially for Goh. The Iris debates were frustrating back during BW, even for someone like me who didn't like her, but they're sadly tamed compared to all of the insults thrown at Goh.

I already loved Goh, but that flashback during the Drizzle episode broke my heart and I can definitely see how fans would see him as autistic coded, or at least like that headcanon from that moment. Goh standing by himself, his teacher asking why he doesn't play with the others and Goh being unable to speak before crying hit my soul so hard. I don't know if I can describe just how powerful that scene was for me. It was a hard emotional punch that was both painful yet heartfelt all at once. I am autistic and that brief moment reminded me so much of what I went through when I was little. It can be hard to explain your feelings, especially when you don't understand them or you're too young to fully process them. I doubt that they're intentionally trying to make Goh autistic or autistic coded, but the fact that it does mirror so much of my own experience still meant a lot to me and made me love him more.

Speaking as someone who had a problem with Iris's handling back in BW... yeah. Thanks so much for saying this. Even back then I felt that a lot of the hate she got for being "bratty" was way overblown (for goodness sake, Misty went as far as to physically assault Ash on several occasions while the worst Iris ever did was call him a "kid", yet for some reason only the latter gets crucified), and most of my problems with Iris had less to do with her as a person and more to do with the fact that I just felt her potential was being wasted, especially in regards to how her goal of becoming a Dragon Master was handled.

To be fair, I don't think the main problem people had with Iris was that she called Ash a kid. It was annoying and I can kind of see why it's brought up when it's the easiest thing to spot on paper, but that wasn't really one of the main complaints about Iris. Misty still probably gets a pass for a lot of people due to nostalgia, but I don't think that's the only reason why Misty tends to get more praise than Iris. As much as I dislike Iris, she still wasn't a flat out terrible person. She did have some good moments and she did genuinely care about her Pokemon, especially Axew. There were a few moments upon rewatching BW where I could understand why people would like her or that certain events would probably be more effective for me if things were changed up a bit.

Ghost Diplocaulus said:
Goh I don't have as much problems with, though I do feel there's issues with the way he's handled (granted, the vast majority of them to me feel more like just byproducts of Journey's overarching flaws than anything inherent to Goh himself), calling him a psychopath is going way overboard on top of being a hilariously bad read of his character.

That might be one reason why I'm not as frustrated with Goh like a lot of other users are. While I agree that there are problems with how he's being handled, a lot of those are tied into the main issues with the series itself rather than just being exclusive to Goh. That doesn't necessarily mean he gets a free pass or anything like that, but since these kind of problems aren't exclusive to just Goh or only related to him, then I think it makes the problems less frustrating. That and I've been pretty much fine with his capture sprees from the start.

The whole psychopath take is so mind boggling to me. I can understand not liking Goh or being so frustrated with how he's written that it makes it hard to like him, but I've never understood this notion of painting him as a villain. Seeing those kind of reads on his character always makes me wonder if I'm watching a different show.

I have yet to see someone call Goh a "psychopath", but if people are, then that's... not great. Like, it's easy to throw around words when talking about fictional characters, but do people even know what "psychopath" means when they use it?

Sadly, I've seen multiple people call Goh a psychopath. I've also seen people say that he's a villain in the making or on the same level as Pokemon Poachers. The psychopath comment hasn't happened for awhile here, but there are a few reasons why we've had to make multiple PSAs regarding Goh here.

Just a Torchic said:
Maybe it has to do in part with Gen 8 in general being so controversial, so now every aspect of the series has been more heated in terms of discussion of it.

The anime has been controversial well before Goh and same with the franchise in general, so I don't think that's the case.
 
The anime has been controversial well before Goh and same with the franchise in general, so I don't think that's the case.

Yeah, the franchise had always been controversial. I'm just saying it seems more controversial than before, what with the whole National Dex controversy and everything spiraling from there. Then again, I hadn't really started getting into online discussion of Pokémon—especially not controversy and such—until around the time SwSh were announced, so take my perspective with a grain of salt.
 
Y’know the most disturbing part of that whole “psychopath” business (and the large amount of hate towards Goh in general) to me? Goh has CLEAR shades of being autistic—or at least, some form of neurodivergent—so what does all of this say about our fandom? And keep in mind, the last character who was hated this much was Iris, a BLACK character. I’m not saying that everyone who hates Iris or Goh is racist or anti-ND, but maybe the fact that they get so much more hate than other characters is indicative of some bigger problems than dodgy writing...
How did you even come to this conclusion? Nearly every complaint about those two characters that I've seen comes from writing decisions. You'd have to ignore every bit of criticism to even come up with something like that. I don't see what being autistic has to do with getting criticism for getting things too easily or catching Pokemon without thinking? As for Iris, have you not seen all the people who are happy for her return? Is it just a coincidence that the series criticized for bad writing has a character that's criticized for being poorly written? Maybe the problem was BW and not her appearance? Following that logic, no one would be looking forward to her return unless she changed skin colours which doesn't seem to be the case.
maybe the fact that they get so much more hate than other characters is indicative of some bigger problems than dodgy writing...
 
I already loved Goh, but that flashback during the Drizzle episode broke my heart and I can definitely see how fans would see him as autistic coded, or at least like that headcanon from that moment. Goh standing by himself, his teacher asking why he doesn't play with the others and Goh being unable to speak before crying hit my soul so hard. I don't know if I can describe just how powerful that scene was for me. It was a hard emotional punch that was both painful yet heartfelt all at once. I am autistic and that brief moment reminded me so much of what I went through when I was little. It can be hard to explain your feelings, especially when you don't understand them or you're too young to fully process them. I doubt that they're intentionally trying to make Goh autistic or autistic coded, but the fact that it does mirror so much of my own experience still meant a lot to me and made me love him more.
I felt exactly the same way about that episode, I'm really glad someone else could put into words what I couldn't because this is pretty much exactly what I was thinking too. I've never really seen something like that in the Pokémon anime before, and if I was watching that when I was younger, I really would have felt a lot more understood seeing a main character in a show that I love go through the same things I do. Especially because it's not just resolved or anything by the end, it's an integral part of who he is. I agree that it probably isn't an intentional choice, but even so, it was really touching and stuff like that goes a long way.
 
Definitely! It's like, I'd see tons of these videos on my feed that I had to block because they all showed that same pic of Pikachu from the initial series preview. Every single video that used that pic told me one thing, these mf's don't know what a stretch frame is!! Lol.
Which is funny because if you blinked, you would 100% miss it considering that it's a stretch frame.
 
Controversial opinion/rant/tangent incoming:
If anyone in the Pokemon anime is a Psychopath, it's Hunter J. She did not care about a Pokemon's feelings. She only saw them as a tool for making money. From what I have read, Goh cares about Pokemon. In one episode, his Metapod got hurt and Goh was immediatly conerned. Last I checked, a Psychopath would not be worried about his/her Pokemon. Also, he ALLOWED Suicune to leave. A Psychopath would not do that. They would put it into a cage and not allow it to leave. Also, Ash himself did the same thing with Cyndaquil/Quilava: He threw a ball at it to save it from getting hurt! If Goh is a Psychopath for catching Suicune, then Ash must be one.
 
Controversial opinion/rant/tangent incoming:
If anyone in the Pokemon anime is a Psychopath, it's Hunter J. She did not care about a Pokemon's feelings. She only saw them as a tool for making money.

That’s the whole point of Hunter J’s character, though. That’s not really a controversial opinion. She’s on TV Tropes Complete Monster list for this reason.
 
Here’s an opinion:

While Misty was right that Ash didn’t take the time to prepare for the Indigo league (and it was partially Ash’s own fault that he lost), Ash wasn’t in the wrong for being upset that he lost. Misty wasn’t being too considerate of Ash’s feelings because she was trying for force Ash to change his mood when he just wanted to be left alone. Ash was probably upset with how he lost, because Ash did lose the Indigo League in a humiliating way (even though it was still a good reflection on the little amount of effort Ash put into preparing for the league and training Charizard, it was still a humiliating way for Ash to lose).

I like Misty as a character, but I did have issues with her actions sometimes.

With Serena, I never felt she was trying to force Ash to stop sulking after he lost to Wulfric. At least Serena was considerate of Ash’s feelings. Serena was being nice to Ash and was empathetic until Ash rudely snapped at her. I don’t even blame Serena for being upset and throwing snowballs at Ash. Ash should have politely told Serena that he wanted to be left alone.
 
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