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Axew: Why didn't Iris use it more?

They could have made Axew marketable and still have it participate in battles (e.g. Piplup) rather than the Togepi route. I guess the writers just saw a better opportunity with Excadrill/Dragonite so Axew had no time.
 
Looking at it's serious battles in this series:

vs Georgia & Beartic (was easily beaten)
vs Luke & Golett (Outrage win)
vs Teaque & Vanillite (was easily beaten)

It doesn't seem like the writers really took the Pokemon seriously. It probably is the most inactive battling mascot Pokemon this series has seen. The writers probably would have been better off giving her a Dratini, and raising it to the Dragonite we know today, even if it wouldn't necessarily advertise Gen V.
 
They could have made Axew marketable and still have it participate in battles (e.g. Piplup) rather than the Togepi route. I guess the writers just saw a better opportunity with Excadrill/Dragonite so Axew had no time.

I'm kind of surprised that they didn't go the Piplup route. They were able to make Piplup marketable, good in battle and its progression throughout DP was fairly believable. I don't know why they couldn't do that with Axew. That would have been so much better than making it a hair accessory. I think that they were more interested in showing Iris with already strong Pokemon, rather than taking the time to actual develop Axew. Both of the Pokemon she relies on primarily, Excadrill and Dragonite, were already strong before the series began. Iris actually raised Excadril from a Drilbur, but even then, it was all prior to the start of the series. Somewhere along the line, I think that they just weren't interested in making Iris work for her strong Pokemon, at least on screen, and just gave them to her in an attempt to make her look like a stronger trainer, in spite of doing little work on screen to train her Pokemon and reach her goal.

Masurao said:
Looking at it's serious battles in this series:

vs Georgia & Beartic (was easily beaten)
vs Luke & Golett (Outrage win)
vs Teaque & Vanillite (was easily beaten)

It doesn't seem like the writers really took the Pokemon seriously. It probably is the most inactive battling mascot Pokemon this series has seen. The writers probably would have been better off giving her a Dratini, and raising it to the Dragonite we know today, even if it wouldn't necessarily advertise Gen V.

I'm not sure if raising a Dratini into a Dragonite would have actually worked given how they have little interest in showing Iris' Pokemon grow, but at least that way, Iris would have worked more to actually earn a Dragonite, as opposed to just being another upgrade handed to her.
 
The real reason is that penguins make everything better while whiny baby dragons make everything worse.
 
I think the writers were going for a more competent version of Togepi, and while it wasn't a helpless baby and had way more use than Togepi ever did (seriously that thing just sat in Misty's arms forever and used Metronome every once in a while for almost 300 episode), it was stuck in the kid stage. For one it was her mascot, ala Pikachu, so it was never going to evolve, and she had Exacadrill and eventually Dragonite to battle for her, so what need was there to train Axew?
 
I think the writers were going for a more competent version of Togepi, and while it wasn't a helpless baby and had way more use than Togepi ever did (seriously that thing just sat in Misty's arms forever and used Metronome every once in a while for almost 300 episode), it was stuck in the kid stage. For one it was her mascot, ala Pikachu, so it was never going to evolve, and she had Exacadrill and eventually Dragonite to battle for her, so what need was there to train Axew?

I'm not even sure if I'd consider Axew a more competent version of Togepi. It battled more often than Togepi, but that's not really saying much given how it just in Misty's arms nearly all the time. Axew lost in most of its battles and its victories mainly consisted of overpowered moves being learned out of nowhere, so I don't think that I'd consider it a more competent version of Togepi. Having Excadrill and Dragonite around shouldn't have meant that there was no need to train Axew. It was the reason she started off on her journey in the first place. That alone should have been reason enough to keep training it. Even with the fact that it wasn't going to evolve due to being Iris's mascot, they still could have had her train it, instead having Iris baby it and use Axew as a hair accessory.
 
I'm not even sure if I'd consider Axew a more competent version of Togepi. It battled more often than Togepi, but that's not really saying much given how it just in Misty's arms nearly all the time. Axew lost in most of its battles and its victories mainly consisted of overpowered moves being learned out of nowhere, so I don't think that I'd consider it a more competent version of Togepi.
Axew is definitely more competent than Togepi. Regardless of the cheap moves, Axew did a lot more, confronted Team Rocket trio on numerous occasions and battled Cynthia's Garchomp which is more than Togepi ever did.
 
Lol, Togepi is the most useless Pokemon a main character has ever had. Axew did contribute some, but ultimately it was sidelined so the viewers could see her psyche-link with a fully evolved Dragon of her own.
 
Axew is definitely more competent than Togepi. Regardless of the cheap moves, Axew did a lot more, confronted Team Rocket trio on numerous occasions and battled Cynthia's Garchomp which is more than Togepi ever did.

I agree that it did more than Togepi ever did, but I don't think that makes it more competent, at least not necessarily. I think that it makes Axew more active than Togepi, which isn't saying much either, but it feels a bit more accurate, especially when competent is not one of the words that come to mind when I think of Iris's Axew.
 
The fact that she barely bothered to train Axew makes me question if she really wants to be a Dragon Master. She's not doing anything to further her goal. To be frank, she talked more about Dragons than actually bothering to raise hers.

She didn't use him very much because Axew is weak. But he's been weak for a long time considering her flashbacks because she, for whatever reason, just refuses to train him. And it really makes me wonder if she wants to be a Dragon Master at all.

I have seen Ash claiming he will be a Pokémon Master since I was a child, but I barely saw him training pokémon seriously. If even he can dream, I think Iris can do it as well, lol.
 
The fact that she barely bothered to train Axew makes me question if she really wants to be a Dragon Master. She's not doing anything to further her goal. To be frank, she talked more about Dragons than actually bothering to raise hers.

She didn't use him very much because Axew is weak. But he's been weak for a long time considering her flashbacks because she, for whatever reason, just refuses to train him. And it really makes me wonder if she wants to be a Dragon Master at all.
Maybe the better question would be:

Is it really Iris's fault? Because she does not make the decisions in the anime, writers obviously stand behind that. Because, look, Ash wants to be the best, and yet he continues neglecting the majority of his Pokémon in BW. That really makes me wonder if he wants to be a Pokémon Master at all. So yeah, it's the poor writing, not the character's choices. Iris obviously loves dragons and wants to become a Dragon Master and Ash obviously wants to become a Pokémon Master.

So you don't need to wonder at all, these characters are completely focused on their goals.

It's the writers who haven't been doing what they should have.
 
BW made me question the seriousness of the entire group towards their goals, to be honest. There was no question in my mind that DP Ash wanted to be a Pokemon Master, or even Brock and Dawn's goals of breeder/doctor and coordinator.

For whatever reason, the writers are portraying this cast in a way that makes me wonder if they are serious about their goals, even if we know they want to achieve them. I mean, Iris is at the mercy of the writers, of course. But when they make Iris act the way she does regarding her goal, it does make you question it as a whole. The fact that Ash entered all kinds of Tournaments and did Gym Battles does give the impression that he's not completely screwing around (even if they were poorly executed). But Iris chooses to use her Emolga, and Excadrill more often than Axew and to keep babying him. This is something I wouldn't expect of someone seriously trying to be a Dragon Master.

Even if it does all go back to the writers, we have to take the character themselves into consideration, too. I mean, we can blame everything and anything on the writing.
 
Axew not being used enough wasn't because of poor writing, most likely it was due to the writers being lazy and not doing enough to developed Axew character.
 
Even if it does all go back to the writers, we have to take the character themselves into consideration, too. I mean, we can blame everything and anything on the writing.
Um, yes we can. Writers are the ones writing the fictional characters.

They're the ones portraying these characters. Also, I have to correct you. Iris used Axew way more than she used Emonga, Axew was used numerous times. Sure, he didn't get a whole lot, but he still got something. Personally, I truly believe Iris wants to be a Dragon Master. Her passion and love for Dragon types is unmistakable and she battles with Dragonite all the time ever since she got him. It's the writers fault for not utilizing Axew because they want him to be the cute mascot instead.
 
Axew not being used enough wasn't because of poor writing, most likely it was due to the writers being lazy and not doing enough to developed Axew character.

And that was not poor writing?

No i wouldn't call it poor writing !

It appears to me that the writers wanted to used Axew as an main mascot of the BW series, Iris has used it in a few Pokemon battles since she does want to become a Dragon Master and she do loved Dragon type Pokemon.
 
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I can honestly see why people would question how much Iris wanted to actually complete her goal. That thought came to mind for me as well throughout BW. She clearly loves Dragons and says that she wants to become a Dragon Master, but that's the issue. She spends more time talking about being a Dragon Master in training than actually being active in her goal and making progress towards her goal. The most we saw of her training on-screen with Axew was when it was trying to master Dragon Rage and even then, she just kept using it in practice battles expecting it to eventually work without doing much of anything different, like just trying to get control of the move outside of a battle. After that, she did pretty much nothing with Axew and considering that raising it to a Haxorus was the reason she left on her journey and was suppose to be important, it can make one question how much she really wants to become a Dragon Master, especially when Iris doesn't really work for her accomplishments in my opinion at least.

As poorly executed as the tournaments were and as lackluster as the Gym battles were, at least Ash was taking action to get to the Unove League, which showed that he wasn't just all talk and little to no action. Iris, on the other hand, has been pretty inactive and when she does battle, she primarily relies on Pokemon like Excadril and Dragonite, which are already strong and requires her to do less work on-screen to get them to that point. Although at least she is responsible for Excadril's strength, even if that was prior to the beginning of the series. Axew requires actual work and effort to become strong and instead of working consistently with it so that it could be at least a decent battler, Iris continues to treat it like a baby and allows it to become nothing more than a hair accessory. Obviously, the writers are in charge for Iris' decisions and behavior, but the way that they have written Iris and chosen to handle Axew does give the impression that she is inactive when it comes to an actual challenge, ie raising a weak Pokemon into a stronger one, and considering that Axew was important for her goal, it can make people question how much she really wants to achieve that goal, even though I doubt that was their intention.
 
Axew not being used enough wasn't because of poor writing, most likely it was due to the writers being lazy and not doing enough to developed Axew character.

And that was not poor writing?

No i wouldn't call it poor writing !

It appears to me that the writers wanted to used Axew as an main mascot of the BW series, Iris has used it in a few Pokemon battles since she does want to become a Dragon Master and she do loved Dragon type Pokemon.
But if they wanted that, they should not have made it clear that Iris was supposed to train Axew and evolve it. Because that fact makes it bad writing. They make a character say one thing and then the character just sits back and ignores what she said the first time. So yes it is poor writing.
 
Please note: The thread is from 11 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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