BW or SM?

[PrettySylveon]

I definitely remember seeing some complaints about Dawn getting a Togekiss. She was handed a fully evolved Pokemon on a silver plate, she didn't really have to do much with it and Ambipom deserved to get to the Grand Festival more so than Togekiss. While Iris isn't the only character who had things handed to her, I don't think that's a really good defense either. For all of the problems with both May and Serena's storylines, they still made believable progress over the course of their respective series and they did work towards their accomplishments. I don't really feel the same about Iris. Everything being handed to her on a silver plate was the norm for Iris's storyline. None of her accomplishments felt earned or justified, which I think is a key difference between Iris and the other female leads.

With your other points, I don't think I can disagree with those, so I'll just respond to this one.

In my opinion, the only times I felt that Iris got things handed to her was when she not only caught that powerful Dragonite, but she was allowed to win 2 rounds during the cup despite it disobeying her. I even begrudgingly agreed with Georgia that she and Dawn lost to Dragonite, not Iris. Even Iris herself admitted to Dawn that she didn't like the fact that she got that cheap win. Plus, this came back to bite Iris in the ass when Dragonite threw a huge temper tantrum after Ash's Krokorok evolved into Krookodile (my guess is that Dragonite only agreed to obey Iris because it didn't see Ash's Krokorok as an opponent it could lose to until it evolved).

While I don't think Iris achieved her goals battle-wise, she was able to connect with Dragon type Pokemon spiritually. That's another aspect of being a Dragon master (another example of this would be when Clair connected with that raging Shiny Druddigon before it wanted to be caught by her). As far as Iris not catching enough Dragon Pokemon, there is some fridge brilliance that can justify this: Lance stated in the games that Dragon Pokemon are difficult to capture and raise. I think the writers didn't have any idea what to do with Iris' goal battle wise, so they just gave her other obstacles to overcome, such as her Excadrill being disobedient because it believed that it failed Iris when it lost (also due to Iris' inconsideration to its feelings), Emolga being a strong, but lazy battler who would rather use volt switch and gorge itself with food. Dragonite's disobedience was the only one that was due to Iris' lack of experience as a trainer.

I would also like to point out that people love to harp on about how Iris' Dragonite is weak while comparing it to Ash's Charizard when the two battled. Fans forget that before Ash's Charizard was trained by Liza from the Charicific valley, it was actually the weakest Charizard out of the other species as well. Ash had much more issues training Charizard than Iris did with her Dragonite (the only difference is that Ash caught it as a Charmander while Iris was just handed a Dragonite). Dragonite was a wild pokemon when it was caught, so I do think it's justified in being weaker than the other well-trained dragon types it went against (Drayden and Clair).

 

[Hidden Mew]

With your other points, I don't think I can disagree with those, so I'll just respond to this one.

In my opinion, the only times I felt that Iris got things handed to her was when she not only caught that powerful Dragonite, but she was allowed to win 2 rounds during the cup despite it disobeying her. I even begrudgingly agreed with Georgia that she and Dawn lost to Dragonite, not Iris. Even Iris herself admitted to Dawn that she didn't like the fact that she got that cheap win. Plus, this came back to bite Iris in the ass when Dragonite threw a huge temper tantrum after Ash's Krokorok evolved into Krookodile (my guess is that Dragonite only agreed to obey Iris because it didn't see Ash's Krokorok as an opponent it could lose to until it evolved).

Honestly, the whole Dragonite disobeying Iris subplot felt kind of pointless to me. All it did was give her more undeserved victories, which admittedly were pretty common with all of those Club Battle tournaments too, and instead of trying to understand the root of the problem like what happened with Excadrill, she just kept screaming at Dragonite to listen to her. Sure, it backfired on her when she had her battle against Ash, but that just felt too little, too late when she still shouldn't have made it that far relying on a disobedient Pokemon in the first place. Plus, I felt like the resolution to said subplot was kind of weak. She protected Dragonite when they were fighting to save Meloetta. It does show how much she cared about it, but that was basically the same thing she did when she first met Dragonite and why it wanted to go with her in the first place. It didn't really make Iris look like she had become stronger or was better able to connect with her Dragonite in order to resolve that problem.

While I don't think Iris achieved her goals battle-wise, she was able to connect with Dragon type Pokemon spiritually. That's another aspect of being a Dragon master (another example of this would be when Clair connected with that raging Shiny Druddigon before it wanted to be caught by her). As far as Iris not catching enough Dragon Pokemon, there is some fridge brilliance that can justify this: Lance stated in the games that Dragon Pokemon are difficult to capture and raise. I think the writers didn't have any idea what to do with Iris' goal battle wise, so they just gave her other obstacles to overcome, such as her Excadrill being disobedient because it believed that it failed Iris when it lost (also due to Iris' inconsideration to its feelings), Emolga being a strong, but lazy battler who would rather use volt switch and gorge itself with food. Dragonite's disobedience was the only one that was due to Iris' lack of experience as a trainer.

I didn't have much of a problem with Iris not catching more Dragon Pokemon. Before they were able to include non-fifth generation Pokemon in BW due to B2/W2, there weren't a lot of options for Iris as far as Dragon Pokemon go and they probably wanted to give her team a bit more variety anyway. I don't know if the game logic was a big factor in regards to not capturing more Dragon Pokemon, but I wouldn't be too shocked if it was, especially when they definitely didn't have any idea on what to do with Iris' goal battling wise. However, I'd say that she didn't really overcome those obstacles per say. Despite Excadrill not listening to her for at least a year, if not longer, Iris was only able to realize the root of the problem due to Cilan basically pointing it out for her. Admittedly, she still had to apologize to Excadrill afterwards and that did show how much she cared, but I feel like that would have felt much more earned if Iris actually had tried on screen to help Excadrill and if she realized what the problem was on her own through some self reflection. Emolga wasn't really a challenge either. At first, it wouldn't be interested in listening to Iris, but that seemingly disappeared relatively quickly. All she needed to do was tell Emolga to not use Volt Switch during the first Club Battle tournament and that was it. It also doesn't really help that I frequently forget that she even had an Emolga.

I already mentioned my issues with Dragonite's disobedience, but Axew was also handled pretty poorly. Even mastering Dragon Rage didn't feel like an earned accomplishment given that it just happened. Sure, she kept trying to get Axew to use it, but she'd just go "Oh well" whenever it didn't work. It wasn't something that she kept working on so much as she just kept hoping that it would just eventually work. It also didn't help that the episode where Axew finally mastered it was the episode where they really started to make Iris look like this Dragon Pokemon expert. Axew learning Outrage and Giga Impact were definitely accomplishments handed to her on a silver plate. She barely did much, if any, training with Axew after it learned Dragon Rage and learning two overpowered moves out of nowhere to give the illusion that it had become stronger was just terrible. Yeah, it only used Outrage once, but that was enough, especially when it did give Iris an undeserved victory.

I would also like to point out that people love to harp on about how Iris' Dragonite is weak while comparing it to Ash's Charizard when the two battled. Fans forget that before Ash's Charizard was trained by Liza from the Charicific valley, it was actually the weakest Charizard out of the other species as well. Ash had much more issues training Charizard than Iris did with her Dragonite (the only difference is that Ash caught it as a Charmander while Iris was just handed a Dragonite). Dragonite was a wild pokemon when it was caught, so I do think it's justified in being weaker than the other well-trained dragon types it went against (Drayden and Clair).

I haven't heard of people saying that Dragonite was weak compared to Ash's Charizard. Their battle didn't even have a conclusion probably in part because they didn't want to make either Pokemon look weak.

 

[PrettySylveon]

I can’t really debate with the other ones, so here goes to conclude everything.

All she needed to do was tell Emolga to not use Volt Switch during the first Club Battle tournament and that was it. It also doesn't really help that I frequently forget that she even had an Emolga.

I do notice that people do complain about how she was able to beat Stephan’s Sawk. Since Emolga was a flying type Pokémon, I wasn’t surprised when it could resist Sawk’s fighting type moves. When it looked like Iris was about to lose to Stephan, Emolga’s static ability took in and she took advantage of the situation by getting her Emolga to use Volt Switch the last minute since it was its most powerful move.

To me, I do think that Emolga and Excadrill were Iris’ well trained Pokémon. Dragonite doesn’t count even though it’s strong since she just caught it and it was a wild one that wasn’t even trained enough.

I haven't heard of people saying that Dragonite was weak compared to Ash's Charizard. Their battle didn't even have a conclusion probably in part because they didn't want to make either Pokemon look weak.

It’s on YouTube video comments. The Charizard fanboys who overrate Charizard as a Pokemon tend to do that by bringing up Ash’s Charizard’s accomplishments by saying that Dragonite was poorly trained (to be fair, it was disobedient and difficult to train).

Fans also think Iris’ Dragonite is weak because they expected it to win against Drayden and Clair’s dragon Pokémon that are owned (and better trained) by much more experienced trainers. The results of Iris’ battle with the two were predictable, because if she won those battles, it would just reinforce your opinion that Iris gets things handed to her.

That depends. XY league, for example, mostly surpassed as climax in this regard. And I very much doubt that his skills in SM league is a culmination of things he learned in Alola. About BW's many mistakes, don't think me as a fan of it, as BW is still the second to worst series in my opinion. It's just not bad as SM was.

Johto is the worst arc to me anyway, because it had unnecessary filler episodes. The only good parts about the Johto arc was the Lake Rage & Johto League.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I do notice that people do complain about how she was able to beat Stephan’s Sawk. Since Emolga was a flying type Pokémon, I wasn’t surprised when it could resist Sawk’s fighting type moves. When it looked like Iris was about to lose to Stephan, Emolga’s static ability took in and she took advantage of the situation by getting her Emolga to use Volt Switch the last minute since it was its most powerful move.

To me, I do think that Emolga and Excadrill were Iris’ well trained Pokémon. Dragonite doesn’t count even though it’s strong since she just caught it and it was a wild one that wasn’t even trained enough.

The point I was making was that Emolga being a lazy battler who would rather just Volt Switch out of a battle to eat wasn't really a challenge for Iris to overcome. She was able to just tell Emolga not to do it because otherwise they'd be disqualified from the Club Battle tournament and that was it. There wasn't anything Iris had to do with Emolga to overcome that problem, which makes it virtually pointless or at least unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. The battle itself was still pretty bad. Emolga being able to resist Fighting type moves isn't the problem. It still took a lot of damage and managed to just catch a lucky break with Static. It just felt too cheap and an undeserved victory. Granted, it wasn't nearly as bad as Axew winning its match with random Outrage, but it was still too cheap for my tastes.

It’s on YouTube video comments. The Charizard fanboys who overrate Charizard as a Pokemon tend to do that by bringing up Ash’s Charizard’s accomplishments by saying that Dragonite was poorly trained (to be fair, it was disobedient and difficult to train).

Fans also think Iris’ Dragonite is weak because they expected it to win against Drayden and Clair’s dragon Pokémon that are owned (and better trained) by much more experienced trainers. The results of Iris’ battle with the two were predictable, because if she won those battles, it would just reinforce your opinion that Iris gets things handed to her.

Well there's the problem. You're reading YouTube comments. YouTube comments generally aren't well known for being a source of good discussion, so I wouldn't really put much stock into what people saying there. Iris defeating Drayden and Clair's Pokemon with Dragonite would have been pretty terrible. Not only because it would have been more undeserved accomplishments for Iris, but also because losing was meant to encourage her to keep on training and traveling to meet other Dragon Pokemon. Defeating two strong well established Dragon type Gym Leaders would have made her way too overpowered.

 

[Daren]

I haven't heard of people saying that Dragonite was weak compared to Ash's Charizard. Their battle didn't even have a conclusion probably in part because they didn't want to make either Pokemon look weak.

It didn't conclude, but I feel the choreography was saying that Charizard was winning:
*The two flamethrowers cancel
*Charizard cancels a super-effective thunder punch with wing attack (and Iris thinks she may have already won)
*Slash and Dragon Rush cancel out; Iris stops to brag but Ash shrugs it off, Irish is clearly rattled to see Charizard's unhurt
*Charizard uses Dragon Tail, Dragonite tries to dodge, Charizard speeds above it and dunks it into the ground; Dragonite's clearly hurt, wincing and holding it's arm, but still up and doesn't seem about to fall immediately
*N stops the fight

Dragonite doesn't land a single hit and while Iris is alternating between overconfidence and shock Ash remains calm; turnabouts happen but it definitely seems to me that Charizard and Ash were in control.

 

[sc190191]

Honestly, the whole Dragonite disobeying Iris subplot felt kind of pointless to me. All it did was give her more undeserved victories, which admittedly were pretty common with all of those Club Battle tournaments too

So, uh, elephant in the room, at least Iris was a Pokemon trainer who cared about battling and practiced battling, unlike the entire cast of SM (save maybe Kiawe) who all ended up in at least the top 16 in the Pokemon League, even with minimal competition they still outlasted far better trainers and imo was far less deserved than any victories Iris got, considering she was a successful trainer even before she met Ash and did train during the series.

 

[Hidden Mew]

So, uh, elephant in the room, at least Iris was a Pokemon trainer who cared about battling and practiced battling, unlike the entire cast of SM (save maybe Kiawe) who all ended up in at least the top 16 in the Pokemon League, even with minimal competition they still outlasted far better trainers and imo was far less deserved than any victories Iris got, considering she was a successful trainer even before she met Ash and did train during the series.

Admittedly, I can't really judge the Alola League yet. Despite hearing most major events online as the Japanese version airs, I still prefer to watch the dub instead. I can understand being frustrated at the SM cast getting that far in the Alola League since aside from Kiawe, battling isn't really important to them. So even on paper, that is kind of questionable at best.

That being said, I'd also question just how much Iris actually cared about battling and having practice battles. She rarely did any on-screen training with her Pokemon. To be fair, Ash didn't train his Pokemon on-screen too often either during BW, so that wasn't really an exclusive problem with Iris. She didn't really battle that often and at least a good chuck of her victories felt cheap or undeserved. I also wouldn't really call her a successful trainer per say. Not only because of how I feel about her so-called accomplishments, but also because Iris' backstory just felt like a major retcon. No one would believe that the Iris who couldn't get Axew to learn a simple move like Dragon Rage won nearly one hundred battles in a row with Drilbur before she was even old enough to become a trainer. It just felt like an attempt to backtrack on Iris' characterization once they were set on her being this extra special gifted Dragon Master in training instead of a natural progression of her character.

Now maybe seeing how far the SM cast gets in the Alola League might bother me too. Since it only feels natural for Kiawe to compete, I could see that being a problem, but I doubt it's going to be any worse than Dragonite giving Iris more undeserved victories or Axew randomly learning Outrage just to keep Iris in the tournament. I have my fair share of issues with SM and its cast, but none of them are anywhere near as frustrating to watch or as poorly written as Iris is for me.

 

[Alola]

Oof. I had voted for Best Wishes, but this Kukui fight has changed my mind as Ash vs. Cameron didn't come close to what's going on now.

Vote changed.

 

[SammyW27]

Bumping now that SM is good and done, and while we wait for SS

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

I still think BW was (barely) much more entertaining for me, in a general sense.