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Charizard, Sceptile,& Infernape:Overrated, Rightly Justified, or Misunderstood?

Are Charizard, Infernape, and Sceptile Overrated, Rightly Justified, Misunderstood?

  • Overrated

    Votes: 10 20.0%
  • Rightly Justified

    Votes: 37 74.0%
  • Misunderstood

    Votes: 3 6.0%

  • Total voters
    50

Cascada

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Ok, being a fan of the Pokemon series for quite some time(since like forever), I've always found these 3 to be particularly interesting from a show and fanbase standpoint.

Charizard, starts off as a cute, friendly Charmander, only to become an angered, but short lived, Charmeleon, and then hot-headed Charizard, which through some development and battles, became one of Ash's signature Pokemon.

Sceptile, from losing against a Seviper as a Treeko, to beating an Altaria as a Grovyle, to actually taking out a Darkrai once it reached its final form, one can say that it has a pretty good track record.

Infernape, probably Ash's pokemon with an actual story, went from being an adorable, yet mistreated Chimchar under Paul, but then found happiness with Ash, then helped him out a bit in a battle against Paul, which eventually helped him evolve into Monferno, then ultimately in front of Paul again, evolved into Infernape through rage, and ended up taking Paul's Electivire out in the League.

What I'm curious to find out about is, if others feel that their screentime or them as a whole pokemon themself was rightly justified, overrated, or misunderstood, in a sense of not seen the right way by the writers or the fanbase. They don't necessarily have to be your favorites, but would you call them the writers favorites, or Ash's strongest Pokemon currently.

IMO, all 3 were rightly justified.
 
I think that any Pokémon getting screentime, a quirk, or a story is justified. I generally prefer seeing the Pokémon characters develop than the human characters and so I like it when Pokémon such as these reach a stage where they are recognised by the fandom as being powerful.

Ideally, I would have screentime split between all of Satoshi's Pokémon equally. Sometimes when some Pokémon get more focus than others it annoys me a little bit like what was the case for Goukazaru who I felt overshadowed the last quarter of Diamond and Pearl. I think it was a bit silly of me to not like the character for that though as its more disliking something that the writers chose to do and so its the writers I should have targeted my criticism at. So now I don't think that these Pokémon should be disliked because they get more screentime than others.
 
Iteru, if you don't mind me asking, then why not like Ash's Oshawott, you seem to hate that Otter with a passion, lol.
 
All three where justified. Infernape has the best story out of the three though. But all three proved themselves thanks to good development.

But looking back at them, I'm scared for their future in this show. Because forgetting about such great Pokemon who we saw go through a lot is really sad.
 
They were Ash's signature powerhouses in their given saga's. Their power made sense too. They are among Ash's strongest Pokemon. They all had good development from Charizard learning to care for Ash again, to Sceptile recovering from it's love problem. Infernape was handled extremely well also IMO, even though Torterra suffered because of it. Though Torterra was simply doomed to fail because Paul had one as his starter.
 
In the instance of pokemon like Charizard and Infernape, they were intentionally written to be powerful, so that is something I cannot hold against them. For pokemon like Kingler and Snorlax, who both had high win percentages, (although that is due to them not having many battles overall) they don't come off as well since their presence is not prevalent, so their power seems more cheap. Granted, Char can seem just as cheap since it's power seemingly came out of nowhere, but no one can deny that it rightfully deserves it's position, especially after it started to obey Ash. Sceppy perhaps has the most substance of all, because what I got from an analysis of all the major battles, Sceppy was not treated like it would become a powerful pokemon. It instead rightfully worked it's way up to being strong. His victory against Darkrai is definitely felt as his Crowning Moment of Awesome, knowing how far he's come. Char's victory against Articuno, while impressive, somehow one could feel it was the inevitable result of how powerful Char had become. When Pika later defeated a legend itself, it had a similar quality to it, that it made sense that Pika would be allowed it's own victory, keeping it's status as one of Ash's most powerful pokemon. Infernape is perhaps the next best after Ash's legion of legend destroyers. It was stated as always having potential, but it needed the proper guidance to unleash that power. It could one day join the others, but only time will tell. Right now, Ash has no pokemon that really has this setup that I'm aware of, but who knows? Maybe one will rise to continue the tradition...
 
IMO, all 3 are rightfully justified.

I hope Oshawott and Snivy join this list, as Ash's powerhouse Pokemon. Only time will tell.
 
My vote is a mix. Charizard and Sceptile are rightly justified, but Infernape was overused and became overrated. So my vote should be counted with only 2/3rd of the main vote.
 
It's okay that they are strong and everything about them is justified but the focus on them was tooooooooooooooo BIG!

In Johto and Hoenn where the story was highly developed there was a nice focus on other Pokemons too! But To put Infernape so much in focus DP is just bad !

Hope that in BW all of Ash's Pokemon will evolve and kick some major ass in the League!
 
For all the hell that Goukazaru had to go through, he's justified in my book too. :)

Lizardon and Jukain are given~~
 
Justified within their own sagas, not in the least bit justified afterwards. What I'm saying is that ultimately, what's interesting is change, growth. Once that's done, there's no real interest left in those pokémon and should be used as little as possible. Charizard getting two gyms and two League battles; and two battle factories in BF was comepletely purposeless. It doesn't help Ash grow as a trainer anymore and it doesn't do anything itself. Same for Sceptile defeating Darkrai over Torterra who needed a win or a pokémon that might have forced Ash to thinkk strategically.

Basically, when the dough's turned into cookies, you don't leave into the over. You take it out.
 
Infernape was rightly justified. I'm not sure about Charizard though. It did have some great moments and battles and episodes focused on it, but I think the writers eventually started to use it as a crutch too much. Taking out three of Gary's pokemon in a row in the johto league (two with a type advantage) was just too much; it made the battle unbalanced. Maybe its hype backlash on my part though, I was never a big fan of the charizard pokemon species to begin with.
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And I would say Sceptile is misunderstood. I seriously don't really get why everyone suddenly was all "ZOMG its the new charizard!!!" back in AG. Was it just the attitude? It didn;t seem to me that they really portrayed it as being super ultra powerful relative to his other pokemon during AG (except maybe for poor Torkoal). All his pokemon got lots of screen time in AG and the league and plenty of wins. I don;t think it ever really came off as "uber secret weapon pokemon" until it beat darkrai in the shinou league, and even then I thought it was kind of weird that it got used at all.
 
I don't know much about Sceptile's storyline since I only saw episodes with his background here and there, but I remember him being a bit less social than Ash's other Pokemon.

Infernape I thought was too much of a "Let's be friends and love everybody!" type of thing.

Charizard is probably my favorite out of these three. People might say it's overpowered, but it was in the season where Pokemon weren't scaled down in their power and they were more realistic. Charizards are known for burning forests down, fire hot enough to melt rocks, and whatnot. Unlike today where a Turtwig can take down a Salamence in the anime, Charizard's true potential was actually shown a lot more than Sceptile or Infernape.
 
Rightfully justified.

Charizard... I feel was shown as an actual dragon *Even though he is not the dragon type* We all know how popular he was back in the day, and him finally obeying Ash to become one of his signatures (on par with Pikachu imo) was a milestone in Ash's career. It was the start of Ash's maturity and a landmark in the series.

Sceptile was basically a grass type Charizard. Like the above, he had attitude, but due to Ash's experience he never disobeyed like Charizard did. He managed to stand out due to his unique attitude *loner* which probably made him popular. Even though his screentime was balanced, he was (unlike the other seasons) Ash's only starter pokemon from the Hoenn region which meant that him becoming a powerhouse was a given.

Infernape was the tie between Paul/Ash, one of the *if not the* most deepest rivalry in the series. After all that he went through, he rightfully deserved his place.

Summing it up:
- Charizard's development was a milestone for Ash.
-Sceptile's development/power were more subtle, but showed that Ash had come a ways as a trainer as he could learn to understand him, which a younger and more hot tempered Ash would NOT be able to do.
-Infernape's development was the highlight of the contrasting styles between Ash and Paul. It was to show that only Ash and his philosophy about friendship could bring out his true power. Infernape's story felt overall the most story driven.

It will probably be more balanced in Unova region. *Though I'm pulling for Snivy*
 
Sceptile and Infernape are truly strong, but Charizard is only a super overrated thing.
 
It's different depending on the Pokemon.

Charizard, way too much attention was given, it actually felt like none of Ash's Pokemon had a chance in the sunlight except for Pikachu and the only reason he returns is for fan service only and he doesn't billed on his character. Granted, Charizard didn't have a good character to begin with. I liked him as a Charmander but he had to be one of those and turn into a ******** when evolved which makes no sense to me no matter how hard they explain in. Charmander had some character and personality being pretty Sweet with a Temper on the side but when he evolved all was left was the Temper, he lost the rest of his personality which was pretty character ruining for me and even when Charizard obeyed Ash he didn't show any traits of his old character and instead becoming the opposite.

Sceptile, I'm totally fine with him, don't really care for him but he isn't annoying in any way. He actually keeps a consistent character throughout even when he disobeyed Ash making him more likeable. He also didn't take the spotlight away from the other Pokemon that needed it the most.

Infernape was totally justified without a doubt. He was a character I could actually get behind with several Story Arcs with a backstory and also learning to control his power. He was the key in the relationship between Ash and Paul later on. One of the times I actually cared for a Pokemon in the Anime. I just loved how characterized Infernape was. Infernape mostly stayed the same and when he changed there was actual believable reasons behind it as he grew as a character which were some of the benefits of the DP Series being a very long Saga.
 
I understand that they focus on them with main cast, but they could make rivals use more diffrent pokes instead.
+ longer pokemon league(6vs. 6 battles) and gym battles (3vs 3 and like the one with Juan 3vs 3 + double battle )would make all team shine more and let show of more pokemon , abilities, moves and their effects.
 
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