Controversial opinions

[Jewel the Quaxly]

I think part of it is the disconnect where Ash's flaws caused him to lose a bunch of battles in a row cumulating with Wulfric, while Alain's flaws do not hinder his performance at all.

What are his flaws, though? I haven't watched the Mega Evolution specials, so I don't know if any of his flaws were showed there. Overuse of Mega Evolution? But when did that have a negative affect on his battling abilities or anything else in a negative way? I'm missing something, right?

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

Rarely in anime like this is the feeling of guilt rational. My personal interpretation was that even though Alain didn’t personally cause Chespie's coma, he felt guilty due to his overall involvement in Team Flare. Like a Team Plasma grunt not approving of what Ghetsis does, and feeling guilty of being complicit in such operations.

I understand, but if misplaced guilt is the only thing we have to support him, it’s kinda hard to get invested (for me, anyway).

I’ve seen this idea thrown around, and honestly, I personally hate it. This is the thing which sounds edgy to me. "Oh, the protagonist wasn’t able to defeat him? It’s not his fault! The opponent was cheating all along!"

I don’t want Alain's entire effort to demonised as "cheating" because for cheating, you willingly look for short cuts. Alain has taken the long way, however many opponents he needed to defeat, and he is, in the end a good person, who doesn’t like unfair means as shown by how he gives up his Mega Stone at the end.

I may have expressed myself poorly, but my point is that Alain’s Flare arc felt weak and with little impact by the end of the day. These suggestions were meant to show alternatives that could be made to make it more interesting, Ash winning simply a byproduct of this specific example.

While I don’t really like Alain as a character, I’m far from demonizing him. He’s a very skilled trainer, he works very hard and has lots of experience, and I understand that most of the bullshit about his victories were a result of writing and executive issues.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

I may have expressed myself poorly, but my point is that Alain’s Flare arc felt weak and with little impact by the end of the day. These suggestions were meant to show alternatives that could be made to make it more interesting, Ash winning simply a byproduct of this specific example.

While I don’t really like Alain as a character, I’m far from demonizing him. He’s a very skilled trainer, he works very hard and has lots of experience, and I understand that most of the bullshit about his victories were a result of writing and executive issues.

I’m all for more suggestions to improve Alain’s arcs... this one just didn’t do it for me xD. “Demonised” was meant to be a literary device but reading it I can see how it came off as excessive so I’m sorry if it came across that way.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

In case you don't know or remember, Alain's relationship with Lysandre was purposefully modeled after Anakin Skywalker and Palatine from Star Wars.

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

In case you don't know or remember, Alain's relationship with Lysandre was purposefully modeled after Anakin Skywalker and Palatine from Star Wars.

...did the creators confirm that?

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

...did the creators confirm that?

Yup.

 

[Fan of Jarrus]

That is interesting.

 

[Hidden Mew]

His consequence was him realizing he had allowed Team Flare to unleash their plan, but admittedly, that wasn't necessarily all he would've deserved.

I'd say that's a relatively minor consequence, mainly because I don't think Alain's realization that he helped Team Flare's plans really went anywhere. He was clearly upset over it, but Ash was able to reassure him and Alain then was able to quickly side with the rest of the heroes in fighting against Team Flare.

Alain spends quite a lot of time feeling responsible for what happened. If he were a Gary Stu he’d be going with the flow, but every moment we see him trying to do the best, and then messing up. A Gary Stu would not be messing up as much as Alain did, and giving up the Charizardite X isn’t something a Gary Stu would do imo. If we were truly dealing with an utterly perfect character we’d be seeing stuff like "Alain should keep the mega ring, he deserves it."

Alain basically self inflicted the consequences on himself for me. He gave away the things he thought he earned unfairly, and a Gary Stu would have never done that. Alain often feels tormented, no Gary Stu would be showing that emotion so much. That’s my personal opinion formed in accordance with the Gary Stu definitions I’ve seen thrown around, though.

Maybe I've just had different experiences with Gary Stu characters, but it isn't out of the ordinary for perfect characters to still show that much emotion or react to conflict around them, especially when there is often an angst/edgy factor for those kind of characters. I don't think those details necessarily mean that Alain can't be a Gary Stu. I also don't recall Alain messing up that much, even before he became seriously overpowered. As for giving up the Charizardite X, I think that choosing to give it up could be used to show that he is so honorable and noble that he wouldn't want to use Lysandre's gift after knowing what he wanted, thus making him look more perfect. But the real reason is probably because they didn't want to make fans think that Ash vs. Alain could have a proper rematch with their teams' ace Pokemon.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Just to throw my own hat inside the ring, I'm personally not sure whether Alain qualifies as a Mary Sue/Gary Stu or not. HOWEVER, just because a character isn't a Sue, it doesn't mean that they're all that well done, and Alain sadly does have quite a few problems with his arc, and by extension arguably his character: we're told that his obsession with becoming the strongest is because he feels guilty for what happened to Mairin's Chespin (and this is where the Anakin parallels lie: Palpatine was able to manipulate Anakin into joining the dark side by preying on his fears of losing Padme like he lost his mother. Lysandre does basically the same to Alain regarding Mairin and Chespie)... but the problem is that Alain was already kind of on a power quest before he even met Mairin and Chespie, and not only that, but he only ever lost literally two battles during all of his appearances, both of which happened before the tragedy of Mairin's Chespie, making his pursuit of strength seem kinda odd, because by all accounts he's already one of the strongest trainers around (reminder: Alain is the first non-Champion character to ever defeat an Elite Four member in battle). And not only that, but there seems to be little to no connection to Alain becoming strong with saving Chespie. Like, if Alain had lost a battle where Mairin and Chespie were gravely endangered as a consequence, then maybe it would be more justifiable. As is, though, Alain comes off as more or less as angsting for the sake of angst becuse he's a brooding edgelord and that's just what brooding edgelords do. They lord all those edges, man.

TL; DR, whether Alain is a Sue or not isn't something that can be decisively concluded until we actually look in depth at how his story was done. Personally, I probably still wouldn't call him a Sue/Stu regardless out of my personal distaste for that term, which is precisely because a lot of people misuse it, usually by throwing the label around without first stopping to consider whether or not a certain disliked character actually qualifies. And if they don't qualify, so what? Like I said before, it's still completely possible to be a badly-written character without being a Mary Sue/Gary Stu.

 

[Daren]

What are his flaws, though? I haven't watched the Mega Evolution specials, so I don't know if any of his flaws were showed there. Overuse of Mega Evolution? But when did that have a negative affect on his battling abilities or anything else in a negative way? I'm missing something, right?

I'm talking about Alain working with Lysandre and then needing a ten year old (though I suppose Ash was not really being written as one at that point) to get him to help stop Team Flare after he realized what was going on. That's a pretty glaring mental hole of the sort that usually stops people from succeeding until they correct it in the series.
But Alain won the league and he's even given a medal for helping clean up the mess he helped cause, and then Ash had to separate from Greninja so the latter can deal with remnants of the whole thing. Ash was actually punished more for Alain helping Flare than Alain was.
Which ties into my next point; as much as I always found the Anakin inspiration interesting, the connection between Alain and Anakin feels sort of weak to me; Anakin lost everything because of his fateful decision, and then continuing to double down on it for decades made things worse for everyone. "Anakin except he immediately turns on Palpatine and gets off more or less fine" is sort of missing the entire point of Anakin's arc. It feels like a really loose inspiration overall. I have a sort of suspicion they thought Alain and his 'zard would be breakout characters and didn't expect the league outcome to hurt his reputation so much.

I wrote this before once, but I do find it unfortunate that the league kicker most intended to be a character of their own got stuck in the middle of such a perfect storm of controversy. It's not entirely just poor luck since various things really felt like the show trying to mislead everyone into thinking Ash would win. I think if Ash hadn't been starved of a league victory for so long it would have worked better.

But the real reason is probably because they didn't want to make fans think that Ash vs. Alain could have a proper rematch with their teams' ace Pokemon.

Honestly, it's almost comedic how far they went to assure us Greninja will never defeat Charizard X.

And if they don't qualify, so what? Like I said before, it's still completely possible to be a badly-written character without being a Mary Sue/Gary Stu.

Yeah, this is an important point I feel sometimes get overlooked. Also, of course, you can just be overpowered without being a Sue/Stu.

 

[RafaSceptile]

Continuing with those XY controversial opinions, Amourshipping wasn't that important from a Serena's perspective character and it doesn't help her too much, so instead of focusing too much into this aspect, it would be better to have more episodes dedicated to Showcases or even Serena's rivals.

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

He was clearly upset over it, but Ash was able to reassure him and Alain then was able to quickly side with the rest of the heroes in fighting against Team Flare

That scene as a whole was rather weird. Kinda off topic here, but the "Lysander tries to possess Ash-Greninja" thing happened here and was...instantly discarded...? Like, it was actually kind of built up to be an integral part of the plot, meaning Ash would've actually had importance during the Flare arc, but it was shafted after like barely five minutes of it occurring, which like??? Also, though it feels too "edgy" a little...it's an actual consequence from Alain's actions since he literally let Ash and his pokemon get captured. The Kalos League was rushed and the first part of the Flare Arc was rushed-it only started to get good when the Megalith entered the picture-leading to a lot of moments getting scrapped. They tried to put too much into one episode each and it was just very odd pacing.

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

In case you don't know or remember, Alain's relationship with Lysandre was purposefully modeled after Anakin Skywalker and Palatine from Star Wars.

So they based Alain off of Anakin and gave him a fire type for an ace?

Man, if this were another series I would be concerned about the implications for his future.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Well, I think that regardless of how one feels about Alain (or A-Lawn/He Who Must Not Be Named/Edgelord for those who feel like being cheeky), I think that the one thing anyone can agree on about him is that his main purpose on the show was to shill the bejeezus out of Mega Charizard X, seeing how a large chunk of Mega Evolutions' sole anime appearance was being quickly dispatched by Alain's Charizard.

...you know, this is going to go out on a huge tangent, but I think I'm beginning to understand why Charizard has become so polarizing even when compared to other overmarketed Pokemon. Because it's not just that Charizard's overmarketed, it's that the marketing centered around it relies very heavily on artificially making Charizard "better" at the expense of every other Pokemon around it: In Pokemon Origins (which is arguably where this whole Charizard pandering mess really started) Red's non-Charizad Pokemon had extremely scarce appearances, and whenever they did appear more prominently they were made to look like weak pathetic chumps just so Red's Charizard would come off even more impressive in comparison. Alain's Mega Charizard X spent most of its screentime beating up other Mega Evolutions just to make it abundantly clear that it was the most superiorest of them all, including Mega Charizard Y, who got one-shotted by X's Flamethrower just so viewers understand which Charizard Mega is the better one (impressively, this instance effectively means that Charizard is so far the only Pokemon in the franchise's history to somehow become an unfavorite to itself), and of course there's the whole fiasco with Ash-Greninja, because as awesome as we made Ash-Greninja out to be, we still want to make it clear that it's still nowhere near as good as the mighty and perfect Mega Charizard X! Do you love Mega Charizard X now, viewers?! Do you?! And of course, there's Gen 8's Charizard marketing, which outright made it the ace of an unbeatable and undefeated Champion with a 100% win record, because we want everyone to know that Charizard is the greatest and the strongest Pokemon to ever roam the planet you guys! I don't think any of the other hyper-popular mons have been marketed this way, or at least not to this ridiculous degree.

Basically, the way Charizard is marketed just reeks of insecurity and spite due to how much emphasis is put on every other Pokemon being made a jobber just to make the orange dragon look better, and for people whose favorite Pokemon isn't Charizard, that's obviously not going to be fun to watch: it certainly wasn't fun for me to watch a Jolteon being oneshotted by a Rhyhorn's Thunderbolt just so Charizard would look even more awesome for beating Rhyhorn's more powerful evolved form so soundly; it probably isn't fun for Blastoise fans to watch their favorite lose constantly to Charizard, a Pokemon that Blastoise should have the advantage over, just so Charizard looks even more powerful and impressive; I know for a fact that it wasn't fun for Mega Charizard Y fans to watch their preferred Mega being oneshotted by an attack it should be resistant to just because that attack came from a Mega Charizard X. I'm just saying, Charizard probably wouldn't have garnered so much resentment from the fandom writ large if its marketing had been handled differently.

 

[Alola]

I feel that the conception of Leon, his Charizard, and their undefeated streak, was partially inspired by Alain.

 

[Daren]

...you know, this is going to go out on a huge tangent, but I think I'm beginning to understand why Charizard has become so polarizing even when compared to other overmarketed Pokemon. Because it's not just that Charizard's overmarketed, it's that the marketing centered around it relies very heavily on artificially making Charizard "better" at the expense of every other Pokemon around it

People sometimes complain about Pikachu getting too much focus, but Pika's allowed to perform badly in battles and get subjected to slapstick. Conversely, Charizard has to be the coolest thing in the room.

and of course there's the whole fiasco with Ash-Greninja, because as awesome as we made Ash-Greninja out to be, we still want to make it clear that it's still nowhere near as good as the mighty and perfect Mega Charizard X! Do you love Mega Charizard X now, viewers?! Do you?!

Honestly Greninja winning the Pokémon of the Year over Charizard last time almost felt like a tiny, post-script victory for the poor frog.

And of course, there's Gen 8's Charizard marketing, which outright made it the ace of an unbeatable and undefeated Champion with a 100% win record, because we want everyone to know that Charizard is the greatest and the strongest Pokemon to ever roam the planet you guys!

This one is a bit weird. In the games you, the player, are 100% coming to beat up Leon's Charizard and steal his milkshake.
In the anime, though? Who knows! Could be another "all hail Charizard" moment coming up.

EDIT:

I don't think any of the other hyper-popular mons have been marketed this way, or at least not to this ridiculous degree.

Arguably gen 1 Mewtwo, perhaps?

Basically, the way Charizard is marketed just reeks of insecurity and spite due to how much emphasis is put on every other Pokemon being made a jobber just to make the orange dragon look better, and for people whose favorite Pokemon isn't Charizard, that's obviously not going to be fun to watch: it certainly wasn't fun for me to watch a Jolteon being oneshotted by a Rhyhorn's Thunderbolt just so Charizard would look even more awesome for beating Rhyhorn's more powerful evolved form so soundly; it probably isn't fun for Blastoise fans to watch their favorite lose constantly to Charizard, a Pokemon that Blastoise should have the advantage over, just so Charizard looks even more powerful and impressive; I know for a fact that it wasn't fun for Mega Charizard Y fans to watch their preferred Mega being oneshotted by an attack it should be resistant to just because that attack came from a Mega Charizard X.

As someone who had Blastoise as their OG gen 1 starter and Jolteon as a general favorite as well...yeah. Origins was described to me as a love letter to gen 1 players, but everything I've read makes me glad I never bothered with it since it sounds like it went exactly the opposite of how my gen 1 experience was, making it anti-nostalgia.

I feel that the conception of Leon, his Charizard, and their undefeated streak, was partially inspired by Alain.

Hmmm...I remember reading that Alain is actually referenced in OR/AS, so the developers are aware of him.

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

I feel like the best exposed Charizard in the last few years has been Kiawe’s. It’s always present, it has a role, it’s known to be powerful and gets a battle every now and then, but it’s pretty evident that it’s past its glory days and as such takes a back seat most of the time, so much so it was even debated if it counted as part of Kiawe’s team for a big chunk of SM.

I can only imagine how monumentally difficult it was for the execs to see a Charizard in the main cast and not have it singlehandedly kick every Ultra Beast back into the wormholes.

 

[Daren]

I can only imagine how monumentally difficult it was for the execs to see a Charizard in the main cast and not have it singlehandedly kick every Ultra Beast back into the wormholes.

They even let Lycanroc KO it in the end.
I find myself wondering if the Charizard love in XY was a writing decision, came from executives....maybe even Gamefreak request/mandate considering Origins? I often wonder who makes the call on some of this stuff.
Edit: I've referenced this before, but pre-Pokémon I watched Transformers: Beast Wars, another toyetic series. The creators later went into a great amount of detail on various writing choices that came from Hasbro for marketing reasons--and a lot of them were responsible for questionable parts of the series. One or two arguably more ridiculous than anything from the Pokémon anime, to be honest.
like a character pretty clearly dying on screen then he's back next season with no explanation 'cause those plus sized toys won't sell themselves!

To be fair, I do think Ash's Charizard was handled fairly well, which is probably why he's still quite popular:
*He had an actual character arc.
*He spent lengthy periods of time away to avoid him stealing all the attention.
*He was allowed to fail--he couldn't overcome Harrison's Blaziken, and was even made the party jobber against Brandon, which was even his last appearance for quite a few years.

*
On a non 'zard/Alain note: I actually quite liked Max in the second and onward years of AG, overused Brock gag aside.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Arguably gen 1 Mewtwo, perhaps?

Probably, but even then I'd say that case would be more than justified by the fact that Mewtwo is in-universe intended to be one of the strongest Pokemon in existence. Like, that's it's whole origin story: the scientists who created it deliberately made it the strongest Pokemon as far as their knowledge went. Charizard by contrast was originally supposed to be a much more "mundane" Pokemon, so to speak. One mundane enough that it could be given out as a gift to inexperienced children. Heck, the entire reason Charizard wasn't made Fire/Dragon from the beginning is precisely so that it wouldn't have too much of an unfair advantage over Venusaur or Blastoise... which didn't work out in the long run, but still.

EDIT: I think another thing that helps Mewtwo's case is that unlike Charizard it's not typically portrayed in a protagonistic/heroic light. Almost every time Mewtwo has appeared it's been as more of an antagonist/obstacle for the actual protagonists to overcome: in the games it's little more than a reward for the player, and in the first movie it's outright the main villain who has to be taught a valuable lesson.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Basically, the way Charizard is marketed just reeks of insecurity and spite due to how much emphasis is put on every other Pokemon being made a jobber just to make the orange dragon look better, and for people whose favorite Pokemon isn't Charizard, that's obviously not going to be fun to watch: it certainly wasn't fun for me to watch a Jolteon being oneshotted by a Rhyhorn's Thunderbolt just so Charizard would look even more awesome for beating Rhyhorn's more powerful evolved form so soundly; it probably isn't fun for Blastoise fans to watch their favorite lose constantly to Charizard, a Pokemon that Blastoise should have the advantage over, just so Charizard looks even more powerful and impressive; I know for a fact that it wasn't fun for Mega Charizard Y fans to watch their preferred Mega being oneshotted by an attack it should be resistant to just because that attack came from a Mega Charizard X. I'm just saying, Charizard probably wouldn't have garnered so much resentment from the fandom writ large if its marketing had been handled differently.

At the risk of going on a tangent, you just described the experience of me, someone who has had Raichu be their favourite Pokémon, who’s being used as a punching back for the past 20 years just to make its pre evolution look good. The initial Lt. Surge episode, in spite of being the first appearance of my favourite Pokémon, is something I never want to watch. The franchise as a whole sure tries their hardest to convince you not to use a Raichu. I wonder why they created it if that’s what was going to happen to the species.