Controversial opinions

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

I'll live with however well Ash does in the Alola league as long as there's no weird BS strategies with bad foreshadowing.

As long as they don’t rush through the league, he beats Gladion, and doesn’t lose to someone who either A. Comes out of nowhere with Legendaries. B. Is a complete moron with good luck. Or C. An incredibly overpowered yet well established character who never loses(yet needed to be knocked down a peg), then things will be okay.

 

[CaptainBuggles]

Or C. An incredibly overpowered yet well established character who never loses(yet needed to be knocked down a peg),

Do I taste... a hint of lingering Alain salt?

But jokes aside, yeah, I pretty much agree with you.

The partial exception is that I want Ash to beat Gladion, but wouldn't really be that upset if Gladion wins, since I do like him. He contrasts Ash without being a total jerk to him, he's not actually as emo as he looks, and he's reasonably smart.

But in general, if the show wants people to keep kicking Ash's butt so bad, I think they need to put more effort into making it so you can root for both Ash and the opponent. If you always care about Ash more, of course it's always going to piss you off when the opponent wins. I think they came the closest with Alain, because there are a good chunk of Alain fans, but I'm still bothered by how they gave the impression that Alain was only there for the challenge + fighting Ash. I will admit that it does have a tangential relationship to his goal to get stronger, but it still felt like Ash had more backing him up.

 

[Johtohfiller]

The "Paul is just different" stuff was poorly done and comes across as BS.

 

[CaptainBuggles]

The "Paul is just different" stuff was poorly done and comes across as BS.

Oh god, yes.

I honestly have so much to say about why I don't like Paul, but I usually keep it to myself for the sake of not bothering all the people who actually do like him.

But for now, I'll just say that I think his motive completely sucks. "My brother lost an important battle and decided to stop being a Trainer, so I'm gonna be upset with him and act like my style is the be-all-end-all despite all his past achievements" feels so childish and petty that it completely undermines how Paul is supposedly this "serious" and "mature" person.

It would be better if they also added in something about their parents having super high expectations, so there's a more sensible reason why Paul himself has such ridiculous expectations towards his own family members, but I don't remember anything about that.

It would also be better if Paul already had a strained relationship with Reggie, but from what we see, it seems like there's pretty much no other sensible reason to dislike Reggie. He's even still willing to look after spare Pokemon for Paul.

 

[EscLucy]

But for now, I'll just say that I think his motive completely sucks. "My brother lost an important battle and decided to stop being a Trainer, so I'm gonna be upset with him and act like my style is the be-all-end-all despite all his past achievements" feels so childish and petty that it completely undermines how Paul is supposedly this "serious" and "mature" person.

Perhaps they always had a sibling rivalry and the thought of seeing Reggie lose made him think he wouldn't want to turn out like this. It explains why he is so tough of his Pokemon. Perhaps he thinks that being like Reggie (kind to his Pokemon) makes him lose battles. In my opinion, I don't think it's childish. I think they did really well with Paul as a character. Also, at the start, Paul didn't respect Ash because he was like Reggie in the way that he trained - Paul even said that in the anime. "You're like my brother!" or words to that effect.

 

[Huikyeong]

I think that Paul was upset because his brother quitting battling showed that he didn't want to fix the problem and that he ran off like a coward. So that's why he wants to be the best and not like his bother.

 

[CaptainBuggles]

I think Reggie's supposed flaw of not having a "unique strategy" feels a little contrived and unlikely anyway.

Like, someone gets a total of 32 badges from four regions, and six frontier symbols, but they somehow got that far without any uniqueness in their style at all? They honestly never innovated, came up with anything special, or did anything creative that entire time? What, was there just a little voice in their head always telling them what to do?

Plus, by that time, you should already be better at handling criticism and facing your flaws anyway. It doesn't make that much sense from that angle either. How would you accomplish that much without being able to do that?

I suppose he could've just been some kind of prodigy who somehow managed to coast along until Brandon, but that doesn't seem very likely, and it kind of undermines the sense that being a Trainer is actually serious and difficult, so I wouldn't be entirely satisfied with that explanation.

And given the kind of person Reggie is, it seems likely that he actually has tried to explain to Paul why he made that decision... and given my previous points, I feel like the more likely explanation is that Reggie is genuinely just happier being a Pokemon Breeder, and doesn't see it as "settling for less"... So Paul's reaction still seems excessive.

 

[SinnohEevee]

Why Reggie would give up after Brandon is beyond me.

 

[HiroHunter]

Why Reggie would give up after Brandon is beyond me.

Because if he didn't then Paul wouldn't have his dumb reason for being a jerk.

 

[CaptainBuggles]

I've seen a lot of people say they like Paul because he's like people who play competitively in real life...

But that's exactly why I don't like him, because I don't think that kind of approach should be allowed to have a place in the anime's universe, and there were too many times where it felt like he was being validated for it even if he did lose to Ash in the end.

Animeverse Pokemon pretty much all seem to be not just animals, but at least as smart as human children at the minimum.

I've seen a lot of people defend him with "But Chimchar's treatment is a special case", or "It wasn't his intention to be abusive", but I can't accept that because even just Chimchar should be more than enough. You shouldn't magically get a slap on the wrist because you "didn't mean" to be abusive. It still had a negative impact, and your intentions don't change that. If you wanted to be a Trainer, you should've already known.

Plus, I feel like he should've put a bigger effort into showing Chimchar he was sorry once he was an Infernape... since, again, you can't just decide something isn't abusive purely because you didn't mean it that way.

 

[Huikyeong]

I feel that I explained it better a month ago in a post I did here so I’ll paste it here:

I'll be honest, while I thought Chimmy was better with Ash and it worked better with Ash, I don't think it's a bad reflection on Paul's character. Like I said in my post regarding him, he has a tough love type of training. Paul explained many times to chimchar what was expected of it and why he caught it but it just didn't perform the way he wanted, even though it had sooo many opportunities do redeem itself. It's like, you have an employee at your restaurant who has potential but they aren't performing as they should and they were given soo many opportunities to fix the problem and they don't and you let them go. This is basically what was happening there, y'know?

Basically I agree to disagree

 

[CaptainBuggles]

I feel that I explained it better a month ago in a post I did here so I’ll paste it here:

I'll be honest, while I thought Chimmy was better with Ash and it worked better with Ash, I don't think it's a bad reflection on Paul's character. Like I said in my post regarding him, he has a tough love type of training. Paul explained many times to chimchar what was expected of it and why he caught it but it just didn't perform the way he wanted, even though it had sooo many opportunities do redeem itself. It's like, you have an employee at your restaurant who has potential but they aren't performing as they should and they were given soo many opportunities to fix the problem and they don't and you let them go. This is basically what was happening there, y'know?

Basically I agree to disagree

I'm sorry, I know you might just see this as dragging things out, but I feel like I have more to say. You are entitled to your point of view, but I hardly see what you're saying.

Chimchar, for all the time he was with Paul, seemed to be a child. That's where the analogy of a restaurant employee falls apart. A restaurant employee is at least an older teen, if not an outright adult. Plus, a restaurant employee has a completely different power dynamic with their boss. They don't straight up live with their boss, or directly depend on them for food, shelter, medicine, emotional support, etc. They get money, but that's just to allow them to take care of themself better. A boss doesn't care what they do with the money once they have it.

A restaurant employee also goes into a job outright confidently saying that they have the skills necessary to do what needs to be done. In most cases, they were the one who sought it out in the first place.

Chimchar never said to Paul that he can perfectly use his Blaze whenever he wants. That was just an unfair assumption on Paul's part. Chimchar just wanted something better than being stuck out in the wilderness and ganged up on by Zangoose. Not only that, but Paul just kept selfishly pushing too hard even when he should've already figured out that Chimchar's Blaze was more of an adrenaline-fueled survival mechanism at the time.

So, forgive me for maintaining that no matter what Paul's intentions were, the dynamic between him and Chimchar felt far more like an abusive parent and a child. Even if Paul isn't an adult himself, the society of his world trusted him to travel the world and take care of other sapient beings on his own, so he should be fully responsible for his actions.

 

[Huikyeong]

I understand it's how you feel and then again that's why I like this thread because of the different points of views. I just personally think it is too much to say he "abuses" his Pokemon. Not even Silver comes close to that and I think he's a tougher trainer than Paul.

I do agree that my restaurant point was not a very good one at the time and I do apologise. However, I will say that I think the dynamic between them is kind of like how a drill sergeant trains their troops, they care about you but they aren't gonna hold your hand and they will yell at you but that's only to motivate you to do your best. That's how I feel Paul and chimchar's relationship was.

Like I said before he was better off with Ash because his evolution proves it. Plus.... well I like Paul and all but he does NOT know how Blaze works at all.

 

[Johtohfiller]

But for now, I'll just say that I think his motive completely sucks. "My brother lost an important battle and decided to stop being a Trainer, so I'm gonna be upset with him and act like my style is the be-all-end-all despite all his past achievements" feels so childish and petty that it completely undermines how Paul is supposedly this "serious" and "mature" person.

Paul is childish and petty, but thinks he's big shit. The classic edgy kid. Problem is at the end they more or less let him off the hook for it, despite spending almost the whole series portraying him negatively. It's almost like they combined two different drafts of the story that don't fit together.

Why Reggie would give up after Brandon is beyond me.

It was something pretty vague like "I needed to grow up more." I wish they'd gone into more detail about it.

 

[EscLucy]

Paul catches Pokemon straight away that he sees potential in. It would be in his character to be more abusive to Chimchar if he cannot replicate what happened with the Zangoose. Paul does not abuse his Pokemon, he actually wants them to do well because he has a big drive to win battles. His other Pokemon appreciate his battling style and they have got stronger as a result e.g. Torterra and Electivire give Paul unconditional support.

In my opinion, the anime writers would put nothing of the sort (i.e. abusing Pokemon) into the anime so to me it feels like they thought it was ok.

I think Paul is one of Ash's best rivals because he is the only one that has a contrasting (big contrast) battle style and very different Pokemon training. Paul was always meant to be perceived as a negative character and whilst you can change opinions about something/someone, you cannot change your personality - you are who you are. So, I don't feel like they left Paul off the hook. Idm being in the minority.

 

[Huikyeong]

Paul does not abuse his Pokemon, he actually wants them to do well because he has a big drive to win battles.

exactly! that was my point as well. that and when Paul did yell at his Pokemon they actually do better later on.

 

[HiroHunter]

Well heres a controversial opinion from me and its:
Ash should had given up on Charizard after the Kanto League.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Well heres a controversial opinion from me and its:
Ash should had given up on Charizard after the Kanto League.

Imo he had already given up on charizard since it evolved into charmeleon. He did 0 efforts to make it obey Ash.

Ash bothered to work on it only because some Poliwrath happened to freeze it and threatened charizard’s life.

 

[HiroHunter]

Imo he had already given up on charizard since it evolved into charmeleon. He did 0 efforts to make it obey Ash.

Ash bothered to work on it only because some Poliwrath happened to freeze it and threatened charizard’s life.

Well i'm going to guess that Ash was thinking that this was something that happen with evolving and it would go away with time and it didn't help that he had no idea where to start and no one no even Brock and Misty even tried to help him even a little. And Charizard was not helping at all.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Well i'm going to guess that Ash was thinking that this was something that happen with evolving and it would go away with time and it didn't help that he had no idea where to start and no one no even Brock and Misty even tried to help him even a little. And Charizard was not helping at all.

He knew where to start- The lady in a paras/parasect episode told him that Charmeleon lost respect for Ash and he had to regain it. But Ash did no efforts to regain respect (or even a simple training session!).