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Controversial opinions

He should have gotten a smeargle.

Smeargle would have been the most fitting Johto Pokemon to give Tracey, but I don't think that would have been enough to justify keeping him for Johto. He could have easily caught or was given a Smeargle off-screen like how Misty got her Azuril.
 
I feel like between promoting smeargle and letting his scyther evolve into a scizor we already have pretty good reasons for him to stay for a bit longer. I just think it's a big shame how they didn't promote him more.

I don't think that would have been enough to justify him staying on the main cast. His Scyther would easily get exhausted, so I don't think it would have been that much better or more useful as a Scizor. Brock also had two Johto Pokemon he was able to promote. I forgot about his Crobat for a moment, but he actually had a reason to rejoin the cast. He thought that Ash and Misty couldn't get along without him and figured that they'd be better off with him, or something along those lines. Tracey had no reason to stay in the cast after the Orange Islands. Claiming that he could stick around just because of his potential new Pokemon just comes off as such a shallow and weak reason to keep someone on the main cast. It isn't the worst reason like with Iris and to a lesser degree Misty as the token girls, but this isn't a good reason either.

Besides all that, I still don't think that there would have been a good in-universe reason as to why he'd want to keep traveling with Ash and Misty instead of working with Professor Oak. He greatly admired Professor Oak, was excited about showing off some of his sketches to him throughout the Orange Islands and was beyond excited to meet him at the end of the arc. Why would he rather travel through Johto instead of working with his idol? He'd learn more about Pokemon by working as Professor Oak's assistant than he could by being with Ash and Misty. All things considered, it was a fitting way to send Tracey off since he effectively achieved his dream in a way.

This is also one reason why I'm so confused over this notion that Tracey should have stayed for Johto. Part of it is also because I didn't think he was really that beloved or popular among fans. He isn't flat out hated, but I always thought that he was so bland for most fans that people generally felt more neutral towards him and were only upset that he hasn't had an appearance in years. But I'm also confused why potentially having then new Pokemon he could have promoted would have been enough to keep Tracey around for Johto. Brock also had two Johto Pokemon he was eventually able to promote and a reason to rejoin the cast. I just don't think that there would have been a good in-universe justification for keeping Tracey in the main cast and it feels like people are ignoring that in favor of focusing on what Pokemon he could have gotten or how it could have potentially made him a more interesting character,
 
Claiming that he could stick around just because of his potential new Pokemon just comes off as such a shallow and weak reason to keep someone on the main cast. It isn't the worst reason like with Iris and to a lesser degree Misty as the token girls, but this isn't a good reason either.

With all due respect, while you are right, I feel like you often fail to see how sometimes, people are simply posting about things they wished happened. Not everything has to be a logical conclusion grounded in some factual evidence from the anime itself cause ultimately, if the writers wanted, they could write in whatever reason they thought fit.

Why would he rather travel through Johto instead of working with his idol?

Simple answer: he would if Oak asked him to.
 
Who is this person? Not Max, the other guy.
Rohan? He's a character from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. His power involves opening up people like books, and be able to alter and erase memories/traits of them by writing/erasing things on their pages or take pages of them (which damage the people involved).

The reason why that comparison made me kinda uncomfortable is because he has some "stranger danger" moments with Koichi (specially in Eyes of Heaven, a game), and Max is the closest thing to Koichi in Pokémon that I could think of.
 
Rohan? He's a character from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. His power involves opening up people like books, and be able to alter and erase memories/traits of them by writing/erasing things on their pages or take pages of them (which damage the people involved).

The reason why that comparison made me kinda uncomfortable is because he has some "stranger danger" moments with Koichi (specially in Eyes of Heaven, a game), and Max is the closest thing to Koichi in Pokémon that I could think of.
Oh...
 
With all due respect, while you are right, I feel like you often fail to see how sometimes, people are simply posting about things they wished happened. Not everything has to be a logical conclusion grounded in some factual evidence from the anime itself cause ultimately, if the writers wanted, they could write in whatever reason they thought fit.

I understand that people wished that Tracey got to do more. That isn't really my issue here. I just don't understand how having new Pokemon would make him a more interesting character or what he would have added to Johto. All of the explanations given thus far don't really help with that. It's also a bit strange since I've never seen this much defense for Tracey before. I've heard of people wishing he caught a Smeargle before, but not that he should have stayed in the main cast longer. Yeah, technically the writers could have figured whatever reason to keep Tracey around if they really wanted to, but that just seem kind of a cop out kind of rational since that could also apply to any decision. That also isn't a good reason as to why something shouldn't be a logical conclusion either.

While I appreciate that you were trying to be nice, it still comes off as brushing off me off as being too logical when I'm just asking what good in-universe justification there could have been for this decision. I spent a lot of time on that response, so being dismissed like that and seeing people agree with it is pretty upsetting and hurtful. Granted, at least part of it is due to me being a sensitive person in general, but it really wasn't as gentle as I think you thought it was. It was borderline "No offense" kind of territory, which in my experience is almost never a good way to start a sentence with because the chances are excellent that the person is still going to feel some offense regardless.

SerenaToAlola said:
Simple answer: he would if Oak asked him to.

I don't really see why Professor Oak would want Tracey to go to Johto though. I guess he could observe more Pokemon in their natural habitats, but I don't think he'd learn as much about them as he could under someone like Professor Oak. It just wouldn't really seem necessary and it would probably have felt like a forced excuse to keep him around longer. Bringing Brock back was a much better option.
 
While I appreciate that you were trying to be nice, it still comes off as brushing off me off as being too logical when I'm just asking what good in-universe justification there could have been for this decision. I spent a lot of time on that response, so being dismissed like that and seeing people agree with it is pretty upsetting and hurtful. Granted, at least part of it is due to me being a sensitive person in general, but it really wasn't as gentle as I think you thought it was. It was borderline "No offense" kind of territory, which in my experience is almost never a good way to start a sentence with because the chances are excellent that the person is still going to feel some offense regardless.

I'm sorry if you felt that way. Your post is perfectly reasonable. There really is no good in-universe reason for Tracy to stay. I just wanted to make a point on how there are occasions where some of us just want to talk something we hoped had happened as opposed to finding a logical reason for a particular event to happen. Like in this instance, we weren't putting out a case for Tracy to stay. We were just talking about how it'll be fun if he had stayed.
 
The whole league arc made me remember what I love the anime series for - the battles, its hype and intense feeling the trainers put in. Why would I choose the Pokémon universe for a slice of life series when there are already a ton of them out there with high schoolers with real slice of life incidents going on around them.
 
I didn't like the four-person set up that XYZ had for the cast. It was bad enough that Clemont was overshadowed by Ash and Serena, but having Bonnie in the mix as well really ticked me off because she was just the token cute character.
 
I didn't like the four-person set up that XYZ had for the cast. It was bad enough that Clemont was overshadowed by Ash and Serena, but having Bonnie in the mix as well really ticked me off because she was just the token cute character.
At least Bonnie was much better than Max. At least early on, Max was incredibly obnoxious, and even later on, he wasn't exactly the most sympathetic main character.
 
Paul was a poorly written rival in some aspects. He came off as this blatant jerk sue character who got away with his horrible treatment of his Pokémon.
He didn't treat them horribly. Note that (aside from Chimchar) none of his Pokémon minded his training methods. He just had his own, tough ways of training his Pokémon, and the results show. And no one told him to stop it because it wasn't wrong, just different. The conflict between him and Ash was that neither of them at first respected the other's training methods, but by the end, they started respecting each other and acknowledged that both of them had their own, effective ways of training their Pokémon, neither of which was the only right way.
 
Paul's Pokemon respond to his training methods, and those who don’t... simply get released. It’s not as if he forces a Pokemon that doesn’t want to be trained tough in such a manner. He did release Chimchar when he realised when they weren’t compatible. He was overly harsh in that aspect in the beginning, that’s why he appears overtly jerkish to others. This overt harshness was a character flaw, but characters should have flaws. Additionally that’s where Ash comes into the

His training style is different, and Ash and Paul are constantly at odds because of it, however, in the end no one changes their training style (since no one will do a 180 easily, so I like the realistic depiction, and this also gives validation to the fact that Ash's training style is not the only one that works), but Paul mellows out considerably when it comes to accepting other viewpoints.

I saw someone on these forums comparing Paul and his Pokémon to a coach/trainer with an athlete and I think that’s the best analogy for why Paul behaves the way he does. Paul's (long term) Pokemon seem to embrace and thrive with this method and that isn’t anything wrong at all in my opinion.
 
I typically try to keep quiet about Paul, because bringing him up is often a Jumbo Sized Can Of Worms, and no one's mind ends up changing anyway, buuutttt.... to come at this with the expectation that I'm not going to change any minds and am basically just giving my opinion on why I can't stand him:

I see anime Pokemon as some kind of flux between pets/children/siblings (anime mon intelligence seems to be child-level at a bare minimum, and never comes off as purely animal). They're stressed to be your friends, but you also have a caretaker role over them.

Chimchar alone was bad enough that there should've been a real punishment of some kind, regardless of the others. Even with a sports team analogy, you don't look at the kids someone is in charge of looking after and go 'well, only one of them was abused, so this is fine', and you don't just go 'well, you're not in charge of them anymore, so everything you did to them is fine now'

You also don't look at anyone and go 'well, you didn't mean to be abusive, despite multiple pre-meditated instances of cruel behavior, so it's fine'. It's not the kind of mistake absolved by good intentions. Even though Paul is a child, he lives in a society where he was entrusted with the ability to look after self-aware creatures on his own, using only his own discretion. That should come with an expectation that you will be punished for going too far.

Paul losing to Ash and Infernape hardly counts as punishment, the only real consequence is that he lost a competition, took a blow to his pride, and had to accept that there were different ways to train Pokemon.

Not to mention how I still think his backstory with Reggie was poorly handled and harms his portrayal further. I get characters have flaws, but to me it just makes him look like a bratty little self-centered edgelord who doesn't properly appreciate his own brother despite him never directly wronging Paul. It was his own choice to be so overly butthurt about Reggie's actions as a Trainer.
 
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I typically try to keep quiet about Paul, because bringing him up is often a Jumbo Sized Can Of Worms, and no one's mind ends up changing anyway, buuutttt.... to come at this with the expectation that I'm not going to change any minds and am basically just giving my opinion on why I can't stand him:

I see anime Pokemon as some kind of flux between pets/children/siblings (anime mon intelligence seems to be child-level at a bare minimum, and never comes off as purely animal). They're stressed to be your friends, but you also have a caretaker role over them.

Chimchar alone was bad enough that there should've been a real punishment of some kind, regardless of the others. Even with a sports team analogy, you don't look at the kids someone is in charge of looking after and go 'well, only one of them was abused, so this is fine', and you don't just go 'well, you're not in charge of them anymore, so everything you did to them is fine now'

You also don't look at anyone and go 'well, you didn't mean to be abusive, despite multiple pre-meditated instances of cruel behavior, so it's fine'. It's not the kind of mistake absolved by good intentions. Even though Paul is a child, he lives in a society where he was entrusted with the ability to look after self-aware creatures on his own, using only his own discretion. That should come with an expectation that you will be punished for going too far.

Paul losing to Ash and Infernape hardly counts as punishment, the only real consequence is that he lost a competition, took a blow to his pride, and had to accept that there were different ways to train Pokemon.

Not to mention how I still think his backstory with Reggie was poorly handled and harms his portrayal further. I get characters have flaws, but to me it just makes him look like a bratty little self-centered edgelord who doesn't properly appreciate his own brother despite him never directly wronging Paul. It was his own choice to be so overly butthurt about Reggie's actions as a Trainer.
I respectfully disagree. I personally see Paul as a well-built character and the best rival Ash has ever had, who also got a satisfying conclusion.
 
Yesterday I remembered that Blaziken Mask was a thing. While Royal Mask is arguably an improvement, it's incredible that the writers couldn't provide a satisfying explanation of why a dad-like character chose to keep his badass alter ego as a secret twice in a row. Neither even had a "superhero origin story", they just...existed and were forgiven immediately when their identity became public.
 
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