Is Iris really to blame for her own development?

[Cinderfella]

Hello All!

It's Cinderfella here, back again. I've noticed people have been speaking a lot about Iris making a potentially return or not for the usual previous girl cameo. In reading people's opinions-I had forgotten how poorly Iris' development was handled.

I, for one, was very passionate about this during BW. I did feel, however, that Iris' personality was not all bad, and if given proper development could have really won people over.

It also was nice seeing an ethnic girl on the show, for there are people of many different backgrounds who watch Pokémon as it is. Iris stands out in looks, and that's a good thing to many believe it or not.

What I'm trying to say is: Is Iris really all that to blame for her development? It seemed to me her game counterpart ruined her realistic status in the show, for had she not had been a champion in BW2-she may have been handled fine.

Do you blame: Iris: For it is only right to call her out just as any other characters; the writers: for they wrote Best Wishes in it's entirety and could have taken a chance on making Iris grow fairly and realistically; the games: for marketing purposes more likely had to make Iris seem omnipotent, thus leaving her a crappy and unfair road to success?

Not that the games would have failed, however it is natural to see the writers not wanting to make Iris weak for the fans not to get disinterested in buying the games.

This, in no means, is an Iris hate thread. More so a thread that might take some steam off her character a little bit. Best Wishes itself has a loooong list of things it could've improved on, Iris sadly just gets the short end of the stick. Rightly so in terms of how her character was handled, but the character herself really had no control over that, for the games and the show are totally different most times.

Thus I conclude with: I blame the games.

 

[CrashBash]

I don't so much blame what they did to Iris in general, I think I'd rather blame what they did to Iris BECAUSE of what they did to Ash.

I mean, logic here says this - Iris calls Ash a kid when he acts like an idiot, at least during the beginning part. The problem here is that Ash acts like an idiot a LOT during BW, making stupid mistake after stupid mistake. Why? I don't know. And I don't think anyone knows. I think we can pretty much all agree that Ash's character/personality took a massive nosedive from DP.

My theory is, if Ash behaved like he did in DP...heck, if he behaved like he currently does in XY...there would be no need for Iris to insult him the way she did. This is partly why I think it wouldn't be a bad thing if she made a return during the XY series, and any usage of calling Ash a "kid" would probably just be mild teasing. Perhaps akin to Misty's mocking him prior.

TBH, I think the whole reason they made Ash an idiot in the first place was so that Iris could be the Misty-type character, who mocks him viciously over nothing. But it wasn't cool when Misty did it, so it doesn't work for Iris...only plus side is that Iris' wasn't as bad as Misty's.

However, I do not hate Misty (she's still a fav character of mine), so by default, I don't hate Iris either. But still it was all kinda rocky.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Ultimately, I think that it's the writers' fault for how Iris turned out. Blaming a character for their lack of development or being poorly written doesn't sound quite right when they aren't in control of something like that in the end. Granted, the writers for a show like Pokemon also have to deal with marketing and promoting the newest games, which is something that not every show has to deal with, but the writers have been able to handle character development better than they did with Iris, or all of BW for that matter.

Iris had a lot of potential for growth. I actually liked her at the beginning of BW due to that potential. They established how flawed she was with her personality. She was a hypocrite and obviously wasn't a good trainer given that she wasn't able to do much of anything with her Axew. At the time, I thought that Axew would be a way to mirror Iris' growth. As it evolved, it would show Iris becoming a better person and a better trainer. Clearly, that did not happen.

One of the issues with Iris was how they never really addressed these flaws. They were established, but then they were brushed off and rarely mentioned, if at all, again, aside from her "You're such a kid" catchphrase. As annoying as that catchphrase was, Iris calling Ash a little kid was probably the least of the problems surrounding her character. Issues like Iris not being able to understand her Pokemon or not using Axew more often despite being a so-called Dragon Master in training were just pushed under a rug and never really dealt with. She never really grew past these flaws and the audience was supposed to like her, despite those flaws and other issues that came with her character. The way she trained Axew was terrible, especially when she didn't really work with it aside from trying to master Dragon Rage and all of that boiled down to constantly calling out for the attack expecting it to work. At least when Ash tried to get one of his Pokemon to master an attack, he worked with it one on one to get the attack down instead of just expecting his Pokemon to use it in battle. I'm pretty sure that Iris didn't make any attempt to train with Axew outside of trying to use Dragon Rage in a battle and all of its other attacks were glorified deus ex machinas that it clearly didn't earn given that it still acted like a toddler.

There were also moments that made her look like a pretty terrible person on top of being a terrible trainer. Iris was pretty little in her flashback with Excadrill, so it hadn't listened to her for at least a year or two, which made her look pretty bad. They gloss over that detail, especially when they tried to claim that she had been trying to work with it despite how little screentime it had by that point, and she wasn't even the one to recognize what the problem was. Cilan had to point it out to her. Iris did apologize to Excadrill, but given how long it had shut her out, one apology and training session shouldn't have been enough to make everything fine, especially when there was still the issue of Iris not understanding her Pokemon that they didn't touch up upon. Iris not calling Dragonite back when it was out of control was really bad. Granted, it might not have worked, but it would have been better than crying out for it to listen to her. The whole issue with Dragonite not only felt pointless due to how it was resolved, but it made it look like Iris hadn't learned anything from Excadrill. Instead of trying to understand why Dragonite wasn't listening to her, she just kept yelling at it to listen to her, which is what she did with Excadrill and that wasn't the way the issue was resolve either.

While Iris being the Champion in B2/W2 might have factored as to why they made Iris look like such a special gifted snowflake, I'm not sure if that was the main reason. They started making Iris look like she was a talented trainer back when we learned about her history with Excadrill and that was about thirty episodes into BW if I recall correctly. I'm not sure if the writers would have been aware of Iris being the Champion in B2/W2 at that point, especially when they probably aren't given that much of a heads up regarding the new games given how rushed certain arcs have been. Being able to win nearly one hundred matches before she became a trainer was trying to make her look way too good and it heavily contradicted with how she was presented earlier in the series. Someone who was able to win that many battles in a row, even if it was against people from her village, would at least be better able to handle training an Axew than Iris was shown throughout early BW, or the whole series for that matter.

The writers easily could have handled Iris so much better when they have done better with other characters. Both May and Dawn had pretty solid developments in their respective series. I think that the problem mainly comes down to how they didn't have a competition for Iris to compete in regular to provide development and be more active and I don't think that they were interested in putting effort into writing her character. There were moments where it felt like they were trying really hard to say that Iris had come a long way, such as right before her battle with Drayden, but there wasn't much effort in those kinds of claims. It felt like the writers wanted the basic result of Iris becoming a strong trainer with strong Pokemon like Dragonite, but weren't interested in putting in the kind of work necessary to make that outcome feel believable.

As it was, any so called development she had felt forced, the majority of her victories, if not all of them, were undeserved and she honestly didn't seem like she had grown over the course of BW. She wasn't any closer to becoming a Dragon Master or getting Axew to evolve at the end of BW as she was at the beginning. Her character didn't really go anywhere and to be fair, I can say the same thing to others characters in BW that I actually did like. Most of BW's problems could be boiled down to how most of the characters didn't really go anywhere and it didn't feel like anything of significance was accomplished by the end, or at least that's how I feel about the series in retrospect. With Iris in particular, I still think that the writers are mostly at fault here. The main impact that I think the games had was probably due to pacing. BW's pacing was incredibly rushed, most likely due to how they wanted them to cover events and characters from the newest games, so there wasn't much time for them to give Iris believable development. Even in the time they had, I think that the writers could have done a much better job with developing Iris' character than they actually did

 

[Shoutmon]

I'm tired of people blaming BW2 for the failures of Best Wishes. The problems of the second season are consequence of the first. I think people thought all Best Wishes' problems were going to get fixed later but it never happened so they blame the games. I'm sorry but the writers never had "bigger plans" for these characters.
As for Iris? She is not real, the writers are at fault.

 

[Perpetual_Phoenix]

Who's to blame for her character? The writers. They ultimately decide how someone will be portrayed and handled.

I seriously doubt her being Champion in B2/W2 had anything to do with it.

 

[Ampharos King]

How can a fictional character be blamed for the way she turned out? Ultimately it was the writers who decided how Iris's story should have been written, from the Pokémon she obtained to her personality traits to the battles that she participated in. It did seem like the writers had to meet some quotas and drafted Iris's role in BW to accomplish them:

-The writers decided that Iris's Axew be treated as a young Pokémon to 1) serve as a counterpart for Ash's Scraggy, who is also young, so Ash and Iris will battle one another and 2) to justify the Pokemon being "weak" so Iris had something to do on her journey. At the time, Iris didn't have much to offer, as opposed to Cilan, who had a Gym Battle and a Connoisseur goal.

- The writers gave Iris a powerful Excadrill so that she is portrayed as skilled of a trainer as Ash and Cilan, but restricted its use in the beginning of the series so that the group's problems could be solved by Ash's Pokémon. Excadrill was probably chosen over Druddigon to give Iris some type variety on her team, and Excadrill was chosen over other Pokémon because its Japanese name is a pun.

- The writers gave Iris Emolga because, starting with Pachirisu, every Pika-clone had to be on the main cast.

- The writers gave Iris a rival to 1) occupy her time and give her something to do on the main cast now that Axew mastered Dragon Rage, and 2) give Iris a means of being able to control Excadrill.

- The writers wanted Ash and Iris to battle in the final battle of the Club Battle, because 1) the writers had already given Ash and Cilan a proper battle, while Ash and Iris only fought in training battles, and 2) give Excadrill a proper victory after its draw with Georgia's Beartic.

- The writers chose Excadrill over Axew and Emolga to compete for Iris in the Clubsplosion because Excadrill was underused compared to the other two.

- The writers chose Iris to have a Dragonite to 1) give her a powerful Dragon-type Pokémon, 2) give Iris something to occupy her time with, and 3) to serve as a foil for Ash's Charizard when it eventually returned to the main cast.

 

[Osprey]

That's kind of a dumb question. No fictional character, regardless of their popularity or origin, cannot be blamed for their quirks, characteristics and personality because they aren't real. The people who were in charge of writing the episodes (I'd like to avoid explicitly blaming "the writers" because I don't know much about how the system there works, who makes decisions, etc...) are the reason why anything in the show happens, so it's their fault.

I'm really hoping that there aren't actually people out there that think that the characters of the anime are sentient beings that have any say in what goes on. Because they don't, okay?

 

[ii kanji]

It's tempting to vote for blame the character simply because it's such a ridiculous stance

I just want to echo the OP's sentiment that it was important/good to have a brown girl companion, just a shame the writers seem to have managed to make her dislikable, because 5-10 years ago a heroine who looked like that would have been really important to a brown girl like me.

 

[Mareepy]

The writers hands down.

Besides what the others had said, which I don't want to repeat, I would want to say the horrible missed opportunity of a rival.

Georgia is a complete joke. No offense to the character of her fans but she is very poorly written. She gave Iris no sense of rivalry at all.

When BW is still airing there is a 'make your episode thread'. I wrote an idea about Georgia learning that not all Dragon are weak to Ice (Horsea line, Kyurem and Reshiram too if you want to count), but all (besides Dialga but she won't be fighting one) are weak to Dragon. And that might lead her into training Dragon types and make it a race to the Dragon Master Title. That would have given way more threat to Iris and spice up the rivalry, and give Iris a sense of need to start improving.

However, in the end the whole Iris story line is nothing but a train wreck.

 

[CynthiaLover]

As much as I hate Iris' character, I have to agree with everything @Hidden Mew; stated, as that pretty much sums up the situation. Iris didn't create herself, after all, someone dreamed her up, drew her, and gave her the personality she had. So it was ultimately whoever created her (let's just go with "writers" for the sake of the conversation) was responsible for who she was and how she acted, progressed, and matured. Unfortunately, she acted poorly, her "progress" was given/forced on her, leaving much to be desired, and her maturity remained that of how she started: a child. Sure, everyone in BW ended up getting the short end of the stick when it came to who they were and how they were handled, Iris, as much as I hate her, was where they "shined". If the writers had handled her (and, for that matter, everyone else in BW) better than they did, she could've ended up a really likeable and inspiring character. If her "progress" felt believable, then it would've worked for her character and made her seem like she had potential. If her maturity had improved, then she could've really gone much further.

Sad to say, whoever wrote up BW's plot and characters really threw a screwball here, as even Ash, after his almost crowning achievement one generation ago (beating Paul, defeating 2 Legendaries in a single battle, you get it), he gets blasted by the idiot ray. But let's not stray down that path right now. Anyway, all the characters, especially Iris, were handled with considerably less brain power, effectively destroying high-potential characters (Bianca could've been so much more, for example, compared to her game counterpart). Iris, while I loath everything she did in BW, she was given the worst of the poor writing. She was a hypocrite, a poor Trainer, a child, and more. Most of her wins reeked DEM, especially considering how much Axew struggled to learn a simple Dragon Rage, yet could pull out Giga Impact and Outrage out of nowhere. Throw in Dragonite and she pretty much got a ticket onto easy street. If the writers had thought things out more clearly when creating and executing her, then it would've gone much smoother for all of us, and Iris would've been much more enjoyable, maybe even inspiring. But no, they made her an almost spoiled brat with "special gifts" and a hypocritical nature, which obviously didn't sit well with most of us.

So, in short, all of this hate for Iris is because the writers are to blame for how the developed and executed her. Iris herself is the product of the writers, not of herself (after all, she can't draw, digitize, and animate herself onto the show), so blaming the character is pointless, as she's fictional. Blaming the writers for how she was portrayed and all of her "wondrous progress" is a more reasonable, intelligent, and accurate way of pointing fingers. So, no, Iris as a fictional character is not to blame, but those who created and "developed" her are. Which is a real shame, as she had potential and could've been inspiring to many. If time could rewind itself and the writers handled all the characters, not just Iris, better, then the end result would've been a much grander form of true anime writing.

 

[Morningstar]

Okay since everybody's seems to be blaming the creators I'm gonna play devils advocate and see if I can explain the first option.

I think what OP means with Iris herself being responsible for the development, is because although the writers did create and developer her character, she herself is the one who experiences the events and acts appropriately based on the character. Think of it this way, in the verse of their story, there tends to be a lack of meta-fictional or postmodern elements and thus the forth wall is rigidly in place (especialy in BW where the only known people that broke the wall dropped all pretense of silliness for that arc). As an RL allegory, if a man commits a crime spree, who would most people blame: God or the Man himself? It's a Watsonian option, with the other 2 being Doylsit options and the 4th being "no one is to blame".

Speaking of which, while the Sequels did make Game!Iris Champion, I don't think they had as mush of a bearing on the anime as the other games. Does to the rather lax standards of adherence historically shown in the anime (Gary's 10 Badges, Team Rocket not being disbanded, Half of Ash's Kanto badges and "Pikachu, The Horn!", granted all of those were form Kanto, but the point still stands that the Anime is not a step by step adaption of the games) and on top of that Iris not even being Gym leader in the Anime (And any notions of it supposed to be a prequel to the games are thrown out the winder when Roxie appeared, and Team Plasma was thwarted) SO I don't the writers cared much about the games.

With all that said, I think that the writers are entirely to blame for Iris' lack of development. In a bid to make her Misty 2.0 they had reduced her to hypocrit, a lousy trainer that babies her Axew and then proceeds to make BW an expertise in "How much can we make a fanfic without getting sued" complete with Making Iris a borderline Mary Sue (and I say Borderline, because she wasn't the one who stopped Operation Tempest or Plasma's plans, let alone the movies). Iris was merely a symptom of bad writing, not the disease itself.

That reminds me, were the BW writers fired or replace before XY?

 

[Mikuri]

It depends on your perspective, really. We can't deny Iris is the result of the writer's shitty job, but criticizing her isn't wrong when her characterization, development, story, and everything about her, including her Pokémon, are just plain bad. I usually blame the writers when I see a bad episode, but if a character fails to entertain me, I tend to blame said character. When characters in a TV series annoy me to no end, I want them to die or travel to never come back, but I don't wish bad things for the people behind the show. What I'm saying is that I know the writers are ultimately responsible for developing a character and making them likable, but the audience will hate on the character.

The third option, blaming the games, is living in denial. There were a lot of people saying it was too soon to say anything bad about Best Wishes 60+ episodes into the series and they were also hoping everything would get better but that obviously didn't happen and so people blame the games because it's easier. I don't think Iris being a League Champion in Pokémon Black Version 2 and Pokémon White Version 2 had anything to do with the way she was portrayed in the anime, mostly because she has been this child prodigy since forever. By the time the games were released, Iris had already been seen winning battles she shouldn't and calming down rampaging Dragon-type Pokémon with her superhuman abilities. Not to mention her Axew learning Outrage because just living inside her hair and feeding on louse was enough to give that forced mascot all the experience he needed. Sadly, learning overpowered moves like Outrage and Giga Impact did nothing for Axew in the long run as he was still treated as a baby who would wander off and get lost every once in a while. I still find it hard to believe we had a filler episode in the middle of the Unova League dedicated to Axew.

Iris didn't need a Champion status in the games to be treated as a talented, promising young Trainer despite having never lifted a finger to deserve such treatment. And that's my main problem with her. As much as I hate her "You're such a kid!" line, this isn't even the tip of the iceberg. She had no business traveling with Ash and Cilan and she didn't learn a thing from them. She was also annoyed most of the time with Ash's behavior and Cilan's hobbies so I wonder why she was journeying with them in the first place. There's also the fact she didn't accomplish anything while traveling through Unova and the Iris we see in the end of the Best Wishes series is no different than the one we see in the first episode. So while I know the writers are responsible for all of this, Iris was the one annoying me for more than 100 episodes and I'm glad she's gone.

 

[Arceus the Dragon]

Even though I vote for Iris in poll, it's likely the writers doing because the way she was done was so wrong. First, Axew was suppose to evolved but didn't through the entire unova sagas and then there is the line "you're such a kid!" or "what a kid!". That line annoyed the heck out of me as I am aware that Ash is a kid since he is ten and there is no need to go on and on about it. Iris is just a kid herself, so calling Ash a kid makes her a hypocrite and that bugs me alot. Iris is then given a fully evolved Dragonite from out of the blue and that really grind my gears. She had Axew that she could of fully evolved and yet they gave a fully evolved pseudo legend with moves: Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Thunder Punch and Dragon Rush. Really? You're gonna give Iris with four powerful moves like that? In conclusion, it seems the writers have indeed made an error with her.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I don't so much blame what they did to Iris in general, I think I'd rather blame what they did to Iris BECAUSE of what they did to Ash.

I mean, logic here says this - Iris calls Ash a kid when he acts like an idiot, at least during the beginning part. The problem here is that Ash acts like an idiot a LOT during BW, making stupid mistake after stupid mistake. Why? I don't know. And I don't think anyone knows. I think we can pretty much all agree that Ash's character/personality took a massive nosedive from DP.

My theory is, if Ash behaved like he did in DP...heck, if he behaved like he currently does in XY...there would be no need for Iris to insult him the way she did. This is partly why I think it wouldn't be a bad thing if she made a return during the XY series, and any usage of calling Ash a "kid" would probably just be mild teasing. Perhaps akin to Misty's mocking him prior.

TBH, I think the whole reason they made Ash an idiot in the first place was so that Iris could be the Misty-type character, who mocks him viciously over nothing. But it wasn't cool when Misty did it, so it doesn't work for Iris...only plus side is that Iris' wasn't as bad as Misty's.

However, I do not hate Misty (she's still a fav character of mine), so by default, I don't hate Iris either. But still it was all kinda rocky.

I wouldn't really blame Iris' problems on what they did to Ash. Ash being more immature and taking a massive step backwards from DP was one of the many problems with BW and they probably did that partly so that Iris' catchphrase would be less out of place than if he was like how he was in DP, but I wouldn't even consider Iris' catchphrase one of her main problems. It was annoying and it did highlight the issue of how she was rarely called out on her flaws, but compared to all of the other problems with Iris, her catchphrase is minor by comparison. If they had taken away that catchphrase and everything else about Iris' character remained the same, I wouldn't feel any different about her. She would still be an annoying, unlikable and poorly written character. The only difference is that there would be one less annoying detail about her. It would be an improvement, but a pretty minor one given all of the other issues they had with Iris.

Personally, I thought that Iris mocking Ash was worse than when they tried that with Misty. At least Misty usually had a point when arguing with Ash or getting on his case. It also really helped that Ash was a rookie when he and Misty were arguing the most, so he was making pretty huge mistakes at times. Misty wasn't always right and she often would make the situation worse when she got too angry, but it seemed more justified than when they tried to do it with Iris. Iris mocking Ash had two major problems. First was how she really had no room to mock him for his immaturity when she was just as immature as Ash, if not more so. The second was how Ash was still a more experience trainer than Iris. The arguments with Misty fit at least a bit more when he was a rookie and making big mistakes and Misty did have a bit more experience than Ash did during Kanto at least. It wasn't a lot, but she understood the basics when Ash was still having a hard time with that. Even with making Ash more immature and regressing his skills, he was still an experienced trainer, so someone with less experience getting on his case would rub people the wrong way. That's why Max getting on his high horse about how much he knew also bothered me. He was more knowledgeable than Iris and Ash, but he still didn't have any experience actually battling and training Pokemon, so the times where he acted like high and mighty were frustrating for the same kind of reason.

Even though I vote for Iris in poll, it's likely the writers doing because the way she was done was so wrong. First, Axew was suppose to evolved but didn't through the entire unova sagas and then there is the line "you're such a kid!" or "what a kid!". That line annoyed the heck out of me as I am aware that Ash is a kid since he is ten and there is no need to go on and on about it. Iris is just a kid herself, so calling Ash a kid makes her a hypocrite and that bugs me alot. Iris is then given a fully evolved Dragonite from out of the blue and that really grind my gears. She had Axew that she could of fully evolved and yet they gave a fully evolved pseudo legend with moves: Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Thunder Punch and Dragon Rush. Really? You're gonna give Iris with four powerful moves like that? In conclusion, it seems the writers have indeed made an error with her.

Dropping the whole goal to evolve Axew was definitely bad writing, but they could have made it work. Even if they had to keep Axew unevolved for marketing reasons, it still could have received believable development and gradually become stronger over the course of BW. They had done that with Piplup in DP, but they were clearly not interested in doing that again. I still think that they didn't know if they wanted to have Axew be the cute useless baby Pokemon like Topgei or a strong secondary mascot like Piplup and decided to go with both, despite how that didn't really mix well. Axew getting ridiculously overpowered moves like Outrage and Giga Impact does tie in with my theory that the writers wanted to get to the outcome of making Iris a strong trainer without putting in any of the effort to make it worthwhile or believable though.

 

[Moe]

I generally like reviewing with an in universe perspective, liking or disliking the way particular characters or Pokemon did things or react to what they did in the episode; or just a generic 'they'.

It's better in my view than trying to guess who actually made the decision or to think about why we got to the end product on the screen. The character on screen is the end result of all the input into creating them, so saying that a character should have done this or that, or not liking their personalities, etc. is easiest to simply direct to the character as the result of whomever made the decisions relevant to the points I make.

So in that context I always blame the character - because the character doesn't exist separately to all the things that created them, so the criticism of the character is the proxy for whoever made the decisions.

 

[Boots2@sses]

Eh......isn't it obvious that the writers are are to blame for this. When the create a character it is their responsibilty to develope that characters so that the fans can get behind them and they failed to do that with iris.

 

[CrashBash]

Personally, I thought that Iris mocking Ash was worse than when they tried that with Misty. At least Misty usually had a point when arguing with Ash or getting on his case. It also really helped that Ash was a rookie when he and Misty were arguing the most, so he was making pretty huge mistakes at times. Misty wasn't always right and she often would make the situation worse when she got too angry, but it seemed more justified than when they tried to do it with Iris. Iris mocking Ash had two major problems. First was how she really had no room to mock him for his immaturity when she was just as immature as Ash, if not more so. The second was how Ash was still a more experience trainer than Iris. The arguments with Misty fit at least a bit more when he was a rookie and making big mistakes and Misty did have a bit more experience than Ash did during Kanto at least. It wasn't a lot, but she understood the basics when Ash was still having a hard time with that. Even with making Ash more immature and regressing his skills, he was still an experienced trainer, so someone with less experience getting on his case would rub people the wrong way. That's why Max getting on his high horse about how much he knew also bothered me. He was more knowledgeable than Iris and Ash, but he still didn't have any experience actually battling and training Pokemon, so the times where he acted like high and mighty were frustrating for the same kind of reason.

No, no, I understand. But I won't deny that it still bugged me greatly. Especially since Iris was at least willing to admit to her flaws when they were pointed out to her, whilst Misty just got angry or even violent.

 

[Osprey]

Okay since everybody's seems to be blaming the creators I'm gonna play devils advocate and see if I can explain the first option.

I think what OP means with Iris herself being responsible for the development, is because although the writers did create and developer her character, she herself is the one who experiences the events and acts appropriately based on the character. Think of it this way, in the verse of their story, there tends to be a lack of meta-fictional or postmodern elements and thus the forth wall is rigidly in place (especialy in BW where the only known people that broke the wall dropped all pretense of silliness for that arc). As an RL allegory, if a man commits a crime spree, who would most people blame: God or the Man himself? It's a Watsonian option, with the other 2 being Doylsit options and the 4th being "no one is to blame".

I understand what you're trying to say with that analogy, but there are a few flaws. For one, not everyone believes (and indeed, it's hard to prove) that a God created people. And even if you get them to agree that God created people, many won't believe that the deity controls every single thing that a person does.

Unlike a God and a person, the idea that a fictional character is created and directly controlled by whoever is writing the story is not speculation; it's fact. Everything that Iris and all other fictional characters do is dictated by what the author of the story wants.

Perhaps, if a God really is the cosmic puppet master, then a person going on a killing spree would in fact be the God's fault. However, there is no way to know whether or not that's the way things are, unlike the relationship between a character and the writer that (more or less) simply dreamt them up. Just because a fourth wall is in place does not mean that the writers suddenly have no control over what transpires in the show. Everything wrong (and right) with a character can be blamed on the author, because without one, nothing would happen at all.

 

[ManUtd22]

Here, I want to be fair. I always care about how the writers handled to anime, the character and I am agree with who Blame Iris - Please got this example from me from anime: I have friends and family thought that Detective Conan or Any Anime will be in top if the real writer like Satoshi Tigiri (Pokemon writer) or Gosho Aoyama (Detective Conan) ...etc wrote the Story which I meant drow the Manga and then they did the Anime, and the Anime will go down if the anime wrote by another writers which it called filler.

To me , I agree with who think that the poor writing is what we must care about not who is the writers. And I am mostly agree with Hidden Mew, and all people who thought that the poor writing is what made us hate iris too much, but I don't agree about that "You are such a kid" the least reason of making her terrible. Also, I think the writers did a good job with the BW, the charaters, however they did terrible job with iris, her pokemon, trip, his pokemon , and with cameron.

Also I am agree with MorngingStar when she said that they don't make everything like Games, and this is a good thing to make the anime Unique. What I think that the Anime must have 50% for both. I meant that 50% must be for being near to Games, and 50% must not be like Games, and I think that this what they are trying to do in some episodes or in BW.

However, in Iris everything is wrong in wrong. To me, Axew is a pseudo legendary pokemon with his power even if he is baby. Giving Iris an Exdrill came out of nowhere and didn't worked to me at all. They didn't thought about it until the episode when she needed a pokemon to help ash or axew (i don't remember) but what I am sure about it is this point is right. To me, she didn't gut emolga and emolga must be with Bianca, However Iris got it. Do you remeber guys when Ash got Cyntaquel or Nictowl, Sure he didn't thought about these two pokemon but when he heard about them, he did a battle who the two people who want Cyntaquel or Nictowl in their episodes. the same when that people from Jhoto came to sinnoh with Lyra, and got Gible. It was a challenge between four: Ash thought about catching it first, but then happen a challenge between him, Dawn, that person, and Lyra. the same thing with dawn catched Buizel. The same happened when Brock got his egg. However that never happened from Iris. Catching Dragonight, made Dragonight is a easy Pokemon. I remember when that episode when they talked about miniryu ( dragon) for first time, they called him : "densetsu Pokemon Miniryu", which means "Legendary pokemon Miniryu" so who Iris made Dragin (Kairyu) relaxed and catching him when she in her first Journey.

No everything was writen poorly by writers, so I am agree with that we should blam the writers, because it is true that not Iris made herself no, the writers made her.

 

[Hidden Mew]

No, no, I understand. But I won't deny that it still bugged me greatly. Especially since Iris was at least willing to admit to her flaws when they were pointed out to her, whilst Misty just got angry or even violent.

The problem I have with that is that BW rarely pointed out Iris' flaws. If they did, they were usually brushed away or Georgia saying them would give the impression that we're suppose to not agree with her due to being Iris' rival. Georgia made great points on how Iris using Excadrill instead of Axew during the second Club Battle tournament didn't make sense with her goal of being a Dragon Master and pointing out that she lost to Dragonite in their last battle instead of to Iris herself, but the show didn't really do anything with those flaws. Iris rarely had to admit them because the writers weren't interested in working out those flaws. They would be acknowledged, but they ignored in favor of making Iris look like a special gifted snowflake. In regards to her catchphrase, I only remember a couple of times where she admitted that she was acting like Ash too, but of course, the show just brushed that off and she continued to call Ash a little kid afterwards.

As for Misty, I still don't remember her getting violent. She would get more upset, but that was because she had more of a temper than Iris ever did. Unless we're counting moments like where she'd hit people with a paper fan or something like that, which I'm pretty sure was supposed to be for comedy and wouldn't be trying to hurt anyone, I don't know what she did that could be considered violent.