Should Misty have diversified her team like Iris did?

[Cinderfella]

Hey Guys, Cinderfella here.

On the show Misty attempted to catch an oddish, Jigglypuff, and Farfetch'd. She also initially intended on bringing Togetic back to the Gym before releasing it and I believe she probably may have used it in battle. Misty got Azurill as well yet we all know its evolutionary line is Water.

Iris attempted to catch Meowth, started off with a Ground type, and even caught Emonga.

My question is: Should Misty have diversified her team like Iris did? Would it have made the show more interesting or would you believe in her goal even less?

In the games, MAAANY "Type" trainers use other types. Ironically, I remember in Bye, Bye, Psyduck Misty even expressed interest in catching a member of the Dratini line.

She also looked up to Prima (Loreli) who used not just water types, Ice types as well.

I wonder sometimes how would it have been if Misty caught a Surskit and how she'd feel owning a part bug and then if it evolved how she'd feel with it being no longer a water type. Things like this I question.

Discuss.

 

[Shoutmon]

Iris is criticized for taking 90 episodes to catch another Dragon Type and because her getting an Emolga was pure marketing and didn't help her grow as a dragon master (like Misty with Togepi) but at the same time a character who catches Pokemon from the same type is boring.

Misty getting other types could have been interesting but her Pokemon like Starmie and Horsea barely appeared and she got only one Pokemon in Johto and one of her best Pokemon became a comic relief (Politoed) so I don't think that was the problem.

I don't think having a "type master" character is a good idea, is too limited and the goal is unmeasurable. Misty got one of the most boring types and Iris got a type that has just a few Pokemon that aren't legendaries so I can see why the writers had trouble giving her another Dragon (and she got one, a fully evolved one handed to her).

I don't think Misty should had a diverse team because these Pokemon would still rot in their Pokeballs. I just hope the writers don't make more type master character but I see a ghost type one being in SM for the Yo-kai Watch audience.

 

[Cinderfella]

Iris is criticized for taking 90 episodes to catch another Dragon Type and because her getting an Emolga was pure marketing and didn't help her grow as a dragon master (like Misty with Togepi) but at the same time a character who catches Pokemon from the same type is boring.

Are they really boring? Or is the way they are handled boring? The Whirl Cup was an interesting concept for example, yet Misty vs Ash was a bit cheap.

Misty getting other types could have been interesting but her Pokemon like Starmie and Horsea barely appeared and she got only one Pokemon in Johto and one of her best Pokemon became a comic relief (Politoed) so I don't think that was the problem.

True. That's one thing that always bothered me. Poliwhirl was Misty's Ace-yet when it became a Politoad it lost it's flare. I honestly sometimes wish it would've stayed a Poliwhirl. She also should've kept Starmie and evolved Horsea to Kingdra.

I don't think having a "type master" character is a good idea, is too limited and the goal is unmeasurable. Misty got one of the most boring types and Iris got a type that has just a few Pokemon that aren't legendaries so I can see why the writers had trouble giving her another Dragon (and she got one, a fully evolved one handed to her).

I disagree personally with Water Types being boring. It's all in how one perceives them really. Fire types are overrated in my book.

I don't think Misty should had a diverse team because these Pokemon would still rot in their Pokeballs. I just hope the writers don't make more type master character but I see a ghost type one being in SM for the Yo-kai Watch audience.

Not necessarily. Misty could have shown of their personalities still if she say caught a Jigglypuff or Oddish.

 

[Shoutmon]

The Whirl Cup was interesting but it would have gotten boring really fast if it was limited to Pokemon related to water. I like when the league,contests,torunaments use a variety of Pokemon we haven't seen in years, Whirl Cups would always have the same Pokemon.

 

[Misty-Moo]

As you say, the argument against it is that she's a Water Type Gym Leader & would therefore, only be interested in one type of Pokemon. However, Brock is a Rock Type Gym Leader & he ended up with a diverse team, which included Pokemon such as Crobat, Ludicolo & Chansey. Given this, Misty could easily have caught some different Pokemon other than Togetic. We know she likes cute Pokemon, so she could possibly have caught Eevee, Vulpix or Mareep, for example.

 

[GeminiAngel87]

I always liked that what made Misty different was that she trained water Pokemon (minus Togepi of course) and had a goal and dream that wouldn't change. I find nothing wrong with one type trainers; it's like Ash said to Paul in the early episodes of DP that if you work with them they become strong. Misty is a strong trainer so even if she uses water Pokemon she would be able to kick butt any day of the week. plus water type Pokemon are now a little diverse in typing so it wouldn't hinder Misty at all being a one type trainer.

I agree it would have been cool to see her catch other Pokemon but I am happy with what she does and she doesn't need to catch other types of Pokemon unless she wants too; but hey it's just my opinion.

 

[ii kanji]

Having her diversify her team would have weakened the character enormously. I loved the water Pokemon thing and genuinely believe that the writers failed to create an interesting concept for Kasumi from one of the most rich types where so much potential existed. Ah well.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I think that the writers kind of put themselves into a corner when they gave Iris the Dragon Master goal. That would have been kind of tricky had Iris or someone with that goal appeared sooner, but this was kind of bad timing when the fifth generation really didn't have a lot of Dragon Pokemon. There were only three non-Legendary Dragon Pokemon lines if I recall correctly, so that already limited what they could do with her right off the bat. Plus, B/W only featured new Pokemon until the post-Elite 4 content, so BW only featured Pikachu and Meowth as older Pokemon for awhile, which meant that Iris couldn't capture older Dragon Pokemon for awhile. Obviously, that was thrown out the window by the time she caught a Dragonite since B2/W2 included older Pokemon from the start, but when BW started, it looked like Iris had an even smaller pool of potential Dragon Pokemon captures. They basically had to give her other Pokemon as a result of that limitation. Otherwise, she would have just been stuck with Axew until either she caught another Unova Dragon or they gave her a Dragonite. Any time would have been kind of tricky to have a Dragon Master goal in the show, especially before the third or fourth generations, but it was an especially bad idea to do that for the fifth generation.

While they kind of had to give Iris other Pokemon types for marketing reasons, especially with Emolga, it wasn't really received well. Using Excadrill and Emolga just prevented her from using Axew, which actually did need to be trained and its progression would have helped with her goal much more than winning another battle with Excadrill or Emolga. Sure, she had more diversity on her team than if it was all Dragon types, but it's because of like Axew rarely battling and then suddenly being powerful enough to learn overpowered moves like Outrage or Giga Impact that made Iris' progression in her goal much less believable and frustrating to watch. She wasn't making any progression towards her goal. Things like Axew's new moves, aside from maybe Dragon Rage, and Dragonite's capture were just handed to her on a silver plate with little to no effort on her part. I'm not sure if it would have been significantly different had Iris only had Dragon Pokemon, but she wouldn't have had other Pokemon to use instead of her pretty much useless Axew for the longest time. It's also why Iris had a Dragonite, or at least one of the reasons. Instead of actually working on Axew to make its strength believable, let's just skip all the hard work of getting a fully evolved Dragon Pokemon and just give it to Iris on a nice silver plate.

With Misty, I don't think her problem was that she only had Water Pokemon with the exceptions of Togepi and Azuril, even though it does evolve into a Water Pokemon too. Like Iris, she didn't make a whole lot of progress towards her goal until near the end of her run, but this was the original series and they weren't too interested in providing a lot of focus for anyone besides Ash, let alone actually dealing with a goal that wasn't about Gym battles. The problem came down to how she probably had too many Pokemon for her role in the show. Despite having a full team at one point, most of her Pokemon are kind of forgettable. In terms of her Water Pokemon, the only ones that stood out were Psyduck, Politoad and maybe Staryu. Corsola did stand out a bit after she caught it, but I don't know if that would make it more memorable. Goldeen I think only had one victory and despite having a good capture episode, Horsea hardly did anything between that and being left at the Gym. The main reason I counted Staryu was because it was just used frequently enough and even then, it's kind of bland. Misty wasn't nearly important enough or at least had enough screentime to justify having a full team.

Another issue would probably be the lack of diversity among her Pokemon types. While I disagree that Water Pokemon are boring, I could understand that complaint if you focus on just the first couple of generations. There weren't a whole lot of diversity among Water Pokemon back then. Nowadays, there are a ton of Water Pokemon type combinations to where I think they could do a better job with the goal. Admittedly, the writers still aren't the best when it comes to diversity in movesets, but there would be more Water Pokemon to choose from to make a Water Pokemon team work out at least a bit better than when they tried it with Misty.

Her team might have stood out more with different Pokemon types, but I think people would have had similar complaints as they do with Iris. Perhaps not as much due to nostalgia and/or just being the first series where they were still figuring things out, but there would still be the issue of Misty having Pokemon that aren't helpful for her goal. Brock caught different types of Pokemon, but his goal was never to be the best Rock Pokemon Master. Despite being a former Gym Leader for a Rock Pokemon, he never said he loved Rock Pokemon the most and taking care of different Pokemon types would be better suited for a Pokemon Breeder too. The same can't really be said for Misty capturing Normal or Grass Pokemon when she wanted to be a Water Pokemon Master.

 

[Litten]

Imo, no. I respected her decision to specialize on Water-types. Besides, I bet nothing major would've happened even if her team had been more diverse. :x

 

[TyphoonStrom]

Mistys team aside from togepi and psyduck never got enough screen time for it to even matter.

Iris had a whole other issue, being a Mary sue. With her Axew learning power attacks without training, nor battling much, a powerful exadrill who's typing alone ran over most pokemon. A emolga for promotional value, who was pretty strong.

And a powerful fully evovled dranoite, with a moveset ripped straight from smogon.

 

[pokemon fan 132]

In my case its a GOOD thing that Misty is so much devoted to training and battling primarily with water pokemon.

One of reasons why i like Misty is because of her dedication and passionate love for water type(no one has been adamant about it like she was, not even Iris and her preference for dragons comes close to such flare and devotion Misty holds for water pokemon) striving to learn everything she can about it,catch as many as she can wanting to become best in world overcoming all weakness and disadvantages water pokemon may have which is anything but easy task. Trying in admiring way to reach E4 level and achieve mastery over them no matter the odds and hardships being throw in her way.

With Misty love for oceans, water and marine creatures being one of most recognizable parts of her character.

This is her niche, way of living being one of things which make her unique and different from every other traveling companion Ash traveled with. While im sure she would do good as regular trainer having more than one specie, after all she showed to have knowledge and skills knowing how to battle with different types(like when she used Pikachu, Vulpix and Bulbasaur in Kanto Princess tournament, Pikachu again in "For Crying Out Loud!" etc).

And her interest in getting other species like Odish, Eevee, Teddiursa etc does indicate she would like to have few of other pokemon type. Though mainly drive behind this interest came from Misty girly side kicking in finding them very cute and unique.

At end of the day if Misty strayed away too much from her main theme catching a lot of different pokemon types like Brock did or Iris to smaller extent would have took away from who she really is in her core of existence in my opinion.

EDIT:
On claim of Misty water pokemon master career being failure in some people eyes:
I disagree with claim of competitions reserved solely for water pokemon not having lasting power to remain enjoyable. Whirl Cup as mentioned was great concept with rich lore and backstory about sea heroes, water masters, mysterious Alpha Omega of water pokemon title etc.

And if writers turned it in chain of structured tasks breaking new grounds with it, than we could had really get something going for Misty dream of becoming water pokemon master. On more profound level.

I don't think mainly water pokemon being used would have represented problem,. Maybe with some less supported and varied type. But looking at all those cool variations game creators decided to playa with. Like water ghost( Frillish Jellicent), water ground(Barboach, Gastrodon, Swampert), water electric(Lanturn, Rotom), water flying(Swanna, Pelliper, Mantyke) etc, etc. Bringing with itself all kind if unique designs, versatile techniques and strategies would ensure large pool of options to choose from.

And while you could argue how at end of the day it would still be in its core same specie getting lot of focus. By extending what Whirl Cup started exploring more on other type of tournaments and competitions through which type master career could be explored. By each of this tasks following entirely different format and rules(like one task containing of underwater battling with rare instances like third movie and fight vs Molly displaying just how exciting such fights can be), another having water racing with competition being permitted to use pokemon they're riding to slow down others and even disable them wit its special abilities, water tournaments, even battling on ground, shooting practice like Ash did in Mikan gym of Orange Islands etc.

Would had added much needed fresh diversity and twists tom Misty storyline. Thus creating dynamic and engaging to follow further exploration of Misty career as water trainer.

Because while you could argue that Misty evolved as character in personality sense having development in that area(though I wouldn't mind if there was more to it and should been). As far as her capabilities as trainer and prowess goes. There was a lot left to be desired.

Type master careers really aren't nearly as limited in what could be done as some choose to believe. Just because they weren't explored enough or handled proficiently doesn't mean they lacked/lack potential. Because they really don't.

True. That's one thing that always bothered me. Poliwhirl was Misty's Ace-yet when it became a Politoad it lost it's flare. I honestly sometimes wish it would've stayed a Poliwhirl. She also should've kept Starmie and evolved Horsea to Kingdra.

To be fair Poliwhirl becoming more jolly and friendly still doesn't tell anything about its power. And with evolved form which is no inferior than Poliwrath its logical to assume how in this form Misty pokemon is more powerful than it once was.

Problem is evolution happened near very end of Johto with Politoad having just two real battles. Against TR and brother trio Hitmonchan(although way it was presented in these was pretty good),

I guess because of acting more silly caused fans to look at him in light of weak pokemon used for jokes. But in reality it could easily be regardless of attitude force to reckon with.

p.s. Another very wrong perception people have is how Misty pokemon were barely used because that is only valid for some. Likes as Staryu, Poliwhirl, Corsola, Psyduck were anything but underused.
And those coming after departure cannot be judged as underused since Misty did not had anymore status of main character unfioretunately to be given luxury of developing and being fleshed out to greater extent.

 

[danh19]

that is a tough question it could be more of a challenge for her as a trainer to work with other types of Pokémon but it could take away from her role as water type trainer if only a few of her Pokémon were water types