So...current thoughts on Serena?

[Odinn]

As of "A Battle by Any Other Name!" my dislike of Serena really can't go much higher. I never thought a character could exceed Iris in terms of assholery and childishness. It's only worse because Serena's even more of a brat and more petty than even Iris was.

Not only do we have a supposed lead female character who's greatest contributions to the group consist of reading a map, we have a supposed lead female character who isn't even trying to search for a goal. On top of that, even if she didn't know what she wanted her goal to be yet and is still searching, she has no excuse for not even training her Fennekin. There's nothing preventing her from training while she looks for a goal so that she can learn how to be a trainer, but she won't even do that. It's clear that her motives for leaving home were purely to see Ash and nothing else, making me question why she even needed Fennekin in the first place.

She's also incredibly petty and childish. Not only can she not take criticism, but she gets mad at other people just for being seen as doing something better than her. We have a PokeVision girl who Serena doesn't even know personally, yet she visibly holds angst towards her because Clemont, Ash, and Bonnie enjoyed her video. Then we have Miette, who just so happens to be a better cook than Serena (makes sense, as she is more experienced and does this as her passion, while Serena just so happened to make them one day and in no way truly has a passion for making Poke Puffs). Serena just ups and holds a grudge and starts a rivalry with the girl who did nothing to her, and hardly insulted her. She accuses Miette of having an attitude, when all the attitude was coming from Serena, and makes absurd accusations towards her just because she's that petty. There was no reason for such a rivalry to even develop and it was mostly one-sided from Serena because she can't handle her friends thinking she isn't the best at everything. She's also selfish. She doesn't try to hide the fact that she found fossils boring and unappealing and voiced this a few times, yet essentially forced Ash, Bonnie, and Clemont to work on her PokeVision video for her because it was something she wanted to do, despite Ash clearly having more important objectives.

Finally, Serena's an awful role model for young girls who watch the show. She only cares about her appearance and completely advocates that girls are always supposed to try to look pretty. Not to mention, she doesn't battle, furthering the idea that the males do the fighting while the girls stand around like damsels, which is really strange as the more recent females, Dawn and Iris, were nothing like this. She's like the definition of a prissy female stereotype in that she only cares about her appearance to the extent that she won't even go camping or step in a mud puddle without something essentially forcing her to do so. This is a terrible message to send to young girls, in my opinion.

So, at this point, Bonnie is more of the lead female in my eyes. There's just no other way to look at it when she gets more character development than Serena and it seems that they aren't doing anything any time soon to improve her character.

Probably the greatest post about Serena that I've ever seen.

For the bolded part; she needed a reason to be in the anime* and a complimentary. Her Fennekin's petty, childish and cocky tratis are exactly like Serena has.
*But to be honest, a main protagonist without a Pokemon would be a lot better than post-XY021 Serena.

 

[Team Gaara]

For the bolded part; she needed a reason to be in the anime* and a complimentary. Her Fennekin's petty, childish and cocky tratis are exactly like Serena has.
*But to be honest, a main protagonist without a Pokemon would be a lot better than post-XY021 Serena.

You bring up a fantastic point I forgot to make. Serena's awful traits are clearly rubbing off on her Fennekin, which has further presented the both of them as total ungrateful assholes, and exemplified Serena's failure as a trainer.

Again, with the PokeVision video, Ash does EXACTLY what Serena requested when she was being chased by Clemont's robot and helped her by stopping it, resulting in her becoming covered in residue from the explosion. And does Ash get a thanks for his assistance? Nope. He gets not a word of thanks from Serena, just complaints about being dirty, and a Flamethrower to the face by Fennekin. And does Serena scold Fennekin for attacking Ash and order her to apologize? Nope, again. Her response was essentially: "Well, too bad, Ash, you shouldn't have helped us wrong." Same with Pikachu later. Mind you that this is during a time when Ash is helping when Serena knows he ought to be training. And once again, Fennekin gets away with attacking others just because it can't handle being dirty once in a while like it's permanent. Forget Ash and Pikachu taking time out of their training day to help Serena make a stupid video, let's just not thank them and get mad at them while we're at it. And Serena NEVER apologizes for this. Fennekin is never scolded for it. And it's all treated like some comic relief. The worst part about this is that Serena supposedly has such a huge crush on Ash, yet doesn't give a sh*t to defend him when it causes her or Fennekin to get dirty.

 

[Odinn]

For the bolded part; she needed a reason to be in the anime* and a complimentary. Her Fennekin's petty, childish and cocky tratis are exactly like Serena has.
*But to be honest, a main protagonist without a Pokemon would be a lot better than post-XY021 Serena.

You bring up a fantastic point I forgot to make. Serena's awful traits are clearly rubbing off on her Fennekin, which has further presented the both of them as total ungrateful assholes, and exemplified Serena's failure as a trainer.

Again, with the PokeVision video, Ash does EXACTLY what Serena requested when she was being chased by Clemont's robot and helped her by stopping it, resulting in her becoming covered in residue from the explosion. And does Ash get a thanks for his assistance? Nope. He gets not a word of thanks from Serena, just complaints about being dirty, and a Flamethrower to the face by Fennekin. And does Serena scold Fennekin for attacking Ash and order her to apologize? Nope, again. Her response was essentially: "Well, too bad, Ash, you shouldn't have helped us wrong." Same with Pikachu later. Mind you that this is during a time when Ash is helping when Serena knows he ought to be training. And once again, Fennekin gets away with attacking others just because it can't handle being dirty once in a while like it's permanent. Forget Ash and Pikachu taking time out of their training day to help Serena make a stupid video, let's just not thank them and get mad at them while we're at it. And Serena NEVER apologizes for this. Fennekin is never scolded for it. And it's all treated like some comic relief. The worst part about this is that Serena supposedly has such a huge crush on Ash, yet doesn't give a sh*t to defend him when it causes her or Fennekin to get dirty.

In the previous page, I've listed Fennekin's behaviours. And before basically resetting my account, I posted something like your very this post in the review thread.
Serena and Fennekin got away with quite serious things in XY021. I mean when was the last time a protagonist's Pokemon tried to attack a fellow trainer's Pokemon 'just because'? And didn't get a warning especially after hitting a fellow trainer?

But it's not just about Serena and Fennekin. Ash's Fletchling was a food-stealer before the capture. I mean had Ash ever been positive towards a food-thief Pokemon?..

These kinda stuff is really annoying and bizzarre of XY series.

 

[Alola]

As of "A Battle by Any Other Name!" my dislike of Serena really can't go much higher. I never thought a character could exceed Iris in terms of assholery and childishness. It's only worse because Serena's even more of a brat and more petty than even Iris was.

Not only do we have a supposed lead female character who's greatest contributions to the group consist of reading a map, we have a supposed lead female character who isn't even trying to search for a goal. On top of that, even if she didn't know what she wanted her goal to be yet and is still searching, she has no excuse for not even training her Fennekin. There's nothing preventing her from training while she looks for a goal so that she can learn how to be a trainer, but she won't even do that. It's clear that her motives for leaving home were purely to see Ash and nothing else, making me question why she even needed Fennekin in the first place.

She's also incredibly petty and childish. Not only can she not take criticism, but she gets mad at other people just for being seen as doing something better than her. We have a PokeVision girl who Serena doesn't even know personally, yet she visibly holds angst towards her because Clemont, Ash, and Bonnie enjoyed her video. Then we have Miette, who just so happens to be a better cook than Serena (makes sense, as she is more experienced and does this as her passion, while Serena just so happened to make them one day and in no way truly has a passion for making Poke Puffs). Serena just ups and holds a grudge and starts a rivalry with the girl who did nothing to her, and hardly insulted her. She accuses Miette of having an attitude, when all the attitude was coming from Serena, and makes absurd accusations towards her just because she's that petty. There was no reason for such a rivalry to even develop and it was mostly one-sided from Serena because she can't handle her friends thinking she isn't the best at everything. She's also selfish. She doesn't try to hide the fact that she found fossils boring and unappealing and voiced this a few times, yet essentially forced Ash, Bonnie, and Clemont to work on her PokeVision video for her because it was something she wanted to do, despite Ash clearly having more important objectives.

Finally, Serena's an awful role model for young girls who watch the show. She only cares about her appearance and completely advocates that girls are always supposed to try to look pretty. Not to mention, she doesn't battle, furthering the idea that the males do the fighting while the girls stand around like damsels, which is really strange as the more recent females, Dawn and Iris, were nothing like this. She's like the definition of a prissy female stereotype in that she only cares about her appearance to the extent that she won't even go camping or step in a mud puddle without something essentially forcing her to do so. This is a terrible message to send to young girls, in my opinion.

So, at this point, Bonnie is more of the lead female in my eyes. There's just no other way to look at it when she gets more character development than Serena and it seems that they aren't doing anything any time soon to improve her character.

It will be a truly beautiful and gratifying moment if someone calls her out on all of this in anime, resulting in her having a heelface turn in her ways (the negative ones that is). Then her character development will be one of the most admirable and substantial.

 

[Osprey]

Geeez. I hope Serena's gonna get a good idea of what she wants to do. Judging by what y'all have said about her, I can't see anything happening between her and Ash. And this is Ash, who's completely oblivious to anything romance. If she gets rejected, I think we'll all see it coming from a mile, unless they decide to use this grating personality to contrast what she's like 50-ish episodes later.

@Odinn, I remember Ash caught a Taillow that ate his chocolate, and Mankey enjoyed running off with food and his hat. Not the first time, certainly not the last.

 

[Klaud]

^ Add to Taillow/Mankey the Aipom he later traded away , cause he loved to take away other people Hats(not food i know) and Snorunt with his knack of taking things for fun , although it was more of a game for those two you could count them in .

But back to topic.
When i started watching X and Y , the first few episodes where she appeared already felt dull to me . I'm not sure , if it was the way she acted or how she interacted with her Fennekin , but as some of the people pointed out - it feels like she's there only because to fill up the group with a female (not counting Bonnie because she's still a child.) She brings nothing at all to the group . To be honest, i think the damage has already been done to me , and no matter how much she changes later on , i'll still most likely will see her as a weak character ):

 

[Cresselia92]

I still think that they have something planned for her and that they are keeping everything under wraps in order to not spoil anything and to avoid to give away any hint. I wonder what though, since she isn't very active and when she does something she is usually overshadowed by the other characters of the main cast.

I surely hope that whatever it is pays off, because it would be quite painful and annoying to see a character who is here just to be here.

 

[XYZ Nexus]

My thoughts at the moment for Serena is that she would've been a great character if not for the fact that she isn't doing anything. I don't care if she does or doenst get a goal, cause Misty didn't do much for hers, so Serena would be fine. I'd say her sub-plot with Ash is an interesting idea, but the execution could be better.

So I'm hopeful, yet at the same time not amused.

I surely hope that whatever it is pays off, because it would be quite painful and annoying to see a character who is here just to be here.

Agreed, if she's there just to fill out the cast then that'd be so much wasted potential.

 

[Lluksonak]

I like how she is into fashion than the other girls, but she needs to get into more battling!
I hope in the upcoming summer camp arc, she will get more into battling/training, if we take a look back at Sinnoh's summer camp, the campers were pretty much learning about battling, raising, and bonding with Pokemon. I hope she learns a whole lot during the arc and she'll be in a tag battle with Ash in no time!

 

[Gligarman]

I've gotten a lot further in the show and so far I can definitely confirm that Serena is in fact a girl with Pokemon. That's it. I miss Iris.

 

[blowsave]

From what I've seen, they've done a pretty good job establishing chemistry between the group, which makes it tough to dislike any of them too much. She doesn't actively ruin the show for me, but that's not really high praise, and there are some things about her character that I think are a little problematic. They've got a solid foundation with Serena, but they have to start doing something with that.

 

[Life]

After catching-up to the anime over the past few days, I would like to give my analysis about Serena.

She is a girl. She lives in Vaniville Town. She left on a journey to find Ash. She picked Fennekin as her starter. She doesn't like fossils or rocks. She likes to bake. She likes cute things. She doesn't like getting dirty. She has a thing for Ash. She doesn't like it when others try to flirt with Ash. She is kind. She follows the group's decisions and choices. She has a map that she uses to navigate the group.

And that's it. That's actually really sad; four of those things are obvious background information about her, and the rest are things she likes/does. As a character who has been in 35 episodes of the anime, it's quite sad that this all I can really say about her. As a character, she has made no progress from when she first debuted and continues to act/do/say the same things. While we have found out several things about her, there is nothing that sets her apart from the other female companions. So far, the biggest thing she has going for her are the shipping wars she's created.

And she isn't doing anything as a trainer, either. Her Fennekin has also made no development from when she first started traveling with her trainer. She has shown that she's very loyal to Serena, is snooty, and doesn't like to get dirty, but that's it. There is no progress with either trainer or Pokemon, and considering the series is 35 episodes in, it's a pretty disappointing feat.

All I can hope for is that she'll get a goal sometime soon so she can do more than what she is doing now. There's no appeal in a character who just stands around, guides the group, and makes tasty treats.

 

[BlazeKicker]

She's the worst heroine yet to me: great work, guys-- just when I think you can't sink any lower, you never fail to disappoint me. Making her shallow, vain, crushing on Ash most of the time she gets any screen time to her, shaft her and put her in the background to DP Brock levels of ignorance, what obligates me to like her, or even care about anything she does? She doesn't even do much of anything and is way too inactive, and at one point, was so insanely vain that she would rather check out jewelry than help her friends out.

Of course, in general, I find the XY Series to be insanely overrated just like DP was, but then I'm in the minority so obviously this is an unpopular opinion.

 

[PockyAddict]

She's the worst heroine yet to me: great work, guys-- just when I think you can't sink any lower, you never fail to disappoint me. Making her shallow, vain, crushing on Ash most of the time she gets any screen time to her, shaft her and put her in the background to DP Brock levels of ignorance, what obligates me to like her, or even care about anything she does? She doesn't even do much of anything and is way too inactive, and at one point, was so insanely vain that she would rather check out jewelry than help her friends out.

Of course, in general, I find the XY Series to be insanely overrated just like DP was, but then I'm in the minority so obviously this is an unpopular opinion.

I actually agree with you on that. And on xy and dp. I really wanted serena to be awesome, but man, May and Dawn had caught pokemon than her at this point.

 

[Ambipom666]

It's nice that Serena is trying out different things. While I do wish she would expand her party and do more, I do like the idea of not knowing what she wants to do. I do think it's interesting how her Fennekin is a reflection of her. It should be whipped into shape eventually, though.

But then I remembered Team Flare and their goal in the games to rule the world with their (very bad) fashion. That's how I remembered it anyway. It might as well have been; I could never take Team Flare seriously in the games.

But Serena getting mixed up with them is the most awesome thing I can think of for her at this time. Whether it's getting misled by them, or declaring them her most despised adversaries because of their tacky outfits and her drive to show them with her own skills how crappy their fashion is, I think that'll be something worth watching. Then again, I think a lot of crazy and stupid things are worth watching. XD But since I'm pretty sure the anime isn't edgy enough to portray the core of the matter in the games (my interpretation: Sycamore and Lysandre's lovers' spat), that's the next best thing they can do.

That would be really interesting! Way too interesting to happen, though

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

My main problem with Serena is that she's an incredibly bland character who seems to have no real personality other than a stereotypical girly one who likes baking, hates getting dirty, and likes cute things, as well as the fact that she has a thing for Ash and doesn't like it when other's flirt with him. Her Fennekin, which even more than 30 episodes in is the only Pokemon she even owns, also has a near identical personality.

I feel as if the writers don't really know what to do with her other than make her a bland love interest to Ash. It's been so many episodes since her introduction and she doesn't have a specified goal yet. It took 10 episodes to announce May as a coordinator, and Dawn had her goal set from her first appearance. Are they waiting until OR/AS to decide she should be a coordinator, because to an extent that's what it feels like. Granted it's still early in the series, but you'd think they'd do something with her by now.

I don't think she's useless by any means, the writers can take her in so many directions, but they don't seem to have found one other than make her a bland love interest for Ash and that's it really.

 

[Gligarman]

If they're really going to try a semi love story thing again, this might be a good time for a Misty cameo.

 

[Alola]

It's been so many episodes since her introduction and she doesn't have a specified goal yet. It took 10 episodes to announce May as a coordinator, and Dawn had her goal set from her first appearance. Are they waiting until OR/AS to decide she should be a coordinator, because to an extent that's what it feels like.

I can see that happening! A perfect way for the writers to promote ORAS. If they do, that would be pretty satisfying. A possible May cameo to boot too.

 

[CrashBash]

She's cute, and the whole backstory is nice, I'll give her that much. And at the moment, I like her more than May and Dawn, but not as much as Misty or Iris. But as of right now, I have no idea what they're trying to do with her. Unless they start pulling off something soon, I fear she's going to slip into the "OK-Meh" category, in my mind.

 

[Odinn]

With Pokemon Summer Camp episodes, she started to think about where she's headed, finally. I wish she had been like this from the beginning. I still have a hard time about her sincerity due to earlier personality traits, tho.