He's huge, but then he is related to AZ xD
Alain wore the whole Mega Charizard X garb even before his huge personality shift, as you've probably seen in the episode. If I were to take a guess, it would probably be that that was his personal way of better "connecting" with his partner, although it is a little weird (That being said he did help me realize that you can wear a scrunchie scarf and still be a badass). Other than that, though, I'm with you on being intrigued by what caused Alain's change in character. Usually the brooder type of characters can get annoying but Alain has remained interesting for me thus far because he's much more complex than that.
Ash lost to Astrid because she Mega-Evolved her Absol (something I thought was incredibly cheap btw) and he never finished his battle with Diantha. But otherwise, yeah, you have a point, he can't just keep getting lucky like he'd did in the battle with Korrina and get with the program (i.e. get a Mega Evolution) if he's going to win in the end. I also agree with you on the whole Lysandre plot, it actually seems like they're going to do both him and his team justice, especially when I got a close-up of his ring (go back to the episode, skip ahead to the part with Mega Rayquaza, pause it right after it uses Draco Meteor and you'll know what I'm talking about)
.I think he's saying that because he doesn't want any suspicion to be drawn toward him. As for why he doesn't want Alain to relay any of his findings back to the Professor, that's probably so then he'd have the research to himself. Then there's Alain, after rewatching the episode with subs, I had somewhat of an epiphany: The reason why he's changed his means of receiving research to battling all the Mega Evolutions was because Lysandre instilled that mindset in him to speed up his own agenda, though it causes some pretty dramatic changes to Alain's personality. All this and his conversation with Alain at the end of the episode, to me, are signs that he's playing the role of the manipulator, and I have to give him credit, he's doing a pretty damn good job of it so far. Besides, I find it hard to believe that he's good after watching that flashback, especially that evil smile.
Ash lost to Astrid because she Mega-Evolved her Absol (something I thought was incredibly cheap btw) and he never finished his battle with Diantha. But otherwise, yeah, you have a point, he can't just keep getting lucky like he'd did in the battle with Korrina and get with the program (i.e. get a Mega Evolution) if he's going to win in the end. I also agree with you on the whole Lysandre plot, it actually seems like they're going to do both him and his team justice, especially when I got a close-up of his ring (go back to the episode, skip ahead to the part with Mega Rayquaza, pause it right after it uses Draco Meteor and you'll know what I'm talking about)
Good point in both regards. And now that you mention the TF climax, I'm sort of stuck in the middle in terms of who's going to be in the final battle. On one side, Alain has known about Lysandre up to this point and thus the buildup pays off. On the other hand, though, it's excluding the protagonist from fighting the big bad, which just makes no sense. One of three things needs to happen if this is gonna be amended: Either Ash gets a Mega Evolution before he's 3/4 of the way through his badge collecting, Alain has a revelation about his boss' plan, or Lysandre begins to make more recurring appearances in either the specials or the regular anime, which would solidify who is the more likely candidate.Ash lost to Astrid because she Mega-Evolved her Absol (something I thought was incredibly cheap btw) and he never finished his battle with Diantha. But otherwise, yeah, you have a point, he can't just keep getting lucky like he'd did in the battle with Korrina and get with the program (i.e. get a Mega Evolution) if he's going to win in the end. I also agree with you on the whole Lysandre plot, it actually seems like they're going to do both him and his team justice, especially when I got a close-up of his ring (go back to the episode, skip ahead to the part with Mega Rayquaza, pause it right after it uses Draco Meteor and you'll know what I'm talking about)
Luck wasn't the only factor in his gym battle. From what we've seen Korrina is young and while she can control her Lucario's mega form they're still very inexperienced using it, plus the rest of her team were a bunch of jobbers so it was really a 3 vs 1 battle. Put Ash against someone with more experience battling with a mega and he'll fall faster than a Paras fighting a Ho-oh. If he lost like this to Astrid imagine how bad he'll be against Lysandre who's likely to be very experienced with his mega Gyarados due to his age and interest in mega evolution.
What worries me about an inevitable cross over is that Ash and co's appearance will feel gratuitous and in the worst case scenario they'll get their butts handed to them by Team Flare grunts like they did against Team Plasma. I'm pretty psyched that they're setting up Lysandre to be like an arch enemy for Alain with how personal things will get when he inevitably does they whole betrayal thing but I find it kind of funny that Ash the main character of the anime is probably not gonna beat the region's Big Bad. It would be like if in Star Wars Han Solo is the one to beat Darth Vader instead of Luke Skywalker. In that case you begin to wonder who the real main character is in this situation.
Good point in both regards. And now that you mention the TF climax, I'm sort of stuck in the middle in terms of who's going to be in the final battle. On one side, Alain has known about Lysandre up to this point and thus the buildup pays off. On the other hand, though, it's excluding the protagonist from fighting the big bad, which just makes no sense. One of three things needs to happen if this is gonna be amended: Either Ash gets a Mega Evolution before he's 3/4 of the way through his badge collecting, Alain has a revelation about his boss' plan, or Lysandre begins to make more recurring appearances in either the specials or the regular anime, which would solidify who is the more likely candidate.Ash lost to Astrid because she Mega-Evolved her Absol (something I thought was incredibly cheap btw) and he never finished his battle with Diantha. But otherwise, yeah, you have a point, he can't just keep getting lucky like he'd did in the battle with Korrina and get with the program (i.e. get a Mega Evolution) if he's going to win in the end. I also agree with you on the whole Lysandre plot, it actually seems like they're going to do both him and his team justice, especially when I got a close-up of his ring (go back to the episode, skip ahead to the part with Mega Rayquaza, pause it right after it uses Draco Meteor and you'll know what I'm talking about)
Luck wasn't the only factor in his gym battle. From what we've seen Korrina is young and while she can control her Lucario's mega form they're still very inexperienced using it, plus the rest of her team were a bunch of jobbers so it was really a 3 vs 1 battle. Put Ash against someone with more experience battling with a mega and he'll fall faster than a Paras fighting a Ho-oh. If he lost like this to Astrid imagine how bad he'll be against Lysandre who's likely to be very experienced with his mega Gyarados due to his age and interest in mega evolution.
What worries me about an inevitable cross over is that Ash and co's appearance will feel gratuitous and in the worst case scenario they'll get their butts handed to them by Team Flare grunts like they did against Team Plasma. I'm pretty psyched that they're setting up Lysandre to be like an arch enemy for Alain with how personal things will get when he inevitably does they whole betrayal thing but I find it kind of funny that Ash the main character of the anime is probably not gonna beat the region's Big Bad. It would be like if in Star Wars Han Solo is the one to beat Darth Vader instead of Luke Skywalker. In that case you begin to wonder who the real main character is in this situation.
Well, I guess we'll just have to wait, speculate, and see!Good point in both regards. And now that you mention the TF climax, I'm sort of stuck in the middle in terms of who's going to be in the final battle. On one side, Alain has known about Lysandre up to this point and thus the buildup pays off. On the other hand, though, it's excluding the protagonist from fighting the big bad, which just makes no sense. One of three things needs to happen if this is gonna be amended: Either Ash gets a Mega Evolution before he's 3/4 of the way through his badge collecting, Alain has a revelation about his boss' plan, or Lysandre begins to make more recurring appearances in either the specials or the regular anime, which would solidify who is the more likely candidate.Ash lost to Astrid because she Mega-Evolved her Absol (something I thought was incredibly cheap btw) and he never finished his battle with Diantha. But otherwise, yeah, you have a point, he can't just keep getting lucky like he'd did in the battle with Korrina and get with the program (i.e. get a Mega Evolution) if he's going to win in the end. I also agree with you on the whole Lysandre plot, it actually seems like they're going to do both him and his team justice, especially when I got a close-up of his ring (go back to the episode, skip ahead to the part with Mega Rayquaza, pause it right after it uses Draco Meteor and you'll know what I'm talking about)
Luck wasn't the only factor in his gym battle. From what we've seen Korrina is young and while she can control her Lucario's mega form they're still very inexperienced using it, plus the rest of her team were a bunch of jobbers so it was really a 3 vs 1 battle. Put Ash against someone with more experience battling with a mega and he'll fall faster than a Paras fighting a Ho-oh. If he lost like this to Astrid imagine how bad he'll be against Lysandre who's likely to be very experienced with his mega Gyarados due to his age and interest in mega evolution.
What worries me about an inevitable cross over is that Ash and co's appearance will feel gratuitous and in the worst case scenario they'll get their butts handed to them by Team Flare grunts like they did against Team Plasma. I'm pretty psyched that they're setting up Lysandre to be like an arch enemy for Alain with how personal things will get when he inevitably does they whole betrayal thing but I find it kind of funny that Ash the main character of the anime is probably not gonna beat the region's Big Bad. It would be like if in Star Wars Han Solo is the one to beat Darth Vader instead of Luke Skywalker. In that case you begin to wonder who the real main character is in this situation.
It's still probably going to be Alain fighting Lysandre. They've done everything to set it up by now. Plus Alain wants to defeat every mega and Lysandre has a pretty strong one in waiting. Thematically it's also appropriate as Mega Gyarados can be seen like a "evil" counterpart of Mega Charizard X in that they are both draconic Kanto pokemon that are not dragons but are flying types but one turns into a dragon the other becomes more of a monster. I doubt Ash will get mega capabilities because Ash's role is to advertise the new generation pokemon, Alain is the one to advertise the mega evolutions. It's unlikely Ash would stand a chance against Lysandre even with a type advantage since he's a pretty mediocre trainer and Alain seems to be few notches below an Elite 4 member going by his battle with Steven. The best Ash and co can do is hold off Team Flare and even then I have doubts they can do that, one of the admins owns a Malamar and we've seen how well Ash and co can handle themselves against one of those.
There is no doubt in my mind that Lysandre will show his true colors and when Alain finds out he'll looking for blood for deceiving him. Lysandre will probably appear multiple times throughout the season but there can be only one climactic showdown so they better make it count.
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