What did Harley and Ursula have that Burgundy and Georgia didn't?

[Cinderfella]

Hello everyone.

Thank you first off for replying to these threads. I have been horrible at responding, but I will in time. I've just been reflecting on the series lately wanted to know if people had these same questions.

We all know BW had its flaws, but Georgia and Burgundy were well received by most of the people on this forum. The issue is though, IMO, is that the way they were treated as rivals-if we really can even call them that was flawed?

The reason why I open this up here and not in the character discussion board, is because I feel Harley and Ursula also have popped in my mind in comparison.

Harley and Ursula both lost a numerous amounts of times. Actually Harley-and if you count Georgia in her debut episode-are the only rivals to get one win at the very least against a main character.

Despite Ursula and Harley's track record-they still posed as great threats to Dawn and May. I remember seeing Ursula lose to Dawn-essentially 3 times in a row(since her last two ribbon wins were against her and her very first GF battle was against her) I thought was repetitive.

However, Ursula still pushed Dawn and had more of a drive to beat her? Unlike random arguments Iris had with Georgia or Burgundy spouted against Cilan.

Also, Harley was the first kind of vindictive rival we've seen really as well. Kudo points that he was heavily implied to be gay.

Ultimately, I guess what Ursula and Harley had that Georgia and Burgundy didn't is: development and drive.

With Burgundy you got that we were going to see some development, but the Junior Cup kind of ruined that. Having her lose in the first round of every tournament was just cruel.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I think that they also had an impact on May and Dawn's journeys. Harley was still making things difficult for May even off the Contest battle field with how he kept telling her what to do and she foolishly agreed to follow suit in his first couple of appearances and he was still a threat against her in battle, even though he only defeated her once. Ursula had similar determination to beat Dawn like what Harley had for May, even though I think that they went overboard with having Dawn beat her three times in a row, especially with how cheap her victory against Ursula in the Grand Festival was. Still, both May and Dawn were able to gain ribbons and advance in their journeys due to Harley and Ursula.

I don't think that the same can be said for Georgia and Burgundy. They were fun characters, but flat out terrible rivals because their rivalries with Iris and Cilan went absolutely nowhere. Granted, I think that could cover just about all of the rivalries in BW, including Ash's rivalry with Trip, but they didn't really make Iris and Cilan improve in their respective goals. Cilan was already well ahead of Burgundy, who was more like the underdog of the rivalry compared to him. I believe that the rematch against Excadrill and Beartic was a draw and the only time Iris was able to beat Georgia was when Dragonite wouldn't listen to Iris in the Junior Cup, which even Georgia was able to rightfully recognize that she lost to Dragonite instead of Iris. The only impact Georgia had on Iris was how her first defeat led to her being able to have Excadrill listen to her again, but I thought that was handled rather poorly to begin with. Even with that in mind, it still isn't as much of an impact as Harley and Ursula had on their rivals because it helped May and Dawn to advance in their goals. In that sense, Georgia didn't have any influence on Iris becoming a better Dragon Master in training.

 

[Life]

Expanding on what Hidden Mew said:

The main difference is that Harley and Ursula pushed May and Dawn to new and greater heights both inside and outside battle, whereas Georgia mainly just annoyed Iris with petty fights and Burgundy was straight up horrible compared to Cilan. Now, don't get me wrong, the two of them are probably my favorite characters from BW, but their rivalries were horrible.

Harley and Ursula also had multiple battles with their rivals instead of Georgia and Burgundy who only battled their rivals once. Technically Georgia battled against Iris in the Junior Cup, but as Hidden Mew pointed out Georgia was really facing Iris' Dragonite and not Iris directly. And I suppose you could also argue that Burgundy had a "connoisseur battle" against Cilan, but she knew right away that she was no match for him.

If anything, it seems that the effect Harley and Ursula had on May and Dawn was the effect Iris and Cilan had on Georgia and Bugundy. The BW rivals were forced to get better to keep up with Iris and Cilan, when it should have been the other way around.

 

[Shinneth]

For whatever flaws Harley and Ursula had, the thing that made their potential as rivals shine much brighter than said potential ever did for Burgundy and Georgia was a rather simple matter: their stories remained focused on their actual rivals. Even though Ursula never scored a win over Dawn (despite deserving one far more than Kenny ever did), a good chunk of us viewers in this forum alone felt that Ursula's appeals and techniques were consistently superior to Dawn's. She was also pretty much the only rival of Dawn's that truly stood out since she didn't bother with that mundane friendly approach; she was truly antagonistic, and showed as much in very entertaining ways. We also knew Ursula was at least competent in her line of work to make it to the Grand Festival at all; ditto with Harley. I don't think i need to go into too much about what Harley had that other characters didn't; the short answer is everything.

So where Burgundy and Georgia lack compared to those two is something that mostly couldn't be helped due to executive meddling, I think. With no more Coordinators by the BW era, that left the girls doing the same thing Ash did, only we never saw them get 8 badges and can only assume they failed in that considering we never saw them in the Unova League at all. Not that their being trainers had that much to do with their rivalries against Cilan and Iris, but combined with the other unfortunate things that befell them due to the story, it is pretty disheartening that they were portrayed as being so weak that they couldn't even make it to the League. But what really bugs me is that a good chunk of the battles Georgia and Burgundy had weren't with their rivals. I'd like to point out that normally I have no issue whatsoever in rivals interacting and/or battling with people other than their designated rivals; I think that can really help flesh out their characters, which is why I was happy to see Zoey expanding out beyond Dawn and interacting a lot with Ash, as well as May and especially Candice. However, Georgia and Burgundy didn't get to appear a lot and their scenarios with their rivals was kind of a dead-end pit of despair that needed some major work before "expanding their horizons", so to speak. Burgundy was an underdog antagonist from the get-go with Cilan and that sadly went nowhere - even worse, I think Burgundy's actually battled other characters more than she ever battled Cilan, and she lost to THOSE people every time as well! She went the entirety of Best Wishes without a single victory, even when she had a better strategy than her opponent or a sheer type advantage... she'd just... fuckin' lose for no reason. Just great. What's the point of that, really? Burgundy never really seemed to learn anything worthwhile from Cilan, we never got confirmation that she even moved up beyond a C-Class Connoisseur (that word's hard enough to spell, fuck spelling the female equivalent)... it's like Burgundy wasn't allowed to improve or something. After the first Don Battle pretty much all her comedy talking bits went with Georgia instead of her proper rival as well, so... you know, what was the point of the rivalry? Then she (rightfully) antagonized Iris in the last competition she appeared in (which doubled as her last appearance in the series). Nothing was followed up on from when she was introduced at all; not one little thing. That's why I believe the lack of focus on the main rivalry at hand was a major element that prevented Burgundy from being a proper successor of Harley or Ursula.

And while Georgia's rivalry with Iris was more consistent (mainly due to Georgia's "Dragon Buster" thing being brought up every time she appears even though she only "busted" all of 2 dragons on-screen the entire series... and one of those was a babby), it also went nowhere. And personally, I found the majority of Georgia and Iris' interactions very grating, to the point that I lacked the desire to see the two share dialogue after the Don Battle. And honestly, it was impossible for me to even see Iris as the one to be rooting for in the rivalry when she sunk to Georgia's antagonistic level every chance she got; not to mention from the Don Battle onwards, Georgia's observations were way more reasonable than anything that came out of Iris' mouth. And yet she didn't take any of Georgia's words seriously until the Junior Cup, which I can't even credit Georgia for (even though she was the only one in that entire tournament who made any goddamned sense) since the consequences were so dire that nothing even needed to be said for Iris to get the picture. Georgia said very sensible things but it always felt like her words fell on deaf ears from her peers, which is a pity, because that was about the only chance I thought Iris had in actually growing as a character.

But it turned out that Iris, for one of many theories or another, wouldn't grow as a character no matter what Georgia did or said. Take Georgia out of the series entirely, and what about Iris would really change? Because I don't see anything that really would. And Cilan... er, is the older mentor-type of character who already did his growing off-screen, so I don't think there was any realistic way Burgundy could have spurred that on. It should've been the other way around - that Cilan helps Burgundy grow as a character, but that sadly didn't stick as the staff preferred to use Burgundy as a chew toy for far less entertaining characters in tournaments and then comedy fodder in conjunction with Georgia. Honestly I think that's the whole reason Burgundy and Georgia were in the Junior Cup at all; so they could provide an ounce of entertainment in what was otherwise a vanity project for a couple of shmucks. I honestly gave up hope on taking either Burgundy or Georgia seriously as rivals even before BW Season 2 came along, but the Junior Cup just kinda cemented that their original roles were buried beyond redemption.

Y'know, I remember being really bummed out about Ursula never getting her due back when DP was still airing, but back then I had no idea just how worse it could get. Ursula at least got the dignity of making it to the Grand Festival and having a very fun battle with Dawn despite never getting the on-screen win she deserved. She also got to leave a real impact on Dawn's character by bringing the whole Dee-Dee thing to light and really putting her rival in a sticky situation, much like Harley did with May (which is by far the best thing a rival's every done to a main character bar none). And compared to the abrupt shove out of the series Burgundy and Georgia got, Harley and even Ursula got some respectable exits from the show. It's just a sad, depressing state of affairs. Georgia and Burgundy could've been so much more than they ended up being, no doubt.