Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournament?

[Paulisthebest]

It’s been awhile since I made a thread like this, but here we go the two newbie girls in Ash’s group beat well seasoned Pokemon in a battle to beat May and Ash. Pikachu loses to Excadrill and Glaceon against Piplup. Which match was more believable than the other?

To me it seems like both contests were designed to help develop the characters of Iris and Dawn. Iris was just getting a handle on her relationship with Excadrill since it’s been a long time since the two of them worked as a team and won a battle. Dawn has been losing contest after contest and was questioning her path as a Coordinator. But in the long run it was like everything was handed to them on a silver platter to come out on top.

Honestly, one would think Dawn wouldn’t use Piplup since she just used it in a prior match against Kyle’s Crawdaunt and won. Considering this let May see all of Piplup’s attacks she’d know how to counter. Not to mention the battle didn’t seem fair considering the writers gave Glaceon a crappy move set beforehand; Ice Shard, Secret Power, Shadow Ball and Mirror Coat. Two of the moves were good but Secret Power and Ice Shard needed to go due to low Attack power on Glaceon’s side.

At the Don Tournament final round, it was obvious that it was at a disadvantage against a Ground type so like the match with Trip’s Snivy (when it was sick) it couldn’t use any electric moves. Pikachu just beat a legendary but still it lost to a far weaker Pokemon at the start of the series…

The thing that pissed me off about this match the most was how the writers greatly exaggerate Pikachu’s endurance in battle. It got way too tired way too fast in this battle. Against Flint’s Infernape it seemed like an impossible opponent to take down (must have been holding Evolite to raise its defenses, even though the stuff never existed til BW lol).

So which female victor seemed more unfair than the other? Honestly, I'd say Iris considering I hate her attitude toward everyone that she calls a kid. She makes more mistakes than the people she claims to be childish sometimes. But it takes a kid to know a kid I suppose.

 

[Ino-Chan]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

Dawn almost winning the Grand Festival was more ridiculous than her winning the Wallace Cup. So I went with the Iris choice, since it was kinda strange fer her to win

 

[Iteru]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

Moved to the GF, where this sort of thread belongs. Reasons for your choices are needed for posts now on, otherwise PP infractions or warnings may be given.

 

[Cascada]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

There really should have been a neither option, because I see nothing wrong with either wins personally. If we base it on final battle....

Dawn vs May: Glaceon was May's least experienced and Dawn had more unique moves/Styles
Iris vs Ash: Ground can not be affected by Electric, Excadrill was arguably with Iris longer than Pikachu was with Ash, Pikachu's moves were limited

 

[Shinneth]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

If you really think about it, Dawn's win at the Wallace Cup wasn't that far-fetched. She was coming off a losing streak that lasted 40-something episodes and desperately needed a win to get her back in her groove. Add that, the fact it was a VERY close match, and it was Dawn's starter (i.e. strongest Pokemon) versus May's most recently-acquired (and newly evolved at that) Pokemon sort of evens out the odds here. So it wasn't unreasonable for Dawn to win.

Iris was the one who had everything handled to her on a silver platter. Sure, her win against Ash is legit, but that's not saying much since it was her Excadrill against his Pikachu, which put Ash at a severe disadvantage and there was no pressure on Iris at all. Anyone with an Excadrill could've defeated Ash's Pikachu, so that's really not saying much about Iris as a trainer. Having the finals of a 4-episode tournament arc being a foregone conclusion was a mistake in of itself.

The real bullshit was how Iris got to the finals; her battle against Luke. And before that, Emolga conveniently discarded her personality quirks and became a friggin' tank for convenience's sake and none of this is adequately explained. You didn't see any of Dawn's Pokemon suddenly discard their flaws for the sole purpose of getting Dawn to advance through the rounds, did you? None of them learned a move they had no business learning so early on out of nowhere just to win a battle like Iris' Axew did, either. And while Dawn had a type advantage in the finals, it wasn't a big deal since it was a Contest battle and it wasn't a freaking type immunity that severely nerfed May's ability to do her best with Glaceon. And at the very least, you could see strategy applied to the Dawn/May battle. Iris' strategy was minimal and normally centered on "hit it until it goes down", especially in the finals.

I'm sort of surprised this is even up for debate.

 

[Bouffalant Herdier]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

Iris, no doubt.

Dawn's victory over her predecessor was a little jarring, but as we had already discovered from her stint in the show, May is definitely not unbeatable and was prone to making many mistakes of her own. Plus, Dawn had fallen into a deep depression after her last two contest challenges had ended in disaster. It made her much easier to root for and a far more deserved win.

Iris, on the other hand... ugh, never has there been a more forced and cheap victory. The problems with her team vanished into thin air just to let her win; Emolga suddenly obeyed orders without question, Axew learned the strongest move available to it to at the best time possible, (despite having so much trouble with the lowly Dragon Rage not long ago) and whilst Excadrill does indeed have a huge advantage over Electric types, Ash was practically forced to use Pikachu. And after 40+ episodes of Iris belittling Ash, she was asking for a Break the Haughty moment; the last thing she deserved was to defeat him and everyone else in a major tournament. Even Trip winning would've been a better outcome.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

Iris's win in the Club Battle Tournament was far more ridiculous than Dawn winning the Wallace Cup. It's no contest, pun intended, for me. Even though I still don't like Dawn beating May, if only because she's my favorite female character of the series, it wasn't that much of a stretch. The whole Wallace Cup arc had been built up as Dawn's Contest comeback after her losing streak. She was battling against May's least experienced Pokemon with her strongest Pokemon and the match was seriously close. It was actually important for Dawn's character to win that tournament after losing two Contests in a row without even getting passed the appeal round.

With Iris, the main problem I have with her winning the Club Battle Tournament is simply how she got to the finals. Emolga listened to Iris without having that problem resolved on-screen, which was just lazy, and I thought it took too much damage from Sawk, despite its resistance to Fighting type moves, to continue on like she did. Not to mention that it felt like a pretty cheap win. But even if one made a decent argument for that win, I don't think that there is one for Iris defeating Luke. She clearly should have lost that match. Neither she or Axew knew what they were doing, especially since Iris spent the majority of the match screaming "Axew! No!" and telling it to run. Axew couldn't do much, if any, damage to Golett with its attacks and despite learning to control Dragon Rage, the immense lack of training still made Axew incredibly weak. All of that should have made Iris lose the match, but the writers decided to throw her yet another bone, which happens way too often as it is, and had Axew learn Outrage, the strongest physical Dragon type move, despite how it took Axew around thirty episodes to use Dragon Rage. That is just a terrible way to win a match, especially when Iris was so inactive before the arc and she spent the previous couple of episodes bragging about herself through Zorua pretending to be Georgia. She really should have suffered some consequence for her lack of training and actually learn from her mistakes. They had her lose in that tournament in the last movie due to Emolga's attitude problem, which makes me question why that didn't happen in this tournament, especially when we saw Emolga before the Club Battle Tournament, she still had the same attitude.

Though, Axew learning Outrage still bothers me so much, even more so than Dawn getting Togekiss shortly before the Grand Festival. It is just terrible writing and there is no excuse for it. The only way I could have been slightly okay with Axew learning Outrage like that would be if it couldn't control its power, attacked the people in the stands and even Iris, similar to what happened with Chimchar when it couldn't control its Blaze ability. Then, seeing how out of control Axew was, a frightened Iris would take herself out of the tournament while taking Axew to a nearby Pokemon Center, leading Luke and Ash to battle in the finals. The writers would probably have to actually put effort into Iris's character to do something like that, but that would have been the only way I would have been slightly okay with Axew learning Outrage like that, especially if it did affect Iris's character and made her realize how ineffective her training method really is. Her match against Ash wasn't nearly as problematic as her other two matches that we saw, but Excadrill vs. Pikachu is an easy win for Iris due to the type advantage alone. If she didn't deserve to get to the finals, which at least her match against Luke showed, then that would make her winning the whole tournament feel cheap and undeserved.

At least with Dawn, she actually did some training with her Pokemon prior to the tournament, though mainly for appeals, the tournament was built up as her comeback Contest and it was important for her character to win the tournament. Iris doesn't have anything like that to make her victory in the Club Battle Tournament valid or reasonable. It's just the writers favoring Iris and letting her reach accomplishments without actually putting any actual effort to deserve them. If she had been doing some training shortly before the tournament or better yet, winning the tournament was important to her goal and/or her character, then it possibly would have been easier to accept Iris winning the tournament. Having either Luke or Ash win the tournament would have made much more sense. While seeing May win the Wallace Cup would have been awesome for me, it wouldn't have made sense given the way the arc had been built up for Dawn to regain her confidence.

 

[Cybersai]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

Dawn winning the Wallace Cup was fine. The scoreboard showed that May only lost by literally by 1% of the scoreboard.

 

[Prez]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

I dunno...both were kinda ridiculous if you ask me :/ But I would have to go with Iris. Should of voted for her @_@

 

[Trainer Gabriel]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

Yeah, basically what many others have already said. Dawn winning the Wallace Cup was simply far more deserved than Iris winning the Club Battle Tournament.

If the writers really wanted Iris to a tournament that badly, they should have had Axew get more on-screen training and victories, considering he has never been shown to be able to even battle too well (as well as not randomly learn one of the most powerful Dragon-type moves after all the effort just to master Dragon Rage), and include another episode where Emolga learns how to trust Iris completely instead of ignoring it altogether until the most convenient time. So now, we got the most undeserved tournament victory of all time. :-(

At least Dawn actually put in some effort into her win and also won in a believable way, by using her most experienced Pokemon when May didn't. Sure, Iris had a believable victory in the finals as well, but... the fact that she got too lucky in her previous battles negates that credibility, not to mention having TOO much of an advantage to make her final victory even more convenient.

What would May winning the Wallace Cup even accomplish anyway? Nothing. May would have simply won a new ribbon and be on her merry way back to Johto to continue her journey to enter the Grand Festival, that will be all off-screen, and that has no impact on the audience since she is no longer part of the main cast. And then Dawn would have just had to win an extra ribbon anyway, considering we already knew that she was going to earn enough to make it to the Sinnoh Grand Festival. So why not just give her that ribbon to pull her out of her (temporary) losing streak?

Iris definitely had the most ridiculoust tournament victory by far. It's not even a contest.

Dawn winning the Grand Festival was more ridiculous than her winning the Wallace Cup.

... What?

 

[Ino-Chan]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

@Trainer_Gabriel: Edited the first post. Was typing fast and got the fact messed up. My point still stands, as getting second place seems to be too high up for a first timer.

 

[Peachy]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

Iris. As people said above me, it wasn't really the final round, it was how she got there. Emolga put away all of her bratty-ness, and Axew suddenly pulled outrage out of nowhere.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

@Trainer_Gabriel: Edited the first post. Was typing fast and got the fact messed up. My point still stands, as getting second place seems to be too high up for a first timer.

Personally, I thought it was more jarring than ridiculous. It wasn't because this was her first time in the Grand Festival, but because I didn't think she was that strong of a coordinator. Dawn deserved to be in the Grand Festival and she has the skills to get a good rank, but based on the little we saw of her battles in the Grand Festival, I didn't think she was anywhere close to being in the finals. Though, most of that was how completely outclassed she was by Zoey for the majority of their match and if we had seen more of her other battles, especially her match against Jessie, I might have been more okay with Dawn getting into the finals. Still, Iris winning the Club Battle Tournament was much worse.

 

[BlazeMaster]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

Unlike May I didn't really think that Dawn had many good rivals in the GF. The fact is the only serious three were Kenny Nando and Zoey and she only faced the last one, WHERE SHE LOST!

However winning the Wallace Cup was utterly ridiculous, beating an experienced coordinator and getting pretty badly wooped in the process

Iris kinda won the Club Battle because of luck really to be fair. Round 1: Gender of Opponent
Round 2: Static
Round 3: Axew learning its most powerful Dragon type attack WTF
Finals: Type dissadvantage, and the fact that the rat sucks.

So actually I'm going to say Iris just because the writers engineered her to win it

 

[Cybersai]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

Considering May beat Zoey in the Wallace Cup, something Dawn was never able to do, I don't see how anyone thought the tournament "downplayed" May's abilities. She always battled more aggressively than as a coordinator, so its obvious she still had a lot to learn.

Plus the match-up was fair. If you pay attention to the attacks and techniques on both sides it was handled very well. Dawn barely scraped by which made it acceptable and believeable.

 

[Ashs Battle Coach]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

Iris, no doubt.

Dawn's victory over her predecessor was a little jarring, but as we had already discovered from her stint in the show, May is definitely not unbeatable and was prone to making many mistakes of her own. Plus, Dawn had fallen into a deep depression after her last two contest challenges had ended in disaster. It made her much easier to root for and a far more deserved win.

Iris, on the other hand... ugh, never has there been a more forced and cheap victory. The problems with her team vanished into thin air just to let her win; Emolga suddenly obeyed orders without question, Axew learned the strongest move available to it to at the best time possible, (despite having so much trouble with the lowly Dragon Rage not long ago) and whilst Excadrill does indeed have a huge advantage over Electric types, Ash was practically forced to use Pikachu. And after 40+ episodes of Iris belittling Ash, she was asking for a Break the Haughty moment; the last thing she deserved was to defeat him and everyone else in a major tournament. Even Trip winning would've been a better outcome.

This, Everything this.

 

[Caseydia]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

There was nothing ridiculous about Dawn winning the Wallace cup. I know May was seen as stronger and more confident but Dawn battled perfectly and she deserved that win. Now the whole Don battle thing was a good plot for training but the competition itself was not my favorite. I didn't see the battles as interesting and serious. The characters all knew each other and most of them(Bianca) were acting like fools. I wanted to see more of the rival chemistry between Ash and Trip, Cilan and Burgundy that was missing beyond the tournament.

 

[Cinderfella]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

Iris, hands down and here are the reasons:

1.) Pokemon Primary Rule of Every Saga: If a Pokemon disobeys you, work with it until you can train it, at least ATTEMPT! Iris didn't even do that shit, and while Emolga is cute as I don't know what and there was some strategy there, it was so unbelievable I couldn't even enjoy its battle. Seriously, who does that?

2.) Another Pokemon Primary Rule of Every Saga: If you are a baby Pokemon simply not equipped with what's needed to win a battle, then automatically you should lose. Hell, I would have been more comfortable with Excadrill being used twice and Axew being shown for 5 seconds in a side battle than that cheap shit. Like for real? Learning Outrage, still as a Fucking Baby? I was seriously starting to wonder if the series REALLY lost its touch when this happened.

3.) Excadrill vs Pikachu was already predetermined because you truly can't win against a Ground type if you are electric and the strongest move you can use is Iron Tail. It wasn't the fact that Iris beat Ash, but it was really how it was done.

Ash worked hard and played fair to advance, while Iris didn't. I have nothing against the girl, but she really should not have won, at least not then. If the end of BW she was developed, then fine.

I quite enjoyed the Wallace Cup, everyone was on their A-game, and the least realistic thing one could possibly say that came out of that tournament was how rushed Dawn vs Kyle was, and how Ambipom should have been used in that round, instead of Piplup, especially since it was released later on.

So, Iris gets this Razzie award for the most ridiculous win of a tournament ever. Misty winning the Princess tournament in Princess vs Princess was more believable.

 

[Cybersai]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

I can't imagine the complaining if something like Blaziken lost to Piplup. Thankfully the writers made the match up much more fair and believeable.

 

[El_]

Re: Which was more ridiculous; Dawn winning Wallace Cup or Iris winning Don Tournamen

The Wallace Cup was actually pretty enjoyable to watch, like something you can watch over and over again and enjoy. The Don Tournament is what you watch when you need a good horror flick to scare your buddies away.

Dawn deserved and most importantly she actually "needed" that win. The brilliant thing was that you didn't know if she was going to win and get out of her rut or not, but I'm glad the way it was handled. It was also sort of a "passing the torch" kind of thing from one coordinator to another.

Iris on the other hand... did not need that win. Hell, what she needed was a major loss so she could have something to strive for, which is exactly what made Dawn's story so good not to mention that Dawn actually "worked" or was shown training alot back in DP.

While you were on the edge of your seat for Dawn vs May, Iris vs Ash was basically predetermined when the match began. Not only that but compared to the battle of Piplup vs Glaceon the match was very poor IMO since Pikachu can't do much to Excadrill. Why Pikachu was even chosen in the first place was pure BS.

Like I said though, the entire Don Tournament was unenjoyable due to poor developments, so Iris's win is a fitting icing on the cake to a poor tournament. Using movie analogy like at the beginning of this post, comparing the Don Tournament and Iris winning it to the Wallace Cup and Dawn winning is like comparing a bad horror movie to a summer blockbuster or academy award winning movie.

For the record, I have nothing against Iris's character really, its just how they are developing her thats ridiculous.