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Why was Serena written out?

Because thats always how its been since Misty left after Johto, the main characters in the anime are used to promote the games so unless Serena is in the games she won't appear again after she gets her obligatory return before leaving again, honestly I doubt anyone pays attention to the petitions anyway fans rarely understand the deeper meaning behind some of the decisions companies make instead just focusing on what they want.
 
Out with the old, in with the new. This has been the rule for girls since AG and for boys since BW, so I wouldn't expect it to be changed anytime soon. Not even with a hundred petitions.

The anime aims to promote the new games and Serena is old news, so she got the boot, whether fans like it or not.

It would be nice if she got a cameo in SM, especially after seeing how popular she is in Japan and how relatively recent she is, but I won't hold my breath for that.
 
To promote the new games. It's been like this since Gen 3 (with the exception of Brock, though he did leave at some point), so it makes no sense to think Serena would actually have a chance at staying.

And the petitions mean nothing.
 
Like Cresselia92 said, it's how it's always been after Misty.

Though with all the popularity surrounding Serena, I like to think that they may be making a special for her about her Contest life.
 
Been like this since generation 3. Misty was moved out to make room for May, then May was moved out to make room for Dawn, and then Dawn and Brock was moved out to make room for Iris and Cilan. To promote the new generation, they have to kick Ash's friends from the previous generation out to make room for the new characters in the new generation. The same thing is going to happen to Ash's current friends when generation 8 starts coming in and they need to make space for the new generation 8 characters that Ash is going to be with. The only way for the old characters will be seen again for a while is through cameos, but don't put your heads up even though Serena is really popular.
 
I'm kind of surprised that people are reacting this way. Characters lasting for only one series isn't new, especially with the female leads. As others have said, this has been the status quo since AG. The female leads, along with the secondary male characters starting with BW, have been replaced in order to promote the newest games. Serena is a sixth generation character, so she wouldn't work for SM given that the focus is on seventh generation Pokemon and characters. Ash and Team Rocket are the only exceptions to characters being replaced due to Ash being the lead and Team Rocket being popular. Marketing wise, it wouldn't make any sense to keep Serena around. Petitions wouldn't change that either. Most of the petitions came around shortly before or after XY ended and the decision to replace Serena had long been finalized. I doubt that they would have made a difference even if they were started early.

I also don't really understand why fans wanted Serena to stick around. I understand in the sense that she was generally popular and people wanted to see one of their favorite characters stay instead of being written off. The fact that she has a popular pairing with Ash was also a factor for at least a good number of her fans. However, character wise, it wouldn't have made sense for Serena to go to Alola. Not only would Alola not have Showcases or really any way to help her with her goal, but it would have been a major regression for her character to stay with Ash. Serena realizing what she wanted to do at the end of XY and deciding to go on her own journey was kind of important. Granted, I don't think that it was handled particularly well, mainly due to how Contests were suddenly brought up out of nowhere and considered a way for her to improve her Showcase skills despite the fact that Contests require a whole other set of skills that she couldn't really use as a Performer, but it was still a sign of character growth. Throwing all of that away just so she could follow Ash around for another region wouldn't have been good for her character. Even if I liked Serena more than I did and liked the idea of her coming to Alola, I feel like it would have done her character way more harm than good, especially when I don't think she would have worked within SM based on what I've seen thus far.

I could see her appearing in SM at some point or at least get a special given how popular she turned out to be. Just being able to see a Contest again would really be nice, even if I still find the decision for Serena to go to Hoenn really weird and poorly handled, but that's the most that people can reasonably expect for her at this point.
 
We don't actually know if there'll be showcases or contests in Alola...

The decision for Serena to go to Hoenn is indeed kind of weird though cause it's not like they're promoting ORAS anymore at that point of time.

Anyway I feel like Serena can be distinguished from May and Dawn. Unlike the two of them, the Kalos player character was completely customizable. They even emphasized this by having Serena change her look halfway through the season, showing how her look isn't static. Given that the player characters are all completely customizable now, they could have used Serena to promote the new games by putting her in the new player character's clothes (like my display picture). May and Dawn on the other hand are so strongly associated with their original design it's hard for them to use them to promote new games by slapping on completely new clothes onto them.
 
Clothes have nothing to do with this. And it is safe to assume that contests won't be in any game this generation; showcases were actually a more faithful adaptation of the shallow in-game contests than anime contests ever were.
 
Clothes have nothing to do with this.

What has this got to do with then? The player characters are only recognizable from their in-game designs.

They won't be in the games but who is to say that they won't be in the anime? Besides, we have only been to 2 islands, the other island barely. There could be anything out there really.
 
So you're saying that the writers should randomly add contests to a region that doesn't have them, and pretend that Serena is the SM protagonist.

Clearly, they weren't that desperate to keep her around.
 
We don't actually know if there'll be showcases or contests in Alola...

The decision for Serena to go to Hoenn is indeed kind of weird though cause it's not like they're promoting ORAS anymore at that point of time.

Anyway I feel like Serena can be distinguished from May and Dawn. Unlike the two of them, the Kalos player character was completely customizable. They even emphasized this by having Serena change her look halfway through the season, showing how her look isn't static. Given that the player characters are all completely customizable now, they could have used Serena to promote the new games by putting her in the new player character's clothes (like my display picture). May and Dawn on the other hand are so strongly associated with their original design it's hard for them to use them to promote new games by slapping on completely new clothes onto them.

It seems highly unlikely that Showcases or Contest would be in Alola. I suppose it's possible that US/UM could introduce Contests in Alola, which could be interesting depending on how they handle it, but I don't think that's likely either. The show hasn't mentioned anything about them. It would feel way too strange to just suddenly include Showcases in Alola now and they'd stick out like a sore thumb. It wouldn't really fit well with how they've presented the Alola region. Even if they're in the last two islands, it's not like Serena could suddenly come back into the cast just for those Showcases/Contests, especially when SM would probably be halfway done by the time we get to the third island. Even something like a Wallace Cup version of a Showcase wouldn't really work when there hasn't been any mention of Showcases in the series thus far. There hasn't been any indication that Showcases even exist anywhere outside of Kalos.

People also really seemed to like the idea of Serena wearing the the default outfit of the playable female character. I saw quite a bit of fanart about that from fans who wanted Serena to stay. I don't think that would have been enough to really have her promote the seventh generation though. Sure, Ash gets new outfits based on the new playable male trainers all the time, but I think that works because he isn't directly tied into the first generation as much as Serena is to the sixth. He is based on Red, but he has a more distinct design so that he isn't just anime version of Red. The same can't really be said for Serena when her design makes her instantly identifiable to the sixth generation and her video game counterpart much more so than Ash.
 
People also really seemed to like the idea of Serena wearing the the default outfit of the playable female character. I saw quite a bit of fanart about that from fans who wanted Serena to stay. I don't think that would have been enough to really have her promote the seventh generation though. Sure, Ash gets new outfits based on the new playable male trainers all the time, but I think that works because he isn't directly tied into the first generation as much as Serena is to the sixth. He is based on Red, but he has a more distinct design so that he isn't just anime version of Red. The same can't really be said for Serena when her design makes her instantly identifiable to the sixth generation and her video game counterpart much more so than Ash.

I agree with what you said mostly but not this. Serena's second look, which was what made her famous, isn't found in the game (as far as I am aware of). I don't think her association with Kalos is that strong. If anything, I think people think of her as Ash's girlfriend lol.

Anyway, just because a main character is not from Alola wouldn't really make the difference between whether Alola is promoted enough or not when the entire season is set in Alola, features a whole bunch of Alolan pokemon and characters.
 
No one is saying that Serena couldn't have possibly stayed. But she left just like any traveling companion before her; she isn't special.
 
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This kind of thing has been happening for ages. And Japanese animation companies don't care about western minority fan petitions.
 
I'm kind of surprised that people are reacting this way. Characters lasting for only one series isn't new, especially with the female leads. As others have said, this has been the status quo since AG. The female leads, along with the secondary male characters starting with BW, have been replaced in order to promote the newest games. Serena is a sixth generation character, so she wouldn't work for SM given that the focus is on seventh generation Pokemon and characters. Ash and Team Rocket are the only exceptions to characters being replaced due to Ash being the lead and Team Rocket being popular. Marketing wise, it wouldn't make any sense to keep Serena around. Petitions wouldn't change that either. Most of the petitions came around shortly before or after XY ended and the decision to replace Serena had long been finalized. I doubt that they would have made a difference even if they were started early.

I'm not. When it is revealed that a female lead had met Ash prior to the series and has a romantic crush that never goes away, she gets elevated by fans to further prominence. Only the original cast could top her in terms of fans wanting back. That and she has proven that she can be customizable with new outfits and haircuts.

But really, I think more fans would rather have Serena leave but affirm her love for Ash with a kiss on the lips than have her stick around and potentially have the writers screw up their relationship. Character fatigue fizzles out anything interesting about them.
 
Brock has shown what happens when a character stays past their expiration date. Serena left to pursue her dreams, abandoning her dreams to stay with Ash would be a regression of her character.

If Serena was going to stay, the kiss would have never happened. The kiss pretty much marked the end of her story arc and was one final bit of fanservice for the AmourShippers; she's not coming back after that, and if she does, they'll just act like it never happened, bringing her character right back to square one.

If "AmourShippers" really cared about Serena as a character, they'd be glad she was given a satisfying sendoff.

And no, having a crush on Ash does not give Serena any more prominence/signifance as a character. The whole thing was such a blatant marketing gimmick that I'm shocked so many people fell for it. It was clear from the beginning that it would never actually go anywhere and was just an attempt to bring viewers back to the show; an attempt that failed, mind you.

Did Serena and her "crush" bring back any old viewers? Nope. Are any of the current viewers going to stop watching if she leaves? Again, nope.

Her generation is over, and "AmourShipping" failed at its intended purpose.
 
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