Beatsy Ray
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- Sep 1, 2019
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I'm pretty sure by the time the series began, they had already decided for Leon to be Ash's main goal this series. In every series (sans SM), his goal has been clearly laid out early on, get 8 badges and compete in the league (or in this case rise to Master Class and defeat Leon). The same can be said for supporting characters like May and Dawn. It's a little concerning that an actual main character like Gou was given so little forethought. "He's an awkward kid, he wants to catch all the Pokemon and get Mew. We'll improvise the rest." Sure, it's not impossible to pull off that style of writing, but you need to have very strong and collaborative writers.I don't really see how the writers possibly not knowing if Goh will capture Mew yet is any different with the writers possibly not knowing if Ash is actually going to battle against Leon. I'm pretty sure the latter was mentioned in another interview. They don't usually have a clear end goal for a character in mind, especially this early on in a series, so I don't see how Goh is that different in that regard. Besides that, I also think that this is just acknowledging that they'll have to do something about Legendary Pokemon down the road if they do want Goh to capture more Pokemon rather than admitting that they have no idea what to do with Goh or his goal.
There's no denying we've already seen the consequences of this. His pacing and character development have been a total clustercuss so far; with Ash it's simple, he get's stronger as he rises rank and it culminates in a final battle. With Gou, there's no beginning, middle and end, he constantly learns important lessons and then forgets them two episodes later. He wet himself during his first Pokemon battle, but with zero training he managed to beat a powerful veteran trainer in his second battle (offscreen), and now he practically rivals Ash. Despite supposedly having learned the importance of battling Pokemon before capture, he still insists on chucking Pokeballs at everything that moves, and you can't blame him because his success rate is stupid.
At some point, a character needs to face obstacles and grow. I'm sure that Dawn's depression arc was conceived towards the start, and her, May and Serena all faced crushing defeats early on to put their upcoming challenges into perspective. These moments are instrumental in creating characters that the audience can actually care about. 47 episodes in and Gou has yet to face any legitimate adversity. The Rabifoot conflict only mattered for one episode and it basically resolved itself. The sad part is that the interviewer actually asked about this, and all the director could come up with is, "He's actually going to have to battle a couple Pokemon before catching them, look forward to it!"
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