I'm not thinking that there will be any Gym battles at all. They just don't fit in a world traveling saga.
Then why was Brassius introduced at all?
We got some Gym Leaders like Bea, Allister, Opal, Piers, and Raihan in Journeys even though there were no Gym battles. The Paldean Gym Leaders could appear in different roles.
AND Nemona who is a very prominent character in Victory Road's story. It doesn't confirm anything, but it opens the possibility. Either way though, knowing this user, I'm sure they'll just cause an endless argument founded on baseless claims they take as fact and will ignore the reasoning of everyone else.
Given that the focus would be on Paldea, the newest region full of new Pokemon and characters, I don't really see the problem with neglecting the other regions in favor of Paldea. Outside of Galar, all of the other regions have been featured throughout the previous different series. I'd rather see them give extra special attention to Paldea instead of repeating the same mistakes they did with Galar in Journeys. They can still travel around different regions while doing a badge quest in theory at least. I don't think the badge quest can only work if they're set in a single region for one series. They can travel to one location to do a Gym battle and then travel around some other locations in different regions before going to the next Gym in Paldea. It wouldn't be hard. It would be a way to give the characters time to train in-between matches and potentially flesh out more locations in different regions.
What kind of an argument is this anyway?
They've been leading heavily into gender stereotypes starting in XY. The female leads got in less battles than before and were only given Pokemon that were stereotypically cute and feminine. I'm not sure if they're gonna change that.
I haven't played S/V, but isn't she even training a new team in the game despite already having a more powerful one?
I THINK?
I recall there being a line after your final battle against her in the post game about battling you again with her "other team" or something to that effect. So the team you fight is completely seperate.
Yeah, I think she does. At the same time, actually thinking about it, she managed to clear the Champion Assessment and earned the Champion rank before you begin your journey, so it makes sense she has that other team.
I'm not talking about a tradition. Traditions and patterns in the anime would be something more like Ash getting the early route bird or the new female lead getting the Pikachu clone of the generation. I'm talking about how the female characters have been written for the past few series. They've still battled given that's a major aspect of the franchise, but I wouldn't call the past few female leads battlers or that they had battle active goals. That has been something they've largely avoided for years, so it feels less like a pattern or a tradition and more like they aren't interested in having more battle active female characters in the cast. I'm not saying that it won't happen just because of what happened in the past. I am saying that I have my doubts about them making Liko more battle active or into traditional battling. And it isn't just because of what has happened in the past, although that's a key part of it. Given that she's going to be searching for a goal with Sprigatitio, I imagine that they'll probably take awhile to find it too. If she was going to go after Gyms, as cool as that would be, I feel like they would have mentioned that in the promotional material or at least not have her be unsure about her goal initially if she was going to find it that quickly.
To be fair, the female leads having typically cute and feminine Pokemon has largely been a thing since the beginning. Sometimes they'd get Pokemon that weren't traditionally cute and feminine, but for the most part, that was the kind of Pokemon the female leads would get. That would describe most of May and Dawn's Pokemon too, so that didn't start with XY.
Nemona is a Champion ranked trainer in the games when you first meet her, so she does have other Pokemon. I always assumed all of the Pokemon she uses in the storyline were new captures given that they're generally around the levels that the player character's team would be at as well.
Say the same to Iris, Bea, Marnie, Visquez, Cynthia, and Diantha, who not only were involved in battles, but also didn't have cute Pokemon.
It depends on what you count as a "lead", I assume the definition they meant means Iris is the only one there who counts. (Also most of those had atleast 1 Pokemon you could concider "cute")
I think that's missing the point when we're talking about the female leads. Not to mention most of these trainers would still have Pokemon that are considered traditionally cute. Even when Iris was the main female lead of BW, she still had Axew and Emolga.
