Alain vs Paul; Battle Of The Strongest!

[Ragnarok4]

gagged him

That sounds a bit humiliating :$

guy get destroyed front and back, right and left

........

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

That sounds a bit humiliating :$

........

......My mind wasn't even on that bro delete this XD
But nah, didn't mean it that way

 

[Sham]

I swear I wanted to prove that Paul is strong enough to defeat some of the M8 members... But I can't find narrative reasons to prove it.

Because there ain’t any. It’s hard to find something that doesn’t exist.

 

[Sham]

As I've already explained, getting into the M8 is a feat. That's better than Paul's best feat (losing to Ash in a training battle). Losing to Cynthia's as she uses a Mega while using no gimmick in the quarterfinals is better than losing to Ash on even footing in a training battle.

Close the thread. What exactly was the next 8 pages about after this was said?

 

[Damerdal]

I love how you absolutely gagged him lol, he couldn't even respond to you
Absolutely loved your posts in this thread for actually taking into account what happened IN the series, you were the best poster easily in this thread !!

Except I did respond to it lol. What’s this childish cheering anyway?

@Sham Sorry I’m too busy putting out tire fires on night call in the hospital rn that I can’t respond to a lengthy post -.-

 

[Sham]

Except I did respond to it lol. What’s this childish cheering anyway?

@Sham Sorry I’m too busy putting out tire fires on night call in the hospital rn that I can’t respond to a lengthy post -.-

No no, he’s talking about the later quote in post from that guy and don’t worry!

 

[Ragnarok4]

Not even Paul himself considers him on the same level as the Masters 8

Ehm, sorry to bring this up again, but when Paul says "no hope of winning" is implying that Ash would be unable to win against Leon... right? I think that ultimately this line does not imply that Paul is weaker than the entire M8...right? (although in my opinion he is the 9th best in the world)

 

[RafaSceptile]

Ehm, sorry to bring this up again, but when Paul says "no hope of winning" is implying that Ash would be unable to win against Leon... right? I think that ultimately this line does not imply that Paul is weaker than the entire M8...right? (although in my opinion he is the 9th best in the world)

This previous line suggests to me that Paul is talking about the Masters 8 in general and not just Leon

 

[Vernikova]

Well, I did look at those posts already.

IMO, it is definitely an overthink to believe that 1 vague quote suggests anything more than Paul taunting Ash, and trying to push Ash via the hard approach (like so many coaches do). This quote could suggest any degree of power level for Paul from being on par with the lowest of the Masters 8 to being nth times worse.

I mean, we have posters here claiming that "Paul's (non-ace) Garchomp > Ash's Dragonite > Iris' ace Haxorus" is apparently an inappropriate comparison even though it's an imperfect but actual indirect feat comparison, but at the same time an offhand verbal taunt is indisputable proof that Paul is much worse than the Masters 8?

It's not a vague quote: it's what he says. It is a taunt, but i'm not sure Paul has ever been one to taunt Ash by calling himself weak. He generally taunts someone based arou d the situation e.g., he will call someone weak if they actually perform below expectations. If anything, him taunting Ash adds legitimacy to Paul's claim

The a>b>c powerscaling point has flaws that have been shown. Trainer vs trainer powerscaling is probably more reliable than Pokemon vs Pokemon powerscaling.

 

[Vernikova]

@Damerdal

Since I have a few minutes of free time, I'll go over why I feel that Pokemon a>b>c is flawed at best. It's because Pokemon performance can vary between battles. The easiest example to point out is Pikachu between series back in the day. Pikachu would often be "reset" between series. Pokemon are often given episodes to shine in which case they may perform better than they usually do for the sake of focus (e.g., an episode where a Pokemon is going to evolve may have that Pokemon be extra tanky during battle to create a better climax with the evolution). Like I've said earlier, powerlevels vary and can lead to conclusions that may create a circular loop of logic.

Let's take Iris's Haxorus as an example. It lost to Ash's Dragonite, so we have [Ash's Dragonite > Iris's Haxorus]. Later on, a presumably stronger Dragonite loses to Raihan's Flygon, so we may be able to say [Raihan's Flygon > Ash's Dragonite], and we can extend this logic to say [Raihan's Flygon > Ash's Dragonite > Iris's Haxorus]. Thus [Raihan's Flygon > Iris's Haxorus]. Since team level is supposed to be relative to trainer level, it would be safe say to say that Raihan > Ash > Iris.

This seems good, but Ash beats Raihan, so it should really look like Ash > Raihan > Iris (especially since Raihan beat a Pokemon that beat Iris's ace). However, Iris is presumed to have beaten Raihan to get into the 7th spot in the M8, and I think based on rankings, people would say Iris is stronger (though even rankings don't completely correlate: see Ash), so we have Ash > Iris > Raihan, but according to our Pokemon scaling, Raihan should be above Iris.

This is a quick example of how Pokemon performance isn't a consistent marker for power in many cases. a>b>c scaling using trainer battles taking into account battle context (e.g. how close the battle was, etc) is much more reliable for powerscaling purposes than just individual Pokemon since trainers generally don't lose to trainers weaker than them in the anime (exceptions exist of course).

This is why we shouldn't take the Garchomp > Dragonite > Haxorus scaling as a strong indication of where the three trainers stand relative to one another.

On account to your issue with the quotation: the quotation isn't vague. It's a very direct statement where Paul says that Ash shouldn't be struggling with Paul if Ash wants any hope of winning the tournament. I'm not sure what's vague about that statement. Paul generally taunts based off of observations (e.g., he calls Chimchar weak because it lost a lot in battle) and, from what I remember, doesn't make stuff up when taunting people. Maybe he has a few times. It's been over ten years since I last watched DP. In any case, I don't see why Paul would taunt Ash while downplaying his own strength if his admission of his own power isn't somewhat true. He could just as easily say that Ash would never be able to win the tournament with how weak he [Ash] is. But Paul doesn't" Paul qualifies Ash's inability to win the tournament because Ash is struggling to beat Paul. If Paul saw himself as someone with a viable chance to win the tournament, then he wouldn't say that to Ash.

Short explanation

This quote could suggest any degree of power level for Paul from being on par with the lowest of the Masters 8 to being nth times worse.

Yes, but the lower level of the M8 all have better feats than Paul, so there's no reason to place Paul above any of them.

 

[Ragnarok4]

@Damerdal

Since I have a few minutes of free time, I'll go over why I feel that Pokemon a>b>c is flawed at best. It's because Pokemon performance can vary between battles. The easiest example to point out is Pikachu between series back in the day. Pikachu would often be "reset" between series. Pokemon are often given episodes to shine in which case they may perform better than they usually do for the sake of focus (e.g., an episode where a Pokemon is going to evolve may have that Pokemon be extra tanky during battle to create a better climax with the evolution). Like I've said earlier, powerlevels vary and can lead to conclusions that may create a circular loop of logic.

Let's take Iris's Haxorus as an example. It lost to Ash's Dragonite, so we have [Ash's Dragonite > Iris's Haxorus]. Later on, a presumably stronger Dragonite loses to Raihan's Flygon, so we may be able to say [Raihan's Flygon > Ash's Dragonite], and we can extend this logic to say [Raihan's Flygon > Ash's Dragonite > Iris's Haxorus]. Thus [Raihan's Flygon > Iris's Haxorus]. Since team level is supposed to be relative to trainer level, it would be safe say to say that Raihan > Ash > Iris.

This seems good, but Ash beats Raihan, so it should really look like Ash > Raihan > Iris (especially since Raihan beat a Pokemon that beat Iris's ace). However, Iris is presumed to have beaten Raihan to get into the 7th spot in the M8, and I think based on rankings, people would say Iris is stronger (though even rankings don't completely correlate: see Ash), so we have Ash > Iris > Raihan, but according to our Pokemon scaling, Raihan should be above Iris.

This is a quick example of how Pokemon performance isn't a consistent marker for power in many cases. a>b>c scaling using trainer battles taking into account battle context (e.g. how close the battle was, etc) is much more reliable for powerscaling purposes than just individual Pokemon since trainers generally don't lose to trainers weaker than them in the anime (exceptions exist of course).

This is why we shouldn't take the Garchomp > Dragonite > Haxorus scaling as a strong indication of where the three trainers stand relative to one another.

On account to your issue with the quotation: the quotation isn't vague. It's a very direct statement where Paul says that Ash shouldn't be struggling with Paul if Ash wants any hope of winning the tournament. I'm not sure what's vague about that statement. Paul generally taunts based off of observations (e.g., he calls Chimchar weak because it lost a lot in battle) and, from what I remember, doesn't make stuff up when taunting people. Maybe he has a few times. It's been over ten years since I last watched DP. In any case, I don't see why Paul would taunt Ash while downplaying his own strength if his admission of his own power isn't somewhat true. He could just as easily say that Ash would never be able to win the tournament with how weak he [Ash] is. But Paul doesn't" Paul qualifies Ash's inability to win the tournament because Ash is struggling to beat Paul. If Paul saw himself as someone with a viable chance to win the tournament, then he wouldn't say that to Ash.

Short explanation


Yes, but the lower level of the M8 all have better feats than Paul, so there's no reason to place Paul above any of them.

damn this was based af

In any case, I think that it is not ruled out to some battles. I think the circular logic is flawed, but still some important annotations can be be taken into account based on some punctual performances of some pokemon.

 

[Damerdal]

@Damerdal

Since I have a few minutes of free time, I'll go over why I feel that Pokemon a>b>c is flawed at best. It's because Pokemon performance can vary between battles. The easiest example to point out is Pikachu between series back in the day. Pikachu would often be "reset" between series. Pokemon are often given episodes to shine in which case they may perform better than they usually do for the sake of focus (e.g., an episode where a Pokemon is going to evolve may have that Pokemon be extra tanky during battle to create a better climax with the evolution). Like I've said earlier, powerlevels vary and can lead to conclusions that may create a circular loop of logic.

Let's take Iris's Haxorus as an example. It lost to Ash's Dragonite, so we have [Ash's Dragonite > Iris's Haxorus]. Later on, a presumably stronger Dragonite loses to Raihan's Flygon, so we may be able to say [Raihan's Flygon > Ash's Dragonite], and we can extend this logic to say [Raihan's Flygon > Ash's Dragonite > Iris's Haxorus]. Thus [Raihan's Flygon > Iris's Haxorus]. Since team level is supposed to be relative to trainer level, it would be safe say to say that Raihan > Ash > Iris.

This seems good, but Ash beats Raihan, so it should really look like Ash > Raihan > Iris (especially since Raihan beat a Pokemon that beat Iris's ace). However, Iris is presumed to have beaten Raihan to get into the 7th spot in the M8, and I think based on rankings, people would say Iris is stronger (though even rankings don't completely correlate: see Ash), so we have Ash > Iris > Raihan, but according to our Pokemon scaling, Raihan should be above Iris.

Right, I'm very well aware that Pokemon have a 'variability meter.'

Pikachu is the shining example of this fluctuation, where his inherent species weakness causes him to have a low floor, but obviously his ceiling is sky high. Meanwhile, legendaries have inherent high floors and extremely high ceilings too. Obviously there is also the narrative element (which is arguably the most important factor), where the plot bends over backwards to have a Pokemon win a battle, i.e., usually this happens in the form of an evolution-in-battle-leading-to-victory.

Perhaps Haxorus had a bad day, or perhaps Ash's superior strategy with Dragonite overcame Haxorus' higher 'raw stats', or perhaps simply narratively the writers wanted Ash/Dragonite to win at Iris' expense.

The point I was making, and I tried my best in being clear about this point by repeating it multiple times, is not that we should use A > B > C as absolute fact, but that we have an indirect connection of relative power levels. The fact that Paul's non-ace Garchomp beat Ash's Dragonite, who previously beat Iris' ace Haxorus, just shows that in terms of Pokemon ranges, there's likely an intersection where Garchomp is on par with Haxorus. Moreover, the fact that Paul has at least 3 Pokemon (if we believe his aces are Torterra and Electivire) whose power levels are quite high proves that his character has also powerscaled in Journeys like Iris (and Ash quite frankly).

Adding to that the following assumptions/postulations:
* DP Paul was pretty much dead-even with DP Ash.
* DP Paul was easily better than Iris pre-JN.
* Paul in JN is shown to still be actively training/capturing Pokemon, ergo he improved from DP Paul.
* Paul is considering the Gym Leader position when we as the audience knew his next goal after the Sinnoh League was to defeat Brandon and his 3 Regis (add Dusknoir, Solrock, and Ninjask to round out the full battle) strongly implies that he defeated the latter, which would be a tremendous feat.

Lastly, I think the narrative component is highly underrated here. The writers could have elected to say Paul competed in the PWC, maybe reached the top 15, but didn't win enough to break into the final Masters 8 in time of the tournament. Instead, they outright had him say he chose not to compete. Furthermore, they had Paul be the last trainer who trains with Champion-level Ash and helps him prepare for the Master 8 right before the tournament. Cynthia in DP after their Sinnoh League battle mused that Ash and Paul would be there at the end battling her/each other in the Champions League (aka the Masters 8 as what it became). Well, she certainly foreshadowed Ash's continued growth. I realize this is again speculative, but I think the writers intentionally had Paul be a non-competitor because there was no good way they couldn't have kept him out. Of course Paul would be there if he competed! However, their agenda was to make the Masters 8 be comprised of the in-game Champions, ergo Iris got the literal narrative boon to be elevated to that position, even though prior to Iris v Cynthia, we don't really see any feats of Iris that warrant her being in that position quite honestly since all of her wins were off-screen.


Here's something I made in last 5 minutes while in my hospital call room:

This is all speculative of course, but it just how each Pokemon (Ash's Dragonite, Iris' Haxorus, Paul's Garchomp) might match up against each other.

Lastly, we don't know how Iris got into the Masters 8. Just as much as it could have been Iris beating either Flint or Raihan, it could also be some other trainer in the top 20-25 who upset one of them, thereby driving them down in the rankings, with a #9 or #10 ranked Iris being the beneficiary.

On account to your issue with the quotation: the quotation isn't vague. It's a very direct statement where Paul says that Ash shouldn't be struggling with Paul if Ash wants any hope of winning the tournament. I'm not sure what's vague about that statement. Paul generally taunts based off of observations (e.g., he calls Chimchar weak because it lost a lot in battle) and, from what I remember, doesn't make stuff up when taunting people. Maybe he has a few times. It's been over ten years since I last watched DP. In any case, I don't see why Paul would taunt Ash while downplaying his own strength if his admission of his own power isn't somewhat true. He could just as easily say that Ash would never be able to win the tournament with how weak he [Ash] is. But Paul doesn't" Paul qualifies Ash's inability to win the tournament because Ash is struggling to beat Paul. If Paul saw himself as someone with a viable chance to win the tournament, then he wouldn't say that to Ash.

Short explanation


Yes, but the lower level of the M8 all have better feats than Paul, so there's no reason to place Paul above any of them.

It's vague because yourself and other posters are using a 1-line taunt as indicative of Paul's actual skill level, when the quote in a vacuum could mean that Paul is literally anywhere from being on par with the low end of the Masters 8 to being significantly worse. It's just not good/low-quality evidence, and is being overvalued when it's simply Paul taunting and challenging Ash to push himself to be better in their battle. I mean, the quote still holds true even if Paul did see himself as having a viable chance to win the tournament as much as say, Iris. Ash struggling against him would not bode well for his chances to win the tournament, especially when that road goes through Leon.

I mean, prior to Iris vs Cynthia, which happened only after the Masters 8 began, Iris' feats were pretty much all off-screen as she became Champion and rose to her PWC ranking.

 

[Sham]

Perhaps Haxorus had a bad day, or perhaps Ash's superior strategy with Dragonite overcame Haxorus' higher 'raw stats', or perhaps simply narratively the writers wanted Ash/Dragonite to win at Iris' expense.

Pretty much every Champion.

The point I was making, and I tried my best in being clear about this point by repeating it multiple times, is not that we should use A > B > C as absolute fact, but that we have an indirect connection of relative power levels. The fact that Paul's non-ace Garchomp beat Ash's Dragonite, who previously beat Iris' ace Haxorus, just shows that in terms of Pokemon ranges, there's likely an intersection where Garchomp is on par with Haxorus.

I asked this again but got no answer because you said you were busy but how is it possible for you to believe that narrative wise Ash has gotten stronger since his battle with Iris but not Haxorus who won a bunch of battles and got her into the Masters Eight. If the argument is that Paul is close to Ash's level off screen then you can logically conclude that Haxorus is stronger than he was prior to battling Ash. Both are assumptions based on a time skip dependent on Ash.

Moreover, the fact that Paul has at least 3 Pokemon (if we believe his aces are Torterra and Electivire) whose power levels are quite high proves that his character has also powerscaled in Journeys like Iris (and Ash quite frankly).

Why is it that Iris off screen wins are discussed but Paul's off screen loses never brought up in these conversations? The writers told us he lost three leagues off screen prior to losing the Sinnoh League. His powerhouses still couldn't at least let him win a league.

Adding to that the following assumptions/postulations:
* DP Paul was pretty much dead-even with DP Ash.

Paul raised his current team prior to traveling to Sinnoh in DP where he visited three regions, I would hope he was on Ash's level or higher considering Ash rotates his team constantly.

* DP Paul was easily better than Iris pre-JN.

And what are we basing this off of? Defeating Ash which Iris did?

* Paul in JN is shown to still be actively training/capturing Pokemon, ergo he improved from DP Paul.

And so has Iris.

* Paul is considering the Gym Leader position when we as the audience knew his next goal after the Sinnoh League was to defeat Brandon and his 3 Regis (add Dusknoir, Solrock, and Ninjask to round out the full battle) strongly implies that he defeated the latter, which would be a tremendous feat.

Speculation and even if that's the case, it still would have been off screen like you mentioned several times about Iris getting into the Masters Eight.

Lastly, I think the narrative component is highly underrated here. The writers could have elected to say Paul competed in the PWC, maybe reached the top 15, but didn't win enough to break into the final Masters 8 in time of the tournament.

I said this before and again didn't really get an answer but the writers themselves admitted in an interview press conference that Paul was never planned to return, let alone be in the Masters Eight.

Instead, they outright had him say he chose not to compete.

And the answer was just as unplanned as his appearance which was him not liking contests or festivals despite the Master Class being no different than him competing in four leagues.

Furthermore, they had Paul be the last trainer who trains with Champion-level Ash and helps him prepare for the Master 8 right before the tournament.

Sorry to repeat myself but he wasn't planned to appear which would explain why he's there so late.

Cynthia in DP after their Sinnoh League battle mused that Ash and Paul would be there at the end battling her/each other in the Champions League (aka the Masters 8 as what it became). Well, she certainly foreshadowed Ash's continued growth.

Different directors, different writers and different series. The writers aren't even consistent with things that happened currently in the series, let alone a comment that happened a decade ago.

I realize this is again speculative, but I think the writers intentionally had Paul be a non-competitor because there was no good way they couldn't have kept him out. Of course Paul would be there. However, their agenda was to make the Masters 8 be comprised of the in-game Champions,

Except Alain was present because again he actually had a planned appearance and we know this because he had a flashback before this episode.

ergo Iris got the literal narrative boon to elevated to that position,

Same as every other Champion.

even though prior to Iris v Cynthia, we don't really see any feats of Iris that warrant her being in that position quite honestly since all of her wins were off-screen.

And most of Paul's of loses were offscreen and what warrants him raising power houses and accomplishments when all of it is against the main character? He's the main rival, shouldn't he constantly be defeating Ash?

This is all speculative of course, but it just how each Pokemon (Ash's Dragonite, Iris' Haxorus, Paul's Garchomp) might match up against each other.

Except you're comparing Ash right after he's elected into the Master Class while Iris was sitting there comfortably before he got into it. Why is unbelievable that after 60 episodes he could've gotten stronger?

I mean, prior to Iris vs Cynthia, which happened only after the Masters 8 began, Iris' feats were pretty much all off-screen as she became Champion and rose to her PWC ranking.

What feats did Paul have besides defeating Barry, losing four leagues, defeating Ash and getting defeated by Cynthia and Brandon?

 

[Vernikova]

You didn't address anything that I said. You just repeated what you've already said, so this post won't take long to write.

Right, I'm very well aware that Pokemon have a 'variability meter.'

Pikachu is the shining example of this fluctuation, where his inherent species weakness causes him to have a low floor, but obviously his ceiling is sky high. Meanwhile, legendaries have inherent high floors and extremely high ceilings too. Obviously there is also the narrative element (which is arguably the most important factor), where the plot bends over backwards to have a Pokemon win a battle, i.e., usually this happens in the form of an evolution-in-battle-leading-to-victory.

Perhaps Haxorus had a bad day, or perhaps Ash's superior strategy with Dragonite overcame Haxorus' higher 'raw stats', or perhaps simply narratively the writers wanted Ash/Dragonite to win at Iris' expense.

The point I was making, and I tried my best in being clear about this point by repeating it multiple times, is not that we should use A > B > C as absolute fact, but that we have an indirect connection of relative power levels. The fact that Paul's non-ace Garchomp beat Ash's Dragonite, who previously beat Iris' ace Haxorus, just shows that in terms of Pokemon ranges, there's likely an intersection where Garchomp is on par with Haxorus. Moreover, the fact that Paul has at least 3 Pokemon (if we believe his aces are Torterra and Electivire) whose power levels are quite high proves that his character has also powerscaled in Journeys like Iris (and Ash quite frankly).

Adding to that the following assumptions/postulations:
* DP Paul was pretty much dead-even with DP Ash.
* DP Paul was easily better than Iris pre-JN.
* Paul in JN is shown to still be actively training/capturing Pokemon, ergo he improved from DP Paul.
* Paul is considering the Gym Leader position when we as the audience knew his next goal after the Sinnoh League was to defeat Brandon and his 3 Regis (add Dusknoir, Solrock, and Ninjask to round out the full battle) strongly implies that he defeated the latter, which would be a tremendous feat.

Lastly, I think the narrative component is highly underrated here. The writers could have elected to say Paul competed in the PWC, maybe reached the top 15, but didn't win enough to break into the final Masters 8 in time of the tournament. Instead, they outright had him say he chose not to compete. Furthermore, they had Paul be the last trainer who trains with Champion-level Ash and helps him prepare for the Master 8 right before the tournament. Cynthia in DP after their Sinnoh League battle mused that Ash and Paul would be there at the end battling her/each other in the Champions League (aka the Masters 8 as what it became). Well, she certainly foreshadowed Ash's continued growth. I realize this is again speculative, but I think the writers intentionally had Paul be a non-competitor because there was no good way they couldn't have kept him out. Of course Paul would be there if he competed! However, their agenda was to make the Masters 8 be comprised of the in-game Champions, ergo Iris got the literal narrative boon to be elevated to that position, even though prior to Iris v Cynthia, we don't really see any feats of Iris that warrant her being in that position quite honestly since all of her wins were off-screen.


Here's something I made in last 5 minutes while in my hospital call room:

This is all speculative of course, but it just how each Pokemon (Ash's Dragonite, Iris' Haxorus, Paul's Garchomp) might match up against each other.

Lastly, we don't know how Iris got into the Masters 8. Just as much as it could have been Iris beating either Flint or Raihan, it could also be some other trainer in the top 20-25 who upset one of them, thereby driving them down in the rankings, with a #9 or #10 ranked Iris being the beneficiary.

You've completely ignored my points about faulty Pokemon a>b>c to suggest that it should be used anyway despite the fact that you admit it's imperfect in the first place. You say that "we should [not] use A > B > C as absolute fact," but you spend a chunk of your post (and the only argument that you have suggested for Paul's position to possibly be above Iris's) is the very idea that you don't want to use as absolute fact. You didn't address any of the points I made in that post actually. You didn't talk about why it should be used over the other scalings I provided, or why my reasons for not using it are incorrect, or why my reasoning in previous posts are flawed. You just keep going on about this Pokemon scaling the and the "vagueness" of a line.

To be honest, I'm not sure why you are confused about no one bothering with this Pokemon scaling. You yourself say the following:

I mean, we have posters here claiming that "Paul's (non-ace) Garchomp > Ash's Dragonite > Iris' ace Haxorus" is apparently an inappropriate comparison even though it's an imperfect but actual indirect feat comparison

You, the advocate for people taking this into consideration, are saying that it's "imperfect" and "indirect," but you're wondering why people aren't relying on it? When there are better things to look at to decide between the two of them?

You're also adding nothing new to what I've already said: I've already said that Paul should give the M8 trouble, and the tier I placed him explicitly says that he should do that. And Paul obviously has "JN powerscaling" since he gave Ash trouble. I'm not sure why you're bringing this up.

Variability is something that I addressed many posts ago, so I won't address your chart.

Lastly, I think the narrative component is highly underrated here. The writers could have elected to say Paul competed in the PWC, maybe reached the top 15, but didn't win enough to break into the final Masters 8 in time of the tournament. Instead, they outright had him say he chose not to compete. Furthermore, they had Paul be the last trainer who trains with Champion-level Ash and helps him prepare for the Master 8 right before the tournament. Cynthia in DP after their Sinnoh League battle mused that Ash and Paul would be there at the end battling her/each other in the Champions League (aka the Masters 8 as what it became).

The narrative says that the M8 are the strongest trainers, so the narrative supports the case that Iris is stronger (along with feats and statements). The writers had Paul say something, but you don't like the interpretations that come from it.

Lastly, we don't know how Iris got into the Masters 8. Just as much as it could have been Iris beating either Flint or Raihan, it could also be some other trainer in the top 20-25 who upset one of them, thereby driving them down in the rankings, with a #9 or #10 ranked Iris being the beneficiary.

Did you mean to say that he kept challenging someone stronger than him such as Leon over and over? Raihan losing to someone that low likely reinforces my point.

It's vague because yourself and other posters are using a 1-line taunt as indicative of Paul's actual skill level, when the quote in a vacuum could mean that Paul is literally anywhere from being on par with the low end of the Masters 8 to being significantly worse. It's just not good/low-quality evidence, and is being overvalued when it's simply Paul taunting and challenging Ash to push himself to be better in their battle. I mean, the quote still holds true even if Paul did see himself as having a viable chance to win the tournament as much as say, Iris. Ash struggling against him would not bode well for his chances to win the tournament, especially when that road goes through Leon.

I mean, prior to Iris vs Cynthia, which happened only after the Masters 8 began, Iris' feats were pretty much all off-screen as she became Champion and rose to her PWC ranking.

That doesn't make something vague? You mean to say that you disagree with our interpretation. Like I said, the line is very clear. You also didn't address my point when I spoke about Paul's taunt. You just repeated your initial claim. The quotation doesn't hold true if Paul has a "viable" chance because anyone who struggles with him has no hope of winning according to Paul himself i.e., is not viable.

Anyway, I previously spoke about why I interpreted the line the way that I did a few posts ago. You didn't address it. Please read that post and offer criticisms.

What Paul says (logically) is that if Ash has a hope of winning (the M8) then he shouldn't struggle against Paul. If Paul's own assessment is correct, then anyone who has a hope of winning shouldn't struggle against Paul in battle, so the question is "who does Paul think has a shot of winning?" Well, Steven, Cynthia, and Lance at least judging from the Pokemon he brought to train against Ash. Leon obviously. Ash won, so by Paul's own logic Paul isn't on Ash's level.

That leaves Diantha, Alain, and Iris. Diantha beat Lance. Alain had a really poor showing against Leon (but who wouldn't?), but if XY still holds, then he should be a bit below Diantha. Iris had a very good showing against Cynthia in that 3-2 loss: after one physical exchange, Cynthia Mega Evolved; Alain said that he didn't know who'd win between Haxorus and Mega Garchomp; once Iris connects hearts with Haxorus, Cynthia immediately orders Mega Garchomp to go with a full-powered attack: the narrative is pretty clear that Iris is someone Cynthia needs to put in real effort to beat otherwise she'd be caught lacking and that Haxorus and Mega Garchomp are peers, though Iris's battling style requires a lot of recoil.

So either Ash was underperforming against Paul, or he stepped up in the M8 tournament. In any case, JN Paul is not on JN Ash's level (which is obvious), and the narrative as well as the actual statements made in battle are clearly in favor of the M8 being stronger than Paul (like I've said for entirely other reasons that I have here).

 

[Vernikova]

damn this was based af

In any case, I think that it is not ruled out to some battles. I think the circular logic is flawed, but still some important annotations can be be taken into account based on some punctual performances of some pokemon.

The logic is viable when talking about match ups (like in rock-paper-scissors), but it's not great when talking about things like powerlevels.

 

[Ragnarok4]

I feel that we have to be realistic, I have organized the key points as follows :

Powerscaling criteria

-The narrative, this is the most important thing and it is above all
-Feats
-Circular logic in the last instance in the absence of the previous two criteria (unreliable)


Things that don't matter / meaningless assumptions

-"If Ash got stronger then X too" This by itself doesn't stand more than assumptions since with that logic then all the characters apart from Ash became much stronger, so if the narrative doesn't dictate it, you can't assume that for example Katie is now champion level because she was equal to Ash in AG. We know that time is not a logical variable in Pokémon.

-past victories and defeats. It's the same, most comparisons are based on assumptions like "iris was not as strong as Alain, so Alain should be stronger than Iris because of his achievements" This continues to appeal to the temporal question and to seek a logic outside of the first CRITERION, the NARRATIVE

-The strategies. This is the worst of assumptions in my opinion, this will always depend on the writer/director and depends on the battle itself. , Katie of the Hoenn League was much more strategic than Champion Steven, so this is the least important of all, because, again, the narrative implies that Steven is better and further philosophizing about it is unproductive and redundant.

With everyone agreeing to this, then let's look at the facts.

--> The narrative says many times that these are the Eight Best Trainers in the World. The most important criterion is for Iris / Alain. 1-0

--> Paul's greatest feat is defeating "Lake Acuicity" Ash, Alain's greatest achievement is winning the Kalos League, Iris's greatest achievement is winning the Unova League and becoming champion. The second most important criterion is won by Alain/Iris. 2-0

--> A>B>C. It doesn't even make sense to talk about this.

Add to this the fact that in the first place Paul would not return according to @Sham

So the conclusion, as much as I would like to say otherwise, implies that both Alain and Iris are better "TRAINERS" than Paul.

 

[Ash-Pikachu]

This previous line suggests to me that Paul is talking about the Masters 8 in general and not just Leon

Yes, this gives context to what Paul is referring to. If Ash is struggling against him, then Ash has no business winning because he wouldn't qualify as one of the Masters Eight.

Paul is definitely up there with Raihan, Wallace, and likely Kikui because he acts as the final hurdle for Ash even after Ash's Gengar, Lucario, and Dragonite all learned new moves. However, Paul's statement here clearly suggests that Paul is still a step below the Masters 8 which would include Iris and Alain. That doesn't mean he never improved. This is a disingenuous all-or-nothing comparison. It simply means that regardless of Paul's progression, he would still barely qualify for the Masters 8 just as Ash did here.

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

Except I did respond to it lol. What’s this childish cheering anyway?

@Sham Sorry I’m too busy putting out tire fires on night call in the hospital rn that I can’t respond to a lengthy post -.-

Oh no I didn't mean you at all!! You're very respectful with your points and reading your counter argument has been fun as well, my comments weren't meant to be cheering against you, they were about that battlefanatic guy with the Paul pfp, not you, sorry if it came off like that!!

I feel that we have to be realistic, I have organized the key points as follows :

Powerscaling criteria

-The narrative, this is the most important thing and it is above all
-Feats
-Circular logic in the last instance in the absence of the previous two criteria (unreliable)


Things that don't matter / meaningless assumptions

-"If Ash got stronger then X too" This by itself doesn't stand more than assumptions since with that logic then all the characters apart from Ash became much stronger, so if the narrative doesn't dictate it, you can't assume that for example Katie is now champion level because she was equal to Ash in AG. We know that time is not a logical variable in Pokémon.

-past victories and defeats. It's the same, most comparisons are based on assumptions like "iris was not as strong as Alain, so Alain should be stronger than Iris because of his achievements" This continues to appeal to the temporal question and to seek a logic outside of the first CRITERION, the NARRATIVE

-The strategies. This is the worst of assumptions in my opinion, this will always depend on the writer/director and depends on the battle itself. , Katie of the Hoenn League was much more strategic than Champion Steven, so this is the least important of all, because, again, the narrative implies that Steven is better and further philosophizing about it is unproductive and redundant.

With everyone agreeing to this, then let's look at the facts.

--> The narrative says many times that these are the Eight Best Trainers in the World. The most important criterion is for Iris / Alain. 1-0

--> Paul's greatest feat is defeating "Lake Acuicity" Ash, Alain's greatest achievement is winning the Kalos League, Iris's greatest achievement is winning the Unova League and becoming champion. The second most important criterion is won by Alain/Iris. 2-0

--> A>B>C. It doesn't even make sense to talk about this.

Add to this the fact that in the first place Paul would not return according to @Sham

So the conclusion, as much as I would like to say otherwise, implies that both Alain and Iris are better "TRAINERS" than Paul.

Finally, someone understands powerscaling in Pokemon.
So many here use feats and their own circular logic to always override the narrative and claim it as irrelevant it's aggravating as it's just cherrypicking your own biases at that point then

 

[Damerdal]

@Sham

I'm getting to your post. It's just a lot to respond to lol, will get to it on my next break time after I go see this patient.

What ended up being 1 patient ended up as several consecutive admissions from the ER . I have enjoyed reading these counterarguments, and will get to them in due time.

Just a brief response in the meantime:

Ultimately, just after taking a quick glance through them, I do find some questionable reasoning, and I'll address them in more detail. To put it briefly however, a lot of stock is being placed that "Iris is in Masters 8, ergo she is superior," when Paul explicitly chose not to compete in the PWC. The Masters 8 are a fluctuating group of the top 8 trainers competing in the PWC. There are still trainers, such as Paul, who are outside these confines. It's not that Paul participated in the PWC and came up short in the rankings. Whether Paul was added in late or not to the anime doesn't really matter either. The writers decided his appearance should be as the final trainer who trains with Ash right before the tournament, and also intentionally wrote him as someone who didn't participate in the PWC, both of which are narratively compelling for reasons I've described previously.

Admittedly, Paul doesn't have much feats in JN, but neither does Iris prior to Iris vs Cynthia. The difference is the show gives Iris the narrative boon by saying she's now Unova Champion and later in the Masters 8. Meanwhile, Paul has a training battle (while this isn't the same as an official battle, both Ash and Paul were not taking this encounter lightly, especially with Paul taunting and intending to push Ash) where he goes 1-2 against Ash, but defeats Ash's Dragonite (which previously took down Iris' ace Haxorus) using one of his (likely non-ace) Pokemon, and overall goes toe-to-toe against someone who will be the Monarch in a few days. He obviously did improve/level up from DP to JN. I think with Paul not competing in the PWC, his power level needs to be taken into context with both narrative inferences and implications (which I've covered earlier), as well as how he performed against Ash, which proved his Pokemon are indeed quite strong and in the realm of being on par with Masters 8 Pokemon.

Finally, a lot of overemphasis is being placed on a single taunting line in which Paul says, "if you struggle against me, then you have no chance of winning the tournament," as indicative of a clear power level, when it literally does not. I mean, I felt I've covered why this is problematic and/or poor evidence ad nauseum already, but I will go address it again in the respective posts that seem to tout this to mean Paul < Masters 8.

Lastly my opinion isn't that Paul > Iris absolutely. I believe they're on par with each other, as in if they were to battle 10 times, it'll be 5-5 or 6-4 favoring one of them. In the end, this is my opinion, and I am totally okay with agreeing to disagree! I do believe if the anime ever did animate this battle, it'll be a close 3-2 or 6-5 (if full battle) tilting towards one of them.

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

What ended up being 1 patient ended up as several consecutive admissions from the ER . I have enjoyed reading these counterarguments, and will get to them in due time.

Just a brief response in the meantime:

Ultimately, just after taking a quick glance through them, I do find some questionable reasoning, and I'll address them in more detail. To put it briefly however, a lot of stock is being placed that "Iris is in Masters 8, ergo she is superior," when Paul explicitly chose not to compete in the PWC. The Masters 8 are a fluctuating group of the top 8 trainers competing in the PWC. There are still trainers, such as Paul, who are outside these confines. It's not that Paul participated in the PWC and came up short in the rankings. Whether Paul was added in late or not to the anime doesn't really matter either. The writers decided his appearance should be as the final trainer who trains with Ash right before the tournament, and also intentionally wrote him as someone who didn't participate in the PWC, both of which are narratively compelling for reasons I've described previously.

Admittedly, Paul doesn't have much feats in JN, but neither does Iris prior to Iris vs Cynthia. The difference is the show gives Iris the narrative boon by saying she's now Unova Champion and later in the Masters 8. Meanwhile, Paul has a training battle (while this isn't the same as an official battle, both Ash and Paul were not taking this encounter lightly, especially with Paul taunting and intending to push Ash) where he goes 1-2 against Ash, but defeats Ash's Dragonite (which previously took down Iris' ace Haxorus) using one of his (likely non-ace) Pokemon, and overall goes toe-to-toe against someone who will be the Monarch in a few days. He obviously did improve/level up from DP to JN. I think with Paul not competing in the PWC, his power level needs to be taken into context with both narrative inferences and implications (which I've covered earlier), as well as how he performed against Ash, which proved his Pokemon are indeed quite strong and in the realm of being on par with Masters 8 Pokemon.

Finally, a lot of overemphasis is being placed on a single taunting line in which Paul says, "if you struggle against me, then you have no chance of winning the tournament," as indicative of a clear power level, when it literally does not. I mean, I felt I've covered why this is problematic and/or poor evidence ad nauseum already, but I will go address it again in the respective posts that seem to tout this to mean Paul < Masters 8.

....You kind of answer your own question here
You agree and state that Iris was indeed given the 'narrative boon' as you described ahead of Paul, clear stating the narrative chooses her for the ultimate roster of trainers than Paul

And then going on to prove Paul better by using narrative implications since he's the final obstacle for Ash before the end.

You can't claim the narrative is being unfair to boost your claim in one place and then use the narrative to boost your claim in another place