Doryuzu said:
And at the end of the day, what you seem to not understand what is being said is Ash willingly chose to go with a third member with no regret or slight annoyance to fight a gym leader a prominent figure in the show and test giver for future league participates when he could easily suggested against it or shown some reservations about the whole deal.
If that’s what you’re truly trying to say to me, then the real problem is that you made a response to one of my posts (remember who started this?), #68, with an argument that had nothing to do with anything I what I was writing about - which was based on whether or not Fletchling contributed a significant deal to the defeat of Tyrunt and whether or not Ash won on the merits of his own skills and that of his Pokemon - as opposed to Roxie’s Gym battle, which is why I brought her up and compared her and Grant’s battles with Ash - not on whether or not Ash should have expressed any reservations about following the rules of the Gym. That is evident in my post, so I really don’t think that was your argument to me. Someone else, sure, but not me.
But for what it’s worth, I’ve already stated here and in the Preview thread that a 3-2 battle is a battle unfairly stacked in Ash’s favor that should never have been given to him in the first place (and obviously, it would have reflected better on Ash if he never had to use it), so the claim that I don’t understand that Ash willingly used a third Pokemon is a false one that again suggests you haven’t really read anything I wrote on the subject. Or you did, and are choosing to ignore it. Either way, your claims towards my arguments are still wrong.
Because looking at this battle as an entity in its own right not going with the "lesser of two evils" argument you're claiming, yeah, there's a clear double-standard when it comes to Ash's character's overall treatment in most situations in-comparison to others.
If your logic for this argument rests on - “
trust me if another character battled a gym leader and won with a numbers advantage then they would get so much hate” - then that’s still not much of an argument. That doesn’t prove a double standard exists in this case.
But I don't expect this argument to bear fruit anyway all things considered. And the environment.
That’s not the environment. That’s what happens when you ignore the things people write, claim double standards where there’s no way to prove them, and make generalizations about fans based on nothing but speculation (“
Next thing you know Ash is gonna be given pity badges and fans will defend it as being okay because he helped out against Team Flare or something.”). That’s why the argument won’t accomplish anything, because it’s impossible to argue with people who do that.
Anyway, that's the last I'll say on that subject. As for the episode itself:
I liked that they brought up the Battle Chateau again and suggested another Ash-Grant battle there - it's a possibility that Grant will have a Tyrantrum by then. I guess that means Ash will be improving his rank and making return visits to the facility (or that there are other Battle Chateau facilities out there) and that makes for a potentially interesting side-quest in a series that really needs them. Otherwise, there’s not too much else to say on this episode other than I also hope this is Pikachu's last big starring role until the League. Fletchling almost has to get that big role in at least one of the next two Gyms coming up.
In how anticlimatic it was and somewhat forced, yeah, I doubt this is Pikachu's last starring gym. Korrina does have a Hawlucha which are known to be fast and I could see a strategy with Electro Ball + Static coming into play.