Did Malva Intentionally Lose?

[Red and Blue]

So there seems to be a bit of doubt in regards to whether or not Alain truly won against Malva. Do you believe that Alain really did win or was Malva holding back on Lysandre`s orders?

 

[Bguy7]

I admit, I do find it somewhat hard to believe that Alain beat an Elite Four with relative ease after all the previous battles. However, there really was nothing indicating she took a fall. I can't imagine that if she did lose on purpose, they wouldn't give us strong hints, let alone flat out tell us. This is a kid's show with simple writing after all.

 

[Pikachu52]

It's the most likely explanation for Alain's win and is consistent with the anime cannon. Alain was crushed by Siebold and struggled against Steven. For the audience to accept that he won fair and square against Malva means either 1) Malva is weaker than Siebold by a great margin (unlikely) or 2) in the interim between Siebold and Malva Alain improved to elite four level (illogical and not plausible given that he'd faced 9 opponents before Malva). If the writers wish to be logical and consistent the only possible explanation for this battle is Malva took a dive or at least didn't battle with her full power.

The obvious question become why? My personal thought is that she felt sorry for Alain and went behind Lysandre's back to ensure he didn't loose the Mega Stone. Another explanation is that she and Lysandre were in it together and using the trial as some form of psychological torment for Alain, though why they would do that is unclear. It seems to have had some affect on Alain given he coldly pushed Mairin away. Personally I never got the purpose of the trial. All it seemed to do was put waste screen time so the episode could show Squishy escaping the lab.

What's most ironic about the episode is that Lysandre may have indirectly set up their own defeat. If they hadn't put Alain though that trial, he may not have snapped at Mairin causing her to push Chespie away and then Chespie would not have freed Squishy who goes and joins with Ash and friends. Thus Team Flare would have no need to identify themselves to the protagonist.

I admit, I do find it somewhat hard to believe that Alain beat an Elite Four with relative ease after all the previous battles. However, there really was nothing indicating she took a fall. I can't imagine that if she did lose on purpose, they wouldn't give us strong hints, let alone flat out tell us. This is a kid's show with simple writing after all.

You could make the argument that the Mega Evolution specials are aimed at the show's older demographic hence their darker and more violent nature, thus allowing the writers to be more subtle. If Malva didn't take a dive they're going to have to explain how Alain improved to Elite four level after taking that beating from Siebold - And how Ash is going to improve enough to defeat Alain, which he may need to do once he and Alain become adversaries.

 

[DS0308]

I'd say no just for lack of real evidence to say so. Honestly, I think it's perfectly reasonable Alain was able to defeat her, given that he actually put up a decent fight against Siebold and was at least able to score some hits on Steven's MetaGOD (how the hell do you just eat a Blast Burn like that?!). It also seems to be forgotten that at the end of Act 3 Alain told Lysandre he didn't feel strong enough and did that training with the Mega Tyranitar, so we can say he's been doing training off-screen as well.

After all, off-screen land can be used to explain a lot of things. It's all a matter of perspective.

 

[Master Quest]

Yes I do think that Malva was holding back because of the following reasons:-

-Throught that battle it seemed like Malva was toying with Alain and was not giving her 100% due to her behaviour.

-Alain lost to Siebold without being able to do much damage to Mega Blastoise and his fight with steven also did not go very well in which steven's Mega metagross took MC X's super effective blast burn without taking much damage if any at all.So him beating an e4 member after facing 9 megas in a row seems a somewhat unrealistic to me.

-After Malva's M houndoom got KO'd both malva and lysander didn't seems surprised at all they just casually congratulated him which makes me think that Both malva and lysander already planned to let Alain win on purpose.

But Alain does get the credit for beating her Mega Houndoom even if she held back which puts Alain at near e4 level maybe (but not at e4 level) and if Alain manages to beat zygarde 50% in the next episode then it will probably confirm it.

 

[U.N. Owen]

There is always something called training and getting better, something the main anime fails to do.

 

[Pikachu52]

There is always something called training and getting better, something the main anime fails to do.

But it would be a very drastic improvement for Alain to go from being crushed by Siebold to being able to defeat another member of the elite four in such a short space of time.

 

[Red and Blue]

Wow, a whole lot of different opinions.

Personally, I think Malva was going all out. Alain did better against other E4 and Champions then any other trainer in the past. It would make sense that he would eventually end up defeating one

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

Possibly, but I voted no since its unclear if she was holding back or not imo

 

[LizardonX]

But it would be a very drastic improvement for Alain to go from being crushed by Siebold to being able to defeat another member of the elite four in such a short space of time.

IMO Siebold and Wikstrom are stronger than Malva and the dragon hag. Wikstrom was the only one who I couldn't OHKO his entire team and Siebold was the only one who managed to faint a pokemon I used.

 

[thedarkdragon11]

Of course not. It's just that Alain's Mega Charizard X is the better Pokémon at that time. We also don't know if her Mega Houndoom is at full health. I mean, Malva might have also fought 15 ME trainers prior to that fight off-screen without using any medical help or medicines.

 

[Alexander18]

I don't think she lost on purpose. If she had more than one pokemon than Alain might of lost the battle.

 

[UltimateNinja]

Alain is like a beginner with his first pokemon game. With one pokemon through the region and that pokemon ending as powerful if not more as a champion's pokemon. The problem here is, that Alain (probably) only have one pokemon. He could win a 1vs1 against an E4 legaly, but more than one is not possible for him right now.

Now we can talk about if Malva intentionally lost to him or not. Either way or another, he defeated her Mega-Houndoom AND nine mega evolutions prior and that's why I think M-Charizard X is on E4 level. Against Siebold he was in type disadvantage, so his loss against him was pretty obvious.

 

[Aegiscalibur]

Alain is like a beginner with his first pokemon game. With one pokemon through the region and that pokemon ending as powerful if not more as a champion's pokemon.

Or he is a speedrunner and knows one is enough.

 

[LizardonX]

If someone has never played any of the games and only saw the anime they could easily describe Cynthia as a beginner who only uses her starter.

 

[Janovy]

If someone has never played any of the games and only saw the anime they could easily describe Cynthia as a beginner who only uses her starter.

You can't compare a Champion to a trainer like Alain.

A Champion has a full team, all strong Pokemon and they're not overly focused on dealing with a certain type of Pokemon.

Alain doesn't need to have a full team and it is unlikely he has more Pokemon because all he cares about is Mega Evolution. Why should he bother with anything else?

 

[U.N. Owen]

But it would be a very drastic improvement for Alain to go from being crushed by Siebold to being able to defeat another member of the elite four in such a short space of time.

When you have one pokemon and a ton of time, you can train pretty well. The mega gauntlet may have helped give Charizard experience.

 

[JudySpell]

Nope, I don't think Malva lost on purpose. Alain haters just use that as an excuse to ridicule his win.

 

[Pikachu52]

When you have one pokemon and a ton of time, you can train pretty well. The mega gauntlet may have helped give Charizard experience.

Even so he would have a very large skill gap to fill between himself and the elite four. And it's not clear that it was a ton of time between Siebold and Malva and for a lot of that time Alain was searching for the giant rock and being knocked around by Groundon and Kyogre in the Hoenn region.

If Malva didn't take a dive on purpose, then most likely she wasn't going full out. Given we've never seen a member of the elite four defeated in the anime before, and the battle was so quick, it seems somewhat likely she wasn't trying to win.

 

[Mrs. Oreo]

I think Malva may've gone easy on Alain, tho I still enjoyed her match against him. It was my favourite one from the act specials.