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Iris's goal should've been more... concise.

matt0044

Well-Known Member
When you think about it, the games gave them a good potential plotline to follow on: Iris as Drayden's successor. Why be a "Dragon Master" when he proving herself to Drayden would've been solid? Have her end goal involve giving Ash a challenge worthy of his eighth Badge.

Feels like the writers made it more harder on themselves.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
The type specialists tend to always suffer from undeveloped goals to some degree, largely because they struggle to find unique ways to play on it besides giving them more Pokemon of their type and have the odd gimmick competition.
 

AznKei

Dawn & Chloe by ddangbi
The games and the anime are not in the same universe though. And I think Ash's companions are toned down considerably compared to their game counterparts, although they have more personalities.
 

satopi

Life doesn’t end, …it changes.
Ehhh anime version doesn't equal to game version. I like it when the anime creates their own version of the character and Dragon Master is better than traveling with 2 Gym Leaders, one already being highly specialized in his profession and despite being beloved, he didn't get any development. With the goal of being a Dragon Master, you can do more and it has been explained before that being a Dragon Master means bonding, understanding, and touching the hearts of Dragons as well as being able to calm them down/control them.

I liked that Iris challenged Drayden when she was a younger kid and tried getting revenge. But Drayden was only a side goal and now, she could focus on battling Dragon type trainers and learning more about Dragon type Pokémon around the world. I'm glad she's able to do this than to be someone's successor. Misty was practically forced to be a Cerulean Gym Leader (since her sisters were technically the Gym Leaders and decided to abandon their responsibilities and put it on her) thus inheriting it and I'd rather there not be even more similarities between her and Iris and calling her Misty 2.0.

In short, being a Gym Leader's successor is predictable and boring while being a Dragon Master, there is more to work with. Iris was an interesting character with a solid backstory and her journey is one of the most intriguing. I liked that she didn't almost come into full circle with her goal like Dawn or Serena but didn't abandon her original goal to become a Gym Leader like Misty nor barely develop like Tracey.
 

matt0044

Well-Known Member
Ehhh anime version doesn't equal to game version.
True but why fix what isn't broken? Plus... what DOES being a Dragon Master properly entail? I just feel like with May and Dawn, they had a more precise endgoal for what it was worth.
 

satopi

Life doesn’t end, …it changes.
True but why fix what isn't broken? Plus... what DOES being a Dragon Master properly entail? I just feel like with May and Dawn, they had a more precise endgoal for what it was worth.
The anime wants to be it's own version rather than entirely copy the games. It isn't the matter with the notion of why fix if it ain't broke but more as how can we differentiate between the versions. There are going to be people like me who don't want to see the exact replica of the game and I think most people would be more in favor of seeing certain events of the games being animated rather than why isn't this character's goal the same as it's game version. (excluding a few certain characters like Lusamine)

The thing with May and Dawn is that they're playable characters rather than already established characters so it's easier to just pick a goal for them provided by what game they're in. I already explained in the previous post on what a Dragon Master entails.
 

TheWanderingMist

Paladin of the Snow Queen
Misty's goal wasn't precise either, and BW was a rehash of the original trio of twerps. Now, she did bond with basically every Dragon type the group came across, but the only one she actually caught was Dragonite (which was not the best plan on the writers' part, as since they weren't planning on evolving Axew after a certain point, giving her a Dragon-type that was essentially fully raised already didn't really give her any chance to show off her skill).


Oh, and I give this thread 3 days tops before it spirals out of control.


Impressive, it's lasted longer than I gave it credit for. People are probably just avoiding it.
 
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AshxSatoshi

Ice Aurelia
I give this thread 24 hours until someone starts claiming she never did anything with her goal since Axew remained unevolved. Anyway as Satopi said nicely, making her a Dragon Gym leader would of been very boring and predictable and well a rehash of Misty.

The type specialists tend to always suffer from undeveloped goals to some degree, largely because they struggle to find unique ways to play on it besides giving them more Pokemon of their type and have the odd gimmick competition.
I think the writers have proven recently they can write equally terrible/undeveloped collecting quest goals as well.


Because they wanted Misty 2.0, plain and simple.
Except the latter actually battled trainers speclizaing in her type, had untapped powers with her type, actively tried to tame a Pokémon and finally battled way more often.
 

MidnightMelody

Hopeful for Gen 8
I won't say she didn't do anything but BW suffers the same way SUMO does of not having clear goals. Ash-Get badges go to league,May & Dawn-Get ribbons go to festival Serena-Get...well I don't really remember a lot of XY but I'm sure it was a focused goal. People like Misty,Brock,Iris etc have goals that could be focused on but never are. To be the best water or dragon trainer is not hard to do but the anime knows what to do with it. Doesn't help she had two non dragon types so it seemed weird.
 

AznKei

Dawn & Chloe by ddangbi
I won't say she didn't do anything but BW suffers the same way SUMO does of not having clear goals. Ash-Get badges go to league,May & Dawn-Get ribbons go to festival Serena-Get...well I don't really remember a lot of XY but I'm sure it was a focused goal. People like Misty,Brock,Iris etc have goals that could be focused on but never are. To be the best water or dragon trainer is not hard to do but the anime knows what to do with it. Doesn't help she had two non dragon types so it seemed weird.
Tbh, I see Iris having 2 non-dragon types as pluses despite being a dragon type trainer. I always favored to see varieties in each character teams, and Misty & Brock did also have Pokemons that aren't related to their gym typings like Togepi & Croagunk respectively.

Also, May, Dawn & Serena had goals that are sponsored, with venues/facilities that are scattered across their regions. So it's easy to put more depth into these goals, along them having multiple recurring rivals.

The only things I can see Misty & Iris goals develop further more, along with having multiples recurring rivals are letting them participate along with Ash goals which the writers wouldn't really let them or have them fight against candidates to take over the gym leader positions, in which they had to stay in their specific gyms and would be boring with only one type of Pokemon involved.
 

Yuugis Black Magician

Namaikina Imouto
Sutou Norihiko has never come off to me as a director with a vision he wants to execute, so I think a lot of what made Diamond & Pearl so good was just how heavily involved Tomioka Atsuhiro was as the series kousei/series composer. While Tomioka retained that role for Best Wishes it always came off to me like he was not so heavily involved (especially considering he only wrote 24 episodes). As a result, I think Iris suffered from a general lack of direction, which I imagine was just a result of stricter rules coming from executives on how the series must be.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
I definitely felt that Iris's Dragon Master goal was too open-ended, and to this day I wish she'd have simply set her sights on surpassing Shaga and taking over the Soryu Gym.
 

AshxSatoshi

Ice Aurelia
I definitely felt that Iris's Dragon Master goal was too open-ended, and to this day I wish she'd have simply set her sights on surpassing Shaga and taking over the Soryu Gym.
I’m actually glad they didn’t write her off the same way as Misty and she isn’t tied down to a Gym just to “complete” her goal. The anime definitely was implying with Iris that there’s numerous ways to become a type master without becoming a higher up like Gym Leaders or Elite Fours.
 

Cat's Eye Draco

Well-Known Member
I’m actually glad they didn’t write her off the same way as Misty and she isn’t tied down to a Gym just to “complete” her goal. The anime definitely was implying with Iris that there’s numerous ways to become a type master without becoming a higher up like Gym Leaders or Elite Fours.

I think it would have been better if they had had Iris come to this realization herself, though, rather than just use her to imply it. Like, if she were to start out the series as Drayden's apprentice and set off on a journey to gain more experience and prove that she was capable of becoming a Gym Leader, only to realize over the course of her journey that she's learning a lot more this way than she ever did training at the Gym. She therefore decides after her battle with Drayden not to take over the Gym and to instead keep traveling and become a Dragon Master in her own way. This way she would've had a clear end goal for the series (proving herself to Drayden) as well as the freedom to keep traveling and pursuing her main goal (becoming a Dragon Master) in whatever way she wanted post-series.
 

AshxSatoshi

Ice Aurelia
I think it would have been better if they had had Iris come to this realization herself, though, rather than just use her to imply it. Like, if she were to start out the series as Drayden's apprentice and set off on a journey to gain more experience and prove that she was capable of becoming a Gym Leader, only to realize over the course of her journey that she's learning a lot more this way than she ever did training at the Gym. She therefore decides after her battle with Drayden not to take over the Gym and to instead keep traveling and become a Dragon Master in her own way. This way she would've had a clear end goal for the series (proving herself to Drayden) as well as the freedom to keep traveling and pursuing her main goal (becoming a Dragon Master) in whatever way she wanted post-series.
Agreed with this, the probably would of been better writing but I guess the writers just weren’t thinking that far
 

Zoruagible

Lover of underrated characters
That is what they should have done, have her end up becoming the new gym leader. Drayden felt completely wasted, neither her nor Ash got a battle in with him.
Iris really should have faced off against Drayden for title of gym leader. While Ash fought Marlon for his eighth badge. No need to have brought Roxie or Charon in, Gym Leader Charon anyways.....
Type master is just too bland a goal, Misty should have been the only one. May and Dawn were a good step forward for handling female characters, but after that they seem to take one step backwards(BW), forwards(XY), then backwards again(SM)

Like it'd have been perfect to have Bianca and Cheren as Ash's rivals, and Iris striving to be the new Opelucid Gym Leader.
And in the end, Iris ends up beating Drayden for his title as gym leader, Bianca loses to Ash in an early round and rethinks about her life before signing on as Juniper's assistant, and Cheren ends up becoming Lenora's apprentice wanting to work towards being a gym leader after Ash finally beats him and he realizes that he'd like to help other trainers overcome struggles and work towards their future.
 

AeroVeeNex

Active Member
TBH it took SUMO and it's annoying cast for me to actually appreciate Iris and BW. Still not a big fan but I now know the series can be a lot worse than what BW was. At least Iris and Cilan actually made progress. I would have been down for a Dragon type tournament
 
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