Say something positive about your least favorite character

[Xuxuba]

What did they do that was so bad that they made you hate them? Other than Lillie taking Serena's place in the cast I mean?

Well, i don't hate Iris (although i do see that she isn't a perfect character in any way), but i can relate with that user over not appreciating Lillie as a character for several reasons and that is not because she replaced Serena (otherwise i would have disliked every classmate aswell, which i don't, i just wish some of them had received more focus).

For example:

First, this show is supposed to be mainly about pokémon and their bond with humans. Yet she didn't catch a single pokémon for god knows how many episodes. She rarely even trained her Vulpix and i can count on one hand the episodes where she had meaningful interactions with her pokémon.

Second, she acts like a brat towards her mother. "Oh but her mother is awful". No, she isn't. Lusamine might work a lot (which is understandable cuz she tries to help hurt Pokémon), but whenever she wants to spend time with her daughter, Lillie just brushes her aside. Anime! Lillie's whole speech about Lusamine treating her like a baby felt way more superficial than game! Lillie's speech about living with an actual abusive mother who treats people and pokemon like objects. Nearly every single mother in the world treats their child like a baby every now and then, that doesn't make them abusive, especially if their child is 10 years old. I wouldn't have minded that character's flaw cuz Lillie is young and all, but instead the writers chose to act like Lillie was the one who was right and Lusamine was a terrible mother for treating her kid like the kid she was.

Third, her development's pace was all over the place. Most of her focus was done early in the series and then they nearly forgot about her once the AF arc was over.

Fourth, she does not have any particular interests to compensate her lack of a proper goal or even the desire to find one. I guess she likes books and yet we rarely see her reading one. At nearly the end of the series they decided to give her some sort of objective by making her look for her father but that had to be put on hold because apparently participating in a League just for funsies is a far more pressing matter.

Fifth, her early storyline's concept was basically the same as Tory from Deoxys's movie, except Tory's felt way more realistic and he actually bonded more with pokémon in that 60 min movie than Lillie did in this entire series.

Sixth, the writers tried to make her look like she grew as a trainer by including her in the League, but she achieved nothing other than getting past the preliminary round, which felt incredibly undeserved. You might say she gave Gladion a hard time, but her battle lasted about 2 minutes and Gladion still had the upperhand most of the time. I mean, i do not mind that she lost at all because it would be incredibly absurd for a trainer with as little experience as her to win over Gladion, but couldn't have they made her only important battle on that league last more than 2 minutes? Oherwise why even bother including her in the first place? We didn't even get to see her doing much in the preliminary round. One might argue that defeat was supposed to teach her a lesson and drive her to become a better trainer (like DatsRight so often insists), but there was nothing hinting at that after the battle ended and you would have to be pretty naive to believe she would have much of a progress as trainer when we are only a few episodes away from the series' ending.

Seve... You know what i could go on forever about this but i will stop here bc i have a life to live lol

 

[OriginalScream]

Paul made me see the strategic value of/made me pay more attention to Ursaring, Azumarill, Stantler, Ninjask, Hariyama, Nidoking, Aggron, Gastrodon and Drapion.

And he brought the moves Hammer Arm, Focus Blast, Stone Edge, Toxic Spikes, Night Slash, Arm Thrust, Force Palm, Earth Power and Metal Sound to my attention.

 

[Xuxuba]

- Lol if my mom was so consumed with work that she for some reason didn’t notice I was traumatized for SEVERAL years and didn’t care to look into it, I’d be upset as well

Who's to say she didn't? Besides, it's not like Lusamine could have done anything, when her daughter didn't even remember what happened, her son refused to talk about that day for a long time and her employee was lying to her to cover up his mistakes.

-Please stop comparing game Lillie to anime Lillie, they’re two separate entities and if we are really going there game Serena (rival) was better than anime Serena

I will not, 'cause they already had this great character arc basically handed to them and instead they decided to remove the things that made her arc special in the first place.

Her bond with Nebby? Let's give it to Ash because he obviously needs more attention than his underdeveloped classmates. Her mother being the first female main antagonist in the franchise? Let's erase that because kids shouldn't be aware of child abuse.

Not sure why you ask me to stop comparing characters when you do this 24/7 lmao. Either way, i will go along with this. Game! Serena hardly had a better storyline, when she wasn't much of a character to begin with. She only had a few lines, no personality and just acted as a tutorial for younger players and as the voice of the protagonist (when they could've just made him not silent for once).

-Anybody who says that Lillie should of touched Pokémon sooner must really not know how PTSD works. It can take several years in someone’s life to get over a traumatic event. It doesn’t just go away because the narrative commands it. The girl was almost taken away to another dimension.

That literally has nothing to do with what i posted. I never said they should have handled her trauma faster. Her development's pace was all over the place, yes, but not because they took too long to make her get over her trauma, but because they only thought of what to do with this character up to 1/3 of the series, then they just didn't know what to do with her after that.

- How did the anime make her look stronger by having her compete in the league? Almost every major character who appeared in the anime competed even the principle. There’s no narrative supporting that.

I didn't say it did?? My point was that her inclusion was completely unnecessary, her only important battle was about 2 minutes long and her only achievement was getting past the preliminary round, which felt undeserved because the battle royale is an unfair battle format to begin with. If that was supposed to show her growth as a trainer, it failed.

- When the girl’s who did get secondaries don’t do anything with their Pokémon; why are you really mad she didn’t catch a second Pokémon? So she could do nothing with it as well?

The thing is: they could've done something with it. They just chose not to, which is why i am criticizing their choices when it comes to this character.

 

[Xuxuba]

A mother's job is protect her children; a it's a parents job in general. The fact that she let all those years go by and simply just went on knowing that her daughter developed an unnatural fear towards Pokemon is bad. It's like having a child that loves puppies and suddenly they can't even be around them without screaming. That isn't worth investigating? The fact the viewers were able to figure that Faba was the cause of her trauma after a few episodes but Lusamine couldn't do it in five years is telling. There's no excuse she should of done more and even Gladion explains this in the anime while shouting at her. You can try to cover it up as an honest mistake all you want but in the real world that's neglect.I don't know where you're from but neglect is child abuse and can get a parent in serious trouble and if not at least heavily condemned. Simply insulting/hurting your child is not the only form of abuse.
You can involuntary do it: neglect. Nebby going to Ash and Lusamine being evil has nothing to do with Lillie or characterization lol.

Lmao are you serious?

If anything Lusamine is more affectionate and present in her child's life than Delia, Caroline, Johanna and most mothers in this entire anime. But i guess in the pokémon world 10 years old kids are old enough to travel around the world alone, but they are not old enough to live in a mansion full of servants doing their every binding while their mother has to work protecting Alola's ecosystem.

I also guess that my mother must be a cold hearted abusive woman, because she never asked me why i was afraid of dogs when i was a kid lol

Again, even if Lusamine did ask, Lillie still wouldn't be able to tell why she was like that in the first place. There was also no way for Lusamine to know that Gladion and Faba knew what happened, since she wasn't there in the day it happened.

It simply sounds like you wanted the anime to completely follow the games story line and they didn't so now you're mad. .

Not really. I wouldn't mind them changing her arc. If the changes were actually good lol

You literally said

AGAIN YOU LITERALLY SAID

Two minutes? That's you're petty reason you dislike Lillie? When your fav had yet to complete a battle in LESS amount of time? Two minutes is the average amount of time a battle is in the show. Was it suppose to be an hour? Lillie has been in more battles than Mallow and Lana combined (and yes I counted), so how she is anymore not deserving than anyone not named Kiawe, Gladion and Ash?

I think you do not understand the definition of 'literally' if you believe that quote is literally saying they made her look stronger.

I said they tried to show off her improvement as a trainer and it failed, because it didn't receive proper focus.

 

[Emelie]

I think we can all agree that Lillie has it rough regardless of we are talking about the anime or the games.

But the question is more how it's portrayed. There is a big difference between the manga version, the SM game version, the USUM version and the anime version of Lusamine even if all versions of her keep the core aspect of neglecting her children.

I think the manga did a good job with adapting Lusamine and Lillie's relationship while also adding some plot elements from the anime like her PTSD. But in the manga she is triggered by things that remind her of her mother's controlling nature such as forcing her views of beauty onto her and bodyshaming her. I think this was a much deeper plot than having her be randomly scared of all Pokémon even if they don't even remotely resemble the Ultra beasts.

The anime deserve praise for daring to do a PTSD plot at all though. I mean if they aren't even allowed to show Satoshi and Serena kissing on screen they probably can't add certain stuff even if they wanted to.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

- Lol if my mom was so consumed with work that she for some reason didn’t notice I was traumatized for SEVERAL years and didn’t care to look into it, I’d be upset as well

Lillie's anger at her mother wasn't due to Lusamine ignoring her trauma, it was because Lusamine evolved the clefairy she loved and eventually became engrossed in work and didn't treat Lillie like anything more than a baby, despite Lillie growing up

Which is still a thing that happens in the real world and shows up in other works of fiction as tension between a parent and child, and it can work if it's done well, which for SM's standards, was quite exceptional compared to the otherwise lackluster writing

 

[Xuxuba]

So I see you're just going to willingly ignore her neglectful tactics and cover it up by saying Lillie being rich and having a mother "who is there" (even though that's a big problem about their relationship) to paint Lillie as a brat. Anything else just doesn't fit your narrative. I'm not even going to comment @ your mother comment because now you're being willfully oblivious to make a point, so that's that. Either way she's trash. She either
left her young children (under the age of ten) alone wondering in her laboratory OR she knew they were with Faba and didn't do enough to get the truth out of him. No matter how you spend that; she's trash. Pick a struggle. As soon as a child gets in a bad situation; the first thing someone ask is "where are their parents". You either watch your children or have someone you trust watch them. Like I said pick a struggle.

I think you are forgetting the universe we are talking about.

This is the pokémon world. Every mother lets her kids wander around. It makes no sense for you to paint anime Lusamine as this abusive heartless monster when literally everyone in this world does the same and nobody treats them as monsters.

Besides, you act like Lillie's main problem with her mother was that she was too focused on her work, when in reality it was exactly the opposite. She didn't want to be treated like a baby, she didn't want the extra affection, which is why every time her mother tried to get closer to her, Lillie would push her away. She doesn't want to be dependant of her mother and she wants to be treated like other kids in the pokémon world, which are basically adults. Lusamine also made it clear that Lillie is free to visit her mother on her work whenever she wants. But she rarely ever does so.

Where are you getting this subliminal narrative that they were showing her new and improved trainer skills?

Subliminal? Lmao, that is literally the point of the Pokémon League.

 

[Xuxuba]

The argument was Lusamine is not an innocent mother in all of this and that she was neglectful towards Lillie which could be a possible fueling why Lillie was upset with her. Keep up with the argument and rewatch the episode because the really why Lillie was episode with Lusamine in that scene was because she never considered how she felt at all and she used that Clefable incident as an example. It was never brought back up heavily ever again. They even had a scene between Clefable and Lillie to show it ain't that deep.

"A possible fueling"
You know the argument is good when it's entirely based on a headcanon of yours lmao

Either way, nobody here said she was a perfect mother, but she is far from the abusive monster you are painting her to be.

 

[AshxSatoshi]

The people arguing here clearly didn’t watch the 11 episodes Aether arc. @VoltTacklingPika said it the best that the main focus of the story is that Lusamine neglected her kids in a favor of hard work. Clearly she isn’t as ill willed as the the games but people complaining that Lillie is unjustly upset at her mother is worrying.

 

[UDI]

Kenny... has a nice blue poketch
Trip... as a trainer is a good photographer
Sophocles... is a really skilled trainer
Serena... her second hat is nice

 

[LilligantLewis]

Team Rocket: stopped appearing in every episode starting in Gen V

I think it was the mini squirt but she didn’t look that old.

.............................

Freudian slip?

Lillie is the most overrated girl in the anime. She’s nowhere as cute as Serena, Mallow, or Lana. Plus I feel the writers are shoving AureliaShipping down our throats. I see no chemistry between Lillie & Ash.

The only shipping that was ever shoved was Amour

 

[mysticalglacia]

Serena’s second outfit looked both clownish and fashionable. The sorcery of that is difficult to grasp...

Max being snarky to Ash about his loss in the Silver Conference was absolutely hilarious.

Sophocles’ Minior episode was one my favorite fillers in a long while; it was just a solid episode on all counts.

 

[RedJirachi]

Tobias at least gave us Ash defeating two legendaries. Well alright, 1 and a half, but that's still an incredible accomplishment in the anime setting

 

[DankOverlord]

Tobias at least gave us Ash defeating two legendaries. Well alright, 1 and a half, but that's still an incredible accomplishment in the anime setting

Furthermore, Tobias swept the entire region up to the Conference with Darkrai alone. Ash didn't use his best team and he still took down 1/3rd of Tobias' team which is respectable as hell considering everyone else, even the other finalist, got destroyed without even tickling Darkrai

 

[pokeplayer9994]

Oh, you want me to say something nice about Damian? Nope! Not happening! Especially after he tried to kill Charmander. Then again, he did end up giving Ash one of his best Pokemon. I guess I can give him that.

 

[janejane6178]

Goh - his hair pin isnt ugly

SM children - They dont bully ppl

 

[pancakemonster]

This is getting locked the moment a mod discovers the 2 year bump lol

 

[mehmeh1]

why has it been 2 years since 2019

 

[Litleonid]

Goh...He at least actually cares about his Pokemon.

 

[RafaSceptile]

This is getting locked the moment a mod discovers the 2 year bump lol

The Charizard vs Infernape thread had a 3 years bump and the thread's pages increased from 2 to 10