Serena's goal.

I fully support PokeShipping but even I don't pretend that it was ever "canon." A canon ship would mean that two characters would be in a confirmed romantic relationship with each other and May and Drew never were. They didn't date, they didn't kiss, they didn't do anything that couples would do, not even by anime standards. Back to the point about Serena; as I said before, I really doubt that writers are capable of juggling her goal and her relationship with Ash. If they were capable, Serena would've had a goal from the beginning that she would work on while also having a desire to be with Ash, and yet only the latter has happened. She has a huge crush on him but doesn't seem to care about Rhyhorn Racing anymore, which was her only real hobby when she was introduced.

 

what do you mean "only real hobby?" she screamed "I HATE THIS!" in the second episode and even said she didn't like rhyhorn racing but she understands why her mom tried to teach her or something like that.

i feel like you're making the writers out to be idiots who can't do two things at once just to justify you saying nothing is gonna happen.

If they weren't gonna go into serenas goal, they wouldn't have had 2 episodes in a row mention if serena thought of something yet and serena saying "it must be nice having something you're passionate about". If they weren't gonna do anything for her, they would have stopped hinting at her finding a goal and just had her in the background being ashs cheerleader or something.

 

Just because they didn't do it from the start doesn't necessarily mean they aren't capable of handling it in the future. You really wouldn't know that because you haven't seen it in action yet.

 

Regardless of whether or not she liked them, she still tried to learn how to race. It was one of the first things that we really knew about Serena when she was introduced: that she was planning on participating in Rhyhorn Races. Theoretically the writers could've made her like them more as she practiced which would've been *gasp!* character development, but she totally dumped them and has no other interests other than that brief mention of fashion in her character summary, which has yet to develop into an actual goal.

 

Well, the writers obviously wanted her to not like Rhyhorn Racing. And I don't understand why that should still be a goal: she obviously dislikes it and admitted that there's something else out there for her to do. The implication's there.

 

no, we learned her mom made her do rhyhorn racing. she even had to wake her up and make her do training, i could see if she was excited about it and then it all went away when she tagged along with ash, but if anything, she showed more interest in it when she had to step in her moms shoes and teach ash how to do it. Thus teaching her to appreciate her mom teaching her. Because she didn't like it in the beginning and didn't care for her mom teaching her about it.

The daughter in her moms shadow and forced to do the same thing her mom did and thus making her hate the hobby that her mom loved and then later learning to respect what her mom taught her, is some good development and truthfully better than "I'm gonna do rhyhorn races because my mom did it!" didn't we have enough of that with dawn?

 

I don't pretend to know what is the exact definition of "canon ship". All I know is that May and Drew *definitely* liked each other. Misty definitely liked Ash, and Ash liked Misty but doesn't realize it or realized too late.

Except Serena can easily be searching for a goal while having a crush on him. Oh wait, that's exactly what she is doing now.

Lorde gave me the definition of "canon ship." But in terms of liking each other, you would have to seriously be blind or in denial if you can't see how blatantly things are spelled out on screen for Ash/Misty and Drew/May. Anyway, I am someone of strong, direct opinions, so you don't have to listen to what I say. But yes, I do think that Ash X Misty was waiting for end-game confessions (and that was basically was a kiss of doom to that pairing) and May X Drew was also endgame.

But I don't want to start arguing with shippers. My point still remains that writers can have romantic subplots while characters still have their own unique goals.

 

Apparently to some, not enough. Personally, I don't think people should be pressed about Rhyhorn Racing being out of the picture anymore, because XY007 practically threw 95% of it out of the window. For now, we need to settle on the next best thing, whatever that is.

And please, let's not get started on Ash.

 

That's pretty much a regurgitation of the point that I already made about Rhyhorn Racing, but I digress. The arguments about Serena's goal probably won't end anytime soon even though it seems obvious to me that the writers have no ideas about what to do with Serena other than shipping her with Ash, which as I said before, isn't even a bad thing. It's better for her to be in the cast to support Ash than for her to be the next Brock and just cook and clean imo.

 

Not to you, but to A LOT of people, it is. Shippers and non-shippers alike. Including me. Appealing to shippers when the majority of the fandom are non-shippers is WAY too risky for the writers to do. Serena's already gotten a lot of hate because she's there for "shipping bait", and I completely understand why. And personally, I believe that Serena doesn't deserve to have that hate follow her all the way to XY's end. Which is why I believe Serena needs to have something else other than Ash, otherwise she will fall out from interest to a whole bunch of people.

 

Except it really isn't that much of a problem as people make it out to be. Heck, Misty more than anything was being written as a love interest way back in the Orange Islands arc - I don't see people complaining about that whatsoever.

If it's done well, nobody will complain. Serena can have a goal and be dreadful. Serena can be just Ash's "sheath" and be amazing. I personally just want to see more of her personality come out than a goal. At least that tells me she's not going to be one-dimensional.

 

I would personally LOVE a return to Contests in these games, perhaps their inclusion in Pokemon Z.

Delphox is absolutely fantastic for a contest, that Fire/Psychic combo is fantastic.

 

Not even panicking. Hopefully, she'll get her goal in due time, rather it's battle-related, fashion-related, or non specific. Even if it's non specific, she'd still make a great support character for Ash, whom you may remember is the main character that the pokemon anime makes its money off of. Still, I can see why people would want her to have a specific goal and focus on it. It's definitely cliche in this threat, but we need to be patient. So far, the writers have surprised us more than we thought they would. For me, I'm just going to trust the writers on this one.

 

I know a few people on here who'd complain and be on the butts of those who like Serena.

Well, that's a good point. But personally, I think she'd be much better if she had something that'll make her quite engaging.

 

...Most of her character involves finding a goal for herself? Are you serious?

Like her if you want, I don't care about that, but the "finding a goal for herself" hasn't been anything more than a few throwaway lines to this point. It's received such little focus that even the episodes that were supposedly going to tackle it, the Rhyhorn and Furfrou episodes, barely touched on it. The only development it's been given is that she (maybe?) doesn't want it to be Rhyhorn Racing.

 

I think a lot of people would love to see Contests return, but I'm personally not going to wait until some future game is out just to see Serena compete in them in the anime. I mean it'll probably be a year until the next game is released and the anime won't advertise Contests until around the release of that game if Contests are even include in said game. That's why I don't even think about Serena taking the Contest route. It's just not convenient imo.

 

Serena definitely should not become a coordinator. Making her into a Dawn clone is even worse than her not having a goal.

 

Wow. I'm not gonna get started on how ironic this is. But I agree, I think Contests have passed their time, and if Serena is gonna get a goal, then it should be something new. Anime-only or something from the XY games would be something perfect for me.

 

I agree. I would most definitely rather have Serena support and be shipped with Ash than be the next Brock; we don't need a maid in this cast.

But most people aren't hating on her for being "shipping bait" though, but rather the lack of goal. If she were to get a goal then most of the negativity in these forums towards her would be minimal by the looks of it (since a lack of a goal is what most people seem to keep complaining about). The shipping itself is not the problem.

You can't please everyone. People will always be complaining about something or another. That's why when I want characters to act a certain way or do something (like a future goal), I base it off what will entertain me or what I will find the most enjoyable. Catering to everyone's desires will never work because everyone has different preferences/opinions. So why not just wish for what you want instead of complaining about how people might complain if Serena were to take a certain route?

 

I don't see how she would be a Dawn clone if she competed in Contests given that at least Dawn knew that she wanted to compete in them from the moment she was introduced whereas Serena has no idea what she wants to do. I would say that it would make Serena more like May since they started out the same way, but I digress. I don't want to compare female characters to each other since it hinders progress and brings about other arguments. There are just so many goods things happening in this saga, and yet Serena's lack of a goal seems to be the biggest issue about XY in the fandom.