Which is what I thought that showed, until I watched the episode, and realized that Litten only did that because it otherwise had no choice. Pretending to be nice or rather "play along" was in its best interest.
That moment after Alolan Persian runs off when Ash winces in pain was completely voided by the actual end of the episode when Litten for the most part IGNORED Ash. I don't know if staring Ash down before running off meant anything, seemed more like a cold moment to me.
This really felt like a one sided bonding episode to me.
See now it seems like your excusing poor writing on their personalities. There was NOTHING wrong with the writers putting MORE effort into Rowlet's capture so that it didn't come off as a poor excuse of a capture. Such as Ash interacting with Rowlet more.
Maybe Team Rocket didn't help, but for whatever reason more development, MORE focus was centered around Litten and Ash bonding with it, and it had no meaningful impact based on how the ending was shown, perhaps if Litten smirked before running off, I could see it but NOTHING happened except on Ash's side (the connection, while Litten's was more of a development for its character).
Rowlet BARELY got any focus outside of
- Looking for food, failing, and then looking for more food
- Being saved by Ash, being fed, flying off
- Being incredibly friendly to Ash, saving Pikachu, saving its family and then being caught by Ash
Meanwhile Litten got like two Rowlet episodes worth of development within one episode and outside of its character in of itself and Ash's unrequited bonding, NOTHING meaningful happened.