Mm. Honestly, I never got this. I mean, I can understand the sentiment that Trip hasn't gotten oodles of character development, but to compare him unfavorably to Paul? As in, the character whose development for the first 130-odd episodes of the saga consisted of "Hey, I'm a jerk", "Hey, I'm being more of a jerk", "Hey, I'm being even more of a jerk and have no problem being abusive to my own pokemon", and "Yeah, he always was kind of a jerk" (that last one provided by his brother)? The character who, due to his status as the writers' favorite character (I mean, literally the favorite character of at least one of the writers--Atsuhiro Tomioka, so I've heard), never was forced to have any meaningful lesson "stick"--like that time when he responded to Cynthia's advice ("Be nicer to your Chimchar!") with a big LOLNO (and she became more or less supportive of him with the whole "he's not wrong, he just does things differently" thing to boot), or that other time when any lesson he might've learned from being beaten by Brandon was "rewarded" by allowing him to stomp Ash in their match mere episodes later? The character whose only truly meaningful--for a certain value of "meaningful"--development, due to a lack of appearances following the Lake Acuity battle in addition to being a Creator's Pet, all occurred in the last thirty episodes (the last seven if you discount Infernape's evolution) and still didn't necessitate any sort of meaningful change in attitude or outlook, or even so much as an apology for being such a colossal dick? I think that covers most of it in some form.I mean, god damn. Even %&#$ing Gary had more depth of character than Paul did, and Trip has, I'd say, more character depth than Gary did. I mean, hell--at least they're not waiting until the last ten percent of the series to give Trip his due development.
I.....LOVE YOU! All of this is exactly how I feel on the matter, and what I feel is true. All that you said described Paul's run as a character on the show
perfectly!
And again, aside from all that, he was just so boring. His design's boring, his voice was boring, his attitude was so unlikable it was unwatchable, his personality was
nothing like how any 10-year old boy would ever act, his expressions ranged from stoic stares, grumpy scowls, smug smirks, and anger, and that was about it, and he never reacted to anything in the plot believably. Even when Chirmchar was enraged, out of control, and threatening to burn him, he just stood there stoically without batting an eye. He barely gave off the impression that he really gave a damn about anything or was passionate about anything at all, even his supposed goal. He was like a robot who was just programmed to move things along and nothing else. And the rivalry between him and Ash over "differing training methods".....UGH, terrible!
Honestly, Paul was nothing more than a less-emo version of Sasuke Uchiha. That is all.
Ritchie is more the exception that proves the rule, and either way was an objectively terrible character who should never have appeared again anyways
Though I'd much rather see Ritchie again (preferably if he'd recieve any character development for once!) than ever see Paul again. That's how bad I think he was.
LOL yeah, Trip may be a more fun rival than Paul, but NOT fun-filled at all. Look at how he deals with all the other weirdo rivals at the Don George tournaments. He's a total Straight Man.
Does he challenge Ash to get stronger? It's quite embarrassing Ash has a rivalry with a beginning trainer.
Well neither did Paul, seeing as Ash always forgot all about him until his next appearance and would've strived to get stronger regardless. And how is that embarassing? ALL rivals you have in the games are techically "beggining trainers" just like you! It doesn't make them inheretly inferior. And anyway, it's better that the rival be an honest-to-goodness begginner rather than a dude who out of the blue reveals he's a veteran who's been to all the regions Ash had been and only just now is competing in
his home region's league where he happens to finally run into Ash and become his rival. That was just....really, really dumb.
Trip is a Paul clone who fails by coming in so soon after Paul and replacing Cheren. Thats why the little fudger is hated by so many people
First off: coming in so soon after Paul...what would you rather have had? Paul coming back for another region? Or Cheren? And speaking of which, Trip oughta not just be singled out for replacing Cheren will Paul replaced Barry as the "main D/P rival" and was a really bad rip-off of Silver from G/S/C, thus sort of "replacing" him in the anime.
