Ash WTF moment #1: Diving underwater and drowning.
Ash WTF moment #2: Telling Corphish to use Crabhammer on him to knock him to the other side of the lake.
Yeah, I have a word for moments like those, in episodes where the writers like to make Ash get hurt a lot (and almost make him die):
Main Character Abuse
Imagine being Ash. Wouldn't it totally suck to get your badges stolen... then you dive underwater for it... only to drown to death? That would have been a sad way to end your journey towards being a Pokemon Master.
Yes, unforunately, being the main character of Pokemon has its downsides. And one of those downsides happens to be that, in almost every episode you can expect that the writers will either make you get hurt, knocked unconscious, or nearly get killed (by various methods - the most common method for the writers trying to kill Ash would be drowning).
And that's why, whenever I see Ash get hurt in the anime, I always say, "Poor Ash". I just feel so sorry for him, because he gets hurt so much. It also doesn't help that he's had so many near-death experiences either, lol.
But anyway, who knows why, but the writers of the anime sure love to make Ash get hurt and have bad things happen to him (like having his badges taken away from him). The only reason I can figure out for why they do this is because the writers like to keep fans of the anime in suspense and they like to keep us "worried" about the fate of the main character. But I can't think of any other reason why the writers would give Ash that *much* main character abuse.
Seriously, if they're not careful, then one of these days the writers really will kill the poor guy (come on writers! enough with the drowning scenes already! I think we get the message now, that Ash either can't swim very well or he can't swim at all in deep water). LOL. XD