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Who is Ash's Greatest XY Rival? (Including Alain)

Greatest XY Rival

  • Alain

    Votes: 25 71.4%
  • Sawyer

    Votes: 7 20.0%
  • Tierno

    Votes: 3 8.6%
  • Trevor

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    35
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Blaze Master X

The Fallen Hero
So.. I know that someone created the thread like this, but he didn't include Alain.

For me, Alain is the greatest Kalos rival I've ever seen.. And All other rivals are... meh.
 
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Zoruagible

Lover of underrated characters
Let's see..... Sawyer's a noob and Alain is a Gary Sue.
That leaves Tierno and Trevor, who are both more interesting characters then either of the other two.
 

Aduro

Mt.BtlMaster
In terms of strength, Alain is by far the biggest challenge. In terms of character I think Tierno is pretty fun compared to most rivals.
 

Pikachu52

Well-Known Member
Didn't we already have a thread for this???

The greatest Rival is Tierno simply because he's got the strongest and most diverse team and has battle Ash on more than one occasion. The term greatest is relative here because compared to Ash Tierno isn't as strong a trainer and I think it's unlikely he'd pose a threat.

Sawyer is probably Ash's weakest rival in the history of the anime. He's a confirmed Novice trainer who's only just started his journey. Although he has a number of strong evolved Pokémon such as Sceptile who is likely to mega evolve in the future, and Shelgon and Hondage whom may reach their final evolved forms by the end of the series, his battles with Ash have ended in crushing defeats even in situations where he had the clear advantage. For him to defeat or even pose a threat to Ash at this point would mean an unrealistic 180 turnaround in his skill level and experience. It would be unrealistic and unfair writing.

Trevor battle Ash once to my knowledge (excluding the summer camp) with a Charmealon that didn't really like listening to him. He's not much better than Sawyer in regards to battling. Plus his main interest seem to be photographing rare Pokémon rather than collecting gym badges.

Alain is not a rival and will pose no threat to Ash. His stated goal is to battle other Mega Evolved Pokémon. He seems to have no interest in collecting gym badges and only has one confirmed Pokémon on hand, his Charizard. What's more he's working for Team Flare and that makes him if not a direct villain, occupying of an adversarial role. So far Ash and Alain have battled on amicable terms. That may well change when Alain goes after Bonnie's "friend" the Zygarde Core (which is implied as it's stated he was looking for the cores on Lysandre's behalf). My hope for Alain is that Ash defeats him absolutely as part of the final showdown against Team Flare and Alain is arrested along with the other Team Flare Scientists, Admins and Grunts (this is what happened to Team Galactic and Team Plasma). He should get to appologise to and hug Mairin one last time before hand though.
 
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Blaze Master X

The Fallen Hero
Alain is not a rival and will pose no threat to Ash. His stated goal is to battle other Mega Evolved Pokémon. He seems to have no interest in collecting gym badges and only has one confirmed Pokémon on hand, his Charizard. What's more he's working for Team Flare and that makes him if not a direct villain, occupying of an adversarial role. So far Ash and Alain have battled on amicable terms. That may well change when Alain goes after Bonnie's "friend" the Zygarde Core (which is implied as it's stated he was looking for the cores on Lysandre's behalf). My hope for Alain is that Ash defeats him absolutely as part of the final showdown against Team Flare and Alain is arrested along with the other Team Flare Scientists, Admins and Grunts (this is what happened to Team Galactic and Team Plasma). He should get to appologise to and hug Mairin one last time before hand though.

New Year Special confirmed that Alain is Ash's strongest rival.
http://i.imgur.com/gowWZr7.png

Alain being Ash's rival doesn't mean he will enter the league. (We don't know if he will enter the League or not)
He gets more battles with Ash, that's why he becomes Ash's rival.
 
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ShinyCharyZard

Too old for your rubbish..
Sawyer, because he's playing Ash's role this time, as the underdog who steadily climbs through the ranks while being unable to defeat his rival. This puts Ash in a good light as a tough trainer, which is awesome because then when Sawyer has finished piecing together his team, he will be able to finally take Ash out and look good for it!

That's what I like about Ash and Sawyer's rivalry, it's like a mega role reversal and I find that quite interesting to watch.
 

Pikachu52

Well-Known Member
Sawyer, because he's playing Ash's role this time, as the underdog who steadily climbs through the ranks while being unable to defeat his rival. This puts Ash in a good light as a tough trainer, which is awesome because then when Sawyer has finished piecing together his team, he will be able to finally take Ash out and look good for it!

That's what I like about Ash and Sawyer's rivalry, it's like a mega role reversal and I find that quite interesting to watch.

But it's not evident that Sawyer is climbing through the ranks while being unable to defeat his rival. He's evolved his Pokémon and won a few more badges than the last time he battled Ash but all his Pokémon were still finished off in off with a one hit K.O including his Shelgon. In short he simply hasn't improve sufficiently for it to be conceivable that he could win in the future. The badges and the evolution simply aren't be backed up by his performance on the battlefield. He won't look good for taking Ash out, rather Ash will look bad the the episode will be deemed plot amor or D.E.M. The underdog trope is compelling when it's the protagonist not their rival. This isn't Sawyers program. It's also somewhat cliche. Ash deserves to loose to someone worthy of beating him as he has done in previous leagues.
 

Navin

MALDREAD
Sawyer, because he's playing Ash's role this time, as the underdog who steadily climbs through the ranks while being unable to defeat his rival. This puts Ash in a good light as a tough trainer, which is awesome because then when Sawyer has finished piecing together his team, he will be able to finally take Ash out and look good for it!

That's what I like about Ash and Sawyer's rivalry, it's like a mega role reversal and I find that quite interesting to watch.

Kek, you're giving the green boy and Ash's "rivalry" way too much credit than what it actually has ended up.
 

PokemonBattleFanatic-

Well-Known Member
Sawyer, because he's playing Ash's role this time, as the underdog who steadily climbs through the ranks while being unable to defeat his rival. This puts Ash in a good light as a tough trainer, which is awesome because then when Sawyer has finished piecing together his team, he will be able to finally take Ash out and look good for it!

That's what I like about Ash and Sawyer's rivalry, it's like a mega role reversal and I find that quite interesting to watch.

Sawyer may be improving but he isn't going to get a major boost in skill level in one region,this is his first journey and still needs to grow,the same applied to Ritchie,Bianca,and Stephan.
 

ShinyCharyZard

Too old for your rubbish..
I'm humoured by the fact that for ages, everyone wanted to see a rivalry that put Ash in the spotlight as the stronger trainer, yet now that it's happening, all anyone can do is pick holes in it.

We saw that Sceptile has basically caught up to Greninja in terms of strength (in their standard forms). It's just the rest of the team that needs to play catch up, which should be quite easy, considering the evolutionary lines that those Pokemon belong to..
 

Janovy

Banned
I'm humoured by the fact that for ages, everyone wanted to see a rivalry that put Ash in the spotlight as the stronger trainer, yet now that it's happening, all anyone can do is pick holes in it.
Everyone wanted such a rivalry? Since when?

And the problem here isn't Ash being the stronger trainer, the problem is that Ash is CONSTANTLY depicted as the superior trainer which makes Sawyer eventually beating that much harder to swallow.

Also taking into account that Ash is way more experienced than Sawyer, but w/e, everyone seems to ignore that part.
 

Gillachu

Banned
I'm humoured by the fact that for ages, everyone wanted to see a rivalry that put Ash in the spotlight as the stronger trainer, yet now that it's happening, all anyone can do is pick holes in it.

Lol, this. Seems like Ash being stronger than his rivals is still a big no-no...
 

U.N. Owen

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night ...
Lol, this. Seems like Ash being stronger than his rivals is still a big no-no...

It's not that he's stronger than his rivals. It's the fact that the rivals are new trainers and weak. I have no problem with Ash winning against the rivals so long as they're strong rivals.
 

ShinyCharyZard

Too old for your rubbish..
When Ash was a new trainer, people had no problem with seeing him defeat trainers that were clearly more experienced, yet now the boot is on the other foot, they don't like it..

Some people are going to start their journeys later and catch up with and/or surpass Ash, just like he still progresses by catching up with and/or surpassing people stronger than him. That's how being a trainer works, heck that's how you progress through a region, by defeating people far more experienced than yourself (gym leaders?).. Would you rather have another Trip who unexplainably became this unbeatable fellow right off the bat, or would you rather have someone like Sawyer who slowly but surely improves and gets to the point where he can rival Ash without being randomly o/p from the get-go?

As said, he's already got Sceptile to basically the same point as Greninja, where they are on equal footing until AshGreninja comes into play. Then there's an inevitable Salamence which will go from punchbag to monster, simply because that's what the species do as they evolve.. and the same again with his latest capture which will easily bulk up his defences through evolution. Plus whatever else he's training whilst storming through those gyms at the rate he is..

I see a good battle happening at the league and if that ends with Sawyer's victory, then I'll be more than happy with it because like I said, Ash isn't the only person who should be able to surpass someone. Remember when his regional team defeated Paul's mix of reserves? Yeah..
 

Red and Blue

Well-Known Member
Again, do I need to remind people of Trip. Guy was able to beat Ash a few times despite being a newbie
 

ShinyCharyZard

Too old for your rubbish..
Again, do I need to remind people of Trip. Guy was able to beat Ash a few times despite being a newbie

Yes exactly, now THAT was a case of bad writing.

I can accept the first battle because Pikachu had been Zekrom'd and after that, even attempting to use a failing electric attack was wearing him down crazy amounts, let alone taking damage as well, so okay the newbie used it to his advantage and gained the upper hand.. but in that second battle, Ash should've wiped the floor with Trip like he has been doing with Sawyer. Then they could've levelled out as time went on and that insane Serperior would've made much more sense and felt a lot less cheap.

Gradually making a newbie stronger to surpass Ash is quite a good thing in my opinion, but making Trip this unstoppable force from day one was a serious case of "wtf?"..
 

Red and Blue

Well-Known Member
The point is that it wouldnt be the first time Ash lost to a first time trainer. Which is why it wouldnt feel out of place if the writers are indeed setting up Ash losing to Sawyer in the League
 
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