Why is Dawn known for having no character development?

[J.Agera]

What.

She had pretty good development.

 

[Leonhart]

A tournament or two definitely would have helped May, probably some more battles in fillers/pseudo-fillers as well (as long as they didn't involve Team Rocket).

As much as I liked watching her do Contests, I do think that AG should've had more tournaments so that she could've gotten a chance to battle more outside of the usual Contest setting. Even so, she received a lot of development and I can see why some people considered her an improvement over Kasumi, although I still feel that Hikari's development was handled a bit better.

 

[Sham]

I honestly question if Contests weren’t introduced would May and Dawn be as great as we think we are. Yes essentially adding battles to Contests was a smart decision on the writers part but they quickly showed us that besides Contests; they’re pretty lackluster giving out goals to main characters.

 

[Kyloreywalk]

As much as I liked watching her do Contests, I do think that AG should've had more tournaments so that she could've gotten a chance to battle more outside of the usual Contest setting. Even so, she received a lot of development and I can see why some people considered her an improvement over Kasumi, although I still feel that Hikari's development was handled a bit better.

It would have been great if May was a full co-star like Dawn was, at the time the writers were just experimenting with giving her more focus than Misty since she was the first girl with a region long goal. The only reason Dawn got to do so much outside of Contests is because she was billed as a co-star from the start. Had May been like that, she would have gotten similar treatment. As we can see after Dawn none of the other girls even Serena or Lillie got co-star treatment either so their screentime was less too.

 

[game3524]

I honestly question if Contests weren’t introduced would May and Dawn be as great as we think we are. Yes essentially adding battles to Contests was a smart decision on the writers part but they quickly showed us that besides Contests; they’re pretty lackluster giving out goals to main characters.

The bigger issue isn't the goals being lackluster it is the fact that they have made the goals the primary catalyst for development and have ignored personal growth.

 

[Leonhart]

I honestly question if Contests weren’t introduced would May and Dawn be as great as we think we are. Yes essentially adding battles to Contests was a smart decision on the writers part but they quickly showed us that besides Contests; they’re pretty lackluster giving out goals to main characters.

Without Contests, Hikari's development would've been bad unless the writers had her pursue a different goal like Gym battles or some other activity where she could've matured and grown as a trainer.

 

[Blastmaster]

I think some people are too hung up over seeing sweeping changes in a character. Change doesn't need to be so obvious that you don't even need to watch the show to see it. You could even argue it's more rewarding to see smaller changes that you need context to understand. It's like the old saying goes, the journey's more important than the destination.

Also agreed with previous posts about how important a strong core personality is. If anything, I'd say there should always be some elements of a character that stay the same from beginning to end. As long as the character is entertaining at their core, that's what actually makes development matter.

The bigger issue isn't the goals being lackluster it is the fact that they have made the goals the primary catalyst for development and have ignored personal growth.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with using goals to push characters. I mean, isn't the whole point of a story to bring the character closer to their goal? As long as the goal/journey itself is interesting and preferably driven by an interesting character, it works fine as a catalyst. If the goal is lackluster, development doesn't matter much because it just isn't entertaining to watch.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Coming from a Pokemon Contest celebrity as her mother, she faced one issue: arrogance. She slowly learned that she was a newbie without the prodigy trait (girl lost twice in a row, which is perhaps the first and last time a main character ever screwed up that bad on their main goal) until she stood on her own feet (and lost anyway, but still).

 

[Sham]

I don’t even count Dawn losing to Zoey. That was clearly done for plot and drama. She deserved that win but even losing was a feat. She undoubtedly was better at her goal than other character introduced. Misty had an okay (later great due to SM) conclusion to her goal, May never made it to the finals despite competing in two GF’s, Iris was okay but that gap in between the beginning episodes and BW2 really killed her and Serena was definitely losing to Aria no doubt about that. And Dawn made it to the finals in her goal three generations before Ash did and on her first run.

 

[Power Up]

inb4 " Pikachu Bad Character, Terrible Development " thread

 

[Leonhart]

If the goal is lackluster, development doesn't matter much because it just isn't entertaining to watch.

This is an interesting point, and it's somewhat amusing that in Hikari's case her goal was rather lackluster to me, yet it was still quite entertaining. By the time DP began I just wasn't a big fan of Contests anymore after watching Haruka go through the Contest circuit in Houen and Kanto, so I wasn't exactly a fan of Contests in Shinou at first. While I did warm up to them by the end of DP, I find it interesting that the writers somehow made it work despite how monotonous Contests could be.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

inb4 " Pikachu Bad Character, Terrible Development " thread

He's simply a smarter Ash. That's about it, really.

 

[Bylethsak]

I think Dawn only made it to the finals because the writers knew it would be the final Contests ever so having a main character reach the end made sense. Same reason Serena was in the finals of the Master Class.

It’s not exactly realistic to make it to the finals in your first region but it was done for the climax of Contests in the anime. May’s progression was a lot more similar to Ash’s in the leagues, where she only came Top 8 in Hoenn and then Top 4 in Kanto. May felt like a abridged version of what Ash was for 16 years.

 

[Satoshi & Touko]

If Dawn didn't actually have any character development, then I didn't actually have any interest in trainer customization.

 

[Leonhart]

I think Dawn only made it to the finals because the writers knew it would be the final Contests ever so having a main character reach the end made sense. Same reason Serena was in the finals of the Master Class.

But they couldn't have known that it would be the last Pokemon Contest shown in the anime entirely since at that point they probably only knew the primary details of the Gen V games and nothing more. Even without there being Contests in Black/White, the writers wouldn't have had the foresight to assume that Contests were gone for good.

 

[Sham]

But they couldn't have known that it would be the last Pokemon Contest shown in the anime entirely since at that point they probably only knew the primary details of the Gen V games and nothing more. Even without there being Contests in Black/White, the writers wouldn't have had the foresight to assume that Contests were gone for good.

Also by that logic they would of made May win a Grand Festival since they couldn't of known DP would have Contests.