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Worst character development in the show?

Kuzehiko

That moment I found a lifetime treasure
Zoey for God's sake.
Girl was a complete Mary Sue. Never got any character development. Bonnie, Cilan, Mallow and Sophocles are others I'd say.
 

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
A decent showing in one arc doesn't exactly make up for the fathomless sea of doing absolutely little to nothing of value post-gym battle.
It does when the Team Flare arc is basically the main focus of the XY&Z series, even more so than the League.

He was one of the most relevant characters on one of the longest and most important arcs. But go ahead and judge him for his secondary role on random fillers. It's not like almost every single companion had a moment where their importance was diminished temporarily.
 
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DatsRight

Well-Known Member
It does when the Team Flare arc is basically the main focus of the XY&Z series, even more so than the League.

He was one of the most relevant characters on one of the longest and most important arcs. But go ahead and judge him for his secondary role on random fillers. It's not like almost every single companion had a moment where their importance was diminished temporarily.

They held out the actual Team Flare showdown until the tail end of the series however and Clemont had little involvement with them up until that point. It's one of my key qualms in the show's character development since while it may be good, to get to it first you have to wane out all the COTD/Team Rocket fillers or occasions the protagonists are barely doing anything to demonstrate a personality or agency at all, and XYZ had a LOT of those at their blandest between it's big arcs.

It's like how I suspect Misty could be rated higher if it weren't for the first two seasons of Johto, or most of the SM cast if straight after the AF arc they cut right to Ultra Legends. The failure to make these characters stick out for a long period of their run is still a flaw.
 

ash&charizardfan

Humans are tools
Agree, and the male clasmates as well, especially the boy with the poke clone

Kiawe has been brilliant soph could be slacker and lana and mallow are underdeveloped but lillie has got some fine development not the best one but definitely better than some of earlier pokegirls like iris or misty.
 

Whitelily

Member
Sophocles? I hated him because he's just a poor man's Clemont and he's a whiny baby. And he hasn't gotten much development other than Charjabug's evolution.

And it's even sadder when you realize that Ash had to go out and find Charjabug for Sophocles in the first place. So Sophocles wouldn't have even gotten a chance to develop his bug if Ash hadn't done the searching part for him.
 

Shuriken Throw

Well-Known Member
Zoey. Practically had no struggles and immediately was perfect at contests as soon as she started.
 

BlueDragonfangirl

Well-Known Member
Trip. Built up to be Ash's main rival with a bit of cliche development with the champion. Fights the champion and loses and then loses to Ash in a 1 v 1 and yeets out of there.
LOL Awe man too true for words, not to mention he'd keep being beaten none Ash characters till the league. It was a sad rivalry to watch over the course of the show : (

Tracey * Cries* If only they did more with his character, he's in my top favorite characters list yet they even act like he's not in this show any more.
 

TheWanderingMist

Paladin of the Snow Queen
The answer is Max. At least Tracey got to live his dream.
 

Genaller

Silver Soul
Iris.

/thread
 

Akkipeddi

All set to be a nice guy
1. Mallow
2. Max
3. Sophocles
4. Iris
5. Lillie

Lana barely makes it out of the top 5 (she'd be at no. 6). Mastering Hydro Vortex and getting Primarina added something towards her goal, but then again, her goal itself is one of the dumbest things out there.

Mallow is easily no. 1 in terms of going nowhere as a character. There's nothing wrong having a non Pokemon related goal, but she does nothing that adds to her actual goal. Why does she need to be in school, and understandably so, she doesn't battle much, yet is forcefully given a fully evolved Pokemon, given a Z Ring and is forced to compete in a league where she bottles it. None of this has any relavance to her actual goal. It's a pity because personality wise, she's not bad, and I actually like her best amongst the 5 I've listed, but character development wise, no way.
 

Doppelgänger

Superancient Member
Torterra, easily.

Torterra's development started off interesting by it failing to adjust to its new size and weight. Paul's Torterra mentored it to show that Paul's Pokemon were not cruel like him and to give Torterra a unique battle style from Ash's typical Pokemon. Instead, Torterra tries to get fast again with Rock Climb, and ended up losing almost all its matches after its first evolution (and losing every battle as a Torterra).

Where was the payoff? Where was the lesson learned? There was nothing to take home here, just miserable failure from a stubborn Pokemon. Torterra couldn't learn Earthquake due to the anime ban, so the last time we see it is jobbing to Drapion, a Pokemon it should normally be able to beat.

What a terrible end for what seemed like Ash's ace prior to acquiring Chimchar.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
I’d say Cilian because he was pretty dull after awhile and the running gag of him being connoisseur of practically everything got old so quickly. That was a majority of his personality. There were opportunities to expand his character development and the BW series didn’t do anything to flesh him out more. There was his phobia of Purrloin which was left on a cliffhanger for us viewers. Dawn had a dislike to being called D.D. and a fear of Plusle and Minun and we learned how those two things were connected to each other directly and also see Dawn overcome her fear. We got nothing with Cilian. Was he attacked viscously by a gang of Purrloin as a small child? Did one play a prank on him that traumatized him for life? We will never know.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
1. Mallow
2. Max
3. Sophocles
4. Iris
5. Lillie

Lana barely makes it out of the top 5 (she'd be at no. 6). Mastering Hydro Vortex and getting Primarina added something towards her goal, but then again, her goal itself is one of the dumbest things out there.

Mallow is easily no. 1 in terms of going nowhere as a character. There's nothing wrong having a non Pokemon related goal, but she does nothing that adds to her actual goal. Why does she need to be in school, and understandably so, she doesn't battle much, yet is forcefully given a fully evolved Pokemon, given a Z Ring and is forced to compete in a league where she bottles it. None of this has any relavance to her actual goal. It's a pity because personality wise, she's not bad, and I actually like her best amongst the 5 I've listed, but character development wise, no way.

It felt like by Ultra Legends they were TRYING to figure out something for Mallow, but the direction isn't there. We've only really just reached the point of revealing her fallible side and what holds her back. This was done with Sophocles, and Kiawe as well for example but much earlier, and how they intended to directly resolve that was put into focus more and more as things continued. That big transformative moment where Mallow knows what she's going to do has yet to occur. The introductions of Marowak and Vikavolt for example represented the latter two getting out of their comfort zone and becoming less sheltered, Shaymin on the other hand feels more like a security blanket for Mallow right now, someone who's close by after coming to terms with her past but still being a bit broken and unsure of herself. This is implying a lot too since Shaymin has barely had any limelight, though it's likely no coincidence that what scrapes we see of its personality are 'kind but meek and coddled'. The league put how much Mallow held herself back into spotlight, but as of yet she really has yet to do much about it long term besides master her Z Move.

I'm kind of willing to put Mallow a little higher on the list however since she at least made this halfway point. We never really got this dissection with Lana for example, the league was her big 'crashing down' moment but it never really triggered a fallible side to her that played into an arc or anything. She never had this big hidden crushing insecurity like most 'aces' with dynamic depth do. Max similarly was limited to episodic moments, some were nice, but the fact he had no Pokemon and limited individual limelight hindered him greatly as a character. Sophocles I think had a subtle yet decent arc, Iris had her ego developed on recurrently with her Pokemon at least, while Lillie feels like she's still a work in progress, if a better defined one than Mallow right now.
 
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