Did you like Dawn/Hikari's role on the show?

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Hellion

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This is the thread to discuss what you liked and disliked about Dawn's character while she was on the show, her story, her pokémon team (though if you solely want to talk about Piplup, please use the designated thread), etc.

Dawn was my favourite out of the girls mostly because she was the most realistic, compelling and relatable. She was realistic in that the writers didn't make her out of an archetype, didn't use that one facet as a dominant character trait. She was sometimes funny, sometimes vain, sometimes pensive, sometimes sad, sometimes angry, sometimes selfless... much like none of us are just one type of personality. Her story of feeling like she wasn't good enough, her doubts, her struggle, everything about her story was easy to relate to and compelling. I liked her diverse pokémon team and her contests were much more interesting and different than the contests in AG.

Where I think that Dawn's weakness laid was in her interactions with other characters. Her friendship with Ash was great, as was her rivalry with Ursula and comic moment with Barry and Conway, but her friendly rivals fell flat and her interactions with Brock were next to non-existent. Also, the realism that made her, in my opinion, a very complex and interesting character is a double edge sword as it could leave the audience feeling disconnected from her because they were not able to pinpoint specific traits about her.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

At the beginning I liked the idea of a female character getting lots of screentime, but after the novelty wore off her basically being a female/contest version of Ash and her "action-ish" qualities started to get dull.

She had some moments in the series I really liked, but her lackluster character interaction dulled her for me. She and Brock had ZERO chemistry which essentially ruined the entire DP trio, and her interactions with Zoey and Kenny (and Nando) put me to sleep. Her team was fine overall, even though Togekiss was worthless and Piplup got too much screentime.

We're now 1 year after Dawn departed and I don't really have much of an itch to see her show up anytime soon. Even her special was pretty lackluster and didn't give me the interest of seeing her traveling in Hoenn. Overall I can probably say I enjoyed her more than I didn't, but I feel like her character could have been much better. She was a character who started off promising but her story peaked way too early on and I feel like she was more or less casted aside after the Wallace Cup ended.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

Well, I did like Dawn because she had her separate journey and rivals. And she was uplifting, positive, and pretty XDD I like her more than Misty.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

I used to like her at first, but then the writers made her very femminist and wanted to make it a fact that she was better than May, making her beat her in the Wallace Cup. The first thing that turned me off with Dawn was the episode when SHE caught Pachirisu. Instead of asking her friends (i.e. Ash and Brock) if it was a good idea to release Pachirisu, she immediatly released it and then told them, which in my eyes meant that she didn't want them to have any say in her decisions (i.e. lack of trust).

It was nice that she was calling her mom every contest but then she stopped because it made her look "incompetant". Calling your mom doesn't mean that you're incompetant and can't handle yourself. Heck, if I was her mom I'd want a phone call every week knowing that she's being stalked by 2 thieves and their cat.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

I liked Dawn's role in Diamond and Pearl. Overall I enjoyed her contest arc and I liked that she had a co-star status. It meant that there was someone else to turn to for story and entertainment if Ash's plot got a bit boring or repetitive (looking at you, Chimchar). While I do think her rivals could have been better (namely Kenny and whatever they were trying to go for there) I was satisfied with how she did in the Grand Festival.

I wasn't too pleased with some of her captures though. Buneary was all about the Pikachu crush and Togekiss was just a mistake with horrible execution. Neither had the interaction with Dawn that I think a trainer and Pokémon should have had.

Human said:
It was nice that she was calling her mom every contest but then she stopped because it made her look "incompetant". Calling your mom doesn't mean that you're incompetant and can't handle yourself. Heck, if I was her mom I'd want a phone call every week knowing that she's being stalked by 2 thieves and their cat.
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Her mother told her that she should stop calling and should rely on her friends more for support. I have no idea where you got this incompetent stuff from.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

It always kind of bothered me how Dawn's personality never really changed or grew over the course of DP. You watch DP1 and DP191 back to back, and her personality is exactly the same in both. It didn't feel like she matured much and outside of being a better coordinator, she was virtually exactly the same otherwise.

I honestly think Dawn is the only female protagonist, not counting Iris so far, whose personality didn't really change in the slightest since her debut episode.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

Everything about Dawn was superb. Her choice of outfits she wore throughout the series, her voice, her presence as a source to making Piplup popular, and the fact that she owns two incredibly good Pokemon (Togekiss and Mamoswine). I just wish she appeared as a representation of a female trainer in the next SSB, or maybe Hilda, but that's now all in vain because of Iris, who now has a higher chance of appearing there than those two. >_<
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

Gliscor'd said:
I honestly think Dawn is the only female protagonist whose personality didn't really change in the slightest since her debut episode.
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Exactly why she bored me.

I loved how the attention she received and that her story arc was full of justifiable, solid development, but her personality... fell so flat in development compared to Day 1 Hikari. She just stayed the same while she became more experienced, plus her personality did not play well off her rivals at all. In episode one she was a confident, sunny, happy girl who wanted to become a top coordinator... In the final episode, she was a... confident, sunny, happy girl who wanted to become a top coordinator. Yeah. The only times she interested me was when the story built her up only to break her down again (during the lost-confidence arc which culminated with Haruka's return), but otherwise she just filled out the genki girl stereotype so well that she became indistinguishable from just a generic genki girl. And as a general rule I don't enjoy generic.

That being said, I think she interacted rather well with Satoshi and his rivals (Kouhei, Shinji, Jun), but not at all well with HER rivals (barring Urara, but then again Urara got shit treatment). Plus I wasn't big on Hikari's team, either. I hated Mimirol, Togekiss, and Potchama, and that's 3 out of 6.


..and because I'm fickle, I wasn't a fan of her seiyuu or her dub voice... which turned me off the character even more. Not that I dislike Hikari, just that I like her the second-least out of all the main girls.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

Hellion said:
Dawn was my favourite out of the girls mostly because she was the most realistic, compelling and relatable. She was realistic in that the writers didn't make her out of an archetype, didn't use that one facet as a dominant character trait. She was sometimes funny, sometimes vain, sometimes pensive, sometimes sad, sometimes angry, sometimes selfless... much like none of us are just one type of personality.
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But doesn't virtually every character in the show go through a range of emotions just like this? This is hardly exclusive to Dawn.

Ash, May, Misty and even Brock all went through the same emotional highs and lows at various points of the series. Every character got depressed at some point, every character got angry, every character was comic relief, every character had moments of triumph. This was hardly exclusive to Dawn at all.

I suppose the difference is that when it came down to it, Dawn's most defining trait was simply her girliness and her love of fashion, with a bit of Ash and May's old personality traits mixed in.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

Taiki said:
Her mother told her that she should stop calling and should rely on her friends more for support. I have no idea where you got this incompetent stuff from.
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It went more along the lines of "Stop asking me for my advice." It was done to make look more competant. "Oh look, Dawn isn't calling her mother for advice anymore. She's so competant."
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

Human said:
It went more along the lines of "Stop asking me for my advice." It was done to make look more competant. "Oh look, Dawn isn't calling her mother for advice anymore. She's so competant."
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It wasn't done to make her look competent, it was to make her mature as when you get older and wiser you don't tend to rely on your parents as much. Considering there was never any word on Johanna saying she wanted to keep up an appearance, I really fail to see where you got that from.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

I guess I can say I like Dawn, but I was never too terribly invested in her character. I agree most of the interesting aspects of her character went away after the Wallace Cup arc, but I feel that at least part of the blame goes to Dawn's rivals for Dawn's character becoming so... "so-so". What made May so enjoyable and memorable for me beyond her very drastic character development was how she bounced off her rivals. And I don't mean just Drew and Harley. There were a slew of one-shot rivals that were interesting in their own right and most of them put May in a sticky situation alongside her worries in every Contest she entered. Dawn only really had one one-shot rival, Lila, who was actually pretty good since it tied in some of Dawn's mother's backstory into their battle. But besides that, we only had Zoey on a consistent basis, and the "friendly rivalry" thing just wasn't pulled off that well because of the lack of entertaining aspects. I totally believe a friendly rivalry can be done well, but it just wasn't in this case. Ursula was the closest thing to a rival on par with the likes of May's, but she came in far too late in the series to be an effective threat. It's a pity because when it came to the appeals and battles, I usually thought hers were better than Dawn's, but Ursula never got the win she deserved. Hell, Kenny even got that much and he was ultimately deemed too lame to move on past the appeals of the GF. Kenny himself should have been a one-shot rival.

Generally, I share this sentiment:

Aestivate said:
I think she interacted rather well with Satoshi and his rivals (Kouhei, Shinji, Jun), but not at all well with HER rivals (barring Urara, but then again Urara got shit treatment).
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If Dawn had legitimately entertaining and engaging rivals like Ash had in DP, I think it would have extended the possibilities that could've been done with her character (hell, Conway really had no business being Ash's rival when he never once interacted with the guy prior to the League, opposed to Dawn whom he creeped on since the first quarter of the series). To a degree, I believe Dawn's team also brought her down, though I mostly blame Piplup.

Overall, I didn't like Dawn as much as May, but I like her way more than Misty and Iris. It was neat having her co-star with Ash, even though they wasted potential in giving her some legitimately nice interaction with Brock. I couldn't relate to her as well as I could with May (but that's just a personal thing), but I'm sure a lot of people could relate to her better than I can. While limited and hampered by outside elements, Dawn still had character development that helped her out immensely. The losing streak subplot led to some very unique elements never before brought to the show, and it was perfectly reasonable for Dawn to be traveling in the group.

So Dawn's quite alright for me.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

they needed to give Dawn more time than ash seriously I loved her personality it was unique compared to any character on the series
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

I was never a huge fan of Dawn. I liked the amount of attention and development she received as a coordinator and that the writers tried something new with her Contest arc, especially that losing streak arc, but I didn't really care for her personality. She was likable and I can see why people could relate to her, even though I didn't, but she wasn't really that interesting. She was a bit more interesting during that losing streak arc, especially since I thought that she did have a reasonable reaction to questioning her goal, but that all kind of disappeared after the Wallace Cup. She reacted calmly to losing, almost too calmly in some cases like with losing control of Mamoswine during a Contest battle, and while that was a sign of decent character development, her personality remained the same. There were also cases later on in the series where she almost felt like a female version of Ash, but that's mostly because of the writers' attempts to make Piplup the Pikachu of the series.

It really didn't help that her rivals were pretty boring. A friendly rivalry can work, but I don't think it did with Zoey. It was too dull and there was more focus on their mentor/student friendship than their rivalry. Kenny was completely forgettable, despite Dawn getting her first ribbon from him, and while Ursula was the best rival she had, she was introduced far too late to pose a strong threat to Dawn. It really would have helped if they had more one-shot rivals for Dawn, if only so she could have interacted with other characters in her Contests for a change of pace.

I had a lot of problems with her team. Piplup hogged up way too much screentime and was annoying for the most part and I often forgot that she even had Buneary and Pachirisu, despite how their capture episodes were pretty good, the fact that Buneary never learned a forth move during the course of the series was a strange and bad choice in my opinion. I think that they dropped the ball with Mamoswine. The whole bit of Mamoswine refusing to listen to Dawn could have been interesting, but the fact that Swinub didn't really do much until it evolved didn't make me care that it wouldn't listen to her. Ambipom never should have been given away. It should have stayed given how much she loved Contests and the whole Ping-Pong thing was just way too sudden due to how there was build up with Aipom enjoying Contests more than regular battles. Togekiss was a terrible choice and she never should have gotten it. It just felt like the writers wanted her to have a sixth Pokemon for the Grand Festival and just handed it to her on a silver plate. If she had some bonding with Togekiss during that episode, then I might have been less annoyed with her capturing it. Though, I would have preferred her capturing a Togepi earlier in the series and raising it into a Togekiss. It just felt like a waste of space and had no business being on the main cast, let alone in the Grand Festival.

While I definitely prefer May over Dawn, if only because I thought she had more character development and I thought she was more interesting character, I do like her more than both Misty and Iris as well. I didn't like her that much when I first watched the series, but after rewatching the first couple of seasons, I like her a bit more, although part of that could be from how annoyed I am with Iris. Even with my problems with her team and her own personality, I did like the amount of attention she received and she probably does have the best writing around her character compared to the other female characters. She's basically an okay and likable character in my book.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

As a character herself Dawn was alright. Its just that I didn't like her character interaction with virtually everyone in DP. The characters she brought with her into the series, including Johanna, Piplup, Zoey/Kenny, etc. were all not very interesting in my opinion.

I think Dawn might have had more potential in her own series traveling by herself rather than being forced to travel with Ash/Brock in DP. In DP1 we see her perfectly capable of starting her journey by herself anyway.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

I keep saying, it wasn't Dawn who was the problem. It was the people around Dawn that where.

Her friendship with Ash and Brock felt forced. They didn't really seem to have that many conflicts with her and where always too conveniently on the same page.

Piplup..that thing was simply forced. It's relationship with Dawn didn't seem to grow naturally. Ash's relationship with Chimchar felt more natural..<_<

Her rivals. Kenny..wtf was that? That kid really made no sense. Why does he do what he do? And Zoey, she didn't really act like a rival. Rivals can be friends and care for each other, but Zoey never came of to me as a real challenge for Dawn to overcome. To bad Urara came in so late...and wasn't handled like she should had. -.-

As to Dawn herself, she wasn't unlikeable. She's a good kid and I loved the whole thing with her loosing confidence in herself. Many say Johanna was a bad mom, but she actually helped make Dawn a worthwhile character in my eyes.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

Dawn was a likable character.She definitely had the best character development arc out of all the females. I thought it was really nice to see a female get the same attention Ash got. I enjoyed her Pokemon (bar Piplup) although the writers should have given more screen time for them and not just Piplup.

But like others said, her personality didn't really change. Misty went from a feisty, hair-trigger tempered girl to a caring young lady who mellowed out her temper. May went from a clueless, unsure girl to a mature independent girl. Dawn however was still the happy, idealistic person when she left the group.

Her interactions were pretty hit and miss. Dawn had good relations with Ash, Conway, Barry and Ursula. However there wasn't much of a connection with Brock, Kenny, and Zoey. It's a shame that she had better interactions with Ash's rivals than her own.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

Catzeye said:
But like others said, her personality didn't really change. Misty went from a feisty, hair-trigger tempered girl to a caring young lady who mellowed out her temper. May went from a clueless, unsure girl to a mature independent girl. Dawn however was still the happy, idealistic person when she left the group.
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This is one of my disappointments with the character. If you watched Dawn in DP1-3, you already know how she'll be for the entire rest of the series. Aside from her small depression arc, which only took up 2 minutes of screentime per episode before she went back to her regular self, her personality felt like it didn't change or grow much at all.

The other problem is nothing changed with her interactions. She and Zoey also interacted the same exact way throughout all of DP. She and Kenny didn't change whatsoever.

I also feel as if her team remained too stagnant. Piplup/Buneary/Pachirisu essentially went unchanged for over 180 episodes since they were all caught by DP15. Ambipom, her one more interesting pokemon is released. Cyndaquil came way too late in the saga so it really didn't do much, and Togekiss was just a laughable last-minute pokemon that got maybe 5 episodes of screentime. Mamoswine was great, but even then Mamoswine never did have that truly epic battle that each powerhouse pokemon usually has.

I now see why so many people who liked Dawn at the beginning of DP "lost interest" as the saga progressed. A lot of people discovered themselves losing interest in Dawn as DP progressed and couldn't figure out why, but I guess now we know. Either they were caught up in the initial hype the writers were giving her with all the songs and promotion, or they thought her character would play out differently than she did.
 
Re: Did you like Dawn's role on the show?

I didn't like her role on the show, and that has nothing to do with me not liking the character. I just feel like it was really repetitive to watch Dawn go after the same goal we already spent nearly 200 episodes watching May go after. And I do know that May's story was very different from Dawn's, so it's not like we were watching the exact same thing again, but since May being a coordinator was so new and different, I felt like that was more worthwhile to watch than Dawn being a coordinator, since we were already used to the whole contest/coordinator segment of the show. I feel like the only thing Dawn got over May was that she got more focus and episodes to herself, and she was more on par with Ash's level of focus than May was. And we also can't forget that May won many of her contests by luck and DEM wins, which Dawn didn't. But even with that said, I still didn't like her role on the show. It's true that I find her character very boring and annoying and thus I really couldn't bring myself to like her very much, but I also feel like her story was just such a letdown, especially compared to May's. It also doesn't help that sans Ursula, Dawn's rivals were really dull and uninteresting, whereas May's were full of personality and charisma. As a whole I was really disappointed with how Dawn and her role on the show turned out.
 
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