Do you think Ash was just "given" badges in Indigo?

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Pokemaster Justin

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I don't.

While it's true that you earn a gym badge from defeating a Gym Trainer based on your deticated Pokemon training; that's not the only way to earn one.

I feel that the gym badge was a symbol of gratitude, and respect from the GYm trainer of the Gym as well. I don't believe not once that Ash was given a badge aside from maybe Misty's sisters who stopped her from getting the badges anyway.

A lot of you critize the way he was given badges in Indigo, however I felt like it not only gave Ash character, but also th gym trainers as well.


Brock/Boulder Badge: Brock CRUSHED Ash the first time, even humiliating him and pikachu. However, Ash decided to work harder to prove that he was a good trainer. Even though he had a cheap trick happen in the rematch, Ash proved that he was a good trainer by not allowing himself to win in that fashion. Brock gave him the gym badge, because he saw how kind Ash was to his Pokemon. Also, before he knew his father was coming back he wanted Ash to live his dreams for him.

Misty/Cascade: Ash earned that badge.

Lt. Surge/Thunder: Ash earned that badge.

Erika/Rainbow: We never actually saw the gym battle finish, so we will never know exactly which way it would have went. However, Ash proved his dedication to Pokemon, and showed Erika he had epithy with his Pokemon that she accused him of not having.

Sabrina/Marsh: Sabrina forgot how to be a person. Ash not only saved her from herself, but helped her reconstruct her family as well. His winning attitude, and never give up detication proved to Sabrina that he earned her respect. This also gave us some of the best three episodes in perhaps th whole series.

Koga/Soul: Ash earned that badge.

Blaine/Volcano: Ash earned that badge.

Giovanni/Team Rocket/Earth: Ash earned that badge.

So out of all the badges in Indigo Ash was only "given" three. So with all due respect, please stop parading around this board degrading the Indigo league. I thought the trainerss respect/admiration was al ot more important than just defeating a Pokemon in battle. Sure he may not have earned the badge the right way, however I think that they way he did not only gave us some of the best episodes in Indigo, but gave Ash and the gym trainers character.
 
The badge for Brock didn't really bother me since he was gracious, but that electric>ground crap pisses me off, no matter how charged up Pika is. Ash did nothing but beat Team Rocket (joke villians by this point) like he does everyday for Misty. Lt. Surg's Raichu vs Pika still holds up as one of the best battles of the series, as does Magmar vs Charizard, so those I can't argue with. With Erika, he was not strong enough to earn the badge with battling, so they had him save Gloom, which has nothing to do with a Gym Battle. The same goes for Sabrina, because a real challenger would have started a new match without interfering or creepy powers, not just lucking out that a Pokemon that followed him made her laugh. Koga...well that one was fair since Golbat vs Charmander was a new battle without TR interference. And Viridian? Double Edge Pidgeotto on Rhydon, TR running the gym, that whole thing was just beating TR like he does everyday and avoiding Ash getting the crap knocked out of him by Mewtwo and Giovanni. So that's 3 out of 8 actually won and earned, the others were just sort of "well you don't have the skill to actually win this, but you helped me with something not really related to our battle/beat those joke villians like you do everyday, so here you go!" I liked Kanto, but you have to admit that he wasn't good enough to earn those badges, so the writers gave him some beginners' luck, the same thing happend with May after her first contest, she breezed through contests like she was Ash collecting gym badges in 1999.
 
I agree that the badges are more a symbol of a good trainer/winning the gym master's approval then just for winning battles. Even cruel, bad trainers can win battles.

Brock's gym-do you know how hard it is to put an electric and a bug pokemon up against a rock type? Damn nigh impossible to win. But Ash kept trying.

Misty/Cascade Badge-looking at Misty's sisters, and their obvious lack of interests in battles, I would say that if he did have real match against them, coupled with Bulbasaur and Pikachu's type advantages, there's no way he'd lose.

Lt. Surge/Thunder: Ash won, brilliantly if I remember correctly.

Erika/Rainbow: Ash risked his life to save a Pokemon that wasn't his, and that many regarded as unpleasant. Erika should never have refused to battle him in the first place, so his crossdressing was really an ingenious way to bypass her discrimination. (Boy, Erika sucks :D)

Sabrina, I believe, turned people into dolls. He won that one, as well as the rest.

Considering Ash's inexperience, good heart, and lack of trainer in his family to teach him anything, it's rather low to pick on him for the manner in which he achieved his badges.
 
Pokemaster Justin said:
So with all due respect, please stop parading around this board degrading the Indigo league.
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Your realize that the "DP SUX!! KANTO RULES!!!" people are just as annoying (if not more so), right?

Besides, you can absolutely love a set of episodes and still find faults with them. Pointing out flaws in the shows you like doesn't make you any less of a fan, y'know.

I thought the trainerss respect/admiration was al ot more important than just defeating a Pokemon in battle.
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If that was the case, then Satoshi would have earned more badges in those ways in future leagues. But he hasn't. The writers learned from their mistakes and have realized that giving Satoshi a badge for being a good person or whatever just won't cut it anymore.

Sure he may not have earned the badge the right way
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Exactly.

The badges Satoshi were given during Kanto aren't known as "pity badges" for nothing.

Duckgon Z said:
I liked Kanto, but you have to admit that he wasn't good enough to earn those badges, so the writers gave him some beginners' luck, the same thing happend with May after her first contest, she breezed through contests like she was Ash collecting gym badges in 1999.
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THANK YOU.
 
I can understand that maybe a Gym Leader thought Ash deserve a badge even though he didn't beat them but in this case Ash should ask for another battle rather than accept a badge this way
It WAS stupid to let Ash get his badges this way and it was one of the mistakes the writers did in the past and won't repeat anymore
I really don't get this whole Kanto love... at least in my opinion each saga is better than the previous one (people say many things about Johto but at least Johto fixed this Gym problem... most of the Gyms were allright)
 
Okay, I admit that the Rainbow Badge could count as legitimate, as you'd have to be a huge jerkass to not give someone who saved your Pokemon some sort of retribution, but too many push acceptable limits.

Getting the Boulder Badge required him to defy the laws of Pokemon types (and ironically, he didn't actually win with "AIM FOR THE HORN!" to get the Volcano Badge). I can't remember the Cascade Badge, but I'll just concur that it was cheap due to him just beating the Rockets for it.

The bizarrely named Marsh Badge was the cheapest. Seriously, getting a badge just for making a Gym Leader laugh? And let's not even get started on whether the Haunter really was Ash's or not.

And of course, there's the Earth Badge. While every other trainer had to face Mewtwo, Ash won just by beating Team Rocket for the hundredth time. A shame, it would have been nice to see how Ash could triumph over Mewtwo, but it would make him a huge Marty Stu (well, even more than he already is).

By the way, I always wondered how anyone could get into the Pokemon League if no one could get past Mewtwo.
 
I really liked Kanto and didn't mind that he got the badges that way. As said, Ash was a rookie that saga and the whole point of Kanto was that Ash had no clue what he was doing.

Hence why he released Pokemon left and right, didn't really train AT ALL, and got a lot of his badges for being a good person. If I could go back and change Kanto, I wouldn't, because I thought it was fine that it went that way.

Of course, if that STILL happened today I would be pissed, and I'm glad from Johto onward has regular battles, but it was fine for the first saga.

As for May, the only Hoenn era contest where she got a ribbon cheaply was the Skitty Vs. Dusclops match, all the other contests that arc she earned fair and square. In BF, it was the first Harley one and the Brock contest, and that was about it.
 
All that stuff about Ash getting a gym leader's respect is nice and all, but Gym badges are supposed to qualify a trainer for the Pokemon League, a battle competition. They demonstrate that a trainer is ready for the intense competition of the tournament by showing he's strong enough to defeat the league's recognized gym leaders. Giving a trainer a badge for any reason other than battle would be promoting that trainer into the league before they're ready, before they've demonstrated they can handle the intense battling. It would be like promoting a kid to the next grade, even though they failed before, just because they're a nice person.

By the way, I always wondered how anyone could get into the Pokemon League if no one could get past Mewtwo.
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In the anime there are more than 8 gyms, so a trainer wouldn't need the Earth badge to get in. But I think its also probably likely that Giovanni was the gym leader for a while before he got Mewtwo, so trainers could have defeated him and earned his badge before then. And he may not have used Mewtwo in every gym battle either.

I'd also go a little farther, and say that Ash didn't really earn the Volcano badge either. Charizard only listened to Ash during that ONE battle because it wanted to fight Magmar anyway, and they probably would have fought even if their trainers weren't there to direct them. Ash still had no control over charizard in any other situation.
 
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So, essentially, if even Blaine's Badge was cheap, that would leave us with only one Badge (Lt. Surge's) rightfully earned, isn't it? --- Or do some people it was given to him out of pity, too?
 
Nah, there's no doubt that Surge's and Koga's badges were legit; the other six all have a bit of doubt to them, however (though I personally believe Blaine's was legit too).
 
Rocketshipper said:
All that stuff about Ash getting a gym leader's respect is nice and all, but Gym badges are supposed to qualify a trainer for the Pokemon League, a battle competition. They demonstrate that a trainer is ready for the intense competition of the tournament by showing he's strong enough to defeat the league's recognized gym leaders. Giving a trainer a badge for any reason other than battle would be promoting that trainer into the league before they're ready, before they've demonstrated they can handle the intense battling. It would be like promoting a kid to the next grade, even though they failed before, just because they're a nice person.
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Not quite. One of the biggest hacked aspects of being a trainer back in those days (and sorta now) was how there was more to being a good trainer than just being a good battler. And the badges are supposed to signify that the gym leader's acknowledgement that the trainer met these standards. It's a perfectly plausible scenario that a trainer could beat a gym leader, but the leader could still refuse to give out the badge because the trainer was cruel or something.

That said, I personally think all of Ash's badges were completely legit and fairly earned, except possibly for the Marsh, Cascade, and Earth badges.
 
Maybe the writers weren't as good at writing/as confident at writing gym battles as they are now, and thus they avoided them.
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Certainly he earned the badges against Machisu, Kyou and Katsura. As for the rest...not really.

Yeah, he beat Rocket Gang, but they weren't even the real Gym Leaders. Why should Satoshi get a badge for doing something he did just about every single episode, anyway?

Takeshi gave him the badge for being a good person. That's sweet, but he should have had to earn it. Then there were the Kasumi and Erika cases, where he gets the badge for saving the gym. That's nice, but he shouldn't have gotten the badge for that. Why not have him battle and win them fair and square?

Then there's Natsume. After a great three episode mini-arc, the whole thing ends with him (or Ghost, rather)...making her laugh? So, what...Would Anri and her Perapp have gotten a badge from Natsume, too?

Thankfully, the writers have gotten much better at writing gyms since then.
 
You know, I actually prefer what Ash did to get the Badges in Kanto.

I mean, contrary to popular belief, the way to earn a gym badge is NOT through beating the gym leader. It's actually through showing that you care for your pokemon and having kindness and passion as a trainer. I mean, even the games stated this.

Besides, would you rather have had him win them in a manner similar to how Paul won them (as in, basically demolish the Gym leaders, act like a total Jerk to both them and his own pokemon, among other things)? If you did, well, that's your problem. But if you don't, well, you'll see why I think this way.

However, that doesn't mean I don't think they should have a good fight. I mean, one of my biggest complaints about Gym Leaders is that in the games, and even the Anime to a certain extent, their strength level is, at best, at the level of JJM, which makes beating them not really much of a challenge. Also, if they were holding back their strength, that's even worse, since, in order for it to be a good fight, they must utilize ALL of their strength instead of just holding back.

I mean, take Dragon Ball Z, for example. There were some references to the fact that holding back your strength in a battle, while a "fair fight", isn't really a Good one {A fair fight and a good fight are two different things as, a fair fight involves following rules via the book, whileas a good fight involves everyone using all their strength to see who's strongest). I mean, in the Majin buu saga, Vegeta, who came back to Earth to fight Buu, was upset at Goku for not showing him his true strength in their fight when he was Majin Vegeta, since Goku used SSJ2 for the whole fight even though he was perfectly able to use SSJ3 against him (even if it did take away half of his life force), on Goku's grounds of it being a fair fight.

That's also one reason why I feel that a certain main character shouldn't stay a gym leader. I mean, if she keeps it up at the gym, she may experience a loss similar to JJM's first encounter with Dawn (where they lost outright to a barely even experienced Piplup.).

Also, in regards to the Earth Badge thing, even IF how he won was via the "Team Rocket Blasts off again" routine, they were still the Gym Leaders. I mean, since Giovanni loaned them the pokemon that he owned for the gym, as well as entrusted them to defend the gym, he did, at least until his "Mysterious assignment" is complete, make them Gym Leaders, so really, the only one to blame for this mess was Giovanni, since he should have picked someone else to defend the Gym.

Anyways, that's all for now.
 
Weedle Mchairybug said:
That's also one reason why I feel that a certain main character shouldn't stay a gym leader. I mean, if she keeps it up at the gym, she may experience a loss similar to JJM's first encounter with Dawn (where they lost outright to a barely even experienced Piplup.).
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I don't think it's comparable. Team Rocket has extraordinarily terrible luck when it comes to battling the twerps. Against other trainers they may have a chance, but twerps (and their friends) will humiliate them like no other.
 
I liked the way Ash earned his badges in Kanto, it showed his kind personality and maybe it was showing kids that you don't always have to be the strongest person to win, you can succeed sometimes without brute force. I don't know.. I'm pretty sure there is some life lesson in all of that. ^_^;

However I do agree with how it can be seen as "pity" badges, but if Ash hadn't had beaten Brock the way that he did in his first gym battle we would have had to have watched him training his pokemon. I think the writers just wanted the story to develop more before they started focusing on battles.
 
Snake Bandage said:
I don't think it's comparable. Team Rocket has extraordinarily terrible luck when it comes to battling the twerps. Against other trainers they may have a chance, but twerps (and their friends) will humiliate them like no other.
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Look, maybe you can see the difference, but I don't. See, the fanbase claims that, since they lose to "weak" trainers and "weak" pokemon, they are pathetic. Considering how Gym leaders lose to rookies the majority of the time, I can't see the difference between the two.
 
Team Rocket just aren't meant to win, like most "bad guys". -_-
 
Hm... Well.

Boulder Badge - He forfeited.
Cascade Badge - Team Rocket interfered.
Thunder Badge - He won. + 1
Marsh Badge - He didn't really do anything.
Rainbow Badge - He saved Gloom from a burning building.
Soul Badge - He won. + 2
Volcano Badge - He won. + 3
Earth Badge - He won. + 4 It may have just been a battle against Team Rocket, but they were the acting gym leaders in Giovanni's absence. It's completely fair.

Thing is though, in the case of the Cascade and Rainbow badges, he saved the leaders' Pokémon from being stolen/killed, so offering the badge as a token of gratitude isn't exactly far-fetched.

The Boulder Badge was given to him for the sake of a moral. Fight fair and you'll be rewarded.

As for the Marsh Badge... I would have preferred if he had actually captured Haunter, and managed to battle Sabrina. "You get a badge because you made me laugh." IMO it's the only really bullcrap win.
 
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