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- #201
I'm afraid you're missing my point here, but maybe I didn't make it clear enough. It's not about one friend saving another friend (Only a fool would complain about that, I guess). It's about the massively flawed concept of Go in general. Let me explain:
Look at Ash's former companions, most notably Brock, Misty, May, Dawn and Serena. Look at how much time was spent on their character development. Look at all their emotions and struggles to get where they are now. And now compare them to Go, a guy who's been around for only 50 episodes. A guy who already seems to know everything and seems to be good at everything. A guy who's violating all the core principles of the show that everybody has followed so far (e.g. properly battle a Pokemon and don't just throw Pokeballs at it, treat it like a companion and not just as a souvenir etc.) And as "reward" he's now even been given a legendary Pokemon ... after only 50 episodes! Wouldn't you agree that, especially when compared to the companions I mentioned before, Go's story seems forced, lacks plausibility and is thus starting to devalue our precious show?
Not really. I certainly don't think Goh's story is devaluing the previous series or storylines from other companions at least. It might be a bit too soon to give Goh a Legendary Pokemon, but with the events of the episode in mind, I think it worked. I don't think Goh is good at everything either and while he is pretty knowledgeable about Pokemon, saying that he knows everything might be a bit of an exaggeration too.
Queen Cynthia said:Let me ask you a question that, admittedly, is meant to be provocative: What's the difference between Go and those hunters in the episode? Both catch as many Pokemon as they can get and while the hunters might even have a reason for doing so (evil though those reason might be), Go still hasn't come up with a plausible explanation for having to catch them all. Being obsessed about catching Mew doesn't necessarily mean you need to catch all the other Pokemon as well. He could just leave them alone and solely concentrate on looking for Mew. Also, both the hunters and Go lock their Pokemon away. While the former are using cages made of steel, Go is basically locking them away in a huge "cage" of glass (Sakuragi Park) and doesn't really seem to care for most of them anymore. So, apart from being the friendly version of a Pokemon poacher in disguise, I can't see what Go could possibly contribute to the show.
It truly baffles me whenever people try to paint Goh as a villain. The difference between Goh and the hunters here is painfully clear. Goh cares about Pokemon and isn't interested in capturing Pokemon to sell for a profit like hunters would. While I agree that the whole notion that Goh is working his way back to Mew doesn't make much sense, it definitely doesn't put him on the level of people hurting Pokemon with traps like these hunters were doing. Seeing the lab park as a huge cage of glass where Goh locks his Pokemon away is ridiculous. As much as people complain about how most of his Pokemon are just stuck there, it isn't a prison. It's more along the lines of a Pokemon preserve than anything else given that they're taken care of. Granted, we don't see Goh interacting with most of them, but I think that's more on how the writers have been focused more on quantity than quality when it comes of the characterization of Goh's Pokemon. Even after his first catching spree with those Bug Pokemon, Goh was happily playing with them, so he does care about them.
If you really think that Goh is just a friendly version of a Pokemon poacher in disguise, then I think that's just such a needlessly harsh and quite frankly inaccurate take on his character. I can understand just not liking him and his goal, but he isn't a villain in the making or anything like that. There's no need to paint him in such a negative light when you just don't like him.
Queen Cynthia said:And there is another, more subtle (and I'd also say a more "evil") aspect about Go: You might not agree, but I'm telling you that in a subtle yet recognizable way, the writers have been trying to force Ash to take the back seat more and more since they introduced Go. It started with more and more episodes being centred around Go. The next step was that Ash has turned into an ordinary character in many episodes who wasn't even allowed to contribute anything of relevance to the plot. And now we've reached the point where Ash seems to be an ordinary trainers who even needs to be protected be Go while his Pokemon are hardly allowed to do anything. Sorry, for the harsh words, but this behavior of Go reminds me of a parasite that the writers use to slowly but surely drive Ash out of his role as the main protagonist.
Yeah, that's just such a huge conclusion to jump to from Goh wanting to protect his friend. It would already be a tough sell just because of how I took the scene as a clear sign of how much Goh cares about Ash, but describing him as a parasite, along with the whole friendly version of a Pokemon poacher, really is ridiculous. This is also one reason why I don't really think that the screentime issue is that big of a deal when people just tend to make extreme over the top exaggerations about it.
Queen Cynthia said:I'd say there's a big difference between Ash getting a Melmetal (which I'd call a mythical or pseudo-legendary Pokemon) and Go getting the legendary Suicune: Ash had been working and struggling hard for over 20 years until he finally got such a Pokemon, while it took Go only 50 episodes (a ridiculous number compared to Ash) to get a real legendary. However, catching a legendary should be a reward for a life as a Pokemon trainer who's been working hard for many years. Since the introduction of Go, however, Pokemon seem to have become prizes in a lottery that anyone can get. I guess there's no need to further explain why this is not only completely unfair and forced but also lacks any plausibility. In my eyes, it's just another result of "parasite Go" doing his destructive work.
Mythical Pokemon are still Legendary Pokemon and Ash's experience had nothing to do with why he captured it. I'm not surprised fans bring that up to justify it out of universe, but given that he didn't battle it and it wasn't the result of his experience from different regions, it feels pretty irrelevant in-universe to me. While Goh getting a Legendary Pokemon at this point of Journeys is a bit early, I also feel like fans are making a big deal about Legendary Pokemon in general. I can understand that when capturing them is a big deal and they're special Pokemon too, but it's kind of hard for me to get that upset over it when there are so many Legendary Pokemon at this point. Even with Goh not being the most experienced trainer around, I don't think a main character catching a Legendary is such a sacrilege concept, especially given the context of this episode. If he was bonding with a much bigger Legendary Pokemon, like Diagla or Reshiram, then that might have been harder to pull off, but for a relatively smaller Legendary Pokemon like Suicune, I think it was fine, especially when he doesn't have it on standby all the time to render any future tension moot. Calling him parasite Goh is just ridiculous.