Should the writers have made Brock and Misty more active battlers during their run?

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Cybersai

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This topic will probably become long-winded, but here goes.

I was just listening to a random Bulbacast, and what struck me is how disconnected some people are from the amount of battle screentime either Misty or Brock had in the anime. Since when were either of the two Gym leaders Ash traveled with as active battlers as the two coordinators Ash traveled with?

First up is Brock, have we ever seen this guy compete in a serious tournament while traveling with Ash? Not counting Team Rocket skirmishes, the only time we see Brock in a serious battle is once in a blue moon.

- In all of D/P thus far, the only time Brock gets to battle is very briefly against Team Rocket. Croagunk got to battle under Jessie and it looked amazing, but I don't think that ever happened with Brock.

-Back in Battle Frontier, he got two battle episodes, the Pewter Gym ep and the Contest ep, but other than that he didn't battle much the rest of the saga either.

- Back in Hoenn...I honestly cannot remember Brock being in any real battles besides against the Winstrate family, in which his Mudkip lost to a Zigzagoon.

And then from Kanto or Johto...anyone want to refresh my memory? Obviously there was the Pewter Gym battle against Ash...but what other battles was he in that doesn't include Team Rocket skirmishes?

__________

Next up is Misty, which really struck me as confusing. One person mentioned that Misty, "was a battler" and uh...what examples are those?

The only serious tournaments I remember Misty competing in was the Princess Day festival, and the Whirl Cup. The first ep had Misty used Ash/Brock's Pokemon to win, not even using her own, and the Whirl Cup was only three episodes long and had Misty lose to Trinity.

Not counting Team Rocket skirmishes, when has Misty been in serious battles from Kanto-Johto? The ones I remember off the top of my head are:

- Cerulean Gym ep, obviously. The battle got interrupted by TR.

- Battled in the Giselle ep with Starmie Vs. Graveler, Misty lost

- Bridge Bike gang ep, she does Psyduck vs. Cloyster, although that can barely be counted as a battle since they didn't do much fighting.

- Princess day ep

- Battled Marina in "Bye, Bye Psyduck" during Orange.

- Battled Ash for Totodile in "The Totodile Duel" in early Johto

- Battled Sakura in "Espeon not Included"

- Whirl Cup

- Battled against the three goons in GCYL

- Battled against Hanson in her two-ep return in Hoenn

And...I can't remember any more, anyone want to include something I missed that doesn't include random TR battles to blast them off? I'm not going to include Hoso's since she wasn't Ash's travel companion at that time, and any Gym battles she has are off-screen anyway. Considering Misty was on the show for 276 episodes, is that all the serious battling she did?

Therefore, do you think the writers should have made Misty and Brock more active battlers on their time on the show? It really strikes me as odd, that Gym leaders, characters whose jobs are basically all about battling...did the least amount of battling on Ash's party aside from Tracey and Max of course.

So in all seriousness, are people really that disconnected from the roles these characters had in the show? Or do people really need to re-examine the old seasons and see for themselves?

I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on this, and do you think Brock will get to participate in any serious battles in D/P?
 
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Well, it's pretty understandable from a character standpoint. Brock never really wanted to be a gym leader, and Misty wasn't really one until after the original series ended.

But, yes, they should have definetly been more involved battle-wise. I don't really know how, since it's not like they would come across someone that would say "I want a battle omg but not against the little kid or that girl with the egg, but against this taller guy". And neither of them had any trinket collecting to do. So who knows how they would have done it. Maybe if double battles had existed (or be more prominent, anyway) they could help out Ash every once in a while? *shrug*
 
Eh, I forgot about the Togepi tournament.

Bulbasaur used the tickle attack on Psyduck, (tickle wasn't even a real attack back in RBY!), which caused Misty to lose, so its not like she actually got a chance to battle. Although we can add this to Brock's battles, since he did use Onix against Meowth, right? Even though Brock lost to Meowth there too.
 
Meh to me it seems as though Brock is doing a bit more in D/P it seems like he's had more episodes this season. But old seasons I don't know, it would have been neat if they had battled more, but its all in the past now. Can't change it.
 
I'm curious why you're tying Brock into this. Like Lil Brother said, he never wanted to be Gym Leader, and stated in his first episode he prefers taking care of Pokémon to battling them. In light of this, it makes sense that he only battles seriously when it's necessary.

That being said, it's completely unfair to judge his amount of activity in the anime by how much he battles. Most of his significant appearances were not about the battles, and only included a Team Rocket appearance battle for the action and/or drama where necessary.

If the writers were to enter him in any sort of major competition, it would most likely be like the Breeder Contest in Johto. And somehow, I doubt that would go over very well with the fans, considering how devoid of action it would be; consider that in the episode itself, they cut out pretty much all of the actual competition. The best compromise would have been to have him competing in Contests, but we've all seen what's become of that.

Now, with that being said, I think it's important to note in this discussion that Brock and Misty are both treated as supporting characters, comparable to Tracey and Max. May was the first to get more than that, and Dawn is a step higher, almost (but still not quite) on the same level as Ash. Granted, this is a role Brock handles well since, as I noted, his character is a more peaceful one, the caretaker and voice of rationality, not someone extremely competitive. With Misty, it did not sit as well, which is why she battled more than Brock. But she was still treated completely as a supporting character, which is why the focus was more often on Ash battling than Misty.

It is certainly nice to see Brock more active and still in character. But that doesn't mean they were badly done back in the early seasons.
 
I would have loved it if Brock and Misty got more screentime, period, not necessarily more battles. The show doesn't really do character-arcs, since the focus always has to be on the Pokemon, which I think is a shame. At least Misty got the Whirl Cup.
 
Pie said:
That being said, it's completely unfair to judge his amount of activity in the anime by how much he battles. Most of his significant appearances were not about the battles, and only included a Team Rocket appearance battle for the action and/or drama where necessary.
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I agree on that, but it seems to me that the battlers simply get more screentime and thus more focus in the anime. For the record I'm bringing Brock into this because unlike Misty, he's still on the show and thus could be given more to do, and the other support characters like Tracey and Max weren't meant to do that much in the first place since one was only here for 30 eps and the other had no Pokemon.

It seems to me that there would be a lot less complaining about Brock in the anime if he was handled with a greater focus. For example, how many times have you heard the question, "What is Brock's point in the anime?" or "Why is Brock still doing here?" or "When was the last time Brock was in a battle?" or "When was the last time we saw this certain Pokemon of Brock's do anything?"

How many times over the course of the series have we heard those questions be raised, and not from the same people, from plenty of different people as well. If those questions keep getting brought up time after time again, over the course of AG and D/P, it really raises the question...did the writers not make Brock's role as clear-cut as it should be? Did the writers not establish Brock's role into the anime as well as they could have? If that isn't true, then why do so many people ask such similar questions to the ones above?

The fact that we do hear the above questions and quite frequently to makes you wonder about how the fandom as a whole actually views his role on the show. I think people started to notice it for the first time while AG was airing, but a lot of the hate got dumped on Max instead because his role was not easily visible to most people as well. However now that Max isn't around anymore, people can't use him as a scapegoat, and now Brock's role in the anime must become more apparent than before or else people are going to keep raising those same questions throughout D/P.

People used to complain that Misty's role of a Water Pokemon Master was hardly focused on either, and to be fair it really wasn't which accounts for her lack of direction in the Johto saga, but since she's not on the show anymore there's not much to say here. Being a supporting character isn't an excuse to not be focused on at all.

It is certainly nice to see Brock more active and still in character. But that doesn't mean they were badly done back in the early seasons.
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It appears to me that the fandom was largly unsatisfied with Brock's role in AG. The above questions would never have been asked as frequently if he were. In D/P he definitely has better Pokemon, but the jury is still out whether the writers are handling him more efficiently now than before.

Its probably not the writers fault because they probably don't realize what they're doing as they're writing through the seasons, because Misty and Max both suffered from sidekick status as well. Max didn't really do much of anything in Battle Frontier, and Misty was mishandled in Johto because the writers had no idea which direction to take her character in. The writers managed to fix up their mistakes with Misty in Johto by making her a Gym leader in the Hoso's, now its their turn to fix up Brock. The better Pokemon is a step in the right direction, but he's still pretty stagnant in terms of character development. Would being a more active battler or participant in the anime help that? Who knows, but I'd rather not see Brock treated as badly this season as he was the previous one. And as a result, he'd probably be less bashed in the fandom because of it.
 
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Scott85 said:
People used to complain that Misty's role of a Water Pokemon Master was hardly focused on either, and to be fair it really wasn't which accounts for her lack of direction in the Johto saga, but since she's not on the show anymore there's not much to say here. Being a supporting character isn't an excuse to not be focused on at all.
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meh... my complaint has always been "why have a fucking monotonous type-specialist in the crowd in the first place?"
 
Yamato-san said:
meh... my complaint has always been "why have a fucking monotonous type-specialist in the crowd in the first place?"
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Well to be fair I didn't think that was a problem during Kanto/Orange since the series basically started out as a standard videogame adaption and was planned to end after only a year and a half. Misty satisfied her role in Kanto/Orange very well and was a great character for what she was at the time, most of the fandom agrees that was the highlight of Misty's character.

It was only when the show became ongoing did the lack of focus on Misty and Brock become a problem. The writers really had no clue what direction to take either of their characters in, which is why they suffered for it in the long run, and why they were the most complained about characters in the respective sagas, (Misty in Johto and Brock in Hoenn), because of their lack of direction. The writers definitely ran out of ideas for Max as well come Battle Frontier, but since he wasn't a main supporting character it didn't matter as much.
 
come to think of it, as I was watching through the first series in Japanese, I noticed one or two times that when Satoshi introduced his goal as trying to be the world's best Pokemon Master, and Takeshi's as the best breeder, Kasumi would just comment that she's the group's bishoujo or something like that. I don't think it was until Kanna showed up in the Orange Islands, after it became apparent the show would be long-running, did she started saying she has a goal of being a water Pokemon Master (which is more or less just a shitty copy of Satoshi's goal only with a specialty).
 
Yamato-san said:
come to think of it, as I was watching through the first series in Japanese, I noticed one or two times that when Satoshi introduced his goal as trying to be the world's best Pokemon Master, and Takeshi's as the best breeder, Kasumi would just comment that she's the group's bishoujo or something like that. I don't think it was until Kanna showed up in the Orange Islands, after it became apparent the show would be long-running, did she started saying she has a goal of being a water Pokemon Master (which is more or less just a shitty copy of Satoshi's goal only with a specialty).
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I've heard that somewhere else, how odd. How come you think the dubbers didn't try to find some kind of equivalent?
 
I guess there are so many Water Pokemon that it'd be a somewhat "amazing feat" to train them all...
 
it would have been nice to see them battle more it could have befitted from bw like touruments for misty and brock to battle in
 
It would just about be misty you would think even if they should have given misty more of a chance to show her battling skill
 
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