Spoilers So...is there anyone who DIDN'T like Zinnia?

[Yu Narukami]

Delta episode completed, but since it's completion there have been a few thing's that have...been bugging me that I thought I might get off my chest and put on paper, if that makes sense..

***NOTE****
-If you dislike opinions that differ from your own then please don't read any further.
-If this so happens to be in the wrong section or something, then mods do what you wish.

Without further ado..


If this is in a wrong section or something feel free to move it etc.

So, the delta episode left me with mixed feelings.. Aside from the epicness of Rayquaza's mega evolution and the appearance of the deoxys, who turned out to be the cause of the meteor. There were two things that..left me with a bad taste in my mouth, that I thought I'd like to share. So before you start reading..if opinions that differ from your own aren't your thing, don't read any further. :0
It was good at best, a nice change of pace as opposed to having nothing at all happen post game like other pokemon game's, accompanied by tons of Rayquaza hype and how he's holdin things down. However, majority of this post game "episode" was a wild goose chase across Hoenn and back revolving around Rayquaza, Deoxys, and some random chick Game Freak expects me to like, but I instead ended up hating. But you were AKNOWLEDGED as the champion after beating steven..so that's a first. I don't recall ever being praised or labeled as the champion after actually beating the previous champ in any other pokemon game.


Anyway... I personally didn't like Zinnia, I didn't like her personality, and albeit her actions lead to you saving the world for a second time, dare I say that I felt like she was being...selfish? I never understood why the majority of the people I knew considered her so cool or cute in this. She didn't try to explain anything till near the end, just ran around taking and breaking like "Your doing things wrong, and I should know because im the chosen one and I can do whatevs I want because IM going to be the one to save the world." Only to find out she can't even mega evolve quaza. A slap to the face indeed.

Another thing that bugs me is...Am I the only one that that thinks the recent games are making the plots TOO obsessed with mega evolution? I get that it's a new feature and all, and what better way to implement it into the lore by doing just that, but.. I hope the next game's story doesn't solely revolve around mega evolving or mega evolving another pair of previous generation legends. It makes it seem like they're milking the cow a little too much... inb4 4th gen remakes...A follow up to XY revolving around Zygarde would be cool though, even if it will probably revolve around mega evolving like every new pokemon game nowadays. Or maybe they'll take the black 2 white 2 route. I can't say for sure.



All in all, The Delta episode was a decent time waster. But I feel like game freak didn't put enough effort into making Zinnia a likeable character for me, or for whoever felt the same way. It was more like, "Meet Zinnia! She's going to help you get rayquaza and Deoxys then you won't care about her anymore, and you'll never see her again either!" A sob story after she ran around taking key stone's like it's nobody's business, and little to no build up before the episode took place other than seeing her in a costume doesn't make me like her at all.
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So now that, that's off my chest.... did anyone feel the same way? Care to "enlighten" me on why you disagree? I'd like to read what others on this forum think. :v

 

[DraconicBandGeek]

I must say i thought I was the only one who really didn't like her that much. I'll admit my love for her only runs about skin deep - meaning the only thing I really liked about her was her design. Seriously anyone else notice she has fangs? I can't tell if that's cool or just plain weird.

I felt like she didn't have any respect for anyone and just ran around doing whatever the heck she wanted. She really came out as an arrogant know-it-all to me, and I can't stand people like that. And the whole "Draconiod" eople thing was pretty silly too. Like basically they're a group of people who worship Rayquayza? I get it Dragon types are cool and stuff but they're just another type, not some sort of superpower. Why do people treat Dragon types like some sort of super ultra powerful thing?

Another thing that bothered me was how everyone was like "oh Zinnia's so great and amazing ohhhhh" like shut up please. I pwned her in both battles. Yeah, I used MRayquayza, but not for the whole battle. And I literally laughed so hard when she couldn't mega evolve it. I'm just like "hahaha serve you right crazy bitch for thinking you're the greatest dragon trainer in the world."

And why. Why the heck was she stealing people's stuff. So she's a criminal too? I hate these kind of characters who can do everything. Well... actually do everything.

Was she the good guy or the bad guy? I never figured that out.

 

[Team Gaara]

Part of me didn't like Zinnia, only because she was one of those Luffy-like characters that runs around trying to tell others what to do, but not fully explaining why they should do it or just decides to make the decision for everyone without asking or discussing first (as a side note, before anyone asks, I don't dislike Luffy...yes, ironic). If Zinnia could have simply been more frank about what she wanted to tell Steven and the other scientists about other Universes/Dimensions in the first place, maybe they could have worked together to try to stop the meteor. But she was just so ambiguous and decided the best course of action was to break into places, steal, and destroy people's stuff, completely unnecessarily complicating things, it just made me dislike her a bit.

That's really it. Otherwise, she was a pretty cool character with some dark stuff in her past we still need to figure out. You could say I have a love-hate relationship with her.

 

[Sakuraa]

Quite frankly, I hate Zinnia. She just seemed like such a major troll and total annoyance. She'd come out of no where and start talking about some random stuff and then either steal a key stone or do something else and just leave, NEVER EXPLAINING WHY. And then whenever anyone asked her who she was or what she was doing or anything, she'd just ignore them and start talking about the same random stuff to me; actually expecting me to know what the hell she was talking about. Finally she makes me chase her up, like, four set of ladders before she'd tell me the back-story for what she was doing. She just seemed totally selfish and unconcerned with anyone else, minus the player, and just doing what she wanted when she wanted, then waiting until the last minute to finally explain why. I personally didn't like that at all.

So yeah, didn't like her.

 

[Windchild]

Zinnia was a mixed bag for me. She looks rad as fuck and I love her themes, but she made some morally-questionable choices and was really kinda arrogant throughout. So...eh.

And the whole "Draconiod" eople thing was pretty silly too. Like basically they're a group of people who worship Rayquayza? I get it Dragon types are cool and stuff but they're just another type, not some sort of superpower. Why do people treat Dragon types like some sort of super ultra powerful thing?

You kinda just answered your own question; they worship Rayquaza. God of the sky, embodiment of the air, and savior of Hoenn, if not the entire world? You actually have to wonder why more people don't revere it.

 

[Esserise]

and some random chick Game Freak expects me to like, but I instead ended up hating

How do you know that Game Freak expected you to like her? I got the impression that she was supposed to be abrasive and unhinged, largely because of her traumatic loss. She's obviously not supposed to be the hero (hence her failing to summon Rayquaza, and Steven calling her a nut for trying to do that by releasing Kyogre/Groudon); she's just the catalyst/infodump character. Just because she had good intentions does not necessarily mean that you were supposed to like her.

But you were AKNOWLEDGED as the champion after beating steven..so that's a first. I don't recall ever being praised or labeled as the champion after actually beating the previous champ in any other pokemon game.

XY? You are literally given a medal for becoming the Champion and stopping Team Flare.

Am I the only one that that thinks the recent games are making the plots TOO obsessed with mega evolution? I get that it's a new feature and all, and what better way to implement it into the lore by doing just that, but.. I hope the next game's story doesn't solely revolve around mega evolving or mega evolving another pair of previous generation legends. It makes it seem like they're milking the cow a little too much... inb4 4th gen remakes...A follow up to XY revolving around Zygarde would be cool though, even if it will probably revolve around mega evolving like every new pokemon game nowadays. Or maybe they'll take the black 2 white 2 route. I can't say for sure.

Mega Evolution was actually quite unimportant in XY. Sycamore mentioned it a mere three times during the main storyline, and the only time that it really becomes important is when you get to Shalour City. And after that, it's barely mentioned again. ORAS revolved around it, but they openly promoted these games as "uncovering the mystery of Mega Evolution." Heavy involvement of the mechanic in the storyline was to be expected.

 

[Yu Narukami]

How do you know that Game Freak expected you to like her? I got the impression that she was supposed to be abrasive and unhinged, largely because of her traumatic loss. She's obviously not supposed to be the hero (hence her failing to summon Rayquaza, and Steven calling her a nut for trying to do that by releasing Kyogre/Groudon); she's just the catalyst/infodump character. Just because she had good intentions does not necessarily mean that you were supposed to like her.

But you were AKNOWLEDGED as the champion after beating steven..so that's a first. I don't recall ever being praised or labeled as the champion after actually beating the previous champ in any other pokemon game.

XY? You are literally given a medal for becoming the Champion and stopping Team Flare.

Am I the only one that that thinks the recent games are making the plots TOO obsessed with mega evolution? I get that it's a new feature and all, and what better way to implement it into the lore by doing just that, but.. I hope the next game's story doesn't solely revolve around mega evolving or mega evolving another pair of previous generation legends. It makes it seem like they're milking the cow a little too much... inb4 4th gen remakes...A follow up to XY revolving around Zygarde would be cool though, even if it will probably revolve around mega evolving like every new pokemon game nowadays. Or maybe they'll take the black 2 white 2 route. I can't say for sure.

Mega Evolution was actually quite unimportant in XY. Sycamore mentioned it a mere three times during the main storyline, and the only time that it really becomes important is when you get to Shalour City. And after that, it's barely mentioned again. ORAS revolved around it, but they openly promoted these games as "uncovering the mystery of Mega Evolution." Heavy involvement of the mechanic in the storyline was to be expected.

Getting the medal, and majority of XY slipped my mind at the time of writing my thoughts, and when I was transferring it from my notepad to this. The bulk of my first post is just copypasta from my notepad I wrote about two weeks ago without much regard to the previous game's story. Translation: my opinion obviously has holes like swiss cheese.

 

[Osprey]

I don't hate her, but like the rest of y'all, it seems like my opinion is a bit mixed. Her appearance is one of the best I've ever seen for a human in Pokemon, hands-down, and her backstory is strange and a little grim... stuff isn't stated explicitly, and what's left to conjecture makes it all the more interesting. (Also, battle music. In my humble opinion, it's one of the best of the entire franchise. Yeah, that includes PMD.)

I do have some issues with her characterization, however; she's needlessly uninformative, stealing from your rivals when she could've just said, "Look. There's this giant asteroid that's about to hit Hoenn and kill us all, and you know I'm not making this up because of those scientists over at Mossdeep have already informed the public about this. I need your Keystone to summon the only thing that can save us all. I'll give it back once the world's saved."

Instead, seemingly for no reason, she steals others' Keystones (and even gets physically violent with May/Brendan). And then there's her methods before Episode Delta; yeah, lemme get this straight... you were trying to bring down the dragon god... to prevent a deadly calamity... by invoking a different deadly calamity?! But what if that wasn't enough to get Rayquaza's attention, and the entire WORLD was scorched/drowned before the asteroid even got there? Either she didn't think this through, or the guys who wrote the story didn't think this through, and either way it's ridiculous.

Maybe she just has even worse social skills than N. I just know that the psycho-slasher grin she has at the start of battle is just freakin' scary. Why's it necessary to make her look so damn feral at the start of each fight?

 

[Almonds]

One thing I didn't like about Zinnia was how she had been telling Steven and the space crew how stupid they were for not thinking of other options, smashed the transporting device for being noble, and then was in complete panic when Rayquaza couldn't Mega Evolve. I thought you had more options? What if I didn't have the meteorite? Zinnia, dear, you pretty much almost killed everyone on Hoenn by caring so much about potential people in other dimensions, which you're not even sure exists?

I know her intentions meant no harm, but at least she could have left the transportation device intact as the last resort. The world is about to end - you should have all possible options available, not get rid of one just because you don't like it.

 

[Life]

I haven't really thought about it, but it only took me a few seconds to remember that I'm not a fan of people who steal and trash devices meant to save the world only to fail in their own scheme and force me to fix their problems.

Her theme was kick-ass, though.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Seriously anyone else notice she has fangs? I can't tell if that's cool or just plain weird.

According to a 3D model rip I saw, she has only one fang :lol:

But I still like her. Although she seems to be very emotionally unstable

 

[The Outrage]

As far as Gen VI post-game characters go, Emma was likeable, Zinnia not really--she has a lot of flaws that aren't really addressed, and her actions are on par with evil team members and we excuse it because?

Okay, so Archie and Maxie tried to awaken Kyogre and Groudon, but with good intentions. Archie wished to recreate the pristine world in which Pokemon thrived, and Archie wished to push human development forward with more land. The problem was, both underestimated the legendary's power, and they never meant to create all this destruction. Zinnia? Her good intention was to awaken Rayquaza to stop the meteoroid, and she aims to do this by helping one of the teams awaken the legendary Pokemon. The problem is, she knows full well the powers of these legends, and she had an alternate plan that amounted to theft, by stealing Keystones to pray to Rayquaza. One begins to wonder why she didn't consider this in the first place, especially since it was well chronicled in Draconid lore that Rayquaza responded to prayers to the "Rainbow stone".

Then she has the audacity to criticize Steven and the Mosdeep Space Centre for wanting to warp the Meteoroid away because it could potentially be transported to an alternate Hoenn. That's great and all, but Zinnia provides zero evidence that this second Hoenn exists, and if we weren't playing remakes of the original games, we as the players would have no reason to suspect alternate universes exist. Rather than explaining her plan, she condescendingly calls them uncreative for not being able to formulate an alternate plan when they don't have access to the same ancient knowledge she does, and then destroys the dimensional shifter! Maybe you could have told them that you planned to summon Rayquaza and let them keep the dimensional shifter as a contingency in case you fail which you did. If the main character didn't follow you, the MEvo!Hoenn would be gone, if not the rest of the planet.

And then its incredibly hypocritical to be calling Steven and the scientists out for their plan which would destroy another Hoenn when you provide no evidence for the other Hoenn's existence, when your first choice for summoning Rayquaza was to awaken a legendary Pokemon which you knew could plunge Hoenn into destruction.

I mean shit, most antagonists only nearly destroy the world once, she almost does it twice in the same games. Good job Lorekeeper Zinnia, tell me again how the Draconids have been protecting Hoenn?

Oh, and she names her Whismur Aster, and she supposedly cares for (the original) Aster. This Whismur? I feel bad for it. First, its left on Sky Pillar to give the PC a letter while she leaves. Then she abandons Aster once again at Meteor Falls with her grandmother. Its clearly just something she's projecting her baggage on--she doesn't care about Aster the Whismur, she cares about the memory of Aster this Whismur is helping her keep alive.

 

[HyruleAlpha]

I could take her or leave her. Then again, I am curious who this Aster is, and why Zinnia has a Wishmur follow her.

 

[Yu Narukami]

As far as Gen VI post-game characters go, Emma was likeable, Zinnia not really--she has a lot of flaws that aren't really addressed, and her actions are on par with evil team members and we excuse it because?

Okay, so Archie and Maxie tried to awaken Kyogre and Groudon, but with good intentions. Archie wished to recreate the pristine world in which Pokemon thrived, and Archie wished to push human development forward with more land. The problem was, both underestimated the legendary's power, and they never meant to create all this destruction. Zinnia? Her good intention was to awaken Rayquaza to stop the meteoroid, and she aims to do this by helping one of the teams awaken the legendary Pokemon. The problem is, she knows full well the powers of these legends, and she had an alternate plan that amounted to theft, by stealing Keystones to pray to Rayquaza. One begins to wonder why she didn't consider this in the first place, especially since it was well chronicled in Draconid lore that Rayquaza responded to prayers to the "Rainbow stone".

Then she has the audacity to criticize Steven and the Mosdeep Space Centre for wanting to warp the Meteoroid away because it could potentially be transported to an alternate Hoenn. That's great and all, but Zinnia provides zero evidence that this second Hoenn exists, and if we weren't playing remakes of the original games, we as the players would have no reason to suspect alternate universes exist. Rather than explaining her plan, she condescendingly calls them uncreative for not being able to formulate an alternate plan when they don't have access to the same ancient knowledge she does, and then destroys the dimensional shifter! Maybe you could have told them that you planned to summon Rayquaza and let them keep the dimensional shifter as a contingency in case you fail which you did. If the main character didn't follow you, the MEvo!Hoenn would be gone, if not the rest of the planet.

And then its incredibly hypocritical to be calling Steven and the scientists out for their plan which would destroy another Hoenn when you provide no evidence for the other Hoenn's existence, when your first choice for summoning Rayquaza was to awaken a legendary Pokemon which you knew could plunge Hoenn into destruction.

I mean shit, most antagonists only nearly destroy the world once, she almost does it twice in the same games. Good job Lorekeeper Zinnia, tell me again how the Draconids have been protecting Hoenn?

Oh, and she names her Whismur Aster, and she supposedly cares for (the original) Aster. This Whismur? I feel bad for it. First, its left on Sky Pillar to give the PC a letter while she leaves. Then she abandons Aster once again at Meteor Falls with her grandmother. Its clearly just something she's projecting her baggage on--she doesn't care about Aster the Whismur, she cares about the memory of Aster this Whismur is helping her keep alive.

THIS
You basically summed up what bothered me the MOST about the episode..

 

[Kallyle]

As far as Gen VI post-game characters go, Emma was likeable, Zinnia not really--she has a lot of flaws that aren't really addressed, and her actions are on par with evil team members and we excuse it because?

Okay, so Archie and Maxie tried to awaken Kyogre and Groudon, but with good intentions. Archie wished to recreate the pristine world in which Pokemon thrived, and Archie wished to push human development forward with more land. The problem was, both underestimated the legendary's power, and they never meant to create all this destruction. Zinnia? Her good intention was to awaken Rayquaza to stop the meteoroid, and she aims to do this by helping one of the teams awaken the legendary Pokemon. The problem is, she knows full well the powers of these legends, and she had an alternate plan that amounted to theft, by stealing Keystones to pray to Rayquaza. One begins to wonder why she didn't consider this in the first place, especially since it was well chronicled in Draconid lore that Rayquaza responded to prayers to the "Rainbow stone".

Then she has the audacity to criticize Steven and the Mosdeep Space Centre for wanting to warp the Meteoroid away because it could potentially be transported to an alternate Hoenn. That's great and all, but Zinnia provides zero evidence that this second Hoenn exists, and if we weren't playing remakes of the original games, we as the players would have no reason to suspect alternate universes exist. Rather than explaining her plan, she condescendingly calls them uncreative for not being able to formulate an alternate plan when they don't have access to the same ancient knowledge she does, and then destroys the dimensional shifter! Maybe you could have told them that you planned to summon Rayquaza and let them keep the dimensional shifter as a contingency in case you fail which you did. If the main character didn't follow you, the MEvo!Hoenn would be gone, if not the rest of the planet.

And then its incredibly hypocritical to be calling Steven and the scientists out for their plan which would destroy another Hoenn when you provide no evidence for the other Hoenn's existence, when your first choice for summoning Rayquaza was to awaken a legendary Pokemon which you knew could plunge Hoenn into destruction.

I mean shit, most antagonists only nearly destroy the world once, she almost does it twice in the same games. Good job Lorekeeper Zinnia, tell me again how the Draconids have been protecting Hoenn?

Oh, and she names her Whismur Aster, and she supposedly cares for (the original) Aster. This Whismur? I feel bad for it. First, its left on Sky Pillar to give the PC a letter while she leaves. Then she abandons Aster once again at Meteor Falls with her grandmother. Its clearly just something she's projecting her baggage on--she doesn't care about Aster the Whismur, she cares about the memory of Aster this Whismur is helping her keep alive.

Yeah, she's definiately nuts. I haven't even played the games, and from what I've heard, including all of that, its clear that she's nuts.

@Yu Narukami;As for why people like Zinnia as a character, it's not because of her intentions that fit the standard Pokémon villain. It's that she's the only one to question the morality of Devon Corp. and their technologies. She definitely is more moral than Team Magma and Team Aqua were, and she seemed to be an accurate representation of what people act like when they lose someone. The fact that her's friends death has affected her negatively makes her very sympathetic as well. That being said, that still didn't give her the right to just take those Mega Stones without explaining herself, nor her hypocrisy towards Devon Corp. about the potential damage they might cause by going through with their plans.

However, just because she's an interesting character doesn't mean that she's not going to crack. Seeing as how she goes to great lengths steal the Keystones, mess up Devon's plans because they're using AZ's spare parts to harvest Infinity Energy, and the way she talks about the war in general makes me think that Aster's death had something to do with the whole ultimate weapon thing AZ created. Maybe an accident with Devon's equipment ended up taking the life of Zinnia's friend, and she blames both the Devon Corporation and AZ himself for this technology's existence taking away her best friend.

If this is the route Game Freak is going, then maybe what Masuda meant by "tying things up in interesting ways" meant that Zinnia's going to be the antagonist of Episode Z, using Volcanion to awaken Zygarde in order to take way Enternal Floette's immortality, and even her life, jsut to punish AZ even more than he has been already. Basically, I think she'll want AZ to suffer just like she did when Aster died, and maybe she'll have Zygarde keep him alive just to torture him for an eternity. Of course, we'll stop her in the end.

 

[BlackButterfree]

I disliked Zinnia. I get that she was supposed to be an anti-hero (a person who does "evil" in order to achieve a "good" outcome) but I totally viewed her as a full-on antagonist. They were trying to make her like N (nice to the player, asking him about truth/ideals, etc.) but she comes off like a very sarcastic, rude know-it-all. Like Blue. Or Iris in the anime. AND THAT 3D BATTLE MODEL. She looks rabid. And then there's the fact that despite her collecting all Keystones, she doesn't collect Maxie's in AS (and I'm assuming Archie's in OR), Lisia's, Steven's or yours. If she wanted all the Keystones to summon Rayquaza, homegirl should've gotten her stuff together.

And while they're definitely making the plots way too centered around Mega Evolution right now, at least they're taking a giant forward leap. The plots were so well done in OR/AS, that I could forget about X/Y's haphazard plot (first it's about Mega's, then it's about AZ, then about limited resources? DECIDE!). It was very reminiscent of Generation 5, which is definitely the best in terms of focus on plot.

I would've liked Zinnia to have at least implied a reason behind Aqua/Magma going after Lati@s, though... Everything from the original games was tied into the new Team plots perfectly, and ironically the only new plot point is a loose end. -_-

 

[Esserise]

And then there's the fact that despite her collecting all Keystones, she doesn't collect Maxie's in AS (and I'm assuming Archie's in OR), Lisia's, Steven's or yours. If she wanted all the Keystones to summon Rayquaza, homegirl should've gotten her stuff together.

According to her, she only needed four Key Stones in order to summon Rayquaza. The reason why Rayquaza did not appear to her is not because she didn't have enough Key Stones, but rather, because she was not "the chosen one"/worthy enough.

I would've liked Zinnia to have at least implied a reason behind Aqua/Magma going after Lati@s, though... Everything from the original games was tied into the new Team plots perfectly, and ironically the only new plot point is a loose end. -_-

I thought that Steven mentioned something about the Eon Dragons guarding some secret that had to do with Mega Evolution, which, as we know from the incident at Mt. Chimney, Team Magma/Aqua were researching and attempting to artificially recreate.

 

[zoroarctic]

She irritates me a bit for the reasons The Outrage mentioned.

 

[BlackButterfree]

According to her, she only needed four Key Stones in order to summon Rayquaza. The reason why Rayquaza did not appear to her is not because she didn't have enough Key Stones, but rather, because she was not "the chosen one"/worthy enough.

She specifically said she needed four? But... she had five. Her own, May/Brendan's, Wally's, Archie/Maxie's and Matt/Courtney's... I don't remember her saying that. I'm a flop LOL

I thought that Steven mentioned something about the Eon Dragons guarding some secret that had to do with Mega Evolution, which, as we know from the incident at Mt. Chimney, Team Magma/Aqua were researching and attempting to artificially recreate.

It could be that weird sundial thing behind the Latis on the center of the island, but I still don't know what that is, nor was it accurately explained.

 

[Esserise]

She specifically said she needed four? But... she had five. Her own, May/Brendan's, Wally's, Archie/Maxie's and Matt/Courtney's... I don't remember her saying that. I'm a flop LOL

No, she didn't say four specifically. I was just misremembering. But she did say something along the lines of, "the number she had was what she needed."

It could be that weird sundial thing behind the Latis on the center of the island, but I still don't know what that is, nor was it accurately explained.

This is also true.