Were we too hard on Iris?

matt0044

matt0044

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Much as I find issues with Best Wishes, Iris felt like people were quicker to jump to her in comparison to other elements. Hell, it almost feels like the writers acknowledge this vitriol and ditched Iris meeting Serena despite the set up.

Did we single her own too much? Did the writers regret her in retrospect? Much as I dislike playing this Trap Card... does race factor into any of it as Social Media would lead you to believe?
 
Iris as a character is great, in both the anime and the games. My only issue is with the way the anime writers chose to portray her - clearly there was some attempt to mimic the dynamic between Misty and Ash, granted that was a whole different set of writers and voice actors involved with that. So the dynamic recreation did not go as planned.
 
On one hand, I think that Iris was one of the worst elements of BW, as well as my least favorite character in the anime, so I do think that there was at least some justification for the backlash. On the other hand, said backlash was also too intense. It was hard to talk about anything BW here back then and we couldn't have threads on Iris for years because of how bad things would get between those who liked and disliked her character. It was a huge problem to deal with back then as well.

A big reason why people focused on her was because they were trying to go for a Ash/Misty kind of dynamic between her and Ash. That was a big point of the little kid catchphrase, but they didn't seem to understand why the early Ash/Misty dynamic worked. It wasn't just Misty yelling at Ash. They would argue with each other. Other than a couple of times early on in the series, Ash rarely reacted to Iris calling Ash a little kid. It also didn't help that the catchphrase made Iris look like a giant hypocrite. She would call Ash a little kid, but she would often act just as immature as Ash does, if not more so. Plus, she would belittle Ash for not knowing something that he honestly wouldn't know about the Unova region or its Pokemon. It also helped that Misty was a bit more experienced than Ash was at the beginning of the series, while this seemingly new trainer was getting on Ash's case after he had been traveling through different regions. I'm sure that the whole looking like a hypocrite aspect was supposed to be funny, but it just made Iris look unlikable and annoying, especially when she was rarely called out on her own immaturity.

Another big factor was how she was presented. At the beginning of the series, she seemed like a new trainer considering she didn't train Axew that much and couldn't even get it to master a basic move like Dragon Rage. Then she suddenly wanted to show how much fun battles can be for Emolga after she caught it, despite not doing anything like that with Axew, became a Dragon type expert, could advise a character of the day to help train her own Druddigon and was presented as a special gifted trainer in pretty much all of her focused episodes for the rest of the series. Even going through the series again in a binge watch, this is really jarring and there's a huge disconnect with what the show tries to tell the audience in her focused episodes to how she was at the beginning of the series. Pretty much all of her accomplishments were handed to her on a silver plate and the whole goal of evolving Axew was ditched almost the moment it was introduced. This was frustrating to see after Dawn and even May had been able to go through some good character development and had accomplishments that felt earned.

Now I definitely don't think that race was a factor for her backlash. The only problem people ever had with her design wise was with her hair, but not her skin color. If that was a factor, then one would think there would be a large amount of hate towards Mallow and Kiawe, but as far as I know, there isn't. I think people generally find Mallow more boring/less memorable than Kiawe, but that's about it.

I don't think that the writers regret Iris, but I don't think she is particularly popular compared to the other female leads. I think that lack of popularity was one reason why they didn't have her show up in XY, but it's just as likely that they didn't want to force in another cameo arc like they did with Dawn during BW. There wasn't a good in-universe reason for Iris to suddenly show up in Kalos. Most of the theories I read about either sounded like a stretch or she wouldn't need to meet up with Ash and his friends while being there. Even if I did like Iris, I don't think she could have worked well with the XY group and I wouldn't want them to force in her return just for the shake of a tradition. Considering that Iris didn't have a really popular Pokemon like Dawn did with Piplup and that her voice actor could have been too expensive to get back for a couple of episodes, they might have figured it was best to just focus on the current XY cast instead of bringing her back.
 
Race ain't got crap to do with it. It's that her story was botched AF. Especially after she got that damn Dragonite.

The sad part is that she could've been better. I applaud them for making her on of the deeper companions, especially since she got more flashbacks than anyone else. Plus, she tried harder to a Dragon-type expert than Misty did being a Water-type expert. She was a better leading lady than Mallow and maybe Serena.
 
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Her character in the games was good I think. I think the anime producers didn't do well with selling her in the anime. She didn't really focus on being a Dragon Master unless it was an episode that was tailored to a Dragon-type Pokemon. She should've faced Ash for the Opleucid Gym badge like Ash and Clemont did. She didn't really evolve her Axew, even though it was cute, so her aims and objectives felt blurred for me. I think they could've done much more with her in the anime. The only bit I liked about her was her "Misty-ness" which was apparent, so not that original and the Drayden storyline. In conclusion, no I think we should be harsh, it makes the anime producers listen and improve. They really chucked Iris in the trash from day 1 unfortunately.
 
I have no regrets personally. I mean I regret the grammar and there was a couple things I would reword now that I'm older but I don't regret the intensity.

Axew went from dragon sneezing to using two of the strongest moves once while still acting the same.

I didn't like how Iris had super powers effectively. I know humans with powers always existed in Pokemon but I always found them to be pointless.

She one the first one on one tournament despite everything looking stacked against her given her Pokemon's issues that were solves conviently other than Excadril.

The Dragonite capture episode had logical issues.

A Misty esk character is a bad choice after Ash effectively got de facto second in Sinnoh.

What sums up the Iris to me is when Ash was battling Trip she while upset told Ash not to use vine whip on Frillish because of cursed body despite the fact that cursed works RANDOMLY and has a chance of activating no matter what Ash did.

They wanted her to layered relationship with her friends but they screwed up the nice part so, she seems pretty freaking rude.
 
SammyW27 said:
Race ain't got crap to do with it. It's that her story was botched AF.

The sad part is that she could've been better. I applaud them for making her on of the deeper companions, especially since she got more flashbacks than anyone else. Plus, she tried harder to a Dragon-type expert than Misty did being a Water-type expert. She was a better leading lady than Mallow and maybe Serena.
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I don't think that she tried harder to be a Dragon Master than Misty did with becoming a Water Pokemon Master. Both of them suffered the same problem in that they talked a big game, but couldn't really back it up with their skills. The show kept saying that they were both powerful trainers, but their skills in actual battle made them come off as average at best. They did this more with Iris than with Misty since Iris was presented as such a gifted trainer as BW progressed, but it is something that I noticed about Misty when I've rewatched the original series. They both would talk about their goals in their focused episodes, but then they're primarily in the background if they weren't in the center stage and don't come off as particularly strong trainers.

I'm not sure if anyone would consider Mallow a leading lady of SM. She rarely stands out in the already huge cast. I can kind of understand preferring Iris over her though. For better or for worse, Iris is more memorable than Mallow. Mallow isn't unlikable, but she isn't particularly interesting either. She is just there. I disagree that Iris was a better leading lady than Serena though. I had a lot of problems with Serena and her storyline too, but she was pretty likable, her character development was much more believable and they didn't present her as some kind of gifted trainer despite rarely battling like they did with Iris. I'd much rather have another female lead like Serena than another character like Iris.

Harmful Heron said:
I didn't like how Iris had super powers effectively. I know humans with powers always existed in Pokemon but I always found them to be pointless.
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That was weird. Iris being able to sense where Axew was after they were separated was believable. They had spent more time together and she did genuinely care about Axew in spite of barely training it, but then being able to see into Dragonite's memories was a bit too much.

Harmful Heron said:
She one the first one on one tournament despite everything looking stacked against her given her Pokemon's issues that were solves conviently other than Excadril.
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Even the Excadril problem was solved rather easily. Instead of realizing why it wasn't listening to her, Cilan had to explain the situation to her and all she had to do afterwards was apologize. She may have felt genuine regret for her actions, but since someone else effectively told her the problem instead of her working through it with Excadril, it made the whole resolution feel rather cheap, especially when they didn't really follow up on the notion that Iris doesn't understand her Pokemon. She had been dealing with this problem for at least a year or two prior to the start of the series, so someone else pointing out the real issue after all that time didn't make her look good and makes it much harder to see that as genuine character development.

Harmful Heron said:
What sums up the Iris to me is when Ash was battling Trip she while upset told Ash not to use vine whip on Frillish because of cursed body despite the fact that cursed works RANDOMLY and has a chance of activating no matter what Ash did.
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There's also the fact that Ash was dealing with a new Pokemon he hadn't seen or faced in battle before. Of course he wouldn't know what kind of ability it would have, but she got upset at Ash for not knowing something he realistically wouldn't. She also told him that he'd have to train harder after losing, which was pretty ridiculous considering that she refused to do any serious training with Axew and the previous episode showed that it couldn't even use Dragon Rage.
 
i think that confuses me i that she wants to be a dragon master but does it by training an excadrill and an emolga so they added dragonite. other than that i think shes a great character.

(i found cilan to be more annoying though)
 
I've never understood the rabid hatred some people seem to have towards her. But on the other hand I completely understand why people find her annoying. I found her annoying at times but not to the point where I hated her as a character. I didn't mind her for the most part, and I know this is controversial but in retrospect I like her better than some of the other Pokégirls.

Even though I'm okay with Iris, I'm glad she didn't appear in XY or SM so far though. The BW days were not exactly a fun time to be a Pokémon anime fan especially if you enjoyed BW, and I wouldn't want to relive those days.

All that said, I do not believe for one bit race has anything to do with the dislike most people have for Iris. I have never seen this argument in any case. There might be forums or platforms where this is the case, but I would never visit places that have an issue with skin color anyway.
 
HiroHunter said:
Why does she have a excadrill and emolga if she training to be a dragon master?
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Well why not? A lot of Ash's friends who are specialists in a certain type have owned Pokémon of other Types. Even active Gym Leaders on the show have had Pokémon of Types different to their specialist type. She can train to become a Dragon Master while having Pokémon of other Types on her team. I don't see why that is a problem. The majority of her team is still Dragon-Type (Axew, Dragonite, Gible).
 
Neo Blaze said:
Well why not? A lot of Ash's friends who are specialists in a certain type have owned Pokémon of other Types. Even active Gym Leaders on the show have had Pokémon of Types different to their specialist type. She can train to become a Dragon Master while having Pokémon of other Types on her team. I don't see why that is a problem. The majority of her team is still Dragon-Type (Axew, Dragonite, Gible).
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i'm not sure if i missed an episode but she has a gible???
 
Huikyeong said:
i'm not sure if i missed an episode but she has a gible???
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Yes. It's a special episode that never aired outside of Japan though. So if you're someone who only follows the dub, it makes sense you're not aware of this. These specials are definitely canon though, as Dawn's Cyndaquil evolved in one of these Japan-only specials and it later appeared in BW as a Quilava.
 
Neo Blaze said:
Well why not? A lot of Ash's friends who are specialists in a certain type have owned Pokémon of other Types. Even active Gym Leaders on the show have had Pokémon of Types different to their specialist type. She can train to become a Dragon Master while having Pokémon of other Types on her team. I don't see why that is a problem. The majority of her team is still Dragon-Type (Axew, Dragonite, Gible).
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I think it was an issue because she spent more time training/battling with Excadril and Emolga than she ever did with Axew. For the first two Club Battle tournaments, she relied mostly on Excadril and Emolga while Axew was on the sidelines and the one time it did battle resulted in it learning Outrage out of nowhere. I forget when she caught Dragonite during season two, but it was fairly late into the series and was done seemingly so she could get a fully evolved Dragon Pokemon without evolving Axew. Gible was only featured in her special, so not a lot of fans would know about it. Plus, Misty and Iris were the only ones of Ash's friends who specialized in a specific type who wanted to become a Pokemon Master of that specific type, so Brock, Clian or Clemont getting different types of Pokemon wasn't as strange.

I can understand why they gave her other Pokemon. There weren't a lot of new Dragon types introduced in the fifth generation, so they would have been limited to what they could promote through her team. However, it shouldn't have come at the expense of Axew's development. Axew still should have been Iris' main Pokemon considering it was the reason she left on her journey in the first place and before the whole Dragon Master reveal, it seemed like evolving it into a Haxorus was going to be her goal. Iris primarily relied on Excadril and Dragonite throughout most of BW for the most part. To be fair, this was at least partly due to how inconsistent Axew was treated as well. They kept going back and forth on whether it should be the cute useless baby Pokemon or the strong secondary mascot of the series, so that didn't really help. If Iris was able to work better with Axew and Dragonite due to training with Excadril and Emolga, then I think it would have been fine, but I don't think that was the case.

As for the idea of Iris battling Ash for this eighth Unova Gym badge, that could have been interesting. I kept thinking that was going to happen for the longest time considering it took quite some time for them to reveal her connection to the last Gym. I'm not sure if that would have been a big improvement over his match against Roxie. He wouldn't have struggled against three of Iris' Pokemon nearly as much as he did with Roxie's, but they probably would have given her a different team to make her more of a challenge for him. Considering how the show was already trying really too hard to make her look like such a gifted Dragon trainer, I don't know if Ash vs. Iris would have been that appealing to me. It might have worked if they had made her progression much slower/more believable over the course of the series.
 
Hidden Mew said:
I think it was an issue because she spent more time training/battling with Excadril and Emolga than she ever did with Axew. For the first two Club Battle tournaments, she relied mostly on Excadril and Emolga while Axew was on the sidelines and the one time it did battle resulted in it learning Outrage out of nowhere. I forget when she caught Dragonite during season two, but it was fairly late into the series and was done seemingly so she could get a fully evolved Dragon Pokemon without evolving Axew. Gible was only featured in her special, so not a lot of fans would know about it. Plus, Misty and Iris were the only ones of Ash's friends who specialized in a specific type who wanted to become a Pokemon Master of that specific type, so Brock, Clian or Clemont getting different types of Pokemon wasn't as strange.

I can understand why they gave her other Pokemon. There weren't a lot of new Dragon types introduced in the fifth generation, so they would have been limited to what they could promote through her team. However, it shouldn't have come at the expense of Axew's development. Axew still should have been Iris' main Pokemon considering it was the reason she left on her journey in the first place and before the whole Dragon Master reveal, it seemed like evolving it into a Haxorus was going to be her goal. Iris primarily relied on Excadril and Dragonite throughout most of BW for the most part. To be fair, this was at least partly due to how inconsistent Axew was treated as well. They kept going back and forth on whether it should be the cute useless baby Pokemon or the strong secondary mascot of the series, so that didn't really help. If Iris was able to work better with Axew and Dragonite due to training with Excadril and Emolga, then I think it would have been fine, but I don't think that was the case.
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That makes sense and I agree her quest to become a Dragon Master could have been handled better. It's just not something that has ever bothered me personally. I'm not a big fan of the whole single type Trainer goal anyway as it's just a very vague thing to begin with. In the end I'm glad Iris had orher types on her team as just Dragon types would have been boring in my opinion, same if Cilan had only gotten Grass-types.

One thing I definitely agree on though is Axew. I completely forgot it was the reason Iris left on her journey and it could have been handled much better.
 
Really, Iris's goal should've been succeeding Drayden. Have him be a highly regarded figure amongst her village and her joining him as her apprentice. From there, she'd go on a journey to become a Gym Leader worthy of Opelucid.
 
I tried to rewatch a bit, and I have to say that may opinion didn't change. She's just annoying always belittling Ash (who isn't even my favourite character) and her development was poorly-handled. Her also being able to understand dragons came out of nowhere even though it's probably in the games. I don't recall her using it on Axew, so how could she just sense what a wild Dragonite was feeling?
Also, Axew barely did a thing. He was just Togepi 2.0 but they want to make us believe he can stand to Cynthia's Garchomp? Please! Hell will freeze over before that could happen.
Also, race has nothing to do with it except in the mind of some Iris fanboys that I won't name. Brock was people despite being brown in the anime.

BTW, I wasn't too fond of Misty, especially in Kanto. So Iris being Misty 2.0 isn't something I like. She's overrated too (Brock >>> Misty). Also, Cilan can shut up about evaluation time, he too was annoying.
 
In B/W, she had the title of "the girl who understands the hearts of dragons." That might have been what they were going for with her being able to read Dragonite's thoughts/memories, but it was sudden. She could sense where Axew was during the episode where it mastered Dragon Rage, but that has more to do with a strong bond between a trainer and their Pokemon than suddenly having a special power to read their thoughts.
 
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