What was really wrong about Trip in the first place?

[pokepal_123]

I never get the hate that Trip really gets, to me he was actually a pretty decent character, compared to Paul at least. Sure their rivarly wasn't THAT great or well-written but at least the writers tried something new with Ash knocking him out first round of the league itself.

So really, why do people hat Trip espeically since his character(imo) isn't any worse than Paul's nor is it unoriginal like some claim his character to be.

 

[ManUtd22]

Because Everything is wrong with him. They want to make ash a new challenger like DP and make his rival superpowerful trainer who usually win and we need to wait to the leauge to make ash win one single match. Ash must lose to Paul and Trip or to any rival by 6-2 but he must win 6-5 or 1-0

Also, that Basic is awful like his face

 

[Mareepy]

Easy! He was the unfriendly type of rival, which we have seen some already (Gary, Paul, etc). But comparing him to all others, he is just the worst and in fact, I doubt any rival can ever be worse than him.

Here a few things wrong with Trip.

1. This one shouldn't be blamed on Trip but Ash was too phenomenal in Sinnoh League that the whole 'Zekrom Incident' resulted in a disappointing start for a new series. Ash could have battled anyone but Trip was the one writers chose so he is caught in the crossfire (and for me after the whole series, he kinda deserve to die in that crossfire).

2. Lack of exposure. He rarely appears.

3. Unimportant appearance. His appearance has nothing to do with rivalry between Trainer's philosophy or between Pokemon. When he ever appears he is just unimportant, or in a Don George Tournament.

4. One on one league battle, and its boring. Stephan did way better than he ever does.

5. The lack of creative battles in BW. It is one of the reason BW series flopped, and you can somewhat say Trip's setting as his 'main rival' makes Ash lacks improvement, Cynthia says things right, when Ash and Paul met, they push each other so hard to their limits, they improves just to surpass each other, Ash never won before the league but Paul knew Ash is going to beat him if he started lagging off. This case..... Trip didn't push Ash for a single inch so did Ash failed to improve a single inch. Again Stephan actually stepped in to take this role, although its nowhere good.

 

[UPratik_12]

IMO, Trip was just a rip off of Paul, who was a great rival. They tried to emulate the thing with Trip, which went wrong and that was just n idiotic character......

 

[KrisiChiki]

I haven't watched too much from the BW series, because I didn't like what they did with it.
From the little experience I have with Trip, he seemed pretty boring of a character. I felt like the writers were trying to make another rival like Paul, but still have Trip be his own character. I didn't work out well though. I mostly agree with what Mareepy wrote.

 

[Random_Pyro]

Literally the first thing Trip said to Ash in BW001 was him making fun of Ash coming from kanto. I was already disliking him and he had not even been on screen for more than 2 minutes.

 

[Shoutmon]

Shooty had no personality. Let's do the Redlettermedia's test on him: "Describe the following character WITHOUT saying what they look like, what kind of costume they wore, or what their profession or role in the movie* was" Can you describe Shooty now?

 

[Mikuri]

First, I don't think Trip being a beginning Trainer was a smart idea. Prior to his debut appearance, Ash had already competed in four Pokémon League Conferences, won the Orange League, and conquered the Battle Frontier, so it's hard to see a Trainer just starting out as a contender. However, he could have been developed into a serious threat for Ash mid-series, something like that would have been great. The problem was that he was introduced as this skilled, intelligent young Trainer who thinks Ash should learn the basics of Pokémon training when in fact he should be the one learning the basics. He also seemed to be bored when he was obtaining his first Pokémon and he wasn't excited at all to begin his journey. So to summarize, Trip wasn't portrayed as a rookie Trainer, instead he was this "how uninteresting all this is, I'm just too cool to care" type of character.

Then there's the rest of Trip's appearances, which are just confusing. The next three times he appeared, he was still portrayed as this strong and smart Trainer, challenging Ash to a Full Battle in A Rival Battle for Club Champ! and showing Ash why Oshawott had no control of its Aqua Jet in Ash and Trip's Third Battle!. He was besting Ash until the horror that were the Don George tournaments. From this point on, he was knocked out in the very first round of both the Club Battle and the Clubsplosion, faring no better than the doomed-to-fail Burgundy. The question is, why? I thought he was a natural at Pokémon training and battling. Wasn't Ash the one with "just okay" Pokémon? How in the world are Trip's supremely trained Pokémon losing like this? The answer for this is that the writers apparently decided it was time for Trip to wear the sandals of humility, but they abandoned this plan shortly after as Trip was unstoppable in the Pokémon World Tournament Junior Cup. When Trip won that thing, I think everyone had the same impression that the writers were hyping him for the Unova League, but we were all wrong as he got his ass handed to him in a crappy one-on-one battle against Ash in the first round of the Vertress Conference. How humiliating. Oh the inconsistencies.

Add all of this to a boring personality and to the fact he wanted to defeat Alder just because. He lacked charisma and motivation, and that's awful for a character meant to be Ash's main rival. Paul was power hungry because his brother had failed to defeat Brandon and he could not accept it. Ursula was power hungry because she had problems getting past the Performance Stage of Pokémon Contests and she could not afford failing again. Trip just... I WANT TO BECOME STRONGER!!11! He is one of the things that serve as a testament that the writers had absolutely no idea what they were doing in the Best Wishes series.

About Trip being a rookie and Ash being a experienced Trainer, I think it's interesting to note the reverse is true for Cilan and Burgundy, since Burgundy was only a C-Class Connaisseuse unable to ramble on about the bond Trainers and Pokémon share while making food puns and, as a result, she was never seen as a competitor for Cilan, as someone who would inspire him or push him to do better. You know, the purpose of having a rival. Two meaningless rivalries that went nowhere for the same basic reason.

 

[R!ck]

Did I read Trip is better than Paul? WTF? it was his poor, mediocre, annoying rip-off...

 

[Enzap]

Shooty had no personality. Let's do the Redlettermedia's test on him: "Describe the following character WITHOUT saying what they look like, what kind of costume they wore, or what their profession or role in the movie* was" Can you describe Shooty now?

This is one of my biggest complaints. Owning a camera is not a personality. Anything he had resembling a personality had already been done to death. He was never even set up to be that big of a threat given that he only won the first battle with Ash because of external interference. There was no antagonism or positive rivalry either throughout the show other than "Oh this guy is kind of rude and thinks he's better," even though it had never shown him to be any better than Ash. And then for some reason they decided to give him a 1 on 1 battle in the league? (that whole league was a mess but that's another story)

Instead of making a new character to serve as a rival, they basically made a block of wood with a camera that spouted insults at Ash.

 

[Hidden Mew]

There were a lot of problems with Trip and his rivalry with Ash. First off, making Trip a new trainer was a terrible choice. Given all of Ash's past experiences, he shouldn't have had a hard time against a rookie trainer, especially when DP was when Ash's skills were at their peak. Even without Electric attacks, Pikachu should have been able to defeat a Snivy, but I remember that I was willing to let that slide to see where they were going with this rivalry at first. Then their so-called full battle happened and it was clear that they made Trip overpowered just so that Ash could be the underdog of the rivalry again.

I really hated how strong they made Trip. By I think ten episodes into BW, he had a full team with at least two evolved Pokemon and had two badges. I think that they mentioned at some point that Trip trained every day, but that still heavily contradicts with how they've depicted rookie trainers before. It's difficult for them to capture one Pokemon when they're in the starting gate of their journey. Even if Trip had been studying up on Pokemon for years, that shouldn't make him act like an experienced trainer, especially when Max knew a lot about Pokemon and wasn't perfect when he had that battle in the trainers' school. It felt unbelievable that a new trainer could make that much progress, get two Pokemon to evolve, make strategies around his Pokemon's abilities and get two badges within that short amount of time. I know time in the Pokemon universe is kind of weird given that Ash is still ten, but one would think that the time between Ash's first and second battles with Trip weren't that big. It made the decision to have Trip be a rookie trainer come off as completely pointless if they were just going to make him an overpowered Gary Stu anyway.

The way he was handled was really weird starting with the Club Battle tournament. He lost in the first round in both Club Battle tournaments, which was strange given how overpowered he was presented at first, and it didn't seem like the losses had any impact on him. He just left after losing each time. But then they went back to making him overpowered in the Junior Cup, most likely so that he could face off against Alder and to hype him up for the Unova League, even thought it turned out to be for only one battle. His battle with Ash was terrible, but they got him out of the Unova League quickly and he certainly didn't deserve to have a full battle with Ash, so that was the best option for his character at that point.

I also never quite understood why he kept insulting Ash for being from Kanto. It just felt like a random detail to throw in just to make sure that the audience knew that he was a jerk. He was generally acting condescending towards Ash as if Ash was the rookie while Trip had more experience, which again made me question why they bothered to make Trip a rookie in the first place. People compare Trip to Paul, but I think he was more like the poor man's Gary due to how the way he insulted him. Appearing so infrequently throughout BW was also similar to how Gary was handled in the original series.

I think that they were hoping for lightening to strike twice with making an anime only rival popular again, but one of the many problems with Trip was how there was no weight to the rivalry. With Gary, Ash was determined to prove himself against his cocky attitude. His rivalry with Paul also was due to their conflicting training methods and philosophies. With Trip, Ash just wanted to battle him just because he showed up. There was no reason why Trip was any different from Ash wanting to battle any trainer he comes across, despite being labeled as the main rival of the series, so that made the rivalry less engaging and Trip's boring unlikable personality didn't help matters either. They also didn't have any impact on each other. Alder was the one who made Trip change a bit, which made Alder feel more like a rival for Trip than Ash was. The only significant effect Trip had for Ash on his journey was pointing out that Oshawott's eyes were closed when it was having trouble using Aqua Jet, but even then, Trip could have been taken out of the series and nothing of significance would be loss.

Trip could have been at least interesting if they made him grow into a stronger trainer during the course of the series and had Ash start out as the powerful trainer of the rivalry at first, but once it was clear that he was just going to be overpowered and be a jerk to Ash for no good reason, any chance the rivalry had to be interesting or engaging were shot down. I think it was a good decision for XY to not have a main rival figure for Ash since after this poor attempt at making another rival for Ash right after the terrific rivalry with Paul, I think that they needed to take a breather from writing a main rival character. They honestly should have done that in BW not only due to Trip, but due to how all of the rivalries were handled horribly in BW.

 

[~ Blazing White Yang]

As a character on his own, I actually didn't mind him that much...I don't like or dislike him. But as a rival, he was trash. They tried to do another Gary/Paul situation without any sort of meaningful conflict or reasonable development. There was no clash of ideologies like Paul, and no personal history like Gary...So there was no satisfaction in Ash's win, and no reason to get invested to begin with. Ash wound up looking like a clown trying to prove himself to a kid who just started out, and he really didn't learn anything as a trainer either.

 

[Boots2@sses]

He was a Gary/Paul rip off, arrogant, waayy too overpowered against ash , had little development (that too in just one episode) and most of all was annoying as hell.

 

[Ampharos King]

Plenty of things, actually.

First off, Trip came into the series at the wrong time. The anime just ended the DP series, which is known for its writing quality, fleshed out character development, and excellent battles. In particular, DP focused immensely on the Ash and Paul rivalry, so much so that almost every single major battle Ash has been put in was either influenced by Paul, or Paul was involved in some way. Fans applaud the amount of detail that went into Paul's storyline, from his brother failing to win the Brave Symbol (which in turn gave Paul a reason to be the trainer he was in DP, but also to push him to battle Ash once he found out the latter actually defeated Brandon), to his strategies during his fight with Ash (having watched some of his gym battles and even the Wallace Cup). The magic about the rivalry is that both characters had different personalities and battling styles, yet those differences were what attracted the characters together and solidified their conflicts.

But the Ash-Trip rivalry was the exact opposite. If Ash and Trip had any chemistry, it would have been solely from Ash's side. Trip didn't genuinely care about Ash; he only cared about battling any strong opponent. Trip only challenged Ash in the first episode because Ash had a Pokémon that Trip never saw. Trip only challenged Ash in the Battle Club because Iris taunted him, and Cilan (a Gym Leader he had previously encountered) recommended Ash as a worthy challenger.

The only remote interaction Trip had with Ash was during the Venipede episode, after Trip ordered his Lampent to attack the wild Pokémon. Ash got into a fight with him to protect the Pokémon, but Trip only ceased the attack because Burgh (another GL) advised him to let him handle it. Trip and Ash's second rematch on Route 4 was, once again, started by another character (this time, Iris). Throughout the tournaments, Trip didn't even get a chance to battle Ash, as he lost to different characters. In the Junior Cup, Trip was so focused on Alder that he disregarded and ignored every opponent that he fought up until that point. Even during the Unova League, we didn't see Trip interact with Ash all that much.

The second reason why people don't like Trip is because he is too similar to Paul in design. When you have two characters with a similar design and similar personalities, you should expect some people to make comparisons between them. And because Paul was the superior, more developed, more personal rival to Ash, naturally Trip would fall flat.

The third reason was because we didn't see much of Trip to begin with. Trip made so few appearances in this series that sometimes the fans forget that he exists. Trip appeared in BW001 (his debut and first battle with Ash), BW010 (his second battle with Ash), BW022 (his conflict with Ash over the Venipede), BW031 (his second rematch with Ash, and when Trip's goal was revealed), BW039-40 (where he lost to Cilan), BW052 (where he met Alder), BW070-2 (where all he did was lose to Bianca), BW90-3 (where he got most of his focus, but also where other plot points like Iris's Dragonite surfaced), and BW103-4 (where he fought Ash in the Unova League). That's 15 appearances in 100-something episodes, and most of the time he was just battling another trainer.

At least the DP rivals have done more productive activities in their series, such as Zoey helping Dawn out with contests and battling Fantina, or Barry participating in a Ping Pong competition and fighting Ash over a Gible.

 

[Almonds]

He was another jerkish rival following Gary and Paul but was handled much worse.

Gary was arrogant and rude and was a bragging spoiled brat because he's the grandson of the famous Prof. Oak. He's rich and enjoys being popular. He grew up with Ash in the same neighborhood, but their rivalry started before they got their first pokemon. (The broken pokeball episode) Gary thought he was better than Ash, and Ash wanted to prove himself to Gary. Gary was the reason Ash traveled to other regions! He kept Ash going, and he inspired Ash to push himself harder. Maybe he wasn't as influential as Paul, due to the few appearances, but he was never forgettable.

Paul was a more improved form of Gary with a solid backstory that overlaps with Ash's progress up till DP. Ash won against Brandon, something Reggie couldn't do. That aside, Ash and Paul didn't agree on training methods and their story built on Chimchar growing up to show how he could be one of Ash's proud ace pokemon at the League. He appeared frequently, and he was more a stubborn character than a flat out jerk because he firmly believed his training methods were right and Ash's was too 'soft'.

Trip didn't have much of a backstory except that he met Alder when he was younger and wanted to be a powerful trainer. And then? There was no real reason for him to be mean to Ash. He didn't have a personal history with Ash like Gary did. He didn't have his own training philosophy like Paul did. He had... nothing. It's one of the reasons I wish they just went back to using the default rival character from the games (Gary is based on the rival character from the games and Paul is very close to Silver in terms of personality). Bianca could have been a good choice as the main rival if they decided to give her more focus on her daddy issues and doubting her capabilities as a trainer - making her the underdog from the beginning who grows independent and self-confident as the show progresses. If they were going to be lazy with the character they created, then they should have just picked out a given game character that has an existing backstory and progressive development. Trip was the victim of bad writing and bad choices.

 

[ocelotlrama jaguar]

He was Black and White's answer to Paul. I know I give Paul a lot of crap, but it's funny in an ironic sort of way, because Trip is so forgettable that I completely forgot how much of a worse character he was than Paul.

In Paul's defense, he was never a rookie character and obviously knew what he was doing. Did that make him a good character? In my eyes, no, but I guess I can see why other people like him and at least he had an excuse to be better than Ash (although the whole 6 on 6 battle with Ash's Chimchar evolving into Monferno was such a cop-out in making him look too good, but I digress). Trip? A rookie who got his first Pokemon who wins on his first match (by total luck, by the way, what with the Zekrom incident). It didn't help that he goes out of his way to insult Ash as just another hick from the boonies, which left a real bad taste in my mouth. While Paul can be insufferable, this guy was just obnoxious.

 

[Litten]

I always thought he seemed way too arrogant in early BW even though he was a rookie. He had few accomplishments, yet he thought he was hot stuff smh.

 

[QuietDragon]

Shooty had no personality. Let's do the Redlettermedia's test on him: "Describe the following character WITHOUT saying what they look like, what kind of costume they wore, or what their profession or role in the movie* was" Can you describe Shooty now?

I'll take you up on that challenge!

A boy who's still coming into his own with an inconsistent, contradictory personality (sometimes kind, sometimes cruel -- even to the same people), with a distant and pragmatic approach that makes him capable of justifying any means for an objectively good end (this is basically what he throws at Arty/Burgh when he accuses him of being unjust in burning the Fushide/Venipede). Grey morality. Cynical.

Refuses to spend time with others, time that could be better spent training and pursuing strength. Rejects everything that could get in the way of his pursuit of strength. He's very concerned with appearances and puts on airs; he will do anything to be seen as mature, not realizing that that very habit of his is childish in and of itself. Acts distant and is cruel to others, but is actually quite caring to his own-- is concerned with their well-being and does not want them offended (don't offend Vanipeti/Vanillite please!).

He acts as if he already has everything figured out and is so much better than everyone else, but he really is still learning (hence the picture-taking and copying Satoshi's battling style early on). Takes pictures to remember not just positive events and feelings, but also negative ones.
Initially arrogant towards his rival due to a perceived superiority due to differences in class and nationality.

Poorly-defined goal, primary drive is fulfilling a childhood promise with his hero (unless Shootie's memory is faulty and this is a case of unreliable narrator, it implies Adeku was still in his strength-above-all-else stage then). Becomes severely disappointed and reaches his peak in arrogance when he finds his hero became soft and seemingly senile in his old age and-- to add insult to injury-- forgot their promise. He now acts as if he is better than his hero, but in reality, all he really wants is some sort of acknowledgement or answer from him still, which comes out when they face off the second time.

Learns strength isn't everything from the very same man who set him on that path in the first place, he learns that strength alone isn't everything and not to neglect the bonds he has with others. Slow down and enjoy your journey, from the same man who once told him to have lots of battles and grow up quickly.
Although now more approachable in an awkward sort of way (that timid handshake), maintains his cruel edge in battle. Maintains his dichotomous personality as well (which is more than I can say for a lot of shows aimed at older audiences which have characters do a complete 180 after befriending the main character, hn).

There, how's that?

I love his character, but I'll admit he wasn't utilized nearly as much as he should have been. Part of the issue with him is that people kept expecting him to be Satoshi/Ash's rival and were disappointed he wasn't another Shinji/Paul, but the truth is, despite the initial differences, they could more easily be friends than rivals (that "I was just passing through" style of saving his rival's Pokemon in the Fushide episode showed that potential very well, as did their interactions in the league). They have more in common than not, Shootie was never shown to be abusive to his Pokemon, only distant. They loved him (Jalorda/Serperior was outright stated to love him, by the Champion no less!) and wanted to protect him (Roubushin/Conkeldurr, after evolving, and how it tried to keep Satoshi from approaching Shootie thinking he was a threat).
When he finally saw that Satoshi's "naive" peaceful means could work, he worked together with him.

The rivalry was always one-sided until the end, when it became a more friendly rivalry.

Shootie's primary goal was always the Champion, Adeku. Everything he did was for that battle. He seemingly built up this cold, single-mindedly pursuing strength persona (after flashbacks showed him as such a bright-eyed, expressive, and cheerful child-- although he's curiously alone in a festival full of adults, which is similar to when young Iris battled Shaga/Drayden and we know she's an orphan...) and battling style strictly for that battle.

He focused solely on that and viewed other interactions to be not worth his time, so because neither he nor the Champion are main or central characters, he was not given enough screentime to make any great impressions, but his character has great potential and I've seen fandoms built on nothing but characters with great potential who were never explored in depth (I might catch some flack for this, but PMMM-- there's too many questions, like I get Akemi's obsession with Madoka is because she's alone, but why is she alone? Why does she wake up in a hospital-like setting? Why did she never seem to make any friends before Madoka? Why are so many of these teenagers completely alone and I get the backstory on just one of them? Just when I start to get interested in a character, she dies?).

 

[Steel_Justice]

Well he did start off as a discount Paul with the jerk replaced by smugness, then became very generic even for a rival character and despite being touted as Ash's primary Rival barely appeared and wasn't very important to his journey through Unova. Compare to Paul who got Ash his Infernape from and evolved like half of his team in battles with him. And like most other Unova rivals he felt unfinished when the generation ended. His broken relationship with Alder could have been interesting and his strange camera obsession could have had deeper roots but alas we will never know.

 

[hhhhdmt]

There were so many things wrong with Trip

For one, he was a beginner. And a very naive one at that. He actually thought he could defeat the champion (Alder) after having trained for what, like one year? Even Ash isn't that stupid. If Trip was smart, he would have known that it would take him several years to reach the level that Alder is at to seriously challenge him.

Plus, how can you have a beginner as Ash's rival when he has finished in the top 8 and top 4 of the last two leagues that he was in, defeated a bunch of GREAT trainers in winning the battle frontier AND having won the orange league. It was laughable. Forget about Paul or Gary, hell Morrison and Tyson were better rivals for Ash.