Which rivalries do you see drawing to a close this saga?

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Cybersai

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The Ash/Paul rivalry definitely feels like its heading toward a climax. At this point I feel like Ash beating Paul at the league is practically a given with all the foreshadowing they've done, and I feel like Paul is going to be written out. Paul's storyline is heavily connected to Infernape, after Ash beats him and proves him wrong, his character will get very repetitive if he sticks around for another arc. His character has been fairly static till now.

Barry I can see leaving. He's a 4th gen character from the games, he's too associated with DP to see him stick around. I can see Ash just waving goodbye to him like he did to Morrisson and he'll never appear again. This was always a nice secondary rival, I never expected Barry to be that major a character.

Conway...eh, he probably won't be considered important enough to stick around.

Nando barely appears already, he definitely seems like he'll fade into obscurity after the leagues are done. If the writers couldn't be bothered with him this saga, we won't be seeing him in the next one most likely.

As for Zoey/Kenny/Ursula, they're all connected to Dawn, so if she goes, all her rivals go with her. Since coordinators tend to keep the same rivals, they'll probably all stay connected in some manner. Dawn beating Zoey in the GF seems likely to me.


So in other words, I believe every single DP rivalry will have a climax in Sinnoh. Which would be a first, as Gary continued through 3 sagas and Drew/Harley continued in two. This time however due to Sinnoh being 4-years, I can see them all ending.
 
Paul, Conway, Barry, Zoey, Nando (yeah, it does exist) and pretty much any rivalry introduced in DP.
 
Rather than ask "Which ones do you see ending", you should ask "Which ones do you see continuing into the future", since realistically all rivalries come to an end at the finish of each region.

Cause my answer can only be: "I see them all coming to a close... except the one's that don't."

Alas, semantics. Let's see... Every contest rivalry is going to end. I don't mean that in a "Contests will/will not be there next season" way, I mean that it'd be silly to face-off against the same 4-5 people again in a new region. It was a little silly in AG Battle Frontier and it'd be silly in the future. So, regardless whether we would see Dawn accompany the guys again, I don't expect the rivalry relationships to continue... barring Jessie.

As for the rest, my issue isn't with ending them, but rather what will their plans be for the next set of inevitable rivals. Are they going to be the same? Well, probably not exactly the same, but I can see some of the same tropes plaguing them. They're going to have to build up the relationships from scratch again, too. What a joy THAT'LL be.
 
All of them. Scott's right about Paul being too tied with the Infernape plot. Barry also feels like he's gonna leave... COnway and Nando aren't exactly being promoted as heavy rivals...

V Faction said:
So, regardless whether we would see Dawn accompany the guys again, I don't expect the rivalry relationships to continue... barring Jessie.
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QFT. As for Dawn, I expect her to beat Zoey in the GF and since Zoey has been the "helpful" rival, she really doesn't have a reason to help Dawn anymore, so that rivalry falls down the drain. Kenny needs to remember he's not Drew, the romantic sparks never flew, looking forward to see him looking at a TV in a small cameo... Ursula and Nando should be gone as well... That leaves Jessie.
 
I feel that all of them will be wrapped up. The one i am looking forward to most is Ash vs Paul. I hope its the best league battle we get, and i hope its as good as Ash vs Gary battle in the johto league was, or even better. Paul was a good creation by the writers because of his complete different idelology from ash, i wonder if the writers will be able to give such an intersting rival to ash in the next gen.

As for Dawn, her rivalries will be wrapped up as well. The writers do like to replace the girl character, i do hope she doesnt leave though. But personally i dont see why any rivalry should be dragged more then one generation. The ash vs gary made sense to drag it out since ash was so far behind gary in kanto, but other then that i prefer to see the conclusion within one generation
 
The ironic thing is even though Paul was only here for one saga, the rivalry was focused on much more than Gary's was. DP went on for 4 years, while Kanto/Orange/Johto was 5 years, so its only 1 year less.

And Paul appeared quite a lot.
 
-_-


But anyway, I can't think of a single rivalry that can last past DP. Hikari's presumably going, so that means all of hers go with her. Jun cannot leave the realms of gen #4 really, can he? And Shinji is so obviously going to be tied up to the league.

So that leaves... nothing?
I hope we get some good new rivals come autumn!
 
Gible said:
Kenny needs to remember he's not Drew, the romantic sparks never flew, looking forward to see him looking at a TV in a small cameo... Ursula and Nando should be gone as well... That leaves Jessie.
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Whadda mean romance sparks? DREW NEVER HAD A ROMANCE! NEVAH

Ahh yes, Jessie. The coordinator who would be here for ever. I can see everyone else packing their bags. But not Jessie. Never Jessie
 
Scott85 said:
The ironic thing is even though Paul was only here for one saga, the rivalry was focused on much more than Gary's was. DP went on for 4 years, while Kanto/Orange/Johto was 5 years, so its only 1 year less.

And Paul appeared quite a lot.
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yes the writers have improved on some things over time and focusing more on ash's rivals is one of them. Paul has definately gotten more focus then Gary did, should be a good battle.
 
All of them honestly. Though Hikari's rivals might stay with Hikari. Either way I believe Urara will end up being better towards Hikari, Nozomi will be defeated at Grand Festival and Kengo will be Hikari's Kazunari, or cry in some corner because Hiakri left her. Romantic sparks may not have flown, but there is still a Grand Festival, besides writers like to ship female characters with male characters other than Satoshi after they ran thier course. So I believe Hikari would either go with Kengo or Jun. Though then again they might end up shipping her with noone, at the end of this saga at least.

But then again this is my opinion. And all of Satoshi's rivals will get the boot. Their time will be over by Shinou League. Shinji had started to show respect, Kohei is random, Naoshi is some guy who challanges in same league and Jun's story will end like the League Rivals we saw throught sagas.
 
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I can see Ash's rivalry with Paul ending at some point after this saga. Maybe when Paul learns the error of his ways after the Pokemon League?
 
I actually think that they could make Jun stick around. While he is tied to Gen IV, just think about how much screen time he got this season compared to other "secondary" rivals:

Jun already has 11 episodes under his belt and Masamune only had 8 his entire run, 7 of those being from the Hoenn League alone. This probably means Jun is going to have close to 20 episodes by the end of Sinnoh, and with his hot-headed personality I could see him wanting to continue to follow Satoshi once he loses to him in the Sinnoh League.
 
I've thought about Barry, but then I realize how he had a lot of appearances close together to make up for not being in the first 100 eps of DP at all.

The problem is as said, he's too tied to the 4th gen. He's the 4th gen rival from the games, the 5th gen games will of course have a brand new rival.

I think the writers really intend now to have every new character just be generation specific. Johto kind of came off as a continuation of the first two seasons because the writers didn't treat it as a new series back then, but aside from that everything is separated by "pocket generations," where characters seem to be introduced and wrapped up in the same generation.
 
If they're going to do a season for the next generation, Barry can't stay. We'd need a new rival to represent the rival from Gen V.
 
Why can't there be multiple rivals?

Like, to be honest, I'm happy that there are like... four rivals for the Sinnoh league for Satoshi, but I'm really disappointed that we only ever saw two of them really (Jun and Shinji). Why couldn't they keep Jun, if they wanted, and still do a Gen V rival with adequate on-screen time?
 
Yth said:
Why can't there be multiple rivals?

Like, to be honest, I'm happy that there are like... four rivals for the Sinnoh league for Satoshi, but I'm really disappointed that we only ever saw two of them really (Jun and Shinji). Why couldn't they keep Jun, if they wanted, and still do a Gen V rival with adequate on-screen time?
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Why would they keep a Fourth Gen Rival when they could just use characters from Gen V?
 
But if they can jsut use character from Gen V to, you know, PROMOTE GEN V, then why keep a character promoting Gen IV?
 
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