Why did the writers give Dawn 5 rivals? Was it too many?

[Cybersai]

Dawn essentially had 5 rivals in DP:

Zoey, Kenny, Nando, Jessie and Ursula.

And....we all know how that went. Due to how many rivalries there were, the writers had to divide up the screentime between all 5 of them. And what happened?

- Zoey appeared the most, but wound up becoming a mentor to Dawn rather than a rival.

- Kenny barely appeared at all, Dawn beats him in his first appearance, and then he fails out of the Grand Festival. Essentially making it seem like Kenny's only purpose was to advertise Prinplup a bit.

- Nando never battles Dawn again after DP4, and the two never have a Contest battle ever. Nando only gets 3 episodes and then disappears for about 85% of DP until the Grand Festival. Nando then becomes more of Zoey's rival, while Dawn never gets to test her skills against him.

- Ursula gets an extremely late introduction, and because of this we never get to see her beat Dawn once. Ursula was only ever in 5 episodes, and it felt like her character never amounted to her full potential.

- Jessie, while become a competent coordinator, winds up being screwed over by the end. Her Grand Festival match with Dawn literally goes on for less than a minute, and most of it is just a montage. The way Dawn beats her almost makes it seem like Jessie was no trouble for her at all.


Does anyone else not get why the writers gave Dawn 5 rivals? They could have limited it to simply Zoey, Ursula and Jessie....and that would have improved things considerably. Kenny could have been a COTD and Nando really served no major purpose whatsoever quite honestly.

 

[Spindae2]

I don't think so! They weren't too much, they just wasn't used properly!

Zoey OK she is the main rival and they've had to appear so much! And teh final fight was really good and teh built up to it was okay!

Nando! Such a great rival! But Dawn never fought him! The semifinal battles should be Dawn vs Nando and Zoey vs Ursula.

Jessie never was a rival, James was a better coordinator than her!

Kenny a nice character with great Pokemon but they failed to make him great! As a childhood rival he must fight her in the GF, but he didn't. And that is a big mistake!

URSULA! Just one word OVERUSED! She got beaten 3 times in a row by Dawn, how can she be a rival! She is a useless Barry! I loved her style and she was a great coordinator with great moves( sandstorm/scary face- priceless). I loved her and she should've got a better treatment!

 

[Eitarou]

Nando was more a rival for Ash than he ever was Dawns...

And that's only barely.

 

[Hellion]

I took the third option, because ultimately, the number of rivals really didn't impact the individual quality of the rivals. Some of these rivals are some of the best rivals (and I'm not just counting contest rivals when I say that) this show's ever seen while others really were subpar, but whether they were good or bad had nothing to do with the number of rivals.

On Ursula,

Yes, she got in late in the game, but in that short time, she was more developed and had better characterization than a lot of rivals and main characters that appeared more than her. Yes, she didn't beat Dawn once, but does it really matter? In the end, the Ursula/Dawn rivalry felt much more closer and more challenging for Dawn than other similarly lopsided rivalries, because every single time, Dawn was really forced to push herself and her pokémon to the limit just to beat Ursula. Ursula really helped take Dawn from the good coordinator she was in mid-DP to the great coordinator she was in the GF, and made her do so all on her own, and therefore she was bar none the best contest rival, second only to Paul as the best overall rival.

On Zoey,

Zoey was an almost great rival. Great because she was her own character, she wasn't defined by Dawn, she had flaws, a backstory, interactions of her own with other characters, etc. She really was a well-constructed character, with a well-constructed storyline. But I said almost great, because there's two things that stopped her from being a really great rival. One, she shouldn't have overcome her whole dislike of people who do both contests and gyms, I wished she'd really been madder at Nando, then learned to respect him after beating him in the GF semis. Second, her entertainment value was low, she wasn't comedic.

On Jessie,

I liked her growth and he journey as a coordinator, the entertainment she brought to contests, and I also like that the writers were consistent with her characterization as a creative coordinator, extremely good in appeals but lacking a bit more in battles. She was good.

On Nando,

The writers really could've done more with Nando, more personality, more appearances, but I've never actually considered him to be Dawn's rival (or Ash's, or Zoey's), in the end, he was a recurring character, nothing more, nothing less. I don't really feel like there was anything lost by not having him play a bigger role.

On Kenny

He's not a fundamentally bad character, he allowed the writers to give more backstory and layers to Dawn, but his characterization was poor, in that he really didn't stand out and had no entertainment value, and his storyline went nowhere. I really wish the writers kinda went through with the elements they had set up for Kenny (being more of a battler, lack of really creative appeal, wanting to challenge Ash, etc.) and had him quit contests and become a trainer, because his heart wasn't really in contests in the first place, but again, they didn't need more appearances or less rivals to do that, just use the ones they gave Kenny better.

Overall, I feel that 4 rivals (since I don't count Nando as a rival) wasn't too much, but they should've been used better with more entertainment value being given to Kenny and Zoey, and a better storyline for Kenny.

 

[투 애니원]

It never felt too many for me cause most of them rarely appeared or had a very stale personality :/

 

[Froakie]

I honestly didn't care for any of Dawn's rivals, the only one with personality was Ursula. I don't think it was a case she had too many, but more of a case they didn't give them a good enough storyline, introduced them way too late or made them completely useless and diminished as the series progressed. -coughkennycough-

 

[Thingamajig]

I think they wrote themselves into a corner by giving Dawn 3 ribbons in a row from the Wallace Cup to the Chocovine contest, because it limited how many losing contests she could've had before she got her 5th ribbon. If the middle ribbons were paced a little more evenly, there could've been some more contests in the middle to further develop Dawn's recurring rivals.

It also diddn't make sense to give Dawn a RotD in the Celestic Town contest, because even though it seemed like Ursula might've been one - Lila ended up being the only one. (well, May sort of was too, but she was a special case) It seems like that contest could've been used to develop one of the other rivals as well.

 

[Rocketshipper]

I never really considered Nando, Jessie, or Ursala to be *real* rivals to Dawn, in the same way as Kenny and Zoey.

I'd say that Nando was really more of a rival for Zoey than anyone else, being as how he was doing both gyms and contests, and attracted her ire during the Heatrhome contest, until he beat her and she had to admit he was good. And he ended up battling her in the Grand Festival.

The rivalry with Ursala was really more of a one sided thing for her towards Dawn; the stuck up contestant who underestimates Dawn and gets defeated. She was never really a serious threat, and Dawn didn;t have much of a goal to beat her specificly.

Jessie too, really seemed to me to be more of just her own thing, rather than being a "rival" to Dawn.

In the end, I think Zoey and Kenny are truly the only ones who were really developed rivals to Dawn. They had the biggest connection and development with her, and she had a motive to strive to compete with them and win.

 

[Cybersai]

In the end, I think Zoey and Kenny are truly the only ones who were really developed rivals to Dawn. They had the biggest connection and development with her, and she had a motive to strive to compete with them and win.

Kenny was well developed? The only thing he brought to the fold was the "Pikari" nickname for Dawn. His personality was the same as any filler character on the show, and his only notable Pokemon he had was Prinplup.

They even tried to make him into Barry's friend for one episode in an attempt to get people to care about him.

 

[Ashfangirl22]

Yes, way too many rivals for Dawn! Maybe if they gave her two like what happened with Ash and May things could have been different, that or work out the screen time which I guess they couldn't do but meh. I mean, what they did with Kenny was just horrible LOL I mean, not even really making it into the Grand Festival? Thats just sad. Nando even, who hasn't gotten to really battle Dawn got more out of this. What were the Pokemon people thinking when making Kenny here? They might have well just had him become Ash's rival as some one said, more to that than being Dawn's, he liked Dawn and wanted to battle Ash for her wouldn't that actually help things here? It would have connected either way, maybe better storyline and have him do some thing good LOL Contests just weren't his thing.

 

[Rocketshipper]

Kenny was well developed? The only thing he brought to the fold was the "Pikari" nickname for Dawn. His personality was the same as any filler character on the show, and his only notable Pokemon he had was Prinplup.

Maybe not really character wise I guess, but Dawn had more of a connection to him than to Ursala/Jessie/Nando. She knew him from when they were kids and such, and they were friends. Its easier to buy that she would actually care about competeting with Kenny, compared to the other three. And none of those three actually got a whole episode devoted to wrapping up their story with Dawn (like Kenny did post 8th gym). Not even poor Zoey got that. And as long as were on that, its not like Ursala had anymore character development than Kenny or something. She was pretty much just as "one note", its just that her note involved her being an arrogant bitch towards Dawn, and arguably more dynamic to watch, where as Kenny's involved him being a nice child-hood friend who playfully teases her.

 

[Cybersai]

Kenny didn't get a whole episode. They shoved him into an episode about Flint and Jasmine because his character couldn't sustain an episode by himself.

Also did anyone notice the writers never made mention of Dawn's rivals going to the same region as her? Its like they just had them all go their separate ways.

 

[PokemonLotty]

Am I the only one who wanted to smash my TV screen with a hammer every single time Kenny appeared? I only watch the dub, though I do keep up with things occurring in Japan, and his voice made my blood curtail. Every time I heard him moan "Aye, Dee-dee" I cringed. I threw up a little in my mouth. He was such an annoying underdeveloped character, I wanted to strangle him. He also was somewhat of a Drew wannabe. The writers tried to redo the whole rival crush thing like they did with May and Drew but, it failed epiclly because Kenny failed as a rival, he was so bland. It was like ew...the whole Dawn and Kenny's crush made me cringe because it was a contestshipping wannabe but no one shipped it even though it was pretty much canon, because everyone hated bland, boring Kenny.

Zoey was okay. That's it, she was decent, acceptable, I'm indifferent with her.

Nando, I don't count. He had potential but the writers abandon him and then we never saw him. It was a good idea with the toying between contests and gyms. But, the writers didn't get into it enough and eventually they just tanked his character all together. I think Nando was a wasted potential.

Ursula was very good, by far Dawn's best rival. She was a stuck-up brat that would never change, I liked how they kept it that way. Their only flaw with her was not introducing her sooner.

And I don't think she had too many, I think she had a good amount, I wish all the characters had that many so long as the rivals are handled properly. Wish, unfortunately, they are not...

 

[Cybersai]

To be honest Nando could have just been a COTD too, which is what he essentially originally was. I really don't know what the writers intended for him, given he stops appearing for nearly 160 episodes at one point. Showing a guy who did both Gyms and Contests might have been a good idea, if they actually SHOWED IT, instead of just making it a non-issue.

 

[PokemonLotty]

Yeah, if they actually decided to, um, I don't know-develop a character? Because we all know that's a great strength Pokemon has; back-stories and character development. Nando had great potential but, they canned it.

 

[Ampharos King]

Zoey
She was meant to be Dawn's main rival. Zoey was featured in the first DP opening, Together, alongside the female lead Dawn. Even though she has been portrayed as the more serious and experienced foil to the female lead, I am glad that Zoey didn't turn out to be the second coming of Drew. Zoey had her own interactions with other recurring characters instead of depending on her rivalry with Dawn to stand out. Zoey was one of the very few rivals in DP that added numerous dimensions to the main storyline. Since Zoey is from Snowpoint City, she was the trainer who not only informed Ash and co. about Lake Acuity and the legend of Yuzie, but was also associated with Gym Leader Candice.

Furthermore, Zoey was not an "unbeatable" or overpowered rival. Zoey revealed that she had lost quite a few contests on and off-screen (and not just against more experienced or older coordinators [as was the case in Drew losing twice to Robert in Hoenn, who had eventually won the Ribbon Cup]), and she had expressed some difficulty earning her last ribbon in DP155. Zoey was clearly the one character who had interacted with Dawn the most in DP, which is expected since she was intended to be her main rival, as well as her mentor.

Jessie

We all understand that Jessie's obsession towards contests ever since they were formally introduced in the earliest parts of AG. Her decision in catching a Wurmple back in Hoenn had stemmed from a desire in evolving the pokemon into a Beautifly to use in contests after she had seen another coordinator command one. Even after this dream never came into fruition, Jessie nevertheless competed in several different contests under a moniker in both the Hoenn and Kanto regions. In these cases, Jessie's presence in contests served as little more than to keep the entire TRio occupied while the main female lead and her rivals were also competing against one another. Jessie did not win a single ribbon in either the Hoenn or Kanto contests, and her string of losses in these contests (even with James or Harley's assistance) served as comedic relief. Since TRio were widely regarded as both incompetent and unfortunate back in AG, Jessie's embarassing losses in contests felt right.

I felt that Jessie was included as a competitor in the Sinnoh Grand Festival because the writers did not know of any other way to keep TRio occupied until the end of the competition. Jessie had already served as a reporter interviewing the other contestants in the Kanto Grand Festival and in the Wallace Cup. At a time, Jessie fulfilled the arrogant and cocky rival stereotype that neither Zoey nor Kenny were callous enough to criticize Dawn's progress. After Ursula was introduced, Jessie stepped down from this role slightly.

Nando
Originally started out as a COTD in DP004 who merely existed to serve as Dawn's first opponent in a battle. As a rule, Nando also battled against Ash, who is the main protagonist in the series. Nando was brought back briefly to hint that he is competing in both gym battles and contests. In DP036, Nando revealed that he won his first badge (the Forest Badge of Eterna City's Gym). Likewise, Nando was also included as a competitor in the next contest in Hearthome City. Since Hearthome City hosts both a pokemon gym and a super contest hall, it felt right for the writers to include Nando in this contest.

DP049 literally started out with Nando informing Ash that the Gym Leader of Hearthome City was not accepting challengers, which affected both characters. This was consistent with the DP games's storyline, as the player character first travels to Hearthome City after winning the second badge in Eterna City, but cannot challenge the Hearthome City's Gym Leader at that moment.

Nando's flexibility in both gym battles and contests served as a tension to Zoey's devotion to contests, which was later brought up and explained in a future episode. Zoey originally disliked Nando because she felt that he wasn't being serious on his quest by choosing two different careers. Zoey gained a newfound respect for Nando's skill. Overall, I felt that Nando's purpose was to add in new presence in the series. Nando interacted with Ash and Zoey on a personal level. Nando and Dawn had only battled once in their interactions, and future encounters were primarily to greet one another.

Kenny
Kenny's existence serves only one fundamental purpose: to allow the writers to develop a backstory out of Dawn's character. Kenny was introduced as Dawn's childhood friend who had started out his journey from Twinleaf Town at a earlier time. Kenny owning a Prinplup, the evolved form of Piplup, was a testament to this. I felt that the writers had wanted to develop a secondary rival for Dawn after the introduction of Zoey. They weren't sure of whether they should reintroduce Nando in the storyline, and had not considered integrating Jessie as one of Dawn's seasoned rivals.

Since the earliest parts of DP were filled with a lot of comic relief, the writers felt that it was necessary to knock Dawn off her high horse by allowing another character to know about an embarassing secret related to the female lead. The writers felt that there was no use dropping the character after pulling a trick like this. Kenny had also interacted with Ash during his apperances. Ash challenged the coordinator to a Pokemon Battle on three separate occasions. The first and second battles were both interrupted, while the third battle was a win on Kenny's part.

Ursula
She also started out as the average COTD in the Chocovine Contest. Since she was introduced rather abruptly in the middle of the series, the writers "inserted" her character into the Wallace Cup in order to incite conflict between the two characters. Ursula was rather dismissive of Dawn's pokemon for lacking both beauty and finesse. The writers brought Ursula back in a future contest to cause more trouble for Dawn.

I am not sure if the writers had originally intended for Dawn's "Pikari" subplot to be directly involved with the pokemon Plusle and Minun in particular (coincidentially, neither pokemon were seen in DP, and surprisingly, Solana's Plusle was not seen alongside her when she had contacted Ash and co. in the Riolu episodes). I felt that it would have been brought up any way since the writers needed to resolve Dawn's anxiety associated with competing in double performance contests. It felt right to me that Ursula would have been the right character to resolve both of their subplots at once.

To answer the OP's question, I felt that the writers had wanted to tackle several different subplots at once by introducing different recurring characters to the mix. Zoey was intended to be Dawn's main rival, but later developed on her own footing as a result of her interactions with Ash, Nando, and Candice. Kenny was introduced to provide both comic relief and a secondary rival status for Dawn at a time when the character had very few major rivals to compete against in contests. Ursula was introduced rather late in the series as a COTD who was provided some backstory associated with the Wallace Cup so that her tension against Dawn was justified, but later returned to the series due to popular demand. Nando and Jessie fulfilled certain elements of their storyline by competing in contests, but had also interacted with the group through different venues.

Kenny was well developed? The only thing he brought to the fold was the "Pikari" nickname for Dawn. His personality was the same as any filler character on the show, and his only notable Pokemon he had was Prinplup.

If it were not for Kenny and his Breloom, Ash's Turtwig would have never learned its Energy Ball attack. His existence brought something to the fold other than to establish that Dawn had an embarassing secret, and another character knew about it.

They even tried to make him into Barry's friend for one episode in an attempt to get people to care about him.

It was during that one episode when Dawn's Piplup was about to evolve into Prinplup. The writers decided to bring back Kenny, who owned Piplup's second-stage form (Prinplup), as well as Barry, who owned Piplup's final evolved form (Empoleon), to serve as a comparison. The entire point of this episode was for Dawn to decide whether or not the benefits of Piplup potentially evolving into a Prinplup outweighed her pokemon's feelings associated with the evolutionary process.

That's not to say that Kenny and Barry were just shoehorned in for that one episode to prove that point. Kenny had competed in the following contest the next day (episode) with his Prinplup. Kenny and his Prinplup defeated Dawn and her Ambipom to earn the ribbon. Dawn, Ambipom, Barry, and his Empoleon later entered the Ping Pong Tournament in the following episode where both Dawn and Barry's pokemon lost against the same team. This was merely the first episode of a three-episode story arc, and it brought together two characters who just happened to have owned members of the Piplup evolutionary line to later compete against Dawn in other events.

I don't see why it was an issue that Kenny and Barry just happened to be friends with one another. They are both from Twinleaf Town. If Dawn had also known a little about Barry before he had formally introduced himself to Ash, then Kenny should at least know about Barry as well.

 

[Grave-E]

I don't think the number of rivals was an issue at all, because there really was little excuse for them not to be handled to a satisfactory degree. They had 4 years worth of episodes to write for these characters, and to call that an ample amount of time would be modest.
If anything, it should have been a good thing that we got such a wide array of recurring characters to challenge and interact with Hikari in different ways. BFF mentor, guy with a crush, mystrious bard, debutante bitch. That's an interesting ensemble of characters to work with.

I've said this before about both her and her rivals; The ideas were there, and they was solid. It's just that the characters themselves weren't entertaining.

 

[Cybersai]

I've said this before about both her and her rivals; The ideas were there, and they was solid. It's just that the characters themselves weren't entertaining.

I think its the 4 year pacing that actually hurt the development of their rivals. The long gaps between appearances hurt too. I remember people constantly saying, "When was the last time Kenny appeared?" or "Will Nando ever appear again or has he been forgotten?"

Likewise with Zoey it was the opposite problem, she appeared too much and was shoved down our throats, but they ran out of ideas for her too quickly so she just acted the same in every appearance. I honestly can't think of any development Zoey went through at all after she stopped bitching about Gyms/Contests.

About the only good thing that came later on is the implied relationship between Zoey and Candice at the Snowpoint episodes, and shows that the writers could promote same-sex relationships in a mature and sophisticated manner..

 

[WatcherMark]

For some reason, I imagine Urara originallly being intended to be a rival-of-the-day, but she turned out to be so interesting that the writers decided to promote her to an actual rival.

Personally, I thought Urara was a great rival. Given all the friendly rivalries Hikari had, it was nice she had one who hated her guts and couldn't stand to see her win (I remember after the contest with Yuri, I was seriously thinking that every coordinator Hikari met was friendly... in fact, I found Candy Musalina the most interesting coordinator at that time). Of course, I imagine the writers knew that this was one rivalry too many, so someone had to go. I imagine that's why Naoshi disappeared for so long mid-D&P while Kengo was quickly kicked out of the Grand Festival.

 

[Cybersai]

So in other words the writers made it up as they went along? Seemed to me as if the rest of DP was planned out well, what happened on the Contest side of things?

Seemed to me the writers wanted to try something different this time around, some of it backfired, some of it didn't, so they just quietly sidelined some of the characters.