Thread: Do you find Trip/Shooti to be an interesting rival?

Originally Posted by Caseydia

I like Trip compared to Gary. He was never around and he was always over the top ahead of Ash. I don't understand why Trip is recieving such dislike while Bianca appears all the time and has nothing of a rival to offer to Ash.

Its because Trip just isn't interesting. Bianca's not a main rival, but she still has good interactions with others characters. The only strike Gary had against him was that he didn't appear often enough, besides that he was still Ash's main rival and they already had a history dating back to when they were younger.

Yeah, I figured it'd be fairly obvious why Bianca is significantly more liked than Trip despite her track record. That's but only one aspect that makes a rival a good rival. First and foremost you have to give a damn about the rival, whether your feelings are positive or negative about said rival. Even then, Bianca already feels more like a main rival than Trip because it seems she appears more often, has a much more developed storyline than Trip and more of a personality... all she really lacks is the threat factor. I hope they fix that in the future, but when it comes right down to it, I think Bianca deserves a bigger role than what she has. If she couldn't be the token girl of Ash's group, I'd be just as fine with her being the "main" rival if she was made a more competent battler. That way we'd have a functional rival who's engaging to watch and isn't a total knockoff of Paul in design, plus isn't some vague mess of many past rivals in personality that mainly comprises of bare-bones details.

And since I'm home now, I decided to go ahead and show just how lazy the art directors were about Trip's design. Just look at how similar these colors are.

I'm not sure if I see Bianca more as a main rival than Trip. Maybe it's more of how she's played for comedy relief more so than anything else, but I don't see it. Though, if she was able to be more of a competent trainer and still be used for comedy relief, then maybe she could have been used as the main rival for Ash. Though, while I'm not a fan of the anime version of Bianca, I can see why she would appeal to other people and why most people would prefer her over Trip.

Though, I'm kind of surprised that the writers went to the trouble of creating an anime character to be Ash's rival instead of just using one of the rivals already established in the video games. Black and White had more rivals than previous games with Cheren, Bianca and arguably N. Even with the anime being only a loose adaptation of the video games, it would have made more sense to make Ash's main rival one of the characters from the games. I know that Paul wasn't from DP and his design is loosely based on Silver's, but there weren't a lot of video game rivals in that generation like there are in this one. At this point, I would have preferred it if they had Cheren, or N, depending on what they're planning with the Team Plasma stuff, instead of Trip. While Cheren got a bit too focused on just power just to battle the champion like Trip wants to, he was more interesting in the game and I could have seen the writers do a little something more with his character given what they've done with Bianca. N being the main rival would have been even better. Not only would it have been interesting to have Ash interact with the leader of Team Plasma throughout the journey through Unova, but there would have been some really great interactions between them, especially when N's attitude towards Pokemon and humans was brought up. Maybe that wouldn't have been able to work due to what the writers had already planned out for Team Plasma or they didn't want another rivalry that could have been too similar to the one with Paul, although I don't think that would have been a problem if they had kept focusing on N's beliefs, but I still think that it would have been worlds more interesting engaging than what we have now with Trip.

^ That part I'm not too fussed with, considering how amazing Shinji was. But he was given depth, personality, and plot. As was Shigeru. And even the secondary rivals have had way more to add to the story than Shootie does.

Shootie... Well, Shootie has none of those things so he's not a good rival by ANY stretch of imagination.

Shooty/Trip confuses me. One minute, he's "Ew, you're from another region, gtfo." To "You're just annoying, go away plzthx." to "You're stupid, I feel bad for you so here let me help.". His development is going far too quickly, for he is a different person in every episode we see him in. He's not much of a rival if he's gonna end up falling in love with Ash his 5th or 6th appearance *hypothetical of course, don't take it seriously please*.

I think they need to pick a personality for him, stay with it and THEN start to finalize his character, because as it stands he is all over the place and has about as much Screentime as Nando did, which means he really can't be developed properly, and that isn't fair to us as fans because the writers tried very hard to say "This is Shooty, he's the new rival!" and yet, we really aren't seeing a "rival" so much as a recurring CotD.

He's not very interesting. No humor or sarcasm like Gary, no storyline like Paul, no comic relief like Barry....kid has nothing going for him.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Trip has basically become the Zoey of the BW series. I don't see it changing. I just hope he gets to the finals so Ash beats him.

Let's not go that far to say that. Zoey hug around Dawn and her friends too often for no real reasons. Plus she was too much of a mother figure to Dawn. With Trip, it's like he's a second step cousin that everyone in the family doesn't really get along with. But I like Trip. As far as his rivalry with Ash, it will get better if people will give it more of a chance. But right now, BW is more focused on Oshawott.

Originally Posted by Caseydia

Let's not go that far to say that. Zoey hug around Dawn and her friends too often for no real reasons. Plus she was too much of a mother figure to Dawn. With Trip, it's like he's a second step cousin that everyone in the family doesn't really get along with. But I like Trip. As far as his rivalry with Ash, it will get better if people will give it more of a chance. But right now, BW is more focused on Oshawott.

I saw Zoey as more of a big sister to dawn tbh, but this isn't about her.

I LIKE Trip, he's a cutie and he has all the makings of a great rival, but BW isn't treating him like a rival, the writers are treating him like a recurring human ditto. Different person everytime we see him.

BW isn't as brutal as DP maybe that's why. And what I mean by that is that BW is very kiddish. In Kanto, Gary was almost absent. At least Trip is popping up.

Originally Posted by Caseydia

BW isn't as brutal as DP maybe that's why. And what I mean by that is that BW is very kiddish. In Kanto, Gary was almost absent. At least Trip is popping up.

Gary did have some present in Kanto. Even when he didn't appear, Ash was usually still affected by him advancing so far ahead of him and wanted to beat him. While Trip is appearing more often at this point in BW than Gary did in Kanto, I don't think that makes him a better rival. He has a boring personality in my opinion and he doesn't provide much tension when he does appear, unlike both Gary and Paul. I still don't think that there's much motivation for Ash to battle Trip other than he just wants to, which isn't a good motivation for the main rivalry of the series.

Looking through all of these posts here summarizes exactly what Trip really is that I have already mentioned but not explained too much: nothing special.

Seriously, the writers just made everything that defines bland, lackluster, unoriginal, etc. and threw all those characteristics into Trip. There is absolutely nothing memorable, not even one quality, that makes him stand out among other rivals, outside of being a photographer - which has nothing to do with the defining purpose of his character, and is still not something we haven't seen before. On top of being the one character in the whole anime who can most accurately be defined as a Gary Stu.

Too bad we're stuck with him until at least the Unova League.

Originally Posted by Caseydia

In Kanto, Gary was almost absent. At least Trip is popping up.

Eh, in those cases I'd say "less is more". Yeah, the writers weren't kind to Gary overall, but at least he appeared more frequently in Kanto than Johto. Johto overall is a mess, so I won't get into that. But whenever Gary appeared or was mentioned in Kanto, there was a purpose behind it. It reminded viewers of the rivalry between him and Ash and strengthened it with each passing Gary appearance. As I recall, most of the time Gary appeared to serve a meaningful purpose, even if it was only to further the rivalry. Same can be said of Paul, but to a higher level because the writers didn't bone him and still had his appearances meaningful in various ways. Hell, I even consider his cameo in A Maze-ing Race! poignant because it proved even a stiff cold hardass like Paul could be used for comic relief. Paul was always a sure bet to liven up an episode.

Trip's appearing roughly as frequently as Paul, but already some of his appearances could be considered unnecessary since they did nothing to further the main rivalry or build on his interaction level with Ash, and other than show off some new Pokemon, the episodes would have played out the same way more or less with or without Trip. The episode where the Venipede swarm Castelia City comes to mind right away; sure, arguably you could say Trip was showing leadership skills by organizing a group of trainers to burn the hell out of those bugs, but that could have just as easily been any douchebag CotD in his place and nothing would have changed, including the "change of heart" part as douchebag CotDs are wont to do in fillers anyway. You might as well consider his role in the Don Battle a waste of time, too; he got eliminated early, didn't stick around afterwards, and thus had no real impact on the arc at all.

The former example is the kind of thing Zoey was guilty of in DP, really; appearing when the circumstances of the episode didn't call for it. But that's as far as I'd go in likening the two. It's really almost opposite when I look at it. Zoey was overall a so-so rival for me, but one of the things I liked best about her was that her interaction was not limited to Dawn only; she also had meaningful interaction with Ash, we got to see her bounce off May, and later we got to see how close she and Candice were. Nando's most useful trait was to be another rival for Zoey as the personification of what she once despised strongly: a Pokemon Trainer who is also a Coordinator. It makes a rival feel more realistic to acknowledge everyone around them rather than just their rival. Now, Trip is doing this... he already knew Cilan before he joined Ash and just got defeated by him, which might carry over to his next appearance. Out of nowhere, he's suddenly more interested in battling Iris because she has a Dragon-type and comes from the Village of Dragons (I still hate that shitty justification). I'm willing to bet Trip will be even more interested in battling her since she won the Don Battle and her Axew has learned a new move. With Alder being around, that'll make things tricky, but since it seems Ash is slated to go against him anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to squish in a Trip/Iris battle in there.

Now, I have a problem with this. Why would I, when I just said I loved that Zoey interacted with characters other than Dawn? Because Zoey and Dawn have a firmly established rivalry that was cemented very early on in DP. Their promise to meet each other in the GF finals (which was surprisingly kept) solidified this rivalry and there was no question as to who Dawn's main rival (and biggest threat) to her chances in the GF was. Their rivalry was consistent, and though often not exactly thrilling or the stuff of legends, it was a rivalry that the viewers could easily believe was a worthwhile long-term challenge. Both Dawn and Zoey were more or less on equal ground in experience; Zoey may have started her journey a bit earlier, but Dawn has the advantage of a Top Coordinator mother she can always look to for advice and she was practically born to follow in her mom's footsteps.

The point of my babbling is, Dawn and Zoey's rivalry was consistently maintained and treated with respect every time they appeared. This didn't have to last for the whole episode, of course, and with the main rivalry fully established, there's room to flesh out the rival a little more by letting her have connections to other characters. Basically, you need to have your rival's rivalry - the thing they were created for - set in place first and foremost before having said rival move on to more advanced stages of development. As we're seeing with Trip, it's really important that you cement that main rivalry before you have the rival mingle with other characters. Otherwise, the rival will look unfocused and all over the place. It's bad enough that he won't even give Ash the time of day, all because Trip is an unjustified xenophobe with extremely dumb luck. Ash and Trip are not on equal ground, because Trip is just starting out and Ash has gone through four full regions, one half-region, and one Battle Frontier. You look at this from a logical point of view and normally you'd laugh your ass off.

Instead, you're going "WTF?!" because Trip's untrained Snivy just took down a nerfed Pikachu who still should've been able to take out a freshling of a starter with its two usable moves. They don't bother explaining why. They just use this shoddy excuse for a defeat to "establish" the rivalry, and even then the foundation is shaky because of Trip's indifference. Compare to Gary, Ash's childhood friend who was always one step ahead of him. If I'm not mistaken, this applied to life in general and was not just limited to Pokemon; after all, Gary got to start out with his own car and cheerleaders; Ash wasn't blessed with those perks. He was the eternal underdog to Gary despite the two being on even ground, and that's a compelling enough story that can be easy for a viewer to relate to.

We had Paul, and though his Elekid beating Pikachu after it just took down a Regice (in a rather badly-written way, so that's not quite as offensive) also had us WTFing because we assumed Paul was a beginner, that was disproved 40 episodes in and added with the fact that Paul is much smarter than Ash and not one to let his emotions get the best of him can justify well enough why his Elekid could beat a Pikachu. That Elekid proved to be Paul's ongoing project since he was rarely seen without it, so it can be established that Paul has put a lot of work into that Pokemon. Outside of that, Paul represented everything that opposed and challenged Ash's ideals and philosophy. Their rivalry wasn't merely about who was better than the other - it was about whose way of thinking was the right way to go. Paul stirred up lots of controversy with his treatment of Chimchar, though honestly we never saw Paul treat any of his other Pokemon this way and it was obvious that Paul's Pokemon both liked and respected him. It can be inferred that he was tough on them, sure, if his using Weavile to train Torterra is any indication, but generally it was a method suited to Paul's Pokemon. It really hammered home the fact that not all Pokemon are alike, even within the same species. Ash initially only took Paul's training methods at face value, but later he came to understand that Paul wasn't wrong because his training methods and ideals were different from his. Chimchar aside - because we all know that was wrong - but it showed that Paul probably wasn't quite aware of that until he gave up on Chimchar. He was so focused on unlocking the power he saw the day he met Chimchar that it simply never occurred to him that Chimchar required a completely different approach to unlock the power. This was a great way of instilling a flaw in Paul beyond his lack of social skills; even though he's every bit as experienced as Ash, Paul was still learning new things even at this point as he went along, just as Ash did. And Paul too came to accept that his way of training wasn't the only right way to do it, and that Ash's methods had some merit to them after all. But reasonable doubts lied within the trainer himself, especially after what Paul learned from Brandon about controlling your emotions in battle. Ash notoriously wears his heart on his sleeve and that played a big part in why Ash lost horribly in their first full battle, similar to how Paul was squashed against Brandon himself. Paul really mellowed out after Brandon, and it's easy to see why. That was when he learned Ash had already defeated a man Paul had deemed one of the biggest challenges he'd ever face, and had to have realized then and there that he'd been sorely underestimating Ash all this time. From then on, he took Ash seriously and that reflected in the League when Paul shamelessly stole Ash's Counter Shield to use against him.

Basically, Paul was not the Villain/Jerk Sue that many made him out to be. It made sense that he had complex, advanced strategies given his level of experience and it was great to show that Paul was not without flaws of his own from time to time. Ash often didn't take advantage of those flaws, but their existence made the rivalry so much deeper in my opinion. This rivalry was meant to be a true clash of opposites; opposite personalities with opposite philosophies on Pokemon, battling, and training; opposite strategies and opposite Pokemon preferences and tactics (despite sharing some of the same species, they were often used in different ways). Just looking into the details brought out how different Paul and Ash were. Ash's strongest Pokemon is a small yellow Electric rat that relies heavily on its speed and offensive power to dispatch an enemy as quickly as it can. Paul's strongest Pokemon is a giant Grass/Ground tortoise that, for the most part, battles in a single stationary position whilst Pikachu zips and zooms about all over the place. Paul's strongest Pokemon waits while taking numerous hits to find the perfect time for a counterattack that will not only inflict just as much damage back, but land the target in a situation it can't immediately escape from. While Ash relied on his teammates to serve a single equal purpose, Paul would squander two Pokemon with limited purposes for the benefit of a single Pokemon that, with the right set-up, could completely decimate half of a full team.

I could go on all day about the details (technically I already did; this post has been worked on on-and-off for almost 24 hours now, whoops), but the thing is that Ash and Paul's rivalry had so much deep, symbolic meaning and the interactions shared between them were far more intense than Ash has had with any other rival of the show. Paul existed to challenge Ash; to make him question whether or not he's been taking the right path to being a Pokemon Master or not after all this time. While Paul was a malevolent force on the outside, on the inside there was much more to Paul than that, and in the end when the two grew to respect each other (without Paul's character getting ruined by being BFFs with Ash forever because he was defeated by him), Ash learned the extremely valuable lesson of not being so quick to judge a book by their cover. Paul seemed cruel, heartless, and nihilistic on the outside, but inside there was a guy who had the same goal as Ash, more or less, who just lived a very different life and turned out to become a very different trainer. And despite these differences, that didn't automatically make them wrong. Paul had his own way of doing things just as Ash did; Paul just had to learn from trial and error that not everything he did was right, and afterwards he bettered himself for it. This was a rivalry built on the clash of opposites and learning to accept each other's differences and quirks, which is something we can all benefit to learn from in real life.

That there was a truly amazing rivalry; far more deep than I would have expected from this show. Consequently, Paul left big shoes to fill and I wasn't about to expect BW to try topping this. But I still expected them to try, you know? When I see Trip, I see a lack of effort. A couple of quirks (that really have no place in this rivalry) shoed in to make the character, and otherwise they just seem to be making Trip up as they go. I think that's why, as Catilena said, Trip seems to be a completely different character serving a totally different purpose with each appearance he makes. What message is he trying to send, here? What does he stand for? We know he wants to impress and battle Alder, but who in Unova doesn't, really? That doesn't make Trip unique or make him stand out very much, honestly.

We'll see just where this Alder thing goes, I guess, but since Ash is the one who's gonna battle the Champ, I have a sneaking suspicion Iris will be getting a forced battle out of Trip... or at least that'll be promised. Maybe he'll rematch Cilan. Who knows? I think this just reaffirms that Trip is all over the goddamn place and that's not where you want your main rival to be at this stage in the series.

It really is depressing when you see this series essentially fall into its own "recession" after what they accomplished last time.

^I think Shinneth's pretty much summed it all up. The various reasons why Gary and Paul worked and the reasons that Trip doesn't. Honestly, the kid should never have been created. The writers should've used both Cheren and N as the rivals. One's focused on power and the other's focused on his misguided belief that humans use and abuse pokemon without having a significant bond with them. He also doesn't have great people skills overall. <-These would've been the perfect rivals for Ash to meet, battle, argue with, and eventually grow to befriend and understand.

Originally Posted by Blue1225

^I think Shinneth's pretty much summed it all up. The various reasons why Gary and Paul worked and the reasons that Trip doesn't. Honestly, the kid should never have been created. The writers should've used both Cilan and N as the rivals. One's focused on power and the other's focused on his misguided belief that humans use and abuse pokemon without having a significant bond with them. He also doesn't have great people skills overall. <-These would've been the perfect rivals for Ash to meet, battle, argue with, and eventually grow to befriend and understand.

I agree. At this point, I really wish that Cilan or N could have been Ash's main rivals, or both would have worked too. Cilan is focused on power and battling the champion as well, but he would be more interesting than what Trip has been at this point and he probably wouldn't be that much of a jerk, or at least not insult Ash for being from Kanto without any valid reason behind it. N being a rival for Ash would have been so awesome. It would have caused some interesting clashes due to their different personalities and beliefs about Pokemon and their relationship with humans, but it wouldn't have been a complete rehash with what they did with Paul. Plus, it would have been really interesting to see the leader of the evil team being involved in the series early on and making regular appearances, which would have made the revelation of his involvement with Team Plasma all the more shocking to Ash and his friends.

I still kind of wonder why they bothered to create a rival for Ash when Black and White have more rivals than previous games. Maybe they thought that Paul's popularity partly had to do with how he wasn't directly from D/P/Pl, which would kind of explain why they went that route and why, as Shinneth already pointed out, that Trip's design and color scheme is like a poor man's Paul. Though, it was Paul's interactions with Ash and how he was different from previous rivals that made him stand out, not just because he was an anime exclusive character. Given how Cilan and N change during the course of the storyline from the games, it would have been much better to see one or both of them as Ash's rivals. Though, given how the anime is a loose adaptation of the games, they still might have made significant changes to their personalities and stories, but I'd still be more interested in seeing them than Trip at this point.

I also agree that Trip being more interested in battling everyone other than Ash really weakens their apparent rivalry. There's no desire or interest on Trip's part to battle Ash unless he's provoked, usually by Iris in a way that clearly paints her as a hypocrite and the fact that they've used Iris to start up the battle between Ash and Trip in the same way twice really shows how weak the rivalry is. He'll probably be more interested in trying to battle Iris again just because she's from the Village of Dragons instead of Ash when he appears again. There were times that Paul didn't want to battle Ash and Gary almost always said no to Ash's requests for a battle if I recall correctly, but in both of those rivalries, there was still at least a decent amount of tension and a fierce desire from Ash to prove his strength as a trainer against them in battle. Ash doesn't have that desire for Trip. Sure, he wants to battle him, but it doesn't feel so much as to prove his strength as a trainer, but just because he wants to battle him, which really isn't much of a motivation for this main rivalry. Plus, when Ash has lost to Trip, it doesn't really affect him, especially in their five-on-five match earlier in the series. He doesn't seem disappointed in himself or that he lost like most of the times he lost to Paul, especially in their first full battle, and he just said that they'll train harder, even though we haven't seen a lot of that training, so the losing doesn't seem to bother Ash that much. It also really doesn't help that Trip isn't really mentioned unless he appears in that episode, unlike both Gary and Paul, so he doesn't even cause tension off-screen through just being mentioned. I'm also not much of a fan of how they've powered Trip up just so that he can crush Ash throughout the series until they eventually meet up in the Unova League. It feels like a cheap way to make Ash the underdog in this rivalry. If they had to go with Trip instead of another rival from the games, I would have preferred it if they just left his experience unclear like they did with Paul at the beginning of DP instead of making him a complete rookie who is able to train all of his Pokemon incredibly well, practically in a Gary Stu kind of way.

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

I agree. At this point, I really wish that Cilan or N could have been Ash's main rivals, or both would have worked too. Cilan is focused on power and battling the champion as well, but he would be more interesting than what Trip has been at this point and he probably wouldn't be that much of a jerk, or at least not insult Ash for being from Kanto without any valid reason behind it.

Cilan being a rival for Ash could be fun actually. Cilan being a bit more like a pretty boy, and using his pretty boy battling style to defeat Ash on a regular basis. As well as sort of being friends with him would make him threatening as well as interesting to have around, though N being a rival could be fun. N doesn't seem to have many emotions, though I'd love to see N appear as one of Ash's rivals and there's no reason to believe he won't appear since Barry appeared 100 eps in so hopefully if he is a rival he's a interesting game like one xD