Thread: Do you think the writers are doing enough with Iris?

Judging by these forums, they seem to be doing more for Iris than Ash or anyone else.

Originally Posted by Caseydia

Judging by these forums, they seem to be doing more for Iris than Ash or anyone else.

Well, they seem to be favoring her over anyone in the current group now. I don't know what the writers were thinking, but I don't see why Iris had to win the Don Battle tournament. Having Axew master Dragon Rage, after many failed attempts only to get Outrage right on the first try would have been have been fine for her development for that particular arc.

I fail to see any reasoning why she had to win against him. Ash beat Cilan with a type dis-advantage, but why not Iris? Why is she a "special case"? I'm sure the writers intended for us to feel happy for her, considering she said that winning the feathers was "fruits of her training" ( or in reality the fruits of horrendous writing) but it just came across as forced. They don't seem to have a problem writing Ash ( and Cilan to a lesser degree) to lose. However, they seem against the idea for Iris so far.

All of the girls were almost favored when it seemed like Ash was almost shrewed every time. That's just how it is.

You can favor a character, and still write them well. That's not the case with Iris.

Honestly don't see what "favoriting" has to do with anything, I consider "favoriting" to be giving Dento little personas every episode just to make him relavent to whatever ep he's in. I consider "favoriting" to be the writers giving Satoshi cheap wins, like all of his gyms except the 4th one. No my friends, Iris isn't being "favorited" her Kibago has only managed to now learn a third move, not only that but, her Doryuuzu was out of commision for a long string of eps, and she got a bitchy Emonga that only battles when she wants to. I guess you could call Satoshi and Dento being allowed to have a tag battle against the Subway Masters "favoriting". But, when it comes right down to it, it's the likelyhood of the character and just plan opinion. If the writers were favoriting Iris that they should have had her be allowed to do more crap during the beginning of BW. God forbid, Iris run around acting like a "Science, Dragon Trainer", or a "Metro, Dragon Trainer".

An example of an favoriting opinion, is me since I really think everyone is favoriting, Dento and Satoshi and being hypocritical toward Iris, despite them making the exact same mistakes like Dento beating Shuuti or Zuruggu being allowed to get a move even stronger then Outrage right off the bat, with no training or battles compared to Iris's Kibago. Or Dento beating Shuuti, despite everyone complaining that if Iris ever beat Shuuti it would "fuck up the rivalry further". I've yet to hear any complaints about those, so I simply can't call Iris's writing shitty, if there's obvious favortism rolling around. Iris's Don Battle win was justified, she thought up a strategy to beat Dageki, and her Doryuuzu overpowered and outlasted Pikachu. And her Kibago in a moment of weakness and a struggle pulled off a brand new move, and that's simply how the ball rolls. Why is it soooooooooooooooo bad for Iris to do that things but, ok for Satoshi and Dento to do them?

Note: This thread is to debate Iris and her treatment on the show. While comparaisons are a-okay, please make sure that your post revolves around Iris and not other characters. Talking about the fan treatment of another character isn't the point of this thread.

Originally Posted by Caseydia

All of the girls were almost favored when it seemed like Ash was almost shrewed every time. That's just how it is.

Not exactly. Take DP for example, the writers had Hikari train a lot, but also lose, and when she and Ash faced off in the finals of the Tag Team Tournament, the writers had her lose because she was shown to be less knowledgeable than Satoshi in battle and was still not all that confident in her abilities. You never got the feeling that Kasumi, Haruka or Hikari were stronger battlers than Satoshi. Where as with Iris, the writers almost never show her train, almost never show her lose, she's already all knowledgeable about training dragons, has all the characteristics necessary to be a Dragon master already, and when she faces Satoshi, she wins despite the writers having to bend every single storyline they'd built up for Iris with giving her that win. Emonga was lazy and unwilling to battle, but all of a sudden... poof! That's magically gone and Emonga suddenly perfectly listens to Iris while Kenyan is made to hold the idiot ball. Kibago can't battle to save its live, but then poof! Out of nowhere, without any effort or training whatsover, it learns one of the most powerful Dragon moves there is, and does he have trouble mastering it? No! The dizziness is a normal occurence. The writers who had set up Doryuuzu being disobedient seemed averse to actually put the blame on Iris when it came time to solve that storyline, since this was a case of Doryuuzu freaking out and misunderstanding Iris moreso than the opposite.

Overall, nothing's earned with Iris. There's no struggle with her character, nothing learned, nothing gained from the journey, which sadly doesn't only make her an uncompelling and boring character, but in order to give her that artificial gravitas as a trainer and that artificial relevence in the series, they do so by stunting the development and forgoing the previous characterization of other characters. That's how Iris is favoured by the writers.

^^This sums it up. Iris, for whatever reason, has been given lucky breaks left and right, her subplots are hastily resolved or outright dropped to prevent her from losing a battle, and when you consider how Iris was portrayed for the first 30ish episodes before we learned she was a prodigy, it comes off as not only bad writing, but inconsistent bad writing as well.

And yeah, bullshit on the past female companions getting any special perks. The closest we ever got to that was May getting undeserved wins in Contests, but even so, she never won a GF (and despite her experience, never ranked as high as Dawn in either of her GFs) and there was a shit-ton of focus on May struggling to become a competent Coordinator, given that... y'know, she originally didn't even like Pokemon and thus had no idea what the hell she wanted to do at first. I'm even willing to forgive the writers (to a degree) for some of the BS wins since this was their first go at the whole Contest gig. For the most part they obviously fixed that with Dawn, and May herself did have reasonable victories under her belt from time to time. Point is, that's about as close as they got to "pampering" any of the other girl companions. May was still shown to have some major flaws even as she became much more experienced (such the Lilycove Contest, I believe, where she was forced to forfeit because she didn't have the foresight to realize her Pokemon couldn't continue on which caused the judges to disqualify her). At best she tied with Ash, and that was a Contest battle no less, so suffice to say in an actual battle May would've definitely lost.

Misty really didn't get much in the way of perks, either. Hell, they wouldn't even let her win the Whirl Cup, which was the last time she was actually relevant in the anime. They showed her fucking up and learning tons of times as well, and she wasn't portrayed as being better than Ash as a battler, either.

And Dawn... as it was said, she was given a losing streak that depressed her enough to make her question whether or not she was going down the right path. We saw tons of scenes of her training and coming up with new techniques which she did on a consistent basis, and honestly if we're not counting Ursula Dawn's victories for the most part were well justified. And yeah, it was pretty obvious Dawn was the weak link of the Tag Batle finals, so suffice to say she wasn't portrayed to be stronger than Ash, either.

So with all due respect, Iris is the first main character in this series who's gotten the royal treatment here. I suspect this is being done because the writers love her personality to death or something, and since you learn more when you lose a battle than when you win, which more often than not sparks a change in said character who loses, the writers are fiercely determined to make sure Iris isn't put in a situation where she's not high on the pedestal and unreasonably on par with/stronger than Ash. Why they do this is beyond me, because it's not like Iris actually teaches Ash anything. It virtually makes no sense for Iris to already be at such a high level if they want the audience to connect with and root for her to reach the Dragon Master goal, because they way they illustrate it... it's like evolving Axew is all she really has left to do. Whenever she's focused on, we usually don't see her struggle or fail and suffer great consequences by doing so; instead, we're seeing her inherent abilities (and that repertoire grows with each passing Iris-focused episode) glorified, hence Iris is not learning anything new by the end of these episodes. I still question why they went out of their way to make her a trainer long before anyone else in the known world can legally become one and "justify" her outrageous winning streak by saying she was self-taught by playing in the woods and beating up wild Pokemon with her bare hands (h-how is this alright...?).

They really went overboard in expressing this "Iris is a goddamn prodigy, recognize this motherfuckers" plot point that was not even remotely hinted at in the first 35 episodes of the series. So then they justify the rest of Iris' super-amazing abilities by explaining that her birthplace causes this somehow, so I guess everyone in the Village of Dragons has (or had before they become geezers) superhuman eyesight, DEM medicine-making abilities, pro tree-climbing and vine-swinging (note that Ash out-did her in the former in the second episode, and after that Ash could just never seem to compete with her skills), and evidently meeting someone from that place is a super-huge big deal if Trip and Georgia's reactions are anything to go by.

All this, but they rarely show Iris actually training her Pokemon. For all the time it took Axew to master Dragon Rage, and knowing it's still pretty much a babby at this point, why the hell can it learn Outrage out of nowhere and get it right on the first go? Why did Emolga become 100% compliant with Iris' wishes literally out of nowhere? Sure, nice try in the attempt to make it Iris' fault over the Excadrill thing, but close examination of the whole thing shows that Iris never actually did anything wrong (since Excadrill was the one who would never ever listen after the loss, no matter how hard Iris tried to cheer him up and give him positive reinforcement) and a simple apology suddenly makes everything all better.

It's jarring, really, for this show to try and make it believable that Iris is the shit when really they've just been bending the rules of their own storytelling mechanics to make it so that whenever Iris is focused on, rather than learning anything or changing/maturing for the better, instead she's just made out to be super-amazing-special-awesome more and more. So when they do try to throw some pathos her way, I'm honestly not feeling it because Iris has had it so easy in this series it isn't even funny. Or amusing. Or endearing. Well, it isn't for me. I feel like I have to say this or else I'll get accused of passing off my opinion as a fact or something.

Anyway, it's gotten to the point where a year into the series, I still wonder why Iris needs to be in the group? She really offers nothing to Ash or Cilan but the occasional talking smack about their actually endearing characteristics. With the Axew/Scraggy thing, you know Axew could have been replaced with any of Cilan's Pokemon for the training and it would have ended up the goddamn same most likely. With or without Ash and Cilan, Iris could conceivably reach her goal since she's already like 99% of the way there. Unlike past female travelers, Iris is obviously more than capable of taking care of herself on her own, so she obviously doesn't need to hang out with them. I can't think of a single role she serves in the group that can't be subbed efficiently by Ash or Cilan in her absence.

So even though her amount of screentime is fine, the writers haven't even done enough with Iris to show me she needs to be in this group, let alone show me that she's a character I need to give a damn about. Really.

No definitely...Sigh, as a fan its really hard watching her now with all the terrible writing being rubbed at your face. After the Don Battle Tournament her character got screwed up totally, Emolga listens to her out of nowhere, the way Axew learns Outrage, winning the tournament without any sort of character development and storyline, Excadrill's disobedience and how it seems to not affect her etc, etc, etc. I feel like the writers don't bother with her anymore they just come up with last minute solutions.

I don't even see why Iris was matched up with Ash in the finals in the first place. It wasn't really built up or foreshadowed. The writers for w/e reason, didn't want Ash to win..because apparently he doesn't lose enough. Development might have actually come out of Iris losing, than Ash losing.

So, yeah story line-wise I'm at a loss as to why they concluded things the way they did.

I assume they had Iris beat Ash to show she was as strong as she thinks she is. Kinda disappointing IMO, since it would have been a good time for Ash to beat her to show that he's a very good trainer. Iris would have learned to respect him a bit more.

It's really a shame, the writers don't really know how to handle someone who is the 8th Gym Leader in the game as a traveling companion. It was strange to see Iris say things like she needs to become stronger in the Adler episode, when she hasn't really been written like she has to. Just makes her more inconsistent. I mean yes, she's a prodigy in the games too...but I don't think that type of character works as a traveling companion if their writing is handled sloppily .

Given how ecstatic she was when she won and the victory music playing, you would think she just overcame some big obstacle. Except she didn't. The writers expecting us to feel really happy for her, just didn't work.

No, I don't think they're doing enough with her...Iris is getting all of this exposure and development, and people aren't very receiving of it because they feel like she doesn't deserve it...The general view is that people don't like Iris, they don't like her character, and they don't like watching her succeed....But still continue on watching the series maybe to see if anything will change...

I think what the writers should do is to knock her down a few pegs more...There needs to be struggle for Iris to obtain her goal...Let's be honest here, most people love and can relate to a storyling where a character struggles to overcome something in order to make it to their goal...We aren't really seeing that with Iris because it seems as if she's excelling with little or no effort on her behalf at all...I want to see her struggle with her pokemon more...The writers need to give her convincing problems with her pokemon to deal with so that she can address the issues. And they need to make HER the source of where the problem comes from so that she is the one to blame for the issues and no one else...

Have someone perhaps...defeat her in a crushing, humiliating defeat...let it be the beginning of a losing streak for her...and from there, don't be afraid to flesh her out SLOWLY as she picks herself back up from the ashes...I feel that doing that will be the beginning of improving her character.

Well, I hope something happens with Iris that allows me to relate to her character. With the Don Battle coming up in the US, I'm still extremely flummoxed as to why the writers had her win the entire goddamn thing. Have her get through a few rounds, okay....but win it overall? Er..

I mean the writers seem to have no problem with writing Ash to lose obviously, same with Cilan to a lesser extent. As I said before, the writers obviously wanted us to feel good about her win in the Don Battle tournament given all the victory music and her overjoyed reaction. It tried to make it seem like she had just accomplished something she struggled to achieve...except that battle was pretty much given to her on a silver platter given the type match-up. Excadrill vs Pikachu? Man Iris would have to struggle so much to win that battle. *rolls eyes*

Her next "focus" episodes doesn't really seem to do anything other than glorify her heart Dragon reading ablilites again, then they expect us to feel sorry for her? Given how she's been handled so far, if she doesn't catch Deino...I'd be more amused than anything resembling pity. She can cry all she wants. I didn't feel sorry for her in the Dragon Buster episode, and I won't when this episode airs.

She said in the Adler episode she wants to improve and become stronger. Hey, writers...how about writing her in a way where her saying that is actually believable...hmm?

Thing is, Ash is the main character and his goal is primarily the main focus....It's always been that way...He has to beat all of the gym leaders and then go to the pokemon league. Ash is guaranteed to win battles, because if he didn't then the plot couldn't continue. It would be boring to see the protagonist win all the time, so that's why the writers have no problem showing him losing every now and then.

The problem is, I don't think they've balanced the win/loss ratio well enough for Iris. I feel that the issue with Excadrill was resolved too early...Though I don't think I've seen anyone properly describe the issue between the two of them. Everyone seems to say that it was Excadrill's fault for getting hurt in that battle and not understanding Iris' feelings...IDK, maybe they can revisit that plot again...

Emolga is another story...Some people feel as though Snivy is actually training Emolga by not playing around with it or tolerating its BS...That and it seems as if the Volt Switch thing isn't resolved either...

Axew and Iris still have growing to do...So I'm not exactly sure how to improve her now...how can you make Iris the source of her pokemon's problems if they've somewhat been resolved by now??

Originally Posted by Afrojisiac-19

The problem is, I don't think they've balanced the win/loss ratio well enough for Iris.

Let's look at their wins, and loses ratio shall we? Within the Best Wishes Universe canon of course. I might be missing a few on Ash's side, but I'm pretty sure he's .500.

Ash is 7-7-1
Dento is 2-3
Iris 103-1-1

Something's very wrong here folks.

That's why I think it was a mistake for Ash to lose to Iris. He was written to beat Cilan, why not Iris? Why is she so special? I mean the way they set up their match-up just put Ash in a position where he couldn't do anything BUT lose.

If Iris had lost to Ash, she would have learned something. But the writers choose to allow her to win the entire tournament, and just fuck Ash over..when it really does nothing to further her goal. She wants to be a "Dragon Master" yet the writers had her win primarily using Pokemon that aren't Dragons? At this point she may as well be a regular trainer.

I don't think I'll ever understand the writers intentions with Iris in the Don Battle.