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

You CANNOT have it both ways. Obviously some of you have a difference in opinion over Iris' abilities, and how they're seemingly "glorified" which I don't even get the feel that they're being treated in such a way.

Here, you say:

Originally Posted by Shinneth

I don't believe anyone has connected her physical talents or medicine-making skills to her Dragon Master goal.

But then this person says:

Originally Posted by Wolverine

if Iris is already knowledgeable, already such a great trainer, can already read dragons, can make medecine, jump on trees, basically is already shown to already possess all the qualities required to be a Dragon Master

and again here:

Originally Posted by Wolverine

Iris already has all the skills necessary to be a Dragon Master

So clearly everyone doesn't feel the same way about the level of her skills. You can't have it both ways with her. Either Iris has all the necessary skills to become a dragon master RIGHT NOW, or she doesn't.

Originally Posted by Shinneth

I don't know why you'd list Iris' dragon-reading abilities as being irrelevent to her goal, though. As the anime blatantly points out, like the games, Iris is the girl who can read the hearts of dragons. The way they hype this skill, I think it's safe to assume this is not an easy thing to learn, much less master, and Iris has so far had no trouble in this area as we've seen multiple times

I never said that her ability to read dragons was irrelevant to her goal. I don't think it's hyped in the manner that it makes it easy for her to just take ANY dragon pokemon and just master it. It's used in the context of, she can connect with dragons personally and understand their emotions, stuff like that...I don't think it completely simplifies her training either, because if it did, then she'd have no troubles working with Axew. I personally think that over-exaggerating her dragon-reading skills would be something like her claiming that she can instantly master a dragon pokemon like Zekrom, or Reshiram. That's overhyped skills if you ask me.

Originally Posted by Wolverine

every single problem she has never costs her anything and ultimately solves itself on their own without any effort and without any lesson learned for Iris since she's never to blame for anything

I don't agree, and I think that's a gross exaggeration and misinterpretation of the problems that have been presented with her. I don't know WHY you all go out of your way on this crusade to seemingly use everything that's been thrown at her and try to use that as ammunition to justify putting the blame on everyone else BUT Iris just to justify your claims that's she's this seemingly perfect "mary-sue" of a character with piss poor development. Just because no one at the moment is currently available to chastise or knock down Iris for her flaws on a regular basis for the sake of character development, doesn't mean that she hasn't taken responsibility for ANY of her shortcomings.

Have we already forgotten about how Iris and Excadrill fell out? You people (you know who you are) will say, "Oh, Excadrill felt bad because he wanted to do good in battle for Iris against Drayden's Haxorus, and it let her down, blah blah some shit like that" And you throw ALL the blame on it instead, and just give Iris a slap on the wrist just to support your own pre-conceived notions about her.

In an attempt to take another spin on that subject, let's try a different approach to analyze that particular situation. Iris and Excadrill were on an impressive winning streak of 99 wins. I'm sure both of them were enthusiastic about the prospect of battling Drayden. Cilan objecting to Iris stating that Excadrill may not have like Iris' battle style wasn't the right thing to say IMO, because if that were the case then they wouldn't have built up such a long streak. Once in battle with Drayden and facing an seemigly overbearing foe, Excadrill may have internally known that was a battle it wasn't goint to win, but didn't want to give up giving Iris a false sense of feeling like it could go on to battle. But instead of recognizing how much he was struggling in the battle as opposed to their other matches, Iris misinterpreted Excadrill's feelings of not wanting to battle as a slight pushback, but with the hope that he could still pull through. I think that's what the issue was. So what did Iris lose from misunderstanding him? It cost her YEARS of trust, loyalty, and the satisfaction of being able to relate to or connect with him on a mental or emotional level.

Originally Posted by Shinneth

So Axew's low level has nothing to do with Iris being inept.

But it does because...

the skills of the trainer doesn't equal the skill of the pokémon

So if Iris is already on such a high level of skill as a trainer, then she should be having NO difficulty training Axew, regardless of the nature of how "tough" it is to raise the dragon pokemon species. With all the "hype" surrounding her skills/abilities she should be able to bring Axew on her level. But Iris can't be THAT too far from Axew's level in skill (at least with Dragons). One, because a dragon pokemon wasn't her starter, and she hasn't been training with dragons all her life.

There's a BIG difference between knowing how to DO something and actually DOING it. Iris displays a nice amount of knowledge on dragon pokemon and nature, stuff like that. But that knowledge hasn't led to a leap in the development of her skills. Allow me to give an example of that. It's like a trainer who has knowledge that specializes in raising and training pokemon, but isn't necessarily good a the sport of pokemon battling. Contrary to that would be a trainer who has knowledge that allows them to excel in pokemon battling, but isn't very good at the act of actually training or raising the pokemon.

Originally Posted by gotpika

Iris is far from "perfect".

I never said she was. The flaws in her character exist, but they never actually cost her anything, don't hinder her in any way and disappear the moment it's convenient for them to do so. Her flaws also never "cross the line" to do the point where the writers actually make Iris do something that's clearly wrong, as though never to show her actually being in the wrong. The problems she has gets resolved without any struggle, and at the end of the day, struggle is what makes a character compelling, it's what makes them grow, it's what makes them relatable.

BW036 is the perfect example of that. She is glorified as a child prodigy who without any training beats all the wild pokémon around and the trainers in her village, all by just playing around with wild animals. On the problem, Iris was never shown to not care about Doryuuzu's well-being, Iris was never shown to blame him for the defeat, to be angry or mean or overly competitive, instead realizing that something's wrong with Doryuuzu and that it may not be fully confident and encouraging it. At the end of the day, Doryuuzu misunderstands her and starts listening to her when he realizes that.

Lol, I was under the impression that you stated before that Iris character being allowed to interact or battle Shuuti when Satoshi and himself don't even have a fully established rivalry yet, would be detrimental to the rivalry and Shuuti and Satoshi's development throughout the series. Yet, Dento is allowed to do the same thing? xD Oh, and Dento didn't learn jack from Satoshi he was using his own pattened "Dento Pretty Boy" battle style, he struggles goes pretty boy "IT'S TASTING TIME" and he pulls through in the clutch, saying that this defeat helped the rivalry after everything that was said about Iris's interaction with Shuuti before hand. Makes the whole scenario and idea seem sooooooooooooooooooooooo stretched out and forced as a whole. Nice try though

I never pretended that Dent's victory brought a lot of development to the Shooti/Satoshi and shook it to its core. In my review of the episode, I expressed disappointment over how little emotion Shooti seemed to have and how Satoshi could've played a bigger part when Shooti left. My exact words were, "this episode kinda felt underwhelming compared to what it could have been," because with Dent beating Shooti, the potential was there. It wasn't used and that's poor use of interesting characters on the writers' part. What I'm arguing was that there was potential for something to happen because of the characterization of Satoshi, Shooti and Dent, but the same potential doesn't apply with Iris because there's nothing really tying her to Satoshi or Shooti.

It still smells like Double Standards. You can rationalize it anyway you want, but to me, all that shows is that certain things in the argument are being bent to be convient for your argument.

Double standards happen when you have two totally different reactions to two identical situations, but none of these situations or these characters are identical. What causes the difference in opinion are the differences, the nuances between those situations. What determines whether or not I like a scene, whether or not I find it believable, compelling, interesting, etc. isn't the comparaison with another character, but what's specific about that scene. At the end of the day, winning a tournament, having a pokémon learn a move, and other plotlines, there's nothing good or bad with them, what makes them so are the background of the characters involved, what we saw of them, the setting, the roles each play; in short, the specifics are what shape an opinion, and the specifics are what's being evacuated from your argument.

Pointing out why you felt that a scene/moment/character was funny/heartwarming/sad/compelling/entertaining serves the argument much better since it argues opinions, not the person expressing them.

I haven't seen much of BW so I don't know much about Iris, but I feel that the writers are suppressing whatever potential Iris has. Everytime I get the chance to watch BW, Iris does almost nothing. I know I have missed a lot of episodes to hastily conclude this, but how come I turn the TV on random, watch an episode on random, and see Iris do nothing?

Originally Posted by Afrojisiac-19

So clearly everyone doesn't feel the same way about the level of her skills. You can't have it both ways with her. Either Iris has all the necessary skills to become a dragon master RIGHT NOW, or she doesn't.

I really don't think anyone is saying outright that Iris could become a Dragon Master right this second. Axew alone prevents that, at the very least. The point we're making is that evolving Axew is the only thing resembling a "hurdle" for Iris to overcome in order to achieve her goal. All the skills Iris has right now could have easily been learned or mastered during the series itself and not much would have changed other than Iris actually experiencing character development. Instead she's made out to be a pro in everything she excels at already, and canon so far has given Iris no real obstacle in her path beyond the task of evolving Axew. It's been over a year, there's no good reason to be holding off any more details of Iris' goal, so in the grand scheme of things Iris is pretty fuckin' close to being a Dragon Master according to what this show has given us right now. If there's anything they're hiding from us on the matter, it sure as hell is not obvious.

Moral of the story: don't be quick to take everything we say in a literal sense.

I never said that her ability to read dragons was irrelevant to her goal. I don't think it's hyped in the manner that it makes it easy for her to just take ANY dragon pokemon and just master it. It's used in the context of, she can connect with dragons personally and understand their emotions, stuff like that...I don't think it completely simplifies her training either, because if it did, then she'd have no troubles working with Axew.

I should have said "underplayed" in retrospect, or something along those lines. Anyway, I'm pretty sure whatever "trouble" Iris has with Axew does not bear any affect on her ability to connect with it. Sure, it took a while for Axew to master Dragon Rage, but Axew is a baby dragon. No matter how well Iris can connect with Axew, that's not going to make its development a speedy process. We never see Iris failing to see eye-to-eye with Axew, arguing with it (even Dawn and Piplup had that much), or her pressuring Axew to do more than it's capable of doing. Iris has her own way of doing things at her own pace (rarely that we ever actually see this, but...), and not once have we seen Iris having trouble understanding any Dragon-type Pokemon she's come across in the show, whether it's her Axew or some stranger's Pokemon or a wild one. On the contrary, she's the only one who fully understands any dragon's plight, effectively out-doing other trainers in raising their own dragons, and so far this ability has not failed her.

So instead of having episodes where Iris hasn't completely mastered this difficult-to-master trait that's no doubt critical to have if you wanna be a Dragon Master, showing her struggle and resolve and desire for her goal and eventually mastering this technique in a way that aids her character growth and makes her likeable or at least relatable, we have episodes of Iris having already mastered the technique so that she can be the one that saves the day for dragons in peril and effectively makes everyone else look useless and ineffectual. I really don't think we need to see Iris read into dragons' hearts and solve their problems and become their saviour on three separate occasions. Circumstances might be slightly different each time, but in the end it does nothing but tell the viewer that Iris is the Cesar Milan of dragons. And thus, nothing really changes. We just get yet another one of Iris' many abilities glorified because why the hell not; they can't seem to construct Iris episodes to serve any other purpose than to try convincing the viewers that Iris is awesome and wonderful and doesn't need to learn shit to become a better trainer and person unlike every other protagonist on this friggin' show.

I don't know WHY you all go out of your way on this crusade to seemingly use everything that's been thrown at her and try to use that as ammunition to justify putting the blame on everyone else BUT Iris just to justify your claims that's she's this seemingly perfect "mary-sue" of a character with piss poor development.

It's not a crusade. It's called "stating our opinions on a forum".

Have we already forgotten about how Iris and Excadrill fell out? You people (you know who you are) will say, "Oh, Excadrill felt bad because he wanted to do good in battle for Iris against Drayden's Haxorus, and it let her down, blah blah some shit like that" And you throw ALL the blame on it instead, and just give Iris a slap on the wrist just to support your own pre-conceived notions about her.

Is it honestly a crime that some interpreted that episode differently from others? I honestly believe that episode was a not-too-clever fake-out by pretending to make the ordeal out to be Iris' fault; having carefully analyzed the details of what happened and all, I really do believe they overblew a small mistake on Iris' part to this convoluted idea that she wasn't listening to Excadrill when the opposite was true instead. Desite conflicting feelings, Excadrill was still ready to battle for Iris regardless, and considering Iris was trying very hard to reach out to Excadrill after the loss, using whatever positive reinforcement she could to bring him out of his drill mode, and Excadrill refused to hear her out, and for all his stubbornness, some crying and an "I'm sorry" years later FINALLY gets Excadrill to listen.

This was a good opportunity to make Iris legitimately fuck up, especially since Iris seemed to couldn't have cared less about the Excadrill thing before that episode and could have made a scenario where Iris did legitimately fuck up by maybe pushing Excadrill too hard, taking the loss too personally herself that would cloud her judgment, or say something outrageously cruel that she didn't really mean. Instead, all we got for this oh-so tragic subplot was just an issue of miscommunication, largely because Excadrill wouldn't respond at all to give Iris any ideas about what she was doing "wrong", so to speak.

I honestly don't care what's the right way to perceive the episode, or if my viewpoint is right or wrong (I don't really think there is a right or wrong for things like this), but this is what I got out of that episode. Has nothing to do with anyone here, has nothing to do with spite... what it truly is, is the writers failing to convince me that their shit is legit. Nothing more, nothing less. And I know the writers are fully capable of being awesome about this kind of thing, so I refuse to handwave it off and just smile, nod, and accept their bullshit storytelling.

So what did Iris lose from misunderstanding him? It cost her YEARS of trust, loyalty, and the satisfaction of being able to relate to or connect with him on a mental or emotional level.

Too bad we couldn't tell Iris was suffering from this kind of loss, like, at ALL, before we learned the backstory. After the subplot was established, it was only mentioned in passing a handful of times before it was resolved, and I honestly didn't see Iris suffering dire consequences of this oh-so unfortunate loss. Hell, at most she just looked comically exasperated, which further made me believe until the backstory was revealed that she didn't really give much of a shit. Once again, that's bad on the writers. Various inconsistencies just ruined any potential for emotional appeal for the subplot.

So if Iris is already on such a high level of skill as a trainer, then she should be having NO difficulty training Axew, regardless of the nature of how "tough" it is to raise the dragon pokemon species.

Flawed logic. Again, Axew is a baby. No trainer, no matter how experienced they are, will get an Axew to become a flawless Haxorus overnight. Hell, that would apply to any species. Iris is clearly not that diligent in her training regiment and pretty self-assured that her snail's pace of training is the right way to go. So I feel this is all a rather moot point.

Moderator's Note: To both sides, remember to argue the opinions and argument that you disagree with not the person posting them. Assume that the other person is posting their opinion in good faith and do not accuse anyone to post solely to spite or anger anyone or being deliberately dishonest in their argument, because odds are, they're posting in good faith. Stick to what you like/dislike about Iris as a character and not what you like/dislike about other posters.

Thank you

As a slight addition, anyone who needs to resort to targeting users rather than the opinion are doing themselves no favours in the argument that they are debating, and actually just makes it seem like the other side is correct as they have to resort to such low tactics. It isn't in the spirit of a debate and makes your argument look weak. Consider this an in-thread warning for Flaming and Baiting.

Now that I remember, Iris has had a nice amount of screen time when the Meowth arc was going on. They seemed to get along more than with Ash or Cilan for some reason. Her participating in the Don battle was a good move for the writers. Having her sitting on the side lines while Ash or Cilan battle wouldn't do her any good. So they so far are making her noticeable.

"Noticeable" does not necessarily mean that her story lines in deserving ways. As in, Iris' time in the limelight basically consists of her character getting so hyped (and therefore derailed) and made so AMAZING (and therefore intolerable and unrelatable) that essentially all of Iris' plot lines are a complete waste of time. And this is coming from someone that used to like her, even find her a welcome breath of fresh air... Before her qualities became so in-your-face and so over-glorified that it just makes any plot line surrounding her cumbersome to watch.

IMO she's generally fine/tolerable when she's not the center of the episode or forced into the center of the episode. Her dynamics with other characters, while can be hypocritical and annoying at times, are usually decently entertaining.

Iris saying she trained under Drayden extensively as a child would have been a better explanation for those 99 straight wins, rather than "I just played in the woods." Because it ultimately, makes it seem like training in the woods is all one has to do to become great, and all of Ash's experiences means jack shit.

Even with that though, the writers are still making Iris way to competent for a main cast member this early on in the series. Giving a character "99 straight wins", is excessive, and deifnately comes across as just glorification. There are ways to show someone is a good trainer without going overboard, and going overboard is exactly what they are doing with Iris.

Yeah. I have to admit that going through over four leagues and regions seem like a lot more work than by just training in the woods. If that's the case, then they should have left Ash lost in the woods. I think they wanted to make Iris strong because of her reference to the Pokemon White version. She is strong no doubt but it would have been nice to see her get to that point like the other girls did so that she doesn't seem so out of place from all the other characters. I'm not saying that they should have made her a rookie but someone who has trained before but not to the extent of not giving her strength a better story than 99 wins.

I do not have a problem with Iris per se, but the writers could have avoided this backlash if they only kept to how she was in the games. She should be inexperienced, as well as Cilian with them both learning from the much more experienced Ash.

A big problem with her background for me is the lack of Dragons. While Excadrill is pretty cool it would have been much better if the Pokemon that didn't listen to her was another Dragon like say Zweilous?

The biggest reason she has so much backlash I feel is because her problems are resolved way too fast, and they don't impact her as much as past problems did for other characters.

Compare Excadrill to Charizard or Mamoswine and you know exactly what I'm talking about. Ultimately people don't feel like shes "earned" anything compared to Ash who she constantly berates. Its a very similar relationship to Kanto Misty, but back then it was very much justified.

I can't defend Iris in that regard, they need to slow down her development and make it impact her a bit more.

The problem with a disobedient Zweilous is that it would just eat Iris, Ash, and Cilan, instead of being "just" rebellious.

Still, there are a whole bunch of other Pokémon they could've chosen. Why Excadrill? Why not a Druddigon, or maybe an Tynamo since Eelektross can actually learn Dragon Claw, unlike Excadrill, or maybe a Sandile so that Krookodile can learn Dragon Tail?

Fun fact: Excadrill and Emolga cannot learn any Dragon-type moves! Interesting, huh? Makes it almost as bad as Misty and Togepi.

Iris just seems to have fallen into a pattern.

Doing nothing----> Glorified-----> Back to doing nothing------> Glorified.

There not reason to rush her character even if they are wanting her to be the 8th gym leader by the time she departs. Get this, Ash developed slowly and grew, and by the end of AG...he was offered a position as a Frontier Brain. Someone who is pretty much the equivalent of a Gym Leader, maybe slightly above. Dawn started off slow, but she eventually went on to become on 2nd best Coordinator in all of Sinnoh.

Ash didn't need an excessively hyped background in AG, to give him the feel that he has what it takes to become one of the Kanto Frontier Brains by AG's end. So there's really no excuse for how horribly rushed, and terribly written Iris' is if they want her to be a Gym Leader.

Originally Posted by Wolverine

I completely agree, but what you're describing is an extreme, a character with only flaws and who can do no right, and I agree it's not a desirable one. What we have with Iris is the other extreme, equally undesirable, which is a child prodigy that is always the solution, never the problem, has no flaw, already possesses all the skills to achieve her goal, can make medecine, jump on trees, has superhuman empathic abilities, never struggles, makes mistakes, improves, learns something new. It's static, and it's not human, not relatable, not compelling.

Wasn't Brock like that? And people were perfectly fine with the way he was in the Kanto/Johto sagas at least.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Wasn't Brock like that? And people were perfectly fine with the way he was in the Kanto/Johto sagas at least.

Brock wasn't excessively hyped in the same manner Iris is right now. He was treated alot more subtle, than Iris' who's skills are pretty much rammed down your throat.