ttln1006

[ttln1006]

I honestly find Rose to be frustrating, in the sense that I do NOT know how the audience is meant to feel about him. Like, is he meant to be a well-intentioned extremist that genuinely wants best for the region and has somewhat of a point? A glory-hungry hypocrite that cares little of the collateral damage he causes so long as he gets what he wants? A combination of the two where his altruism, corporate social responsibility and ego are all equally legitimate and fuel each other? This isn’t even accounting for how the only way his reasoning for starting the entire Darkest Day plan makes sense is if one sidesteps the whole “1000 years” bullshite! (I really have to thank you for your explanation of him, especially the "1000 years" part, probably one of the few that could work regardless of incarnation.)

It doesn’t help that the various incarnations of him are equally all over the place about the above: the anime inclines to option 2 (fled the region the second his plan failed, and egged Eternatus on even before then) the manga leans towards option 1 (made an effort to mitigate damage beyond relying on others fixing his mess) and Masters refused to give us an answer by sidestepping that plot points entirely, including his mistreatment of Bede (as far as I’m aware), or even an opportunity for him to react to the idea that a version of him nearly destroyed the very region he claimed to protect. Actually, in general we never get to see his reaction to his plan falling apart in the game or Masters, so he just ended up seeming too detached from anything for one to reach a concrete conclusion about how to regard him. 

Full tier list is here, breakdown of D-tier. I can generally be inclined to like these ones, but you know. They're a little lacking.

Mallow: Couldn't tell you why, but I cannot get into her games iteration. Anime Mallow's cool, and dating Lillie.

Chuck: I love Johto, I'm a bit biased.

Cheren: My wife will be mad, but I think he's kinda bland. His arc doesn't feel like it goes very far.

N: Now this is potentially controversial. I don't really care about N. I think he's kind of uninteresting. There are tidbits of interest, but I think he fails to seriously stick the landing as a dude with stuff going on, and is also like weirdly belligerent when you disagree with him on literally anything.

Pryce: Johto fan, sorry.

Melli: Listen. He's a bitch. I kinda love that for him.

Dreyden: Neat dragon man.

Roark/Kiawe: Sure.

Brycen: I kinda like that he acts as a villain, but otherwise not doing much.

Roxie: I owe an apology to someone, but I stand by it. She's not that interesting to me.

Juniper: she's a decently fun professor figure.

Arezu: she's kinda cute, has a bit of attitude, the game doesn't lean into much with her though.

Ryme: I couldn't tell you. I just didn't feel it. I'm not happy about it either. This is the unfair one.

Olympia: uninteresting.

Grusha: Volkner vibes, but at least he feels young and like there's a reason for his ennui given his snowboarding career's end.

Acerola: kinda quirky but does very little.

Tulip: just doesn't exude much.

Zisu: she's fun enough.

Kamado: Kind of a shithead but I think for interesting reasons. Still don't like him.

Dendra/Miriam: Sure, I'll ship that on the side.

Mai: Daybreak made me like her less. Oops.

Rose: Dude you are so close to being Lysandre-esque but you just miss the mark.

Colress: I legitimately don't know what the point of you is. Seriously, why are you here? What's your goal?

Brawly/Sidney/Phoebe/Aaron: they're fine.

Brock: The anime did not grip me, and he does nothing otherwise.

Nessa: Just never felt the connection.

Oak: "Oh, the most esteemedest professor ever who-" did fuck-all. His only achievement was the Pokedex, and invention we find out is at least two centuries old. Get with it.

Allister: boring.

Karen/Bruno: E4 members I feel very little about.

Elm: I always felt some like because Johto but he really is like the least interesting professor in some ways.

Milo/Byron: sure.

Raifort: Listen to me. I should love her but for some reason I cannot get into it. I could not tell you what the blockage is, I just cannot connect with her.

Hapu: we need to talk about her hands. Those are not hands a human has.

Villain flunkies: these ones have personality!

Zossie/Dulse: I don't remember Ultra Moon's goons but I hated them. These two had a cuter dynamic so I had a bit of attachment, but very little.

Drayton: kind of a punk bitch. I am down for his dynamic with Carmine, but not because of him. I think she should break his bones.

Palmer: he's fine I guess.

Crispin: exudes nothing.

Riley/Marley: sure.

Saturn/Jupiter: less personality than Mars.

Petrel: My man, but he is still a Rocket.

Plumeria: being Team Mom to the goon squad does nothing for me.

Camera lady: Literally forgot her name. WAIT PERRIN! I don't care about her. I do not find her pretty and hate her outfit.

Green: she has some quirkiness but they don't really let her do anything fun.

Protag squad: sure.

Masters squad: Masters OCs do nothing for me, sorry. I think gacha OCs are more in the way than anything.

[ttln1006]

It says quite a bit about Sordward and Shielbert that the nicest thing I can say about them involves their presence in the manga. Specifically, them and their associates being complete asshole failures allowing the writer to make Rose (and questionably Oleana) look less malicious and stupid in comparison. 

Full tier list is here, breaking down the F-tier. Time to expose my Hater Tendencies.

Red Realistically, Red is not inherently awful, my hate is a byproduct of the franchise itself constantly pushing him as the biggest most importantest trainer ever to live, and I despise that. He exudes nothing to me. I think his challenge in GSC also sucks, the remakes actually made it way worse, and Let's Go's conditions are so annoying I refused to even entertain the idea. I have no respect for him, and think the general fanon perception of selective mutism is giving credit where it's not due. He's just supposed to be strong and silent warrior man archetype, which is boring as sin, and people are out here making him actually interesting. Stop it. I'm trying to be a hater.

Brendan "Your dad's a gym leader so I thought you'd be a guy." "Unlike you, your dad seems tough." Brendan is a piece of shit masquerading as your first "nice" rival and I never got over the bad vibes. Fuck this dude.

Flint He looks stupid, and is in love with Volkner. Atrocious taste.

Thorton He's just kind of a dweeb, and then Masters had a really early event where he's supremely rude to Hilda for literally no reason. His vibes are rancid.

Flannery Every tier has one I look at and go "I am being a little unfair, but I must be true to my feelings." Flannery is that pick. I cannot stand Flannery for entirely unfair reasons, but nothing gets me past it. I'm sorry, it's an ongoing hangup, but I cannot get over how much I hate when they make a female character whose thing is being shy or self conscious, and put her in a revealing outfit. Like come on. I know what this is and I'm mad about it. Consider her my entry point onto some guys being just really skeevy about female character designs.

Volkner "Oh, I'm so bored of battling because no one is a challenge to me, guy who isn't even on the Elite Four." Get over yourself, loser.

Klara/Avery I'm lumping them together. I hate them both equally. Galar is already fighting an uphill battle with its atrocious aesthetic, and these two being petty losers is doing nothing to help their case.

Sordward/Shielbert I mean...do I really need to explain? His head is a penis. Literal dickhead. Worst post-game segment of the series.

Ball Guy Originally omitted, decided to include just to shit on garbage reddit meme culture. Masters, you fucked up putting this thing in here.

Mohn/AZ Okay, these two are the actual, beyond all else, bottom of the barrel losers. Why? Because they are the only inclusions that I think actively harm their games. In the case of Mohn, the only emotional center Gen 7 has is the Aether Fam, and the husband/father is literally just hanging out on an island. We know where he is. He's the bean man. And this angst gets absolutely annihilated over the fact that he's literally just right the fuck here. USUM even has him interact, only to shut down a real resolution with him. Like great Lusamine, glad you've decided to move on, that is a choice, but like. We're all really going to pretend like this wasn't the entire core of the issue and just let it all go in a half-cooked scene? I wish he never showed up.

AZ is much the same. His presence as an eternal entity wandering the earth bothers me, because honestly bro, it's been 3000 years. Do you know how quickly people change who they are? I'll give you a hint, it's fewer years than that. And at no point was there any real attempt to like. Reflect or undo his previous actions? Like you could've dealt with the machine since you knew where it was, man. You could've done literally anything. And his resolution is supposed to be one (1) battle with you where he suddenly feels like he can just let go of the weight of his sins of creating a doomsday weapon that runs on Pokemon life and committing a genocide with it. Hooray. Glad we wrapped that up. He should've just been a cautionary tale that existed in history, not a literal guy who continues to be here. I hate him so much.

[ttln1006]

The third criteria given in Bulbapedia is apparently falling under the "slow" experience group (1250000 EXP to Level 100), which DOES apply for Slaking and Volcarona, for what it's worth.

I get the feeling that the quad-weakness thing is a coincidence, given that Metagross, Goodra (Regular or Hisuian), Dragapult, and Baxcalibur don't have quad-weaknesses in the first place, which is 5 out of the 11 that most people consider psuedo-legends. Hydreigon didn't even have one until Gen 6, while Kommo-o is the only one from Gen 4 onwards that was introduced with such again.

the argument for Slaking being a pseudo-legendary is its high bst+having the same stats total and ability as Regigigas.

And that’s interesting because it’s not something I would have thought of, but it kinda checks out. The category is just weird. The usual criteria as I understand them are (1) three-stage evolution, (2) 600BST, (3) quad weakness. But Metagross is pretty universally included despite no quad weakness, Goodra too, but Volcarona, who I always felt counted, doesn’t because it misses two criteria. So I guess the question is whether Slaking misses one criterion (no quad weakness) or two (670BST may be higher, but it is not exact).

[ttln1006]

I'd argue that Dudunsparce is his main Paldean pokemon, in a similar vein to Iono's Bellibolt and Grusha's Cetitan. There's also the fact that he generally prefers his Normal types, given that Geeta more or less forced him to use Flying types as an Elite Four member. Will concede on Staraptor being his true main due to being present in all of his teams, though, and he is generally more associated with the Elite Four than the gym leaders outside Scarlet and Violet.

I gotta tell ya, I would’ve bet good money on Larry ending up with Staraptor! Hell, I don’t even ASSOCIATE the guy with Dudunsparce, like, AT ALL!!! And they even gave him his Paldea Elite Four remix, so why didn’t they just give him Flamigo instead?!?

I would've guessed Flamigo, personally, just because they seem to prioritize the Paldea aces, as they should. Dudunsparce was unexpected, but I guess it was kinda popular?

[ttln1006]

Given his deception in the main game, I'm hoping for the possibility that he is from AFTER losing, and the togepi and gible he has are just to hide that fact. (I know this is optimistic as hell, but one can dream)

I don’t love the babies, because that means we’re pre-problem Volo. Also I’m kinda delighted to know Farigiraf is apparently tearing it up in TCG.

[ttln1006]

In response to this and out of curiosity, I've decided to compile a list of the legendaries and mythicals up to Gen 9, based on their relevance to the story, their relevance to the setting, both or neither. (If I made any errors, please do inform, I'm not too certain on the mythicals in particular).

Story (Little relevance to region as whole in-universe, often highly relevant to plot)

Mewtwo (Created in lab by Team Rocket)

Latis (?) (Shows up once in the plot in ORAS, not in RSE) 

Deoxys (ORAS only)

Genesect (Created in lab by Team Plasma) 

Silvally (Created in lab by Aether Foundation)

Ultra beasts (Aliens sought out by Aether Foundation) 

Paradox pokemon (Invasive species sought out by professors)

Koraidon and Miraidon (Literally the secondary protagonist of The Way Home)

Pecharunt (Mochi Mayhem; pratically omitted in Kitakami’s in-universe story) 

Mew (Reason Mewtwo exists) 

Darkrai (?) (Brief subplot)

Shaymin (Brief subplot) 

Setting (Important to setting, almost optional in the plot beyond their power)

Legendary beasts 

Tower duo 

Regis (including Regigigas) 

Swords of justice (including Keldeo)

Tapus (?) (Their direct impact on the plot is limited)

Eternatus (Explains dynamaxing, shows up only at the end, most don’t even know about Eternatus until then)

Terapagos (Explains terastalisation, shows up only at the end)

Meloetta (B)

Both (Major ties to plot and in-universe lore) 

Weather trio (Rayquaza at least has an in-universe religion dedicated to it)

Lake trio (Red chain) 

Creation trio (PLA)

Arceus (PLA) 

Tao trio (Their in-universe importance to the setting is the reason for their importance to the plot)

Light trio (Nebby and Necrozma) 

Hero duo (Sonia’s subplot) 

Calyrex (Crown Tundra)

Loyal three (Teal Mask)

Ogerpon (Teal Mask) 

Neither (Just particularly powerful, nothing special otherwise)

Legendary birds (Kantonian and Galarian) 

Heatran 

Cresselia (?) (Brief subplot, even then focus is more on lunar wing) 

Forces of nature 

Aura trio (THE ONLY BOX LEGENDARIES HERE; Xerneas and Yveltal ended up being omitted in the anime, Zygarde in the anime is more debatable)  

Kubfu and Urshifu (?) (Were effectively imported over to Galar; show up only for second half of Isle of Armour)

Glastrier and Spectrier (?) (Only relevant because Calyrex is) 

Celebi 

Jirachi 

Manaphy and Phione (?) 

Victini 

All mythicals between Gens 6 and 8 

... Yeah, the complaints are valid. Kalos has the dubious honour of having their box legendaries be so irrelevant to the plot and setting that you could replace them with a particularly large battery and the result could be the same. Here's hoping that Xerneas, Yveltal and Zygarde get more Kalos-relevant lore.

See, I'm curious about why, but I'm also about to go on a massive tangent about my issue with it.

Kalos is fairly unique in that its legends don't really tie into anything. There's no lore to begin with.

Like, in Hoenn? You have the ancient battle between Kyogre and Groudon, with Rayquaza being the one that intervenes, the development of Rayquaza living in the sky and destroying meteors, etc. The legends are organic, and they have particular roles in the region's history.

Sinnoh isn't quite that specific as far as role, but is more...metaphysical, focusing on Time and Space as concepts, and the lake guardians representing human spirit and sensation as what ties them. Cogita's really direct about it, but the idea is that these forces of nature may as well not exist without the lens of spirit to view from.

Unova gets conceptual as well with the representation of Truth and Ideals, and how these concepts were part of the original dragon splitting apart due to differences and disagreements. They're big players in the concept of the region, and in particular are hugely important to BW1's overall story, given you and N are their chosen.

What do Xerneas and Yveltal actually...do? What do they mean? How do they tie in to anything that happened in the region? They kinda don't. They just exist, forces aligned to life and death, but with no real significance either to you as a player or the world at large. And that's without the issues of Zygarde, who is the alleged force of balance between these two, but never got any real development. The lore of Kalos centers on the ancient weapon rather than its Pokemon, and that itself is tied solely to AZ and his story. Which isn't interesting at all to me, and more critically, has nothing to do with the Pokemon. I don't care about the people lore of some ancient king who should be a corpse, I care about the weird creature things that are often symbolic or thematic, and this set just isn't. Even the mythics are pointless. Diancie just kinda exists for no reason. Volcanion never actually got the lore that they give it in Masters, where it was the "Nation Creation" Pokemon that could level mountains with its steam eruption. Hoopa's rings are the only reason you get the other legends in ORAS, but it is never so much as alluded to in any game. It's insane.

Which is why I'm so twitchy about Legends Z-A. Because if they do well, these legends actually have an established place and a reason to be. Otherwise, we're doing nothing new, and these Pokemon continue to be really interesting potential that amounts to squat.