Rivals

[Ettenmoor]

What are your opinions on rivals in Pokemon? Do you prefer the butthole rivals of gen 1-2, or the friendlier rivals from later gens? Do you prefer having one or the recent trend of multiple rivals? What about naming your rivals? Do you like the freedom that comes with naming them?
The Hoenn and Kalos games give you a different main rival based on your gender, what about that? And of course, the hottest debate of them all... do you consider Wally a rival, or just an npc you battle multiple times?

Feel free to discuss whatever you want about rivals in the mainline Pokemon games!

 

[Devalue]

Chooses friendlier rivals any day. Dislikes some friendly rivals quite a bit. Takes that over competitive jerks. (Separates competitive behavior from competitive jerk behavior, for the record. Tries not to stray in the latter.)

Sides neither way on number of rivals. Asks for good or interesting characters. Played out poorly in X/Y. Saw too little of each personality. Managed alright in Sword/Shield.

Feels indifferent on naming rivals. Neither adds nor subtracts from the experience.

Gives a slight edge to rivals with a different gender than your character. Varies up repeat playthroughs a hair.

Views Wally as another trainer. Apparently views you as their rival. Only goes one way, however.

 

[Corveone]

My opinion is, why do we actually need a rival? I see as a poorly implemented anime cliché. Can't we just have a couple of recurring trainers that we battle from time to time without having some self-proclaimed rival of ours exclusively?

I mean, the point of having a rival (I guess?) is having someone "equal" to us, to keep ourselves motivated on getting stronger, but that's never actually reflected because in the games rivals are allways inferior to us, and we're allways scripted to win because the game won't proceed otherwise (except for the first battle). What's the point of Kanto games trying so hard to pretend that Blue is supposedly stronger and allways one step ahead of us (winning all medals before us), if at the end we're allways expected to defeat him anyway?

My favorite rival is Silver, because I don't really see him as a rival, but more as a villain or anti-hero acting on his own. He battles you just because he wants to prove that your way of treating Pokémon with love is BS (according to him). I also loved the detail of how his Golbat doesn't evolve until he evolves as a trainer and realizes that he was wrong about Pokémon being just tools and starts treating them with care.

 

[Duck]

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I rather like the way the rivals in SwSh were made.

They were actual characters, with their own arcs and characterizations, and while some were assholes (Bede, the rival from IoA) but most of them behaved more or less the way you would expect someone to behave in real life: polite neutrality or friendliness.

I think the usual criticisms levied at Hau and Hop come less from seeing the rival as "A character that's supposed to motivate us" and "A character I'm supposed to be happy I beat". The latter is usually how I'd describe a villain, not a rival.

 

[Zeostar]

My opinion is, why do we actually need a rival? I see as a poorly implemented anime cliché. Can't we just have a couple of recurring trainers that we battle from time to time without having some self-proclaimed rival of ours exclusively?

I mean, the point of having a rival (I guess?) is having someone "equal" to us, to keep ourselves motivated on getting stronger, but that's never actually reflected because in the games rivals are allways inferior to us, and we're allways scripted to win because the game won't proceed otherwise (except for the first battle). What's the point of Kanto games trying so hard to pretend that Blue is supposedly stronger and allways one step ahead of us (winning all medals before us), if at the end we're allways expected to defeat him anyway?

My favorite rival is Silver, because I don't really see him as a rival, but more as a villain or anti-hero acting on his own. He battles you just because he wants to prove that your way of treating Pokémon with love is BS (according to him). I also loved the detail of how his Golbat doesn't evolve until he evolves as a trainer and realizes that he was wrong about Pokémon being just tools and starts treating them with care.

It fascinated me in my last playthrough of Gen 7 to learn that you can lose to Hau in almost every battle and the game will continue. There is no special dialogue, but you don't restart at a Pokemon Center.

___

As for the topic question, I like a balance. I thought the Gen 4 rival was good for this. He wasn't overly friendly, but he wasn't a complete jerk either. It doesn't feel necessary for them to give the player random items at every chance. It's not like items or money are hard to come across in pokemon games.

 

[Ettenmoor]

I think gen 5 was interesting in that it had both a friendly rival and a more serious "competent" one.
Falls a bit flat though when they're both equally difficult despite Bianca supposedly being much weaker.

 

[ReKoil]

I guess I prefer the friendlier ones, but I don't consider any of them rivals.
They're usually just nuisance trainers that keep showing up over and over and jabber on about stuff. I've never felt any attachment or bond to any of them.
They can scrap rivals from the games and I wouldn't miss them =p

From the recent games Marnie is the only memorable one to me. Aside from that there's May, as I pretty much always played RSE as the male character, and did that for most of my ORAS playthroughs as well. Suppose those two would come closest to a 'favorite'.

As for naming them, idc about it. It's not like I have a realworld rival I'd want to name a Pokemon rival after.
I pretty much just always named the jerk rivals from gen1-2 indecent things anyway =p

 

[Sheep]

I actually like both, but for different reasons. I find rivals like Silver and Bede really interesting personality-wise and like the lore/background they choose for them; they tend to stick out a lot in that way. Meanwhile the friendly ones as of recently have amazing theme songs - Hop's is one of my favorite tracks in the series to date. I know that isn't exactly a…convincing argument, but the upbeat battle songs tend to be really good to me.

But yeah, they are quite weak. You can say that about most gym leaders too, I just blast right through them, especially in modern games where friendship bonuses do ridiculous things like shake off status or survive fainting with 1HP. I don't actually think of rivals as my rivals, but do refer to them as such since it's easier to know who I'm referring to that way.

For names, canon ftw. ❤️ I prefer not being able to name them though, like it more when they have their own set canon name.

 

[Orion☆]

I agree with Corveone that the concept of a rival can sometimes veer into anime cliché territory - especially the "jerk rival" archetype like Blue. (I'm still glad Blue grew out of that and became a mentor figure in LGPE and the Alola games, by the way.) That's why I also concur with Shooting Star on the matter of Marnie and Bede; they felt more like recurring characters with their own arcs and characterizations (even if neither were exactly to my liking) than clichéd rivals.

Still, some of the older rivals had their charm too; Silver, Barry and Hugh are very different from each other, but I like them all because they also had their own arcs of sorts even before Marnie and Bede came into the picture. Heck, I'm also one of the few people who likes Trace because of that; LGPE in general had pared-down storytelling, but even then he was afforded some character moments that had nothing to do with the player character (e.g. his reaction to the transformed Bill, his adoption of the orphaned Cubone at the Pokémon Tower). Again, I didn't exactly like Marnie and Bede, but I can concede that the direction they took with their character development was spot-on. I wouldn't mind seeing more of that in the future.

 

[colours]

corveone does raise a good point - we always end up beating our rivals, so they aren't really truly equal to us - so then why them at all, aside from maybe narrative reasons? it'd be interesting if Game Freak scripted some sort of forced loss scenario, which is to say i think losing to your rival a few times in the beginning of the story only to come out victorious in the end would be interesting. it'd actually give some weight to rivals being an actual threat, if anything.

my preferred rivals are those that aren't really jerk ones but still have some goal of being better than you at the end of the day. basically barry and hop. they're "friendly", sure, but ultimately they wanted to surpass you even if they couldn't in the end.

 

[Squirtkipfan01]

In general friendly>jerks
In specific
Blue is a generic asshole imo
Silver is i dont believe in friendship which ive seen alot
May is friendly and wally isnt there enough
Barry is obnoxious
Love bianca, cheren, and hugh
Cant remember any of gen 6s
Hua is super friendly and great
I like hop and marnie, not asshole guy whose name i forget

 

[Corveone]

I briefly mentioned this before but, technically, Gen 2 doesn't have a rival.

A rival is someone equal to us, who's following the same path and playing by the same rules as us. Silver is not, he doesn't challenge gyms for badges, and he doesn't care about defeating the Elite Four and becoming the champion... his goals and way of playing are different from our character's. He isn't even an official trainer since he literally stole his first Pokémon.

 

[Zeostar]

I briefly mentioned this before but, technically, Gen 2 doesn't have a rival.

A rival is someone equal to us, who's following the same path and playing by the same rules as us. Silver is not, he doesn't challenge gyms for badges, and he doesn't care about defeating the Elite Four and becoming the champion... his goals and way of playing are different from our character's. He isn't even an official trainer since he literally stole his first Pokémon.

He does seem to be on his own gym challenge.

When you enter Olivine for the first time, he walks out of the gym and angrily rants about Jasmine prioritizing sick pokemon.

He is also encountered at the end of Victory Road and mentions "wanting to be the greatest". While this doesn't mean he's going to be challenging them, it would make sense as it also sets him up with a rematch against Lance.

 

[Corveone]

He does seem to be on his own gym challenge.

When you enter Olivine for the first time, he walks out of the gym and angrily rants about Jasmine prioritizing sick pokemon.

If I recall correctly, Silver's name is never displayed in the Johto gym statues, as opposed to what happens in the other regions. Even if he did battle gym leaders at some point, he still couldn't have been officially recognized and granted a badge since he wasn't a legitimate trainer, but a rogue kid wandering on his own who just seemed to hate everyone, and battling was his way of venting his anger, becoming stronger and trying to prove his point.

He's more like N, in the sense that they're characters you battle several times, but aren't really rivals, since they have their own agenda.

 

[bez850]

If I recall correctly, Silver's name is never displayed in the Johto gym statues, as opposed to what happens in the other regions. Even if he did battle gym leaders at some point, he still couldn't have been officially recognized and granted a badge since he wasn't a legitimate trainer, but a rogue kid wandering on his own who just seemed to hate everyone, and battling was his way of venting his anger, becoming stronger and trying to prove his point.

He's more like N, in the sense that they're characters you battle several times, but aren't really rivals, since they have their own agenda.

Silver is listed officially as the rival. He is still technically the rival, even if he isn't doing a traditional gym challenge, he is clearly challenging gym leaders. But, regardless, the shared goal of taking down team rocket, and constantly evolving dialog between the two including their battle at victory road where he relinquished his anguish and challenges you to prove his strength as a trainer.

He is definitely a rival. A rival is someone who is competing with another for the same objective or for superiority in the same field or activity.

He checks off those boxes.

 

[Corveone]

Silver is listed officially as the rival.

And Mewtwo is called a "legendary" despite no legends or myths about it exist, since it's literally a manmade laboratory creation with no prior history whatsoever.

A rival is someone who is competing with another for the same objective or for superiority in the same field or activity.

Then every trainer in the game is our rival, since they all battle and want to win and become stronger as much as we do. That's just what Pokémon trainers usually do.

But not everyone follows the same path, plays by the same rules, and has the same goals as the main character. Silver battles whoever he finds for his own reasons.

 

[bez850]

And Mewtwo is called a "legendary" despite no legends or myths about it exist, since it's literally a manmade laboratory creation with no prior history whatsoever.



Then every trainer in the game is our rival, since they all battle and want to win and become stronger as much as we do. That's just what Pokémon trainers usually do.

But not everyone follows the same path, plays by the same rules, and has the same goals as the main character. Silver battles whoever he finds for his own reasons.

In a sense, every trainer is your rival. And Mewtwo is a legendary pokemon. The second definition of legendary is "to be remarkable enough to become famous". By definition Mewtwo and Silver fits the definition of the words legendary and rival.

Silver battles to become stronger. He states as much often. I feel like you're stretching a bit with this one. Everything you've said thus far in regards to why he isn't, doesn't actually disqualify him from being a rival. Rivals can have different goals in mind than the protagonist.

 

[Duck]

Silver is listed officially as the rival.

And "gif" is officially pronounced like "jif" but you'll find me laying dead in the gutter before you see me saying it like that.
Let's Go Pikachu is officially a main series game, yet to a lot of people, they play differently enough that it's more of a side game.

Just because some people in some position of authority said it's so, it doesn't mean that it's a sensible decision. Especially in a situation like this where "rival" has many possible different meanings and "designated guy you beat a lot" (the one usage that would make Silver's designation sensible) isn't really an interesting one.

He is still technically the rival, even if he isn't doing a traditional gym challenge, he is clearly challenging gym leaders.

Is he clearly challenging gym leaders? The one time he mentions gym leaders is at Olivine and that's said pretty much in passing. It's perfectly plausible that he just heard it from somewhere, or went there to try and steel Jasmine's Pokémon, or beat up the people in the lighthouse and discovered that Jasmine was there because of them.

There is no compelling evidence that he's challenging gym leaders.

But, regardless, the shared goal of taking down team rocket, and constantly evolving dialog between the two including their battle at victory road where he relinquished his anguish and challenges you to prove his strength as a trainer.

Nobody disagreed that he's strong. Silver is indeed one of the strongest trainers you meet across the franchise. At the very least, one of the strongest you meet in the games he's in.

He is definitely a rival. A rival is someone who is competing with another for the same objective or for superiority in the same field or activity.

He checks off those boxes.

OK, but I would disagree that Silver is competing with us for any given objective.

At the beginning of the game we see Silver get mad at us for letting the police know he was the thief, and then for interacting with him and subsequently beating him (Azalea and Burned Tower).

During the Rocket takeover he comes at us more from a place of obsession because he lost a lot, he believes our philosophy is bad and he just has a very angry personality than "I want to beat Team Rocket before you."

After that he has one more obsession encounter before finalizing his arc.

Silver is more of an angry stalker that would probably have absolutely zero qualms with you if you shared his "Only strong Pokémon matter" philosophy than someone that's strictly competing with you for anything, really.

I'll give it to you that he's supposed to be a foil to the character and I'll even say that he has a decent story arc for when he was made, but I don't think rival is a suitable word here.

 

[bez850]

And "gif" is officially pronounced like "jif" but you'll find me laying dead in the gutter before you see me saying it like that.
Let's Go Pikachu is officially a main series game, yet to a lot of people, they play differently enough that it's more of a side game.

Just because some people in some position of authority said it's so, it doesn't mean that it's a sensible decision. Especially in a situation like this where "rival" has many possible different meanings and "designated guy you beat a lot" (the one usage that would make Silver's designation sensible) isn't really an interesting one.



Is he clearly challenging gym leaders? The one time he mentions gym leaders is at Olivine and that's said pretty much in passing. It's perfectly plausible that he just heard it from somewhere, or went there to try and steel Jasmine's Pokémon, or beat up the people in the lighthouse and discovered that Jasmine was there because of them.

There is no compelling evidence that he's challenging gym leaders.


Nobody disagreed that he's strong. Silver is indeed one of the strongest trainers you meet across the franchise. At the very least, one of the strongest you meet in the games he's in.


OK, but I would disagree that Silver is competing with us for any given objective.

At the beginning of the game we see Silver get mad at us for letting the police know he was the thief, and then for interacting with him and subsequently beating him (Azalea and Burned Tower).

During the Rocket takeover he comes at us more from a place of obsession because he lost a lot, he believes our philosophy is bad and he just has a very angry personality than "I want to beat Team Rocket before you."

After that he has one more obsession encounter before finalizing his arc.

Silver is more of an angry stalker that would probably have absolutely zero qualms with you if you shared his "Only strong Pokémon matter" philosophy than someone that's strictly competing with you for anything, really.

I'll give it to you that he's supposed to be a foil to the character and I'll even say that he has a decent story arc for when he was made, but I don't think rival is a suitable word here.

I mean, the orphaned son of Giovanni left to rot builds a grunge against people who live in the norm of the pokemon society is a pretty deep story. His entire motivation is because of the cruelty the world and his father had cast upon him. He's the rival. He is competing to be superior in the field of pokemon. I've laid out exact definitions and he fits those definitions.

You can literally look up a lot of this information, and even the different counterparts to his canonical game form in the manga and different shorts represent him as such.

The bigger question I have is why does he have to be stuck to such STRICT rules and criteria to be a rival? In fact, among all pokemon rivals, what makes Silver (and N) so UNIQUE is that fact that they actually had some DARKNESS to their story. They don't follow the conventional rules and constructs, but that doesn't make them any less rivals.

Do you compete directly against that person in game on more than a hand full of occasions?

Is it mandatory to the story?

Do the player, and silver have conflicting ideology?

Attempt to get in each other's way/thwart/block a path?

Final battle before E4?

It's cool if you're not a Silver fan, but to say he's not a rival just because he's not like blue or may (doesn't may want to be a researcher not a champion?) Is crazy. When I played gen 2, the ONLY rival was Blue. So how come Silver is automatically not a rival all of a sudden?

How old were you when you played GSC the first time?

 

[bez850]

And "gif" is officially pronounced like "jif" but you'll find me laying dead in the gutter before you see me saying it like that.
Let's Go Pikachu is officially a main series game, yet to a lot of people, they play differently enough that it's more of a side game.

Just because some people in some position of authority said it's so, it doesn't mean that it's a sensible decision.

I'm just going to quote this to make sure we are on the same page with my translation:

"If the Pokemon Company created a character and said its the main characters rival, we shouldn't believe that because it's not sensible."

That's just dumb. If I made a game and I said "This is your rival " and you told me it wasn't, I would laugh at you and thank you for your creative input and move on to the next topic. Lol