They Weren't a Good Owner!

I think Tepigs previous trainer was the worst, tying it up at the mouth to a tree. At least with Charmander it was free to do what it wanted if it realized the trainer wasn't coming back. Tepig was literally left there to die. I don't recall his trainer even saying they should go their separate ways.

Least friendly trainer would probably be Paul, but that's what I like about him and his relationship with Ash, he's cold to Ash because Paul proves time and time again his methods are better than Ash's (until the league, where Ash shows him that Ash's methods are ultimately better, they just take more time to take effect).

Team Rocket is an obvious choice for this thread, simply because they use their Pokemon for the purpose of evil and Pokemon are for the most part not inherently evil.

jjc927 said:

Team Rocket is an obvious choice for this thread, simply because they use their Pokemon for the purpose of evil and Pokemon are for the most part not inherently evil.

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Are we talking the trio or Team Rocket in general? If its the trio, I'm going to have to disagree. Sure, they do bad and cause trouble for Ash, but they've shown to genuinely care for their pokemon. James in particular. In fact, I'm willing to say James has the strongest bond with his pokemon out of the entire cast.

Skyshooter said:

Are we talking the trio or Team Rocket in general? If its the trio, I'm going to have to disagree. Sure, they do bad and cause trouble for Ash, but they've shown to genuinely care for their pokemon. James in particular. In fact, I'm willing to say James has the strongest bond with his pokemon out of the entire cast.

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I meant Jessie and James specifically yes. Yes it's true they cared for their Pokemon, but they used them mostly for part of their schemes and to try to prevent Ash and crew or whoever else from stopping them. There's been trainers who treated or used their Pokemon for much worse, but using them for bad puts you right up there.

jjc927 said:

Team Rocket is an obvious choice for this thread, simply because they use their Pokemon for the purpose of evil and Pokemon are for the most part not inherently evil.

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Even though someone already said similar in a post above...

I disagree. Jessie and James seem to take good care of their Pokemon & care about them. Jessie didn't always use her Pokemon for evil, either. She entered contests and showcases with them, too, don't forget that. So, they don't only use Pokemon for nefarious purposes. Just...most of the time, they do. But, I guess using them for bad puts them up on the worst, I don't think they're the absolute worst trainers.

I agree with Tepig's trainer wholeheartedly. Leaving Tepig tied up like that was horrible, and he didn't deserve the Pokemon to begin with if he was gonna do such a thing. =/ Daimon was just really shallow, honestly. I think this is a pattern for every Fire Starter Ash is going to capture. By the way, while not the worst, Shô wasn't that nice of a guy, either.

Most unfriendly? Easily both Paul and Trip, to some degree. Paul especially, since he has a reason to be an ass. I liked that about him, and it's why he was the better rival than Gary ever could be. Trip is just a stuck up snob, and it was pretty aggravating imo, but he wasn't that nice either, lol. Man, Paul was good, though.

Iris isn't friendly either, but nevermind her.

Musique said:

Charmander's previous owner was the worst because he abandoned Charmander for being "weak" and leaving it to die?

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That was probably one of the best examples I know of a Pokémon trainer not being good to his/her Pokémon. Because of Charmander being abandoned, I have to wonder if that was a factor in its disobeying of Ash after it evolved into Charmeleon and eventually Charizard.

I think the disobeying had more to do with Charmelon and Charizard being higher level Pokemon than Ash's level as a trainer at the point than it was a trust issue. Otherwise Charmander also wouldn't have trusted him. Charizard fought when he saw an equal opponent, when it was angered, or to show off. It took Ash not giving up on him and spending all the time he did to get him back to health after he was frozen in "Charizard Chills" for Charizard to respect Ash.

jjc927 said:

Charmelon and Charizard being higher level Pokemon than Ash's level as a trainer at the point than it was a trust issue.

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There's just one little minor issue with this statement...

Ash's Charizard disobeyed him even during the Indigo League championship eliminations, when Ash had to battle Ritchie. Ash lost that match because of Charizard. Besides, how can you get in the Pokémon League's conferences without all of the badges required by the League for admission? (Never mind that Gary had many more badges than Ash did-Ash managed to get in by meeting the minimum badge requirements.)
From a game standpoint, the final badge of each region provides for all Pokémon to obey. But since we're taking about the anime, which plays out differently, I'm going out on a limb in saying that Charizard was a rather exceptional case.

In the end I will say that Ash's maturity at the time might have been a factor in whether or not certain Pokémon obeyed him, given how long it took for Charizard to finally obey him.

Yes he had the badges but he still didn't respect Ash. Charizard won him one of them but it was because he wanted to fight Magmar, not because he was following Ash's orders. Charizard was just plain disobedient and only did what he wanted until "Charizard Chills."

I'd have to say, from what I've seen, Damian/Damien? for sure. I mean the whole Charmander thing was a big deal because he knew Charmander would die if its tail stopped burning due to the rain. He also knew and accepted that it wouldn't move from that spot until he came back, or someone else took him (or worse case scenario, it died).