3rd Gen Why does birch lie?

Alright so the rival in gen three is said to be a good trainer before the first fight.
So why does he only have a bloody level 5 starter, I know why for balance, I'm talking lore.
And they could of gotten around this, just put him a bit further in or make him the sub rival like in gen four.
Like I said for balance I get it was necessary, It would of be cool too see.

I take it you mean either Blue or Brendan, and if it's the former, I'd guess that it partly has to do with how he's kind of arrogant and always believes he's better than the player, even though he's never battled before the start of the game

Poke fan number 489 said:

Alright so the rival in gen three is said to be a good trainer before the first fight.
So why does he only have a bloody level 5 starter, I know why for balance, I'm talking lore.
And they could of gotten around this, just put him a bit further in or make him the sub rival like in gen four.
Like I said for balance I get it was necessary, It would of be cool too see.

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Because they are a good trainer... but you are a good trainer, too! Think of the first few NPC trainers you run into, with their lvl 3 Rattatas and Weedles. You're both better than them, at least. :)

Nah said:

I take it you mean either Blue or Brendan, and if it's the former, I'd guess that it partly has to do with how he's kind of arrogant and always believes he's better than the player, even though he's never battled before the start of the game

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I'm talking about Brendan, and how Birch says he is a "accomplished trainer already" yet he has no badges, a level 5 pokemon with two move, and no items.
Birch is a one of those parents who lose to their child on purpose, I'm calling it.
Also thanks for the reply

An accomplished trainer doesn't have to be a strong battler. Brandon/May represent the collector site of a Pokemon trainer; those that try to fill the Pokedex. One of the reasons why they don't show up in later parts of the game is because at that point the collection part has been superseeded by the battling part. And for that you have a different rival in Wally, who was too weak in the early parts of the game to stand a chance against you, but now finally found the strength to follow his dreams.

Poke fan number 489 said:

I'm talking about Brendan, and how Birch says he is a "accomplished trainer already" yet he has no badges, a level 5 pokemon with two move, and no items.
Birch is a one of those parents who lose to their child on purpose, I'm calling it.
Also thanks for the reply

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It's possible that they did a reset like Ash does every gen but not probable.

A trainer doesn't have to be a champion to be accomplished.
Collecting, breeding, and researching are all trainer categories; all of which happen to be trainer classes that are encountered in the games.

While Brendan and May do collect badges with us for a bit, they present as primarily focused on researching, specifically as something of assistants to Birtch. Birtch even tells us that they show him every time they encounter a new Pokemon.

It's also not uncommon for a parent to talk up their child.

Options include but are not limited to:

- Birch was just a dad that's talking up his son because parents do that
- Brendan was the winner of like a small tournament
- Brendan had helped him multiple times with field research (and in fact was the one that raised the 3 Pokémon that Birch had on him during the first event)
- It was a translation error and the original Japanese used a word that didn't imply external validation

In all of those cases, I'd say you're probably looking too much into it.

I was going to say it looks like an Ash type reset, but someone already seems to have mentioned it.

It's not that deep, he's probably just praising his child because that's what most (normal) parents do.

Well, good is a subjective thing. Poor Birch was chased all around the route by a level 2 zigzagoon, and helpless to do anything about it. A level 5 Pokemon with two moves might very well be intimidating to him.

Well he is their father, so maybe he just thought highly of them and knew they have possibly been training in practice themselves, and never considered that the player was actually a better trainer.

I figured it was just text to give more depth to the characters and their backgrounds, without actually reflecting that skill in May/Brendan's in-game team? My assumption was they had their Hoenn starter for a while already and helped their dad do research with it via battles. The levels won't reflect that since the games are supposed to be decently easy and I doubt staff would want to make your first trainer battle against someone several levels higher than you. Would've been interesting to have a forced lose or something and a rival that is built up to be someone you have to work hard to defeat, and May/Brendan could've been it with their experience, but alas. :(

Typical parent boast but as someone mentioned before it also seems like an error in translation

I believe Brendan/May use such a weak starter, which is his/her father's gift (potentially received a little earlier before MC receives their starter), to be able to compete with the MC. why? even in the second battle, rival Pokémon include species like numel which can't be obtained by that point in the game. your rival has probably been a trainer for a while and travelled a fair portion around Hoenn, but is putting himself/herself down on your level for a while, before you too truly grasp the whole trainer thing.

agravedigger said:

I believe Brendan/May use such a weak starter, which is his/her father's gift (potentially received a little earlier before MC receives their starter), to be able to compete with the MC. why? even in the second battle, rival Pokémon include species like numel which can't be obtained by that point in the game. your rival has probably been a trainer for a while and travelled a fair portion around Hoenn, but is putting himself/herself down on your level for a while, before you too truly grasp the whole trainer thing.

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i actually doubt this as its not the first time a npc trainer has gotten something that the player could not get.
sometimes npc's mons had moves that the player could never actually get legitimately in the same game like lance's barrier using dragonite in gen 1.
hell, emerald also had a npc in victory road that had a pokemon that knew a move that it could not learn normally in any of the games...

theres also cases of certain moves that pokemon have in some games and not be able to learn in others like the elemental hyper beam johto starters in XD
kanto and johto starters are currently the only starters that can know an elemental hyper beams without being fully evolved, though it would be a lot harder to get the kanto starters with elemental hyper beams due to their only getting them from a couple of events a decade ago

agravedigger said:

I believe Brendan/May use such a weak starter, which is his/her father's gift (potentially received a little earlier before MC receives their starter), to be able to compete with the MC. why? even in the second battle, rival Pokémon include species like numel which can't be obtained by that point in the game. your rival has probably been a trainer for a while and travelled a fair portion around Hoenn, but is putting himself/herself down on your level for a while, before you too truly grasp the whole trainer thing.

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I see some precedent for this theory in Cheren's team in B2W2. He finished the BW story with a powerful, dynamic team in the mid-60s but then is faced with unevolved lv. 10 Normal-types once he becomes a gym leader.

It also explains when the likes of him, Steven, and Lance team up with you against villains in their various stories. Lance has a track record of raising multiple Dragonite, so he uses a lv. 40 one to being with against Team Rocket as he knows thats easily enough when they're all under lv. 25. How he got it is another question...