What if Misty and Brock never left?

So, just imagine a hypothetical situation. What if Misty and Brock, Ash's original companions from the Kanto and Johto saga, never left, and just continued travelling with Ash throughout the regions? What do you think the Anime would be like?

What do you think would happen with the other companions like May or Serena? Do you have a hypothetical story line in mind? Do you think Misty and Brock will continue with their shtick - or are there more room for development for them?

This question is more Misty related than anything. To be blunt, her focus would be minimal as May was the main female lead in the Hoenn games so she'd get more focus than anything. If Misty was still around, she would have basically been Max or a useless third wheel shoved into the background and even more so than during her travels with Ash through Kanto and Johto. However, I think she'd had taken it upon herself to be May's tutor instead of Ash, hence learning from someone roughly her own age who also happened to be a Gym Leader. Granted May's interests would have been Coordinating, Misty could have given her battling pointers and strategy as a third party observer. Ash was too busy or had tunnel vision with regards to his own goals and dreams so I don't really think he was meant to be a tutor.

Same deal in Sinnoh as I see it. Where it really would have gotten interesting would have been in Unova. Cilan wouldn't have been needed but I think Iris and Misty would have bonded quite well(I mean Iris was modeled after Misty so why wouldn't they?). Kalos also would have been interesting because Misty has feelings for Ash so with Serena also showing signs, there would have been a love triangle skirmish with Ash caught in the middle.

If Misty and Brock never left I'd assume they wouldn't bring in newer companions as the group would become too large. So because of that I'd say there'd be as much focus on these three as there was before.

I'll focus on Misty mainly since Brock did continue on for longer.

I certainly would have kept watching for longer myself if she'd stuck around. Her personality is much fiercer than Dawn or May which I think was a very much needed personality in the shows main group. Particularly when Ash has one of his many moments of idiocy Misty's sharp critics provided a much needed relief to me as a viewer. (This is of course more of a personal thing than anything else)

I think she would have been retconned much like Ash every region in some way or another. The retconning of established characters being the most annoying aspect of the show in my opinion. As we did see to a degree with Brock too giving his strongest Pokémon to his brother. They'd be doing something similar to Misty every region too.

Eh, personally, even if May were around, Misty'd probably get more focus than in Johto, at least, thanks to the nature of Misty's goal. What people forget is that Hoenn had more water than land, and in fact, a large part of the plotline, heck, one of the villainous team and even one of the trio of legendaries in fact, dealt with water. If anything, she'd arguably rival even Ash in terms of actual focus precisely BECAUSE of countless opportunities to be had to pursue her goal, being a very good opportunity to actually expand on her goal. She'd definitely be treated far better than Team Rocket was in Hoenn at least. Besides, I really fail to see how May would have done well with contests. For goodness sakes, you don't even get the end credits in the games. What? Should we make Secret Base construction an actual goal as well? If she were a gym battler, she'd at least have some dynamic with Ash in terms of a master/apprentice manner, heck, even allow for them to briefly fight as a final test. Not as a Coordinator, though. Heck, she wasn't even that in the games, whether you actually PLAY as her or when she's an NPC. At least with Misty's goal, you can do a rough approximation to that by actually using a pure-Water type team (or at least a team that's entirely part-Water).

As far as Sinnoh, even THAT at least has a unique feature in the form of the Shellos and Gastrodon's form variations that would aid in her goal, and that's not even counting the fact that Palkia, while technically being more relating to space [ie, dimensions] than actual water, nonetheless is a water type, so interacting with that would still aid in her goal.

And for the record, that's not even counting all the new Water Pokémon types she would find in each region.

So yeah, Misty definitely would not have suffered during those times, and if anything would have had far more to gain than lose by continuing with Ash.

Heck, even Brock, if he continued on to Unova and at the same time also changed his goal to becoming a Pokémon Doctor, would have been a LOT more useful to the party than in Hoenn and Sinnoh, such as healing Pokémon ESPECIALLY if they were too far from a Pokémon Center to even attempt to get there. Believe me, that would have been ESPECIALLY useful when in a pinch.

We also have to ask, would the writing stay consistent to justify keeping them?

The show would've been worse off in hindsight. We saw how pointless Takeshi/Brock ended up becoming in AG and DP outside of maybe one episode per year, and Kasumi/Misty would've ended up becoming just as useless, unless she had gotten a new goal.

i enjoyed watching Brock trying to get the ladies and end up failing horribly. Misty just seemed rude all the time, Brock just felt like a friend.

FlameChrome said:

i enjoyed watching Brock trying to get the ladies and end up failing horribly. Misty just seemed rude all the time, Brock just felt like a friend.

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Hey, Misty actually came across as being a friend to Ash even in the first season compared to Naru Narusegawa and the Hinata Inn girls towards Naru Narusegawa from Love Hina. At least she didn't beat up Ash just because he happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, or heck, just for the heck of it, while Naru and her fellow dorm girls were rather notorious for their horrible treatment of Keitaru Urashima, who didn't deserve the beatdowns at all. Not to mention she risked her life in Episode 4 to save Ash from Samurai when it seemed as though the latter was going to kill him (and she makes absolutely NO reference to her bike at all during that time). If that doesn't speak towards viewing him as a friend and actually treating him like one, I don't know what does.

And personally, that whole trying to get with the ladies and ending up failing horribly gag was simply not funny the first time around, came across as him being a womanizer (I never found those jokes funny, heck, they weren't even appropriate for the age bracket. Didn't like it with Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast or Glenn Quagmire from Family Guy or Charlie Harper from Two and a Half Men, I certainly wouldn't like it with Brock). I tolerated it during Kanto since at least there he also spent his time actually mentoring Ash and also doing stuff that made him overall redeemable like spearheading that rescue of Charmander, stuff that made him more than just someone who skirt-chases, but Johto onward it just made me sick. It was so bad I actually was deeply afraid when Brock returned that they'd make him that yet again. Fortunately, they toned down on that aspect to such an extent that he only did it exactly once in the entire arc, via one of the teachers, and other than that kept a lid on it.

Besides, whether they felt like friends or not ultimately means nothing in the end: What matters is whether they'd actually be useful in terms of the plot. Maybe if Brock when resuming travel explicitly changed his goal to be a Pokémon Doctor, which, let's face it, proves to be a LOT more useful than being a Breeder when he's not even allowed to actually breed his Pokémon, I'd probably welcome his stay or at least tolerate it. As it is, though, Brock in AG and DP definitely had overstayed his welcome as it is. Misty at least had an actual viable goal that if anything would have been greatly expanded upon during AG at the very least.

The show would've been worse I think. We saw how pointless Brock ended up becoming in AG and DP outside of like one episode per year, and Misty would've been just as useless unless she had gotten a new goal.

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I agree to a certain extent regarding Brock, but I DEFINITELY DISAGREE that Misty would have been just as useless (actually, in AG, due to it not only being the first region to be composed with more water than land, and having loads of water Pokémon, but also had an explicit Water-type legendary [one of the primary legendaries in fact] and even a water-type based villainous group, she if anything would have the time of her life in Hoenn and if anything would have arguably overshadowed even Ash in terms of usefulness). At worst, she'd only be as useless as Ash was in later seasons (since at least they have actual active goals, unlike Brock's Breeder goal).

weedle_mchairybug said:

Hey, Misty actually came across as being a friend to Ash even in the first season compared to Naru Narusegawa and the Hinata Inn girls towards Naru Narusegawa from Love Hina. At least she didn't beat up Ash just because he happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, or heck, just for the heck of it, while Naru and her fellow dorm girls were rather notorious for their horrible treatment of Keitaru Urashima, who didn't deserve the beatdowns at all. Not to mention she risked her life in Episode 4 to save Ash from Samurai when it seemed as though the latter was going to kill him (and she makes absolutely NO reference to her bike at all during that time). If that doesn't speak towards viewing him as a friend and actually treating him like one, I don't know what does.

And personally, that whole trying to get with the ladies and ending up failing horribly gag was simply not funny the first time around, came across as him being a womanizer (I never found those jokes funny, heck, they weren't even appropriate for the age bracket. Didn't like it with Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast or Glenn Quagmire from Family Guy or Charlie Harper from Two and a Half Men, I certainly wouldn't like it with Brock). I tolerated it during Kanto since at least there he also spent his time actually mentoring Ash and also doing stuff that made him overall redeemable like spearheading that rescue of Charmander, stuff that made him more than just someone who skirt-chases, but Johto onward it just made me sick. It was so bad I actually was deeply afraid when Brock returned that they'd make him that yet again. Fortunately, they toned down on that aspect to such an extent that he only did it exactly once in the entire arc, via one of the teachers, and other than that kept a lid on it.

Besides, whether they felt like friends or not ultimately means nothing in the end: What matters is whether they'd actually be useful in terms of the plot. Maybe if Brock when resuming travel explicitly changed his goal to be a Pokémon Doctor, which, let's face it, proves to be a LOT more useful than being a Breeder when he's not even allowed to actually breed his Pokémon, I'd probably welcome his stay or at least tolerate it. As it is, though, Brock in AG and DP definitely had overstayed his welcome as it is. Misty at least had an actual viable goal that if anything would have been greatly expanded upon during AG at the very least.

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yeah im not reading that, to say the least though. That was just my opinion, i have no anger towards your opinion, or how you feel. Thank you for at least not being rude with your opinion.