Red Lotus Trio (Chloe Cerise) | Infinity Train (Passengers [The Apex, Grace Monroe], Cage of Flauros, The Unsub's Crew)| Pokémon World (Vermillion City [Goh Fujihachi, Parker Cerise], The Ketchum Family, Pokémon Trainers)
Goh Fujihachi
A boy from Vermillion City obsessed with finding Mew and capturing Pokémon. He's been friends with Chloe since they were little, but his obsession with the one thing Chloe hates has caused a schism in their friendship, culminating in her running away onto the Infinity Train and for him to be obsessed over her. He's also one of Professor Cerise's research fellows.
Spoilers regarding the events of Blossoming Trail will be unmarked.
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- Abusive Parents: Downplayed. While his parents didn't explicitly abuse him as they were just very busy with their jobs, they did nothing to rein in his bad habits and work out his social issues. He's not happy to learn that their workaholic nature could've been stopped at any moment so they could focus on being a family.
- Accidental Truth: In "The Dead Carnival Car", He makes an insensitive comment about how Hop, who's currently at the Infinity Train, is having the time of his life as we speak. He's technically not wrong about Hop having fun, but he's been regressed to a younger mental state and has his memories taken away from him for a cult's plan.
- Accentuate the Negative: As a consequence of Zeno's nightmares and his resulting Freak Out, Goh just cannot bring himself to see the positive side of things, and when sees the negative side, he blows it out of proportion.
- Achievements in Ignorance: Saves Professor Cerise, Chryssa, and Renji from UnChloe by revealing a birthday gift he gave Chloe, even though he had no idea what was going on.
- Adaptational Dumbass: His enhanced tunnel vision and self-centeredness has caused what little common sense he had to wither, leaving him extremely incapable of reading the room, and even listen to reason.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Canon Goh is Innocently Insensitive at worst, and he's perfectly capable of acting civil around people. This Goh, on the other hand, not only is a Toxic Friend Influence with a clear case of tunnel vision, but he only grows more bitter and resentful as the story goes on...until the Unown incident.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Ever since Chloe ran away, the story seems to have some sadistic wish to put Goh through the wringer: beyond his best friend disappearing, he has to confront his own unsavory issues, the only other person around (Ash) failing to help him cope with the disappearance, his parents being more than willing to shred him alive over his own decisions (when they're just as responsible for not getting Goh's head out of those monitors), being the personal target for Parker's ire, and finally, the Unown incident. Need we say more?
- Adaptational Villainy: This Goh crosses some lines that his canon self would certainly not: ranging from trying to break up Ash and Trip to spite the former to throwing Malicious Slander about Chloe on the internet.
- Adaptational Wimp: Since Goh spends most of the first act searching and worrying over Chloe, his Pokémon skills, both battling and catching, take a severe hit. And when he finally does have a fight in Act 2, it's a massacre against him.
- Aesop Collateral Damage: The final goal for Goh through the story was to move past his stubbornness and realize how much of a bad friend he's been to Chloe. Wanna find out what it takes for him to get the lesson? Alienating everybody he knew, his flaws and faults being spat in his face, ending what little friendships he had left, losing the trust of the people he knew, losing the will to continue with his Goal in Life, and being subjected to a pair of nightmares where he can do nothing but watch as everything goes to crap, culminating in him freaking the ever-loving daylights out and be sent to a suicide ward, where he devolves into a bottomless pit of self-loathing.
- Aimlessly Seeking Happiness: One way of him obsessing over Mew is how said Pokemon can shape-shift into any other Pokémon, which would make it a good partner for someone who wants nothing to do with human friends.
- A Lesson Learned Too Well: Huzzah, he's finally gotten how much responsibility he has for not just Chloe running away, but his worsening relationships with all of his friends. Now he's stuck in a Heroic BSoD because he's convinced that he's too horrible and selfish to even attempt to make things right. Yaaaaaaaaaaay.
- Attempting to be empathic and considerate causes him to overly comfort Ash after he ties rather than loses to Bea, and obsessively record the ice cream everyone orders as 'their favorite' when they're just trying new flavors.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: Make no mistake, Goh is at least somewhat responsible for Chloe's issues as he's painted, and his own untreated issues don't excuse how low he falls at times. However, he's a saint compared to Sara, who bullied Chloe relentlessly and shamelessly, and Parker, who uses Chloe's wishes as an excuse to torture all of Vermillion City when he gets the power of the Unown, destroying all the good will that had been fostered since then.
- All for Nothing: No matter what he does, his hard work ends up useless in the end.
- He spends most of Act 1 frantically searching for a way to get Chloe back, growing more and more worried sick as he fails to make any progress and tries to message her only to get no response. By the end of the act, he gets to call Chloe... who makes it clear she wants nothing to do with him and would rather stay where she is.
- His search for the Infinity Train also ends like this. Not only does he fail to get even a hint as to how to proceed, but by Act 2, when his trauma has made it fit for him to become a passenger, he's too depressed to want anything to do anything.
- His quest to become a better person is also rendered naught when he's reduced to a suicidal mess in the process, no thanks to Parker and Zeno's machinations.
- In a roundabout way, Parker’s Mind Rape of him is this, as his new ability showed him all the possible futures, and only one had Goh not realizing his mistakes.
- His Goal in Life was to find and search for Mew. Arc 3 has him confronting Mew for real and he starts thinking that he doesn't deserve it after his selfishness caused him to lose everything, culminating on a very long trip onto the therapy train.
- All Take and No Give:
- His and Chloe's relationship as of Act 2. Goh expects Chloe to do everything to rebuild their friendship and be just as she was before she left for the Train refusing to admit that most of the problems are on him never trying to understand her point of view. And if she can't comply, he'll do all he can to hurt her by breaking her newly built self-confidence until she's acting like she should be.
- This also applies to his friendship with Ash, as explored during his nightmare therapy session. He expects Ash to constantly be available and cater to his every whim, but refuses to return the favor, and gets jealous over the mere thought of him making time for anyone else.
- This becomes deconstructed by Act 3: he feels like he can never be anything good and all he does is just take and take without any sign that he actually was a good person, primarily because people won't shut up about it.
- Always Save the Girl: Platonic example. Once he realizes Chloe's gone missing, he makes it his mission to find and rescue her. Needless to say, the mission goes nowhere.
- Ambition Is Evil:
- Subverted. For all of his faults, Goh's desire to take Chloe back home is one of the few positive things about him, especially considering the potential danger an Outside-Context Problem like the Infinity Train could be. It's the methods and the why that's the problem.
- Also Subverted with his desire to capture Mew, which is just a variation of the average Trainer's goal to catch as many Pokémon as possible. The problem is how far he goes in doing it and what he sacrificed for this dream.
- Anything but That!: When Zeno implies he'll put Goh through another "exercise" after his Drama Queen stunt, Goh is quick to beg him not to go through with it. Given the sheer scope of what the last "exercise" did to him, and what it reduced him to, he has reason to beg.
- And I Must Scream: In fact, he can't even do that. While in the nightmares brought by Parker and Zeno, Goh is subjected to scenario after scenario where no matter what he does, not only does he fail to make things better, but he fails to understand what he did wrong. And as Zeno makes things worse and more visceral, Goh eventually gets overwhelmed and tries to get the hell out of dodge. It's almost a relief when he breaks down afterwards, but even that gets soured pretty fast.
- And Then What?: It becomes quite apparent that Goh has little idea of what he's planning to do once he eventually does achieve his Goal in Life. A fact that Zeno uses with extreme prejudice during his nightmares. As Arc 3 closes and he now has Mew in his hands, at the cost of losing his original dream and his drive, he's left to ponder what he can actually do with it, along with how he doesn't think he did anything good to be a friend, being what gets him onto the Infinity Train.
- The Artifact: Initially, his desire to catch all the Pokémon he comes across, and Mew, was a very big part of his character. Once Chloe disappears and the cynicism in Vermillion City grows stronger, however, this aspect becomes less and less prominent, until the nightmare therapy session pretty much pulverizes it. And then when it's brought back in Act 3, Goh is not in the mood to enjoy it — to the point that this Pokémon is the reason he gets on the train.
- Asshole Victim: Deconstructed. After generally being an unchanging prick who can't realize his own faults to save his life, Parker subjects him to a set of nightmares that shows him how badly he's messed up and also teach him how he can be better. The deconstruction comes from the fact that, for all of Goh's faults, the resulting nightmare crosses the line so much it goes from cathartic to horrifying in an instant, and when it's all over, the end result is too horrible to be enjoyed.
- Awful Truth: His nightmare therapy hits him with the fact that not only has he been a terrible friend to Chloe, but that ultimately, his obsession towards his goals and aspirations has taken everything away from him.
- Be Careful What You Wish For:
- When he first found out about the Infinity Train, his first thought was to try find a way to reach it so he could take Chloe back home. After Parker and Zeno's "therapy" session, he's broken enough to go there as a passenger.
- In the Bad Future Parker saw, Goh managed to get the Train to come for him after losing everyone...Only to end up dying on the train, with Chloe finding his corpse.
- He once wanted Chloe back as she originally was; stuck at home, with no dream, no hope and he to go on his merry way. Zeno grants him his wish and shows that Chloe would've eventually killed herself if Goh got what he wanted, as she tried talking to him prior to jumping off the school's roof and he completely ignored her and told her he'd "call later", reflecting how he always blows her off and can't keep his promise to arrive on time for once.
- To add insult to injury, when Chloe does return home with confidence, a better outlook and having saved their former class and his mother from a maniac with a gun, he's been so thoroughly beaten and abused he doesn't think he deserves her friendship anymore.
- Beyond Redemption: By the end of his nightmares, Goh sees himself as a lost cause when it comes to his friendship with Chloe, believing that no matter what he does, he'll always be a failure, and that everything would be better if he just stopped existing. At the very least, the Train begs to differ...
- Bewildering Punishment: He's completely stumped on why he's being subjected to his nightmare therapy; partially because he can't figure out what it means on his own, partially because Parker and Zeno are more interested in breaking him than helping him.
- Break the Believer: He honestly believed that not only was he a good friend to Chloe, but that she was perfectly fine and had no issues whatsoever. Needless to say, his nightmare therapy session snaps these beliefs in half, and then some.
- Break the Cutie:
- With a little bit of Break the Haughty thrown into the mix. Over the course of Blossoming Trail, Goh gradually breaks down as he learns more and more about just what Chloe was going through at school, as well as learning from Tokio what she might be enduring on the Train. Then the Intermission has him utterly shattered when Chloe gives him her farewell text.
- And then his nightmare therapy session ups everything with what he goes through to the point he's thrown into an ambulance and presumably kept under suicide watch believing he is unable to do anything right.
- Broken Smile: Sports one of these while tending to the injured Mew to the point that Zeno is terrified.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: At the start of the story, Goh was an excitable, hopeful boy who was obsessed with Pokémon and wished to catch them all, showing an incredible determination regarding it, for better or for worse. One Nightmare Sequence after another later, his enthusiasm and determination is all but gone, replaced by self-loathing and despair so great and volatile, he must be transferred to a suicide ward. And by the time the end of Act 3 arrives, and Chloe has become a more mature and confident girl, he has become a broken shell who blames himself for everything that happened between them and has no hope, no future in mind.
- Body Motifs: The face. When Chloe snaps and throws curry at him, she strikes his face, he has a hard time facing his issues and consequences, and after his nightmare therapy session, whenever his Character Tics happen, he specifically scratches at his face.
- Buried Alive: The final nail in the coffin of his diminishing sanity involves a nightmare variant of Sara burying him, while he's still breathing, and right after he's failed to get the hint dozens of times.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: To Chloe, the curry they had and the promise they made about it is a cornerstone of her and Goh's troubled friendship. To Goh, it's a nice moment that he eventually forgot about. Needless to say, he gets quite a lot of flak for this. It's later revealed that it's not the curry that Chloe was mad at, but the loss of opportunities to spend more time with him.
- Bullied into Depression: A mental variation, compared to Chloe's physical and emotional one. His Epiphany Therapy by the hands of Zeno does such a huge number on his mind that he's left an utter wreck by the end of it, spiraling into a deep depression that even Chloe finds horrible.
- But Now I Must Go: Once the Train comes to pick him up, he doesn't waste time stalling and boards it immediately, though he at least leaves a note behind before doing so.
C-D
- Calling the Old Man Out: He finally lets his parents know how much they screwed up by letting his issues grow out of control when they visit him at the end of the Cyan Desert Arc and in Voyage of Wisteria Act 1 when he learns that they could've stopped working anytime they wanted and actually spend more time in raising him properly.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: As he points out to Ms. Roycewood, she can't get the Mew Tracker if he dies, nor will it work if the injured Mew dies before it can be obtained. So, if she wants to get a Shiny Mew, she can't kill either of them.
- Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: Goh and Chloe's relationship was already pretty harshly damaged on both sides, but once she runs away, Goh comes to realize how much she actually liked Chloe (although in a very twisted way) and goes down a downward spiral when he fails to see her again.
- Cassandra Truth:
- When he finally gets in contact with Chloe and tells her that she's greatly missed in Vermillion City, she doesn't believe him, still being resentful over how everybody treated her.
- His assessment of there being a magical therapy train, and it being the reason why Chloe's missing, gets quite a few raised eyebrows from everybody in the room.
- Character Development: The second half of Blossoming Trail's Arc 2 is about him realizing how he has been a horrible and insensitive friend to everyone and is working on developing social skills and empathy. Voyage of Wisteria is about crawling out of the hole others pushed him in until he becomes more confident and mature.
- Characterization Marches On: Early Blossoming Trail makes Goh come across as rather sexist alongside being too tunnel visioned in his pursuits, to the point he outright says he wants Chloe to come back so she can Stay in the Kitchen. Come Act 2, and this trait is swiftly erased to give more focus to his lack of social skills and tunnel vision.
- Character Tics: After the trauma of his "nightmare therapy", he has a very bad habit of wanting to claw at his own face if he feels anything on it.
- Childhood Friends: With Chloe, allegedly. Unfortunately, by the time Blossoming Trail starts, their friendship has suffered over because he never bothered to actually care for her. Voyage of Wisteria flips this on its head when it's revealed that Goh did care for her in his own way, but he couldn't express it since he didn't have the social skills to explain himself and Chloe was shuting him out.
- Clawing at Own Throat: Face, but it's the same principle: after his nightmares, he begins scratching at his own face whenever he thinks something's touching them.
- Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: His arrival on the train gets him surrounded by people adoring his old friend, which doesn't do his self-esteem any favors.
- Cope by Creating: During his stay at the hospital, he takes up drawing and writing stories to vent out his frustrations. Needless to say, they're both very disturbing, to the point that Chloe shouldn't looking at them.
- Composite Character: A reader pointed out that if Chloe has traits of characters on the Train, so does Goh...except they're the negative traits: stubborn, argues with a parent, and coops themselves all the time in their room on a computer (Tulip), wants everything to be focused on him in an effort to be loved (Grace), a lack of empathy (Simon), a goal that somehow becomes a soul-crushing obsession (Mace) and wishing to be with someone no matter the consequences and people they hurt, not to mention wanting to have things as they are (Conductor-Amelia)
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Deconstructed. Goh is the kind of character who complains about everything, and just about every character give him a piece of their mind regarding this attitude. However, the ones doing the calling out focus a little too much on his wrongdoing: instead of giving him time to breathe, every single time he complains, he gets called out, no matter the nature of the complaint. This leads him to bottle up his own emotions, since he's learned that if he ever speaks his mind the world will shoot him down regardless of whether he deserves it or not.
- And it gets worse in "Voyage of Wisteria": the nature of this trope, coupled by his fragile mental state after all the crap her went through in BT, causes his number to rapidly fluctuate, going up and down at random because he's constantly second-guessing himself.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: As far as his train journey goes, the opposite of Chloe: Chloe of the Vermillion was outgoing and would publically post herself singing to the entire train and was quite eager to create the Red Lotus Trio for her destiny with the vocal support of Atticus and Lexi. Goh is an introvert who intentionally keeps as low a profile as possible, delays creating a name for his "group" until the end of Act 2 and sings to himself with the help of the near-silent Warbler. Chloe relied on her strength in sports, whereas Goh ends up being a Guile Hero.
- Cosmic Plaything: Ever since Chloe left Vermillion City, the universe seems to have chosen Goh as her replacement. His best friend? Not only nowhere to be seen, but when he does call her, she makes it clear she wants nothing to do with him. Professor Cerise? Too troubled to pay him attention. His parents? Ground him for what happened after doing next to nothing to rein in his bad habits. Chloe's classmates? Rub it in his face how they put her through a living hell while he wasn't around. Parker and Zeno? Subject him to two of the most traumatic nightmares he'll ever have, under the flimsy excuse they'll help him, while ultimately only managing to convince him that he's utterly hopeless and he'd be better off dead]] Bede? Destroys him in a Pokémon battle, and then verbally. Try to go to school more often and just not focus on Mew? Get kidnapped by a Shiny hunter he met online who has critically injured Mew. Finally getting on the therapy train and meeting a friendly Denizen? Turns out he's a murderer.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: He shows many signs of this towards Ash, hating Trip simply because he is Ash's boyfriend. It even gets to the point of wanting to tell Delia just so she would break them up.
- Creative Sterility: According to
Word of God, this is the reason why Goh didn't unleash the Unown during Blossoming Trail Act 2: if he had done so, the Chloe he would've made would've been like a princess in a tower, which he would've kept as a trophy while barely paying attention to anything else. Given what Parker does with them, however... - Cry into Chest: Does this when he reunites with Tokio again, in contrast to the anime when he just calmly walks towards him.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: When he fights Bede in a Pokémon battle, it doesn't take long before Goh is handed his butt on a silver platter. Given everything he just went through, this was the last thing he needed.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: That said, he pulls out a solid trick in that fight that even Bede acknowledges was pretty smart and skilled.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Was this for both Chloe and her brother. When he became obsessed with searching for Mew, he pushed the two siblings aside, causing Chloe to have no one to confide her feelings to and Parker to plainly tell his mom that Goh and Chloe aren't friends anymore.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Let's just say that Green Phantom Queen really wanted to take a good hard look at Goh in this story.
- Chloe deconstructs the "female who joins Ash on a Pokémon journey" while he deconstructs the idea of being obsessed with capturing lots of Pokémon: he has little to no social skills or empathy, no human friends aside from Ash — more-so under the belief that he feels Pokémon make better friends than humans — and because he ignored Chloe in favor of his goal, he doesn't realize how important she is to his life until she disappears nor does he even know anything about her outside just "no longer liking Pokémon". While he starts stressing out about what he's done, Chloe is now free from having to be ignored by him and can live her life without worry.
- Goh is the deconstruction of a collector-type Trainer. Raboot is concerned if their relationship is true or whether the bunny is just a stepping stone to Mew. Goh also is known to have very limited empathy and social skills, thinking all about himself in the process. He isolates himself from Ash and Professor Cerise — not even telling the latter that he's been trying to contact the Professor's daughter — and keeps becoming absorbed in his work to not think of anything, and then going deeper and deeper into a never-ending spiral.
- Goh shows exactly what kind of person would be a Fair-Weather Friend and what would be the result of their actions. Goh and Chloe are allegedly friends, but because the former has so many communication issues that hasn't been treated, not to mention he has little idea of how friendships work in the first place, that eventually all he does is alienate the few friends he does have, all while not knowing why or how to fix it.
- He tears the Asshole Victim trope in half: after Chloe disappears from Vermillion City, he becomes the primary culprit of why she left, as their strained relationship is one of the biggest factors. What initially seems like a well-deserved karmic beating that Goh had coming quickly grows uncomfortable when the story and its characters just won't let Goh catch a break, further withering at his mind while he tries to fix his mistake, until eventually, he's essentially tortured to the point of losing the will to live. At that point, you can't even feel catharsis for his pain anymore, just shock and disgust at how far Parker and Zeno will go.
- Goh is not good with people because he thinks Pokémon make better friends since they can't abandon you. This does not do him any favors with Chloe who is sick and tired of being replaced by Pokémon.
- It's All About Me gets torn apart; Goh is always thinking about himself and what he thinks is good enough and doesn't even try to think of others' points of view. What started Blossoming Trail is him claiming he cares for Chloe, but then chews her out for not being like him, having a dream.
- Last, he deconstructs the idea of what it takes if someone actively seeks the Infinity Train out, deciding that Chloe comes first, and his mental health problems can be solved later. What type of person do you have to be if you become obsessed with entering some sort of magical therapy train if you don't even want to admit you have a problem of any sorts?
- Despair Event Horizon: The Blossoming Trail Intermission has him broken after Chloe sends him a farewell text, telling him to stop searching for her and that their friendship is over. Then he learns that Ash and Trip are boyfriends and sees Ash leaving with Trip as a sign of betrayal, especially after learning that Trip was on the Train in the past and was trying to keep it secret. And then Parker and Zeno not only make him go past the horizon but pretty much caused him to fall into an abyss without any signs of recovering with the aftermath of the nightmare therapy showing how he is now so devoid of hope because of how he had done nothing of great value.
- Deuteragonist: Of Blossoming Trail, as he is doing all he can to find his Childhood Friend while not understanding that he had the biggest role in chasing her away.
- "Dear John" Letter: Writes one of these for Chloe before he enters the Train.
- Death Seeker: It's all but stated that he has become suicidal after the events of his nightmare therapy, to the point you have to wonder, if the Train does pick him up, will he board it, or try to get run over by it? Thankfully, he's starting to get some help, but it's clear that he will have a long road for him.
- Detrimental Determination: Goh's focus in life is finding Mew and anything else that doesn't involve it is left to rot. This includes his friendship with Chloe, as he doesn't seem to notice nor care outside whether or not she's into Pokémon that she's in serious need of a friend for her to listen to her problems.
- Dismissing a Compliment: After the horrors witnessed in his nightmare therapy, Goh's at such a low point that trying to tell him something remotely positive about himself will result in him either denying it, countering with a reason why the compliment's false, or both. Even during the Cuddle Therapy of the Corgi Car, he can't take the puppies' compliments at their word when he's constantly hearing recriminations in his head.
- Drama Queen: Has a slight...overreaction to Ash's tie with Bea, acting as though it were a crushing loss that his friend needs ice cream for rather than a hard-fought tie that Ash is mildly bothered by. Played for Drama actually since he's still recovering from his nightmare therapy and how it reflects how he didn't care for Chloe when she lost to Ash.
- Dramatically Missing the Point:
- Has no reason why Chloe doesn't like Pokémon or why she doesn't know he cares for her as much as he cares for Ash and Raboot... failing to realize that he hasn't shown any interest or concern for her in the slightest for a good while. Moreover, he states that at least he has a Goal in Life compared to Chloe having no drive or dream, not realizing that it's making her feel even worse about herself because she's not allowed to dream of a better future herself because of the bullying she goes through at school that's pushing her to be exactly like her father (to the point that even Ash realized that Goh has just crossed a line).
- He naively believes that finding Chloe equates to patching things up. He has no idea that Chloe 1) doesn't want to be found, 2) he'll be the same as he always was and thus nothing has changed and 3) as long as Chloe is on the Train and has a number, there's no way that she can return. Best evidenced in the Intermission; Chloe gives him a bunch of demands for him to make as she can't return to Vermillion anytime soon...yet he still insists that she'll come back because he demands it.
- His nightmare therapy is an exercise of Goh not getting the picture when Zeno shows him scenario after scenario of him trying to understand how to get to Chloe and failing every single time whereas it only takes Zeno one attempt to make Chloe calm down. It’s then Played for Drama when Goh finally realizes...Only to completely give up on everything, instead of trying to fix things like Zeno hoped.
E-H
- The Eeyore: After he's released from the suicide ward his mood goes from "I'm a worthless piece of crap who doesn't deserve to live!" to "Life has beaten me down so much at this point that I don't care anymore."
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After a story and a half of being verbally abused, having his life ruined, getting kidnapped by an insane Shiny Hunter and then being hounded by an immortal butterfly boy serial killer, Goh finally gets a break when the Train learns the extent of Chloe's spite and slander in the final fight, the two manage to properly patch things up, he manages to defeat Ogami for good, and returns home with a healthier state of mind and better understanding of what he did wrong and how he wasn't the worst as everyone had previously slandered him as.
- Elemental Motifs: If Chloe has a Fire/Water Juxtaposition theme, then Goh has a juxtaposition of his own: only between Wind and Earth instead.
- On the Wind side, one of the most notable features about it is that once it gets going, next to nothing can get it to stop, and it soars through the sky without paying attention to the world around it. This fits perfectly with Goh's tunnel vision and obssession, especially when it comes to catching Mew. On a lesser note, people with a Wind motif tend to be airheads, and Goh is no exception.
- On the Earth side, he shows the hard working, yet the immutable and stubborn traits: once Goh gets set on a path, he'll give it his absolute all to reach it to the end, no matter the cost. However, he also can't handle things changing and desires for things to go back to what they once were, refusing to back down even when it would be better for his health if he did so.
- Empty Shell: Parker and Zeno's nightmares have drained what little will to live he had left. He slowly starts to get better afterwards, but it's a long, bitter road. And he's currently on a trip in a therapy train...
- Entitled to Have You:
- Shows signs of this towards Chloe, firmly believing that she can't defend herself while on the train, and ignores what she is trying to tell him, blaming their friendship falling apart on her and insisting that she come back just because he wants it.
- Also has this towards Ash, as he doesn't take the fact, Ash, has a boyfriend very well, harshly telling Trip to leave and protesting that Ash is HIS friend. Later on, he thinks of going to Delia and telling her about the relationship in hopes of breaking it up just to 'show Ash what it means to suffer.' Unbeknownst to him, Delia is aware of and accepts the relationship.
- Exhausted Eye Bags: He gains these after searching for Chloe for three days without rest. He later is shown to have tiny bags in Voyage of Wisteria, only losing them after the Corgi Car's cuddle therapy session.
- Evil Former Friend: Subverted. Given the way that Chloe talks about him, how he becomes more abrasive and insensitive as the story goes on, and the mental and emotional abuse he suffers across the story, you'd expect Goh to take the next step in typical Revenge Fic territory and turn evil to justify hating him. However, while he doubles down on being a jerk, he never turns outright evil like Parker under the influence on the Unown and instead is given sympathy by the narrative, with his Nightmare Therapy serving as the pivotal point where the whole "Goh gets punished over being a bad friend" plot goes way too far and causes people to reconsider whether he really deserved what happened to him.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Goh is the last person who can read the room, but even he can see that what his and Chloe's classmates did was utterly wrong.
- In his nightmare therapy, he's horrified to see what would happen if Chloe never left the Train and was like he wanted her to be: her giving up on life and jumping off the school's roof when he ignores a cry of help from her.
- Parker's visions confirm that he wouldn't have gone through with outing Ash unless Ash was completely negligent in talking to him.
- False Dichotomy: Before his "therapy", Goh had a lot of trouble trying to process if he was either "Chloe's best friend who grew too focused on Mew to pay time to her" or "a terrible a friend who abandoned Chloe when she needed him most." After his "therapy", he gets caught up in an even worse one, since he's either "a failure of a friend who never was there for Chloe when she needed him" or "a person who made honest mistakes but was horribly tortured because people were unwilling to give him or help him get a chance."
- Facial Horror: Gets a habit of scratching his face whenever he feels someone touching it after his nightmares hit their peak. An alternate version of him from a world where Parker won, however, takes the cake, with his face constantly peeling off with the implication of going on forever.
- False Friend: Subverted. Everybody is quick to assume that Goh wasn't really a friend of Chloe due to being insensitive and never being there for her, but Goh really did care about her. He just does a really bad attempt to express it that nobody gives him the benefit of the doubt, not to mention that he honestly has trouble explaining this. Voyage of Wisteria reveals that he truly cared for Chloe, sacrificing sleep to search for her, horrified at his actions and honestly asks why Chloe didn't open up about her problems or even trust him.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: He takes a job at a malasada shop that Mallow opened in the Canals of Fondue Car, partially to repay for the mess he created in his fight with Ogami, and partially to keep a low profile and to avoid the harassment that would come should his identity be revealed as the Childhood Friend of the great Chloe of the Vermillion.
- Fair-Weather Friend: Goh claims he's a good friend, but it's clear from both the narration and the tropes present that he really isn't.
- Claims to be Chloe's friend, but neglected her in favor of chasing after Mew, didn't even bother to get to know what she liked or all of the bullying at school and all he knows about Chloe is just that she's not into Pokémon anymore as if Pokémon is the only thing he's concerned about a person. When she finally confronted him about this, he snapped back that she couldn't understand what that was like because she didn't HAVE any dreams of her own. He later convinces himself that Chloe was one towards him, extending that same logic towards everyone else... mainly because they aren't doing what he wants. In other words, the moment things aren't going so smoothly with them, he severs their bonds while blaming them for it. Moreover, as shown in the anime, he never keeps his word to arrive on time when Chloe asks her to, meaning that she can't trust him to actually be by her side when she needs it. Later flip-flopped in Voyage of Wisteria, when it's revealed that Goh truly WAS being a good friend to her, even if his actions didn't exactly show it, and that Chloe was just as bad a friend for giving up on him so quickly and not trusting him to talk about her issues.
- This is also reflected in his old friendship with Tokio. When Tokio wasn't able to meet up with him because of a fever, Goh effectively turned his back, assuming that he'd intentionally ditched him instead of trying to find out why he hadn't kept their promise.
- Slips into this with Ash as well and is ready to ditch and/or hurt him when things get difficult.
- Raboot is somewhat pissed at how Goh was ready to just leave him behind at Hoenn, and even questions whether or not he's just a stepping-stone towards Goh's ultimate goal, but gradually admits that he himself wasn't making an effort either.
- Ultimately, he's a pretty harsh Deconstruction, since not only does his attitude eventually cost him the few friends that he has, but his unaddressed issues and habits makes it all but impossible for him to fix things.
- Fatal Flaw: Out of all the characters in the Pokémon world that caused Chloe's problems, Goh has a lot of baggage that he's carrying.
- Obsession. He's obsessed with capturing Pokémon and hoping to find Mew that he ignores basically everyone else in his life or anything that doesn't interest him. This led to him ignoring Chloe for years, making her feel as though she didn't matter to him and completely ignoring the troubles she had in school because hey, it's not his problem because he's only going there for tests and he's got more interesting stuff to do! Following her disappearance, he begins obsessing over finding her instead, to the point that Trip fears he'd try boarding the Train if given the chance.
- Lack of People skills. He spent so much time in front of the computer in search of Mew and to subconsciously never be hurt from Tokio's "betrayal", that he has no idea how to read the room and notice Chloe's ever-growing personal issues over him (his parents even feared about him not having friends yet never did anything to curb this). He also doesn't even know anything about her even though he practically sees her at the Cerise Lab every single day nor does he even question why Chloe was even in the institute in the first place. And when he tries to communicate, it makes him seem unsympathetic to those he cares about to the point that when Zeno has him replay the events on the day Chloe ran away, he fails every single time. In comparison, Zeno just had to apologize once for Chloe to open up.
- Silence. He said nothing about Tokio to his parents and would rather shut-up about problems or turn his attention to something else. If he had talked about Tokio "betraying" him, then his parents probably would've reassured him everything was okay and that he still had Chloe. Moreover, he never told Professor Cerise that he's been trying to contact Chloe, which meant her father could've talked with his daughter sooner and made Chloe believe that, yes, her dad does care for her.
- Stasis. Goh wants things to return to the way they were before, heedless of how this fails to address any of the actual problems at hand or how he also needs to change himself. This refusal to change or adapt only serves to make matters worse. And when he is confronted with the situation in Vermilion changing beyond his ability to control things, he starts breaking down worse and worse, wondering why things can't go back to normal.
- Envy: He shows signs of being envious of Ash's accomplishments and later being envious of Trip taking his place as the latter's (boy)friend, mirroring everything that Chloe had over when Goh obsessed over Ash. This fuels his idea of being obsessed with having Ash by his side and, if not that, wants to make Ash miserable just so he understands what Goh is feeling.
- Denial: He can't accept that he has just as much a reason as to why his friendship with Chloe suffered and insists that everything is on her. It's gotten to the point that Raboot and Sobble are ready to leave him behind. And after the full weight of his Heel Realization hits, he denies any possibility of things improving for himself.
- Selfishness: Goh has been given everything in life: a device to detect Mew, the freedom to not go to school unless he goes for tests, a dream job where he can go see Pokémon out in the open and capture them. But when Chloe is gone and he starts acting like a brat because of it, we see that deep down Goh is not as altruistic or kind as he wants to make himself to be, given as he never shows any concern or time to actually maintain his friendships.
- Extremism: To Goh, the middle road plainly doesn't exist. He always goes towards one extreme, and if that doesn't work, he'll simply bounce towards the opposite rather than try to find a middle ground.
- Ignorance; if it doesn't involve him, he doesn't care about it. This means he was completely in the dark about Chloe's problems and thought everything was fine when in truth, it really wasn't.
- Failure Is the Only Option: No matter what Goh does, things don't go his way. Find Chloe? Nuh uh. Contact her and convince her to go home? Yeah, no. Trying to take time away from her and continue with his life? Not a chance. Start over with Ash? Psst, as if!
- This eventually reaches a fever pitch during his nightmare therapy, where Parker and Zeno make him watch how his wishes would've ruined everything he loved, as well as how easy it would've been to fix them. And whenever they do give him a chance to fix things himself? Goh's inability to learn and having the inability to read the room makes him fail constantly and be punished for every failure in turn.
- That then reaches its logical, deconstructive conclusion after the fact: Goh has experienced so many failures in such a short time span, that it has damaged not only his confidence and determination, but his self-esteem, reducing him into a sobbing mess who's convinced that he can he do nothing right, and will never be able to even try.
- He confesses to Warbler that he's so used to everyone explaining and proving how wrong he is that he cannot trust his own feelings.
- Five Stages of Grief: Is heavily in Denial and Anger over Chloe disappearing and is adamant about getting her back without getting to the root of what really is the problem. He tries going into Bargaining during the Intermission but then slips back into Anger while still holding onto Denial. And now is firmly stuck in Depression after his nightmare therapy session.
- It's later revealed in Voyage of Wisteria that he's feeling all of them except Acceptance when he's on the train, but he's so used to everyone explaining how wrong he is that it takes Warbler simply listening to him for him to open up.
- Flower Motif: Wisteria flowers; his surname has the Japanese word for wisteria in it (Fuji) and wisterias symbolizie love, wisdom, patience, and long life (which the author notes that the only good quality Goh has is patience). The author also notes how she wanted to contrast colors between Goh and Chloe (wisterias are mostly purple to contrast Chloe's red motif).
- Forced Out of the Closet: Out of jealousy of Ash's new relationship to Trip and the former not taking his side in arguments, Goh hoped to out him to his mother in the hopes that she would be disgusted. All while not knowing Ash already came out to her and Delia was shown to be fine with it. UnSara is able to influence him into admitting this plan while Parker is watching, angering the boy into Mind Raping him. In the Bad Future Parker saw, it is presumed that he does this, costing him everything... Even his own life when he is picked up by the Train.
- Forced to Watch: His "therapy" is very much an exercise of Goh being forced to witness what his actions would've done, but also how easy it would've been to fix them. And when he's actually given a chance to fix things? Then Failure Is the Only Option.
- The Friends Who Never Hang: He and Chloe are supposed to be friends, but the times that Goh actually interacted with Chloe that didn't involve Pokémon are absolutely nonexistent.Explanation This fuels a lot of Chloe's resentment over him because he never even thinks about her nor can he keep a promise to just arrive on time. All he cares about are his next adventure with Ash or his goal about Mew even though he claims that he cares about her just like he cares about Ash and Raboot but then quickly chews her out for not having a dream, never realizing that Chloe isn't allowed to. Moreover, it takes going to see Chloe's fellow classmates and them pointing out that he's asking them about her that really shows how ignorant he's been and multiple lessons and flashbacks for Goh to realize that he never was there when she needed him. He couldn't even stop by her house to wish her a happy birthday! Zeno also brings up how bad this traumatized Chloe; all she wanted was him to be there for her and yet he never showed her any consideration unless it involved Pokémon. Later on, Zeno points out that both of them were horrible friends with one another and that they need to work together to repair their friendship.
- In Voyage of Wisteria, Goh explains that he did care for Chloe and tried to be there for her even if his Pokémon obsession got in the way. He then asks why she couldn't trust him with her problems.
- Freudian Excuse: Goh used to have a friend in the form of Tokio, but when he failed to show up when they were supposed to go look for Celebi, because of Tokio falling ill that day, Goh became so deeply hurt over this he decided human friendships weren't worth it and began focusing on Pokémon. However...
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Chloe dismisses Tokio abandoning him as the reason why Goh abandoned friendship as it doesn't erase everything he did to her, up to and including practically dumping her for Ash, being insensitive and not understanding what she feels and then chewing her out for not having a dream when he barely even talks to her.
- Friendless Background: Just like Chloe, Goh never had any friends growing up outside of a boy named Tokio. Unlike Chloe, he willingly forgoed making new friends after Tokio failed to show up one day — not because Tokio intentionally stood him up, but rather he got ill — which he took incredibly badly. This also means that he has trouble maintaining his friendship with Chloe, culminating in a lot of pain and trauma and Blossoming Trail happening.note
- Get Out!:
- Screams this at Trip when he pushes one too many of his buttons.
- He does it again to Raboot and Sobble after his traumatizing Nightmare Sequence.
- Goal in Life: To find Mew and capture lots of Pokémon. Unfortunately this causes him to essentially leave Chloe in the dust and make her feel like she doesn't matter in his life.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: When his nightmare therapy culminates in Goh not only being forced to confront his part in the fallout of everything, but Zeno twisting the knife and showing how pathetically easy it would've been for him to fix it with a simple apology and a bit of empathy, Goh goes through the mother of all breakdowns and has to be sent to a suicide ward so he doesn't kill himself.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: His goal is to capture all Pokémon in an attempt to get to Mew. However, his obsession has caused him to neglect his friendship with Chloe and Raboot even questions whether their friendship is real or whether or not Raboot is just another steppingstone until Goh can get Mew. It's heavily implied in Journeys Episode 32 that he's only capturing Pokémon to avoid the pain of being abandoned by human friends.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Hinted to be jealous of all the friends Ash has made over the course of his travels. This only gets worse as he learns more about his various accomplishments, and really explodes upon discovering Ash and Trip's relationship. Heaven prays he never learns about the legend of Chloe of the Vermillion...
- Hates Being Touched: After his nightmare therapy, he can't stand being hugged by Raboot at all and it takes considerable effort for him to calm down.
- Harmful to Minors: Goh is only ten, but the sheer pain and suffering he goes through the story quickly becomes sickening to watch, even if he totally had it coming. See Trauma Conga Line for why.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Once on the train, he's keeping a low profile at the Malasadas shop Mallow opened, avoiding cameras so he isn't recognized...until Lexi sees him on television trying to avoid a statue of Chloe in the Canals of Fondue Car.
- His Own Worst Enemy: It's been repeatedly noted by the narration, the author herself, and the readers that most of Goh's problems are on him: that his inability to let go of any of his obsessions is what drove Chloe away in the first place, that his fear of not being hurt again from Tokio caused him to not be into friendship and even ignore the friends he did have, his refusal to actually have a social life to spend time with Chloe or make new friends, and the fact that he never actually does anything to maintain his friendships are what is causing him to lose everything including his sanity and drive to live.
- Hourglass Plot:
- Has effectively switched places with Chloe after she boarded the Train — now she's the one going on adventures and ignoring his existence while he's been left behind, yearning for the days where their relationship was stronger.
- Chloe was envious of Ash taking over as Goh's best friend and all of his achievements. Now Goh is envious of Trip taking his place as Ash's (boy)friend and all of his achievements.
- Goh's bitterness has also grown to the point that it reflects how Chloe felt isolated and miserable in Vermillion, as he convinces himself that everybody is against him and nobody's willing to help or support his efforts in any way.
- After his nightmare therapy, Goh is now convinced he is unable to change and move on, becoming a Nervous Wreck, not unlike Chloe being a Shrinking Violet before the Train got to her.
- Chloe's role was to learn to open up to others while Goh's story is learning how to be more empathetic and considerate. This is portrayed as Chloe given support and love from strangers, while Goh is nothing but harassed by his loved ones for being too oblivious for his own good.
- The end of Blossoming Trail has Goh the Nervous Wreck and Chloe the more confident and focus-driven one of the two, with Goh unable to accept this and have the Train drag him in as a result. When Voyage of Wisteria starts, he's timid, shy and has no idea what he wants to do in life whereas Chloe is proactive and on the hunt for her own Pokémon while also being concerned over what happened to her friend.
- Hope Is Scary: After the nightmare therapy, Goh's confidence and optimism has been shredded so thoroughly, right after the rising tensions in Vermillion City have left him in a perpetual bad mood to boot, that he's reduced to screaming at Zeno to go away, believing that the only thing he's there for is to torture him some more.
- Hypocrite:
- Lambasts Chloe in the first chapter that he cares for her...when it's clearly shown throughout the story that he never gave Chloe a second glance and just a few paragraphs later shouts that he's so much better than her for having a dream without considering how much that really hurts her. And then just paragraphs after he said he cared for her, he tells her that he's so much better than her cause he has a dream.
- He hated Tokio for abandoning him and breaking their promise (albeit it's because Tokio was sick so he couldn't go out). He constantly breaks his promises to Chloe and doesn't show any concern for her feelings or things she does for him.
- Hypocrite Has a Point: Downplayed, but during his self-pitying internal monologue in the Trading Event, he notes that Chloe did nothing to help their friendship, brooding to herself rather than accept his invitations or taking any initiative to confront him. That said, he's pointedly avoiding acknowledging how much responsibility he has for what became of their relationship.
I-L
- I Hate Past Me: He took two hobbies during his stay at the hospital to vent: writing and drawing. The former is quite clearly venting about how the person he used to be: the Mew-obsessed Trainer who couldn't be there for Chloe; a person he absolutely despises and would rather have never existed.
- Informed Attribute: Supposedly, Goh is insanely privileged and well-regarded because, like 95% of the population, he is obsessed with Pokemon above all else. Chloe spends quite some time stewing over how unfair it is that Goh gets his dream "delivered to him on a silver platter" while she is left with the crumbs and that Goh can chew out that he's better than her cause he has a dream while she doesn't. Actually reading the story, however, paints quite a different picture; unlike his friend Chloe, the only real talent Goh displays is in Poké mon catching - a talent that no one actually cares about. The bullies at school scorn "No-Show Goh" as much as they do Chloe - Goh only avoided their bullying by lacking any sort of connection to children his age, aside from Chloe and only going to school on a "personal promise" to take tests. The general public, with Parker and Lexi in the lead, is eager to reduce Goh to being "Chloe's friend," and his dreams of catching Mew to merely a poor excuse for his behavior and a distraction from what's really important. And as for those fellow Pokemon experts who should care about Goh's passion, Ash Ketchum and Professor Cerise, they were too thoroughly distracted by Chloe's disappearance to think about Pokémon for much of the duration of the first fic. Ash starts the story arguing with Goh, later distances himself from him on Trip's advice, and finally ends up dragging a catatonic Goh around to give him some form of therapy before the Infinity Train gets him, to little if any avail. Professor Cerise, meanwhile, barely acknowledged his employee for the entire trilogy. And in the end, not only was a random poacher with a handgun able to casually achieve Goh's Goal in Life, she quickly decided that the feat wasn't impressive enough for her! She was willing to throw an injured Mew at Goh just to get the kid to stop whining while she searched for a Shiny Mew! Whether you look at the narrative or at other characters, it's hard to find respect for Goh or his goals in the Blossomverse.
- Innocently Insensitive: His complete lack of social skills means that whatever he says goes out horribly wrong and he's not aware of what he's saying. This drives a lot of the story's conflict: many of Chloe's problems wouldn't have risen if he was aware that what he said or did was mean and was actually there for her or if someone was there to help him properly express his feelings. When he's given a What If? scenario to make him learn his mistake on the night Chloe ran away, he fails every single time. Zeno only has to just apologize and admit he's a stubborn idiot to Chloe with a promise to be better to get the job done. Voyage of Wisteria has him reveal what he was trying to tell Chloe on the night everything went wrong — that he actually wanted to help her find a dream — and Chloe bitterly remarks that she would've been fine if he just clarified everything.
- In-Series Nickname: Sara and other students in Class 5-E, his and Chloe's class, calls him "No-Show" Goh because he rarely, if ever, goes to school.
- Irony: To the point you have to wonder if the universe hates him.
- One of the things that Goh chews Chloe out for is that she has no drive to chase her dreams. Thing is, after Chloe gets sucked on the train, while he's worried about her and feeling just what she felt when he went after Mew, Chloe is free to chase her own dreams of discovering herself on the Infinity Train and doesn't even look back at Goh at all...like how he essentially ignored her for his dreams.
- One of the things that Goh constantly did to Chloe was apologize for replying late and "promising" not to do it again. Chloe does the same tactic to him replying more than 2 weeks after her disappearance as a way to spite him.
- His last name, Fujihachi, is based on "Wisteria". Wisterias are symbols of patience...but his patience — which was great in his pursuit for Mew — is now wearing thin when he's trying to find any signs of Chloe (who he essentially abandoned to the side).
- Another meaning of the wisteria flower is a long life. After the hell he goes through Act 1 and 2, both from his own and other people's doing, it wouldn't be surprising if he died young from sheer stress alone.
- Goh wasn't there when Chloe needed him; now that she's gone, Goh wants to become the center of her world.
- After all but replacing Chloe with Ash without thinking about how she felt, Goh develops an almost obsessive complex with refusing to let Ash replace him as a friend, or any kind of replacement, even just trading Pokémon.
- After Chloe tells him outright to leave her be, Goh stews over her selfish inability to consider how he or anyone else feels... while spiraling into his own self-absorbed delusions about being betrayed by everyone around him.
- He actively looked for the Train at the start of the story. After Parker's failed Nightmare Therapy and his own subsequent breakdown, Ash, Trip, and Serena take him to Saffron City with the silent understanding that there's now a high — if not guaranteed — possibility that he'll end up as a passenger.
- Goh devolves into It's All My Fault after the "therapy" is over, but at that point, he's being taken around by Ash and Co. with the hopes of cheering him up so he doesn't end up on the train. The irony comes from the fact that earlier in the story, everybody blamed Goh for Chloe's disappearance, a fact that he couldn't accept or refused to. The one time Goh sees he's at fault is when people aren't pointing fingers at him.
- This one's particularly cruel: Goh spent several years with mental issues that only worsened as nobody did anything about them, despite how obvious the issues actually were. After the Unown incident, people not only finally notice something's wrong with him, but are trying to fix it... when he's all but unsalvageable as a sane person.
- After going through so much pain and torture in Arc 2, Goh is doing all he can to not obsess with Mew and live a normal life. Cut to Arc 3 having him meet up with one of the Legendary Hunters he met in an online forum revealing an injured Mew...
- And finally after having Mew in his hands, he can't accept it or how Chloe, who is now more mature and confident and focused on a goal, is being there for him and it ultimately leads him to the Train.
- What made Goh think that Tokio no longer wanted to be his friend? Tokio not showing up for them to search for Celebi (albeit this is justified; Tokio was sick). What was the thing that he kept doing to Chloe that made her hate him? Never showing up on time and constantly making excuses why he'd be late even though she's always there.
- One of his biggest problems is that he doesn't properly listen to what people are telling him and doesn't account for anyone else's feelings...but after the upteenth speech about how wrong he is about everything, before and after he breaks, he's genuinely surprised when Warbler simply listens to him and validates his own feelings.
- Many people, Trip chief among them, calls him out for not doing anything to try help Chloe or the situation. However, while everybody else is watching the Blame Game going on with popcorn in their hands, Goh at least tried to look for Chloe for three days straight, only stopping when he got sick.
- One of the things that Goh chews Chloe out for is that she has no drive to chase her dreams. Thing is, after Chloe gets sucked on the train, while he's worried about her and feeling just what she felt when he went after Mew, Chloe is free to chase her own dreams of discovering herself on the Infinity Train and doesn't even look back at Goh at all...like how he essentially ignored her for his dreams.
- It's All About Me: In many ways, Goh's desire to find Chloe stems from wanting to assuage his guilty conscience. What Chloe wants doesn't actually factor in at all.
- This trait gets amplified by Chloe's decisive rejection of his Unwanted Rescue attempts. Afterwards, he descends into angry brooding, convincing himself that everyone's aligned against him... and grousing about the idea that Chloe didn't take it upon herself to fix their relationship on her own.
- He hates the fact Ash is in a relationship, constantly thinking that 'Ash is HIS friend' and that Ash should side with him over his own boyfriend (Trip). It even gets to the point that he has an urge to tell Delia about the relationship just so she would force Ash to break up with Trip just because he wants Ash to suffer like he has. According to Parker, this would've caused Goh to lose everything, even his life.
- In a way, his annoyance at everyone's concern for Hop and Alain can be seen as this, as he's upset they are not solely focusing on Chloe (and by extension, his problems).
- It's All My Fault:
- Heavily blames himself for causing Chloe to run away from home to the point that he gets a fever after three days of endless searching. It gets worse when he fully accepts that yes, Chloe is probably gone forever all because of his stubbornness and obsession with Mew. Unfortunately, while he knows it's his fault, he doesn't realize how deep the blame is on him and assumes that her slamming his face with the plate of curry was just the tipping point of her anger finally letting loose and he doesn't get how much he hurt Chloe. Then he starts blaming her for all of this to happen...
- ...until his Nightmare Therapy has him unshakeably convinced that no matter what he does, it will always be his fault and that nothing he can do will change it, to the point of shutting down and not even trying to do anything again. He ends up screaming this during a bad meltdown later on.
- In the finale of Blossoming Trail, he apologizes up and down how horrible he was...but at this point, Chloe admits that she also should've done more to raise her voice and express how much she wanted Goh back into her life and that she would've been okay with his goal to hunt Mew as long as they spent time together. Unfortunately, it doesn't convince Goh to stay or believe like he deserved Chloe's friendship...
- I Should Have Been Better: The one thing that "nightmare therapy" did right was getting Goh to finally recognize this trope.
- I Will Find You: Come hell or high water, Goh is determined to find Chloe...even though Trip says it's best that he doesn't and Chloe doesn't want to be found. The Intermission has him break down completely when Chloe expresses her desires to never be found by him.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- During his and Chloe's fight, he was being mean and insensitive to Chloe but he's accurate in that Ash has at least tried to get to know Chloe and that it was her fault for rejecting his requests every single time, with Chloe eventually admitting that he was right on that point. And while his Armor-Piercing Response to her question of where he was when she needed him was the last straw, Goh points out that at least he's doing something with his life, unlike her.
- Goh refuses to have Chloe discover what happened to Hop and Alain under the belief that she's incapable of protecting herself. But considering how dangerous the Train can be and what happened to one of Ash's strongest rivals, he has a right to be worried. Moreover, he makes a valid point that he should know what happened to Chloe instead of Trip keeping it secret from him in the first place. (Trip would later admit that Goh was correct)
- During his nightmare torture, he is not wrong to point out that Chloe could have gotten out of school the same way he did. A later dream even had Professor Cerise offer it up when he heard the bullying was still going on. He could have phrased the concept a lot better, but he's not wrong on the basic concept.
- Goh tries to avert blame by pointing out that Chloe hasn't done anything to fix their problems (albeit he thinks that Chloe has to do all the work in said friendship). Chloe on the train admits that she really didn't do more to connect with him and vows to be better.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite going into great levels of jerkassitude, he remembered Chloe's birthday and gifted her with a book she wanted. This makes Parker pause because he can't understand why Goh, who essentially abandoned Chloe for Mew, could still be capable of doing something good.
- Despite how low he has fallen, Goh is revealed to still care for Chloe, Ash, and Tokio as shown in his dreams, since he frantically tries to save all of them from death in his nightmare. And every single one of his failed efforts still demonstrates that he wants Chloe to be happy again.
- Karmic Butt-Monkey: Deconstructed. Goh gets a lot of misfortune coming his way, and admittedly a lot of it is self-inflicted. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long for his misfortune to start coming from outside sources, who couldn't care less about how guilty he really is, and by the end of Act 2, the severity of his punishments far outweights what he did to earn it.
- Laser-Guided Karma: All those actions Goh did to focus on Mew and ignore everyone else were reaped in ways he did not want.
- Goh had a bad tendency to reply that he'll be late to Chloe and never showed up on time. This culminates in Chloe on the Train, effectively ghosting him before telling him around 2 weeks after she got on the Train to bug off.
- Goh wanting to tear Chloe and Ash down got the attention of Parker — thanks to UnChloe amplifying Goh's anger — and sent him on a collision course to nightmare street. Moreover, it's also because Goh ignored the problems with the Cerises (and of course, Parker) that he fell into this.
- Goh's obsession over Mew, going onto different forums with hunters eventually got him kidnapped because his Mew Tracker was a holy grail for a crazed Shiny Mew hunter.
- Laughing Mad: He begins laughing eerily as his Freak Out begins to take full effect, thought it quickly gets replaced with despair as it goes on. And then he remembers the curry promise...
- Lesser of Two Evils: He becomes this as the true extent of Sara, Chloe's classmates, and Parker's actions become known: say what you will about Goh having No Social Skills, No Listening Skills, being insensitive, obsessed with Pokémon and his laundry list of mental issues, the damage he did to Chloe wasn't intentional, nor did he drag down Vermillion City into a pit of despair, eventually giving them every reason to loathe Chloe once it became known the horrors could be traced back to her.
- Loving a Shadow: Has some signs of this, believing Chloe should be the way he wants her to be and sees her as a 'damsel in distress' while in reality, she's anything but. And when he and Chloe reunite, he is ashamed to see that the girl he once knew is more confident, outgoing, and brave, whereas he's a broken shell.
- Loss of Identity: The sheer psychological trauma he goes through in his nightmare therapy does such a number on his mental health that the Goh before and after the Nightmare Sequence might as well be different people. Professor Cerise makes it even clearer when he tells Chloe about it: the Goh she used to know, that everybody used to know, both the good and the bad, is well and truly gone.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Simply put, Goh may be many things, but he's not omniscient.
- Since he only goes to school for tests, he was completely unaware of the bullying Chloe went through, the insults his classmates give the two of them (which is even worse; they both are in the same class) and how she's completely alone. Given how he reacts after he finds out about this, it's unlikely he'd have done nothing if he had known or actually went to school more often.
- He has no idea what's happening with Chloe at the Infinity Train because she's not replying to her since she wants him to just bug off after how he constantly never kept his promises on actually meeting up with her on time. He naturally assumes the worst, since Chloe ran away without even a Pokémon for help, and the more he finds out about it, the more worried he gets.
- He wasn't aware of the issues the Cerise Family had at home. Even if he could do nothing about it, knowing what was going on would make Chloe's outburst seem less sudden.
- He was unaware that Parker and everybody else were seeing him as an attempt to get the boy to stop because his parents took his phone on the one day it would've been useful. Unfortunately, this eventually ends up being his downfall...
- Chloe never tried reminding him of the curry promise they did when they were younger. Again, knowing about this would've made her outburst be less sudden.
- After getting a book Chloe wanted for her birthday, Goh drops it off at the doorstep and walks home under the assumption Chloe was having fun with her friends. She wasn't; no one wanted to befriend her, something he would've known if he entered the house or at least went to school and saw what was going on. Goh tearfully admits that he would've entered the house, wished his friend a Happy Birthday and had cake with her if he knew.
M-R
- Madness Mantra: “And I’m the reason for that. My fault, my fault, my fault, my fault my fault my fault! THIS IS ALL MY FAULT!!!!"
- The Mentally Disturbed: He's not in a mentally healthy state after the Unown incident. Even after he gets to vent a bit and is discharged from the hospital, it's clear his mind is not fine.
- Mental Health Recovery Arc: Once he's had enough time to calm down after his... "therapy," Ash and co. take him out to try help him move on and recover from it. Considering the sheer ''hell'' he just went through, as well as the various Hope Spot and chain yanking he's been subjected to, this is a much needed change of pace.
- Voyage of Wisteria becomes another recovery arc for Goh after his and Chloe's roles on the Infinity Train are reversed.
- Meaningful Name: His last name translates to "Wisteria bridge", which the author notes are because wisteria flowers can represent patience (a double-edged sword with Goh's tenacious pursuit of his goals), as well as how he burned his bridges with Chloe and Parker the minute he obsessed over Mew. Chloe's farewell text to him compares this to the legend of Tanabata, where Hikoboshi and Otohime meet once a year over a bridge (of Corvisquire), except Goh never comes to see her again and she got tired of waiting for him.
- Mind Rape: Two of Parker's last wishes is to make Goh suffer through two nightmares: one where Goh got his wish and one where he saw himself actually being Chloe's friend. Needless to say, this really did a number on Goh's psyche.
- More Insulting than Intended: The Armor-Piercing Response that set Chloe on the Train ("Chasing my dreams which is something you lack!") was this; whatever he meant to say, it hurt Chloe much deeper than he wanted to— because it just reminded her how she's not allowed to pursue her own goals — and then Vermillion City learned about it...In Voyage of Wisteria, what he was trying to do was get Chloe to actively find something that will make her pursue a dream.
- Must Make Amends: He wants to do whatever he can to find Chloe in the hopes that doing so will instantly repair their friendship. He has no idea that Chloe never wants to see him again until the Intermission tells him that she's done trying to mend fences with him. In an attempt to help him make amends, Parker's wishes were made so he understood how he could be a better friend...but this "Nightmare Therapy" prevents Goh from doing anything under the belief that he'll just make mistake after mistake, and everyone will leave him.
- The ending of Blossoming Trail has Goh willing the Train to pick him up because he feels he doesn't deserve Chloe's friendship or forgiveness after she comes back more mature than ever. His farewell note is him promising that he'll do everything he can to be a better friend.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- He spent several nights unable to sleep as he realized that Chloe running away was because he never showed any sympathy for her. Unfortunately, that's the only epiphany he's had so far. Then Parker and Zeno make him face all he did wrong...too well.
- Upon learning that on Chloe's birthday she had no friends celebrating with her — as he just left her gift at the doorstep and walked off without even knocking on the door to tell her Happy Birthday and he's not even going to school to realize how much Chloe suffers unless it's for tests — Goh cries that he would've gone and had cake with her if he had known that Chloe was always alone.
- Never Be Hurt Again: After his and Tokio's friendship fell apart because he immediately assumed Tokio betrayed him, when it was all just a big misunderstanding of him being sick, Goh vowed to never try becoming friends with people again (or even focus on the sole friendship he had with Chloe), and instead focus on Pokémon, who theoretically wouldn't leave him behind. This ended up hurting him more than anything else he knew and then some.
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: Feeling so utterly sick and tired of waiting for the inevitable, Goh doesn't waste time and enters the Train as soon as he can in the final chapter of Blossoming Trail, leaving behind a note to say goodbye for him.
- Never My Fault: Completely blames Chloe for their friendship falling apart at first, ignoring the fact that him pushing her away was the main reason that said friendship failed. He sees the repercussions of this thinking in his Nightmare Sequence, at which point he bounces to the other extreme.
- Nervous Wreck: Worried becomes his default state when Chloe goes missing, and though it's quickly replaced by his anger and growing bitterness, there's an air of tension whenever he's the focus of a scene. After his nightmares, this state becomes infinitely worse and by the time he's on the Train in Voyage of Wisteria, the Goh there and the Goh in Blossoming Trail are completely different.
- Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: During his stay at the hospital, Goh took to writing and drawing to vent his frustrations. The former is basically the words "Hurt", "Hopeless" and "Xeno" repeated over and over. The latter is so horrific to Ash, Serena, and Trip that we're not given a hint as to what they are, barring Goh's memories and horrific ways that Chloe died. It's unanimously agreed that they don't tell Chloe about them.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Goh's lack of social skills and disinterest in Chloe, her family and anything not Pokémon caused more trouble than it was worth, to the point that it destroyed an entire city.
- Ash would've been more willing to understand more of Chloe's problems had Goh said something other than "She's not into Pokémon anymore" and played a bigger role in actually learning what was wrong with his friend or what she liked in general. This is played out in a What If? scenario in his Nightmare Sequence when Ash actually asks if Goh even talked to Chloe recently and told him to do so.
- If Goh didn't state that Chloe shouldn't be calling him out because she doesn't have a dream, but instead actually apologized for his insensitivity, actually comforted her over her loss to Ash, or throughly explained what he meant by his insulting statement, she wouldn't have snapped and run away from home, culminating in the entire story to happen.
- If he told Professor Cerise that he tried texting Chloe, it would've motivated the Professor to actually talk to her. But because he didn't, Cerise had no idea that this was possible and it made Chloe believe that he doesn't love her at all to even communicate with her, bringing about her farewell letter that she's not coming back — along with her stating that she'll go back on the Train if he doesn't improve himself — which also indirectly caused Parker to unleash the Unown in an attempt to have Chloe back in some way, get revenge on the people who hurt her and then plunge all of Vermillion City into a living nightmare if no actions are taken, eventually ending with him broken beyond repair and losing any reason of living.
- Had he confessed to his parents about Tokio "abandoning" him, or actually made more of an effort to connect with his parents, he'd have more social skills and would've been able to bounce back from the loss.
- Nightmare Sequence: Blossoming Trail Chapter 21 is nothing but a massive one for him, and it's not one that he comes out of unscathed.
- No Listening Skills: Goh can't listen to reason, and hates listening to how everything he brings up about Ash, Pokémon and curry makes Chloe feel even worse about herself. Chloe's train trip starts when she asks where he is when she's being bullied and alone at school and he states that he's off to chase a dream something she lacks, instead of noting that Chloe wants him to stay for once. In fact, in her farewell text, Goh doesn't get the message that Chloe does not want to come back — and is unable to for the time being because of her number and quest to stop The Apex — and assumes that if he did all she requested, she would return. This ultimately convinces Chloe that Goh doesn't truly care about her and that it's time to cut him off. Even when put into a Nightmare Sequence, he still does not get the hint that he has a big part to play in Chloe's problems.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
- When he discovers Chloe's gone missing, he searches for her for three days straight, running up a fever in the process. He's rewarded with not only a verbal beatdown by Chloe, who ends their friendship, but by being turned into Vermillion City's scapegoat, taking on all their blame and ire since his strained friendship with Chloe is a big reason she ran away.
- He remembered to buy Chloe a birthday present, a surprising gesture given the prick he's been acting for a long time now. His reward? Being subjected to a pair of nightmares so horrible and so one-sidedly determined to show him how much he sucks, that he loses the will to live and is sent to a suicide ward.
- No-Respect Guy: While the story tries to paint a different picture early on, by the middle and end of Blossoming Trail, respect is the last thing Goh is getting from anybody: his boss and coworkers don't pay attention to him, Trip refuses to give him an ounce of sympathy, his classmates mock him constantly, and the less we talk about Parker, the better.
- No Social Skills: His obsession with finding Mew led to this, which makes it hard for him to understand why Chloe doesn't like Pokémon or how she's hurting from him ignoring her. After Chloe shuts down his efforts at finding her, his inability to compartmentalize what he can and can't change makes him reject Ash's attempts at cheering him up, shut down an innocent trainer's attempts to make conversation, and alienates himself from everyone worried about Hop and Alain. This also means that every time Zeno makes him go through a scenario to have Goh apologize to Chloe he fails every single time. In comparison, all Zeno had to do was just apologize to Chloe for being an asshole and she immediately breaks down and confesses what was wrong with her, leading to some healing. He also never talks to his parents about his problems, which would've clued them in that something was wrong, and they could've taken him to therapy. And last, because he doesn't consider what he's saying to others, it makes him out as heavily insensitive and he never understands why people hate him until it's too late.
- No Sympathy: This is what happens when you lack any emotional intelligence and decide to waste your life on six monitors than with social interactions and making friends or talk to your parents about your problems at the very least.
- Unintentionally deepens the divide between Chloe and himself during her outburst in the first chapter by lashing out in return, snapping back that she's got no place to criticize his dreams just because she lacks any of her own just paragraphs after he proclaims that he cares for her. Not to mention that he snaps at Chloe nearly ruining his Rotom Phone instead of seeing how angry she is at everyone paying attention to her loss against Ash.
- After Chloe cuts him off, he refuses to acknowledge everyone's concerns about Hop or Alain, not caring about anyone but Chloe. And instead of empathizing with the pain Trip went through when he got on the Train, Goh is attacking him for keeping the Train's existence a secret.
- In the nightmare therapy sequence, upon seeing a situation if Chloe jumped off the school roof because she was always stuck 'as she was' and Goh decided to talk to her later before she falls, the other Goh doesn't even care that his friend died in contrast to the classmates (who did cause the bullying) to be horrified at their actions. Of course, it should be considered this is Parker's interpratation of Goh, and not the real deal, but the rest of the nightmare makes the distinction irrelevant.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Despite Chloe not realizing this immediately, she and Goh are actually alike in so many ways.
- Chloe and Goh are jealous of Ash in some way; Chloe is jealous of all his achievements and Goh is somewhat jealous of all the friends he made. Chloe got better, however, while Goh went down a spiral.
- Both of them shut themselves off from other people due to traumatizing experiences. Chloe, however, had people who truly loved her on the Train and they helped keep her in line if she did something wrong. Goh refused to listen to reason and realize where the fault lied, and by the end of the original story, nobody is by his side.
- Both of them ignored the concerns of their parents and never opened up to their problems; Goh never brought up Tokio abandoning him, while Chloe refused to tell her parents about her love of horror and desire to not be into Pokémon.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: In his final dream of his nightmare therapy, he tells Parker that the boy is a better friend to Chloe than he will ever be, not realizing that Parker is the one who wished these nightmares on Goh in the first place.
- Oblivious to Hints: Goh has such a lack of social skills due to not caring to make friends or having a social life that if people don't tell him the truth with the bluntness of a freight train, he won't get the message, no matter how clear the hints are. At the same time, telling it to his face at how horrible he is will do the opposite effect.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Chloe notes that the only time Goh ever texts her back is if he's apologizing for being late. The fact that he keeps sending at least twenty texts in apology for what he did is a sign that something is wrong...not that she's concerned anyway since she deleted every single message he sent her before finally telling him to stop talking.
- Everyone is horrified when they see and hear him destroy his charts, computer, and tracking devices during his meltdown before clawing at his face.
- Him with a broken smile upon caring for an injured Mew — when it's the last thing he wants to encounter — is enough for Zeno to look horrified.
- The Paranoiac: Goh was already growing paranoid as the growing cynicism around Vermillion City became too much for him to bear. After Parker and Zeno's nightmares, he completely goes over the edge, far too scared and terrified of another potential nightmare to even listen to reason.
- Parting-Words Regret: Heavily regrets getting angry at Chloe and stating that she had no dreams in mind before she ran off and it gets worse when he has no idea where she ran off to, blaming himself for the argument. Even worse is that while he has regrets, Chloe could care less about his troubles, deleting all the messages he texted her and even writing a story about him getting his just deserts. Moreover, Goh doesn't understand that their argument was the tipping point of Chloe's anger issues, not the underlying fact that he obsessed over Mew.
- Passion Is Evil: After his Nightmare Sequence, Goh has been convinced that his having hopes and dreams caused the entire story to happen, which causes him to give up on doing anything as he simply sees that as another goal, which is bad.
- Perpetual Frowner: His smile vanishes after he's released from the suicide ward and goes with Ash's group. Now, all that's left behind is an apathetic look.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: A part of his overreactions to Ash's draw to Bea is rooted in his terror that he'll drive Ash away like he did Chloe as he blames himself for not comforting Chloe and instead cheering over Ash easily defeating her.
- Privileged Rival: Subverted. The narrative and Chloe tries to paint Goh's situation early in BT to be one where he gets everything he wants on a silver platter. However, reading the story makes it clear that no, Goh isn't priviledged; in fact, his position isn't much different from everybody else. It's just Chloe's resentful perception twisting and warping things to convince her that her utter disdain for him is justified.
- The Promise:
- When he and Chloe were children, he made a promise to eat Chloe's homemade curry. The reveal that he had completely forgotten this promise in the Intermission shows just how much he had disregarded Chloe and that he didn't really value her at all ever since he became obsessed with Mew. He remembers this too late and realizes how he was never there for Chloe. However, it's later revealed that Chloe just wanted more moments to spend with Goh.
- He makes it a personal promise to go to school to take tests. But this means he's never around when Chloe needs him to protect her from bullies — as they're both students in Class 5-E — or just let her talk about what's going on and lets their class get away with hurting her more and more.
- In a bitter case of irony, what caused him to disregard friends is when Tokio broke the promise to meet up to find Celebi (which wasn't Tokio's fault as he just got ill). Yet he constantly breaks his promises to meet with Chloe on time and can barely manage to look her way unless she tells it to his face.
- Psychological Projection: Goh has a lot of self-loathing within himself, as he believes he's the one responsible for Chloe running away and starting the events of the story. However, rather than see these issues and work around them, Goh instead projects these feelings onto other people, whether they deserve it or not.
- Rage Breaking Point: Learning that Trip was a former passenger on the Infinity Train and was trying to keep this secret sends him over the edge, causing him to beat the Unovan Trainer and nearly give him another different colored eye. Trip's honest remark about how Goh only cares about Chloe now doesn't help, and seeing Ash side with Trip and learning that the two are "together" (not to mention having Professor Cerise remark that Parker should be the one to message Chloe because he's "someone who cares for her") isn't helping matters.
- Hits it again, albeit to much more productive ends, when Lexi foolishly tries to justify Chloe's worse actions by bringing up his Facedex message and the fact that Goh "gave up on Chloe first"...which he's already been punished for several times over, even though everyone, including Chloe herself, has completely forgotten the insignificant post.
- Rule of Symbolism: His Infinity train number is 813, which is Scorbunny's National Dex number and reflecting how Goh was once insensitive to his Starter Pokémon's desires (both to be his Pokémon partner and to grow strong via learning Ember).
S-Y
- Sanity Slippage: When Blossoming Trail enters Arc 2, his mental state is notably deteriorating. And then his Nightmare Sequence utterly shatters any sense of sanity he has left, to the point it's a miracle he's not reduced to a rabid animal by the end of it.
- The Scapegoat: Since Goh and Chloe's strained friendship is one of the main factors for her running away, quite a lot of people blame Goh for it — mostly it was because his last words to her was what drove her to run off — even Goh himself. Ultimately it was everyone's fault, including Chloe's.
- Secretly Selfish: Whether Goh is fully aware of this or not, he truly wants everything for himself and if things go wrong, he rejects it or denies what others are thinking. Tokio didn't show up (due to fever)? Takes it as a sign that human friends aren't worth it. Chloe questions where he was when she needed him? On a noble mission to chase his dreams. Chloe states that she's not coming back any time soon (Because she doesn't want to see him, she has a goal to accomplish and because she can't leave till her number goes down)? Beg and plead that she has to return because he begs her to. Ash attempts to cheer him up and get him out of the house? Sulk about how pointless it is since he can't fix things with Chloe and make himself feel better. Seeing Ash together with Trip? Tell his only friend that he doesn't need the Pallet Town trainer anymore if he's leaving him for someone else and decides to tell his mom about Ash being gay. Unfortunately, UnSara is able to manipulate Goh into saying this while Parker is watching. This drives the boy to Mind Rape Goh out of disgust towards how he treats others.
- Self-Serving Memory: Refuses to acknowledge his own responsibilities in driving Chloe away, concocting fake memories that massively exaggerate how distant and uninterested Chloe had been. Inverted in his nightmare: his past is distorted to make him seem worse than he honestly was.
- Shattered Sanity: Let's not pull any punches here: after the events of Blossoming Trail Arc 1 and 2, especially the latter, Goh's sanity is practically gone: even what little shards remained got pulverized, leaving only dust that's being barely held together.
- Shower of Angst: Has one with his face against the shower tiles while in Azalea Town as he learns that he doesn't have any happy memory with Chloe.
- Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Just like in the canon show, Goh rarely goes to school except to take tests as a personal promise (as shown in Journeys Episode 49 although he shows up in a later episode for a school presentation). Unfortunately, this means that he's not around when Chloe needs someone to help her with her bullying (like the time Sara decided to throw a Carrie on her), and he remains Locked Out of the Loop regarding what Chloe went through at school since it's not his problem. During Parker's trial, it was noted that Goh didn't even go to school even after Chloe ran away and it has gotten to the point that Class 5-E — his and Chloe's class — were insulting him in front of Chloe and gave him the nickname "No-Show" Goh, stating that he'd only come to school if Chloe decided to dress up as Mew.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Upon suggesting that Chloe should be contacted so she can help figure out what's going on with Hop and Alain, Goh immediately states that Chloe shouldn't because she doesn't know about battling and training, going hand-in-hand with the idea of Chloe should be back where she belongs: with him. If only he knew that Chloe is more than capable of handling herself with a steel pipe and is off to destroy a cult...
- Stopped Caring: The utterly brutal Epiphany Therapy Parker and Zeno subject him through, which comes soon after the Unown debacle, which came long after everybody started pointing fingers at him, causes Goh to not only give up on his goal to catch Mew, but come close to giving up on life, to the point he has to be sent to a suicide ward just to make sure he doesn't kill himself.
- Suddenly Shouting: Goh shouts "IT'S NOT A STUPID CAMPAIGN!" at Bede when he dismisses the Calling Chloe campaign.
- Suicide Watch: He's put on a suicide ward after he gets the mother of all mental breakdowns at the end of the Cyan Desert Car.
- Symbolically Broken Object:
- His Rotom Phone over the course of Arc 1. Chloe throws it into the curry and Goh chews her out for almost ruining it, showing how he prioritizes his dream over her. Then when she's gone, he keeps using it to contact her, showing that he's changed his obsession with her. By the end of the Intermission, there's a big crack in it by him throwing it against the wall, showcasing that his obsessions have ruined the one thing he could've had...his friendship with Chloe.
- His Mew-tracking device that his parents made him. After the Nightmare Sequence, he destroys it along with the monitors he used to track Mew and his charts and maps to show how his obsession has utterly ruined him and any potential chances of being friends with Chloe again. Notably, it's through this that he finds an old photo of him eating curry with Chloe...and realizes how he messed up in so many ways.
- Symbolic Mutilation: Goh has a lot of trouble seeing things as they are, as well as a refusal to face his issues and change for the better. After his nightmare, where he was splattered in Dream!Ash's blood, he gets a habit of scratching his face whenever he feels it's being touched.
- Tarot Motifs: Zeno holds up an inverted Hermit card to Goh in his nightmare Therapy session, reflecting how he's so isolated from everyone else and how he's not putting enough effort into bettering himself. And given how Goh was essentially a young hikikomori with how he holed up in his bedroom to search for Mew instead of going out, he makes a good point.
- Tears of Remorse: Begins shedding these constantly after the events of the Unown incident, having finally realized the extent of how much his actions hurt everyone.
- There Are No Therapists: While this trope was already made clear with Chloe's issues, Goh's case is even more notable, since he's the source of her problems: If somebody had actually helped him work out through his issues and lack of social skills, he would've been more perceptive of Chloe and the damage she suffered through could've been lessened somewhat, if not greatly, with him standing by her side, making the events of the story never happen. But of course, that didn't happen...note Kurune is horrified to learn that her son had signs of deep unhappiness (if not depression) because she never went to parent-teacher conferences.
- The First Cut Is the Deepest: Platonic example. Tokio failing to show up when they were supposed to look for Celebi struck such a hard cord on Goh that he swore off human friendships in exchange for Pokémon. Unfortunately, since he never got over it, it leads to a lot of problem in the present day.
- They Just Dont Get It: Easily one of Goh's biggest issues is that he simply can't put two and two together until it's far too late: he spends most of the first few chapters knowing Chloe ran away, but never quite figuring out the why, and his own self-centeredness and obliviousness doesn't help whatsoever. It's eventually Deconstructed, however, because for as much as Goh's responsible for this trope, he's just one factor. Everybody else's universal inability to express what they wanted to say and outright refusal to just tell him what's wrong straight to his face means that nine times out of ten, he doesn't have enough information to properly connect the dots. Even when he does get enough information to make the connection, it's presented just vaguely enough that the intended lesson goes over his head.
- Took a Level in Cynic: Chloe's departure made him fall into this to the point that he denies Chloe sent him a message to Ash. It gets steadily to the point where he rejects everyone's concern about him, Hop, and Alain as pointless. Then his nightmare therapy has him completely dive into cynicism and with no hope of changing.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Was a kind boy with No Social Skills initially but as the story goes on, he starts becoming more and more selfish due to his inability to understand his faults. This comes to a painful halt during the Unown incident.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Played with: Despite saying that Chloe never takes any chances and resents her for it, it's clear that he wants her to stay the way she was, regardless of how miserable she was and how badly others treated her due to her not being able to stand up for herself. Zeno shows Goh what would have happened had Chloe stayed the way she was; her jumping off a roof and him not caring in the slightest when she tried calling him.
- Tragic Keepsake: Chloe's fallen flower scrunchie becomes this since it's the only thing he found of her after she was taken by the Infinity Train. When he gets on the Train, he still has it, and gives it to Hazel. He assumed that Chloe forgot about it or assumed it got sent to the trash like she was effectively tossed aside.
- Trauma Conga Line: Starting from finding Chloe's hair scrunchie in the trash, Goh has been beating himself up in trying to find Chloe, getting himself sick, and desperate to be forgiven while Chloe simply deletes every single text from him before she flat out tells him "Goodbye". And it gets worse in Arc 2 as he starts pushing away his friends and loved ones and starts believing that everything is Chloe's fault. Then The Unown incident pretty much pushes him off of the line and into the path of an upcoming trauma train and he gets kidnapped by a hunter from the forums, having to face Mew when he doesn't want to, learns that his Childhood Friend is more outgoing, confident and a hero and the thoughts in his head stating he doesn't deserve anything good when he doesn't do anything for it, makes him enter said therapy train for a long time.
- The Unapologetic: Zigzagged; Goh is capable of making apologies, problem is that he doesn't know what he's supposed to apologize for due to his lack of social skills. Best exemplified with the nightmare therapy; after Goh fails again and again on trying to keep Chloe from running away, he has to watch Zeno simply apologize for being an idiot and never being there for Chloe to make her relax and stay in the Institute.
- Underestimating Badassery: He assumes that Chloe is not strong enough to fight off against the Train. If he only knew that she's fought off the Erl-king, stood up to an Angel of Death, and just finished off a quest in the Hidden Temple, then he'd know that she's definitely capable of defending herself. He later feels ashamed of wanting to put Chloe down when he overhears everything she went through and is praised as a hero.
- Unperson: In Parker's eyes, Goh doesn't exist. He doesn't bring Goh up when he calls Ash out for ignoring his sister and when he posts the picture his mother made — that had Goh specifically having his life drained out by characters in Chloe's story — he replies to others that Goh is just "somebody Chloe used to know".
- Was It Really Worth It?: He's left to think about this after the events of the Unown incident, regarding his Goal in Life to catch Mew and the consequences of his actions. This question flares up with a vengeance when Goh finally gets Mew in his hands...
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Goh pulls some pretty extreme methods in trying to get Chloe back, from looking feverishly for her to sending over a dozen messages to her phone, all in the hopes that she's okay...
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: ... So that when she returns, everything can go back to the way it used to be, all while ignoring how Chloe doesn't want to return and how he can just act like nothing happened.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: Downplayed. Nobody's clamoring for Goh to become the same insensitive guy he was at the start of the story, but his sunken demeanor after leaving the suicide ward is so upsetting, people are actually thinking of the previous Goh as preferable. Much to Lexi's surprise, part of his recovery is getting him to rage at Chloe again.
- Western Zodiac: A Taurus (born May 2nd). Strengths being patient and devoted (for his pursuit after Mew) and weaknesses being stubborn, possessive, and uncompromising (again, going after Mew and him rejecting friendship over Pokémon). Taurus also hate complications and insecurities, given how Goh is going through the fear of his friend being on some otherworldly train without any way to reach her and refuses to show any signs of developing himself for her return.
- What the Hell, Hero?: On both the giving and receiving end but mostly the latter.
- He chews out Chloe's classmates for pressuring Chloe to do something she hated, which was one of the factors that caused her to run away from home. What doesn't help their case is that they cared more about Chloe battling Ash than Chloe running away.
- He's also a victim of this in the very start — when Chloe points out that he has repeatedly rejected time with her for Mew — and Chloe's classmates also state that since he was Chloe's friend, then he should've been more aware of her issues.
- In the Blossoming Trail Intermission, Chloe spells it out loud and clear that he is a selfish, unsympathetic child who cannot and will not listen to her so she has decided to break their friendship for good.
- He gets called out for telling Leon and Sycamore about the train in the worse way possible, and how destructive he's becoming by channeling his anger towards himself against everyone else.
- Zeno's nightmare therapy is essentially The "What The Hell, Goh?" Chapter as the nightmare he has tells him off for all of his mistakes regarding his friends, family and even his Pokémon. He listens.
- Finally gets to deliver one of his own to Lexi after he pushes one too many buttons, ripping into the Denizen for treating him like shit over an all-but-forgotten incident in his past life.
- In the Darkest Day, Goh finally gets to deliver one of these to Chloe uninterrupted, giving her a tearful "The Reason You Suck" Speech detailing everything Chloe did to him to make his life an utter hell, just because she thought he was a poor friend and was more concerned with Playing the Victim Card instead of hearing his side of the story.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: In Voyage of Wisteria, Goh proves surprisingly good at this while taking on Vox and Ogami, figuring out new plans when the initial ones don't work out.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Whether it's the world pulling his chain or Goh doing the deed, every time things look like they'll get better for him, it's nothing more than a cruel illusion.
- He constantly calls Chloe in an attempt to check up on her. When she finally answers... it's to let him know she wants nothing to do with him because it reflects how he never kept his promises to her and how the last words they spoke was him chewing out that she's a doormat.
- Goh goes to school to try find out what happened there. Not only does he discover the horrific bullying Chloe experienced, but he has to witness the same jerks laughing about it because he was never there to see her.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
- After the horrific events of his Nightmare Sequence, Goh's self-esteem is so utterly low that he honestly believes he's completely worthless and unable to right any of his wrongs. Ash is quick to remind him of not only everything he's done with him, but finally breaks the constant blame throwing at Goh by telling him that no, he's not completely at fault for everything that just happened, and that he can still make things better. While Goh is too broken to do a 180 and be healed of his trauma, it's at least something decent compares to what everybody else have done.
- Zeno's final piece of advice before he disappears is to tell Goh that Goh really did do some kind gestures. And now it's up to Goh to start listening and get involved in other people's lives while noting that Chloe will do more to raise her voice.
- You Are Grounded!: His parents ground him after the stunt he pulled on Facedex, taking away his Rotom phone, Internet privileges, not allowed to go visit the lab, any Pokémon he captures are to be kept on him or Ash drops them in the Lab and he can only go out for research purposes if they're in the Kanto region. However, of all days this was done it was when Parker got his hands on the Unown...
