There are several moments across the whole verse where certain characters are painted as in the wrong despite either 1) Not knowing about the situation until it was too late, 2) Them not having the ability to do anything to help said situation or 3) Said situation being beyond their control in the first place.
In General
- Goh will always be called out over not going to school as much as other people, and how he doesn't provide Chloe the support she needs. This, while ignoring the fact that not only are his grades not suffering from this absence, but that the best (and only) argument that's made is "Chloe would benefit from it". The question of what Goh would even do about Chloe's social situation, given the frequent emphasis made on his lack of social awareness, is also never answered, or why this only ever applies to Goh and is never seen with any other trainer character, such as Ash, Serena, Trip, Gloria, and Gary, who aren't hounded for their lack of school attendance or how that negatively impacts them, especially with the ones who, like Goh, also have jobs and careers.
- The Apex are always shown to be in the wrong for wheeling Denizens and acting like they own the Train. However, this is ignoring not only how the Train actually does put some focus on the Passengers above the Denizens to help them work out their issues, but the fact that they're a group of ordinary people, who don't know the truth about the Train, trying to survive an endless world filled with dangerous creatures that could kill them with a snap of their fingers.
- In stories written by certain writers, Ash not knowing what Chloe is into is treated as a massive character failure, despite the frequent emphasis on how Chloe would simply not tell anyone what she liked while simultaneously noting how Ash did try to invite her on adventures. So it ultimately comes down to Ash being punished for not befriending Chloe the "right" way nor reading her mind.
Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail
- A frequent issue when Ash is treated as being in the negative for not getting to know Chloe as the story basically treats the idea of his asking Chloe to do things with them beyond the first idea offered as basic decency and not, say, harassment. In general, a lot of the complaints Ash is given by the narrative and some readership can be boiled down to him not knowing things people were not telling him or knowing to ask aboutnote , or acting as if it's his job to be friends with everyone. Arc 2 changes this by showing Trip realizing he just made Ash harbor a Guilt Complex and is now working on telling Ash that it's not his fault this happened.
- Despite being a Pokémon fanfiction, there is a definite theme in this story of portraying enthusiasm for Pokémon as somewhat unhealthy. Granted, in most of those cases it's implied that the issue is becoming obsessive over the topic, but that explanation doesn’t always quite work. Even by the final chapter, there’s some narration still implying that pursuing a dream in Pokémon research or training comes at a cost to one's social skills or ability to appreciate the world- Goh is left wondering about all the opportunities he missed by focusing on Pokémon instead of the scenery, for example. This comes across as quite odd, considering the source material places quite a bit of importance on The Power of Friendship, and The World Is Just Awesome is a major theme. Plus, the threshold for considering an expertise in Pokémon an “obsession” seems quite a bit lower than expertise in other areas of knowledge, such as mythology, music, or horror. Coincidentally, these all happen to be topics that Chloe is quite invested in.
- Not being into horror is treated as a problem. Someone like Renji, who doesn't like it, is frequently criticized for it, while anyone who says that Chloe should be into Pokémon is demonized in the story.
- Flak is given to Ash for not offering up any of his alternate adventures to Chloe as stories and how she'd have really liked that. Beyond the fact that Ash doesn't casually do that to begin with, and later parts of the story even have Ash give a valid reason for not doing this because he doesn't want to be befriended for stuff like that where people would want to know him for crazy stuff and not who he is, it basically boils down to acting as if Ash is inconsiderate for not offering up every detail of his history to someone who he not only doesn't know better, but wasn't particularly open to him in the first place and there was no reason to think doing more of what wasn't working would do any better.
Infinity Train: Voyage of Wisteria
- In theory, Goh and Lexi's argument is about seeing that Both Sides Have a Point and are equally at fault. In practice, however, it's almost impossible not to take Goh's side because:
- 1) The reveal that he was going through depression makes everything he went through even worse, and makes him a lot more sympathetic as a result.
- 2) A lot of Lexi's points get severely weakened by the above revelation, since they can easily be explained by both that they would worsen Goh's depression and Poor Communication Kills.
- 3) Every time Goh challenges Lexi's arguments, the paper Denizen changes the subject, not only weakening his stance but making him come across as desperate to find something, anything, to join the call out party against Goh.
- And finally, 4) Lexi's stance is highly biased and hypocritical, since he lambasts Goh as not caring about Chloe and not caring about how his actions hurt others, when Lexi himself nearly mauled someone over a misconception about Chloe, and has done nothing but be hurtful to Goh, the person he promised Chloe he would help.
Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus
- We're supposed to agree with Auric when he calls Sycamore's brand of hope "a tyrant who wants people to follow him, no questions asked." The thing is, while Sycamore has done a few bad things in the story, these came as a result of extreme stress over the situation simply failing to show progress in getting better no matter which angle he took. Couple this with him being one of the few genuinely good people in a sea of morons, jerks, or heavily flawed characters, in addition to this coming right after he got broken so badly that he came close to either killing everyone or Restart the World to escape it all, and it instead comes across as victim blaming.
- Professor Cerise not getting Chloe therapy for her bullying problems is viewed as yet another instance of him not caring about her. However, given that he was scammed the last time he tried this, it's understandable that he would not want to risk exposing himself to another potential deception and lose more money. Furthermore, given Chloe's habit of twisting people's attempts to help her, trying to get therapy for her regardless would've been rendered moot anyway.
- Once again, Ash not spilling out his entire backstory to Chloe to connect with her, instead of using the methods that work with nearly every girl he's ever met across seven different regions and an island chain or two, is treated as a failure of his and not him acting like a regular human being, especially when there was no indication that Chloe would want to know that stuff (or that talking more to a girl who wasn't particularly receptive to him would have positive results and not be considered harassment or stalking behavior).
- Class 5-E are meant to be seen as idiots for not taking the infamous paint can incident as an indication not to bother Chloe anymore. However, while it's valid to call them idiots for not realizing they should've left her alone after this point, trying to claim this should've also been the moment they realized Sara was who they should be wary of is Farfetch'd: Sara, for all her nastiness, was perfectly capable of being friendly and sociable-if only to get what she wanted, and only really revealed her true colors after getting hold of the Unown, which could even then be chalked up to her mental instability worsening and getting Drunk on the Dark Side. Chloe, meanwhile, was aloof at best, and the first time the students got a good look at her, she nearly beat Sara to death in the midst of an explosive tantrum and threatened to kill them all if they got on her bad side again.
- The Blossomverse is no stranger to calling characters out for minor or bizarre reasons - but the consequences of Goh and Gloria ignoring Parker’s expertise in Silent Hill definitely falls into this territory. The two older kids initially advise Professor Sycamore to trust Alex Shepherd based on the fact that he was a protagonist in one of the games. Parker, however, immediately says not to trust him- because in ONE Bad Ending of ONE spin-off game, Alex fails to hold up against Silent Hill’s torments, and becomes Pyramid Head. The thing is that Parker's right not to trust Alex, so even before anyone gets confirmation that the man is bad news, people get put through the ringer for not listening to Parker, who then uses the moment to tearfully call out all the "grown-ups" around him for never listening. Goh and Gloria feel absolutely horrible about what they've done, and Sycamore gets a lecture from London about how "naive" he was to fall for the pair's advice. Because it simply follows that if there's a CHANCE that someone could have gone down a dark path, then they obviously must have done so.
- We're supposed to agree with London when he calls out Professor Sycamore over deciding to trust Alex Shepherd by the suggestion of Goh and Gloria. Thing is, while trusting Shepherd was a mistake, the thing Sycamore's being chided with requires knowledge of very obscure horror game trivia that most people wouldn't know about, as well as said piece of trivia being the actual reality on the Train in the first place. Furthermore, the only person who could've provided said answer was Parker, who's already proven at that point how unhelpful he could actually be, leaving Sycamore with little options in the first place.
- Alighieri, the prosecutor in the judgement of Chloe in chapter 45, makes points about Chloe not being hero material, and that it would be better for her to be cut loose. We're supposed to side against him and cheer when the Windchasers and Red Lotus Uprising decide to stick with her. However, the narrative fails to point out how every time Chloe has encountered adversity, she'd snap back into her base personality and drive everybody away, refusing to accept blame unless someone else gets blamed as well. It comes across more like a person making valid judgements on a terrible character, but being shut down because The Complainer Is Always Wrong.
- One of the things mentioned in the Harvest Moon Car is the reveal that Goh's classmates didn't really like him because nobody was willing to bring him his homework after Chloe went missing. Ignoring the fact that both things aren't mutually exclusive, as Chloe clearly had a grind to gear with Goh but handed him his homework regardless, there's no mention about the teachers or Chloe's parents doing the same thing, with everybody pointing fingers at the students as if that was supposed to be their job once Chloe was no longer available.
- There's no shortage of characters who call out Goh over his continued angsting regarding what happened with Tokio, lambasting him for not noticing Chloe's problems sooner. What the characters fail to take into account is that Goh had no support system to get through this: Chloe had Parker as a confidant, and the longer the story goes on, the more people prove to be willing to defend her side. Goh? He's basically a social pariah in Vermillion City, particularly at school, and of the few people who don't hate his guts, his parents are always busy with work, and his grandmother would rather downplay his problems than give him support, especially if Chloe's in the picture. So it comes across as people straight up victim blaming somebody for not managing to find a supportive person to vent to while living in a place that essentially hates them.
