Surrounded by weirdoes
No, it was already ridiculous that he had two legendaries, any more and A. it'd break any attempt at Willing Suspension of Disbelief and B. Make it more ridiculous that anything less could cause Ash and Pikachu trouble.
Edited by Blueace on Aug 18th 2019 at 8:11:48 AM
Wake me up at your own risk.
King of Anime
It depends on if I'm replacing him or not. If I'm keeping him as the main character he first wins at Hoenn because by that point he'll have lost two Leagues and won one and third time's the charm as far as game canon Leagues goes. After that I'd have him lose Sinnoh to show that even though he's the best in one place there's always someone better, have him tie in Unova to show that he's improved as a trainer since Sinnoh (Obviously I'd need to rewrite that series), have him win Kalos as that'd be the peak of his development, and then I wouldn't have a League for Alola as that'd be his sendoff and instead serve as a celebration of him becoming as Pokemon Master at the end of Kalos. Alternatively if I have to keep him after Alola I'd rewrite the saga a bit to make him more arrogant (But still likable.) and have him lose Alola as punishment with Galar acting as his redemption where I'd have him win. Not sure how I'd handle things post Galar though.
If I am replacing him, he wins in Hoenn to show how far he's come since Kanto and steps down as the main character with either Max from Hoenn taking over or Barry from Sinnoh as the main character. Ash is still around but now he takes on Brock's role.
Edited by Chariot on Aug 18th 2019 at 8:21:56 AM
He could have started winning leagues by Hoenn or especially DP at the latest. And that was 10+ years ago now.
Lord Barglebroth, Come For Your Souls!
@STRX: I would have personally been okay if the Legendaries used were not ones who were clearly higher up on the whole pantheonic scale. Perhaps if Cheating Toby had used Pokémon that had been established as having multiple versions (like Shaymin or Articuno) that would make more sense.
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Horni Demon LORD
Paul's still Ash's Best rival
and Zoey best coordinator Rival
Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Aug 19th 2019 at 4:12:03 AM
I'm A Pervert not an Asshole!
Harley best coordinator rival. Zoey was talented but character wise she got pretty boring (and then Mary Sue-ish) as DP progressed.
Edited by precita on Aug 19th 2019 at 4:08:15 AM
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
I’ll admit that I haven’t seen the Sinnoh Grand Festival episodes, but I’m rather baffled as to why Dawn wasn’t allowed to win. It’s not like May - she wouldn’t be part of the cast after Sinnoh.
Oh God! Natural light!
My guess is the writers felt since Zoey wasn’t an antagonist rival like most others in the anime, Dawn simply doing well against her but still losing was good enough. Zoey was more like a mentor to Dawn than rival. It was the first time a main character never beat their main rival before leaving the series though. Even more amusing is that May beat Zoey in the Wallace Cup, so we saw May beat Dawn’s main rival but Dawn herself didn’t.
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
Fair enough
Though since we mentioned May, her losing the Kanto Grand Festival is arguably even more baffling - finally winning against Drew could have easily doubled as her winning the Festival as a whole, but then they introduce Solidad...
Maybe they figured she wouldn’t have much reason to go to Johto if she had won? I don’t know if I’ve ever fully bought that sort of logic, though...
Oh God! Natural light!
Lord Barglebroth, Come For Your Souls!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I don’t think anyone can understand the logic of these guys. How does constantly causing your protagonists fail in a non-episodic show geared towards children make any sense?
The writers use the Dragonball approach where no matter how strong Goku gets there is always someone stronger coming up. Except they actually let Goku win. The Pokémon writers can’t go past that threshold.
CHADhan Player.
It should be noted Goku's only won one tournament, and that was the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai against Piccolo Jr.
The amount of times Goku wins is actually really small despite what many tell you.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
In the early story, he won battles that weren't connected with tournaments.
But yeah, Goku despite being the strongest dude on Earth (and sometimes even in his universe) doesn't win much.
But he's also still the only person who ever matters when it comes to accomplishing anything worth while.
Ash is kinda similar, but he gets a lot of small wins here and there; he just can't win the big one.
One Strip! One Strip!
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
That was an interesting line from Plumeria, about the rest of Team Skull not knowing why Guzma is really undefeated...
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
She's known him the longest so clearly something's up. Man I wish she got into the 16, that was the only other person I got wrong in my predictions.
I really like how far Kiawe has gotten, he really is a great battler and turned out to be one of the best SM characters. I also like how the writers avoided making him into a Brock clone which could have been easy to do, he's much more emotional and combative than Brock but still caring/supportive. Hoshi his sister is great too.
CHADhan Player.
Here's hoping he gives Gladion one hell of a fight regardless if he loses.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
The thing is, the Inevitable Tournament does not define Goku...
It does define Ash. Wrongly, but it does.
On a related note, people taking wild claims like Guzma's at face value is what makes starships go through Black Holes.
Still, Guzma's "record" makes me think of a particular line from Monkey Island:
ASH: It runs that fast?
And that leads me to think of Insult Pokemon Battles... though "You Fight Like A Miltank" is probably more of a compliment... or an insult in the other direction.
Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.
I mean even in Z....Goku needed help to beat Frieza, got his body stolen by Ginyu, Spirit Bomb failed against Frieza, couldn't fully beat Cell, couldn't finish Majin Buu, and in Super he's got 5 wins out of like 15.
Goku actually only ever beat Freeza on Namek (and even then Freeza didn't die), and Kid Buu in DBZ, and the latter was with help with the Spirit Bomb. Besides that and taking out Nappa, and Reccome and Burter in one-shot, Goku loses like 90% of his fights in DBZ.
Goku is not defined by his record, though: he's defined by his always being able to save the world.
Conversely, Ash is not defined (at least in the fandom) by his worldsaving. He's not even defined by his record per se. He's defined by his inability to win the big one.
Maybe if Tomioka had Ash go and save the world once a year instead of going to tournaments, Ash would be viewed differently.
Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
That is true.
Goku isn't even in the tournaments to win (even when winning means the fate of the world). He's in it for the challenge.
Ash does want to win, even though that's only one part of his goal. Unfortunately, it's the part of his goal that people are most aware of, and he comes off as massively incompetent for his continued inability to win one important Pokemon league.
He was the runner up of Kalos. We were all so busy being pissed about him losing again that we totally missed that, and that's because being the runner up would have meant more years ago, when he was only placing 8 or 4th.
At this point, even winning won't shed his Memetic Loser status...at least not now. If he'd won in Kalos, he'd have finally shed that reputation.
It's incredibly sad to be honest.
One Strip! One Strip!
Lord Barglebroth, Come For Your Souls!
He’s so much of a loser that Watchmojo said he’s even more of a loser than the very poster boy, Yamcha!
To be a Master
Only to those who care about winning... at the expense of everything else. And now we are paying the price for that mentality.
Conversely, Ash is not defined (at least in the fandom) by his worldsaving. He's not even defined by his record per se. He's defined by his inability to win the big one.
Maybe if Tomioka had Ash go and save the world once a year instead of going to tournaments, Ash would be viewed differently.
Only because the fandom cannot accept the fact that the Pokémon Master is a goal that cannot be defined beyond the protagonist's strive to be the very best. I recall that's why the League got so much importance inflation by the fans. Ash wasn't catching them all (even though that's the English localization's fault for the slogan), and the number of Pokémon continuously increase. Ash was competing in Leagues, but they don't seem to be that important (the Johto League, for example, seems to be an excuse to settle a score with Gary)... until the Lucian implied that winning the League means challenging the Elite Four of a region. Nevermind that neither Virgil nor Alain ever took up the challenge of the Elite Four after this revelation.
And quite frankly, Ash has already saved the world enough times already in the series. Didn't you watch the movies or those Team Rocket, Aqua and Magma, Galactic, Plasma, Flare, Ultra Beasts arcs?
Goku isn't even in the tournaments to win (even when winning means the fate of the world). He's in it for the challenge.
Ash does want to win, even though that's only one part of his goal. Unfortunately, it's the part of his goal that people are most aware of, and he comes off as massively incompetent for his continued inability to win one important Pokemon league.
He was the runner up of Kalos. We were all so busy being pissed about him losing again that we totally missed that, and that's because being the runner up would have meant more years ago, when he was only placing 8 or 4th.
At this point, even winning won't shed his Memetic Loser status...at least not now. If he'd won in Kalos, he'd have finally shed that reputation.
It's incredibly sad to be honest.
Define important Pokémon League. Orange League is important. And Alola League is in the games. As well as the Battle Frontier. 
Oh, I think we don't give enough credit to the challenges he did face. And quite frankly, I'm still annoyed that people can't tell the difference between a game and an anime adaptation.
Question. Would you have minded if Ash fought Tobias but managed to take down 5 of his legendaries but lose to the last one? Like putting all of Ash's top 6 strongest Pokemon to the test (but not make Infernape fight Darkrai because fighting type).
Actually, considering Ash's team made sense fighting Tobias under Fridge Brillance, unless the rest of his Sinnoh team was that incapacitated, keep Pikachu, Sceptile, Heracross, Gible and have Charizard and Buizel.