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zdbztumble · 7 years

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Justification

A follow-up to this post.

So, we know one reason why the TRio was kept instead of Misty; they were Takeshi Shudo’s favorites. Another reason is that Mr. Shudo felt that Misty was the “least justified” of the main cast members. It’s worth noting that he wasn’t happy about this (a fair section of his blog post on the subject concerns his regrets over not doing a better job writing for Misty), and that he didn’t want to cut her from the show, but given the choices offered by the higher-ups, this was the call he made.

Let me be blunt: Takeshi Shudo was a very interesting writer with a lot of unique ideas, and I wish he’d had a bit more authority and scope to pursue some of them in Pokemon, but I cannot understand how he came to the conclusion that Misty’s presence in the main cast was the least justified, especially when he and his staff had already proved otherwise.

Look - I really like Brock. He’s got a great character design, he was given an excellent dub VA actor in Eric Stuart (let’s just ignore TPCi), he’s a likable personality, and he’s fiction’s most innocent and entertaining of borderline sexual predators (kidding, kidding). But if I divorce how appealing he is as a character from his actual function in the series, then a few things become obvious, at least to me. The big one being that Brock is very much a supporting role, by design I would argue. He is the group’s patient navigator, the mediator of disputes, the cook and cleaner, a source of comic relief, and an exposition bank. He performs very well in all these roles, and in the show’s initial stages, such a supporting figure was vital, not just to the protagonist, but to the audience as well.

However, when he left during the Orange Islands, the absence of that supporting role didn’t really hurt the show. In part, that’s because the more essential supporting functions were outsourced; there was plenty of comedy in the show without Brock in those days, a variety of other characters delivered exposition and handled navigation, shifts in Ash and Misty’s relationship lessened the need for a strong mediator (though it was still there, and Tracey...tried), and it’s just not necessary to see where the food and clean clothes come from.

When Brock returned, he took back all his roles, and still excelled at them. Even as Ash evolved into a more mature character, and as the need for so much exposition for the audience lessened, it was still useful to have an expositor and a mediator. In that latter function, Brock still played off of Ash and Misty really well, even though their relationship had changed. They were, after all, designed as a trio meant to be together through all the time that (the staff thought) the show would run.

Then we come to AG and DP. Both series seem to be in good standing with many fans, but one of the most common complaints about both that I’ve seen is that Brock was essentially redundant, shifted to the sidelines and left with no real purpose. I’m limited in how much I can comment, but based on what I have seen of both series, that criticism is definitely justified. I think this partly is because of changes in Ash’s personality. Brock’s original function was to calmly support a brash, cocky, inexperienced kid of a protagonist, but in AG and especially DP (and extra-especially XY/Z, for better or worse), Ash had matured, and had even taken over some of the mentor role to May, Max, and Dawn. Another problem Brock may have had in those years was that he was designed to be part of a trio with two specific co-stars. May and Dawn may have fought with Ash sometimes, but neither had the same kind of chemistry or dynamic with him that Misty did; it follows, then, that the need for a mediator between Ash and the female lead didn’t exist, at least not in the same way that it did when Misty was part of the cast. The need for exposition and comedy remained, but as the Orange Islands had already demonstrated, that job didn’t need to be performed by a single character.

None of this is to say that Brock was a bad character. Far from it. But it does demonstrate IMO that, as the show evolved and the cast changed, his role - which again, was vital at the beginning - became less essential. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t or shouldn’t have gotten better treatment in AG and DP, or that the staff couldn’t have tried shaking things up by expanding or altering his role, but left to try and fulfill the same functions he started with even as the need for them decreased, he suffered.

Compare that to Misty. Like Brock, her role was as a support to the protagonist. She could offer some exposition and navigation, and served as a mediator between Brock and all his would-be dates. But mostly, she served as a foil to Ash, the lead. On paper, that might seem less impressive than Brock’s function. But looking that the show itself, Misty as a foil:

Bickers frequently with Ash, drawing out his anger

Banters playfully with him even more frequently, bringing out Ash’s snarky and humorous sides

Battles with Ash, serving as an in-group rival of sorts

Coaches Ash, sometimes in a much tougher manner than Brock does.

Has a crush on Ash, which he sort-of returns, resulting in some jealous fits and awkward moments.

Other characters fight and tease Ash, and he has no shortage of battle challengers. And, if we’re being painfully honest, a “first love” subplot is not necessary to a show like Pokémon, and would and should never be more than a subplot. But no other character served all these roles at once, and Misty did very well in all of them right up to her departure. Being a much more explosive and reactive character compared to Brock’s more passive nature, she could more easily take the foreground than the background. And in being the one main character to draw jealousy and possible attraction out of Ash, she brought something unique out of him. Any supporting character who can do that to the protagonist is valuable. (And yes, in this instance, I am defining Misty, and Brock, by their roles in relation to Ash, but only because I’m looking at story function, and leaving issues of their strengths and potential as characters in their own right aside.)

Misty was also able to maintain her role as a foil to the hero without issue, even as the cast shifted around her, in the Orange Islands. Things even evolved with her at that time, since that was when the crush really started to figure as a subplot. This isn’t to say that Misty is a better character than Brock, by any means; issues of “better” aren’t even a factor here. But it is an argument that, while Brock’s function diminished as the show evolved, Misty could continue to serve as a key foil to Ash because of the specific roles she played in relation to him, even as the show around her changed. She even had room to expand in certain areas.

All this may be a good argument for why Brock shouldn’t have been on the short list of main characters up for the axe; removing him for good at that time probably wouldn’t have caused the shake-up the higher-ups wanted. But it is a solid argument against the idea that Misty’s role was the “least justified.”

#critique #commentary #pokemon #misty waterflower #brock #takeshi shudo

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