Pokémon Sun and Moon are now in the hands of Nintendo fans, and I can’t help but remember my first gaming experience with Pokémon. About five years ago I decided to finally play through Pokémon Red to take that title off my gaming bucket list. I had a hard time at first with the maps and whatnot, but I loved catching all the classic Pokémon, meeting Brock and Misty in their gyms, and utterly destroying Gary Oak. Gary is, of course, your rival since you were babies. Throughout the entire game, you (Ash) and Gary battle to become the very best, like no one ever was. As Ash you get to travel all over, from Pallet Town, where you have lived your whole life, all the way to Cinnabar Island, battling it out to make sure that you are the very best Pokémon trainer ever. It only took me a little over 32 hours to be the very best, and I loved every minute of it.
The first hint of your absolute evilness is given when you see Gary in Lavender Town—this is of course after you’ve battled him on the S.S. Annie. For those who haven’t played, or who’s memory is fuzzy, Lavender Town is the spooky town that is an entire graveyard for Pokémon. What you don’t realize, until you battle Gary later in the game, is that he is there to lay his Raticate to rest. Ash’s Pokémon dealt a fatal blow to Gary’s Raticate, and due to the crowds and commotion aboard the ship, he couldn’t make it to a PokéCenter in time. Ash killed Gary’s favorite Pokémon and doesn’t even send flowers to him; he just carries on his journey while a poor, young man mourns. When you finally battle Gary once more, you’ll notice that Raticate is no longer a valuable Pokémon to him. Many people missed that on their playthrough and continued thinking that Ash was the perfect hero. He wasn’t, he’s a Pokémon murderer, and should be tried as such.
This murder of the innocent Raticate is what drove Gary Oak to be the very best Pokémon trainer and to finally destroy Ash. For some reason Gary never actually tells Ash that he is the cause for all this sudden sorrow in his life. Instead, he decided to turn his mourning into a mission, a resolve to blast his way through every gym, and even become the Indigo League Champion for a short amount of time. Gary took on all of the gyms and bested them in record time—he even beats Ash through all of them to become the Indigo League Championship. As Ash, you follow just behind Gary in the entire game, and you always show up just after he’s beaten a gym and even after he’s won the Championship.
Gary Oak finally accomplishes his dream by becoming the Indigo League Champion, and he beams with pride while standing by his grandfather’s side. Gary finally makes his grandfather proud, the grandfather that raised him and pushed him to become a Pokémon Master. As the two stand side by side, guess who busts through the door to ruin the moment? Ash. The final battle ensues with Gary trying as hard as he can to compete without his precious Raticate. But he simply cannot stand up against the onslaught of Pokémon being thrown at him. Soon Ash stands over a defeated Gary, stealing his dream and ultimately his grandfather’s love. You have stolen Gary’s dream, Gary’s Pokémon, and even Gary’s familial love. What a horrible being you must be to stomp on someone’s dream so viciously! It’s just a terrible thing. How can you live with yourself anymore? My God, you were all terrible children. Let’s hope that Sun and Moon don’t try and make heroes out of any villainous main characters.