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NEWS: 17th Pokémon Film to Air on Cartoon Network, Teletoon in November

I'll bee watching this. It'll be my first time seeing the XY crew. I hope Serena and co. are OK.

They're all great design wise, but as of now, Serena is the only one in the group (and the only main female) who doesn't have a goal, so she really starts to wear on you.

As of now, Serena's only purpose on the show is being Ash's potential love interest and making Poke-Puffs. Yeah...

ShatteredWorld wrote:

They're all great design wise, but as of now, Serena is the only one in the group (and the only main female) who doesn't have a goal, so she really starts to wear on you. As of now, Serena's only purpose on the show is being Ash's potential love interest and making Poke-Puffs. Yeah...

You might find yourself surprised in the next several episodes, then, to find out that this was very, very intentional. Both her lack of a direct dream and her crush on Satoshi/Ash.

In the first place, though, a lot of people got really upset that they "gave Satoshi/Ash a love interest". I think they're missing the point of what's been shown so far. Yes, she has a crush on him, but that makes him HER love interest, and not the other way around (he's not just oblivious--he's not really interested and I don't think he will be). And she's concerned about her feelings enough to be emotionally involved when something potentially gets in between her and him, but she's not stereotypically obsessive and her defensive moments are very few and far in-between (rather than being played off as a constant comic relief, like Takeshi/Brock's confessions to females every episode). She hasn't DONE much in terms of reaching a goal, but that hasn't stopped her from developing as a character throughout the series thus far. And the key to her development is her crush... but not in a way that overshadows her, and I'm extremely thankful for this, considering Pokemon is usually always guilty of playing down characters with these sorts of gimmicks (Citron/Clemont and, less so, but still guilty, Eureka/Bonnie, unfortunately, have been guilty thus far of this).Her crush is becoming a learning tool and an inspiration for her and she's growing every time she sees Satoshi/Ash in the spotlight, being put to the test.

But really, all I can suggest is for you to just keep watching. XY has a lot of episodic stuff, but they've been clumping together a lot of episodes and making thematic arcs like what they did with Corni/Korrina and Lucario, and what they're doing now with Serena. If there's any reason to be upset, it's that they waited so long to give her a goal. Though, while it has been a long time in general, I've noticed that they aren't going at the pace of the BW season, so with three badges thus far, it's still relatively early and there is plenty of time to get her arc rolling and her character developed even further on her own.

Now I just hope that they do it right. This is already my favorite season over even D&P. Exciting battles, slightly more realism in portraying people (aside from their gimmicks), subtle but effective character development for almost everyone thus far, and some actual thematic messages. The only thing it's lacking right now is a proper singular rival character to inspire Satoshi to overcome something and not just go through the league because that's what he does.

Hopefully you're right about Serena -- I've loved the show so far (especially the Korrina arc), but Serena has always been that part that always irked me. It really shouldn't take 40+ episodes for us to know the goals of a character.