Today, we're going to be looking at one of the less popular rivals from Pokemon's history: Brendan from Pokemon RSE. But first, what do we mean when we talk about "the rival" in Pokemon? The rival character is someone, usually from the starting town, who follows you around in your adventure and challenges you to battles.
The first two examples of the archetype were, to put it politely, jerks. Blue, from RBY, is a very schoolboy bully kind of unpleasant, constantly denigrating the player at every turn, boasting about how much more successful his own quest has been, and seizing the title of Champion before you and becoming the game's final boss. Silver (yes, these are their actual names, early Pokemon was kinda terrible at that), from GSC, was even worse, introducing himself by physically assaulting the player and stealing a starter Pokemon from Professor Elm, before generally being such a cruel and callous little tyke that the only reason he doesn't join Team Rocket is a combination of daddy issues and not being entirely impressed with how bad they are at being criminals.
Since then, Pokemon has kinda been at an identity crossroads when it comes to later rivals. Due to a greater understanding of the impact of childhood bullying, Pokemon has been shifting away from such characters and focusing instead on more supportive rivals, making the character purpose of the rival be more about what the rival is like and how they can better themselves as people- the latter of which was a direction that started with Silver himself. For a mixture of reasons that's beyond the scope of this snapshot, this direction has not worked for Pokemon fans. None of those later rivals have enjoyed popularity, or even likability, as Blue and Silver have achieved. Some characters, who aren't explicitly "the rival" but have rival-like buildup, enjoy an unrelated fanbase, although perhaps it's worth mentioning that most of the characters like this are girls with beloved romantic dynamics (equally strangely, always with the female protagonist).
Brendan is... interesting. As the rival that immediately succeeds the beloved jerk rivals, you'd think he'd be subject to the most scrutiny on the subject, but surprisingly, he often slips out of focus. Whenever someone complains about the low quality of "nice rivals", the list always tends to start with Barry from DPPt- and to be fair, they've got a point. Barry's hyperactivity, occasional bouts of bragging and attempts to fine the player ridiculously high prices for things like "being too slow" represents a clear starting point for the transition between "jerk rivals" and "nice rivals". So where does that leave Brendan?
