#006 - Charizard

CHARIZARD

IN SHOW

I could write a novel about all the adventures Ash and his Charizard have been in, but I won’t. We each have our private favourite episodes of the pair, so I’ll just capture what I deem to be the most important. The first thing is, man, we all HATED Charizard when he evolved. He saved Ash and we thought, great! No more Charmeleon, life is going back to the way it should be. We were wrong. It was 59 episodes before we would ever like Charizard or trust the creators of pokemon with our hearts. Why had they made us love Charmander so much only to make him into such an ass for the remainder of his life?

Then the worst happened, an ice beam froze Charizard and many thought that this was the end. Charizard was gonna die and we could get a better Charmander who wouldn’t destroy our hopes and things would go back to normal. But Ash saved Charizard’s life and they have been best friends ever since. Whenever Ash is in a pinch he can call on Charizard. They’ve flown together. They’ve beaten the toughest trainers. And they showed us that friendship needs dedication and trust more than anything else. Plus, Charizard is Ash’s strongest pokemon and that’s cool too.

WHY YOU WANT A CHARIZARD

Many would look at that statement and respond with ‘Why WOULDN’T I?’ I’ll get to that in a bit, so be patient. Charizard can Fly, Cut and move boulders around with Strength. He’s an HM whore, and we loved it. Though people only ever taught him Fly and Strength because who ever uses Cut and we needed those two extra slots for Flame Thrower and Fire Spin. Yes, in Red and Blue he sort of looked like a Dragonite, but at least he looked better then that awful Charmeleon and he looked amazing in Yellow.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A CHARIZARD

Unfortunately for Charizard, as gym battles wear on we eventually move to the Elite 4 where no pokemon trainer is safe. We had gone through the whole game believing nothing could beat fire, except water, so for the first member of the Elite 4 we were stoked. Ice! How simple is that? We know what happens when you put a flame near an ice cube. According to the first generation of pokemon games, it melts and turns to water which puts out your flame. Because yes, your Charizard, the pokemon whose level you maxed and who you suffered through Charmeleon for, was defeated by the programmers making Ice strong against Fire. Against all logic. Even in grade school we could see the problem with this.

IN SUMMARY

The show taught us to believe in the power of Charizard. That he may be down, but he is never out. The game built him up by making him one of the most useful pokemon to ever exist. And then Lorelei took it all away with her Water/Ice combination. And we had put Charizard out front and everything because we expected the game to make some semblance of sense. Ice is not stronger than Fire. Maybe it was revenge for our awesome looking Charizard.