Yippee

So I did say I was going to do an analysis on Kieran and Hop in their similarities....Just not yet! Because there's something I'm pondering about Kieran's character arc.

So when we first meet the Kitikami siblings we essentially get shown their relationship and who they are pretty quickly.

Carmine's kind of a bully who doesn't like outsiders, and Kieran's her shy brother who has a hard time speaking up. As the story goes on, I feel like the story was essentially telling us how Kieran didn't really have any friends outside of his sister. (Who's also kind of a bully to him too let's be real.) Which is part of the reason he quickly latched onto MC so much besides the comparisons to his favorite Pokémon.

Yet once we're introduced to the Indigo Disk DLC, we're given the Elite Four kids who are... supposed to be Carmine and Kieran's friends.

And now I'm curious what route they were going for.

Option 1: The writers might have forgotten about that.

Option 2: Kieran isn't exactly their friend he's just the little sibling they have a soft spot for since Carmine spends time with them.

Option 3: They are Kieran's friends, he's had friends this whole time but... well the relationship is rather complicated. Even more so now after everything that happened. (It's better now though at least in Pokémon Masters Lore so that's good!)

Option 4: They consider themselves Kieran's friends and truly do care about him, but Kieran's self esteem is so low that he essentially mentally tricked himself thinking that he had no friends at all. Basically this Meet the Robinsons Meme:

To be fair I could have totally misread the original DLC narrative but if it's any of the options I've brought up, I kind like the idea of 4 being the case.

Mainly because when you have such low self-esteem like Kieran clearly has, it can be so easy for you to think that the world is against you or no one has your back. If anything how Kieran has his meltdown in Area Zero feels like it further cements this. (Also something I'll talk about more later on)