Part Three
Almost everything I forgot.
One of these days I'll get someone to explain the appeal of Training Daze.
Years I've been on Tumblr, YEARS now, and I've never known an episode so cradled and cooed over in a bizarre, lock-step frenzy of undiluted praise, as if we all agree it's a blessing upon mankind.
Even the great Holy Matrimony!, too good for this sinful world that it was, never got that kind of senseless adulation.
And God rest its sweet, sweet soul.
I almost suspect this constant deluge of non-criticism serves as a shiny veneer coating the rather insalubrious reality, conditioning the entire fandom to swallow what it's spooning.
Because if everyone says it's good, it MUST be, right?
Is it just another perfectly harmless coincidence that Hoenn, being the first region after Team Rocket's creator left, is also the one to wipe so much established history away?
1. Ash effectively starts all over again with no Pokémon, setting the pattern for every era to come.
2. The entire past of Jessie and James is flushed down the shitter, making their connection much more shallow and conditional.
Prior to this, we knew they'd bonded long before as children, and so joining a crime empire didn't change anything.
But now? Well, if they only met as members, that's all their relationship is based upon.
They might have nothing in common otherwise, with completely conflicting personalities.
I mean, we can't really know if they'd stay together in the real world, can we?
No indeed, and let's be realistic: why would two complete strangers even want to be together?
What, just because they happen to work on the same team, that means they're gonna get married?
Ah come on, that's a bit of a stretch.
I work with loadsa people. I didn't fall in love with any of 'em.
Look, kids. One of these days you're gonna have to accept that people can be Just Friends without deluding yourself imagining all sorts of romantic fantasies.
Yeah. Shipping them is so silly, when you really think about it.
The way her legs cover his belt gives the impression James is boasting some sort of Team Rocket onesie.
3. As part of this Brave New World, the Rocketshipping element all about disappears from the script.
At a push, you have The Bicker the Better and 'But Jessie, sweetheart', and that's it, in four series.
Five if you're counting the spin-off.
Compare that to no hugs, no hand-holding, Sweet Baby James and this hammer blow:
Max: And I thought you were just a nice old couple.
Jessie: No one's ever called us old!
James: An certainly NOT a couple.
Oh? I'm sorry. I didn't quite catch that heavy-handed 'hint'.
SEE KIDS HE DOESN'T WANT HER THERE IS NOTHING THERE STOP SHIPPING THEM RIGHT NOW IT'S ALL JUST YOUR IMAGINATION!!!
Interesting that it started off as James openly rejecting her, but later developed into Jessie barely tolerating him.
I wish I'd been in the fandom then.
I'd love to know how this mythos of Training Daze as a piece of perfect wonder gained ground in the old forums, fans welcoming such blatant disrespect with open arms.
Or how early PoCo shills silenced dissent.
Yeah, this does completely annihilate every fragment of Team Rocket lore that we loved and cherished.
Now here's why that's A Good Thing...
Well no, flower. You can have the Indigo universe or this atrocity.
Pick one.
Go on. Do it. Why is that an uncomfortable choice?
Why would anyone spare a moment for something so contemptuous of its own fanbase it feels able to tear up and trample upon the very characters we care about?
Eh, they might as well I suppose.
No-one ever answers back.
On the contrary, they'll rush to defend, excuse and celebrate every deliberate manoeuvre.
For example:
Oooooooh! But what about the title?
The sub is called The Origin of Love and Youth!, which, I grant you, sounds promising, but mere words papering over shameless actions are no good to anyone.
First, whilst I suppose the translation is flawed, I'm not sure how this can be an 'origin of youth', given Jessie and James no longer meet in childhood, and are instead as old as they ever will be.
As for an 'origin of love', they've got some bloody nerve, kicking off the most openly Anti-Shipping region by burning the heart out of it, before finishing with James declaring he'd sooner die than marry Jessie.
And Pokémon, more or less over now, ended with them STILL not together, with every sign in between telling us it would never happen anyway.
Exactly what 'love' began here?
I expect Training Daze was slipped into a side-series to contain a potential backlash, where it would all be quietly forgotten without overshadowing the rest of Hoenn.
That miracle unforthcoming, the crew were thus emboldened to insert their various affronts to public decency into the main run, so now you can just shut up and like what yer given.
Yet this chilly Year Zero apocalypse leaves a vast wasteland in its wake, coercing fans to gobble up whatever comes along to plug the gap.
Accept Training Daze, and I'll presume you believe Crossing Paths! out of necessity, meaning Jessie is essentially a wriggling pervert with revoltingly warped desires, and if she asks you to come down the cellar then don't you be going.
'Cause yer won't come back.
As for James, you can go two ways:
• Left home at ten — ?????? — Team Rocket.
• Left home recently, and thus spent his life with Jessibelle, settled and uncomplaining, but doing a bunk once she put the banns up.
Take the first road, and there's a chasm of mysterious blackness in his background that remains unfilled to this day, and now never will be.
But opt for the second, and James chucked Jessibelle after leading her on for years, pissing off as soon as she wanted commitment, and was therefore as cruel and faithless to her as Darren the Div was to Orange Jessie.
Well cheers, retcon!
Hang on. I'll see what I can do.
Every recollection James has is always of his time at home, where he's never any younger or older than his missing poster, as if all his memories come from one single year.
There's no proof he was there at a later date, but also none that he wasn't, since we never see him beyond that age.
So thanks to this bollocks, we now have live with Jessie being a depraved sicko chasing after snotty nerds (NERDS, MAN!!!) and James potentially mistreating women.
Hah! You don't wanna ship 'em now, do yer?
And you wonder why I hate canon balls.
OOOOOOOOOOOH!!! IT SO DOES FIT WITH CANON!!!
Oh really? Proceed.
...
...Um...
...WELL!...Well!...Well now.
See...what happened was...well OBVIOUSLY...they split up in the bike gang didn't they? And then... then they went...somewhere else...
AND THEN...then...they just so happened to join Team Rocket...at the exact same time.
HAH! SEE! SEE! IT DOES FIT!!!
The first rule of propaganda is that a lie told enough times becomes the truth by virtue of repetition.
But the way this is regurgitated to shield a multi-billion dollar franchise goliath like poor defenceless PoCo from criticism is truly humiliating, for all concerned.
You'd imagine it was a well-documented fact given how often its rolled out, not an obvious Cope driving me fookin' insane!
How can it be a continuation if the sub's calling itself an origin?!
They're using The Bridge Bike Gang to prop up a shitshow that erases it in the first place, meaning any 'evidence' the former provides can't even exist in this timeline.
Which doesn't matter, as there isn't any.
Nowhere in that adventure are Chopper or Tyra surprised to see them together, nor do Jessie and James make any reference to a separation.
In fact they've not a single unhappy memory of their time there.
And what kind of excuse opens more questions than it answers?
Believe it, and they both left the gang in a huff, disappeared off the earth for an unknown period, before being independently inspired to join the Mafia, which was handy.
Where the bloody hell were they in between?
What argument could be so awful they vowed never to make it up, to the point they couldn't abide the sight of one another, and stormed off, planning never to meet again, for all the rest of their years left upon earth?
What was it even about?!
And how much time are we talking about?
Weeks? Months? Years?
Well a full decade of missing time, according to the above, being as Duh Twenny Fyve and that.
Ooh, but there's plenty o' clues during Training Daze, I'm sure. We just have to eke 'em out.
Ol' Fat Bastard Bullroarer Took introduces Jess to her new colleague, who — GASP! — happens to feature prominently in one of her multiple-choice Shameful Secret Pasts.
All together now:
It's a small world after all!
And that's enough to knock any girl off her crumpet.
Things Jess WILL say:
• Hmm. You seem familiar.
• Eh? Have we met before?
• Well, well, well. Long time no see.
• Hey, James! It's me, Jessie! Whoa, I can't believe this! How've you been keeping?
• Oh! You again!
• EH?! You mean HIM?! Oh no, you can forget that!
• What? JAMES?!
• OH! NO! NOT YOU!
• SO! WE MEET AGAIN!
• OOOH MY GOD!
It's coming, man. You'll see.
...
BUT! But! James will say it! He'll know her, no problem.
...
Not a flicker of recognition. At all.
Nor is there a single second of footage referencing this supposed Big Argument, proving it's an entirely fabricated excuse trying so hard to clean up after PoCo's tornado of death swept through the ship.
So why lie and pretend otherwise?
But whilst we're here, let's have a look at that definitely-not-cheesy thing James just said.
No one's carried me since my momma.
Yeah. The mother you're talking about there isn't your real mother Ma James, is it?
Else you mean no one's carried you since your governess, three nannies and a footman, til he put his back out.
Again, Holy Matrimony! is no longer canon, thus neither is the rest of Kanto, for the simple reason Hoenn James's 'momma' is some rough, chain-smoking fishwife with six kids by eleven men.
Actual documentary footage.
Well, it's the same accent, so I suppose that's something.
Although I will say, if you try to make it fit, it sounds like James did run off as a boy, even if his home was completely different.
So it doesn't work anyway.
Note that the only way you can have both Indigo and Hoenn canon mixed into some no-doubt cosy Frankenstein freak, offering out milk and there-there hugs, is by accepting that Jessie and James will and can separate over the most trivial issues, thereby leading you to also tolerate, and even justify, all the other Team-Rocket-Are-Splitting-Up episodes to come.
And I don't know why any of us would, as every one of them is predicated on Jessie and James NOT being a couple, not a sniff of hidden feelings even, for walking away is perfectly easy when there's no emotions involved.
Hmm. I don't remember any split-up episodes during the first series.
Certainly not. And guess why.
Now this was Nu-Thinking in its infancy, and yet to gain a foothold, meaning some attempt was made to rationalise the change.
But there's no explanation for how Crossing Paths! connects to Pokémon Tech., the bike gang, or even the Chansey School, given they've all to got to fit around Jessie's late-childhood crisis of Nurse Joy cosplay.
Perhaps it shows Training Daze did its job: buttering 'em up enough to take any punch to the gut, as long as it provided Feeble Emo Feelz in compensation.
Swear down, sometimes I think Pokémon only had a coherent narrative when it was gonna be a one-off.
Soon as that dream died it all went to pot.
During Sinnoh, for example, we go from the Jessie of Noodles! Roamin' Off! telling James to eff off home and marry Jessibelle, to the Jessie of Where No Togepi Has Gone Before! who is implied to be sharing a bed with him.
Take them both as true, and she's a manipulative bitch and bloody abusive, with James as her sad-bastard simp.
Nice.
And thanks to retcon magic, they always were like that now.
Because of the Noodles! ending, we're expected to forgot the beginning, where James almost killed himself trying to bring Jessie back.
Seems the writing can't even stay logical in one episode, as according to this she longs to spend eternity with him, but as for her life?
Nah, some other bird can take the hassle.
Everyone says James's childhood was a vision of horror, for growing up the cosetted only son of two billionaires is exactly as traumatic as struggling to survive as a homeless, starving orphan.
And don't let them pesky peasants tell you otherwise.
But then you have Jessie ordering him back to it.
So either his home life isn't so bad after all, or it is, and she'll happily send James into Hell rather than suffer him a moment longer.
It's SO shippy tho.
Oh look, another minger.
Like a Bay City Rollers tribute act with that collar.
If you were charitable, stooping to admit Dr. Shipman was 'alright', even then, does he remotely compare to James?
No!
Should we limit it to the ugly, boss-eyed Kalos style, then STILL James is superior, because he retains at least a portion of his anime roots.
Besides which, I can never forget James was once better animated, whereas for Dr. Crippen, this mug is as good as it gets.
And it's shit.
But, let's give him his due, he seems to possess two fully working eyes, which puts him one up on Daz 'n' Ozzy, even if they are the Fish-Eyed stare of a psychopath.
Of course, bringing him back down to their level is having No Bloody Nose, just a bridge which...goes nowhere.
And what's up with his neck?
Why is it so thin and elongated like a flamin' lollipop stick?
T.A.P's Law: Never trust a man with a long neck.
There's always a kink in it, like their souls.
Necks like that come from peering over walls to perv on silly women changing with the curtains open.
Conversely, never trust a man with no neck either.
That's from lurking in the bushes.
Is it, AGAIN, a coincidence that Jessie gets pawed off on to the most low-rate arse pickings possible?
What are you telling me? That Jessie is THIS worthless she goes for absolute biological crap, and since they don't want her, she is beneath them?!
And as she can't so much as stomach James, he's even worse than her?!
You look pretty today, Jessie.
I like your ear.
I'm irked at how, in a way, Dr. Shite is close to reasonable, at least within the restrictions of Kalos, yet the 'artists' made sure to stay just on the wrong side of average.
Had that flat, lank rug, supplying a chip shop its annual grease quota in one flick, been coloured black, we could've worked with it, turd-polished him up as the 'tall, dark and handsome' stereotype.
But NO!
Instead, they go for a murky shade between brown and grey, i.e. sludge.
Calm yourself, ladies.
Had his eyes been truly brown, then this could fit with that same 'ideal man' cliché.
But I think they might be veering into red.
EEEEEEEE!!! THE SATANIC HUE OF DÆMON SPAWN!!!
Somewhere along the line, him and Darren are in cahoots.
I insult Dr. Hook relentlessly for this episode, but, all facial flaws aside, it's not his fault.
He never asked for Kalos Jessie to throw her screeching fruit loaf at him; for some utterly unknown lunatic to force herself into his life, expecting to take over.
You ought to able to save a bint without her turning out be an obsessive nut claiming to be 'in love' after five minutes.
Really, he showed her nothing but normal human consideration, never led her on, and all the way through, stayed loyal to his midget girlfriend.
He likes her so much his right eye's popped out.
This is all on Kalos Jess.
She's the one abandoning her mates for a bloody stranger she knows nothing about, who might be a bloomin' serial killer for all she's aware.
Come on, every doctor's offed a few.
She's the one expecting Wobbuffet to take on some tarted-up single mother Wobba and her fatherless offspring.
But is he paying maintenance? 'Cause that's the real question.
She's the one not bothering to tell her friends she's safe, happy to let them go on believing her dead.
Oh, thanks a lot, love.
She's the one who knew James was robbed, beaten and alone, meaning he'd have NO ONE for the foreseeable future, and STILL wouldn't help until she had no other choice.
What a bitch, man!
Imagine how this was for me.
Little T.A.P. idolized Jessie. That was who I wanted to be when I grew up.
What do you think it is to see someone you love, the lively, fiery and beautiful young girl, twisted into a selfish, dried-up and soulless husk of woman?
We're supposed to see her as a weak, simpering airhead, who's 'in love' (HAH!) with every dribbling chump in her line of vision, which is bad enough when you realize how far she's fallen from the early years.
Have you NO dignity anymore?
But the actual depiction, beyond that sugary superficiality, is of a cold, callous, truly repulsive monster, with such a lack of concern for James's welfare she had to be FORCED to help him.
And I find myself in a state of cognitive dissonance.
I don't consider Kalos Jess to be Indigo Jessie, because the only similarity between them is they occupy the same space in the universe.
Problem is that the passive, 'mainstream view' is that they are, and so, immersed within it, by definition I'm expected to see it that way too.
I'm pressured by the planetary weight of blasé fandom culture, to see this heartless, vindictive harpie as no different from the girl I once hero-worshipped, and, as usual, she now was this all along, forever rotten to the core, and unworthy of my devotion from day one.
And I hate that.
As with Dr. Death, it would've been so easy to turn this around, scraping over the line of inadequacy with at least SOME redeeming elements.
If, at any point, Jessie had come to her senses, realized where her true heart lay, and ran back to James and Meowth, laughing at her own foolish fancies, I could've blamed it on brain damage.
If, having heard James's anguished plea for help, she'd dropped everything and rushed to his side, just as she did in Noodles!, this might count as the shippy-follows-anti-shippy rule, which I'd have suffered.
But do we get any o' that?
NO!
The ONLY reason she bothered to lift a finger to save her oldest friend was as she realized Dr. Fox didn't want her.
Whaddya yer see in him, Jess? He ain't even a man!
He looks about fourteen!
Meaning if Dr. Who HAD reciprocated, Jessie would've happily left James to fend for himself, potentially alone for life.
Yer fookin' evil bastard, Jessie!
Right at the end, she flings her bouquet from the balloon, for she's resigned to a loveless existence.
No wry smile, a shrug, or even philosophical attitude that eh, this is where she belongs, and alls well that ends well.
Nope, she resents coming back, and would leap at the chance to leave again, if anyone (and I do think it's anyone) offered it to her.
As to Kalos Jess, James is the lowest of the low, the pond slime company she settles for when nothing better is available.
He is the worst possible result, who she now can't even abide as a pal.
Oh charming, this is.
I have only seen this episode once and I will never watch it again, because it broke my bloody heart.
This was it. This was when I realized.
They'll never be together. All your dreams meant nothing.
I had inklings before, but like an idiot I pushed 'em down, unwilling to acknowledge what my own senses told me.
Year upon year of implications and, God help us, 'deconstructions' but this was the episode where the writers' intent was finally out in the open.
And people STILL didn't see it!
Apparently no one thought this hateful, nihilistic tantrum was anything to worry about, even trying to spin it as a positive that she came back at all, despite what it says about her reprehensible attitude.
As sod James and his feelings.
All that matters is Jess gets some half-witted knob-wrench to take her on fulltime.
Meowth can be sold on like a cheap, hand-me-down handbag, whilst James can suck it up and do one.
It's not just the clanging, anvil-to-the-head message that Rocketshipping is dead that got me, it's that it was murdered in the nastiest manner possible.
If it'd carried on as usual, all their romantic interludes fading to nothing, replaced by the anæmic, brother-and-sister creepfest they have now, it would've been a sad, tedious end, but rendered almost unimportant thanks to interest withering away.
But they couldn't even do that!
Instead, it the clear message that James loves her, but Jessie doesn't love him, and thus misery.
Worse, she hasn't a single platonic feeling for James, or even crumb of pity, though this is supposed to be a fella who's stood by her for the last five generations.
Kalos Jess is in fact ice all the way down, without a speck of humanity.
It's not even 'Just Friends' now! 'Cause that was too much to ask for an' all!
How this is meant to gel with Hoenn James's disgust I don't know, but his delight on seeing her, after all she did, downgrades the once-proud, arrogant posh boy into a broken, grovelling snotdrip, hanging around hoping she'll 'settle' for him once she's out of other options.
Fuq's ache, James!
You can do better than her, love. Jessibelle wouldn't have cheeked yer like that.
And then, for utterly no reason at all, Rumishipping suddenly looked attractive.
Remember how bad the montage was too? That gives you an idea of their opinion.
Although I suppose some of it's practicalities:
A. The 'art style' had degraded so badly by then that any 'best bits' from the first four regions wouldn't fit, instead emphasizing the collapse in quality.
The only answer would be to reanimate every single one, and they don't care that much.
B. A real collection of their finest moments would show Jessie as a warm, magnetic character, giving affection towards James and Meowth, which would somewhat undermine her modern portrayal.
Taken literally, imagine being James, running away crying, and the best memory you have of Jessie is almost dying of anaphylactic shock with her.
You know how this was supposed to be the 'origin of love'?
Well, about that...
What, you believed 'em?
You thought, if they didn't plan on Jessie and James being together, they'd actually tell you?
What, and watch you walk away, you and that lovely bank account of yours?
Come on, they've gotta milk yer dry first.
Here's where Zero Tolerance becomes a winning strategy, because we're only in this cesspit thanks to fans putting up with the steady decline in standards.
• You liked the above picture, so you agreed with rewriting canon.
Or, you took a blowtorch to Kanto, melted it beyond recognition, and stuffed Training Daze into the gloop, meaning you accepted Jessie and James can split up.
But that was alright, as it happened offscreen.
No worries.
• You got tearful over the end of Noodles!, and thus overlooked them parting on-screen, with her telling him to marry Jessibelle, confirming that Jessie and James have no romance.
But that was alright, as she soon came running once he was in need.
Also no worries.
• Now, we get to Kalos, after a full region of no shippy scenes between, and lo and behold, Jessie leaves James on-camera, openly pesters another man, and despises James so much she'll knowingly let him suffer.
But THAT was alright, as she... she... she came back didn't she? Thanks to the conventions of the programme.
No worries!
From the day I learnt Cassidy and Butch were back, I KNEW it'd be terrible.
Not just as it always is, but announcing this on Christmas Eve, thereby parading it as a gift, was tempting fate.
When the sub aired, the one surprising element was people actually complaining about the substandard offering, for once.
Yeah, they'd cheered on every other travesty in this post, but NOW things were serious.
Yet strangely, I didn't find it so awful.
It's a bad episode yes, but there are worse out there, certainly in Galar, and the tone was so slapdash and stupid I couldn't take it seriously.
So why all the fuss?
I would guess many viewers were holding on this long, trusting it'd all be worth it one day, but every disappointment was like the tick-tick-tick of a bomb countdown.
And here's where time ran out.
Something about The Good, the Bad and the Lucky! set off so many explosions, as if THIS was the one, THIS had to be the prize, THIS must be what they'd waited for all these decades.
And when it wasn't, then BOOM!
Too little, too late, sunshine. They don't need to please you now.
Team Rocket are gone, and Tumblerries who wouldn't fight are shocked they lost the war.
Yet there are also daft fans out there STILL insisting the happy-ever-after will come in the very, very last installment, if you only wait another twenty years or more, watching and paying as you go, up to when future writers won't have to bother.
Why should they deign to please you when no kids will remember who Jessie and James are by then?
Maybe we did have the ending we deserved, given no one cared enough to make a stand.
And it's not that I begrudge anyone speaking out now.
I only wish you'd said something when it could've made a difference.
End of Part Three
[Part One] [Part Two]
[Part Three 2.0] [Part Four]
