it IS kind of funny to me how professor oak is constantly framed as this great benevolent amazing professor to the point where they were even like "let's give this guy a cousin in alola who looks almost exactly like him because THAT'S what everybody wants to see in the games right" and then you pick up r/b/y or fr/lg and see how he treats blue and it's like Wow. This old man sucks. Somebody should kill him for sport. is he as bad as, say, ghetsis or lusamine? no. but he is DEFINITELY objectively awful. the games and professor oak framing blue as a bad trainer and person when he quite LITERALLY did NOTHING wrong (r/b/y has as many examples of blue being genuinely helpful towards his childhood friend as it does of him being an arrogant little twat, which is fine because. hello. he's 11. have you ever interacted with 11-year-olds) is soooooo irritating sometimes because like. in the VERY NEXT GENERATION you have a very clear example (silver) of what a kid mistreating their pokémon looks like (to the point where npcs are quite literally commenting on it left and right) and absolutely none of that is there with blue. glad to see he's flourishing now that he's fully moved to alola with red to run the battle tree and i hope he's blocked professor oak's number
i went to go find oak quotes on bulbapedia (couldnt find any except him forgetting his fucking grandson's name) to try and figure out what you meant and when i resorted to a janky top 10 list i found this
i cropped out all the ads but there was no mention of blue in this paragraph, but hello???? i don't think that's a professor oak thing exclusively 😭 pretty sure blue says that
i always just go directly for game scripts posted on gamefaqs (here's the one for pokémon red/blue/yellow) but here are some examples of what i'm talking about (other than him forgetting blue's name entirely):
pokémon red, when getting your first pokémon:
(before walking into the wild grass, in the lab):
Blue: Yo RED! Gramps isn't around!
(after walking into the wild grass, in the lab):
Blue: Gramps! I'm fed up with waiting! Oak : BLUE? Let me think... Oh, that's right, I told you to come! Just wait! Here, RED! There are 3 POKEMON here! Haha! They are inside the POKE BALLS. When I was young, I was a serious POKEMON trainer. In my old age, I have only 3 left, but you can have one! Choose! Blue: Hey! Gramps! What about me? Oak: Be patient! BLUE, you can have one too!
pokémon yellow, same scenario:
Blue: Gramps! I'm fed up with waiting! Oak: Hmm? BLUE? Why are you here already? I said for you to come by later... Ah, whatever! Just wait there. Look, RED! Do you see that ball on the table? It's called a POKE BALL. It holds a POKEMON inside. You may have it! Go on, take it! Blue: Hey! Gramps! What about me? Oak: Be patient, BLUE, I'll give you one later.
pokémon firered/leafgreen, if red loses the first battle to blue:
Oak: Hm! How disappointing… If you win, you earn prize money, and your Pokémon will grow. But if you lose, Red, you end up paying prize money… However, since you had no warning this time, I'll pay for you. But things won't be this way once you step outside these doors. That's why you must strengthen your Pokémon by battling wild Pokémon.
pokémon red/blue/yellow, after winning the championship against blue:
Oak: So, you won! Congratulations! You're the new POKEMON LEAGUE champion! You've grown up so much since you first left with CHARMANDER/BULBASAUR/SQUIRTLE! RED, you have come of age! BLUE! I'm disappointed! I came when I heard you beat the ELITE FOUR! But, when I got here, you had already lost! BLUE! Do you understand why you lost? You have forgotten to treat your POKEMON with trust and love! Without them, you will never become a champ again! RED! You understand that your victory was not just your own doing! The bond you share with your POKEMON is marvelous!
pokémon firered/leafgreen, after winning the championship against blue:
Oak: Red! So, you've won! Sincerely, congratulations! You're the new Pokémon League Champion! You've grown up so much since you first left with Charmander/Bulbasaur/Squirtle to work on the Pokédex. Red, you have come of age! Blue… I'm disappointed in you. I came when I heard you'd beaten the Elite Four. But, when I got here, you had already lost! Blue, do you understand why you lost? You have forgotten to treat your Pokémon with love and trust. Without them, you will never become a Champ again! Red. You understand that your victory was not just your own doing. The bond you share with your Pokémon is marvelous.
fundamentally oak's whole THING about him being awful to blue is not about him forcing him to do anything or manipulating him or abandoning him on the side of the road or driving him to homelessness or anything like what you see with some of the... more extreme guardians. it's the CONSTANT uplifting of red at the expense of putting blue down, over and over and over again. the dialogue was changed for yellow and frlg, but in the original red/blue you quite literally have blue waiting in the lab for god knows how long until oak ushers red in with the promise of giving him a new pokémon (when he'd already apparently promised blue the same thing and just. forgot. again) and when blue is understandably like "GRAMPS I'VE BEEN HERE FOREVER I'M SICK OF WAITING" because he's. y'know. Eleven. oak is just like yeah yeah shut up. now red you can have whatever pokémon you want <3333 and it's literally to the point where when blue wins the battle against red in pokémon firered/leafgreen, oak's reaction is not to congratulate his grandson on his first ever win but just to be disappointed that red lost.
and then at the indigo plateau you have it all again: oak piling heaps and heaps of praise upon red and then turning around and absolutely tearing into blue in the same breath when blue. has quite literally done nothing wrong. there's never been anything throughout the games about blue mistreating his pokémon and we KNOW that the games would point out if something like that was happening because we saw that in the very next generation with silver. all blue did was act a bit cocky sometimes in the bratty way that kids do. and can you blame him constantly talking himself up? it's not like oak's ever going to give him a single kind word or even acknowledge his existence. it's even to the point where blue literally runs out of the indigo plateau in firered/leafgreen. and i don't blame him! you don't have anything monstrous happening like ghetsis or lusamine but the whole situation is awful and professor oak just. sucks.
