"I'm astounded by how poorly written Zinnia is."

Whenever the topic of worst Pokémon characters is brought up I see the usual choices. The Gen 6 rivals for being extremely one dimensional, USUM Lusamine for completely ruining a great character from the previous game and having non existent motivations, Clair or Whitney for being difficult and then being bratty about their defeat etc.I'm very surprised that I don't see Zinnia brought up in these discussions a lot more often, considering she's quite possibly one of the worst written characters in the franchise.One of the biggest reasons I think her character is so terrible is because she's a massive hypocrite that never gets called out on her blatant hypocrisy. Let me refresh you on Zinnia's role in ORAS. Its revealed that in the remakes that Zinnia was the one who manipulated Team Aqua or Magma the whole time and is the cause of the events of the games.So Zinnia put the awakening of the primal of your version into motion in hopes that Rayquaza would be attracted by the commotion. Now of course, that never happened and instead a worldwide flood/drought almost killed everyone until the player took matters into their own hands and caught/defeated the Primal.The same character who orchestrated this almost world ending crisis then gets on Steven's ass for wanting to use infinity energy to teleport away the Meteroid because it could danger a potential alternate Hoenn that she gives absolutely NO proof of. She just says it with absolutely no backing and wants everyone to take her seriously.Obviously WE as the players know the games take place in a multiverse, but Zinnia only speaks in hypotheticals and doesn't provide any proof for her claims. Yet she's extremely condescending to and mocks Steven for not taking the claims of a clearly unhinged rambling woman at face value? And me calling her unhinged isn't me being rude. Everything about the way she carries herself portrays her this way. She does this deranged anime grin a couple of times, shes constantly talking to herself and her battle intro animation is extremely feral. I really don't blame Steven for not taking the words of this lunatic at face value, and I don't know why she expects everyone to believe her baseless claims either.She also never apologises or shows any remorse for causing the crisis, she just moves on to plan B of stealing everyones Mega Rings and completely forgets she did anything wrong.Also, something that I have a feeling a lot of people completely missed or just forgot about her is that she knocks out the player, who in ORAS at least is only 12 years old. She also attacks the opposite gendered rival in a similar way, although she is at least merciful enough to not knock them unconscious. She is never called out for this and never faces any serious consequences... in the games at least. In the games when Rayquaza deems her unworthy it quickly turns its attention to the player and the scheme still works essentially as planned, with Zinnia getting off scott free. In the manga on the other hand, Rayquaza IMPALES Zinna on its tail and hyper beams her at close range. Jesus.Obviously not something that would happen in the mostly PG games (violence is only really ever implied, shown off screen or talked about in past tense), and even I think its a little extreme. But I do think its better then her literally getting off completely free. As a character she does various villainous things, is a hypocrite, and yet is treated as if she did nothing wrong?I can only assume that Zinnia is elevated in people's minds due to her genuinely 10/10 amazing battle theme or more cynically, the fact that she's a waifu. She doesn't really offer anything else. Her backstory is as cookie cutter as they come. She lost somebody precious in the past that she never elaborates on, and thats it. Its not even written particularly well or anything. I've got no problem with waifu culture in general, but when people try to claim a genuinely terrible character is good just because they're hot it tends to grate on me a little. If there's something else about Zinnia that appeals to people, I'm sure as hell not seeing it.Also off topic slightly but I can see why people hate Personas Marie now. For those who know nothing about Persona she is essentially in the exact same boat as Zinnia. A character added in the remake of Persona 4 who was given a VERY important role in the plot. I started with P4 Golden so she was in my first ever experience with the game so I never felt like she "tarnished" anything, unlike my experience with Pokemon where I played Emerald way before ORAS came out. Marie also wasn't written particularly well, although I don't really dislike her that much because she can actually just be ignored for the most part. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/2wmTqe8