User blog:Emeraldblade95/Pure Good Proposal: Jasmine (Pokémon)



Earlier this week, I created a removal proposal for Jasmine from the Pokémon series. It was met with mixed views from various voters, so I decided to close it and rewrite it into a Pure Good Proposal as I'm actually starting to view her as a possible candidate for the Pure Good category. So without further ado, here's Jasmine from the Pokémon series.

Note: I took this from previous post, so if you notice any similarity, that's the reason, it is in my own words, so it is not plagiarism.

What is the Work?
Pokémon is an RPG video game where players known as Pokémon trainers travel across various region to catch, train, and build relationships with Pokémon, a species of mythical animals, animate objects, and whatnot that have special powers and abilities.

Each game features different unique characters and well as different Pokémon, many of which have a wide variety of personalities.

In each game, the player is aiming to become the region's respective champion, but in order to do so, they must first defeat all eight gym leaders, the Elite Four, and the current champion in order to obtain the title, which of course is a difficult, time-consuming, and stressful challenge.

In more recent games, there is another storyline in which the player must team up with several allies to defeat an evil individual or group who wishes to obtain power by abusing Pokémon abilities.

Who is She? What has She Done?
Jasmine is the sixth gym leader chronologically in the Johto Region (the second Pokémon region of eight in appearances). She specializes in training and battling with Steel-type Pokémon and resides in Olivine City.

Jasmine has a notably calm personality, although her speech suggest that she often times gets confused as to what exactly she will say or how to react, suggesting that she is also moreorless naive.

Despite her strange speech patterns, she cares deeply about her Pokémon, especially Amphy, her Ampharos, which tends to her city's lighthouse, but falls ill in the main storyline in-game, requiring her to leave her gym and care for it.

Like most non-antagonistic gym leaders, Jasmine is friendly to the player, and befriends them even before they have their destined battle together (which in canon, the player wins), and does not show hostility nor arrogance in battle.

All aforementioned information is nearly identical to her anime counterpart, save for she has no trouble speaking.

Her role in the anime is similar to the game, as she cares for her sick Ampharos and refuses to battle Ash until the sick Pokémon gets better, she tasks him and his friends to fetch the medicine needed in Cianwood City, with Chuck assisting them. He administers the medicine and heals Amphy, and later she and Ash defeat Team Rocket before their battle. She battles valiantly, but loses to Ash and praises him for his unique tactic of using Cyndaquil's fire attack to transform her Steelix's sandstorm into a fire storm, knocking the steel Pokémon out, and gives him the mineral badge respectively.

She later returns when Ash is in the Shinnoh region and reunites with Ash and Brock, their she challenges Flint to a battle so that she can learn how to become a stronger trainer.

Goodness Zone/Corrupting Factors
In the previous post, I mentioned show her lack of screen time was a disqualifying factor, but recently I discovered a possible loophole around this.

Remember Angie Diaz? She was also a PG candidate that too had a low screen-time, but she was approved, largely because of the fact that her actions were shown on-screen.

Jasmine is in fact a minor supporting character at best, but there are some turn ons to her character that could counter this factor as well (see below).

Admirable Standards
Similar to Cynthia, she has the personality to fit the category, she is very kind and caring for a gym leader.

Jasmine sees battles not as competition, but rather as a means to demonstrate how far a trainer's bond with their Pokémon, as well as their skill has grown. She values friendship as well.

Although she has a lack of screen-time in both the games and the anime, most of her notable PG actions are shown on screen:

Her most notable action was that she stepped down from her position of Gym Leader temporarily because a Pokémon she owned was sick and could not operate the city's lighthouse respectively (if a lighthouse does not work properly, sailors cannot find the location of land and could potentially get shipwrecked). This is something that definitely stands out for her character, considering that most gym leaders both in-game and in the anime simply stay put within the town and gym they respectfully are stationed in, and rarely, if not ever leave it.

Although it is the player that takes the trip to get the medicine for the sick Pokémon, Jasmine calms Amphy down, both on and off-screen as means to tell the Pokémon that she trusts the player and that everything will be alright.

Not many of the other gym leaders play a pronounced role that makes them stand out more from the rest in the series (save for perhaps Brock and Misty in the anime); in addition, she plays a major role in all the episodes of the anime she appears in and is perhaps the only gym leader from the Johto Region that ever returns in later regions in both the anime and the games (she appears in Pokémon: Diamond/Pearl/Platinum on the beach in the games and appears in one episode of the Anime while Ash is in the Shinnoh region).

Final Verdict
I know I'm making a risky decision by suddenly switching my view on Jasmine, but honestly after seeing your comments, I hope this gives you guys and gals a more convincing view on her character, and hopefully she may actually stand a chance in the category.