#anyway i will die on this grookey hill 100%. i am SO glad they never evolved it :p

[kohakhearts]

goh starter trio meta perhaps? i was ensnared by the goh-scorbunny parallel subpoint in the cubone meta bc i'm making myself unwell thinking about how scorbunny latching on to goh and goh latching on to ash.... but also more generally, sobble's whole thing and the absolute tearjerker drizzile evolution episode, and goh's weird ass dream about his rillaboom parents and then waking up to baby grookey clinging to his arm, you get it, i know you're galaxy brained about this

YESSS I AM *SO* GLAD YOU ASKED!!

so my tl;dr here is that all of the galar starters represent something about goh specifically relating to his childhood. their growth and eventual evolution (or lack thereof!) therefore serve to highlight his character development (as an aside, i think this is a very common theme in anipoke. ash's pikachu not evolving speaks to the fact that ash's growth isn't about becoming someone new but about staying true to himself and embracing a battle style that reflects the creative ingenuity that, in the early os, other characters mocked him for. similarly, dawn's piplup chooses not to evolve because it doesn't want to change how things are between them. does this not seem fitting for the partner of someone like dawn, who has always admired her mother so much that she never even considering doing something other than following in her footsteps? i'm sure there are other examples, but these seem to me the most obvious ones!).

let's break down each one, then!

scorbunny

when we meet scorbunny, goh is still determined that mew will be his first pokemon. this is a point of stubbornness that, while impressive and arguably kind of admirable, is frankly kind of stupid. how is he supposed to get to mew without any pokemon to help him? there's an interesting implication in this resolution, which jn004 and jn005 really highlight for us - goh isn't comfortable with having a pokemon. he knows a lot about them, is interested in researching them, but as far as the bond between pokemon and trainer goes, i don't think he feels prepared for that. it's easier to pick a target that is far from reasonably attainable for him at this point, especially since he does have some history with mew - didn't it take an interest in him? didn't it give him a reason to chase after it?

so meeting scorbunny, he's obviously not thinking about catching it. but he lies to the guy at the scone stand, in an interesting parallel to how scorbunny steps in to protect the nickit. he doesn't even seem to know why he does it. but just before that scene, he sees scorbunny wipe some of the dirt off its face. he doesn't get the whole story and connect all the dots until after, but i think he realizes then that scorbunny is trying to hide itself in some way. that it's performing as something it's not. and on some unconscious level, that motivates him to lie for it. after, we get this whole exchange, where the scone seller tells ash and goh the story

and this note is what makes goh get up and approach scorbunny and the nickit:

it's very symbolic that he wipes the mud off scorbunny's face. and then later, he even points out when they see it again that it looks better without all the mud covering it up - it looks more like itself. it's not pretending to be something it's not. goh wiping the mud off its face is him saying that he accepts it as it is. that being resigned to living a certain way just to fit in or just because that's how it's always been is pointless.

and i mean...even ash says in this scene that the things goh is saying are things he's only recently learned himself, right? goh denies it (and tbh when he says that he's always thought the world is big and anyone can explore it if they want to or whatever - i don't think that's untrue! i think it's just that, prior to meeting ash, he didn't have it in him to explore it), but ash has a point. and what goh is doing for scorbunny here is the same thing that ash did for him.

relatedly, scorbunny follows him, right? in the same way that goh "accepts" ash as his friend, scorbunny chooses goh as its trainer. goh recognizes that it travelled far for him, that it saw a vision of its future with him, and changes his mind about not catching it. i think the determination he saw in scorbunny to chase after its dreams resounded with him, because he's only just started doing the same thing. and his entire character is built around this idea of like, learning how to adapt and how to let other people help you find the courage to chase your dreams (and even to help you chase them). how could he possibly deny scorbunny the same thing?

but while scorbunny's enthusiasm helps motivate goh to chase his dreams, he is very flippant and dismissive, as we see when it learns ember and he says it doesn't matter, that scorbunny doesn't need to know a fire-type move and this gut-punch of a line, of course:

goh is someone who needs a lot of convincing to do things he doesn't think he'll be good at (or enjoy). he only joins project mew because gary goads him into it. he spends most of his life refusing to make friends, because he had one bad experience. he's a fairly black-and-white thinker, which makes sense considering his background. he doesn't really believe in change. he especially doesn't believe that people (or pokemon, in this case) can change their circumstances just through hard work and determination. as we see in jn003 with the ivysaur, he also doesn't think that it's anyone else's place to intervene and "help" others. if you can't change something, then don't. and there's no point in hoping it'll change on its own, either.

when scorbunny storms off here, his expression is interesting. this isn't the expression of someone being judgemental. it's the expression of someone who sympathizes.

he sees scorbunny trying so hard to do something he thinks it can't do and thinks that scorbunny's determination to change things is, if i had to guess, kind of immature. a lesson scorbunny will have to learn, whether it wants to or not. at first it's kind of endearing, but then he actually gets frustrated, because he feels like scorbunny's determination to learn ember is harmful to them both. here, there's a degree of "why won't you just trust that i know what's best for you?" for sure, but on a deeper level, i think that stems from a place of "can't you see that i'm just trying to protect you?"

...but obviously, all he really does is wind up lashing out and hurting scorbunny's feelings. he tells ash that he was trying to draw out scorbunny's strengths (and he was, by telling it to use moves it was already good at!), but ash points out that their values weren't aligned and that's kind of the opposite of strength when it comes to pokemon battling. so he reassesses the situation and finds a way to bring out scorbunny's strength that also aligns with what scorbunny wants. that compromise is what makes scorbunny evolve. it was the right call! but then raboot starts ignoring him.

and this is like. a running gag with scorbunny - goh gets distracted by other things and doesn't notice that it's trying to show him things. it happens when they meet and it happens again in this episode with its ember. we see something very similar with goh and his parents in jn032 when he's excited at the prospect of their vacation together, but when he tries to ask what they want to do, he turns around and find they're both asleep (and we see the flashback of something similar happening last time, too).

with raboot, in a lot of ways, goh is grappling with...himself. or at least, the person he was before he met ash - cold and distant, more interested in doing whatever he thinks is worth his time than in school, for example. so if goh saw his child self in scorbunny, he sees his more "adolescent" (i mean. he's still ten so still child, technically. but older child lol) self in raboot. and he actually responds to this in a way that's a lot like how we see his parents responding to him. in jn022, we see him

buy a bunch of apples for raboot, even though he thinks it doesn't need them (and is hurt when it doesn't let him have one, despite raboot seeming pleased that he bought them for it). compare to the device he shows horace in jn032, for example, which he says his parents built for him. or his six computer monitors. his parents reach him best through material means!

question why raboot hates him when it's not responsive to his overtures. contrarily, goh's parents don't think he hates them; they just automatically assume the worst case scenario (like in jn015 when he calls and they immediately wonder if he did something and got kicked out of the institute). but while that's their worst case scenario about him, raboot hating him is kind of goh's worst case scenario, right? it took him time to open up and accept scorbunny as his partner. now that it's evolved and is acting differently, he's terrified that he came to care for it only for it to leave him.

which leads to my last point here, which is that he doesn't actually ask what it wants. in this episode, he concludes that raboot would be happier without him. so he leaves it behind, but he never actually considers how it might feel. goh's parents do the same thing! they worry about him, but they don't share their concerns or ask how he feels. they just assume that he must feel a certain way and they adapt to compensate for that. but they never actually ask him what he wants.

this episode ends with him realizing that he hasn't been reacting to raboot's feelings so much as to his own, of course, and we see their relationship smooth out quite a bit. he's acknowledging that he's done things wrong, but also that it's not all his fault - and raboot's change in temperment is just a consequence of it evolving. they accept each other again and move on.

then, it evolves into cinderace and kind of opens up again more (though it's been doing that little-by-little since jn022). i think the fact that raboot and riolu evolve at the same time was a really cool move by the writers to kind of demonstrate how like...the relationship between ash and goh is reflected in the growth of their pokemon. they trained together! in a way they kind of grew up together! riolu, ash's token baby pokemon in jn, evolving at the same time as goh's starter feels like a very deliberate choice to highlight how ash helped goh's pokemon grow, too - through getting the ball rolling with how he helped goh grow as a person and a trainer. if that makes sense?

anyway, i don't have much to say about cinderace, other than that if he saw himself as a child in scorbunny and as an older child in raboot, then cinderace's level of openness and its enthusiasm aren't just reflexive of it getting back more of its scorbunny-esque personality - it also shows how goh has changed and has learned to embrace these parts of himself, now that he's in that "coming of age" age (well, for pokemon. he is still only ten lmao).

i think we see something similar with his other starters, though maybe a little less on the nose.

sobble

the drizzile episode, as you mentioned, is probably Thing here. but i think the theme with sobble is sort of that, where scorbunny maybe reflects more of the way goh thought about growing up and his aspirations (and how hard it was to open up to people), sobble more so mirrors his social experiences at school and with chloe.

VISUALLY, i think it's really telling that when goh catches sobble, he's...literally speaking to it from the other side of the water:

this whole episode (jn028) is about goh kind of...forcing sobble into positions it's not necessarily comfortable with, and not realizing that it's uncomfortable until it runs away from him. as we saw with raboot, this is a common theme with goh - but it's most obvious with sobble!

he realizes, of course, and says this:

even in flashbacks, goh never comes across as a shy kid. he doesn't exactly relate to sobble, but i think he's drawing a parallel here between them. he wasn't shy, but he was always on the "outside" - that's why he's so good at researching. he strives to see things as they are without getting involved. eventually, this is something that will make him a pretty thoughtful and strategic battler, though at this point he's still learning how to apply that to more than just research for the sake of research.

and then after sobble meets inteleon, we have these bits too:

goh's childhood motivations on the surface appear to be like...he doesn't want to bother with friends, because they aren't going to be able to serve a purpose for him. he isn't interested in making friends with anyone who is less into pokemon than he is. but after what happens with horace, it seems to get a little more complex, and then we have to wonder if his motivations really were that surface-level to begin with, or if, maybe, his policy of not making friends has always been a way for him to protect himself from betrayals like he experienced with horace.

we see chloe as early as jn001 trying to convince him to make friends, to no success. she doesn't even refer to herself as his friend - he doesn't seem to be willing to let her. he believes he doesn't need friends and is better off alone. but he doesn't realize until after meeting ash that his solitude is more of a self-imposed exile, in that it's hurting him more than other people. he can't improve as a person and reach his goals if he's too busy trying to protect himself to accept that he needs help from other people to do those things. so, again - i think he sees that side of himself in sobble. so it feels very impactful that he reaches out to help sobble become a better battler, but rather than forcing it to battle in a way that makes sense to him, he comes up with a way to have it train that plays off of its strengths of running and hiding.

and then, of course, there's the episode where sobble evolves, jn062. the writers themselves do most of the work here of drawing the parallel between goh's childhood and how drizzile is feeling, but i think it goes even deeper than that. drizzile is unhappy because it wanted to evolve into inteleon, not into drizzile. it's not comfortable in its own skin. and it doesn't necessarily want others to see it, because it feels like it's still growing and it's not ready yet. it kind of just...needs time to sulk and brood. drizzile runs away again, because it's not ready, and while they're looking for it, it's chloe who makes goh start thinking about when he was a kid, by saying this:

which prompts him to think about how he was searching for a "reason" for why drizzile was acting how it was, just like how adults used to demand reasons from him even when he didn't have them. and then of course we get this scene:

but i think he does on some level know why, because he talks immediately after this about how his parents weren't home and often felt lonely. he's more comfortable being alone. he's protecting himself. which is reinforced by the fact that he then tells drizzile this:

goh has a hard time putting his feelings into words, which is something we see throughout jn. he sees that drizzile is the same and this is a huge moment for him, because he's saying here that it doesn't matter what inspired its feelings; he understands it is experiencing those feelings and that's enough. he'll wait until it's ready to fully process them or whatever else it needs. drizzile kind of returns the favour when he starts crying here and it reaches up to brush away his tears, then disappears again.

overall, this episode does an amazing job of showing us how goh has become someone who actually acknowledges his and his pokemon's feelings - this is the only time we see him as a child where he's not doing something to try to ignore his feelings, or trying to walk away from them. in flashbacks, his back is often to his parents. in jn032, he gets upset, and then tries to cover his disappointment up immediately with anger and avoidance. the writers set this scene up so that we can see the reason behind his feelings clearly (just like we can see the reason behind drizzile's, even though goh and co. can't), but they rightly emphasize that goh's ability to analyze "why" he or his pokemon are feeling a certain way isn't always helpful. emotions are meant to be felt, not intellectualized. it's a good message, and a huge area of growth!

drizzile's evolution into inteleon also shows us how this acceptance translates into it eventually being comfortable enough to be who it wants to be. and the characters are impressed by it - it even earns kecleon's admiration, the same way that other inteleon earned its when it was a sobble. this is a pretty clear mirror with goh's social life, where he went from being this friendless outcast figure to someone with a lot of friends, and a great willingness to make more, as he became more comfortable and confident and willing to reach out to others.

and lastly,

grookey

the only one of the three that doesn't evolve, for reasons that aren't ever really made clear to us. but i think that as random (...and tone deaf) as his dream sequence at the start of grookey's debut episode is, it actually makes a lot of sense. in the original, the dream has camille and walker transformed into rillaboom, and goh is understandably freaked out. but i think the bigger, more symbolic thing is that even if it is a dream, his parents are the ones that foist grookey upon him. this does seem like a really weird choice, until you start thinking about the parallels, right?

in reality, grookey is team rocket's pokemon. the episode title "when a house is not a home" tells us that grookey obviously doesn't feel like it "belongs" there. but the episode doesn't open in team rocket's base. it opens in goh's apartment. and the part i didn't show in the drizzile scene above is when he says this:

the fact that goh was home alone a lot as a kid gets brought up fairly often. it implies that he kind of had to adopt this lone wolf persona, because there was no one else around to take care of him. he had to learn how to console himself and meet his own needs (hence why he's so combative about ash intervening with the ivysaur in jn003!), which is a lot of responsibility for a kid. grookey is handed to him like it's a responsibility in his dream, but then they bond. and he starts to appreciate having grookey around, to the point that he misses it when it returns to team rocket.

to me, the choice to have grookey not evolve kind of comes down to grookey being kind of...emblematic of goh's childhood. like, in his dream, grookey is this burden that's forced on him. someone he has to take care of, even though he isn't really prepared to do that. in reality, grookey is escaping from an environment that doesn't meet its needs. putting those two things together, i mean...that's just my reading of it, anyway. so grookey not evolving, and goh accepting grookey as it is - without any of the "growing up" analogs we have with cinderace and inteleon - is a way of showing that goh has come to terms with his childhood and that he accepts (and cherishes!) his childhood self. which he can only really do after he's done all the growing we see reflected in the evolutions of his other starter mons. (relatedly, grookey is the only starter of goh's who goh considers leaving with other mons in its evolution line. specifically, with two thwackey and their child, i.e. a family unit not unlike goh's!)

anyway! this is a very long post, so thanks for sticking with me if you did. hope my takes are as galaxy-brained as you hoped hehe