#wow sef did you write another unprompted essay on a character you like? maybe so.

[shmothman]

I saw that screenshot of Friede's head being in the clouds and that clicked for me. When I watched the episodes, it felt like a running gag that he apparently forgot to tell stuff to Liko, and his crew gives this 'really? again?' reaction, which gives me the impression that this has happened multiple times.

He seemed distracted, forgetful but having his head in the clouds is a better way to explain it thematic wise. He gives me Ash vibes in that sense; whenever Ash gets super into something, that's all he'll think about and he'll just do it. He also has that Ash recklessness, which his crew also appeared to be used to. Yet he's got a protective streak, stepping in to fight Amethio multiple times. It's refreshing to see an adult character stepping in to fight battles for the teenage protagonist instead of the protagonist fighting the battles themselves. Makes it feel like he's at heart a dependable person to rely on.

Apologies for rambling like this but I love thinking about his potential character from his screentime thus far! I just want to see more interactions between him and the people around him.

NO NO DONT APOLOGIZE THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT!!

Like yes, from a doylist perspective his forgetting to tell people things is a funny running joke—but it implies interesting things about his character! It clearly isn’t that he doesn’t care enough to tell people things—he clearly cares about liko (beyond just that he’s getting paid to be her bodyguard) and the rest of his crew, too; like Liko said, the crew put her emotions and Sprigatito’s safety above just getting her home with the pendant—and I don’t even think it’s that he’s a particularly forgetful person with most things. He couldn’t be both a professor and a ship captain (or… first mate? considering pikachu is the captain? 🤣) if he was truly just… very forgetful. There’s a lot of things to pay attention to on a ship. I think that the joke of him not telling people things has to stem from his mind just sort of… being elsewhere. He’s thinking about other things. (Cough, adhd. He’s just like me fr fr) Not that he’s completely distracted and ungrounded; he doesn’t usually act like that, and he’s demonstrably practical (holding Liko back from charging in to face Amethio and coming up with a plan for the two of them, being honest about the fact that yeah, they can’t go adventuring without money) most of the time. But the bit that gets me is his speech about the Volteccer’s goals: to solve the mysteries of pokemon, to solve the mysteries of the world. It’s lofty. He’s clearly a dreamer. I feel like the sort of person who can casually say “oh, me and my team? Yeah we’re trying to solve all the mysteries of the world!” necessarily has their head in the clouds—and quite literally for the crew of an airship.

Then of course, there’s the fact that he was introduced by the pokemon company as professor friede, though the only indication we have of anything like that so far in the show is the pokemon seminar bits—he doesn’t introduce himself as a professor, and no one on the ship refers to him that way. We’ve seen very little so far, of course, but we haven’t seen him do lab work the way every other professor in the series does. He’s not tied down to a place of research, and his goals are much broader than most of the professors we’ve met in the past 25 years. He doesn’t say he’s researching the mysteries of pokemon, he says he wants to solve them. All this to say, to be a professor and the (sort-of) captain of a traveling airship makes me imagine that he was originally a researcher, but became tired of being… well, on the ground. (I’ve said it before, but a researcher myself, 100% I’d leave it all behind to go on a grand airship adventure and solve all the mysteries of the world—so this part is a little bit… projection.) I mean, hopefully we’ll at least get some information about his past, and how the crew came together and everything… but I wanna know nowwwwww 🤣

As for recklessness and traits that he shares with Ash—I honestly (so far, with the limited information we have) wouldn’t call him very reckless. A bit cocky, yes. Dramatic, absolutely. Mouthy, for sure. And I even think he would fancy himself a little bit reckless; but everything even slightly dangerous that he’s done so far has still been… well thought-out. He clearly doesn’t rush in without a plan in place (and I’d bet a couple of backup plans, but that’s speculation again) and he definitely doesn’t do anything to put anyone else in danger. His heroic entrances, his battling style, his dramatic-ass backwards fall off the building and onto Charizard’s back—everything he does seems less like recklessness and more like a concerted effort to bring the attention onto him. I mean, so far, most of his tactical advantages have come from taunting Amethio, not risky maneuvers to beat him. He doesn’t risk himself, his pokemon, or his crew in order to achieve his goals. (Whereas Ash will very much risk himself immediately, ie all the times he’s jumped off of a cliff or building without a plan on how he’s going to land.)

As for dependability—yes, absolutely. His crew obviously trusts and looks up to him (literally; the way he was sitting up above everyone else in the scene where Liko tells them she’s decided to trust them) and he’s demonstrated so far that he’d do a lot to keep them all safe and happy. He’s good at making plans and using his opponents weak points to his advantage (realizing immediately that he can get a rise out of Amethio by taunting him and questioning his skills). He seems to be a good captain, a good trainer, and a good person overall. And hopefully he has some more hidden sides that we’ll get to see later 👀👀

AND I WANT MORE EPISODES SO I CAN KNOW MORE ABOUT HIM RIGHT NOW IMMEDIATELY 😭