>>53431147Him not “earning” the badges made the episodes more interesting, and explained how he could make it to the league despite being a bad trainer who didn’t gain his Charizard’s trust and inexplicably relied on untrained Pokémon like Kingler and Muk to carry him in early matches. Ash had a good heart in the first season, but he coasted by and never actually trained his Pokémon aside from using them to battle Team Rocket over and over.
