>>23287049She was a long-awaited face saving tactic for the Jynx fiasco. Her fear of Ice-types may slightly reference this. It also hammered the point that Unova is supposed to be more diverse than other Regions before that point despite the anime being pretty much the same types of people you'd expect in Kanto or Sinnoh bar Lenora and the Shop Lady.
They tried to make her and Cilan the new Brock and Misty for a while but both wore very thin with shit development of their goals. Hell, she might have been worse than Misty because while Misty was a bitch, she wasn't a condescending bitch.
It even hurts more knowing her game version is supposed to represent innocence and idealisms.