>>46886991The games are designed like that by accident, and recent games have tried to fix that with stuff like Hyper Training, Ability Capsules, and Nature Mints. The lore makes it clear that anyone who treats Pokemon the way Paul does is a terrible person, unlike the protagonist. It goes all way back to Gen 1, where Oak praises you for treating your Pokemon with love and trust, and tells Blue that the reason he lost is because he didn't treat his Pokemon like friends.
