>>50694087Their archetypes are similar, but Silver and Paul are nothing alike in terms of character.
Silver is a runaway who treats his pokemon coldly because he's the son of an evil team's leader and later becomes a better person when he learns the power of friendship™.
Paul is essentially a smogonfag that discards any pokemon he deems unworthy. He doesn't even change that much throughout the anime, though he does get friendlier with Ash and realises he was wrong about Chimchar's potential.