>>55824896Red should've never appeared as an NPC in GS.
There, I said it. His appearance is the ONLY reason "canonfags" even exist because everyone keeps thinking that, despite being infinitely more variables ever since RS set the standard of the PCs being able to live variable lives depending on who's chosen and who isn't, despite Pokemon being a very literal multiverse franchise since arguably gen 2 but definitively in gen 5, that there's still "one true canon" that matters more above all else.
Technically they aren't wrong. But that's only internally within GameFreak for the mainline games, specifically only when they want to write callbacks to older titles or have an old character reappear.
Other media like game-based animations like trailers and Evolutions, and games like Masters aren't obligated to stick to this internal gospel (and probably don't even know it exists in the first place to avoid leaks), which is why it's a game where we have Rowan's Assistant Lucas but simultaneously have Protagonist Rei. LITERAL multiverse shit.