>>56140360>>56140388>>56140469>>56140513The way they portrayed it made plenty of sense. When it evolved into Charmeleon, it thought Ash wanted it to grow as powerful as it could. But then Ash asked it to job to a Pokemon that's 4x weak to it, which was humiliating. And then it inadvertently lost to it by accident, damaging its pride. That's why later as Charmeleon and Charizard it refused to fight any Pokemon it deemed weaker than it, because of the fear of embarrassment of losing again. It's why it only bothered to fight Charmander at the league. It only fights Pokemon it wouldn't feel bad about losing to. But in general yeah it doesn't listen to Ash's commands because it's overgrown. Keep in mind that despite Ash having every badge, he didn't actually win them all in a straight fight. He was an amateur 10 year old that was passed through faster than his actual prowess. For the strongest gym leaders he even got a free pass with a Charizard carry on Cinnabar and the Team Rocket trio running the Viridian gym.
