>>58823503Oh and
>but ash had 8 badgesBadge count isn't magical mind control, they just represent a pokemon trainer's skill. Ash didn't actually have the skill to earn them right, he only actually won 3 in the entire indigo league: Surge, Koga, and Blaine. Arguably 4 if you count TR standing in for Giovani, but a coughing baby wielding Excalibur is still a coughing baby, I'm not counting it as beating king arthur.
And in two of those, Charizard singlehandedly carried Ash.
VS Koga He sends out pidgeotto who immediately jobs to venomoth, charmander flamethrowers, fight interrupted but win obvious, then after a bunch of bad results just nails golbat with a killer firespin so it couldn't keep dodging everywhere. Ash was at least doing his job calling plays, but the strategy side was obviously floundering and charmander just ultimately solved it with having fuckhuge firepower to compensate.
And then Vs Blaine, charizard chose itself before ash even had a chance to officially send it out, and he issued only a single attack command during the entire ass fight, that was visibly something charizard was already winding up. That's not a coach that's a cheerleader. By all rights, that's charizard's badge, I wouldn't count it if i was him.
And then wouldn't you know it, 2nd season Orange Islands, 3 extra badges and an apology in, it fixed. Charizard learned dragon rage the episode he starts to obey, which happens at lvl 54. He hit a proper badge count of 6, lvl60 and below, 2 episodes prior. Not sure if Earth or Volcano was the one Charizard decided to count, they're both dubious, maybe repaying the life debt with a reciprocated life debt talked him into counting two halves as a whole. Point is handout badges are like honorary degrees, they don't mean shit if you don't actually have the skills their awarding normally implies.
