Paul

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Paul
Character information
Gender	Male
Hometown	Veilstone City
Region	Sinnoh
Family	Reggie (older brother)
Friends	Ash, Dawn, Brock, Barry
Paul in other languages
English	Name Paul
English	Name Paul

Pathetic.

Paul's catchphrase

Paul is a character who appears in the Diamond and Pearl series. He is the younger brother of Reggie and the main rival of Ash Ketchum from Sinnoh who received his Starter (Turtwig) in Sandgem Town from Professor Rowan and he has traveled through Kanto, Johto and Hoenn.

Unlike Ash, Paul is initially not a caring trainer as he wants pure power from his Pokémon and the trainers he faces to be strong. When he first meets Ash, he demands a 3-on-3 Battle, but Ash was unable to battle since he was still looking for Pikachu that it warranted some aggravation on Paul's part. Paul is also known to release his Pokémon if he deems them weak or useless, which seems somewhat appropriate because of his ambition and seeing his Pokémon as tools for his own glory.

Appearance

Paul has mid-length purple hair that has one big strand hanging over the middle of his face, small dark eyes and he almost never smiles, except for the occasional smirk and a small chuckle whenever he deals with Ash Ketchum.

He wears a purple jacket with navy blue sleeves, a blue undershirt, dark purple pants and purple and navy sneakers with white soles.

Personality

Paul is commonly believed to be a grumpy, cold, callous, cantankerous, grim, abusive, merciless, intelligent, heartless, rude, mean and rather arrogant Trainer who has no interest in being friends with anybody (especially not even his own Pokémon) and he simply sees his Pokémon as tools to win battles. He is often annoyed and exasperated by Ash Ketchum's actions, advice to treat his Pokémon nicely and tendency to act like a child that Paul seems to barely see their rivalry. He dislikes Ash's philosophies such as friendship and trust because he refuses to work hard to get stronger and he also dislikes training Pokémon hard to get stronger, preferring to only train ones that are already strong.

Although Paul maintained a bitter rivalry with Ash for the duration of the Sinnoh series, his hatred of Ash as a person peaked at the end of the first season of the Diamond and Pearl series, where the two were forced to team up in the Hearthome City Tag Battle tournament. He treated Ash as a detriment rather than an ally, constantly telling him to stay out of his way and even having his Chimchar attack Ash's Turtwig at one point out of spite. When Paul released Chimchar and Ash subsequently caught it, he rudely told them that they deserved no better than each other: both were pathetic scum. After they won the tournament, Paul had no desire to keep the Soothe Bell prize. He gave it to Ash, but he violently threw it at Ash rather than handing the bell over.

Paul rarely shows any emotions, especially not positive ones and this affects his dealings with his Pokémon, which can be very harsh. However, some occasions, he has been shown to lose his temper, in which an example of this was in A Pyramiding Rage when he let his anger get out of control during his battle with Brandon and it was because of his frustration of not being able to beat Brandon's Pokémon.

Paul knowingly abused his Pokémon both physically and emotionally, the prime example being Chimchar. He at one point had all of his Pokémon attack it at once in hopes of activating Blaze. He would constantly tell it that it was "worthless" and "pathetic", which left a strong negative impression on Chimchar.

While Gary Oak (Ash's previous major rival) would directly insult Ash and call him immature names like "loser", Paul would simply rudely say how poor of a trainer Ash was. Instead of being a bully, he is only rude to Ash due to viewing him as an inferior trainer, rather than as an inferior person like Gary does. Despite this, his rivalry with Ash was overall much more bitter than Gary's.

Despite his seemingly cruel nature, Paul can be polite whenever he wants to - especially towards authority figures like Cynthia, Nurse Joy and Professor Rowan. He also can acknowledge his opponent if he considers them to be a worthy opponent as an example of this is Roark, who he was very impressed by and he also seems to think a lot of Reggie (Paul's older brother), despite once saying he had 'a big mouth'.

He also seems to enjoy seeing Ash get worked up, in which one example of this is when he chuckled and said to Ash "Man, you get worked up" in DP081: Chim - Charred!.

Paul's "catchphrase" of sorts is 'Pathetic' who tends to direct it at Ash when Ash does or says something that Paul finds irritating or childish.

Towards the end of the saga and especially after losing the battle to Ash in the Sinnoh League, Paul seems to reform somewhat and he is shown thanking his Electivire for a good battle- something that he had never done prior to the three-part final battle. Paul was also impressed by how Chimchar (Paul's former Pokémon) had become an Infernape and developed nicely after being in Ash's care and how well Ash had trained it and admitted as such after their final Sinnoh battle. Paul then decided to return to Snowpoint City to rechallenge Brandon and he bids farewell to Ash, although on more friendly terms and he also seems sad when he sees Ash lose to Tobias.

Biography

Template:Incomplete-plot When Paul had just become a trainer, started his Pokémon journey and obtained his Turtwig, he went over from Sinnoh to Kanto to watch Reggie (Paul's older brother) battle against the Pyramid King Brandon. Unfortunately, Reggie couldn't knock out any of Brandon's Pokémon and he was easily defeated that Paul was shocked at his defeat. Brandon yelled at Reggie and asked him where his true inner strength was, which made Paul wonder about his own strength as a trainer, and from then on, he became obsessed with power. He secretly had been angry about his brother's defeat that he then apparently traveled through the Kanto, Johto and Hoenn regions, but he didn't win any of their leagues and returned to Sinnoh.

Once he returned to Sinnoh, he caught a Ninjask by using his Elekid. Not long after he caught Ninjask, he watched a terrified wild Chimchar being chased by a pack of Zangoose. Chimchar got to an end of a cliff and he was cornered by the Zangoose. Out of desperation and determination, Chimchar managed to produce a blaze-infused Flame Wheel (which impressed Paul) and scared the Zangoose away. Paul then approached the fire type and asked it to join his team, which Chimchar accepted. Chimchar would greatly regret this decision as Paul put it through extremely harsh training in order to activate Blaze again (as shown throughout the Diamond and Pearl series).

Paul watched Ash Ketchum capture a Starly with his Aipom prior to their first meeting and he is unimpressed by him.

Paul and his Elekid then meet Ash face to face for the first time and tells him he saw him catch Starly and he'd be better trying to catch the best Starly he could. Ash sarcastically replies 'You can tell which one's the strongest?'

Paul says 'Of course. Look' and releases two out of the three Starly he caught, much to Ash's surprise) and Paul explains that "you can scan the Pokémon you catch with you Pokédex to check out with moves they can use." He decides to keep the Starly with Aerial Ace and releases the other two because all the other two knew were Tackle and Sand Attack, much to Ash's horror. When Paul says that they were useless, it makes Ash angry and he says 'You know what? Any Pokémon can be strong if you train them'.

Paul challenges Ash to a 3-on-3 battle, but Ash declines since he only has Aipom and Starly with him. Paul is disgusted by this, calls Ash 'pathetic' and leaves with his Elekid.

Later on, when Ash has got Pikachu back and he has changed into his Sinnoh clothes, he walks out of Professor Rowan's lab with Brock, Dawn and the professor to find Paul leaning on a tree with his arms crossed, waiting for him. He asks him for the battle he requested earlier and Ash now gladly accepts his challenge. Paul's Starly manages to defeat Ash's Starly with Aerial Ace. However, the battle ends in a tie and Paul decides to release Starly since it doesn't meet his standards - much to Ash's annoyance.

Paul has been wanting to beat Brandon to avenge Reggie's defeat, in which Ash and friends found out why he was obsessed with power. He finally challenged Brandon and tried to avenge Reggie's defeat, but he lost because he was blinded by anger.

Paul is shown watching Ash battle Conway. Once Conway is defeated, the Sinnoh League board shuffles and Ash and Paul look at each other as they realize they are to battle each other next. Later on, Paul walks up to Ash with his Electivire.

After Ash defeated Paul, Paul gained respect for Ash and his Infernape; although Cynthia noted that Ash and Paul will never truly be friends, their last conversation was on mutually respectful terms. Paul left Lily of the Valley because he wasn't interested in staying here, he just wanted to have a rematch with Brandon at Snowpoint City.

Paul is shown to have watched the battle between Ash and Tobias on TV where she looks sad, sighs and then walks away.

Pokémon

On hand

Elekid → Electabuzz → Electivire

Lairon → Aggron

Gastrodon

Drapion

Ninjask

Froslass ♀

At home

Turtwig → Grotle → Torterra

Ursaring

Murkrow → Honchkrow

Weavile

Gliscor

Magmar → Magmortar

Hariyama

Nidoking ♂

Released

Starly (3x)

Stantler

Chimchar ♂

Given away

Azumarill

Statistics

Badges

Kanto League

8 Unknown Badges

Johto League

8 Unknown Badges

Hoenn League

8 Unknown Badges

Sinnoh League

• Coal Badge
• Cobble Badge
• Relic Badge
• Icicle Badge
• Mine Badge
• 3 unknown Badges

Pokémon League Status

• Indigo Plateau Conference (Indigo League): Unknown but did not win
• Silver Conference (Johto League): Unknown but did not win
• Ever Grande Conference (Hoenn League): Unknown but did not win
• Lily of the Valley Conference (Sinnoh League) Lost to Ash: Top 8

Unofficial competitions

• Hearthome Tag Battle: Champion (with Ash)
• PokéRinger - Squallville: Runner-Up (Loses to Ash)

Voice actors

• Japanese: Kiyotaka Furushima
• English: Julián Rebolledo
• Dutch: Tony Neef
• Hindi: Amit Diondyi (Cartoon Network dub)

Trivia

• The name Paul means "small" or "humble" in Latin.
  • Paul's Japanese name, Shinji, is shared with Lake Verity.
• Paul is similar to the rival in Gold, Silver, Crystal, HeartGold and SoulSilver (who is often referred to as Silver).
  • In fact, Paul's appearance and personality are heavily based on Silver.
• Out of all of the anime's major antagonistic rivals (Gary Oak, Trip and Paul himself), Paul is the only one whose hatred of Ash was mutual. Ash would attempt to be friendly with Gary and later Trip, whereas he would frequently voice his dislike of Paul, getting visibly angry whenever he saw him and insulting him behind his back, calling him such things as a "creep" and a "jerk".
• Although a Pokédex is often a red or pink color, Paul's Pokédex is a black color.
• Paul is seen in the ending credits of Decolora Adventures where he is the middle holding hands with Gary and Luke.
• Paul did not compete in the Orange League in the Orange Islands, unlike Ash did.
• Paul doesn't have a Pokémon that is a Dragon type or Psychic type.

Gallery

Paul's first appearance

Paul smiling crookedly

Paul and Ash Ketchum paired up in a difficult tag battle

Th Paul40.jpg

Paul getting mad at Chimchar

Paul .jpg

Paul disappointed at Ash losing the Sinnoh League

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