| “ | Hm. Pathetic. | „ |
| ~ Paul's catchphrase |
Paul is one of the two secondary antagonists (alongside Cyrus) of the Pokémon Diamond & Pearl series. He is Ash's rival, who he would constantly belittle and act like a jerk towards, usually calling him "pathetic". Unlike Ash, Paul is simply motivated by pure power, and only uses his Pokémon as tools rather than actually caring for them. One of his Pokémon used to be a Chimchar, but due to his incredibly abusive nature towards him, Chimchar went to Ash instead. Eventually however, Paul changed his mind on Ash once the latter won against him.
He is voiced by Julián Rebolledo in English and Kiyotaka Furushima in Japanese.
Personality[]
Paul is shown to be the opposite of Ash throughout the series. While Ash deeply cares for his Pokémon, Paul doesn't and sees them as simply "tools" to help him become stronger, being apathetic of them getting injured. Whenever he deems a Pokémon as "too weak", he releases them into the wild. As stated above, one of his Pokémon used to be a Chimchar, who he would constantly abuse, both physically and psychologically, even trying to blast it using his Electabuzz just so it could wake up before he was stopped by Pikachu, which made Chimchar go to Ash instead.
Paul's reason for his bad attitude is because his brother Reggie had lost to King Brandon, resulting in Paul become extremely disappointed in Reggie, as well as becoming power hungry so that he doesn't lose a battle like Reggie did to Brandon.
His exact hatred and anger of Ash is unknown, but it's likely because Paul is constantly annoyed by him and his advice to treat Pokémon nicely, which he sees as a sign of weakness, especially given that he kept on losing battles to him. Paul's anger and hatred for Ash only grew more once the two were forced to team up at the end of the first season, even going as far as to making Chimchar attack Turtwig out of pure spite, calling both of them pathetic scums, and when Ash won, he violently threw the bell at him rather than simply handing it over.
Despite all of that however, Paul isn't really evil, as he is not blatantly harsh or cruel to everyone he meets. He also seems to respect some authority figures such as Cynthia, Nurse Joy, and Professor Rowan, showing he is not all bad. In the end, Paul seemingly changed his mind about Ash when the latter won against him in the Sinnoh League and was an important ally in helping him train for the World Championships.
Trivia[]
- Many have pointed out that he shares a striking resemblance to that of Vegeta, Wolf O’Donnell, Seto Kaiba, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Sasuke Uchiha in terms of their arrogant and merciless personality and being rivals of the main protagonists from each of the franchises mentioned.
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 Villains
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