d_s_t_e's Wattpad Reviews

A Champion's Ideal by StreetRacer-Sam [Pokémon]

Hilbert has become the champion of Unova, having won all of the badges and defeated Ghetsis once and for all, but something is missing. When he meets N's adopted sister Anthea, the two have a conversation that make him realize his ideal.

A Champion's Ideal is a Pokémon fanfiction one shot that revolves almost entirely around the conversation that takes place between Hilbert and Anthea. What I liked the most about it was how the characters were portrayed during the course of their exchange. Rather than always telling how the characters felt or what they were thinking, the author did a great job of describing facial expressions, gestures, and tones of voice. Both characters showed a great range of emotion, reacting appropriately to what had been said as well as revealing hidden thoughts and feelings. All of this really added to the dialogue itself. Beyond that, there was a true sense of emotional progression in the story that I found to be really satisfying. It didn't hit me over the head with how the story was supposed to be making me feel. It was a subtle portrayal that I found to be both realistic and effective.

The dialogue itself was fairly good as well. It was all formatted correctly, and it served its purpose in holding the reader's attention and moving the story forward, a task that isn't necessarily easy in a story constructed like this one.

My biggest problem, though, was that the storyline wasn't established well enough at the beginning for me to pick up on a lot of these selling points the first time I read it. Instead, I found myself confused and uncertain where the story was going. I felt that I either didn't know what the plot was or that it didn't have one at all.

As I've probably mentioned before, constructing a plot can be difficult in a one shot. Many beginning writers probably don't think of a one shot as needing to have a traditional plot structure, but I will reiterate my point about even a one shot needing to have one. In this case, given how the story ends, I think it would make a lot of sense for the plot to center around Hilbert's feelings about N, which, with the help of Anthea, slowly bring him to a new realization that causes him to act.

Perhaps this is even what the writer was going for, but the problem is that such a plot line needs to have rising action. In the case of the story as it stands, it seemed obvious to me from the very beginning of the story that Hilbert missed N or that, at the very least, he wished N hadn't left. This makes me wonder why he didn't go searching for him sooner. In fact, it made me want to have a more full explanation and portrayal of Hilbert's thoughts and feelings about N at that beginning point in the story. Having that would not only provide the reader with some context but would also create a base from which the story can be built as those thoughts and feelings grow or change or come into clearer focus while Hilbert converses with Anthea.

Speaking of Anthea, I was also wishing that the story gave me a clearer idea of who she was and what the nature of her relationship with N was. I'll admit that I had to look up who she was in the games. Just like in this story, Anthea was adopted by Ghetsis and asked to look after N. This seems to suggest that she would have been an older sister sort of figure. That's problematic in the first place because Anthea is described as a "girl" the first time we meet her in the story, and I was picturing someone Hilbert's age or younger. In order for her to have taken care of N, she would have to be older, probably a woman. In the second place, that's confusing because we go on to hear that N was always kept isolated from people and that Hilbert is apparently the one human who understands him the most. What, then, was Anthea's role in N's upbringing? I'm sure there can be an explanation, but it's not an obvious one to me. I was also confused when she both described N as her brother and called him "my lord". I can't imagine why someone would use such a title on a younger brother.

I do like how the relationship between Hilbert and N is explored. It is very interesting that Hilbert became closer to him than perhaps any other human. That's a very unique and interesting sort of bond. It's also very interesting that Hilbert and N are described as being very much alike in certain ways, such as in their facial expressions. I found that to be very intriguing, but I wasn't quite sure what it meant.

I think that the ideas about truth and ideals, which are borrowed from the games, are interesting as well, but, again, I didn't feel as though they were expressed in a way that was totally clear.

Beyond that, I had a number of stylistic complaints. Actual errors in this story were incredibly minor. I found just one punctuation mistake and a missing plural. The larger issue was with awkward wording, using the wrong words, and having a choppy sentence flow.

One problem was with ambiguous pronouns, such as in the description. "His innocence and purity won him over" reads as if N was won over by his own innocence and purity. The second "he" is probably meant to refer to Hilbert, but it's phrased so that you really have to stop and think to understand that. There was a similar ambiguity of pronouns in at least one place in the story itself.

Another issue was the use of incorrect words, like the use of the word "voice" when I think the author truly meant something related to "sound" or "noise". This confused me quite a bit as I was reading paragraphs that were meant to be nice and descriptive. I was also confused in these paragraphs because they didn't flow smoothly from one subject to the next related subject. Instead, they sort of jumped around to describe unrelated bits of the scene in no apparent order. Also, a number of sentence fragments gave it a choppy feel. Description is good, but it is only at its most effective when it flows smoothly. Really, the entire book could use some smoothing over. That would make it much more easily readable and enjoyable.

Overall, I think there are some aspects of this story that show some real promise, but they are unfortunately buried just a bit too much under the slight awkwardness of the wording and sentence flow combined with the initial confusion about what the story is meant to be about. With a bit of revision, the hidden gems in it could truly shine the way that they deserve.