OnePokemonfan highlights a cheeky bit of hypocrisy found in one of Lance’s quotes fromPokemon Masters EX, with the Dragon-taming member of Kanto’s original Elite Four expressing his disdain for “cheating” Pokemon Trainers despite having several Dragonites that shouldn’t have yet evolved due to their low levels. Many veteran fans will recognize Lance as a key character from some of the earliestPokemongames, though he’s become somewhat infamous over the past couple of decades due to his multiple “impossible” Pokemon.
Firstseen inPokemon Red and Green,the very first entries to the beloved franchise, Lance is a skilled Trainer and descendant of a powerful clan of Dragon masters. He’s known just as much for his iconic cape as he is for his Dragon-type partners, and he represents the final member of the Elite Four in the first games before facing the player as the Champion in the Generation 2 games. While his Dragons can present a difficult challenge for many players, they’re only made more challenging due to many of them being evolved despite being at a level that falls short of the experience threshold required for their evolution.
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As was recently pointed out by a fan known as -et37- on Reddit, this fact makes one particular line of Lance’s dialoguefromPokemon Masters EXespecially funny. The quote in question involves the Dragon tamer claiming that he “Can’t stand Trainers that cheat or use cowardly and underhanded tactics,” despite not only having three Dragonites that shouldn’t yet be evolved throughout the Gen 2 games but also having multiple Pokemon that know moves that they aren’t even capable of learning in their respective generations. The most well-known instance of this would involve his Dragonite in the Generation 1 titles that knows the move Barrier, though he also has an Aerodactyl in the Generation 2 games which knows Rock Slide despite it not being a learnable move for the Pokemon untilPokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald.
While these instances certainly make it seem like Lance is cheating, fans should remember that the levels for many NPC characters' Pokemon typically serve more to moderate the difficulty of battles than to represent their canonical levels of strength. Another good example would be the team of the legendary Trainer, Red, who famously has thehighest-level Pokemon of any NPC in the seriesat level 85 inHeartGold and SoulSilver, while his very same Pokemon have a much lower level of level 65 inSun and Moon.
Funnily enough, Lance’s own team is at a higher level in the first games than they are in the subsequent titles too. This makes his seeminglyunder-leveled Dragonitesa bit more believable, but even more than two decades later, there remains to be no excuse for his Barrier-using Dragon Pokemon.
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