There's one thing, rather; a person, that REALLY annoys me in gen6 and that is none other than: Shauna
What's the point of her character other than being a goody-two-shoes who does not but goof around and be annoying? As amusing as the Firework Scene is ( "I've never watched fireworks alone with a boy before..." 15 secs later... "Here have this: Tm13 Protect" ಠ_ಠ ) she's a farcry from being a decent character.
Nothing infuriated me more than when Shauna won a medal for effectively "splitting up" Team Flare's peons by being a dumb witch. That wasn't even bravery, she did it because she is useless, likes getting in over her shoulders and the primary reason: she is mentally stilted ( actual 10 years old girls should be offended if they were compared to her).
Heck, even the games lamps shade at the fact that Shaunda has absolutely no reason for being there; she just is.
I actually kind of wanted a Pokemon Z because I had a messed up idea in my head. When Lysandre fired the Ultimate Weapon there was only four people around: him, Calem, Serena, and Shauna. Now after the blast destroyed the Ultimate Weapon and buried Lysandre (who I wanted to still be alive since he's now immortal but critically hurt so the four woman Flare Scientist turn him into a cyborg) the three protagonists escape but they still were affected by the Ultimate Weapon radiation. Now Calem and Serena both have Mega Rings soon after which absorbs most if not all the radiation so at most they have an slightly expanded life span. But Shauna? She's now immortal and in Z she would have come to realize that as well as the unfortunate implications that comes from this (seeing all her friends and family die (including her Pokemon), seeing the world change around her while she doesn't (she'll still age though which brings some body horror as was see AZ is TALL because he kept growing but that resulted in health problems... which there's no eventually relief for as they can't die)), how she can't live a normal life and might have to be always on the move, and other such topics I would have been interested in them exploring. There was an interesting story here though sadly even if there was a Z they probably wouldn't have done that, though it would have given them a chance to expand on Shuana's, Trevor's, and Tierno's character.
For me, the indisputable champion in this category is Zinnia.
Uggh. At least Shauna tried and did help even if it was because the story said so (opening the door and leading some Flare Admins away). Also out of all the friends it seemed like Shauna was the one most affected by their journey. She's the one who talks to the player about her retrospective experience. Plus let's not forget at the end of the game she has a GOODRA. And she gives you the Egg of the Starter she got, Serena/Calem doesn't do that (though they give you Absolite). She's actually one of the most developed of the friends... which tells you what little interest they had in the Gen VI friends.
But Zinnia? Let's list Zinnia's problems:
1. She almost caused the end of the world TWICE. First time by telling Maxie/Archie about a way to awaken Groudon/Kyogre and then by breaking the only backup plan they had to teleporting the meteor away. Luckily the player was there otherwise the planet would have dried up/flooded/impacted because Rayquaza wouldn't have been able to stop Groudon/Kyogre/the meteor.
2. When that failed she moved to plan 2 which involved getting Key Stones. She does this by being the biggest jerk as possible.
- She beat up our friend/rival/possible love interest.
- She would have beaten up Wally to get his Key Stone.
- She mocks Steven for being the former Champion and not knowing the full details, but never tells him until they're forced to go with her plan.
- As said she breaks the only backup plan there was to save the planet forcing everyone to follow her plan she's been vague about until then.
- She knocks out the player so they wouldn't leave until it was time for summon Rayquaza.
And she did all this while being as vague and mysterious as possible when there was no reason for her not to be. She could have gone to Wallace, tell him what's happening, and Wallace would have gotten Steven's help to summon Rayquaza. They would have gone with her plan first if she just said anything, but instead she chose to wait until they came up with a possible plan just to destroy it to force them to only go with her plan. I can only assume she did this as she didn't want them to make a backup plan behind her back... even though she had NO IDEA her plan was work and was just working on assumption. Also how does she know about the alternate Hoenn? Like had she just said the meteor needs to be destroyed because if teleported that would just mean another planet would be in danger, possibly one which also has life. That would have been plausible, but NOPE, it's RSE Hoenn. The only character who should have any idea about alternate Hoenn is the player who can have a Pokemon from RSE. And even then how does she know that's where the meteor will be teleported to?
3. And on top of all that, the player is then expected to feel sorry for her. Feel sorry she lost someone and they keep it vague who this someone is to get as much sympathy as possible. Is Aster her sister, mother, friend, Pokemon, child? Aster is whoever you will give you sympathies to Zinnia for! We're expected to feel sorry even though up till now she had done NOTHING to make us feel this way for her (yes, you're so hurt about losing someone close to you that you don't care about beating up someone or messing with people while having fun doing so), to us this is last second development and any mention of Aster we would have assumed she was talking about her Whismur.
4. And in the end she gets away with all this. Her failing miserably is I guess considered enough punishment as she's now free to explore the world and find herself. Us and our rival being beat up? It was only a few bruises and moments of unconsciousness, no big deal.
It really feels like they were trying to recapture what they were able to do with Emma in XY. However they missed the point entirely and instead created a Mary Sue who only stomped all over the other characters who we did like.
