With demand from the last poll of this topic, in which I asked which Starter the fans believe should be the "canon starter" to each Protagonist, I decided to do the same for Rival characters. For the context of this poll, the "canon starter" is the Starter Pokemon a character will more often than not be associated with, like Serena and Fennekin or Red and either Bulbsaur or Charmander…or Pikachu.
For the purposes of this poll, the rival characters are the following:
Note that not all the characters shown here have Starter Pokemon, so this poll will give voters a choice of giving these characters one based on the region they're in, regardless if they keep their ace Pokemon or not.
Conditions:
- Brendan, May, Calem, and Serena are crossed out because the previous poll covered them.
- Kieran is crossed out because he has an official canon starter: Incineroar.
- Nemona's choice will only be from the Paldea Starters.
- Blue will get Eevee as an option, similarly to Red with Pikachu, given Pokemon Yellow; whichever it evolves into doesn't matter.
- Klara and Avery get Bulbasaur and Squirtle as options alongside the Galar Starters, as it wouldn't be out of the question if Honey gave them this choice. (Unfortunately, the only Psychic-type Starter isn't in SwSh, so Avery would have to go off-specialty)
- Trace's only options are Pikachu and Eevee, like the LGPE Protags. Note that he'll always evolve Eevee to Jolteon if it's chosen.
- I will also include side characters that keep the third starter when battling the player. These are Professor Oak even though his battle is unused, Kukui, Leon, and Clavell. In Kukui's case, treat him separately from the Masked Royal.
Like with the previous poll, vote based on what Starter you think the Rival will choose, independently of the Protagonist and independently of whatever official media says they use (though you are in your right to choose based on official media if you believe that's correct; nearly all of the responses from the last poll follow official media).
Vote here: https://forms.gle/ri4HxVikUZDeLV2WA
The deadline will be at or around 8PM EDT this Thursday.
by ElPikminMaster