Shamus (Pokémon)

Shamus (Suwama in Japanese) is the main antagonist of the Pokémon Best Wishes! episode "Evolution by Fire!", as well as the previous abusive Trainer of Ash's Tepig before he abandoned it. His goal is to make a team of Fire-type Pokémon named "Fire Warriors".

Why He Sucks

 * 1) His face is ugly, especially when we see a close-up of him making a psychopathic smile.
 * 2) He has a very immoral way of building his Pokémon team, by forcing other Trainers to give him their Pokémon or abandoning them when they're too weak for him, basically treating Pokémon as disposable tools. An ideology which several of the protagonists in the series openly disagree with.
 * 3) He committed animal abuse by abandoning his Tepig because he thought it was too weak, and tied it to a pole by its snout. Since Tepig was unable to open its mouth, it was unable to eat and would have died of starvation had Ash not rescued it.
 * 4) He also emotionally manipulated Tepig by pretending to feel sorry for it, then laughing once he's gone even with Tepig crying in the background.
 * 5) This resulted in Tepig suffering from trauma and due to Shamus's actions, such as hating failure for fear that Ash would abandon it too.
 * 6) When Ash and Iris tell him to apologize, he says "Not on your life. What a waste." and he picks up Tepig and throws it at them.
 * 7) When confronted on his actions during Cilan's imaginary courtroom, Shamus didn't just feel remorseless toward his crimes, but he bragged about his cruelty, causing Iris and the protagonists' Pokémon to yell at him in disgust.
 * 8) During his battle against Ash, Shamus forced his Emboar and Heatmor to harm each other as a strategy, as he believed that making his Pokémon taking damage from their own attacks is the true mark of Fire Warriors.
 * 9) When Tepig evolved into Pignite and defeated Shamus' Pokémon, Shamus made a clearly fake apology to get Pignite to return to his team for being strong enough, and also called Ash a loser and smirked expecting to get away with the consequences scot-free.
 * 10) His apology is also hypocritical, as he expected Pignite to forgive what he did even after he left it to die.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) His involvement in the episode gave Tepig/Pignite character development.
 * 2) His defeat was satisfying when Pignite rejected his fake apology, roasted his face and chose Ash due to being a better trainer.
 * 3) He is never seen again after the episode he appeared in.