i’ve always imagined that there’s some degree of tension between the pokemon league and the battle frontier. the league is very traditional and straightforward, classic battling if you will, and i can never help but imagine that they turn up the nose at what they view as the frontier’s “gimmicky” style.
meanwhile, because trainers have to be hall of fame entrants to gain access to the frontier, frontier affiliates and the brains have certain ideas about their skill levels and can behave a bit haughtily towards representatives of the league! they have a tendency towards a superiority complex, and consider themselves in many ways to be the “new” way of battling.
obvs this doesn’t apply to all frontier employees or all league members, but ya get my gist. i think there’s some antagonism between the two groups. for a long time caitlin felt looked down on when she left the sinnoh frontier to pursue an independent career as a trainer within the league, despite her extraordinary natural talent. she never felt comfortable during her challenge of the sinnoh league, and only reconciled those feelings later as her friendship with cynthia developed. even so, i think that plays a pretty decent part in why she stays in unova (aside from some other personal issues about sinnoh that i may discuss in a post later)--unova doesn’t have a battle frontier, and she felt like there wasn’t any skepticism about her because she came from the frontier. the unova league looked at her based on her own merit as a trainer, and judged her based on her dedication and pure hard work.
she’s come a very long way since she was a young girl. she’ll be a good champion one day.
