>>58190900
>he and the side characters represent a degree of normalcy and everyday life the duo shut themselves out of by acting out pre character-development
Yamamoto has a point there I guess. A main theme of RS arc is the individual's relationship to society, Ruby/Sapphire being the weird individuals and the cast they interact with being the rest of society. The main difference was Ruby treating nearly everyone like shit unless he can beg them for contest related validation, his mild persecution complex used as an excuse to ignore anyone asking for help (a bit like a Tumblr kid). Meanwhile Sapphire could be a rude brat too, but she was more like an unmedicated ADHD retard and didn't have Ruby's self pitying mindset, so she always helped strangers without asking for anything in return. By volume 18 they've both racked up enough karma for Sapphire to befriend all the gym leaders and basically get adopted by Winona to assist the PokeGovernment (embraced by society), while Ruby gets ignored and treated like a mentally unstable nuisance by Wallace and his hoes (rejected by society).

After the RS arc, you mainly have Emerald as a counterweight to "confirm" that Ruby/Sapphire are insane freaks, even after character development and in context of their universe's society (where many other trainers are a bit quirky themselves). Either Kusaka/Yamamoto once even tweeted that Emerald had a tsukkomi relationship with R/S for that purpose. But as for the swimmer OC desu I thought he was creepy and annoying. If the story needed more non freaks to focus on, it could've followed Wally's subplot more desu.