this'll hopefully be my last and most conclusive post on the matter re:isshu(/ferriswheel)shipping discourse. please read this before sending me anything regarding the matter:
what masuda said in 2011 is not absolute word of god, or an unchallengeable truth- at least one person involved with bw's story writing has stated that the protagonists were intended to be 16. hilda and hilbert were advertised as being older than any previous protagonists, and n is allegedly 20 in the anime- during the same arc where cherens bw2 role + design is used.
also, pokemon itself isn't afraid to change around characters' ages to better fit their circumstances. anipoke serena, for example, is 10, while her game counterpart appears to be in her late teens. this is to say that while there is a definite, set range for a character's age to be within, ultimately no singular number is going to be universal.
the reason why i personally use 16 over 14 for the bw protag ages has to do with the contents of the actual game first and foremost. all things considered- unova taking inspiration from america where 16 is typically when coming of age occurs, cheren and bianca having adult designs and careers only two years later, and ns role as a narrative foil to the protagonist, 16 is the age that makes the most sense.
there's also the matter of the protagonist and n's relationship itself. the two are, by all means, meant to both contradict and compliment each other, to act as inverted mirrors. n checks all the boxes for what would usually be considered a protagonist (his design, his narrative as a hero, obtainment of a box legendary- pretty much everything except being playable), and he has physical traits that mirror both hilbert and hilda. most importantly, he is canonically obsessed with the protagonist. he thinks that they are meant to be his counterpart, so much so that he wholly believes that they will be able to awaken the opposite dragon without issue. in bw2, he misses them deeply enough to linger in the place they last saw each other, and comment on how he wonders if they'll meet again, and that he wants to tell them how he feels.
then, on the protagonist's end, they literally drop EVERYTHING, leave behind all their friends and family, to search for n when he leaves. that's the only thing they do that we, the player, have no control over.
finally, although pokemon masters is noncanon material, there is just. so much. alluding to their dynamic leaning towards romantic. the best badge you can earn from their reunion event is "N-describable Love". n has dialogue where he indirectly states that he loves hilbert-
and hilberts well. hilbert
all these things would be INCREDIBLY uncomfortable and inappropriate if the audience was meant to see the two of them as definitively an adult and a minor. a two year max age difference just works the best in this context, and the ages of 16 and 18 have evidence to back them. i understand any apprehension and/or discomfort anyone may have with shipping them, and i'm also not going to tell you that you can't headcanon them with a different dynamic (because thatd defeat the whole purpose of pokemon and its encouragement of creative liberty) but this topic has much, much more to it than a glance at the first google result.
tl;dr : isshushipping/ferriswheelshipping is fine. who cares
