Pikachu315111
Ranting & Raving!
It's almost as if N was being manipulated the entirety of Black & White to follow a false ideology set by someone who's true intention was taking over the region (& maybe the world) via making a false messiah. The ideology in question that Pokemon were mistreated by people and thus people & Pokemon should be separated; however from the average point of view the reality is generally the opposite, that people and Pokemon peacefully coexistent and help one another, except a handful of humans which do harm Pokemon (some whom are part of those enforcing the ideology*). Said ideology includes Pokemon battles aren't good, and while they would likely justify their action saying they need to act within the rules of the society they wish to change to achieve their goal, also ignores the Pokemon feelings that they like to battle as that's a way they get stronger and form closer bonds with people.N can't be a well-executed character if he is a great rival, or a rival at all.
He unknowingly became the very thing he tried to fight off against well before the climax of the game.
If you say he challenges you to reaffirm that he's right I'll need to inform that based on his own philosophy, he's sacrificing the well-being of his own Pokémon to do so, making it seem as if he cared more about his selfish ideologies than he did about his Pokémon.
Honestly, with that last point, this isn't just a N problem but a problem anyone part of Team Plasma would have if they joined because they genuinely love Pokemon and personally had experienced a moment which they would be led to believe there's a lot of Pokemon abuse underneath the skin of Pokemon society. B2W2 showed there were "two sides" of Team Plasma this entire time, broken down to followers of Ghetsis and followers of N, but if you really think about it there would have to be more tiers of grunt-types. Like I can't imagine all members would be cool with the idea of attacking the Pokemon League, heck some may disagree that N becoming Champion as it wouldn't mean much to the people who are hurting Pokemon for selfish gain.
But this is generally the problem with Gen V in a nutshell, in particular with Team Plasma. There's a LOT of things which would be going on with Team Plasma in the background due to how they present themselves. The sheer lengths Ghetsis would have to go in order to hide his true plans from not only the public eye but also most of Team Plasma (while convincing them to do what he wants) and N (and most of the Sages; the only members of Team Plasma who seems to know Ghetsis true plans are the Shadow Triad (who owe their lives to Ghetsis in some way so don't care if they're evil), and maybe Anthea & Concordia (who are in a similar situation as N but powerless to do anything)). But forcing it into the typical Pokemon adventure without diverting too far off course with what the player would see leads it undercooked.
* Typing this, I do wonder what would N have done with the grunts who were beating up the Munna had he found out about that incident? Actually, those two grunts do feel out-of-place now thinking about the grand picture, they're the only ones who were shown hurting a Pokemon. Not saying there aren't more grunts like them, B2W2 implies Neo Team Plasma is made up of said grunts who only joined for the power, but with no other grunts shown acting that counter to their cause makes it look like those two were an accident; only existing for a story point to show the player that Team Plasma are up to no good (even though that becomes very clear later on when they begin stealing people's Pokemon).