Pokémon Ranger/Characters
Pokémon Ranger
Lunick/Solana
The player is offered a choice of gender, with males playing as Lunick and females playing as Solana. Both are new Rangers being employed in the land of Fiore. Whichever one you don't choose to play as acts as your friend and partner.
- Blue Eyes/Red Eyes: Lunick and Solana, respectively.
- Curtains Match the Window: Lunick.
- Everythings Better With Bunnies: Lunick's permanent partner is Minun, and Solana's is Plusle.
- Hello, Insert Name Here: Whichever one you play as.
- The Hero
- Heroic Mime
- Shock and Awe: Again, Plusle and Minun.
- Theme Naming: Lunick comes from "lunar." Solana comes from "Solar."
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair
- You Look Familiar: Solana resembles Clair a bit from the Gold/Silver/Crystal series.
Prof. Hastings
The head researcher of the Ranger Union, he is known for being impatient. He invented the Stylers that the Rangers use.
- Art Evolution: Loses his hat and unbuttons his lab coat after the first game.
- Cool Old Guy
- Badass Grandpa
- Badass Labcoat
- Badass Moustache
- The Illegible: He could decipher an old, tattered diary that had been abandoned for years, but he can't decipher his own diary.
- Meaningful Name: He's very impatient and prefers to jog rather than walk.
- Mission Control
- Nice Hat: In the first game. He ditches it in the next two for some reason.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: When he doesn't get much sleep, he tends to write his own name as "Hatsting" or even "Hatagnits".
Murph
A somewhat slow guy, he was originally a Ranger in Fiore. Eventually, he became the PR head of the Ranger Union. In Guardian Signs, he is deployed to Oblivia on The Union to assist the player.
- Ascended Extra: Over the course of the series, he went from a minor character to a fairly important one and finally to a main character.
- Beware the Nice Ones: He doesn't get angry very often, but when he does...
- The Chick: Is promoted to a male example in Guardian Signs.
- The Ditz: How he became a Ranger is a mystery, but he gets stuck with "missions" such as changing lightbulbs, building a sandcastle, and "How far can you walk in 100 steps?"
- Dreadful Musician
- Took a Level in Badass: Well, not exactly "badass", but by the second game he's stopped being a ranger, which he was terrible at, and instead is the head of the Ranger Union's public relations, a job he's much more skilled at.
Aria
Chris
- Not So Stoic: Upon seeing the legendary Rayquaza, he promptly bursts into an awe-filled, long-winded speech about its magnificence and beauty. Afterwards, he asks you not to tell anyone about it.
- The Quiet One: He's known as "Silent Chris".
- The Stoic
Spenser
- Big Badass Bird of Prey: His Fearow.
- Big Brother Mentor: He's the one who teaches you how to be a Ranger, and he takes an active role in fighting the Go-Rock Squad.
- The Rival: A friendly rivalry with Joel.
- The Smart Guy: He knows all there is to know about Deoxys, and it's implied he knows about computers and stuff.
- You Gotta Have Green Hair
Joel
- The Lancer
- The Rival: With Spenser.
- Stoic Spectacles
Cameron
- The Big Guy
- Brilliant but Lazy: He really is quite lazy, but he holds the record at the Marine Capture Challenge.
- My New Gift Is Lame: The giver of those lame gifts.
Elita
- Token Girl: Of the four Ranger Leaders in Fiore.
- The Chick
- The Stoic
- You Gotta Have Purple Hair
Gordor
This guy has plans that require Professor Hastings's Super Styler. With it, he intends to control Entei, Suicune, and Raikou so that he can stage himself as the hero of Fiore while the Rangers are ousted as ineffective. His drive stems from constantly being upstaged by Hastings during their youth.
- Always Someone Better: His "Freudian Excuse," if you can consider it that. He's always envied Professor Hastings.
- Big Bad
- Evil Laugh: Does this constantly, even when he's pretending to be good.
- Heel Face Turn: He shows up in the final Ranger Net mission to stop The Remnant of his Go-Rock Squad from stealing the Manaphy egg, reprimand them, tell them to cut out the Pokemon-abusing world-conquering crap, and then inform the player that he's taken their last words to him to heart.
- Jerkass: From the moment you meet him, even before he's learned to be the Big Bad, he does nothing but insult you and everyone and everything else.
- Obviously Evil: It's pretty obvious from the moment you see him he's the bad guy, and they don't really try to hide it either.
- Ominous Pipe Organ: It's his device to control Entei, Raikou, and Suicune at the end! Good thing Plusle and Minun bust it.
- Save the Villain
- Villain Exit Stage Left: And he ran while you were saving him, too!
Go-Rock Quads
The sons and daughter of Gordor, they act as his main enforcers. Apparently, being related to the boss is the only way one can get a promotion in the Go-Rock Squad... After the collapse of the Go-Rock Squad, they decide to go straight and become a famous band.
- Berserk Button: Clyde. In Shadows of Almia, Billy says that Clyde stormed out of the park in anger because he thought the lyrics to "Dream Energy," which was written by Blake Hall, sucked. Also, his line in the original motto is "the rhythm of rage pounds the ground!"
- Beware the Nice Ones: Garret.
- Big Brother Instinct: Billy and Clyde, due to dialogue in the first game.
- Bishonen: Garrett and Billy. To a lesser extent, Clyde. I mean, LOOK AT THOSE HIPS.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Tiffany.
- Demoted to Extra: In Guardian Signs. They're major villains in the original and still a big part of the plot in Shadows of Almia, but here they are solely around for a Quest.
- The Dragon: Billy, as the oldest, fits this role.
- Friendly Enemy: They all act very Affably Evil towards the Rangers in most encounters, even if being competetive and insulting. As opposed to their father, who's a total Jerkass.
- Heel Face Turn: Appear again in the next two games as a band. And they don't like Blake Hall one bit in the second, perhaps because they realize that he's up to essentially the same stuff that Gordor was doing before him. Their responses to Altru Inc.'s efforts to dictate the structure of their upcoming concert are... less than cordial.
- Overlord, Jr.: Billy, Garrett, and Clyde.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad
- Sibling Team
- Techno Wizard: Garret, according to the manga, was the one who altered Hastings' Super Styler.
- White-Haired Pretty Boy: All of them, though Tiffany is obviously a girl.
Shadows Of Almia
Kellyn/Kate
- Badass Adorable: They seem to be younger than the rangers of the first and third game, considering that they come fresh from the academy once they go to work.
- Blue Eyes
- Cute Shotaro Boy: Kellyn.
- Cutting Off the Branches: Guardian Signs references Kellyn by name, suggesting that he's the canon hero of Shadows of Almia.
- Or they decided to Take a Third Option and got rid of the Schrödinger's Player Character. The Pokemon series likes to have a Five-Man Band wherever possible, after all...
- Girlish Pigtails: Kate.
- The Hero
- Heroic Mime
- Kid Hero
- Schrödinger's Player Character
Keith
- Expy: His personality and role is very similar to your opposite gender partner from the previous game.
- Fiery Redhead: It's kind of auburn...
- Idiot Hero
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Comes off as this at the beginning of the game in their time as Rangers. He then takes a Ten-Minute Retirement in Fiore, then comes back as a Top Ranger with the hero, and he becomes more supportive. He gets even more nicer when the hero saves him from captivity, and saves the hero when he/she gets sucked into a void of darkness in the finale. He accompanies you on the extra mission to Darkrai and gives some help.
- Made of Iron: This guy should get some credit for being buttheaded by a Magmortar, crashing into that really far cliff, then flying back on a Staraptor at probably high speed, and diving to save the hero from dying.
- Prisoner Exchange: He is the prisoner.
- The Rival
Rhythmi
- Hair of Gold
- Mission Control: She's a Ranger Operator.
- My Name Is Not Misery
Crawford
- Cannot Tell a Joke: As much as he tries, he's not a good comedian. But he still manages to get his own column in Almia Times for his jokes.
- Collective Groan: What happens after he tells a joke.
- Funny Afro
Luana
Elaine
- Gadgeteer Genius
- Happily Married: To Ollie as of the downloadable Shaymin mission.
- Wrench Wench
Barlow
- Badass in Distress
- Dark-Skinned Redhead
- Dungeon Bypass: Locked doors in the way? Not anymore. TARGET CLEAR!
- Token Black: Probably the only black Pokemon character until the fifth generation.
- Unless you count American Rosie from Pokemon Battle Revolution.
Ollie
- Happily Married: To Elaine.
- Heel Face Turn: Though he wasn't much of a bad guy in the first place.
- Known Only By Their Nickname / I Was Named My Name, depending on whether or not the Rangers guessed correctly.
- Punny Name: He was "christened" while covered in spilt oil.
Sven
- The Ace
- Mr. Fanservice: At least in the game's universe.
- Nice Hat
- Shock and Awe: His signature Luxray.
- Sleeves Are for Wimps
Wendy
- Ace Pilot
- Blow You Away: Her Staraptor.
- Fish Out of Temporal Water: During one of the extra missions.
- You Gotta Have Green Hair
Chairperson Erma
- Big Good: She's the head of the Ranger Union.
- Cool Old Lady
- Mission Control
Isaac
- Big Brother Instinct
- Ditzy Genius: Smart as he may be, he's awfully slow to pick up on things such as Dim Sun's true nature.
- The Password is Always Melody
- The Smart Guy
- Techno Wizard
- Teen Genius
Mr. Kincaid
- Bad Boss: His minions would rather jump off a ship than face his wrath. Not to mention that he sinks said ship with minions still on it and flies away on a Gliscor.
- Berserk Button: Running in the hallways.
- Blonde Guys Are Evil
- The Dragon
- Dragon Ascendant: In a Wi-Fi downloadable mission, he is the leader of what remains of Team Dim Sun, now known as Team Debonairs.
- Evil Teacher
- Exit Pursued By A Whale
- Although he survives and goes on to found Team Debonairs in a downloadable mission.
- Improbable Hairstyle: His swirly hair. Other characters often poke fun at it, much to his annoyance.
- The Mole
- Scary Scorpions: His preferred Pokemon.
- Surrounded by Idiots
Ice
- Badass Longcoat
- Bishonen
- Deadpan Snarker
- Mr. Fanservice
- Genre Savvy: See Techno Wizard below. Among other things.
- Meaningful Name: Despite this, he's not much of An Ice Person. You first meet him in an icy place, and he sics a Froslass on you, but after that he uses other types. The name refers to his cool demeanor and personality.
- Techno Wizard: He wasn't content with the programming that Isaac taught him, and studied more on his own to make things such as delayed traps and sturdy programming that even Isaac has difficulty cracking.
- Terrible Trio: Their leader.
- Totally Radical: Calls you a "Noob" on more than one occasion.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair
Lavana
- Amazon Brigade: Leads the Dim Sun Crimson Unit, an all-female squad.
- Bare Your Midriff
- Early-Bird Cameo: She is pictured squaring off against Keith in a newspaper article a while before you meet her.
- Everything's Better with Monkeys: Infernape.
- Playing with Fire
- Punny Name
- Terrible Trio
- You Gotta Have Pink Hair
Heath
- Ambiguously Brown
- Blonde Guys Are Evil
- Fat Bastard
- Funny Foreigner
- Hostage for Macguffin: Keith or the Yellow Gem?
- I Have Your Friend: Kidnaps Keith to bribe the hero to give up the Yellow Gem.
- Intentional Engrish for Funny
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Darkrai sucks Wheeler into a void, Heath's reaction is to run for his life, ignoring Blake. Granted, Blake told him off beforehand...
- Stout Strength
- Terrible Trio
- You No Take Candle
Blake Hall/Wyatt Hall
- Affably Evil
- Badass Moustache
- Big Bad
- Cool Shades
- Graceful Loser (Well, sort of. Upon having Brighton's diary read to him, he has one hell of a My God, What Have I Done? moment.)
- President Evil
- Punny Name: Black Hole/White Hole.
- Save the Villain (Hoo boy, does this apply in spades...)
- Sunglasses at Night
- Villain with Good Publicity
Brighton Hall
- Dead Man Writing
- Dug Too Deep
- My God, What Have I Done?: Upon realizing what he has done to his son.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He uncovered the Shadow Crystal while searching for more oil.
- Parental Abandonment: Inverted. Blake abandoned him and even ran him out of his own company to take over.
- Posthumous Character: Presumably.
Wheeler
- Card-Carrying Villain
- Curb Stomp Battle: Every time, in your favor. His choice of Pokemon may have something to do with it.
- Harmless Villain
- Improbable Pokemon User: He uses about eight Bidoofs to fight you, and near the very end he sends a single Bidoof to try and stop you. He would have sent more, but Blake stopped him.
- Save the Villain
- Yes-Man
- You Gotta Have Green Hair
Guardian Signs
Ben/Summer
- Badass in Distress: The ranger you don't choose for a good portion of the main story.
- Brown Eyes
- Curtains Match the Window
- Custom Uniform: Apparently.
- Latios/Latias Rider
- Goggles Do Nothing: Subverted, they're used during flying routes and double as an air tank when underwater.
- The Hero
- Hello, Insert Name Here: Whichever one you play as.
- Heroic Mime
- The Lancer: Whichever one you don't choose. That is, after they've spent the first third of the game as a Badass in Distress.
- She's Not My Girlfriend: Whoever you don't choose gets defensive when Nema accuses you two of dating.
- Scarf of Asskicking
Ukelele Pichu
- Badass Adorable: Unlike other assists, Pichu will keep assisting even if it's struck by attacks from Mewtwo and ARCEUS.
- Kid Appeal Character
- Musical Assassin
- Shock and Awe
- Team Pet
Booker
- Cool Old Guy
- Friend to All Living Things
- Long-Lost Relative: Well, not lost, but he hasn't seen his brother Professor Hastings in about twenty years due to a fight.
- Mr. Fixit: If it's made of wood, he can fix it.
Nick
- For Want of a Nail: He constantly imagines every little thing to somehow lead to something horrible (and irrelevant.)
- Nice Hat
- You Have to Believe Me: Nick's imagination is truly a scary place.
Rand
- The Big Guy
- Disney Death
- Happily Married: To Leanne.
- Nice Guy
- Papa Wolf: And don't threaten his wife, either.
- Taking the Bullet
Leanne
Nema
- Bare Your Midriff
- Child Prodigy
- Giver of Lame Names: Most of them are her overly-long names for her own inventions, but she also tried to name Nick's bridge for him. It holds the record for longest name of a bridge.
- The Smart Guy
- Shipper on Deck: She teases Summer and Ben about working together, saying it's "like a date."
- Techno Wizard
- Pointless Band-Aid
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair
Supurna
- Nice Hat: Quite possibly the nicest hat of any Pokemon character. It has two Wingull-like wings hanging down from the back of it.
- Younger Than They Look: She's about the same age as the player character.
Dr. Edward
A doctor living in Oblivia, he wanders the region making house calls and visiting his friends. 40 years ago, he and three of his friends were a band of thieves known as the Societea. Fearing death, he reunited with the other three and began pursuing immortality and world domination.
- Big Bad
- Chekhov's Gunman: As you can probably guess by the large amount of spoilers and little amount of safe info, he becomes a lot more important later in the game. He's head of the Societea, and thus the Big Bad.
- Evil Costume Switch: He ditches his white uniform for a dark colored suit when he reveals his true nature.
- Immortality: He gains this while wearing the helmet/shoulder armor of the Golden Armor.
- The Magnificent: His phantom thief persona is Ed "The Thinker".
- Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: It's that "morally" that's ambiguous. He states outright that he always wanted to be a doctor; in his own words, "When you spend all day and all night thinking bad things, you tend to want to do a few good deeds to balance it out. I imagine a lot of villains think like that."
- Phantom Thief
- Recurring Traveller
Arley
A lumberjack living on Renbow Island, he is immensely strong and protective of Raikou's shrine. He is also a friend of Dr. Edward. In the Societea, he was their brawn.
- Badass Grandpa: Supposedly, he's even older than he looks, but is still enormously strong.
- The Brute
- Chekhov's Gunman: Turns out he's one of Edward's underlings.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: He has a pretty rough-looking gash across his face.
- Immortality: For the time that he wears the torso of the Golden Armor.
- The Magnificent: Back when he was a wrestler, he was known as "Arley the Destroyer".
- The Quiet One
Hocus
A magician living in Tilt Village, he puts on magic shows for the local kids. He also enjoys sipping tea with Dr. Edward and friends. He was part of the Societea, and was the crafty one.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: An... odd example. He turns himself gigantic, but then he seems to turn into an equally-large Crobat. Weird.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Part of the Societea.
- Cool Old Guy
- Depraved Kids' Show Host: Not just a punk; he's outright evil!
- The Evil Genius
- Excited Kids' Show Host
- Eyes Always Shut
- Immortality: When wearing the left gauntlet of the Golden Armor.
- Large Ham
- Mind Screw
- Nice Hat: Comes with the magician territory.
- Stage Magician
Kasa
A fashionable old lady living in Obliva, she seems to be a friend of Dr. Edward. She was and still is a disguise artist, and was part of the Societea.
- Chekhov's Gunman: I think you get it by now.
- Cool Old Lady
- The Dark Chick
- Fashionable Asymmetry: She outright states that the right gauntlet from the Golden Armor is quite fashionable.
- The Fashionista
- Immortality: She gets the right gauntlet of the Golden Armor.
- Known Only By Their Nickname
- Master of Disguise
- Older Than They Look: She's aged quite well, but she's at least 60 years old, and probably older than that.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: She has no problems disguising herself as Ben.
- You Gotta Have Pink Hair
Red Eyes
- Blonde Guys Are Evil until later on in the game.
- Graceful Loser
- Heel Face Turn: Leaves his evil group to wander around and become a better person, which he does.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: He's able to make a one-man Bullet Hell with his Z.Z. Flyer.
- Mad Bomber
- Meaningful Name: Take a guess why.
- Playing with Fire: His Pokemon preference.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He gets pretty darn depressed when you beat him the second time.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Duh.
- Sleeves Are for Wimps
- Terrible Trio
- Worthy Opponent
- He even seeks you out in the postgame just to have a rematch for fun.
Blue Eyes
- Bare Your Midriff
- Blondes Are Evil, though it turns out she's not so evil and actually cares about her grunts.
- Blue Eyes: Of course.
- Enemy Mine: Three times. Once as a prisoner-escort, the next while escaping the submarine, and the final in the true final mission.
- The last one is after her Heel Face Turn, however, so she's not really an enemy then.
- Heel Face Turn: After the submarine episode, she joins the Union.
- Jiggle Physics: Disturbingly.
- Meaningful Name
- Prisoner Exchange: Her for your partner.
- Save the Villain: Twice, in fact. As you can imagine, this creates a good deal of Foe Yay.
- Stripperific
- Terrible Trio
Purple Eyes
- Adventurer Archaeologist: Villainous example.
- The Dragon
- Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: A Garchomp he uses for his first battle with you.
- Final Boss
- Immortality: When he wears the full Golden Armor. He loses it after the final battle.
- Kill All Humans: After being arrested by the Ranger Union at the end of the game, repeated questioning broke him and turned him into a humanity-hating misanthrope who wants Arceus to wipe out all other life (Aside from himself).
- Knight of Cerebus: Very, very much so. One of the few Pokemon characters to outright attempt murder, among other villainous acts.
- Laser-Guided Karma / Do Not Order Arceus Around: There are plenty of really nasty villains in the Pokeverse, and yet this is the guy Arceus deems unfit for the mortal plane.
- Laughing Mad: When the Sky Fortress begins falling. He passes out shortly after.
- Meaningful Name
- Misanthrope Supreme: After imprisonment.
- Power Glows: Once outfitted with the Golden Armor.
- Purple Eyes: It's his name, for crying out loud!
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: As befitting his name, with himself. During the story, he's cocky, smug, and somewhat Hot-Blooded. After his imprisonment, he becomes cold, unfeeling, stoic, and even worse of a person, calmly and inflectionlessly advocating the destruction of humanity.
- Skunk Stripe: It's a light-purple streak in dark-purple hair, though.
- The Starscream: And he succeeds, too!
- Terrible Trio
- Walking Spoiler: Nothing suggested there was a third Eyes character until he showed up.
- Would Hit a Girl: Ask Nema or Kasa.
- You Gotta Have Purple Hair
Sabios
- Big Bad: Of the Multiplayer mode.
- Dark Is Evil
- Evil Chancellor
- Evil Overlord
- Immortality: Via the Golden Armor. Though, as his absence during the present indicates, he lost it at some point and died.
- Mind Manipulation: In addition to controlling Pokemon like all the other Steelheads, he can also control people.
- You Gotta Have Purple Hair