Elderly characters of the Pokemon series

[shoz999]

Discuss about the many important elderly characters who invoke a sense of history of the Pokemon series right here!

Drake (Left), Ultima (Top), Joseph Stone (Bottom) & Briney (Right) from Pokemon Adventures. What stories do you think they have to tell?

I'm surprised the term "Elderly" isn't a categorization featured in databases like Bulbapedia because the elderly play A LOT of important roles in the Pokemon world, it's lore and the stories it tells, especially in the games and Pokemon fans can easily notice just how hugely important these characters are in the games through it's faithful adaptation, the Pokemon Adventures manga, which is a great reflection of the games lore and world, constantly reminding you that many of the pioneers, storytellers and innovators of the Pokemon world are elderly folk, almost all of them originating from the games as extremely important characters that are vital to the lore and story of Pokemon, from powerful trainers like Hoenn Elite Four Member Drake, teachers like Ultima of the Sevii Isles who tutors the "ultimate" moves Hydro Cannon, Blast Burn & Frenzy Plant to the player's starter Pokemon, to bosses like Joseph Stone who runs the Devon Corporation and is the father of the Hoenn Pokemon Champion and finally just ordinary folk that will assist you on your journey such as Briney who takes you to Dewford Town by boat. These are a fair number of examples of just how important the elderly are in the Pokemon world, especially the games, and they aren't even some of the more very popularly known ones like Prof. Oak.

There are also two other noted characteristics the Pokemon series often features in the elderly that the games & manga especially often share. This is that so many of these important characters know each other, no matter how faraway the region can be and the other one is that a lot of these characters just invoke a sense of history around them and elsewhere, a sense of world-building of not just their surroundings but what the region they lived or traveled in used to look or feel like.

So to sum it up, elderly characters play very strong roles in the Pokemon series and it is undoubtedly going to happen again in Pokemon Sword & Shield. With that being said, discuss about the elderly characters featured in the Pokemon series! Ah but here's a question to kick off the discussion if nothing comes to mind. What's an elderly character you want to meet at a younger age? Or perhaps what story do you think they might impart?

 

[WishIhadaManafi5]

Wouldn't Agatha fit in to that as well? I think her character is pretty interesting, given her history with Professor Oak and with being a Elite 4 trainer.

 

[Leonhart]

One thing that bothers me regarding elderly characters in this franchise is that despite their age and experience, very few of them are impressive battlers. I mean we have a few stand-out elderly characters like Kikuko (Agatha), but people like her are the minority.

 

[shoz999]

Wouldn't Agatha fit in to that as well? I think her character is pretty interesting, given her history with Professor Oak and with being a Elite 4 trainer.

Agatha, Prof. Oak, Daycare Couple & Kurt

Absolutely. Agatha is often portrayed as a good friend of Oak who calls him a fool for working on the Pokedex. The manga actually expands this much further that Agatha used to be Prof. Oak's childhood friend and his rival in much of the same way as Red & Green which is just so freaking cool that I wish it was canon in the games because it just makes so much sense given Agatha's friendly-disappointed attitude with Oak.

One thing that bothers me regarding elderly characters in this franchise is that despite their age and experience, very few of them are impressive battlers. I mean we have a few stand-out elderly characters like Kikuko (Agatha), but people like her are the minority.

I'd say there is plenty, you got Agatha, Pryce, Wattson, Drake, Wake, Bertha, Drayden, Ramos, Wulfric, Drasna & Hala for example and that's just Gym Leaders and Elite Four members.

 

[Leonhart]

I'd say there is plenty, you got Agatha, Pryce, Wattson, Drake, Wake, Bertha, Drayden, Ramos, Wulfric, Drasna & Hala for example and that's just Gym Leaders and Elite Four members.

I wasn't counting Gym Leaders since I don't think of them as being that impressive in terms of skill or knowledge when compared to the Four Heavenly Kings (Elite Four) at least. But I did forget about a few characters like Dracaena (Drasna) I suppose. But my main point is that this franchise often shows kids are being much more competent than elderly characters for the most part, and I understand why that is, but I still find it strangely amusing.

 

[shoz999]

I wasn't counting Gym Leaders since I don't think of them as being that impressive in terms of skill or knowledge when compared to the Four Heavenly Kings (Elite Four) at least. But I did forget about a few characters like Dracaena (Drasna) I suppose. But my main point is that this franchise often shows kids are being much more competent than elderly characters for the most part, and I understand why that is, but I still find it strangely amusing.

I wouldn't say that but I get what your saying. They kind of actually explain this in Sun & Moon's depressing yet very human side quest, the Eevee quest where you have to challenge a bunch of once-famous young trainers who are now a bunch of elderly folk that have retired or in one's case, passed away.

 

[RedJirachi]

AZ is the eldest of them all, physically in his 60s and chronologically 3000+. I really like the concept behind him, though the execution was lacking

 

[shoz999]

AZ is the eldest of them all, physically in his 60s and chronologically 3000+. I really like the concept behind him, though the execution was lacking

AZ really is tall. In the Pokemon Adventures manga, the first time AZ is introduce, you will likely be surprised even if you played the games. You know he's tall but you wouldn't expect him to look like a giant compared to the height of the kids. I wish the anime did the same as manga so people could express and discuss their reactions when seeing AZ adapted out of his game-sprite form and seen standing next to an actual regular-sized kid. The image above gives you an idea just how tall AZ is compared to Mega Evolution Guru Gurkinn and Mega Heracross.

 

[RedJirachi]

I figured the tallness is a consequence of what gave him immortality. Like how his Floette is just one BST away from its evolved form's BST

 

[KyogreThunder]

I like Drasna because of her backstory and looks and Drayden for his personality. Agatha and Bertha are pretty good characters, too.

 

[GymTrainerAlex]

Definitely Agatha and Bertha.

 

[shoz999]

The Seven Sages

So a group I found intriguing are the Seven Sages, a powerful villainous group of leading intellectuals consisting of Gorm, Bronius, Rood, Zinzolin, Giallo, Ryoku and Ghetsis who acts as leader. In the games, as a group their presence is certainly strong but I feel the reason you don't see these guys being discussed a lot is because individually all they do is say an interesting piece of dialogue, get arrested by Looker in BW's post-game and not one of them in the original game battle you. They don't really do much individually which is why my favorite depiction of the Seven Sages is the Pokemon Adventures take and I really hope GameFreak takes a look at the Adventures depiction of Seven Sages if they ever consider remaking the original Black & White on the simple fact that Pokemon Adventures gives each individual Sage a more active role in Team Plasma, acting like Team Plasma's lieutenants or admins in charge of an important task to gather intel, research legendary Pokemon, and supervise the kidnappings of Pokemon in major locations such as Unova's biggest city, Castelia City. Not only that but each one of them actually have personal Pokemon they use to battle which never happens in the original BW. I don't know about you guys but I thought the Adventures take on the Seven Sages was a massive improvement over the game's counterpart, story-wise. Although I do wonder where did the Seven Sages came from, how did Ghetsis formed this group in the first place?

Rood of the Seven Sages

By the events of both the BW2 games and the BW2 arc set two years after BW, we see some of the roles of the Seven Sages drastically change due to Ghetsis's recent leadership dividing the group. The two sages that really stood out in BW2 are Zinzolin & Rood. For those who don't remember the BW2 story quite well enough, Zinzolin chose to stay on Ghetsis's new Team Plasma, taking a far more active role in Ghetsis's plans while Rood opposed Ghetsis's recent actions, acting as the de facto leader of the original Team Plasma since N was missing. Although Zinzolin is probably far more memorable because of his new outfit and his role in the freezing of Opelucid City, Rood is the one that gives the player N's Zorua and actually plays an important role in Hugh's search for his younger sister's Purrloin. It's especially interesting in the BW2 manga where these aren't sprite avatars with dialogue, these are characters with expressive facial expressions and you can certainly feel the intense hatred from Hugh but also a sense of regret from Rood. If you think about it, this is actually a pretty rare quality in Pokemon villains of the games, renouncing their past actions as misdeeds. Not only that but you get to actually battle Zinzolin & Rood in BW2.

 

[Leonhart]

AZ is the eldest of them all, physically in his 60s and chronologically 3000+. I really like the concept behind him, though the execution was lacking

The execution of his character did feel kind of lackluster when you consider how little he did during the main storyline. I always assumed that his character would have more involvement in "Z version", but that game never happened.

 

[shoz999]

The execution of his character did feel kind of lackluster when you consider how little he did during the main storyline. I always assumed that his character would have more involvement in "Z version", but that game never happened.

Huh... AZ. Never occurred to me the last letter of his name could be somehow associated with a cancelled Z version.

 

[MockingJ]

Agatha's awesome because she's old but still battles with passion and energy. I also like how she trashes Prof Oak in her dialogue and I wish that her relationship with Bertha was explained properly.

 

[RedJirachi]

If Ghetsis an elderly character? It's hard to tell, but his hair is noticably losing color by BW2. Also, Alder is old enough to be a grandfather