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Old 09-02-2016, 12:00 PM   #1
Doppleganger
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Musings on Red & Blue

Researching Red and Blue, I think I've come to a conclusion: in G1, Professor Oak was the original Kanto Champion.

Although some elements of G1 were unique due to it being the experimental generation, even the subsequent remakes have kept with the odd formula: Blue, upon beating the Elite Four, becomes the Champion, and Red immediately defeats him. Both trainers then become "co-champions" in the Champion League.

In every other gen, the Pokemon Champion has to be defeated before a new Champion is crowned. It isn't enough just to beat the Elite Four. This leaves two scenarios for Kanto:

1. The league is new, with a newly formed Elite Four, so no one had made the difficult journey around Kanto to acquire badges and challenge the Elite Four
2. the previous champion went AWOL

#2 makes more sense. Kanto has staffing issues. In Gen 2, Red left his post for Mt. Silver and Lance (a weaker trainer) had to step in as champion. A gym leader replaced him as Elite Four.

In Gen 5, Unova doesn't have a champion either, but it does have a substitute in Alder. G1's situation could just be one where there wasn't anyone nearly qualified (i.e., stronger than the Elite Four) who could credibly inherit the title.

Why Oak? Well, there is game data in R/B with Oak's team, making him close to the strongest trainer in the game. He admitted in the final version of the story he was once a battler, and "only had three Pokemon left". Agatha remarked he was strong. It's also thematic, where Giovanni turned out to be the Viridian Gym Leader, than the first human to appear in the Pokemon series proper was its strongest trainer.

I think Gamefreak recycled the dropped Oak angle for Alder/Iris in BW. It fits-ish.

Time to sleep.
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Old 09-02-2016, 10:29 PM   #2
Talon87
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For the Red and Blue we actually received, this is speculated and widely known amongst fans who love Pokémon as much as we all do.

For the unreleased build of Red and Green that Game Freak was working on, well yeah ... I mean, doesn't it go without saying? Oak's data was in there in our Red and Blue ... precisely because they originally had had some plans to have him be the Champion. Surely, no?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
In Gen 5, Unova doesn't have a champion either, but it does have a substitute in Alder.
Wait, what? No. Alder is definitely the Champion of Unova. I think you might be thinking of this:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghetsis in BW1
What's this? Champion Alder, even though illness took the Pokémon that had been your partner for many years, and you haven't had a serious battle in all that time... Even you, who ordered the Elite Four to protect the Pokémon League and left to wander the Unova region alone... Even a Champion like you now wants to protect a world where Pokémon and people live together?
Alder's a wanderer, and in that sense might truly be said to have abandoned his post at the Pokémon League's headquarters. But he's still the reigning Champion. He's still the titleholder. No one's taken the title from him.

The Indigo League had a similar dilemma with Red. They opted to promote their strongest Elite Four member to the role of Steward of Gondor, fielding the responsibilities of regional Champion in the true Champion's absence. Unova, it seems, solved the problem a different way -- they simply had a Champion-less Elite Four. "If you want to become the Champion, go find Alder and beat him. :p" Not much unlike Lance's message for Gold, "If you want to become the Champion, go find Red and beat him. :p"
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Old 09-03-2016, 03:51 AM   #3
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I actually don't remember Lance saying that, but it makes sense given how weak he was as a champion and the structure of that Johto Elite Four.

While I played RBY and GSC "sort of" contemporaneously with everyone else (RBY and GSC in 2001) I must have missed the boat by a few years on these discussions.

Bulbapedia's entry on Oak's data doesn't make reference to him being the Champion, just that his strength was "comparable". From there I made the logical leap that it probably implied, given what I know of how Kanto ended up.
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