The Most Tragic Pokemon Stories 

Who do you think is Pokemon's most tragic character? If you can afford to, please donate to the AHA! Even a few dollars can help someone in need :)

Most tragic character: the old guy in black and white 2 on the bridge with a 999 win streak 😔

Actually Jessie's childhood is even sadder once you consider her fondest memory comes from *eating snow to fill her stomatch when there was food scarcity*

I'm surprised Guzma wasn't mentioned. It's heavily implied he was abused by his father because he wasn't doing good in competitions, and ran away from home to create Team Skull, who were all social outcasts. Sure, Guzma was a jerk at times, but he gave all those people a place to call home.

The Aether family's story is even sadder in the manga. Mohn ending up in the Ultra Wormhole wasn't an accident. Faba was in love with Lusamine and was jealous of him, so he shoved Mohn into the wormhole on purpose and lied to the family saying he ran out on them. They were devastated. Faba intended to 'comfort' Lusamine, but she still only saw him as a trusted friend and colleague. He was so angry that he poisoned her with Nihilego toxin so that she herself would destroy everything she'd ever cared about, as 'punishment' for rejecting him. Gladion took off to try and find a way to fix things, refusing to ask anyone for help because he was trying to contain the disaster as well as he could. He didn't want people knowing that his mother had become a monster. But that just upset Lusamine even further; in her infected mind, he ran out on her just like Mohn did. This resulted in her abusing Lillie so badly that the poor girl had a panic attack when Burnet innocently asked her what she would like to wear when taking her clothes shopping, and being called 'beautiful' is another trigger. Then USUM happens. Mina notices Lillie at the resistance base on Exeggutor Island. She approaches her and tells her that on her travels, she met a very sad man who was trying to find his family, but he couldn't remember them. He had a locket with a picture of them, but he couldn't recognize any of them. Mina had offered to take it off his hands and see if she could find them for him. And she'd recognized Lillie from the picture. That man was Mohn. Realizing that he didn't abandon them, she ran off to find Lusamine and tell her the truth. Lusamine was possessed by Nihilego at the time, but Lillie was able to get through to her. Naturally, Faba's response was to try and kill Lusamine. He'd rather have her dead than sane. He failed, and he got his comeuppance in the most terrifying way possible.

Jessie's backstory explains why she and James are still in Team Rocket despite being constant failures: her mother was the favorite of Giovanni's mother, and Giovanni wants to respect his mother by keeping her favorite agent's daughter in the organization. And adding a bit to that Mewtwo backstory you mentioned; in the Japanese version, Dr. Fuji literally states that only humans and God are able to create life.

My favorite dark story in Pokémon has to be the one from the abandoned house in b2w2 where as you explore, you start to get bits and pieces of what happened. Eventually discovering that the ghost girl who haunts it was a unintended victim of darkrai that was trapped in an eternal nightmare, and her desperate father went to search for cresselia, only to be too late. In the end, the ghost girl gives you the lunar wing saying “I don’t need this anymore” which is how you get cresselia on a bridge later on.

Cyrus is pretty tragic, given his background of implied emotional abuse from his parents and never living up to their extremely high expectations of him. Things were so toxic for him, his grandfather wanted to step in and raise the kid himself, but never did, and Cyrus eventually cracked under the pressure and ended up forming his ideology that emotions were to blame and only bring pain. In Masters, Cynthia even notes that she feels an immeasurable despair coming from the guy. With N, at least he's got found family with Alder and the Unova protagonists in Masters, and he's finally free from Ghetsis's manipulations, but I just remember in USUM when we see Ghetsis throw out N's Dragon, and I have to wonder if N died at the hands of the man he saw as a father? His team in the original BW games was built to counter N's, especially Hydreigon, and we know Ghetsis isn't above murder. Arven will probably never know where in Area Zero his parent's body is buried. Also, I will die on the hill of Masters being the second chance for the writers to build on the characters and tell the stories they wanted to in the mainline games but just couldn't for whatever reason (like showing how far along N has come, building on Sycamore's friendship with Lysandre, having Lusamine try to repair the damage she did to her family and acknowledge her mistakes, etc) and in this regard, _Masters is canon._

Ghetsis is somehow even worse in the Pokémon manga. In the BW2 adaptation, N tries to save Ghetsis from falling to his death and N explains that despite everything, he still loves him as a father. And what does Ghetsis do in response? He uses his cane/staff to bludgeon N unconscious. I was genuinely surprised the manga went that far.

Man, Arven was quite the surprise. At first, I was kinda meh on him due to his early attitude and giving me a quest for sandwich ingredients. Things drastically changed once Mabostiff entered his story. And then his issues with his parents just made me feel more bad for this guy. GF did an amazing job with this character and I'm glad he now has some human friends (and a dino/mecha lizard) to rely on now.

Emmet would be also a tragic character if you think about it since he lost his twin brother into the past. That's just speculation but I do hope they could touch on that opportunity to feature Emmet's state after losing his twin brother in a future Pokémon game/Legends entry.

notable mention: the old dude in XY who asks to look after a low level pokemon, and when returning, is gone and your pokemon's ball is on the ground

I'd toss Necrozma into this conversation. Despite not being a 'character' in the typical sense, it was betrayed by the people it gifted with light and left critically injured, permanently damaging its body. This caused it to fly into a blind rage induced by the unending pain that lead to it seeking out any light it could find to try and soothe that pain. It then gets beaten down by the Tapu and locked up in a tower for 100s of years, while the Ultra Recon Squad plans to pacify it further by catching it. Then it breaks free, and grabs hold of Lunala/Solgaleo and fuses with them, using the given light to finally return to its former form... only for that form to still cause it pain and continue to prolong its blind rage due to it missing so much of its body. It's only able to find solace after being beaten down again and joining the player character, where it can get some comfort being close to the Z Ring since it's part of Necrozma's body.

Arven is the first Pokémon game character that made me cry and get really emotional. Like ugh this poor guy I want to give him a hug and eat his cooking. I hope we get more backstory on AZ cause the fact the literal king of Kalos who’s not immortal barely had any screentime or talked about whatsoever is very shocking to me.

Pryce and lance in the manga are other ones. Lance’s exact backstory isn’t explicitly told to us but there is a flashback frame that suggests his dratini died due to pollution/human activity of some kind and pryce lost his two lapras just when their baby hatched so nearly destroyed the world trying to reunite them

I think Arven and Penny’s stories are partly about how making supportive social connections in life is often more important than how those connections look. When you lack the connections you need, it’s okay to have a shitty family life and have your closest family member be the family pet. If you find in-person interactions hard, friends you connect with online/through tech are just as real as the ones you can make in person. Maybe you befriend the Pokemon that ruined your childhood and relationship with your mom/dad. Maybe you do things to help your friends and that’s not the help they wanted. Maybe you make a group of friends through harrowing adventures when you first pushed them away and lied. Basically, connections with other people are messy, and that’s okay. What’s important is finding your people.

I love Looker and I wish they would keep finding places for him to appear in the games.

I've always felt bad for Absol. It basically dedicated itself to saving people by warning them of upcoming disasters, and in return it's been treated with scorn. Hydreigon got hit by this too, according to Violet. Apparently it was much less violent in the past, but because of how scary it looked, it was loathed and despised to the point where it became the nightmare that everyone was afraid of.

N is the best written character in Pokémon. When you realize that he was essentially left for dead after being abandoned by his real parents in a forest with potentially very dangerous creatures simply because he can understand Pokémon, it's pretty tragic. Also, seeing as N is confirmed to be very intelligent it's quite unfortunate that he was manipulated and groomed by an actual psychopath whereas if he had a normal life he could have grew into an exceptional human with the ability to communicate with Pokémon. Not to mention his (dropped) ability to forsee the future. He would have been even more of a legend.

I think red's mother might be another tragic character as she had no idea where he was as he never came home

Arven really had a rough life. Thankfully we were able to save the one family he had left

While Game lusamine might not ever get her husband back I’m happy that in the Anime she reunited with mohn and managed to Rejog his memories it might have been an emotional roller coaster with her finding out he had amnesia and had a supposed new daughter but it was worth it in the end to gain back the man she loved so dearly and to make her fractured family whole once more and even gain a new member to it thank you pokemon journeys

Have you ever thought about how Mewtwo is the oldest legend gamewise, but one of the youngest lorewise as it was created in a lab while many others have been around from the dawn of time, the birth of the Earth itself and etc.

YES, INGO AND EMMET NEED TO BE REUNITED. I SOB EVERY TIME I THINK ABOUT IT.

Out of the tragic characters discussed in the video, Ingo has the least amount of information given about his backstory within Legends: Arceus’ context. Which is why I was disappointed with no dlc added to Legends that could’ve added more details about how Ingo ended up in Hisui. While I want to be cautious about my hopes for revisiting Unova, at the very least Game Freak should give us more information about the events that lead up to Ingo being stuck in Hisui. Anyways, good job on the video about these intriguing characters.

Odd thing I notice with the characters losing their memories falling through wormholes is the its eerily similar to what happens to the player character in the Mystery Dungeon: Explorers games. Idk if there's actually a connection there or if it was just inspiration to be used in the mainline games.

Jessie,James,N,Lillie,arven Whenever they give a character trauma they turn out great- One character i'd like to add is hanbei from Pokémon conquest,he knows he's about to die,all he can do is hide behind a smile and use his wits to better ransei.adding all the special events like him leaving for a bit if you lose a fight (showing he doesn't want to waste the limited time he has) just adds even more pain.the manga is more lighthearted but definitely continues this trend for his character

I love N and Lillie equally, thanks for putting them together in the thumbnail

Controversial opinion but I think Hop deserves an honorable mention. While he doesn't have any trauma like Lillie or Arven, it does feel like he has some inferiority complex. His brother is the champion of the whole region and wants to be as good as he is. After many defeats and harsh words from Bede he starts to doubt himself, even going as far as to box wooloo, his starter and best friend. Eventually he realizes that he doesn't have to be exactly like Leon to be good and after gaining a ledgendary's trust, he realizes he wants to help Pokemon and starts following his own path

I'm a little surprised Zinnia wasn't mentioned. Her story's significantly worse in the manga, but her desperately clinging to her god while her mentor's murderer faces no repercussions and then tries to overwrite what she believes to be her life's goal is so hard to read. Perhaps worst of all, she's brutally rejected and nearly killed by the god she tried so hard to gain acceptance to and seems to be her last connection to her beloved mentor.

Anabel's story in Sun & Moon is honestly why I prefer the Ultra Beast quest in that game compared to Rainbow Rocket in USUM.

There’s a disturbing amount of characters who have been yoinked into a portal and dumped somewhere without their memories in recent gens. It happened TWICE in gen 7. I wonder who’s next… 3:50 CROAGUNK’S DEAD?!? How have I never heard of this?

I'd say the ghost girl from Black and White and this old man from X and Y were pretty sad. Not the saddest, but still up there. The ghost girl tragically passed away after being put into a nightmare by Darkrai. And she's still trying to return the lunar wing to Cresselia since she can't take it now. In the first games, she's only briefly there. And in the second games, you can explore an abandoned house where she calls out to her family and Abra. That's also where she requests for you to take the wing back to the pokemon. And I learned this one more recently. In X and Y, there's a lonely old man who asks you if you can lend him a pokemon level 5 and below. Doing so, he will promise to take care of it. When you return (I assume after a few real world days. Like I said, I just recently learned this), he'll be gone with a single pokeball on the floor where he once stood. Inside is the pokemon you lent him at max happiness. I believe he wrote you a letter as well, but I can't remember.

R.I.P Amber and the clones- That prologue still hits. Hard. I was really hoping they would be in the remake but that sadly not the case :( And they never mention her- like ever. At least we got that extra room in Let’s go!

Arven oh arven, That story genuinely made me finish the game in one day just so I could see Arvin finally get peace

Mew probably didn't want to save Jessie's mom because Mew knew her and Team Rocket never had good intentions.

If u look at Ghetsis team it looks like he was going to betray N and take the legendary for himself his cofagrisgus would change the abilities and hydregion is the perfect counter to both of them. So, regardless of N being defeated or not Ghetsis will still betray him

Man, poor Jessie, she mentioned that she loved eating snow (i don't remember what of snow) made by her mother..

Wobbuffet may not fit into the sadder backstories of the trio but Benny was trying to trade him away after training it with reasoning similar to the Toy Story meme of "I don't wanna play with you anymore".

I mostly felt moved by Ingo, because there is no closure. The one I cared the least for is Lusamine: she was a terrible person, yet she got downgraded as a character in the UM/US version.

What's interesting to me is that Arven is the only character here without a full happy ending. Nemona finally has someone to finally satiate her love of all out battles, Penny not only is assured that the school is a safe enviornment but also kept her other friends from getting expelled. We.....are the main character and thus don't have a personality. Koraidon/Miraidon found strength thanks to us and even the AI professor gets to satisfy the curiosity they have, going to their desired time period. Arven, yes, has Mabostiff back in proper shape but he never gets the real closure. He never sees his real parents, never gets to rant to them on how much he suffered because of their absence, never gets to truly hear what they have to say. The best he's given are some hollow words from a robot. Arven may not have gotten closure but he got his emotional support dog, a time lizard he can now see in a new light and some great friends he made on the way home. Maybe that's all he really needs (along with lots and lots of therapy of course).

i did not go into 2022 expecting heartbreak by two separate pokemon game characters, but oh boy, did Ingo and Arven do a good job at that.

I've often wondered if the reason Giovanni never fired the duo is because he feels he owes it to Jesse's mother, but then, that is just conjecture.

there's also the ghost girl/dad of the haunted house in B2W2. Kid got trapped in darkrai's nightmares, dad looks all over for a legendary pokemon's feather, just to be too late in the end.

I hope they give Avern large roles in whatever DLC they release for S/V. He's my favorite character in my favorite(official) Pokémon game

Looker, Anabel and Emma are getting story beats now in masters. We're waitibg for Anabel to show her other partner pokemon except for Snorlax.

Arven was the one that messed me up the most. For some of the others there is hope for him? All he has left is the doggo and to me it seemed he felt neglected and unloved when his "parents" came back only to later realise nah they dead and they did indeed love him very much

Sooo where is XY's Emma?

Bro. I seen another comic strip of ingo brother calling out to him in the subway tunnels they used to fight in. But that shot at the messuem is horribly sad

It's been mentioned before but ingo got sent back in time bc his jp name Nobori means upward or to ascend in Japanese. Nice to see that God has a sense of humor

Looker deserves more love he is up there with my favorite Pokemon characters.

Jessie's whole life has been sad. We learn about bits of her past in random episodes, with previous jobs and love interests, and each time it's ended poorly. She joined Team Rocket because she'd already failed at everything else. And I remember one time they tried to go straight and make an honest living, but the jerk they were working for ripped them off and paid them for weeks of service with an old box. That sent them rocketing back to being criminals.

I think one distinction to be made is that even with tragedy that individuals do have a choice. Case in point being N. Not to say that tragedy does not give insight into one’s choices, but even despite it folks still have the capacities to enter into either virtue or vice.

I think Coco is also a pretty tragic Pokemon character from the Secrets of the Jungle movie. Both his parents were killed on screen for no good reason and he grew up being an outsider his entire life.

Another video on Pokémon's well written characters! Love to see it! A character that wasn't mentioned that I'd like to throw into the conversation would be the AI Professor. Created as a means to an end for a treasure turned a curse, trapped inside its deepest depths and burdened with the memories of their deceased original yet unable to make any sense of them, forced to carry on their twisted legacy despite witnessing first hand how destructive it is, and eventually having their own free will torn from their body and being transformed into a lethal weapon that threatens to eliminate who they feel for as their own child, and then ultimately having to sacrifice themself in order for their creator's dangerous dreams to truly be laid to rest. If _that_ doesn't sound like a tragic story, then I don't know what does...

What makes Arven's story even sadder is that he never gets closure.

Surprised to see Emma not get a mention, but great video, got me a bit emosh! :')

Well, in the Pokémon generations recreation of N's B2W2 return, it shows Hilbert was travelling with him, so I'd take it as canon. It's not just in master duels.

Scarlet and Violet’s story alone makes me love these games even more and would say it’s probably one of Pokémon’s best story, alongside or even surpassing Pokémon Black and White

It's why I'm happy the Alolan Anime reunites Mohn with his family x3

At 4:20 i started too cry because he is one of my favourite characters and that fanart of emmit/emmet or however you pronounce it at the museum made me tear up like bro i wanna buy all the ingo and emmit/emmet merch

I'll admit I think Arven genuinely has probably the third worst parents after N, Lilie and Gladion

Arven still makes me tear up, man :c

The second mabostiff came out of that pokeball the path of legends became priority number 1

I loooooved Lily's storyline in SM. Her and the female protagonist are maybe my biggest ship in the Pokemon franchise.

I think a Legends Unova game would be so perfect. Gen 5 is my favorite and I don't think remakes are necessary, but a legends game? To get to see the original dragon, include Ingo getting his closure, and having Hilda and Hilbert being the player character would explain why they went missing without a trace in their search for N.

In the manga there are some more tradgic backstorys, like Silver and Green/Blue (the girl xD), Deoxys, Lapras, Ruby and Sapphire, Emerald and so on xD

i find it kind of interesting that the pokemon series is not afraid to get dark and morbid when it wants to

Another one is the old man in anistar city. (Kalos) One of the saddest stories in Pokémon

I think Ingo is the most tragic. For one you DON'T separate twins and it just feels wrong leaving him stuck like this. It probably be way less sad if it wasn't for the fanart. Something I think would be really cool is if they made a movie of Ash, Iris, and Cilan traveling through time with Emmet to find his lost brother. Too bad it probably won't happen because (spoiler) Ash ended his journey, but most of the movie aren't canon, I think, so it still could maybe happen.

Arven backstory is up there too

I had the end of Pokémon scarlet. I cried man. Ed Sheeran’s celestial at the end made me feel a little better.

This is true: Misty’s parents abandoned her and her sisters at a very young age due to gym duty’s. This made me cry bc misty is my fav

0:26 Team Rocket Trio 2:03 Mewtwo 3:12 Looker & Anabel 4:25 Ingo 5:43 N 7:42 AZ 8:35 The Aether family 10:22 Arven

Considering Looker appears in battle resort in ORAS, maybe he's secretly one of the gen 3 frontier brains? He kind of could be Noland tbh

ngl so far pokemon scarlet & violet are my faw pokemon games so far not only because of its story but also because the legendarys remind me of Toothless of HttyD and also because the games open world

8:15 I never realized how good the animation here is, his shaking and expressions are so expresive and well made.

The real one: the old man who's wife and kids die and you give him a Pokemon and after you become champion and you go to the house the same Pokemon you gave him can be found on the ground with a note thanking you for giving a friend to him and that he died

Shoutouts to jessy and james and ofc meowth who I've ended up loving as much as the original trio of protagonists.

I don't care for the Subway Bosses, but seeing that fanart, it gets me every time and I can't help but feel horrible-

It's not particularly tragic but while watching/reading adventures pokémon XY. I noticed how off Clemonts life is. For starters there is Bonnie who is nine years younger than him since he has no mother that means he must of had one until at least nine years old. Next there the fact that there is a high probability of him having Autistic Spectrum disorder as he shows multiple symptoms. In the manga he got kidnapped by team flare and forced to do what they wanted which must of been traumatic as he was only 15/16. In the anime however this didn't happen except when he had to use the circuit jammer in facing the needs of many but then there's Clembots death. If I was him I'd be very depressed.

This is why if the current series is the end of the trio I hope it gives them all a happy ending.

Jesse will always break my heart because there are several points in the show where she has a chance at happiness, but after so many years of things not working out, she self-sabotages because ultimately that's easier for her than something going wrong that's complete *out of her control*. James actively chooses to stay in TR time and again because it's the only place he's ever felt like he can be himself, and there's hints as the series goes on that he thinks that Jesse can't be alone in the world because there's a chance she'll not just be more self sabotaging and destructive, but that those feelings will be projected more onto others.

Got me crying in the Game Corner rn

I wrote a fanfic to describe a conclusive fate to Miyamoto and Jessie in the context of a Journeys episode. I have my theories based on pokedex descriptions and i think it was a missed opportunity to not explore it, especially when a central theme when Ash and Goh were travelling together was to find Mew

Emma from XY is pretty sad in her own right. A girl from the streets that was taken in by Looker and the player, but felt so unworthy of their support that she volunteered for Xerosic's experiments, becoming a puppet used to steal Pokemon, blissfully unaware of what she was doing. And in the end, both Looker and Xerosic up and leave, with Looker returning to the International Police and Xerosic so moved by Emma's kindness that he turned himself in, leaving Emma totally alone save for the player. And the manga - yeesh! Don't even get me started.

i cry when i hear about the pupper being hurt

"if 'I' had to see it, so do you!" me:....i did not give you permission to make me feel....

You know, since AZ never died and never technically gave up the throne...he's technically the rightful leader of Kalos.

Jessie is the definition of "hurt people hurt, people."

wait... South america is cannon on pokémon universe??

I’d say it’s likely that Mewtwo only survived because it was created from the DNA of a Pokémon that was the progenitor of almost every other pokemon

Arven's parents did Not in fact die in an expedition in area zero. It is like this guy did not pay attention to the games. According to the Actual games the respective game's prof. was Killed by the second and more violent box art legend that was pulled through and one of the books in the rest stops along the way down area zero reveals his other parent is still alive they just left. Not kidding, they "left shortly after the boy was born" pretty much what it said.

Im a little surprised that uh- Bede wasn't added. He apparently was in an orphanage, since his parents got into some trouble. He didn't remember his parents cause he was just a baby (or a young child) back then. Then after that, he got adopted by Chairman Rose and then gets abandoned once more (Man he needs a break-)

While not "tragic" per-say, Hop and his constantly losing Team of Pokémon is pretty sad. Especially because he looks up to Leon before he became a Pokémon Professor.

Mewtwo backstory is the most tragic one.

The mewtwo stuff is some shadow the hedgehog type stuff

A couple more come to mind. First is sabrina from the anime, the girl was possessed by a younger version of herself, made her turn her mother and trainers that lost to her into literal dolls, and the way it was all broken was just by making Sabrina happy and laugh for the first time in probably years, a sight that her own father never believed he would see again. And second is the girl from the first entei movie, like entei and rise of the unknown or something like that. Girl's story is that her father was obsessed with Pokemon history and the unknown, but eventually she learns that her father is actually entei or became entei, and she has to let go of her attachment to her father because it's causing the whole world to be turned into crystal. It's like she was forced to give up her bond with both a pokemon and her father at once, or else the world would end. edit: it's pokemon movie 3: spell of the unown

I'm suprised Silver wasn't mentioned on here

so, we're not talking about how Bede saw chairman Rose as a father figure but then left alone just because he make 1 big mistake? as a 10 yrs old? who don't know whats bad and whats good? And not even including the fact that Bede has no parents.