Dawn: The Sinnoh Heroine Who Became a Coordinator On Screen

The same character can either fill out the Pokédex or end up filing it away in a lab. Dawn is the female avatar of Diamond, Pearl, Platinum and their Switch remakes. Pick her, and she's the one who takes on the Sinnoh League; pick Lucas, and she moves behind the counter as Professor Rowan's assistant. The anime, for its part, invented a third career for her.

Contents

• Twinleaf Town and a Briefcase Left in the Tall Grass
• The Other Dawn: Professor Rowan's Assistant
• Three Possible Starters, Two Eggs and Three Legendaries
• White Beanie, Red Scarf and a Pokétch on Her Wrist
• On Screen, a Coordinator First and Foremost
• A Name Made of Light, and Her Manga Doubles
• Dawn at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Twinleaf Town and a Briefcase Left in the Tall Grass

Nothing marks Dawn out to save anything at all. She still lives in Twinleaf Town, under her mother Ingrid's roof, and is just an aspiring Trainer on the day it all begins. That day, she's simply tagging along with her neighbor Barry — whose French name, Barry in Diamond and Pearl, became René in the Switch remakes — to the outskirts of Lake Verity.

When they get there, the two teens run into Professor Rowan and his assistant Lucas: the researchers head back the way they came and leave a briefcase behind in the middle of the undergrowth. It has barely been picked up when wild Starly swoop down on the pair; opening it and borrowing the Pokémon sleeping inside is the only way out.

The explanation that follows turns into a job offer. Rowan lets Dawn keep the Pokémon she just borrowed and, in return, entrusts her with filling out the Pokédex, a mission that now runs alongside the classic journey toward the Sinnoh League.

Platinum deals the same cards a different way. This time, Dawn and Barry head toward Sandgem Town to meet the professor, who shows up behind them at the very moment the boy dashes into the tall grass on Route 201. Once the test is passed, it's Lucas who brings the briefcase and its three rare Pokémon: each of them picks one, a first Trainer battle follows, and a quick detour to Lake Verity has them cross paths with Cyrus, about whom they still know nothing.

The Other Dawn: Professor Rowan's Assistant

The game offers two avatars and keeps only one. When the player chooses Lucas, Dawn doesn't simply fade away: she changes jobs, settles in Sandgem Town with her family and lends Professor Rowan a hand with his research — with manners that leave something to be desired, since Platinum shows her being rather rude to Looker.

Toward the Pokédex holder from Twinleaf Town, on the other hand, she makes herself genuinely useful. She's the one who gives the catching lesson on Route 202, demonstrating on a Bidoof with her own starter Pokémon. There's no open hostility between the two: they even end up fighting side by side twice against Team Galactic, once in a Double Battle against Grunts and once to get back the Pokédex they stole from him.

The role has a gameplay downside. As a pseudo-rival, Dawn gets the starter whose type is weak against the player's: the odds are stacked against her from the selection screen on. Once the remakes' story is wrapped up, she waits outside the lab and offers a battle every weekend; ten Hall of Fame entries later, her roster gets reshuffled and her levels go up.

Three Possible Starters, Two Eggs and Three Legendaries

Her adventure opens at the crossroads every Sinnoh player knows. Three starter Pokémon, three types: Turtwig for Grass, Chimchar for Fire, Piplup for Water — a final choice that shapes the balance of the whole team to come.

The rest comes together through gifts as much as catches. Bebe gives her an Eevee in Hearthome City, and two Eggs add weight to her bag along the way, one of them holding a Riolu picked up on Iron Island.

The top tier, meanwhile, comes straight from the story. The matter of the region's Legendary Pokémon takes her all the way to the Distortion World, Giratina's domain; Spear Pillar gives her access to Dialga, Palkia or both depending on the version, and Giratina can still be caught in Turnback Cave by anyone who let it get away. A quirk of the remakes: in a save file started with Turtwig, her final battle as pseudo-rival features the fully evolved forms of the team she has in the anime, with a single substitution, Bellossom taking Pachirisu's place.

🌱 Turtwig, Chimchar or Piplup: browse our collection of Pokémon starters.

White Beanie, Red Scarf and a Pokétch on Her Wrist

Her default design comes down to a few features: fair skin, blue-gray eyes, and long navy-blue hair held back by two yellow hair clips. The canonical outfit, the one from Diamond and Pearl and their remakes, layers a white beanie stamped with pink, a white top worn under a black-and-pink two-piece dress, high black socks and pink boots with white soles. On top of that come an oversized red scarf, a yellow sports bag, then a bracelet on her right wrist and a white Pokétch on her left, the interactive watch a Jubilife City company gives her when she passes through.

Platinum dresses her for the cold. A raspberry trench coat with salmon-pink buttons echoes the colors of her hair clips and boots; her scarf, socks and bag turn white, and her Pokétch turns pink. The Switch remakes take a different approach: hairstyle, skin tone, eye color and wardrobe all become customizable, and a promotional event even let you give her back her Platinum look.

Then there's the wardrobe the stage calls for. For Pokémon Contests, Dawn wears a frilly white dress trimmed with red, with matching ribbons and bows, white ballet flats and pale yellow socks, plus two stacked bracelets on her right wrist — one red, one yellow.

On Screen, a Coordinator First and Foremost

The anime adaptation sticks closely to her video game design, with two differences: her eyes turn blue and her scarf gets shorter. Ten years old in the anime's third series, she's introduced right at the start of season 10, then joins Ash's group from the third episode.

There, the character follows a path the games never give her. A native of Twinleaf Town like her playable counterpart, she enters Pokémon Contests and discovers her calling as a Coordinator. Where the game avatar fills out a Pokédex, the anime's Dawn aims for a career on stage.

Leaving Ash's group doesn't close the book on her. Dawn resurfaces in Unova during the fourth series, then at two points in the seventh, back in her home region — including a two-part episode in which her alter ego turns up from a parallel world. She even makes it all the way to Galar, where the final of the Masters Eight Tournament takes place.

A Name Made of Light, and Her Manga Doubles

Her name is anything but decorative. Whatever the language, her official name — the one the game gives her as an NPC when the player chooses Lucas — is drawn from the vocabulary of light, and her French and English names, Aurore and Dawn, both refer to the first light of day, a root she shares with Aurel, Rei's French name. German calls her Lucia, which is precisely the French name of her Hisui counterpart; English and Japanese give her the name of an evolution stone introduced in Generation IV.

The paradox is that this official name is missing from the eighteen preset names in the original games. Anyone who gets past the naming screen without typing anything inherits the title printed on their cartridge — Diamant, Perlo or Platine in French — while the French list of preset names also picks up Flo and Marion, the French names of Eterna City's Gym Leader (Gardenia) and of the Dark-type specialist in Johto's Elite Four (Karen). Fan communities, for their part, prefer "Platinum", borrowed from her manga counterpart.

That counterpart is Platinum Berlitz: in Pokémon Adventures (Pocket Monsters Special), Dawn becomes a wealthy heiress who is also an adventurer, and who owes her Pokémon knowledge to her time at the lab alongside Rowan. Shigekatsu Ihara paints a radically different portrait of her — a teenager with long green hair tied in a ponytail, an orphan Team Galactic had brought under its control before Rowan made her rethink her relationship with Pokémon.

The rest of her career comes down to two dates. The mobile game Pokémon Masters EX added her on May 28, 2020 and has given her four successive outfits: Turtwig, Wormadam and then Empoleon as sync pair partners, Cresselia with her Sygna Suit look, not to mention Alcremie and Oricorio for the seasonal events; she also takes the player's place in the Sinnoh story there, this time with the starter that has the type advantage over Barry's — and she points out his impulsive streak along the way. The trading card game had to wait until January 23, 2023, and the Crown Zenith expansion to feature her for the first time in France.

Dawn at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Dawn in Pokémon?
  She's the female playable character in Diamond, Pearl, Platinum and the remakes Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. She comes from Twinleaf Town, lives with her mother Ingrid and is given the mission of completing the Sinnoh Pokédex by Professor Rowan.
• What happens to Dawn if the player chooses Lucas?
  She becomes an NPC: living in Sandgem Town with her family, she assists Professor Rowan, gives the catching lesson on Route 202 and serves as a pseudo-rival. Her team is then built around the starter that is weak against the player's.
• Which starter Pokémon does Dawn choose?
  As the player character, she takes Turtwig, Chimchar or Piplup, your choice. She then receives an Eevee from Bebe in Hearthome City, along with two Eggs, including one containing a Riolu on Iron Island.
• Is Dawn a Coordinator in the anime?
  Yes. In the anime's third series, she joins Ash's group in the third episode and enters Pokémon Contests, where she finds her calling as a Coordinator. She later reappears in Unova, in her home region and then in Galar.
• Where does Dawn's name come from?
  From light: in every language, her official name is drawn from the vocabulary of light, and her French and English names, Aurore and Dawn, both refer to the first light of day. In German, she's called Lucia, the name her Hisui counterpart goes by in French.

In short

Dawn only ever exists as a pair: the Twinleaf Town Trainer who fills out a Pokédex and goes all the way in the Sinnoh League, and the Sandgem Town assistant who teaches others how to catch Pokémon. The game's very first screen chooses between them, without erasing the one left behind. The anime turns it into a full-fledged career on the Contest stage, where the games only made it a side activity.