Briar: the scholar hunting Terapagos to clear her ancestor

She isn't looking for a Pokémon — she's trying to prove a dead man right. Briar teaches at Blueberry Academy and devotes her research to Terastallization, but her investigation has a personal origin: she is descended from Heath, whose signature appears at the bottom of the Scarlet Book (the Violet Book in Pokémon Violet), and whose account is written off as a fairy tale. The field trip she leads to Kitakami is only the first step of a descent that takes her all the way down into the Paldean crater.

Contents

• Heath's heir and his manuscript
• The Kitakami field trip, supervised from start to finish
• The Crystal Pool, her real discovery
• Area Zero, the expedition and the mistake
• What her expedition leaves behind
• In the anime, the scientist who chases after her subject
• Briar at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Heath's heir and his manuscript

Briar approaches the player on the grounds of their academy in Paldea, just before departure, and asks whether the book signed by her ancestor rings a bell. In the same breath, she reveals that she is descended from Heath and brings out the original manuscript, which she carries with her everywhere.

What the text describes is a disc-shaped Pokémon buried beneath the Paldean crater and believed to be the source of the Terastal phenomenon. Finding Terapagos would amount to proof: as long as the creature stays missing, her ancestor stays a teller of tall tales.

Her approach is bureaucratic before it's adventurous. She has filed a request for permission to search the crater, a request the academy will take the entire field trip to process — the answer will eventually come through, and it will turn the story on its head.

The Kitakami field trip, supervised from start to finish

She's the one who welcomes the selected students and gives the signal to set off for Kitakami. The trip is run like a real educational outing, with all the mishaps that come with one: a student feels unwell on arrival, and she sends the player to alert the Caretaker at the community center in Mossui Town.

She then announces that two students from her own school will be joining them, Carmine and Kieran. The highlight of the stay is an orienteering activity in pairs, which mixes students from the two schools instead of pitting them against each other.

Her leadership has a limit she openly admits: Briar says she isn't much good at Pokémon battles. Every obstacle the story later puts in her way, she will get past with Trainers escorting her, never on her own.

The Crystal Pool, her real discovery

At the top of Oni Mountain, Carmine and the player find her at the Crystal Pool, where she is analyzing the water — the Caretaker has given her permission. The crystals rising from the middle of the pool give off energy identical to Terastal energy: that's why Terastallization works in Kitakami.

The implications reach far beyond the local setting. She concludes that the phenomenon could be harnessed outside Paldea, and sees it as one more milestone on the road to Terapagos.

The sequence comes to an abrupt end: a decision has come down about the crater, and Briar must return to Blueberry Academy without delay, taking Carmine and Kieran with her. Carmine's speech visibly moves her before she says one last goodbye to the students from Paldea.

Area Zero, the expedition and the mistake

Once the player has won the Blueberry League, she gathers the protagonist, Carmine, Kieran and Drayton to announce that the Paldea League is finally allowing her to go down into Area Zero. She needs an escort to venture down there, and everyone agrees except Drayton.

On site, the Zero Lab has locked itself down after going unused for so long; the computer detects the Indigo Disk, asks for it to be inserted, reopens the door and switches the elevator over to the depths. She pores over the reports left by Professor Sada or Professor Turo, which already mention Terapagos and a never-before-seen type called the Stellar type.

The descent is one obstacle after another: a crystal flower saturated with Terastal energy blocks the way, Kieran wants to smash it by force, and Briar thinks it's a bad idea; then a Tera Pokémon showing off the Stellar type appears, the player defeats it, and the flower dissolves. Further down, the group's three Tera Orbs begin to glow: the target is getting close.

She's the one who spots the tiny gem caught in the crystal — the sleeping Terapagos — but it's Kieran who grabs it, wakes it up, catches it and immediately challenges the player. Once Kieran is beaten, she suggests the player use their Tera Orb on the Legendary to see it at full power: Terapagos shifts into its Stellar Form and the situation spirals out of everyone's control.

Her reaction, once the Pokémon has been defeated and caught again, is to apologize for the recklessness that put the group in danger. The researcher's curiosity came before the students' safety, and the game doesn't spare her that realization.

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What her expedition leaves behind

A few days after their return, she publishes a book on what the expedition found underground, with the Paldea League's blessing, and gives the player a copy. The author's descendant becomes an author in her own right: the family story comes full circle with a text that can be verified.

Two concrete effects remain in the game. The three Tera Orbs have absorbed so much energy that they never need recharging again, a direct aftereffect of the battle against Terapagos.

She has also used crystals brought back from the depths in the Terarium Core, at the heart of the Terarium. Stellar Tera Pokémon have been appearing there ever since, so Blueberry Academy inherits something her expedition produced.

In the anime, the scientist who chases after her subject

The series sets her up before showing her: it's Raifort who urges Liko and her friends to go find her in Kitakami, and then the Rising Volt Tacklers learn that she has set up camp at the Crystal Pool. She only appears in person starting with a late episode of Pokémon Horizons, where she meets the trio and Friede.

The character is more excitable here than in the games: faced with a living Terapagos, she rushes after it to examine it before catching herself and apologizing. She also tells Roy that she has never had a Pokémon of her own, since there was never time between research projects.

What she brings to the group is documentation. She holds the original Scarlet Book, in its complete, unredacted version, shows them the page where Heath comes across the disc Pokémon for the first time, and, in the journal of Lucius, which Liko entrusts to her, recognizes a sketch of Terapagos in its Terastal state.

She is then the source of the report that sets the plot moving again: an Entei spotted deep in Area Zero, backed up by an illustration from the Scarlet Book and by video recordings. The Pokémon they encounter isn't an Entei at all — a Dragon-type move, then Raging Fury, lead her, book in hand, to identify the Paradox Pokémon Gouging Fire.

At the end of the arc, she chooses to stay behind rather than follow the group. Her book on Terapagos is eventually published, and once again she's the one who puts forward the decisive theory: neutralizing the Laquium requires Terapagos's Stellar type, powered by all eighteen Terastallized types at the power level of the Six Heroes.

Briar at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Briar in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet?
  A teacher at Blueberry Academy. She organizes and supervises the field trip to Kitakami that the player takes part in, then leads the expedition that descends into Area Zero.
• What is the connection between Briar and Heath?
  Heath is her ancestor. He wrote the Scarlet Book (the Violet Book in Pokémon Violet), whose original manuscript Briar keeps, and she is searching for Terapagos to prove that his writings are true.
• Does Briar have any Pokémon?
  In the anime, she tells Roy she has never had any: her research has kept her too busy. In the games, she says she isn't much good at battling and has Trainers escort her.
• What does Briar discover at the Crystal Pool?
  That the crystals in the middle of the pool give off the same energy as the Terastal phenomenon, which explains why Terastallization works in Kitakami and could be harnessed elsewhere.
• What role does Briar play for the Rising Volt Tacklers?
  She is their scientific authority: she owns the original Scarlet Book, identifies Terapagos in its Terastal form, reports a possible Entei in Area Zero and puts forward the theory meant to neutralize the Laquium.

In short

Briar is a researcher whose rigor regularly gives way to enthusiasm, and the story turns that into a driving force rather than a flaw: it's her excess of curiosity that puts the group in danger at the bottom of the Area Zero Underdepths, and it's that same excess that later produces a book, a documented Stellar type and permanently charged Tera Orbs. She ends up proving that Heath was telling the truth — at the cost of a public apology to her own students.