Jack: the jack-of-all-trades who replaces four Galar NPCs

He has no storyline, no battles, not even a name spoken on screen. Yet Jack runs one of the most useful counters in Galar: the one where you can have a rare move taught, a mistake erased, a Pokémon renamed or its past recounted. Where earlier generations scattered these services across four characters living in four different towns, the eighth brings them together behind a single desk, found in every Pokémon Center.

Contents

• One Desk in Every Pokémon Center in Galar
• The Move Desk: Teach, Remember, Forget
• The Name Rater, Counter Edition
• Reading a Pokémon's Memories
• An Anonymous Barista and His Indeedee
• Jack at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

One Desk in Every Pokémon Center in Galar

Jack staffs a counter in every single Pokémon Center in the region, without exception. Officially, his profession is "jack-of-all-trades", and it describes his job exactly: he sells nothing and heals nothing, but provides Trainers with a series of side services that the game ties to no other character.

What makes the setup interesting is what it replaces. In earlier games, the Name Rater, the Move Reminder and the Move Deleter were three separate NPCs, each sitting in a specific town that you had to know about and travel to. Pokémon Sword and Shield condenses these three roles into a single figure, copied everywhere.

The change isn't cosmetic: it turns services once reserved for well-informed players into everyday tools. A Trainer who doesn't even know these options exist ends up stumbling onto them, simply by stopping at the Pokémon Center to heal their team.

The Move Desk: Teach, Remember, Forget

The first service covers moves that nothing else can provide. Jack teaches a special category of them, moves so rare that they can't be learned by TM, by TR or by leveling up — the Move Reminder's role corresponds to the next service. If the Pokémon you show him can't learn the move, or already knows it, he says so and leaves it at that.

The second service is a catch-up. He brings back any move the Pokémon could have learned as it grew and that was passed over along the way, and he does it for free. It's a direct answer to a long-standing frustration in the series: a move skipped when leveling up is no longer lost for good.

The third service is the reverse of the second, and Jack gives a warning before acting. Erasing a move means relearning it before it can be used again, and things get trickier with rare moves: once forgotten, a move that isn't learned naturally can no longer be requested from him again, even if he then offers to teach another one of the same kind. A Pokémon that knows only one move, for its part, has nothing to forget.

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The Name Rater, Counter Edition

Jack also handles nicknames, and he adopts the same stance as his predecessor: he doesn't just register a new name, he first rates the old one. The Trainer shows him a Pokémon, he judges the nickname, concedes that it isn't bad and offers to find a slightly better one — a bit of theater that has never served any purpose other than raising a smile.

The service keeps its original safeguards. An Egg is turned down on the spot, since there's nothing to name yet, and a Pokémon obtained in a trade can be nicknamed only once and once only: the game reminds you of this explicitly before confirming. Finally, some nicknames are declared perfect and left as they are.

The counter also works in reverse. A nicknamed Pokémon can get its species name back, which solves the classic case of a nickname you regret after a few dozen hours. Jack offers this himself, when he gives his verdict on the nickname.

Reading a Pokémon's Memories

The last service is the strangest, and the only one that comes with a requirement: you need at least three Badges to use it. Jack claims he can read Pokémon's memories, and on request he brings up a past episode from the life of any member of your team. The feature takes over the one that Generation VI entrusted to the Memory Girl.

What the counter brings back is anything but heroic, and that's the whole point. The memories tell of a battle against a Dynamax opponent, an evening of camping, a dish that was cooked, a stay at the Pokémon Nursery, a birthday celebrated at the Pokémon Center, a haircut chosen together, a downpour weathered on the road or a run started for no reason at all. The game recycles into stories what it was already recording silently.

Pokémon left in the PC Boxes have their own anecdotes: they train there to impress their Trainer, make friends there, argue about their Trainer there, wonder why they were given a certain item, or dream of a move. A Pokémon that arrived through a trade, for its part, hints at memories from before you met — a subtle way of reminding you that it had a life somewhere else.

An Anonymous Barista and His Indeedee

Visually, Jack is nothing new: he copies the look of the Café Masters line for line, and his counter looks like a café counter. He has at least two Pokémon, including the Indeedee that assists him — and this Indeedee isn't always the same one, since it changes depending on which Pokémon Center you stop at.

The animated series gives him a brief appearance, in an episode titled "Buddy". Hop is looking for his Wooloo that has gone missing and questions every passerby he comes across; Jack is one of them, has seen nothing and can't help. There too, he is accompanied by an Indeedee, the only detail that ties him to his in-game role.

The most telling detail lies elsewhere: his name is never spoken in the games, and was only confirmed by the strategy guide. It comes from the English expression "jack-of-all-trades", which is exactly what he is — a character named after his function, because he is nothing other than that function.

Jack at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Jack in Pokémon Sword and Shield?
  A jack-of-all-trades who runs a counter in every Pokémon Center in Galar. There, he provides Trainers with side services that were previously spread across several characters.
• What services does Jack offer exactly?
  He teaches rare moves that can't be obtained by TM, by TR or by leveling up, has a Pokémon relearn a move it skipped along the way for free, erases a move when needed, changes the nickname of a Pokémon that wasn't obtained in a trade, and recounts the memories of your team members.
• Do you need Badges to check a Pokémon's memories?
  Yes, this service requires at least three Badges. Moves and nicknames, on the other hand, are available with no progress requirement.
• Which Pokémon accompanies Jack?
  An Indeedee, in both the games and the animation. In the games, this Indeedee changes depending on which Pokémon Center you stop at, and Jack has at least two Pokémon.
• Where does Jack's name come from?
  It is never spoken in the games: it was confirmed by the strategy guide. It comes from the English expression jack-of-all-trades, meaning someone who can do a bit of everything.

In short

Jack doesn't battle, doesn't join anyone and says nothing that moves the plot forward. His real function is structural: he finally turns options that the series had until then reserved for the most knowledgeable players into everyday tools. Between a rare move taught on demand, a nickname put right and a camping memory brought back to the surface, his counter sums up pretty well what the eighth generation set out to do — make things more accessible without taking anything away from the depth.