Ethan: the New Bark Town hero who crosses two regions

Ethan went two generations without an official name. The boy in the cap from New Bark Town is the male avatar offered to the player in Generation II, and his journey remains the biggest in the series: Johto first, then Kanto. Picking him erases Kris from the story and demotes Lyra to the role of pseudo-rival.

Contents

• From New Bark Town to the Indigo League, Two Regions Back to Back
• Backward Cap and Pokégear on His Wrist
• The Team the Player Can Line Up Behind Him
• When Ethan Crosses to the Other Side of the Screen
• Ethan, Gold, Hibiki: A Name That Came After the Fact
• Jimmy and the Two Golds: His Doubles Outside the Games
• Ethan at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

From New Bark Town to the Indigo League, Two Regions Back to Back

It all starts at the family home in New Bark Town, where he lives with his mom. Once the Pokégear is strapped to his wrist, the boy pushes open the door of Elm's lab, and the professor hands him a Pokémon in exchange for a favor: delivering a parcel to Mr. Pokémon's house on Route 30. The package contains an Egg, and the errand turns into a meeting with Professor Oak, who has come to entrust him with filling the Pokédex.

The trip back goes wrong. A mysterious young man stops him for a battle, and with good reason: he has just stolen a Pokémon from Elm's lab. Ethan closes the incident by giving the thief's name to the authorities, and his adventure only really begins after this detour.

What follows is an unusually long road. Johto's Gyms, a rival to keep in check, then the return of a Team Rocket that had been defeated in the neighboring region three years earlier. Once the Indigo League is conquered, Kanto opens up in turn: this back-to-back run through two regions remains unique to Generation II and its remakes.

Backward Cap and Pokégear on His Wrist

The character looks like a preteen, with black hair and gray eyes, and his signature is a black and gold cap that he wears backward. The Pokégear strapped to his left wrist completes the silhouette and shows just how central the device is to this generation.

His outfit, on the other hand, changes with the platform. On the Game Boy Color, he pairs a grayish-purple backpack, multicolored high-top sneakers, gold shorts with black pockets and a red-and-white sweatshirt. The remakes dress him anew from head to toe: a crimson sweatshirt with a white collar and trim, black wristbands, dark brown capri pants, and red-and-white sneakers with gray soles.

A third outfit exists, reserved for one specific purpose. To compete in the Pokéathlon, Ethan puts on a blue and white athletic outfit given to him by Whitney. His wardrobe therefore follows two parallel logics: one outfit per generation, plus one for competition.

The Team the Player Can Line Up Behind Him

Like every protagonist, he starts with a choice of three: Chikorita for Grass, Cyndaquil for Fire, Totodile for Water. The Johto starter trio comes from Elm's lab, and the rest of the team is picked up along the way.

Three recruits then arrive as gifts rather than by Poké Ball: a Tyrogue on Mt. Mortar, an Eevee in Goldenrod City, and a Togepi Egg in Violet City. Nothing to catch, nothing to trade — you just have to show up in the right place.

The legendaries are within reach, provided you have the right relics. Ethan can then catch Ho-Oh at the top of the tower rising in the northeast of Ecruteak City — Crystal also sends Suicune there — and Lugia over at the Whirl Islands. In the remakes, beating Red unlocks two more starter Pokémon, one from Generation I and one from Generation III, followed by Groudon or Kyogre at the Embedded Tower.

🔥 Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Totodile: the Johto trio has its own section, see the Pokémon starters.

When Ethan Crosses to the Other Side of the Screen

The character gets a second life in HeartGold and SoulSilver. If the player chooses to play as Lyra, Ethan becomes an NPC, the grandson of the couple who run the Pokémon Day Care on Route 34. The hero moves from the driver's seat to the passenger seat, in the remake of his own adventure.

His role is small, yet it shapes the story: he guides Lyra through her first steps, gives her items such as the Fashion Case and the Vs. Recorder, and keeps in touch with her by Pokégear.

As a pseudo-rival, he resists being catalogued. He's most often seen with a Marill but his exact team is never spelled out: all we know is that he catches a Rattata on Route 29, right in front of the player, and his calls mention a Tangela, a Tauros and a Farfetch’d.

Ethan, Gold, Hibiki: A Name That Came After the Fact

The hero of Gold and Silver was long a character without a fixed identity. He was only given his canonical name in Generation IV, taken from the one the remakes give him when he's no longer the player's avatar. Before that, everyone named him in their own way, within the character limit the naming screen allows.

Among fans, "Gold" is the name that stuck, one of the names Gold Version offers by default. The official Japanese guides followed the same one-name-per-version logic: Gold, Silver — which eventually became the rival's name — and Kris for his female counterpart.

His French name, Luth, is no accident. Both his French and Japanese names evoke sound: the lute (luth in French), whose strings are plucked, and the Japanese Hibiki ("echo") play in the same register. Behind the scenes, the demo shown at Space World 1997 listed the name Satoshi among the options for the New Bark Town boy, before the anime turned him into Kenta, renamed Jimmy in the West.

Jimmy and the Two Golds: His Doubles Outside the Games

The anime chose a look-alike over the character himself. Jimmy, the hero of the three episodes of The Legend of Thunder, borrows the features of the games' protagonist: the same hometown, a friend named Marina who is derived from Kris, and a plot built around Raikou. Ethan himself opens a movie, dressed as in the remakes, in a battle against Ash that is left unresolved.

Two episodes give him a real role without giving him a single line. In "The Lake of Rage," he sneaks alone into the Team Rocket HQ in Mahogany Town while Lance dismantles the operation, the two staying in contact by Pokégear; his mission is to create a diversion, and the staging keeps his eyes in shadow. He doesn't say a word, but cracks a smile when the caped man tells him that the radio signal responsible for disrupting the wildlife will soon go dark. A cameo in "The Show" then shows him wandering among the stalls of the Ecruteak City festival.

The manga, meanwhile, pile on the variations. In Pokémon Adventures, his alter ego is named Gold, wears goggles on his cap and launches his Poké Balls with a pool cue, as a baby Pokémon specialist. In Kosaku Anakubo's manga, he's also called Gold, a recurring opponent of Red: he demands a battle before returning the Egg Red lost at the hot springs, overpowers Red's Clefairy, then loses out when the Togepi that hatches from the Egg chooses Red.

Ethan at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Are Ethan and Gold the same character?
  Yes. Gold is one of the default names offered in Gold Version, and it's the one fan communities have kept using. Ethan is the canonical name, given to the character only in Generation IV.
• What is Ethan's first Pokémon?
  Whichever one the player picks from the three Johto starters handed out by Professor Elm: Chikorita for the Grass type, Cyndaquil for Fire, Totodile for Water.
• Can Ethan explore Kanto?
  Yes, once the Indigo League is conquered. That's what makes his journey so vast: Johto first, then the neighboring region, where Team Rocket had been defeated three years earlier.
• What happens to Ethan if you play as Lyra in HeartGold and SoulSilver?
  He becomes an NPC, the grandson of the owners of the Pokémon Day Care on Route 34. He guides the heroine through her first steps, gives her items like the Vs. Recorder and stays reachable by Pokégear, usually accompanied by a Marill.
• What happens if the player doesn't name their avatar in the remakes?
  The canonical name isn't among the remakes' eighteen suggestions. If the player gets past the naming screen without entering anything, their character is called Heart or Soul depending on the version, regardless of gender.

In short

Ethan racks up quirks: a name he received two generations after his debut, a bit part in the remake of his own adventure, and a journey that chains Johto and Kanto together when the protagonists of other generations make do with a single region. He's the hero the series rewrote after the fact, right down to giving him, in French, the name of a string instrument.