Karen: The Masked Child Who Became Johto's Dark-Type Lock

The Dark type barely had a history yet when Karen took on the job of defending it. The final lock of the Indigo Plateau, and the only woman in the Johto Elite Four, she guards the way to the title with a brand-new specialty and a reputation for keeping her cool. The manga, for its part, hints at where that specialty came from: a kidnapper took her as a child and, in all likelihood, assigned her a type to master.

Contents

• The Only Woman in the Johto Elite Four
• In the Games: A Wall That Gets Back Up
• The Child the Masked Man Trained
• The Ilex Forest Showdown
• From the Kidnapper's Camp to the Pokémon Association
• Karen at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

The Only Woman in the Johto Elite Four

At the Indigo Plateau, four Trainers take turns guarding the door to the ultimate title, and Karen holds one of those seats. She is the only woman in the Johto quartet, and the only one to make the Dark type her signature.

That detail carries more weight than it seems. The Dark type had only just been introduced when she first appeared: the region entrusted its final obstacle to a specialty no one had yet had time to tame.

Her official profile, meanwhile, fits in a single line: Elite Four member. No hometown and no side role frame her story in the games — everything you learn about her comes through her battles, and then through the manga.

In the Games: A Wall That Gets Back Up

The Elite Four isn't a fixed obstacle. Its teams get reshuffled once Kanto's eight Gym Leaders have fallen, so the player who returns to the Indigo Plateau after that detour doesn't find quite the same opponent they left behind.

The mobile game included her from launch, in the outfit she wears in HeartGold and SoulSilver. Her default sync pair teams her up with a Houndoom that can Mega Evolve; a second lineup, unlocked with a BP Sync Pair Voucher, pairs her with an Umbreon.

The portrait the game paints of her fits in a single sentence, and it's revealing: composed, thoughtful, drawn to the wildest side of her specialty. It isn't raw power that appeals to her, but the untamed nature of the creatures she fields.

🌑 Karen's nocturnal partner has its own section: see our products featuring Umbreon.

The Child the Masked Man Trained

The manga gives her a far heavier past. Karen is one of the children kidnapped by the Masked Man and his Ho-Oh, but her face only enters the story late, long after those of the other captives.

She was eleven when she was taken. She is twenty when she resurfaces, then twenty-five in the following arc: along with Will, Carl and Sham, she is one of the oldest in that handful of children.

She probably didn't choose her specialty. Her kidnapper is said to have assigned each of them a type to master — Dark for her, another affinity for Will, whose regular partner she becomes.

The Ilex Forest Showdown

When Green reaches Ilex Forest, the two Trainers are already waiting for her there. Will turns her oldest terror against her by sending out his Xatu, then Ho-Oh itself, and the girl's nightmares come flooding back all at once.

Green holds firm and eventually overcomes them. Articuno, Moltres and Zapdos burst out of their Poké Balls, Lugia sides with Ho-Oh, and the clash leaves the ground to play out in the skies.

Silver then climbs onto Lugia's back and goes after Will, who lets slip the crucial point: neither he nor Karen was forced to serve the Masked Man; they joined him of their own accord. Silver knocks him off his mount, Karen falls shortly after, and the two give up the fight.

From the Kidnapper's Camp to the Pokémon Association

The Masked Man ends up trapped in time, and the defeated pair watches the end of the battle without rejoining it. It is Koga and Bruno who then come to fetch them. The four Trainers end up working for the Pokémon Association, and the former masked children cross over from the kidnapper's camp to the institution's.

In this arc, they wear exactly the outfits they have in the games. They're seen again at the Pokéathlon, where they run into Gold and compete against him in the events; the boy takes the opportunity to ask about Lance, before a wounded Dragonite bursts out of the sea and cuts the encounter short.

One last curiosity sticks to the character. Karen looks a lot like Sanqua, who leads the Galaxy Team's Construction Corps in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and an Umbreon sits in the latter's office — but no official link has ever been established between the two.

Karen at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is Karen's specialty?
  The Dark type, which had only just been introduced when she first appeared. The games have her field Umbreon, Vileplume, Murkrow, Gengar and Houndoom, then, once Kanto's Gym Leaders have fallen, Weavile, Absol, Honchkrow, Spiritomb, Houndoom and Umbreon; the mobile game keeps only Houndoom, which can Mega Evolve, and Umbreon.
• Why is Karen an exception in the Johto Elite Four?
  Because she is the only woman in the quartet guarding the Indigo Plateau. Her official profile gives her no other role: she is an Elite Four member, nothing more.
• What is Karen's past in the manga?
  She was kidnapped at age eleven by the Masked Man and his Ho-Oh, and her kidnapper is said to have imposed the Dark type on her as a specialty. Yet she served him willingly, before being defeated in Ilex Forest and then recruited by the Pokémon Association.
• Does Karen appear in the trading card game?
  Yes. Cards of her Pokémon first came out in a Japanese expansion released on August 19, 2001, and the character herself arrived in France with the Giratina Three Pack Blister from the XY Promo set, on March 24, 2017.
• Are Karen and Sanqua the same character?
  Nothing confirms it. The physical resemblance is striking, and an Umbreon can be found in Sanqua's office in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, but no link between the two women has ever been made official.

In short

Karen is the last name you come across before the title, and probably the one people pay the least attention to. The games give her just one line of biography; it's the manga that fills it in, turning her specialty not into a matter of taste but, most likely, into an order she received as a child. Johto's Dark-type lock was first forged by the very man she ended up serving of her own free will.