N: the Team Plasma King Raised Among Pokémon

He understands Pokémon better than he understands humans, and that's exactly what makes him so easy to manipulate. Natural Harmonia Gropius — N to everyone — was found as a child in a forest, adopted by Ghetsis, then crowned king before he had ever seen what an ordinary Trainer looked like. His cause is defensible, his arguments hold up, and it takes the entire Unova adventure to take them apart one by one.

Contents

• Found in a Forest, Raised in a Mansion
• An Adult's Reasoning, a Child's Innocence
• The Coronation, and Battles That Double as Interrogations
• The Dragon, the Castle and the Defeat
• Two Years Later, a Traveler Without a Crown
• In the Anime, the Manga and the Trading Card Game
• N at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Found in a Forest, Raised in a Mansion

N is born with a peculiarity that gets him abandoned: he has always understood the language of Pokémon. He first grows up in the forest, with no family other than two Woobat, a Darmanitan and a Zorua.

It is Ghetsis who finds him and adopts him. The boy joins the Harmonia household, where Anthea and Concordia, two other orphans, are also growing up — but the only company he is given is Pokémon hand-picked in advance, all of them survivors of abuse at human hands.

The conclusion was written in advance: N decides that Trainers are tormentors and that Pokémon battles are a form of barbarism. The rest of his education falls to the Seven Sages of the organization, so that no opposing view ever had a chance to reach him.

An Adult's Reasoning, a Child's Innocence

Two traits coexist in him without ever contradicting each other: boundless empathy for Pokémon and a naivety that has stayed childlike, even though he is an adult. Kept away from the world of Trainers, he has formed an entirely false picture of it, one his adoptive father has carefully nurtured.

His room says more than his speeches do. In it you find a basketball hoop, darts, model planes and trains, and a skateboard ramp covered in scratch marks — the trace of whole days spent playing with Pokémon rather than with other kids.

He is also formidable at mathematics: he literally sees the equations behind Nimbasa City's giant Ferris wheel, or behind Chargestone Cave. Only two things can crack his certainty — the tale of the two dragons that seek a hero to stand behind, and a Trainer able to show that a Pokémon can grow attached to a human of its own accord.

The Coronation, and Battles That Double as Interrogations

On the eve of the adventure, Ghetsis has him put on ceremonial robes and crowns him in the throne room, before his entire court. N then thinks back on his childhood among Pokémon and sets out on a deeply personal quest: the quest for Ideals in Pokémon Black, for Truth in Pokémon White.

The player first runs into him in Accumula Town, right after the speech given by Ghetsis. N walks up to the protagonist and their friend Cheren announcing that one of their Pokémon has just spoken to him, then starts a battle for the sole purpose of hearing what the opposing team has to say. What he hears leaves him with no answer.

The pattern repeats near the Nacrene City Gym, where he asks to see what kind of life Pokémon shut inside a Poké Ball lead, and lets slip along the way the name of the Legendary Pokémon whose power he wants. The big reveal waits for the Nimbasa City amusement park: stuck with the player in a Ferris wheel car, he tells them that Team Plasma has a king, and that it's him.

The Dragon, the Castle and the Defeat

After one last underground face-off, in Chargestone Cave, where the Shadow Triad had led the player to him, N heads to Dragonspiral Tower and awakens the dragon he was still missing: Zekrom in Pokémon Black, Reshiram in Pokémon White.

He then sweeps through the Elite Four, takes down Champion Alder, and his own castle bursts up out of the ground to envelop the League headquarters. His program hasn't budged an inch: to give Pokémon back to themselves, out of humans' reach, for good.

Yet the final duel is fought on equal terms, since the protagonist's stone reacts by releasing the twin dragon — and N himself translates its message before inviting his opponent to claim it. He loses, takes Ghetsis's contempt on the chin, apologizes to Alder, then flies off through the hole in the wall, admitting he had understood nothing about Pokémon.

⚡ Unova's dragons have their own section: check out the Legendary Pokémon.

Two Years Later, a Traveler Without a Crown

The end credits show him above the clouds, carried by his dragon's engine-like tail; we later learn that he has been spotted in a faraway land, in the company of a dragon. Two years later, his name is brought up again by the sage Rood, in Driftveil City, where part of the organization has reinvented itself as a peaceful group still loyal to his philosophy.

He reappears in person in the Giant Chasm, just as Kyurem, enslaved by Ghetsis, was about to take the protagonist out of the fight. The DNA Splicers then force his partner to fuse with the ice dragon, leaving him reduced to a spectator of a battle he can no longer fight.

The game then grants him a long epilogue: a Zoroark leads the player to the ruins of his castle, where N offers to replay the duel of heroes, then asks the player to meet him on a Friday at the Ferris wheel, with a thought for the one who rode it with him two years earlier. After that, you can battle him again once a month, with a team and weather that follow the season — rain in spring, harsh sun in summer, sandstorms in autumn, and hail that brings Glaceon, Abomasnow or Mamoswine to the front line.

In the Anime, the Manga and the Trading Card Game

The anime makes him slightly younger and has him break free of Team Plasma's hold on his own. A scene from Pokémon Evolutions sums up the character: when Alder explains that the organization's ideas are a lie concocted from scratch by his guardian, N flies into a rage and squeezes his pendant until it breaks, before winning the battle anyway.

In the five-chapter adaptation by Satoshi Kanda, he truly reigns, with no one above him, and wants a Unova populated by Pokémon alone. He burns his arms stepping in front of a Pignite's flames to shield the Zebstrika mother of a lost Blitzle, then advises his traveling companion to find a dream other than his own.

The card game gives him an effect to match, starting with the Noble Victories expansion, released in France in January 2012. His card makes each player shuffle their hand into their deck, then draw a card for each Prize card they have not yet taken: a reset that helps all the more whoever is behind on the scoreboard.

N at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is N's real name?
  Natural Harmonia Gropius. Almost no one uses it: the player knows him only by the initial N, and the organization's grunts call him "Lord N."
• Why does N want to separate humans and Pokémon?
  Because he grew up only among Pokémon mistreated by humans, chosen for him by Ghetsis. He concluded that training was cruelty, and battling was barbarism.
• Which Legendary Pokémon does N use?
  Zekrom in Pokémon Black, Reshiram in Pokémon White. He awakens it at Dragonspiral Tower, then sets out to topple the Unova League, and still has it by his side two years later.
• What happens to N after his defeat?
  He leaves on his dragon's back, through the hole torn open in the castle wall. Word later has it that he was seen far from Unova, still accompanied by a Dragon-type Pokémon.
• Can you battle N a second time?
  Yes, in what remains of his castle, then once a month in the same place. The dominant type of his team and the weather during the battle then follow the current in-game season.

In short

N is the antagonist whose reasoning you can't simply brush aside: his cause is the only one that holds up, and that's precisely why Ghetsis put it in his mouth. Beating him isn't enough to convince him, either — he has to hear, battle after battle, from Pokémon that have no desire whatsoever to be set free. He leaves admitting that he had understood nothing, something no speech could ever have gotten out of him.