Professor Burnet: The Researcher of the Interdream Zone

She's on casual terms with the player and works in a wetsuit. Professor Burnet has no small-town lab and no starters to hand out: her field is a parallel dimension she calls the Interdream Zone, and her first role is to send the player there to catch Pokémon in augmented reality, through the screen of a 3DS. The Alola storyline later brings her back and, along the way, gives her a place in Professor Kukui's family.

Contents

• The Interdream Zone, an augmented reality hunting ground
• Tornadus, Thundurus and Landorus in their Therian Formes
• Alola: the Dimensional Research Lab in Heahea City
• What the Kukui household owes Burnet
• Professor Burnet at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

The Interdream Zone, an augmented reality hunting ground

Pokémon Dream Radar exists first and foremost to show off what the console can do. Burnet serves as a living instruction manual for augmented reality: she explains the setup, then leaves it to the player to go and catch the Pokémon she's tracking.

Her theory fits in a single image. Between the real world and the world of dreams, an intermediate space supposedly opens up, which she calls the Interdream Zone, where some Pokémon end up trapped, unable to get back out. So the player isn't treated as a mere user: they're presented as reinforcements in the field.

The game's economy flows from this fiction. An outing that brings back neither Pokémon nor items still yields Dream Orbs, and these orbs are used to upgrade the exploration equipment. An unsuccessful exploration can still be converted into progress, which keeps the system from punishing failure.

Tornadus, Thundurus and Landorus in their Therian Formes

It's in this zone that the Professor makes her decisive discovery. There she identifies Tornadus, Thundurus and Landorus in a guise that isn't their usual one, and she's the one who gives it a name: Therian Forme.

The discovery explains her determination. The trio becomes the central subject of her work, to the point that the game makes her less a mission-giver than a researcher on a specific trail, with the player gathering her raw material.

The detail even shows in her clothes. The three colors of her suit match, one by one, the dominant hue of each of the forces of nature: blue for Thundurus, green for Tornadus, orange for Landorus. An outfit that announces the subject of her thesis before its owner has even stated it.

🌪️ Tornadus, Thundurus, Landorus: see the section Legendary Pokémon.

Alola: the Dimensional Research Lab in Heahea City

Sun and Moon take her out of the demonstrator role and give her a setting. There she is the professor at the Dimensional Research Lab in Heahea City, whose work focuses on Ultra Wormholes — the logical extension of a career spent documenting the passages between two worlds.

The player doesn't run into her by chance. The meeting comes shortly after the Lush Jungle trial, when the journey leads to the Lab: a placement that makes it a story milestone rather than an optional visit.

Her look stands out in a gallery of lab-coated professors. High-tech goggles and a black diver's wetsuit serve as her uniform, and her way of speaking follows suit: she addresses the player informally, in an everyday register, where her title might have led you to expect some distance. The Lab's documents and scientists also refer back to her earlier research on the Interdream Zone, which quietly ties the two games together.

What the Kukui household owes Burnet

The story eventually lets slip the piece of information that ties it all together: Burnet is the wife of Professor Kukui. Two professors under the same roof, each with their own field of study, and a reveal the game holds back until the visit to the Lab.

In hindsight, this family tie sheds light on another storyline. Three months before the adventure begins, Lillie had tried to reach Burnet to understand what her friend Cosmog was. It was to the Interdream Zone researcher, not to her husband, that the girl first turned.

What followed came down to a domestic intervention. It was Burnet who convinced Kukui to take Lillie in, and the girl has felt an almost daughterly attachment to her ever since. A character you'd have thought confined to a console gadget thus turns out to be behind the place Lillie holds in the story.

Professor Burnet at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Which games does Professor Burnet appear in?
  She's first the guide character of Pokémon Dream Radar on 3DS, where she walks you through augmented reality. She then returns in Sun and Moon as the professor at the Dimensional Research Lab in Heahea City.
• What is the Interdream Zone?
  It's the name Burnet gives to an intermediate dimension located between the real world and the world of dreams. According to her, Pokémon can get stuck there, which is why she asks the player to help her bring them back.
• What are Dream Orbs used for?
  They're the resources brought back when an exploration yields neither Pokémon nor items. The Professor needs them to upgrade the exploration equipment, so even an unsuccessful outing still moves the research forward.
• What is the connection between Burnet and Lillie?
  Burnet is Professor Kukui's wife. Lillie contacted her three months before the adventure began about her friend Cosmog, and it was Burnet who convinced her husband to take the girl in. Lillie has felt an almost daughterly attachment to her ever since.
• Does Professor Burnet have a trading card?
  Yes. Her first card came out as part of a promotional series, distributed in France from September 24, 2021, with three special collections dedicated to Greninja, Mewtwo and Zacian.

In short

Professor Burnet was born of a technical constraint: a console's augmented reality needed a face to bring it to life. She came out of it with a research subject all her own, the Interdream Zone, and a discovery whose vocabulary she established — Therian Forme. Alola completes the portrait by giving her a lab, a husband and a protégée, turning a demo hostess into a researcher whose work explicitly connects two games.