Silver: The Rival Who Starts His Adventure with a Theft

Other rivals are given their first Pokémon; he takes his. Silver kicks off his adventure with a break-in at the lab of Professor Elm, and the rest of his story flows from that act: a police officer on the case, a player who gives him his name, and a father he refuses to take after. He is the only rival in the series whose first scene is a crime, and the only one whose official name took hold long after the games that introduced him.

Contents

• A rival who breaks in
• Giovanni's son, and determined not to follow in his footsteps
• The defeat that makes him change his ways
• A team built to counter the player's
• "Silver" was long just a default name
• Absent from the anime, present everywhere else
• Silver at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

A rival who breaks in

Three years after turning his back on his father, Silver decides to set out as a Trainer from New Bark Town. He doesn't come in through the lab's front door: he watches it from outside, planted in front of a window, and brushes off anyone who tries to talk to him.

The moment he picks is no accident: the player has gone off on an errand to Mr. Pokémon. Silver grabs one of the two Pokémon left on the lab bench and runs off, before running into the protagonist in Cherrygrove City for a quick battle, then heading off toward Violet City.

The theft has a story consequence that often gets overlooked: it's the player who names the rival, by reporting him to the officer in charge of the investigation. Until that statement, the battle screen gives him nothing but three question marks for a name, or the label "Boy" and the class "Passerby," depending on the version.

🥇 His adventure starts with a stolen starter: see our Pokémon starters.

Giovanni's son, and determined not to follow in his footsteps

On the night Team Rocket disbands, the boy catches his father on the verge of giving it all up. Father and son don't read the rout Red inflicted the same way: Silver doesn't want to follow a man who intends to revive an organization that's already doomed.

The encounter seals a double disappearance. Giovanni leaves the spotlight for good, and his son is left alone with a lasting disgust for his father's business — a disgust that explains his open contempt for Team Rocket throughout the adventure.

The family tie wasn't established from the start, though. A line in FireRed and LeafGreen brushes against it, when one of the organization's scientists mistakes the hero for his boss's son, then thinks better of it, remembering that the boy in question has red hair. Official confirmation comes from the remakes, where an event Celebi sends the player three years back in time to witness the Rocket boss's departure in front of a son who doesn't understand a thing he's being told.

The defeat that makes him change his ways

Silver despises anything he sees as weak, and he says so bluntly — Team Rocket included. Yet he borrows its methods, confiscating another Trainer's Sneasel in Cianwood City, exactly the kind of move he condemns his father's goons for.

The turning point comes at the Team Rocket HQ in Mahogany Town. Lance curtly puts him in his place and calls into question the way he trains his Pokémon. Events prove Silver wrong: at the Radio Tower in Goldenrod City, where he expected to shine against Giovanni's loyalists, he ends up left alone with his doubts in the Underground, and in the remakes he even blows the cover of the player disguised as a Grunt.

The change eventually shows in his actions rather than in his words. He makes his Golbat happy enough to evolve it, travels with a Pokémon following him just like the hero, and Professor Elm refuses to take back the stolen Pokémon, so strong has the bond with its Trainer become. Beaten yet again at Mt. Moon, he finally agrees, grudgingly, to team up with the player for a Double Battle, in the Dragon's Den, against Lance and Clair.

A team built to counter the player's

His team-building logic is hostile by design. His starter is always the one whose type has the upper hand over the player's starter: Chikorita, Cyndaquil or Totodile, depending on the choice made in New Bark Town.

The rest of his team, on the other hand, stays the same from one game to the next. He is the first rival whose other Pokémon don't change depending on his starter.

The original versions leave two level oddities lying around. In Azalea Town, his Croconaw is only level 16; at the Burned Tower, his Haunter tops out at level 20 — two impossible evolutions, since the first requires level 18 and the second level 25. The remakes fixed both cases, raising the Azalea starter to level 18 and pushing Gastly's evolution back until after the third battle.

"Silver" was long just a default name

Like every rival in the main series, he can be renamed, as long as the name fits within the allowed length. "Silver" is only the name suggested if you leave the field blank — and only in Gold and Crystal: in Silver, that default name becomes Gold, while the official English guide for that same game reserves Silver for the player character.

The remakes muddy the waters further: Soul for HeartGold, Heart for SoulSilver. The name the fans had adopted only became official once it appeared on a figure from the Pokémon Scale World line, then with his arrival in the mobile game Pokémon Masters EX, where he battles alongside, among others, a Ho-Oh, a Feraligatr, a Crobat, his Sneasel and a Shiny Tyranitar, depending on the outfit.

One last quirk lies in his character data. In Gold, Silver and Crystal, he isn't assigned any Trainer class: the screen simply announces that he wants to battle. Yet the internal data holds two entries with the same name, "Rival," the second one tied to the Champion's music, which you only hear at the Indigo Plateau.

Absent from the anime, present everywhere else

The character has never had an episode of the TV series. He's only glimpsed in a cameo in a Japanese opening, just long enough for two battles against Jimmy that each go a different way. His closest on-screen equivalent is Paul, the Sinnoh rival, who shares his preference for toughening Pokémon up over mutual trust — right down to the pose in his artwork, taken from a sketch by Ken Sugimori.

Pokémon Generations, on the other hand, devotes an entire episode to him, "The Legacy." On the road to the Indigo Plateau, Agent Looker stops him in the name of the International Police and questions him about his father, whom he hasn't seen in three years, not since Giovanni stepped down after his defeat in Viridian City. Silver promises nothing: tracking down Giovanni is the police's job, not his.

Each manga turns him into a different character. His Pokémon Adventures counterpart, Silver, is a trading specialist out to settle the score with the Masked Man, who kidnapped him as a child; by contrast, Kosaku Anakubo's parody version never stole anything from Professor Elm, gets his starter and his Pokédex straight from Professor Oak, and is far less hostile to Red than his rivals usually are.

Silver at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why does Silver steal his first Pokémon?
  He scopes out the lab from a window, waits for the player to leave for Mr. Pokémon's house, then snatches one of the two Pokémon left on the lab bench. He is the only rival in the series whose adventure begins with a crime.
• Is Silver really Giovanni's son?
  Yes. A line in FireRed and LeafGreen hints at it without proving it, and official confirmation arrives in the Johto remakes: an event Celebi sends the player three years into the past, where they witness the Rocket boss leaving in front of his son.
• Which starter Pokémon does Silver have?
  Whichever of the three Johto starters — Chikorita, Cyndaquil or Totodile — has the type advantage over the player's. The rest of his team, however, keeps the same Pokémon no matter what you pick.
• Does Silver appear in the anime?
  No, no episode of the series features him. He's briefly seen in a cameo in a Japanese opening, and Pokémon Generations devotes an episode to him in which the International Police question him about his father.
• Why is the Johto rival called Silver?
  It's the name filled in by default in Gold and Crystal when the field is left blank. Fans latched onto it, but it took a Pokémon Scale World figure and then his arrival in Pokémon Masters EX for it to become official.

In short

Silver's journey reads like a series of corrections: each defeat strips away one of his certainties. The stolen starter, the contempt for weakness, the failed rematch against Lance form an arc that ends with a Golbat made happy and a Double Battle accepted grudgingly. He never gave up on becoming the best; he just changed his methods.