Volkner: Sinnoh's Last Gym Leader, Who Was Bored of Winning

He renovated his Gym because his opponents bored him. Volkner runs Sinnoh's eighth and final Gym, in Sunyshore City, and champions the Electric type. Winning without ever breaking a sweat does nothing for him: he only wants matches whose outcome nobody can call in advance. That demand drove him to cram his Gym with all kinds of gadgets — at the cost of a total blackout that left the whole city without power.

Contents

• A Man Who Can't Stand Easy Wins
• The Vista Lighthouse Encounter
• An Electric Team Broader Than It Looks
• Flint, the Friend-Rival, and a Rough Patch
• Volkner at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

A Man Who Can't Stand Easy Wins

What Volkner wants from a battle is uncertainty: an opponent capable of putting him in danger, and a result still up for grabs in the final round. A match that's settled before it starts simply doesn't interest him.

Hence a stated ambition: to make his Gym the most formidable in Sinnoh, with the look of the building mattering as much to him as the level of the battles fought there. His renovation is therefore as much stagecraft as difficulty tuning.

The work has a very concrete side effect, and one the residents take very badly: Sunyshore City is left without electricity. The player hears about it from the locals — a collector blocking a nearby road, then Flint himself.

The Vista Lighthouse Encounter

The player doesn't find him in his Gym but at the Vista Lighthouse, where he's brooding. He hints that one more disappointing challenger would be enough to make up his mind: he would quit his post and go take on the League himself.

The stakes of the battle are turned upside down: it's not just a badge on the line, it's whether the Gym Leader stays at his post.

Beaten fair and square, he hands over the Beacon Badge along with the TM that teaches Charge Beam, then immediately points the winner toward the Elite Four. Sinnoh's eighth badge is earned in the truest sense.

An Electric Team Broader Than It Looks

His favorite Pokémon are Luxray and Electivire, but his roster goes well beyond them: Magnezone, Rotom, Raichu, Electrode, Jolteon.

He rounds it out with Water and Flying types — Gyarados, Swampert, Lanturn, Pelipper — which neutralizes the most obvious counter to an Electric-type Gym.

The animated series details his battle method: he turns his Pokémon's attacks into shields, unleashing their offensive moves less to hit the opponent than to cancel out the incoming blow.

⚡ Electric Pokémon have their own section: see the Pokémon plushies.

Flint, the Friend-Rival, and a Rough Patch

His relationship with Flint forms the character's second thread: a friendship coupled with a rivalry, kept alive since childhood. As a kid, Volkner patrolled his hometown as a little vigilante, his Pikachu by his side.

It all starts with a battle he loses, before he turns the tables in their next encounter; later, the two boys join forces against a poacher — and it's that battle that turns the rivalry into friendship.

The animated series then grants him something rare for a Gym Leader: a long depressive slump, during which he speaks bitterly and bluntly brushes off anyone who mentions battling in front of him. He even comes to envy Flint, free to roam the region while he stays tied to his Gym.

Volkner at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Where is Volkner's Gym?
  In Sunyshore City, in Sinnoh. It's the eighth and final Gym on the regional circuit, and it awards the Beacon Badge.
• Why did Volkner renovate his Gym?
  Because the Trainers he faced no longer gave him any trouble. He filled it with gadgets to make it more challenging, which cut off power to the entire city.
• Which Pokémon does Volkner use?
  Luxray and Electivire first and foremost, surrounded by Magnezone, Rotom, Raichu, Electrode or Jolteon, plus Water and Flying types such as Gyarados, Swampert or Lanturn.
• What is the connection between Volkner and Flint?
  A friendship-rivalry born in childhood: a first battle lost, a rematch won, then a joint fight against a poacher that sealed their friendship.

In short

Volkner is the hardest Gym Leader in the series to satisfy. He doesn't want to win, he wants to be kept guessing, and he transformed his Gym — even if it meant plunging his city into darkness — to make that happen. When the player finds him, he's already thinking about leaving, and that's what makes his badge different from the other seven.