Diantha

Diantha
Species	Human
Affiliation	Pokémon League (Kalos)
Hair color	Brown
Eye color	Blue
Voiced by	Antonia Flynn (2021)
Debut	Pokémon X/Y

Diantha is the champion of the Pokémon League of Kalos who is featured as the final opponent of Pokémon X and Y.

Background

Diantha was a famed movie actress and a skilled Pokémon trainer who became the champion of the Pokémon League of Kalos. Despite being a champion, she considered Pokémon training to be something she only did in her off-time. She was generally kind and had a strong sense of empathy. This connected to her role as a movie actress, as she only took roles if she could find something in common to connect herself with the character and forge a bond with that character. And as a Pokémon trainer, she was also curious about the bonds that other trainers forged with their Pokémon. Diantha was known to frequent Café Soleil in Lumiose City.

In X/Y, she first appeared at Café Soleil, where she was being confronted by Lysandre. He tried to sell her on his vision of a world of everlasting beauty and thought that she would see the value in always being young and beautiful so that she could keep on playing such roles. Diantha rejected that notion, as she did not want to play the same roles forever and looked forward to playing new roles that reflected her age as she got older. After Lysandre departed, Diantha met Calem/Serena and Serena/Calem. She felt that their Pokémon looked happy and looked forward to battling them someday. Afterwards, she appeared again at Coumarine City's monorail station, where Calem/Serena found her in conversation with Professor Sycamore. They talked about the mysteries of Mega Evolution, and Diantha wondered if it had anything to do with the Legendary Pokémon of Kalos (Xerneas and Yveltal). After Sycamore departed, Diantha mused some more about what bonds meant to her, before leaving while again telling Calem/Serena that they should battle next time.

The next time that they met was at the Pokémon League. Calem/Serena defeated the Elite Four and then faced Diantha for the championship. Diantha took a moment to recognize them and realize that they were the trainer who stopped Team Flare. She thanked the trainer for saving them all and proceeded to take them on in battle. Calem/Serena proceeded to defeat her in the following battle. Diantha was left feeling choked up about the battle, but she was ultimately glad that she was good enough to be the champion and that she got to meet and battle a trainer like Calem/Serena. Diantha took the trainer to get registered in the Hall of Fame, and then she took them to Lumiose City, where she attended a ceremony that celebrated Calem/Serena being appointed as champion.

Afterwards, Diantha could be battled again by rechallenging the Elite Four. She could also appear at the Battle Chateau if the player after the player had obtained the title of Duke/Duchess. There, she was the only trainer to hold the highest rank of Grand Duchess. Calem/Serena could only obtain the equivalent title of Grand Duke/Grand Duchess by defeating her and all other noble trainers at least once. Diantha could also be found at Café Soleil after beating her for the first time, where she would trade a Ralts (with a Gardevoirite) to Calem/Serena for any of their Pokémon. She hoped to learn more about how the trainer raised their Pokémon in the process.

Pokémon Roster

Like most of the champion characters, she has no type specialty.

• Hawlucha
• Tyrantrum
• Aurorus
• Gourgeist (Average Size)
• Goodra
• Gardevoir (Mega Gardevoir)

At the Battle Chateau, she uses the same roster but without Tyrantrum and Aurorus. She also had a Ralts which she could trade to the player.

In Other Pokémon Games

In Pokémon Masters EX, Diantha and her Gardevoir (with its Mega Evolution) were made available as a playable sync pair that could be recruited at random through the game's Sync Pair Scout feature during limited time periods, starting when she was first added to the game at the end of March 2021. She has had other variants which were made available during limited time periods: a Special Costume variant (dressed in the Western image of a knight) paired with Keldeo its Resolute Form that was first available at the end of October 2021 and a Sygna Suit variant paired with a Shiny Diancie (which could Mega Evolve) that was fist available in January 2023. She could alternately partner with Hawlucha, Aurorus or Tyrantum when faced as an opponent in some battles.

Diantha was featured in the Story Event "Shining Heart of Dragons", where she took part in exhibition battles with other champions as part of a festival commemorating the champions that had come to Pasio, and she gave advice to Iris to help her with her confidence. The event ended on Diantha and Iris facing off in a match. She was later featured in the Costume Event "Poké War Games", in which she and Hilda were appointed the leaders of one team which competed against Guzma and Jasmine's team in the Battle of Golden Spheres. For this event, Hilda and Diantha were garbed in the Western image of a princess and a knight, while the other team was based on the Eastern image of a princess and a samurai. Early in the competition, Diantha had a practice duel against Wikstrom and managed to beat Guzma in a duel. Diantha would later train with Guzma, and the event ultimately closed out just as the two sides were about to fight over the final sphere, leaving the winner of the competition unknown. During the "Sweet Shenanigans" Story Event, Diantha and Leon held a special Palentines Day battle for the sake of luring out members of Team Heartbreak. In the "Melancholy Wally" Story Event, Wally proposed a team-up with Diantha due to both of them having a Gardevoir, but she turned the offer down due to not feeling enough of a shine from the two of them, and she left him to figure out what that meant. They met again after Wally's Gardevoir went missing, and she revealed that her reasoning was because Wally did not seem to be seeing her Gardevoir properly. Wally was ready to apologize to his Gardevoir, and it returned to him. Diantha proceeded to turn down his offer a second time, but this time it was because she wanted to battle him. The two faced off in the finals of the competition (with Diantha fighting alongside Calem and Korrina), and Wally was able to beat Diantha. Afterwards, Diantha told Wally that she wanted to team up in the future, and they went to a cafe to strengthen their bond. She later acted as the head judge for Calem and Serena's Neo Champion Stadium in the first Neo Champion event, "Leaders of a New Era", and she awarded both of them with the Neo Champion title because of how brightly they shone.

The Kalos chapter of the Main Story's Villain Arc began with Diantha acting in a play about the great war of Kalos which was being held as part of a peace ceremony commemorating 3000 years that had passed since the war. The play was disrupted by a Team Flare attack, and Emma joined her to help, but Diantha played it all off as it was part of the play. Afterwards, Diantha worked with Looker, Emma and Paulo to investigate the rash of Team Flare attacks and tracked it to a Team Rocket plot. They split up to investigate two hideouts, with Diantha and Paulo ending up at one that was serving as a decoy, where they battled Proton. Afterwards, they rushed to help Looker, Emma and Anabel drive off the Team Rocket members that they were facing. While the incident were resolved, Diantha and Looker were left with concerns when they learned that Lysandre now possessed a powerful Volcanion.

Other Appearances

Video Games

• Diantha's image was seen on a virtual billboard in the Prism Tour stage appearing in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Other Media

• In the Pokémon anime, she made recurring appearances in the X/Y-set series. She was similar to her depiction of the games, with the addition of her often going around in disguise to seek out desserts in each town she visited. In her first appearance, she met Ash and started to battle him, but then they worked together to stop Team Rocket after they took her Gardevoir. In a later appearance, she learned about Olympia's vision of a coming crisis, and she trained with Ash and his Greninja in order to prepare him for the coming battle. She also watched over the Lumiose Conference and helped in the effort to stop Team Flare and destroy the Giant Rock in the climactic arc of that series. Diantha reappeared in the Pokémon Journeys series as a competitor in the World Coronation Series who made it to Rank 6 in the Master Class. She took part in the final competition of the series, the Masters Eight Tournament. She defeated Lance in the first round, but she lost to Leon in the semifinals. She also bonded with Cynthia, and both of them felt re-inspired for Pokémon battles by watching Ash and Leon's final match.
• In the Pokémon Adventures manga, she was featured during the X/Y arc. She was one of the Successors who received a Key Stone from Gurkinn and had become acquainted with Blue when they trained under him. Within the arc, she took a break from acting and worked with X's group, the Kalos Gym Leaders, the Elite Four and Blue in the effort to stop Team Flare. In the process, she had several battles with Malva, protected a Diancie and helped Blue in his search for Zygarde.
• She made a few appearances in Pokémon Generations. One episode depicted her talk with Lysandre. In another episode, she was seen attending the celebration of Calem/Serena's championship in Lumiose City.
• Diantha was seen in the third episode of the Pokémon Evolutions anime series, which showed a brief part of her talk with Lysandre during a flashback.

Trivia

• Her Japanese name is Carnet, in refernence to a carnation and possibly the word "coronation". Her English name of Diantha is derived from the planet genus Dianthus, which itself has word origins in the Greek words for "Zeus" and "flower".
• Diantha keeps her Key Stone in a Mega Charm, which is the pendent that she wears around her neck.