Roark

"Call me Roark the Rock!"
Roark
Species	Human
Hair color	Cordovan
Eye color	Cordovan
Base	Oreburgh City
Relatives	Byron (father) Underground Man (Grandfather)
Voiced by	Alejandro Saab (2019)
Debut	Pokémon: Diamond/Pearl Versions

Roark is the first of the eight gym leaders of the Sinnoh region who appears as an opponent Pokémon: Diamond, Pearl and Platinum Versions, as well as the remakes Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. He specializes in Rock-type Pokémon.

Background

Being the son of Steel-type gym leader Byron, Roark followed in his father's footsteps by aspiring to become another gym leader. He trained hard and liked to measure the toughness of his Pokémon in battle. His father still looked down at him as a child and originally offered a Gym Leader position to Riley instead of him. Riley declined in order to give Roark his chance, and so Roark became the gym leader of the Oreburgh City Gym. He also acted as the safety supervisor of the Oreburgh Mines. Despite his youth, he was able to safely maintain the mine while also allowing trainers to use the area to practice with their Pokémon.

In the fourth generation games, Roark was first encountered within the Oreburgh Mines, where he demonstrated the Rock Smash move and then returned to his gym after meeting Lucas/Dawn. After being defeated by them, Roark was ashamed to lose to a badgeless trainer, but he admitted that the victor was strong while he was weak. He surrendered the Coal Badge along with TM 76: Stealth Rock and left Lucas/Dawn with the warning that the other seven gym leaders were tougher than him. He was also defeated by Barry beforehand.

When the player first used the Explorer Kit, Roark appeared nearby to welcome them to the Underground. In Platinum, he was among the trainers who could be randomly battled at the Battleground, where he used a a stronger line-up of Pokémon. Additionally, Roark could visit the player's villa on random days and commented about how fossils could make good decorations. He would also muse about the Underground and wondered if it could extend to Kanto and Johto.

In Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, he tunneled out of the ground to meet Lucas/Dawn outside Professor Rowan's lab in Sandgem Town after the trainer had become the Pokémon League champion, in order to congratulate the trainer and to invite them to have rematches with the gym leaders. After this point, Roark could be challenged to rematches at his gym at any time. He could also appear at the Battle Tower as an opponent for both single and double battles. For double battles, he teamed up with his father.

Roark later appeared in Black and White 2 as one of the competitors in the Pokémon World Tournament held at Unova. He took part in the Sinnoh Leaders, World Leaders and Type Expert Tournaments.

Pokémon Roster

Roark uses the following Pokémon in Diamond, Pearl and Platinum:

• Geodude
• Onix
• Cranidos

The following is the roster he uses in Battleground matches:

• Aerodactyl
• Probopass
• Rampardos
• Golem
• Tyranitar

For rematches in Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, his roster is similar to his Battleground roster from Platinum, except that Golem is replaced with Armaldo and Relicanth. In Battle Tower matches, his team could include Aerodactyl, Tyranitor, Rampardos, Slowbro, Salamence, Lunatone and/or Torkoal.

In Black 2 and White 2, the Pokémon he uses for tournament matches can include Rampardos, Probopass, Golem and Relicanth as well as Sudowoodo and Onix in the Sinnoh Leaders Tournament or Archeops and Crustle in the World Leaders and Type Expert Tournaments.

In Other Pokémon Games

In Pokémon Masters EX, Roark and his Cranidos appeared as a playable sync pair that could be recruited at random through the game's Sync Pair Scout feature. His Cranidos could also evolve into a Rampardos through a Sync Pair Story in which he had to battle Roxanne. He was also featured as the host of the "Evolution Material Mining" event, in which he guided the player in smashing rocks in search of Evolution Shards, Evolution Crystals and other items. He also made an appearance in the Story Event "All Aboard the Victory Train", in which he and Steven Stone had gotten Clay to help them excavate an area of Pasio's mountain to examine what rocks they could find there. Ingo and Emmet came hoping to excavate the area to make a Pasio version of the Battle Subway, and the others agreed to let them do so, with Roark simply asking the Subway Bosses to let them have any rare stones or fossils they might uncover in the process.

Other Appearances

Other Media

• He has appeared in a total of six episodes of the Pokémon anime's Diamond and Pearl series. In his initial appearances, he was bested by Paul and initially defeated Ash Ketchum, until Ash won their rematch. He reappeared when the group arrives at Canalave City, in an episode dealing with his father issues. He acted as a referee during the battle with Byron, who was shown to have more affection for his son than he lets on.
• Roark also appeared in the Diamond/Pearl arc of the Pokémon Adventures manga, where had just returned from some type of conference (which later turned out to be about Team Galactic) with Byron and the Underground Man, and was defeated by Platinum in her first gym challenge. He reappeared at Canalave, where his Cranidos evolved, and he worried about his father's recklessness. Near the end of the arc, he tunneled through Mt. Cornet with his father and grandfather to get the gym leaders atop Spear Pillar so that they could fight Team Galactic.
• In the Pokémon Evolutions anime series, he made an appearance in the fifth episode, in which Barry's gym battle against him was among the scenes from Barry's journey that were depicted.

Trivia

• His English name could be considered a combination of "rock" and "ore", and it is also possible that he is named after Howard Roark, a character from the Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead, who is also a redheaded man that spent a fraction of his career mining and the rest as an architect. His Japanese name is Hyouta, which is derived from the Japanese word for the calabash gourd, which matches his father being named after a wax gourd.
• In his youth, Roark is said to have played in the steel mines at Iron Island.
• Roark has more faith in his skills at a fossil-digging race than at Pokémon battles.
• In Pokémon Masters EX, he reveals that his dreams include building the world's largest tunnel and collecting enough fossils to open his own museum, with his greatest ideal being to build an underground city containing his museum. He also mentions having been deterred from his dream when the first tunnel he made collapsed.