Iris

"The Girl Who Knows the Hearts of Dragons"
Iris
Species	Human
Hair color	Black
Eye color	Blue
Base	Opelucid City
Voiced by	Cassandra Lee Morris (2019)
Debut	Pokémon: Black/White Versions

Iris is a Pokémon trainer who was featured as a supporting character and opponent during the fifth generation games of the Pokémon series. In Pokémon: Black and White Versions, her role depended on the version, as she acted as the eighth and final gym leader of the Unova region in White; in Black, Drayden still held the role while Iris acted as his apprentice. She reappeared in Black 2/White 2 as the new champion of Unova. Iris specializes in Dragon-type Pokémon.

Background

Iris was born in the Village of Dragons, which was located in a remote region. There, humans and Pokémon lived alongside each other freely. She was eventually discovered by Drayden, who was looking for a potential successor to take his place as leader of the Opelucid City gym someday. He saw a shining future in her and decided to take her on as an apprentice. Iris's only conditions for leaving the village were that she wanted to broaden her experiences and become a champion.

So he took her to Unova, where he trained her as both a trainer and gym leader, and Iris came to refer to him as being her grandpa. Iris became confident enough to refer to herself as being an "amazing strong" trainer and was usually full of joy. She mentioned sometimes looking back on her village, but that it was okay because meeting various Pokémon and people made her happier.

Black/White

In Pokémon: Black and White Versions. Iris first encountered the protagonist in Castelia City. She happened to overhear Bianca screaming when a Team Plasma grunt was stealing her Munna, but she arrived too late to help her. Iris decided to remain by Bianca's side and act as her bodyguard for the time being. They met up with Hilbert/Hilda and Burgh, and together they were able to pursue a grunt to Team Plasma's latest hideout. There they found Ghetsis and Bronius, who talked about Team Plasma's goals but wound up returning Bianca's Pokémon to her without a fight. Iris gave Hilbert/Hilda a Yache Berry and then began tutoring Bianca until she could take care of herself.

Iris later returned to Opelucid. Hilbert/Hilda and Alder met up with her and Drayden following a public Team Plasma rally in the city. They all spurred Team Plasma's beliefs that Pokémon should be permanently separated from Pokémon trainers. Iris believed that people and Pokémon truly benefited from each other and claimed that she would never forgive Team Plasma for trying to take them away. At Alder's request, they then explained the legend of the legendary Dragon-types Reshiram and Zekrom to Hilbert/Hilda due to N having taken control of one of them for Team Plasma.

In Black, Iris remained at the house while Hilbert/Hilda engaged Drayden in a gym match. In White, Drayden sent Iris to the gym to battle them instead. Iris was excited to face the challenger and expressed a strong curiosity for what kinds of Pokémon challengers used and how they used them. After being defeated, she surrendered the Legend Badge and TM82: Dragon Tail. Iris was happy to fight a trainer as strong as her, but she also wondered how Alder was doing against N and gave Hilbert/Hilda directions to the Pokémon League, which pressed the trainer to continue on their journey. Cheren and Bianca also defeated her soon afterwards.

In both versions, Bianca came to all the gyms calling for help when N's Castle arose at the Pokémon League. Both Drayden and Iris responded to the call, storming the castle with six of the other gym leaders just in time to hold off six of Team Plasma's Seven Sages. She then returned to Drayden's home in Black or the gym in White. In Black, she acted as a Move Tutor at this point and would tutor Draco Meteor to any Dragon-type Pokémon that had a high happiness level.

Iris would later visit the Undella Town villa where Cynthia was staying during the summer. She admired Cynthia's Garchomp as well as the oceanic view and talked about her and Drayden's plans to go on a cruise.

Black 2/White 2

At some point over the next two years, Alder decided to resign as champion of the Pokémon League and wanted Iris to challenge him for the title. Iris managed to defeat him and win the championship, with her following conversation with Drayden being depicted in a Memory Link flashback during Black and White 2. Drayden reminisced about their time together and gave her some new clothes to wear as champion. He also gave her some advice, and Iris decided that as champion she wanted to help people and Pokémon to become even closer.

In Black 2 and White 2, she made a few small appearances before being challenged. She first showed up at Castelia City, where she helped Nate/Rosa to look for Team Plasma members and Burgh, though she was confused due to believing that Team Plasma had disbanded. Afterwards, she ran into the trainer again at Opelucid City, where she told them about Brycen and her connection to him.

Eventually, Nate/Rose challenged and defeated her at the Pokémon League. She expressed being both upset and happy by the defeat, because she got to know her Pokémon better by battling seriously. She then brought the trainer to the Hall of Fame, so that they and their team could be registered. Iris could be challenged to rematches afterwards.

Pokémon Roster

In White, Iris uses the following Pokémon for her gym battle:

• Fraxure
• Druddigon
• Haxorus

In Black 2 and White 2, she uses the following roster:

• Hydreigon
• Druddigon (replaced by Salamence in Challenge Mode rematches)
• Archeops
• Aggron
• Lapras
• Haxorus

In Other Pokémon Games

In Pokémon Masters, Iris and her Haxorus appeared as a playable sync pair and could be recruited by the player in Chapter 9 of the main story. This used her original design from Black/White. A variant of Iris in her champion clothing from Black 2/White 2 was made available starting in March 2021 and was paired with Hydreigon. That variant could be unlocked at random through the game's Sync Pair Scout feature only during limited time periods.

Within the game's story, Iris met with the player's group after she was recognized by Rosa, and she accompanied them while they fought off members of Team Break who wanted to steal her Haxorus. She was angry at Lear for being mean, not valuing Pokémon and not appreciating their attempts to help. She took on Lear in a one-on-one battle, with their Pokémon having an even match until Lear became annoyed with Iris's morals and decided to leave. Iris proceeded to challenge the player to a battle, as she was curious about team battles, and she joined the team after being defeated.

She also appeared as an opponent in the Story Event "Two Champions", where she and Clair crashed a planned battle between Lance and Cynthia, in order to challenge them as dragon masters. They teamed up with Rosa and were defeated by Scottie/Bettie and the two champions. Iris was also featured in the Story Event "Shining Heart of Dragons" with her champion outfit. In that event, a Festival of Champions was held to commemorate the arrival of champions from various regions in Pasio. Iris was plagued by insecurities about how well she matched up to the other champions due to how young she was, and her Hydreigon also went out of control due to Team Break device. Ultimately, Diantha and Lance were able to help her rediscover her confidence as a champion, and with some unseen guidance from Alder, Iris was able to talk her Hydreigon down from its rampage and defeat the Team Break member.

Other Appearances

Other Media

• Iris was featured as one of the main characters in the Pokémon anime's Black and White series, as she and Cilan acted as Ash Ketchum's traveling companions during his adventures in Unova. She ws shown as a hyperactive and adventurous girl who felt at home in the wilderness. It was later revealed that she came from the Village of Dragons and was enrolled in Drayden's school at Opelucid when he took an interest in her. However, she felt homesick and ran away, eventually choosing to go on a journey and try to become a Dragon Master. A pair of episodes featured her meeting Drayden again and having an enjoyable rematch with him. Though she lost, he told her that she would be Opelucid's new gym leader one day. At the end of the Unova-based series, Iris left Ash to continue her own journey and spent some time in Johto, where she met and battled Clair. She later reappeared in the Pokémon Journeys series, where she was shown to have become the champion of the Unova region and donned her Black 2/White 2 outfit. She challenged Ash to a battle as part of the World Coronation Series in hopes of getting closer to her goal of becoming a Dragon Master. Ash defeated her, and she looked forward to battling him again after improving.
• She appeared in the Pokémon Adventures manga. In this version, she hailed from Blackthorn City in Johto, which was equated with being the Village of Dragons, and the dragon clan's elder sent her to train under Drayden. She acted as his apprentice and also learned about spirituality from Alder. In the Black/White arc, Iris met up with Black several times, which were similar to her appearances in the games. She also ended up competing in the Pokémon League tournament, having collected all eight of the Unova gym badges beforehand, and she made it to the semifinals before Black defeated her. She went on to help protect bystanders from a Team Plasma attack. During the Black 2/White 2 arc, she became the gym leader of the Opelucid Gym after Drayden left his post.
• In the Pokémon Generations anime, one episode adapted the Unova gym leaders' battle against Team Plasma from the climax of Black/White, with Iris being part of the battle.

Trivia

• She and Drayden both use the same Pokémon for their gym battles, with the only difference between their rosters being their Pokémon's genders. Iris has a team of all females while Drayden's team is all male.
• Iris was designed with the idea of the youngest gym leader in the game in mind, to be contrasted by Drayden being the oldest.
• In Black 2/White 2, Iris was the only champion from all of the generations released at that point to not compete in the Pokémon World Championship (and the only other gym leader to be excluded was Koga). This is possibly due to focusing on her duties as a champion.