Charon

Charon
Species	Human
Affiliation	Team Galactic
Hair color	Mauve
Eye color	Brown
Debut	Pokémon: Platinum Version

Charon is the fourth commander of Team Galactic who was created for Pokémon: Platinum Version.

Background

When he was a child, Charon discovered the Pokémon Rotom after he saw it emerge from the motor of a lawn mower while playing with his favorite toy robot. He named it after the word motor and befriended it, while being fascinated by its abilities. They could not touch due to Rotom's electrical field, but Charon felt that they had bonded on a much deeper level. One day he felt mischievous and decided to startle Rotom suddenly, but this seemingly frightened it into discharging a larger amount of power than usual, which knocked him out. Charon woke up and found Rotom gone, which horrified him, and he searched long for Rotom, traveling far from home until he reached the town's garbage heap, where he found his old toy robot. He then saw that Rotom had possessed the toy robot and felt that he could understand Rotom's thoughts better than ever before, realizing that they would be friends for the rest of their lives.

It is uncertain what happened afterwards regarding Charon and Rotom's relationship. Charon grew to become a brilliant, but evil, scientist. It was shown that he had special rooms (that could only be unlocked through the event-only Secret Key) in both Team Galactic's Veilstone City headquarters and in Silph Co. at Kanto (implying he worked for them at some point) which contained devices that Rotom could use to access all of its formes, as well as a notebook about his research on Rotom. He kept most of his research on Rotom secret in order to get all of the credit. At some point he joined Team Galactic and became one of its four commanders, but he was also the most junior commander due to joining after the others. All the while, he had his own ulterior motives for Team Galactic.

Charon was first seen at the Valley Windworks, where he was helping Mars in draining its energy. After Lucas/Dawn defeated Mars, Charon scolded her for losing to a child, but assured her that they had enough energy that they could retreat. Mars, however, was annoyed for Charon for his superior tone and giving orders despite her seniority in the group, and they would up retreating moments later. Charon was next seen at Team Galactic's headquarters at Veilstone, where he discussed Cyrus's vision with Saturn while Cyrus was off at Mt. Coronet. Charon claimed that the idea of a new world would not be interesting, but that one ruled by Team Galactic would, and that he hoped Cyrus would succeed in accomplishing his dream. Saturn seemed suspicious of him, however, and told him that Cyrus did not need his moral support. After Cyrus's defeat and disappearance, Charon was left wondering if he should pursue an option that complemented his genius.

He ultimately took control of a remnant of Team Galactic for his own schemes. Mars and Jupiter agreed to follow him, but they remained obsessed with Cyrus while Saturn declined the offer. Charon brought them to Stark Mountain so that he could pull off an extortion scheme by stealing the Magma Stone to awaken the legendary Heatran, so that he could control the volcano's eruptions for money. However, the plan began to crumble soon after Lucas/Dawn arrived. Mars and Jupiter quit after being defeated again by them in order to look for Cyrus, and also because they did not like Charon's new Team Galactic. Charon was infuriated by how they threw away Team Galactic after all the work they put into making it grow which could have made them rich beyond their imagination. Charon retreated to the chamber containing the Magma Stone, still pursued by Lucas/Dawn. He then grabbed the stone and explained that they were too late to stop him, but at that point Looker (disguised as a rock) swiped the Magma Stone and called in the International Police to arrest Charon, while he attempted to claim to be senile and take cover in that he was the most junior Galactic commander.

Other Appearances

Other Media

• Charon made several appearances in the Pokémon anime's Diamond & Pearl series in episodes featuring Team Galactic, where he was shown mostly performing technical work for Team Galactic and bantering with Saturn due to his more laidback persona. He was not seen being arrested with the other Team Galactic members at the end of the Galactic arc, meaning he could have escaped. In the English dub he was voiced by Mike Pollock, known as the voice of Eggman in the more recent Sonic the Hedgehog games as well as in the Sonic X anime.
• In the Pokémon Adventures manga, Charon first appeared during the Diamond/Pearl arc, where he was initially concealed by the shadows and created the Red Chain for Team Galactic. He made his first full appearance following Cyrus's defeat, and in this version it was his device that trapped Cyrus and the legendary Pokémon in the Distortion World. Charon then acted as the main villain of the Platinum arc, where he manipulated Team Galactic's devotion to Cyrus to get into the Distortion World and attempted to control as many legendary Pokémon as possible, including Heatran and Darkrai. All of the other trainers turned on him and worked together to stop him, including Cynthia and a Rotom (which in this version was just another Pokémon that Charon desired). In the end, Charon was the only member of Team Galactic to be arrested.
• He appeared in an episode of the Pokémon Generations anime that was based on the events at Stark Mountain from Platinum. In this version, he successfully awakened Heatran, and Looker attempted to arrest him, but he was able to escape with some Galactic Grunts.

Trivia

• As all of Team Galactic follows the naming scheme of being named after planets or other celestial bodies, Charon is named after Pluto's largest moon, which could reflect his place as a subordinate to the other Galactic members. He and Cyrus are the only Team Galactic members who are not specifically named after planets.
• He is the only Team Galactic member not to be battled in the game and is not known to have any Pokémon outside of his friendship with Rotom.