2nd Gen Lorelei and Agatha

[Hiidoran]

So, we've played RBY and we've played GSC...

Does anyone else ever ponder of what could have happened to the former members of the Elite Four, Lorelei and Agatha? In Gen I they're there, and then three years later they have abdicated their positions. It's easy to assume that perhaps Agatha just retired, as she's known to be the oldest of the Elite Four anyway, but what of Lorelei then?

Just some of those questions that were never truly answered?

 

[GiovanniViridian]

As far as I know, Lorelei could retire from her position to protect her island in the Sevii Islands according to Firered.

 

[BettyNewbie]

Honestly, I think they're both dead. Neither has been seen since FRLG, and Agatha only got a very minor reference in B2W2 from Shauntal:

""The woman who uses Ghost types, and the woman who uses Ground types. I couldn't ask the reason why their names and appearances are so similar." That's part of a novel I wrote. I absolutely love writing about the close bonds between the Trainers and the Pokémon that I've competed against. Could I use you and your Pokémon as a subject?"

Seeing as it's a line from a novel and considering Agatha's age, lack of appearances, and how far apart FRLG and B2W2 are in the timeline, there really isn't any reason to believe that she's still alive. :(

Same goes for Lorelei. She literally hasn't been seen or even heard from in ANY game since FRLG, which is very odd for a character who allegedly hasn't been retconned out like Jessie & James (Yellow), Kris (Crystal), or Green (FRLG). Even Juan and the Frontier Brains got mentions in ORAS, and they were mostly retconned out of the XY/ORAS universe.

Why would a seemingly healthy young woman just give up on her career and spend the rest of her life living in complete isolation? She had to have been killed, somehow. Maybe, the eruption of Cinnabar Island sent a giant tsunami into the Sevii Islands and completely wiped them out. It also nicely explains why we haven't seen or heard of the Seviis since FRLG, either.

 

[Hiidoran]

Woah, I never really thought of that. I'm kind of sad now.

I mean, honestly, I assumed Agatha either retired or passed away. That makes sense, but Lorelei just kind of disappeared for no reason. It was mentioned in FR/LG that she had strong ties to her home town in the Sevii Islands, but I never thought about what effect the Cinnabar eruption would have there tying to this. Even if she's not dead, maybe she abdicated her position to focus on more humanitarian efforts for the Sevii Islands.

 

[BettyNewbie]

Woah, I never really thought of that. I'm kind of sad now.

I mean, honestly, I assumed Agatha either retired or passed away. That makes sense, but Lorelei just kind of disappeared for no reason. It was mentioned in FR/LG that she had strong ties to her home town in the Sevii Islands, but I never thought about what effect the Cinnabar eruption would have there tying to this. Even if she's not dead, maybe she abdicated her position to focus on more humanitarian efforts for the Sevii Islands.

With the extreme paucity of appearances and references for either character past FRLG, it's hard not to come to a grim conclusion about Lorelei and Agatha. :( Since it's very unlikely that we'll ever see or hear from them again in canon (outside of, maybe, another Gen 1 remake), all we can do is speculate. As it is, they're pretty much just as retconned out as the likes of Jessie/James, Kris, and Green.

Now as to why GF got rid of them in GSC in the first place... Well, that question hasn't really been answered, either.

Obviously, they wanted to change up the E4 in GSC to show the passage of time and mix things up for people who had previously played RBY. And, since he was the leader of the group, it made sense to have Lance return and play a larger, more fleshed-out role.

But, why keep Bruno over Lorelei and Agatha? Why drop the women in favor of the other man?

As far as Agatha goes, it's fairly obvious: Morty. GSC introduced a new Ghost specialist, and due to the extreme paucity of Ghost types, he had to have the same ace as Agatha (Gengar). Agatha was way too redundant with Morty, and that, combined with her old age, made it easy to get rid of her. People could just assume that she either retired or died and move on, simple as that.

But, Lorelei? She was too young to either retire or die. And, she wasn't really redundant with Pryce in the same way that Agatha was with Morty (their teams had nothing in common except Dewgong, which was easily replaceable on Lorelei's team). Why keep Bruno over her?

Time to grab your tinfoil hats, because I have a far-out theory: CENSORSHIP!

While Lorelei's ace in the games is "technically" Lapras, we ALL know which Pokémon is REALLY most associated with her. It's the one she's been constantly depicted with in other media, including her (somewhat infamous) anime appearance, enough to where it's literally impossible to separate or disassociate her from the Pokémon. Jynx is to Lorelei what Dragonite is to Lance or Pikachu is to Ash. In other words, giving the spotlight to Lorelei inevitably means giving the spotlight to the Blackface Pokémon. There's no way around it.

Combine that with the borderline softcore pornographic appearance she made on the anime, and you have a character who is (through no fault of her own) associated with a lot of unsavory, family-unfriendly things. When you consider how much got censored out of GS for these exact same reasons, it's not a stretch to think that, maybe, GF wanted to avoid any further controversy by cutting Lorelei out.

Sure, Will had a Jynx, too, but it wasn't his highest-leveled Pokémon, nor was the Pokémon super closely tied to him. It's easy to forget that Will even had a Jynx on his team, so thinking of him doesn't make you automatically think of the Blackface Pokémon. Him being an asexual, fully-dressed young man and not a beautiful young woman in a miniskirt certainly helped his case, too.

 

[takeKopter]

It's weird. I watch a video in YouTube like 2 days ago, a theory that Lorelei is actually Will. Because will looks somewhat feminine, and have 2 Pokemon in common, namely Jynx and Slwobro. Weird theory, but kinda good one.

 

[illumine]

You can't help but wonder if where all this is leading is that Will is being quite mean about Lorelei leaving. Maybe Will is just trying to help.

To be fair, you wonder if the Elite 4 in G/S/C is even presented as that prestigious, given that Red is probably assumed to have gotten past the Elite 4, presumably Lance was just presented as upgraded one position due to an abdication, which isn't that illustrious. Then the trainer is supposed to take on a seemingly unaffiliated trainer, of their own volition rather than due to any particular spur, as the more important trainer in that game, hence making them and such seem fairly pointless. By then the player might have opted to take on the Elite 4 for training purposes, at least for some security, as Red's Pokémon are higher levelled than most and seem to encourage such things, without Gym Leaders being able to be re-matched. As such, their being removed, from the Elite 4, might not be that much of a momentous event by then. Karen is a bit amusing due to being named after the mode of evolution of an Umbreon. Still, the E4 here isn't generally assumed to be that difficult, compared to the rest of the game, if that were in question, although you wonder if it wasn't impoverished due to the 'Champion' position in the scheme being replaced after being apparently antagonistic in the first games with a fairly sterile and bland figure, who the game clearly likes too much to want defeated, generally. It seemed like the beginning of the games getting far too 'friendly' and tame in that area, however they may have been able to do so.

I think that you wouldn't be that surprised if there were something of an 'open door' about how that worked, and those two happened to have disappeared from it at some point. As was said, admittedly some time ago, Agatha may have been replaced due to Morty showing up,, although obviously in creating Morty it may have been taken into consideration that Agatha would have to be removed. Would it be a bit 'morbid' if, after this, Agatha could be taken to have died? Anyway, it was interesting to replace that with a 'puzzle' involving walking up to trainers' lines of sight right in front of them, in the manner of the Elite 4 zone, but anyway.