5th Gen Who is the OFFICIAL eighth gym leader in gen 5?

[MarioMover]

So, I had Pokémon White Version, and was the only one who did. My friends and I were talking about gym leaders, and they were talking about Drayden. Since I had only played White, I was like, "who's that?" And they all said he was the Leader in Opelucid City. So I told them Iris was the Opelucid Gym leader, and we got in to a heated debate that day. Who really is the eighth gym leader?

 

[Hikamaru]

Well, the one thing to know about Black & White is that the games have some huge differences between each other, and it's more than just the version exclusive Pokemon. Some areas look different between the two games and one of those happens to be the Opelucid Gym, with Drayden being the Gym Leader in Black and Iris in White.

 

[bwburke94]

By virtue of there being no third version, there is no canonical eighth Gym Leader.

 

[SaniOKh]

I'd say Drayden has a better chance of being "official", because in the sequels, he is the Opelucid Gym leader in both versions.

 

[Hikamaru]

I'm with what a certain mod said earlier, Black 2/White 2's time skip is now the canon as far as this generation is concerned so you now call Marlon the official 8th Gym.

 

[Winter]

Currently, Marlon is the established final leader. Though if we were to go into BW's timeline, I would say Drayden was the official leader of Opelucid. Iris' eventual championing kinda meant that she moved on, and I guess Drayden took up her spot (as evident in B2W2).

 

[Hikamaru]

If you take the original B/W into account, I feel like Drayden was more like the real Opelucid Gym Leader than Iris. Especially with the latter eventually becoming Unova Champion.

 

[Sopheria]

I'd say, like most everyone else said in this thread, the "official" Opelucid gym leader is Drayden, due to him being the leader in BW2. Whether Iris or Drayden starts out as the leader, in either case, Drayden ends up as the leader.

 

[Pendraflare]

Me too, if we're going by B2W2 canon then I would consider Drayden the official eighth Gym Leader, before Marlon come the sequels. Although it was somewhat relatable that Iris became Champion after what they did with Wallace in Emerald.

 

[Sun]

I love how Marlon's appearance ended the Iris VS Drayden as the official 8th Gym Leader thing. xD

Actually they are both canon, various NPCs from Black and White confirmed the existence of each games as parallel universe. In other words, they are both officially the final Gym Leaders of their respective games. :)