Application
Character Name: Grimsley
Character Series: Pokemon Black/White
Character Age: 24
Background:
(Note: The following differs from the application submitted to Mayfield, as canon information concerning the character came out approximately a week after his application. The background has been adjusted accordingly.)
Grimsley has no real background in the game other than being a member of the Elite Four, meaning that his job is to stand around waiting on a platform 24/7 for kids to come up and challenge him to Pokemon battles. However, outside information from the developers has revealed some important details: Grimsley is the heir of a wealthy Unovan family that fell into ruin, after which he took up gambling to pay off his family's debts and to earn some money for himself. His background is written here accordingly. If and when Grimsley is featured in the anime or Pokemon Special, I will attempt to incorporate those elements into my own characterization as well, if possible.
Born into an aristocratic family, Grimsley spent the majority of his childhood living in the lap of luxury, enjoying all the benefits that came with being wealthy - servants to wait on him hand and foot, any material possession he desired, respect and esteem from his peers... Most important was the fact that he was expected to do absolutely nothing with his life except spend the family fortune. Increasing it would have been nice, but the house was so disgustingly rich that it hardly mattered if a generation or two didn't do anything to bolster up the wealth.
Or, at least... that was what they all thought. At the age of fifteen, he was astonished when his father called him into his office for a grave announcement. They were bankrupt. Their investments had failed, they had been spending far too wantonly, but most to blame of all... His father's gambling addiction, which everyone knew about, but nobody discussed. At times, millions had been lost in a single night of poker. They were ruined. Their name was synonymous with worthlessness.
The repossession of their belongings happened so quickly that Grimsley was scarcely conscious of that period of time. One night, he lay in his plush bed deciding which suit he preferred for a banquet; the next, he lay in a flea-infested inn in a part of Castelia City that no tourists ever dared to enter. His family survived for some time on the charity of their former friends - too embarrassed now to have anything to do with them except for the condolences in the mail. They eked out a living as best they could. His father found work as a store clerk, his mother as a waitress. Grimsley himself took on errands he would have been embarrassed to have his servants do.
One day, he had enough.
Gambling. It had ruined them. And yet he knew it was possible for gambling to make them once again, if he only knew the game.
His late adolescent years were spent in bars and pubs and clubs, as a busboy, a dishwasher, a floor mopper, whatever job he could find, so long as he had time to watch the poker rounds in action. By the time he graduated to bartender, he knew every trick there was to know. And when at last he dared to approach his employer... He knew, with certainty, that he could win 90 of 100 hands without resorting to any measure of luck at all. After a few tests, the man was suitably impressed, and Grimsley became engaged as the establishment's spokes-player, exchanging a large percentage of his winnings for the promotion and protection and endorsement that the establishment could provide.
It was the promotion he needed - His other talent laid in Pokemon training, and he required little help in fending off furious opponents. Indeed, some nights, he did more battling than gambling. His fame soon skyrocketed, and within the space of a year, his name was known throughout Castelia as the man to beat. And just as he had desired, his wealth grew along with his fame. By age 21, he had enough saved away to move his parents out of the inn and into a comfortable apartment with plenty left on that side. His goal accomplished, he promptly retired and vanished from the scene, eventually reemerging in Nimbasa City in expensive suits and fashionable scarves as a Pokemon trainer of some modest skill.
Like any child, his dream had been once upon a time to become a Pokemon Champion. His first had been a Pawniard given to him by a friend of his father's; he had amassed a fair collection in his early years. Regrettably, the majority had been lost with the rest of his possession, being impossible as it had been to support so many mouths in his time of poverty. Now in adulthood, he reinvented himself as a specialist, a type master like so many of the other advanced trainers were. The type he associated himself with... Darkness. He was, he thought, rather familiar with that sort of thing. The gambling life had not been easy, nor especially moral. There was a reason that places like the Celestial Tower existed, and he had seen it firsthand.
With time, he grew to be a formidable trainer in his own right, easily sweeping through the gym challenges, and collecting more Pokemon as he went. And though he hadn't actually planned to challenge the Elite Four, he walked through the gates of the League on a whim, eager to see how far he could get. The answer: not very. The Fighting expert, a young martial artist by the name of Marshal, steamrolled him. Understandable. He needed to train harder. But though Grimsley returned time and time again, enough so that his opponent grew to be an acquaintance of sorts, he never did manage to attain his victory.
In the face of his repeated losses, he eventually chose to return to Nimbasa City. It was there that he frittered his time away once again maneuvering the higher spheres, there that he reacquainted himself with the Gym Leader, Elesa, and there that he received a strange invitation after some years had passed - An opening had been created for a master of the Dark type. The Champion of the League was AWOL due to the devastating loss of his own Pokemon. Someone needed to defend the position and defend it extremely well until the Champion returned. With recommendations from current Elite Four member Marshal and Nimbasa City Gym Leader Elesa, the League cordially invited him to try for the position.
He succeeded. And the rest is game history.
Personality: Some of this is headcanon as well. However, despite having perhaps twenty lines in total, Grimsley’s personality is already relatively well-defined in game. The most striking aspect, of course, is his philosophical stance on battling. “If someone wins a battle, then, without doubt, someone else has lost the battle. A real warrior does not dash off in pursuit of the next battle, nor throw a fit when he has lost. A real warrior ponders the net battle.” And on from there. This is a perfectly obvious statement, but the meaning is clear. You cannot always win. The strong trainer - the strong person - will accept his losses and use them for self-betterment. Both the winner who fails to understand why he won and the loser who fails to accept that he has lost are fools. Possibly, this attitude was formed by his own experiences. Confident up until the point of his devastating loss, Grimsley eventually came to realize that he had not lost simply because of a type disadvantage, but because he had always taken his Pokemon and his battling prowess for granted. He had never examined the reasons why.
In contrast to the typical conception of the Dark type (Wicked/Evil type in Japanese), Grimsley is a calm, and philosophical person. His intent is to show that even with the Dark-type, battling is fair and honorable. “Life is a serious battle and you have to use the tools you’re given. It’s more important to master the cards you’re holding than to complain about the ones your opponents were dealt.” Other quotes indicate that Grimsley does not care about luck or about strengths and weakensses or about anything. The only thing that ought to be considered in a battle is the outcome. Collectively, this shows his stance on Dark-types. It’s not right to consider a Dark-type’s form of battling as ‘underhanded’ or ‘unfair’. Pokemon were Pokemon. How they fight in nature is acceptable to them; how they fight in battles ought to be acceptable to all. If you can win against the tactics that Dark-types use, then you are a stronger trainer. If you cannot win, then you are not. And all the complaining in the world doesn’t change this fact.
This does not, however, mean that he is accepting of any philosophy like ‘the ends justify the means’. “There are bad ways to win - and good ways to lose. What’s interesting and troubling is that it’s not always clear which is which.” It isn’t that he lacks morals, but simply that he is more accepting of a wide range of morals than the average person. It’s not always clear what’s right and what’s wrong, but what’s most important is that you decide this for yourself. If you cannot create your own morality, then you cannot discern. Life is not about flipping a coin. One side is up, the other side is down. One side is right, the other side is wrong. This is not the case. Sometimes, the coin never even comes down.
If all of this is confusing, Grimsley’s philosophy in four lines. In battle, as in life, the only thing that matters is the outcome. A win is a win, and a loss is a loss. Who are you to judge that something was unfair or that such and such outside factor skewed things the wrong way? Morality is a subjective thing, and what’s more important is that you decide for yourself what your morality is. Do not judge others. Most important of all, regardless of whether you have won or if you have lost, if you have gotten something out of it, then you have gained.
On to less nitpicky things now. When Grimsley is not waxing philosophical, he speaks in a very laidback manner, using slang and self-deriding, sardonic remarks. This suggests to me that his normal personality is casual with a melancholy sort of sarcastic humor. In a sense, I would call his philosophical behavior a sort of acting - Having performed his job now for some number of years, he’s probably used to giving advice to kids who have lost, things that he wished people had told him when he was challenging the League. However, he has become so accustomed to this that he speaks in this manner much of the time, but he's perfectly comfortable slipping into a more relaxed diction, as well. There is no canon evidence to back this up outside of ‘man oh man’ and ‘guess I’m just the guy who lost now’, but again, we don’t see him in a context outside of his job. I would hesitantly say that his official art suggests this as well - In all of his poses, he is seen bearing a smirk and in a laid-back pose.
Some notes about his appearance now. Grimsley is uncommonly fashionable and bears more than a passing resemblance to a vampire. In popular culture, vampires now tend to carry associations of aristocracy and this is reflected in Grimsley’s dress. As the creators of the game have revealed, Grimsley is indeed connected with the aristocracy and thus presents himself in such a manner . Either way, this seems to indicate that Grimsley takes pride in the way he appears and strives to maintain a certain image - a vampire or otherwise dark aristocrat to reflect his leanings towards the Dark-type.
Grimsley’s Japanese name is Giima, meaning Vaccinium wrightii, a type of Japanese and Taiwanese small evergreen tree. I am uncertain as to the significance of this name.
Abilities: Grimsley is the trainer of many Pokemon, including Scrafty, Krookodile, Liepard, Bisharp, Sharpedo, and Drapion. It is possible he may own more, as a member of the Elite Four.
Character Series: Pokemon Black/White
Character Age: 24
Background:
(Note: The following differs from the application submitted to Mayfield, as canon information concerning the character came out approximately a week after his application. The background has been adjusted accordingly.)
Grimsley has no real background in the game other than being a member of the Elite Four, meaning that his job is to stand around waiting on a platform 24/7 for kids to come up and challenge him to Pokemon battles. However, outside information from the developers has revealed some important details: Grimsley is the heir of a wealthy Unovan family that fell into ruin, after which he took up gambling to pay off his family's debts and to earn some money for himself. His background is written here accordingly. If and when Grimsley is featured in the anime or Pokemon Special, I will attempt to incorporate those elements into my own characterization as well, if possible.
Born into an aristocratic family, Grimsley spent the majority of his childhood living in the lap of luxury, enjoying all the benefits that came with being wealthy - servants to wait on him hand and foot, any material possession he desired, respect and esteem from his peers... Most important was the fact that he was expected to do absolutely nothing with his life except spend the family fortune. Increasing it would have been nice, but the house was so disgustingly rich that it hardly mattered if a generation or two didn't do anything to bolster up the wealth.
Or, at least... that was what they all thought. At the age of fifteen, he was astonished when his father called him into his office for a grave announcement. They were bankrupt. Their investments had failed, they had been spending far too wantonly, but most to blame of all... His father's gambling addiction, which everyone knew about, but nobody discussed. At times, millions had been lost in a single night of poker. They were ruined. Their name was synonymous with worthlessness.
The repossession of their belongings happened so quickly that Grimsley was scarcely conscious of that period of time. One night, he lay in his plush bed deciding which suit he preferred for a banquet; the next, he lay in a flea-infested inn in a part of Castelia City that no tourists ever dared to enter. His family survived for some time on the charity of their former friends - too embarrassed now to have anything to do with them except for the condolences in the mail. They eked out a living as best they could. His father found work as a store clerk, his mother as a waitress. Grimsley himself took on errands he would have been embarrassed to have his servants do.
One day, he had enough.
Gambling. It had ruined them. And yet he knew it was possible for gambling to make them once again, if he only knew the game.
His late adolescent years were spent in bars and pubs and clubs, as a busboy, a dishwasher, a floor mopper, whatever job he could find, so long as he had time to watch the poker rounds in action. By the time he graduated to bartender, he knew every trick there was to know. And when at last he dared to approach his employer... He knew, with certainty, that he could win 90 of 100 hands without resorting to any measure of luck at all. After a few tests, the man was suitably impressed, and Grimsley became engaged as the establishment's spokes-player, exchanging a large percentage of his winnings for the promotion and protection and endorsement that the establishment could provide.
It was the promotion he needed - His other talent laid in Pokemon training, and he required little help in fending off furious opponents. Indeed, some nights, he did more battling than gambling. His fame soon skyrocketed, and within the space of a year, his name was known throughout Castelia as the man to beat. And just as he had desired, his wealth grew along with his fame. By age 21, he had enough saved away to move his parents out of the inn and into a comfortable apartment with plenty left on that side. His goal accomplished, he promptly retired and vanished from the scene, eventually reemerging in Nimbasa City in expensive suits and fashionable scarves as a Pokemon trainer of some modest skill.
Like any child, his dream had been once upon a time to become a Pokemon Champion. His first had been a Pawniard given to him by a friend of his father's; he had amassed a fair collection in his early years. Regrettably, the majority had been lost with the rest of his possession, being impossible as it had been to support so many mouths in his time of poverty. Now in adulthood, he reinvented himself as a specialist, a type master like so many of the other advanced trainers were. The type he associated himself with... Darkness. He was, he thought, rather familiar with that sort of thing. The gambling life had not been easy, nor especially moral. There was a reason that places like the Celestial Tower existed, and he had seen it firsthand.
With time, he grew to be a formidable trainer in his own right, easily sweeping through the gym challenges, and collecting more Pokemon as he went. And though he hadn't actually planned to challenge the Elite Four, he walked through the gates of the League on a whim, eager to see how far he could get. The answer: not very. The Fighting expert, a young martial artist by the name of Marshal, steamrolled him. Understandable. He needed to train harder. But though Grimsley returned time and time again, enough so that his opponent grew to be an acquaintance of sorts, he never did manage to attain his victory.
In the face of his repeated losses, he eventually chose to return to Nimbasa City. It was there that he frittered his time away once again maneuvering the higher spheres, there that he reacquainted himself with the Gym Leader, Elesa, and there that he received a strange invitation after some years had passed - An opening had been created for a master of the Dark type. The Champion of the League was AWOL due to the devastating loss of his own Pokemon. Someone needed to defend the position and defend it extremely well until the Champion returned. With recommendations from current Elite Four member Marshal and Nimbasa City Gym Leader Elesa, the League cordially invited him to try for the position.
He succeeded. And the rest is game history.
Personality: Some of this is headcanon as well. However, despite having perhaps twenty lines in total, Grimsley’s personality is already relatively well-defined in game. The most striking aspect, of course, is his philosophical stance on battling. “If someone wins a battle, then, without doubt, someone else has lost the battle. A real warrior does not dash off in pursuit of the next battle, nor throw a fit when he has lost. A real warrior ponders the net battle.” And on from there. This is a perfectly obvious statement, but the meaning is clear. You cannot always win. The strong trainer - the strong person - will accept his losses and use them for self-betterment. Both the winner who fails to understand why he won and the loser who fails to accept that he has lost are fools. Possibly, this attitude was formed by his own experiences. Confident up until the point of his devastating loss, Grimsley eventually came to realize that he had not lost simply because of a type disadvantage, but because he had always taken his Pokemon and his battling prowess for granted. He had never examined the reasons why.
In contrast to the typical conception of the Dark type (Wicked/Evil type in Japanese), Grimsley is a calm, and philosophical person. His intent is to show that even with the Dark-type, battling is fair and honorable. “Life is a serious battle and you have to use the tools you’re given. It’s more important to master the cards you’re holding than to complain about the ones your opponents were dealt.” Other quotes indicate that Grimsley does not care about luck or about strengths and weakensses or about anything. The only thing that ought to be considered in a battle is the outcome. Collectively, this shows his stance on Dark-types. It’s not right to consider a Dark-type’s form of battling as ‘underhanded’ or ‘unfair’. Pokemon were Pokemon. How they fight in nature is acceptable to them; how they fight in battles ought to be acceptable to all. If you can win against the tactics that Dark-types use, then you are a stronger trainer. If you cannot win, then you are not. And all the complaining in the world doesn’t change this fact.
This does not, however, mean that he is accepting of any philosophy like ‘the ends justify the means’. “There are bad ways to win - and good ways to lose. What’s interesting and troubling is that it’s not always clear which is which.” It isn’t that he lacks morals, but simply that he is more accepting of a wide range of morals than the average person. It’s not always clear what’s right and what’s wrong, but what’s most important is that you decide this for yourself. If you cannot create your own morality, then you cannot discern. Life is not about flipping a coin. One side is up, the other side is down. One side is right, the other side is wrong. This is not the case. Sometimes, the coin never even comes down.
If all of this is confusing, Grimsley’s philosophy in four lines. In battle, as in life, the only thing that matters is the outcome. A win is a win, and a loss is a loss. Who are you to judge that something was unfair or that such and such outside factor skewed things the wrong way? Morality is a subjective thing, and what’s more important is that you decide for yourself what your morality is. Do not judge others. Most important of all, regardless of whether you have won or if you have lost, if you have gotten something out of it, then you have gained.
On to less nitpicky things now. When Grimsley is not waxing philosophical, he speaks in a very laidback manner, using slang and self-deriding, sardonic remarks. This suggests to me that his normal personality is casual with a melancholy sort of sarcastic humor. In a sense, I would call his philosophical behavior a sort of acting - Having performed his job now for some number of years, he’s probably used to giving advice to kids who have lost, things that he wished people had told him when he was challenging the League. However, he has become so accustomed to this that he speaks in this manner much of the time, but he's perfectly comfortable slipping into a more relaxed diction, as well. There is no canon evidence to back this up outside of ‘man oh man’ and ‘guess I’m just the guy who lost now’, but again, we don’t see him in a context outside of his job. I would hesitantly say that his official art suggests this as well - In all of his poses, he is seen bearing a smirk and in a laid-back pose.
Some notes about his appearance now. Grimsley is uncommonly fashionable and bears more than a passing resemblance to a vampire. In popular culture, vampires now tend to carry associations of aristocracy and this is reflected in Grimsley’s dress. As the creators of the game have revealed, Grimsley is indeed connected with the aristocracy and thus presents himself in such a manner . Either way, this seems to indicate that Grimsley takes pride in the way he appears and strives to maintain a certain image - a vampire or otherwise dark aristocrat to reflect his leanings towards the Dark-type.
Grimsley’s Japanese name is Giima, meaning Vaccinium wrightii, a type of Japanese and Taiwanese small evergreen tree. I am uncertain as to the significance of this name.
Abilities: Grimsley is the trainer of many Pokemon, including Scrafty, Krookodile, Liepard, Bisharp, Sharpedo, and Drapion. It is possible he may own more, as a member of the Elite Four.