So, for you, would the title of Champion be someone who is involved in the government like say, a President/Ruler of sorts or someone who just sits as a figurehead (like Queen Elizabeth)? And would the “World Champion” title be a THING, can one person be Champion of two regions? (2 many questions SORRY.) ♥️
(not too many! -only downside to not keeping asks simple as possible is you gotta wait a LONG WHILE as I compose u an unwieldy Text-Wall -but, here that is :D ….)
Champions are definitely WAY more thanjust a “Sport’s Celebrity”
going off the more ~chivalrous~connotations of the word ‘Champion’ -meaning someone that fights as aRepresentative for someone else- Region Champions are looked to ascommunity-leaders/role-models/ (literally the embodiment of theirregion in some ways?), and are expected to also Protect the Safety/Peace of the entire region. So it’s a title that gets a persona lot of Fame and Respect and even some politicalpower/influence(which I’ll get to) but, Ideally, it’s intended to bea role primarily based in Community Service (the whole 8 badgecollecting system is kind of a, admittedly imperfect, screeningprocess for the position? -gym leaders can refuse/award badges basedon their assessment of your character not just win loss record/ +itgives wannabe champions more familiarity with the region they’d be incharge of ‘serving’-since you can’t even try out for the job withoutproving you’ve traveled to at least 8 different towns/cities)
in the basic culture of pokemontraining,
Ideally -a ‘Good’ trainer is supposedto always try to help/protect anyone weaker than them,
Ideally -a ‘Good’ gym leader takes thisa step further and is supposed to take responsibility of the entirecity/town their gym is in, and their gym should provide more to thecommunity than just a boon for tourism, which is why we get a lot ofdual purpose gyms associated w/ museums or learning centers of somekind (doesn’t always work out that way -sometimes ppl just try to usetheir gym to make $$$ -but,… ideally :‘3)
So taking the concept even further, a'Good’ Champion should try to always help/protect everyone 'weaker’than them just like any good-trainer, but by nature of their title as~Region’s Strongest~ ….that means they should help/protect -Everyone!:D
Responsibilities-wise a Champion isexpected to attend a lot of charitable and/or cultural events,helping participate in things like river-clean-ups, or building new(refurbishing old?)pokecenters, not just exhibition matches…. technically, anyoneliving in the region can make a formal request of the Champion to do…whatever? but it’s completely up to their discretion which requeststhey feel merits a response, since they can only be so many places atonce and can’t surprise everybody who puts in “Joke” requests-like an invite to a b-day party, asking them out on a date, or stufflike “help me clean my garage”… X3
It can actually be tough to balance allthe (legit) requests with still being able to train enough to staycapable of defending their title, it’s acceptable or even expected todelegate some requests to E4 members or gym leaders but if a Championdoesn’t have a good relationship with them, to where they aren’t willing to do anyfavors….it can be almost impossible to keep up. A good workingrelationship with the E4/gym leaders is even more important in aCrisis like a natural disaster or something, by design they’rescattered around the region so that Someone is probably close enoughto be a first responder to an event wherever it happens to start. The Champion is the oneexpected to quickly come up w/ a response plan and coordinate w/everyone to handle things like evacuations/relief-efforts/cleanup, ifthere’s bad blood tho you might get situations like gym leadersprioritizing “their” city over following the Champion’s plan topool resources more effectively, or even only bothering to relay infofrom on the ground of what’s happening to each other, instead ofreporting to the Champ directly -leaving them not informed enough toeven form an effective response plan :'3 So, Leadership Skills (w/HUMANS :V) are Important! -it’s assumed culturally, that anyone whocan 'lead’ a pokemon team well enough to earn the Champion title willbe a good leader (and person?) all around but, mmmm it’s not aperfect system
Not 'giving back’ properly and ignoring(or just not being able to respond well to) requests from the public(or their crisis-time duties), won’t get a Champ stripped of theirtitle outright, but it does make a difference in how muchpower/benefits/nice-treatment that title will get them? (champions are also expectedto uh, encourage~ gym leaders to actually perform their jobscorrectly -if too many gyms start getting shut down in a region thePL inspectors are gonna give them a stern talking to, nothing canreally get someone stripped of their title outside of being defeatedin a title match, but the PL Can penalize a champion by barring themfrom participating in the Champion-League tourney – but they’d haveto ignore multiple official warnings and be mismanaging or abusing theirposition in a pretty extreme way before that’d happen)
Champions aren’t Rulers, in the sensethat there is a separate governing body in each region and if a champdecides they don’t much care to be involved with that, things cancontinue to roll along just fine without their input. But, a Championthat’s doin everything right, -they respond to the things expected ofthem in a way that makes them ultra popular with the generalpopulation, they’ve got relationships w/ the E4/gym leaders that they’re all seen as a solid tight-knit LOYAL force-…that kinda Champion canwaltz into government offices and really Lean on policy-makers inways a Figure Head wouldn’t really be empowered to do (they mighteven get Formal Requests from citizens to do just that if the gov is doinsomething shady, since again the Champion Title is meant to be allabout speaking/fighting for ppl w/ less power than them) The unspokenreason for a why that sort of champion would be respectfully catered to is -in theunlikely event a disagreement between the gov and ~The Voice of theLand and People~ turned to actual fighting, that Champion has thefirepower and public support to have a decent chance at successfullystaging a take-over? (this is a utopia long-lasting-peacetime, no regions havestanding armies (apart from police I guess??),the (much stronger than some growlithes and arcanines) Trainers making up the region’s Pokemon League is almost the closest thing to an'army’ a region has?? so if they are unified in something…. it’s in your best interest to at least try to work w/ the'leader’ of that group?) a champion actually starting a revolution/civil-war isNot something that’s happened in living memory, but it’s still apossibility most gov officials would be aware of and want to avoidtaking chances with. On a less dramatic note, it’s also just very very badPR to be on record as being in opposition to a Champion that’s trulyloved by their region -on any issue :3
but the main point I’m getting at is,how much power/influence a champion has can change over the course oftheir career and is directly related to how well the champ is doingtheir 'job’ at the time. At the other end of the spectrum, a new, notyet well established champ that isn’t handling requests well, doesn’t havea good relationship with their 'subordinates’ (-basically is seen asalone in what they do)….that kind of Champion won’t have very muchbargaining power in the political sphere at all, they probably wouldbe stuck as a purely ceremonial 'figure-head’ position until they get their act together -and mightstruggle to even get a meeting w/ gov officials let alone have theiropinions respectfully considered.
So, it’s far from a perfect system but,if a Champion were to try to abuse their station, they’d lose most ofthe benefits that station can come with pretty quickly!
*** Is it possible to become Champ ofmultiple regions simultaneously? There isn’t a law against trying,but it would be unusual and maybe even frowned upon? If you somehow actually managedit, on top of doubling your duties and the balancing act of givingboth regions equal attention, it would mess up the bracketing forthe Champion League Tourney and you’d probably? be accused of tryingto use a loop hole to get yourself 2 slots in said tourney, it’s aton of work for something that’d be seen as kinda… bad-form or unsporting :'3
*** there is a “World Champion”title…sorta. I kept mentioning the “Champion League” - I see thatas a tournament that has a bit of an Olympics vibe as aninternational competition, only it’s focused entirely on one sportand occurs only once every 10 yrs (instead of every 4, so bigger rare-erevent but not so infrequent to make it impossible to participate morethan once in a lifetime). Basically everyone with a champion title gets invited toparticipate, this is where a lot of the ~Champion IS their region~concept comes into play -LOTS of media-attention and P R E S S U R Efrom people back home layered ontop of the already daunting challenge of facing off against opponentsw/ next-level skills
winning the Champion Leaguedemonstrates ~Mastery of the Craft~ (of pokemon battling) to come outon top out of the world’s best, so that’s how I currently HC you getto become a ~Pokemon Master~ -Unlike region champ this title doesn’tcome w/ a “job” and it’s not something you have to defend fromchallengers. Once you earn that sort of distinction, you keep it forlife and you can add it to your name on your stationary and all othersorts of obnoxious things like that
most people would retire after that? (thesocietal pressure in Most fields, not just pkmn training, to -quitwhile you’re ahead, go out on a highnote, not allow any decline w/age be seen publicly – is a whole 'nother essay I could write :'3) it’d be unusual but it’s allowed to keep your Region Champ title foras long as you care to defend it, AND to try for multiple Champ Leaguewins, so if you were really amazing it’d be possible to have a business card saying “[region]Champion, X-times Pokemon Master” before your name, but that soundsso fake, anyone who doesn’t Already know who you are by then before seeingyour business card would think you’re joking, a liar, or delusionalXD
