Clair

The Blessed User of Dragon Pokémon
Clair
Species	Human
Hair color	Blue
Base	Blackthorn City
Relatives	Dragon Clan Master (grandfather) Lance (cousin)
Debut	Pokémon: Gold Version/Pokémon: Silver Version

Clair is the final gym leader faced in Pokémon: Gold Version, Silver, Crystal, HeartGold and SoulSilver versions. She is a dragon user from the same family of dragon users as Lance.

Background

Clair was the gym leader of Blackthorn City. She claimed to be the greatest dragon master, although in reality she did not pass her grandfather's dragon user challenge. She did seem to fear her cousin somewhat, as he was the only person to have defeated her.

In Gold, Silver, Crystal, HeartGold, SoulSilver, she was challenged and defeated by Gold but refused to admit defeat; instead she sent him to take the dragon user's challenge in order to prove his worth. In Gold and Silver, this challenge simply consists of finding the Dragon Fang, after which Clair recognized his true power and gave Gold the Risingbadge as well as TM24: Dragonbreath (or TM 59: Dragon Pulse in HeartGold/SoulSilver).

However, in Crystal, as well as HeartGold and SoulSilver, the challenge was instead an oral exam that the Master of the dragon clan gave to Gold within the Dragon Shrine. Clair was later surprised to find that Gold passed, and after the Master confirmed this and threatened to tell Lance Clair finally gave Gold the Risingbadge. She later met him outside and gave him the TM as a token of her apology along with directions to the Elite Four's headquarters, asking him not to lose to them or she would feel even worse about losing to him. The Master said that Clair had gained an invaluable lesson from the whole ordeal.

In HeartGold and SoulSilver, she would appear in the Dragon's Den every morning from 6 to 10 AM, where Gold could exchange Pokégear numbers with her, and afterwards on every evening from 4 to 7 PM he could take a picture with her there. Calling her on Friday nights (between the hours of 8PM and 4AM) will cause her to appear in the Fighting Dojo for a rematch. Lance and Clair also confronted Gold and Silver at the Dragon Shrine when Silver began training there. Lance proposed a double match of him and Gold against Silver and Clair, but Silver declined this team-up due to Clair's "embarrassing" wardrobe, and the match instead became Gold and Silver against Lance and Clair. After the dragon masters were defeated, Clair thanked Gold and Silver, despite the latter's rudeness, for the battle and left.

Pokémon Roster

Clair has the following Pokémon in Gold, Silver and Crystal:

• Dragonair (3)
• Kingdra

In HeartGold and SoulSilver she has a Gyarados in place of one of the Dragonairs. Additionally in HeartGold and SoulSilver, she uses the following Pokémon in rematches:

• Gyarados
• Dragonair
• Aerodactyl
• Kingdra
• Charizard
• Dragonite

For the double battles with Lance, Clair uses Dragonair, Kingdra and Dragonite.

Other Games

Clair appears in Pokémon Stadium 2 as the seventh opponent of the Gym Leader's Castle. In this game she has Kingdra, Ampharos, Dragonair, Rhydon, Arcanine and Lapras on her team in R1, and in R2 her team consists of Charizard, Nidoking, Rhydon, Gyarados, Ampharos and Kindgra.

Clair also appears as the eighth opponent in Pokémon Puzzle Challenge, with Dragonair as her Pokémon.

Other Appearances

• Clair appears in several subsequent episodes of the Pokémon anime which show Ash and friends helping her in the purification of the Dragon Fang, her battle with Ash, and their journey into the Dragon Holy Land to retrieve the Dragon Fang after it is stolen by Team Rocket. In this version, instead of being Lance's cousin she is only a former pupil of his.
• Clair appears in several installments of the Pokémon Adventures manga. She is the first of the gym leaders to be challenged by Suicune and is enraged when she loses. During the gym leader's competition, she is set to battle against Blaine although the battle is cancelled after Team Rocket's attack. While fleeing Team Rocket, she challenges Blaine to battle anyway to find out about Lance's whereabouts because he was the last person to battle him before he disappeared. Blaine is able to defeat her and admits he does not know where Lance is but that he is surely alive.

Trivia

• In HeartGold/SoulSilver, it seems to be a recurring gag that people find Clair's costume to be embarrassing. Prior to the double battle, this is the exact reason Silver gives for not teaming up with her. At another point in the game, Erika suggests something like Clair's costume as something Jasmine could wear to a contest in Sinnoh, but Jasmine refused do the costume sounding embarrassing, which Erika used to say that Jasmine considered Clair to be embarrassing, while Jasmine protested this was not what she meant.