Ghetsis Harmonia Gropius is one of the executives of Team Plasma, and the main antagonist of Pokémon Black Version and Pokémon White Version. He is notable for being the only crime syndicate executive from the main series of Pokémon games who serves as the final trainer of the game, as opposed to the usual Champion. Unlike previous crime syndicate executives, Ghetsis is not fully loyal to Team Plasma's goal, instead manipulating N, his adoptive son, to use Team Plasma for his own selfish purpose to be the only trainer left in the world with Pokémon, thus granting himself the power to become a dictator.
Quick Answers
What is Ghetsis' role in Team Plasma?
Who is Ghetsis' adoptive son in Pokémon Black and White?
How does Ghetsis manipulate Team Plasma for his own purposes?
Why is Ghetsis unique among crime syndicate executives in the Pokémon games?
In which Pokémon games does Ghetsis serve as the final trainer?
Appearance
Ghetsis has red eyes and long, pale green hair, with two locks of it sticking out by his eyes. He wears a red eyepiece over his right eye for unknown means. He mostly hides his right hand among his robes.
Black and White
Ghetsis has two additional locks of hair, which slide down to his shoulders. Ghetsis wears a white robe, like his fellow Seven Sages, with an elaborately designed brown piece with blue rectangles above it, holding a two-toned cloak with eye patterns above his robe; the left side of his cloak is purple while the right is yellow. He wears brown loafers. The Team Plasma crest lays right below the collar of his cloak.
Black 2 and White 2
Ghetsis wears a black cloak, with an eye pattern on them. Ghetsis also wears two yellow bracelets on his left forearm; his right hand, with which he uses a cane, has the Team Plasma logo on it. Ghetsis also wears a pair of black boots.
Personality
Ghetsis's personality seems to be like an inspirational speaker regarding the release of Pokémon when first encountered. However, as the game progresses, he gradually reveals his true personality: that of a cruel megalomaniac who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. He has no qualms in using the innocence of N for his plot to rule the world. Contrary to many of his speeches, he views Pokémon merely as tools, thinking them too valuable to be lost. He wishes nothing more than to totally dominate the Unova region and rule over it with an iron fist, enforced by his own Pokémon and Team Plasma.
He has great charisma, as he was capable of convincing the members of Team Plasma, including the Seven Sages to follow his ways. His charisma is demonstrated as many people are somehow influenced by his speeches, making them to at least rethink the relationship between Pokémon and humans. Despite his villainous goals, this marks the first time the discussion of Pokémon rights and freedoms have been thoroughly discussed in-game.
He seems easily infuriated when things don't go his way, so he was noticeably angry when N decided that the player character should have the other Legendary Pokémon to fight him. When N was defeated, he was even angrier; his plans had taken a major blow, resulting in him challenging the player character in a fit of rage and revealing his true nature to N.
He is known to be a brilliant scientist, as one of the Plasma Scientists claimed that he created a system capable of robbing Pokémon from the Storage System from all over the world.
In Black 2 and White 2, Ghetsis appears to have become somewhat insane, going so far as to command Kyurem to impale the player character with icicles at one point (although failing due to N's intervention). Also, he is visibly mentally unstable, bursting into fits of rage that prompt him to shout and to aggressively slam his cane to the ground. A Shadow Triad member points out Ghetsis loses control, which further evidences this behavior to be recurrent. After being defeated in Black and White 2, Ghestis suffers a mental breakdown and is rendered incapable of continuing his evil goals.
Biography
Black and White
The player character will first meet him in Accumula Town where he gives a speech to the locals about how you shouldn't enslave Pokémon. Ghetsis is described as having a bitter and look-at-me type of character. His son is N, as he specifies while lecturing him about losing to the player character. During the quest, the player character finds Ghetsis numerous times telling everybody to send their Pokémon to Team Plasma to be released back into the wild. Ghetsis's motives are different from that of N's because N understands Pokémon and supports them with a full heart.
Around the end of the game, when N was defeated Ghetsis appears and says that the once impressive leader was a disappointment for losing to the player character, and then reveals that he was using him all along just for his own needs, to use Pokémon to rule the world. After saying this he thinks that N is a pathetic Leader and should be banished from Unova forever, he then challenges the player character as the final trainer of the game (excluding there being a Champion in the main game and counting his absence post-game). Despite his strong team of Pokémon, Ghetsis loses to the player character. After that, he is taken away by Champion Alder and Cheren. However, during the battle within the Castle, Ghetsis escaped from Cheren's custody, from where his current location is unknown. As revealed by the Shadow Triad, not even they know where he will go or what he will do. However, he leaves the three orbs of the creation dragon trio from Sinnoh behind for the player character.
Black 2 and White 2
Unlike in the previous games, Ghetsis is only seen after the player character defeats Colress in the Plasma Frigate, which he unlocks a portal that was previously blocked by a rather cowardly Team Plasma Grunt. After the player character enters Ghetsis's office, he is visibly angered upon Colress's failure and declares upon how the scientist is more interested in his own goals rather than Team Plasma's. Then, he reveals that he plans to use Kyurem's power to completely freeze the entire Unova region and conquer it. The Shadow Triad quickly appears and Ghetsis escapes, leaving the player character and Hugh to deal with the ninja-like grunts.
Ghetsis is later encountered in the Giant Chasm, where he reveals the Legendary Pokémon, Kyurem. Ghetsis indirectly comments upon how the memory of being defeated by the player character of the previous games continued to haunt him. Shaking it aside, Ghetsis then orders Kyurem to use Glaciate to freeze the player character solid, but before it could hit, N appears with Reshiram/Zekrom and uses Fusion Flare/Fusion Bolt to block the attack. Ghetsis is angered that N has returned to foil his plans yet again, but Ghetsis reveals that N's appearance is what he planned all along. He fuses the DNA Splicers (which were previously robbed from Drayden by the Shadow Triad) with Kyurem, shattering the two horn-like protrusions on its back. Kyurem attacks Zekrom/Reshiram with homing beams of light and successfully captures it, reverting the Legendary Pokémon into their stone forms. Ghetsis marvels at how easy it was and quickly orders Kyurem to utilize "Absofusion". Kyurem absorbs the Dark Stone/Light Stone and transforms into Black Kyurem/White Kyurem. Ghetsis then berates N for betraying him, commenting that if he continued to be loyal, Unova would be remained beautiful. Ghetsis then challenges the player character, but not before voicing his furious denounce at how the player character's Poké Balls are trembling with emotions. Ghetsis also reveals that his cane emits signals that completely disrupts the functionality of Poké Balls, forcing the player character to defeat Kyurem instead. Despite its magnificent power, Kyurem is defeated and separated from Zekrom/Reshiram and escapes deeper into the Giant Chasm. Ghetsis becomes highly furious and attacks the player character in a fit of rage. While he put up a good fight, Ghetsis is defeated. Unable to comprehend his failure, he suffers a mental breakdown and aggressively rejects N's idea of Humans and Pokémon co-existing in harmony. A member of the Shadow Triad appears and states that Ghetsis lost control and takes him away, leaving behind his cane, which was plunged into the ground after he slammed it.
While Ghetsis is not seen in the game until the player character reaches his office, he is mentioned much, mostly by Zinzolin, the Team Plasma Grunts and the Shadow Triad.
Other appearances
Sprites
Pokémon
Black and White
 Cofagrigus 
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 Bouffalant 
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 Seismitoad  
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 Bisharp  
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 Eelektross 
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 Hydreigon 
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| Lv. 52 | ♂ | Lv. 52 | ♂ | Lv. 52 | ♂ | Lv. 52 | ♂ | Lv. 52 | ♂ | Lv. 54 | ♂ |
| Ability: Mummy | Ability: Sap Sipper | Ability: Swift Swim | Ability: Defiant | Ability: Levitate | Ability: Levitate | ||||||
| Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | ||||||
| Toxic | Head Charge | Rain Dance | Stone Edge | Wild Charge | Fire Blast | ||||||
| Protect | Wild Charge | Sludge Wave | Night Slash | Crunch | Surf | ||||||
| Psychic | Poison Jab | Muddy Water | Metal Burst | Flamethrower | Focus Blast | ||||||
| Shadow Ball | Earthquake | Earthquake | X-Scissor | Acrobatics | Dragon Pulse | ||||||
Black 2 and White 2
Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon
 Cofagrigus
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 Bouffalant
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 Bisharp
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 Hydreigon
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 Zekrom
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| Lv. 66 | ♂ | Lv. 66 | ♂ | Lv. 66 | ♂ | Lv. 66 | ♂ | Lv. 68 | ? |
| Ability: Teravolt | |||||||||
| Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | |||||
| Will-O-Wisp | Head Charge | Iron Head | Dragon Pulse | Bolt Strike | |||||
| Shadow Ball | Poison Jab | Night Slash | Hyper Voice | Hyper Voice | |||||
| Power Split | Earthquake | Stone Edge | Dark Pulse | Dragon Claw | |||||
| Dark Pulse | Megahorn | X-Scissor | Surf | Zen Headbutt | |||||
Cofagrigus
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Bouffalant
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Bisharp
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Hydreigon
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 Reshiram 
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| Lv. 66 | ♂ | Lv. 66 | ♂ | Lv. 66 | ♂ | Lv. 66 | ♂ | Lv. 68 | ? |
| Ability: Turboblaze | |||||||||
| Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | |||||
| Will-O-Wisp | Head Charge | Iron Head | Dragon Pulse | Blue Flare | |||||
| Shadow Ball | Poison Jab | Night Slash | Hyper Voice | Hyper Voice | |||||
| Power Split | Earthquake | Stone Edge | Dark Pulse | Dragon Claw | |||||
| Dark Pulse | Megahorn | X-Scissor | Surf | Zen Headbutt | |||||
Trivia
- Ghetsis and N's last names are Harmonia, similar to "harmony" as both of them falsely claim to bring harmony to Pokémon. Ghetsis is derived from the German names for the music notes G and C-sharp which together form a tritone, and "Harmonia" is Latin for "harmony". His full name represents "dissonance in harmony", or "the Devil in music", and a G and C-sharp tritone is also used in his battle theme.
- Ghetsis' Hydreigon is under-levelled; Zweilous evolves into Hydreigon at Lv. 64.
- So far, Ghetsis is the only evil team leader who appears in the core series game to have a full team of 6 Pokémon, thus arguably making him the hardest evil team leader to defeat.
- Ghetsis is the first antagonist that tried to kill the protagonist of a game, once in BW when he states he desires to eliminate Hilbert/Hilda in order to secure N's place as hero of Unova, and again in B2 and W2 when he orders Kyurem to attack Nate/Rosa with Glaciate.
- Ghetsis's Hydreigon knows the move Frustration with maximum power, indicating that Ghetsis treats his Pokémon poorly and cruelly, which is ironic because most members of Team Plasma want Pokémon to be treated well.
- Despite Black and White 2 taking place 2 years after the events of the original Black and White, Ghetsis' Pokémon actually decrease in level, losing 2 levels each.
- His cane stays in the Giant Chasm, being a story-line to his battle sprite in Black 2 and White 2, as he slams his cane into the ground.
- Ghetsis was originally going to be much older, creepier, and more priestly in the early development of Black and White. He was also much shorter, unlike his final design which portrays him as 2 meters tall (6’6″).[1]
- Ghetsis is the only Pokémon villain that attempted to directly incapacitate the player. In Pokémon Black 2 and Pokémon White 2, he attempts to have Kyurem freeze the player with Glaciate. Before the English releases of Pokémon Black 2 and Pokémon White 2, this threat was mistranslated by various sources as a threat to kill and impale the player using Kyurem's icicles. While this is not verbally conveyed in the scene, the player character appears to almost be impaled by Kyurem's icicles before Kyurem is stopped by N, meaning this could have been.
Gallery
References
| Locations · Pokédex | |
| Gym Leaders | |
| Elite Four and Pokémon Champion | |
| Subway Bosses | |
| Others | |
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 Team Rocket |
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 Team Magma |
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 Team Aqua |
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 Team Galactic |
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 Team Plasma |
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 Team Flare |
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 Team Skull |
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 Aether Foundation |
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 Team Rainbow RocketUSUM | Giovanni
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 Team Yell | |||||||||||
 Macro Cosmos |
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 Team Star |
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| Others | |||||||||||