Carl

This section applies to the ILCOE.

Carl is the leader of the Crater Town Gym and was the one to get it made official.

Appearance

Age (current)
63
Stature
Generally large, tallish and muscular for his age.
Eyes
Brown and intense.
Hair
Short, originally light brownish red, now whitish gray. He also has a neatly trimmed beard.
Clothes
Various, kind of old-fashioned.
Handedness
Right-handed.
Images
None.

Pre-Story Biography

As a kid, Carl lived in Acaria City, and his first Pokémon was a female Charmander. He has liked Fire Pokémon since he was young and made a point of capturing mostly or only Fire Pokémon during his journey. After participating in the normal Ouen League, he went on to train for the Old-Timers' League, but after falling out fairly early thanks to his monotype team, he decided becoming a Gym leader was a better path for him, and he became a junior trainer at the then-unofficial Crater Town Gym, which was at the time still run by its founder, Pyromaniac Paul. Upon his death, Carl took over and began to fight for the Gym to become official, which he achieved some years later. He has always been well-respected in the Crater Town community since.

Character Rambles

Ah, Carl. I've had him, and in fact Mark's entire trip to Crater Town to get the town evacuated, prepared for absolute ages, in fact as long as Spirit. Like Sparky, he is of a generally sound mind for a change; Carl is a dedicated skeptic and rationalist and doesn't take nonsense from anyone, least of all some punk like Mark making ridiculous claims about legendary world-takeovers. While Mark was of course right about Volcaryu, Carl was also right to doubt him without proof, and once Volcaryu has turned out to be real, he is ready to gracefully accept that his suspicions were wrong. So basically, I really like him, both in the out-world (i.e. as a character, being fun to write) and kind of the in-world too (i.e. as a person, if he really existed; though he's harsh with Mark at the start when he's suspicious of him, he's intelligent, rational and sticks to his principles but is still prepared to admit when he's wrong, which I admire).

That said, Carl is a minor character, and his lack of psychological complexes leaves relatively little to ramble about, so I'll leave it at that.