Whitney is the energetic, pink haired Gym Leader of the Goldenrod City Gym. She is the third gym leader the player encounters on their journey through the Johto region, and specializes in the Normal type. Usually Normal types aren't very scary, but I think the developers did a good job with Whitney. Maybe too good a job in fact, as she's well regarded as one of the hardest gym leaders in the entire franchise.

Pokemon Gold, Silver, Crystal, Heart Gold, Soul Silver

Whitney can first be seen in the radio tower. She is there attempting to complete a quiz to get the coveted prize of a radio card for the Pokegear. Apparently the quiz is too difficult for her, as she does not succeed in her efforts. When the player aces the quiz first try, she is shocked and runs back to her gym, allowing the player to challenge her.

Quick shout-out to her gym design. It looks like a bunch of random walls and pillars when you're in there, but zoomed out it looks like a Clefairy, which is a neat easter egg:

Gold/Silver/Crystal
Heart Gold/Soul Silver

Upon eventually reaching Whitney, the player can challenge her to a battle. Whitney only uses 2 Pokemon, less than the previous Gym Leader (Bugsy). Fitting to her gym design, she leads the battle off with Clefairy. This thing isn't very strong, but can use Metronome and call forward some crazy strong attacks. I'd recommend not using any Pokemon with a 4x weakness against her as you might get caught off guard.

Once Clefairy goes down, the battle really begins. Whitney sends out a Miltank, making it the first original Johto Pokemon to be used by a Gym Leader. This Miltank is what makes the Whitney battle so infamous. It has ridiculously high stats for this point in the game, and the developers held nothing back when crafting its moveset. It has Stomp for a strong normal move that can Flinch you, Attract to make any male Pokemon fall in love with it (causing you to not move 50% of the time). She follows those up with Rollout, a move that Miltank will be locked into using for a while but it doubles in Power, quickly getting out of hand. And if all that wasn't hard enough, her last move is Milk Drink, allowing Miltank to heal a ton of HP back.

Whitney uses the same team in both the originals and the remakes. In fact, her levels got lowered by 1 in the remakes, but to compensate Miltank now holds a Lum Berry, causing any status move you use on it to be instantly healed one time. It also has the ability Scrappy, allowing it to hit Ghost types like Gastly with Stomp, making them a bad matchup.

Once the player finally defeats Miltank, Whitney will start to cry. A gym trainer will tell you to talk to her again to calm her down, and upon doing so the player is rewarded with the Plain Badge.

In the Post Game of Heart Gold/Soul Silver, players can obtain Whitney's phone number during certain hours in the Goldenrod Department Store. Calling her at a specific time of the week makes her show up in the Saffron City Fighting Dojo, in Kanto. There, she will rematch the trainer with a full team of Normal Types. Admittedly they aren't the strongest bunch, with Bibarel and Delcatty being among them.

Whitney doesn't play a further role in the story, but she is sure to be remembered (sometimes traumatically so) by any player.

Pokemon Black 2, White 2

Whitney returns among her fellow Gym Leaders for the Pokemon World Tournament. She can be fought in the Johto Leaders and Type Expert challenges, using some new Normal types like Blissey and Tauros. She does not appear at any other point in the game.

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Whitney is one of the few Johto Gym Leaders that has as much or even more notoriety and fame within the fandom than several of the Kanto Gym Leaders. Her Miltank is probably the strongest Pokemon owned by a Gym Leader at that point in the franchise. It can get out of hand very quickly, and its stats are extremely high for the level you fight her at. Even in the anime her Miltank single handedly swept Ash's team, and he needed a completely ridiculous strategy to eventually overcome it.

I like that Whitney is feisty and ready for battle, and I think she'd have great potential to return at one point, perhaps in a Legends: Johto game?