One thing I've always been curious about when it comes to the Pokemon world is how people are even assigned to be a gym leader/elite four member, etc. Is there a committee that nominates and votes for candidates? Do previous gym leaders select their 'heir' themselves? Is there a rule regarding what type they are forced to use, or that their successor is forced to use?

I'm unsure if we've ever been given a full detailed explanation. If anyone knows of one, please let me know! Meanwhile I'll use what I've seen and heard from the games. One of the first instances of this being directly addressed comes from the fourth gym leader of the Hoenn region. After beating Wattson, the player heads North from Mauville City and eventually takes a cable car up a big volcano. What could we possibly be doing at the top of a volcano? Well actually, that's where a small settlement called Lavaridge Town can be found. It's one of the smallest towns in the Hoenn region, but is famous for its relaxing hot springs. It's also famous for being the home of the fourth gym in our Hoenn journey. Flannery is the leader of the Lavaridge Gym, and specializes in Fire type Pokemon. Fitting for the area, I would say.

Unlike the gym leaders we have seen so far in the Pokemon franchise, Flannery is actually a new gym leader. She just took over from the previous leader, who just so happens to be her grandfather. This is where my initial suspicion that gym leaders have some say over their successor comes from. I doubt it's a coincidence that the young, passionate granddaughter just so happens to be next in line.

Regardless of how she got here, she is the person we have to beat to get ourselves the Heat Badge.

Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire

Flannery plays no active role in the main story of the Hoenn region. I'm kind of sensing a theme here, as she is now the fourth leader who just waits for us on their mat. It seems like they decided to give gym leaders a very minor role in these games for some reason. I think that's disappointing, as the gym leaders themselves are mostly interesting characters who could have been fleshed out a lot more had they been given some time in the spotlight.

Flannery's team differs slightly between the different Hoenn games. In the original Ruby and Sapphire, she uses 3 Pokemon. Like every other gym leader in this region, most of them are weaker Pokemon from previous generations. In her case, she uses 2 Slugmas. Slugma is kind of notorious for being bad, and you've fought several of these guys en route to Lavaridge Town. At least Flannery has decided to make these little guys as threatening as possible, as they both possess quite a tricky moveset. Both Slugmas can set up Light Screen, weakening special attacks (including the common counter, Water types). This will also have good synergy with her final Pokemon, who I will get to in a second. One Slugma has Smog to poison your Pokemon, while the other is more offensive with Rock Slide. Both of them have the move Sunny Day, which sets up the Sun weather condition and doubles the power of Flannery's Fire moves while lowering the damage your Water moves by 50%. To make full use of the Sun, and to make the Slugmas scary, they both know the ludicrously powerful Fire move Overheat. It deals massive damage, though it will lower Slugma's special attack by 2 stages afterwards. Treat it like a big mutual destruction button I suppose.

So far it seems that Flannery focuses a lot on lower Water and special damage. That's because her final Pokemon is a big physical tank, but struggles more taking special attacks. Torkoal is a strong and rare Fire Pokemon from the Hoenn Region. Flannery's Torkoal is especially scary as it also knows the powerful Overheat, on top of being able to hit on the physical side with Body Slam after its special attack is lowered. Flail makes it scary even on low HP, and Attract can make any male Pokemon you use against her only have a 50% chance to use an attack every turn. Finally, it has the ability White Smoke, preventing you from lowering its stats to make it easier to take down. Torkoal is one of the most difficult Pokemon in the game to take down. Even the Water starter Marshtomp can struggle if you don't have great luck.

In Emerald, they decided to dump one of the Slugmas in favor of two new Hoenn Fire types: a Numel, and its evolution Camerupt. By this point you've seen these guys all over the place, but it's nice that they get some representation by the Fire gym leader. They mainly use the same Sunny Day + Overheat strategy as Flannery's other Pokemon do. The real big threat is Flannery's Torkoal, which now obtained the White Herb item, making it ignore the first drop in Special Attack that Overheat gives it, essentially being able to fire off two full powered attacks before receiving the drawbacks.

In the remakes, they remove Camerupt from her Emerald team while keeping Numel.

Flannery is a powerful trainer with attacks that do a lot of damage. At least she will get weaker as the battle goes on by lowering her own special attack after each Overheat.

In Emerald, she will give the player her number and be available for a few rematches throughout the game, gradually increasing the strength of her team. Eventually she will keep the three fully evolved forms of her gym team (Magcargo, Camerupt, and Torkoal) while adding a Houndoom, Rapidash, and Arcanine.

Flannery makes one final cameo appearance in the remakes. After obtaining the box legendary Pokemon, she can be found trying to find the legendary Fire type Heatran in the Scorched Slab, though she quickly gives up on the idea.

Pokemon Black 2, White 2

Flannery returns alongside her fellow Hoenn leaders for the Pokemon World Tournament. She can be fought in the Hoenn Leaders and Type Experts challenges. She uses a few new Pokemon like the Hoenn Fire starter Blaziken, alongside a Magmortar and a Chandelure.

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Flannery is a very passionate character. That's a trait often shared by Fire trainers in the games, but I've always felt that it fits her the best out of all of them. She's not just passionate for the sake of some 'burning hot' pun/association that other Fire gym leaders & elite four members make, but it really feels like Flannery is so passionate because she feels like she needs to prove her worth.

I can't blame her really, she's not exactly in an enviable position. Her grandfather, the previous gym leader, was a very respected member of the community, and was revered by many more people across the region. In fact, we are told by an NPC (and later by Flannery herself in Black 2/White 2) that her grandfather even used to be an Elite Four member of the Hoenn region in his youth, before 'stepping back' as the Lavaridge gym leader when he became older. To be the one to follow in such a person's footsteps isn't easy, especially as a rather young and new trainer in comparison. This is then further amplified by being this elite trainer's granddaughter. Not only do you want to live up to your grandfather's example and make him proud, but you also have a lot of expectations by the people around you as his granddaughter.

We see the pressure of this getting to Flannery, as she stumbles over her words upon initially talking to her at the gym. She's trying to sound strong, confident, like her grandfather used to, but she can't get her words to come across that way. I would already find her an interesting character with just all the above, but we even see her become more complex after our gym fight, as she reflects on her position and what it means to her. She realizes that it's futile to try and emulate what her grandfather would say or do, and that she should try to carve her own path as a gym leader. For an early Pokemon game, often with simple writing for the majority of its characters, this is a lot of depth for just one gym leader. It's always made me root for her in the future.