Lyra (game)

Lyra コトネ Kotone
Art from HeartGold and SoulSilver
Gender	Female
Hometown	New Bark Town
Region	Johto
Relatives	Mom (as player) Grandparents, unnamed father (as NPC)
Trainer class	Pokémon Trainer, Player character
Generation	IV
Games	HeartGold, SoulSilver
Anime counterpart	Lyra
Counterpart debut	An Egg Scramble!
Manga counterpart(s)	Crystal

Lyra (Japanese: コトネ Kotone) is the female player character in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver. In these games, she is the counterpart to Ethan, taking over the role from Kris in Pokémon Crystal. Her hometown is New Bark Town, where she lives with her mother.

Storyline in the games

When selected as the player character

Lyra's journey as a Trainer begins when Professor Elm asks her to run an errand for Mr. Pokémon, who lives north of Cherrygrove City. Because she may encounter dangerous wild Pokémon along the way, Elm gives her a choice between three Pokémon for protection: Cyndaquil, Totodile or Chikorita.

Lyra meets a strange boy the same age as her watching Elm's Lab from outside. When she tries to talk to him, the boy abruptly shoves her away. The boy, Silver, will become Lyra's rival, analogous to Blue in Generation I and III.

Lyra continues onward and finally meets Mr. Pokémon and completes the errand. While there she meets Professor Oak who, upon realizing Lyra's bond with her new Pokémon, gives her a Pokédex. On her way back home, Lyra again meets Silver, who has stolen one of Elm's remaining Pokémon. After defeating the boy in battle, she learns his name from his dropped Trainer card and relays it to the police in New Bark Town. Professor Elm allows Lyra to keep the Pokémon she chose earlier, and encourages her to compete in the Johto League.

From there Lyra begins on a Pokémon journey in the Johto region, facing off against its eight Gym Leaders, defeating and disbanding the revived Team Rocket, and becoming Pokémon League Champion by defeating the Elite Four and its previous Champion, Lance at the Indigo Plateau. Along the way she also teaches Silver to respect Pokémon as living creatures and not just as tools for battle.

After being declared the Pokémon League Champion, Lyra then takes a short trip on a ship, the S.S. Aqua, from Olivine City to Vermilion City in Kanto. Journeying across that region, she battles against its own set of eight Gym Leaders. Upon getting permission from Professor Oak in Pallet Town, Lyra heads for Mt. Silver via Route 28. Her journey comes to a close when she faces the Champion from Pallet Town Pokémon Trainer Red at the summit of Mt. Silver, who had been training there since shortly after he became Pokémon League Champion three years prior.

When not selected as the player character

If Ethan is selected to be the player character, Lyra meets him in New Bark Town at the start of the game. In this particular scene, she is seen with a Marill. She will always have Marill even if another starter Pokémon is selected. In addition, she doesn't appear to take the remaining starter Pokémon. Her role in the storyline of HeartGold and SoulSilver is similar to that of Lucas/Dawn in Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum if they are not chosen as the player character, while Ethan takes this place if she is selected as the player.

While playing as Ethan, her grandparents run the Pokémon Day Care on Route 34. Naturally, this role is given to Ethan if she is the player character.

Pokémon

Lyra uses this party to show the player how to catch Pokémon when Ethan is selected as the player character in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver.

File:HGSS Kotone Back.png Pokémon Trainer Lyra Route 29 HeartGold and SoulSilver Pokémon Trainer and Professor Lyra Oak Route 29 HeartGold and SoulSilver Reward: None
Types: Water Unknown Ability: Unknown Held item: None Marill Lv.5 Tackle Normal Physical   --       Defense Curl Normal Status   --       Unknown Unknown   --       Unknown Unknown   --

Caught in tutorial

	Type: Normal Unknown Ability: Unknown Held item: None
Rattata Lv.2
Tackle Normal Physical   --       Tail Whip Normal Status   --       Curse Unknown Status   --       Curse Unknown Status   --

Optional names for Lyra

Sprites

File:HGSS Lyra.png	File:HGSS Kotone Back.png		File:HGSS Kotone Pokéthlon Jersey.png
Lyra's sprite from HeartGold and SoulSilver	Lyra's backsprite from HeartGold and SoulSilver	Lyra's Challenge sprite from HeartGold and SoulSilver	Lyra's Pokéathlon sprite from HeartGold and SoulSilver

Counterparts

Shortly after the release of Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, an anime counterpart of Lyra appeared in the episodes from An Egg Scramble! to Bagged Then Tagged!. Much as with May and Dawn, she shares both her English and Japanese names with the player character she is based on.

Although Lyra doesn't appear separately in the Pokémon Adventures manga, Crystal essentially serves as counterpart by wearing her Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver outfit in the arc thanks to her mom forcing her to wear it against her will.

Trivia

• Much like Silver received the fan name "Kamon" from the list of Ethan's names in Pokémon Silver for discerning purposes, Lyra was known by much of the fandom as "Soul", following the precedent of Red's female counterpart introduced in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. Interestingly, Ethan was the only one who appeared in-game in demos with the name Soul: Lyra's name was in fact "Heart" (though likewise, Leaf was a default name for Red in LeafGreen, and Fire and Red default names for Leaf in FireRed).
  • Also similar to Leaf, "Soul" is one of the optional names for Lyra in Pokémon SoulSilver Version.
• It is assumed by some fans that Kris and Lyra are one and the same, but this possibility has yet to be supported by an official source. Takao Unno revealed in an interview that he had designed Lyra from scratch, but that only sheds light on the characters' design differences.
• Lyra and Ethan are the only pseudo-rivals, (along with the only rival characters in any game apart from Wally), to not appear to have a starter Pokémon from the professor in that region.
• Lyra shares many of her Japanese default names with Leaf and Dawn. She also shares all of Kris's default Japanese names.
• Occasionally, Lyra will call and claim that her Marill evolved into Azumarill. However, regardless of this, her Marill is never shown to have evolved and in subsequent calls she still refers to it as a Marill, due to the random chronology of the calls.
• Lyra is 4'11" (1.52 m) tall and weighs 90.4 lbs (41 kg). Thus, Lyra is slightly taller and heavier than Ethan, whereas it was the opposite for Lucas and Dawn.

Names

Like her Japanese name, Lyra's international names are all derived from musical instruments.

This game character article is part of Project CharacterDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each character found in the Pokémon games.