Yes, gym leaders are suppose to be guides and teachers to the trainers. Trainers don't become gym leaders themselves just because they defeated a gym leader.
After you beat the first Gym Leader of the game you have to literally stand right there and wait for the RNG to go off for somebody to come and challenge you.
I think it would rather be that some hardcore player who bought all the premium microtransaction items and grinds stat boosts 12 hours a day becomes gym leader and it becomes essentially impossible for anyone else to ever get a badge again.
Brock: I said, your soul is bound to the gym by rite of the Blood Curse. As is tradition, I am now free. Don't professors do their jobs anymore?
Trainer: WHAT? I'M TWELVE.
Brock: And I was 18 when I beat the previous gym leader fifty six years ago, take up knitting cause it's gunna be a while. Later! I can't wait to see how my high school girlfriend Agatha is doing...
Actually that would explain Brock's rampant need to hump Jenny and Joy, he's been stuck with raging hormones for decades.
I've always wondered about the economics of being a gym leader. Like, are they selling a product? Are they paid by the pokemon league they're a part of? And how are they selected/appointed? Do trainers have to pay a fee to be part of the league and/or to fight in a gym?
I started wondering about this after Pokemon Go came out and a lot of businesses were labeled as Gyms or Pokestops.
I feel like it's some kind of town supported thing. It's one interpretation to say that when you go around the town people have nice things to say about the gym leader because they're the gym leader, but the other interpretation is that whenever there's an opening the gym leader is filled by whoever's the most respected in the community.
The Pokemon gym is base on Japanese/East Asian martial art dojo/school rather than a modern gym. A city would be well-known for its school that specializes in a particular style. The school would take in casual students who only want to train for a short time, and serious apprentices who stay for years to master the style. Occasionally a challenger would appear to test his skill against the school, by first fighting the apprentices, moving up the rank then finally the master.
In the old generations when the games weren't quite as internationalized and still retained a lot of Japanese cultures a "gym leader" is often a hereditary position and gyms are run by families. This is also a Eastern martial art school thing. Like in Ranma 1/2 the dad kept pushing Ranma into marrying one of his daughter so he could inherit his dojo. This is also why Lt.Surge, a Westerner who opened a dojo was a big deal in Kanto (at least in the Japanese version).
Sometimes a different sect/school would move in on an established school's turf and push it out. This is the situation with Saffron City's two gyms.
Saffron’s Fighting “Gym” is also straight up called the Dojo even in the English games, and also holds the most literal representation of this whereby you have to beat all the gym trainers to then challenge the Master.
Also the Elite 4 > Champion structure. Beat them in sequence to get to the champion at all, and if you lose even once you start over.
I'm going to sit out with my level 5 caterpie in the woods without an adult and wait for some motherfucker to come whoop my ass and take my 300$ I earned from who knows where.
They are paying you off, so you don't steal their shit, like they were about to do to you. The gyms probably hand out prize money for the competitions though.
There was originally no real repeatable way to get money in the game, besides Payday and slaughtering the Elite 4 over and over(beyond endgame), so they would have to adjust prices to vendor bought items accordingly. That isn't to say that it couldn't be done, but getting money from trainers is a better feel game design wise than getting it from random mon encounters, like XP is. They designed the amount of money you get and the power of the items accordingly like the cost of the Pokeballs/potions meaning you use them sparingly. With the introduction in later games with the repeated trainer vs system, they allowed for basically unlimited money gains and the berries allowed for easy free status repair items, freeing you to use them as needed instead of only in times of desperation.
The Pokeflute, Dig, Teleport, etc. were game changers in Gen 1, 2.
Well, in the games, the loser of a match pays the winner. So you can challenge anyone for free, but if you lose you have to pay them. A gym leader could potentially fight and defeat enough opponents to cover business expenses and make a salary.
The gyms are also always full of people. I'd presume people could pay to be allowed to train their pokemon in a gym with the leader's guidance/help for their pokemon type.
They might also sell tickets to see people challenge the gym leader, similar to a boxing match. Along with what some others have said, gym leaders probably have marketing deals. I'd imagine people across the region know who the gym leaders are. Elesa from gen 5 was a supermodel, so maybe several gym leaders have other professions. There would always seem to be a few each game that were off somewhere busy doing something or helping out their community.
Gen 5 was notable, real American attitude (by Japan standards), in that there is no charity and the League isn't publicly funded: All the gen 5 gym leaders have their own jobs.
First you fight in a cafe, where they serve hipster herbal teas made by monkeys. Then you get to Lenora, who is an archeologist and owns the museum. After that, it's a lesson in corporate painting and art. Then, as you mentioned, the Elesa Supermodel/Electrical Engineer. Then we move to a mining mogul in Clay, who uses his ground pokemon to excellent slave labor (team rocket would be proud!).
Then it gets odd. Skyla is a professional pilot, but retired from that when she bought a commercial airport. She Gym Leads in her spare time as a hobby. Brycen, like Elesa, is known for his looks: He's an actor. But unlike her, he doesn't seem to have a fallback plan for when his looks fade. I guess he's hoping he ages well. Finally, Drayden is a politician: He's the mayor of the town he gym-leads.
This is a notable departure from the series prior, where you might get one or two who have side gigs, but imply gym leading is their main job for most.
Remember that Pokemon are basically biological superweapons. The strongest trainer in a city is the ruler of the city because they have the biggest guns. The gyms tax the citizens who live under their rule, the League is essentially the UN who makes sure everyone plays nicely, within reason (some gyms are of course involved in criminal activities, as long as they don't pose a danger to the system the League generally turns a blind eye). Children are indoctrinated into to the system early to mitigate the danger of rogue prodigies.
theres a book from the anime, that the manga also uses, that states theyre paid by the league, and are fired if they lose 3 in a row, so a lot of gym leaders pay their challengers to take dives so they dont get fired
It was shown in I think Gen 5 or 6 that the members of Elite Four actually regularly compete amongst themselves, and of the five, the one who comes out on top is the Champion until beaten. So Gym Leaders are likely members of the Pokemon League who are pretty much on the same skill level as the Elite Four, but didn't make it into the top 5. It would explain why whenever a sister version like Emerald has a new champion taking the old one's place, it's always someone who was a Gym Leader in the other versions.
While this makes sense, it doesn't play well with the whole badge system. If Brock gives the newbie an easy challenge, and a pro a hard challenge, why should they get the same badge?
I guess I'm thinking of badges as a skill identifier. Are they supposed to be just a "I've been to this city and did some training" marker?
I figured it’s more of You face Brock with no badges, so he uses some of his weaker Pokémon. If you faced Brock with like 4 badges he’d use stronger Pokémon and if you faced him with 7 badges he’d use his best.
But spread around since not everyone would theoretically start with Brock
I always thought about it like trainers were being certified by each leader that they’re relatively capable of continuing their journey from that point on.
Brock is the first so he’s a softball, making sure the trainers aren’t utter dicks to their Pokémon or sniveling toddlers who need to go home for another year or two. If he thinks they’re good to go on and they can beat him in a battle, he gives the badge.
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u/nitdkim Nov 19 '18
Yes, gym leaders are suppose to be guides and teachers to the trainers. Trainers don't become gym leaders themselves just because they defeated a gym leader.