Benny (Ingrid)

Benny is Ingrid Anderson's Breloom, and the third Pokemon that she caught on her journey.

Appearance

Benny appears as a regular Breloom, albeit one with a constant look of disdain and seriousness on his face. Despite this, however, many opponents still believe he looks derpy.

Personality

Benny has one desire in life-- to be taken as seriously as possible, and that desire is very much evident in his demeanor. He is, for the most part, strict, serious, and unflinching, with a personality very much akin to that of a military leader. For the most part, he views life under a very serious lens in much the same way as Ozzy, and will very often use military abbreviations, such as "M.I.A.", "A.W.O.L.", "B.C.T.", "DEFCON", and the like in casual conversation. He also has a Silas-esque tendency to refer to himself and his friends with military ranks (most notably, he refers to Ingrid herself as "General"), and uses the NATO phonetic alphabet rather than actual letters. Due to this very militaristic view of his life and of himself, Benny often finds himself very annoyed by the rest of the team's silly antics, most notably those of Ananpi, Bjorn, and Bitey. He also gets annoyed by Frida's ego and is usually, if not always, the most likely to tell her off and try and bring her back down to earth. However, despite his desire to be taken seriously, Benny almost always never is-- especially not by his teammates and even less so by his enemies in battle. During the battle against Channah, for instance, her Gallade Hale called Benny "lowly" and proceeded to berate him to his face. Benny, in response, stopped Hale's Aerial Ace attack, paralyzed him, and proceeded to call him out for making such assumptions about him. This isn't necessarily Benny's fault, though- after all, he is a Breloom, well known for being a relatively cute and derpy-looking Pokemon with very stretchy arms. However, many, many Pokemon still end up falling victim to Benny's cute looks before anything else-- only to then be met with a dose of his actual battle prowess.

While Benny is very intelligent, strategic, and trustworthy, his serious personality does have its flaws. Most notably, he can sometimes be too strict and disciplinarian, sometimes threatening the rest of his team members (but never Ingrid herself) with punishment if they do not comply to his demands or tone down their eccentricities. However, for all his desires to be taken seriously, he is still very much a loyal and hardworking member of the team, and cares greatly for the rest of his team members, as well as his Trainer. He will help them whenever needed, and is sometimes even willing to comfort them (though he isn't really that good at it, by his own admission). While he isn't as big on The Vow as Bjorn is, he still values loyalty to his Trainer and is willing to do most of what she says, especially when in the heat of battle. Additionally, he sometimes shows that he's not as above it all as he thinks he is, and will sometimes-- albeit with embarrassment- join in on the other's antics, though he will play them as seriously as possible, of course. In the heat of battle, Benny is a hard-hitting strategist, able to use his energy-draining moves and his stretchy arms to his advantage. It has been stated by Goldenheart388 that Benny is able to come up with strategies for just about every possible scenario. Most notably, he used his stretch arms to prevent Hale from using a 4x super-effective Aerial Ace move on him.

Background

Not much is known about Benny's backstory prior to meeting Ingrid, although it is implied he traveled to the Eterna Forest from Hoenn sometime before being caught by her, as Shroomish cannot normally be found there. It is also unknown how he gained his serious, militaristic nature, possibly implying that he was either in the military or at the very least was owned by a Trainer who was in the military before being caught by Ingrid.

Details

• Met: Eterna Forest (prior to beating Roark)
• Birthday: December 16th (shared with namesake)
• Ability: Effect Spore
• Favorite Move: Sky Uppercut
• Nature: Serious
• Characteristic: Highly persistent
• Likes: His Trainer, his friends, seriousness, people and Pokemon obeying him, people and Pokemon taking him seriously, battling, coming up with strategies, the game shows Card Sharks and Deal or No Deal
• Dislikes: Anyone not taking him seriously, annoying things, anyone who hurts his friends or Trainer, anyone who throws a strategy of his back in his face, the idea of surrender (especially in battle), Frida's egoism, nonsense (particularly from Ananpi or Bindi)
• Ball: Poke
• Associated trope: The Captain
• Hasslemon typing quirk:

THIS IS

BRAVO-ECHO-NOVEMBER-NOVEMBER-YANKEE

The TQ is as follows: military jargon; use of NATO instead of letters; every message starts with THIS IS BRAVO-ECHO-NOVEMBER-NOVEMBER-YANKEE; capitalization of IMPORTANT WORDS; use of military PROWORDS despite not being on the radio. Every message ends with either OVER or OUT depending on whether or not Benny is expecting a response.

OUT

A prospective fullbody Benny gijinka, as done by Goldenheart388.

Moveset

• : Sky Uppercut, Mach Punch, Force Palm, Counter
• : Stun Spore, Leech Seed, Mega Drain
• : Sludge Bomb

Trivia

• Benny was named after Benny Andersson, one of the four members of the Swedish pop group ABBA.
• According to Goldenheart388, Benny's Hasslemon handle is superTrooper (ST). Like the other four, the handle serves as a pun; in this case it is on the ABBA song and album "Super Trouper". However, the handle also makes references to military troopers and troops in general, referencing Benny's cold, stern, military general-esque nature. The word "trooper" also refers to someone who is able to persevere in the face of immense danger, which Benny certainly is.
• According to Goldenheart388, Benny's character theme is "The Piper" by ABBA, while his Japanese character theme is "Shinzou no Sasageyo!" by Linked Horizon.