Character from Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver by Game Freak / Nintendo
The rainbow guardian of the skies — a legendary phoenix whose wings trail prismatic light, who resurrected three Pokémon into the legendary beasts, and who has not returned to the Bell Tower since the Brass Tower burned. Legend says those who see it are promised eternal happiness.
Ho-Oh is the mascot of HeartGold, the gold-version legendary, the bird at the top of the Bell Tower that Morty has been waiting for his entire adult life. It roosted in the Bell Tower before the Brass Tower burned 150 years ago — a fire that killed three nameless Pokémon. Ho-Oh descended into the ruins and resurrected them as Raikou, Entei, and Suicune, then departed. Since then it has not returned. Morty believes it will. The Bell Tower's construction and maintenance is oriented around a potential return that no one alive has witnessed. In HGSS, Ho-Oh is summoned to the Bell Tower using the Rainbow Wing, after the player has cleared the tower of Team Rocket interference, rung the clear bell with the Kimono Girls, and completed the prerequisites. The summoning ceremony is deliberate, multi-step, ritualistic — which is how the game signals that this isn't just a rare Pokémon encounter. This is a covenant. Trainers who encounter Ho-Oh are promised eternal happiness by legend. Whether this is literal or metaphorical, the game declines to clarify.
A massive avian Pokémon resembling a phoenix and a peacock merged into something mythological: gold and red plumage, a white underbelly, a long rainbow-trailing tail. Its wings catch light and scatter it into colors not normally visible together. It moves with the unhurried certainty of something that has existed longer than the cities below it.
Also known as: Ho-Oh, The Rainbow Pokémon, Guardian of the Skies