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1 vote
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Sabrina the very cool Psychic type gym leader of the Saffron City gym. She hands out the Marsh badge, which seems to be oddly named for a Psychic gym leader, and seems better suited for a water or grass type gym leader. The other Kanto leaders have well named badges, such as Brock with the Boulder badge and Blaine with the Volcano badge, so why is the name of Sabrina's badge so misfitting. or why isn't it?

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3 Answers

2 votes

Badge types often refer to the colour of the badge or the type which the gym leader uses. However the Japanese version of the 'Marsh Badge' actually means Gold Bade - a reference to the colour of the Marsh Badge which is in fact gold. The reason it is called 'Marsh Badge' is because of the Gamefreak logic and/or bad transalators

~Hope I helped!

Note: the Japanese version is ゴールドバッジ
Guess what happens when you put this into a transalator? It becomes Gold Badge

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I could read that straight away. I can read Japanese. >:)
Can't speak it though. How sad. D:
Lol I can speak some japanese my writing skills are completely horrible.
1 vote

It may be because marshes sometimes are associated with swamp monsters, and creatures of that sort, so it may just be there to put a scary feel to it.

They also possibly messed up in the original games, mixing up the badges with Koga getting the soul badge, and Sabrina getting the Marsh badge, and kept it for nostalgia. Also, it seems that Bulbapedia also thinks it is an initial naming error. But the only reason that this may not be true, is that every single badge in Kanto, including the soul and marsh badges, has a Japanese Translation to a the color that the badge is. Soul Badge is the Pink Badge, and the Marsh Badge is the Gold Badge, which matches the color.

Other than that, all I can tell you is game freak logic.

I hope this helped! :)

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1 vote

There is no proper explanation as to why the Marsh Badge was called the Marsh Badge. There are many assumptions as to why this has happened.

To add even more suspense, the funny thing is that Koga/Janine the Poison-type Gym Leader, gives out the Soul Badge. Something one would think would relate to psychic ability - soul. Many think it was an error in programming, or a typical translation error. However, this assumption might be wrong!

This only supports this controversy a little - the Japanese translation for the badges were Gold Badge (Marsh) and Pink Badge (Soul). Of course, it doesn't really support the theory at all, but it gives some distinction. A soul could be referred to as pink, and a marsh could be referred to as gold (or, dark yellow anyway). It makes sense in a way though. There is no real understanding as to why this exists. Many think it was an error in translation, and I'm with this all the way.

So, there is no real reason as to why this is.

Hope I helped. (Probably didn't, but... yeah xD)
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