Sonic Adventure Story Theory.

[The Chairman Of The Board]

I have a theory about the story for Sonic Adventure and here it is. While you are playing Sonic Adventure and going through playing as all the different characters the story already happened. Why else would there be the exact same scene twice for both characters' play through and each time what happens and what is said is different. It's all just one big story. This is kind of crazy but what other explanation is there?? The same EXACT thing happened 3 or 4 times but each time different things were said?? Also how come in Sonic Adventure and onward Knuckles doesn't give two shits about The Chaos Emeralds?? Didn't he always want to protect The Chaos Emeralds as well as The Master Emerald?? But I digress. So what do you guys think of my theory???? Comment below.

[Indigo Rush]

Have you heard of the Rashomon effect?

It's one of the few really creative and sophisticated aspects of Sonic Adventure's story.

Also, Knuckles doesn't really care much about the Chaos Emeralds. The Chaos Emeralds pop in and out of the Special Stage and are not that easy to keep an eye on anyway. The Master Emerald is his life purpose and legacy of his race, and it needs to stay in its shrine. That doesn't explain the inconsistencies in future games, but that was his initial purpose.

 

Edited August 5, 2015 by Indigo Rush

[Marcello]

It's been a long time since I've played Adventure, so I don't really remember all the dialogue differences, nor have I played the Japanese version (Or speak Japanese for that matter) but I assume it's due to the localization and/or character perspectives.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

It is odd, to be sure, especially since they had to re-record the dialogue and everything, but I like the theory that the different dialogue is just the difference in how the characters remembered the events. It's actually a rather interesting and even sophisticated thing to put in, like Indigo Rush said. The idea that the same events happened multiple times seems exponentially more unlikely.

The best analogy I can think of is the Gospels in the New Testament - the same events and teachings are relayed, especially in the Synoptic Gospels, but the dialogue is usually worded differently and different details are included.

I have to ask, though, what is this doing in a General forum, when it's clearly Sonic-related?

Also, Knuckles doesn't really care much about the Chaos Emeralds. The Chaos Emeralds pop in and out of the Special Stage and are not that easy to keep an eye on anyway. The Master Emerald is his life purpose and legacy of his race, and it needs to stay in its shrine. That doesn't explain the inconsistencies in future games, but that was his initial purpose.

While this is certainly completely true in the modern continuity, I thought for positive that Sonic the Hedgehog 3's manual described him as guardian of the Chaos Emeralds without even mentioning the Master Emerald. So I get Three's Company's #1 Fan's point. Maybe Sega thought it was just messy and would add too many complications to have Knuckles be guardian of the Chaos Emeralds - e.g. since the Chaos Emeralds do so much in the story, it would be kind of weird for them to have to go back to one character at the end.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

To be fair, there really isn't any reason why Knux would care about the Chaos Emeralds

''But Ryan! They're unbelievably powerful and can cause unbelievably amounts of havoc and damage''

Yes, that's true, but Adventure 2 and Runners I believe clears that up right away. Knuckles says multiple times that while the Chaos Emeralds are unbelievably powerful gems that grant unlimited power and resources, but with the Master Emerald, Knuckles can neutralize their powers, effectively making them useless when the situation calls for it. 

It's probably a temporary thing, but when their neutralized, they lose all power, and are harmless, meaning if the situation was really dire, and Knuckles knew about it, he could easily use the master emerald to neutralize the Death Egg. As for why he doesn't do it in most games, there's usually an excuse for it such as it being stolen or destroyed.

[StaticMania]

The whole story thing is pretty obvious, not many games do it(especially not with 6 characters at once)...but it's literally the reason they have you play as all the characters. You're just getting every side of the story by playing from the perspective of the different characters, which is also why there are slight dialogue changes.

It isn't really a theory.

[The Chairman Of The Board]

On 8/6/2015 at 5:31 AM, StaticMania said:

The whole story thing is pretty obvious, not many games do it(especially not with 6 characters at once)...but it's literally the reason they have you play as all the characters. You're just getting every side of the story by playing from the perspective of the different characters, which is also why there are slight dialogue changes.

It isn't really a theory.

This response is a little late but what it sounds like to me is that your saying that you play as Sonic and you beat his play through and then your like going back in time for Tails' play through along with the other characters so you can as you said get they're perspectives. It wouldn't make sense though for you get the different perspectives of all the characters because then it wouldn't make sense for the characters that are all together in one scene to say different things and have the other characters say different things. If your getting a different perspective that's fine. That means you would see stuff Tails did without Sonic, but that wouldn't mean that Tails heard Sonic say something completely different than what he actually said would it??

[StaticMania]

 

Just now, The Chairman Of The Board said:

This response is a little late but what it sounds like to me is that your saying that you play as Sonic and you beat his play through and then your like going back in time for Tails' play through along with the other characters so you can as you said get they're perspectives. It wouldn't make sense though for you get the different perspectives of all the characters because then it wouldn't make sense for the characters that are all together in one scene to say different things and have the other characters say different things. If your getting a different perspective that's fine. That means you would see stuff Tails did without Sonic, but that wouldn't mean that Tails heard Sonic say something completely different than what he actually said would it??

Hmm?

 

Well, why don't you think of it as the different characters retelling the stories? It'd make more sense I think, no one remembers exactly how things go down, so...improvised lines that are generally the same as they are in other stories is what happens.

 

It's basically the same thing, but with clarification.

 

Just now, The Chairman Of The Board said:

 

[Phos]

Knuckle's changing role seems to be a retcon, seeme very arbitrary for Knuckles to go after Sonic for having the Chaos Emeralds at the start of Sonic 3 if he isn't their guardian. It isn't exactly airtight, though, as Sonic's good ending sees Angel Island lift of with only the big emerald (Sonic has the others), BUT if we assume that Hyper Sonic was only added because of lock on technology, then the chaos emeralds that Sonic already had at the start of the game would still be there. Yeah, hard to speculate on plot for a different version of a game, especially with how screwed up the Zone order wound up. 

[The Chairman Of The Board]

8 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Well, why don't you think of it as the different characters retelling the stories? It'd make more sense I think, no one remembers exactly how things go down, so...improvised lines that are generally the same as they are in other stories is what happens.

That's what I meant. Didn't you understand that?? Who else could be telling the story??

[StaticMania]

Just now, The Chairman Of The Board said:

That's what I meant. Didn't you understand that?? Who else could be telling the story??

Nope, I didn't.

 

...and I wasn't implying that you "go back in time" just to see the other character's adventures in my original post either. That retelling idea is the only one that makes sense. They're all retelling the story...to eachother.

[The Chairman Of The Board]

37 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

They're all retelling the story...to eachother.

That's what I meant. I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear. 

[Speeps]

I always believed that everything up to Sonic facing Perfect Chaos was a flashback due to how the intro seems to depict Sonic running to Station Square from the Mystic Ruins while Chaos attacks.

There's a lot of funny points in the character stories that are easily missed if you're not looking out for them. Probably the funniest thing I noticed is that each character covers up certain things in their story that you can only notice while playing as other characters. Sonic says something along the lines of "I'll get that Eggman and put him out of commission!" in his story when talking about going after Eggman after fighting Gamma, but in all the other stories he awkwardly says "I'll nail that Eggman!". Knuckles also manages to come up with a better comeback to Sonic's knucklehead comment in his story too. I thought it was pretty funny how when you consider this it looks like Sonic doesn't want to admit running off from Amy either.

Mind you, there's a kind of weird side to this too, Tails' "I must prove I don't need Sonic" arc doesn't really make sense when you consider that for the majority of his story he's been putting himself in Sonic's shoes. You can see him stand by in the background when you're playing as Sonic, but when you're playing as Tails you're constantly fighting Sonic's battles for him and beating him in races to the Emeralds.

[The Chairman Of The Board]

4 minutes ago, JmTsHaW said:

I always believed that everything up to Sonic facing Perfect Chaos was a flashback due to how the intro seems to depict Sonic running to Station Square from the Mystic Ruins while Chaos attacks.

I never thought of that before.

[E-122-Psi]

One thing that bugs me however is the method Gamma reaches the Egg Carrier with Froggy, which abiding by all the different character interpretations can't remotely coincide. In Big's story, Gamma catches Froggy and he chases him all the way to the Egg Carrier launch base. In Knuckles' story he's at Red Mountain for some reason and Knuckles follows him from there. In Gamma's story he enters a flashback from Tikal and is teleported all the way back to base, making the two following him impossible.

[Speeps]

There's that theory going around that Tikal has some degree of control over the characters' bodies when she takes them to the past, which is why they wake up in different places.

Maybe he just didn't see Big or didn't consider him important or something, considering Froggy isn't in that scene either despite how Gamma should be holding him at that point in time. The train to Station Square doesn't seem to be going in a direction that could cause Gamma to pass by Angel Island on the way back from Emerald Coast, so (Stretching it now though) maybe he went back for Knuckles after dropping off Big or something? I don't know.

Of course, the out of universe explanation is obviously they just needed a way to shoehorn Knuckles onto the Egg Carrier in time, haha.

[E-122-Psi]

It does seem something they could have easily bypassed however. Just have Gamma reappear in Emerald Coast and have the player travel to Mystic Ruins manually.

Knuckles I suppose they could have moved the actual sighting of Gamma to a different scene like the entrance to Angel Island.

It's also a shame because it means Gamma can barely unlock any of the characters despite the other way round.

[Hyp3hat]

Aye, Rashomon. The other thing I really like is how Robotnik changes throughout the stories - he sounds so evil in Tails' playthrough, and like a smug git in Knuckles'. 

Of course, one game where this would have really rocked is Sonic Adventure 2, but all the cutscenes are basically the same, which is pretty disappointing.