Whats the big difference between Shadow and Knuckles.

[Durarara]

From the Sega boards because I thought it would be a good discussion.

They both seem like the same concept rivalry wise but was truly serpates them from each other? How do they both seem to differ in terms of outlooks on life and they're purposes in general, what is the difference between their relationship with Sonic and other characters?

No bashing.

[Flyboy Fox]

Superficially, they're both the no-nonsense bad ass rival with an attitude problem. But they're actually driven in very opposite ways, which I think is an important distinction. They have purposes in their lives that are almost polar opposites.

Knuckles is a guardian. He likes to stay in one place and protect his shiny thing. He doesn't like to leave his roost. He'd actually rather just stay hidden away like a hermit than show you what he's made of (hurr hurr). He doesn't seek affirmation, and conflict with him comes from you interrupting him or attempting to mess with his task, rather than him seeking you out. He is also a symbolic representation of the connection with nature that ties in to chaos. His rivalry with Sonic is due to a personality clash and ego, rather than a personal issue.

Shadow is a seeker of answers. Unlike Knuckles, he does not like to stay still in one place. He wants to find the people and things responsible for events important to him, and conflict from him comes from being a target of his, or because you are an obstacle in his way on his very set path. He is a symbolic representation of the artificial means of controlling and using chaos. His rivalry with Sonic is less friendly than Knuckles' as it has a more personal nature - the fact that the two are so similar, and how their purposes clash and intertwine.

I think these things make them very different, despite both being 'rival' characters to Sonic.

[Sonowske]

Shadow is a more suitable rival for Sonic, and would be a better enemy for him; he's an exact replica of Sonic in terms of speed and fighting. Knuckles is tethered to the Master Emerald and can't go anywhere, and only rivals Sonic's speed with his strength.

[Kuzu]

Seeing how this is from the Sega boards, I'll just post from what I said there:

One gets mad at the drop of a hat.

The other has an emotional range of a brick.

Nah but seriously, both contrast with Sonic's personality pretty well.

Knuckles` strength has always been an equal to Sonic's speed, this is fact. The two are almost at each others throats and whatnot. Knuckles is hot blooded, stubborn, and independent. He's(unlike Sonic) responsible enough to know to protect the Master Emerald and Chaos Emeralds from anyone willing to abuse them and is hard to gain trust from. If he ever got more screentime, I'd say he'd be the one to disagree with Sonic's carefree mindset. In short Knuckles represents responsiblity, while Sonic represents hedonism. Whereas Knuckles would want to get the job done in the most efficient way possible, Sonic would want to take his time and get distracted easily.

Shadow is more of a same but different. He's not as carefree as Sonic, but he doesn't have the same responsiblity Knuckles has. Shadow takes protecting the planet a lot more seriously than Sonic does, and knows what has to be done to do it, Sonic of course won't have it, and this in turn put him at odds with him.

Personally I'd like to see more interactions between the two, Chronicles seemed to imply that they have some respect for each other.

[Kjeldo]

Shadow is black, Knuckles is red.

[Mr. Awesomest]

Knuckles is a guardian of an emerald.

Knuckles can punch boulders down.

Knuckles has been around longer.

Knuckles doesn't brood around.

Knuckles can climb walls.

Knuckles can dig.

Knuckles is red.

Shadow chuckles.

[Diogenes]

I think the big difference is that Knuckles is (or was/can be) a more rounded character, while Shadow tends to be as flat as the average "so cool" fan character. Compare their first games, for example. Knuckles is a smug jerk in S3&K, getting in your way several times and laughing about it, but he gets his comeuppance; he gets knocked into the water in Launch Base, he lets slip the location of a giant ring leading to the emerald shrine in Mushroom Hill, and then there's Hidden Palace where he gets beaten up by Sonic, lets the emerald get stolen by Eggman, and gets zapped, taking him out of the fight and forcing him to rely on Sonic to set things right. On the other hand, Shadow basically can do no wrong in SA2. He constantly shows himself to be as good or better than Sonic, outspeeding him when they first meet, and with both their fights ending ambiguously (the first a draw, the second could lead into the Last Story either way). And he never really pays for it until the very end, when he essentially sacrifices himself to stop the Biolizard and the ARK. Except...he survived, so it's not really much of a sacrifice.

Even once character derailment set in, I still think Knuckles was/is the better character. He may have turned into a dim-witted hothead, but he's still a loyal ally, and with some tweaking these traits can balance out nicely. Shadow...does he have any real character flaws? About the only way he could be more of a fan character cliche is if they gave him a sword oh wait.

[Kuzu]

I think the big difference is that Knuckles is (or was/can be) a more rounded character, while Shadow tends to be as flat as the average "so cool" fan character. Compare their first games, for example. Knuckles is a smug jerk in S3&K, getting in your way several times and laughing about it, but he gets his comeuppance; he gets knocked into the water in Launch Base, he lets slip the location of a giant ring leading to the emerald shrine in Mushroom Hill, and then there's Hidden Palace where he gets beaten up by Sonic, lets the emerald get stolen by Eggman, and gets zapped, taking him out of the fight and forcing him to rely on Sonic to set things right. On the other hand, Shadow basically can do no wrong in SA2. He constantly shows himself to be as good or better than Sonic, outspeeding him when they first meet, and with both their fights ending ambiguously (the first a draw, the second could lead into the Last Story either way). And he never really pays for it until the very end, when he essentially sacrifices himself to stop the Biolizard and the ARK. Except...he survived, so it's not really much of a sacrifice.

Even once character derailment set in, I still think Knuckles was/is the better character. He may have turned into a dim-witted hothead, but he's still a loyal ally, and with some tweaking these traits can balance out nicely. Shadow...does he have any real character flaws? About the only way he could be more of a fan character cliche is if they gave him a sword oh wait.

[Diogenes]

Does the fact that Shadow was manipulated by virtually everyone, and hunted like an animal in both 06 make him well rounded?

[Kuzu]

Not really, as these are things that happen to him, not elements of him.

Edited May 2, 2011 by Shadic93

[Scar]

Why not try to make Shadow a better character rather than trying to get rid of him altogether (or at least push into the sidelines)

I think he's work pretty well as a dead-pan-snarker. Yes that's just a different cliche, but a much better one than "ZOMG EDGY BADASS"

[Kuzu]

Why not try to make Shadow a better character rather than trying to get rid of him altogether (or at least push into the sidelines)

I think he's work pretty well as a dead-pan-snarker. Yes that's just a different cliche, but a much better one than "ZOMG EDGY BADASS"

[Durarara]

I think the big difference is that Knuckles is (or was/can be) a more rounded character, while Shadow tends to be as flat as the average "so cool" fan character. Compare their first games, for example. Knuckles is a smug jerk in S3&K, getting in your way several times and laughing about it, but he gets his comeuppance; he gets knocked into the water in Launch Base, he lets slip the location of a giant ring leading to the emerald shrine in Mushroom Hill, and then there's Hidden Palace where he gets beaten up by Sonic, lets the emerald get stolen by Eggman, and gets zapped, taking him out of the fight and forcing him to rely on Sonic to set things right. On the other hand, Shadow basically can do no wrong in SA2. He constantly shows himself to be as good or better than Sonic, outspeeding him when they first meet, and with both their fights ending ambiguously (the first a draw, the second could lead into the Last Story either way). And he never really pays for it until the very end, when he essentially sacrifices himself to stop the Biolizard and the ARK. Except...he survived, so it's not really much of a sacrifice.

Even once character derailment set in, I still think Knuckles was/is the better character. He may have turned into a dim-witted hothead, but he's still a loyal ally, and with some tweaking these traits can balance out nicely. Shadow...does he have any real character flaws? About the only way he could be more of a fan character cliche is if they gave him a sword oh wait.

I believe I said no bashing.

And besides, Shadow is a different type of rival compared to Knuckles. If you know your anime tropes, the badass angster and lancer of the series. Hiei, Zero(maybe) and any stoic arch rival to the main hero.

Knuckles belongs to the crowd where Kuwabara, Yamacha, Wario is.

Edited May 2, 2011 by Durarara

[Scar]

See that's the thing, he hardly counts as that anymore, ever since 06 he's gotten more expressive.

Black Knight, Free Riders, and Colors DS show that he isn't just a stoic brooding loner, actually he hasn't brooded much at all since 06.

[Kuzu]

I believe I said no bashing.

[Durarara]

Dead-pan-snarker isn't stoic or deviod of emotion.

It would in fact be the optimal role for Shadow, because he can get more actively involved in humour, by either being really sarchastic, or just killing the joke.

[Sion-Ta]

See that's the thing, he hardly counts as that anymore, ever since 06 he's gotten more expressive.

Black Knight, Free Riders, and Colors DS show that he isn't just a stoic brooding loner, actually he hasn't brooded much at all since 06.

Edited May 2, 2011 by Sion-Ta

[krazystitch]

Shadow chuckles.

[Durarara]

Out of the two I believe Shadow is the only one that can get under Sonic's skin, since he usually gets in Sonic's way of saving the world thing by using an opposite approach of saving the world on his terms. Sonic gets upset when he can't get his way or have the last say therefore the two clash. Plus I'm pretty sure Shadow would kill Sonic's friends or allies to save the world if he has to, therefore conflict between the two.

[Ulver]

I'm pretty sure that Shadow is more fitted for an anti-hero role for Sonic, because they're both hedgehogs, and Shadow in a way is Sonic's opposite in terms of values and personalities. If Shadow ended up being slightly superficial, that's a whole different story. Knuckles, on the other hand I believe, is Sonic's true friend. His age of rivaling Sonic is long over, and even when he did, his personality was a lot more different and the concept behind his design as well.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I'd go with the idea that Knuckles is an immovable object while Shadow is the unstoppable force. These guys are the strongest powerhouses in the series but with different purposes and attributes: Knuckles is more physical, Shadow is more psychological.

Knuckles being the immovable object tends to stick to his responsibilities (we can ignore his shirking of his duties for this, since that's poor character handling) and not go off helping just to hang around. He responds to things that happen directly to him, while the indirect does not concern him.

Shadow being the unstoppable force tends to seek out whatever gets set on his mind. Like the whole ordeal with him searching for who he was in ShTH, or for taking revenge on his dead friend before figuring out she wanted world happiness. Once he gets moving, there's no stopping him. Anything that happens to him, directly or indirectly is going to be something that he gets involved in so as to keep his promise.

Then there's their rivalry, or lack their of. Let's be real here, Knuckles' "rivalry" was having Eggman trick him to fight Sonic, and there is nothing that denies that one bit. Shadow as of now doesn't fit the bill either, but he had more of a rivalry with Sonic in SA2 than Knuckles did in all the othere games.

The only problem here is that Knuckles has flaws character-wise and power-wise, Shadow on the other hand only has flaws character-wise. While Shadow isn't a mary sue, he really needs to be balanced with his powers.

Now throwing back in the poor character handling of the two, there is some tweaking that can be done for both characters that can make them better than they are. Knuckles' involvement should have story reasons to get him involved like it would for Shadow, while Shadow should have well defined weaknesses power-wise. Here's a good analogy: Knuckles can be the mountain or bolder, strong, powerful, hard to move or destroy, and something you don't want dropped on you for the sheer fact that it would HURT! Shadow can be like a nuke, incredibly powerful and easily clearing away foes, but is all offense and very little defense.

I can see some tweaking of characterization as well. Now for Knuckles, quit making him a dim-wit and make him more useful, and for Shadow, make him less serious and more dry sarcasm, or the Deadpan Snarker if you will.

Edit: Also what Flyboy said.

Edited May 2, 2011 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[DC111]

There's very little similar ground to compare the two on. The main common thread between Knuckles and Shadow is that they're both friend-rivals of Sonic... so I guess I'll go with that.

Shadow's relationship with Sonic is one of a competitive nature, and from the start was expressed through ability and skill (namely speed and Chaos Control). The rivalry begun because Sonic was framed for Shadow's actions... anybody would be pissed. But as time went on, it became based on personality clash more than anything, even though there are some traits that both respect about the other.

Knuckles and Sonic go somewhat deeper, though, and I think there is some substance in their rivalry that you have to look between the lines to see. They both have everything the other doesn't... and can't. Sonic is a free spirit and loves every second of it, but will never be able to appreciate stability and routine. He'll never know he was even missing anything. Knuckles, on the other hand, envies Sonic's freedom, freedom he can't have because he is destined to guard the Master Emerald for the rest of his life. Sonic's cocky nature and Knuckles' quick temper just adds fuel to the fire.

[agoodusername]

Knuckles has more red on him than Shadow. Knuckles is also an echidna whilst Shadow is a hedgehog. Knuckles was first seen in 1994's Sonic 3 & Knuckles while Shadow was first seen in 2001's Sonic Adventure 2. Knuckles has spikes on his gloves where Shadow on the other hand has hover shoes. Knuckles has a nike swoosh on his chest while Shadow has chest fur. Shadow also shares his voice actor with Sonic, a hero, whereas Knuckles shares his voice with Black Doom, Black Doom wasn't a good guy.

I could go on, I think these are massive differences between the two characters.

[Preston]

Knuckles is Sonic's rival at strength.

Shadow is Sonic's rival at speed.

Any further questions?

[jumbomax]

Well knuckles is a loser and shadow is a geek.

Well I guess knuckles is a geek too.

But I like them both!