Recurring Villains

[Frozen Nitrogen]

Some of the codex were just plain wrong. Like "Sonic and Shadow teamed up to stop Eggman" in SA2.

If you can forgive the fact that it mislabels Team Rose "Team Amy", I think you can forgive that. They're not trying to retroactively rewrite SA2; it's just a mistake.

Or how about Eggman never thinking he'd be teaming up with Sonic before, disregarding all their past truces?

Truce =/= teamup. Eggman's co-operation in Chronicles is orders of magnitude in excess of what has been shown previously. Their team-ups before have been more along the lines of "not actively attacking each other for a few minutes to deal instead with something that's about to blow up the world". Circa Biolizard and Nonaggression. Yes, what gets said might violate the letter of past canon if you're feeling pedantic, but not the spirit, for Eggman's level of sustained assistance in TDB very much unprecedented. To claim Chronicles is non-canonical from that is like claiming it's non-canonical because it called Team Rose "Team Amy". Harsh and excessive nitpickery, I say!

How about the heroes wanting Eggman dead? (When, in Rush, Sonic clearly says harming Eggman is too harsh)

That's an argument against Rush making sense, not Chronicles. He is a VERY BAD MAN and no-one likes him in-universe. Even if he's not Archie-genocidal, game-Eggman has still tried to riddle the heroes and everyone they know full of hot lead on just about every occasion.

BUT ANYWAY. It seems the arguments here boil down largely to "How much Codex inaccuracy can you stomach?" and "Do you like the charactersation?", where my answers are "More than most" and "Z0mg YES!". So thankyou. Even though I'll disagree in the most strenuous of manners, I at least now understand what the non-canonist argument IS.

Back on topic: is it actually possible for Merlina to "recur" as a villain? In that : is she actually still alive? The (mangled and indistinct) impression I got from the Dark Queen was that she was fighting to prevent the storybook world from collapsing in on itself and everyone inside being erased from existance. And Sonic stabbed her repeatedly with a magic sword for her trouble. Does this mean that, some time after Sonic's return to Normal World, Merlina and all the Knights and all the cute long-eared munchkins simply get obliterated?

Edited May 25, 2009 by Frozen Nitrogen

[BlazingTales]

Back on topic: is it actually possible for Merlina to "recur" as a villain? In that : is she actually still alive? The (mangled and indistinct) impression I got from the Dark Queen was that she was fighting to prevent the storybook world from collapsing in on itself and everyone inside being erased from existance. And Sonic stabbed her repeatedly with a magic sword for her trouble. Does this mean that, some time after Sonic's return to Normal World, Merlina and all the Knights and all the cute long-eared munchkins simply get obliterated?

She didn't 'die' per se. It was all still just a story, just like SatSR. Merlina wasn't trying to stop it from being erased, she was trying to stop it from ending. Who knows what happens to the storybook world once the story ends? Maybe it just re-starts at the beginning. Heh, the circle of life: story-book style!

[Diogenes]

It just smacked of villain decay TO THE FACE for Robotnik to fail to keep his most powerful lieutenant in line.

That "most powerful lieutenant" who he used, like, twice.

I'm not trying to defend Heroes' story here, because it is most certainly a load of balls, but I think the vast majority of the stuff people attribute to Metal is either taken from some other continuity or just made up. He's used so rarely and almost never given any chance to build up a personality (or even prove a lack thereof) that people fill in the gaps themselves and forget it isn't canon.

Back on topic: is it actually possible for Merlina to "recur" as a villain? In that : is she actually still alive? The (mangled and indistinct) impression I got from the Dark Queen was that she was fighting to prevent the storybook world from collapsing in on itself and everyone inside being erased from existance. And Sonic stabbed her repeatedly with a magic sword for her trouble. Does this mean that, some time after Sonic's return to Normal World, Merlina and all the Knights and all the cute long-eared munchkins simply get obliterated?

I think you misunderstood it. It was more that the kingdom was destined to end eventually due to it being written in the story, rather than "oh god everything's dying right now." Well, okay Merlina gets a bit like the latter, but I think that's more her twisted perception of it than the reality.

And Merlina certainly seemed to live, unless she just died sitting there and all the characters just ignored it, but she doesn't have any reason to go evil again. She understands that you've got to live life (like the song, y'see) and not just run away from it because eventually things end.

[Frozen Nitrogen]

I think you misunderstood it. It was more that the kingdom was destined to end eventually due to it being written in the story, rather than "oh god everything's dying right now." Well, okay Merlina gets a bit like the latter, but I think that's more her twisted perception of it than the reality.

And Merlina certainly seemed to live, unless she just died sitting there and all the characters just ignored it, but she doesn't have any reason to go evil again. She understands that you've got to live life (like the song, y'see) and not just run away from it because eventually things end.

I know Merlina didn't die post-battle; it's later that I'm talking about.

SatBK didn't really seem clear on the point at all. Merlina bitches about the fact that "Lancelot and Gawain's rivalry will destroy the kingdom", but then there's ALSO all the stuff about Sonic fighting against a "world that goes on forever". Implying that, since he wins, the end of the world is nigh!

Which at different times has led me to think that the thing Merlina was trying to PREVENT could be:

a ) an "end of the world" only in the sense of the "end of the political unity of the kingdom", since "the book" said that such was inevitable, with the realm getting carved up by Lancelot / Gawain war. Everyone's still ALIVE; Merlina just didn't want to see the kingdom broken up.

ALTERNATIVELY:

b ) she's trying to prevent the decidedly NOT mundane utter destruction of their entire storybook universe when the "plot" runs out, the story ends, and everyone gets wiped out of existance, presumably. Effectively a "Solaris wins" scenario local to the Arthurian world.

And I really don't know which one the game was trying to convey.

Edited May 25, 2009 by Frozen Nitrogen

[Rusty Spy]

Which at different times has led me to think that the thing Merlina was trying to PREVENT could be:

a ) an "end of the world" only in the sense of the "end of the political unity of the kingdom", since "the book" said that such was inevitable, with the realm getting carved up by Lancelot / Gawain war. Everyone's still ALIVE; Merlina just didn't want to see the kingdom broken up.

ALTERNATIVELY:

b ) she's trying to prevent the decidedly NOT mundane utter destruction of their entire storybook universe when the "plot" runs out, the story ends, and everyone gets wiped out of existance, presumably. Effectively a "Solaris wins" scenario local to the Arthurian world.

And I really don't know which one the game was trying to convey.

Based on what she talks about, she's seems afraid of the kingdom's inevitable downfall. She explains what happens that causes the kingdom to fall, Lancelot and Gawain's rift, and during the final boss, she tries to convince Sonic of how "wonderful" and everlasting kingdom would be.

And based on her methods, she seemed to want to rule the kingdom herself, and use her magic to make the kingdom last eternity.

If their whole existence were to vanish eventually, you'd expect such a person like Merlina trying to keep the world from dieing out in nearly every storybook.

Edited May 25, 2009 by VirgoTheCougar

[Frozen Nitrogen]

Conducting two parallel threads at once:

I understand that what was slightly wrong in the codex isn't exactly game wrecking or retconning. My issue with it is the vacation Sonic takes after Eggman's disappearance, and the time lapse at the end of the game. Sonic and his world don't age, and if they're taking those drastic steps forward to set up their story, they've essentially written themselves out of canon. Otherwise we need room for four years of adventuring for Sonic and friends, and there's nowhere in canon to place those events.

I'm not 100% certain, but I don't THINK specific times are ever actually get mentioned with regard to the amount of time that passed in the Cage. And the Chronicles website says of his preceeding absence "Sonic has spent almost a year exploring the remote corners of the world", which isn't IDEAL from a crowbaring-it-in-amongst-other-games point of view, but eight/nine/ten months here or there is not crippling.

Incidentally, I find the Chronicles site also says Ix's first name is Pir'Oth. Or I guess it could be echidna-ish for "Imperator". Eh.

If their whole existence were to vanish eventually, you'd expect such a person like Merlina trying to keep the world from dieing out in nearly every storybook.

Only if they're as good at scrying "the book of the universe" as Merlina was. If you don't KNOW your world is doomed, you won't try to save it.

Then again, maybe that's what Erazor WAS trying to do. We only really get Shara's interpretation of events that "OMG he's evil he's trying to rewrite the book and break out!" But Erazor might have been pushed in his attempt to grow all-powerful and escape the stroybook world precisely because he knew it was eventually doomed.

Z0MG CONSPIRACY!!

[Diogenes]

I know Merlina didn't die post-battle; it's later that I'm talking about.

Ah, alright.

Well, it definitely seemed like an "a)" scenario to me. I don't remember anything about the book itself ending, just that the kingdom was doomed to end. And I think the two storybook games are proof that the worlds in the books are more than just the stories that they started with.

[Viku]

Besides, I know it sounds like a ridiculous theory, but. What if Sonic actions actually changed the fate of the Arthurian world?

Sonic ended being the real King Arthur and he eventually leaved the storybook even if the original story didn't say that. Also, the entire book was changed to "Sonic & The Black Knight" at the end...maybe creating a whole new fate for that world....

[Frozen Nitrogen]

Besides, I know it sounds like a ridiculous theory, but. What if Sonic actions actually changed the fate of the Arthurian world?

Sonic ended being the real King Arthur and he eventually leaved the storybook even if the original story didn't say that. Also, the entire book was changed to "Sonic & The Black Knight" at the end...maybe creating a whole new fate for that world....

Makes sense, actually. Merlina did summon Sonic in from outside the book, and so presumably he's not bound by its prophecies in any way...

ON THE OTHER HAND, Sonic was all over the prophecies in SatSR. What's up with that?

[BlazingTales]

Actually, he was totally bound to them. He was called upon as the 'brave knight, swift as the wind' by magic, and was selected by a sacred sword to be the rightful ruler of the kingdom. If that's not prophesy, I don't know what is.