Popular and unpopular Sonic opinions you agree and disagree with!

[Wraith]

1 minute ago, E-122-Psi said:

Spark of Life sort of had the same recurrent issue, it's best moments are the games cast (Big is quite fun in that arc) while the main FF still have that sort of 'blindly trying and failing to grasp a personality' thing. Like it hits a wall BIG TIME in approaching one of Sally's key traits; her contradicting tactics. No no, it is NICOLE who is the hypocrite. Sally is NEVER hypocritical.

I like Big in Archie just fine but I'm not sure how someone could read Spark of Life and walk away thinking the best parts were Big;s jokes and Tails's exposition. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

25 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

You know, no. I don't care. Think what you want.

Ain't no reason to argue. The change that I said happened, happened. Its up to you to believe it. And if you don't more power to you.

It would do you far more favors if you could actually show us instead of taking your word for it if what you’re saying is true instead of coping out like this.

[E-122-Psi]

3 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I like Big in Archie just fine but I'm not sure how someone could read Spark of Life and walk away thinking the best parts were Big;s jokes and Tails's exposition. 

Because again those are the parts that don't piss me off compared to them trying and failing to make the FF interesting personality wise and once again completely missing the point involving Sally's designated hero status.

Big came out of the arc with an endearing and cohesive personality that affects how he interacts with others, something they continuously fail to do with the FF.

[Shadowlax]

5 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

It would do you far more favors if you could actually show us instead of taking your word for it if what you’re saying is true instead of coping out like this.

Eh maybe. But I dunno, if you think you are right then, cool. I just don't care to have to this argument. I typed out a whole response too. Deleted it, I dunno man. Its cool.

Its a comic that's long gone. Its whatever man

[Wraith]

59 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

Because again those are the parts that don't piss me off compared to them trying and failing to make the FF interesting personality wise and once again completely missing the point involving Sally's designated hero status.

Quote

Spark of Life sort of had the same recurrent issue, it's best moments are the games cast (Big is quite fun in that arc) while the main FF still have that sort of 'blindly trying and failing to grasp a personality' thing. Like it hits a wall BIG TIME in approaching one of Sally's key traits; her contradicting tactics. No no, it is NICOLE who is the hypocrite. Sally is NEVER hypocritical.

 

The point of that moment and the arc as a whole wasn't ever to challenge Sally's hypocrisy or to call Nicole out or anything. The point is literally logic versus emotion and how we can't help acting on the latter sometimes. It's not supposed to be some kind of cynical gotcha moment. 

[E-122-Psi]

35 minutes ago, Wraith said:

 

The point of that moment and the arc as a whole wasn't ever to challenge Sally's hypocrisy or to call Nicole out or anything. The point is literally logic versus emotion and how we can't help acting on the latter sometimes. It's not supposed to be some kind of cynical gotcha moment. 

But again that they decided NOT to choose the most fitting character for the situation, and arguably one that could most benefit and gain something of a character study from this sort of scenario (Sally's personality pretty much IS logic vs emotion), shows the main issue with the Freedom Fighters; that their personalities do not matter in the long run of things, they are pawns for the writers to place as they want, with any quirks just there to pepper the exposition and drama. They feel interchangeable in that role and thus not really feel like they offer anything new in dynamic from adapting, while even with the issues with the SEGA cast, it feels like they can have a role that benefits the plot besides hierarchy and physical attributes (even in Team Sonic Racing you have cases like Vector shanghaiing Silver and Blaze in as a team the moment money comes into the situation).

[Wraith]

1 minute ago, E-122-Psi said:

But again that they decided NOT to choose the most fitting character for the situation, and arguably one that could most benefit and gain something of a character study from it (Sally's personality pretty much IS logic vs emotion), shows the main issue with the Freedom Fighters; that their personalities do not matter in the long run of things, they are pawns for the writers to place as they want, with any quirks just there to pepper the exposition and drama. They feel interchangeable in that role and thus not really like they offer anything new in dynamic from adapting.

They made the wrong choice by using the literal computer who grew out of an entirely logic driven mindset to do the job with Sally being used to supplement that theme? 

[E-122-Psi]

Just now, Wraith said:

They made the wrong choice by using the literal computer who grew out of an entirely logic driven mindset to do the job with Sally being used to supplement that theme? 

Considering how it's a role that Sally has needed as character establishment for two decades and NICOLE, being pretty much a blank, could benefit from any sort of personality, YES!

[Wraith]

1 minute ago, E-122-Psi said:

Considering how it's a role that Sally has needed as character establishment for two decades and NICOLE, being pretty much a blank, could benefit from any sort of personality, YES!

So you admit Nicole could benefit from some fleshing out but you don't like the arc that fleshes her out and explores her personality because it should have been Sally instead? In an arc built entirely around Nicole's past? An arc that features a lot of character driven moments for Sally on top of things?

[E-122-Psi]

5 minutes ago, Wraith said:

So you admit Nicole could benefit from some fleshing out but you don't like the arc that fleshes her out and explores her personality because it should have been Sally instead? In an arc built entirely around Nicole's past? An arc that features a lot of character driven moments for Sally on top of things?

Yes, because it only further shows the writers missing the forest for the trees and failing in execution. Sally is still an unlikeable designated hero and while NICOLE gains something of personality development, I'd still struggle not to call her bland, just better handled than Sally. 

I'm sorry but this arc just seriously pissed me off. That is my problem with Freedom Fighters. I get lethargic with the SEGA cast most of the time, but the Freedom Fighters are INFURIATING to watch at their worst. I don't want to watch a character that makes me ANGRY AND FRUSTRATED with the story.

[Wraith]

As someone who thought Sally was boring in the comics at first, She had long been a perfectly functional, well rounded member of the cast at this point and this arc only made her and Nicole's characters richer. If you disliked her because she was underdeveloped it should be exactly the type of content one would be pushing for. 

Maybe it's time to acknowledge that she isn't the problem. No writer can do anything about deep seated grudges.

[DabigRG]

Shadow has inherit balancing issues compared to other characters, to be honest. Some of its arguably flanderization, the terms of his heyday, and the character having a considerable following/legacy, but it's still there.

That's why, though he wasn't as exclusive as some might think in hindsight, he was more common in bigger scope stories and conflicts then smaller ones.

The comics with it's own built up world, stakes, and capabilities had to take that into account and so do other things.  Which led to the creation of Eclipse, who in universe was bred specifically to counter and nullify his abilities, along with SEGA saying no to Mephiles finding a loophole to come back. Hell, IDW despite being far more open somehow had his specialized power be veto'd because it somehow doesn't make the current big vision of his character.

Sonic Boom did a number of outrageous things and didn't hold back making fun of almost any character at any given time, but they couldn't help getting shaky legs when Shadow was put on the table.

And finally, a lot of his recent game appearances are showing as of the worse uses of him because, in addition to the direction they're going in, they have a hard time making him a noteworthy presence when the stakes aren't that high. 

[E-122-Psi]

7 minutes ago, Wraith said:

As someone who thought Sally was boring in the comics at first, She had long been a perfectly functional, well rounded member of the cast at this point and this arc only made her and Nicole's characters richer. If you disliked her because she was underdeveloped it should be exactly the type of content one would be pushing for. 

Maybe it's time to acknowledge that she isn't the problem. No writer can do anything about deep seated grudges.

Here's the thing, Sally keeps having a personality insistively instilled into her by the writers, but it's not the one they WANT to do. The Sally that they WANT is a consistently humble mediator and straight man that only has moments of weakness mostly beyond her control or when others push her past reasonable breaking point. The Sally they keep doing by reflex is a self contradicting but well meaning control freak who often chastises the very people she shares the same flaws as. I actually wouldn't MIND the latter Sally at all if they just went with it, just let her have her hubris called out and suffer a few blows, but the writers refuse to accept that version, that their Sally can be like those silly cartoon SEGA characters and actually be a bit of an arrogant jerk sometimes. This is a problem because not being called out in the story can make all the difference from a sympathetic arrogant jerk and an insufferable enabled arrogant jerk who doesn't really have a focused and coherent personality. And i don't want that adapted into the games.

It's glaring when I think the most effecient character study for Sally is from a Christmas Carol fan-comic than anything in the official cartoons or comics.

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, Wraith said:

I like Big in Archie just fine but I'm not sure how someone could read Spark of Life and walk away thinking the best parts were Big;s jokes and Tails's exposition. 

Psi's talking about his opinion on Nicole.

 

Tails did virtually jackshit from what I remember though.

[Wraith]

3 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

Here's the thing, Sally keeps having a personality inherently instilled into her by the writers, but it's not the one they WANT to do. The Sally that they WANT is a humble mediator and straight man that only has moments of weakness mostly beyond her control. The Sally they keep doing by reflex is a self contradicting but well meaning egomaniac. I actually wouldn't MIND the latter Sally at all if they just went with it, just let her have her hubris called out and suffer a few blows, but the writers refuse to accept that version, that their Sally can be like those silly cartoon SEGA characters and actually be a bit of an arrogant jerk sometimes. This is a problem because not being called out in the story can make all the difference from a sympathetic arrogant jerk and an insufferable enabled arrogant jerk.

I need more examples of Sally being an egomaniac before this starts to make any kind of sense to me as an argument.

If you wanted a story that's essentially a take down of Sally's character you were barking up the wrong tree to begin with, but I could at least understand if it was a character that was actually a bad person. 

[DabigRG]

That said

2 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

Because again those are the parts that don't piss me off compared to them trying and failing to make the FF interesting personality wise and once again completely missing the point involving Sally's designated hero status.

Big came out of the arc with an endearing and cohesive personality that affects how he interacts with others, something they continuously fail to do with the FF.

I get what you're saying better now than before, where there's an undercurrent of letting your issues with Sally take precedence over what the arc itself was doing.

[E-122-Psi]

1 minute ago, DabigRG said:

Psi's talking about his opinion on Nicole.

 

Tails did virtually jackshit from what I remember though.

Tails is probably the SEGA character who suffers most similarly from the FF's issue and is there more as a utility and bio enforced role rather than a personality they can instinctively grant him. Lost Worlds even shows him 'pulling a Sally', with the writers struggling to think up a flawed personality for him and more or less making him into a designated hero. Boom shows what happens when they focus the quirks they have laid out and write it into a coherent and likeable personality.

[DabigRG]

22 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

Considering how it's a role that Sally has needed as character establishment for two decades and NICOLE, being pretty much a blank, could benefit from any sort of personality, YES!

 

18 minutes ago, Wraith said:

So you admit Nicole could benefit from some fleshing out but you don't like the arc that fleshes her out and explores her personality because it should have been Sally instead? In an arc built entirely around Nicole's past? An arc that features a lot of character driven moments for Sally on top of things?

Surprised this didn't show up in that Right moment Wrong character topic, now that I think about it.

 

4 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

Tails is probably the SEGA character who suffers most similarly from the FF's issue and is there more as a utility and bio enforced role rather than a personality they can instinctively grant him. Lost Worlds even shows him 'pulling a Sally', with the writers struggling to think up a flawed personality for him and more or less making him into a designated hero. Boom shows what happens when they focus the quirks they have laid out and write it into a coherent and likeable personality.

True dat.

[E-122-Psi]

14 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I need more examples of Sally being an egomaniac before this starts to make any kind of sense to me as an argument.

If you wanted a story that's essentially a take down of Sally's character you were barking up the wrong tree to begin with, but I could at least understand if it was a character that was actually a bad person. 

The post reboot is full of these moments. I mean it starts off with her more or less playing the well meaning mother role to Cream, refusing to let her play part and actually being rather condescending towards her. This could have set up for an okay bit of character development when Cream actually ends up rescuing her from a mission go wrong. But they don't focus on that link. At all. Sally's well meaning overprotectiveness and underestimation of her team being put in front of her could have been a good vice to demonstrate at the start of the reboot, but instead they focus on an another arbitrary 'see Sally screwed up, she's NOT a Mary Sue' shill.

This is not counting the thousand billion times Sally has lambasted Sonic or another character in the past for being reckless or arrogant, and then done the exact same thing. Even the times she is acknowledged as making a mistake, they do not piece that side of her together, that she is a character that wants to be logical and pragmatic but keeps falling to moments of weaknesses and hypocrisy.

I feel this is especially important in the case of Sally because her vices of self righteousness and hypocrisy are very unctuous and contemptible traits if not written well and humbled every now and then. Sally has all the means to come off as sympathetic through these flaws, she is in a scenario where there are legitimate stakes after all, she can be forgiven for having moments of weakness or contradicting herself, but the writers don't even want to take it that far, they don't see her as a haughty character who needs to understand her own contradictions in her dynamics with other characters and how she might have the slightest trace of an ego.

Take Twilight Sparkle for example, she is very much like Sally's archetype, but the uglier side of personality, her control freak symptoms, insistence of logic despite impulsive actions, and 'I know what's best for you more than you do' outlook is called out and undermined A LOT and plays into a lot of her chemistries with other characters. Her conflict to want to demonstrate good ethics but having human conflicts about them is also put in front of her and makes her a sympathetically human character in spite of her contradictions, something they would never do for Sally.

[Wraith]

9 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

The post reboot is full of these moments. I mean it starts off with her more or less playing the well meaning mother role to Cream, refusing to let her play part and actually being rather condescending towards her. This could have set up for an okay bit of character development when Cream actually ends up rescuing her from a mission go wrong. But they don't focus on that link. At all. Sally's well meaning overprotectiveness and underestimation of her team being put in front of her could have been a good vice to demonstrate at the start of the reboot, but instead they focus on an another arbitrary 'see Sally screwed up, she's NOT a Mary Sue' shill.

This is not counting the thousand billion times Sally has lambasted Sonic or another character in the past for being reckless or arrogant, and then done the exact same thing. Even the times she is acknowledged as making a mistake, they do not piece that side of her together, that she is a character that wants to be logical and pragmatic but keeps falling to moments of weaknesses and hypocrisy.

I feel this is especially important in the case of Sally because her vices of self righteousness and hypocrisy are very unctuous and contemptible traits if not written well and humbled every now and then. Sally has all the means to come off as sympathetic through these flaws, she is in a scenario where there are legitimate stakes after all, she can be forgiven for having moments of weakness or contradicting herself, but the writers don't even want to take it that far, they don't see her as a haughty character who needs to understand her own contradictions in her dynamics with other characters and how she might have the slightest trace of an ego.

Take Twilight Sparkle for example, she is very much like Sally's archetype, but the uglier side of personality, her control freak symptoms and 'I know what's best for you more than you do' outlook is called out and undermined A LOT. Her conflict to want to demonstrate good ethics but having human conflicts about them is also put in front of her and makes her a sympathetically human character in spite of her contradictions, something they would never do for Sally.

So, before we continue, you consider this condescending, controlling, ego driven behavior?

This is your example of Sally being egotistical? I just want to understand your perspective before I continue. 

[E-122-Psi]

I remember a mildly more condescending moment between them earlier on.

Again the problem isn't that she's being an over the top egotistical jerk, the whole point is that she cares about Cream, just she is being humanly over sheltering and overprotective over a character that has proved capable before. It's hardly her WORST infraction but it's something that could have gone perfectly with the flow of the comic story and yet they never put it together after Cream saves her. It's supposedly not a lesson Sally has to learn.

[Kuzu]

Psi, I've watched a lot of your post for years and I have to ask, what is it that you actually want for the freedom fighters?

Because it feels like whenever the Freedom Fighters are the main subject, you can't help but show your complete and utter disdain of them, while listing off every single flaw they have, percieved or otherwise. Even when the consensus was that Flynn ultimately improved on them, especially post-Reboot.

So once again, what do you want? Because it feels you want to hate the Freedom Fighters and will contrive any reason to do so and, then try and justify it. It honestly  does feel like you would just be satisfied if they never appeared again.

[DabigRG]

2 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

I remember a mildly more condescending moment between them earlier on.

Again the problem isn't that she's being an over the top egotistical jerk, just she is being humanly condescending over a character that has proved capable before. It's hardly her WORST infraction but it's something that could have gone perfectly with the flow of the comic story.

I don't think that angle was there until the Control arc where it was relevant. Here, she needed an extra set of eyes on the command deck as everyone else scrambles to save people. 

[Wraith]

3 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

I remember a mildly more condescending moment between them earlier on.

Again the problem isn't that she's being an over the top egotistical jerk, the whole point is that she cares about Cream, just she is being humanly condescending and overprotective over a character that has proved capable before. It's hardly her WORST infraction but it's something that could have gone perfectly with the flow of the comic story and yet they never put it together after Cream saves her. It's supposedly not a lesson Sally has to learn.

I want to know what her worst infraction is. 

[DabigRG]

3 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Psi, I've watched a lot of your post for years and I have to ask, what is it that you actually want for the freedom fighters?

Because it feels like whenever the Freedom Fighters are the main subject, you can't help but show your complete and utter disdain of them, while listing off every single flaw they have, percieved or otherwise. Even when the consensus was that Flynn ultimately improved on them, especially post-Reboot.

So once again, what do you want? Because it feels you want to hate the Freedom Fighters and contrive any reason to do so and would just be satisfied if they never appeared again.

Objectively: for them to be functional and entertaining characters that can be effective, distinct presences in any story regardless of what the plot commands they be.

Subjectively: for at least Sally to have her issues as a character addressed in universe so that it hopefully stop hanging over him every time he sees her and can be weaved into her overall characterization more seamlessly.