Favorite Non-Robotnik Sonic Villain(s)?

[Diogenes]

Is that really a thing? Where does this symbolic concept stem from? I'm probably misinterpreting the statement, but I’ve never noticed a correlation between rank/power to how humanoid angels or demons are in western lore. The highest-ranking angels in particular sound like one big happy club of mutated abominations.

I don't know if there's any actual mythological basis for it, but it's basically Anime 101.

[ModernSonic]

I like Metal Sonic and Shadow when he used to be bad at the start of Sonic Adventure 2. What does Shadow do anymore?

[Spin Attaxx]

It's a stretch but I’d say my favorite sonic villian is Professor Gerald , at least before the retcons.

There were no retcons. Gerald was initially going to stop the Black Arms, but then G.U.N. came, killed Maria, he went cuccoo-bananas and tried to destroy humanity.

[Nerfuffle]

There were no retcons. Gerald was initially going to stop the Black Arms, but then G.U.N. came, killed Maria, he went cuccoo-bananas and tried to destroy humanity.

Is there an internet term for "added pointless details that made things less scary" then?

 

I don't know if there's any actual mythological basis for it, but it's basically Anime 101.

Note to self, watch more anime.

[Spin Attaxx]

...good point on that "less scary" things part.

[UltDevilDoom]

Let's see...Perfect Chaos and The Biolizard were little more than wild animals. Time Eater was being controlled by the Robotniks so he doesn't count. Dark Gaia doesn't really deserve a mention besides being ugly as hell. I hate Merlina and anything Solaris-related for obvious reasons. All of the Genesis games had Robotnik as the villian. Ix....not a serious contender for me. I think that leaves my two favorites: Black Doom and Erazor Djinn.

 

Black Doom and Erazor Djinn were the only villians besides Robotnik who were actually evil...and good at it. They had plans. They had motives. They were evil as hell. Black Doom more so because he broke the chain of villians either conquering or destroying the world by going further.

 

My most favorite is Black Doom because I think that he's more evil, and because the final battle with Erazor Djinn was confusing at first, and disappointing all the other times.

 

Fang gets an honorable mention. 

Edited May 9, 2013 by UltDevilDoom

[CSW]

Hands down.... Mephiles the Dark! Badass central! Depressing that he's not really seen much anymore.   Dan Green's delivery was top-notch, man. I mean, holy shit....

Edited May 9, 2013 by CSW1023

[Splash the Otter]

Hands down.... Mephiles the Dark! Badass central! Depressing that he's not really seen much anymore.   Dan Green's delivery was top-notch, man. I mean, holy shit....

He probably isn't seen much because he doesn't exist in the new timeline that NextGen created.

[CSW]

He probably isn't seen much because he doesn't exist in the new timeline that NextGen created.

It would of been nice. But I see your point though.... (Damn it...)

[Tani Coyote]

Is that really a thing? Where does this symbolic concept stem from? I'm probably misinterpreting the statement, but I’ve never noticed a correlation between rank/power to how humanoid angels or demons are in western lore. The highest-ranking angels in particular sound like one big happy club of mutated abominations.

 

Regardless, yeah, the biolizard was probably designed with the features of various slimy cold-blooded creatures rather than a mutated humanoid hedgehog mostly so the player wouldn’t feel sympathy for it and feel triumphant after defeating it.

Heck, if the Tails doll inspired so many creepy pastas imagine the response to having to fight a deformed, mutilated, cyborg version of Shadow.I felt like he was this puppet master that people around him constantly underestimated. 

 

All of his living experiments seemed like brainwashed suicide bombers. (The biolizard teleporting and fusing with the Ark's cannon no doubt crushing several organs in order to drag the colony to the planet its self, Shadow blowing up the planet full knowing his memories could be fake etc..)

Comparing a live broadcast of an egotistical dictator boasting about how awesome he is to a recorded grainy video of down trodden man who has lost everything calmly talking about how everyone will die before being executed on camera, the former is a lot scarier to me.

 

Well it's not so much in established lore as much as popular culture. The most powerful "Angel" is God himself, and based on the "made in his image" thing, he would look human. His archangels are commonly depicted as being humanoid as well. Contrast to how the rank and file demon might look human, but the more powerful ones get more bestial until you find the absolutely hideous person of Satan himself. You'll rarely see an angel turn into a monster, whereas if a demon looks human it's almost always a disguise for something ugly as sin (no pun intended). I believe it all boils down to the "man over beast" trope, really; the good guys look human and the bad guys look like monsters. Anyway, veering off-topic!

 

You're probably onto something with the design being meant to manipulate players' emotions. You can actually feel sad when Shadow dies despite all the horrible things he's done or attempted to do... when the Biolizard dies you're just "Yay!" It's just ultimately easier to bring out emotions with a sentient being, generally. Yes you can have sad moments with animals, but you have a wider emotional range with humans since you can involve language and the like.

 

Gerald is an interesting villain, having gone from an optimistic man seeking to help everyone to wanting to slaughter them all. Whether he can really qualify as a villain given his brief, grief-fueled tenure as one would be an interesting point of debate.

 

I personally was most impressed by how Shadow was subtly shown to be the real antagonist of SA2. He had planned for the ARK to fall to Earth from the very beginning, all on a desire of revenge... while Gerald might have fudged his memories somewhat, ultimately Shadow maintained his own intellect and free will, and decided he would exterminate humanity if that is what his friend desired. Whereas Gerald was motivated by grief, Shadow was motivated by a rational reason - he somehow presumed it was Maria's dying wish and would do anything to accomplish it.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Ogilvie Maurice

[Vertekins]

In a way, yes it is. However, it's a sign of a weak plot when you, the viewer, can't connect the dots so that the conclusion can add up.

 

As effective as the twist was in being shocking, Merlina's reveal sat on a very thin edge between Cheknov's Gun and Diabolus Ex Machina (Ass Pull for the villian) if you analyzed it more from the cutscenes. You know she's worrying about something dying from her comment about the flower she used as a metaphor for the kingdom, and this is what makes it the Cheknov's Gun. However, you don't see how what she was doing would lead up to the twist where she sets herself up as the villain. It's one thing to mislead the viewer in that what seems like a hero really was the villain under your nose, that's part of what a Cheknov's Gun can be used for. But you still have to let the viewer connect the dots so that they can make a decent conclusion before showing them the correct answer through the twist.

 

...or maybe that's exactly what happened and perhaps I need to rewatch those cutscenes again. Because to be perfectly honest, it's been a VERY long time since I last watched it and my memory has definitely faded on the Black Knight, and I'm really just providing some literary knowledge than anything. Or Verte could clear it up and save me the time.

 

I always thought that Merlina's 'forlorn introspection' with the flower was great and subtle foreshadowing in how it hinted at Merlina's ideals; "Why do flowers bloom when they're destined to wither? Their time of beauty is so short-lived" - Indeed, Merlina is commiserating here what the point of life is if it can't be eternal and/or beautiful and this is clearly a motivation behind her actions.

 

Whatsmore, when Sonic seemed to consider her stance for a moment upon confronting her, he flashbacks in his mind to the moment when she had her introspection with the flower and then understands her stance after asking "Why did you do it? Weren't we trying to save this kingdom from the underworld?", indicating that he was initially mystified concerning the reason behind her betrayal and having the bonus effect of making his handing of the scabbard over to Merlina that much more believable because he never expected her to do that in the first place. He outright refuses to even begin to understand her sadness because it's one-sided and he despises sadness especially if it's one-sided.

 

It's a plot point that is subtle but it's clearly set up in a fairly clever way. Sonic is trusting (Except for Eggman) and this was even shown in SatSR in which he was likewise pretty shocked by Shahra's betrayal yet you can't blame Sonic for this trust when neither girl in the Storybook games showed any indication whatsoever to him that they were ultimately backstabbers.

 

What I also recently noticed is that it appears that Merlina doesn't just seemingly use the scabbard to bolster her high ancient magic, she appears to apply the scabbard's immortality bewitchment to the very land itself. When the Illusory King Arthur activated the scabbard's power, it glows with a blue light. It does the same when Merlina plunges it into the ground, indicating that it's properties of immortality have been activated and that she's slamming it directly into the ground to apply it's power to the land in order to make the very land immortal.

 

 

The way it spreads across the land from the castle like a creeping curse indicates the land being 'infected' by the immortality of the scabbard and is probably why Merlina doesn't have it with her when Sonic confronts her (It's more than likely been left where it was plunged into the ground so it can work it's magic) I honestly didn't notice this before because I thought that she applied a stasis spell of her own creation to the land.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Vertekins

[DarkLight]

^I can agree to that. But I still feel more could've been shown regarding what she's been doing up until the twist. I brought this up the "storylines you'd make better" thread:

 

While I wouldn't change anything about Black Knight's story, I would've wanted to add a little scene of Merlina and what she does while laying low. It made sense story-wise why she wouldn't want to accompany Sonic and Caliburn in their quest since she is a wanted fugitive, but at the same time, I felt more could've been done with her prior to the twist. Maybe have her overview Sonic's progress and have her monologue about finally saving the kingdom and throw in her relationship with her grandfather. Something like this:

 

"Sonic is making fantastic progress. Excellent. When he finally defeats Arthur, the kingdom will forever be saved from itself. A destiny it was never meant to have. Oh, grandfather. Though I owe so much to your teachings and guidance, I shall prove to you once and for all that fate should never be set in stone."

 

Basically show that she's still on the good guy's side but foreshadow that she has a more important role later on, all the while not flat-out saying she's the real villain and killing the effective plot-twist.

 

Edited May 9, 2013 by DarkLight

[Chronozoah]

Mephiles the Dark, and Shadow when he was a villain.

[-blank-]

I like Metal Sonic and Shadow when he used to be bad at the start of Sonic Adventure 2.  What does Shadow do anymore?

 

He's an agent for GUN.

[FireBird75]

He's an agent for GUN.

That was in '06 which got retconned.

[Splash the Otter]

That was in '06 which got retconned.

Shadow joined GUN at the end of his game, remember? Even though NextGen is the only game where we actually see him doing stuff for GUN, it doesn't mean he isn't part of them. This is somewhat reinforced by the fact that he drives a GUN vehicle in ASRT.

[NocturnalTwilight]

Metal Sonic is probably my favorite, we haven't even seen him in a while, not including Free Riders.

 

Hope he makes an epic comeback in some new Adventure. 

[FireBird75]

Shadow joined GUN at the end of his game, remember?

No. I don't remember that at all.  The last thing I saw in that game was Shadow in Space Colony Ark tossing aside a picture of Maria and Gerald, finally putting his past behind him.

[Splash the Otter]

No. I don't remember that at all.  The last thing I saw in that game was Shadow in Space Colony Ark tossing aside a picture of Maria and Gerald, finally putting his past behind him.

Oh, my mistake! It was actually in Space Gadget (Expert Mode). The Commander mentions that he became a grandfather recently, and invites Shadow over. It's believed that this is when Shadow joined GUN. So while there's no actual proof, it still doesn't prevent Shadow from being a member before the events of NextGen.

[The Pit of Mystic Cave]

I'e always liked Gemeryl 

Even though he's rather pointless, considering we already have metal sonic, I really liked his role in Sonic Advance 3 as a reoccurring boss. He reminded me a bit of the Silver Sonic and Mecha Sonic fights, and I like the idea of Eggman having a sort of sidekick that is as persistent as he is with defeating Sonic.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I always thought that Merlina's 'forlorn introspection' with the flower was great and subtle foreshadowing in how it hinted at Merlina's ideals; "Why do flowers bloom when they're destined to wither? Their time of beauty is so short-lived" - Indeed, Merlina is commiserating here what the point of life is if it can't be eternal and/or beautiful and this is clearly a motivation behind her actions.

For her ideals and motivations, yes. But as far as knowing that she would turn on you, despite her best intentions, came off rather weakly from what I remember. We didn't fully know she was planning something to get a good judge on what she had in mind aside from  her thoughts towards preserving something until the reveal.

 

A good place where something like this was done rather effectively would be Super Paper Mario, in which the true antagonist Dimentio gives off subtle clues that tells you he's up to something but without fully giving away everything. Although that was probably helped by how much of a fool he looked liked before his methods became more and more diabolical and sneaky, you didn't fully grasp what he was doing and probably didn't care until it all came together near the end. For example, when you hear about him talk about his "projects" near the very beginning of the game, you don't know what he was talking about and all you really know is that he's working with Count Bleck. Then you fight him, and he talks about you getting stronger if you actually want to beat the Count, which doesn't give away his intentions and can almost go completely over your head despite the hint that he might not be on the Count's side. Then he mind-controls one of his allies, and sicks them on you to test something, which is rather clever foreshadowing and also a great distraction in the plot because at this point you're probably thinking he's just screwing with you at this point given how he manipulates things, and the mind control he uses was also used by one of the bosses in the game. Then he seemingly "kills" you with a (litteral) snap, while actually allowing you to bypass a roadblock so you can actually continue your quest (which is helped in disguising the intention because you end up going to a purgatory like place and think your game is over). Throughout the time your playing the game, he's doing all sorts of things that makes a lot of sense and can be easily attributed to him when you finally put things together, and this is also clever in itself because if not for your friend you (the player) can end up getting manipulated yourself into allying with him, yet end up getting mind-controlled like he did one of his allies early in the game - I almost sided with him on my first play through when he revealed everything to me, and only because of my other teammate who was with me the whole time and kept warning me not to side with him did I finally say "no". And then he sets the end-game.

 

I left out a lot of other mentions and details in that huge paragraph, such as him teleporting Princess Peach away to avoid getting mind-controlled by the Count's dragon, and how he "killed" Luigi and sent him to the same place where he "killed" the other three characters so they could meet up as foretold in the competing prophecies of the game and reach the final point in the game. But that was just an example of how to mislead the player that was done rather well. Comparing that to SatBK, it makes BK seem a little weak, but BK still comes off as much more effective in the storytelling as far as that goes.

 

That being said, I am comparing two different types of villain, a sympathetic one and a sociopathic one. So there's a whole different matter of personality when it comes to foreshadowing the two. Dimentio was ruthless and evil, plain and simple, but the way he was behaving throughout the game makes it hard to tell as he often appeared to help you even though he was only doing so for himself; Merlina was meant to be sympathetic, yet misguided, and if she crossed a major line it would ruin that sympathy she was meant to have all throughout the game and she was doing it for more than just herself. You're not suppose to empathize with Dimentio as anything but a clever villain, but you're suppose to feel remorse and empathize with Merlina as someone with good intentions despite her being somewhat ruthless.

 

But in either case as far as the characterization goes. it's a matter of fooling not just the main character, but the player as well. Dimentio pulled it off rather well - not one moment could you look back in the game to everything he claimed to do and call in an asspull. But I think that Merlina could have been FAR more Machiavellian and convincing with more work beyond the "forlorn introspection", and (correct me if I'm wrong) her actions were too far into the background for the player to see and get any glimpse that there was something up. No red herring, one moment of foreshadowing, then she leaves you on your own before you and the other knights confront her and she reveals everything at that moment.

 

Perhaps I'm being too critical or am missing some other key details, but you can see what I'm trying to say.

 

 

 

Also...

 

 

Why the FUCK did I look at this and picture Princess Zelda for a split-second?

Edited May 23, 2013 by ChaosSupremeSonîc

[Ixis Naugus]

Ixis Naugus with Snively Robotnik coming in as a close second.