The Rouge the Bat topic

[Splash the Otter]

Chris has already said to drop this conversation.  So give it a rest.

I only noticed that after I posted my reply. Cut me some slack, will you?

[Vertekins]

She’s cool.

 

I found her dynamic with Shadow one of the more interesting kinds of character relationships in this series. And I find her quirks pretty unique for a Sonic character.

 

She doesn’t…”stand-out” to me in the same manner that Sonic, Eggman and Amy do but that doesn’t mean that I dislike her in any way, shape or form, she’s just not endearing to the same degree. She’s a great example of an independent and determined character who always tries as hard as possible to accomplish what she wants. I mean she is the one that effectively wore the pants in Team Dark throughout Heroes and she’s clearly a valuable asset to the team who is a bastion of strength that Shadow in particular seems to hold faith in, which is saying something given his anti-socialness. So in short, Rouge is a great character even if she isn’t amongst my top faves.

[Tara]

I only noticed that after I posted my reply. Cut me some slack, will you?

The fact that I didn't warn you is cutting you some slack.  I figured that to be a possibility after I typed it.  Calm yourself, please.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

The first thought I had about Rouge: "GIANT TWITCHY FLOPPY EARS !"

Everything otherwise: "Oh, there is Rouge, meh whatever."

 

She is kind of a character who is just there for me, not really sticking out but not really being offensive either.

[Chaos Incarnate]

Rogue is probably my favorite female Sonic character in the franchise, now that I think about it. She had a pretty cool introduction in Sonic Adventure 2 (shit treasure hunting aside), Lani Minella left a great impression on me with a fitting voice for the character(She's my favorite Rogue VA), and she's got a lot of spunk and sass to her personality. I enjoy her character interactions with Knuckles and Shadow, and she's yet another character I think still has untapped gameplay potential. She hasn't really done anything useful in a main series title since 06, which sucks because she's one of my favorite Sonic characters, so I would love to see her pop up more often, as long as she has a good reason for getting involved in the plot.

[Tara]

To reiterate my opinion on Rouge from several pages back, I don't hate her, but I honestly don't find her to be that appealing either.  This mainly stems from the fact that I don't feel her dialogue is written very well.  It's hard to explain, but her personality is always flip-flopping.  One minute she's one way, but during a sentimental moment or a more serious moment, she turns into a completely different person.  Yes, I know the characters are supposed to react differently to different things, but when she does it, she loses her unique diction and attitude.

 

A good writer could probably fix that up, but I love her concept.  I like someone who acts somewhat as a self-appointed guardian for Shadow.  Someone who empathizes with him and attempts to console him.  Someone that's slightly more peppy to balance out his anger issues, I guess you could say.  That kind of relationship is even more powerful when you take into account how contrary it is to her character.  She's selfish, blunt, and sneaky, but her empathy for Shadow drives her to be quite the opposite.  That's a pretty nice dynamic, in my opinion.

[Kuzu]

Rouge's problem is that she's pretty much defined by her interactions with other characters, namely Shadow. Take him away, then you wouldn't really know a lot about her or her motivations and reasons for even being in the series. Her debut seemed like she was going to be that enigmatic character who was always on her own agenda but never was truly evil but they just kinda dropped it. Nowadays she's just kinda there.

 

 

I would have really liked them to do something with her, but I've kinda given up on expecting anything interesting out of the extended cast at this point. And if how they've written Zeena to be any indication, I really don't want to imagine how Rouge would be written with Graff and Pontac.

[Tani Coyote]

Rouge's problem is that she's pretty much defined by her interactions with other characters, namely Shadow. Take him away, then you wouldn't really know a lot about her or her motivations and reasons for even being in the series. Her debut seemed like she was going to be that enigmatic character who was always on her own agenda but never was truly evil but they just kinda dropped it. Nowadays she's just kinda there.

More or less, yes. She's a foil to Shadow but doesn't stand out much on her own. Contrast to Tails, who has grown beyond being Sonic's sidekick by this point and can function more or less as his own character if SEGA wishes him to.

Rouge is overall a very different kind of character than Amy. Whereas Amy is the questionably-sane fangirl, Rouge is the intelligent, manipulative type who knows how to get what she wants. At the same time, despite her looks of not caring for anyone but herself, she does seem to genuinely want what's best for people. I think that might be one reason she's so attracted to Shadow as a friend, actually; they both have the false apathetic angle going on.

[Chooch]

Rouge is boring.

 

The only interesting thing about her is her dynamic with Shadow that only really came about in later games. In Sonic Adventure 2 I always found her kind of obnoxious. It was as if she was only created as a means to have a rival character for Knuckles in the multiplayer mode.

 

She does little to nothing in her debut game but make things difficult for Knuckles and Shadow from time to time. She almost died twice because of her laughable incompetence but never once mellowed out for longer than a minute either. What exactly is she good for in that game? No scene with her as the focus can really be taken seriously.

 

The whole character has always been some sort of weird joke from the start. A common jewel thief that somehow landed a job at a prestigious government organization who (for better or worse) was designed to be the older, confident and sexy contrast to the young, naive and innocent Amy Rose. Before Shadow earned a position there, Rouge was the only furry member of G.U.N. seen, which brings even more questions.

 

I think the character needs a mini reboot or something to that effect. Keep what's good but tweak and change what isn't. Flesh out aspects of her that seem to lack detail and maybe.. give her a new outfit?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

She does little to nothing in her debut game but make things difficult for Knuckles and Shadow from time to time. She almost died twice because of her laughable incompetence but never once mellowed out for longer than a minute either. 

Wait...slipping and falling for not watching your step and running into a guard mech that stalled her is a sign of incompetence? Are you seriously going to grasp at straws like that?

 

Well if we're accentuating unknowns and small accidents as signs of incompetence, Sonic is incompetent for getting caught twice early in the game and nearly dying for walking into a trap (that required a deus ex machina to save him), Knuckles incompetent for once again having the Emerald get shattered and nearly killing everyone in the shuttle on the way to the ARK, Tails incompetent for revealing the emerald as a fake and getting tailed by Team Dark, and this is just in SA2. We can go all the way to SA1 in how stupid everyone was in letting Eggman get six Chaos Emeralds or S3&K over how Knuckles immediately trusts someone he's never met as he defends his island over how laughably incompetent characters are.

 

What exactly is she good for in that game?

Spying on Eggman and revealing the Chekhov's gun that was the Biolizard?

[Splash the Otter]

Wait...slipping and falling for not watching your step and running into a guard mech that stalled her is a sign of incompetence? Are you seriously going to grasp at straws like that?

To be fair, she did go undercover as herself. I'm not saying you don't have a point, but still...

[Dr. Mechano]

Rouge was kind of a bad spy, to be honest. She willingly and knowingly participated in the bombing of Prison Island, killing who knows how many of her own comrades in the process. I know she was undercover, but I think blowing up a military base might be the kind of thing you don't do, no matter how much you want to keep the act up. Even if you want to argue the island was abandoned (it still had functional security, announcers, and planes all around), she at least knowingly let Heavy Dog's pilot go down in an explosion.

 

To me, that's inexcusable. It's one thing when an unabashed villain like Eggman does terrible things, or a character we know is evil but later reforms like Shadow does. But Rouge... never really "reforms," per se. She's treated as if she was never a "villainous" character. Her actions on Prison Island are never seen as particularly heinous and she expresses no regret for them, so unlike Shadow, Rouge assisted in killing her own allies and never regrets it or gets called out for it by the narrative.

 

This has always bothered me.

[Kuzu]

Yea, looking back. Rouge really wasn't all that good in SA2. She's arguably the clumsiest written character in the game.

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[Tara]

More or less, yes. She's a foil to Shadow but doesn't stand out much on her own. Contrast to Tails, who has grown beyond being Sonic's sidekick by this point and can function more or less as his own character if SEGA wishes him to.

Rouge is overall a very different kind of character than Amy. Whereas Amy is the questionably-sane fangirl, Rouge is the intelligent, manipulative type who knows how to get what she wants. At the same time, despite her looks of not caring for anyone but herself, she does seem to genuinely want what's best for people. I think that might be one reason she's so attracted to Shadow as a friend, actually; they both have the false apathetic angle going on.

That's why her relationship with Shadow works so well, in my opinion.  She's not the exact opposite of Shadow, but she isn't an emotional doppelganger, either.  She has the attitude and optimism that Shadow needs, whilst having her own agendas on top of that.

 

But yeah, she really fails to stand on her own merits.  I think the only time she ever does anything where we could think "AW THERE GOES ROUGE DOING ROUGE THINGS!" is when she's looking for the keys to Eggman's base, but even that is hardly that exciting.

 

The only interesting thing about her is her dynamic with Shadow that only really came about in later games. In Sonic Adventure 2 I always found her kind of obnoxious. It was as if she was only created as a means to have a rival character for Knuckles in the multiplayer mode.

You're criticizing her because she had to establish a relationship before she actual got to it?  No, do't get me wrong, I see where you're coming from in terms of her being obnoxious and all that, but the reason her dynamic was not as prominent (but still there, as I'll get into in a second) was because it was their first outing together.  Shadow displaying an act of selflessness could arguably be the expedient that caught her attention, further solidified by his tragic death at the end.

 

I'd argue their dynamic is there.  Not as prominently, but still there.  She shows concern for Shadow when he seems melancholy as he's remembering a special moment with Maria.  Further, the acting in SA2 isn't always top notch, but I think the tone in Rouge's voice when she's telling Shadow that his memories could very well be fake shows quite a bit of concern and care.  Shadow's returning with amnesia probably furthered this form of empathy, as her concern is blatantly visible in Heroes and onward.

 

Rouge was kind of a bad spy, to be honest. She willingly and knowingly participated in the bombing of Prison Island, killing who knows how many of her own comrades in the process. I know she was undercover, but I think blowing up a military base might be the kind of thing you don't do, no matter how much you want to keep the act up. Even if you want to argue the island was abandoned (it still had functional security, announcers, and planes all around), she at least knowingly let Heavy Dog's pilot go down in an explosion.

 

To me, that's inexcusable. It's one thing when an unabashed villain like Eggman does terrible things, or a character we know is evil but later reforms like Shadow does. But Rouge... never really "reforms," per se. She's treated as if she was never a "villainous" character. Her actions on Prison Island are never seen as particularly heinous and she expresses no regret for them, so unlike Shadow, Rouge assisted in killing her own allies and never regrets it or gets called out for it by the narrative.

 

This has always bothered me.

And furthermore, how does a spy keep her job if everyone knows she's a spy?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

To be fair, she did go undercover as herself. I'm not saying you don't have a point, but still...

I don't see how that had anything to do with what I called Chooch out on.

 

Don't get me wrong, there are lots of narrative faults in SA2 that are really off, such as that how Rouge went undercover, things that aren't explained well enough, events that ended up being Deus ex Machina's like Sonic Chaos Controling out of the blue, and such. But it's a huge stretch to call someone incompetent for sliping and falling (like no one's ever done such a thing and hurt or nearly killed themselves ) or not expecting to run into Heavy Dog in Security Hall. You might as well call Sonic incompetent for other minor stuff.

 

And furthermore, how does a spy keep her job if everyone knows she's a spy?

To be fair, it's not like anyone actually knew about her at the time. Although I find it funny how she doesn't use an alias of any kind to disguise her name and still manages to sneak by until Shadow figures out who she is by repeating the name...

[Kuzu]

That's probably where the "incompetence" comes from. What kind of spy uses their real name? Furthermore, how the hell did Shadow even know who she was?

 

 

I don't think Rouge would be so out of place if she wasn't supposed to be a spy in the first place because all it does is make her actions make less sense. If she was acting on her own, then we'd just call her a selfish bitch, but being a spy means we're supposed to at least be rooting for her.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

That's probably where the "incompetence" comes from. What kind of spy uses their real name? Furthermore, how the hell did Shadow even know who she was?

Again, that's not what I called Chooch out on. He said she almost died twice for due to her laughable incompetence. The only events that refers to is her nearly getting blown up because Heavy Dog stalled her on Prison Island, and her slipping and falling after fighting with Knuckles, calling her incompentent for events she couldn't have forseen.

[Kuzu]

Again, that's not what I called Chooch out on. He said she almost died twice for due to her laughable incompetence. The only events that refers to is her nearly getting blown up because Heavy Dog stalled her on Prison Island, and her slipping and falling after fighting with Knuckles.

 

I wouldn't call that "incompetence" but those are moments that don't exactly make your characters look good, particularly the latter event. Slipping and falling would be ok by itself, but then what was stopping Rouge from flying...

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I wouldn't call that "incompetence" but those are moments that don't exactly make your characters look good, particularly the latter event. Slipping and falling would be ok by itself, but then what was stopping Rouge from flying...

Could be anything, but I don't feel like pulling excuses out of my ass to justify it. Best I could say is that some writer didn't think that part through and made that part suffer.

 

Now how does running into Heavy Dog not make Rouge look good?

Edited December 13, 2013 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Tara]

To be fair, it's not like anyone actually knew about her at the time. Although I find it funny how she doesn't use an alias of any kind to disguise her name and still manages to sneak by until Shadow figures out who she is by repeating the name...

I suppose.  It still doesn't make sense, because why would Shadow, who has been sealed away for more than fifty years, know anything about Rouge at all?  She's only 18, according to the Sonic Heroes instruction manual.

[Dr. Mechano]

Her handling of Heavy Dog makes her seem more coldblooded than incompetent. It's like, "Okay, guy serving in the same military organization as me, I'm gonna just leave you here to be blown up by the world's most wanted terrorist now!"

 

Like I said, even if you assume Heavy Dog is the only living agent on the island (which I think is a huge underestimate), Rouge was still complicit in the death of her own countryman just for "the good of the mission." ...Maybe GUN's track record of corruption hasn't changed that much in 50 years.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Her handling of Heavy Dog makes her seem more coldblooded than incompetent. It's like, "Okay, guy serving in the same military organization as me, I'm gonna just leave you here to be blown up by the world's most wanted terrorist now!"

 

Like I said, even if you assume Heavy Dog is the only living agent on the island (which I think is a huge underestimate), Rouge was still complicit in the death of her own countryman just for "the good of the mission." ...Maybe GUN's track record of corruption hasn't changed that much in 50 years.

Well, you can't really expect being a spy to be all good natured work. Then again, ruthless Rouge may be, she is suppose to have a heart, and not completely amoral. 

 

But perhaps we're forgetting this is her debut game where she was just beginning, and we're judging her from the past with what we've grown accustomed towards her current, more caring characterization (or whatever you can make of nowadays). For all we know, they could have carried her on like that (with an emphasis on "could").

 

EDIT: Also remember that GUN did hire a Jewel Thief in the first place to do the work, so you could argue GUN is more amoral for all their good or ambigous intentions.

I suppose.  It still doesn't make sense, because why would Shadow, who has been sealed away for more than fifty years, know anything about Rouge at all?  She's only 18, according to the Sonic Heroes instruction manual.

Bad. Writing.

 

That's how. Someone forgot about "Show, don't Tell" and had Shadow instantly know about her without showing how.

[Dr. Mechano]

Well, you can't really expect being a spy to be all good natured work. Then again, ruthless Rouge may be, she is suppose to have a heart, and not completely amoral.

I get that, I do - and I'm fine with Rouge having to do not-so-good natured work... But this base belonged to her organization, and was staffed by her allies. I dunno, it'd be like James Bond blowing up a British naval base.

 

I think I'm less bothered that she did it than I am that it's never really addressed or brought up - Shadow goes through this huge ordeal of "Oh, I was wrong, life is precious, I'm good now" in the end, but... the story treats Rouge as if she was always basically a good person, which is a big incongruity for me.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I get that, I do - and I'm fine with Rouge having to do not-so-good natured work... But this base belonged to her organization, and was staffed by her allies. I dunno, it'd be like James Bond blowing up a British naval base.

Or like Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell killing his friend and superior in order to maintain his cover. (which was canon in that series in later installments)

 

Not that she didn't get blood on her hands for being involved and leaving someone to die, but what Rouge got involved in was far more impersonal and indirect by comparison. And far more toned down compared to more mature works than that.

 

 

 

I think I'm less bothered that she did it than I am that it's never really addressed or brought up - Shadow goes through this huge ordeal of "Oh, I was wrong, life is precious, I'm good now" in the end, but... the story treats Rouge as if she was always basically a good person, which is a big incongruity for me.

It does? I don't see how, because she was still screwing with everyone, and she was still going to steal the Emeralds for herself when everyone else was gonna do it for greater purposes (both good and evil). I don't see how SA2 portrayed her as a good person until the Last Story when things get desperate that everyone has to be good to stop a greater threat.

[Kuzu]

I think Mechano's kinda bothered by how the plot says we're supposed to root for Rouge, but her actions don't really seem all that heroic...

 

 

Like I said, if she was acting on her own accord then fine, she's just an ammoral bitch...but she's supposed to be a good guy, even Antiheroes don't go that far without getting called out for it.

 

I guess since this was her debut game, they hadn't really established her characterization.