Are Sonic's rings digetic?

[Tani Coyote]

This is my favourite explanation in this whole topic. I want this made canon.

Well, it would explain a lot! The rings are so spread out that it would be a chore for the average person to go around picking them up...

Unless you could cover huge amounts of ground in minutes, which, go figure, our hero and main user of the rings, can do.

Makes me wonder if people just leave them lying around, actually... they're so worthless individually that nobody would really care to pick them up.

[Lady Soniko]

Omochao specifically says Sonic's name in Crazy Gadget, so you could just as easily argue that he's also a canonical tutorial character, and I'm sure we're all just going to tack this on to bad writing, but why would Sonic and Shadow be referencing how to do things that you would assume they'd already know, such as gameplay mechanics in super forms and the process of self-regenerating rings?  Also, I contest that Sonic and Shadow's explanations are not by any stretch of the word subtle hints veiled with dialogue as they are outright explaining the mechanics just like Omochao.  The only reason the two address each other is because you're playing as them at that given time.

 

Because at the end of the day, it's still a game with mechanics that need to be explained in game some how, and who's to say that Omochao isn't actually there to aid Sonic either? He's just a robot, there's hundreds of them throughout the game to help the player out, who's to say that Sonic isn't hearing these hints himself?

 

They also don't "outright explain the mechanics just like Omochao" Asking them to "pull back, you're losing power/rings!" isn't the same as "Press A/B to switch out to collect rings and play as the other character!" It's battle banter, they're taking turns to weaken the Biolizard before they can Chaos Control the Space station back into orbit, because while it's still alive they can't exactly stand/float still when there are lasers and meatball things (lol) preventing them from getting close. I can't see how anyone wouldn't think that Sonic and Shadow were just covering themselves in game, I mean there's no way to see what is  happening with the other player that isn't in battle, so they have to explain where they've gone to the player.

 

Bottom line is they need rings to sustain super form, they know that and that's why they switch out, meaning they're aware of rings in-game and not just a game mechanic.

[Frogging101]

There was also that one episode of AoStH that had a brief scene involving rings:

They are diegetic here. However, they don't look or sound anything like the rings in the games, and this is a totally different continuity which Sonic Team had no involvement in.

sonic in a car lol

[Sparky]

The Japanese manuals for most of the classic games, namely Sonic 3/Knuckles and Knuckles' Chaotix, make reference to Rings as an in-universe thing that are commonly used to help Sonic and his friends.

[Sapphire]

I want to say they are digetic, but it's rather a quite messy situation, as yes, the rings disappear during cutscenes. That and, as Tails pointed out in Generations, where would Sonic characters keep them all?

 

They could always disappear during cutscenes because it is assumed the player got them all.

 

Maybe other townspeople of the world do not go crazy grabbing the rings they see, and instead ignore them, because rings are somewhat worthless. I mean, 60 rings for a hot dog? Perhaps a single ring is equal to about 10 cents/pence/some sort of fraction of a main currency amount. If this is the case, I could understand it. I mean, if I see a dime sitting on the ground, I'm most likely not going to pick it up.

 

It's confusing really, and I guess opinions could go either way, but I have always saw them as real. I know the TV shows and comics aren't the same continuity as the games, but they are definitely real in those universes, so that further has me believe they are digetic.

[iDEATH]

 If this is the case, I could understand it. I mean, if I see a dime sitting on the ground, I'm most likely not going to pick it up.

 

Maybe so, but I bet if you seen literally hundreds of dines littering the entire street, you'd do your best to walk off with as many as possible right?

[Lady Soniko]

I still reckon Sonic characters don't physically collect them on their body per se, as more likely to use a sort of hammer space type of storage, or even that rings, once touched, turn into energy that makes them stronger like an invisible barrier that is broken once something hits the character, and the more rings you collect, the more goes into the barrier and the more rings scatter when hit.

 

If you apply logic to Sonic, there is no way Sonic could continue to run fast when in the possession of 300+ Golden Rings, not at his Unleashed speeds.

 

There's also the possibility (in Unleashed/Generations) that rings are consumed into energy so Sonic can maintain a steady stream of boost, like a form of endorphin that physically enhances his energy output. *Shrug* 

[Salamander]

While the Boost meter implies that rings transform into energy, Sonic always retains the same total number of rings, and only the meter depletes.  Only Super states consume enough power to actually consume rings themselves.  I think it is implicit, therefore, that rings aren't just money but have some kind of magical or science-fiction-esque powers - well, they also hover and spin, so it's sort of obvious.  The manual excerpts on the previous page suggest that they're ancient artefacts, so presumably they're imbued with ancient energy or Chaos energy or something of the like.  The Boost absorbs the residual energy but Super Whoever absorbs the complete ring, suggesting that rings themselves have some kind of inaccessible power that's normally locked away.  It's probably best not to read too much into the fact that Sonic is gradually depleting the world of not just a potentially significant source of energy but also a form of currency.  Let's just leave it as rings possessing various kinds of energy which Sonic and his friends can access.  The fact that Sonic can presumably produce the rings from his body when paying for things outside of levels - and indeed, they spill out of him when he gets hit - implies that they have a kind of hammerspace-like existence or can be temporarily reduced to an energy form (like Pokemon in a PC), but can be remanifested at will.  ...I think that the way rings are consumed and held is almost certainly non-diegetic but it runs on, if you like, a diegetic form of logic - I think it's consistent with the in-universe portrayal of rings and Sonic's powers.  It makes sense even if it wasn't originally intended to.

 

Makes me wonder if you could have a Sonic game plot involving Eggman going after as many rings as possible for what seems like a financial scheme but which is actually to power his latest doomsday weapon.  Or even vice-versa!

[baba_944]

The Rings are diegetic because with the Rings, you can't go into the "Special Stage" and without the "Special Stage" you can't accumulate the "Chaos Emeralds", and without the "Chaos Emeralds", you can't save the world.

[iDEATH]

The Rings are diegetic because with the Rings, you can't go into the "Special Stage" and without the "Special Stage" you can't accumulate the "Chaos Emeralds", and without the "Chaos Emeralds", you can't save the world.

 

Again though, that could be seen as another non-digetic game mechanic.Pretty much every major game from SA onward has Sonic simply finding the emeralds in the real world.

[Tani Coyote]

On rings being absorbed and yet one hit usually being enough to take them all away: this is easily explained given that the universe takes liberties with quantity. Consider that the Chaos Emeralds are said to hold infinite power, but having more than one seems to bestow more power. This defies mathematical logic, as you can't have one-seventh of infinity. Similarly, more rings SHOULD add more protection, but for the most part they do not.

I might assume there are two types of matter in a ring: the actual metallic substance and an energy that is often drawn upon for super transformations. The energy that's associated with transformations and power can alter the metal into a state that it too is absorbed. A ring can be re-converted to solid matter, but is now depleted of its energy and is just a hollow shell. This is analogous to how the emeralds can also be drained of their energy and become regular gems.

The actual ring is still very shiny, so it makes perfect sense they can be used as currency once their energy's gone; people have an irrational fixation on giving value to anything that shines.

[baba_944]

Also , I think I've read somewhere that once you get hit, the Rings get absorbed back into the zone.

[Diogenes]

Consider that the Chaos Emeralds are said to hold infinite power, but having more than one seems to bestow more power. This defies mathematical logic, as you can't have one-seventh of infinity.

Well, holding infinite power doesn't necessarily equate to outputting infinite power.

[azoo]

Rings seem semi-diegetic. As in, Sonic collects the rings and they exist, but I don't assume he just drops them when hit. In game it's an obvious mechanic, but outside of it I'd assume rings are accumulated energy that's absorbed and not really splurted out when hit, going by cut scenes that show Sonic and co being hurt but without the ring loss.

 

To bring up the point of them being money though is a weird one.. to make currency out of something that just seems to seep out of any solid ground (or even mid-air) seems like it'd lead to a world economy that's inflated to a terrifying amount.

 

And that is why you don't think about this too hard. LOL

[Tani Coyote]

Well, holding infinite power doesn't necessarily equate to outputting infinite power.

A point Eggman made in the Worlds Collide series.

Regardless, the point was that Chaos Emeralds and rings both seem to be able to defy mathematics at times, hence why more rings is seldom more protection.