"The world will betray you Shadow"

[thumbs13]

8 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

Still, Shadow pummeling him triggered the desire for more power. Ergo, Shadow is responsible for Infinite’s uprising.

...No? That takes all agency out of Infinite's hands, like for real, and I'd argue it'd make him worse as a character. Infinite is responsible for his own actions, and Shadow was a kindler at most. 

[StaticMania]

Infinite had no agency to begin with, he was working for Eggman...'s minion.

The agency would then be what he decides to do after...but he still just works for Eggman.

[Tara]

I also don't think it's really fair to say that Shadow was ultimately responsible for Infinite's creation.  At least, if we look at it from the perspective of a skeptical audience and not an audience who just accepts whatever tone the narrative wants us to accept.  I'm sure the writing team would love for us to think "Yeah, see, this is actually Shadow's fault, so that really shows what an antihero Shadow is and what a complex character Infinite is!" even though I doubt they even thought that far ahead themselves.  To any rational witness, Infinite's transformation would easily be seen as a severe overreaction.  Like, that's largely the reason the "I'M NOT WEAK!!!" moment is so often lampooned upon.  That and it being so ham-fisted and melodramatic that it almost makes Full House seem like a shocking exposé of the plight of the American working class.

[Shadowlax]

23 minutes ago, Tara said:

I also don't think it's really fair to say that Shadow was ultimately responsible for Infinite's creation.  At least, if we look at it from the perspective of a skeptical audience and not an audience who just accepts whatever tone the narrative wants us to accept.  I'm sure the writing team would love for us to think "Yeah, see, this is actually Shadow's fault, so that really shows what an antihero Shadow is and what a complex character Infinite is!" even though I doubt they even thought that far ahead themselves.  To any rational witness, Infinite's transformation would easily be seen as a severe overreaction.  Like, that's largely the reason the "I'M NOT WEAK!!!" moment is so often lampooned upon.  That and it being so ham-fisted and melodramatic that it almost makes Full House seem like a shocking exposé of the plight of the American working class.

It genuinely reads like " If we put the character next to the popular character and have him say similar lines people will like him " . That is ontop of the DLC feeling like a weird bandaid for the games story rather than an extra thing. Nothing feels like its even trying to be a narrative, yet it wants you to believe what its trying to convey. Everything feels like an excuse for something to exist rather than trying to convey a narrative. The whole games story is like that really. People joke about the game is like your fanfiction to hang out with sonic, but honestly the character who feels  the most bad fanfiction is infinite and scenes like the one with shadow are why.

And I think they know, I think that's part of the reason we have not seen him and I don't think we are.

[Zaysho]

Infinite's entire deal is that he sees himself as "the ultimate mercenary," but he's also just kind of a loser who wants more power. If Eggman gave him the resources to take out Sonic and he and his crew still got beaten, the results would have been the same. I don't think it helps much that Shadow is such a non-entity in the final game, they would have been better off just putting him under mind control as a first showing of Infinite's power-up (even though that's a pretty tired plotpoint with Shadow).

[Shadowlax]

17 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

Infinite's entire deal is that he sees himself as "the ultimate mercenary," but he's also just kind of a loser who wants more power. If Eggman gave him the resources to take out Sonic and he and his crew still got beaten, the results would have been the same. I don't think it helps much that Shadow is such a non-entity in the final game, they would have been better off just putting him under mind control as a first showing of Infinite's power-up (even though that's a pretty tired plotpoint with Shadow).

If i'm being a reasonable person. It seems like the direction they went shadow in particular is that he's like a strong dude nowadays and his mistakes are mostly hubris based, so they didn't have much to do with him so he's just not there because he's strong. But they were doing adventure era call backs so they had him there anyway. This would coincide with the games other decision of poor call backs to other things, and a bunch of other narrative things in the game that are just there to be there. A reasonable but boring answer. Shadow is one of many of the same problem.

If I were being a more conspiratorial person. Knowing first hand that sometimes you know when you are working on a game, film or other project and it probably isn't gonna turnout good. I would suggest that someone may have said a variant of " We are not throwing all these characters under a bus for this guy, he's garbage. So they aren't real" . It would explain why zavok actually talks and shit and seems wholly independent. And would explain why the other clones do not talk at all and the only other one you fight has infinite's exact boss pattern.

[DabigRG]

47 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

Infinite's entire deal is that he sees himself as "the ultimate mercenary," but he's also just kind of a loser who wants more power. If Eggman gave him the resources to take out Sonic and he and his crew still got beaten, the results would have been the same. I don't think it helps much that Shadow is such a non-entity in the final game, they would have been better off just putting him under mind control as a first showing of Infinite's power-up (even though that's a pretty tired plotpoint with Shadow).

Oh yeah, the old prediction that the returning antagonists were going under mind control makes more sense overall.

Was Shadow being mind controlled really a thing otherwise, though?

[thumbs13]

15 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Oh yeah, the old prediction that the returning antagonists were going under mind control makes more sense overall.

Was Shadow being mind controlled really a thing otherwise, though?

Wasn't Shadow mind controlled in one of the boom games? I can't think of any main series examples, though. 

[Tara]

2 minutes ago, thumbs13 said:

Wasn't Shadow mind controlled in one of the boom games? I can't think of any main series examples, though. 

In Shattered Crystal.  One of many plot points in both Boom games that show up and then goes nowhere.

[DabigRG]

50 minutes ago, Tara said:

In Shattered Crystal.  One of many plot points in both Boom games that show up and then goes nowhere.

Apparently, that was intended to be the case in Rise of Lyric as well, both under Lyric.

[K-Dragon]

47 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Apparently, that was intended to be the case in Rise of Lyric as well, both under Lyric.

I think that was actually the case in the Jap dub of Rise of Lyric