Many faces of Sonic

[MetalSkulkBane]

Ever so often we like to discuss core of "who is Sonic". But obvious truth is that every version of Sonic has different flavor to himself. But what exactly made each of blue blurs different from the others?

I'll start with 3 big ones: Classic, Modern and Movie.

Movie Sonic is fascinating, as he's very different from most previous version. Sonic was always impatient, but never hyperactive. He could be flawed, but never inexperienced. But probably strangest angle was making his lonely. Sonic always had someone looking up to him as hero. If not Tails, Amy or Chris, then some animal folks he rescued on regular basic. It's even hard to image him growing into "proper Sonic", as that guy doesn't like staying long in one place.

Classic Sonic has most vague personality (if we ignore all comics and cartoons in 90s). He's certainly heroic, confident, impatient and has large ego (another thing Movie Hog missed) , but rest is vague "cool", letting audience fill the blanks space with their idea what that word means.

Modern Sonic has opposite problem because even excluding Pontac/Graff period, his personality  can varied greatly from game to game. But overall he does feel more 'mature' than Classic. For starters he actually likes to chill out now and then (SA1, Lost World, Unleashed), when his younger self is (as far as we know) adrenaline junkie. And having a voice he can show empathy for Elise, Blaze, Shadow, and even his enemies like Chaos and Merlina. He can be a little cheesy (superpower of friendship and stuff like that), but honestly so can Movie Sonic and if Classic could talk, I don't think he would differ.

There are still Boom or X version or fascinating similarities and differences in Satam VS AoStH or Archie VS Reboot Vs IDW, but I think that's enough to start the ball rolling. Though?

[Multikaris]

Just now, MetalSkulkBane said:

Ever so often we like to discuss core of "who is Sonic". But obvious truth is that every version of Sonic has different flavor to himself. But what exactly made each of blue blurs different from the others?

I'll start with 3 big ones: Classic, Modern and Movie.

Movie Sonic is fascinating, as he's very different from most previous version. Sonic was always impatient, but never hyperactive. He could be flawed, but never inexperienced. But probably strangest angle was making his lonely. Sonic always had someone looking up to him as hero. If not Tails, Amy or Chris, then some animal folks he rescued on regular basic. It's even hard to image him growing into "proper Sonic", as that guy doesn't like staying long in one place.

Classic Sonic has most vague personality (if we ignore all comics and cartoons in 90s). He's certainly heroic, confident, impatient and has large ego (another thing Movie Hog missed) , but rest is vague "cool", letting audience fill the blanks space with their idea what that word means.

Modern Sonic has opposite problem because even excluding Pontac/Graff period, his personality  can varied greatly from game to game. But overall he does feel more 'mature' than Classic. For starters he actually likes to chill out now and then (SA1, Lost World, Unleashed), when his younger self is (as far as we know) adrenaline junkie. And having a voice he can show empathy for Elise, Blaze, Shadow, and even his enemies like Chaos and Merlina. He can be a little cheesy (superpower of friendship and stuff like that), but honestly so can Movie Sonic and if Classic could talk, I don't think he would differ.

There are still Boom or X version or fascinating similarities and differences in Satam VS AoStH or Archie VS Reboot Vs IDW, but I think that's enough to start the ball rolling. Though?

This is the biggest thing; Pontaff Sonic's lack of empathy and mercy, even in the better games like Mania and Forces. Even Classic showed empathy to Knuckles. Pontaff/Mania/Forces? No empathy. This DRIVES Lost World; his lack of empathy for Zomom, Zeena, etc spurns a cycle of violence.  He does nothing but make puns at their expense. This is not what the Rangers do; this is what the monster of the day does when mocking his enemy and the world he was spawned into. 

[StaticMania]

32 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

This DRIVES Lost World; his lack of empathy for Zomom, Zeena, etc spurns a cycle of violence.

Why should he show empathy to them exactly?

He wasn't even intending to free them when he kicked Eggman's conch away and they immediately did the bad things when they were free.

So what does it matter that he makes fun of them?

[Multikaris]

Just now, StaticMania said:

Why should he show empathy to them exactly?

He wasn't even intending to free them when he kicked Eggman's conch away and they immediately did the bad things when they were free.

So what does it matter that he makes fun of them?

He showed empathy to Chaos, Shadow, Jet, Merlina, Eggman himself… any foe that never crossed a line like Erazor, Infinite, etc. And why do you think he never intended to free them? But I guess The Farmer and the Viper applies here. Attacking someone who frees you can never be a good idea. But he wasn't that phased by their betrayal of his generous gift, how he unknowingly presented his shining pearls of freedom before swine unwilling to appreciate it. If Sonic had emphasized before, it would have been much more shocking.

[Almar]

"Classic" Sonic's personality was about the same as his personality in Adventure One. This is shown in Sonic OVA. 

With that noted, he was intended to be anti-establishment with a distrust for authority/rules. This isn't really shown in plenty games since he's not put in conflict with legit rulership rather than just Eggman, but it comes up in Adventure 2 and Black Knight from his run-ins with G.U.N. and Camelot's forces.

[StaticMania]

3 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

He showed empathy to Chaos, Shadow, Jet, Merlina, Eggman himself… any foe that never crossed a line like Erazor, Infinite, etc. And why do you think he never intended to free them? But I guess The Farmer and the Viper applies here. Attacking someone who frees you can never be a good idea. But he wasn't that phased by their betrayal of his generous gift, how he unknowingly presented his shining pearls of freedom before swine unwilling to appreciate it. If Sonic had emphasized before, it would have been much more shocking.

He didn't show empathy to Shadow or Jet during their conflicts...

He didn't do that until they were fighting Final Hazard. With Jet, their thing wasn't exactly that antagonistic, but all he did was give him back the thing Eggman stole which is just being a good sport.

Maybe he was acting on reflex there? He knows nothing about the Zeti, he just sees Eggman using a shell to control the monsters and got rid of it.

[Almar]

Sonic had strictly practical grounds to handle Chaos how he did. Chaos couldn't be killed by anything he had in his arsenal and sealing him away wouldn't actually fix the problem.

[MetalSkulkBane]

4 minutes ago, Almar said:

"Classic" Sonic's personality was about the same as his personality in Adventure One. This is shown in Sonic OVA. 

With that noted, he was intended to be anti-establishment.

1 OVA Sonic isn't Classic, neither is Undeground, Satam or Archie.

2 OVA's personality is a little schizophrenic, but he's closer to Fleetway Sonic. He's pretends to be a jerk who's too cool to care, but sometimes he shows true heroic colors. Only difference is that Fleetway puts more emphasis on "jerk" and OVA on "doesn't care"

3 I don't thing any version of Sonic is really "anti-establishment". Hes free spirit, who doesn't care about government, but he's never antagonistic about it or trying to fight it.
I mean, he worked with government figures in Archie, Satam, Underground, AoStH (a little), X, Boom, IDW and even games like 06 or Chronicles, arguably Shadow and Unleashed

1 minute ago, Almar said:

Sonic had strictly practical grounds to handle Chaos how he did.

Are you really saying that Sonic was being pragmatical Spock in that scene, and not hero with strong sense of justice?

Sonic: "How can that help? It won't change how he feels inside, will it? His heart will still remain in turmoil and his anger just won't vanish! He'll just be trapped forever!"

It's your interpretation, but I hardly disagree..

[Wraith]

Classic and Modern Sonic are both chill when the situation calls for it but carry themselves with a lot of urgency when there's danger. They're not really that different. 

[Almar]

54 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

1 OVA Sonic isn't Classic

Sure he is.

54 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

2 OVA's personality is a little schizophrenic, but he's closer to Fleetway Sonic. He's pretends to be a jerk who's too cool to care, but sometimes he shows true heroic colors. Only difference is that Fleetway puts more emphasis on "jerk" and OVA on "doesn't care"

Just watch Adventure One's JP cutscenes translated. Trust me, his personality there is really little to not different from the OVA Sonic's.

54 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

3 I don't thing any version of Sonic is really "anti-establishment". Hes free spirit, who doesn't care about government, but he's never antagonistic about it or trying to fight it.
I mean, he worked with government figures in Archie, Satam, Underground, AoStH (a little), X, Boom, IDW and even games like 06 or Chronicles, arguably Shadow and Unleashed

The bulk of those are either Western interpretations or situations where he never actually interacted with legit authority significantly (no being a boss with the G.U.N. Commander doesn't count). I'm referring to his bio in Sega of Japan's internal text talking him having no respect for authority. And there's still the examples of Adventure 2 and Black Knight that loudly put him conflict with his world's SHIELD or another's knights.

54 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Are you really saying that Sonic was being pragmatical Spock in that scene, and not hero with strong sense of justice?

Sonic: "How can that help? It won't change how he feels inside, will it? His heart will still remain in turmoil and his anger just won't vanish! He'll just be trapped forever!"

It's your interpretation, but I hardly disagree..

No. I'm saying that Sonic knew that Tikal's plan to just seal Chaos away again wouldn't fix it all. Lead to more tragedy/sorry. And that he couldn't actually kill Chaos. So he did the one option he as a superhedgehog could do: Calm the burning rage of the big chao.

Looking at just the Classic games to about Rivals, Sonic's not really shown as merciful to his enemies. Recall he had to be blockaded by Amy to not destroy Gamma.

[Multikaris]

1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

He didn't show empathy to Shadow or Jet during their conflicts...

He didn't do that until they were fighting Final Hazard. With Jet, their thing wasn't exactly that antagonistic, but all he did was give him back the thing Eggman stole which is just being a good sport.

Maybe he was acting on reflex there? He knows nothing about the Zeti, he just sees Eggman using a shell to control the monsters and got rid of it.

Yeah, with Jet, it was mostly just a sporting competition until near the end.  Sometimes for Sonic, it can take a long time for a turnaround, as shown with Chaos. He NEVER made a turnaround with the Deadly Six. Not even once. I'd argue the incident with Gamma drove him to feel empathy for his enemies. Even with Knuckles it took some time. And he forgave Knuckles despite his attempted child murder.

 

Now I wonder what would have happened had Sonic shown kindness to the Zeti? Would the outcome have been any different?

[thumbs13]

43 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Yeah, with Jet, it was mostly just a sporting competition until near the end.  Sometimes for Sonic, it can take a long time for a turnaround, as shown with Chaos. He NEVER made a turnaround with the Deadly Six. Not even once. I'd argue the incident with Gamma drove him to feel empathy for his enemies. Even with Knuckles it took some time. And he forgave Knuckles despite his attempted child murder.

 

Now I wonder what would have happened had Sonic shown kindness to the Zeti? Would the outcome have been any different?

I mean, Zeena was fine not fighting Sonic when she thought he was gonna apologize.

 

[Kuzu]

2 hours ago, Wraith said:

Classic and Modern Sonic are both chill when the situation calls for it but carry themselves with a lot of urgency when there's danger. They're not really that different. 

If they're committed to keeping classic and modern separate, then they're going to have to differentiate them otherwise one will come off as superfluous. 

[Wraith]

3 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

If they're committed to keeping classic and modern separate, then they're going to have to differentiate them otherwise one will come off as superfluous. 

The fans do it for them.

[Kuzu]

Well yea, but it doesn't mean shit if the official creators never acknowledge that.

[MetalSkulkBane]

3 hours ago, Almar said:

Sure he is.

Just watch Adventure One's JP cutscenes translated. Trust me, his personality there is really little to not different from the OVA Sonic's.

The bulk of those are either Western interpretations or situations where he never actually interacted with legit authority significantly (no being a boss with the G.U.N. Commander doesn't count). I'm referring to his bio in Sega of Japan's internal text talking him having no respect for authority. And there's still the examples of Adventure 2 and Black Knight that loudly put him conflict with his world's SHIELD or another's knights.

No. I'm saying that Sonic knew that Tikal's plan to just seal Chaos away again wouldn't fix it all. Lead to more tragedy/sorry. And that he couldn't actually kill Chaos. So he did the one option he as a superhedgehog could do: Calm the burning rage of the big chao.

No, he's not. Classic Sonic is Sonic games before SA1.  Claiming they the same dude ignores the whole point of this topic. Those are different continuities, different writers, different shades of Sonic.

Same talking about Japanse bios. That just means that Japanese SA1 Sonic is OVA-like (allegedly, I don't have time to check your claims), but Western isn't. We're not talking about "true Sonic", but how much different he is in different incarnations of him.

And having "no respect" to authority and  being "against it" is 2 different things.  Sonic fought GUN and Black Knight because they chased him/ they were evil, not because he's anti-government. Captain America loves his country, but was framed and chased by SHIELD several times).

Lastly, again, that's your opinion, but I strongly disagree. Sonic literally said "He'll just be trapped forever!". But even if he didn't I choose to believe Sonic showed compassion to creature with sympathetic background, rather than logical thinking.

4 hours ago, Wraith said:

Classic and Modern Sonic are both chill when the situation calls for it but carry themselves with a lot of urgency when there's danger. They're not really that different. 

Umm, examples for Classic games? Preferably from classic-classic, not Neo-Classic like Mania.

All I recall was his sleeping in manual for Sonic Labyrinth, when Eggman puts shoes on him.

[Sonic Fan J]

I think a problem with this topic is it has to be willing to go beyond just how Sonic is portrayed and what the intentions were at any given time. As we can't really properly collect the thoughts of all of those involved with the franchise during the years this thread is very open to supposition to fill holes. Naturally, we are all going to fall back onto our own interpretations. Some things should be noted though such as Adventure 1 Sonic is a course correction according Yuji Naka (boy I wish I could find that interview or at least the link to it) from the cutesy image that merchandising was given Sonic back to what he was supposed to be from the beginning. There is also Naka being involved with the OVA and the decidedly absenteeism of portraying Sonic as cute. In fact, he is a lot like he his Sonic X counterpart where he chooses to chill when not adventuring but once he is on an adventure sees it through and gives it his all. As all of these can be traced back to Naka to some extent disregarding the character consistency for the thread's narrative is disingenuous. Now how others have interpreted Sonic's personality and how that is reflected in presentation fits in line with the thread without disregarding the actually consistencies and intentions. Besides, if you did it that way then pretty much every Sonic game has a completely different Sonic, including the classics (where he does have a voice both in certain Japanese material and every single one of the Japanese manuals) just off of his used body language. That Sonic Adventure's story is for the most part a capstone to the classic lore from the Japanese manuals only further drives the point that dividing by arbitrary eras only limits the exercise that this thread proposes to partake in. Perhaps a better approach to expanding on the topic is to question why someone sees what you consider to be two distinct versions as being the same instead of shutting them down. Interpretation has a powerful effect on people and on how they will approach this topic and shutting that down to support a single point of view will stifle discussion anyway defeating the point of an open thread on a forum.

All of that said now, I perceive "Classic Sonic" to be an amalgam of disparate aspects of Sonic that were thrown about by what the fanbase latched onto rather than looking at what I dub Naka/Oshima Sonic. Though not always easy to track down the aspects of, Naka/Oshima Sonic is the version that was controlled by those two men and their respective teams based on the finalized character after working with SoA. This particular variation of Sonic though can be seen in Sonic 1, 2, CD, 3&K, the OVA, and Adventure 1. It is only after Oshima parts ways with SEGA that this version of the character disappears for a solely Naka derived version of the character who is distinctly softer in comparison with that trait becoming more prevalent as the games go on until Naka's departure during the development of 06. After that point Game! Sonic's personality starts to become less stable until he settles on being a bad comedian and the new "Classic" Sonic is introduced who is nothing like Naka/Oshima Sonic in anyway. Rather, he is some strange amalgam as I've said above born from Sonic Team trying marry all of the vocal descriptions of who Sonic once was into a single character to represent something they had no understanding of. It's part of the reason I've started taking to calling him Chibi Sonic the Moe Mime. It is a completely different Sonic from what it is supposed to represent and should be treated as such.

And now I've lost what else I was going to add here so I'll just leave it at this for now.

[MetalSkulkBane]

7 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

There is also Naka being involved with the OVA

See, I didn't knew that. If this data was presented as logical argument, I might have been more agreeing on idea that Classic Sonic and OVA are one guy character-wise (Which I still say they aren't. Even if Naka envisioned them as same person, execution is what matters. And no Classic game implied that Sonic would show disinterest in helping people in trouble, like Old Man Owl).

And I agree that Sonic is different game to game. Even same writer can have different mood, editor or story in mind and lead character in different direction. But most of time those differences are insignificant, what I'm suggesting is looking at more fascinating examples.

Take Satam and AoStH. Same Voice actor, same year, almost same design. But Satam was "rude cool", arguing with Sally, disregarding orders and making fun of Antoine, while Aosth was more of a "superman-role model" flavor, more often willing to help common folks or do those "Sonic Says" at the end. I can't really image latter Sonic having same chemistry with Sally for example. One was trying to be what kids think is cool, while other more point towards what adults would want kids to be cool (again, I'm pointing out how much they differ and make it sound like a bit hyperbolic. Both shared many  similarities).

[Sonic Fan J]

I would say a lot of the time the differences come down to interpretation on the side of the creators not of Sonic, but rather what cool is. One of the few times I know a writer tried to look at Sonic from the viewpoint of who he is as a character is Shiro Maekawa. Instead of looking at Sonic as a collection of cool tropes he tried to instead break him down into who he is as a character and what that means for how he presents himself. As a result Maekawa Sonic is usually more laid back and philosophical than other iterations of the character and is manifested in SA2, Sonic 06, and Sonic and the Black Knight amongst a couple of others.

This observation on Maekawa Sonic also brings my attention back around to the fact that Maekawa was involved in a lot of the scenario writing after Oshima left and a had a great deal of control over Sonic. What makes it particularly interesting though is how much control that Naka still had as well as Takashi Iizuka's growing involvement with how the franchise was handled. In it's own way this highlights that sometime different versions of Sonic existed within the same media due to kind of a tug-of-war going on at the time. It also makes it that much harder to really separate and define Sonic's interpretations in the games outside of major examples such as Colors versus say Black Knight or Chibi Sonic the Moe Mime. 

For me personally though, i typically latch onto aspects that are defined by certain creators and can say that I prefer Naka/Oshima Sonic where I can find him and that Maekawa Sonic is usually an enjoyable second place. Post Forces though I'm curious to see what Sonic we'll be getting next.

[Starry Skydancer]

May I add I really really dig the Sonic The Hedgehog Youtube cartoons. I think the characters are portrayed well and they come across well despite(because?) their silence. I find the STH Youtube cartoons refreshing honestly.

I love this. "Classic" Sonic looks great, Sonic looks great. Tails is great.

[Starry Skydancer]

So. I got myself thinking about Aosth Sonic and SatAM Sonic and his "dated" form of cool. Or rather his "hip"ness or "in"ness.

How dated is he though? I could imagine him going down well with the target demographic and having the cool factor for that age. Does he really lack that appeal? I'm supposing that age range might have decreased in the modern times? Assuming he does not pass for oldschool cool. I would honestly say Aosth Sonic has "cool factor" even if I find him "off" from "my Sonic".

SatAM Sonic doesn't really have that "factor" to me personally but that's besides the point