Knuckles: friend or foe?

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

The result is still the same; Tails has to look inferior to emphasize his relationship to Sonic.

At this point it feels like you're arguing against characters having flaws. Any demonstration of a flaw is going to make a character look "inferior" in that area to characters without it.

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

If the intention was to give Tails a character arc showing him dealing with the grief of losing Sonic, then they really did a poor job of it. But I honestly don't feel like that's the case at all. I hate Lost World's writing, but I can at least see what they were going for with Tails. Literally everything that happens to Tails in Forces is resolved in literally one scene the second classic Sonic shows up, and it's never brought up again. So it leads me to believe that the writers just wanted a scene to introduce Classic and have him looking heroic by saving someone, and they just chose Tails for it.

The overall execution of it is absolute garbage, but if all they wanted to do was introduce Classic Sonic there's a million other ways they could've gone about it. They chose to do it the way they did for a reason, they build up to it (in the admittedly short amount of time it's relevant) with him seeing Sonic go down and Silver talking about Tails having "lost it". It's not arbitrary or accidental, they just completely botched the follow-through.

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

You have the scene in Generations where they all just stand by and cheer Sonic on (By comparison, everyone contributed something in say, Sonic Heroes when they were all together),

Generations' climax is lazy in how it uses the other characters but it doesn't really do anything to make the characters "inferior". Heroes was a game where 12 characters were already playable, it was relatively trivial to give them all an in-game shot at fighting Metal, but Generations was never going to suddenly go from a 2 character game to a 10+ character one.

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

the Deadly Six have no other function than to just lose to Sonic,

They're antagonists. They antagonize. They're just not the focus of the game's story. And Lost World isn't exactly a game that tries to flatter Sonic, with it making him responsible for the D6 breaking from Eggman's control and putting the world in danger because he got cocky.

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

they constantly emphasize how much of a loser Eggman is and how Sonic always beats him like it's his job,

Which, y'know, is kind of true. And it's not like Sonic's one to take things all that seriously.

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

and the entire world goes to shit in the span of six months with everyone depressed simply because Sonic wasn't around to save the day.

It's more because Eggman pulled this magic rock out of his ass that breaks reality and gave it to an asshole to cause havoc. Sonic couldn't do shit to Infinite the first time they met; he was the first one to lose. The point of Forces isn't that Sonic is the most important and most powerful person ever and everybody else sucks, it's that everyone had to work together to overcome Eggman and Infinite, even if it did a pretty bad job of expressing it.

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

And I get it, I really do. The series wants to keep things simple and broad enough, and streamlining the characters in the plots is the most of effective way of doing it as opposed to expending resources in trying to keep a consistent and serialized world. I get it. But the result is that the characters who used to have some level of agency and some degree of dynamism, are just caricatures who exist simply to take up space. If you're someone who has had any level of investment in what came before, then seeing what these characters have become just fucking sucks.

If you like it, power to you. But this goes far beyond the woes of a boomer fan who is just nostalgic for the old days.

My interests don't always align with community consensus but I'm not exactly thrilled with how the other characters are handled either. I just think you're looking at it the wrong way here, like you're looking to sand off all of the interesting parts of the characters to make them "perfect".

[DabigRG]

It's basically a combination of the series hard veering into different problems trying to get away from old habits and the storytelling as of late not being very well put together.

[Kuzu]

33 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

 

My interests don't always align with community consensus but I'm not exactly thrilled with how the other characters are handled either. I just think you're looking at it the wrong way here, like you're looking to sand off all of the interesting parts of the characters to make them "perfect".

I'm only going to focus on this, because honestly everything else you said isn't relevant to my point. The characters were interesting before, they did have flaws that they had to overcome, and they were able to make some type of contributions, no matter how minor and weren't just there taking up space. I don't want these characters to be perfect, I want them to actually be characters again. They are not characters now, they are props. They are props that exist to simply stand around and contribute absolutely nothing meaningful. 

And I don't feel like I've been looking at it the wrong way, because it's something that people have been bringing up since 2010. I'm already fully aware that you don't care much about the older 2000's games, and feel there was little value in them overall. And you know what, I actually agree to an extent. The older games weren't perfect, and had many writing and character problems as well. But you know what, I honestly feel that despite all of those problems, there was a much greater attempt at actually making a cohesive world that these characters lived in, and all of them had their own lives and goals to lead and that's something that simply doesn't exist anymore. Nothing you can say can convince me that anything in the newer games is worth investing into as much as what came before, I've tried and I just can't jive with it at all. Everything since Colors just feels boring and vapid to me, and I feel like the series has lost track of what made these characters interesting to the audience to begin with. I don't care about Wisps, I don't care about the Deadly Six, and I don't care about Infinite, I just...don't care. 

To bring this back the subject of the topic; I don't care if Knuckles is stupid, quiet, or whatever. I just want him to actually be a dynamic  and rounded character again. He was dynamic and rounded up until they stopped caring about him and they haven't cared about him much, if at all, since 2004.

[StaticMania]

How did he stop being dynamic in 2004?

 

[DabigRG]

32 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

How did he stop being dynamic in 2004?

 

When they started to push him being just a ineffectual hothead in Rush, given the timing. Which made sense in context from what I recall, tbf.

It also coincided, if still coming after Amy being hairtriggered bordering on psychotic herself.

[Kuzu]

28 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

How did he stop being dynamic in 2004?

 

I said since 2004.

[Shadowlax]

3 hours ago, Kuzu said:

They did that in the older games, but it got to a point when Sonic himself wasn't all that important to his own series, so here we are, oops.

Sonic himself doesn't really feel important now.

Sonic himself in this moment feels like the narrative is really trying hard to tell you he's important and he's a guy you should like, but they don't really show you. All his comparable friends aren't doing much and so there's nothing to compare him too. And his foes aren't too interesting anymore either.

The people complaining about sonic loosing importance were wrong, and now things are worse. Now he's the most important person in the room, is very boring with none of his friends around. Hope it was worth it.

 

1 hour ago, Kuzu said:

 But you know what, I honestly feel that despite all of those problems, there was a much greater attempt at actually making a cohesive world that these characters lived in, and all of them had their own lives and goals to lead and that's something that simply doesn't exist anymore. Nothing you can say can convince me that anything in the newer games is worth investing into as much as what came before, I've tried and I just can't jive with it at all. Everything since Colors just feels boring and vapid to me, and I feel like the series has lost track of what made these characters interesting to the audience to begin with. I don't care about Wisps, I don't care about the Deadly Six, and I don't care about Infinite, I just...don't care. 

 

If anything I would make the argument that elements are being actively removed

[Diogenes]

6 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

The people complaining about sonic loosing importance were wrong,

We really weren't. The problem is that asking Sonic Team for something is like wishing on a monkey's paw.

[Shadowlax]

7 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

We really weren't. The problem is that asking Sonic Team for something is like wishing on a monkey's paw.

No I genuinely think they were. I think sonic's narrative strength has never been at the center of a narrative, all my favorite sonic stories from TV , Comics games are him basically as a guy who's kind of around and has some importance, but the focus is on someone else. I think they were wrong, there are a lot of monkey paws with sonic. But I think all that happened, was that talking sonic with no one interesting to bounce off of , is boring as hell and there's no world to speak off. That last bit is particularly important.

If sonic is the most important person in the room, then why ever narrative care to go through narrative details, why should characters have interesting backrounds, why should lore and world building be established outside of sonic. The most interesting bits of narrative lore bits or world design IMO don't have much to do with sonic. He's just there, having a good time. Just a guy that loves adventure. And that doesn't require narrative focus.

[Diogenes]

2 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

No I genuinely think they were. I think sonic's narrative strength has never been at the center of a narrative, all my favorite sonic stories from TV , Comics games are him basically as a guy who's kind of around and has some importance, but the focus is on someone else.

As someone who likes Sonic, the character, and wants to see stories about Sonic...that is a problem.

2 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

If sonic is the most important person in the room, then why ever narrative care to go through narrative details, why should characters have interesting backrounds, why should lore and world building be established outside of sonic.

See now you're reading the tragic, twisted outcome of the monkey's paw into the original complaint. Nobody said Sonic has to be the most important character all of the time, nobody said no other character is ever allowed to be important. It's absurd to assume that wanting the main character of the series to have an important role in it instead of being shoved off to the side means "only he can matter, everyone else can get fucked".

[Shadowlax]

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

As someone who likes Sonic, the character, and wants to see stories about Sonic...that is a problem.

you have that though

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

See now you're reading the tragic, twisted outcome of the monkey's paw into the original complaint. Nobody said Sonic has to be the most important character all of the time, nobody said no other character is ever allowed to be important. It's absurd to assume that wanting the main character of the series to have an important role in it instead of being shoved off to the side means "only he can matter, everyone else can get fucked".

But that is what you , because the thing you described is what was happening in the 2000's games. You had the thing, but you wanted more. More is what we have now. You had it, you had what you described and it was fine.

[DabigRG]

Lax, I'm kinda reeling saying this to you and not Plasme, but you're not  exactly unbiased. Heck, some of the stuff you're saying seems to be dodging the middle ground of what people want as well as the objective quality of that.

SonicTeam saw the criticisms that led up to the bottom sorta dropping out and hard-turned in the other direction with barely any occasional compromise. Literally everyone sees this.

[Shadowlax]

14 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Lax, I'm kinda reeling saying this to you and not Plasme, but you're not  exactly unbiased. Heck, some of the stuff you're saying seems to be dodging the middle ground of what people want as well as the objective quality of that.

That's a fair take right. I like shadow, I like the other characters. Heck I openly said that I like sonic being sort of a " guy who walks into the room of another story " more than him being the center. That said, I stand by my statement.

If you actually look at a lot of the stories from the early 00's games with his name on them, while not everything is the story is about him, he's given lots of importance. And the story bits about him are litterally him discovering new things and understanding people and growing in ways and watching others grow. And as the OG he has a lot a room in these narratives to do that.

The 00's were a pretty good middle ground. It was fine.

Quote

SonicTeam saw the criticisms that led up to the bottom sorta dropping out and hard-turned in the other direction with barely any occasional compromise. Literally everyone sees this.

The bottom falling out was satan coming from the future to kill sonic specifically, that's how important he was. I think a lot of sonic fans confuse, character stories with " the story is literally not about him" . He has a story it about him, other people had other stories. Maybe some other's had something a bit more relevant to the larger narrative for example SA2, being about shadow. But that doesn't mean he didn't have importance.

There was a middle ground, I stand by that shit.  Todays sonic isn't just the result of bad writing or sega over correcting, but those do play parts. Its just the result of...sonic as a guy who talks was never that interesting. And he needs a cast to play off. He needs focus to be taken off of him while you fuck off as someone else. He's just not that interesting.

When he didn't talk, he didn't have to carry a narrative too much. You could just show shit and how important he was can be inferred by the player and who he was playing at the time. Now he has to ...carry a narrative he needs dialog and people need motivation.

[Diogenes]

2 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

you have that though

But that is what you , because the thing you described is what was happening in the 2000's games. You had the thing, but you wanted more. More is what we have now. You had it, you had what you described and it was fine.

Except, no.

The only main series game in the Adventure era that actually wrote something of a story about Sonic was SA2. The other games don't really bother doing anything with him besides having him fight Eggman and whatever the final boss ends up being. Sonic, and what we know about him, is exactly the same at the end of SA as it was at the beginning. Heroes doesn't really care much about anyone aside from setting up Shadow's game. ShtH is a spinoff starring Shadow so obviously Sonic isn't supposed to be the most important character but considering he's one of the characters with the closest ties to Shadow it's a big missed opportunity that he isn't more involved (before anyone says it: same goes for other characters connected to Shadow like Rouge and Omega). And '06 is of course the worst, as it's a game where his biggest contribution is as a sacrifice to a villain he didn't even know existed.

I don't even know why I have to explain this, because you've basically already agreed that it's true, just that you were happy with it; "I think sonic's narrative strength has never been at the center of a narrative", "all my favorite sonic stories ... the focus is on someone else". What I'm saying is that he should be at the center of the narrative at least some of the time, and not just as an object to meet the bare minimum criteria of being a "Sonic" game while the real story happens around him.

4 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Todays sonic isn't just the result of bad writing or sega over correcting, but those do play parts. Its just the result of...sonic as a guy who talks was never that interesting.

Then fucking fix it.

[Shadowlax]

4 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Then fucking fix it.

Ok , I think this small line. Is the core of your issue. And I want you to understand that i'm not trying to disrespect you.

I think you will probably never get that. Ever

He is a mascot. Sonic's flaw is that he is also the mascot of a corporation. While he's a wee bit more interesting than mario. He'll never be that interesting in a game. Comic sometimes , but even now in the comic we are witnessing a scenario where the only character who could have offered him an argument that may have resulted in interesting characterization was literally thrown to the metallic wolves. That will be done, before sonic has to go through any type of genuine interesting characterization.

There is hope. The film, the film sonic doesn't have the weight of also being a mascot and is very much just considered a different thing, and while I find most of the film to be generic and middling. Sonic's personality and growth is genuinely interesting and is something along with having a backstory is something that just wouldn't be allowed. The hope is they make more films that hopefully are better, but also the success of these films would influence the games and other material to let sonic himself get kind of weird and not just have that weirdness relegated to his friends. His place as a mascot doesn't need to constantly be communicated at all times.

So yeah, to them there is nothing to fix. Sonic is uninteresting and inoffensive because they want their mascot to be that.

[Diogenes]

I guess this series will just suck forever then.

[Shadowlax]

Just now, Diogenes said:

I guess this series will just suck forever then.

I mean maybe?

I hope for you that the movies influence them to change. Because heck even during the adventure era sonic was like this unchanging inoffensive dude, he was just the shounen version of that. A good comparison to something sonic has collaborated with is hello kitty. Hello kitty does stuff, but she never gets to be weird. But other sanryo characters DO get to be weird. That's how you get things like agressuko. That's how during that several decade long period disney was doing jack shit with mickey you got ducktails and goof troop. Mascot characters also unfortunately have to also function as mascots. People think they do, as mickey mouse is discovering, they don't actually have too. Hopefully sonic does the same. We aren't often on the same page, but I dunno I would like you to get things you like out of this series

[Kuzu]

I think some of you are misunderstanding Sonic's character and the role he plays in the series. He doesn't have to always be the center of attention to the detriment of everyone else, but he also shouldn't be shoved to the side while the actual story is happening to someone else. 

There seems to be this misconception that Sonic is a flat and boring character, and that the story needs to focus on him and develop him in order for him to be interesting when that's far from the truth. Sonic doesn't function like characters like Shadow, who are fundamentally built on positive change and being dynamic. Sonic's primary strength as a character is in the fact that he doesn't change; Sonic embodies a flat character arc.

 

If Shadow's character arc was about overcoming the lies that he believes to become a more heroic character, Sonic is a character that already understands the truth and uses that knowledge to overcome the conflict. Sonic always pushes forward and never slows down and never falters. That's his character and no matter what happens, he always pulls through.  Sonic's character isn't built on change within himself, it's about how he changes the world around him. The world around Sonic is about how everyone believes in a lie, and it's up to Sonic to change that perception and showing them the truth that he believes. 

Characters that interact with Sonic tend to be positively influenced by his presence. Sonic is the main focus because unlike Shadow or Knuckles, who have character arcs that have endpoints, Sonic's character is ideal for an indefinite series like this one. It literally can't be anyone else.  His status as a mascot means Sonic can be used in any type of story, and the intrigue comes from how he interacts with the world around him. Sonic is flexible, and easily adaptable. 

Calling Sonic uninteresting and inoffensive isn't really fair because it devalues the type of character that he is, and his function in the story. I get that positive change character arcs like Shadow's are the most popular, but Sonic's type of character still has a lot to offer and I don't it should be devalued.  

 

[StaticMania]

Sonic doesn't get challenged enough for being a static character.

So he comes across as boring more often than not.

Even though games like Unleashed and Black Knight offers challenges to his already set in stone truths, they just don't push him at all.

In Unleashed he doesn't have to try and in Black Knight the challenge to his ideals only comes at the very end of the game so the impact isn't strong enough.

Knuckles should be the starr.

[Shadowlax]

4 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Sonic doesn't get challenged enough for being a static character.

So he comes across as boring more often than not.

 

This , the zombot arc in the comic is this to a T. This story I was like " yoooo sonic is actually gonna be challenged as a character"  literally every single opportunity narrative that this could be made interesting , was literally dodged.

[StaticMania]

People point out how Shadow the hedgehog made Sonic angry in SA2BHDR and ya know that wasn't really a challenge to his beliefs about the world.

But it stands as one of his more interesting portrayals because Shadow's existence is like a challenge to Sonic's belief about himself and their battles mean something to him as a way to prove his superiority and reclaim his peace of mind. Too bad it was in SA2BHDR and that wasn't focused on all that much and the 2 sides of the same story aspect means even their final battle conclusion is up in the air.

[Kuzu]

12 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Sonic doesn't get challenged enough for being a static character.

So he comes across as boring more often than not.

Even though games like Unleashed and Black Knight offers challenges to his already set in stone truths, they just don't push him at all.

In Unleashed he doesn't have to try and in Black Knight the challenge to his ideals only comes at the very end of the game so the impact isn't strong enough.

Knuckles should be the starr.

Remember, it's not about challenging Sonic, it's about how Sonic changes everyone and everything else; in Unleashed, his presence helps Chip become acclimated to the world and he learns to love it, and in Black Knight he helps the main villain understand that making an undying world isn't right. 

This is literally all over the series; Tails becomes more confident in himself because of Sonic's influence, Amy pushes herself as a hero because she wants to be with Sonic, Knuckles learns to trust others because of Sonic, Blaze learns that she doesn't have to be alone because of Sonic. When Tikal wants to seal Chaos away again during his rampage, it's Sonic to suggest that they need to pacify his anger and it's his positive feelings let's him use the Chaos Emeralds and make sure that Chaos will never go on another rampage. 

Even if Sonic is "boring", his presence serves as a positive influence in the stories, and Sonic's key personality trait is that he's always on the run for the next adventure. It makes his character ideal in introducing new and different elements that he bounces off of. 

[StaticMania]

To offer an effective change he must be challenged.

Taking Chip on global tour so he can see all the beauties of the world is just one part of what the story can focus on, the story really isn't about changing him though (he has amnesia anyway). The game offered up a chance to do a character study on Sonic with the Werehog changing him & people's reception of him while not forcibly putting him in a new world and took the easy way out

Merlina literally changed after she put up her ideals up against Sonic, that was a fight about what they believed in with only a 2 scenes worth of set up.

[Diogenes]

12 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Sonic's primary strength as a character is in the fact that he doesn't change; Sonic embodies a flat character arc.

On that subject, I've got mixed feelings. I'd agree that Sonic can't change endlessly, but I don't think an unchanging Sonic is ideal either. It risks ranging into "Sonic is always perfect" territory, if the series repeatedly, unfailingly proves him right.

Really the problem is that no story can go on forever and not turn to shit.

2 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

in Unleashed, his presence helps Chip become acclimated to the world and he learns to love it

But a complete commitment to him being unchanging makes the werehog aspect a narrative failure. It would've been easy enough to use it to explore a different side of Sonic, some "darker" aspect of his personality, and have him come to terms with it (to at least some extent) without requiring massive unsustainable changes to him as a character.

[Kuzu]

19 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

To offer an effective change he must be challenged.

Taking Chip on global tour so he can see all the beauties of the world is just one part of what the story can focus on, the story really isn't about changing him though (he has amnesia anyway). The game offered up a chance to do a character study on Sonic with the Werehog changing him & people's reception of him while not forcibly putting him in a new world and took the easy way out

Merlina literally changed after she put up her ideals up against Sonic, that was a fight about what they believed in with only a 2 scenes worth of set up.

I disagree; the story is literally about Chip learning about his purpose with the world tour being the narrative hook to make it happen. 

16 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

On that subject, I've got mixed feelings. I'd agree that Sonic can't change endlessly, but I don't think an unchanging Sonic is ideal either. It risks ranging into "Sonic is always perfect" territory, if the series repeatedly, unfailingly proves him right.

Really the problem is that no story can go on forever and not turn to shit.

Nothing is perfect, especially in this series. But that doesn't mean there isn't any merit in them at all. Sonic's character being unyielding and unchanging can come off as boring, but in a series that is designed to go on indefinitely, it's honestly more ideal than constantly trying to revise his character. 

There's a reason characters like Shadow and Knuckles struggle to be utilized well; because their characters require specific circumstances to be written in order for them to function properly. Sonic isn't tied down by any baggage like that, and it makes it a lot easier on the writers. All they need to do is construct a world for Sonic to run around in. 

I shall now invoke @Sonic Fan J as they can probably help explain this better, and how Sonic's character functions for the series, and what makes him fundamentally different from the other characters that justifies his position as the main character.

 

 

 

And yes, the Werehog was indeed a missed opportunity on exploring his character and it's very apparent that this was never the intention of the writers. That said, I feel like the story presented with him and Chip was functional enough as it was to offset that. But that's just me.