Was Amy ever THAT bad?

[Shadowlax]

 

2 hours ago, Kuzu said:

If anything, Amy's undergone reverse flanderization.

I think that's just called depth

[4th Chaos Emerald]

On 5/25/2020 at 1:21 PM, StaticMania said:

I'm all for this line of thinking when people aren't actually addressing what they dislike about a character.

It's a good thing to do. Do it more.

And I'm all for this line of thinking of insulting people and crying to the mods once you get bitten back.

[Kuzu]

12 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

 

I think that's just called depth

Only if she became more interesting. Consensus seems that she's just kind of bland and uninteresting now

[StaticMania]

28 minutes ago, 4th Chaos Emerald said:

And I'm all for this line of thinking of insulting people and crying to the mods once you get bitten back.

Are you agreeing or agreeing?

[Kuzu]

7 hours ago, Wraith said:

 

At any rate, I can't take Sega's attempts to craft a more 'independent' character out of Amy seriously. Making Amy the catch all role model for girls  while making no changes to her role or any of the other roles of the girls in the series is inauthentic anyway. Blaze is still nonexistent and Rouge is still Shadow's secretary as of Forces. Tails is allowed to be a little ball of insecurity, It's not that big of a deal of Amy is messy and underpowered too as long as she's not the only female character that shows up. Have more active female characters to start with so you don't have to count on one to be exemplary. 

I feel like this is why characters like Rouge and Blaze were created to begin with, to be the exemplary female characters compared to Amy.

But since Amy is still the primary representation of femininity in the series, her showcases tend to stand out the most.

[4th Chaos Emerald]

2 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Are you agreeing or agreeing?

Let's find something to agree on. Like... I'm trying to be nice to you.  So don't go crying to the mods, like you guys on this website are good for, when the shots are fired back. Now go agree or agree on that.

[StaticMania]

Hmm?

I don't think I'm following....guess this is a dead end.

[4th Chaos Emerald]

1 hour ago, Kuzu said:

I feel like this is why characters like Rouge and Blaze were created to begin with, to be the exemplary female characters compared to Amy.

But since Amy is still the primary representation of femininity in the series, her showcases tend to stand out the most.

I think that has something to do with Amy being a side character in the series like I said before.  Her major appearance were the Adventures and Heroes. Her role just shrunk after that. 

Amy is one of my favorite characters, but I don't think she works as a main one. She could've elevated if they kept Team Rose and Cream as her sidekick. It would've felt a heck lot more natural than just saying she just "matured" because of her adventures when we haven't seen her on one since 2003. Or just showing her tinkering with machinery one game out of the blue, when it's never been apart of her character.

It just feels like SEGA is just trying to push her as a main character since she's the most reoccurring female character.

13 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Hmm?

I don't think I'm following....guess this is a dead end.

Mmm hm. This is the better end out of the two. Be glad you followed this one.

[Tornado]

4 hours ago, 4th Chaos Emerald said:

And I'm all for this line of thinking of insulting people and crying to the mods once you get bitten back.

1 hour ago, 4th Chaos Emerald said:

Let's find something to agree on. Like... I'm trying to be nice to you.  So don't go crying to the mods, like you guys on this website are good for, when the shots are fired back. Now go agree or agree on that.

1 hour ago, 4th Chaos Emerald said:

Mmm hm. This is the better end out of the two. Be glad you followed this one.

He doesn't need to go "crying to the mods" when a mod already posted in this thread and was already watching it and was already watching you respond to people breaking down specific instances of Amy's character with drivel about how "people don't care to understand" because your thread isn't going in the direction you wanted it to.

 

 

You haven't unlocked some super deep perception about how well-rounded of a character Amy was during the the middle of the last decade just because you've decided you're going to talk about the games before then and dismiss everything that doesn't agree with the preconception you built into the OP of your thread.

No, Amy wasn't "that bad" during Sonic Adventure or Adventure 2. No, when people are talking about how bad Amy got, they aren't talking about those two games. They're talking about Heroes (where perhaps the context of the story isn't given enough weight when judging Amy's actions, since it probably shouldn't be taken as if Amy is literally trying to kill Sonic by throwing him off a building). They're talking about Battle (where the context given for why she is involved with Emerl is that she alone in the story is fucking crazy, so not really a feather in her cap). They're talking about Rush (where other characters treat her as so fucking crazy that they are afraid of setting her off). They're talking about Sonic X (where the same happens as in Rush, but it's played for laughs and she at least has other hobbies and character traits that she shows besides her relation to Sonic).

[Plumbers_Helper]

I just want to say Amy always was one of my favorite characters. Part of that is her unbridled passion, regardless if she's happy, sad, or just down right scary. It's right there in her theme song, My Sweet Passion. She can get so wrapped up in her emotions that she tends to overlook the feelings of others, but it's not because she doesn't care about others feelings - far from it. She's one of the most compassionate of the main group. If Sonic is the ace, Tails the brains and Knuckles the brawn, then Amy is the heart. A good example of what I mean is the beginning of her story in Sonic Adventure, at first she's angry that someone ran into to her...until she realizes it's a bird that was hurt. From that point on she never gives up on the bird.

I've always enjoyed Amy, weather it be in the games or Sonic X. The only time I ever didn't like her actions was that one part in Sonic Heroes where she fought Sonic so she could marry him. Even her infamous line in Sonic 06 of choosing Sonic over the world, to me, just shows how much she trusts and believes in Sonic over the word of a stranger. Even now, Amy's excitement over finding out Sonic was still alive in Sonic Forces "What!? Oh, thank goodness! I knew it! I knew it!" was the only time I got a genuine smile out of that game. There hasn't been much change to Amy that I've noticed, though it is a bit disappointing to see them tone down Amy's affection for Sonic. Her trying to grab Sonic to give him a big hug has been a thing since Amy's very first game appearance, I thought it was cute but I understand completely if someone finds it creepy or annoying.

I can see why some people would see Amy as being annoying, excitable and passionate characters usually only result in two out comes: Either you get absorbed into their personality and enjoy them, or you find them painfully obnoxious and annoying. I fall into the former, but I understand the criticisms of those that fall into the later. Sonic Battle was an odd depiction of her in retrospect.

[Shadowlax]

4 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Only if she became more interesting. Consensus seems that she's just kind of bland and uninteresting now

I think she's interesting personally. When she's written by not sonic team. Sonic generally do not give the women as much depth or righting flourishes as the males. When women are written by not them, they are generally really interesting and fine. Any issues I have with idw amy is more so where she is rather than her personality itself

[Kuzu]

I don't have any particularly strong feelings about her if I'm perfectly honest. She was entertaining in Boom for what it was, and there hasn't been enough of her in IDW for me to really say anything. 

[Wraith]

4 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I feel like this is why characters like Rouge and Blaze were created to begin with, to be the exemplary female characters compared to Amy.

 

This is obviously not the case with Rouge since she's positioned as an anihero. If it was the case with Blaze they don't act like it. She spent her only real HD appearance glued to Silver's arm and has barely appeared since then.

[4th Chaos Emerald]

2 hours ago, Tornado said:

He doesn't need to go "crying to the mods" when a mod already posted in this thread and was already watching it and was already watching you respond to people breaking down specific instances of Amy's character with drivel about how "people don't care to understand" because your thread isn't going in the direction you wanted it to.

 

 

You haven't unlocked some super deep perception about how well-rounded of a character Amy was during the the middle of the last decade just because you've decided you're going to talk about the games before then and dismiss everything that doesn't agree with the preconception you built into the OP of your thread.

No, Amy wasn't "that bad" during Sonic Adventure or Adventure 2. No, when people are talking about how bad Amy got, they aren't talking about those two games. They're talking about Heroes (where perhaps the context of the story isn't given enough weight when judging Amy's actions, since it probably shouldn't be taken as if Amy is literally trying to kill Sonic by throwing him off a building). They're talking about Battle (where the context given for why she is involved with Emerl is that she alone in the story is fucking crazy, so not really a feather in her cap). They're talking about Rush (where other characters treat her as so fucking crazy that they are afraid of setting her off). They're talking about Sonic X (where the same happens as in Rush, but it's played for laughs and she at least has other hobbies and character traits that she shows besides her relation to Sonic).

You're funny. Q: When has this discussion ever been about one specific era? A: It was about Amy in general. I brought up Adventure because people pan her characterization in that game too. We were talking about IDW, Boom, Adventure, Forces, etc,so where TF did you get the idea we were talking about one thing? Q: Who brought up Heroes in the first place? A: I did. How many times did I bring up that Amy had her own team and sidekick in Heroes? How many times did I say the Amy chasing Sonic thing was just a running gag that was taken too seriously? How many times did I say, "yes, Amy had bad characterizations in the mid 2000s games but so did the rest of the characters, yet they get a pass"? How many times did I bring up Tails and Shadow as an example?

And how many times am I going to keep repeating myself? Y'all hear whatever you want to hear. I have no problem with having a friendly debate, but the key word is "friendly". He disrespected me. And you got me fucked up if you think I'm not going to defend myself. That's you dudes' problem now and why this site gets a bad rep. Y'all think you can say whatever you want and run behind the mods whenever you get a response you don't like. So I guess you better get to it, like you were probably thinking of doing anyways.

But since we were allegedly talking about mid-2000s Amy, Amy has actually stood up against Sonic in some of the 2000s games. One example is Chronicles, where she defended Knuckles from Sonic for not defending the Master Emerald good enough. Amy also helped Silver and Elise without even knowing who they were looking for and why in 06.

[Kuzu]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

This is obviously not the case with Rouge since she's positioned as an anihero. If it was the case with Blaze they don't act like it. She spent her only real HD appearance glued to Silver's arm and has barely appeared since then.

I mean,I didn't say it was good representation; but comparatively speaking, they're both treated with more respect than Amy usually is. Most of the time she is treated as an annoyance by the other characters, and Sonic explicitly wants to be as far away from her as possible in older games. Rouge's debut has her as a rival to the strongman of the team, and while she is mostly glued to Shadow after that, she is at least shown to have a positive emotional effect on him. Sonic gets along way better with Blaze than he ever does with Amy.

I'm not gonna say the series treats them all that well overall, especially nowadays, but there is a clear difference in how they are treated back in the older games. 

[DabigRG]

11 hours ago, batson said:

Just a reminder that flanderization isn't always bad. Ned Flanders himself would never have become one of The Simpsons most popular characters if he hadn't turned ultra-religious. That's what makes him funny.

 

9 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

 

I think that's just called depth

Lol. Tropes are indeed tools.

7 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I feel like this is why characters like Rouge and Blaze were created to begin with, to be the exemplary female characters compared to Amy.

But since Amy is still the primary representation of femininity in the series, her showcases tend to stand out the most.

That does touch on another aspect of her issue: Amy kinda lacks something of a concrete archetype to be compared to other characters.

On the females specifically, Rouge is a jewel stealing double agent, Blaze is a duty bound princess from another dimension, Wave is an insufferable mechanic, and while Cream wasnt reall much of a standout, she does at least fit the gentile but inexperienced little girl. By comparison, Amy is generally treated as a tween girl with a crush, but where she operates outside or sometimes within that crush gets shaky between appearances.

6 hours ago, 4th Chaos Emerald said:

She could've elevated if they kept Team Rose and Cream as her sidekick. It would've felt a heck lot more natural than just saying she just "matured" because of her adventures when we haven't seen her on one since 2003. 

That's my observation as well. She was clearly meant to be forging a bit of a path of her own, but they underdeveloped it and didn't really give her many avenues to continuous follow through.

6 hours ago, 4th Chaos Emerald said:

It just feels like SEGA is just trying to push her as a main character since she's the most reoccurring female character.

 

Essentially. That and she's a Classic character.

4 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

I think she's interesting personally. When she's written by not sonic team. Sonic generally do not give the women as much depth or righting flourishes as the males. When women are written by not them, they are generally really interesting and fine. Any issues I have with idw amy is more so where she is rather than her personality itself

What of Blaze?

4 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I don't have any particularly strong feelings about her if I'm perfectly honest. She was entertaining in Boom for what it was, and there hasn't been enough of her in IDW for me to really say anything. 

Similar takeaway here.

[batson]

Personally, I actually agree with both the "old Amy was annoying" and the "new Amy is bland" notions. So basically, I don't think much of the character in general.

[Fire-N-Space]

Fans will over react when they see Amy crush on Sonic which is something I will never understand.

[Shadowlax]

12 hours ago, DabigRG said:

 

 

What of Blaze?

 

Blaze doesn't get to be written poorly because she isn't written. She's often left out or given lines so minimal or unimportant that its hard for her to be good or bad. Which is apart of the problem, again the women written by sega not only don't get to be written as well they often aren't that important or are used as satellite characters for other people. Blaze a character with her own world and lore in sega's eyes has kind of been reduced to " Silver's side kick kinda " because of her limited use. She's not in the worst position of sticks where its just non existence, but its not great.

So that's what of blaze

What of blaze?

[DabigRG]

17 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Blaze doesn't get to be written poorly because she isn't written. She's often left out or given lines so minimal or unimportant that its hard for her to be good or bad. Which is apart of the problem, again the women written by sega not only don't get to be written as well they often aren't that important or are used as satellite characters for other people. Blaze a character with her own world and lore in sega's eyes has kind of been reduced to " Silver's side kick kinda " because of her limited use. She's not in the worst position of sticks where its just non existence, but its not great.

So that's what of blaze

What of blaze?

And her introduction?

[Shadowlax]

15 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

And her introduction?

I think her introduction was strong. She was this cool new character who was powerful a woman, and was doing her own thing, had her own emeralds, had her own super form.

I liked she had her own hang ups, and I liked that her hang ups was her desire to work alone. Says a lot about how she feels about responsibility, there was a lot of character there. And now its just... gone

[E-122-Psi]

I feel like the Boom creative team understood one thing about Amy in managing her positive and negative qualities. They stated that Amy would always be the first to show sympathy, the first to think even guys like Eggman get a second chance if they show remorse......until she realises they've played her for a fool, then the gloves are off.

I think this is a good management, that Amy DOES have a temper, but she has to be pressed first, Boom admittedly was probably the one most TRYING to keep reign on her moods and be the better hog, even if she was still clearly getting frustrated. This is better than Amy flying off the handle and threatening people at the drop of a pin or alternatively having little to no temper at all, especially since there's often an instigating positive quality that sets it up (ie. her charitable side, which just leads to her being exploited).

This is maybe why Mania Adventures' Amy short worked okay with her character, just in that case Metal Sonic was in no state to really betray or mistreat Amy so we saw an Amy who wasn't getting her nerves pressed for a reason here.

[Wraith]

Rush Adventure largely continues that momentum by giving her a kid sidekick that pushes all of her buttons. Even if I weren't against Blaze being Silver's mentor character in concept, Marine brings out a much more interesting personality in execution than Silver ever did. 

Silver and Blaze don't even have to be such a dead end of a relationship either. It's pretty obvious Silver is the type of person that would annoy Blaze if she was allowed to be herself, and that alone means that it's a pairing worth exploring. In Sonic 06, Silver's flaws as a character are repeatedly brought to the forefront which is good, but Blaze as positioned as muted and competent instead which isn't true to the character. 

To me, Blaze is all about projecting the appearance of having it all together with a lot of anxieties running underneath. Pairing her with someone who's more outwardly a mess but more willing to learn and fix things is a good idea, but nobody at ST has ever made that connection. 

[E-122-Psi]

6 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Rush Adventure largely continues that momentum by giving her a kid sidekick that pushes all of her buttons. Even if I weren't against Blaze being Silver's mentor character in concept, Marine brings out a much more interesting personality in execution than Silver ever did. 

Silver and Blaze don't even have to be such a dead end of a relationship either. It's pretty obvious Silver is the type of person that would annoy Blaze if she was allowed to be herself, and that alone means that it's a pairing worth exploring. In Sonic 06, Silver's flaws as a character are repeatedly brought to the forefront which is good, but Blaze as positioned as muted and competent instead which isn't true to the character. 

To me, Blaze is all about projecting the appearance of having it all together with a lot of anxieties running underneath. Pairing her with someone who's more outwardly a mess but more willing to learn and fix things is a good idea, but nobody at ST has ever made that connection. 

Blaze truthfully felt shoehorned into Next Gen to complete Silver's team. It felt like they continued their dynamic afterwards despite not really fleshing out a proper chemistry for them any further.

A shame they pretty much forgot about Marine really, on paper that trio could be pretty fleshed out, giving Blaze both a blue and red oni to get both sides of her personality (and who knows Marine could work well against Silver, who likely would prove helpless against a 'take charge' sort of character like Marine).

[Wraith]

2 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

 

A shame they pretty much forgot about Marine really, on paper that trio could be pretty fleshed out, giving Blaze both a blue and red oni to get both sides of her personality (and who knows Marine could work well against Silver, who likely would prove helpless against a 'take charge' sort of character like Marine).

Just making them a trio with Blaze as the leader seems like the most elegant solution to me going forward but I have no clue how to tie that up in a neat bow lore wise with the characters on opposite ends of the Sonic universe in terms of distance.