Why are Tails and Amy mostly relegated to supporting roles?

[Kuzu]

I made a status about this a few weeks back, and it's always been on my mind but you ever notice how despite being among the most promoted and marketed characters, Tails and Amy almost never take center stage. This isn't even just the games, you can count the amount of plotlines where they're the star on a single hand in other media.  At best, they have to share the spotlight with much bigger characters, most notable just playing a supporting role to Sonic himself. 

It's really noticeable if you compare them to the likes of Knuckles, Shadow, Blaze and Silver, all of whom have had at least one or two games where they are the star, or at least have their own campaign, and the alternate media goes without saying. 

I'm not saying it's really a BAD thing for them to be mostly supportive, but you'd think given their legacy, they would have had more chances to shine on their own. And honestly, I think they've earned it.

[DabigRG]

Because they made with supporting or following Sonic in mind, unlike most others.

[Kuzu]

10 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Because they made with supporting or following Sonic in mind, unlike most others.

Well so was Knuckles and he still gets tons of solo time, even if not as much as before. 

[Diogenes]

Knuckles was designed as an enemy/rival. He has his own business that occasionally intersects with Sonic's. And only occasionally, thus the "why isn't he on Angel Island" half of Knuckles Discourse. On the other hand Tails is all about being Sonic's sidekick and looking up to him, and Amy's is having a crush on him.

[Scritch the Cat]

Yeah; while Tails and Amy were starting to have story arcs about getting themselves out of Sonic’s shadow and affirming themselves as individually capable, that largely got dumped when SEGA stopped caring about strong game-to-game continuity and instead focused on consistent characterization throughout the games.  
 

Except they haven’t really settled on a consistent personality for Amy, possibly because going back to her original motives might feel politically incorrect.  There’s increasing annoyance among male consumers about abuse and stalking being considered lesser offenses when they’re female-on-male, while to female critics female characters whose whole personality is framed around their admiration of male characters tend to look sexist.  Beyond this, heroes with agendas tend to get annoying if these agendas aren’t allowed to go anywhere, and also if the agendas aren’t sympathetic.  This is why most heroes in games with simple plots don’t have agendas.  Villains have agendas, which frees the writers from the concern of writing agendas that are sympathetic or annoying because they don’t succeed; heroes merely react to those agendas.

Unfortunately, while there are solid arguments for retiring Amy’s original motives, when they do there’s not much left to make her a very active—or even reactive—character.

Then, of course, there’s gameplay.  Tails and Amy can’t be more than supporting roles in the boost games.  But let’s be real; neither can most characters.

[Diogenes]

10 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Yeah; while Tails and Amy were starting to have story arcs about getting themselves out of Sonic’s shadow and affirming themselves as individually capable, that largely got dumped when SEGA stopped caring about strong game-to-game continuity and instead focused on consistent characterization throughout the games.  

I mean even these didn't really give them much of a path forward. SA basically just has Amy circle back around to Sonic from a slightly different angle, with her wanting to get stronger and more independent to impress Sonic. And Tails, he proves himself capable as a hero in his own right, but that doesn't give him any new motivation going forward; if they were ever going to have him truly break out of Sonic's shadow and work independently, there's still a big scary blank space to fill regarding what his business would be.

[Kuzu]

I always felt like Amy and Tails wanted to be great heroes because of Sonic, and eventually they would be able to handle things without his help. Amy likes helping people in need, and focuses on smaller problems that generally go over Sonic's notice while Tails can tech his way through. 

Though admittedly, those are pretty flimsy motivations. I never realized how lacking they are in the goals department. 

[Scritch the Cat]

5 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I always felt like Amy and Tails wanted to be great heroes because of Sonic, and eventually they would be able to handle things without his help. Amy likes helping people in need, and focuses on smaller problems that generally go over Sonic's notice while Tails can tech his way through. 

Though admittedly, those are pretty flimsy motivations. I never realized how lacking they are in the goals department. 

Amy was sort of on her way to, if nothing else, having some intentions in addition to winning Sonic’s affection.  She had a relatively consistent trend of caring for those down on their luck, (first a Flicky, then Emerl, and finally Big and Cream.)

I can’t say as much of Tails, but to be fair, nothing about his arc suggested he wanted to stop being Sonic’s friend.  We just didn’t tend to get many instances of him doing things on his own, but if his only objective was to affirm that he could, if forced to, so what?  Sure; he’s back to mostly being an accessory to Sonic, but it’s not like we should necessarily expect more from this series when it’s named after Sonic.  For that matter, as annoyed as I am at not being able to play as other characters, I’d still call that a better choice than going the route of the Donkey Kong Country series, kicking out its own title character for two of three games.

[MetalSkulkBane]

What everyone says: Tails is sidekick, that's his role. Yes he "learned to fight on his own" in SA1/2, but character development doesn't really exist, not in prominent way.

Meanwhile Silver and Blaze where design with idea to replicate success of Shadow. They were introduced staring in their own games, but now are getting sidelines. If Flynn gives Silver more 'solo' acts it as respect to his role he use to have.

And then there is hard balance of using everyone. If Tails gets so much screen time with Sonic, there is no need to give him solo adventure, it's better to give it to Shadow. (or in classic days to Knuckles).

Analogous to Amy, only with smaller emphasis here and there.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Probably because it got REALLY ridiculous during the mid to late 2000s with how over powered a lot of the main cast were becoming.

So I talked about it in more detail in the vid so go watch that if you want the long explanation.

https://youtu.be/NKGP1IqhqaQ

But the thing is, when the 3D games arrived and more emphasis was placed on literal storytelling and characterisation, we got SA1 which showed every character go through a significant change in some way.

Then in SA2 they cemented that so they were gradually becoming the same as Sonic in terms of how they can handle themselves.

Then in Heroes we see everybody near the same level and ability as Sonic.

It became a question of 'Wait... why are these characters going to Sonic for help when we've just seen them doing something even more dangerous with ease and clearly having the skill and ability to do the things they do and even still having those abilities in this game.'

This isn't like say Yakuza where every characters skill and ability is reset on every new game. In sonic they were being kept over and over in each game. It only built upon it and as a result we started to get the Saturday Night Movie Monster final villain in every game who wants to destroy the world or all life in the universe.

It's not until unleashed came along that we started to see an attempt to tone down the supporting cast into a more appropriate role. But it was done so suddenly in a bid to correct the mistake that many fans of said characters now become upset because their favourite now seems weak.

When in reality they're correcting an error.

[Scritch the Cat]

1 hour ago, Badnik Mechanic said:

Probably because it got REALLY ridiculous during the mid to late 2000s with how over powered a lot of the main cast were becoming.

So I talked about it in more detail in the vid so go watch that if you want the long explanation.

https://youtu.be/NKGP1IqhqaQ

But the thing is, when the 3D games arrived and more emphasis was placed on literal storytelling and characterisation, we got SA1 which showed every character go through a significant change in some way.

Then in SA2 they cemented that so they were gradually becoming the same as Sonic in terms of how they can handle themselves.

Then in Heroes we see everybody near the same level and ability as Sonic.

It became a question of 'Wait... why are these characters going to Sonic for help when we've just seen them doing something even more dangerous with ease and clearly having the skill and ability to do the things they do and even still having those abilities in this game.'

This isn't like say Yakuza where every characters skill and ability is reset on every new game. In sonic they were being kept over and over in each game. It only built upon it and as a result we started to get the Saturday Night Movie Monster final villain in every game who wants to destroy the world or all life in the universe.

It's not until unleashed came along that we started to see an attempt to tone down the supporting cast into a more appropriate role. But it was done so suddenly in a bid to correct the mistake that many fans of said characters now become upset because their favourite now seems weak.

When in reality they're correcting an error.

Plot-wise, maybe.  Gameplay-wise, well, Tails and Knuckles had almost identical abilities to Sonic, plus some different moves, for a long time before the Adventure era, and there’s no reason not to consider their absence overkill.  I’m not demanding Tails and Knuckles continue to have story arcs centered on them; I just want to play as them.

The other characters...got excessive, but I’d be lying if I said they weren’t a big part of why I loved the series back then.  There was reason to focus things back in on Sonic, but not to the extent they did, and plus, other characters getting stronger, faster, and more mature than they used to be shouldn’t prevent them from focusing back on Sonic.  They obviously did in SH, probably to many detriments, but things have gone way too far in the other direction.  At one excess we were forced to play as other characters, but now in most games we can’t even choose to.

SEGA has a tendency to overcorrect this series in response to criticism, and I think this is a problem that comes with the territory of conceiving a series to be “cool”.  When mass opinion shifts, it gives pressure to shift what the series is so it can stay cool.  Meanwhile, other series hold on to their past proudly.  (Some say SEGA actually does that, too, but not me.  They revel in Classic Sonic and Green Hill Zone because they’re currently perceived as cool again.)

[Kuzu]

1 hour ago, Badnik Mechanic said:

Probably because it got REALLY ridiculous during the mid to late 2000s with how over powered a lot of the main cast were becoming.

So I talked about it in more detail in the vid so go watch that if you want the long explanation.

https://youtu.be/NKGP1IqhqaQ

But the thing is, when the 3D games arrived and more emphasis was placed on literal storytelling and characterisation, we got SA1 which showed every character go through a significant change in some way.

Then in SA2 they cemented that so they were gradually becoming the same as Sonic in terms of how they can handle themselves.

Then in Heroes we see everybody near the same level and ability as Sonic.

It became a question of 'Wait... why are these characters going to Sonic for help when we've just seen them doing something even more dangerous with ease and clearly having the skill and ability to do the things they do and even still having those abilities in this game.'

This isn't like say Yakuza where every characters skill and ability is reset on every new game. In sonic they were being kept over and over in each game. It only built upon it and as a result we started to get the Saturday Night Movie Monster final villain in every game who wants to destroy the world or all life in the universe.

It's not until unleashed came along that we started to see an attempt to tone down the supporting cast into a more appropriate role. But it was done so suddenly in a bid to correct the mistake that many fans of said characters now become upset because their favourite now seems weak.

When in reality they're correcting an error.

Eeehh, I'm not sure if I agree with this. 

A large reason why people liked those supporting characters is that they were capable in their own right and had their own stories. I don't really see anything wrong with that, since that's how you build a world worth caring about. 

I can understand the criticisms towards it, but it was never a problem to me. At least enough of a problem where this was the only viable solution.  And ya know, now we're at a point when every supporting character is quite literally useless unless Sonic is around. I get that Sonic is the main character and the series should emphasize and prioritize him, but I don't think it really needed to come at the expense of what the series had established about the supporting cast.

 

In Tails and Amy's case, they went from characters who may not have been as capable as Sonic but could still hold their own, to quite literally not being able to do anything unless Sonic is around. Not only is it annoying for older fans who are aware of what these characters have gone through, but it doesn't really endear them to newcomers because who really wants to watch a bunch of characters be useless? 

[Scritch the Cat]

I don’t think characters being as physically competent as Sonic—or having other abilities that compensate—has anything at all to do with whether they wear out their welcome for most people.  Certainly, it didn’t seem to in the Genesis era.  

What soured people on the prospect since is that playing as the other characters became mandatory.  In the Adventure series, other characters became associated with less fun gameplay styles.  SH would attempt to address this by making them all play more like Sonic, but playing through as every team was still mandatory to beat the game, this time with only slightly different levels between them, plus more repeats to get the Emeralds.  At that point the other characters became the face of padding.  With ShTH, at least one other character became the face of selling out.

I think if they’re worried, they should test the waters with Tails and Knuckles being optional Playable characters in next 3D Sonic game.  Reactions might determine from there whether they could try to give them unique stories and quests again.

[Badnik Mechanic]

5 hours ago, Kuzu said:

In Tails and Amy's case, they went from characters who may not have been as capable as Sonic but could still hold their own, to quite literally not being able to do anything unless Sonic is around. 

Thing is though, they still can, it's just that people don't usually notice or there's such a focus on something else that it gets over-shadowed... or in the case of Forces, an angle got totally dropped.

Like in Forces, like I show in that vid, I'm convinced that game was going to have more of a 'war is bad' kind of vibe to it, just down to how Tails is written early on and how it's done surprising accurate to long term battle fatigue, and even other characters show part of this in the opening cut-scene... But the concept is suddenly dropped.

But with regards to Tails being as capable. In Forces there's a scene where Sonic and Tails encounter Eggman and Infinite, and in the cut-scene it looks like Tails is gonna go for them, but Sonic gestures for him to back off. He clearly thinks he can take them on but it's Sonic who says 'no don't do this!'

In Lost World, Tails doesn't come accross that well, but he's still out in front a lot of the time, he's still analysing and making decisions and coming to conclusions which are often right. When he ends up captured, he's not afraid, in the vid I point out how he's relaxed almost not bothered as if he knows he can outsmart these guys, which he does.

Amy's a bit more difficult, in Forces she was doing.... something with the resistance at least that meant she was in the leadership, best we get is that it's something to do with either communications or co-coordinating attacks.

The thing with Amy is that she's not really been given much of a role in a game other than the Boom spinoffs when you think about it. 

 

[Kuzu]

4 minutes ago, Badnik Mechanic said:

Thing is though, they still can, it's just that people don't usually notice or there's such a focus on something else that it gets over-shadowed... or dare in the case of Forces, an angle got totally dropped.

Like there's a moment in Forces where Sonic and Tails encounter Eggman and Infinite, and in the cutscene it looks like Tails is gonna go for them, but Sonic gestures for him to back off. 

In Lost World, Tails doesn't come accross that well, but he's still out in front a lot of the time, he's still analysing and making decisions and coming to conclusions which are often right. When he ends up captured, he's not afraid, in the vid I point out how he's relaxed almost not bothered as if he knows he can outsmart these guys, which he does.

Amy's a bit more difficult, in Forces she was doing.... something with the resistance at least that meant she was in the leadership, best we get is that it's something to do with either communications or co-coordinating attacks.

The thing with Amy is that she's not really been given much of a role in a game other than the Boom spinoffs when you think about it. 

 

This was kind of my point; they had bigger roles before all of this happened. 

I watched your video, and while I understand the point of Tails and Amy being more supportive characters, I feel they were already good supportive characters beforehand and could still significantly impact the plot. 

Sonic Adventure 2 have Tails and Amy as primarily support, but even then they can still impact the plot significantly; Tails takes initiative in rescuing Sonic from Prison Island, creates the Fake Emerald to disrupt Eggman's plans and inadvertently saves Sonic's life and none of that really required him to be that physically active. 

Amy does even less, but I can still cite her pep talk with Shadow at the very least.

These characters have just been used better in the past for me to accept that how they're being used now is in any way an improvement. 

[DabigRG]

Another key reason for not only those two, but most of the cast feeling underrepresented is because Sega hasn't been in a position to do much with most of them since 2005 at the earliest.

True, the key difference between the Dreamcast era and most of the Modern one is that multiple campaigns haven't been used since 06 for the main games and even the spinoffs stopped doing much in the way of diverse storytelling since Free Riders. The reason games in the prior category caught flak indeed had to do with how clunky and/or padded the other characters made those games, which was a positive for genuine fans of them but a detraction for everyone else.

But more than that, they're simply not able to invest in full fledged spinoffs focusing on other characters--even Shadow's game came to be largely because they knew for a fact that he was the 2nd most popular character and therefore was presumed a safe bet for success. Heck, they may not have had much confidence in that option to begin with, given that Tails' spinoffs were Game Gear games(one of which was confirmed to have been a cancelled Disney game that got reskinned) and Knuckles similarly got too billing for Chaotix due to his popularity at the time making him a good fallguy to avoid potentially tainting Sonic's reputation at the time.

Blaze, Silver, and formerly Shadow all have in-universe backing that would make them ideal for spinoffs, but Sega isn't doing that and so their mainly just big name recurring characters to bring in half the time. And characters like the Chaotix, Rouge, and Amy by comparison don't have a comparable level of respect to even get their foot in the door.

 

[Shadow Chaos Control]

Because they are supporting characters, they were never meant to carry the franchise or be in the limelight. Take a character like Amy or Tails and try to make them the focus and the story suffers. Sonic is the straight man hero,  the protagonist, and Amy and Tails are supporting characters that  depend on Sonic for their story arches. 

[Scritch the Cat]

21 hours ago, Titan Mecha Sonic said:

Because they are supporting characters, they were never meant to carry the franchise or be in the limelight. Take a character like Amy or Tails and try to make them the focus and the story suffers. Sonic is the straight man hero,  the protagonist, and Amy and Tails are supporting characters that  depend on Sonic for their story arches. 

The problem with that statement is that this did not originate as a plot-heavy franchise.  The closest the Genesis games might come to equaling your summation is that arguably Sonic’s design is better for showing expressions than those of Tails or Knuckles, but even then, “straight man” is not how I’d describe him.  In fact, that term is not supposed to be a synonym for protagonist.
 

Addressing only the games with more defined plots, you’re correct about Tails, but not necessarily Amy.  Sure; her crush on Sonic is often played up, but Amy’s maternal side came in a lot, too.  It was present in her assisting the flickies in SA, in assisting Big and Cream in SH, and in rescuing Cream and Cheese in ShTH.  Nothing really rules out Amy having a story that doesn’t rely on Sonic, though it’s true that her altruism tends to be more about a few trees than a forest.

As for Tails, I think the problem is that they won’t let him age.  While all of the Sonic characters have their ages permanently frozen at specific numbers (when they’re mentioned at all, which isn’t often) almost none of them have characterizations dependent on those numbers.  Sonic using totally radical slang being evocative of teens is the closest most get, and even then he’s toned it down.  But Tails gets boxed in because he’s perpetually seen as a child.  Not just in that he’s cute and is given high voices, writing calls back to him being a child; either with him doing things that look like big steps forward but might be reversed, or just wallowing in immature tropes like cowardice.  I wish they would just move on to “science nerd” being his preeminent trait, as that could give him plots that don’t necessarily revolve around Sonic.

[Diogenes]

1 hour ago, Scritch the Cat said:

or just wallowing in immature tropes like cowardice.

You realize fully grown-ass adults can still be afraid right.

[Kuzu]

6 hours ago, Diogenes said:

You realize fully grown-ass adults can still be afraid right.

I think its a matter of presentation; adults can be afraid, but Tails is never presented that way.

And even then, you've used the justification that he's a kid for his cowardice in the past, so clearly you see his cowardice as a childish trait.

[Diogenes]

28 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I think its a matter of presentation; adults can be afraid, but Tails is never presented that way.

Tails isn't presented as an adult because he's not an adult, but that doesn't mean being afraid is a childish or immature trait.

28 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

And even then, you've used the justification that he's a kid for his cowardice in the past, so clearly you see his cowardice as a childish trait.

Being a kid partially explains why he is afraid but being afraid isn't inherently childish.

[Kuzu]

Well of course being afraid isn't a childish trait, but that's the justification we're using to explain Tails' cowardice.

And even then, characters eventually grow out of traits like cowardice otherwise they risk losing audience sympathy after a while. Tails being a coward was fine when he was still a relatively new and inexperienced character.

 

But that's no longer his image, at least its probably not supposed to be. He's been around long enough where the general expectation is that he should be used to this shit by now to not be afraid, or at least to the extent of how he's currently portrayed.

If he's meant to grow into a more confident and bold character, then that should stick. Otherwise, don't regress him for the sake of a plot. 

[Diogenes]

2 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Well of course being afraid isn't a childish trait, but that's the justification we're using to explain Tails' cowardice.

Again it's part of the justification, not the whole thing.

2 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

And even then, characters eventually grow out of traits like cowardice otherwise they risk losing audience sympathy after a while. Tails being a coward was fine when he was still a relatively new and inexperienced character.

But that's no longer his image, at least its probably not supposed to be. He's been around long enough where the general expectation is that he should be used to this shit by now to not be afraid, or at least to the extent of how he's currently portrayed.

If he's meant to grow into a more confident and bold character, then that should stick. Otherwise, don't regress him for the sake of a plot. 

Character development is good, of course, but if you shave all the rough edges off a character they end up boring. I prefer a Tails that is still working on that confidence and can sometimes still be afraid over one who's finished growing and has nowhere to go.

[Scritch the Cat]

I’m fine with Tails still being afraid of some things, but Tails being paralyzingly afraid of Chaos 0 after we saw him defeat a stronger form of Chaos before he seemed to have gotten braver, that’s just lame.  What haunts me a lot is the thought that they could evade badly done characterization simply by having games feature less characterization, and with the decreasing amount writers have cared about stories, it’s a wonder that they haven’t gone this route.

[Kuzu]

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

 

Character development is good, of course, but if you shave all the rough edges off a character they end up boring. I prefer a Tails that is still working on that confidence and can sometimes still be afraid over one who's finished growing and has nowhere to go.

Here's the thing about character arcs though, they end. Once a character has reached their natural endpoint, they either need to change or be retired. The second they established Tails as a character who grew, the expectation is that he would retain that growth.

Obviously since Tails is too iconic to ever drop, he's not going to be retired. But that means in order for the character to not grow stale, they have to revert and undo the development he already had.

Characters need to stay fresh, but you also need to respect what came before otherwise its going to cause dissonance.