Why Shadow didn't protect Maria?

[MetalSkulkBane]

Shadow is controversial figure, but I think we can all agree that he's fairly strong, right? Then look at events on ARK, he runs away from few pathetic human soldiers with tiny guns. Same guys he'll beat in dozens during his own game. What happened?

- Was it overwhelming numbers? Our sources aren't reliable (lying Black Doom and Shadow's messy flashback or semi-canon Sonic X and stuff), but nothing implies that. And how much army would be 'overwhelming' for Shadow?

- Fear of Maria safety? That hold more water, she could been taken hostage or even shot in chaos. But couldn't he just outrun those soldiers? If Sonic can run holding Elise, Shadow could do that too.

- Or, here's an interesting though... what If Shadow wasn't combat ready yet? Maybe he only learned how to fight (or even ran fast) after death of Maria (he certainly had motivation now). Only problem with that is Artificial Chaos outbreak, but again, we don't know if Shadow really fought during that incident, maybe he and Maria hid under the table through whole thing?

IDK, what you guys think?

[The Tenth Doctor]

I think its simply he didn't want to hurt them, for Maria's sake. She was a peaceful girl and in the game she gets upset if you attack soldiers so I think Shadow only attacked if there was no way to escape.

[Shadowlax]

My head canon is that he litterally had no idea how to use his powers or to fight and maria wanted to get him out of there. It also would work because he still even with motivation didn't in sa2 hence him needing an emerald for simple tasks like teleportng. And using up his energy and falling to earth. Over the course of several games he gets more used to what he can do and can do more. So he kinda regrets being so unknowledgable about his own powers. He had iirc only been alive a week he barely knew what things were in general. Heck even you wanted to stretch the head canon to now, it could even be motivation for current shadow not wanting to be weak or "run like a coward". He ran before his friend died. Or in general why he's a lot more pragmatist, or why sonic's free spirit and contentedness with who he is bothers him.He thinks its tragedies waiting to happen. Not understanding even with eggman being around bothering the heroes, he grew up in an extraordinary situation and he probably shouldn't hold everyone to such unrealistic standards including himself.

Theres also a theory that the games imply that the entire memory was fabricated by gerald to give him a conscious. And Maria was never real. But shadow's game contradicts this. My own head canon too since he fights in his flash back.

In actuality a plot hole that exists for dramatic tension and character motivation. That will likely never be explained. And in future retellings like say a future film or a reboot require large changes in his backstory to work

[StaticMania]

Shadow was clearly  protecting her by running away from them...

He's not exactly meant to hurt people.

[Shadowlax]

31 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Shadow was clearly  protecting her by running away from them...

He's not exactly meant to hurt people.

I mean he was. And that in shadow's game, he's attacking them in the flash back. Even if she isn't into it.
 

[SBR2]

I mean he was. Even if we don't take the attacking GUN Soldiers thing as canon then he was still trying to get her to safety.

[Diogenes]

He was trying to protect her, by getting her out of the situation.

But it's kind of hard to stop a bullet, even with superpowers.

I feel like that's really all there is to it? Sometimes things go wrong even if you're good at what you're doing.

[Shadowlax]

26 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

He was trying to protect her, by getting her out of the situation.

But it's kind of hard to stop a bullet, even with superpowers.

I feel like that's really all there is to it? Sometimes things go wrong even if you're good at what you're doing.

The dudehas super speed though. And high durability.  Before Sht. It was framed as shadow was in the pod he saw her die and got jetted off. But in his game they are just in a hall way, he could have legit just casually walked in front of her blocked the bullets with his body a power he demonstrated at the beginning of that game and that kind of would have been it. He also according that game at that time had enough powers to just easily fend them off.

Edit. Hold on , he could have just lifted her up and carried her at super speed down the hallway. Ran back beat them up and then ran back to her. Forget all that other stuff. And iirc in that they just show up behind him. He wasn't running at super speed they just caught up. That entire scenario doesn't really make any sense

ya'll look at this

I just think its a weird plot hole because they wanted something dramatic and him seeing his only friend die was the thing they wanted to write about and didn't at the time think about the actual mechanics of how that works when the person running with said friends has all the powers to stop bullets. It similar to how knuckles is the last echidna and unless some tragedy happened in the last 15 years of his life that whipped out every echdina it actually makes no sense. Or how silver's entire future works. Just cool things to add on to the character not really thinking about it coming together. Its not really bad either this is an easily forgettable plot hole because your brain can just fill in blanks. Similar to knuckles parentage and silvers future.

 

[MetalSkulkBane]

55 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Edit. Hold on , he could have just lifted her up and carried her at super speed down the hallway

Yes, I said that in very first post, I'm surprised it took 8 posts for someone to acknowledge this.

Even if Shadow was absolute pacifist who never held a gun and cringed when someone swears, he should still be able to run fast.

Or maybe he was that young that even concepts like "ran fast" or "carry in your arms" were new to him?

[Diogenes]

51 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

The dudehas super speed though. And high durability.  Before Sht. It was framed as shadow was in the pod he saw her die and got jetted off. But in his game they are just in a hall way, he could have legit just casually walked in front of her blocked the bullets with his body a power he demonstrated at the beginning of that game and that kind of would have been it. He also according that game at that time had enough powers to just easily fend them off.

Edit. Hold on , he could have just lifted her up and carried her at super speed down the hallway. Ran back beat them up and then ran back to her. Forget all that other stuff. And iirc in that they just show up behind him. He wasn't running at super speed they just caught up. That entire scenario doesn't really make any sense

"Oh but he could've..."

Well...he didn't. That he theoretically could've dragged Maria out of the way or attacked the soldier before he fired or whatever doesn't mean he was guaranteed to have taken exactly the right action at exactly the right moment.

[Wraith]

Shadows is capable of making a mistake. The entire reason he's interesting is because he's always making huge mistakes, not because he has a bunch of poorly defined superpowers that should keep him from making them. 

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

"Oh but he could've..."

Well...he didn't. That he theoretically could've dragged Maria out of the way or attacked the soldier before he fired or whatever doesn't mean he was guaranteed to have taken exactly the right action at exactly the right moment.

 

44 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Shadows is capable of making a mistake. The entire reason he's interesting is because he's always making huge mistakes, not because he has a bunch of poorly defined superpowers that should keep him from making them. 

 

One , I again I don't think this ultimately matters. Like I mentioned before, this is nonsensical whatever they thought was cool to add to his story.

That said, there's a difference between say. Fighting with your friend over what to do with his giant green rock whilst your cousin makes off with it because you were too up your own ass to work with people.

And not doing the one thing you do all the time, and are really good at and were literally built for to solve the problem that thing it can specifically solve. Like yeah people can make mistakes, and again ultimately this doesn't matter.  But lets not pretend everytime something is off with shadow its " ok to make a mistake" No its a plot hole. It a plot hole because sa2 is filled with plot holes and they didn't think about it and they didn't expect you to.

Its the same thing that happened in forces with silver. The reason that gets shit talked and not this is because the story around sa2 despite is flaws is great. But its a dang plot hole. A fun one, and one that ultimately doesn't matter because the story is effectively communicated, but that's what it is.

[Wraith]

SA2 has some plotholes, but this simply isn't one of them. Characters are more than a spreadsheet of traits, statistics and superpowers. The fact that Shadow failed the one person closest to him, the one he was supposed to save, informs his entire personality. These are all deliberate decisions. I don't think I'm giving them too much credit here either because this isn't exactly the most uncommon trope. 

[Sean]

Characters making mistakes isn't a plothole, despite the widespread misconception that it is.

[thumbs13]

This is just Shadow the Hedgehog's fault for changing how Maria died. It's weird that Shadow didn't do anything to gun soldiers who were kinda just there. after all those ark levels where Shadow does stuff, as opposed to SA2 where Shadow was just stuck in a tube and couldn't do anything. 

[Wraith]

In SA2 Maria was already holding her chest when she put shadow in the tube, implying that she had been shot already. Shadow frames the scene in a weird way but I dont think it was contradictory. 

 

[Diogenes]

Yeah, even in SA2 Shadow wasn't in the escape capsule until after Maria got shot.

They're running through the ARK together, then you hear the shot, then she closes the capsule on him.

[Shadowlax]

I had something longer here but I don't care that much. Its a plot hole in a game for children. Sonic does this all the time. Pointing this out does not reduce a character to spreadsheets its a thread pointing out a weird narrative thing about a character that despite it everyone still very much enjoys. And i think its healthy and frankly more fun to admit and point out these plot holes instead of pretending this series about hedgehogs going fast was meticulously planned with every step. It wasn't , its a plot hole who cares. He coulda ran, but he didn't because they needed the girl to die for sad. That's it.

 

 

 

[MetalSkulkBane]

 

2 hours ago, Sean said:

Characters making mistakes isn't a plothole, despite the widespread misconception that it is.

That is something I whole hearty agree, I see many people make this misconception. But I don't think it applies to this situation.

For starters I'm not looking for plothole, I'm just trying to get clear picture of the events.

Secondly, how can forget you can run fast, when you're, you know,  RUNNING? Isn't that just automatic?

[Celestia]

Even if he went faster and carried her, the next question there is "what now?"

GUN almost certainly was guarding any shuttles or whatever and outside of video game logic i.e. Rings there's no guarantee Shadow would be able to get in there and not either get shot himself, or risk Maria getting shot even if he left her temporarily.

Here's a possibility: maybe he was already badly injured (and healed while in pod stasis I guess)? There's not really an indication of this aside from the fact he's noticeably not using his speed in any version of the flashbacks we've seen, with Maria even dragging him along in ShTH's version. But it's an idea I guess. (And now I want a version where she's carrying him, lol.)

[Sean]

23 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

I had something longer here but I don't care that much. Its a plot hole in a game for children. Sonic does this all the time. Pointing this out does not reduce a character to spreadsheets its a thread pointing out a weird narrative thing about a character that despite it everyone still very much enjoys. And i think its healthy and frankly more fun to admit and point out these plot holes instead of pretending this series about hedgehogs going fast was meticulously planned with every step. It wasn't , its a plot hole who cares. He coulda ran, but he didn't because they needed the girl to die for sad. That's it.

Others pointing out that it's not a plothole doesn't equate to defending the work. You can keep on yapping about it being a plothole for as long as you like but that alone doesn't actually make it true. It would be a plothole if it went against the narrative logic established in the work itself. A character going against basic logic in general isn't a plothole; otherwise, real fucking life would be full of them.

[Shadowlax]

1 hour ago, Sean said:

It would be a plothole if it went against the narrative logic established in the work itself.

Actually it can be a plot hole, if in this case there is no narrative justification for it happening and the thing to prevent it happening is either something the character normally does or doesn't do and them not doing that is significant in that moment. The character not doing something they normally do with no explanation so conveniently a plot point can happen. Espically in a situation that would call for it, is infact a narrative inconsistency. Whether it matters or not is up the viewer.

If I may use an example, spiderman. Movie spiderman. So remember when peter lets the robber get away and that same robber gets uncle ben ken killed. Peter not stopping that robber, and the uncle been dying and the legendary line " great power comes with great responsibility ". He then learns , you can't just let injustice slide because it benefits you, because one day it may happen to you. If you can help people, help.

Simple right. Peter didn't do something he would normally do, in his hubris, ben dies.

So the question is , why didn't shadow run? You keep saying its a " mistake" but why would he make that mistake. There is literally no reason for him to make that mistake. He has no motivation to not run right now. He wants maria to live , he wishes to escape the gun wielding soldiers on his tail.  The reason he's not running is because maria needs to die for the story to continue. There is no in universe reason. The script is on the ground and we can see it. This is a plot hole.

Quote

In fiction, a plot hole, plothole or plot error is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story's plot

Shadow is a character who in and out of universe is designed to go fast and kick ass. And he magically decided to not do it, unprompted, for no reason when his friend conveniently needed to die for the plot.

Every explanation you and I could provide as to why he didn't. Is head canon, there is and never was explanation. That, is a plot hole. It just happened, because the story needed it to. I can fix it right now if you want, watch

Maria because of her medical condition is actually rather fragile, and running really fast might hurt or kill her which is what shadow didn't want at the moment.

Bam there you go. But that didn't happen, nothing happened, there is no reason. There is a gap in the story a inconsistency where the character designed to go fast, just decided he didn't want to. There is no reason for this, this is a plot hole.

Doesn't matter, the story is still fun and engaging. And just because a story has 1 or 2 or however many plot holes doesn't mean ya can't enjoy it or even that its not good. I'm not into the " cinima sins " style of commentary where every plot hole is some giant flaw that needed to be pointed out. This didn't really. I have actually thought about it untill OP brought it up. But while we are here, it is a plot hole.  But its one that just never mattered to anyone's enjoyment.

[Sean]

Not everything needs to be explained away to cover all the million questions some random player out there might be asking. I think everyone can agree that characters, and people, don't always act lucidly during tense situations and moments of panic. If during the flashback sequence Shadow demonstrated that he was capable of making all the right decisions, kicking everyone's asses without so much as blinking, and adequately defending Maria 99.9% of the time with the exception of the one split second where Maria gets shot to death, then you might have a concrete argument that this was in fact a plothole. As it is, what we do know is that Shadow felt he himself did not make the right decisions and that he failed Maria during her time of need. What it is is just a bad thing that happened.

[Tornado]

It's clearly a plot hole that Shadow didn't run in front of Maria after the soldier shot her, deflect the bullet back through the soldier's gun with his radiant coolness energy (causing the gun to explode and shoot all the other soldiers in the room, of course), then find a potato in Gerald's lab and use it to perform Chaos Control to whisk him and Maria off of ARK so she could instead die painfully of Space AIDS on Earth.

 

 

That way Shadow would be able to be maximum cool and never have tear himself over any personal mistakes, but still have reason for wanting to kill everyone on the planet anyway.

[Match]

Shadow had simply never seen a gun before and did not know that they could kill people