Is Sega intentionally shipteasing us?

[Amomynous]

Diogenes is right in that a romantic relationship doesn't necessarily have to to be some super-big responsibility where you inevitably settle down, I mean, I guess it requires a certain form of maturity and commitment that puts me off the idea of pairing up Sonic or Blaze myself , but your making hyperbole at least.

And Diogenes not necessarily saying Sonic should absolutely be paired up, just that your premise was untrue...At least I think.

 

Oh and since we've gotten onto the topic of whether or not Sonic could be paired up at all, when it comes to that sort of thing a compelling argument can't really be had (with some more specific pairings it can get like that as well), at least most I find boil down to "But he's so young!"  or "He's a teenage boy of course he likes girls." "Because commitment isn't his thing." "But everyone has to settle down eventually!" 

The very premise of the arguments are not particularly solid, not to say such conversations shouldn't be had but you kind of have to realize you can't pull much weight.

 

But I guess that's kind of follows real life, if you like girls or guys can you give a solid reason why? If your looking for a relationship or not can you give a solid reason why? Chances are someones reply would be some airy-fairy 'Because they complete me, 'Because I feel like it' etc...

Edited March 10, 2013 by Mysterics

[Tani Coyote]

While I've only had a handful of long distance relationships (as most furries do), I can say the biggest motivating factor for a relationship for me is well, I don't want to be alone. My ancestors will all die before me, and my siblings will move away. The logical conclusion is to find someone more or less in my age group to start a new family with. There are some complications versus a heterosexual relationship (I will have difficulty having kids), but overall it's the same. Someone you can confide in when you're upset, someone you can hang out with as much as become more intimate with. Romance has a lot of the same themes as friendship, but it has its own special intimacy.

 

Now as for Sonic and the subject of romance. Perhaps Sonic has some deep seated fears about a relationship. Even if it doesn't tie him down physically, there's always the chance someone can strike at them to strike at him. That something horrible could happen to them; losing a friend is crushing enough, but losing a lover is just devastating. I think he values his independence as a part of his commitment to personal freedom; while there are benefits to a relationship, maybe he's too shallow to understand that?

 

Of course, as I was saying, that doesn't exclude the ability for other characters to have romantic relationships. Indeed, I suspect Sega would be more open to that; they've explicitly said they don't want Sonic married or with kids. Presumably romance at all isn't too far behind.

[Kareemadeem]

Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games

Story Mode (Nintendo 3DS Version) Girls Bonus

 At Hyde Park, Peach, Amy, Blaze and three Toads are preparing the invitations to send them to the athletes. Amy wants to give Sonic his invitation personally but Blaze wouldn't let her so both engage into an Olympic challenge. Amy wins but, unfortunately, the invitations are sent flying around.

Sonic the Hedgehog wiki

 

 

Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games

 

Story Mode (Nintendo 3DS Version) Girls Bonus

At Hyde Park Peach, Amy, Blaze, and three Toads are setting up the invitations for all of the athletes, however Amy suggests she take Sonic's invitation to him personally but the others don't want Amy to go and insist that she stay and help the others work. However, after more begging, Blaze suggests that if Amy can beat her in a competition she will let her go.

 

Super Mario wiki

 

Shade the Echidna

Relationships:Sonic the Hedgehog

Shade has a certain respect for Sonic after he stood up against Ix, and was interested in co-operating with him because she found him a loyal hero. Interestingly, when the team had to split up into multiple squads during the assault against the Nocturnes, Shade said that she wanted to be with Sonic. 

Amy Rose

Amy is initially hostile towards Shade, as she objected to her joining with Sonic immediately: "Oh no you don't! You stay away from him, witch!" However, this may only be because Amy believed Shade had a crush on Sonic. Shade does not return these feelings (or if she does, she does not show it), and even responds to Amy's harsh objection with a polite appeal.

Sonic the Hedgehog wiki

Is it me or are the Sonic the Hedgehog wiki writers are the ones who are ship-teasing us?

 

 

Mark) Sonic: (Upon meeting Lumina Flowlight) *Wolf Whistles* Who are you? 

 

Wolf whistling at Lumina Flowlight, asking her in a excited manner "who are you?" seems to be a very intentional ship-tease.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Kareemadeem

[Tani Coyote]

Well if there's one thing Sonic's avoided as a shonen stereotype, it's being the one guy who isn't piled on by tons of girls. He usually only has one or two.

 

Then again I know people who took Rouge's "Big Blue" comment to be flirtatious. Then again Rouge is flirtatious by nature; she's an embodiment of male desire, so it makes sense she's got a seductive persona at times.

 

Interesting to see how the non-main titles have tackled the issue. Sonic does seem to unintentionally woo all the women he crosses paths with... part of me ponders if he's like Merlin and was fathered by an incubus.

 

Sega's definitely not above teasing at relationships but they seem very reluctant to actually pursue them. With their mascot character though this makes sense; a mascot is supposed to reflect their company. Hence all the shields to Sonic's development.

[Fleetway]

I'm just picturing Yuji Naka seeing this forum and his jaw hits the floor in response to how deeply people are looking into the relationships between these characters

[batson]

Hey look, it's one of my threads from back when I was a whipersnapper! Now I need to look it over and make sure that 2009 batson didn't say anything that 2021 batson has to issue an apology for.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Fleetway said:

I'm just picturing Yuji Naka seeing this forum and his jaw hits the floor in response to how deeply people are looking into the relationships between these characters

How did you even find this thread? xD

[Fleetway]

19 minutes ago, Angyu said:

How did you even find this thread? xD

I typed something along the lines of "Sonic shipping" into Google and saw something about whether or not Sega was leaving "hints" on purpose. I figured I'd take a look and see what people thought. To my surprise, people were taking a deeper look into this than I originally thought they would, it's like people started dissecting the meaning of the word "affection" or something. I decided my own two cents would be a joke about Yuji being dumbfounded about how invested people can get about things they're passionate about, no matter how small that thing is. I find this to be an interesting aspect of fandoms, people being invested and passionate about the characters, their world, their lore, their relationships and their emotions, almost as if they're real people. Sonic the Hedgehog certainly isn't the first or only franchise to have this effect, if there's interesting characters, in an interesting setting, with an interesting story, someone is going to be interested in it, and I know how redundant that just sounded but I'm not sure how else to explain it. At the end of the day, this discussion was about whether or not a company was hinting romance in a video game franchise about superpowered talking animal people, while other forms of the media have clearly shown romance as a subplot (Obvious Example: The comics), Sega seems hesitant on making anything final in the canon, I can think of a few reasons why, "just because he's the mascot" doesn't actually sound right to me, there's plenty of mascots who have been involved in relationships, did these work out? Some did, some didn't, but that's how romance works in real life too isn't it? Sega's dipped their toes, and like Sonic, they don't feel like jumping into the water. I can honestly see why they're hesitant, the writing is quite shaky as is, and introducing a full-on romance subplot may make or break everything. Also doesn't help that they're pulling the whole "immortal fictional character" rule and refusing to age characters, 15 year olds usually aren't in relationships but they're not usually saving the world from mad scientists and god-like beings either, the power of fiction

[Azure Blue Tori]

11 minutes ago, Fleetway said:

I decided my own two cents would be a joke about Yuji being dumbfounded about how invested people can get about things they're passionate about, no matter how small that thing is.

The best thing would be that this is merely the tip of the iceberg compared to, say, the infamous Once-ler fandom (and his voice actor's response to it).

Still, Sonic Team has shown they're aware of shipping. Naka has been pretty insistent on Sonic staying single, but other people involved with Sonic have pretty varied reactions. I doubt they'd want to make anything absolute when even the staff themselves can't agree on pairings, though they do tease and make fun of it every so often.

[Fleetway]

18 minutes ago, Azure Blue Tori said:

The best thing would be that this is merely the tip of the iceberg compared to, say, the infamous Once-ler fandom (and his voice actor's response to it).

Still, Sonic Team has shown they're aware of shipping. Naka has been pretty insistent on Sonic staying single, but other people involved with Sonic have pretty varied reactions. I doubt they'd want to make anything absolute when even the staff themselves can't agree on pairings, though they do tease and make fun of it every so often.

I guess you could say the reason why relationships are a complex topic for Sonic is because relationships are complex (Likely more so for a 15-year old superhero, kind of gives you Spider-Man vibes), yeah chances are Sega won't be making anything final, but they're still throwing everyone a bone on occasion, I mean I know I would. Shipping is a pretty big part of fandoms, so it doesn't really surprise me when the staff addresses it in some way, even if it's a tease or joke, you see quite a few of those. I guess shipping is just something that will always exist, it continues to exist even when there's a confirmation

[SnooPigu]

I dont get how Sonic gets paired(along with tails) in shipping investment all and not Shadow and Silver who are more or less more mature and conceptually realistic than Sonic and thus easier to promote them in romance based projection, Shadow and Silver have been viewed by fans as a bit of a knight in shining armor to many females. I find it a bit hyporcrtical Sonic is used as a self insert for many ships but is closer to being asexual than anyone outside of the highly ooc archie comics. 

The other two feels more open to exploring womanly relationships being mostly catered towards females, thus the girls flirting with them seem more appropiate since they both have that bad boy with a good heart vacariousness writers can explorenifnthey were creative enough.

[Fleetway]

3 hours ago, SnooPigu said:

I dont get how Sonic gets paired

My guess would be because he's the main protagonist and interacts with more characters than the other two hedgebros, to be fair I don't think any of the three are interested in starting a relationship. Sonic is the designated hero, Shadow is Shadow, and Silver seems to have a strong focus on making sure the future doesn't get screwed up (If Silver started a relationship with someone from the past that could have an effect on his future, it's no secret that the tiniest action in the past could have a massive effect on the future), Shadow is probably the most withdrawn guy you'll ever meet, real fun at parties

[SnooPigu]

On 3/23/2021 at 9:22 PM, Fleetway said:

My guess would be because he's the main protagonist and interacts with more characters than the other two hedgebros, to be fair I don't think any of the three are interested in starting a relationship. Sonic is the designated hero, Shadow is Shadow, and Silver seems to have a strong focus on making sure the future doesn't get screwed up (If Silver started a relationship with someone from the past that could have an effect on his future, it's no secret that the tiniest action in the past could have a massive effect on the future), Shadow is probably the most withdrawn guy you'll ever meet, real fun at parties

Shadow and Silvers best interactions and most emotionally strong friendships are with females. As compared to Sonic and Amy or Blaze or Sally who he shares little of his emotional vunerability towards, and its no surprise shadow x rouge and silver x blaze has a big following with me being a fan, if they ever persued a romance with actual comparable reasoning to actual hinting the two hedgehogs finding blaze and rouge being more than just friends to them, those two would be closest imo.

[Fleetway]

19 hours ago, SnooPigu said:

silver x blaze has a big following with me being a fan

Despite them not knowing the other since 06's events never happened, and I mean that canonically. It's probably best that 06 was erased since it only complicated the canon even more, and even so Rivals 2 doesn't help either. How Eggman Nega knows both Blaze and Silver is confusing to me since Rush 1 and 2 tell us that Blaze comes from a different dimension and the only mention of her being from the future comes from 06 which is non-canon. Rush Adventure tells us that Nega is a descendant of Ivo, so unless Nega is from the future and just went dimension jumping before settling down in Blaze's world the canon is totally screwed up. As for Shadow and Rouge, I honestly have no idea. Shadow seems to be the least emotionally open towards others and Rouge would probably marry a diamond before a person. I'm not the writer though, if Sega caves in and does have a go at involving romantic subplots, that's up to them. I just hope they make their canon less complicated

[Ricochet]

If Sonic Team discloses a ship, It would be as subtle as a raging boner.

[Wraith]

On 4/4/2021 at 10:04 PM, Fleetway said:

Despite them not knowing the other since 06's events never happened, and I mean that canonically. It's probably best that 06 was erased since it only complicated the canon even more, and even so Rivals 2 doesn't help either. How Eggman Nega knows both Blaze and Silver is confusing to me since Rush 1 and 2 tell us that Blaze comes from a different dimension and the only mention of her being from the future comes from 06 which is non-canon.

As of Team Sonic Racing they seem to know eachother well enough. The stuff about them spending their childhood together in 06 isn't canon anymore but they're still friends.

 

[Fleetway]

On 4/13/2021 at 7:25 AM, Wraith said:

As of Team Sonic Racing they seem to know eachother well enough. The stuff about them spending their childhood together in 06 isn't canon anymore but they're still friends.

 

I haven't played TSR yet but fair enough

[SBR2]

On 3/23/2021 at 5:02 PM, SnooPigu said:

I find it a bit hyporcrtical Sonic is used as a self insert for many ships but is closer to being asexual than anyone outside of the highly ooc archie comics. 

Sonic shared Elise's affection and clearly does share Amy's attraction in pretty much every modern portrayal. 

I don't get where this "He's Asexual" thing comes from honestly. There's a difference between not being super interested in serious relationships and being Ace.