Hating Eggman

[Blazey Firekitty]

No, this isn't a thread about character bashing.

What I mean, is...One criticism of modern, post-Sonic Adventure Sonic that seems to exist, as least if I know the fandom as well as I think I do, is that Eggman does isn't hatable anymore, and thus has lost his edge.

Does Eggman need to inspire hatred in the player to work as a viable, competent villain?

[azoo]

Not exactly; I don't hate Robotnik whatsoever in the OVA, and neither does he have any qualities that will make you really hate him. He just has many qualities that show he's a worthy opponent, and a formidable and dastardly foe. This is how the Batman franchise does the Joker (at least that's how they were doing him before recent graphic novels have given a grimmer and more gory depiction), and I think it works well for the Eggman just as much as it does for the Clown Prince of Crime.

[Agent York]

I don't think so at all. I look forward to boss fights with the good doctor. I think he is more memorable and quite frankly one of the constantly good and likable characters in the series. I still will beat his machines, but I don't hate him. He's actually my favorite character in the franchise. Pure evil would be boring, I prefer Eggman how he is now. He can be evil when he needs to be but also comedic and a scientist, even a good person at times and it all feels in character for him.

[Speederino]

I don't think so at all. I look forward to boss fights with the good doctor. I think he is more memorable and quite frankly one of the constantly good and likable characters in the series. I still will beat his machines, but I don't hate him. He's actually my favorite character in the franchise. Pure evil would be boring, I prefer Eggman how he is now. He can be evil when he needs to be but also comedic and a scientist, even a good person at times and it all feels in character for him.

This, and I'd have to say he's one of the few characters whose voice acting doesn't suck. No, I'm not trying to turn this into a discussion about the voice acting, I'm just saying that of all the characters with terrible acting and annoying voices, Eggman is pretty much the only one who I think has never sucked. Though I admit that everyone else has been getting better lately.

[Indigo Rush]

I'd prefer Eggman's most maniacal and deadliest weapons and attacks to occur when he is either snapped or frustrated immensely with his blue foe... otherwise, being affably evil is perfect for his image.

A good example is the Egg Dragoon boss. Aside from Eggman's silly antics throughout the game, he shows a lack of control when pushed over the edge, almost acting irrational at times, even prompting Sonic to ask Eggman shout, "WOAH EGGMAN! Chill out!"

It's moments like that which make him a formidable foe. When he's under control, he's a comical genius. When he's angry, he becomes a crazy madman. It just works like that. I mean, under the crushing defeat of his Egg Carrier, as well as Chaos 6, he does the most logical thing... blow up the entire city of Station Square with him within its boundaries! Seriously, Robotnik? Take a chill-pill!

But yeah. I don't think he's lost his "rottenness," what has changed is when it shows, is all. I find it more interesting that way.

Edited April 9, 2010 by Indigo Dude

[SchemingMinor]

No, this isn't a thread about character bashing.

What I mean, is...One criticism of modern, post-Sonic Adventure Sonic that seems to exist, as least if I know the fandom as well as I think I do, is that Eggman does isn't hatable anymore, and thus has lost his edge.

Does Eggman need to inspire hatred in the player to work as a viable, competent villain?

Decades of Robotnik veneration progress, fueled pro-PINGAS rallies, and insightful Eggman propagandist viewpoints among the gaming community better not be disassembled by this topic, BlazeyBakeneko.

But does a villain have to incite rage among a player in order to be an effective villain?

No. in fact, it might indict more seething hatred and rage against the character as a whole than invite honorable respect or credibility and allow the player to view the finer details of their character.

Look at Bowser for example. Bowser has progressed down into the same pathway for years which many accuse of being a candidate of "villain decay" but yet, we still rank the giant Koopa King as one of the top villains in gaming of all time up there along with Ganondorf, Sephiroth, and Dr. Wily. Robotnik has reached the point that he doesn't need to fight for notoriety anymore since he has became a memorable idol of gaming history, and this allows flexibility with his character and notions in what constitutes as a villain. Needless to say most of the perception of him being a ruthless cold-hearted villain was beget from crossed canon wires (mainly SatAM 'Botnik.) within the community about tales of robotization and the like.

Malevolence projected outwards in a whole like a serial killer tends to be flat and one-dimensional; the feelings for characters like these are shallow and usually remains at the surface which only evicts hatred and it's ilk. In Robotnik's case he is playful, childish and orotund which allows him to get into our hearts at a closer level; likewise when he does something wrong, then we feel betrayed at an intimate level.

Edited April 9, 2010 by Kintobor

[Diogenes]

Eggman never did anything particularly hateable in the Genesis games.

Sonic 1: Puts animals in robots, builds a factory, digs in some ruins. Only the first is particularly malicious, and even then it doesn't feel really evil. It's like Bowser capturing Toads; yeah, it isn't nice, but no one really cares, because they're generic and replaceable.

Sonic CD: Has Metal kidnap Amy, takes over a planetoid with time travel. Kidnapping Peach a hundred times over certainly didn't make people hate Bowser; kidnapping Amy once isn't going to do it for Eggman. Taking over the Little Planet is a nice trick, but it's pretty standard evil villainy.

Sonic 2: Basically the same as Sonic 1, except now he has a space station of poorly-defined purpose.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles: More animals-in-robots, more of that MacGuffin space station. Also he tricks some guy into being a douche to you, and steals a really big gem. Standard villainy, nothing more.

So I'm really not sure what this "Eggman must be eeevil!" thing is supposed to be based on. Game Eggman was never SatAM Robotnik, or even AoStH Robotnik. Evil, yes, insane, perhaps, but he didn't go around kicking puppies, killing off innocent characters, or outlawing music just to be a dick.

Hell, if anything, modern Eggman has been more hateable than Genesis Eggman. Could you picture Genesis Eggman firing a missile into a populated city with the intent to level it completely? Blowing up half the moon and threatening to do the same to any country that didn't submit? Splitting the world apart just to get to the creamy center giant monster inside it? This sort of stuff only came about because of the shift that SA started, turning Eggman from a silly fat man into a slick, more respectable sort of villain.

Aside from confusing him with his "cousins" from other media, I think the problem really lies in Eggman not being as effective at his villainy as he was before. Back in the Genesis days, Eggman was the villain, the end-all-be-all of villainy in the series. Aside from Knuckles in S3&K, everything that stood in your way was directly under Eggman's control, from the badniks to the minibosses to the Sonic robots to the big man himself. Standard villainy though it was, he got shit done, until Sonic/the player came around to stop it. The problem comes when modern Eggman starts slipping.

He was a solid antagonist through most of SA (though some characters had their own concerns which were not so relevant to Eggman's stuff), but at the end of the story Chaos goes on a rampage, knocking Eggman out and shooting down his spare Egg Carrier, and becomes the true final boss. Fair enough, it was a valid twist at the time. SA2 kicks it up a notch; although Eggman manages to hold his own for most of the story, he's got some competition thanks to the hero/dark pairs; there are times when Sonic and Knuckles are busy dealing with Shadow and Rouge instead of him. The kicker is the last story, where it's revealed that Shadow/Gerald has been playing him like a fiddle from the start, and Eggman is forced to work with the heroes to stop the ARK from falling. Fair enough; Eggman still had some great moments and commanded attention for most of the game. Heroes is when (IMO, at least) things went too far. Eggman is reduced to a joke; by the end of the game it's revealed that Metal Sonic has been behind everything, impersonating him in battle, and that Eggman's spent the whole game locked in a closet. Even once he's freed, he's no good; he gets beaten up by Charmy (presumably the second-weakest character in the game), does nothing to help out against Metal (despite doing quite well at blasting his way through the ARK in the previous game), and ends up slinking/running away because he can't pay a bill. Pretty damn pathetic.

It doesn't get much better from there. He's a side-villain in ShtH, showing up a few times to do nothing of import and being the focus of a noncanon ending. His machines are pretty pathetic this time around as well, the Egg Dealer rivaling Sonic 2's drill car in worthlessness (and this comparing a first-level boss to a penultimate one). And of course he's completely upstaged in the villain department by Generic Evil Alien #137. In '06, although he's largely the driving force behind Sonic's story, Sonic's story is crap, being little more than a string of passing Elise back and forth so she can cry when he dies.Which is Mephiles' plan, anyway...he's the real villain of the game, the only one actually accomplishing something, evil-twin-once-removed though he may be. Even Iblis commands more attention than Eggman, despite appearing to be no more intelligent than an animal; he, at least, has destroyed the future, whereas Eggman is busy trying to break Bowser's record for "most times having captured the same princess". Unleashed, at least, seems to be trying to reverse the trend; it has some of his best scenes since SA2 and he remains a threat throughout most of the game, but you still spend at least half the game (probably more, given the length of the werehog levels) dealing with Dark Gaia spawn, and he still gets flicked away in favor of the giant monster final boss.

I really don't think Eggman needs to be more mean or evil. Character-wise, he's settled into quite a nice state, a classy sort of evil while still being both goofy and somewhat likable (entertaining, at least, if you're not sympathetic). What needs to be fixed is his win/loss record. Make more games where he's at the top of the villain food chain. Come up with stories that don't require him to unleash monsters, and instead focus on his robots and machines. When you do use the monsters, let him actually succeed in controlling them and turning them against Sonic (there is no reason Unleashed couldn't have ended like this.). They can change it up every once in a while, bringing in another villain or having the monster run wild, but these should be the exceptions, not the norm; when it gets to the point that it'd be a twist if Eggman actually was the final boss, you know you've done something wrong.

[MrROBOTO1988]

The only thing I want eggman to bring back from the old days is actually being the main villain and the final boss. I loved chaos, and the whole "ultimate life form prototype hydrolizard of doom" was decent, but then I started to realize the pattern in modern sonic games: eggman appears as main villain, and he unleashes some new god/deity/massive creature of power to control and use to take over the world. player battles both eggman and creature throughout game, and then in the end, eggman loses control of creature! OH NOZ!! now eggman is on sonic's side and wants him to stop this terrible creature!! This basic plot was the story in : SA, SA2, Heroes(although a bit altered in that one i suppose), Sonic '06, and Unleashed. I miss eggman being the only villain who just made cooler robots to be a bigger threat.

[Saint Nathan]

Doesn't matter how evil they are. Who actually HATES villains?

Anyways, Eggman is an evil bitch at times, from attempting to destroy a huge city, blowing up the moon, blowing up the Earth, to actually trying to break up the space-time continuum.

In between this time, however, he takes care of Chao, eats sammiches, and mopes around about his plans failing.

He's a hugely double sided coin. You have his evil terrorist side, and his daily life. Not to mention he's totally quirky the whole time. He's the kind of guy who actually will attempt to kill you, then shows mild happiness at your return from near-death situations.

With a character THAT fleshed out, why do we need to hate him?

[Tori Himemiya]

No reason to hate Eggman. Eggman has done bad things in the past but it's the monsters he unleashes that does the real damage.

Besides Eggman will sit down and have tea with Sonic after all.

[Nattala]

I don't think hating Eggman is so much what he does in the story but what he does in boss battles. Throughout the story he's entertaining but when you're stuck on that one boss THEN you start to get annoyed at him. He can kill as many puppies as he likes but if all you want to do is progress in the game and you're being stopped by a fat man in a robot who laughs when you die, its hard not to hate him. After the battle though everything's fine and you can go back to enjoying watching his antics. So I think good villain hate isn't so much hating the character but hating during the battle. The battle itself may be enjoyable but this guy's trying to kill you and you should be annoyed by that.

[Badnik Zero]

I think he could be a little more sinister. Eggman is the kind of villain I like to watch scheme, because that's his thing, he's intelligent. The opening of Unleashed where his plans all come together was great to watch. And all the scenes where his villainous affairs with SA-55. He could do with more "I'm going to do this! Bwahahaha!" And yeah, his ultimate goal is Eggmanland - but we never see him plot and scheme. Also to make him more villainous - he needs some more Plan Bs. He usually had a series of traps in the classics - the Labyrinth Zone trap in Scrap Brain, so many boss designs, the Flying Battery laser room boss, how he's always able to make an escape like from Wing Fortress in Sonic 2. It made him seem prepared for anything. Like in SA1 when Chaos goes perfect - and he shows up with a brand new Egg Carrier. Where did that come from Eggman, you crazy crazy doctor you? These things add to villainy IMO, show us why you're called Doctor.

[Phos]

Eggman currently has this tendency to be almost completely non threatening to the point where it seems like the best way to beat him is to just ignore him until he goes away, or he has no idea what is actually going on.

He was a complete pawn in SA 2, allowing Shadow to take full advantage of him, he made exactly one decision for himself after releasing Shadow (How to steal 3 emeralds from GUN).

He wasn't really the villain in Sonic Heroes, he wasn't even a villain. He told everyone else that Metal locked him in the closet, but I think that the threads on the knob were just stripped.

I didn't play past the second neutral level in ShtH, but I get the impression that he doesn't actually do anything. then he gets killed, but it doesn't stick.

In Sonic Unleashed, Sonic's defeat of Eggman is incidental. Eggman is completely outclassed at every turn, except for the time where he did something useful on accident. He is unable to significantly menace a random African tribe, and his robots only have an effect in extremely large numbers versus Sonic in a compromised state. He beats Eggman on the way to reseal Dark Gaia. He doesn't really even seem to care what Eggman is doing until he has to get through his base to find the last temple. But it's not really a surprise, much like Ishmael from Moby Dick, Sonic isn't really the protagonist of Unleashed. Aside from being inexplicably necessary to the plot (Why is it that Chip has so much trouble with his job?), he's more of an interloper in the primary conflict, and his character isn't developed passed him and Chip being friends or something.

[batson]

I think that Eggman's lack of ability to come of as a threat is what prevents Sonic Team from ever using him as the main villain in the story-heavy 3D games. I mean, how could they ever again make the idea that Eggman is going to take over the world seem as dramatic and intense as the idea that some kind of ancient god is going to destroy the universe?

[Flyboy Fox]

I think that more than needing to be more evil (his actual schemes are plenty evil enough), he just needs to be more competent - more of a genuine threat, rather than simply the catalyst for the eventual final showdown.

As far as 'hating' him goes... I think it's very hard to actually HATE any character, and SEGA wouldn't want that. The moment you go from pretending to hate to actually hating, you no longer WANT to go up against them because why do you even wanna see a character that you hate? Villains have to be likeable to at least a degree so that encountering them isn't just a chore.

[Diogenes]

I mean, how could they ever again make the idea that Eggman is going to take over the world seem as dramatic and intense as the idea that some kind of ancient god is going to destroy the universe?

By doing it.

At this point the giant monsters are boring. We all know how it's going to go; Eggman releases it, it flicks him away, Sonic goes Super. The best way to restore Eggman's reputation is to have him break that cycle. Either have him be a threat on par with the monsters he releases (as far as needing Sonic to go Super to stop him, not so much the "destroy all reality" bit), or have him take control of the monster so he now has planet-destroying power in the palm of his hand.

[Barry the Nomad]

This thread is a personal attack and I will be contacting the mods!

Maybe then you will hate me! HOHOHOHO!!!

[Teoleulbogo]

I don't want to hate Robotnick, I want to see him as a threat again. Simmiler to The Joker, I think Robotnick works best when he is funny and enjoyable, but still seen as something you wouldn't want to mess with in real life.

[Vertekins]

Game Eggman has never been extremely evil and that's part of what makes me like him so much.

Such a pity people have to keep dragging on their campaign to make Eggman like his Satam/Archie counterpart who, whilst is undeniably sinister, is actually less competent than game Eggman in some ways. Sonic even taunts him about it in issue 200, how he doesn't have complete control over Mobius and the places he does have some measure of control in have inhabitants that hate his guts (Goes for the people who live in Non-Eggman-dominated territory). Game Eggman never needed to use the threat of roboticisation to have competency concerning game Sonic. It left a bitter taste in my mouth when Archie Sonic seemed to have remorse when Archie Eggman went nuts. This sicko mass murdered Mobians in their thousands and even slaughtered other Overlanders.

Game Eggman has his comical aspects and his peculiarities but he's that kind of villain that should never ever be underestimated. It's something Sonic himself is unable to completely process and the occasions where Sonic hasn't taken Eggman as seriously as he should led to his near-death on quite a few occasions. I mean, what about the Unleashed intro where Eggman catches him in his giant metal hand because Sonic was too busy showing-off than hightailing it? If he didn't have those emeralds, there's no doubt whatsoever that Eggman would have crushed him, as evidenced by Eggman slowly bringing his other hand over to the one holding Sonic as if he was going to squeeze him to death. The capsule scene in SA2 in which Sonic and Tails were OutGambitted by Eggman is another one.

I've always said this; SA2 was Eggman's ultimate Crowning Moment of Awesome going by how very sinister he was as well as his competency as far as i'm concerned, even if he was being used as a pawn by Shadow and Gerald. Eggman has no comical undertones to his character whatsoever in SA2, he's sinister from start to last story. And who can forget

The sheer amount of venom that Eggman has in his voice when he's threatening to make mincemeat out of Tails reflects just how threatening in such an evil way Eggman can be.

[Glenn]

I always used to smile at the beginning of Team Sonic's storyline in Sonic Heroes... y'know, the bit where Dr. Eggman sends Sonic, Tails and Knuckles a letter saying "Guess what, Sonic Heroes?! I've finally created the ultimate weapon! In three days, I'll conquer the world! Think you can stop me?!"

That defines the evolution of the relationship between Dr. Eggman and Sonic. In the beginning, Eggman (then Robotnik) was a nutjob bent on world domination and experimenting with animal-shaped assimilation. And that's all well and good, but when Sonic appeared and started to stop him, it seems as though he became more preoccupied with inventing ways to stop Sonic, rather than ways to take over the world. The Death Egg mech-suit, for example... what's the point?! Except to kill Sonic, of course! That's the nature of his imbalanced mind, because I do agree with what somebody said above, indicating Dr. Eggman is a comical fool when plotting and an over-the-top mental case when carrying out said plots.

I loved the moment in Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity when, after working together with Sonic and Jet to uncover the secret of the Babylon Garden, the black hole is unleashed. Dr. Eggman gasps "The world is dooooomed!!" And then he just buggers off, leaving the others to die/save the world! I think that shows something, too.

He's just a kid. He wants what he can't have.

[Octarine]

I always used to smile at the beginning of Team Sonic's storyline in Sonic Heroes... y'know, the bit where Dr. Eggman sends Sonic, Tails and Knuckles a letter saying "Guess what, Sonic Heroes?! I've finally created the ultimate weapon! In three days, I'll conquer the world! Think you can stop me?!"

I feel obligated to point out that that was Metal Sonic, not Eggman. It didn't strike Sonic as an out-of-character thing for Eggman to do, though, so I guess the point stands.

I find it hard to hate any fictional characters for in-story reasons, honestly. I only tend to dislike characters if they fail at fulfilling their role in the story competently: a villain is generally supposed to be evil, so I don't usually feel bad when they do evil things. That's the point, really.

Even then, I don't think Eggman was ever particularly hateable, especially in the games. This isn't some kind of paragon of villainy we're talking about, here; SA1's little terrorism escapade was about as evil as Eggman ever got, and that was really just a temper tantrum. Sure, he was pretty pathetic in ShtH and especially in Heroes, but in most of the other post-SA2 games he's been pretty consistent with his classic incarnation: evil, but in a very Saturday-morning-cartoon way. He's not Kefka or anything.

Edited April 12, 2010 by Octarine

[Glenn]

I feel obligated to point out that that was Metal Sonic, not Eggman. It didn't strike Sonic as an out-of-character thing for Eggman to do, though, so I guess the point stands.

Ah. Having never collected all the Chaos Emeralds in Sonic Heroes, I was unaware of that. And yet it still made perfect sense, as it did to Sonic!

[Mort]

Eggman is reduced to a joke; by the end of the game it's revealed that Metal Sonic has been behind everything, impersonating him in battle, and that Eggman's spent the whole game locked in a closet.

In Eggman's defense, Metal Sonic has always been The Dragon to him and has always been one of his most powerful creations if not the most powerful. So really, if Metal decides to pull a starscream, theres nothing Eggman could really do if he was caught off guard.

[Dr. Mechano]

As Diogenes said, Eggman is actually darker today than he ever was in the Genesis era. In the classic games, the doctor was a silly fat man in a clown suit who wanted to take over the world with an army of toy-like robots powered by the local wildlife. Sinister, yes, but nowhere near as villainous as destroying (or attempting to destroy) cities, the moon, and even the planet in his quest for global domination.

Eggman is, I still contend, a character first and a villain second. But I don't think his strength as a character has to indicate weakness as a villain. Indeed, he can be strong in both aspects if done right.

Eggman's evil enough; To make him too evil would be to turn him into the same edgy and angry sort of 90s cliched villain that his SatAM counterpart was, which to me would be a horrifying mistake. No, the problem lies not with Eggman's morality, but rather his effectiveness as an antagonist. Sonic Team has grown too fond of usurping the doctor with one-shot villains who appear, steal the spotlight, die, and are henceforth never heard from again. This- in turn- diminishes Eggman's role as an antagonist considerably. Rinse, repeat, etc.

Sonic 4 looks promising enough, restoring Eggman to his former "main villain" status, in his typically comical and goofy way. This is the ideal villainous role for Eggman- A competent, yet still endearing and likable, villain.

[Blazey Firekitty]

Decades of Robotnik veneration progress, fueled pro-PINGAS rallies, and insightful Eggman propagandist viewpoints among the gaming community better not be disassembled by this topic, BlazeyBakeneko.

"Ruining my reputation as usual, I see?"XD

But yeah, I'm pleasantly surprised at all the overwhelming support in this thread for the idea that SegaSonic Robotnik can be be both threatening and likable. Like Flyboy said, a villain that you actually hate, as opposed to pretending to hate, is one that you're not going to enjoy seeing often.

Sonic 4 looks promising enough, restoring Eggman to his former "main villain" status, in his typically comical and goofy way. This is the ideal villainous role for Eggman- A competent, yet still endearing and likable, villain.

What I especially like about Sonic 4 in terms of how it will be portraying Eggman is that it will be expanding on the bits of charming, child-like personality that Eggman had in the classic games. Not only have his quirky facial expressions returned, but he now has more personality in battle, switching his fighting style when it looks like Sonic has begun to get the upper-hand. The game seems to be making sure that Eggman oozes just as much personality as Sonic does, thus allowing the game to have a strong focus on their rivalry, and how they are very alike, yet very different.