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Sonic isn’t just constantly calm and collected solely because he’s extremely emotionally repressive, he just also straight up doesn’t care if he dies, but not in a suicidal kind of way.

He takes a very relaxed and fatalist stance towards his own well being and survival, whatever happens to him was meant to happen because he’s got the power to stop anything that wasn’t supposed to happen.

He’s not afraid of death, not afraid of dying, not afraid of being seriously hurt, and only has a fear of drowning because it’s a particularly nasty and common way to go. That’s why he does all kinds of ridiculous and dangerous stunts with no regard for his own safety because he has no regard for his own safety.

“It is what it is.” is the best way to explain how he views his mortality. If he ends up biting the dust in a fight, well then it was his time to go. The fact he’s already died and been brought back multiple times has only reinforced the belief that his life is worth very little and is to be cashed in doing something. At best, he’s ambivalent to dying.

Very importantly though this is a belief he applies exclusively to himself, everyone else’s life is incredibly valuable and he will go to extreme lengths to ensure they’re safe and alive. He won’t even apply this line of thought to people like Eggman (that doesn’t mean he won’t leave him to die by his own hands) this is strictly a Sonic thing.

This is also something he absolutely refuses to let his friends get even a hint about, at most they still think he’s just a dare devil. He’d rather keep it that way.

Jet the Hawk.

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Hey, I see you! Don't you fucking click off just yet, let me explain first!

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To Sonic, Shadow is just a kind of grumpy ally. They may buck antlers every now and then but at the end of the day they're in agreement on 99% of things and can usually hash things out diplomatically.

Knuckles is a rival in a very friendly sense. They compete, they jest, they may pretend to fight, but it's all very friendly, they've been buddies for a very long time and are just goofing off.

Silver wasn't ever really his rival at all, he was just some homeless dude trying to kill him for a hot minute.

Sonic sees Surge, rightfully, as a victim and doesn't consider her a rival but someone who needs help. Very much to Surge's annoyance.

Scourge is just a loser.

And the big man himself, Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, is his main villain and archnemesis. He's the dude he's gotta clear up after every time he gets an ego trip otherwise known as all the time.

But none of these people are his rival in a real sense, they're all either friends, enemies, or people who just needed help, all of them except Jet.

Because fundamentally we need to remember that Sonic is still an egotistical asshole at the end of the day, and everyone else simply doesn't harm that ego or offer enough of a competition to harm it.

But Jet directly challenges Sonic at the one thing he's famous for, being fast, but specifically in the context of hoverboards. It's a direct attack on his ego in a way he can't just effortlessly overpower like all the rests of his rivals, the hoverboards strip away his main power and he has to really try to beat him on even footing.

Jet remains as one of the few people to consistently beat Sonic, often by underhanded tactics, but that's part of the game. He's the only person Sonic has to struggle against, and that is why Sonic only ever considers Jet to be his true rival.

Shadow should appear to be the traditional stoic character on the surface, only to actually be a very emotionally expressive character who very frequently lets them dominate his decision making, within reason of course. He’s just mostly stone faced because he’s a former military project from the 50s whose creators thought ideas like “feeling your emotions” was communist propaganda and hasn’t completely shaken it off yet.