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I've seen the topic of sonic's character recently come up and some people claiming he's a boring flawless paragon character, so I'm going to be debunking most of those arguments I've seen

"he has no flaws"

Trust me anyone who says this doesn't know anything about sonic or is just lying, he has so many flaws he might actually have too many. Recklessness, cockiness, hot-headed, impatient, short-sighted, not detail oriented, hides his emotions, can't swim, bad at listening to and working with others, frequently abandons his friends for weeks or even months, can be a big jerk, etc. Those are just the flaws I can think of off the top of my head, I'm sure he has even more, point is he isn't flawless, not even close.

"He never loses"

He literally loses all the time, sa2 starts with him getting captured by gun and having to be rescued by tails and amy, sonic 06 has him losing to silver and literally dying, sonic unleashed happens because sonic loses to eggman at the start, similarly sonic forces starts with him losing to infinite, in idw one of the first fights has him losing to zavok and having to be rescued by tails, and then he loses again to neo metal sonic.

"He never faces consequences"

In unleashed he has to spend the entire events of the game as the werehog which clearly effected him mentally and at the end of the game he loses a close friend (chip), in lost world he's constantly berated and called out by tails for his recklessness, in forces he spends 6 months in captivity supposedly getting tortured, in idw there are numerous characters that go against sonic and call him out when he messes up, shadow, surge, kit, lonolin, even espio, not to mention the entire metal virus arc is basically sonic facing "consequences".

"He never struggles or doubts himself"

He struggles all the time, in unleashed he becomes visibly depressed over amy not being able to recognize him, secret rings shows him being afraid of dying and not knowing how to make it out of his situation hence the song "unawakened float", in sonic battle he literally has a mental breakdown over the death of emerl and the trauma of being the one to kill him, the metal virus arc in idw was basically him struggling nonstop.

"He doesn't develop"

This is the only fair argument I've seen, but It's not just a "problem" with sonic, most of the characters don't develop or change beyond their debut games since sega wants them to stay as recognizable as possible, and the ones that do change either get regressed (tails) or repeat the same arc over and over (shadow), it's less of a problem with sonic himself and more with the series in general.

I've seen people say that sonic's wind association started in the modern era, but that's far from true,

for starters his name, "sonic", typically associated with sonic booms or shockwaves which are associated with air,

there's also the fact that the devs nickname for sonic was "blue gale"

there's also the fact that he owns a biplane named "the tornado"

and a car named "the cyclone"

even the sonic 1 logo can be compared to an air force insignia being a ring with wings

and even as early as cd showed sonic having a wind/shockwave-like power/aura

sonic has always been heavily associated with things like Christmas and santa claus, for starters naoto oshima (one of sonic's creators) was a huge fan of christmas and santa in general, to the point he wanted to actually be santa, which is one of the reasons he joined sega, he projected this love of christmas onto his characters, sonic being the main one, we can see the christmas elements built into's sonic's design and character:

sonic's reoccurring red white and gold theme are directly inspired by santa

Not to mention he was literally born on a place called "Christmas Island"

sonic travels the world on a red and white flying vehicle spreading joy

santa travels the world on a red and white flying vehicle spreading joy