#sonic characterisation

fandom would have a better time if they figured out where on the "blorbo-bonker" to "source-citer" continuum they laid before engaging in discussions about character, franchise, story, etc.

situations that give sonic really uber-human concerns like regular domestic responsibilities, agonising over moral quandaries, or baggage like trauma put me to sleep immediately

like fr guy's a supersonic fearless hedgehog fairy construct - narrative devices that would work well in human-centric dramas/serials come off as total nerfs on him. like, humans are far less cool than him. why would ppl wanna make him less cool?

I also think whatever tendency of questioning his goodness and treating him like an avengers mcu superhero ignorant to the collateral damage/costs he causes (yk that ABT comic about lanolin malding about sonic) is fundamentally no different to "what if cruella/maleficient/disney villain has Goodness To Them" or snyder's cynical Man Of Steel era superman, both trends/eras that i thought broad audiences on tumblr satirised through finding them tired

on that point, we're already sliding into viewing eggman as lovable father figure to Metal and Sage to boot - I had a reader of my fic say that if Joker could be a family man, so could Eggman, because they took issue with me writing him being short-tempered with Sage

I think ppl into those tropes should skip to the logical conclusion of making sonic the bad guy and Eggman good - there's only so long that postmodern subversion remains subversive if you do it constantly

most sonic fans don't realise there's a difference between canon-defining works and canon-compliant works within the sprawling umbrella that is Canon Material in the Sonic franchise, making a lot of casual-to-earnest character analysis fumble from the starting line

like there's been a couple of attempts I've seen that takes starkly different and contradictory characterisations of silver, to name an example, to be an example of "complexity" as opposed to being written by different people for different works in the franchise

example: a take out there in the wild posits Silver's idw portrayal - where he honest to god pouts and says "i get it already jeez" to sonic calling him "flatware" - to be true to his characterisation in 06 - the game where he wonders on a knee looking down at Sonic "is this a joke?" about how low-tier Silver views the blue guy's power level moments before trying to murk him

on that note, more sonic fans need to include screenshots, sources, quotes, evidence to back up the claims they make about characterisation

related to that - there's an irreconcilability to favouring the power of fan interpretation above all else and dismissing the questioning/deconstructing of the Official Statements about what should be taken as canonical

comes off as "we're against the Big Guy about our blorbos. but only if Big Guy says we can be"

the above points simmer to a baseline of uncritical acceptance of surface official taglines of Everything Is Canon, a lack of wrestling with Sonic as Platonic Character and Sonic as Corporate Mascot-Puppet - accepting uncritical premises results in generally uncritical analyses

there's a large number of ppl that celebrate "They Said The Thing" as narrative richness to my chagrin

there are a further number of people who take "They Said The Thing" as "finally some good Canon continuity/respect for Canon" to my further chagrin

my chagrin stems from the popular celebration of surface-level references obscuring the deeper ways in which characters are written dubiously, including:

very different/unrelated characters saying the same lines (not-always-but-usually a sign of indistinct and thus subpar characterisation)

characters being ooc through sudden change (e.g. Amy, among other things, as a sensible-mature-responsible-girl- keeping-rowdy-guys-in-check trope)

characters being ooc through one-dimensional reduction (e.g. Knuckles doesn't get out often enough and being reduced to ME guardian only in Frontiers when since Sonic Adventure and in other entries like SRZG he travels and treasure hunts, erasing a pretty well-known part about his character)

distraction from consideration of what the actual heart of a given story is telling in ways that marks the Sonic franchise since way back when (not even just considering the popular examples of late 2000s entries but as early back as Sonic Shuffle)

overall result: most people get too distracted by one-liners, references, pretty visuals, or engaging gameplay to be able to register the quality or import of a given sonic narrative (e.g. thinking that shadow ends up accepting of losing Maria again in shgens when every tell in the narrative says otherwise)

tangent but I think the most heinous line in shgens is Rouge saying "Don't forget; you've moved on" to Shadow about Maria - i honestly think that's probably the most callous thing anyone could say to someone about their lost loved one and am surprised that there's no boss fight shadow has with Rouge from that alone

to wind down: a couple of paragraphs i wrote about shadow gens' story:

There are many features about the human brain—such as schema, the law of closure, or information satisficing—that lead us to naturally prioritise efficient information processing than accuracy or logical consistency. We are cognitively prone to completing a picture and constructing stories from incomplete, hazy suggestions that point towards a possible, story-shaped puzzle piece that will fill in the gaps.

[...] The suggestion of a story is not the same as a story, much less a good one. That also does not stop players from appreciating the gist of what those scenes are trying to accomplish—even if their brain fills in the blanks for sounds like a plausible, pretty-sounding answer.

and with that, a final point:

honestly i think that's the most in-character kind of sonic story you can have - one that's been told in different ways multiple times in the games already.

he's faced god-level destruction of a major city, been a victim of false accusations and a manhunt from the police and military for crimes he didn't commit, had his whole body infected by the most concentrated doses of primordial dark energy from an ancient god, and ran on a ticking timer of his fast dwindling life force. these are crises running on different levels of physical and above all emotional stakes that anyone else would have understandably crumbled under at least once or twice.

and throughout all those things, while undeniably showing that he cares in the way that he perseveres, sonic remains emotionally resilient and positive. even when he thought he was going to die near the end of sa2 by eggman's trap, he gives parting words to tails and amy, reassuring them, as opposed to talking about the ordeal he's stuck in. plenty of other examples in the games abound that i won't go into here.

i think the stand-out feature about sonic is how exceptional he is in how steadfastly ordinary, positive, and kind he remains in the face of crises, physical or emotional.

this is something i think many fans of sonic misunderstand about sonic being 'an ordinary guy' - take this excerpt from matthew salesses' craft in the real world referring to kazuo ishiguro discussing how to establish the norms and expectations of a storyworld:

once I heard Kazuo Ishiguro talk about strangeness as a dial, that he thinks of it as turning the dial up or down, that if a tiger walks into a boardroom and everyone freaks out, the dial is turned down to our “reality,” and if everyone ignores the tiger, the dial is turned far up.

this is the point: if someone treats extraordinary things as if they are ordinary, and thus react in ordinary ways, the very ordinariness of their behaviour becomes extraordinary.

sonic has showcased such an extraordinarily ordinary reaction to various crises - his brand of ordinary leaning towards a steadfast positivity and not thinking all that deeply of what he feels he needs to do. even when he's actively dying. games written by sonic team, particularly before sega had pontac and graff took over writing from colours onwards, are very consistent in this characterisation of sonic. it also remains in his portrayals for short stories that sonic channel has written.

on another note, this is one of the many reasons i find portrayals of sonic in the american comics, especially idw that narratively claims to be continuous to the games, to fundamentally mischaracterise him. they feature plots with stakes either equal or comparable to what sonic has faced before - including when he is steadily dying or completely taken over by dark energy in ways that physically hinder him - and have him lose his cool and get into frustrated arguments with other characters. such a characterisation becomes jarring to fans who got to know sonic through the games, where he remains enviably steadfast and level-headed in times of objective, world-ending crises. in the comics, sonic is swayed by the negative emotional tone or frenzied nature of the crises set by the plot. in the games, he is not - thus he becomes an emotional anchor and inspiration for not only his friends but also the player.

this is also why i love the murder of sonic the hedgehog and sonic and the blade of courage. while they add their own flair and interpretations of various character details, they get the core of sonic stories unfailingly right - in times of heart-pounding, anxiety-inducing crisis, sonic is an unflappable inspiration.

sonic's emotional resilience and jaw-dropping levels of ordinariness is also why he's so damn frustrating to eggman. because villains love nothing more than to see the hope, joy, and any will towards resistance drain from the eyes of those who oppose them. and a well-written, true-to-character sonic never, ever lets that happen. because he is unflappable.