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Friday Five: Reasons it sucks to be Charmy Bee

January 3, 2014 at 11:14 am by Jason Berry

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Let’s be (or “bee”) honest here….nobody cares for Charmy Bee much (and yes, I’m sure that there are some who’d say otherwise and like my head on a platter. All three of them).

What is he good for? What does he even do at the Chaotix? Is he their secretary? Vector’s youthful ward? Does that helmet thing even come off of his head? What?! He hasn’t been a playable character since Sonic Heroes and even then he was just one of three you controlled at the same time. He has no real personality so you can’t even relate to him in any way. Look at the other kids. Tails? Young super genius. Cream? Polite little girl who tends to have the strongest morals. Marine? Immature, bratty little girl who annoys people because she’s probably lonely and seeks attention. Charmy? Little boy. That’s it. (Not counting Sonic X where he at least had a Bart Simpson-like “prankster” personality.) Frankly, just listening to him gives me the hives.

At least the comics give you a reason to feel sorry for him. Lots of reasons. This poor little bastard’s life has been absolute hell. Read on to see why life as a bee can totally suck. But beeware honey, his tale is so tragic it may sting your eyes.

5. Him and his Best Friends/apparent legal guardians are always dirt poor

” But DVD’s don’t fit in a movie projector, Vector!”

Okay, let’s look at this. We know that in the game world (and Sonic X), Vector and Espio seem to be super poor. Vector owes money to some guy named “Big Louie” (and Little Louie too), Eggman (Sonic Heroes) Vanilla (Sonic X) have been their only known clients and basically Charmy is their secretary. Since Charmy’s always seen with them, I’m guessing one of them possibly adopted Charmy to get by child labor laws. Hell, Eggman never even paid them. At least Vanilla paid them in food (which they desperately needed). How do they keep up the rent or not starve to death? My guess is that they keep Charmy in a dank, dark back room most of the time manufacturing as much honey as they can to sell.

…Why does Vector have debts anyway? You ‘d think having a ninja as a BFF (or BF if VEDJ-F had her way), he could just send Espio out to deal with any loan sharks.

4. He and his childhood friend took “LSD” and his friend died from it

Parents who use drugs….have bees who use drugs.

The first of many of Charmy’s friends/relations to bite the big one, Mello died of food poisoning from an additive called “Lemon Sundrop Dandilion” (REAL F***ING SUBTLE!) put in by the park’s evil owner Renfield T. Rodent (a slight parody of Chuck E. Cheese) as an addictive substance, but it was hard to make right and people died instead. Knuckles, Julie-Su and the Chaotix did an investigation not knowing what caused the boy’s death only to have most of them taste the food and end up poisoned as well including Charmy who was totally tripping…bees. The moral of the story is don’t…accidentally do drugs? I know the whole “L.S.D.” thing is supposed to be an anti-drug message but it doesn’t work. No one was looking to do drugs, nor was anyone addicted to drugs so why bring up LSD in that very unsubtle way? Makes no sense.

3. His family and whole kingdom were killed off by Eggman

On the bright side, you still have your mental health and your girlfriend.

With the Archie authors not content with just killing off ONE of his bee friends, Charmy’s whole kingdom/colony was destroyed by Dr. Eggman. Leaving just Charmy and his GF/fiancé’ (he was 16/17 in the original cannon of the comics) as the only surviving members of that colony.  If killing off a good chunk of his race wasn’t enough, well……

2. He got brain damage

Well, at least you still got your girlfriend.

Eggman went and did a full on assault on the Acorn kingdom kidnapping most of Sonic’s friends and putting them in his egg-grape chambers to have their life energy zapped to fuel his machines. So who was first on the chopping block? None other than Charmy Bee. Sonic managed to save the day, but not before Charmy got zapped pretty hard by the egg grapes, leaving his memory in shambles and possibly mentally challenged.

So why would Archie Comics do this to poor Charmy? Most likely it was Sega mandates. After all, Charmy Bee is six years old in the video games, but thanks to a mistake in the American Knuckles Chaotix manual, Charmy was assumed to be 16 years old instead. Archie Comics decided to correct this mistake not by retconning Charmy, but giving him brain damage instead. Because as we all know, brain damaged people are like six year olds, right? Actually, no and I find that pretty dang offensive. Even Archie Sonic writer Ian Flynn regretted how the retcon turned out. Fortunately, that bit of awkwardness should be fully retconned with the “new 252” reboot currently going on.

1. His girlfriend and only other known bee was taken away from him as well

Well, at least you still have your books. “Drops and shatters glasses” No!…There was…time now!

Well, his family and bee friends may be all dead, his brain shattered but at least he’s got his girlfriend to grow old with, right?….Right?

Wrong. With Ken Penders having won his copyrights to his old characters including Saffron, Archie was basically forced to get rid of any of Penders creations out of the comic continuity so, while Charmy was a mission with the other Chaotix, Thrash the Tasmanian Devil (who has a vendetta against all echidnas) basically scooped all the echidnas left into a warp ring that sent them into another dimension. This includes Julie-Su and (non-echidna) Saffron. Knuckles chased him all over the place but to no avail leaving Charmy one of the last known bees on Mobius.

Hey, Cheer up Charmy! You still don’t have it as bad as some others. I could make a top 20 on why it sucks to be poor Knuckles.

Stay tuned in two weeks for five of Sonic’s most hated friends who have become likable over time.

Jason’s opinions in this article bee of his own accord and while his words may sting some, they do not necessarily reflect those of the Sonic Stadium staff. After all, we are not hive-minded here. 

39 Comments to “Friday Five: Reasons it sucks to be Charmy Bee”

The-Master-Board

How is this even on the news feed?
And by the way I’m one of the supposed “three” fans who likes Charmy. Idiotic crap like this bashing of Sonic’s auxiliary characters is why we can’t have nice things and SEGA now makes games with the bare minimum of just Sonic, maybe Tails too, but don’t think about playing as him.

    Dreadknux

    If you look really, really, really closely, you’ll notice that this post isn’t listed on our ‘news’ feed. It’s listed under ‘categories’. We’re not just a news website, pumping out boring PR pieces – we’re a fan site, run by fans who like all manner of things related to Sonic. This is just a little light-hearted fun, you should totally lighten up.

    Besides, “Idiotic crap like this bashing of Sonic’s auxiliary characters is why… SEGA now makes games with the bare minimum of just Sonic,” is one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever read. Like SEGA really makes their games based on a light-hearted article on a fansite. Give me a break.

      Sonic24freak

      Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn

      vincentk

      although i agree with you, you cant just say that this bashing of all these characters other then sonic has not led sega to just make games around him only, the community been complaining and making jokes about sega/sonic team making characters who are completly usless that i am pretty sure sega knows this and thats probably why sonic only been playable for sometime now, joking or not, they heard complaints and acted upon it whether true or not

        Johnny2071

        Whatever, I just want to play as Tails again! Past games that I’ve played over a million times no longer count!

      The-Master-Board

      “we’re a fan site, run by fans who !!!like!!! all manner of things related to Sonic.”

      So why exactly is an article basically hating on a character on the main page of site for liking all things Sonic?
      And (like someone stated below) you can’t possibly tell me that crap like this doesn’t somehow contribute to the decline in Sonic’s friends from the games. Note how I never said “this particular article is the only reason why SEGA games only feature Sonic now” because yes that would be idiotic, but to claim that hateful articles like this poking fun at auxiliary Sonic characters hasn’t in some way contributed to it is absurd. Of course SEGA are gonna look at critics and fans for feedback and it’s because of this stupid fan notion of “Sonic’s shitty friends syndrome” that the games have become bland and entirely too Sonic centric because SEGA is too weary of stepping on toes of people who only want to see Sonic. Don’t think the games have suffered? Tell me how much use or screentime Knuckles got in Lost World, and him and Amy were entirely shoehorned in there in the first place. There was no need for them because the writing for the games has become so minimal seeing as they’re too scared to touch any characters outside of Sonic, Tails and Eggman for fear of lashback of “fans” who keep complaining about any character besides those.

        ProjectZuel

        Someone doesn’t have a sense of humour…

        vincentk

        thank you, you said everything i said in the comment above only with more detail, mine sounds more like rambling compare to yours lol

        Hero

        I gotta agree with Master-Board, while not all of SEGA’s decisions are based upon fan-feedback, they do base some of those decisions on what fans say they want…you know like, two out of six of them. However, they seem to have a rather strange way of interpreting feedback. I know for a fact that more people have been asking SEGA to put more of the auxiliary characters back into the main games as playable characters, none more so than Tails (the poor guy), and yet somehow SEGA seems to interpret this as just putting them in the game as background characters who hardly ever contribute anything to the plot. Even Tails, the first of the many “player-2 characters” of the franchise just gets slapped onto the game like a sticker and provides nothing more than techno-babble and emotional support. Not that those things aren’t important, but when it’s all he is ever used for, it makes him seem pretty useless. Also, after listening to how much everybody loved Colors (though they may have also been listening to their own praise as well) and the nostalgia that Generations offered, they thought that making a game that combined both would instantly guarantee them a success. Now I know there was a lot more that went into the development of this game, but that’s another huge point: there may have been too many conflicting ideas put into development, and no way to soundly and reasonably tie them together in a way that feels cohesive. We’ve all heard about how conflicting ideas have made the franchise as conflicting and unpredictable as it has been for the last decade or so, but from Unleashed-on, it seemed like some structure and focus was finally being put in place. However, by the time Generations was finished, it seemed that somehow they got the idea that they need to find what Sonic is again, despite having already found a system that works. There’s nothing wrong with experimentation, especially not when it leads to such great things, but it doesn’t really feel like anything new was brought to the series. Everything old was just reworked to look new. Gimmicks that worked well in one game feel forced and shoe-horned in on this game.

        There’s this joke somewhere on the web that my friend told me about. A SEGA representative stands before a crowd saying “We are willing to listen to the fans and give them what they want. Who wants Sonic Adventure !?” Almost the entire crowd raises their hands and cheers. “And who wants a game that looks like a sequel to Sonic Colors!?” One person in the crowd raises their hand. “THE FANS HAVE SPOKEN!!” And Sonic Lost World is created.

        While I’m sure that’s not how things are decided (at least, I hope not), it often feels like whenever SEGA says that they listened to the fans when they act on something, they tend to be focusing on small minorities. And half the time it doesn’t even seem like they fully listened to them, let alone took the time to figure out exactly what they wanted. I don’t doubt that some fans where hoping for a game like this, but how many of those fans do you think were satisfied with the finished product?

        I realize that the focus of this thread is on an “auxiliary character”, but the point I’m bringing up is that SEGA half the time doesn’t seem to have a good sense of communication when it comes to making decisions, be it between them and the fans, or even between themselves. Somehow we’ve gone from structured ideas, to wild and radical changes with a 50/50 chance of working, back to a structured concept, and then back to experimentation, only now the question of “What IS Sonic” feels much more obvious. To me, it doesn’t seem like SEGA knows what the fans want half the time, they just seem to have their own interests in mind, and even then they don’t seem to be at agreement about what their interests are. Even with one person in charge of making the big changes and decisions happen rather than a bunch of people, the franchise suddenly feels all out of wack again. I don’t regret the games that we’ve had in the past to bring us to this point, but I am starting to question the competency of the company who’s supposed to “bring us what we want”.

        Of course, you could also make the argument that they are listening to what we want and giving it to us, but we just don’t really know what we want, but that’s another debate for another day.

Wave

Eh, still more likable than Silver.

    Johnny2071

    And what’s wrong with him (other than debuting in one of the most flawed Sonic games of all time)?

        GuywithPie

        As much as I like Steve, that’s a fan video parodying the way Silver acts, and not an actual clip from a game, therefore your case is still irrelevant.

          GuywithPie

          Oops, thought you were talking about the video and not your comment. Now I feel like an idiot for judging the URL too soon.

        Hero

        That took up more time AND trouble just to look up the page only to get more Silver bashing and come back here again. I probably didn’t have to follow the link, but I could also be an ignorant fan and completely ignore the fact that there are people out there who dislike Silver, the same way that you seem to ignore the fact that there are people out there who love Silver just as much as they love Sonic. This whole character-bashing thing is getting rather irrelevant.

    Weirdude21

    Hey i like Silver, he is so much better than Sonic but that is my opinion…..

CyberKnux

Thanks for the laughs, Jason – I enjoyed this article. I especially laughed at the Simpsons/Twilight Zone quote under #1’s picture.

Personally, I do like Charmy, though thinking about it now.. it’s probably mostly just because he has a nice design and is one of our ‘good old classic’ characters. If he wasn’t around, we’d be whinging for him to return like the other ‘lost’ classic characters.

I’d been thinking about issues that the new continuity could potentially fix up lately – Charmy’s age/mental state being one I’m keen to see ironed out. I also hope (and assume) that Eggman will be retconned to always have been the Prime Zone’s native Robotnik, instead of the alternate reality Robo-Robotnik made flesh by aliens.

    Kabam!

    I couldn’t connect the fact that it was a Twilight Zone reference until you mentioned it, so… thank you for mentioning it.:)

Aidan

Twilight Zone reference, yusssssss.

And also, Charmy is my second least favorite character, behind Knuckles, so I agree with this. XD

A l

Nobody on youtube especially creators of fanmade sonic sprite shows like him because he is an annoying pyro who burns everything he sees
XD

    GuywithPie

    I’m sorry, what?

Silvers#1fan200

I whole-heartedly agree with all of this. It would really stink to be him. I really can’t wait to see your list… Because I’d love to see if Silver made it on there.

Kabam!

Interesting. Now the ending of “Endangered Species” actually makes sense to me. I thought “girls” was a typo because at the time I only knew about Julie-sue being there when Thrash arrived. Mainly, I find it interesting how they adjusted Charmy to his game counterpart in the worst ways. It all works out in the end though I suppose. Thank you for taking the time to do this, it was entertaining! 😉

Aroon Staneksay

So Sega is not going to put Charmy Bee in the new Sonic game 2014? One more thing I feel sad of Charmy Bee fans Is going to remove from Sonic The Hedgehog Series!

    GuywithPie

    Please don’t typing like this.

Sonicrush1991

And yet Charmy always keeps a positive attitude ;u; keep on keepin on Charmy!

Michael E.

Charmy takes 2nd place on my favorite character’s list. Probably a little odd for a guy but the dynamic the Chaotix have is intensely interesting and fun to me. I’ve raged quite a bit about what the comics did to him for the sake of making him match his game counterpart. The circumstance of the issue with Ken taking Saffron away was the icing on the cake right there.

Anyway, it’s a funny article, though I do find a few things odd. Saying Charmy has no personality is a bit weird. The scatterbrained, hyperactive, happy-go-lucky but don’t-make-him-angry-or-he’ll-beat-the-crap-out-of-you attitude he has seems to speak for itself in my opinion. Always willing to help and unlike Marine is happy to work under a boss and can actually fight against the bad guys when he says he’s going to. I also don’t tend to like it when people do the “All *insert lowest number you can think at the time* of them” joke but that’s a personal thing since I’ve always hated that joke in anything.

Somenamelessguy

Have we all forgotten that Charmy can carry Vector and Espio, who are both at least twice his size, at the same time?

JasonTheJackass

For those who were upset about the Charmy article will like the next list as it will give you some ammo for characters you may love that others hate.I even come to Silver’s defense! XD

    heti

    YAY

    Kabam!

    Hooray!:)

Johnny2071

So you’re telling us that because of Penders, Saffron and every Echidna that isn’t Knuckles is gone forever, while Charmy and Knuckles remain the last of their kind!? That’s bullshit! Penders did a WAY PAST good job in having lawyers shrink the Mobius universe. I just hope Thrash gets a major in-universe comeuppance. Who knew one Taz’s revenge would screw everyone else over.

All just to keep things on par with Sega’s current mistakes! As of the current games, Knuckles has no connection with the Chaotix, Mighty and Ray went AWOL, and we all the situation with the girls. Meanwhile, who hedge-hogs more screen time and glory than anyone else? …….Yep. But still, if it wasn’t for the damn Council of Acorn, Amy’s post-Sonic X assertiveness, and Sally’s authority (even before robotization), Sonic would be the free hedgehog he’s always been since GHZ.

This is living proof that Sega needs to handle their characters better and learn that it’s not just about Sonic (or Eggman). For this point on, ALL characters need to come out of retirement and have major playable roles (for those who ever were playable) in at least one or more of the future Sonic titles. Even Big of all people can star in a few side-games ([I]fighting[/I], kart-racing, puzzles, etc.). And yes, they help a franchise branch out and grow bigger, while main games can keep the characters who have kept up with Sonic in the past (Racing, Shooting, Treasure Hunting/Gliding, and SA2-gameplay speed.

I just wonder why Sega is so ashamed of Sonic Adventure 2 (the last game on a Sega console, before they went third party and crapped out Sonic Heroes), because they’re sure trying their hardest in making sure they never go back to those days.

    Curty

    I’d really like to see a return to the Sonic 3/& Knuckles style of character selection, in that it’s essentially the same levels, but little changes make it a different experience depending on who you’re playing as.

Curty

Since the echnidnas (and Saffron) were all sent to another dimension, I guess they’re safe from the effects of the Genesis wave, and are still alive with all of their old memories? I wonder if the writers did that just in case they were ever given the OK to bring them back.

    VEDJ-F

    We don’t know if other dimensions are safe from it yet.

VEDJ-F

Well, there’s one bright side in Archie; at least he would have had good insurance payout prior to the Super Genesis Wave.

PS; :3c

riii

at least knuckles can bang rouge or shade(if archie is allowed to use her)

asdf

Fantastic article. I had no idea that Charmy was such a tragic character.

espioisclearlyreadytogo

Most of the crap Charmy has to deal with is all the fault of Ken Penders. Ken greated Mello and killed him. Ken tried to write Charmy out of the book by making him the Prince and giving him a happily ever after with a fiance. However Archie had to bring him back, because of the games. Why would a ruler leave his people? He wouldn’t, unless they were all dead, right? Then of course it was Ken’s fault they had to get rid of Saffron. The only one that’s not Ken’s fault was Charmy losing his marbles. For the most part, Ken did this to Charmy:(

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