Rouge the Bat Discussion

[The Weeb with No Name]

I like how Rouge went from a large sultry black woman to a cooing high schooler.

Also, you have to suck pretty hard as a SPY in order to be RENOWNED for it.

Edited November 16, 2011 by Jayhawker30

[8ther]

What's with inconsistency in her attacks? In SA2, Battle and StH she kicks, in Heroes she throws dummy rings, in Rivals 2 she uses "bat bots", in 06 and Generations she throws "heart bombs".

 

I know people complained about her being a "Knuckles with breast" but i liked it when she was the Sanji of Sonic characters.

[Dantemustdie00]

What's with inconsistency in her attacks? In SA2, Battle and StH she kicks, in Heroes she throws dummy rings, in Rivals 2 she uses "bat bots", in 06 and Generations she throws "heart bombs".

 

I know people complained about her being a "Knuckles with breast" but i liked it when she was the Sanji of Sonic characters.

Yeah I agree on the stupid Dummy Rings and Heart Bombs thing, pretty damn lazy, especially since it was done to other characters too.

 

Battle and Chronicles she did utilized the batbombs as well as a Ultra Sonic Bat Screech Projectile (Echoe Voice or Hyper Voice in Pokemon terms) in addition to her Kicks.

[chaos11011]

She's my favorite female character, just because of how sassy she can be

[Lisbon]

HOLY SHIT AFTER DIGGING FOR THE PAST THREE DAYS TRYING TO FIND A SINGULAR MENTION OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTER I DIG UP A WHOLE FUCKIN TOPIC

 

*A-hem*

 

Rouge is my personal favorite character in the series as a whole - not because of sex appeal, mind you, but because of what she stands for.

 

She's intelligent, strong-willed, and is willing to bend the means any which way to accomplish her goals. She'll use anything and everything she can to her advantage to progress herself further and often times will treat others around her as nothing more than tools to achieve said goals, and I'll be honest, I abso-fricken'-lutely adore that.

 

That ruthlessness and selfishness are things I just feel to be awesome about her character. She has no convoluted backstory or anything - she serves herself and her desires, and her desire is mainly to get the best gems she can pilfer. It doesn't matter who she works for, whether it be something as big as the government or just freelance, it's all about her. She'll use her wits and her charms as means of persuasion, hardly takes any situation seriously and will often time respond with sarcasm and sassiness. She also knows she's attractive and weaponizes that, which I just think fuckin' rocks.

 

I love that. I love that selfish simplicity that manages to not be stupid at the same time, and the fact she has such an attention grabbing and charismatic personality to boot just seals the deal as my favorite character.

 

Maybe I'm just weird, but I don't know. Sometimes I feel as if she's the only character I really care about anymore, and the only reason I stay hooked to the series is to hope that she comes back and kicks ass in a game again and makes me feel a paramount level of enjoyment in the series, just like I felt when she was introduced in SA2. 

God, I love this character. I really hope they make something more out of her. I really do. Knowing me and all of my stubborn pride, though, no matter what happens with her I'll cling on for dear life in hopes for the badass, strong-minded, and exclusively self-serving Rouge that I love so much to return one day. 

[Muscles Maximum]

I like Rouge

[Lisbon]

Who wants her to have a big role in the games again?

[Lisbon]

In all odds I'll likely just be having a conversation with myself at this point, but I do have quite a few thoughts on this character and it's nice to have a place to share them, so I'll just make another post.

 

---

 

One of the things that I think of when I see Rouge is wasted potential, sadly - I may be quite a huge fan of her, but I won't ignore what went wrong. In fact, I personally think I'd be being a shitty fan if I just brush that aside, but that's just me.

 

One of the things that's so intriguing to me about Rouge is her motivations and the length she's willing to go to achieve her goals, like I've stated in my other posts here. She's determined, strong, and motivated, but she's also underhanded and sneaky. She'll remorselessly toy with others in order to get what she wants, but what she wants is usually entirely selfish rather than inherently evil and detrimental to all of those around her - she'll work with the good guys, but only if it benefits her. She'll work with the bad guys, but only if it benefits her. Her goals are entirely mercenary and self centered, and that could've created some very interesting dynamics with both good and bad characters alike.

 

One of the things they did wrong, though, was bank too much on her sexual overtones. Even putting her special physics aside, whenever I want a new Rouge avatar for somewhere it feels like I'm searching for the holy grail, not because of scarcity of fanart but because of the fact so much of it that I dig up features such sexual overtones that I wouldn't really want to represent me whenever I say something somewhere. While I can certainly see her...er, physics, playing a big role in why this is a thing, I also can't help but feel that another big reason as to why this exists is because of how integral her appearance is to her character - she's supposed to be the one that's considered attractive and this is her prime means of manipulating those around her. 

 

Do I think this is a bad thing? No, I don't at all. It's a good way to give her control over those around her, as per is needed with her character. I do think that it's tough to execute in a way that isn't stupid in a setting with the tone that the series has, but I think they were doing quite well on it for a while. So what went wrong in this regard?

 

They took it to a point where people had trouble looking past things such as her breasts performing a triple bounce whenever she merely bent over to pick something up in Sonic Adventure 2 - basically, her boobs became what people would think of due to the nature of her character and the way she was drawn up, and when you have a character like Rouge who has great potential to be something of great worth to the series, then the last thing you need to do is put her in that kind of situation where many other aspects of her character become ignored because you put such a noticeable one up front. It just leads to that character becoming a waste of everybody's time, and while I see Rouge as a great character, I don't see many other people noting many of the facets of her personality outside of the aesthetic ones - and the sad thing is, I can understand why.

 

The thing that kicked these thoughts into gear was this picture:

 

 

Immediately upon seeing this fan redesign of her character, two things popped into my mind - Edna Mode from the Incredibles and that line from Talladega Nights where Ricky Bobby's kid shouts out "I'm all jacked up on Mountain Dew!" I didn't think this was a poor redesign, but I didn't think it was befitting of Rouge's character - cunning and uses her looks as a weapon.

 

Then, after seeing this, I went to play a videogame for a bit before I started thinking - "What if this design wasn't in line with the personality she was given, but the personality she could've had?" 

 

What if her appearance wasn't such a big part of who she was? What if the focus was more shifted towards the other aspects of her character, and looks were put on par with the rest of the cast? Then what would she be?

Well, there's the thievery, resourcefulness, and how cunning she is - it could've drawn more attention to the aspects of her character that make her so awesome to me, in other words. She can kick ass on top of being smart and charming, and looks just come on the side - and what if we were to remove that side dish and retool her character as more of an opportunist lurking in the shadows without any unnecessary distractions, such as...erm, physics? 

I think she could've been a much stronger character that way. Granted, I don't think that's the cardinal sin that happened to her as a character - that'd be being reduced to essentially nothing more than Shadow's follower, barring one or two appearances - but I think it could've opened people up to the other parts of who she is and allowed them to see that, unlike the majority of the newer cast, she had an interesting personality with a lot of potential to become something great in the scope of this series.

Sadly, that potential she had to be something awesome got wasted. For me, it's like seeing someone I care about fail due to circumstances that aren't under their control, and it's rather bittersweet, honestly. I do like her character and I do like what she is now, but I can't help but feel she could've been so much more - and the first step into helping her realize her full potential would've been to at least halfway cut back on how important aesthetic is to who she is as a character to focus on the other aspects of her character.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

One of the things that I think of when I see Rouge is wasted potential, sadly

[Lisbon]

As far as what they've been banking on for Rouge? Honestly, I have to disagree with it being her sexual appearance. Yes, hourglass figure and large breasts are definitely obvious physical aspects about her. But the interesting thing is that, despite her appearance, not one time have has any story she's been in ever called any attention to how sexy she looks. Like, when you look at all the works that have done this and made a big focus on a female character based on how she looked, that's actually pretty amazing for this franchise for not doing this - basically saying, "yeah, she has breasts, but that's not important."

 

Now the fans on the other hand...

Actually, you're absolutely correct about that, now that I think of it. Maybe it's just been too long since I've put a shitload of thought into her character like I did there and I'm rusty .-. Thanks for pointing that out to me, nevertheless.