Sonic character's Hidden Depths

[Amomynous]

This is pretty much what we have the headcanon topic in chit chat for, headcanon isn't just for stuff that's 'made up' it includes our interpretation of characters which this is.

I guess it's arguable 'but this is a sonic-related thread on the sonic-related section." but I don't think this is going to last with the other one around, especially talking about one character.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Mysterics

[Kuzu]

Oh, come now, man. If we're gonna be this pointlessly defeatist towards a possible route of discussion, then what's the point of participating in this thread?

 

 

Dude, stop overreacting. I never said we can't come up with a solution, I'm just making a statement. Am I allowed to do that, or are negative opinions suddenly wrong too?

Edited January 20, 2013 by Ragna the Bloodedge

[Nepenthe]

It's not so much housing a negative opinion so much as lamenting about the current state of Sonic's character in lieu of the discussion going on. Yes, things are a certain way as they are now and no amount of talking will immediately change that. If that's the case, Komo's question still stands.

[Soniman]

Dude, stop overreacting. I never said we can't come up with a solution, I'm just making a statement. Am I allowed to do that, or are negative opinions suddenly wrong too?

 

 

I don't think he ever implied that, I don't know why you always arrive at that conclusion.

[Vertekins]

This is pretty much what we have the headcanon topic in chit chat for, headcanon isn't just for stuff that's 'made up' it includes our interpretation of the characters which this is.

I guess you could argue 'but this is a sonic-related thread on the sonic-related section." but I don't think this is going to last with the other one around, especially talking about one character.

 

As I said before, I'd be delighted if other members pitched-in with their interpretation and elaborations on any other Sonic character's "Hidden depths". This topic isn't exclusively Sonic and I think I should change the topic's title to put that across.

[Kuzu]

It's not so much housing a negative opinion so much as lamenting about the current state of Sonic's character in lieu of the discussion going on. Yes, things are a certain way as they are now and no amount of talking will immediately change that. If that's the case, Komo's question still stands.

 

Ok, but my statement doesn't suddenly disqualify everyone else from discussing it, so I don't see how my original post could be seen as counterproductive. It's not like I said "Stop talking about it, because it's pointless guys", I'm not that much of a killjoy.

 

I stated a problem in hopes of a solution, that sounds pretty reasonable.

 

I don't think he ever implied that, I don't know why you always arrive at that conclusion.

 

Because whenever anybody something negative to say about something a lot of people like, they tend to gang up on said person, and don't act like it hasn't happened before.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Ragna the Bloodedge

[Emmett L. Brown]

Look, we can all list Sonic's flaws till the cows come home, but at the end of the day, they're going to be severely outweighed by his overwhelmingly positive traits; his flaws cause no real conflict and if they do, they're forgotten about as quickly as they come.

Which is not necessarily a negative thing.

 

You know what I'm so very sick to death of? Superheroes that whine and moan and complain about how difficult their lives are, and how being a hero is so hard. Sonic has none of that. He can run at the speed of sound while battling robots and monsters, which is awesome, and the great thing is that he think it's awesome, too.

 

He's a happy person, at peace with his own issues, who feels good about himself. That naturally leads to overconfidence, a tendency to leap before looking, and tending to assume the best about people. I can see how that would seem boring to some, but for me it puts a smile on my face.

[Kuzu]

Which is not necessarily a negative thing.

 

You know what I'm so very sick to death of? Superheroes that whine and moan and complain about how difficult their lives are, and how being a hero is so hard. Sonic has none of that. He can run at the speed of sound while battling robots and monsters, which is awesome, and the great thing is that he think it's awesome, too.

 

He's a happy person, at peace with his own issues, who feels good about himself. That naturally leads to overconfidence, a tendency to leap before looking, and tending to assume the best about people. I can see how that would seem boring to some, but for me it puts a smile on my face.

 

 

True, I never said that's an inherent flaw in Sonic's character, but if we're trying to broaden the demographics in the series with writing, we can at least make him a bit more three dimensional by balancing all of his traits, and have him show some vulnerability. Nobody is saying he needs to get down on his knees and start bawling like a baby, but it'd be nice to test the limits of Sonic's character and see what makes him really tick,how his lifestyle clashes with the rest of the cast's, and what drives him beyond single minded heroism. I'm not saying there's something wrong with who Sonic is, I'm saying he can be more than what he is now.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Ragna the Bloodedge

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Which is not necessarily a negative thing.

 

You know what I'm so very sick to death of? Superheroes that whine and moan and complain about how difficult their lives are, and how being a hero is so hard. Sonic has none of that. He can run at the speed of sound while battling robots and monsters, which is awesome, and the great thing is that he think it's awesome, too.

 

He's a happy person, at peace with his own issues, who feels good about himself. That naturally leads to overconfidence, a tendency to leap before looking, and tending to assume the best about people. I can see how that would seem boring to some, but for me it puts a smile on my face.

I don't really mind the fact that he is a happy hero; that's not a bad thing. What I would like to see more of is the traits that normally help him through anything be turned into a negative trait based on the situation.

 

A shoddy example: He comes across a place that has a bunch of people who are extremely subservient to a local overlord. His natural love of freedom causes him to try to help them, but because he acts without bothering to consult any of them, he doesn't understand the full situation behind the subservience. The end result is that his "help" ends up being a bad thing, because it turns out the overlord is a really nice and respectable person, and that they are subservient to him because if they don't, the people undergo some kind of freakish transformation into greedy violent monsters/ dark creatures try to take over them because they don't have any resistance to temptations or something along that line.

 

This way, you don't have to sacrifice his lighthearted nature, while still showing that he can be flawed.

Edited January 20, 2013 by I R Lothar

[Emmett L. Brown]

True, I never said that's an inherent flaw in Sonic's character, but if we're trying to broaden the demographics in the series with writing, we can at least make him a bit more three dimensional by balancing all of his traits, and have him show some vulnerability. Nobody is saying he needs to get down on his knees and start bawling like a baby, but it'd be nice to test the limits of Sonic's character and see what makes him really tick.

I like that angle. Do you have any ideas in mind for how a story could test Sonic's limits?

[Nepenthe]

Ok, but my statement doesn't suddenly disqualify everyone else from discussing it, so I don't see how my original post could be seen as counterproductive. It's not like I said "Stop talking about it, because it's pointless guys", I'm not that much of a killjoy.

 

It was a counterproductive post because it added nothing to the discussion; in fact, it pretty much stated that the discussion was pointless, which makes the act of posting all the weirder.

 

Which is not necessarily a negative thing.

 

You know what I'm so very sick to death of? Superheroes that whine and moan and complain about how difficult their lives are, and how being a hero is so hard. Sonic has none of that. He can run at the speed of sound while battling robots and monsters, which is awesome, and the great thing is that he think it's awesome, too.

 

He's a happy person, at peace with his own issues, who feels good about himself. That naturally leads to overconfidence, a tendency to leap before looking, and tending to assume the best about people. I can see how that would seem boring to some, but for me it puts a smile on my face.

 

Sonic doesn't have to complain or be whiny to be interesting. Besides, I would assume most if not all people here think Sonic is interesting regardless of his attitude. But at the same time, his current characterization does not lend itself to conflict that is really interesting or meaningful, because Sonic is characterized in such a way that he does not have a broad range of reactions and thoughts to different circumstances. There is pretty much nothing you can throw at him that will foster a different emotional reaction or a different approach from him. Everything can be solved with wise cracks and never giving up, so why ever bother writing that he is frightened or furious or exasperated with the way things are going? There's no need to. With Sonic's current characterization, conflict simply does not matter at all.

[Emmett L. Brown]

I don't really mind the fact that he is a happy hero; that's not a bad thing. What I would like to see more of is the traits that normally help him through anything be turned into a negative trait based on the situation.

 

A shoddy example: He comes across a place that has a bunch of people who are extremely subservient to a local overlord. His natural love of freedom causes him to try to help them, but because he acts without bothering to consult any of them, he doesn't understand the full situation behind the subservience. The end result is that his "help" ends up being a bad thing, because it turns out the overlord is a really nice and respectable person, and that they are subservient to him because if they don't, the people undergo some kind of freakish transformation into greedy violent monsters/ dark creatures try to take over them because they don't have any resistance to temptations or something along that line.

 

This way, you don't have to sacrifice his lighthearted nature, while still showing that he can be flawed.

Sonic's desire to help out has resulted in evil overlords gaining supreme power at least three times in the series already.

[Tara]

Well, like others have stated, what you have demonstrated it as not so much "depth" as much as it demonstrates that though the series hasn't done a very good job with its narratives over the years, the series definitely has more to it than your standard "good guy fights bad guy" story, a la many of the Mario games and Pac-Man and things like that.  There are real emotional conflicts going on inside the characters and they're not always solved as simply as just good being stronger than evil.  With that said, I love the opening post, but not for the reasons it was addressed.

 

Anyway, I like Sonic as the perfect goody-good he is.  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate stories full of deep characters, but in their appropriate place and Sonic doesn't come across to me as something that needs to be too deep.  He's just a simple person who lives life his own way.  He's a character that kids are supposed to admire and look up to.  That doesn't mean he has to be perfect, and although the depictions of his imperfections are few, he doesn't come across as boring.  He comes across as lively with an interesting perspective on life.  That's just me though.  I don't know.

[Kuzu]

I like that angle. Do you have any ideas in mind for how a story could test Sonic's limits?

 

 

Well Verte listed Black Knight as an example, but it somewhat falls short because Sonic is still ultimately right in the end anyway. It'd be nice for a game to show that Sonic's actions are always the right one, and have him deal with that. Whether it be opposition from his friends, or whoever. Make Sonic question himself a bit. Obviously he'd pull through, but little introspective wouldn't hurt. Even Shadow & Blaze got that much.

 

It was a counterproductive post because it added nothing to the discussion; in fact, it pretty much stated that the discussion was pointless, which makes the act of posting all the weirder.

 

I pointed out an inherent flaw within the writing of the series, and how it portrays Sonic and was more or less requesting, rather than list all of these supposed negative traits Sonic has that are never shown to light, we talk about ways to balance those traits to make him a more dynamic character than he is now. Sounds pretty substantial doesn't it. =/

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Sonic's desire to help out has resulted in evil overlords gaining supreme power at least three times in the series already.

That wasn't my point. My point is that it's possible to turn to put Sonic into situations that show that while his tactics might work for SOME situations, they aren't a one size fits all solution to everything, and if anything, can potentially cause more problems that can only be resolved by approaching things from a different angle, i;e maybe a different character can offer a different perspective that Sonic himself can't quite come to grips with. You can also use this to reinforce that he himself isn't perfect by showing him to have a stubbornness when it comes to understanding viewpoints outside of his own, and thus might unintentionally try to force his viewpoints on others.

 

Granted, maybe this did already happen, but if it did happen, it was either something really minor, or was just overshadowed by something else altogether. I dunno.

Edited January 20, 2013 by I R Lothar

[Nepenthe]

I pointed out an inherent flaw within the writing of the series, and how it portrays Sonic and was more or less requesting, rather than list all of these supposed negative traits Sonic has that are never shown to light, we talk about ways to balance those traits to make him a more dynamic character than he is now. Sounds pretty substantial doesn't it. =/

 

The post in question doesn't have a call to action nor any proposed solutions whatsoever, but rather reiterates the current situation while lamenting that conversing Sonic's flaws is pointless because Sega doesn't utilize them. It was a defeatist post and hardly substantial, and neither is this conversation as it's getting off-topic.

 

 

That wasn't my point. My point is that it's possible to turn to put Sonic into situations that show that while his tactics might work for SOME situations, they aren't a one size fits all solution to everything, and if anything, can potentially cause more problems that can only be resolved by approaching things from a different angle, i;e maybe a different character can offer a different perspective that Sonic himself can't quite come to grips with. You can also use this to reinforce that he himself isn't perfect by showing him to have a stubbornness when it comes to understanding viewpoints outside of his own, and thus might unintentionally try to force his viewpoints on others.

 

Granted, maybe this did already happen, but if it did happen, it was either something really minor, or was just overshadowed by something else altogether. I dunno.

 

This touches on another problem with Sonic's current characterization. It's facilitating the decay of the rest of the cast by comparison because their usefulness is now dependent on whether or not the writer chooses to work them into a story versus whether or not the writer is dealing with a flawed protagonist that needs to rely on others for the fulfillment of his goals. Almost everything Sonic does works, whether or not it does so the first time, so you're subsequently left wondering what the other characters are good for outside of minor, incidental tasks like translating.

[Kuzu]

 

The post in question doesn't have a call to action nor any proposed solutions whatsoever, but rather reiterates the current situation while lamenting that conversing Sonic's flaws is pointless because Sega doesn't utilize them. It was a defeatist post and hardly substantial, and neither is this conversation as it's getting off-topic.

 

 

Then why did....ya know what, fine, let me phrase it better so it's not so cynical and defeatist;

 

 

 

Instead of just making walls of texts listing how much depth Sonic has, how about we talk about ways to make room for more of it, and do that by thinking of scenarios that conflict Sonic's own character and challenge them. Whether Sonic has depth or not is not the question, but how can we create scenarios for some development. The problem, like I said, is that everything in Sonic's entire character from his personality to his actions are seen as undeniably pure to the point that anybody who opposes him is automatically deemed wrong or condemned.

 

So, how about we go with what I said a few posts back about putting Sonic in situations where his actions are deemed as wrong and he has to question himself.

 

 

better.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Ragna the Bloodedge

[Your Vest Friend]

so you're subsequently left wondering what the other characters are good for outside of minor, incidental tasks like translating.

Which may or may not be completely pointless anyway because Sonic should technically be able to do the job without the incidental tasks but ends up not doing so due to the plot writing him as more den...uh...sorry, that part of Colours always strikes a nerve.

Edit: Actually, let me twist it so it relates to the topic; it wasn't just a pointless task, it was hindrance to the potential character growth both Sonic and Tails could have gotten. If Sonic and Tails had just been there as a couple of bros who were out to investigate Eggman, without one acting as a translator to a character who didn't have any point beyond humour, there could have been more time to expand on the mind control plot. This would have basically forced Sonic into a position which wouldn't have been comfortable for him, and potentially shown cracks in his personality.

But nope, because of that fucking alien who didn't need to be there, that was condensed into ten seconds and solved due to mechanical failure. Ugh.

Edited January 20, 2013 by VEDJ-F

[Semi-colon e]

I think people are treating the series and characters a lot more pretentiously than what's been established. I understand people have their own interpretation of their favorite characters, but people need to know the distinction between fanon and canon as that does make a difference.

 

I thought I was the only one. I really was. Or I felt like it, anyway. Considering I overanalyse everything I've never been compelled to overanalyse the characters. Most of the time the characters fit the plot rather than the other way round, hence the inconsistency.

[Amomynous]

Might as well

Anyone else thing Sonic wasn't being hopelessly naive with letting himself be 'tricked' in the storybook games?

 

Shahrah didn't know what side she was on and I think Sonic new it, but wasn't ready to act defensive while he didn't have an enemy in her yet. Naive in that he probably assumed she would come to his side, but I don't think he got snagged with hook,line and sinker.

Merlina wasn't even trying to trick Sonic in the first place, she didn't consider that Sonic would oppose her and assumed he was on her side anyway.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Mysterics

[Vertekins]

Might as well

Anyone else thing Sonic wasn't being hopelessly naive with letting himself be 'tricked' in the storybook games?

 

Shahrah didn't know what side she was on and I think Sonic new it, but wasn't ready to act defensive while he didn't have an enemy in her yet. Naive in that he probably assumed she would come to his side, but I don't think he got snagged with hook,line and sinker.

Merlina wasn't even trying to trick Sonic in the first place, she didn't consider that Sonic would oppose her and assumed he was on her side anyway.

 

I dunno, Sonic did seems to be genuinely shocked when Shahra revealed her betrayal and in the instances when Shahra showed possible guilt over manipulating him, he wasn't actually paying attention to her and/or had no reason to believe that she was hiding something (That is until she actually does betray him)

 

 

I think Merlina at least expected Sonic to understand her stance and why she did what she did.

 

Merlina: "My sorrow at it's ruin runs deeper than the depths of the underworld. Do you not understand?"

 

Of course Sonic's answer to that is "No! And I don't want to!"

 

He even willingly handed her to scabbard, showing that he did not expect her to do what she did. Neither girl throughout the story showed anything that could be viewed as 'suspicious' or in Shahra's case, acting out of character. So I don't believe that Sonic is naive either.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Vertekins

[Eternal EX]

Just because something is for kids, doesn't mean it has to, or has an excuse to be shallow.

 

 

Best example is Avatar The Last Airbender. Even though that cartoon was made for kids. It may have one of the deepest stories I've ever seen in a cartoon. Maybe that is why I love it so much.

 

Wait, this isn't about other series. Just sonic lol.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Best example is Avatar The Last Airbender. Even though that cartoon was made for kids. It may have one of the deepest stories I've ever seen in a cartoon. Maybe that is why I love it so much.

 

Wait, this isn't about other series. Just sonic lol.

Or old Disney movies like Lion King all the way up to some Pixar films and Wreck-it Ralph.

People love to think in black and white and hardly ever in the grey when it comes to Sonic, only to say "that's different" if you show kids show like Pokemon doing the same thing.

At any rate, I'll come back to tear up some arguments in a few hours.

[Speedy]

At risk of repeating stuff...

 

The problem with depth and Sonic (and story telling in the games) can easily be seen by the different reactions of people to this topic. Sonic games often have stories that don't go into a lot of detail about characters. So, in order to get the most out of the characterization they actually do offer, you need to read between the lines, look at the little stuff and take it for all it's worth. Some people aren't willing to do that and hence fail to see depth in Sonic (or other characters of the series). Some others love to pay attention to the little stuff and look beneath the surface of "it's for kids". I'm one of the latter kind of people.

 

As such, I take depth in a character as something along the line of 'makes the character feel like a person to me'. Sonic being the main protagonist of the series does that better than some other characters who get less spotlight and therefore chance to show they are more than two-dimensional avatars.

 

First point for Sonic being more than a two-dimensional character without any depth: The discussion here has already shown it, he's a contradictory character.

 

He lives up to his 'I play by my own rules', but he isn't willing to openly accept anyone else's rules and morals.

 

While he is generally depicted as someone who always loves to help others and values his friends, he is so selfish about his personal freedom that he frequently runs off for the sake of this freedom and leaves those behind that might need him there. He seems actually afraid of commitments.

 

He wants to put a stop to Dr. Eggman's plan, and yet he never really does more in that regard but stopping whatever Eggman's up to at the moment, then let's him get away. Pity? Sonic's version of fair play? Give him a chance for a re-match?

 

Even though he's 'on the good side', he doesn't seem to consider the law anything too important. Okay, I would break out of prison, too, if someone locked me in because they are color blind. But Sonic never tries to defend himself when he is arrested. Maybe he sees it as a waste of time. According to Sonic Colors, he also doesn't care too much about copyright laws.

 

Sonic is, in almost all protrayals, a light character. Out of all the hero characters you get in games, movies or comics, he's one of the few that actually cherish the adventure, and not take their hero job as a burden (the only other one I can really think about right now is young Johnny Storm). Do we have to hold that against him? After all, the thrill of the adventure is not his only motivation to stop Eggman or other villains. There's also an utter disliking for injustice and oppression that should be a strong driving force for him. So fine, you're out there trying to stop the world from ending/being conquered. Does it hinder the job if you try to have the most fun you can on the way? On the contrary I think, it could make the job easier if you're not constantly brooding over something like 'shit, we're doomed'. Keep your spirit up and make the best of it. Sounds like a good way to avoid PTSD, too.

 

Sonic has a positive outlook on the world. A real optimist. He has great confidence and the ability to make light of practically any situation. In the end of Generations he tells Classic Sonic his future is going to be great, simply because it's not Sonic's style to dwell on the bad part long enough to think about them much. As I see it, that's a quality. However, it comes with the definite drawback of making it seem he doesn't take even the worst crisis seriously. One could argue about how much of his saying restoring the broken planet in Unleashed was a great excuse to save the world is his way of coping rather than a serious statement, but okay. Where others see doom looming at the horizon, Sonic sees a great chance for adventure. Sonic enjoys life, and he tries to spread a bit of that to other people he meet. Merlina is a good example again. Life is short, everything ends? That's okay, enjoy it as much as you can while it's still there to enjoy. Does that make him shallow? I don't think so. If you do, fine, have it your way.

 

Another trait of Sonic's character: Nobody ever taught that hedgehog when to give up. Even when the planet is in pieces, Sonic doesn't hide in a corner, he just goes out to see what's going on. In the end of Sonic and the Black Knight, when Merlina betrays him, Sonic keeps trying to fight her, even as the knights of the round table tell him to give up. Towards the end of the scene it seems he is not just slightly injured, but being the stubborn, resilent little guy he is, Sonic refuses to stay down and surrender. Now if you want to see never giving up as a positive or negative attribute is up to you. It has aspects of both.

 

While I called his confidence a positive thing, Sonic also has moments where he's clearly overconfident. His cockiness cost him dearly in the beginning of Unleashed, and thinking you can just head-on attack a weird time-creature that randomly appears in front of you also is a clear sign of overconfidence. It is also a sign of another flaw that was already mentioned: Sonic's total lack of thinking ahead. Unfortunately for him, his fast feet are often ahead of his thinking. He jumps full tilt into dangerous situations without ever bothering of thinking them through, let alone make an actual plan.

 

However, Sonic is not actually stupid, even though he acts stupidly sometimes. Giving his lack of planning and thinking ahead, he often gets into situations that could easily end badly for him. That he gets out alive could be taken as a sign that he does think in the end anyway, and adapts to new situations quickly enough to make the best of a bad start.

 

Geez, messed up post of chaos.

 

Anyway, to somewhat sum this up.... I like Sonic. Guess that's obvious. I think if you want to, you can find a lot more qualities and flaws alike in his character to make him much more than a superficial hero. If you aren't willing to look for those things or consider depth as something equal to dark, we might as well stop here.

 

So, how about we go with what I said a few posts back about putting Sonic in situations where his actions are deemed as wrong and he has to question himself.

 

There's a lot of potential for that. Giving some of Sonic's most obvious character traits, you can easily come up with something. Probably easy to exploit is his lack of caution. He is very likely to run into traps and get himself and others in trouble. He is awfully predicatable in his actions, and yet we see his enemies so rarely make use of it (like Eggman did in Unleashed). Nobody questioned Sonic's undeniable involvement with Eggman breaking open the planet and releasing Dark Gaia. Someone blaming it at least partly on him would force Sonic not only to justify himself and question his behavior, but it would ultimately also offer the opportunity for him to grow on the experience and learn from his mistakes. That's something I would really love to see in a plot: Sonic making a mistake, having to deal with the consequences, but in the end setting things right and having learned from the event.

[Pawn]

The Short Temper

 

You can bet your buck that the majority of Sonic's profiles in instruction manuals absolutely love getting across this aspect of his personality. Here's just a handful that state it.

 

 

 

Geez, that is a pretty prominent personality trait you'd think. Pity you hardly ever see it in action.

 

Sonic Adventure, IMO, depicted Sonic as being frequently frustrated which when you think about it makes a lot of sense. How many times does Eggman effortlessly steal the Emeralds that he's found and is trying to keep away from Chaos? It not just that that makes him irritable; Forced into the bodyguard role for Amy and the bird, seeing her get kidnapped, missing Eggman after jumping off of the Egg Carrier in a bid to catch him then faceplanting... He even appears to throw a very brief tantrum

 

 

He even regards Chaos' destruction of Station Square with quite a bit of anger.

 

And then this trait takes a massive backseat in favor of depicting a character who seems very much unperturbed by a lot of things you'd expect him to be at least a bit annoyed by. Such as;

 

- Amy's propensity for chasing and glomping him

- Eggman tearing apart the world in Unleashed

- Eggman kidnapping Elise time and time again in '06

- Shadow sullying his good name in SA2

 

Sorry for the late quote dissection, but I've never seen the above as him throwing a tantrum. He's just shaking his head/body like any cartoon character might after a comedic fall to the ground. I'm also not sure why you've listed SA2 as a game where Sonic felt unperturbed. It's likely the best example of the lot, as he lost his cool in their first meeting and again on Prison Island. Not that I think this moment is enough to dispel the notion that he is too perfect, when looking at his career as a whole, but it's something worth noting when addressing his short temper.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Pawn