Shadow Vs Knuckles: Role of Rival

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

23 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

The necessity of the characters is established by what they do during the majority of the plot, not by why they're in the story to begin with. If Knuckles was pocketing the Master Emerald in Heroes as an excuse to explain the Master Emerald's whereabouts, it still wouldn't change the size or nature of his supporting role because the Master Emerald is not directly related to anything that happens in the rest of the story.

Except I'm not talking about the Master Emerald here. And I'd say it is about why they're in the story because every other character has that established with much greater substance than Knuckles as they go about the plot. Each has their own specific motives for going along the ride, even if simple, that has to do with them and them specifically. They formed teams because those individual motives are intertwined with each other, and as friends/accomplish it's beneficial to team up and help each other out, but Knuckles is just brought along just because. It wouldn't be specific to Knuckles if they did the same amount of work for him as they did for the other characters (is it hard to say "Eggman took over my home when Tails found me" for example?), but he stands out a lot as far as why he's around.

21 minutes ago, Mister X said:

They couldn't have it just be Sonic and Tails because Heroes is a game about teams of three (speed, flight, power), ergo they needed a power-type for each, ergo Knuckles was made a part of Team Sonic. The gameplay came first, story came later.

I don't care what came first, they can still do a better job with storytelling than what they did for Knuckles in Heroes (and Heroes entirely, but more to the point).

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Heroes has a dozen main characters, and the plots for each team aren't exactly complex, least of all for Team Sonic. It's an adventure with a bunch of simple stories all culminating in a fight with Metal Sonic. Not everyone's going to get some super fleshed-out reason for being there. Knuckles is there because he's one of the three main characters, they needed a power-type on Team Sonic, and he wanted to help out. They don't need to put the Master Emerald/Angel Island into every single game with Knuckles in order to justify his presence. In a game like Heroes (where one character's goal is simply to marry Sonic), a character getting a letter saying, "I'm going to rule the world in three days," and said character deciding, "I better leave and help my friends, this could be bad!" is justification enough.

Yeah, not as far as I'm concerned. And the fact that you're centering all my points entirely around the Master Emerald/Angel Island and not about Knuckles as a character just shows you aren't paying attention to what I'm saying, because I never said they need to put those two things into every single game to have him around, now did I? 

It would certainly help if they paid attention to them more, but if they're going to involve Knuckles they could put at least the same effort they did with every other character to have him aboard. It doesn't have to be super fleshed out - this ain't rocket science nor are we telling a story equivalent to Shakespear here - but you can do a lot more than just having someone deliver a letter and said character saying "I better leave and help."

[blade57331]

58 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

It was a priority until he saw that the situation had changed to warrant his assistance at certain points. In Heroes, the situation warranted his assistance from the beginning, thus there was technically no abandonment to be had. He was guarding the Emerald, got the call to help, and decided to help before the start of the game. Knuckles isn't obligated to base every single motivation- major or minor- around the Master Emerald.

I completely, completely disagree. In the end he did abandoned it. (even if he didn't had a problem to leave saving the world for Sonic in the past)

You say that and yet, everytime Knuckles was main character/major player/ or overall was more important in the games. The story  involving him was always involving M.E. in some way or another. (S3&K/SA1/SA2/Sonic Chronicles/Rivals series)

18 minutes ago, Mister X said:

He's Sonic and Tails's closest friend, and they wanted help. That's his motive: he wants to help his friends, even if he has to put his duty aside now and then in order to do so.

External reason is that they needed a power type character on Team Sonic.

Well, that's not what SA1 or 2 showed us. Which conflicts with Heroes, since we never saw Sonic-Knuckles developing that bond which would make Knuckles put his duty aside for anyone really. Hell, Amy would fit in his place more, since she could be power-type and has motivations to follow Sonic(unlike Knuckles).

 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

K, I won't say that Knuckles should always be involved with the M.E., because that is a rather narrow range to put him in (although the sheer amount of things you can make the M.E. do sort of cancels that out I suppose).

That's not saying I want it disregarded, but a characters involvement shouldn't be as flimsy as they did with him in Heroes. You could do something that yanks him away from that and place those things in the background, but without ignoring that those things are important to him...like they could've done in Unleashed.

[Nepenthe]

Knuckles not being in Heroes for a reason that personally satisfies you is not a problem exclusive to him nor even the biggest of its problems, problems which aren't directly correlated with the initial reasoning explaining why the cast is there, because you can still write a character badly even if you justify their existence in the plot. The fact that Sonic has ever been written badly at all is proof of this.

For one, Tails does nothing to substantiate his existence in Heroes beyond being Sonic's best friend, but "best friend" isn't a job title that necessitates being by someone's side 24/7, so why you think Tails being there on the basis of wanting to help is okay but Knuckles being there on the basis of wanting to help is not okay is just beyond me. Then there's Metal Sonic: He gains enough sapience to overthrow Eggman for no stated reason, gains Terminator powers for no stated reason, sets up this entire convoluted scheme to get all of the characters in one place for no stated reason instead of just visiting them individually, and turns into a dragon for no stated reason. He is the MVP for arbitrary appearances in Heroes.

Also, despite the justifications for other characters in the story, they still take illogical actions throughout the majority of the narrative that makes the writing all the more bad. Team Sonic and Team Dark fight because why the fuck not, Team Chaotix and Team Rose have a misunderstanding based on Amy's completely exaggerated love-struck, and on top of that this misunderstanding is exacerbated by the fact that they have photo evidence that the Chaotix aren't the ones involved in the disappearance of Froggy and Chocola. Knuckles is at least spared being a complete dipshit on his own compared to the likes of Amy, and thus he's more tolerable despite "being there for no reason." 

@blade57331

You say that and yet, everytime Knuckles was main character/major player/ or overall was more important in the games. The story  involving him was always involving M.E. in some way or another. (S3&K/SA1/SA2/Sonic Chronicles/Rivals series)

Notice how in the majority of these games he abandons protecting the Master Emerald in order to address a variety of different situations and problems at hand.

Edited May 19, 2016 by Nepenthe

[Heckboy]

 

15 minutes ago, ChaosSupremeSonic said:

I don't care what came first, they can still do a better job with storytelling than what they did for Knuckles in Heroes (and Heroes entirely, but more to the point).

My point is that Knuckles getting involved just because he's a friend to Sonic and Tails is justification enough in a game like Heroes, which is pretty flimsy all around.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Just now, Mister X said:

 

My point is that Knuckles getting involved just because he's a friend to Sonic and Tails is justification enough in a game like Heroes, which is pretty flimsy all around.

And my point is that it's a flimsy justification and can do better with more substance than that like the other characters have. Even in a flimsy game like Heroes.

[Heckboy]

Just now, ChaosSupremeSonic said:

And my point is that it's a flimsy justification and can do better with more substance than that like the other characters have. Even in a flimsy game like Heroes.

And, again, my point is that all of the characters in Heroes are pretty flimsy and lack a lot of substance. It's not like Knuckles is some sort of outlier. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

19 minutes ago, Mister X said:

And, again, my point is that all of the characters in Heroes are pretty flimsy and lack a lot of substance. It's not like Knuckles is some sort of outlier. 

And again, they can do better for Knuckles like they've at least done for the other characters.

And he actually is an outlier - why else are folks talking mostly about him and not Big the cat in the game? As simple as everyone involvement is in Heroes, they have far stronger motives and substance to themselves: The Chaotix are strapped for cash, Shadow is looking for his memories, Rouge is searching for Eggman's treasure, Omega is out for revenge, and Team Rose is looking for Sonic because they suspect he kidnapped Froggy and Chocola. Sonic and Tails have enough of a motive in that Tails got the letter and delivered it to Sonic because Eggman was daring him to stop him, but Knuckles is really nothing more than a tagalong compared to everyone else.

 

32 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Knuckles not being in Heroes for a reason that personally satisfies you is not a problem exclusive to him nor even the biggest of its problems, problems which aren't directly correlated with the initial reasoning explaining why the cast is there, because you can still write a character badly even if you justify their existence in the plot. The fact that Sonic has ever been written badly at all is proof of this..

Who even implied that you can't write a character badly even if justified? Seriously, explain where in the world that even came from, because that goes into an entirely different topic altogether. 

[Nepenthe]

Here's how this train of thought goes:

1 hour ago, Nepenthe said:

The necessity of the characters is established by what they do during the majority of the plot, not by why they're in the story to begin with. If Knuckles was pocketing the Master Emerald in Heroes as an excuse to explain the Master Emerald's whereabouts, it still wouldn't change the size or nature of his supporting role because the Master Emerald is not directly related to anything that happens in the rest of the story.

This is bolded because I specifically said this to be inclusive of the concept of writing quality. Thus, my argument from the beginning has always been that why a character is in a given story is mostly meaningless to their overall qualitative impact on the plot. You then disagreed with the entire premise and continued to overwhelmingly focus on the reason why a character is there and nothing else:

1 hour ago, ChaosSupremeSonic said:

Except I'm not talking about the Master Emerald here. And I'd say it is about why they're in the story because every other character has that established with much greater substance than Knuckles as they go about the plot. Each has their own specific motives for going along the ride, even if simple, that has to do with them and them specifically. They formed teams because those individual motives are intertwined with each other, and as friends/accomplish it's beneficial to team up and help each other out, but Knuckles is just brought along just because. It wouldn't be specific to Knuckles if they did the same amount of work for him as they did for the other characters (is it hard to say "Eggman took over my home when Tails found me" for example?), but he stands out a lot as far as why he's around.

(And I have to say in hindsight, your suggestion for a justification makes no sense because Eggman was behind absolutely none of what happened in Heroes, at least intentionally. Had he taken over Angel Island for no reason before the game started the story would've actually have been even dumber than it already is).

After that, I disagreed and reiterated my argument using specific examples that elaborated on the fact that I was talking about writing quality from the beginning, namely by decrying the team fights and how nonsensical they were. Ultimately, my point with this inclusion of writing quality is to implicitly demonstrate that I disagree with your forest-for-the-trees focus on having characters always be justified with very specific reasons to be in a plot, because despite Knuckles tagging along just to help (which is, again, valid), he is nonetheless one of the least annoying and/or dumbass characters in the whole game anyway. In general, I don't care why a character is there because I'm content with any world-ending threats being the justification. I instead care about the rest of the game's story instead.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

42 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Here's how this train of thought goes:

This is bolded because I specifically said this to be inclusive of the concept of writing quality. Thus, my argument from the beginning has always been that why a character is in a given story is mostly meaningless to their overall qualitative impact on the plot. You then disagreed with the entire premise and continued to overwhelmingly focus on the reason why a character is there and nothing else:

Because I think that your premise is rather narrow and weak as far as necessity goes: the "why" is just as important as, if not connected to the "what". The size or nature of his supporting role wasn't even my point, nor was it the issue I was calling out for the character. And the reason why is because I didn't have any issues with them in particular as opposed to the other aspect that I was talking about which I saw as rather weak compared to others. I know what Knuckles is doing tagging, and I wouldn't have a problem with that if there was a stronger reason why.

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(And I have to say in hindsight, your suggestion for a justification makes no sense because Eggman was behind absolutely none of what happened in Heroes, at least intentionally. Had he taken over Angel Island for no reason before the game started the story would've actually have been even dumber than it already is)

After that, I disagreed and reiterated my argument, using specific examples that elaborated on the fact that I was talking about writing quality from the beginning, namely by decrying the team fights and how nonsensical they were. Ultimately, my point with this inclusion of writing quality is to implicitly demonstrate that I disagree with your forest-for-the-trees focus on having characters always be justified with very specific reasons to be in a plot, because despite Knuckles tagging along just to help (which is, again, valid), he is nonetheless one of the least annoying or dumbass characters in the whole game anyway. In general, I don't care why a character is there because I've already decided that any world-ending threat is enough for anyone to show up. I instead care about the rest of the game.

(Eggman not actually being behind taking over Angel Island isn't actually all that relevant as far as the justification goes, and it would actually make perfect sense by going along with your excuse of "the world is in danger" by actually explaining that he, ya know, took over a part of the world and is gearing to endanger more. Partially the point behind Team Sonic stopping him, isn't it? And had he taken over Angel Island, isn't there a little something called the Master Emerald that would be a perfect enough reason for such a take over?)

Examples which were completely beside the point, because no one here as said that any of the team fights made any sense to begin with and is a different discussion entirely that hardly anyone would likely disagree with in the first place. But Knuckles being the least annoying or dumbass character in the game doesn't detract to my point that he's there just to be there when practically every other character has something more than that. So while you don't care why a character is there, I do because I see that character as an individual building a greater whole that is the game's story. So decry it as a "forest-for-the-trees" focus all you want, I'll still call what I see as a broken cog (out of many) a the machine that needs fixing.

[Nepenthe]

I understand it wasn't your point, because I was specifically disagreeing with it and simultaneously arguing for my own viewpoint, hence why I used the examples to illustrate.

As for Eggman, I say him taking over Angel Island would have been dumb because he was held hostage by Metal since before the game started. The letter, the boss fights-- every time you meet Eggman before the Chaotix bust him out at the end, you are in actuality fighting Metal Sonic in disguise. Ergo, to have Eggman take over Angel Island- and not change anything else about Heroes' overall narrative- is to basically throw random and highly sensitive information into the works that doesn't support what's going on or add anything positive or meaningful, except an arguably unnecessary justification for why 1/16th of the cast is even there. This is terrible writing.

[Sonictrainer]

I think Knuckles would have had to fight Dark Gaia Monsters on Angel Island every night in Unleashed.

It also doesn't help that the Townspeople seem to be perfectly calm about the situation until Dark Gaia reassembles himself.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

34 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

As for Eggman, I say him taking over Angel Island would have been dumb because he was held hostage by Metal since before the game started. The letter, the boss fights-- every time you meet Eggman before the Chaotix bust him out at the end, you are in actuality fighting Metal Sonic in disguise. Ergo, to have Eggman take over Angel Island- and not change anything else about Heroes' overall narrative- is to basically throw random and highly sensitive information into the works that doesn't support what's going on or add anything positive or meaningful, except an arguably unnecessary justification for why 1/16th of the cast is even there. This is terrible writing.

Nepenthe, first off I'm not stupid. And I say that because you're talking to me about the plot like I don't know any of that, because here's a surprise: I know it was actually Metal Sonic the entire time. Even he wants to take over the world (for whatever reason, but that's not the point here).

So it still fits the justification of the world being threatened and why Knuckles is involved. As far as he, Sonic, and Tails know, it's Eggman who's responsible, and Knuckles is taking part because he wants his island back. I'm not talking about Heroes's overall narrative than I am talking about Knuckles's part in it (or Shadow, given he's also part of the topic).

13 minutes ago, Sonictrainer said:

I think Knuckles would have had to fight Dark Gaia Monsters on Angel Island every night in Unleashed.

It also doesn't help that the Townspeople seem to be perfectly calm about the situation until Dark Gaia reassembles himself.

Why not just have a Titan knock his ass off the island? XD

[Nepenthe]

First, you can't get pissed at me for clarifying the plot when you've constantly been saying Eggman should've taken over the island as if the plot would've given him leeway to do so.

Second, ignoring the fact that you've ironically yet to provide a justification for why Metal would even want to take over Angel Island in order to institute full-scale totalitarianism when nothing in Heroes signifies he needs or wants anything the island has to offer (outside of it being an obviously contrived reason to justify Knuckles being there), if this were even the case how would you even justify any of the characters going to the places they go in the game versus simply heading straight back to Angel Island? It literally makes no sense for Sonic to not just hop on the wings of the Tornado and they continue on.

Third, you can't say you're not talking about the entire narrative when you're introducing solutions to highly arguable problems that would negatively impact the entire narrative if implemented in a vacuum. You focusing on Knuckles' Heroes appearance in this specific conversation doesn't mean your proposed solutions to any problems you have with him don't potentially introduce a trade-off with other things in the game, and if nothing else this illustrates my point that the reason a character shows up isn't the end all, be all of how to write a story.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

20 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

First, you can't get pissed at me for clarifying the plot when you've constantly been saying Eggman should've taken over the island as if the plot would've given him leeway to do so.

...I'm not pissed, what the?

And I only said that as an example to begin with before I elaborated on how it would work for Knuckles.

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Second, ignoring the fact that you've ironically yet to provide a justification for why Metal would even want to take over Angel Island in order to institute full-scale totalitarianism when nothing in Heroes signifies he needs or wants anything the island has to offer (outside of it being an obviously contrived reason to justify Knuckles being there), if this were even the case how would you even justify any of the characters going to the places they go in the game versus simply heading straight back to Angel Island? It literally makes no sense for Sonic to not just hop on the wings of the Tornado and they continue on.

The Master Emerald maybe? And I actually provided that justification earlier (EDIT: and here too, forgot that one. XD), but I didn't want to be off topic and drift into Metal Sonic's character.

And as far as the other characters go, they could be hunting Eggman down like they were already doing in the game. I didn't think that needed to be explained.

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Third, you can't say you're not talking about the entire narrative when you're introducing solutions to highly arguable problems that would negatively impact the entire narrative if implemented in a vacuum. You focusing on Knuckles' Heroes appearance in this specific conversation doesn't mean your proposed solutions to any problems you have with him don't potentially introduce a trade-off with other things in the game, and if nothing else this illustrates my point that the reason a character shows up isn't the end all, be all of how to write a story.

I actually can because I wasn't talking about the entire narrative in the first place. Just a part of it. Again, I didn't want to go too far off topic over it. My proposed solution is nothing more than giving Knuckles a stronger reason for being involved like the other characters, and it doesn't introduce any trade off because that would still tie into to everything else.

Not sure how this has anything to do with the "end all, be all" of how to write a story tho. I said nothing about that.

[Nepenthe]

23 minutes ago, ChaosSupremeSonic said:

...I'm not pissed, what the?

 

This reads as excessively snarky and defensive:

52 minutes ago, ChaosSupremeSonic said:

Nepenthe, first off I'm not stupid. And I say that because you're talking to me about the plot like I don't know any of that, because here's a surprise: I know it was actually Metal Sonic the entire time.

No one called you stupid or said you didn't know the plot.

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The Master Emerald maybe? And I actually provided that justification earlier, but I didn't want to be off topic and drift into Metal Sonic's character.

Metal doesn't want the Master Emerald in Heroes. He doesn't even want the Chaos Emeralds.

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I actually can because I wasn't talking about the entire narrative in the first place. My proposed solution is nothing more than giving Knuckles a stronger reason for being involved like the other characters, and it doesn't introduce any trade off because that would still tie into to everything else.

It literally doesn't matter that you aren't talking about the narrative, because the fact still remains you're introducing new information into the game that would have to change the way the story is written, which defeats the point of having Knuckles work better in Heroes' story. 

You're giving Metal Sonic this random justification for taking over Angel Island (when he doesn't need to do that to just take the Master Emerald and use it, so again, why is he taking it over?) when literally nothing he wants to accomplish in the game says that he needs it, meaning you are going to have to rewrite his plan a lot. You're also downplaying the importance of what an existing take-over by a villain of any location, especially one as important as Angel island, would mean for the plot at hand, which is that it would centralize the conflict to a point where you'd have to change the locations and Team Sonic's intro entirely and possibly a few character motivations (Would Rouge really have time to snoop around looking for Eggman's supposed treasure when GUN would probably be like "Holy shit, Metal Sonic's established this base on a huge island, we need all agents on deck!" and why would the Chaotix be inspecting an anonymous missing person's case from Eggman when Metal's accomplishment would be a self-evident answer that Eggman was compromised, if not dead?) And why in the world would such a game end on a random sky fleet in the middle of nowhere?

Inserting a successful Angel Island take over into Heroes' plot and changing nothing else makes for an even bigger clusterfuck than what we have already. Doing so responsibly would mean you really don't have Heroes' plot anymore. So while you're not consciously talking about the rest of the plot or even potentially care about it, I'm telling you point blank that that's what your solution- had it been implemented into the game we know of- would actually mean for the game, which goes back to my point that you're missing the forest for the trees in all of this. You would literally either fuck up the story or rewrite it entirely into something different just to make Knuckles' appearance more personally justified to you- not even to necessarily write the whole story better- just to slightly polish up a single cast member. This is absurd.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

16 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

This reads as excessively snarky and defensive:

No one called you stupid or said you didn't know the plot.

You were talking to me in a way that sound like I didn't know those details you were pointing out. That's why I said that.

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Metal doesn't want the Master Emerald in Heroes. He doesn't even want the Chaos Emeralds.

Well, regardless, it's something affecting Knuckles and the reason why he's involved. That's all I was focused on, and that's all I set out to do.

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It literally doesn't matter that you aren't consciously talking about the narrative, because the fact still remains you're introducing new information into the game that would have to change the way the story is written, which defeats the point of having Knuckles work better in Heroes' story, so it's actually irrelevant.

You're giving Metal Sonic this random justification for taking over Angel Island (when he doesn't need to do that to just take the Master Emerald and use it, so again, why is he taking it over) when literally nothing he wants to accomplish in the game necessitates that he needs it, meaning you are going to have to rewrite his plan a lot. You are also downplaying the importance of what an existing take-over by a villain of any location, especially one as important as Angel island, would mean for the plot at hand, which is that it would centralize the conflict at that specific location, meaning you would have to change the locations of the game entirely and possibly a few character motivations (Would Rouge really have time to snoop around looking for Eggman's supposed treasure when GUN would probably be like "Holy shit, Eggman's established this base on a huge island, we need all agents on deck!") And why in the world would the game end on a random sky fleet in the middle of nowhere?

Inserting a successful Angel Island take over into Heroes' plot and changing nothing else makes for an even bigger clusterfuck than what we have already. So while you're not consciously talking about the rest of the plot or even potentially care about it, I'm telling you point blank that that's what your solution- had it been implemented into the game we know of- would actually mean for the game, which goes back to my point that you're missing the forest for the trees in all of this. You would literally either fuck up the story or rewrite it entirely into something different just to make Knuckles' appearance more personally justified to you- not even to necessarily write the whole story better- just to slightly polish up a single cast member. This is absurd.

It's specific to the character that is Knuckles. Me giving Metal Sonic a random justification for taking over Angel Island is all that was tying this into. Whether we have to rewrite Metal's plan or the entire narrative is an entirely different discussion all together. But this is exactly what was talking about in why I wasn't concerned with the rest of Heroes's plot and how to write the whole story better because now we're not even talking about Knuckles anymore, we're talking about the entirety of Sonic Heroes.

All I've been saying the whole time is for Knuckles to have something not as flimsy as "Tails brought him along" as to why he's involved like everyone else has for themselves. Like we can make a different topic for all this if that's the case, but I didn't want to go beyond what was being discussed here. My concern has nothing to do with how big a clusterfuck Heroes's is or would be over the solution, just that had my solution been implemented it would give Knuckles his own justification to tagging along with Sonic and Tails, and stand as strong as everyone else involved. Everything else about the plot is something else entirely.

[Diogenes]

It's all connected though. I can't see how you can make an argument that's basically "this would be better written if X" without considering what effect X would have on the rest of the story.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

It's all connected though. I can't see how you can make an argument that's basically "this would be better written if X" without considering what effect X would have on the rest of the story.

Because, again, I didn't want to go off topic. I know there's a connection, but I felt that would risk veering further and further off track into just about Heroes and not about Knuckles (or Shadow). So the rest of the story was of no concern to me.

[Nepenthe]

Could Knuckles have had a better reason for appearing in Heroes? Probably. But the one you given isn't a better reason, because it breaks the story either through identity or through logic. That is the fundamental disagreement of this particular tangent, which is already off-topic to the point of the thread regardless of whether or not I explained why your idea is bad within this context.

[Diogenes]

The Knuckles Argument is already pretty far off the topic of Knuckles and Shadow as rivals. If you're going to go in that direction, at least be willing to look at the consequences of your suggestion instead of ignoring half of the issue.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

To be honest; both characters aren't really fit to be rivals save for Knuckles.  

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

11 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Could Knuckles have had a better reason for appearing in Heroes? Probably. But the one you given isn't a better reason, because it breaks the story either through identity or through logic. That is the fundamental disagreement of this particular tangent, which is already off-topic to the point of the thread regardless of whether or not I explained why your idea is bad within this context.

Technically speaking, the story's logic and identity makes no sense in the first place and is already broken to begin with. You pointed that out when you were talking about how nonsensical the other teams were for fighting each other for flimsy reasons. So that's kind of a moot point regardless of my idea for Knuckles having a better reason for appearing, as it actually wouldn't change anything about the entirety of Heroes, and is not something I was out to do here.

10 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

The Knuckles Argument is already pretty far off the topic of Knuckles and Shadow as rivals. If you're going to go in that direction, at least be willing to look at the consequences of your suggestion instead of ignoring half of the issue.

I did, that's kinda why I was explaining why I wasn't talking about Heroes narrative and wanted to focus on Knuckles.

[Nepenthe]

The story already being badly written doesn't actually justify a proposed solution that doesn't serve to fix anything to any meaningful degree, if at all.

And again, I understand that you're not talking about the whole story. I brought up the whole story to demonstrate why I disagree with your idea, and to further illustrate my viewpoint that there are more important things in Sonic narratives than the initial catalyst for why a character shows up.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On 5/19/2016 at 11:00 PM, Nepenthe said:

The story already being badly written doesn't actually justify a proposed solution that doesn't serve to fix anything to any meaningful degree, if at all.

Even if it's just to give the character his own motives and reasons instead of being there just because? Yeah, I disagree. If anything, that's what it's there to fix.

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And again, I understand that you're not talking about the whole story. I brought up the whole story to demonstrate why I disagree with your idea, and to further illustrate my viewpoint that there are more important things in Sonic narratives than the initial catalyst for why a character shows up.

To which I also disagree with, because that initial catalyst serves as a motive for that character showing up and being involved throughout the whole story.

But I've already made my case, so I won't go any further with it.