Should Shadow and Rouge be bad guys again

[SpongicX]

No thanks, I like them better as flawed heroes. I like them better as characters who aren’t always the friendliest, yet have a strong sense of justice.

I hated their portrayal in Free Riders, where they suddenly turn into bullies for no dang reason. It makes no sense to see them picking on a little girl like Cream, or harrassing Amy. It especially makes Shadow look ungrateful towards Amy. She played a major role in helping Shadow realize Maria’s last request, yet we suddenly see him treating her and her team poorly, for no good reason?

As much as people hated the game, I liked Shadow and Rouge a lot in Sonic 06. It was cool to see them working as a duo of agents, along with fighting alongside Omega. Sonic Forces kind of carried that dynamic over, but we didn’t really get to see any of it in action, since it was all done through communicators.

I like Shadow better as a guy who acts like he hates everything, yet shows signs of wanting to protect others. I loved how Sonic 06 and Forces had instances where Shadow looked out for Sonic.

[NintendoSoul]

No. Rolling back on character development is never the solution to anything.

[DabigRG]

Eh, I'm kinda mixed on the idea myself. At the very least, Rouge could(occasionally did) act more antagonistic at times.

Really, Game!Sonic needs a bigger and more diverse Rogues Gallery to tangle with. I mean, he technically does have plenty, but the problem is that a few of them seldom show up (Metal(who works for Eggman anyway), Fang, Bean&Bark(if you wanna count them), The Deadly Six(maybe)) while the others are generally too powerful, too dark, or both to let even live half the time (Void, Black Doom, Mephiles, Erazor, Dr. Nega(maybe), Infinite(maybe)). Meanwhile, the ones that do show up tend to be relegated to the side and/or get redeemed(Knuckles(if you can even count him), Chaos, Shadow, Jet(debatably), Merlina).

This is part of the reason why I was initially excited about the Deadly Six and why I've grown to appreciate Zavok in particular as of late.

[Dash Speed]

On 11/18/2017 at 9:27 PM, SpongicX said:

No thanks, I like them better as flawed heroes. I like them better as characters who aren’t always the friendliest, yet have a strong sense of justice.

I hated their portrayal in Free Riders, where they suddenly turn into bullies for no dang reason. It makes no sense to see them picking on a little girl like Cream, or harrassing Amy. It especially makes Shadow look ungrateful towards Amy. She played a major role in helping Shadow realize Maria’s last request, yet we suddenly see him treating her and her team poorly, for no good reason?

As much as people hated the game, I liked Shadow and Rouge a lot in Sonic 06. It was cool to see them working as a duo of agents, along with fighting alongside Omega. Sonic Forces kind of carried that dynamic over, but we didn’t really get to see any of it in action, since it was all done through communicators.

I like Shadow better as a guy who acts like he hates everything, yet shows signs of wanting to protect others. I loved how Sonic 06 and Forces had instances where Shadow looked out for Sonic.

Again, from what I seen they care little about heroics and don't try to upstage Sonic and friends in being better heroes. I just see shadow working with Rouge and Rouge just joins Sonic's side, how do we know their goals aren't mutually exclusive. Shadow always pegged me as the Akuma type, he fights because theres a threat to test his power on and it always relates to Sonic. And based on that, it makes since he bullies others because he views others weak and unworthy of his time unless it's someone who can match his power. Sonic and maybe Knuckles come close to justify his own needs to help heroes like Sonic(the way I see it he only cares for Sonic and Team Dark, but it's shown he respects Sonic the most as a rival and a individual but not as a friend), because he would rather keep his rival alive than dead from villain of the month. GUN isn't even needed for Team Dark, they just slow them down as characters and as neutral based anti heroes.

Shadow and Rouge being assholes makes them interesting because 1. Not being nice or friendly makes them the unique to their dynamics to Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles. 2. They pridefully want to be competitive to Sonic and his friends, and being anti heroes the conflicts and tension would make great entertaining rivalries. We got to remember this is an action series above all else, and action should thrive on misconceptions between contrasting characters.

[Shadowlax]

5 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Again, from what I seen they care little about heroics

Shadow literally will give his life to save the day a feat sonic has never done and buried the hatchet to work with organization that made his life hell to try and make the world a better place.

Wat

I mean I guess omega doesn't care about heroics, he just likes murder. Rouge arguably at least the sonic x version 

5 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

. I just see shadow working with Rouge and Rouge just joins Sonic's side, how do we know their goals aren't mutually exclusive.

Shadow always pegged me as the Akuma type, he fights because theres a threat to test his power on and it always relates to Sonic.

You have created your own head canon that has nothing to do with the actual characterization of the character

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And based on that, it makes since he bullies others because he views others weak and unworthy of his time unless it's someone who can match his power.

No not really no.

5 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Sonic and maybe Knuckles come close to justify his own needs to help heroes like Sonic(the way I see it he only cares for Sonic and Team Dark, but it's shown he respects Sonic the most as a rival and a individual but not as a friend), because he would rather keep his rival alive than dead from villain of the month. GUN isn't even needed for Team Dark, they just slow them down as characters and as neutral based anti heroes.

I don't think you know anything about shadow , oh my god you have forgotten the entire plot of sonic adventure 2, and who and why he is fighting. Wanting to save the world because his dead friend asked him? Nope, I watched DBZ once, so shadow is vegeta. 

5 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Shadow and Rouge being assholes makes them interesting because 1. Not being nice or friendly makes them the unique to their dynamics to Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles. 2. 

Being kind of a jerk socially, doesn't mean you have to be a bad guy. Also two, they aren't really that big of assholes really. Shadow's kind of blunt, and rouge will tease you a bit. They were assholes in that sonic riders game, but no one likes that game.

5 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

They pridefully want to be competitive to Sonic and his friends, and being anti heroes the conflicts and tension would make great entertaining rivalries. We got to remember this is an action series above all else, and action should thrive on misconceptions between contrasting characters.

They don't want to do that at all. They want to do their fucking job , which is help people. They literally work for the government to fucking help people. Or used to, gun isn't in forces that's weird. 

Also an action series strives on action, what are you even talking about

[DabigRG]

On 11/25/2017 at 10:24 PM, Shadowlax said:

Shadow literally will give his life to save the day a feat sonic has never done

It's worth noting Sonic fell from the Death Egg and almost died after defeating Dark Gaia and the Nega Wisp Armor. The latter is notable because he shoved Tails to safety beforehand in order to deal with Eggman alone despite knowing he might not be able to escape the black hole.

[Dash Speed]

On 11/25/2017 at 10:24 PM, Shadowlax said:

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Shadow literally will give his life to save the day a feat sonic has never done and buried the hatchet to work with organization that made his life hell to try and make the world a better place.

Okay last time, baring SA2, Shadow from then on has never cared as much as being a protector or being as much as a champion as Sonic as a hero. Shadow still follows his own self defined path and in main games only takes a role in the games if Sonic is involved or Rouge has a mission for him as a a temp agent, 06 which isn't cannon showed he was willing to fight the world if it turns on him that means he could switch to villain again if people like GUN try to cross him.

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Wat

I mean I guess omega doesn't care about heroics, he just likes murder. Rouge arguably at least the sonic x version 

You have created your own head canon that has nothing to do with the actual characterization of the character

 

Your characterization is trying so hard to paint him a law enforcing Sonic, which is pretty much defying his entire angle as Sonic's arch rival. The headcannon you seem to want is from archie, but this is the games, the stuff where Shadow actually portrayed as free from the chains of his past and anything related to it including GUN, Maria or even the Ark as something that dictates his path in life. 

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No not really no.

I don't think you know anything about shadow , oh my god you have forgotten the entire plot of sonic adventure 2, and who and why he is fighting. Wanting to save the world because his dead friend asked him? Nope, I watched DBZ once, so shadow is vegeta. 

 

He doesn't give a damn about the past, he literaly aid he puts the past behind him and forges his own way. Shadow does what he wants to do, he's either a GUN agent or a neutral grey arch rival to Sonic or both. And thats cannon. Theres no clear proof Shadow wants be the better hero of earth because he has said Sonic can handle that.

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Being kind of a jerk socially, doesn't mean you have to be a bad guy. Also two, they aren't really that big of assholes really. Shadow's kind of blunt, and rouge will tease you a bit. They were assholes in that sonic riders game, but no one likes that game.

Shadow is suppose to be the opposite of Sonic, including in approaching others as a contrast. Shadow's blunt because he's distant from anything resembling friendly interaction, he's a massive jerk as a result of his tragedy and self worth as the ultimate lifeform plus he is arrogant like Sonic but more cold hearted in putting down others due to his ego in being better than common people. The profiles say he has a business like state of mind and a no nonsense sense of composure that intimidates others. As for Rouge, she's a friendlier side of the two thats why she does the talking and shadow makes small direct talk with no interest of making friends. They were assholes in Sonic Free Riders because thats in character outside of saving the word like it's buisness(06, Sonic Forces), Shadow has never been a person that makes nice nice.

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They don't want to do that at all. They want to do their fucking job , which is help people. They literally work for the government to fucking help people. Or used to, gun isn't in forces that's weird. 

Also an action series strives on action, what are you even talking about

 

No, they don't want to help people, they want to do missions or fight. What are you talking about? Shadow working for GUN is ambigious, he didn't work for them in Sonic and the Dark Brotherhood, he was a temp agent in 06, and in Forces he only got into a mission from rouge not gun, no where in the game did Shadow have a joint mission with GUN only Rouge.

And action series need conflicts for fights to happen, Shadow's the rival of Sonic so thus he creates conflict with Sonic. If he was on Sonic's side, he'd be trying to fight the same things but in order for him to be different from what Sonic and friends are doing he has to contrast the hero as his own side story to make Sonic and him build tension as rivals. Thats how I see, Shadow being Sonic number 2 is boring and I can't believe you think Shadow, Rouge and Omega with the goverment would be better as characters if they did the same things Sonic, Tails and Knuckles do every game but wih less plot relevance. Have some variety, and them being the law is not the way to go because they won't really be dark counterparts just boring alignment foils. 

This is all I have to say.

[Almar]

Is GUN even in the series anymore?

[Shadowlax]

7 minutes ago, Almar said:

Is GUN even in the series anymore?

I dunno, wouldn't suprise me if they got rid of the concept. 

Sonic games have been leaning on sonic land as of late, and I imagine that they wanna use shadow. Even back during archie, gun was kind of weird Ian admitted he didn't know what sega wanted to do with them. The good thing about gun, unlike boom's handling of getting rid of the M.E and chaos emerald to keep knuckles around,  is that government agencies get shut down all the time. Furthermore you could just have them work for, another agency run by animal people if they wanted. 

[Almar]

TBH, I figure it's from the grown backlash against humans besides Eggman with Elise and Gun Commander being the big targets. Sonic Team handled it The Sonic Team Way and have just shoved them away into another world for them to ignore.

48 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Even back during archie, gun was kind of weird Ian admitted he didn't know what sega wanted to do with them.

I can see that.

51 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

The good thing about gun, unlike boom's handling of getting rid of the M.E and chaos emerald to keep knuckles around

Eh, Knuckles hasn't carried an affinity with the Chaos Emeralds since Adventure 1. As for the Master Emerald, well, does Sonic Team remember it anymore? The latest reference to it in the main games is a Japaneses comment on it by Knuckles in Shadow the Hedgehog.

[Shadowlax]

1 hour ago, Dash Speed said:

This is all I have to say.

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Okay last time, baring SA2, Shadow from then on has never cared as much as being a protector or being as much as a champion as Sonic as a hero.

 

 

He literally joins gun to protect the earth, he literally joins the organization that tried to kill him to protect the earth. That is a constant characterization of him. Is kind of a dick? Yeah. But the guy says, if the world turns against him, he will still do the right thing because its the right thing. You are ignoring characterization,

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Shadow still follows his own self defined path and in main games only takes a role in the games if Sonic is involved or Rouge has a mission for him as a a temp agent,

 

He doesn't give that much of a shit about sonic. He doesn't even give that much of a shit about sonic in sonic adventure 2, the game he debuted in. Sonic's a guy he occasionally fights because he's in the way. You fighting a time displaced version of shadow in generations speaks to this because the normal one has no beef with sonic. Their rivalry is played up by sega, but in reality sonic makes jokes and shadow goes " hmm" or does a quip when they happen to come across each other.

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06 which isn't cannon showed he was willing to fight the world if it turns on him that means he could switch to villain again if people like GUN try to cross him.

Ok one, while 06 isn't canon there's stuff that happens characterization wise that has persisted through the series. So while it has erased itself from reality the characters changed somewhat. Furthermore, gun fighting shadow isn't shadow is evil gun fighting shadow 9/10 times is a captain america civil war situation and shadow is probably the good guy. 

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Your characterization is trying so hard to paint him a law enforcing Sonic, which is pretty much defying his entire angle as Sonic's arch rival.

 

Yeah that's what is, he'a sonic character that works for the government to enforce the law. Or help the general populous. Shadow's more Neutral good if anything. Yeah he'll go chaotic good if the need arises, but generally he has a plan and wants to stick to it. 

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The headcannon you seem to want is from archie,

 

No, not really. Archie shadow is hella out of character, and then when Ian gets to him, he's more constant with the games. So i'm not suggesting shadow become a dictator ruling the land under the religion of maria. So odds are all similarities you see with archie shsadow is under Ian's pen. Which is just game shadow but better written

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 but this is the games, the stuff where Shadow actually portrayed as free from the chains of his past and anything related to it including GUN, Maria or even the Ark as something that dictates his path in life. 

Ok so in order

1) Not being ruled by your past doesn't mean you forgot everything in your past. That's not how that works. You can still retain formative people and moments and the things that make you what you are, you are just choosing or trying to ( because depression and ptsd isn't a choice really ) get past the parts that bring you grief and bring you down. Shadow didn't disregard maria, shadow just is deciding to let go of all the anger ( or trying to ) that surrounds her death. Further more, it also doesn't mean those bad parts still can't effect you. To reference the comics as you so believe i'm getting my " headcanon" from , shadow is still tore up abit about being a monster weapon who's dad is space cluthulu. So you know you don't just magically get over your problems, you may never get over your problems. But its about making the conscious effort to try and move forward. And that's what shadow meant by throwing it all away, he knew he couldn't, but he was gonna try and move forward.  You seem to have not only misunderstood this, but how emotions work,.

2) shadow is still deciding to be a good guy so , maria is still an influence 

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Shadow is suppose to be the opposite of Sonic, including in approaching others as a contrast.

Kinda. But that doesn't require him to be a bad guy ,that just means he handles situations differently. You know who I think are polar opposites Superman and Batman, you know who are both good guys, superman and batman. 

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Shadow's blunt because he's distant from anything resembling friendly interaction, he's a massive jerk as a result of his tragedy and self worth as the ultimate lifeform

Ok...what does that have to do with being  a bad guy?

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plus he is arrogant like Sonic but more cold hearted in putting down others due to his ego in being better than common people.

Eh? Not really no? Sometimes he can be a dick but usually when he has to fight someone it isn't a lot of talk. I'm sure you are going to use infinite as an example, but he was raiding an eggman base , Verified 100% bad person, because he was working for eggman and shadow defended himself. He didn't even hurt him that bad, all he did was punch a few times told him he sucked and then left. I mean if that's cold to you, one you can say much worse. But two, infinite attacked shadow, and he got bodied, and shadow told him not to run up on me again , i'm not like those other fools you running up on. Its not cold. 

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The profiles say he has a business like state of mind and a no nonsense sense of composure that intimidates others.

That doesn't have anything to with being a bad guy. You also just described batman. Fuck it, you to be quite honest you also described superman, wonderwoman, john steward green lantern, traditional comic book barry allen flash, aquaman, Dr.Fate and certain interpretations Knuckles. 

That doesn't make him a bad guy , that just makes him about his business. 

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As for Rouge, she's a friendlier side of the two thats why she does the talking and shadow makes small direct talk with no interest of making friends.

Being friendly doesn't make you a good guy. Shadow's still the moral center of that team, yeah he's anti social but when push comes to shove he wants to do the right thing. And that's all that matters, general life lesson. Don't think the person being friendly to your face is your friend all the time, sometimes they want shit from you. Like rouge, the thief. 

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They were assholes in Sonic Free Riders because thats in character outside of saving the word like it's buisness(06, Sonic Forces), Shadow has never been a person that makes nice nice.

They were assholes in a noncanon sonic game people don't like where everyone was weird assholes not just them, got it. What does that have to do with the conversation. 

Also as far as games go , we don't have any official off duty shadow personality. The most we got was in the comics, where it seems like he likes tinkering with vehicles, and that could be interesting. But its not in the game, shadow's a business kinda dude here for business so you don't get looks into his personal life much 

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No, they don't want to help people, they want to do missions or fight.

Well omega joined to fight eggman. But rouge and shadow literally joined gun to help people. Shadow particularly. If shadow wanted to " do missions and fight" he would just go out and fight people all on his own. He doesn't need gun for that. Heck if he just wanted to fight, he could fight gun. 

Your logic doesn't make sense

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What are you talking about? Shadow working for GUN is ambigious,

No its not. They tell you why does what he does, they give you characterization, that have explained multiple times. You have chosen to ignore it to support an argument that you have no substantial argumentative backing for. 

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he didn't work for them in Sonic and the Dark Brotherhood,

A noncanon game. Hey, I can do that too , shadow was in a gun vehicle in sonic and sega allstars racing transformed, therefore, he works for guns.  You see how flimsy that is? If you are gonna talk characterization actually use the games that have canon characterization not shit like black knight. Or Brotherhood, which is not only not canon... at all. But is super not canon because Ken Penders threw a goddamn tantrum over that game and caused sega to clamp down on all other echdidina's in all other sonic media. So not only did you choose a game that's not canon in general, you chose a game sega has incentive to just leave non canon to anything. 

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he was a temp agent in 06,  

We have no idea what he was. I would like to believe he's more of a merc, but we don't know. We aren't given context for his working for gun in terms of his position in the organization. His person as far as anyone can discern is " Motherfucker we can't kill, and he's friends with our spy and wants to help so fuck it I guess because we can't stop him "" 

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and in Forces he only got into a mission from rouge not gun, no where in the game did Shadow have a joint mission with GUN only Rouge.

We have no idea, but you are right, gun does not seem to exist in forces. That doesn't prove any of your other arguments, and could quite literally be sega getting rid of gun, but not shadow's reason for being a good guy. But technically you are correct .They aren't mentioned.

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And action series need conflicts for fights to happen,

 

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Shadow's the rival of Sonic so thus he creates conflict with Sonic.

New bosses an enemies do that just fine , also him occasionally fighting sonic if that ever does come up again wouldn't make him bad. They could literally have a conflict of interest, or it could be a fighting tournament or any number of things. 

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If he was on Sonic's side, he'd be trying to fight the same things

What? What , what are you even talking about? Oh shit Hal Jordan is fighting Yellow Lanterns instead of street level criminals with batman, guess he's a goddan villain now. Like what?

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but in order for him to be different from what Sonic and friends are doing he has to contrast the hero as his own side story to make Sonic and him build tension as rivals.

That has nothing to do with anything or him being bad, heck that didn't even make sense as like... a sentence.

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Thats how I see, Shadow being Sonic number 2 is boring and I can't believe you think Shadow, Rouge and Omega with the goverment would be better as characters if they

One, Shadow being a good guy doesn't make him just sonic. And two

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 did the same things Sonic, Tails and Knuckles do every game but wih less plot relevance.

 

Who said they have to fight the same way, who said they have to fight the same shit. That doesn't make them bad guys, they could go on their own adventures. Furthermore, shadow is more plot relevant in forces than knuckles or tails, and heck he's more plot relevant than classic sonic by leaps and bounds and that man has three levels. So your judgement on what is plot relevant is flawed and seems to be based on seniority and no other factors at all, and that makes no sense. 

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Have some variety,

Have some knowledge of the characters you are arguing instead of fan fiction you have written and are arguing to me as some form of truth

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and them being the law is not the way to go because they won't really be dark counterparts just boring alignment foils. 

 

Do you know what characterization is? Or like having a personality? Shadow and team dark went on adventures in the archie comics, and under ian's pen they were nothing like team sonic, and they for the most part good guys. Its their personality their characterization and how they go about solving problems is what differentiates them, not their moral alignment. That isn't to say that can't differentiate a character, but it doesn't differentiate them as far as " hey they might do a thing that seems bad, but its actually good"