What were some misconceptions you had about Sonic?

[Sideswipe]

Playing Sonic for most of my life, I had my fair share of misconceptions, and I thought it'd be funny if we all shared them! Most of these is when I was a child.

• As a kid, I wasn't aware of Shadow's origins. I think most younger fans, fell into the group who thought Shadow was Sonic's biological brother, though I didn't believe that. Weirdly enough, I thought Shadow and the rest of Team Dark came from a post-apocalyptic future.
• I thought Tikal was Knuckles' girlfriend.
• Sonic's shoes, or rather "boots" stomped me for years. As a kid I thought they were the source of Sonic's speed, which I was totally wrong.
• Being five years old in 2009, I played a lot of Sonic RPG and Sonic Final Fantasy. This created a lot of misconceptions for me. What always comes to mind though is Sonic's red Buster Sword from those games. Haven't never played or heard of Final Fantasy, I thought it originated from his series.

But enough of me, what are some of yours?

[Rabid-Coot]

Invincibility was star magic for a while.

[Scritch the Cat]

*I misremembered the name "Robotnik" as "Woolibank".  Really random and strange, but true.

*For a time (maybe until I read a Disney Adventures magazine article correcting me) I thought Knuckles was a dog.  In my defense, at the time I had never heard of echidnas or dreadlocks, so interpreting him as a dog with big floppy ears came naturally enough.   But wait!  There's more!  I also originally interpreted Knuckles' hands as not being boxing gloves, but something more like lobster claws, so instead of punching things, I assumed Knuckles could clip things.

[Lorekitten]

3 hours ago, Sideswipe said:

Sonic's shoes, or rather "boots" stomped me for years. As a kid I thought they were the source of Sonic's speed, which I was totally wrong.

To be fair, I think that was the explanation in Sonic the Comic, but this is secondhand information so don't quote me on that.

[MetalSkulkBane]

When I first saw the image of Silver, I assumed he's gonna be an old wise sage.

I mean, he is psychic like Xavier.

Edited March 13 by MetalSkulkBane

[Rabid-Coot]

34 minutes ago, Lorekitten said:

To be fair, I think that was the explanation in Sonic the Comic, but this is secondhand information so don't quote me on that.

Nah Sonic was already fast STC was the shoes reduce friction and helped him go fast enough to break the sound barrier. Prior to that in yearbook one he did the sound barrier first then the shoes were invented to protect his feet at high speeds.

There was something in Issue 3 with old sneakers still having some of Sonics high speed energy but it wouldn't last long.

[FReaK]

I grew up with sonic 2 on the mega drive, I was around 4 when I first played (and beaten) the game.

I first struggled to get past chemical plant, so I only knew the first boss for a while. Since I didn't know eggmans name, he was always 'the evil drilling guy' for me. I probably called him like that for a year or so..basically until I could read.

[Wittymations]

That I would like this franchise forever.

It's more like Stockholm Syndrome for me at this point.

[Rabbitearsblog]

For the longest time, I thought that Shadow's eyes were orange and not red.  It's just that when I first played Sonic Adventure 2, I always thought that Shadow had orange eyes for some reason.

Also and this is an out of universe thing, I thought that hedgehogs in real life were as fast as Sonic.  Keep in mind though that I thought of this when I was a small kid.

[Iko]

When I was very young, playing Sonic 1 8 bit, I thought that Sonic's main goal was to collect rings as a gift for his girlfriend/wife, and he ended into the Robotnik mess by accident. It's actually my brother's fault... he told me that, I don't know why. Probably he did read about Amy in Sonic CD on some magazine and he made the connection despite we never played the game (CD) until more than a decade later (that or Sally from the cartoon).

I was convinced that Tails and Knuckles were girls.

I thought that Knuckles was a girl when I played Sonic 3D Blast (genesis/megadrive): the sprite was not detailed enough and for some reason I interpreted it as representing a female character with long hair and a kinda Blaze-like attitude; when I played Sonic 3 I finally understood who that character was supposed to be (I didn't even know his name at the time).

I thought that Tails was a girl because of the sprites in Sonic 3... (probably Sonic 2's title screen too) later I learned that he was a boy. It's possible that the first misconception (the one about rings that I wrote above) influenced me into thinking that one of Sonic's companions must have been that mysterious "girlfriend/wife" that never existed in the first place (it was just a misconception based on Amy or Sally, as I said).

I'm not sure why, probably due to a fancomic that I've seen online or something, but for a while I thought that the secret emerald altar in Hidden Palace was called the "Dark Side". It makes little sense, I know.

I've already said this a couple of times in the past, probably in status updates: the first time I played th Final Hazard in SA2 I misread it as "Finalizard", and thought it was the name of Biolizard's final form! I shortly realized that it was wrong, but since it was funny I still occasionally call it that way as a joke.

I thought that Fang's fang was his mouth actually, a stylized triangular mouth, for a very long time.

Edited March 14 by Iko

[castell-neath]

I always thought it was possible to create a good future for Little Planet by collecting all time stones and destroying all machines and metal sonic holograms in the past.

However Sonic 4 ep2, and Sonic Generations prove its not. 

[sonic_the_cuber]

I always thought that Sonic Man was fanmande lol

[ChaosCTRL]

Because Modern Eggman has goggles on top of his head, I used to think that the glasses over his eyes were just black, soulless eyes, kind of like the black scleras of the various American Robotnik designs, but with no glowing red irises.

[Technically Inept]

I thought Tikal was pronounced “TIE-kul” due to not actually playing the Adventure games. In fact, I didn’t really know about the Adventure game’s existence and only saw her name in wikis or something I think.

I didn’t know Super Sonic could fly for a good while because all my exposure to him were the Genesis games that my Dad had from when he was young. Never unlocked Doomsday Zone as a kid. And when I brought up that his full speed sprite sort of looked like he was flying to my Dad, he just simply said, “That’s how fast he is running,” and I continued to believe that for a long time.

There was a time before I really knew anything about any Sonic game’s existence besides the Genesis games. But then came a time when at a relative’s house I did actually play Sonic Heroes. But when I later told my Dad about it, he was like, “Ain’t no Sonic Heroes,” I guess because he didn’t know about it either.

That’s not the misconception.

i am not sure if I misremembered or if something genuinely weird was going on with the particular manual that came with the game. But I saw Shadow in that manual, (before I knew who Shadow was) and I very particularly remember it calling him “Black.” Like, as his name. And for a while I thought this character I didn’t know anything about was actually named Black, but I did not have anyone to ask or talk about it with besides my Dad, who did not even know of Heroes’ existence so…

I thought that the glowing red eyes at the end of SatAM belonged to Metal Sonic. Like, I was 100% convinced of this.

I did not know of the existence of several seasons of AOSTH. My Dad got me DVD’s with many of the episodes, but not all of them. And I noticed in the artwork/covers from the cases to those disc characters I did not recognize, but I didn’t think about it that much.

 

[Shiny Gems]

I have one.

Back when I was a kid, one who loved, and still loves Sonic, I thought it was his shoes that gave him his speed rather than it being a natural ability.

No need to ask why, that is just what I thought back then.

[Sideswipe]

Just literally thought of this, but I remember as a child, watching another kid playing Sonic Rush, and for some reason I thought Blaze was a feminine boy. I grew up watching a lot of television shows where characters who were royalty was elegant and pretty, even the men. I thought it was cool, though it wasn't until way later when I learned Blaze was actually a girl.

[Maple Syrup]

 I have had quite a few...

1. I thought that Shadow was a girl.

2. I thought that a Chao was some kind of spirit.

3. I thought that Helen(from sonic x) and Maria were the same person.

I took a lot of time to understand these and still might have some misconceptions. Feel free to correct me!

[Sonicfan787]

I thought Knuckles was always Sonic's friend. 

 

I also believed that Shadow was always bad.

 

And to make things worse, I thought that Gerald was Eggman. Lol

[sonic_the_cuber]

15 hours ago, Maple Syrup said:

 I have had quite a few...

1. I thought that Shadow was a girl.

2. I thought that a Chao was some kind of spirit.

3. I thought that Helen(from sonic x) and Maria were the same person.

I took a lot of time to understand these and still might have some misconceptions. Feel free to correct me!

If chaos were a spirit, wouldn't they be kinda transparent??

 

[Plumbers_Helper]

On 3/13/2024 at 3:09 PM, Sideswipe said:

• Sonic's shoes, or rather "boots" stomped me for years. As a kid I thought they were the source of Sonic's speed, which I was totally wrong.

On 3/15/2024 at 8:53 PM, Shiny Gems said:

Back when I was a kid, one who loved, and still loves Sonic, I thought it was his shoes that gave him his speed rather than it being a natural ability.

No need to ask why, that is just what I thought back then.

I thought the same thing too, only because that's what the US/EU manual included in Sonic Mega Collection said:

Quote

Crush Dr. Robotnik!

Dr. Ivo Robotnik, the mad scientist, is snatching innocent animals and turning them into evil robots! Only one tough dude can put an end to the demented scientist's fiendish scheme. It's Sonic, the real cool hedgehog with the spiked haircut and power sneakers that give him super speed.

It wasn't until years later that I learned the story in the manuals were changed for the English releases. It was probably the first time I learned about localization differences in media.

[Maple Syrup]

4 hours ago, sonic_the_cuber said:

If chaos were a spirit, wouldn't they be kinda transparent??

 

I was younger then...ehehehe

[Shiny Gems]

Here is another one from me.

Back when Sonic the Hedgehog 3 came out, I thought Knuckles was a girl, due to his dreadlocks.

[Maple Syrup]

4 minutes ago, Shiny Gems said:

Here is another one from me.

Back when Sonic the Hedgehog 3 came out, I thought Knuckles was a girl, due to his dreadlocks.

SAME THING. I also thought that Shadow was Sonic's evil twin

[SadVlad]

27 minutes ago, Maple Syrup said:

I was younger then...ehehehe

Chaos is transparent though. You can see his brain.

[Wittymations]

4 hours ago, sonic_the_cuber said:

If chaos were a spirit, wouldn't they be kinda transparent??

 

While Chao obviously aren't a spirit, how transparent something is really depends on the verse more than anything. Sonic isn't exactly 100% clear on this... or anything for that matter. Honestly, most of the ghosts we seen in Sonic have been opaque. Even Tikal is arguably a spirit and she's not exactly see throughable. I'm not really sure if she is spirit or not, though. I think she is?

Edited March 18 by Wittymations