Shadow Sonic Prime - Tumblr Posts

Why is Shadow's character so badly handled in canon modern sonic?

... is what I would say if I didn't overthink his character. Shadow the Hedgehog is oftentimes seen as a controversial character and oftentimes his lack of a defined and concrete representation leaves different canons and ideologies of Shadow the hedgehog through fanon and canon media alike.

Now, did I gather a thesis and do I have an idea of what I am saying? No. Am I an experienced fan of the Sonic the hedgehog fandom of long-term? Also no. But I like to analyze things and look over them and even research them once I get invested. My special interests conclude of majorly taking part of video games for years now.

My past experience with Sonic the hedgehog in prior years is seeing the franchise and characters from an outsiders point of view. Not fully knowing the lore or significance of characters, having the fans ideas and content being my only sources.

And honestly, the fandom is a mess. As are many fandoms. But I'd say the Sonic fanbase is a bit special. In the early years where Shadow The Hedgehog was introduced, he was shown as a character with an appeal to early teens and Angst lovers at young ages and so the fanbase took his character for what was at face value. Dark colors? Emo. Dark. Full of hatred and lack of empathy. Hates sonic. And so on forth.

And this wasn't a joke, as far as I can see, people genuinely received his character like this. Few pointed out that in reality he was more in a grey morality scale. And then, people wanted to see more of him. He died in Sonic adventure 2 as a hero, completing his story arc.

Sega was observing the fanbase. Sega was seeing how people interpreted fans by popularity. I believe they took the fan iteration of Shadow and when they went forward in making Shadow the Hedgehog, they saw the darker and more selfish exaggerated traits in the fanon interpretation of Shadow, so they adapted it. Which of course, led to a very. Very badly written choice story.

Now, Shadow the hedgehog had POTENTIAL

a game bringing back a fan favorite? Amazing. Plot twist even. But erasing all the development and hitting the audience with the SAME idea of a flawed memory? It leads to a sour taste in your mouth of plotholes leaking everywhere.

I'll make a post later focusing more on the game Shadow The hedgehog once I force myself to look more into it to give a better in depth explanation. But for now, I will just take what I know. DO NOT. TAKE MY WORD FOR IT. THIS IS MY OPINION. IF IT WERE NOT CLEAR.

Sega since then after the horrible characterization of Shadow in his own game, doomed the character of Shadow in pursuit. People realized once their fanon idea became canon, it just wasn't fun anymore. It was obvious and the matured audience who grew into the original canon Shadow were given a sore reminder of what everyone thought Shadow was. Future writers of newer games would look to Shadow the Hedgehog in order to write future sonic games including Shadow.

As fans continued being unsatisfied and complaining about his character and being split between Shadow's character in Shadow the Hedgehog versus the Sonic adventure 2 game was a prominent division including other ideas of how Shadow should be, and in all of this, Shadow soon became less and less prominent as a main.

And then. The Sega mandates.

In all truthfulness, I will continue this section in a separate post where I look more into them, but to brief it shortly, as far as I am aware, they put a certain set of guidelines to limit characters and how future writers set the characters as.

In this, they further push into the cold and distant Shadow we know today. Alongside with the aggression.

So. All this said, is his character in capability to revert to a medium? Unfortunately, fans of the original shadow will not be getting any of his older character back as far as I can see, but... there is a way to mix some of it in, meanwhile still maintaining within what sega wants Shadow to be.

Shadow has been presented to keep a calm with him in the second adventure game. Which is a trait that is seemingly erased. Shadow should have his calm attitude again. But show to be very dangerous when provoked. His overdisplayed aggression contradicts his cool demeanor he was presented with. Yes, he can be angry. But there is a difference between struggling with displaying emotions and outwardly reacting impulsively.

Speaking of impulsiveness, Shadow isn't one to be known to be impulsive. He worked with Eggman, found out about Rouge being a spy, and even planned to doublecross them all just to keep a promise he didn't understand.

Remember, Shadow was doing this with little understanding of earth. His only knowledge of earth was G.U.N, who murdered Maria, and Eggman, who was selfish and blew up the moon. Needless to say, his actions were not motivated for geniune evil, but confusion and loyalty.

Another aspect, loyalty. Shadow was endlessly loyal and loved Maria, being as siblings and no doubt regarding to her as a sister. His only family.

Yes, he can be selfish, but he is his only family left. He had yet to learn about other friendships and he had seemingly swore not to get attached to others.

If not outwardly, but implied.

Shadow does have friends, but perhaps he denies them as his fears of losing them are what he sees as a personal weakness.

Modern Shadow could have a sadness with him, not an anger. But a listlessness. A troubled mixture of emotions suppressed and swirling inside. His bursts of anger could be moments where there is a peak inside the fact he still hasn't gotten over Maria.

She was such a strong role in his backstory that an erasure of that could be considered capital sin.

His selfishness could be only a light affect of him being told his entire life he was The ultimate lifeform. But for what purpose?

He could see it as a formality, and in so he follows by acting the role he is given. His ego complex being more by habit and not being self-centered. As he has shown many times to care about others subtly (or not so subtly).

Again, I want to point out progression in the sense of a reversion to be able to justify his out of place behavior, and slowly connect it back. And Merge it.

Modern Shadow is confused. And no one has talked to him as if yet to help him. And he is stuck. If he gets a game or role now, he is most likely going to be the standard angry Shadow with no further explanation.

But in the other hand, if he were just to come back to normal, there is no smooth line between with no satisfaction.

What I like about frontiers are the subtle references stitching games together. Establishing a concrete lore long time needed.

Im going to conclude this rant soon, by lastly going over Shadow and sonic's rivalry briefly, as I will make a post about that as well.

In my next post I will actually go over Sonic's character himself, and how I believe it contributes to how others around him are portrayed and shown as.

In short, I might add more when given the chance to, but thank you for reading this little drabble. And please do reblog with your ideas and comments.

sharing this here even tho it’s kinda? old bc myself and others are getting exited abt sonic prime s3.

(Made over summer when previews of s2 were being released)

I literally unintentionally predicted that the chaos emerald would be lost in the void lol-

But uh yeah :)