Sonic the Hedgehog

Now Playing: Speed Highway: Type One: "Run Through the Speed Highway" from Sonic Adventure for Dreamcast.



Ah, the Blue Blur himself. The Man. The Blue Dude with the "'Tude". The guy who has a hankering for chili dogs, invents expressions like "way past cool" and is constantly out there bopping robots for the good of his planet. In other words, the Star of the Show.
What all is there to know about him? Well, I don't know how much of this is "official" or not, but here goes...
First of all, he obviously appears in every single game of his own series--except, perhaps, for fringe ones like "Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine" and "Knuckles Chaotix" and I'm assuming he's not in Tails' games either--but then again, I haven't PLAYED these games all the way through (most of them I haven't played at all) so for all I know he could have cameo appearances in them. He supposedly started off as an ordinary brown hedgehog that was fast, but not THAT fast, until the kindly Dr. Kintobor made him some heat-resistant sneakers that wouldn't catch on fire due to the friction and then he trained and trained and trained until one day he ran so fast he broke the sound barrier, and his fur caught on fire and turned blue. From then on he was permanently blue. This is all just fine and dandy, except that it doesn't explain how the OTHER characters got THEIR odd colourings. Echidnas aren't red, hedgehogs aren't pink any more than they are blue, cats aren't purple, etc. In my opinion, all Mobians come in weird funky colours, it's pretty much random, and it doesn't really mean anything. It just is. Oh, and Sonic was never a BROWN hedgehog--he's a desert hedgehog, and they're grey, not brown. I say this because I've seen pictures of both kinds of hedgehogs, the more common forest type and the rarer desert type, and while the desert one DOES have some resemblance to our Blue Blur in terms of markings, ear-shape, face-shape, abilities and lack thereof, etc. the brown kind looks NOTHING like him at all.
Anyway, shortly after Sonic became super-fast, Dr. Kintobor had some kind of an accident with the Chaos Energy he had been experimenting on, and turned evil, but his very own hard work turned out to be his undoing, as it was HIS training that enabled Sonic to be fast enough to escape him. He is now the "Fastest Thing Alive" and no-one, I mean NO ONE, can catch him except by trickery or magic.
Ever since then, Sonic has been out to defeat the evil Dr. Ivo Robotnik. He is constantly trying to break his evil schemes in practically every single game and cartoon episode--the only difference is in the comic books, where Robotnik was either killed or defeated (I'm not sure which) at some point. Sonic is headstrong, impatient, never thinks things through without just running off, and very very hyperactive. (If you leave him alone for more than a few seconds while playing one of the games, he'll tap his foot, look at his watch, perhaps whistle, fall asleep, point at you and then point forward as if to say, "You--GO!" or even pull out a lawn chair, parasol, pair of oversized sunglasses and a glass of iced tea with lemon and start chillin' out!) But despite these personality flaws, he has many friends, not the least of which are Tails and the Freedom Fighters. Although Sonic is technically one of the Freedom Fighters himself, he still does not really think of himself as a team player, and seems to live outside Knothole Village, by himself, as often as he lives there. Oh, and he seems to be the boyfriend of Princess Sally, and if he marries her, he'd be next in line for the throne--but both of them heartily deny that the relationship is anywhere near that serious. (This is from the cartoon, not the games.) In the games, his "leading lady" is Amy Rose, a little 10 (or, again, 8, depending on who you ask)-year-old hedgehog who has a MAJOR puppy-love crush on him and follows him everywhere no matter how much he tells her not to. But she is not totally useless, as he disovers in her first game appearance, Sonic CD--she has a mysterious psychic ability that allows her to predict the next appearance of The Little Planet (don't ask) and he needs that for his quest.
Other relationships include his best-friendship/mentor-role with Tails, his...amicable enemyship? with Knuckles, his "friendly nemesis" (they used to fight all the time, especially in the comic books, and even though they seem to have settled into a guarded truce NOW, I would HARDLY call them "friends") and his rivalry with Antoine for Princess Sally's affections. (Not MUCH of a rivalry; as Antoine doesn't stand a CHANCE. Still, he TRIES hard and often enough to be a bit of a pain in Sonic's spines.)
Also from the cartoon, supposedly his real name is "Maurice Takeshi Hedgehog" (MAURICE?!), he's an orphan, and he was raised by his "Uncle Chuck", more formally known as Sir Charles Hedgehog. Sir Charles was evidently he guy who INVENTED the roboticiser! And then Robotnik stole it, but because it wasn't yet DONE at the time, it is a dangerously unstable device. But I don't buy into that--Robotnik is an evil genius in the games with an IQ. of 300--I'm sure HE made the Roboticiser. At any rate, Sir Charles was roboticsed himself, although unlike Bunnie it happened ALL the way. He manged to keep his free will through sheer force of, well, will (that is, unless you go along with the LATEST comic book storyline! SHUDDER!) however, and is always on the lookout for ways to reverse the process for himself, Bunnie, and any other unfortunates who are rescuable. He's a great scientist, you see.
Sonic has physical disadvantages, too--although he is the "fastest thing alive", he does NOT have any special abilities like most of the other characters--he is not psychic, he cannot fly, climb, glide, dig, run on the ceiling, turn invisible, use magical weapons, etc--and his biggest weakness: he cannot swim. At ALL. He HATES water, hates it with a flaming purple passion. He hardly even likes getting wet, let alone plunging into a pool. (At least, in some of the cartoons, he acts like a CAT when you get him near water--"Ooh, yuck! Pppth!" etc.) He's normally very brave and headstrong, ready to rush into any danger--until he would have to swim, and then he becomes something of a wuss! This harkens back to the actual games, in which drowning is one of the scariest and most dangerous prospects for your character as you're playing. Once Sonic gets into the water, it is often VERY hard to get him back out before you start hearing that dreaded Suspenseful Countdown Music--"5" the screen flashes ominously. "4". The music is getting faster. "3" Faster still. "2" Fasterfasterfaster "1" OH NO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE AAAAACCKKKKK!!! "0" and Sonic goes "GLUB" and falls off the screen with a sad, confused look on his face...No, he canNOT swim at all. And that just ties into my "desert hedgehog theory" even better....
So as you can see, Sonic is a decent character with both strengths and weaknesses, etc. but for sheer complexity Knuckles still takes the cake, and HE will always be my favourite character from this universe, NOT Sonic himself.



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curious Mobians have visited Sonic the Hedgehog since May 16, 1999. Of course, he always rushed off at warp speed two seconds after he started talking to them, but most of them consider themselves lucky to have met him anyway...