>>530107875
>>530107896
Sonic is compelling. He's mastered his own mental paradigm and claimed the power that comes with it. He lives in accordance with natural law, by a clear sense of justice, freedom, and moral instinct. His physical ability is a symbolic extension of that, narratively speaking. His abilities and cool factor are his bread and butter, but what makes him complete is his emotional grounding core, beings someone who cares about people, places, things, for their sake. A lot of 2000s works gave Sonic emotional stakes. His main problem is losing that emotional core, especially since Colors. His character writing has gone backwards, not forwards. Sonic is too often written as if he's above the story and he's detached from everything going on around him, and that makes him difficult to connect with. Some people say he's not supposed to be relatable, because he's so exceptional, but that's wrong, because his human heart is relateble. He is exceptional, yes, mastering your own paradigm is fantastic, but not impossible, not when you have a human heart. Sonic has one, but they rarely show it anymore. The other issue is the recurring habit of downplaying other characters to keep Sonic in the spotlight at all times which started becoming a major problem with X and 06 and only got worse from there. But it ironically weakens Sonic's appeal. His strength and leadership are more impressive when they exist alongside other capable, exceptional, multidimensional characters, not when he's made the only serious player on the field. Sonic's greatness should emerge through contrast, collaboration, challenge, and effort, he doesn't need to have it handed to him by the author. That's just lazy, and it hurts Sonic just as much as it hurts everyone else, maybe more. Frontiers tried to address these points, but it failed, the game made him look like a detached sociopath huffing his own farts. IDW tried too, but they made him Steven Universe.