The real issue with Blaze is the franchise lore keeps getting fucked with.

>>534494967
>Rivals established
Not quite. Nega was floating around for a while. He appeared in Olympic games and Sonic Channel as late as 2016. The series lore got dumped around Forces and IDW.

>>534494442
Also she's not merely a "foil" to Sonic. Blaze is the guardian of the Sol Emeralds. Sonic is the guardian of the Chaos Emeralds.