History Fridge / ShadowTheHedgehog

* In the Pure Neutral - Hero ending, Shadow resolves to take over the Eggman Empire and lead an android uprising. Omega seems disturbingly compliant with the idea, implying that if Shadow were to go through with this in canon, he would have no problem joining an uprising against the humans. Omega's moral compass has never been the most noble, but seeing it like this is truly disturbing for a character many fans find likable and endearing.

* In the Pure Neutral - Hero ending, Shadow resolves to take over the Eggman Empire and lead an android uprising. Omega seems disturbingly compliant with the idea, implying that if Shadow were to go through with this in canon, he would have no problem joining an uprising against the humans. Omega's moral compass has never been the most noble, but seeing it spelled out like this is truly disturbing for a character we thought we knew.

* If you believe that the entire game is one GroundhogDayLoop orchestrated by Black Doom, a lot of things make much more sense. The entire game is Black Doom messing with Shadow's head and resetting the timeline once it reaches the end, hence why you replay the game multiple times to unlock Last Story and help Shadow break away from Black Doom's control. Most of the cutscenes are reused because Black Doom knows Shadow isn't going to notice and he won't remember anything anyway once Black Doom resets the timeline. Even in the paths where Shadow does side with him, Black Doom knows that Shadow will betray him most of the time (i.e any Neutral/Hero route where you side against Dr Eggman or Black Doom) and that the GroundhogDayLoop is designed to see if Shadow will be a liability to his actual [[ToServeMan endgame.]]

* One of the most common complaints about the game is your allies with attack Shadow regardless of the mission he's currently doing, or how much he's helped them up to that point. But, there ''is'' justification for this in-universe. On the Neutral path, Shadow doesn't side with anyone, so he's free game to everyone. On the Hero path, the GUN Commander refuses to call off the kill-on-sight order for Shadow no matter how many hero missions he completes. Thus, the GUN soldiers would still be fully willing to attack Shadow since they're acting under orders from their boss (notably, they actually ''don't'' attack Shadow in Westopolis, which takes place before the order is given out). As for Dr. Eggman's robots, it could be that Eggman simply doesn't want to spend time reprogramming his robots to hold their fire for Shadow specifically. He's already dealing with an alien invasion, so it's reasonable that he just doesn't have the time to reprogram his robots.

* If you believe that the entire game is a GroundhogDayLoop designed to either break Shadow and convince him to join the Black Arms or for Black Doom to see if Shadow will be a liability for his actual plans, there is one disturbing truth that exists either way. There are at least [[https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Shadow_the_Hedgehog_(game)/Library_Sequences 326 timelines]] which exist as part as Black Doom's GroundhogDayLoop, and Shadow had to go through at least 10 of them before he escaped and killed Black Doom.

** You want to know what is potentially even scarier? The video showing [[spoiler:Gerald Robotnik]] as a truly good man was broadcast to the entire world. This bears repeating: ''every public broadcasting system on the planet'' was made to show the truth behind the kindly man propped up as naught but a monster solely responsible for the ARK's massacre by G.U.N. and the United Federation, and the world likely has not forgotten the G.U.N.'s hand in falsely apprehending Sonic the Hedgehog, who had saved the world plenty before, nor the bounties it placed on his just-as-heroic friends, all to cover up Shadow the Hedgehog and ensure it never came to light. Mass distrust in the government and law enforcement followed by possible rioting would have ensued very quickly if the world was not so relieved that Shadow the Hedgehog had saved everything on it. Tellingly, ''Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)'' was G.U.N.'s last notable presence in the games (sans Sonic Generations' referencing them in City Escape), likely due to a fallout in public trust after having spent their most major roles as slightly heroic-ish antagonists only making the situation worse whenever they took matters into their own hands by picking fights with the wrong people, thus limiting their presence.

** This path is even named "Shadow’s Second Death...?"

** You want to know what is potentially even scarier? The video showing [[spoiler:Gerald Robotnik]] as a truly good man was broadcast to the entire world. This bears repeating: ''every public broadcasting system on the planet'' was made to show the truth behind the kindly man propped up as naught but a monster by G.U.N. and the United Federation, and the world likely has not forgotten the G.U.N.'s hand in falsely apprehending Sonic the Hedgehog, who had saved the world plenty before, nor the bounties it placed on his just-as-heroic friends, all to cover up Shadow the Hedgehog and ensure it never came to light. Mass distrust in the government and law enforcement followed by possible rioting would have ensued very quickly if the world was not so relieved that Shadow the Hedgehog had saved everything on it. Tellingly, ''Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)'' was G.U.N.'s last notable presence in the games (sans Sonic Generations' referencing them in City Escape), likely due to a fallout in public trust after having spent their most major roles as slightly heroic-ish antagonists only making the situation worse whenever they took matters into their own hands by picking fights with the wrong people, thus limiting their presence.

* If you believe that the entire game is one GroundhogDayLoop orchestrated by Black Doom, a lot of things make much more sense. The entire game is Black Doom messing with Shadow's head and resetting the timeline once it reaches the end, hence why you replay the game multiple times to unlock Last Story and help Shadow break away from Black Doom's control. Most of the cutscenes are reused because Black Doom knows Shadow isn't going to notice and he won't remember anything anyway once Black Doom resets the timeline. Even in the paths where Shadow does side with him, Black Doom knows that Shadow will betray him most of the time (i.e any Neutral/Hero route where you side against Dr Eggman or Black Doom) and that the GroundhogDayLoop is designed to see if Shadow will be a liability to his actual[[ToServeMan endgame.]]

* Really, no one thought about Rouge in all this? Think about it. She is Shadow's best friend, probably only friend aside from Omega. Rouge works for G.U.N.. G.U.N. are trying to hunt Shadow down. This would most likely make the bat feel very uncomfortable. Sure, she teams up with Shadow in some hero levels, but if not, she may have to be dragged into the loop to finish him off... ouch...

* A silly one: Why do melee weapons have ammo? Because Shadow swings them so hard that they either [[BreakableWeapons break or take significant damage after a single hit]]. Especially when we consider that some of the things he can use them against are giant robots with durable body armour, or creatures of roughly equal resilience. It's telling that the only melee weapon that can deal damage without using "ammo" is the katana, and only when it doesn't actually make contact with anything and uses the SwordBeam to attack.