History Headscratchers / SonictheHedgehog

** Nostalgia, at this point? Also, it's worth noting that a lot of the negative attention to Shadow and '06 have to do with how crappy those games are, not necessarily the atmosphere (although that is also a factor, to be fair).

*** Ohhhhhhh. That makes sense.

** The problem is, people are too caught up on the wrong continuities. In the Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog, as well as SatAM, plus the Fleetway comics, there aren't any humans apart from one off episodes where they're significant in some way. Mobius is a planet entirely populated by anthropomorphic animals. Now I know the OP said not to mention the cartoons, because they were talking strickly about the games, but it's important to mention the cartoon and comics, because they get bypassed too much. Ever thought that the cartoons and comics had the right continuity, and that the ''games might be wrong''?

** Nostalgia, at this point? Also, it's worth noting that a lot of the negative attention to Shadow and '06 have to do with how crappy those games are, not necessarily the atmosphere (although that is also a factor, to be fair).
* Looking through the tropes on this page, I am quite taken back at how many fans seem to treat the game franchise as the be all, end all, to the point of entirely ignoring that of the comics or cartoons. Asking questions and posting headscratchers, that the comic/cartoon installments have already answered wholeheartedly.
** Not only that, but what concerns me is the large amount of ''Sonic fans'' that fail to know that the Fleetway comics are even a THING. At least the Archie comics have recognition.

** The problem is, people are too caught up on the wrong continuities. In the Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog, as well as SatAM, plus the Fleetway comics, there aren't any humans apart from one off episodes where they're significant in some way. Mobius is a planet entirely populated by anthropomorphic animals. Now I know the OP said not to mention the cartoons, because they were talking strickly about the games, but it's important to mention. Ever thought that the cartoons and comics had the right continuity, and that the ''games might be wrong''?

** Nostalgia, at this point? Also, it's worth noting that a lot of the negative attention to Shadow and '06 have to do with how crappy those games are, not necessarily the atmosphere (although that is also a factor, to be fair).

** 'Cause dark is cool, or something like that.

* If Sonic is the fastest thing alive, how does '''DR. EGGMAN''' out-run him in Sonic the Hedgehog 2& 3?

** Since when are humans exempt from super-powers that Mobians have?

*** Yes, you do. Specifically the red liquid energy flowing thru the pipes of the second world in the game.

*** This is sort of hinted at in SonicAdventure2. Eggman's initial turf in this game consists of the interior of one ancient pyramid (which he must share with ghosts) and some (but not all!) of the desert immediately surrounding it. If he has any control over anybody able to pay taxes / be exploited, it's most likely a few scattered camel herders. This is also the game in which Eggman's resources are the most severely dwindled: He has a limited number of robots, he only mass-produces four different models, and most of the action on the Dark Side of the story takes place because Eggman, Shadow, and Rouge form the equivalent of a special ops team, not because of some huge robot invasion or a large fleet of ships. If Eggman wasn't able to pump oil in the desert surrounding his pyramid base, he'd probably be doing even worse!

** Two of the Chaos emeralds also appear in the cartoon ''Sonic Underground''. They're both green. And this cartoon is also the only time that German dubbing calls them "Smaragde", which means "Emeralds" in German. In any other case, they were left untranslated, probably because of this very colour-inconsistency.

** I figure it's both {{Flanderization}} as well the fact Eggman was the first human Knuckles ever met, so he might have a soft spot for Eggman.

** He's just gullible, there are people who are that gullible.

*** In the games at least, this is true: in ''3 & Knuckles'', in ''Triple Trouble'', briefly in ''Sonic Adventure'' and most recently in ''Sonic Advance 2''.

*** This was placed in by the dub. In the original version, they are just giving him a condescending pat on the back for distracting the Metarex with their fake planet egg; in other words, getting tricked by Eggman is wrong but getting tricked by ''your own friends'' is good. Looking at this, ''Sonic X'' Knuckles at least had a good excuse for his mistrust, since the same people that tried to warn him of Eggman's abuse [[{{Hypocrite}} also tricked and bullied him non stop]].

*** Here's a theory: he doesn't fall for it at all. Knuckles considers himself Sonic's rival (though Sonic apparently doesn't share that sentiment). He has fought Sonic many times, and always lost. Knuckles is also extremely headstrong, stubborn, and ''proud''. He IS from a warrior race, after all - losing so many times has got to hurt, even if it is to a friend of his. In the end, he wants to beat Sonic just ONCE in a fair fight. But Sonic isn't the kind of guy who'll just fight someone for no reason at all, so Knuckles needs to give him some motivation - and what better motivation than to act like he's been conned into believing Sonic is up to no good? He even fools Eggman, deliberately making him think that he's easy to trick so Eggman will keep telling him Sonic is doing something bad so he'll have an excuse to fight him. It's all part of Knuckles's plan to heal his wounded pride by finally beating Sonic once and for all, in a fair fight with neither of them holding anything back. (We'll assume that in Sonic Adventure, Sonic was canonically the winner of their skirmish, since depending on which story you're playing it can also be Tails who fights Knuckles instead of Sonic).
**** I get what you're saying, but then why does Knux pilot one of Eggman's machines against Sonic in Sonic Advance 2? That's hardly a fair fight that some warrior-guy would likely savor. And like you said, Knuckles's goal is largely to humiliate Sonic, not to kill or injure him (indeed, that particular machine would insta-kill you with one of its attacks!).
** Knuckles is probably lonely. He may not trust Eggman persay, but he will still try if it means he has some company(Sonic and Tails are busy doing whatever they do).
** It's an effective characterization technique. Knuckles doesn't immediately pop out as somebody who's supposed to be a good guy; For all intents and purposes he's a socially-maladjusted and angry loner. However, the fact that he's willing to trust somebody as devious as Eggman again and again is a testament to Knuckles's subtle belief that people are fundamentally good-natured and can redeem themselves, which says volumes about Knuckles's own personality.
* Why have the games been sugarcoating Eggman's actions even though he has shown time and time again he is willing to murder innocents in order to accomplish his goals? Really, I don't see why Sonic ''doesn't'' take it upon himself to arrest Eggman and send him to prison. If for some reason Sonic can't arrest Eggman, then he could just lead G.U.N over to wherever Eggman's base is and help them arrest him.

** I've assumed it was momentum not exhaustion. He can re-twirl his tails while running on the ground to get more speed, but if he re-twirls them while flying he's going to fall like a rock (yeah yeah, it's not like there's falling damage in the game).

* "Sonikku". It's cute and all but still..That's the most common Japanese pronunciation from what I've heard but it's not used in the games. So why do people apply it to the games? Sonic's seiyu used it once in a video Ad then used the regular pronunciation toward the end. But that's all I've heard of that pronunciation in canon.

** I'm confused: in the Japanese audio of Adventure 1 and 2, it's pronounced "Sonikku" ''all the time.'' And if the complaint is about it not being used in The ''English'' audio tracks, "Sonic" and "Sonikku" are the same when translated. "Robotnik" and "Eggman" are actually different.
** "Eggman" was his original Japanese name. It was changed to "Robotnik" in America, probably because they though Dr. Eggman as a villain sounded silly. And as far the "Sonikku" thing goes, I think the reason it's pronounced differently in Japanese because "Sonic" itself is a loanword and not exactly a common word in Japan. It happens a lot in other games where characters have noticeably foreign names; "Kuraudo Storaifu" ([[FinalFantasyVII Cloud Strife]]), "Soriddo Suneku" ([[Franchise/MetalGear Solid Snake]]), "Gairu" ([[StreetFighter Guile]]) to name a few. All of the characters have English names in the Sonic universe, so you get stuff like "Sonikku ze Hejjihoggu" all the time. Translated in Japanese, it would have to be something along the lines of "Sonikku no Harinezumi". Sonic's seiyuu is probably the only one who uses both pronunciations, but he kinda has to.

** My guess could be that other of Sonic's kind are in their own home city when Sonic is doing his adventures. That, or then Sonic etc. Really are last of their kind.
*** That last part doesn't make sense. If they were all the last of their kind then Knuckles being the last echidna wouldn't be that big of a deal.

** In SonicX's pilot video - back when the show's concept had it take place on Sonic's world - there were actually multiple anthropomorphs shown in the background, and the only humans were Eggman, Chris and Danny. Other anthros obviously exist, but there's just no focus on them. Besides, when making Unleashed there was probably a mind not to add other anthropomorphs because of the trap of stereotyping various cultures as certain animals (not that they didn't stereotype already, of course).
* Sonic's animal friends from the "classic" games. They still cameo every once and a while, and they're reappearing in Sonic 4. However, what are their English names? Now that every continuity shares the same continuity I'm pretty sure they've changed to their Japanese names, as seen in Jam and Game World, and Ricky's a boy again.

** There have always been 7 Chaos Emeralds, during the games in which less then 7 appear somone got to some of them before Sonic or Robotnik/Eggman could. Furthermore, in some of the games with less then 7 emeralds, they appear in the stages rather then the special zone, so its possible they are simply in a location you can't access. Also note that, Angel Island had a distinct set of Chaos Emeralds. The Super Emeralds are likely a fusion of both sets and are the ones that appear in all games post Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

** This inspired some FridgeBrilliance in me: Robotnik only had six emeralds, plain and simple. He hadn't acquired the seventh before beginning his plan. In Sonic 1, the point of gather the Emeralds is to keep them from Robotnik. Sure, they're most powerful when used together but each of them are individually very powerful and keeping them away from Robotnik is the entire point of getting them, hence why letting him have even one results in a BadEnding. The brilliance comes in when you realize this is why Super Sonic isn't in the game (in fiction, of course).
* Amy's ability to predict the future. It was the entire reason she was even '''in''' ''Sonic CD'', plot-wise, then it's forgotten until it suddenly shows up as a POW Attack in ''Sonic Chronicles''. Seriously. What's up with that? Did Sega just suddenly forget about it? Why doesn't she ever use it again? Even given how limited it has been shown to be so far, it'd be pretty handy sometimes -- if they're remembered it, she could've used it to guide Team Rose in ''Sonic Heroes'', instead of her storyline consisting of wandering aimlessly in search of Froggy, Cheese, and Sonic, with no particular reason to go any of the places they did except that Sega didn't want to make more levels.

** Because diamonds are a girls best friend!

** She just LOVES jewels, simple as that. Also, she considers herself a treasure hunter. She's also greedy, which is exemplified in one scene in the part of Anime/SonicX that's based on the VideoGame/SonicAdventure games - after finding the blue Chaos Emerald, which is what she was supposed to find, Topaz calls her to leave, but Rouge grabs the Master Emerald, exclaiming "I want this as well!" despite the fact it was huge, heavy and completely unnecessary for her to take.
* Probably not as much of a headscratcher than a question but; from game to game, we get different zones, stages and levels for the sake of variety. We get a beach level, a city level, an ice level, pinball level and pretty much every of the cliche levels the series has spawned. Now, at least in the main games, should we believe all of the stages are a part of the same world the series takes place on? The correct geography of Sonic's world is hard to pinpoint and in ShadowTheHedgehog it does show the world map does resemble Earth and SonicUnleashed pretty blatantly puts in different countries based on Earth's culture. So, can we say Empire City and/or Westopolis are a part of Station Square, possibly New York in the future? Apotos being Greece in the future? All ice levels being different parts of Holoska?

*** Which is to say, either its a planet that functions much the same as [[ChaosArchitecture Castlevania]], or we [[MST3KMantra shouldn't think too hard about it]].

** I support the above, I know where that is actually, and I also support the WordofGod stating that Sonic's world and the world he visits in SonicX are part of AnotherDimension.
* One which has haunted me a while... The original game had Sonic's speed being attributed to his magical sneakers in the instruction booklet. Yet every single game/comic/incarnation SINCE has quietly swept that under the table, until we get to SA 2 and Sonic calling Shadow out for not being faster by innate speed, but his Chaos Control abilities. The super speed powerups have further made it annoying, because I'm sure THAT represents the magical sneakers. So what happened? Did this blue hedgehog just gain the abilites of the sneakers on his own, with no explanation?

*** He didn't just lose his shoes in that game; They were replaced by ultra-heavy replicas that couldn't be taken off by normal means. I've always just thought of the shoes as some sort of durable material that allow Sonic to keep on running without worrying about the effects of friction tearing up his feet.
** I've never seen the first game manual, but every cartoon and comic I've seen states that Sonic's speed in innate. The sneakers are merely necessary to protect his feet from friction burn when he runs. I've always excepted that as the canon in all continuities as it's what makes the most sense.

* Why is Robotnik suddenly called Eggman? Yeah, I get it, it's a nickname and they did significant retconning to bring two different Sonic canons together. It just seems odd that everyone would consistently call Robotnik by a nickname. Nicknames are, by definition, casual names that may not be used at all, or variations may be used. Why doesn't anyone ever call him 'Eggmeister' or something? Instead everyone calls him 'Eggman' as though it were his real name. It doesn't seem to anger Robotnik, and no-one ever sounds contemptuous when they use the 'Eggman' moniker. Strange, eh? It's almost as if the whole thing in an embarassing retcon.
** It' a regional thing.

** They're apparently used as money ingame, but that's their only know purpose.

*** That's a fantastic theory that seems to be backed up by his debut game. It's never indicated that Knuckles had to defend the Master Emerald before the events of ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'', so he was probably incredibly overconfident about his skills, having done nothing but hone them his entire life without ever having to test them. He essentially starts off as an overly-cocky proud warrior guy. If you look at how Knuckles reacts to Sonic and Tails throughout the ''Sonic 3'' zones (Angel Island to Launch Base), he's constantly chuckling, writing off the two as jokes compared to what he perceives to be his superior skills. After he's sent into the drink following the launch of the Death Egg, however, he becomes much more serious and perhaps desperate; His glare as he flips the switch that diverts Sonic and Tails in Mushroom Hill is incredibly angry. He knows that Sonic and Tails are serious business and reacts accordingly. The reveal that Eggman was tricking him all along probably removed what remained of his initial over-confidence.
* How does Amy have a Driver's Licence?

** But what about in '06? The dev's have (unfortunately) given evidence to the possibility of her being from the Sol dimension AND the future, but it doesn't make sense for both to be possible unless there was some weird, dimension-timespace-warping stuff involved; if she's from the Sol dimension, then she still wouldn't live long enough to be with Silver in the future (or she would at least be a lot older), and if she's from the future, than she can't be a Princess in the Sol dimension (at least not in the time period that the games take place in) because she wouldn't exist yet. And on another note, Blaze's duties as princess must be pretty lax, or otherwise there are other royals in the Sol dimension, since she can afford to spend her time in an alternate universe and participate in Olympic minigames for extended periods of time.

*** The lack of work that humanity has to do under a technocracy is not necessarily an awesome thing. A similar situation develops in ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life|2}}'', where the Combine / robots / synths do pretty much everything, and all that the Combine's human subjects must do is to tolerate the horrible conditions within their fortified cities and try not do anything to arose the ire of the Combine. But when the Combine ''are'' ticked off, the retribution is as swift and heinous as possible. Granted, Eggman is nowhere near as evil as that, but we've seen flashes of how bad he can get sometimes (perhaps his worst behavior was in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', where he tried to level Station Square with a missile and giant walker machine in retaliation after his initial plans where blown to pieces by Sonic and company), and the man is obviously as quick to passionate hatred as he is to light-hearted joviality. So while we have no proof of this to go on in the games, there's no reason to believe that Eggman is any sort of benevolent dictator.

* Why are people still demanding that the series returns to the dark, mature atmosphere from [[{{VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog}} Shadow the Hedgehog]] despite the heavy negativity?

* What the heck is in that giant mech's eye, shown from the front during the second to final battle in Sonic & Knuckles? [[http://www.theghz.com/sonic/s&k/s&k_29.gif]]

*** The lack of work that humanity has to do under a technocracy is not necessarily an awesome thing. A similar situation develops in ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life|2}}'', where the Combine / robots / synths do pretty much everything, and all that the Combine's human subjects must do is to tolerate the horrible conditions within their fortified cities and try not do anything to arose the ire of the Combine. But when the Combine ''are'' ticked off, the retribution is as swift and heinous as possible. Granted, Eggman is nowhere near as evil as that, but we've seen flashes of how bad he can get sometimes (perhaps his worst behavior was in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', where he tried to level Station Square with a missile and giant walker machine in retaliation after his initial plans where blown to pieces by Sonic and company), and the man is obviously as quick to passionate hatred as he is to light-hearted joviality. So while we have no proof of this to go on in the games, there's no reason to believe that Eggman is any sort of benevolent dictator.

*** This is sort of hinted at in SonicAdventure2. Eggman's initial turf in this game consists of the interior of one ancient pyramid (which he must share with ghosts) and some (but not all!) of the desert immediately surrounding it. If he has any control over anybody able to pay taxes / be exploited, it's most likely a few scattered camel herders. This is also the game in which Eggman's resources are the most severely dwindled: He has a limited number of robots, he only mass-produces four different models, and most of the action on the Dark Side of the story takes place because Eggman, Shadow, and Rouge form the equivalent of the special ops teams, not because of some huge robot invasion or a large fleet of ships. If Eggman weren't able to pump oil in the desert surrounding his pyramid base, he'd probably be doing even worse!

** SonicUnderground actually offers a pretty interesting suggestion that is mentioned in one or two episodes: He taxes the people under his rule, quite possibly in exchange for not getting roboticised. While the extent of Eggman's empire is never very consistent in the games, it's possible that he could be extorting money from the people within his control for at least a part of fiscal resources.

** They're apparently used as money ingame, but that's there only know purpose.

*** The same concept could be be applied to the early games; Eggman was the only human every seen, so the theory of anthro people just living in their own territory away from humans is pretty logical.

* Probably not as much of a JBM than a question but; from game to game, we get different zones, stages and levels for the sake of variety. We get a beach level, a city level, an ice level, pinball level and pretty much every of the cliche levels the series has spawned. Now, at least in the main games, should we believe all of the stages are a part of the same world the series takes place on? The correct geography of Sonic's world is hard to pinpoint and in ShadowTheHedgehog it does show the world map does resemble Earth and SonicUnleashed pretty blatantly puts in different countries based on Earth's culture. So, can we say Empire City and/or Westopolis are a part of Station Square, possibly New York in the future? Apotos being Greece in the future? All ice levels being different parts of Holoska?

*** That's a fantastic theory that seems to be backed up by his debute game. It's never indicated that Knuckles had to defend the Master Emerald before the events of ''VideoGame/SonicThreeAndKnuckles'', so he was probably incredibly overconfident about his skills, having done nothing but hone them his entire life without ever having to test them. He essentially starts off as an overly-cocky proud warrior guy. If you look at how Knuckles reacts to Sonic and Tails throughout the ''Sonic 3'' zones (Angel Island to Launch Base), he's constantly chuckling, writing off the two as jokes compared to what he perceives to be his superior skills. After he's sent into the drink following the launch of the Death Egg, however, he becomes much more serious and perhaps desperate; His glare as he flips the switch that diverts Sonic and Tails in Mushroom Hill is incredibly angry. He knows that Sonic and Tails are serious business and reacts accordingly. The reveal that Eggman was tricking him all along probably removed what remained of his initial over-confidence.

*** It's never indicated that he had to defend the Master Emerald before the events of ''SonicThreeAndKnuckles''. He probably went into the story thinking "Yeah, I'm ready for anything!", being a proud warrior guy and all, before Sonic kept climbing out of his traps and finally managing to defeat Knux in battle.

*** The lack of work that humanity has to do under a technocracy is not necessarily an awesome thing. A similar situation develops in ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life|2}}'', where the Combine / robots / synths do pretty much everything, and all that the Combine's human subjects must do is to tolerate the horrible conditions within their fortified cities and try not do anything to arose the ire of the Combine. But when the Combine [are] ticked off, the retribution is as swift and heinous as possible. Granted, Eggman is nowhere near as evil as that, but we've seen flashes of how bad he can get sometimes (perhaps his worst behavior was in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', where he tried to level Station Square with a missile and giant walker machine in retaliation after his initial plans where blown to pieces by Sonic and company), and the man is obviously as quick to passionate hatred as he is to light-hearted joviality. So while we have no proof of this to go on in the games, there's no reason to believe that Eggman is any sort of benevolent dictator.

*** That's not necessarily an awesome thing. A similar thing happens in [[HalfLife2]], where the Combine / robots / synths do pretty much everything, and all that the Combine's human subjects must do is to tolerate the horrible conditions within their fortified cities and try not do anything to arose the ire of the Combine. But when the Combine [are] ticked off, the retribution is as swift and heinous as possible. Granted, Eggman is nowhere near as evil as that, but we've seen flashes of how bad he can get sometimes (perhaps his worst behavior was in [[SonicAdventure]], where he tried to level Station Square with a missile and giant walker machine in retaliation after his initial plans where blown to pieces by Sonic and company), and the man is obviously as quick to passionate hatred as he is to light-hearted joviality. So while we have no proof of this to go on in the games, there's no reason to believe that Eggman is any sort of benevolent dictator.

*** That's not necessarily an awesome thing. A similar thing happens in [[HalfLife2]], where the Combine / robots / synths do pretty much everything, and all that the Combine's human subjects must do is to tolerate the horrible conditions within their fortified cities and try not do anything to arose the ire of the Combine. But when the Combine [are] ticked off, the retribution is as swift and heinous as possible. Granted, Eggman is nowhere near as evil as that, but we've seen flashes of how bad he can get sometimes (perhaps his worst behavior was in [[SonicAventure]], where he tried to level Station Square with a missile and giant walker machine in retaliation after his initial plans where blown to pieces by Sonic and company), and the man is obviously as quick to passionate hatred as he is to light-hearted joviality. So while we have no proof of this to go on in the games, there's no reason to believe that Eggman is any sort of benevolent dictator.

** Oh that's easy. It's a world under Eggman's rule where robots...[[WellIntentionedExtremist do all of the work]]...huh...Would...would being ruled by Eggman be awesome? Since Eggman is such a genius, he could possibly come up with solutions to problems that really need to be solved. Hell, if you get to keep your mind, being "robotisized" like from SonicSatAM might be cool once Eggman doesn't need to keep them under his complete control anymore. As the Eggman from the games is pretty much nothing like the one from SonicSatAM.

* Is Eggman the sole human inhabitant of his empire? If not, what is life like for those under his rule? What do they do all day if robots are heavily implied to do most everything?