Characters / Sonic the Hedgehog - Main Characters

aka: Sonic The Hedgehog Main Trio

Sonic the Hedgehog characters index
Main Characters (Sonic the Hedgehog) | Recurring Characters (Team Dark) | Eggman Empire (Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik) | One-Shot Characters | Classic Era Antagonists | Modern Era Antagonists 1 | Modern Era Antagonists 2 | Other Groups and Species

The four original protagonists of the series, all of whom debuted in the early years of the series. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles collectively tend to be referred to as Team Sonic or Team Hero in certain games and media. Amy is generally considered the de facto fourth member of the group despite leading her own team at times.

---

Tropes applying to Team Sonic

"Let's blast through with sonic speed!"

Tails: What are we gonna do, Sonic?
Knuckles: No worries, we've got this one.
Sonic: Heh, think I'd miss this?! Time to crack that Eggman wide open! Yeah, let's party!

The franchise's premiere Power Trio; Sonic joined by his two best friends, Tails and Knuckles. After the events of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the trio would, more often than not, find themselves working together to stop Dr. Eggman's latest nefarious plans. While Sonic & Tails are thick as thieves, Knuckles was originally more on the outs, being more concerned with protecting his homeland and only helped Sonic in cases where it was endangered. Over time though, Knuckles gradually became closer to the duo and the unbreakable bond was born.

Team Sonic are informally in various games and media, but Sonic Heroes is where they shine; they are the "default" option, having the most balanced difficulty. Their Team Blast is "Sonic Overdrive", where Knuckles tosses Sonic & Tails, therein Tails kicks Sonic into a spin ball which destroys all enemies in the vicinity. Sonic temporarily gains the ability to use the Light Speed Attack afterwards until the Team Blast gauge runs out, which destroys any and all enemies, even ones Sonic normally can't destroy on his own.

---

• Airplane Arms: All three do this when they are running full speed. Sonic started the trend in Sonic CD with the Super Peel-Out move.
• Badass Crew: By themselves they are already capable, but when they work together, there is almost no foe that can take them down. Sonic Heroes is even built around this concept with three other teams in addition to Team Sonic.
• Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick:
  • In the Sonic Drift series, Tails was the Balance character, having neither weaknesses nor strengths and the ability to avoid obstacles; Sonic was the Power, having good speed but poor handling and the ability to go even faster; Amy was the Skill, having good acceleration but poor speed and the ability to slow and confuse other racers; and Eggman was the Gimmick, having poor acceleration but good speed and capable of dropping land mines on other characters. In Drift 2, Knuckles became a variant Balance, with average stats and both attack and dodge abilities.
  • In Sonic R, Knuckles was the Balance, having the best overall stats; Sonic was the Power, with great speed but poor cornering; Tails was the Skill, with good acceleration and cornering but poor speed; and Amy was the Gimmick, whose Cool Car was capable of driving over water and getting excellent use out of boosts.
  • In Sonic Advance, Knuckles was the Balance, with a moveset oriented both for exploration and speed; Sonic was the Power, with a moveset oriented entirely for plowing through enemies and getting to the goal without frills; Tails was the Skill, with a moveset geared for exploration (both flying and swimming); Amy is the Gimmick, since she cannot curl into a ball like the boys and must attack and maneuver with her hammer, which has completely different mechanics and range.
  • Sonic Origins and Sonic Superstars retcons the four characters into this: Sonic is the Balance, the levels being built with him in mind, his moveset being the base for the others and his only gimmick being the Drop Dash; Knuckles is the Power, as he can destroy walls while running and he can climb walls to find secrets, but jumps lower; Tails is the Skill, his (time limited) flying ability being a way to cheese levels and find secrets easier; and Amy is the Gimmick, as her running speed feels slower than the others, but her Insta-Shield is easy to use even by accident, her Drop Dash lets her more control than Sonic’s, and she can even double jump in Superstars.
• Bash Brothers: As mentioned above, Sonic Heroes is built with this concept in mind, using the abilities of the three in tandem to progress.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Sonic, Tails, and (sometimes) Knuckles are nice people, but if you're hanging with the wrong crowd, expect a beating from them.
• Blond, Brunet, Redhead: Tails, Sonic, and Knuckles, respectively, although Sonic's fur is actually blue.
• Brains and Brawn: Tails is the brains to Knuckles's brawn and Sonic's speed, although all three are quite strong and sharp in their own ways.
• Cast Herd: Tend to be pretty routinely grouped together, even within the greater Ensemble Cast. After 2010 however, the focus tended to stay on Sonic & Tails while Knuckles & Amy fell Out of Focus, with Sonic Mania primarily bringing back Tails and Knuckles into the playable spotlight.
• Character Development: Tails and Amy especially have dedicated arcs that show their growth as people in various games and over the series, such as Tails learning to fight against his cowardice and Amy progressively being less single-minded regarding her relationship to Sonic. This fits with their status as the youngest in the group, since they're logically still maturing. Sonic and Knuckles, by contrast, mostly had their life philosophies figured out from the word 'go' ^note The lyrics describing Sonic's approach to life in his Image Song in Sonic Adventure remains consistent with his personality all the way up to Sonic and the Black Knight, the game which most directly addresses his moral leanings, and though he's had his fair share of development his stance on life hasn't changed much overall since then. but still experience varying levels of development in each game they're in.
• Chromatic Arrangement: Blue (Sonic), yellow (Tails) and red (Knuckles)... although Tails's fur is sometimes more of an orange or even brown color Depending on the Artist.
• Determinator: The Final Horizon reveals that this applies to all of them. Sonic is the most prominent example, but Knuckles and Amy are not far behind, and even Tails nuts up and gets work done in spite of the onset of cyber-corruption. If you're part of the cause they're fighting against, you better have one hell of a plan to put them out of commission immediately and permanently (there's no guarantee that absolute power will help, given how Sonic - with help from the others and Eggman - managed to obliterate THE END).
• Egocentric Team Naming: Zig-Zagged: some games such as Sonic Heroes refer to the team as Team Sonic, while others such as Sonic Free Riders instead call them Team Hero.
• Elemental Powers: Various games give them these affinities.
  • Sonic: Blow You Away
  • Tails: Shock and Awe ^note Ironic, since Tails is often portrayed as having a fear of lightning.
  • Knuckles: Playing with Fire / Dishing Out Dirt
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Commonly characterized as such in games with balanced stats like Sonic Battle, Sonic Chronicles, and the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series.
  • Fighter: Knuckles' stats lean more on power, but with less movement options and slower speeds.
  • Mage: Tails' stats lean more on "average", and is classified as a "Technique" type. In Sonic Chronicles, is a Support Party Member.
  • Thief: Sonic is, naturally, the fastest character (except in Sonic Battle, where Shadow is faster) with average attacking power.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Between all three of them and Amy:
  • Sonic (Phlegmatic): The Leader of the gang. Driven by his own strong sense of justice, he can be very impulsive and most likely to take action should a problem present itself. He's quick-witted, easy-going and loyal to his friends. To his rivals and enemies, he can be an extremely condescending smart aleck. He has his moments of being arrogant and narcissistic, but is nonetheless a cool individual who’s always there to save the day.
  • Tails (Melancholic): The technician of the gang, his intelligence rivals that of Dr. Eggman's. He's very smart, upbeat and humble, but can be very touchy and prone to emotional outbursts at times. He can also be naive and a blabber-mouth, which can greatly irritate his friends. Nonetheless, he's driven to chart the course and guide his friends.
  • Knuckles (Choleric): The muscle of the gang and Sonic's former rival. He's stubborn, very short-tempered, and terribly single-minded.
  • Amy (Sanguine): The leader of her own group (Team Rose), but sometimes resorts to going along with Sonic and his crew. She’s a cheerful and optimistic individual who can be very compassionate and overly concerned with other people's problems.
• Freudian Trio: Although each one of them have traits of all three Freudian personality types. Sonic as The McCoy who tends to act purely on impulse and does whatever he feels is a good idea at the time, though in Sonic Lost World he shows some Kirk traits when breaking up a fight between Tails and Eggman. Knuckles as The Spock who tends to focus primarily on his job of protecting the Master Emerald and rarely concerns himself with matters outside of that. Although his anger issues give him some McCoy traits. Tails as The Kirk who tends to mediate in-fighting between the other two, and his intelligence gives him some Spock traits. He also has some McCoy traits when agitated by something, as shown in Sonic Lost World.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: Despite being billed as the central characters of the series, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy's interactions and dynamics are mostly limited through Sonic. The amount of times the latter three have interacted without Sonic around can be counted on one hand. This is lampshaded in Sonic Advance 3 where you can pair up any combination of characters and they have a special title reflecting their relationship, but only really applies to any pairing with Sonic, where the others just have a generic title.
• Funny Animals: ...Well, duh...
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Because Knuckles tends to spend more time alone on Angel Island, Sonic and Tails tend to be the ones who kick off the plot. They're frequently shown working together to save the day, and many games focus on them being such great partners. It helps that Sonic adopted Tails as his surrogate little bro. That said, Knuckles is the first ally Sonic and Tails tend to contact when they need extra help.
• Image Song: "We Can" (for the three as Team Sonic).
• Limit Break: Their Team Blast, "Sonic Overdrive", in Sonic Heroes. It does major damage to all nearby enemies, and enables the use of the Light Speed Attack for 10 seconds until its cooldown timer runs out.^*Sonic could use the Light Speed Attack at any time in the Sonic Adventure games, provided that he found the Ancient Light first; even so, he had to charge it up by holding a Spin Dash for as long as possible beforehand. There are no Level-Up items in Sonic Heroes, so the Light Speed Attack is left out.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Respectively, Tails is the nice one for being humble and respectful to others, the mean is downplayed with Knuckles, as he's not technically mean, but has nastier portrayals like Sonic Battle and Sonic Rivals, and Sonic is in-between due to his cockiness, but ultimately being a nice guy overall.
• Pintsized Powerhouses: They're all pretty small and rather strong, but Knuckles stands out among them.
• Power Trio: They've been seen together since the beginning of Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
• Primary-Color Champion: Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are respectively blue, yellow, and red and are the main heroes of the franchise.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A nomadic blue hedgehog, a super-smart helicopter-tailed fox, and a lonesome guardian of a giant green rock, all united by their efforts to save the world.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Both Tails and Knuckles usually play Blue to Sonic's Red, although each of them can function as either Red or Blue depending on the game.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man. Knuckles (manly man) and Tails (sensitive guy). However, when it comes to Sonic, he is the Sensitive Guy to Knuckles and the Manly Man to Tails.
• Status Quo Is God: This trope is deconstructed in Sonic Frontiers as Team Sonic come to realize that there's more to the world than what they do with Sonic and with Sonic's reassurance and blessing, urge them to make those changes.
• Super Mode: Sonic and Knuckles were able to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds and Tails the Super Emeralds up until Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but this ability was later removed until Sonic Mania, where both Tails and Knuckles can go Super with no special requirements. In the Compilation Re-release Sonic Origins, Tails can go Super with just the Chaos Emeralds, and in the update Origins Plus, Amy is granted the ability to use both the Chaos Emeralds and Super Emeralds for the same effect too.
• Super-Speed: They're all pretty fast; Sonic is just the fastest of them, notably in Sonic Colors. Even in speed formation, Sonic is going slow enough for the others to keep up, and they're all speeding through every environment.
• Super-Strength: They're all pretty strong, since their primary mode of attack is slamming into things and they've all taken down armored robots single-handedly. Knuckles is decidedly the strongest, though.
• True Companions: Despite their backgrounds and differing personalities, they are shown to care for one another, particularly Sonic and Tails.
• Vague Age: As a result of a Retcon, none of them have defined ages anymore, but Sonic is officially still a teen and Tails is very obviously the most childlike of the group.

Sonic the Hedgehog

The Hero of the series and the fastest thing alive. He globetrots the world in search of new adventures, meeting new allies and enemies along the way. See his page here.

Miles "Tails" Prower

Miles "Tails" Prower

Debut: Sonic the Hedgehog 2^note His canon debut is attributed to the 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but his first chronological appearance was in the 8-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which predated the release of the Genesis Sonic 2 by a month.
Voiced by: Kazuki Hayashi (Japanese, 1998), Atsuki Murata (Japanese, 2000-2002), Ryō Hirohashi (Japanese, 2003-present); Takuto Yoshinaga (Japanese, Classic Tails), Corey Bringas (English, 1999-2001), Connor Bringas (English, 2001-2002), William Corkery (English, 2003-2004), Amy Palant (English, 2005-2010), Kate Higgins (English, 2010-2013, Sonic Colors: Rise of the Wisps), Colleen O'Shaughnessey (English, 2014-present)^{Additional VAs}Marie-Eugénie Maréchal (French, 2011-present), Benedetta Ponticelli (Italian, 2011-present)

^{Click here to see Tails' Classic Era design.}

"I've changed a lot since I started hanging out with Sonic, but I can't depend on him forever. I know I can do this by myself!"

Sonic's young sidekick: a small fox who can use his unique twin tails to fly. Despite his young age, he's a reliable and dependable ally to Sonic.

Ever since their first meeting, Tails has tried his hardest to be the best person he can for Sonic's sake, often times by mimicking him. Humble, docile, and good-natured with mechanical prowess that can potentially rival Eggman's, but he never thought it was much of a big deal.

---

• Ace Pilot: The Tornado originally belonged to Sonic but Tails's pilot competency has made him the de facto owner of the plane as he flies and maintains it more than Sonic ever did.
• Adorable Fluffy Tail: Tails, actually. One of his Idle Animations show him wagging them, emphasizing the cuteness.
• Aerith and Bob: His real name is Miles Prower, and alongside Amy, Tails remains one of the few anthro animal characters in the games with a relatively ordinary given name that doesn't fit the "(NOUN) the (SPECIES)" formula.
• All of the Other Reindeer: He used to get picked on for having two tails, according to the manual of Sonic 2, the anime adaptation, and eventually, the opening cutscene of Sonic 2 in Sonic Origins.
• Art Evolution: For his older modern design, he got a slimmer design touchup and got his color altered from orange to yellow. Additionally, his eyes went from a black iris to being blue, symbolizing his innocence.
• Asian Fox Spirit: He doesn't have the magic powers associated with kitsune from Japanese folklore, but he has the intelligence and multiple tails.
• Ascended Fanboy: He follows Sonic one day and becomes interested in him. He eventually wants to become like him, though Sonic ignores him at first. After Sonic and Tails had gone on an adventure to defeat Eggman, they become friends and he lets him tag along with him, eventually developing a bond.
• Attack Animal: In his Super Mode, he summons four "Super Flickies" that charge at and destroy all enemies and even bosses. These were dropped in Sonic Mania.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: He's sensible enough but can sometimes get so caught up with his gadgets that he loses focus quickly, this nearly gets him killed in Sonic Lost World.
• Audience Surrogate: He's a kid who adores and looks up to Sonic, which is something that many people in the series' target demographic could relate to.
• Badass Adorable: He's shown to be a capable fighter despite being just a quiet, geeky kid. He even saves the day on a few occasions without Sonic.
  • In Tails Adventure, he stop the invasion of The Battle Kukku Army all alone with nothing but his inventions and wits.
  • In Sonic Adventure, after gathering enough courage, he prevented Eggman from detonating his missile and saved Station Square all by himself.
  • Rather notably, in Sonic Adventure 2, it's Tails who gets into direct, personal fights with series Big Bad Dr. Eggman, not Sonic. Though it's ambiguous who wins in their big stand-off on the ARK, either outcome can be canon - if Tails won, Dr. Eggman snuck away with the chaos emerald, meaning it's entirely possible Tails beat Eggman by himself a second time. His machinations also get Amy to Sonic's cell earlier in the story.
• Badass Bookworm: Tails is a technological genius, and if the game allows it, he can be as capable as Sonic.
• Badass in Distress: In Sonic Lost World Tails is captured by the Deadly Six and left to be turned into a robot. However he manages to hack the machine that would have done so to retain his free will, thus rescuing himself from the Deadly Six's kit-napping.
• Berserk Button: In Sonic Lost World, he didn't take it well when Sonic trusts Eggman to shut down his Extractor more than him.
• Best Friend: To Sonic since Sonic 2. No matter the game, Tails is almost always on hand to lend Sonic his support: whether it's giving him a lift in the Tornado, or whipping up gadgets to help him out.
• Beware the Nice Ones: This is best shown in Sonic Adventure 2 when he vowed to Eggman that he will never forgive him for (almost) killing Sonic via exploding space capsule and pulled out all the stops during their mech fight.
• Big Brother Worship: Towards Sonic in the beginning. In later games he acts less amazed by Sonic's feats and even recognizes his flaws.
• Bungling Inventor: While usually competent, there are times his inventions don't quite work as intended.
• Captain Crash:
  • Eggman has an impeccable talent for gunning down his planes.
  • In Sonic Adventure, Tails' Establishing Character Moment consists of his prototype engine for the new version of the tornado malfunctioning and forcing him to crash on the beach, prompting Sonic to go fetch him.
  • The only time he crashed on purpose was in Sonic Adventure when he was forced to crash the Tornado 2's transformed state onto the Egg Carrier because he forgot landing gear on the form.
  • In Shadow the Hedgehog, Tails, piloting the souped-up Tornado mk. II, is seen flying over Circus Park, when the plane engine once again spontaneously malfunctions and sends him crashing down.
• Cartoony Tail: He has two tails that enable him to fly like a helicopter when he spins them. There's no indication of how this is anatomically possible.
• Character Development
  • In Sonic Adventure. His defining moment is when Eggman attacks Station Square and with Sonic separated from him, Tails has to defeat Eggman himself, compared to all the times in which Tails needed to be by Sonic's side in order to get things done. This is even retained for most games afterwards, where Tails is less impressed with Sonic's feats than before, though he still remains his sidekick out of their close friendship.
  • Sonic Frontiers finally sees him taking his biggest step in development since the Adventure days. While trapped in Cyberspace, he's forced to confront the fact that over the course of his adventures, he's remained Sonic's sidekick for so long that it's stunted his own potential to surpass his brother figure. By constantly clinging to Sonic, Tails gradually lost the confidence he gained from his past experiences until it reached a critical point in Forces where he felt powerless in the face of Infinite despite having already defeated Dr. Eggman several times beforehand. As Sonic continues to try and get him back to this plane of existence, it finally inspires Tails enough to say that after things are settled, he wants to go on a journey of his own. This surprises and saddens Sonic briefly, but he's proud of Tails for finally starting to grow up and is fully supportive of his decision. In fact, within some optional scenes in the Final Horizon DLC of the same game, Tails tells Sonic to stop worrying about him, and to believe in him, doesn't feel anxious being separated from the Blue Blur, and Eggman even mentions that Tails has honed his mental fortitude.
• Cheerful Child: Extremely positive and upbeat.
• Child Prodigy: Flying the Tornado in Sky Chase Zone would've gotten him here, but he's been able to BUILD — as in, with his own two hands — more than one upgrade for the plane, a portable device that can bring up satellite signals and translate the Wisps' language, a fake Chaos Emerald, his team's Extreme Gear, and everything from his Game Gear spin-off games. Oh and he also singlehandedly learned to turn his twin namesakes into the most useful and deadly Cartoony Tails ever!
• Classical Anti-Hero: He shares Sonic's undying altruism but not his outlook on life. Sonic is adventurous and quick to act (if not a bit brash and full of himself) while Tails is less self-assured. He overcomes this frequently but always seems to have a nagging "should I let Sonic handle this" doubt about his actions before he commits.
• Composite Character: Sonic Origins design gallery shows he was the amalgamation of two seperate ideas: "Miles the Tanuki", a pudgy Tanuki who liked to tinker with machines and an unnamed character based on Pocky/Johnny Lightfoot who would be athletic and wanted to learn to be as fast as Sonic. He was reworked into a fox so as not to compete with the Tanuki theming of Super Mario Bros. 3.
• Cool Car: Tails is associated with the Caterham 7/Lotus Super Seven sports car and was first seen driving a lookalike of it on a 1992 manga. It later appeared on an Easter Egg in Sonic CD and most obviously on the Sonic Drift games, but this trait ended up falling into obscurity over the years.
• Cool Plane: The Tornado and all of its upgrades. The original red variation is actually Sonic's, but Tails is so much of a better pilot that he's all but relinquished ownership to him.
• Cowardly Lion: He may not be as skilled or confident as his peers but when the chips are down, Tails tends to come through, notably shown in Sonic Adventure when he successfully defends Station Square from Eggman without Sonic's help despite being scared. The "Lion" part has been downplayed in later years, but does tend to show up from time to time.
• The Cutie: This is a given since he's only a child.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Tails is apparently an orphan. And before meeting Sonic, used to be bullied by his home island's inhabitants.
• A Day in the Limelight: He got three spinoff games to himself; Tails Adventure, Tails Skypatrol and Tails and the Music Maker.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Seems to have become this in Sonic Colors. Sonic must be rubbing off on him.
  • Taken further in Sonic Lost World. Probably half of his lines are snarking at Sonic and/or Eggman.
• Depending on the Artist: His fur color can vary noticeably across different depictions, moreso than the colorations of almost any other character, ranging from yellow to orange to brown. The games seem to have settled on a slightly-orangey yellow color for him.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • The consistent things about him are that he's always Sonic's best friend and sidekick as well as being The Smart Guy. Now whether he's a young protégé who looks up to Sonic or an equal partner on their adventures varies. Likewise, whether he is brave enough to tackle adventures on his own or would only do so when Sonic's around to help him out is a very fluctuating trait. He lampshades this in Frontiers, calling himself "wildly inconsistent".
  • During their run on the series (Colors, Lost World), Ken Pontac and Warren Graff gave Tails a bit of snark, alongside a healthy dose of ego. This includes being antagonistic towards Eggman, constantly diminishing him.
    Tails: (looking at Orbot and Cubot) Truly, your robots are a reflection of your genius, Doctor Eggman.
  • While Tails is always younger than Sonic, his exact age can vary wildly depending on the era and region. American media and dubs (specifically the Adventure era) tended to have him as a teenager a few years younger than Sonic himself, while Japan tends to make him significantly younger, with the youngest he's been being 4.
• Despair Event Horizon: Hits it early on in Sonic Forces after Infinite seemingly kills Sonic. After the six-month Time Skip, the rest of the Resistance largely considers Tails a lost cause, and we later see Tails failing at repairing Omega while being rather nonchalant despite everything going on. It's the reason why he has a Heroic BSoD at the sight of Chaos 0, as Sonic Frontiers makes it clear. It takes the appearance of Classic Sonic, as well as the discovery that the Modern Sonic is still alive, for Tails to snap out of it.
• Deuteragonist: While Tails is treated as a mere sidekick more often than not, he does occasionally get individual focus separate from Sonic. A specific example is in Sonic Lost World. While Sonic stops the villains, he doesn't actually help save the world - Tails does that part all on his own.
• Didn't Think This Through: Building a powerful biplane with a transformed state: good idea. Building a powerful biplane with a transformed state without the landing gear: bad idea.
• Distressed Dude: In the 8-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Can actually lead to a pretty depressing ending if you don't collect all the Emeralds, as it's implied that Eggman killed Tails.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": He always prefers his nickname over his real one.
• Endearingly Dorky: He's quite a geek, but he is very cheerful and adorable.
• The Engineer: His technological abilities have been increasingly helpful to Sonic over the years. Nowadays, it overshadows his original combat role.
• Exposition Fairy: He's this in Sonic Colors.
• Fatal Flaw: While not quite as developed as those of his team mates, Tails is sometimes shown to get a bit too fixated with his machinery and know-how, leading to distraction issues or not quite thinking them through. Being a child, he can also sometimes get insecure or stroppy, leading to issues cooperating.
• Fear of Thunder: He's scared of thunder despite it being his most commonly used element. According to the seventh Sonic Twitter Takeover, this fear originated because Tails didn't have a home before meeting Sonic, and thunderstorms would keep him awake at night.
• Flash Step: In Sonic Colors after he's brainwashed by Eggman and pulls a You Shall Not Pass! on Sonic, he's capable of keeping up with the Hedgehog's every movement, going just as fast as he is to keep him from attacking Eggman.
• Flight: He can use his namesake tails to propel him upward, and when that isn't enough, there's always Sonic's plane the Tornado or later Tails' mech the Cyclone.
• Foil: While Dr. Eggman's main rivalry is with Sonic, Tails fits the role moreso due to his intellect and handiness with technology.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Melancholic.
• Furry Reminder: Tails tends to swim by dog paddling.
• Gadgeteer Genius: In most Sonic media, Tails is the "gadget" guy, making him opposite to Eggman.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Tails has a inconsistent level of strength, which all depend on the narrative of the game. In the classic games, he is as capable as Sonic in gameplay; outside those games and the Adventure Era, he tends to be a Non-Action Guy.
• Genius Sweet Tooth: He's incredibly intelligent and his favorite food is mint candy.
• Girls Have Cooties: To a mild extent in some media. It actually helps resolve the plot almost every time it comes up.
• Goggles Do Nothing: Wears goggles◊ in the Sonic Riders series.
• Golden Super Mode:
  • Hyper Tails, which has only appeared in Sonic 3 & Knuckles so far. Unlike the rest of the characters, he needs the Super Emeralds rather than the Chaos Emeralds to achieve super form. According to Word of God, this is due to his inexperience and young age. He even has four Super Flickies to attack enemies for him.
  • As of the 2013 re-release of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails can go super with just the Chaos Emeralds, but only if a hidden setting is used to make all seven show up.
  • Tails also has a different Super Mode used in Sonic Heroes. There is, however, quite a bit of confusion as to whether or not it's actually supposed to be Super Tails or not. The only visual difference is a golden shield surrounding him, but he has all the normal abilities associated with a Super form. Adding to the confusion is that Tails' and Knuckles' super forms in previous games only included them glowing, with no visual changes whatsoever.
  • In Sonic Mania, Tails has his Super form from the aforementioned re-release of Sonic the Hedgehog. Unlike every other appearance of Tails' Super form, there aren't any extra requirements - Get the Chaos Emeralds, and he can go Super as easily as the other two. However, he doesn't get access of the Super Flickies he had with his Super Emerald powered Super Form previously. This form would go on to be set in stone as the standard for Tails in Sonic Origns and Sonic Superstars. With the form with the Super Flickies being promoted to being his Hyper form.
• Good Counterpart: He has evolved into a good counterpart to Eggman (because Eggman was introduced first), seeing as Tails' Gadgeteer Genius abilities have become as prominent as Eggman's, and Tails is young, yet very mature (in some ways) while Eggman is older, yet rather immature. This is more apparent in Sonic Adventure 2, where Tails and Eggman are both "shooting" characters and control the same way. It's also worth noting that both are among the few characters in the Sonic franchise that have full names, yet are Only Known by Their Nickname. It's sometimes implied that Eggman and Tails respect each other's genius in spite of all the trouble they cause each other, to the point where they sometimes devolve into a Friendly Rivalry.
• Heartwarming Orphan: He has no known parents, but is often described as an orphan in certain alternate media.
• Heli-Critter: Trope Codifier.
• Hero-Worshipper: He thinks the world of Sonic, however this sometimes comes at the expense of his own self-esteem whenever he feels like he doesn't measure up.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He'll believe someone if they say they're not evil, no matter what prior experiences he's had with them.
• Humble Hero: Despite his great skills, Tails is very humble about his abilities, never giving them many thoughts, in sharp contrast to Sonic, though he has yet to discover his true potential of what he can accomplish. At the time of Sonic Lost World, Tails has become more confident and outspoken about his intelligence, though he still does not openly brag. Regardless, he has been known to mock Eggman's own creations, and sometimes Eggman himself.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: In the game continuity only. Tails has an absurd number of useful skills, having many of the same abilities as Sonic and some of his own.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: He doesn't use it often, but he has a ton of stuff that can appear out of nowhere, especially in Tails Adventure and Sonic Frontiers.
• Iconic Sequel Character: He's the third most recognizable character in the series after the titular hedgehog and Robotnik despite not appearing in the first game.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Tails wishes he could be as much of a hero as his best friend, Sonic. Some Character Development throughout the Adventure titles shows that he's starting to step out of Sonic's shadow to become a hero on his own right, but he still has a lot to catch up with the others. His Leitmotif, "Believe in Myself" is also an accurate example of this trope.
• Image Song: "Believe in Myself" from the Adventure games, and "Another Passage" from Frontiers.
• Impossible Genius: Tails boasts in Sonic Lost World that he was able to make a TV out of paperclips and reprogram a computer with detergent & a toothpick.
• Informed Attribute: Many modern bios refer to him as a "hyperactive fox boy", despite him being a rather mellow and serious minded character.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: They do really bring out his childlike innocence.
• Innocent Prodigy: It varies from game-to-game, but Tails is just a kid who happens to be extremely intelligent for his age. He sometimes joins in on Sonic's taunting, but also wises up faster than him as well.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Most of his friends, all of his close friends, are quite a bit older than him.
• Ironic Fear: According to Sonic Jam he's scared of thunder◊ but Sonic Heroes features using moves such as Thunder Shoot.
• Jack of All Stats: Outside of platformers, this is Tails' usual role. For example, in Sonic Battle, he has slightly above average speed and defense; with average attack power. In general, he tends to be faster but weaker than Knuckles; and slightly slower but stronger than Sonic.
• Kid-Appeal Character: The very first one of the series, he's often recommended for beginners due to his flying abilities in the 2D games.
• Kid Detective: Within The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, he was assigned the detective role, and takes it quite well, as he along with the player character come-up with accurate theories and accusations together.
• Kid Sidekick: Well, given how he is a kid that serves as Sonic's sidekick, he is naturally this trope.
• The Kirk: Overlapping with The Spock at times. Tails is generally the most level-headed of the three.
• Little Professor Dialog: He can speak some big words for his apparent age and is generally the one to piece together and explain things. (Also when doubled over as the Exposition Fairy)
• Long-Range Fighter: Some of his playable appearances such as Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Frontiers has him primarily using ranged attacks.
• Lovable Nerd: Very nerdy, but also very adorable.
• Made of Iron: Even without counting his invincibility in the two-player mode of the classic games, Tails has been shot with lasers and crashed planes multiple times. But the worst he's ever been hurt is being dazed for a few minutes.
• Meaningful Name: Miles Prower fits in with Sonic's name, referring to velocity (miles per hour).
• Motor Mouth: Not as much as Marine or Omochao, but often with Techno Babble.
• Mr Fix It: He's a mechanic and maintains planes pretty well. Sonic Lost World also showed him fixing Cubot's malfunctioned voice chip and reversing the effects of Eggman's machine.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Tails is usually incredibly lucid and intelligent, but sometimes his childishness seeps through, making him naive or huffy. He's also sometimes a bit over fixated with machinery, at the cost of his attention span.
• Multiple-Tailed Beast: Being based on the kitsune, it is to be expected.
• My Greatest Failure: In Sonic Frontiers, Tails admits to Sonic that his reaction to Infinite defeating Sonic and his panic attack when the Chaos 0 copy attacked has weighed heavily on him, making him doubt his own abilities.
  Tails: Whenever there's a crisis, I'm either running away or standing on the sidelines. You're always rescuing me when all I do is follow you around!
• Mini-Mecha: His plane the Tornado III can transform into one called the "Cyclone".
• Nice Guy: One of the nicest and most mild-mannered of the cast.
• Non-Action Guy: From Unleashed to Forces, Tails has settled into more of a supporting role and content to hang back and let Sonic handle most of the action.
• Nuclear Mutant: At least in a few alternate continuities, it's been theorized that his mutation is due to toxic waste dumped by Dr. Robotnik.
• Number Two: Often cited as Sonic's right-hand man and the most likely to tag along in his adventures. He even sometimes takes over in Sonic's absence.
• One-Man Army: In Tails Adventure, taking on a whole armada on his own.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: To the point where most people didn't think he had a real name.
• Only Sane Man: In Sonic Battle, at least.
• Out of Focus: Played with. He's nowhere near as prominent as he once was and he's rarely a playable character nowadays, but he continuously makes appearances in the plot and is just as much a part of the action as Sonic. Subverted in Episode II of Sonic the Hedgehog 4, where he's playable alongside Sonic once again (although only in co-op in the case of Sonic 4).
• Pile Bunker: His drop attack in Sonic Frontiers has him pull a gigantic one and divebomb enemies with it.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: Has astonishing technical abilities, but often has the disposition and naïveté of a child. This lessened significantly around Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), but started to trickle back in with Colors and Generations, and then reversed in games like Frontiers.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: 2'7" tall, weighs 44 lbs. He's just as capable of demolishing robots as Sonic is, and at some points lifts four times his own weight and breaks rocks with his bare hands.
• The Pollyanna: He honestly believed that Eggman had truly reformed in Sonic Colors, even though it's clear that he didn't.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Tails' competence and strength varies widely throughout the series. There's a fairly reliable metric, though: If he's non-playable, he's a Non-Action Guy, though he can still keep up with Sonic. If he's playable, however, he's a Lightning Bruiser able to easily hold his own with the likes of Sonic, Knuckles, and Shadow.
• Prehensile Tail: Tails shows this ability for the first time ever in Sonic Lost World, when he grabs the toothpick stuck in Zomom's sandwich to save himself from being robotized.
• Pun-Based Creature: Tails is a flying fox.
• Punny Name: Miles Prower = miles per hour.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Pretty much expected from a little fox cub like him.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: The mild-mannered sidekick to the snarky yet compassionate Sonic.
• Rule of Cool: Absolutely nothing makes sense about his propeller tails ability. At least with the Spin Dash you could kind of see how it works, even if it actually fails when you think about it. Apparently his tails aren't actually attached to his body, considering he can ball himself up without tucking in his tails, which can also explain how his propeller tails function.
• Science Hero: He often uses his smarts and various gadgets to aid him and his friends save the day.
• Satellite Character: While Tails is his own character, his role is very much mostly Sonic's sidekick and only rarely gets to strike out on his own outside of that specified role. It takes until Frontiers where Tails decides to officially do some adventuring without Sonic, with his best friend giving his approval.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Can slip into this sometimes (Sonic Riders hosts one of his most famous examples).
• Shrinking Violet: He started as this as a result of being bullied as a little kid for his twin tails. After meeting Sonic he began to gradually break out of his shell.
• Shock and Awe: His most commonly used element, as used in Sonic Heroes and Sonic Battle despite being portrayed as having a Fear of Lightning.
• Shorter Means Smarter: Justified in that he is much younger than most of the cast.
• Sidekick: To Sonic. He acts as a more humble and reasonable foil to the cocky, impulsive Sonic. But looks up to Sonic as an older brother figure, and doesn't have the rivalrous relationship Sonic has with Knuckles and/or Shadow.
• Sidekick Glass Ceiling: Sadly hit this after Sonic Adventure 2. The first Sonic Adventure saw Tails realizing that he doesn't need to rely on Sonic to get the job done and starts his steps to becoming his own hero, which the sequel builds upon showing Tails in a much more confident and active individual, coming up with most of the plans on the hero's side. Afterwards however, he began to fall Out of Focus as more new characters debuted, and while he's returned to prominence in recent years, he's firmly a Non-Action Guy with Sonic handling most of the action.
• Sleepy Head: Starts yawning in his idle pose in the classic games and in Sonic Adventure, and falls asleep in Sonic Advance 2 and Sonic 4: Episode 2. In Sonic Mania particularly, he quickly jolts awake upon realizing that he was about to doze off.
• Skill Gate Characters: His flight ability makes him the most accessible character in 2D platformers for less experienced players, as he could fly over difficult sections and save himself from making mistakes. However, he orginally couldn't undergo a Super Mode like Sonic, and misses out on his Difficult, but Awesome techniques like the Insta-Shield attack or Drop Dash.
• The Smart Guy: Tails is easily the brainiest and most tech-savvy of the gang, often being instrumental in coming up with game plans and operating machinery.
• Spring Jump: Weaponized with his parry in Frontiers where he can bounce enemies away from him harmlessly by pulling a spring from his Hyperspace Arsenal.
• The Strategist: In Sonic Adventure 2, Tails has a plan to shut down the Eclipse Cannon from within ready to go by the time the heroes board the Ark, and it's his plan the heroes follow.
• Super-Speed:
  • His ability to move fast enough to keep up with Sonic impressed him enough that he took Tails as his sidekick.
  • It's not always noticeable, but Tails has been shown to be very fast even without using his tails — on par with Amy or Espio, who are classified as Speed characters.
• Super-Strong Child: Although this can also apply to the other small children in the series, Tails is the only one consistently portrayed as being deceptively strong. Several games show him able to lift more than his own weight without hindering his flight (possibly up to ten tons if Tails' Skypatrol is any indication), breaking through rocks with his Spin Attack, and, of course, tearing through robots as a ball.
• Tagalong Kid: Subverted. While he does meet Sonic by initially following him, he ends up proving useful and Sonic decides to keep him around. From then on, he's one of Sonic's closest allies.
• Tail Slap: Has this move in most of the Dreamcast era games.
• Taking the Bullet: Does this a few times — he's back up within a few seconds.
• Tareme Eyes: Has the softest, droopiest eye shape of the cast — even more so than Cream.
• Techno Babble: As the tech-savvy guy, he tends to go on tangents about technology. This is sometimes exaggerated, such as in Sonic Lost World where he says he built a TV out of paperclips.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • His Character Development in Sonic Adventure revolves around this, when Station Square was in danger of being destroyed, Tails was the only one who could stop this. With Sonic nowhere to be found, Tails realized that he could not depend on Sonic forever and had to try on his own. After saving Station Square, Tails realized he could be independent and support himself without Sonic, and all he needed was determination and faith. Since then, Tails has become more independent, self-confident, motivated and brave, as well as rising up to be a real hero when needed.
  • Following the events of 06, Tails has been demoted to being a non-playable Non-Action Guy who mostly lets Sonic handles things. However, within the Final Horizon DLC of Sonic Frontiers, Tails has been become playable once again, as he collects Chaos Emeralds on his own, and even playing a role in taking down THE END by helping Sage in reinforcing her barrier.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • Downplayed in Sonic Colors. While still a Nice Guy, he occasionally acts surprisingly snarky toward Sonic, a stark contrast with his typical characterization as a Humble Hero who idolized his "big brother".
  • In Sonic Lost World, he's shown to be much more petty and insecure. He's noticeably arrogant, insinuates that Sonic doesn't care about him at one point despite knowing better, and constantly badmouths both him and Eggman during their temporary truce despite Eggman's cooperation being necessary to save their world and Sonic having no problems with it.
• Trademark Favorite Food: The Japanese manual of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Tails' bios in Sonic Jam and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing all mention his love for mint candy, and they're even power-ups in Tails Skypatrol that replenish his flight gauge.
• Transforming Mecha: His Cyclone mecha from Sonic Adventure 2, which can switch between Tornado-esque plane, high-speed car, and walker.
• Undying Loyalty: A consistent with almost every interpretation of Tails is that he is always by Sonic's side.
• Voice for the Voiceless: His younger self acts as this for Classic Sonic in Sonic Generations.
• Walking the Earth: He seems to spend time either doing this with Sonic, or in one of his multiple workshops.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Sonic's approval is very important to him, to the point where if he feels he doesn't have it makes Tails very upset. Fortunately, Sonic is already plenty proud of the young fox.
• Weak, but Skilled: In direct combat, Tails lacks his friends' raw hand-to-hand combat skills, and focuses more on tactics and providing support to his allies. On the occasion where he is fighting on his own however, Tails utilizes a fighting style that combines a blend of basic punches and/or swipes with his twin-tails.
• Wave-Motion Gun: His Cyclone mecha has one called the Cyblaster in Frontiers.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: A piece of Sonic Channel artwork◊ from June 2023 shows Tails and Marine doing a stageplay of Romeo and Juliet. However, the roles are reversed, with Tails in a dress playing the role of Juliet, and Marine in a suit playing the role of Romeo.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: A child who is able to fly a plane and make some cool gadgets. Also, he's often the mediator between Sonic's friends.
• Wrench Whack: In his playable appearance in the DLC for Sonic Frontiers, Tails's primary method of attack is to throw an infinite supply of wrenches at enemies.

Knuckles the Echidna

Knuckles the Echidna

Debut: Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Voiced by: Nobutoshi Canna (Japanese, 1998-present), Michael McGaharn (English, 1999), Ryan Drummond (English, 2000), Scott Dreier (English, 2001-2004), Dan Green (English, 2005-2010), Travis Willingham (English, 2010-2018), Dave B. Mitchell (English, 2019-present)^{Additional VAs}Sébastien Desjours (French, 2011-present), Maurizio Merluzzo (Italian, 2011-present)

^{Click here to see Knuckles' Classic Era design.}

"I'll probably be on this floating island forever, guarding the Master Emerald again. I may not know the whole story behind this, but perhaps it's better that way. I'm at peace once more."

A red echidna from Angel Island, and guardian of the Master Emerald. He was first introduced as an antagonist in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, having been told by Eggman that Sonic and Tails intended to steal the Master Emerald. Near the end of the game, Eggman betrays Knuckles and steals the Master Emerald himself, which forced Knuckles to accept Sonic and Tails' help in getting it back. Afterward, Knuckles would then be one of the duo's chief allies in fighting Eggman, but his guardian duties keep him out of the action most of the time. Not much of his past was known, but that changed with Sonic Adventure which fleshed out his background quite a bit. Turns out, Knuckles is the last of the echidnas after they were wiped out for attempting to use the Emeralds and desecrating the shrine (and injuring numerous Chao) which angered the at-the-time guardian Chaos. Afterward, the piece of the shrine became Angel Island.

If Sonic is like the wind, then Knuckles is like the mountains; stern and unmovable. So naturally, they tend to butt heads, but do get along occasionally. Because of spending most of his life on a secluded island, he naturally prefers to be by himself and has quite the wild temper. However, despite these traits, he's a nice guy, and more than willing to abandon his post to help out his friends.

---

• Aardvark Trunks: Inverted. He is an echidna, an animal that is supposed to have a beak-like snout. However, his snout is short and his mouth is underneath it.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Knuckles' original concept in Japan was always supposed to be that he was gullible and short-tempered, but early American manuals and even internal documents described him as clever or intelligent.
• Adventure Archaeologist: Knuckles is a treasure hunter, which is usually an Informed Attribute but sometimes appears in the actual games.
  • Downplayed in the Sonic Adventure duology, where Knuckles' stages all use Treasure Hunt gameplay, but Knuckles is only doing this as part of being a guardian rather than treasure hunting for its own sake.
  • Downplayed in Shadow the Hedgehog, where Knuckles appears as the Hero Mission guide in the Glyphic Canyon stage, trying to kill the invading the Black Arms.
  • In Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, Knuckles guides the heroes to the Gigan Rocks, relates the local legend to the others, and translates the ancient script at the ruins there, which explains some of the game's backstory.
  • Sonic Dash and Sonic Forces: Speed Battle both temporarily offered a Palette Swap of Knuckles wearing an Adventurer Outfit expanding on his Iconic hat from Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie; this variant was called Treasure Hunter Knuckles.
• Aesop Amnesia:
  • Despite Eggman tricking him during his debut in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Knuckles contracts a dire case of Ping Pong Naïveté in Sonic Adventure and later games, routinely falling for many of Eggman's tricks and traps as a Running Gag. Sonic Advance 2, Sonic Battle, and Sonic X all featured a very gullible Knuckles.
  • Inverted in Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, where Knuckles immediately shows he mistrusts Eggman and won't be tricked again—naturally, this happens during the one time Eggman can honestly say, "It's Not Me This Time."
• Aloof Ally: He initially preferred working alone unless the situation really necessitated teamwork, and refused to call Sonic a friend. In addition, he would only get involved in his adventures by pure chance and was generally doing his own thing with protecting the Master Emerald. When his guardian role became less relevant as the series went on, however, he increasingly started acting as a staunch ally to Sonic.
• Alternate Self: Knuckles has two in the Sonic Storybook Series, neither of whom gets along well with Sonic.
  • Sinbad of Sonic and the Secret Rings, an adventurer that Sonic and Shahra seek out for advice on how to defeat a certain boss.
  • Sir Gawain of Sonic and the Black Knight, a Noble Demon who acts with great loyalty to his lord King Arthur.
• Ancestral Name: His ancestors from Sonic Adventure were known as the Knuckles tribe as early as Sonic Adventure 2, where the name appears in Tikal's section of the character pages on the game's website. This name retroactively implies that Knuckles himself is named for his lost clan.
• Anti-Villain: In Sonic 3, all he's doing is trying to protect his homeland from who he believes are dangerous invaders from abusing powers that he's sworn to protect. It shouldn't come as a surprise that he immediately switches sides as soon as Eggman's deception is revealed.
• The Artifact:
  • Knuckles himself. Originally meant to be The Rival for Sonic and his original Foil, he was Demoted to Extra in Sonic Adventure 2, which gave those roles to Shadow the Hedgehog. From Sonic Heroes forward, Knuckles became just another of Sonic's allies and fell Out of Focus—Sonic Generations excludes him from its Rival Battles, instead only featuring other hedgehogs Shadow and Silver (and Metal Sonic). Games released at the end of The New '10s began giving him Character Focus, however—Sonic Mania was his first playable appearance in a core mainline title in 11 years, and Sonic Forces gave him a major part.
  • Knuckles' role as the guardian of the Master Emerald was at its most prominent in the Sonic Adventure duology, and has since only appeared in the franchise in fits and starts, either in the last game of the Sonic Advance Trilogy or in Sonic Rivals.
  • Knuckles' quills are still referred to as dreadlocks in game manuals despite the Jamaican Fantasy Counterpart Culture elements of his character never leaving the concept stage.
  • Knuckles' zig-zagging tail is a leftover from his early development phase, when he was still going to be a reptile.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He's the leader of the Resistance in Sonic Forces.
• Badass Armfold: He does this very often, and it looks extremely badass, despite the fact that he's badass already.
• Badass Biker:
  • In Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, Knuckles' default air gear, the Red Rock, can transform into a bike when upgraded during a race, and all bikes can smash through obstacles.
  • The Land Breaker, Knuckles' personal vehicle in Sega Superstars racing titles, Team Sonic Racing, and the mobile game Sonic Racing, is most commonly depicted as a heavy duty all-terrain cycle.
• Badass in Distress:
  • He gets captured off-screen in Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble, and is rescued by Sonic or Tails from a cage during the ending.
  • In Sonic Chronicles (currently subject to Canon Discontinuity), Knuckles is imprisoned by the Marauders, but he's smashed his own way out by the time the heroes arrive to rescue him.
  • In Sonic and the Secret Rings, his Alternate Self Sinbad is imprisoned in a magic cage when Sonic and Shahra come looking for advice, which he promises to them, providing that they get him out of the cage first.
  • In the DS version of Sonic Colors, Knuckles apparently fell into an Eggman trap offscreen, but he'd broken out and was pursuing Eggman's lackeys Orbot and Cubot by the time Sonic and Tails found him.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Well, his name is Knuckles...
• Baritone of Strength: He is the physically strongest member of the main Sonic team and most of his speaking appearances depict him with a deep voice.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Rouge in Sonic Adventure 2, complete with her nearly-Tsundere reactions towards him and an Almost Kiss when he saves her life (it doesn't help that "Kick The Rock!", the BGM for Wild Canyon — his first stage, right after he met Rouge — is a ballad of Intercourse with You, and later says that he doesn't love her). Later games have scaled back their romantic tension, reducing it to simple animosity.
• Berserk Button: Knuckles will always get angry for a lot of things, but one thing in particular would be anything that would involve stealing the Master Emerald. He was also clearly enraged about how Wave insulted Tails's hoverboard.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Knuckles is level-headed, down to earth, and doesn't take crap from anyone. Doctor Eggman never learns from this. Knuckles is kind enough to give him multiple chances to redeem himself, but as soon as he finds out Eggman's been taken advantage of him, it's payback time.
• Big Brother Bully: Downplayed in Sonic Heroes, when he lightly teases the ghost-fearing Tails by suggesting that Shadow, who they just encountered in a Boss Battle, might be a ghost himself and scaring Tails further.
• Big Brother Instinct: Much less prominent than Sonic, but does have his moments with both him and Tails, particularly in Sonic Heroes and Sonic Riders.
• Big Damn Heroes: Spoofed in Sonic Mania Adventures, where Knuckles shows up late to the climax and in his blind fury saves the day mostly on accident. When Metal Sonic is being supercharged by the Master Emerald and is on the brink of crushing Sonic and friends, Knuckles swoops in and blasts Metal and Eggman out of their own base with a Megaton Punch. According to Tyson Hesse's Word of God, Knuckles didn't even realize who he was attacking—he was still under the impression that Sonic had stolen the Emerald, thanks to Eggman stealing it with Sonic's plane. Satisfied with retrieving the Master Emerald, Knuckles waltzes off without noticing anyone else in the room, leaving the heroes in a Stunned Silence.
• The Big Guy: While he started palling around with Sonic in the Classic Era spinoffs and more formally in Sonic Adventure 2, he officially entered this role with Sonic Heroes, which used him as the template for the franchise's "Power Type" class, down to using his signature color to represent the type. Ironically, Knuckles is only slightly taller than Sonic, and he's a shrimp compared to the Big Guys of other teams, like Big, Vector, and Omega.
• Big "SHUT UP!": He occasionally says this to some characters in games such as Sonic Battle and Sonic Rivals.
• Blood Knight: Knuckles is a brawler at heart, so he would naturally be this. His counterpart, Gawain from Sonic and the Black Knight, noted that fighting a dragon would be an excellent way to test out his strength.
• Breakout Character: He was this during the '90s, especially since he had his own comic book, upgraded into the main cast with Sonic and Tails, and had his own video game.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center:
  • He's known for being tough and uses his spiky fists when in combat. He's also shown to be a nice guy and cares for his friends.
  • Exemplified best through Knuckles' Image Song, "Unknown from M.E.", which in both versions has lyrics that alternate between explaining what a tough guy he is and then his more noble, heartfelt motives.
• The Brute: Served as Eggman's muscle in Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble.
• Butt-Monkey: A lot of the comic relief in the series stems from his bullheaded attitude, most of it at his expense. This trait became more prominent later on in some of his character incarnations.
• Cartoony Tail: Knuckles' tail looks like it had been broken at one point, but in-universe echidnas usually have tails like that.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Knuckles` strength is never explicitly stated to be abnormal or superhuman, but rather an innate part of his nature.
• Character Development: A bit subtle, but he went from being an adversary to Sonic, to being reluctant allies with him, and finally good friends (albeit with a competitive streak). It would take awhile, but it eventually developed into a genuine friendship. He even became Sonic's second best friend next to Tails. Though he's still the first one to call Sonic out for acting like a Fearless Fool, they have developed a much more peaceful rivalry than with Sonic's other rivals.
• Characterization Marches On: Knuckles' characterization has marched on for so long he has an Era-Specific Personality. In the Classic Era, he was a chuckling troublemaker who hindered Sonic's path in his debut. In the Dreamcast Era, he was a tough, no nonsense foil to Sonic's carefree lifestyle. In the Modern Era, he's even more of a hothead and finds himself constantly trying to one up Sonic, or play the series' Butt-Monkey.
• Composite Character: Knuckles's role as a treasure hunter originates in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, where it was a role he borrowed from Fang the Hunter, who wears a similar cowboy hat to the one Knuckles wears in the movie.
• The Comically Serious: He takes himself very seriously, but that tends to be undermined by his lack of social skills putting him into many comical situations much to his chagrin.
• Conflict Ball: Knuckles tends to catch this smack in the face.
  • In Sonic Adventure, Eggman lies to Knuckles and claims that Sonic is collecting the shards of the Master Emerald, and Knuckles, after catching a mere glimpse of the green Chaos Emerald Sonic just so happens to be holding, immediately attacks Sonic without even a token attempt to investigate.
  • In Sonic Advance 2, Knuckles pilots an Eggman mech in battle against Sonic, because Eggman tricked him. The game does not explain how Eggman tricked him.
  • In Sonic Battle, Knuckles confuses Emerl for the latter's Evil Knockoffs, which have been robbing jewelry stores, and he attacks before hearing things out.
  • Downplayed in Sonic Rush, where Knuckles encounters Blaze and senses the power of her Sol Emerald, which is much like a Chaos Emerald, and therefore he mistakenly thinks Blaze is lying when she denies that she has a Chaos Emerald and chases her. Blaze buries him in an avalanche for his trouble, later prompting him to seek Revenge.
  • Downplayed and Inverted with his Alternate Self Sir Gawain from Sonic and the Black Knight, whose fight with Sonic was probably inevitable, but the situation was certainly not helped by Sonic almost immediately provoking Gawain with insults.
• Continuity Snarl: Super Knuckles's existence. Sonic 3 & Knuckles introduced Super Knuckles and Hyper Knuckles, but by the time of Sonic Heroes Super Knuckles seems forgotten about in favour of having a "Super Shield" provided by Super Sonic, then in Sonic Mania Super Knuckles is back and the Super Emeralds are still around but go unused. Sonic Frontiers has Knuckles offhandedly mention that the WYVERN Titan fight would have gone much faster if he was Super Knuckles, though its uncertain if this is canonizing the super forms Tails and Knuckles had in their classic days or just a bluff on his part.
• Cool Shades:
  • Knuckles has a pair of purple tinted shades in a piece of character art from Sonic Adventure.
  • In Sonic Adventure 2, Knuckles can find a pair of blue-tinted sunglasses that let him see things that are Invisible to Normals. This and all of his other Power Ups return with "Adventure Knuckles" in Sonic Speed Simulator.
  • In the Sonic Riders series, Knuckles has purple-lensed goggles hanging from his neck in character art. These goggles return as part of "Riders Knuckles" in Sonic Speed Simulator.
  • Knuckles also wore a pair of brown and orange shades in his Sonic Channel art from May 2013 (featuring Knuckles as a tourist) and September 2016 (featuring him camping in the woods); the latter design returned in Sonic Speed Simulator as "Camper Knuckles".
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He may not be the brightest guy around, but he's more than capable of dishing out the pain if needed
• Cute Little Fangs: Difficult to see them, but they're still there.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Knuckles' Establishing Character Moment in Sonic 3 & Knuckles features him knocking Sonic right out of his Super Mode, a feat he has yet to replicate in gameplay anywhere.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • He got his own spinoff game, Knuckles Chaotix, for the Sega 32X.
  • Sonic Adventure is also this for him to a lesser extent, as it highlights the backstory of his island and what happened to his species while shedding light on his guardian role. Aside from Sonic's story, Knuckles' story is where you learn the most about Chaos.
• Defeat Means Friendship: This is how he became an ally to Sonic. This also applies to his encounter with Rouge in Sonic Adventure 2.
• Demoted to Comic Relief: Knuckles starts off as a rival and serious foil to Sonic, with some focus on his role as guardian of the powerful Master Emerald. After Sonic Adventure 2, however, these aspects have been downplayed and he has instead been characterized as a Butt-Monkey who desperately, and unsuccessfully, tries to one up Sonic. Becomes a case of Flanderization in the Sonic Boom, where Knuckles' primary character traits is being a cloudcuckoolander who drops funny lines.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Official profiles (barring early Western ones) describe Knuckles as short-tempered, reckless, and gullible, but the details of his personality have changed enough over time to give him an Era-Specific Personality.
  • In some games Knuckles is purely Dumb Muscle; in others he has at least enough craftiness or technical know-how to operate complicated trap mechanisms and even Eggman mechs. In Sonic Adventure 2, the lyrics of his stage music attribute an introspective and thoughtful side to him that hasn't been seen in other games.
  • The quality of his relationship with Sonic and, by extension, Sonic's opinion of him. In Sonic Heroes and other games featuring them as a team, Sonic and Knuckles get along just fine as well as in Sonic 06, but a lot of games both before and after have the two often at odds, Sonic taking jabs at Knuckles and Knuckles disapproving of Sonic, though they seem to settle on Vitriolic Best Buds.
  • Where his guardianship of the Master Emerald ends and his treasure hunting begins has never been clearly defined; in some games he's only the guardian, in others he serves as a treasure hunter, and sometimes he's a mix of both.
    • Likewise, is his job as Guardian of the Master Emerald so important he has to guard it all the time unless the Emerald is destroyed/threatened? Or Is he able to run around with Sonic and friends without concern? The games flip between both, with Frontiers saying that while the job is important, Knuckles should still be able go out in the world without it being an issue.
• Determinator: Always persistent against pain, and never backs down.
• Deuteragonist:
  • He has a prominent role in Sonic Adventure, which explores his origins and the downfall of his ancestral people. He, along with Sonic, is the only character to recieve more than one vision from Tikal, and is the only other character to visit Lost World and discover some of the truth regarding Chaos' origins. He also ties with Sonic for the most fights with Chaos, losing his first fight with Chaos in a cutscene and then fighting and beating every form besides 0 and Perfect, making Chaos a very personal foe for him.
  • Knuckles is tied with Eggman for the second most levels of any character besides Sonic in Sonic Adventure 2, and has a dedicated secondary plot to the rest of the cast that sees him frequently go off on his own. This secondary plot of restoring the Master Emerald has a narrative payoff, as Knuckles and Tikal's incantation end up being the defining factor that stops Gerald Robotnik's revenge scheme, overpowering the program that would have the Chaos Emeralds direct the Space Colony ARK to smash into the world - Sonic and Shadow only become necessary when the Finalhazard gets personally involved.
  • Though he gets about equal screen time with Amy and Tails, Knuckles nonetheless has the most personal connection to the Starfall Islands in Sonic Frontiers while going through similar levels of character development as the rest of the cast. Knuckles even gets his own prequel short establishing how he ended up in the area, which further connects the Starfall Islands and its occupying precursors, the Ancients, to Angel Island and the Knuckles Clan.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Some of his moves in Sonic Battle and Sonic Heroes, in keeping with him being the mountain to Sonic's wind.
• Disney Villain Death:
  • In the vanilla Sonic 3, the last time Knuckles confronts Sonic, The Hero is in an autopiloting Egg Carrier, and Knuckles has climbed a nearby tower to get in the way, so his punches will knock the carrier back and permanently prevent Sonic's progress. Knuckles gets in another Smug laugh, only for the Death Egg to launch, ripping Knuckles' tower apart and sending him plummeting to his doom, never to be seen again.
  • Subverted, quite obviously, in the full Sonic 3 & Knuckles and the franchise at large, since Knuckles survived for later adventures.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Him, Shadow, Blaze, Jet, and Silver have all played role of The Rival to Sonic at one point, all of them generally being a much more no-nonsense and serious foil. Knuckles diverges by becoming more of an full on ally in later games forgoing almost any antagonism towards Sonic, and having his comical traits increased as well.
• Dreadlock Warrior: Several Manuals say his quills are dreadlocks, and Knuckles is one of the strongest, most physically-oriented characters in the cast. He may also be a Dreadlock Rasta, given he is the official Guardian of the Master Emerald, which has been hosted in an elaborate, clearly religious shrine for thousands of years. From the Dreamcast games and beyond, we see that other echidnas have this, making it part of Knuckles' culture rather than a purely personal fashion choice.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Knuckles relies heavily on surprises, traps, and is not a terribly tough opponent once he's actually fighting Sonic. Even with Era-Specific Personality in play, these traits have never again been attributed to Knuckles since Sonic Triple Trouble.
• Earth/Wind Juxtaposition: Knuckles is said to embody the earth, being strong, stubborn, and preferring to stay rooted in one place. This contrasts the carefree Sonic who is often associated with the wind. Some games have given Sonic and Knuckles control over air and earth respectively to match their Elemental Motifs.
• Elemental Powers: Knuckles has actually shown the most versatility in his control over these among the various cast members—he uses Shock and Awe with Sonic Adventure 2's Thunder Arrow, Dishing Out Dirt with Sonic Battle's Rock Free Fall and Meteor Crush, and Playing with Fire with Sonic Heroes's Volcanic Dunk.
• Elemental Punch: Can (somehow) execute a flaming uppercut in the Sonic Advance Trilogy.
• Era-Specific Personality:
  • In the Classic era, Knuckles was crafty and derisive, laughing every time he got Sonic and Tails in one of his traps; this trait utterly vanished until the Genre Throwback Sonic Mania^note Save briefly for his sense of humor in Sonic Heroes. His Image Song from Sonic Adventure even explicitly claims he doesn't chuckle^note This notably reflects the leaked prototype of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, where Knuckles sternly faces off with Sonic and challenges him to Bring It after seizing the Chaos Emeralds; proto-Knuckles still laughs when traps are triggered, though.
  • In the Sonic Adventure duology, Knuckles was solitary and had a single-minded devotion to the Master Emerald; he parts ways with Sonic in Sonic Adventure after the reveal of the Egg Carrier in order to keep collecting the Emerald's pieces, while in Sonic Adventure 2 he only tags along with the heroes to get to Rouge, a mutual enemy who has the remaining shards of the Emerald. Adventure 2 also played up his bullheadedness, what with him constantly bickering with Rouge and at one point hijacking the team's ride to go after Master Emerald shards.
  • Sonic Heroes, presented Knuckles as laid-back and pleased to tag along with Sonic and Tails without a thought for the Master Emerald. Heroes and later games dispensed with Knuckles being an Aloof Ally and instead cast him and Sonic as having a Friendly Rivalry, and his role as the guardian of the emerald would take a backseat, if ever mentioned at all.
  • After those games, however, Sega started portraying Knuckles Truer to the Text of his profile from the Japanese manual of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, resulting in Knuckles spending the Turn of the Millennium and The New '10s as a Gullible Lemming with a Hair-Trigger Temper. This phase began as early as Sonic Advance 2, but it would take a few years for it to become obvious in console releases due to Knuckles being Out of Focus—Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), the Sonic Riders series, and the Sonic Storybook Series all make gags about Knuckles being Dumb Muscle.
  • Sonic Boom goes all in on his Dumb Muscle side, but also greatly diminishes his temper and seriousness, making him closer to a stereotypical Dumb Jock in personality.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • It was pretty obvious from his reaction, that he wanted to punch Wave in the face for bullying Tails.
  • While he may not get along with Sonic all the time, it's pretty clear that he wouldn't want to fight him seriously if it wasn't prompted. Any time there's a misunderstanding, Knuckles drops most of his hostility pretty quickly once things are cleared up.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • Knuckles' design was originally themed around Jamaican culture; His quills are described as dreadlocks, and he was planned to have a Jamaican accent in the English dub. In the actual games, however, the Jamaican elements are downplayed.
  • He also has some ties to Mayincatec cultural cues from the architecture on Angel Island and the Knuckles Clan being explicitly based on South American monuments (Sonic Team even traveled there to do research on the history for Sonic Adventure).
  • Some of his character traits are also analogous to a modern day Native American keeping his culture and traditions alive. The vocals of Unknown from M.E. make explicit how much pride he takes in his heritage.
    The blood of my ancestors flows inside me!
• Fast Tunneling: In the Adventure games, with this "Shovel Claw" power up. Also shows up in some of the minigames in Sonic Generations.
• Fatal Flaws: Knuckles's relative lack of social skills is the source of more than one of these for him. For one thing, he's known to be rather gullible and naive, falling for Eggman's trickery on a regular basis. His short temper can also lead to him being easily riled up at times. Also his pride has gotten him in quite a bit of trouble over time.
• Fiery Red Head: Sometimes.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Sonic, although both still have the tendency to quarrel.
• Flanderization: Originally deceived by Eggman due to having no experience with this one (or with people in general), Knuckles getting fooled became Running Gag after Sonic Adventure 2. His gullibility, ignorance and quick temper were also exaggerated to the point of devolving into a bumbling comedy relief. Contrast with old character profiles, which described him as naive but intelligent. This seems to be in the process of being undone starting from the release of Frontiers where Knuckles displays no lack of intelligence, gullibility, and his temper isn't out of control.
• Foe Romance Subtext: He gets a lot of Belligerent Sexual Tension with Rouge, who wants to steal the Master Emerald, in Sonic Adventure 2; the two constantly argue, but Knuckles wastes no time in saving her when she's about to fall into lava and she reluctantly returns her emerald shards to him in return. While this aspect of their relationship has been downplayed due to both being Out of Focus, games like Sonic Rivals 2 (where they pull an Enemy Mine) and Sonic Generations (where they have a friendly conversation during Sonic's party) confirm it still exists.
• Foil:
  • As mentioned in his bio, he's one to Sonic. In fact, he was created with this trope in mind.
    • As Sonic Channel put it, "If Sonic is the ever-moving 'wind', then Knuckles is the unmoving 'mountain'."
    • In Sonic Adventure 2, Knuckles is earnest where Sonic is devil-may-care, as best seen when Sonic blows off Knuckles's concerns about losing the master emerald shards on their way to the Space Colony ARK while Knuckles panics.
    • In Sonic Heroes, the opening sequence for Team Sonic depicts Sonic as a thrill-seeker running around the desert, while a laid-back Knuckles relaxes in the back of Tails' plane.
  • He also gained one in Rouge after Sonic Adventure 2. They're both treasure hunters, but he's rather Hot-Blooded and simple minded, while she's cunning and manipulative.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Choleric.
• Friendless Background: He was actually born on Angel Island without anyone to look after him.
• Furry Reminder: Every once in a while Knuckles will be compared to a mole, such as his affinity for digging and underground travel. This makes more sense in Japan, where the term for the echidna species is 針もぐら, "hari-mogura", which works out literally to "needle-mole". As such, Knuckles is the needle-mole to Sonic's needle-mouse.
• General Failure: During his time as a resistance leader in Sonic Forces, he makes several boneheaded decisions that get most of his soldiers killed or MIA. Case in point: leading all of his forces into Metropolis at once, where Infinite ambushes them and manages to wipe out at least 80% of them in one go.
• Giggling Villain: As an antagonist in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, where he constantly laughs at Sonic and Tails while messing with them.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Having been living much of his life in isolation, Knuckles grew up believing in honesty and holds a firm and steadfast belief that there is good in everyone, which always lets him give people second chances. Naturally, Eggman has used this to his advantage to dupe him into fighting Sonic on multiple occasions.
• Good Costume Switch: Downplayed and unintentional, but when he first appears in 3 as an antagonistic NPC, his socks/boot tops are bright yellow, but they switch to their familiar green color when he appears in playable form. (post Heel–Face Turn, story-wise) This was due to palette issues and would be fixed in Sonic Origins Plus.
• Good Is Not Soft: His intentions are always good, he'll risk his life to save anyone in danger, and he tries his best to give people a second chance, but you're in for a world of pain if you try to stand in his way, or if he finds out that you abused his trust.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He's jealous of Sonic's adventurous lifestyle and popularity. This would explain his subtle hostility with the hedgehog, and their rocky relationship.
• Ground Punch: In Sonic Adventure 2's multiplayer mode as well as his Special Move in the Sonic Rivals games, the aptly named "Hammer Punch". Knuckles punches the ground with enough force to cause a tremor, temporarily stunning his foe. Overlaps with Shockwave Stomp.
  • How he finishes his attack combo in Sonic Heroes. When he's powered up at level 3 his attack strength is empowered so greatly, that he's able to pound his fist into the earth so hard it creates a small volcanic eruption as bursts of fireballs start erupting out of the ground.
  • He defeats the last remaining group of Sage's Soldiers in the Divergence prologue by using his sheer strength to destroy the very cliff he's standing on to outright collapse in front of them. None of them survive... Well, except for the one that managed to jump across the gap. That one fell with the rest after Knuckles tosses a rock at it.
• Guile Hero: Especially from Sonic 3 up to Sonic Adventure 2.
• Gullible Lemmings: Tends to fall for Eggman's lies from time to time. Some fans exaggerate this to unrealistic levels.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He has a very short temper which combined with his naiveté, leads to him making very poor decisions at times. Characters like Sonic and Rouge are fond of pressing his buttons a lot.
• Hates Being Alone: His job to guard the Master Emerald leaves him isolated to the point where he secretly wishes he could be free to interact with others on a regular basis, which explains why some games have his duties ignored to do other activities.
• The Heavy: In Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Triple Trouble, Eggman may be the Big Bad, but it's Knuckles who's either stealing the Chaos Emeralds or tripping traps that send Sonic and Tails hurtling from one part of the island to another.
• Hero Antagonist: His debut had him opposing Sonic and Tails due to Eggman lying and claiming they were trying to steal the Master Emerald and Chaos Emeralds. So Knuckles is simply just protecting his home from what he believes are invaders. Once Eggman's lies are revealed, he quickly joins the duo in stopping him.
• Hero of Another Story: Zigzagged in Sonic Adventure 2. He's one of main playable characters in the "Hero Story", but he spends the majority of it pursuing his own quest apart from the main plot. He's so focused on recovering the Master Emerald shards that he has no idea about Sonic being framed or Eggman's schemes and doesn't learn until the midway point, when he just happens to stumble into Sonic, Tails and Amy and teams up with them. And even then, he's essentially a Guest-Star Party Member, as while he helps out the group during the Pyramid Base portion, he quickly splits up from them once they reach the Space Colony Ark to pursue the Emerald shards that were sent flying into space on the group's way there. However, after recovering all the missing pieces and settling things with Rouge, his subplot ends and he reunites with Sonic, helping him and everyone else out during the Secret Final Campaign.
• The Hermit: Knuckles chooses to live in isolation to protect the Master Emerald from anyone wishing to abuse it's power for their own ends. Ironically, he Hates Being Alone.
• Heroic Neutral: Knuckles doesn't get himself involved in the conflict between Sonic and Dr. Eggman due to his dedication with guarding the Master Emerald, but he'll help Sonic and his friends when the situation calls for it.
• Hey, You!: He almost never refers to Rouge by name, always calling her some variation of "bat girl".
• Hidden Depths:
  • He comes off as a serious, tough guy entirely devoted to his duty who dislikes Sonic for his carefree nature. However, the two actually have a mutual respect for each other, and their antagonism eventually evolved into friendly jabbing. In addition, it has been shown that Knuckles secretly resents having to lead such a lonely life, and it's hinted (and confirmed by official profiles) that deep down he envies Sonic's free lifestyle and popularity, adding another layer of depth to their rivalry. Knuckles does eventually reveal this to Sonic himself in Sonic Frontiers in a heart-to-heart moment.
  • Despite what he tells himself, Knuckles is a very lonely person and would love nothing more to spend more time with his friends (including Sonic) and see the world as opposed to spending all of his time on Angel Island and the Master Emerald. He's mostly learned to cope with it however. At Sonic's encouragement, Knuckles plans to take a risk and leave his post to explore the world for once.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: One line of his Sonic Adventure theme song "Unknown From M.E." states that he has "no such thing as weak spots".
• Horrible Judge of Character: Enforced. Either through Ping Pong Naïveté or catching the Conflict Ball, Knuckles has a habit of falling for Eggman's lies (a Running Gag unto itself) or mistrusting and even attacking innocents like Emerl or Blaze.
• Hot-Blooded: Goes hand and hand with his temper, though usually Knuckles is provoked when he goes off.
• Humble Hero:
  • Depending on the Writer, but especially in the Sonic Adventure games and Sonic Heroes. He is also the least arrogant rival of Sonic, while Shadow and Jet are more brash.
  • In Sonic Shuffle, Knuckles describes his own dream as "nothing grand", essentially to just keep doing what he's doing, protecting the Master Emerald. (Ironically, this makes him much like Sonic, who is so content with things that when asked what his dream is, he's a little confused).
• Iconic Sequel Character: He joined the cast in Sonic 3 and continues to be a very recognizable character even if he doesn't have the prominence he once had back in the Classic Era.
• Image Song: "Unknown from M.E." from the Adventure games, and "Blood Flow" from Frontiers. The former also serves as an "I Am" Song.
• Ineffectual Loner: He fits into this category due to being stuck in Angel Island with the given responsibility to guard the Master Emerald all his life. He has gotten used to being alone, but he still admits that he would like to spend more time with people outside.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Subverted. He is jealous of Sonic's freedom and getting the respect that he doesn't, but he's not trying to prove anything.
• Informed Attribute: Ever since Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie cast Knuckles as a treasure hunter, various games and manuals have described him as one—in Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic even calls Knuckles "the world's greatest treasure hunter". At the same time, many of these games and manuals simultaneously indicate Knuckles is bound to the Master Emerald or Angel Island and almost never left his home, raising the question of how he got a reputation as a treasure hunter to start with.
• Informed Flaw:
  • According to official profiles, he dislikes strong sunlight. This only ever gets explicitly brought up twice: once in Sonic Adventure where he winces in the bright sunlight of Station Square, and once in Sonic Heroes where he grumbles about how bright Casino Park is.
  • Knuckles' Ping Pong Naïveté is sometimes taken for granted by the series—some games, like Sonic Advance 2 and the DS version of Sonic Colors, use it as an Excuse Plot to include Knuckles in the game, declaring that Knuckles was tricked without bothering to explain how.
• Informed Ability: A lot of manuals still mention his connection to the Master Emerald despite the fact that neither it, Angel Island, or even Knuckles himself are very relevant to the series nowadays.
• Informed Species: Knuckles looks almost nothing like a real echidna, although he gets a pass on it due to being one of the few major character based on the species in fiction.
• Irony: The opening rap lyric of Unknown from M.E. states "Unlike Sonic, I don't chuckle ". The very first scene shown in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is Knuckles pulling off a sudden ambush on Super Sonic as he knocks all of the 7 Chaos Emeralds right out of him. The very first he does after doing that is to mockingly snicker right in front of Sonic's face, and gets away with it.
• Inspector Javert: His role in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
• Jack of All Stats: Knuckles is nearly always one of these, as in the Sonic Advance Trilogy, Sonic Riders, and Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. In Sonic Battle, however, he's a Mighty Glacier.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For all of the disagreements, beefs and conflicts he has with Sonic, he's always willing to fight by his side.
• The Juggernaut: Super (and Hyper) Knuckles. Anything that Super Sonic can't handle, he can shake off.
• Jumped at the Call: In the Sonic Forces prequel comics, after Silver the Hedgehog warns Knuckles about a premonition from the future that said the world would be brought to ruin, Knuckles decides to step up and lead the charge against the cause of the events.
• The Lancer: Fits the traditional mold a lot better than Tails; literally everything about him is meant to be an opposite to Sonic and the two are presented as equals whenever Knuckles joins on adventures.
• Last of His Kind: While we do see other Echidnas in the series, Knuckles is the only one known to be alive in the modern day. There have been third-party Sonic stories and adaptations that introduced other living Echidna characters, but none of them are considered part of the game canon.
• The Leader: Commands the Resistance in Sonic Forces.
• Leitmotif: In Sonic 3 & Knuckles and for his younger self specifically as a whole, Knuckles has his own theme whenever he shows up.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Falls into this in Forces due to his "Operation Big Wave" plan, which he freely admits to having thought up in a minute and a half. With Metropolis undermanned, Knuckles' plan to take the city amounts to nothing more than going in hard and fast, and just destroying Eggman's army. This bites him in the ass when Eggman sends in Infinite, who uses the Phantom Ruby's power to utterly decimate the Resistance.
• Let's You and Him Fight: How his altercations with Sonic in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic Adventure and Sonic Advance 2 went.
• Lightning Bruiser: He's not quite as fast as Sonic, but Knuckles packs more of a punch. Notably, Sonic Adventure 2 demonstrates that Knuckles must exert himself more to reach comparable speeds.
• Logical Weakness: Adventure 2 shows that he's uncomfortable dealing with ghosts, which makes sense considering that he's a Bare-Fisted Monk and would naturally have trouble dealing with them.
• Loner-Turned-Friend: He starts becoming this after the events of Sonic Adventure 2. He often joins Sonic and Tails in their adventures in battling Eggman and other threats in the world.
• Lovable Rogue: In Sonic 3, due to the fact that he was an pawn of Doctor Eggman, tricked due to his belief in the good of people, and tried his best to protect the Master Emerald.
• MacGuffin Guardian: Downplayed, beyond all odds. Despite a core tenet of Knuckles's character being that he is the guardian of the Master Emerald, he's almost never encountered guarding it. As the Master Emerald is The Artifact, the series very often ignores it and Knuckles is frequently encountered palling around with Sonic without a word about the emerald.
• Magma Man: Some of his moves in Sonic Battle. Also his most commonly used element, seen in the Sonic Advance Trilogy and Sonic Heroes.
• Malicious Misnaming:
  • He can be referred to as "Knucklehead" by Sonic on occasions in regards to him doing something thickheaded.
  • Dr. Eggman has called him this in Sonic Adventure 2 while taking the Master Emerald.
  • In Sonic and the Black Knight, Sonic tells Sir Gawain, Knuckles' Alternate Self, that, "You look just like this knucklehead I know."
• Married to the Job: Downplayed. By rights, Knuckles dwelling as The Hermit on Angel Island should make it difficult for him to interact with the rest of the cast, but his remoteness has never offered a practical obstacle to him spending time with the others. At worst, Knuckles' single-minded dedication to guarding the Master Emerald has caused some friction when his goals diverge from Sonic's. Sonic Frontiers shows him wanting to move past this however and see the world beyond his island, and gets Sonic's encouragement to do just that.
• Mighty Glacier: Compared to the other characters. He's much slower than Sonic, but is also much stronger. Played straighter when competitively balanced.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: The thing is that Knuckles believes in always giving people a new chance, which is why he repetitively trusts the Easily Forgiven Eggman, who always abuses Knuckles's trust and takes advantage of him. Though it gets the group in trouble, Knuckles means well. Some people call him dumb for this, but he's simply easy with forgiving people due to believing in the good of people.
• Mr. Vice Guy: As heroic as Knuckles can be at times, he does suffer about three vices. One, he can be prideful about his echidna heritage. Two, he's envious of Sonic's freedom and carefree nature. And three, he's quick to anger for a lot of things.
• Mysterious Past: Knuckles knows almost nothing of his own origins or heritage. He is the last of the Knuckles Clan, a tribe that was annihilated by Chaos 4,000 years prior to his birth, and he has no idea how he himself came to be. He only knows that he had always lived on Angel Island and that it was his duty to protect the Master Emerald.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: This had gone hand in hand with his gullibility into thinking that Sonic was the bad guy. In his debut, this lead to Eggman to steal Master Emerald, and then in Sonic Adventure, he caused Sonic to fumble two Chaos Emeralds after the two collided with each other (Knuckles thought that the green Emerald was a shard of the Master Emerald), causing Eggman to take them and power up Chaos in his fourth form.
  Sonic: "Way to go, Knucklehead!"
• Nerf: His Wall Crawl ability is only limited to specific surfaces in Sonic Frontiers, whereas before he could scale and climb any surface in previous games.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: You can get Knuckles to go along with a plan he initially disapproves of by either stroking or insulting his pride.
• No-Respect Guy: He's an exceptionally skilled fighter, a cunning Trap Master on his home turf, and possess ancient knowledge not known to many. Yet, everyone treats him like an idiot due to his temper and lack of social tact.
• No Social Skills: Although he's become more laid-back and jovial, Knuckles has lived in isolation for most of his life, which may explain his gullibility and social naivety.
• Not Bad: In Sonic Generations, he says this to Sonic after he and Classic Sonic defeated The Time Eater. Because of this, Knuckles gets pushed into a tree by Amy who states that Sonic was all great.
• Not Quite Flight: His dreadlocks somehow give him the ability to glide for long distances.
• Not So Above It All: He's usually The Stoic, no-nonsense one of the trio, but sometimes he also drops in on the fun. His Friendly Rivalry with Sonic is also rather playful, despite him being more mature than Sonic.
• Out of Focus: Knuckles fell out of the spotlight for quite a few years. His last fully playable appearance (as in not as part of a team or a temporary side character) before Sonic Mania was in Sonic Adventure 2, a gap of sixteen years.
• The Paranoiac: In Sonic Mania Adventures, he's overprotective of the Master Emerald to the point where he thinks Sonic can't be trusted with it. He even sent Ray flying over the horizon just for touching the Emerald.
• Perpetual Frowner: Although some artworks of him show him smiling in games like Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure, other artworks made him to be this later on the series, mostly to convey him as serious or hot-tempered.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: Zigzagged—the franchise often has Knuckles being wrong for trusting Eggman, but whenever he knows enough to mistrust someone, he's still wrong because the person is innocent. The one time Knuckles did anticipate Eggman's trickery, Eggman honestly claimed it was Not Me This Time; he's also attacked people he's never met, like Emerl or Blaze, under the mistaken impression that they were criminals.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: He's one of the physically strongest characters in The 'Verse (if not the strongest), but only stands at a height of three feet, seven inches. In Heroes, he is notably the shortest of the "Power" characters by far.
• Playing with Fire: His most commonly used element, seen in the series and Sonic Heroes.
• Poor Communication Kills: Happened in Sonic Adventure. After Eggman told him that Sonic is after the Master Emerald pieces, he immediately starts a fight with Sonic and Tails instead of directly asking the two about why they were after them, which could have prevented the whole fight in the first place.
• Power Fist: Has these in Sonic Adventure and its sequel.
• Pride: Has quite a bit of pride in his duty in guarding the Master Emerald and his Super-Strength. Attacking his pride is one way to rile him up.
• Protectorate: Within the games, Knuckles is the guardian of Angel Island and the Master Emerald that keeps it floating in the sky. Adaptations and spin-off games usually have Knuckles retain this role, but not always.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Descendant from the "Knuckles Tribe", who were all just as boisterous and fight happy as he is. Though he's been shown to be more noble than his ancestors, disapproving of their warmongering ways.
• Purple Is Powerful: Modern incarnation of him has purple eyes. Also, it fits Knuckles as the Last of His Kind and the skilled guardian of the Master Emerald who knows a lot of secrets of Angel Island and the echidna heritage.
• Real Men Wear Pink: His sprites in Sonic 3 sans the & Knuckles expansion portray him as pinkish red, while playing with the expansion alters his hue towards a more "true red". His Super form in Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Mania, as well as his Hyper form in the former, are magenta. Games which feature both him and Mighty at the same time (Mania, Chaotix) tend to alter his palette back to being slightly more pink than red to make the two characters stand out more from each other.
• Rebel Leader: In Sonic Forces, he forms La Résistance after Dr. Eggman finally conquered the world.
• Red Hot Masculinity: Knuckles has red fur and The Big Guy of Team Sonic, possessing Super-Strength said to be on par with Sonic's speed. He fights opponents by punching them or throwing heavy boulders at them, and has been established to know martial arts. He's also descended from a warrior tribe, and describes himself as "rougher than the rest of them" and "tougher than leather" in his Sonic Adventure Image Song.
• Red Is Heroic: He is a red echidna and is an ally to Sonic and his friends.
• Red Is Violent: He's usually depicted as one of the most short-tempered and aggressive of the heroes, being quick to resort to his fists.
• Red Ones Go Faster: Inverted. Even though he has some degree of Super-Speed, he pales in comparison to Sonic and Shadow.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Zigzagged. Knuckles has played both the Red Oni and the Blue Oni to the same character, Depending on the Writer. In the Sonic Adventure duology and Sonic Heroes, Knuckles was The Stoic Blue Oni to Sonic's energetic, upbeat Red Oni and the Savvy Guy to Rouge's Energetic Girl. In other games, he's the hot-blooded Red Oni to both of them, who are calmer and more collected.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Downplayed. He started as a fairly antagonistic foe towards Sonic in his debut, but gradually developed into a quarrelsome yet trusted ally/friend.
• Riddle for the Ages: Knuckles has no official origin story—while Sonic Adventure explores a cataclysmic event in Echidna history, the event in question happened thousands of years before the present day, leaving the issue of how Knuckles himself came to be the sole and solitary guardian of the Master Emerald completely unexplored.
• The Rival:
  • He initially opposed Sonic due to Eggman's manipulations. Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, the two became allies, but retained a degree of rivalry among them due to their clashing personalities and methods. Over time the two became closer friends, although they still tend to have their disagreements on occasions.
  • He found a new one in Rouge, but its filled to the brim with Foe Romance Subtext due to her crush on him.
  • In the Sonic Riders series, he finds another rival in Storm when competing in Extreme Gear.
• Rivals Team Up: With Sonic.
• Running Gag: He's often tricked by Eggman to fight Sonic. In the DS version of Sonic Colors, he gets tricked by Rouge in a subplot.
• Save the Villain: He saved Rouge from falling back in Sonic Adventure 2, even if she was trying to steal the Master Emerald.
• Screw Destiny: In Sonic Shuffle, he inspirationally tells Void that he won't lose what he protects to him, and that the only reason why dreams don't come true, is because people give up on them.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He did this in Sonic Adventure 2. After the Master Emerald shards are lost during the approach to the ARK, Knuckles leaves Sonic and the others in the space shuttle to find them, with Tails stating that he bailed. After he successfully restores the emerald, he tries to reconnect with the others and finds Sonic, who asks him to look after Tails and Amy.
• Ship Tease: He's gotten this with Rouge in multiple games to varying degrees.
• Shock and Awe: His "Thunder Arrow" Limit Break as a boss and a Battle Mode character in Sonic Adventure 2.
• Shoryuken: Uses this in the Sonic Advance Trilogy as part of his Three-Strike Combo and as an R-Trigger trick.
• Shrinking Violet: Around girls.
• Skewed Priorities: In Sonic Adventure 2 when he, Sonic, Tails, and Amy enter Eggman's pyramid base he prioritize finding Rouge over stopping a possible world ending scheme.
• Sixth Ranger: Started off as an antagonist before becoming an ally and rounding out the trio. Even after Sonic 3 he still only fights with the gang when the situation calls for it.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: His relationship with Rouge often hits this territory.
• So Last Season: The Master Emerald was the single most powerful object in the series when it debuted, being able to depower or empower the Chaos Emeralds and being the prison for Chaos. Naturally this made it a prime target for Dr. Eggman at first. Over time however, the doctor has discovered far greater sources of power to the point where he doesn't even bother with the Master Emerald anymore. What makes it jarring is that the Chaos Emeralds are subjected to New Powers as the Plot Demands and thus have remained relevant sources of power particularly as the means for Sonic to use his Super Mode, despite still being weaker than the Master Emerald even with these new powers. It's somewhat explained in Sonic Frontiers by association with Eggman's audio logs, where he notes he would love to take the Master Emerald while Knuckles is stuck in Cyber Space, but Eggman has the small issue of being stuck in Cyber Space at the time too. The implication is that, following Sonic Adventure 2 and his crack at grabbing the Master Emerald there, Eggman just knows better than to go for the Master Emerald while its ward is nearby, possibly helped by the fact that Knuckles has progressively wisened up to Eggman's attempts to trick him.
• The Spock: While he's not as smart as Tails or fast as Sonic, he's the most serious and task-orientated of the three.
• Status Quo Is God: Knuckles's Aesop Amnesia and Ping Pong Naïveté ensure that he remains Dumb, Gullible, and ready to seize the Conflict Ball over and over again. Seemingly subverted as of Frontiers onwards, where these traits no longer show up.
• Stock Shōnen Rival: He served as this until Shadow's debut a couple years later. Unlike Shadow's reserved efficiency, Knuckles served more as a hot-headed, honor bound warrior to Sonic's laidback and easygoing nature.
• The Stoic: He's not as openly emotional as Sonic or Tails, rather keeping everything to himself, even his background of being the last of his kind. He is also a determined ace.
• Strong and Skilled: He's described as being as strong as Sonic is fast, and is also a trained martial artist. In-game, he can destroy rocks while floating like it was nothing, his fists make him a good frontal attacker without being as vulnerable as Sonic is, and he compensates his low jumping by climbing walls.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Is this for Mighty the Armadillo, who predates his debut by a full year, although they were probably conceptualized around the same time. Both characters are red-colored powerhouses companions for Sonic, although Knuckles started off as an (unwitting) antagonist before joining Sonic's side.
• Super Gullible: Initially his defining characteristic. In 3 & Knuckles, Triple Trouble, Adventure, and Advance 2, Eggman manages to easily trick him into thinking Sonic is evil or causing trouble.
• Super Mode:
  • In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Super Knuckles and Hyper Knuckles. The former also appears in Sonic Mania.
  • Like Tails, Knuckles also has another Super Mode in Sonic Heroes. For the same reasons listed under Tails' section, there's quite a bit of confusion as to whether or not it's Super Knuckles.
• Superpower Lottery: In most of the games he's been in, he has quite a bit of control over the elements.
• Super-Strength: In spades.
• Supporting Leader: Becomes the Captain of the resistance in Sonic Forces in Sonic and Tails's absence.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Initially with Sonic. The second verse of his theme "Unknown From M.E." shows his vehement view on working with him.
  Don't approve of him, but gotta trust him
  This alliance has a purpose
  This partnership is only temporary
  • Also, when Sonic and Knuckles are selected as a team in Sonic Advance 3, both of their expressions are rather uncomfortable and disdainful. "Fighting Buddies" indeed.
  • Him and Rouge became this in Sonic Rivals 2. This is justified because Knuckles can't trust Rouge to help him retrieve the Master Emerald from Dr. Eggman.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: After Sonic Adventure 2, Knuckles' naivety and gullibility became increasingly exaggerated, to the point of some games making it his whole character. Fortunately, the games have begun to reverse this aspect of him, starting with Frontiers and continuing with The Murder Of Sonic The Hedgehog, where his level intelligence seems to be back on the level of his Adventure 2 days.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In most games, Knuckles is hot-headed, and not very expressive, but maintains a friendly attitude, otherwise. However, in Sonic Battle and in the Sonic Rivals series, he's pretty nasty compared to his usual self.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Back in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, he acted as sort of a troll, who pulled lots of pranks on Sonic and Tails to impede their progress, until he found out that he was being manipulated by Eggman. After joining them, Knuckles maintains a more friendly relationship with them, though he's still a bit short-tempered and usually prefers to be by himself.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Frontiers Knuckles can potentially unlock the ability to glide indefinitely without gradually descending to the ground.
• Tough Spikes and Studs: Knuckles lives up to his name by being a tough, no-nonsense brawler. He wears a pair of spiky, white boxing gloves which help with digging and wall climbing. Additionally, each of his shoes has a studded metal plate (think of a 2x4 Lego plate) on top.
• Trademark Favorite Food: The Sonic 3 manual and other material mention he likes fruits, especially grapes. This is referenced in Sonic Generations, where he stands under a grape tree near Sky Sanctuary in the hub world.
• Trap Master:
  • Knuckles is first introduced in Sonic 3 & Knuckles by ambushing Sonic and punching the Super out of him.
  • In the same game and Sonic Triple Trouble both, Knuckles is knowledgeable and capable of operating various traps around the region—according to Triple Trouble, the traps require some art or finesse to use correctly, since Fang tries to use one and only manages to set himself on fire.
  • In Sonic Battle, each character has a Land Mine trap of some kind, but Knuckles' mole-bombs have the rare distinction of being able to hide by burrowing in the ground.
• Treasure Hunt Episode: In the Adventure series, Knuckles' gameplay revolves around finding the scattered pieces of the Master Emerald hidden throughout each level.
• Tsundere: A rare male example, but he still has this quality in most incarnations.
• Tsurime Eyes: They represent his more aggressive and tougher disposition compared to Sonic and Tails.
• Tunnel King:
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, Knuckles can smash his way through obstacles and take underground paths that that neither Sonic or Tails can get through on their own.
  • Obtaining the Shovel Claw in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 allows Knuckles to dive and burrow quickly for hidden items and treasure.
  • In Sonic Generations, the "Knuckles: Buried Treasure" minigame features Knuckles digging in the ground to hunt for medals.
• Undying Loyalty: To his friends and the Master Emerald.
• Unknown Rival: After Sonic Colors, tt seemed to be something of a running gag in the current games where Knuckles will try to say something to one up Sonic, only to be ignored by him and put into some demeaning situation.
• Unwitting Pawn: Eggman has used him as this no less than three separate times across the franchise, and that's not even getting into the other continuities.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Sonic. They disagree upon how to do many things on a personal level or a practical one, and they tend to butt heads when their opinions differ, but they're shown to both care about each other and have a level of respect for one another.
• Vocal Evolution:
  • Scott Dreier's take on Knuckles in Sonic Adventure 2 was rather soft-spoken and low-key, with most of the energy coming from the character's sheer exasperation. His performance in Sonic Battle and Sonic Heroes is more aggressive and energetic.
  • Travis Willingham’s stint as Knuckles started as a near-identical impression of Dan Green’s take, but it became deeper and smoother in Sonic Forces, almost like a lighter Roy Mustang.
  • Dave B. Mitchell's Knuckles started out as pretty similar to Travis Willingham's take in Team Sonic Racing, but became deeper and more serious and mature in Sonic Frontiers, sounding almost like Idris Elba's Knuckles voice, just not as deep and lacking the accent.
• Wall Crawl: Using the spikes on his gloves as anchors, he can climb walls.
• Warm-Up Boss: In Sonic the Fighters, he's the first opponent of the game, and basically the game's equivalent of Glass Joe. It is very easy to get Perfect rounds against him, and it is entirely possible, even on the hardest difficulty, to take him down before he even has the chance to attack you.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: His one fear, addressed almost exclusively in Sonic Adventure 2, is ghosts. The BGM for Pumpkin Hill, "A Ghost's Pumpkin Soup," has Knuckles proclaiming that he fears nothing, going as far as to proclaim that the ghosts are afraid of him, but he is seen to be visibly afraid when facing King Boom Boo (unused audio also had Knuckles exasperatedly shriek upon seeing the giant apparition). By Heroes, however, he seems to have overcome this, instead teasing Tails on his fear of ghosts in both Hang Castle and Mystic Mansion. No doubt he stopped being afraid of ghosts after fighting King Boom Boo and winning.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: According to his profile in Sonic Generations, the reason for his gullibility is his belief in the goodness of others.
• Wise Beyond His Years: Is confirmed to be 16 years old, and has a few quotes of wisdom. One of them being this from Sonic Shuffle:
  Knuckles: "Dreams don't betray us. When we lose ourselves, that's when we lose our dreams. It's not that dreams don't come true. We just give up on them."
• With Friends Like These...: With Sonic in the earlier games, although later on, their teasing and arguing downsized.
• The Worf Effect:
  • His constant manipulation at the hands of Dr. Eggman are generally meant to show off how much of a Manipulative Bastard the latter is.
  • Also suffered this from Blaze in her debut in Sonic Rush, with the feline easily tossing him aside.
  • In his first appearance, this worked out in his favor — he gave Sonic a Dynamic Entry that knocked him right out of his Super Mode.
• Would Hit a Girl: Discussed. Rouge chastises him for fighting "a lady" for the pieces of the Master Emerald back in Sonic Adventure 2. Knuckles dismisses her claims to be a "lady" on the grounds that she's trying to steal his gems, but he apologizes afterwards for hurting her.
• You Have Researched Breathing: The player needs to unlock a basic three-hit punch combo for him in Sonic Frontiers. Notably, it costs more to unlock than the Homing Attack.

Amy Rose

Amy Rose

Debut: Sonic the Hedgehog (Manga)
Debut in-series: Sonic the Hedgehog CD
Voiced by: Taeko Kawata (Japanese, 1998, 2001-present), Emi Motoi (Japanese, 2000); Lynn Harris (English, 1993), Jennifer Douillard (English, 1999-2004), Lisa Ortiz (English, 2005-2010), Cindy Robinson (English, 2010-present)^{Additional VAs}Naïké Fauveau (French, 2011-present), Serena Clerici (Italian, 2011-present)

^{Click here to see Amy's Classic Era design.}

"I know that people fight over the most trivial things. Some people may be selfish, like the professor said... but they're basically good, if they try their best and never give up on their wishes. They always have a reason to be happy — that's why you should help them out."

An energetic pink hedgehog. An early version of her appeared in the 1992-1994 manga series; she then went on to be rescued by Sonic in Sonic CD. Initially she was a fan of Sonic's who she desperately wanted to meet, but their meeting was soon cut short with the arrival of Dr. Eggman and his new creation, Metal Sonic. Metal kidnapped Amy and Sonic had to save her and stop Eggman's plan of using Little Planet to mess with the timeline. After Eggman's defeat, Amy fell completely in love with Sonic and has made numerous attempts to start a relationship with him (even marry him, becoming his wife), often getting mixed up in his adventures as a result, much to his chagrin.

Amy has a very sweet and understanding personality. She always tries her best to understand and see the best in people and help them in any way she can and is very protective of her friends. Underneath her sweetness lies quite the temper however, something that even Sonic isn't immune to being on the receiving end of.

---

• Action Girl: Starts turning into one in Sonic Adventure, and fully blossoms into one by Sonic Advance. She’s also been somewhat retconned into one in Sonic Origins Plus, which adapts the first four games. While her playable state isn't canon, it would serve as the basis for her inclusion and implementation in Sonic Superstars, which takes place during the Classic Era.
• Adaptational Badass: Her younger self can go Super, an ability she has never displayed in the Modern Era.
• Aerith and Bob: While the other Sonic characters have names like Cream, Espio, Knuckles, Rouge, etc, her two names "Amy" and "Rose" are very common names for girls.
• All-Loving Hero: Best demonstrated in the Adventure games. Her kindness and purity resonates upon all who meet her, with her genuine belief in and love for all the people on Earth has redeemed villains E-102 Gamma and Shadow, showing them that there is goodness within them as well as others. Likewise her beliefs that no life is worth being sacrificed has Silver questioning his motivations, and just might have saved the world had Mephiles not interfered. This is further explored while deconstructing her Status Quo Is God standard in Sonic Frontiers as it makes it clear that Amy wants to spread that love to the rest of the world, but she's always clinging to Sonic. Helping reunite two Kocos who were an item in a past life convinces Amy to step away from Sonic and show the world that love, even suggesting on recruiting Cream and Sticks to join her on a road trip.
• All There in the Manual: Character profiles give her full name as "Amy Rose the Hedgehog".
• Always Save the Girl: As proven in Sonic '06, she tells Silver that she would rather choose Sonic over the world.
• Art Evolution: As you can see above, Amy used to look like a pink-colored Sonic dressed as a schoolgirl. Her redesign is the most justified as her redesign seems to give the impression of her aging, and as any growing-up girl, she wants to experiment with new looks.
• The Artifact: Amy's name stands out amongst a cast where most other Funny Animals are have names based on some personal attribute like "Sonic", "Knuckles", "Big", and "Silver". This is because her name originates from a manga where everyone had "normal" names like "Nicky" and "Brenda". Amy's name (which was sometimes "Eimy") was kept the same even though it doesn't match the rest of the game's cast. For a while she was given the more 'Aerith' nickname of "Rosy the Rascal", but that was dropped after the Saturn era.
• Ascended Extra: The biggest example in the franchise. She originated in a line of manga to tie in to the first game's release, but would've been forgotten if not for Sega of Japan liking her design and needing a character for Sonic to rescue. Even then, Amy was a very minor character in the classic Sonic era, with her only major role being in Sonic CD (and even that role was a small Damsel in Distress role)—otherwise she made no appearances in the main series games, and only made occasional bit player appearances in spinoffs, mainly Sonic R and the Drift games. It was Sonic Adventure that upgraded her into a major series character, coinciding with her second redesign and personality overhaul.
• Ascended Fangirl: Started off as a Fangirl with a Precocious Crush, but has since become one of Sonic's closest friends.
• Ass Kicks You: First in Sonic the Fighters, and then in Sonic Battle.
• Badass Adorable: Her "Adorable" qualities are sometimes less emphasized, but at her core Amy is a relentlessly sweet and cheerful hedgehog with a very cute design.
• Badass Boast: "You want a fight? You've got one! Let's get that bloated buffoon!"
• Badass Normal: Compared to other characters. Sonic is fast, Tails can fly, Knuckles is strong, Blaze has pyrokinesis... and Amy has a hammer. She sometimes has super speed, but never to the same extent as even characters like Knuckles. Amy is also the only hedgehog in the series to lack a Super Mode (until Sonic Origins Plus finally gave her one). Despite this, she manages to keep up with the rest quite well through her own willpower.
• Badass Pacifist: While she has no reservations regarding violence, she has managed to convince two characters^note Gamma in Sonic Adventure and Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2 to perform a Heel–Face Turn with the power of her words. She also managed to stop Silver dead in his tracks with nothing but a glare when he tried to kill Sonic in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
• Berserk Button:
  • Don't hurt her friends, most especially Sonic. See Mama Bear for more info.
  • Don't suggest that Sonic doesn't return her feelings... yet.
  • Sonic refusing to get romantically involved with her is a surefire way to anger her. Also, Sonic missing out on a date, even if it was beyond his power.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She may be sweet and gentle, but it isn't wise to underestimate her. She can also be very unpleasant if you provoke her, although this aspect would be taken this too far often at times especially in later games. Not even Sonic is safe from her.
• Blow You Away: Several attacks in several games show her to have tornado based hammer swings.
• Bootstrapped Leitmotif: Both Sonic Mania Adventures and the newly created cut-scenes for Sonic Origins make use of a cheery, gentle arrangement of Collision Chaos from Sonic CD as a theme for her younger self.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Was less like this in her first several appearances, but grew into a straighter example in the series over time. Most media after Generations however have been downplaying this once more in favor of her sweeter side.
• Breakout Character: Amy has only grow in prominence ever since her first appearance as an unassuming Love Interest from a tie-in manga, being currently the series' leading and most recognizable female character. It's to the point Team Sonic nowadays tends to include her as well, something this very page acknowledges by having her profile alongside those of the main trio.
• Break the Cutie: When Sonic is presumed to be dead in Adventure 2 and '06, she does not take this well and can only cry in despair.
• Canon Immigrant: She debuted in a manga featured in the April 1992 issue of Shogaku Ninensei (Second Grade), technically making her Sonic's oldest recurring companion—though she originally lacked a surname, had brown or blonde fur, and she and Sonic (specifically his Secret Identity) were a definite Official Couple.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • She started off as basically Sonic's answer to Princess Peach, then Sonic Adventure gave her a much more outgoing personality, and a temper to match.
  • Ever since Sonic Boom, to likely address the complaints of her Flanderization, Amy's feelings for Sonic have been severely dialed back, albeit not entirely removed, with more focus being put on her motherly and All-Loving Hero aspects.
  • Sonic Origins Plus and Sonic Superstars have her be just as capable as Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and the former even flat out refuses to team Amy and Sonic together.
  • Though usually defined by her attraction to Sonic initially, Amy was also defined for being incredibly violent and prone to seething bursts of anger, both with justified provocation (Zero harming a creature she was trying to help) and with less than justified provocation (Cream, her closest friend, either gently teasing her affections or raising concerns about her rather brutal training methods). Around Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), she began to mellow out significantly, though she still had moments of rash anger. By Sonic Lost World, she'd tempered her rage to be against actual cruelty in the world and began exhibiting a calmer, more mature personality that signified her maturation into a quietly determined individual willing to do the right thing and stand up against injustice without flying off the handle.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Exaggerated For Laughs during the Turn of the Millennium, where Amy's romantic aspirations for Sonic were ramped up to their highest level. In Sonic Battle, Amy is motivated purely by Mad Love for Sonic, which powers all of her attacks and causes her to hallucinate his assistance in battle, while in Sonic Rush she jumps to murderous rage the instant she hears Sonic is interested in finding a certain cat girl. She also gets very angry when Rouge flirts with Sonic in front of her in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood This aspect has mostly faded with time however.
• Conjoined Eyes: Like other hedgehog characters, her eyes are sort of right next to each other.
• Continuity Cameo: Makes a brief appearance in Sonic Mania, in the form of the Amy Doll.
• Continuity Snarl: Amy's age has never been handled very carefully, as she gets 4 years older in-between the Classic and Modern periods, yet Sonic and his other friends were never really confirmed to have gone through the same (Generations does imply Classic Sonic is younger, but it never specifies an age to him). A brief flashback in the first Adventure makes things murkier as Amy has her modern design there despite it taking place around the time of Sonic CD.
• Cool Big Sis: A surrogate one to Cream and Tails to a certain degree.
• Cute and Psycho: At her worst, her temper and obsession with Sonic reached near manic levels at times.
• Cute Bruiser: She may be cute, but she knows how to use that hammer of hers.
• Damsel in Distress: How she made her debut into the series, also tends to play it from time to time afterward as well. Fortunately, she's taken enough levels in badassery to rescue herself most of the time, to the point that Sonic Origins Plus has her able to save the day without Sonic even being present!
• Death Dealer: Her fortune cards from CD became a prominent part of her arsenal in Frontiers, where she can attack with not just her hammer. She can even drive with them too!
• Death Glare: There's this◊ horrifying face seen in Sonic Rush, which is used exactly once in the game (when she demands to know who Blaze is and why Sonic seems so interested in her).
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Her relationship with Sonic is intented to be a subversion of Minnie & Mickey or other classic cartoon couples. Here the romance ends up being mostly one sided on Amy's part because Sonic is too free spirited to be her "Mickey."
• Demoted to Extra: She's still one of the all around important characters of the cast, but barring Sonic Boom, she hasn't been playable in a mainline Sonic platforming game since the Adventure era. It took 16 years for her to become playable again in Sonic Origins Plus.
• Depending on the Writer: As noted in Characterization Marches On, while her general traits of being an All-Loving Hero and The Heart remain semi-consistent, her anger issues, combat prowess, and her feelings for Sonic tend to be rather inconsistent depending on the medium she's in.
• Determinator: No matter what happens, she is not going to give up on Sonic. It also bears repeating that Amy isn't naturally superpowered like most of the cast - Sonic Battle implies she gained super speed simply from spending so much time chasing Sonic and emphasises that Amy performs training techniques like boxercising (to get in shape and impress Sonic, of all things), and she of course is one of the few animals in the series to fight almost entirely with a weapon. Basically, her sheer determination both to be with and be like Sonic is the main reason Amy is even able to fight at all, and yet she's able to go toe to toe with the others and defeat Eggman all the same. That's seriously impressive. In Sonic Frontiers, Eggman even identifies Amy's determination as one of her standout traits, noting of her just how tenacious she is.
• Distaff Counterpart: Her classic design was essentially a pink Sonic recolor with Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (in fact, it is said she was deliberately meant to be Sonic's equivalent to Minnie Mouse). Her modern design averts this by making her more distinct in appearance.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: With the newer classic depictions the character in games like Origins Plus, Superstars, and the IDW comics, comes the characterization of Amy having a surprising amount of strength that allows her to use her Piko-Piko Hammer. Her character bio for Superstars plainly states that she is learning to use it and that she is more prone to putting herself in danger than Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. This extends somewhat to her Super-Speed, as seen through her less controlled and deliberate running animations.
• Double Jump: Amy has been frequently given the ability to jump twice in the air without power-ups, such as in Sonic '06, Sonic Superstars, and Sonic Frontiers.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The original manual for Sonic CD has a real whopper, because it gave Amy the name of a character from an entirely different Sonic series altogether; In a very odd attempt to tie-in the game to the more serious DiC Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon that was running around the time CD was initially released, Amy is inexplicably referred to as Princess Sally in the North American Sega CD manual, even though Sally has never appeared in the games ^note Sans a blink and you'll miss it Early-Bird Cameo in the Sonic Spinball bonus stages and Amy looks and acts absolutely nothing like her. The PC manual corrected this mistake by referring to her as Amy.
  • Looking back at her first appearance, she's almost unrecognizable, sharing Sonic's quills, having a green and brown outfit with very little pink, not displaying anger at her capture by Eggman, and of course lacking her iconic hammer (which was called a "Magical Hammer" in Sonic the Fighters instead of a "Piko Piko Hammer"). Her manga appearances have her as a straight damsel.
• Egocentric Team Naming: Not In-Universe, but the teams she leads always go by "Team Rose."
• Enemy-Detecting Radar: Inverted: in her case, it's a Sonic-Detecting Radar. When Amy shows up as a character, she is very good at finding Sonic even if its by complete coincidence.
• Era-Specific Personality:
  • In the Classic Era, Amy was Sonic's Damsel in Distress, mostly notable for throwing herself at Sonic in delight when he rescued her, and she was a Fighting Clown and/or a Lethal Joke Character in her spin-off appearances.
  • In the Dreamcast Era, she became The Heart and an Action Girl.
  • After the Dreamcast Era, however, she was Flanderized into a Hot-Blooded and very Clingy Jealous Girl. This began to be dialed back with Sonic Lost World.
• Fangirl: Of Sonic obviously, and later on, she's very obsessed with him.
• Fanservice Pack: Her Adventure era redesign counts since it made her less of a Minnie Mouse clone and more of a stylish teen girl with gratuitous Panty Shots. Adventure 2 also made her bustier (likely due to Rouge's influence), although that didn't stick around for subsequent releases.
• Fatal Flaw: Her one-track obsession with Sonic has sometimes led her to get in danger's way. Some media also portray her as rather headstrong and prone to cause issues with her short temper.
• Fighting Clown: This was a constant of Amy in multiplayer games of the Classic Era:
  • In Sonic Drift, while she is the easy mode character, as her car is the slowest but controls the best, her special move is the silliest. Unlike Sonic's Dash, Metal's Super Dash or Eggman's Mines, Amy has the Heart Attack... a magic kiss which disrupts her opponents' controls and slow them down.
  • Sonic the Fighters is the first game where Amy uses her Piko Piko Hammer (then designed as its real life counterpart) as her weapon of choice. She can also make horse kicks and ass kicks, and she can distract her enemies simply by pointing the finger.
• Flanderization:
  • Her crush on Sonic has gone from a funny little quirk, to the entire basis of her personality, though later games in the mid-2010s and early-2020s have since backed off on this.
  • Amy's fortune cards were originally a minor footnote of her character, being mentioned as the reason she encountered Sonic in CD and then being forgotten afterwards (aside from Chronicles, which featured them in one of her attacks). In the 2020s, however, they became a more prominent part of her character. She was seen using them in the CD cutscenes for Sonic Origins, and then they were used as the main focus of her moveset (to the point of displacing her hammer) in her playable appearance in Sonic Frontiers.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine.
• Friend to All Living Things: Will befriend innocent animals, rivals, enemies if they're willing to listen, and especially robots. If Amy thinks she can make friends, she'll gladly try to do so.
• Genki Girl: Amy's very energetic and cheerful. There are times when even Sonic seems worn out by her.
• Girly Bruiser: She's an adorable pink hedgehog in a cute red dress who's ladylike and has a rather childish crush on The Hero and also carries a hammer that makes cute little tapping noises when it hits, creating bubbles of heart-shaped magic in some incarnations. Said hammer, when wielded by Amy, has always been wielded like nobody's business, and has also repeatedly reduced gigantic, deadly battle robots to scrap metal.
• Girly Run: How she tends to move around. At full speed though, she changes to the usual Airplane Arms.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Amy's default outfit is quite stylish and girly, her fur is entirely pink, she loves cute things, fashion, shopping, cooking and sweets, is very romantic and is in the roles of Team Mom and The Heart, but she's also a formidable fighter and is very able to use her hammer, plus Amy's a Tsundere with a Hair-Trigger Temper that's feared by all (even the normally fearless Sonic).
• The Glomp: Since Sonic CD, it's a Running Gag for her to attempt to glomp Sonic, only to end up clinging to another character altogether. She gets it right in Sonic Unleashed, only to believe otherwise due to the Werehog form.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: In Sonic Battle she's taken up boxercising to lose weight, so one of her attacks is punching opponents.
• Go Through Me: Stood up to Sonic before he finishes Gamma (or before Tails does, or before Gamma defeats Sonic depending on who you're playing as) in Sonic Adventure and later in the infamous Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), when Silver tries to issue Sonic a killing blow, Amy jumps right in front of him.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: At least since Taking A Level In Jerkass. She's prone to hit people with her hammer with little provocation, mostly Sonic. Later games show her having grown out of it, and she’s become much more mellow.
• Hammerspace: A rather literal example too, where she can pull out her Piko Piko Hammer seemingly out of thin air.
• The Heart:
  • In the Sonic Adventure duology, personal encounters with Amy play a key and immediate role in the Heel–Face Turn of E-102 Gamma and Shadow the Hedgehog each. This facet of her character vanished for a while so she could play a Clingy Jealous Girl for the early Turn of the Millennium, like in Sonic Battle, where the Heart role was instead given to Cream, instead—Cream also retained the part for Sonic Rush by befriending Blaze and helping her to open up.
  • Downplayed in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), where she immediately becomes Silver's first friend and guide once he arrives in the present, and her immediate protection of Sonic when she finds out Silver is after him provoke the first serious doubts about his mission. She also, after helping Elise to escape, has a conversation with the princess encouraging her to pursue the one she loves.
  • The Christmas Episode postscript of Sonic Mania Adventures reads this trait back into Classic era Amy, featuring her discovering an abandoned Metal Sonic and caring for him as she returns him to his master, Dr. Eggman.
  • This part really gets put into focus in Sonic Frontiers where she's determined to reunite a local Koco with its long-lost love. She and Sonic eventually succeed bringing the two Koco together and they finally pass on to the afterlife in peace. This affected Amy so much that she decides that she wants to spread that type of love across the planet, even if it means spending some time away from Sonic, her beloved.
• Heart Beat-Down: Has had a few heart-themed attacks since Sonic Adventure 2.
• Hollywood Pudgy: In Sonic Battle, Amy tries to get Sonic’s interest by taking up boxing to lose weight, despite the fact that she looks no less skinny in the games that come before Battle.
• Hopeless Suitor: Amy loves Sonic, but Sonic is turned off by her aggressive advances and clinginess. At the very least, Sonic considers her a good friend.
• Hostage for MacGuffin: In Sonic Adventure 2, she served as this for Eggman in exchange for a Chaos Emerald. As well as to lure Sonic into a deathtrap. Good thing he figured out how to use Chaos Control, or he would've been space dust.
• Humongous-Headed Hammer: Her Piko-Piko Hammer. Practically every incarnation of Amy has one hammer which is bigger than her entire body and whose head at least twice as big as her head.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Doing Boxercise to lose weight in Battle allows her to use boxing-related moves (which include her strapping on actual boxing gloves on top of her regular gloves).
• Image Song: "My Sweet Passion" from the Adventure games, "Maybe If..." from Frontiers, and while it functions as the Team's overall theme, "Follow Me" from Heroes is more about Amy than her teammates.
• Improbable Weapon User: Despite its portrayal as a deadly weapon, the Piko Piko Hammer is based on an iconic Japanese noisemaker of the same name, and "piko piko" is an onomatopoeia for the squeaking sound the toy makes when someone is hit with it. Yes; Amy's weapon of choice is, in fact, a novelty item.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Despite her occasionally brash and hot-tempered nature, she always sees the best in people and never gives up. It's her optimism that gets Shadow to make a Heel–Face Turn and remember Maria's promise.
• Inexplicably Awesome: Downplayed in Sonic Adventure 2, where Amy somehow makes it all the way to Prison Island on her own in an attempt to bust Sonic out by herself. She further manages to obtain the key card to Sonic's prison cell while Tails is running interference raiding the military base.
• Informed Ability: It's stated quite a few times that she has chased Sonic around so much that she became fast enough to actually keep up with him. However, she's only shown keeping up with Sonic when she's using a vehicle and/or Sonic isn't running at his top speed (or at least it's not made clear that he's running at his top speed). She actually runs pretty slowly in some of her playable appearances.
  • An alternative explanation is that Amy has met the minimum speed Sonic will tolerate from someone following him, much like Tails.
  • In Sonic Dream Team, she can pull off the same Light Speed Dash maneuver that Sonic and Shadow can do with a trail of rings naturally, meaning there is some merit to her speed, or at least she can dream of it since the game takes place in a dreamscape.
• Informed Species: After Adventure redesigned her to look different from Sonic, it's rather difficult to tell she's meant to be a hedgehog by looking at her, rather than, say, a cat. She rarely demonstrates the signature hedgehog abilities like curling into a ball, her nose is small and flat rather than elongated, and her quills barely read as quills, with none on her back and the ones on her head looking more like a bobcut.
• The Ingenue: During her debut in Sonic CD, Amy filled the role of the innocent damsel in distress. This role has since been passed to Cream.
• Intergenerational Friendship: She's twice Cream's age, but they are shown to be close friends, almost akin to Sonic and Tails.
• Invisibility: In Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), she suddenly has the ability to turn herself invisible, with no concretely explained reason why she can.
• It's All About Me: Amy can be very self-absorbed when it comes to her "self-proclaimed" relationship with Sonic and once tried to force him into marriage against his will. In Sonic Free Riders, when her team lost in a race against Team Heroes, she retaliates by forcing Sonic to take her out for a date for beating her, Cream and Vector. Of course like, many of things pertaining to Amy, its Depending on the Writer.
• Jack of All Stats: Though this varies from game-to-game, she's in between Sonic and Knuckles in terms of speed and strength (thanks to her Piko Piko Hammer). She's even labeled as a Balanced Character in Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": She's become a bit of a heroine in her own right, but she's still crazy for Sonic.
• Large Ham: If it's not Sonic or Eggman, she's likely the one doing the shouting. While she's fully capable of speaking quietly, even gently at times, more often than not she's the loudest in a conversation.
• The Leader: When Team Rose is assembled, she's going to be the leader.
• Lethal Joke Character: Amy generally has a rather unique moveset from other characters in many titles, making her harder to master, but with special abilities that can be exploited effectively. Her platforming roles such as the Sonic Advance Trilogy, as well as many spin-off titles like Sonic R or her PvP role in Sonic Adventure 2 are good examples.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The Light to Rouge the Bat's Dark Feminine.
• Little Miss Badass: She's a young woman, but no less capable of busting up Eggman's Badniks like the rest of the heroes.
• Lookalike Lovers: Comparing her and Sonic when they were younger, they have the same quill style. However, this was subverted intentionally by SEGA who ported Amy to the games to chase Sonic indefinitely. Her Modern Era design doesn't share a lot of similarities to Sonic either after Adventure. Alongside that, in-universe, Sonic has never officially admitted being interested in her. However...
• Loony Fan: As a result of Flanderization, though this has gotten better as of late, depending on the game.
• Love at First Sight: She fell instantly in love with Sonic; in Palmtree Panic Zone 1 (Present) and/or Stardust Speedway Zone 3, she'll immediately run to hug him upon sight.
• Love Makes You Crazy: She's very...aggressive about her feelings for Sonic, especially if she feels like another girl is making moves on him.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Not really dumb, but her love for Sonic can sometimes make her a bit sidetracked, considering the fact she mistakes other hedgehogs (and a Werehog) for him, although for the Werehog, she isn't aware that it really is Sonic until he saves her from a group of Dark Gaia's spawn later on, and is embarrassed to think it's happened again.
• Magic Skirt: Usually follows this despite her skirt belling out like it does. As a general rule, Amy has this except in games where she's playable. Some games seem to go out of their way to show her panties, though, particularly in Sonic Heroes, where Amy's underwear is literally the first thing you see in the Team Sonic vs. Team Rose cutscene.
• Mama Bear: Amy is known to be quite defensive of her friends:
  • In Sonic '06, she blocks Silver from trying to kill Sonic and while not trying to fight him, she chews him out on it.
  • This is present in Sonic Battle as well, where she develops a very maternal bond with Emerl and refers to him as her and Sonic's "child".
  • In Sonic Adventure, she bravely refused to give Birdie to Gamma despite the latter's demands, which then caused Gamma to have a change of heart and release her from her cell inside the Egg Carrier. Then later on the game, she stood up to Sonic (or Tails if you play his storyline), pleading him not to hurt Gamma, causing Sonic to relent, which means she will stand up to her friends to protect others.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Definitely. Amy Rose has a crush on Sonic the Hedgehog because she sees him as this, even though it's usually not reciprocated. In the beginning of her Sonic Adventure story, she complains about how boring her life is without him. Then when she in danger of being captured by Dr. Eggman's robot, she gets easily distracted by an offer at Twinkle Park ("cute couples get in for free!") And runs off.
  Sonic: I give up. She's so weird!
• Maybe Ever After: Temporarily. In the HD version of Sonic Unleashed, Amy asks Sonic out on a date, which the player can either accept or decline. At the end of Sonic and the Black Knight, it's revealed that Sonic had a date with Amy, but missed it because of his adventure. Amy thinks it's just an excuse for him forgetting about their date, and promptly chases him with her hammer. And in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), if you have Sonic choose Amy over Elise during the Test of Love trial, the game will flat-out call her his "long-time love".
• Meaningful Name:
  • Amy is one letter away from "ami", which means "friend" in French (though the word is pronounced differently). Rose is also French for "pink", and is also a symbol of love.
  • Her name sounds similar to "amorous", befitting her affections toward Sonic.
• Mistaken for Object of Affection: Apparently Love Makes You Dumb enough to mistake other hedgehogs for Sonic, most notably Silver in Sonic '06.
• Morality Pet: She’s shown to be this for E-102 Gamma and Shadow the Hedgehog with both of them performing a Heel–Face Turn after she convinces them to. The former ends up turning on Eggman and sacrifices himself to free Birdy’s family and the latter saves the Earth and continues to protect the planet because of her; while they don’t interact a lot, she is one of the few people he doesn't act like a jerk towards to, most likely because she reminds him of Maria, a girl who he saw as a sister.
• Moveset Clone:
  • In the classic games, her hammer dash ability plays out almost similarly to Sonic's drop dash, with the main difference is that she trades Sonic's momentum based speed burst with extending hitbox during the charging sequence and fixed speed burst as well swinging her hammer around when dashing forward. Sonic Superstars gives her more distinction by incorporating a Double Jump ability.
  • In her playable appearance as a character in the Battle mode of Sonic Adventure 2, she has the same abilities as Sonic and Shadow, minus the Light Speed Dash. In exchange, she can utilize the same multiplayer exclusive abilities that the other two have, with the conditions to activate them being lowered.
  • Sonic Dream Team gives her a more straight example, where both she and Sonic play exactly like each other, sharing the same speed and unique ability to do the Light Speed Dash to reach a location by using a trail of rings.
• Ms. Vice Girl: Some installments depict her as a genuinely caring, kind-hearted and friendly girl who just happens to have a huge temper and an over-the-top obsession with Sonic.
• Never Bare Headed: She's never seen without her red hairband.
• Nice Girl: Despite her bad temper and often unhealthy obsession with Sonic (which frequently go hand-in-hand with each other), Amy is consistently characterized as being very sweet-natured, kind, and helpful. Games starting with Sonic Lost World severely downplay the more negative aspects of her personality and portray her as a sweetheart who, as she states in Sonic Frontiers, wants to spread her love across the world.
• Nightmare Face: Played for Laughs. Trio of Trouble short shows Amy displaying a terrifying face when she's about to crush Fang with her hammer. Fortunately for him, it was only a nightmare.
• No Sense of Personal Space: She frequently gets too close when it comes to Sonic.
• No Sympathy: At the end of Sonic and the Black Knight, she dismisses Sonic's reason for missing out on their date because he was sent to Arthurian times, and angrily chases him with her hammer.
• Not Good with Rejection: She doesn't take it well when Sonic doesn't reciprocate her advances and is willing to pull out her hammer on him. As of Sonic Lost World, she's back to normal.
• Odd Name Out: She's the only character so far with a conventional 'human' name, barring Tails' Punny Name. Formerly nicknamed Rosy the Rascal, which fits the naming scheme, but not her character.
• Out-of-Character Moment: This line from Sonic Shuffle:
  Amy: Forget about Sonic! Just look at my clothes!
• Out of Focus: She used to count back during the Classic Era. She was treated as a major character along with the rest, but was notably absent from Sonic Mania^note Outside of a cameo in a later boss fight and recent updated re-releases of the pre-Modern titles, whereas both Tails and Knuckles have been made playable in those games. Subverted later as she would finally be made playable in Sonic Origins Plus, and be one of the main heroes in Sonic Superstars.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: She's a quick-thinking Badass Normal who's decent in a fight, quite fast, good with machines, and wields a giant hammer. But she tends to hang out with some of the strongest (Knuckles), fastest (Sonic, Shadow), and most intelligent (Tails) beings on the planet, so this happens to her a lot. However, it doesn’t make her useless and she’s shown to be capable in her own right as Eggman has taken notice in Sonic Frontiers. While she isn’t as strong, fast, or smart as Knuckles, Sonic, and Tails respectively, she makes up for it with her strong willpower and tenacity, which makes her able to keep up with them.
• Parental Substitute: To Emerl in Sonic Battle.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: With Sonic, literally and figuratively.
• Pink Means Feminine: The primary example in the series.
• Plucky Girl: Doesn't matter what she faces, she'll never stop believing in her friends.
• The Power Of Potential: The few times Eggman brings her up in more contemporary works typically has him muse on her potential and how far she's come already. A major plot point within the lead-up to Sonic Adventure and within the game proper is that Amy is a footnote to the others at best and an annoyance at worst who nonetheless manages to always be behind Sonic, and over the course of the story Amy instinctively goes on an adventure without batting an eye simply because a Flicky needs her help, despite idolizing Sonic as an impossible-to-compare-to-hero. Though she initially possesses no distinguishing traits, over the course of several of the following games she proves to have an unmatched tenacity and willpower that allows her to slowly integrate herself more into the core 'friend circle' with Knuckles, Tails, and Sonic, having none of their natural talent but working her way into being just as capable as them largely as a result of training and a will to be compared on their terms. This trope has largely paid off for her, as nowadays it's simply taken as fact that she's inexorably a member of the core cast in any given game, with her presence rounding out the group.
• The Redeemer: She's managed to redeem a fair number of antagonists in the franchise: Gamma, Shadow, Trip, along with setting Silver on the path to his Heel–Face Turn. In most cases, she does this simply by showing kindness and talking to them.
• Rescue Romance: She already liked Sonic before the events of Sonic CD, saving her from Eggman just sealed the deal. Much to Sonic's dismay...
• Promoted to Playable: Classic Amy becomes a playable character in Sonic Origins Plus, marking the first time she's been officially playable in the main series Classic games, with Sonic Superstars serving as her classic self's mainline game debut of being a playable character.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: It's even in her name. Has bright pink hair and one of the nicest members in the cast provided you've not made her upset.
• Rousseau Was Right: Core part of her philosophy. The quote above was the very same one she used on Shadow that caused him to back down on his omnicidal revenge plot.
• Running Gag: See The Glomp.
• Seers: She can read Fortune Cards (loosely based on Tarot Cards, but with a less specific name and more specific fortune telling) to predict the future or know what's happening, although this wasn't often mentioned or used throughout her appearances in the mid-2000s aside from a brief mention in Sonic Battle. In the 2020s, this trait seems to be getting honed, as now Amy has even learned how to use her fortune cards for traversal, combat, along with getting insight from them.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Starting with Sonic Heroes, there's been a strong tendency in the games for Amy to overwhelm Sonic with sheer force of personality. There exists official Sonic Channel art depicting Amy happily dragging an exhausted Sonic around by the elbow.
• Satellite Love Interest: While there have been attempts to flesh her out, she is mostly defined by her feelings for Sonic. It becomes deconstructed in Sonic Frontiers where she realizes she wants to share her love with the world, but she’s unable to do so while pining over Sonic. Eggman also notes that she has amazing potential as a heroine, but because of her latching onto Sonic she doesn’t fully shine as a result.
• Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: Confidently considers herself Sonic's girlfriend, despite his protests to the contrary. And you'll do best not to correct her on this.
• Sexy Backless Outfit: For some reason, her usual red dress leaves her back bare. It would make sense if she had back spines like Sonic and the other male hedgehogs (or even her classic self), but she doesn't even have that, so it ends up gratuitous.
• Ship Tease:
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Sonic must take the Test of Love to progress to Kingdom Valley. His choice of destined lover is either Amy Rose or Princess Elise. Unfortunately, the decision has no bearing on the plot.
  • In Sonic Unleashed, Sonic is hinted to have feelings for Amy due to his disappointment in her not recognizing him in Werehog form. In the Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3 version, he can even optionally accept an offer to go on a legit date with her after the adventure is over.
  • Sonic cozies up to Amy's alternate self, Lady Nimue, in Sonic and the Black Knight astonishingly quickly, within the first thirty seconds of having met her, in fact. Apparently, he agreed to go on a date with Amy, according to The Stinger.
  • However, Amy has had ship teasing with Shadow as well. In Sonic Battle, she gets concerned as to why Shadow was at Club Rouge and angry at Rouge when she wouldn't explain, and in Shadow the Hedgehog, Amy was practically swooning over Shadow when he defeated Devil Doom. If that's not enough, if you do the dark missions prior to Amy's mission, then do hers and the rest of the hero ones afterwards, that pathway is "The Miracle of Love".
• Silly Walk: In at least Sonic Adventure, Amy is pigeon-toed with a short stride, which makes her the slowest-running of the hedgehogs. She achieves her top speed by taking the biggest leaps possible.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Amy can't see past Sonic when it comes to romance, he is the beginning and the end for her love life. Granted there aren't a lot of other hedgehogs that we've seen so it's slim pickings but Amy has never made any indication that she'd ever consider anyone else for a potential boyfriend.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She's in love with Sonic, who's very brave, selfless and loyal.
• Smitten Teenage Girl: Sonic Channel no longer lists the characters' ages but Amy appears to be a little younger than Sonic (who is officially a teen) and she has a huge crush on him.
• The Smurfette Principle: While there are sometimes additional female characters on the team like Cream, Rouge, Sticks, and Blaze, Amy tends to be the only girl whenever Sonic has a group involved, which usually consists of those two and Tails and Knuckles. Contemporary media has been incorporating Rouge a bit more overall, though this trope is still prevalent.
• Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Between Sonic the Hedgehog CD and Sonic Adventure. Generations seems to be doing away with this by implying that the entire cast had aged normally from kids to preteens/young teens between the Genesis and Dreamcast games — Amy's just had the most obvious change.
• Stalker with a Crush: In Sonic the Hedgehog CD, Amy uses fortune cards, which let her foresee the future if one of her special attacks in Sonic Chronicles is anything to go by, to sense that there is to be an encounter between her and Sonic that is a matter of "destiny". This imposes onto her the belief that he must be in love with her, and so she gets a little too close for comfort around Sonic when she holds him in her arms at Palmtree Panic. What really cements this trope, however, is what Sonic sees when he arrives at the next level, Collision Chaos; he finds out Amy is still following him around despite making it very clear that he did not experience the same love for her as she did for him. Sonic Battle and Sonic Heroes took this unhealthy obsession to its utmost extreme, as it is the characteristic she is perhaps most known for in those games. Recent media has toned down this trait considerably, but she still has feelings for Sonic.
• Super Mode: In Sonic Origins Plus and Sonic Superstars, Amy can use the Chaos Emeralds to transform into Super Amy. In Sonic 3, she can use the Super Emeralds to transform into Hyper Amy on top of that.
• Super-Speed: In games where she's not a Badass Normal, though she's still relatively slow compared to most of the other characters.
• Super-Strength: In games where she's not a Badass Normal, though not at the level of other characters.
• Tareme Eyes: Her Classic Era design has these to reflect her sweet and innocent personality.
• Team Mom: Deeply cares for her friends' well-being, and will rampage if anyone threatens to harm that. It's more apparent with the younger characters such as Tails and Cream.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: She's a hedgehog, just like Sonic, Shadow, and Silver, but her spines are shorter than theirs, more closely resembling human hair. She also lacks spines on her back, has eyelashes, and wears a red headband.
• Tiny Tyrannical Girl: Before Characterization Marches On, she would often act bossy and threaten to bonk people with her hammer if they angered her.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Can fit either mold depending on who's she paired with. For example, she's the tomboy to Cream's Girly Girl, but the inverse is true for someone like Blaze or Sticks.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Largely her plot in Sonic Adventure; keeps increasing from there.
  • Retroactively, this happens to her Classic counterpart. She was originally a Damsel in Distress and her only playable appearances were relegated to spin-offs. Sonic Origins Plus and Sonic Superstars makes her Promoted to Playable so she can finally join the rest of the group on the adventure.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Going hand in hand with Depending on the Writer, she can be downright nasty when at her worst.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Later games have severely toned down her Hair-Trigger Temper and Clingy Jealous Girl traits and she's back to being a straight-up Nice Girl.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Soft-serve ice cream, according to Sonic Channel and some other material.
• Tsundere: Develops into a Type-B variant over time; she's still nice and sweet, but she still has a temper and will lash out at those who upset her the slightest, even Sonic, mainly when he doesn't show any romantic interest around her.
• Unstoppable Rage: Though her anger issues can frequently hold her back and lead to her making rash decisions, when she channels it appropriately, Amy's violent rage can also end up saving the day; Zero is finally confronted and beaten when it makes the mistake of royally teeing her off by harming the flicky she's traveling with, as an example. Part of her Character Development is her quietly recognizing when and where to focus her anger and how to let it motivate her without blinding her.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Well, self-proclaimed girlfriend, at least. Still, hurting Sonic is a very bad idea and woe betide anyone who does so in her presence.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: In Sonic the Fighters, she's the second opponent of the game and marks where the game's difficulty really starts to rack up. While not as brutal as the later opponents, she knows how to use barriers, she can distract your character to combo it, and she can still pack a nasty punch for those who are unprepared.
• Weight Woe: In Sonic Battle, Amy is obsessed with boxercise and dieting in order to get in shape and impress Sonic, using Emerl as a coach.
• Yandere: At worst and in older games, her crush on Sonic can veer into this, particularly in Sonic Rush. Upon meeting Blaze, she warns her that she's Sonic's girlfriend, and that she won't let anyone else have him. Later, when Sonic asks Amy if she's seen Blaze, she immediately jumps to the conclusion that Sonic is in love with her, only calming down once Tails explains that it's not like that. It's Played for Laughs, of course, but her obsession with Sonic is clearly unhealthy. Again, it's very much Depending on the Writer, and her crush in general was considerably toned down from Colors onward.

---