- Shadow and Silver have been shown to work together in other games too. Heckaroonies, in the Sochi Winter Olympics they have a "special" Team animation together, in which Silver does his best to copy Shadow's more serious stance. Shadow even says "Naturally" and they keep looking at each other. Look, I don't care who Silver's mom is, but Shadow is so obviously Silver's dad that it makes your bladder leak.
- And let's not forget who Shadow and Silver represent in [Sonic and the Black Knight]. Shadow represents Sir Lancelot, the most famous knight of the Table, and Silver is Sir Galahad - Lancelot's son and the only knight who was allowed to drink from the Holy Grail, and then wished to die at a time of his choosing.
- It's even Word of God that they started thinking Trunks during the creation of Silver and that this is apparently who you should think of when writing for Silver.
- This, sadly, provides some Unfortunate Implications as to what the writers thought of the female players...
- ... You think so too? Heck, Mephiles and Father even have similar goals; to merge with an Eldritch Abomination and become a god. Then there's the fact that they both have similar true forms (amorphous, shadowy blobs).
- Look at the "pure" Iblis at the end of Silver's story. He's freaking huge. Compare it to the tiny Iblis fresh from the lab, or the slightly larger but still small Iblis fresh from Elise. There's obviously something that happens to him if he's out too long.
- Also, note that Iblis is said to have no wisdom or sense whatsoever, he wouldn't be able to recognize Mephiles in the future and might even attack him, which is why he couldn't join with Iblis in the future, so he has to merge before Iblis gains sentience and independence. This still wouldn't explain why he couldn't fuse with Iblis from the lab, though.
- To be fair, Solaris was brought into existance, experimented on, and split into two separate beings. Mephiles is completely silent until Shadow corners him, and even then he struggles to speak coherently; by the time he's freed in Kingdom Valley, he's much more eloquent. So, it's possible that Mephiles started out as a mindless being trying to escape, and then realized that he needed to reunite with Iblis.
- Given Blaze is in the future here.
- This could also explain why she keeps saying "blue hedgehog" as if it's familiar to her. Tales about Sonic were passed down through her family. Doesn't explain why she lives in the future of Sonic's world instead of her ancestor's world though.
- I would like to slightly amend this so that he became Stupid Evil when his wife died.
- Or she starved to death.
- What would he need to do that for? He merged with the Iblis from the present.
- But if that dimension wasn't affected by the retcon, then why doesn't Blaze know Sonic in Rush? If it didn't change anything else, it wouldn't change her memories either.
And there were two games: Sonic Adventure 3 for Wii, and Shadow The Hedgehog 2 for PS3/360. These two were combined into one.
Final Character (06) = Orignal (SA 3/ Shadow 2)
- Sonic = Shadow (Shadow 2)
- Shadow = Bunnie Rabbot (Sonic Adventure 3)
- Silver = Sally Acorn (Sonic Adventure 3)
- Blaze = Sonic (Sonic Adventure 3)
- Elise = Rouge (Shadow 2)
- Mephiles = Ixis Nagus (Sonic Adventure 3)
- Uh-huh. Because Sega is known for giving a damn about Archie/SatAM characters.
- Yeah, but he would have destroyed the entire Sonic universe, which would have erased the good games, too. So he's still evil.
- Not exactly evil, but willing to do what it takes to purge Sonic 06. The end of the franchise is Necessarily Evil to him. He may even feel that the games and their reputation are doomed. Of course, that's a worst-case scenario. As I mentioned, his ultimate goal was to erase Sonic 06. Destroying the rest of the Sonic games was a risk in the grand plan, and he was willing to take it.
- Or maybe by the point Solaris was whole again, it lose on purpose (it's a easy boss after all, you just have to remember to switch characters when their rings are low), just so that Sonic and Elise could snuff out Flame!Solaris. Except that doesn't kill Solaris, it merely prevents its coming in the real world. Sonic and co don't get to "live" Sonic '06, Solaris gets to not be bothered. Addictionally, it gave us Sonic '06 as a warning: "Do not. Split. Me. Ever. AGAIN.".
- Not exactly evil, but willing to do what it takes to purge Sonic 06. The end of the franchise is Necessarily Evil to him. He may even feel that the games and their reputation are doomed. Of course, that's a worst-case scenario. As I mentioned, his ultimate goal was to erase Sonic 06. Destroying the rest of the Sonic games was a risk in the grand plan, and he was willing to take it.
Sadly, the both of them never lived happily ever after, because he did not fully kill Sonic, who teamed up with Silver and Shadow to "take care of their problem". Some say they (mis)used the power of the Emeralds that Mephiles had tried so hard to keep from them, and erased all accounts of what really happened, and rewrote it all hastily before the story was released in the form of the game we are now so familiar with.
It's why Sonic falls in love with her in one day. It's why she gets kidnapped every other second only to be rescued by her favourite blue hedgehog. It's why the physics don't work like they should, it's a daydream, it doesn't have to make sense. It's why the story makes no sense, it's how she knows Silver when she shouldn't, it's why she's the single most important person ever.
It's all a daydream from a bored Princess Elise waiting for the festival to start. The end of the game is when she finally jerks out of it.
- This makes so much sense that it actually fixes the game's convoluted story. She probably hears about all the Sonic characters on the news and idolizes them. Turning the flames of Solaris into a villain is her way of expressing how she hates this festival and how she wished it didn't exist. It'd also explain why the tiny glowing necklace in her cutscene suddenly grows into a large Chaos Emerald during the game.
- What it doesn't explain, however, is why Crisis City is in Sonic Generations.
- Simple: it's Ifrit's doing. There's very little difference, anyway.
- Mephiles isn't Stupid Evil because he knows he can get away with it. The guy is practically immortal, seeing as how he lived for 210 years and his reaction to Omega shooting him point-blank range is to laugh it off. He can break out of the Sceptre of Darkness, aka the one known object that can stop him. He can time travel. He's like Aizen except cooler: he can wait and dick around with people because he can afford it-even if he fails at one time, he can just try again with time travel.
- Mephiles, being the Satanic Archetype of the story, finds it more worthwhile to tempt, corrupt, deceive, and manipulate people than to simply destroy the world or the timeline.
First of all, as suggested on the Fridge Logic page, we're talking about a Bad Future set After the End, and people are doing whatever they can just to survive. There's no TV and no popular culture, and no TVTropes.com, so there's no concept of "Obviously Evil," since Iblis is the only thing which is evil and obviously-so.
Second of all, Silver is apparently the only one who is capable of fighting Iblis. Neither of them think to say "Well why don't you go back in time and do it yourself?" because they implicitly assume that Mephiles is less skilled/powerful than Silver (and, by extension, the Iblis Trigger).
Finally, it's implied that Iblis has blotted out the sun (I base this on the Cue the Sun moment in the ending of Silver's story), so the most prominent source of light is fire, and Iblis's flames in particular. Therefore, in the minds of the people in Silver's time, Dark Is Not Evil — in fact, "darkness" might be a symbol of solidarity against the Flame of Disaster. "Mephiles the Dark" might as well mean "Mephiles the Guy Who Really Hates Iblis," in that case.
- That makes perfect sense, I completely agree!
In the 360 version of the game, at the very least, you can play your own music over the soundtrack, and if you hit Pause, not Stop, you can access the ambient sounds of any game as the sound bytes instead of just that and music. The creepy thing is that the kingdom of Soleanna sounds completely dead. The people hardly speak.
There is no background murmur of people conversing in grouped areas when you would expect.
No one seems to be overly worried of incoming danger half the time.
The only dog (Pelé the Beloved Dog) in the kingdom spends his time (as in not during the mission) sitting by the edge of the water between two buildings, staring out at the abandoned castle, and if you push him aside, he will simply trot back and sit down, and continue to stare at the abandoned ruins.
There is no obvious link to the world beyond the kingdom, other than the magic portal mirrors.
A particular line of dialogue by Mephiles in an early draft of the script included the statement "I transcend time itself... A bridge to other worlds!". Let's dissect that for a moment. To "Transcend" is to be above. Mephiles is above time itself, and therefore cannot be affected by changes in it. He is a "Bridge to other worlds". A "bridge"? "Other worlds"? There's other universes that exist beyond the main canon and the Next Gen sub-universe? (I believe this game took place in an AU, with only half the opening and the whole closing scene being canon, while the rest was merely Deja Vu when eyes met...)
Mephiles bridges the gap of other worlds as well as manipulates time and cannot be touched by it. Perhaps Mephiles was merely a gatekeeper or guardian to the entry of Soleanna, Iblis is the demon that decimates it, Solaris was supposed to be who the people prayed to for protection, and Sonic and his friends were merely outsiders who stumbled upon the lost world through whatever Chaos based shenanigans that ensued... Chaos energy has been known to cause space time rifts, and merge souls of the ancients to the present time, after all.
Elise was meant as a vessel to house and contain Iblis, to keep peace to Soleanna. Mephiles, knowing that it's not how it should be, seeks to free Iblis to either bring back the destruction, or maybe he seeks to join with Iblis to become Solaris in order to return things as they once were, but is instead seen as being a villain for deciding a couple sacrifices must be made to achieve the goal of the people as a whole. Perhaps the royal family of Soleanna had been under a pact with Solaris, one which was broken the moment The Duke sacrificed himself in place of what might have been Young Elise's early demise... Perhaps the royal females' lives were meant as a trade off to keep order in that pact. Elise's mother died while the girl was young, at least, young enough to not fully grasp the finality of death itself ("Will we be able to see Mama again?"). No indication is given of it being through illness, nor complications, so why..?
Because Elise is the only remaining member of the royal family left alive, and therefore, her death now would quickly terminate any deal such as that, before she has a chance to continue the lineage... Perhaps Mephiles settled on the plan to simply upset rather than just kill her to release Iblis, as it was confirmed that her death would break the seal as well if Iblis was not transferred to another vessel prior to death. He chose to do it that way in order to spare her should the event arise that Iblis would need to be contained again.
Mephiles, while temporarily joining with Iblis, would then attempt to cleanse the isolated world of the overwhelming darkness, before splitting again and trapping Iblis once more until time calls for it again, but is misunderstood as attempting to destroy reality, hence why the characters saw fit try to destroy Mephiles as well, even though they couldn't really because he was not affected by time changing. With Iblis destroyed, Mephiles must now remain in Soleanna forever to continue to guard the portals, and avoid the monsters that seem to reside only there (Worms, Takers, Biters, Golems, Stalker, Titans...) from escaping into the other worlds.
Having been this guard for many, many years, by himself, all alone, has caused the unfortunate side effect of instability manifesting in his bizarre, twisted childish behavior (demanding to be entertained, referring to things as his "Puppets", fits of anger when "rules" are not followed, his tendency to twirl around theatrically as if enjoying the attention on himself...), as well as giving him Cheshire Cat like qualities (appearing when he feels is convenient, cryptically conveying information in a riddle like pattern, giving "Yes and No" answers, causing havoc out of boredom, and seemingly jumping between either sides when it suits his interest.).
Likewise, Mephiles has possibly grown insane from the demands of such a task, with knowledge of any and all realities, and no clear way to mentally sort which one he exists in now, and his fascination with Shadow could stem from Shadow being a key part in one reality that he could assume that sticking close to him and wanting to offer an alliance is really because Shadow is the solution, as perhaps Soleanna is Shadow's Silent Hill.
Why Shadow's? Because there's some striking similarities between The Soleanna Disaster, and the ARK incident.
- Both involved someone trying to create a way to cheat death (Shadow having been made by Prof. Gerald to culture a cure for NIDS to save Maria, and Mephiles resulting from an attempt to resurrect Elise's mother, a project lead by Elise's father.)
- Both Project Shadow and the Solaris Project ended in a disaster that caused many of those involved to die, and the products of the projects to be locked away for years and nearly all records of their existence to be wiped.
- Both Projects have resulted in both a small hedgehog like creature that isn't a pure hedgehog (Shadow and Mephiles), and a large beastly counterpart from the opposite ends of the spectrum (Biolizard and Iblis).
- Both Shadow and Mephiles were quickly assumed to be dangerous and promptly persecuted for actions they had yet to commit upon being discovered by outsiders. Shadow was put in cryo for half a century, while Mephiles was stuffed in the Scepter of Darkness for a decade. Both wake up to a vastly different world years later, and find that no one knew of them or what had transpired prior to their trappings.
- Both the ARK and the Castle still remain, but as abandoned ruins.
- Both Shadow and Mephiles escape their containment prisons with an intense hatred for who caused that to happen to them.
- Mephiles displays similar personality quirks to Shadow, such as the delusion of being superior to all because of the status of enhance being, the cocky attitude when able to stand in a place that allows him to tower over his audience, and the dramatic gesturing seems reminiscent to Shadow's movements in Sonic Adventure 2, namely when he first encounters Sonic, as well as reveals the Eclipse Cannon to Eggman. Both even misleadingly promised something grand to the ones they manipulated (Shadow telling Eggman he will control the world with the EC, and Mephiles telling Silver that he can change to world if he destroys Sonic...).
- The Ark is located in space, and is isolated from the rest of the world. Soleanna is surrounded by vast bodies of water, and has not been shown to be close to the rest of the countries within the planet the series takes place in. Isolated locations. Featuring laboratories.
Basically, Mephiles is what Shadow could have been, and Shadow is what Mephiles will never be.
Following Silent Hill logic, the demons there manifest as personifications of fears, guilt, pain, anger, and all things negative inside you and your heart. Mephiles could serve as Shadow's equivalent to the SH creatures and beings like Pyramid Head, Dark Alyssa, Mary... Perhaps Mephiles is instead the manifestation of Shadow's guilt of attempting to, at least twice, nearly ending mankind, his fear of being seen as a monster, his anger over the injustice Maria originally suffered, his pain of realizing that he is not truly the same as his companions (he will outlive them all in due time, and the previous game showed him to have alien DNA in his genetics...), his confusion as to why no one bothered to take the few minutes to sort out the situation instead of assuming he was a dangerous being rather than the friendly hedgehog he was (implied in flashbacks involving Maria), and his dread of possibly being so easily manipulated with those emotions again like he had been by Black Doom (such as the darker storylines leading to Shadow being quickly brainwashed by Doom, and the neutral storylines had Shadow quickly descend into madness, speaking and laughing high pitchedly to himself, without the guidance of anyone.). Several of the monsters you fight in this game appear to be of similar stature to several Black Arms entities, such as Worms to Burrowing Worms, Takers to Black Hawks, Titans and Golums to Giants (those massive BA Soldiers).
Mephiles even attempts to manipulate Shadow in a way similar to how Doom did. Being that Mephiles resembles Shadow in appearance, is that any significance to the event? The persistence in telling him to join against humanity, that humans care nothing for him, that no one will truly side with him at all, that they are there to ensure it doesn't happen that way, that they would be formidable allies... The occasional break from antagonizing to say "There's still time to change your mind, Shadow!"... Is Mephiles merely a manifestation of Doom's personality rolled into a perversion of Shadow's image, as if to say his subconscious is trying to push him that way?
"I'm your shadow... You can't even touch me!"
What a rather strange line of dialogue for someone who is supposed to be something else. And how about when Shadow quickly turns around to face a free standing flame, about five seconds before Mephiles even begins to appear... How did he know that would happen? There was no indication of sound, and Rouge doesn't even see it happen, or realize that Shadow never followed her through the portal until after she was back in present time. Shadow even reacts as if startled before Mephiles appears then... Does Mephiles posses the ability to communicate to Shadow prior to being in sight? Several instances in which Mephiles speaks to Shadow while others are present show the other characters being confused to Shadow's response, especially when Mephiles is seemingly freely speaking openly to Shadow that his friends will betray him.
How can he communicate to Shadow so openly on such a subject without expecting an interjection from Shadow's allies and friends... Unless he can do so through his mind. Doing so would allow him to be able to override white noise distractions and drill ideas firmly without being contradicted. Why can he? Because he is a creature custom tailored to counter Shadow in this alternate world.
Next Gen itself comes off as being more like a Shadow sequel than a true Sonic game. If you remove Sonic's story, it would still play more or less the same.
So yeah... Soleanna is some kinda Silent Hill for Shadow...
- This makes too much sense...
Kind of a not-entirely-serious WMG, but... well, the stuff he pulls has been shown to be capable by some biotics (let's chalk up his full-on flight to Cutscene Power to the Max; his hovering, at least, has been done in ME canon).
- Technically it's meant to look like a Maple leaf...
- Okay, then how did Mephiles transport Shadow and Rouge to Crisis City? And this still doesn't solve why Mephiles just didn't kill Sonic, as he still had a physical presence in the present.
- With the former, he can make portals for other beings, but not himself. With the latter, it's] Sonic 06.
- And furthermore, she constantly dissappears and reappears throughout Silver's story. She came about through Silver effectively being the last living being alive, subconsciously making him believe things such as ash-preserved corpses are living people. She is the result of a subconscious effort to stop himself going mad from isolation and a need for companionship. Hence why, as he explores a living, breathing world, "Blaze" disappears and reappears.
- Blaze does not disappear and reappear if you're paying attention. There's an explanation for her location in every scene of Silver story - for her most infamous disappearance in Radical Train, she couldn't sneak into the station like Silver could in the stealth minigame.
- This is also why Silver trusts Mephiles - he KNOWS this guy is not to be trusted, but he's a desperate man. Deep, deep down, he knows the truth of the state he's in, and is willing to Deal with the Devil to remedy this. But now comes the question - how did "Blaze" manifest as an exact replica of the princess of another dimension? The answer ties in to how Blaze remembers Crisis City in Sonic Generations despite the backstory given in that game making it impossible. At one point prior to Silver's story, Blaze came to Crisis City for some reason (a lost Sol Emerald, maybe). There she meets Silver, who believes that she too managed to survive and even develops some feelings of friendship towards her. However, before she leaves, Silver learns that this is not the case. Due to... something, she remembers that world. Silver, however, still remembers her, and deludes himself into believing she stayed. As time goes on, he believes she was always from his world, and wasn't a princess who guarded emeralds. By the time the game begins, he believes they were childhood friends and that he effectively provided the "comfort" in their (non-existant) Hurt/Comfort Fic-esque childhood.
- There is the hole of how "Blaze" absorbs Iblis if she doesn't really exist. The answer is that it is all symbolic: Blaze was formed around Silver's conscience and thus acted as a physical "voice of reason" for him (hence why Blaze doesn't know how to answer Silver's question of "is it OK to kill to save the future" - Silver is conflicted, so as a result she is too). Although we didn't see it, Silver DID absorb Iblis in the end - before it was just self doubt. However, as he is not Soleannan royalty, he must pay a price - the loss of his conscience, and therefore "Blaze". In the Last Story, time and space are jumbled up, so Silver does and does not have Iblis in him, so while he still retains his conscience, he also does not, and "Blaze" is absent. When the Reset Button fixes everything, the future is not bleak, Silver is not the last one alive, and he has no need for an imaginary friend. As such, "Blaze" ceases to exist.
- I believe Silver could absorb Iblis without consequence because he's the son of the Ultimate Lifeform (and therefore not entirely Mobian). In return for his brave act, Iblis then cures his schizophrenia!
- And furthermore, she constantly dissappears and reappears throughout Silver's story. She came about through Silver effectively being the last living being alive, subconsciously making him believe things such as ash-preserved corpses are living people. She is the result of a subconscious effort to stop himself going mad from isolation and a need for companionship. Hence why, as he explores a living, breathing world, "Blaze" disappears and reappears.
- Mephiles knew Silver wouldn't be able to kill Sonic. but by having those guys run around all over time and space, he knew that Elise would have grown close enough to Sonic to cry, releasing Iblis and mucking up the future.
- It was bad enough that everybody was going all over the place with Time Travel (Omega being told to shut-down for 200 years to give Shadow a Chaos Emerald was particuarly eye-watering, especially since he couldn't have captured Shadow if he was in Standby for all that time) but when Sonic was killed it really screwed what had already been happening right the way up, which was what tore up time badly enough to destroy the world, not just burn it.
- Plus, her name.
By blowing out Solaris, the corrupted, heavily damaged timeline was erased in favor of a cleaner, nicer timeline. Perhaps a new version of Solaris (I will call him "Solaris 2.0") somehow managed to bring back Elise's Mother via prayer before the experiments happened or something else beside Time Travel stopping him from doing so, thus preventing the whole fiasco of Shadow and Silver capturing Mephiles and the sealing of Solaris is Elise. With this, the events of Sonic 06 never happen. Silver would be the only one to time travel, but to do more trival things like play sports and race sonic.
200 years later he's more or less mastered his powers, but there's some stuff he doesn't know like the Chaos Emeralds or the intricacies of time travel. The reason he has Silver and Blaze do his dirty work is because he's yet to field test his powers, and needs to test it on a guinea pig. He doesn't fuse with the future Iblis because he doesn't know if it's possible, and if it's harmful to him. Only by going back in time, by having enough experience with the Chaos Emeralds and his own powers is he certain his plan will work. At that point he goes after Sonic and Elise, and now that he knows exactly what he needs to do and is experienced enough he can safely merged with Iblis, finally becoming his true Solaris self once more.
Granted, being the mind of Solaris could just mean he was only reduced, however while known to have a wrath Solaris was still a revered deity by Soleanna. It was only until being fragmented that he was consumed by wrath and lust for destruction. Iblis was destructive from the start, however being power without consciousness he can only be seen as evil as a forest fire.
Sometimes in the series, Blaze gets led or teleported through dimensions by the Sol Emeralds. Like at the start of Rush, Blaze was pulled through dimensions by the Sol Emeralds so she could retake them from Eggman Nega, who had fled into Sonic's world. And in the DS version of Colors, Blaze told Sonic that she was led to Eggman's amusement park by the Sol Emeralds, without knowing why. Following this trend, maybe the Sol Emeralds sent Blaze across time and space to end up in Silver's future. This would require that 06 happens before Rush, since she doesn't seem to recognize Sonic, nor Eggman and his creations.
The question then becomes why, and the most convincing answer is Iblis. Blaze always had an affinity with flames, which comes into play at the end of Silver Episode as she quickly absorbs Iblis into her soul where Silver failed. Maybe the Sol Emeralds directed her there, as it was her fate? Additionally, she briefly becomes Burning Blaze after absorbing Iblis: maybe fusing with the Flames of Disaster is what gave her this transformation in the first place? Once she's fulfilled her fate and gotten a fresh power-up, she returns to her home dimension.
But then Silver and the others reset time by killing Solaris. This erases all the consequences of the Solaris Project, including Iblis' existence, meaning Blaze never needs to get sent to Silver's future and thus never meets him. The only difference from the previous timeline is now she has Burning Blaze ready to go, unaware of its origins nor the white hedgehog with whom she achieved it.
Assuming 06 happens before Rush, maybe Blaze had already met Eggman Nega at this point. But we also know Eggman Nega is originally from Silver's future despite being in the Sol dimension, so what if he was mucking about over there and Blaze somehow got caught up in his time-space travel, and that's how she ended up in Silver's future? Maybe Nega even sent her there on purpose to get rid of her, like what Dr. Eggman did to Team Sonic with his time machine in 06 proper.