What An Idiot / Sonic the Hedgehog

"You know, pals? There's three ways not to be stupid. One, stay in school. Two, stay in school. Three, don't forget one and two!"

— Sonic, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic may be the fastest thing alive, but his world isn't always inhabited by the smartest people alive.

Areas in the Series With their own pages:

• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
• Sonic X
• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW)

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Timeless

• Dr. Eggman/Robotnik has, time and time again, created mecha upon mecha to put a stop to Sonic's plan-foiling once and for all. Yet every time he faces the Blue Blur (or really, anyone else for that matter), his contraptions always get thrashed.
  You'd Expect: Eggman to wise up. He could pick environments that don't give Sonic an advantage, keep his cockpit out of reach so Sonic can't hit him, and/or stop using attacks that end up hurting his own mechs.
  Instead: He keeps making the same mistakes, time and time again, in both the Classic and Modern eras. In the third Sonic Twitter Takeover promoting Sonic Forces, Eggman gives the excuse that his robots might go rogue on him and builds them with weak spots, fights in environments that benefit Sonic, and lets them get destroyed as a sort of "backup plan". Yeah, sure Doc.
  For Extra Emphasis: The IDW Comics actually go out of their way to explain that Eggman is a genius, but there's always that sliver of arrogance and the dare of challenge that inherently flaws his plans, followed by Sonic's possibility of foiling him causing the doctor to be so Blinded by Rage that he ends up undoing himself every time. It isn't just a convenient Status Quo Is God for the sake of Eggman being beatable: it's an in-character failing.
• Ever since his introduction, and in most media, Knuckles is tricked by Eggman.
  You'd Expect: Knuckles would outright stop listening to Eggman, or at least adopt a "shoot on sight" policy with Eggman. Additionally, some of the other characters would spell it out to Knuckles that Eggman is not, and never will be a trustworthy individual.
  Instead: Knuckles continually falls for Eggman's deceit, and often frequently messes up his friends attempts to save the world.
• Frequently, many villains try to manipulate or persecute Shadow the Hedgehog.
  You'd Expect: For said villains to realize that trying to antagonize a Person of Mass Destruction with a Hair-Trigger Temper who's perfectly willing to kill if necessary is not a very smart idea.
  Instead: Naturally, Bullying a Dragon occurs. The result? Humanity almost got nuked, the Black Arms were wiped out entirely, the GUN Commander was humiliated, and Mephiles the Dark was literally erased from existence after getting curb-stomped.

Video Games

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit)
  • Dr. Eggman has kidnapped Tails (who incidentally, made his debut in this version), meaning the latter can't fly Sonic to safety. In Under Ground Zone Act 3, Sonic ends up taking a deadly wrong turn and is about to fall into boiling hot magma. This bears repeating: there's no one to save Sonic this time.
    You'd Expect: Eggman to let his arch-nemesis die a fiery death, knowing full well that if he loses his life here and now, there will be no one to get in his way any longer.
    Instead: He swoops in and saves his arch-enemy so he can make him fight his Antlion Mecha. Who Eggman proceeds to accidentally destroy anyway. Nice going, Egghead!
    However: Sonic did have the first Chaos Emerald, and that's why Eggman saved Sonic. Could have done without destroying his own mech, though.

• Sonic Adventure:
  • Eggman is trying to collect all the Chaos Emeralds so he can transform Chaos into Perfect Chaos. Each Chaos Emerald he consumes makes him stronger and stronger.
    You'd Expect: That after Sonic and Tails hears this, they make sure to not only get the Chaos Emeralds before Eggman does, but keep them secure so he can't take them away. Not only that, they keep a look-out for Eggman in case he tries to follow them.
    Instead: They don't take any precautions when searching for the emeralds. After getting the grey emerald in Casinopolis, Eggman immediately ambushes them, leading to Sonic and Tails dropping the emerald and getting knocked out by sleeping gas.
    You'd Then Expect: Sonic and Tails to make sure they keep an eye out for Eggman, or at the very least stop dropping them or holding them in plain sight of Eggman, like what happened with the first two emeralds.
    Instead: They don't do any of that, leading to Sonic and Tails dropping the other two they got in the fight with Knuckles, which was orchestrated by Eggman.
    As a Result: Sonic and Tails delivers four out of seven Chaos Emeralds to Eggman, allowing Chaos to transform into Chaos 4, and eventually Chaos 6 when Eggman gets the emeralds from Amy's Flicky and Froggy. The only reason Eggman doesn't win right then is because the seventh emerald was the power-source for the Tornado 2.

• Shadow the Hedgehog
  • Shadow, still suffering amnesia due to his fall to Earth, decides to search for clues to his past. As of the end of Heroes, he has become Fire-Forged Friends with Rouge the Bat, who not only knows most of the story of Shadow's creation, but was nice enough to take him under her wing when she freed him in Eggman's base. Also, most of the cast knows about Shadow's past thanks to the Info Dump at the end of Adventure 2.
    You'd Expect: Shadow would ask her help in uncovering his past, given their former relationship. This way, Rouge can tell Shadow everything she knows and Shadow would decide what to do from there. Alternatively, he can tell any of his past acquaintances given their own knowledge of Shadow's past.
    Or At Least: True, Shadow's not the kind of guy to ask for help and he doesn't know these guys too well. But in this case, he would go it entirely alone.
    Instead: Not only does he not tell any former allies he's confused about his past, but the guys he does turn to are Eggman, a pathological liar and infamous villain, and an ALIEN INVADER.
  • The game introduces the G.U.N. Commander, who apparently was there when Gerald and Black Doom created Shadow, which traumatized him for whatever reason and made him think he had something to do with the ARK's destruction. 50 years later and he's... well, the commander of G.U.N. and sees that Shadow has been spotted with the Black Arms.
    You'd Expect: A sensible commander would try to launch an investigation and try to ask Shadow (as potentially difficult as that may be) about what he's doing. Since this is Shadow we're talking about, he'll brush them off and then they'll have no choice but to hunt him down.
    Instead: He lets his anger towards his memory of Shadow get the better of him and declare him a threat, citing them to shoot at Shadow if he's seen with the Black Arms. This apparently includes any times when Shadow is seen doing the "Hero" missions where he's helping them, accompanied by any one of the other well-known heroes including, among others, their own agent Rouge, the Chaotix Detective Agency, Tails who's already a national hero for saving Station Square, or even Sonic himself.
  • Speaking of the G.U.N. Commander, one of the story branches has him personally confront Shadow, revealing his grudge, and intending on killing him.
    You'd Expect: For the Commander to either have some kind of high tech weaponry, or even the Powered Armor Diablon mech that he actually uses in Final Boss battles to aid him in doing so. He knows that its not some normal human criminal that he's attempting to apprehend, but a widely known Person of Mass Destruction, that has in this game alone, taken down hundreds, if not thousands of his forces, Black Arms, and Eggman robots combined.
    Instead: He shows up with no armor or weaponry save for a single handgun, apparently deluding himself into thinking it will be enough.
    Result: Shadow easily dodges said bullet, offhandedly, with a Flash Step (assuming it could have killed him to begin with), and the Commander has the gall to be surprised at this. Fortunately for him this isn't an Evil Shadow event, (as the hedgehog has other things on his mind), or Shadow would have easily killed him.
    
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2006):
  • This game introduces Princess Elise, a Damsel in Distress who gets captured by Dr. Eggman multiple times in the same chapter. After Sonic saves the princess yet again, she returns to Soleanna and sees that Eggman is attacking the city.
    You'd Expect: The princess would send out her army/guards to defend the city and run to safety herself or at least go in hiding.
    Instead: Elise decides to surrender herself to Eggman in order to spare the city from further destruction, citing that "it's her duty as a princess to protect her country", knowing full well that the mad doctor wants to take over the world and use Elise's power to achieve that goal. To make matters worse, the airship that Elise and Eggman are on malfunctions and crashes into the mountainside, killing them both before Sonic could arrive in time to save her. If it wasn't for Silver's idea to have Sonic go back in time so he could prevent the princess' death, the story would have ended right there.
  • Dr. Eggman relentlessly chases Princess Elise throughout Sonic's story, and Sonic makes it his mission to protect her from him. After losing Elise three times to Dr. Eggman, Sonic once again reunites with her, and they manage to lose Dr. Eggman's robots through Tropical Jungle.
    You'd Expect: Sonic would keep a tighter leash on Elise this time, considering everything that's happened so far.
    Instead: Sonic decides to dump Elise at her castle without any protection whatsoever, and he is nowhere to be found while Dr. Eggman threatens Elise with the destruction of the town. At least the first three times that Elise was recaptured were out of Sonic's control. Here, he willingly leaves her alone.
    Even Better: Amy manages to break Elise out of Dr. Eggman's base in Silver's story...only to also leave the princess alone in her castle.
    Result: Dr. Eggman easily recaptures the princess both times, unsurprisingly.
  • Silver attempts to kill Sonic after Sonic and Elise manage to escape Dusty Desert. Later, after Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were transported into the future by Dr. Eggman, they overhear Silver's, Blaze's, and Mephiles's plan to kill a "blue hedgehog." They also note that Mephiles has a striking resemblance to Shadow.
    You'd Expect: Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles would try to warn Shadow about Mephiles, who seems to want Sonic dead for some reason.
    Or At Least: Team Sonic would discuss among themselves the murder plan they've just overheard and try to find ways to deal with it.
    You'd Also Expect: Elise would mention to Sonic (or Silver, for that matter) that she has seen Silver before from the Solaris Incident ten years ago (which shouldn't have been possible, but still).
    Instead: Everyone keeps their mouths shut about the entire murder plan. No one ever talks about it, despite its being brought up a total of three times in Sonic's story. The topic is forgotten as quickly as it is brought up.
  • Silver has learned that while Iblis isn't killable, he can be sealed inside some sort of member of royalty (ie: Elise). Then, not long thereafter as Silver helps Sonic try to save Elise from Eggman again, his ship crashes and Elise and Eggman both die as mentioned above. Silver and Sonic then resolve to travel back an hour into the past to save her.
    You'd Expect: Silver, Blaze, Sonic and others to band together to save Elise, deal with Eggman and, if Mephiles is on the way, maybe deal with him too (not that Silver even remotely warns Sonic about him in the first place).
    Instead: Sonic tosses his own Chaos Emerald to Silver in confidence that he can do it alone, and Silver just lets him do it. Sonic then gets killed not long after rescuing Elise because of a distraction and no one to help him.
  • Big Bad Mephiles the Dark's main goal is to fuse with Iblis, a lava monster who was sealed within Princess Elise when she was a little girl. Mephiles has the power to freely travel through time.
    You'd Expect: Mephiles to travel back in time to when he and Iblis were first created and separated, and fuse with him there, unless doing so would Grandfather Paradox everything up. If so, he could either travel to Silver's time, where Iblis has been unsealed for several years and fuse with him there, or remain in Sonic's time and work on undoing the seal himself.
    Instead: Mephiles manipulates Silver into going back in time to kill Sonic, knowing that doing so will cause Elise to cry, and thus release Iblis. While Silver does come close to killing Sonic twice, on both occasions he's stopped by one of Sonic's friends, and on the second occasion, Shadow is able to warn Silver of Mephiles's true intentions, thus turning Siver against Mephiles.
    Bonus Idiocy: The game's last story starts with Mephiles killing Sonic with minimal effort, thus proving that he never needed Silver's help in the first place.
• In Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Imperator Ix, after taking a thrashing from the entirety of Sonic the Hedgehog's team, taps the Villain Ball long enough to blurt out how he plans to conquer the world like he tried four thousand years ago. Procurator Shade, who has demonstrated tactical competence up to this point, happens to be within earshot and immediately questions his motives.
  You'd expect: Ix to apologize to Shade, grab the Master Emerald, return to the Nocturne with Shade in tow, and explain to her the necessity of such actions.
  Instead: Ix firmly grasps the Villain Ball, cuts her off with a very loud "SILENCE!!", and blasts her off the island. He gets away with the Master Emerald anyway, but Knuckles saves Shade's bacon, having recovered from the shock that the Nocturnus are still alive after all this time. This incident gives Shade all the reason she needs to switch allegiences.
• Sonic Lost World
  • Early on, we get a cutscene in which Sonic and Tails find out that Eggman is controlling the Deadly Six with a magic conch shell called the Cacophonic Conch.
    You'd Expect: Sonic to listen to Tails while he figures out what the Conch is.
    Instead: Sonic runs up to Eggman and kicks the Conch away. The Deadly Six promptly rebel against Eggman, forcing him into working with Sonic, and he spends his sweet time calling Sonic out.
  • Towards the climax, the Deadly Six capture Tails when they had intended to capture Sonic for roboticization. Zavok then adapts his plan to roboticizing Tails in order to makes Sonic lose the will to fight.
    You'd Expect: Knowing how smart Tails is, Zavok would:
    A. Change his mind and kill Tails, since leaving him alive, even as a robot, wouldn't do the Deadly Six much good.
    B. Knock Tails unconscious, leaving the fox defenseless against being turned into a robot.
    C. Have someone supervise the process to make sure everything goes according to plan.
    Instead: Zavok not only chooses to roboticize Tails while he's still awake, Zavok and the rest of the Deadly Six leave Tails alone on the machine.
    Result: Tails hacks the computer and messes with the roboticization process, allowing him to keep his free will after being roboticized.
• Sonic Forces
  • After years of countless defeats at the hands of the Blue Blur, Eggman has managed to do the impossible and finally defeat Sonic with the help of a mysterious being known as "Infinite" and has managed to conquer 99% the world.
    You'd Expect: Eggman to immediately kill Sonic so he can not only be rid of his longtime nemesis, but also be rid of the only opposition to his plans.
    Instead: Eggman bearhugs the Villain Ball with open arms and decides to keep Sonic prisoner on the rebuilt Death Egg, torturing him for six months just so Sonic could see him win completely. Even worse, in the Japanese script "torture" isn't used, but rather something more along the lines of "giving Sonic grief", likely flaunting his victories across the world in Sonic's face to try to break his spirit. Which means he didn't even consider actually killing Sonic until his plans reached fruition.
    Result: By the time he finally decides to kill him by jettisoning him into space, Rouge, who had been spying on the Death Egg, manages to inform the Resistance (who had initially believed Sonic to be dead) that Sonic is alive on the Death Egg, prompting them to steal a shuttle to break him out of jail.
  • Infinite gets several of these moments throughout the game due to his overwhelming arrogance and sadism.
    • Infinite is fighting a group of Resistance soldiers and defeats them all handily, leaving only one alive, the Avatar, who is clearly too scared to continue the fight.
      You'd Expect: Infinite to just kill the Avatar and be done with it.
      Instead: In an act of Cruel Mercy, he lets them go just so he can listen to their screams of terror.
      Result: The Avatar would later join Knuckles and the others and would become a key player in overthrowing Eggman. In other words, Infinite created his own worst enemy.
    • Infinite has managed to once again defeat Sonic in their rematch at Mystic Jungle.
      You'd Expect: Infinite to just kill Sonic and be done with it.
      Instead: He deems Sonic Not Worth Killing and flies off.
      Result: Sonic continues to dismantle Eggman's control of the world and eventually becomes strong enough to defeat him.
    • Later in Green Hill, Infinite tells Eggman that he has destroyed all of the Phantom Ruby prototypes. However, in his earlier fight with Silver in Mystic Jungle, he accidentally dropped one of the Phantom Ruby prototypes he was supposed to destroy.
      You'd Expect: Infinite to remember that, fly back to Mystic Jungle, find the prototype and destroy it.
      Instead: He completely forgets about it.
      Result: The Avatar would later find that same prototype, allowing them to survive Infinite's illusion during their fight in Metropolis and ultimately allowing them to foil Eggman's plan to incinerate the Resistance with a Virtual Reality construct of the Sun.
      Even Worse: During the aforementioned fight, the Avatar drops the Phantom Ruby prototype in full view of Infinite and Infinite 'completely fails to notice it'a. Even when the Avatar survives his illusion, it never dawns on him that they might be using a Phantom Ruby prototype. ^note At least in the English version. The original Japanese version has Infinite briefly considering the possibility that they might have one of the prototypes, but he still decides to spare them as the prototypes are said by Eggman to be so defective and unstable that they could only be used once.
  • While Sonic is busy fighting Shadow, Knuckles learns that Eggman's army is undermanned in his home base in Metropolis and decides to launch "Operation Big Wave", a plan he admits he came up with in a minute and a half that basically consists of... a full frontal assault.
    You'd Expect: Someone with some degree of common sense to tell Knuckles how blatantly idiotic this plan is. Even if Eggman's army is undermanned, they still have to contend with Infinite, who is an army unto himself.
    Instead: Everyone pretty much goes with the plan with no objections whatsoever.
    Result: Once the attack gets underway, everything quickly goes to hell when Infinite arrives and uses the Phantom Ruby to create giant illusions of himself, throwing the Resistance into total chaos. By the time they finally decide to retreat, 80% of the Resistance has been wiped out. Way to go, Knucklehead.

Cartoons

Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)

• In "Sonic Racer", Sally, Bunnie and Antoine are at one of Robotnik's factories. Antoine accidentally falls on a conveyor belt and turns it on by pulling its lever at the same time. Then he gets carried by it towards the machinery, and is too petrified with fear to get out of the conveyor belt. Sally and Bunnie to the rescue.
  You'd Expect: Them to simply turn the conveyor belt off by pulling the lever, which was just by their side.
  Instead: They try to stop the conveyor belt by grabbing and pulling it. Needless to say, they fail, so they resort to calling Sonic for help, who has to arrive and save the day at the last moment.
• In "Sonic and Sally", Robotnik catches Sally and creates a robotic duplicate of her to impersonate her so that Sonic takes it to Knothole and Robotnik finds out the hidden village's location.
  You'd Expect: Robotnik to put a tracer on Robo-Sally.
  Instead: He just puts a camera on her eyes, apparently with the intention of seeing the path to Knothole, even though this one is hidden in the middle of a large forest.
  Even Worse: Robotnik's computer overloads and causes him to lose access to the camera on Robo-Sally's eyes. However, when you think about, his plan still wouldn't have worked even without the malfunction, considering that Sonic has a tendency of taking Sally back to Knothole by carrying her while running really fast. So even if Robotnik had successfully received the camera's images, he wouldn't have been able to see the path with all the blur.
• Another facepalm Robotnik moment in "Sonic Past Cool": Robotnik and Snively have the Freedom Fighters trapped in a force field, and are hovering over them in an aircraft, ready to drop a cage over them and imprison them. Snively asks "Shall I throw the cage, sir?", and Robotnik's response is: "Negative. Let them sweat a while. There is no way for them to get through that force field. Even the hedgehog is trapped."
  You'd Expect: The force field to be impenetrable. Robotnik is supposed to be arrogant, but not stupid. He wouldn't risk giving Sonic extra time to break out of it for not reason if that wasn't the case.
  Instead: It turns out that by merely using his Spin Attack (his signature move), Sonic is able to not just easily penetrate it, but also open a hole large enough for the Freedom Fighters and a small dinosaur to go through, which stays open long enough for everyone to escape. Wow. No wonder this continuity's Robotnik isn't a (mad) scientist, nor was ever shown to be capable of building any robots by himself...
• A major facepalm occurs in "Game Guy": Sally and Dulcy manage to infiltrate Robotnik's base in order to rescue Sonic from a deathtrap. They break into Robotnik's own control room, catching Robotnik completely off guard, whereupon Dulcy immediately freezes him and Snively solid with her ice breath.
  You'd Expect: Dulcy to have forgone ice and breathed fire instead, or her and Sally to either tie up, incapacitate, or kill the frozen duo, which would not only save Sonic, but completely win the war. If not, then to at least ransack his, again, central control room, for any and all vital technology and components.
  Instead: They leave the two villains to go save Sonic at a different location, resulting in them thawing out and continuing to be a threat.
• Dulcy does it again in her self-titled episode. When Sonic is captured and surrounded by several robots, and Robotnik himself, she flies down and blitzes Robotnik's forces, freezing all of them solid with her ice breath, and then flying Sonic out of there.
  You'd Expect: Dulcy to have, again, breathed fire and fried Robotnik, or Sonic to tell Dulcy, "Turn back around and lets finish them."
  Instead: Sonic congrats Dulcy for saving him, and the two return to Knothole, allowing Robotnik to thaw out.
  The Result: Robotnik, having witnessed Dulcy firsthand, now realizes that some of the dragons are still free, and then sets out to find and roboticize the rest, and nearly succeeds.
• "The Void":
  • Sonic is trapped between the opening of an interdimensional portal to the Void (a sort of limbo) that is a few meters next to him, and Robotnik's army's fire.
    You'd Expect: Robotnik to order his robots to shoot and kill Sonic.
    Instead: He makes them aim their attacks a few centimeters away from him from the opposite direction of the portal, so that he's trapped and the portal sucks him in. It works, but why not just shoot him and get rid of him once and for all instead?
    Even Worse: Sending him into the Void was pointless, as it turns out that Sonic can escape it by merely using his super speed. Scratch that, it was worse than pointless. As Robotnik knew, at the same time, the Void was the prison of most of his enemies, namely Sally, Bunnie, King Acorn, Ari, and Naugus, the latter being the only person Robotnik was truly afraid of, and someone who had a grudge against him. Sonic helps them all escape, and now Robotnik has to deal with a vengeful Naugus, who proceeds to make Robotnik his bitch. The only thing that saved Robotnik in the end was a Diabolus ex Machina that forced Naugus and King Acorn back into the Void. And even then, the others are still free from it, King Acorn got to give Sally a list of Freedom Fighters groups that can aid them, and Ari (who also knows about other Freedom Fighters) is there to help them as well. Then a few episodes later, they use the newly acquired information to contact the other groups and join together in their fight against Robotnik, forming a network of Freedom Fighters. Nice going, Robotnik.
  • Naugus and Robotnik had originally teamed up to investigate the Void. The plan was that Naugus would go into it and explore it, while Robotnik was in charge of keeping the portal open. Fearing that Robotnik would betray him and leave him trapped, he decided to threaten him by showing him what he can do with his magical powers, changing his head into that of a crow.
    You'd Expect: Naugus to leave him like that until he returned from the Void as a warranty. Surely the prospect of staying like that forever would discourage Robotnik from betraying Naugus.
    Instead: He changes his head back to normal before entering the Void. So Robotnik betrays and strands him in the Void, after which Naugus can't do anything, as his magic can't normally reach people in another dimension.
• "Drood Henge":
  • The episode's plot involves the Freedom Fighters and Robotnik searching for the Deep Power Stones, two halves of a powerful artifact. By the end of the episode, Sonic and co. have one, while Robotnik has the other, (however, the Freedom Fighters have tricked him into believing that their half is destroyed.)
    You'd Expect: Robotnik to keep his half on hand at all times, or under extremely heavy guard. Legend has it that the stones power could potentially destroy the planet, after all, not something you want to leave to chance. Additionally, even if he believes the other half is gone, research could yield positive results to further power his projects.
    You'd Also Expect: Robotnik to be more skeptical of the ruse the FF pulled over on him, and keep in mind the mere possibility that his noticeably crafty nemesis could still have the other half.
    Instead: He simply places it in an easily accessible location in his (currently vacant) base, seemingly having put the stone completely out of mind.
    The Result: In "The Doomsday Project", Sonic literally walks right into the unguarded base, steals the stone, and with Sally, unites the two halves. This in turn gives them power needed to completely destroy the Doomsday Project, and defeat Robotnik (who up to that point had the upper hand) once and for all.
  • One more for Dulcy: Sonic is once again surrounded by Robotnik. His evac plan is Dulcy divebombing Robotnik and getting him out of there.
    You'd Expect: Dulcy to use her fire breath to roast Robotnik when he's within distance.
    Instead: She only gets Sonic out and this allows Robotnik to continue with his plans, notably enacting his Doomsday Project. Even worse, she was carrying Tails and Sally while she made the rescue, and they should've realized this!
    

Sonic Prime

• Sonic doesn’t listen to Tails about a trap and proceeds to attack a rigged mech, causing him to accidentally set off an explosion. Rouge later explains this was planned by Eggman to find a powerful gem called the Paradox Prism and they, along with Amy and Knuckles go to deal with the situation.
  You'd Expect: As the mess started with Sonic not listening to Tails, one would think he would pay extra attention to what his friends were saying and follow a plan rather than blindly rush into things if he doesn't know the full context.
  Instead: Sonic rushes off just as Amy says they need to stick together and arrives late to the scene when they're facing Eggman. He then doesn't heed anyone's warnings to stop as he launches himself at Eggman and Prism, shattering the crystal and the universe in the process.
• After Sonic sets off the explosion early in the day, Shadow has a vision of the future and decides to find Sonic to prevent whatever is going to happen.
  You'd Expect: Shadow urgently needs Sonic to hear him out about the vision, so the logical choice would be to go to Sonic and immediately begin explaining the situation, and doing whatever necessary to ensure he understands the severity of the situation.
  Instead: Shadow immediately attacks Sonic and repeatedly demands his attention but is more focused on beating up the other hedgehog rather than explaining anything to him, resulting in the two getting into a large fight and Sonic running off without ever hearing what Shadow wanted him to know.
  The Result: Sonic runs off with no idea he's about to set off a cataclysmic chain of events and shatters the universe.
• Throughout the show, Rebel Rouge, Renegade Knucks, and Shadow repeatedly raise red flags about Tails Nine's trustworthiness and urge Sonic to be wary of him.
  You'd Expect: Sonic to at least consider the risks, especially after two other Shatterverse counterparts of his friends (Thorn Rose and Captain Dread) double-crossed him over the Paradox Prism shards; Nine himself previously left Rebel and Knucks for dead and has shown scant interest in heroics.
  Instead: Sonic kept trying to encourage Nine to be good and insisted that they're all on the same side even though Nine told him repeatedly that he wants to stay in The Grim .
  Even Worse: Sonic assumes Nine will be on board with his and Shadow's plan to fix the world simply because Prime!Tails would, when in fact his friends and their alternate selves are different people altogether.
  Result: Nine, who was never interested in restoring the world to normal and resents Sonic’s lies, withholding information and refusing to keep or remember his only promise, ultimately turns his back on Sonic and Shadow and steals all the Prism shards, leaving the hedgehogs back at square one with even worse yet to come. Not until much later does Sonic realize where he went wrong.
• Sonic manages to get through to and reconcile with Nine, after which he pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to make the Paradox Prism whole again. Meanwhile, the Chaos Council are getting impatient, but need the heroes to fix the Shatterverse.
  You'd Expect: The Council to wait until Sonic and Nine have done their thing, since fixing the Prism doesn't automatically fix the damage Nine accidentally caused by abusing its power.
  You'd Also Expect: The Council to deem the Prism a lost cause at this point; as they and Nine found out the hard way, seeking—let alone using—its power is a self-destructive endeavor.
  Instead: They backstab the heroes once Sonic is at his weakest and try to take the Prism anyhow.
  Results: Sonic, having anticipated the Council's betrayal, subtly goads them into arguing over who should wield the Prism. While this is going on, Nine uses it to open a portal to the Void Between the Worlds, through which the Eggmen are sent packing once and for all.

Archie Comics

• In Issue 1 of the original mini-series, Sally and Rotor concoct a plan to reverse-engineer Robotnik's roboticizer: have Sally meet with him to strike a deal to have her father released. Knowing that Robotnik would backstab her and attempt to roboticize her, she would be equipped with special boots designed to jam the machine and collect its data, allowing Rotor to analyze it.
  You'd expect: Them to confide said plan with the rest of the team.
  Instead: Sally simply claims that she's going to strike a deal with Robotnik and leaves. Even though Sonic and the others met with her while she was on the way to Robotropolis and asked her reasons, giving her plenty of opportunities to let them in on the plan, at no point does she reveal her true intentions, instead rudely telling them to mind their own business.
  Result: Knowing that Robotnik would backstab her, Sonic and the others break into Robotropolis and rescue Sally from the roboticizer, botching the plan.
  You'd then expect: Sally to realize she screwed up by leaving her teammates in the dark and lying to them for no good reason and apologize.
  Instead: She blames them for the plan's failure and storms off.
  Even worse: Even if the plan had worked and Sally had gotten the roboticizer jammed, she would still be in the heart of Robotropolis with no escape plan. What's stopping Robotnik from having his robots apprehend her after his roboticization attempt failed?
• In the "Iron Dominion" arc, Eggman has gone insane, growing increasingly distant and regressing farther back in his mental history each second, to the point where he completely forgets the events of the past couple of years, and believes things to be how they were, before the Great War happened.
  You'd expect: If not kill him, than either the Freedom Fighters and the Iron Dominion would keep this delusion going; it would do neither of them any good to snap him out of it (as it means having to fight him again, and the Iron Dominion having to give up their claim to his empire), and the Freedom Fighters could use this mental regression to "re-educate" him into a possible good guy and ally.
  Instead: They let him live and continue to refer to him by his current persona and even mock him with the events that drove him to madness, in the first place, which invariably breaks him out of his insanity and returns him to his old self.
• Similarly, the Freedom Fighters have had their asses handed to them twice by the Iron Dominion, both a result of one of their cyborg allies getting controlled by the Iron Queen's Magitek. Both times, they only survive by using a Power Ring to break the spell. They also know the Iron Dominion is hell-bent on besieging New Mobotropolis - a nanite city in control of NICOLE, a sentient computer program.
  You'd expect: The Freedom Fighters to realize a pattern to this, and equip not just their cybernetic allies but NICOLE as well with Power Rings, as a safety precaution against the Iron Queen's powers.
  Instead: They do nothing, assuming everything will be fine with NICOLE. Predictably, she gets Magiteked, and the only solution they can think of to avoid the same thing happen to the people they've already encountered this with is to evacuate them at the last moment. Even more idiotic, when you consider that NICOLE's been hinted in-comic to be able to control the rate at which Power Rings emerge, leaving no excuse for them not to have any Rings available for such a contingency.
  Also: The Iron Queen should've clearly been able to tell she could manipulate NICOLE and the nanites in New Mobotropolis during her first successful breach into the city, as her Magitek was clearly shown affecting both in an adverse way — even if she was too busy to see the effect her powers had, she surely should've sensed it through those same powers.
  Instead: She completely ignored this and acted blithely ignorant about the mere prospect, requiring Snively to come up and tell her that.
• There were a number of powerful masters of mystic arts in the comic, from the villainous Mammoth Mogul to the more noble Merlin Prower (Tails' uncle) to the neutral Brotherhood Of Guardians (Knuckles' dad and other relatives). They are all aware that Dr. Robotnik/Eggman is a major threat, who doesn't mind causing genocide in order to rule the planet.
  You'd expect: One of them would kill him. For Merlin and the Guardians, their homes and families (Tails and Knuckles) have been endangered by the guy multiple times before issue 50. At least Mogul could use the act to gain the heroes trust to further his own plans. Merlin actually has a spell that allowed Tails to use his Super Mode, so he could just sic Super Sonic on Eggman and win in two seconds.
  Instead: They don't do a damn thing to stop him. By this point in the book, Eggman has rewritten reality twice and played an indirect part of the near genocide of the echidna race. It's like Sonic's status as the embodiment of chaos is just someone getting a counter for Eggman's insane luck. And most of them were erased from the current comic continuity.
• Geoffrey St. John, who pulled off a years long game of Xanatos Speed Chess to get his master Ixis Naugus installed as king of the Republic of Acorn, learns without a doubt that Naugus is in fact evil. He also knows that Naugus was becoming increasingly ill as a result of Dr. Eggman's Genesis Wave, but he can't just tell anyone because the fallout of his trickery has destroyed any trust people had for him.
  You'd think: He'd use that cunning to play lackey while getting proof of Naugus' illness to convince the council to get Naugus to step down as king. Even if Naugus is still too strong to force out of power, Geoffrey could still convince Naugus to play along to keep the council on his side.
  Instead: He tries to convince Naugus to ask the council for help. Naugus realizes that Geoffrey isy still under contract with him and possesses Geoffrey's body to escape his failing one.
• Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide: The day is saved as Super Sonic and Super Mega Man defeat the Egg Wily Machine X and set to prepare to restore Earth and Mobius via Chaos Control. Wily mopes in defeat as Eggman decides he's not through and refuses to surrender.
  You'd expect: Wily to get through to Eggman and just wait it out.
  Instead: Eggman rams Super Sonic, then blasts his Chaos Control shot, completely futzing up Mobius. On the plus side, the Freedom Fighters will be back to full force, not to mention Eggman eliminating any competition seeking to usurp him.
  Alternatively: Sonic could've remembered he's in Super Mode and just fly around Eggman's ship, or wreck what's left of it, so he's not distracted.