Merlina does literally state in the Japanese script that she plans to make an "unchanging" and "undying" kingdom. And if we examine things we can piece together an idea of what exactly her plan was. The central object in play is Excalibur's scabbard, which we know made Arthur immortal. From the way it worked, my speculation is that the exact power of the scabbard is to force someone or something into a "fixed" state unable to change. So Arthur's immortality wasn't super healing or anything, it was being literally unable to be harmed or altered in any way, hence why he was straight up unbeatable so long as he had it. Additionally, the scabbard gave him the power to summon dead knights from the underworld, which I would speculate is because it's effectively forcing the dead to exist in a perpetual, unchanging state.
When Merlina obtained the scabbard, she used its power to try and cover the entire kingdom in the same aura that accompanied the undead knights, so I speculate that Merlina's plan was effectively to turn Camelot into an undead kingdom in which nothing would change - nothing would die, but nothing new would be born.
Sonic's rejection of the idea can be tackled from a few angles. There's the one Sonic directly brings up, that the limited time people have is what gives them the motivation to live it to the fullest and what makes it so valuable. Which is a really common thing in Japanese media involving immortality or extremely long life, where having unlimited time saps them of the motivation to use that time to the best of their abilities. You could also view it as Merlina eliminating the possibility of anything new to happen or be accomplished, she would be killing tomorrow for the sake of today, and that's something Sonic can't agree with. As he says, that would be really lame.
Funnily enough, an anime that comes to mind that tackles something similar is Code Geass. It's titled after the two powers that help drive the plot, Geass is the ability to intrude your sense of self onto another's and force your will on them to effect change, and Code is ability to force something into a fixed state including making the owner of the power immortal (to the point where even you atomized them they'd just return back to exactly as they were). Spoilers for the end parts of the show, which are similar in theming to Sonic and the Black Knight: One of the main antagonist's plan turns out to be to use the both powers together to force the world to merge with the collective unconscious of humanity (which everyone is a part of before birth and rejoins after death) to form a world with no death. The state this would put humanity in is described as being incomprehensible to humans as their currently are, but the vague descriptions suggest it would be like everyone reliving their memories on repeat forever. So everyone who exists and ever existed is "alive", but can't do, experience, or feel anything they didn't already in life. The protagonist rejects and stops this, and when facing the other major antagonist who wants to force world peace via a superweapon that he'll use to blow up anything trying to start conflict, the protagonist describes the first villain as being obsessed with reviving yesterday, even if it meant rejecting today and tomorrow, and the second villain rejects yesterday and tomorrow to keep today going forever, but the hero fights for tomorrow, for the yet unseen possibilities and freedom for everyone to make their own paths and keep struggling for something better.
Sonic will always be that hero running off toward the horizon for his next adventure
Praise be to the absolute QueenYou know the situation is dire when you're agreeing with PJ.
You know, mr "I want Pontac dead".
I'll agree with "I hate these things" and avoid it, if you don't mind. I geniunely don't like PJ, he's worse than Characters-In-Depth. And much less for Amy, a character I never had any love for.
Edited by Tomodachi on Dec 24th 2022 at 9:55:14 AM
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.If I'm being honest, I don't think there's a single Sonic character that I actively hate. Im largely indifferent to some of the villains (Mephiles, the Sinister Six, Infinite), but I don't hate any of them. In fact, I find most of the heroic characters pretty enjoyable on some level. Even Charmy the Bee.
Also same, if only for some of their memetic potential (Vector and "FIND THE COMPUTER ROOM!", for example)
Watch SymphogearCharacter analysis?
For Amy Rose the Hedgehog?
It would suck for Sonic characters in general.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.https://twitter.com/moq_46/status/1606531737206796288
Sonic's Twitterbase is crowing about Kishimoto supposedly working on updating the Frontiers' gameplay for the Final Boss: The End.
Like
How is this a win?... All this tells me is that they rushed the game and now fixes have to be put in place after the fact.
Certified, self-appointed Sonic Visionaryu can run sonic but u can't hide
(fanart of sonic running)
have a listen and have a link to my discord serverUpdating means what in the context? Cause that tells me it's preparing it for, you know, new playable characters?
I don't see how the word fix automatically applies either. I know the game was clearly rushed, but that doesn't correlate to "updating gameplay" in itself. It's a reasonable assumption, but you're kind of giving us a major lack of context behind the tweet. I presume the term update is actually used, otherwise you wouldn't have said it. Just remember we shouldn't need to click the tweet itself to understand the basic context of what you're saying.
Shadow?His tweet is responding to a modder who's pitching their own ideas to "fixing" The End and another boss in the game. Running his tweet through Google translate indicates that he just simply likes the idea and just wanted to voice that. However, Kishimoto is trending based on the Twitterbase taking that reply to mean he's working on an update. Some tuber already made a video about it; it's a whole thing apparently.
Sorry for the lack of context.
On a side note: the Twitterbase seems to be clowning the modder in the replies to their pitch.
Such a wonderful community.
Edited by Tony-Sharx on Dec 25th 2022 at 9:28:20 AM
Certified, self-appointed Sonic VisionaryMost likely it won't be changed for Frontiers, but will be kept in mind for future titles.
It's not unheard of for bosses to be overhauled in patches for single player games (Sonic Mania comes to mind), but I imagine it's low priority.
My musician pageOk...so Sonic and the Black Knight's twist wasn't Merlina wanting to live forever.
She knows how the stories of the Arthurian Legends end...and she wants to make a world that won't end in ruin.
Which makes it seem like she knows her world is fictional, fitting for a sequel to Secret Rings...where the villain also knows about the stories of Arabian Nights and wants to rule over that.
But Sonic's point kind of doesn't really work since Merlina's thing isn't about life itself, it's about the tragedy of the way the stories about their world end...
The writer kind of missed the mark on how Sonic would confront such an idea, which tracks...since Sonic's response to say "I don't understand and I don't want to".
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.But the stories have a definitive specific end...and that can't really be changed.
I'm saying that part would've probably have been better if it was 'literally' about mortality/life ending versus having Merlina aware of how the story ends and that being an analogue for mortality.
Though I guess it's never really implied that the stories will be retold over and over or even that Merlina would make that happen. It's just weird that was even brought up.
Edited by randomness4 on Dec 27th 2022 at 9:33:57 AM
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.

You know, I really do like Sonic's philosophy in Black Knight; Destroying beautiful things is bad, sure, but preventing things from ever being beautiful because you fear when they inevitably cease to be beautiful is just as bad. "I'm Sonic the Hedgehog, and I have no master, save the wind that blows free!"
At the same time, he acknowledges that Merlina was scared, and that what she did, wasn't out of malice, but of fear of change and the unknown.