The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

While we don't know how Silver and Blaze met, I think it is safe to say that she was never intended to be from the future. If there was ever a moment when her origin would be something other than "princess from the Sol Dimension, guardian of the Sol Emeralds," it would have been in the production materials for Sonic 06. But we have the script they used internally, and Blaze's description is the same as it's always been. If they were still debating who Blaze the Cat was, we'd see evidence in the script.

Yes, that and the fact her and Sonic never say anything to each other. And yet, it makes far more sense if Blaze knows who Sonic the Hedgehog is by the time we see her in Sonic 06 than if she doesn't. In Sonic Rush, we are introduced to a very closed off version of Blaze. Someone who takes her duty so seriously, that she has forgone making the most basic of attachments. When she first meets Cream, she thinks "Boy, she's really friendly! She should be more cautious," and continues to think that after Cream literally drags her to her mother's house ("Incredible! How can she just invite me in? After all, she just met me.") She meets Cream's mother, who is just as nice, offers her tea, and then offers her help. She can put Blaze in contact with Sonic, and is ok with her daughter being a guide in this world. Such kindness baffles Blaze. It's not just "oh this is my duty, I have to do it alone," she is confused at how someone like Cream can exist, and already call her a friend even though they don't know each other.

Blaze continues to wrestle with how she feels in general as the game continues

By the end of Blaze's story, she has grown to call Cream her friend. This is the first time she's ever called someone that! That's gotta be a big deal. Then when we reach the end of the game...

She has grown, but she's not suddenly an outgoing person who wears her heart on her sleeve. She's learned from Cream and Sonic, has become self aware of how she has been, realizes she doesn't need to shut everyone out. She can work with people, like she does fighting alongside Super Sonic. But she can also continue to do things on her own, like rescuing Cream from Eggman. If she's already been friends with Silver and gone through the events of Sonic 06, what does that mean? That she went through something similar with Silver, learned an important lesson, then tries to also teach him things, all while trying to save a world she has no connection to, then forgets it all just to go through the same thing again in Rush? That just feels hollow to me.

Instead, it makes more sense that she's already learned the things she has in Rush, and then applies it to her time in Silver's future. When we leave her in Rush, she's flying away as Burning Blaze...somewhere. The sky is green, even though we know she lives in a place that's also full of blue skies. We don't see her go home. So where could she be going? If the Sol Emeralds truly take her to the places she needs to be, then her going to Sonic's future makes sense. She's already in his dimension. We know the Sol and Chaos Emeralds are linked together. And if all of space and time is about to be at stake, then why not have the Sol Emeralds call upon her, take her to this bad future, and help in whatever small way she can?

If she's allowed herself to entertain the idea of working with someone and even thinking of them as a friend, then it explains why she is able to work with Silver. Another stranger, who possess a certain naïve view of the world even in the face of almost certain devastation. Perhaps there are shades of Silver that remind her of Sonic or Cream, and since the Sol Emeralds sent her there, why not work with him? Clearly her friendship and advice helped Silver on his journey, giving him the strength needed so he could play his part in the "End of the World." The strength to do what is right, to risk it all.

During Sonic 06, we don't have Blaze interact with anyone from the present, save for one scene where she's in the background in the aftermath of Kingdom Valley. Which is also a scene where Sonic is clearly having an emotional moment, reacting to the presumed death of Princess Elise. If you're trying to stop someone from dying and they die anyway, maybe that isn't the moment you go "hey, long time no see!" And if Sonic doesn't react to Blaze, can Blaze assume Sonic has met her at this point? She is aware she's travelled through time, and even if the goal is to change time, maybe you don't want to run around and meet everyone that you've already met, just to find out they haven't met you yet and you've gone ahead and screwed up the timeline and caused a bigger problem than the one you're trying to correct. I know I've mentioned it before, but I think you could argue that Blaze experiences Sonic Rush before Sonic 06, but Sonic doesn't experience the game's events until after. Sonic 06 is about time travel. It's about trying to prevent a bad future from happening. The Sol Emeralds could have sent Blaze to the future to make sure that Solaris doesn't alter things and thus prevent the events she had just gone through from not happening. If Iblis destroys the world, or Solaris dismantles time, Eggman Nega can't be born, and the events of Rush/Rivals just can't happen.

There's also the fact that Blaze's dialogue really does seem to imply the words "blue hedgehog" mean something to her. But like I said above, she is also dealing with time travel. If there is a "blue hedgehog" in the past that is somehow the Iblis trigger, maybe she shouldn't immediately be confrontational about it in a room with a weird looking hedgehog who doesn't have a mouth. She wants to gather more information, which makes complete sense. "The "Iblis trigger" ... A blue hedgehog. Can it be true? I need to find Silver fast!" Once again ruminating on the fact there's a blue hedgehog involved, she rushes to rejoin Silver after being split apart when time traveling. She's suspicious, clearly. The missing idle dialogue "could it really be him?" paints that line into sharper focus. There's only one person she could be thinking about, and it isn't Silver. And the unused idle dialogue in White Acropolis? She outright says "Sonic..." That is after she learns that they need to find Dr. Eggman's base. Recent events in her life are now colliding with the present, but she still is keeping certain things close to the chest. She is being there for Silver, guiding him as he needs to make some pretty tough decisions. She even tells him about the Chaos Emeralds, which she learned about in Rush! Doesn't it make sense that Blaze would know this information from a previous game, instead of learning it off screen in a post apocalyptic future somehow, never bothering to tell Silver that she learned about the Chaos Emeralds, then forgets about it just so she can relearn what they are again?

That's the thing about the theory of Rush being after 06 that bothers me the most - redundancy. All of Blaze's growth, everything she learns both about herself and about Sonic's world, is just repeated for no good reason. Happens again at the end of Sonic 06, when Blaze is phasing out of existence. In those final moments, her colors change, making her look like Burning Blaze. If that is what is happening, she sure seems super ok with it. Meanwhile, in Sonic Rush, she reacts to transforming into her super form as if it is the first time that has ever happened.

Instead, she stays in the moment with Silver. Giving him one final...test? Words of wisdom? When she brings Iblis into her, she asks Silver to seal her away into another dimension.

Blaze knows she isn't about to die. Heck, she doesn't even need Silver to do anything, since Blaze is clearly teleporting herself to another dimension (the parallel universe in which she is princess and guardian of the Sol Emeralds). She even wishes him good luck instead of goodbye. Good luck for what? For rebuilding his home after its been laid to waste by Iblis? Or is she wishing him good luck because she knows his story is not over? That Iblis/Mephilis/Solaris needs to be defeated once and for all, so his future can change and never be in the state that it's in? We know she is aware of how space and time can break down, it is one of her concerns in Rush, where she is shocked anyone else knew what was happening as she searched for the Sol Emeralds. So at the end of 06, she could also be aware that space and time are not quite how they should be, even if Iblis has been "defeated." In that moment, she also has Iblis inside of her. A fragment of Iblis from a moment in time, since Iblis also exists in Elise, and is subsequently freed from her. A sliver of a being that exists in the past, present, and future simultaneously. If she is able to control the power of the flame, if she can pick up when the Sol Emeralds speak to her, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to say that, in the moment she is leaving Silver behind, she knows her sacrifice is simply giving everyone time until the final battle. Making sure that Silver's naïve view on the world hasn't changed, because that honesty and purity is what he will need when he fights alongside Sonic and Shadow.

The events of Sonic 06 are wiped from existence. No one remembers them, aside from the faint familiarity of wind that Elise experiences at the end of the game. The events still happened, the game did not erase itself from canon, it's just that they no longer occurred for the heroes as they remembered it. When we fast forward to Blaze in Generations, she comments on how Crisis City shouldn't exist. It does because hey, it still happened and fragments of lost timelines can float out there because science fiction. But why do we assume Blaze can't have remembered what happened, that her memory was only jostled when she was in white-space?

Imagine, for a moment, you have discovered a way to travel between dimensions. You go to an alternate universe, sit down, have a cup of coffee, eat a peanut butter sandwich. Best peanut butter you've ever had. You return home, and write down in your journal "oh man what a peanut butter." Meanwhile, someone discovers time travel in that parallel universe you were just in. They go back in time, and somehow prevent peanuts from existing. Everyone eats almond butter instead. Would you suddenly forget that you had a peanut butter sandwich? Or would you go back there, order one, and everyone would look at you like you're crazy?

When Blaze returned home from the events of Sonic 06, she was no longer part of the time stream that Sonic and his friends exist in. The fact time was torn apart and rebuilt, that the Solaris project presumably never happened, that Iblis was never trapped within Elise? None of those events affect Blaze. She continues to exist in her home dimension, with a small piece of Iblis trapped within her, because she still lived through those events. They are still a part of her history. So when Generations happens, she recognizes the location, but doesn't understand how it could exist. How does she know definitively the future of Iblis never came to pass? Well...

Blaze meets Silver again during the events of Sonic Colors. Hears him talk about his bright future. She knows that this isn't the same Silver she was friends with, but it is Silver nonetheless. When Silver and Tails talk about how it seems like Blaze and Silver have worked together in the past, she doesn't address the topic. She could have said "yes...that's strange." Or "I have no idea what you're talking about." Instead, she steps around it, moving briskly along. Why doesn't she just bring up Sonic 06? Well, how would she even explain it? "Oh, that's because you and I were friends in a post-apocalyptical future where an evil space-time god wanted you to kill Sonic the Hedgehog and then a small piece of him was sealed inside of me." I don't think that would go over very well...

So for Blaze, it makes sense to me to go Sonic Rush --> Sonic 06 --> Sonic Rush Adventure --> Sonic Colors (DS) --> Sonic Generations --> Team Sonic Racing. You see the story of someone who feels like the world is on her shoulders, that she can't open up to anyone, then realizes it is possible to befriend people, to have them help when its needed, and that maybe she can help them as well. Maybe even become friends once more with people you thought lost, since her and Silver seem to have a rapport in Team Sonic Racing. And even though she has grown, that doesn't mean she is a perfect person, as seen in Sonic Rush Adventure. She is not instantly friends with Marine, after all. She still has to learn to trust her before she becomes one of her allies.

 

Well, at the same time, Blaze was never in Soleanna during Rush. If she was transported into the past and ended up right outside Cream's house, then yeah, she would know exactly where she was. But she's just on a tropical beach, which there are plenty of even back in her home dimension. There's nothing she witnesses in those moments to make her know definitively where she is. Instead, she tells herself she needs to find Silver, and then lets her thoughts dwell on the "blue hedgehog."

Also, I know I've mentioned it before a hundred pages ago, but forgot to say it in my post above. Blaze does not find out the Iblis trigger was meant to be Sonic the Hedgehog until after Silver tells her that Sonic isn't the Iblis trigger. That's the first time we see her hear his name, even though her unused idle dialogue in White Acropolis has her saying the name. She hears Silver mention Dr. Eggman, but not Sonic. So why not say something immediately? Well...

That's a good point. She'd want to have some sort of visual confirmation. At this point, she's met two Eggmen - Dr. Eggman, and Eggman Nega. The latter presented himself as an alternate dimensional version of Eggman (even though he is not), so it could be entirely possible to her that this is some unknown third Eggman, even from a third universe. She doesn't want to make any hasty decisions, and is certainly weighing what any of this means.

She knows they are in a moral grey area, assuming that Mephilis has told them the truth. Getting a better handle on the situation, and actually seeing the "blue hedgehog" in person would be the way to do that. Until then, she only has theories.