Ignoring the dubious "entire meeting and history" phrasing, the way Sonic could act and react around Tails pre-S2 (according to these manuals, apparently) is pretty inconsistent with how the character is written now, and frankly the idea of "Sonic doesn't actually give a shit and Tails was just inspired by his attitude instead of anything cool he actually did" is pretty dumb. We've been through this before. Nobody's forcing you to like it or think it's good, but the language about not being able to see the point in this so-called blight on the series when people keep telling you the point can be rather frustrating.
Y'know what a good writer would call that? "Character growth". A character grows from a kinda jerkish one who ignores kids like Tails and Amy following him around unless there's an active threat against them to someone who's nice to the assistant on a train over time. Considering Tails was a fan before Sonic got to Westside Island, since his shoes and gloves were an attempt to replicate Sonics according to the character designer, but they're slightly too big, hence the belts on them, it's a bit further than that. Tails meets his hero and is inspired to act more like him. Sonic isn't outwardly acknowledging him, but he's got an interest in the kid keeping up with him, which is noted in the manual, not him not caring. Which is why you dogpile when I express frustrations with how things are going with continuity. I'm aware you keep telling me the point, but being honest, it's a terrible point and I fail to see it. "Modernising" the plot doesn't mean throwing out the baby with the bath water, yet here they are throwing out the whole bathroom as well. Regardless, shall we just agree to disagree and leave the topic here, because as I've noted several times I know I'm in the minority on this and have no interest in trying to have others to take my viewpoint. You think it's good, I think it's abhorrent and would say this to Flynn and the Lore Team directly, that's the take away here, no need for further discussion every time I post.
I personally don’t see why they have to revise anything. Even if newer games are going to reference the old, I doubt they are going to have a need to addresses inconsistencies in those old titles. For example, you can reference back to the events of Tails Adventures without needing to mention where it takes place in the timeline. You can reference Sonic & Tails 2 without needing to mention that it only had 6 Chaos Emeralds. If they were doing full-on follow-ups to these old tiles that directly continued their stories, then fair enough. But I doubt references to the past are going to be like that. Revising it just seems unnecessary. I don’t see what the pay-off is at all.
We may even pay notice of your PoV on the whole matter, but the problem IS (and always will be) on ST's side. Tails and Amy treat Sonic as their hero and want to follow him as soon as they meet? Well's that's awesome, indeed. Problem? HOW THE HECK he became a worldwide known hero? What's the basis for those characters' fan attitude? That's what's eluding you, how ST kept some details behind (or outright ignored them) and built character backgrounds in a way that suited their needs. Hence why people nowadays can say that such details are unneeded, because they never had to care about them. We still don't know (in the gameverse) how Sonic & Eggman's rivalry began and for how long they went at it before Sonic1. ST tried to expand on a few characters' backgrounds, only to pile contrivances upon contrivances and never cleared them up. When things got too troublesome for them to deal with, what did they do? Try to wipe the slate as clean as they could. The franchise doesn't need an unified continuity, with TONS of retcons necessary to make things work together. What it needs is a major clean-up and ST finally deciding to set the rules and backgrounds right and work from there. Either by a massive gameverse reboot or some other media presentation that helps set things right from here onwards. Future games could take from such endeavors while trying to keep as close to the previous titles as possible, to alienate fans and newcomers as less as possible. But, as you can see, ST let it become SUCH a massive endeavor for them to tread upon. Not holding a candle to them.
Great way to start. You answered your own question: Sonic has been fighting Robotnik for a while now. They establish Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive) isn't their first fight, and in fact it's a regular occurrence: We don't need those details. It's like doing a Superman movie, then having Lois Lane go through the whole thing to find out that, gasp, Lex Luthor is the bad guy?! Oh wait, that's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice... I'm not asking for all the answers for every little thing: last I checked, I didn't want them to go in the Chaos and Master Emeralds's origins because I feel fictional worlds should have some mysteries in them. All we need to know is that Robotnik is the bad guy, Sonic is the Hero. They establish they've been fighting each other for a while, and a couple of kids became fans of Sonic's heroics. That's literally all we need for the story to work, not a 500-issue comic going into the intricacies of the Kingdom of Acorn, its ties to Station Square, and how it started off the entire conflict between Sonic and Robotnik. Well consider this fan alienated and very much disinterested in future projects that this lore team work on, if this is how they're going about resolving this issue.
Attitude aside, that seems more like headcanon than anything really supported by the text of either games or manuals. So that conflicts a bit from this being any kind of mindset he needs to grow from, then? The only really negative thing about a version of Sonic who doesn't express that is that he's pretty boring to watch. "You" who? Me? I'm personally dogpiling you? I feel like if it needs to be such a federal issue that things get heated when people disagree, that might prompt, if nothing else, a change in presentation? Whatever man, keep failing then. If you're going to say "agree to disagree" and "you're unequivocally wrong" that's just a polite admission that nothing I say could ever convince you. But the inverse doesn't seem true! I feel like a lot of what you're putting forth here could be a lot more palatable to endure if you actually made a case for what you're arguing and why it's so supposedly important. It's pretty immaterial to me because I don't think very many Sonic games have particularly strong storytelling in the first place, most of what works is subtextual and thematic. Not only is what I've seen not particularly drastic as a change (and, y'know, actually a part of the game rather than dated paratext), but even if it were more different I still wouldn't really care, lest it shit all over the themes of the series or something fundamental to the version of the characters I've actually been following for my entire life (Origins has not). If you're so disinterested in having the arguments you keep having, maybe stop having them???
Just as you don't need such details for things to work out in your mind, others may deem the opposite, that certain backgrounds don't work well enough without such details or that they're irrelevant because such details are missing to make them work. There was no need for intricate background stories about how Sonic & Eggman started it all, one game or so, alone, could do the magic, in my honest opinion. The fact ST insists on keeping certain things under wraps only seems to work to their detriment, as I see it. Also, the 90s (and mid-2000s, kinda) showed us they went all out in all possible ways with little to no regard to continuity or well-set timeline of events. Most games were so self-contained that they even contradicted other games or threw contrivances between them. How does that help anyone nowadays, may I ask? The lore team may be going through more of a nightmare than any of us may imagine, with all the clean-up, peer pressure and fan expectations they gotta shoulder.
I'm fairly certain I prefaced that with "a good writer", suggesting that rather than rewrite an entire history the Lore Team could have simply stated the character grew. I'm fairly certain we've been over this, that Sonic was a character who was more interesting to watch pull others along to develop than as an actual character himself. Hence why Sonic and the Black Knight had such a good story: Sonic never really grows over that story, instead he drags the characters and world to a better place. Like objects getting caught in a slipstream. No, several people will respond to anything vaguely negative I post about the continuity. Amazingly enough, you're a single person, you can't do a dogpile on your own. Sorry. Unfortunately, that's going to be a problem for me. I know what I'm thinking, what exactly I mean, but I can just never find the words to express it right. Like, ever. Pretty much the entire reason these page long debates happen as well. I'm trying to de-escalate and prevent the moderators bringing the hammer down, actually. So what benefit is gained from making Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive) their first conflict, if I may ask you? Genuine question, what such things do you feel they are keeping under-wraps? I would imagine the Deadly Six' backstory is among them, but I'm curious.
I didn't mention Sonic1 outright, it could another story prior to that, be it a game or something else. As long as it connected to the gameverse, at least. Well, the start of it all is one of them (Sonic & Eggman's rivalry). Sonic's past is another of them (they haven't even tried to use that mystery to their benefit, by bringing faces from his past or so). Eggman's past, in case something triggered his personality and way of life (SA2 & ShTH brought up family stuff that could've worked wonders here, even in a world-building front). The origins of the emeralds (which Frontiers now has them having come from an alien planet, despite M.E. already existing on Sonic's planet). And who knows what else that could be WELL used to better explore, develop and deepen the franchise's setting and some character backstories. (Despite the Deadly Six belonging to this last point, I honestly don't give a damn to them ^^")
You say this, and yet you're the one banging the drum the loudest, making hyperbolic statements such as "throwing out the whole bathroom [with the batherwater]". Plenty of others in this thread have expressed their dislike of the current direction, yet haven't suggested they feel like other community members are dogpiling them, so it's not like any "dogpiling" is happening by virtue of people disagreeing with you. The difference is probably that most everybody else is able to take a critical eye to these things without working themselves into a lather.
I'm not really big on lore or anything, but I think I can see where @BlackHole's coming from? Don't want to put words in his mouth, but I feel like what this effort does ultimately is to turn Sonic into a Story when it's been Myth most of its life. Completely different structures, narrative properties and priorities. Story talks about thing people did; myth talks abut things people do. I don't say that to make Sonic bigger than it is -- Dora the Explorer is mythical in nature too, in how it tells its stories. Dora explores. She has a cousin who Does Things too (or something. Can't remember). They don't have to have met at some point, because what's important is that they are meeting today. So when a writer fills in Sonic's personality or story landmarks or milestones (like a definitive beginning), they're not making up for something that wasn't there; they're throwing away whatever constituted that lore as Myth. I generally dislike that because it always ends up in something arbitrary and silly like "Sonic's name is actually fucking Oglivie" because you'll never run out of things to fill in once you're set to answer what all questions like a Story would.
I don't think it's a good idea to go too deep into the characters pasts now. Robotnik, I can see them using the whole thing with Gerald as a start of darkness like you said, though. But the rest, the time for exploration of their past is over, and Yuji Naka did explain that Sonic was born on Christmas Island. It would be interesting to see their first interaction, did Robotnik perhaps trick Sonic into working for him before Sonic realised he was the bad guy, since Robotnik has a habit of pulling that con? I would also still maintain they didn't originate from the Ancient's Homeworld, rather ended up there the same way the Master Emerald ended up on Earth, and they're just things from time immemorial. Just leave them as mythical gems that no-one knows the origins of, it makes them far more mysterious and mythical. Yeah, I'd like to know what exactly is going on with the Little Planet's timeline. Specifically, who's on the Little Planet to build that beneficial technology in the Good Futures. Because that's what they're doing, in my point of view. They're throwing out the good with the bad. What exactly is hyperbole about that? I find it dogpiling by virtue of it happening frequently, even when it's just dry comments on my part. I feel like if I just express negative opinions here, either you, Shaddy or someone else decide to jump onto it to start an argument, then when I try to de-escalate or say let's just agree to disagree to stop it from getting out of hand, I'm the bad guy who started it in the first place. Might as well stop trying to keep some semblance of peace and just BE the git everyone's saying I am. Thank you very much for your consideration there against putting words in my mouth, and you're pretty much getting it and explaining it far more eloquently than I could.
@BlackHole Hmm... All emeralds, seeing them that way, seems way more plausible and acceptable. Has ST certified that or is it your headcanon? @Palas Not that you mention it... I never saw this franchise as a collection of myths or the like, mainly as disjointed stories trying to fit together. Now I can see why I dislike how ST's been doing things, I'm more of a story type of guy and that's how I'd rather see the franchise defined ^^" Proper setting, backstories, worldbuilding, continuity and such, that's what I'd rather see ST do with the franchise.
Headcanon. Usually if I say "I maintain", it's an idea of mine. There's nothing against the concept canon-wise, though.
Then, until ST defines something worthwhile for the emeralds, I'll maintain my previous point that it's another plothole to be worked on. And PLEASE stop with the headcanons here, you can mislead others like it just happened to me. In here please stick to whatever facts exist to this day ALONE. Also, something I forgot to mention on my prior mini-wall of text... Do take note that this is a 30-year-old franchise that has grown too big, too convoluted. There has to be a time things must be rectified, wiped clean and restarted from scratch.
My apologies, I thought the "I maintain" would mark it as my interpretation of the origins. Especially since we still do not know their origins, since the Ancients were blindsided by the Master Emerald, which is weird due to their relationship, but we'll see if Sonic Team ever address that.
Myths are generally a collection of more-or-less disjointed stories, but with a certain set of common parameters that can generate other stories. That's just folklore: it's not so much about creatures that appeared that one time, but about creatures that, due to their nature, appear whenever the conditions are met. Likewise, Sonic appears whenever someone is... turning animals into robots or whatever, with no exact beginning to that. I once read an amazing article by a friend of mine about Sonic '06 in which he argues that Sonic is completely out of place in the game's fable, because everyone else has their own backstory and objectives contained within said story while Sonic acts like a mythical creature without a beginning or end, and has the same base answer to every problem ("keep a smile and carry on and everything will be alright"), like a misplaced force of nature. Like @BlackHole said, Sonic isn't always a character with motivations and, most importantly, choices to make. He simply acts according to his nature or obligations, and bears a position relative to a certain theme each time. So this weird clash of predispositions has more or less been so ever since the lore has started being "rectified" -- or "storified".
Another example is the aforementioned Sonic and the Black Knight, where Sonic never really grows over the course of the story, but instead drives the plot forward by grabbing everyone in his slipstream and moving them towards the better future. Sonic begins and ends the plot the same, but Lancelot, Gawain, Percival, Merlina, etc, are all for the better due to Sonic pushing forward towards the future despite their resistance.
Well thankfully they didn't really rewrite "an entire history", but even if they did, that's not really what does or doesn't define "a good writer", which is why I ignored that ridiculous thing you said. So what's the cutoff then? Is Sonic permitted to be someone who grew from the behavior you're defining for him in the classic games but not after that? When did he actually reach this point? Sonic 3D? Mean Bean Machine? You're the one who just mutually separating static characters from good writing, you have to be consistent with that. Well then as I said, since each of us cannot be individually responsible for the others, there has to be some other way through this. I mean, I think your opinions are dumb, but I also don't believe in objective critique of art. It's all down to presentation. ? I think the argument that trying to do too much with a Sonic story can demystify things is valid -- I don't want to see some convoluted Sonic backstory, for example. But that comes down to how I view Sonic's personality and the series' themes, it has to do with overcomplicating his personal narrative. Sonic would only become a weaker character if you had to justify his speed or his personality, but his fights with Eggman are the core of the series. It's not so wrong to want the narrative to start there -- with Origins, we're not being told much more than any other explanation of the classic game's stories. I can't meaningfully view the distaste for it as anything other than "they changed it, now it sucks" since I'm still struggling to get an impression of why the details that keep coming out are so incredibly relevant and important to justify calling it a complete destruction of the canon or whatever. See, and this is where I feel like the impasse happens. "Sonic as myth" to me says that Sonic was a spirit who took control of Nicky and his dad, or Sonic as a WWII fighter pilot's mascot. I hate both of these, even though I also hate StC going with the brown hedgehog turned blue. It's not because those don't feel like the canon explanation, it's because they're dumb. Just let him be some dude. In order for me to treat Origins as some grand upheaval of everything Sonic is supposed to be, that requires a framing of Sonic storytelling that just hasn't existed for decades, one I never knew personally. That's why it's a modernization. It doesn't take anything away from a fun classic Sonic story that Sonic and Tails met in a slightly different way, but that foundation has been used to create moments other Sonic stories called back to in a neat way. Prime has a direct parallel in that regard with SA1, poorly-constructing Tails following after Sonic in a way that would look hokey even if it weren't since in 1998 3D, which I think a lot of people didn't even understand what was being shown to them. The point of all this being, that Sonic exists on a spectrum of narrative indulgence that is tricky to tiptoe the line on, but it's not a mistake for it to intentionally set its feet somewhere solid when it wants to. If you want to argue that any instance of that is harming the franchise...show your work, I guess?
