The Sonic the Hedgehog Headcanon Thread of Lore and Time Stones

I’m perfectly content imagining a replica mural or similar depiction of Super Sonic exists in Lost World, or somewhere otherwise accessible to Gerald. In the same way he had to copy the Master Emerald shrine by some offscreen means, either by visiting Angel Island itself or discovering images/replicas of the shrine.

 

"Potentially, he could've done this" is not a basis for something being canon, or correct. Think about all the points working against this theory at this point.

• Gerald had to have known Angel Island's location, despite it being hidden from the world and nothing but a legend prior to S3.
• Gerald had to evade the detection of Knuckles's ancestors, who didn't want him being there.
  
• Gerald had to have entered Hidden Palace, despite not knowing its location and needing to have gotten past the ME's guardians at the time.
• Gerald had to have decided not to reveal Angel Island's location or secrets to literally anybody, not even including it in his journal.
  
• Gerald had to, if he didn't see the mural on Angel Island, seen it somewhere else or through some other method that we don't know about.
  
• Gerald had to have seen the mural, and in a moment of artistic inspiration despite this entire project being for the purpose of saving his granddaughter's life, thought "I should definitely base the ultimate lifeform on that little blue fairy thing".
• Gerald had to have been struck with inspiration from the tiny barely-visible spine shape in the mural, and not from its most prominent feature, the blue color scheme, instead making Shadow black and red.
• Maekawa had to have intended all of this, despite admitting to not liking the Genesis games and not having worked on Sonic prior to SA1.
  
• Maekawa had to have written a key character element for Shadow, his favorite character he's ever made, to be based on a tiny background detail in a game he didn't care about.
  
• Maekawa had to have written all of this offscreen and with no clues within either the game, outside material, cut content, other games he's worked on, or even Sonic X, which he also worked on, to lead back to it.
• SEGA had to have knowingly erased this key element of Shadow's backstory when redesigning Super Sonic a mere 3 years later when many of the same people were working there.

There are just way too many holes. The only way to make it work is if you make a whole bunch of baseless assumptions to try to justify all of this, but why would you do that? Isn't it simpler and more logical to say that it's all a coincidence, which is almost assuredly the answer SEGA wants you to go with? Hell, even the Sonic Ultimate Life Form theory has far less problems than this does.

 

Also I genuinely find it funny that one could focus on minor differences in quill patterns as proof two beings don’t look alike, when SA2 itself repeatedly had people mistake Shadow for Sonic despite looking almost nothing alike out of universe. Maybe people in Sonic’s world just view hedgehogs differently lol.

 

The humans in sonic's universe are just really really racist and don't care to tell hedgehogs apart because of that. Amy on the other hand is just stupid

 

"Sonic escaped, changed his quills pink, and is wearing drag to try and throw us off! Boys, bring him in!"

 

To be clear, I don’t think the mural theory was intended or endorsed by Sonic Team or Sega. I just find it a fun hypothesis with some in universe evidential support.

As I mentioned above, I don’t think Gerald necessarily had to visit Angel Island. We know he discovered at least the image of at least one Angel Island relic offscreen by some means (the shrine), so I don’t find it unreasonable to claim he likewise found a similar mural.

Post-Shadow 05, it’s implied Shadow’s coloring is due to Black Arms genetics, so any color Gerald might have intended for Shadow may have been overridden by Black Doom’s DNA.

As for the mural not resembling Sonic or Shadow - well, I reference my previous post. SA2 expects its audience to believe, as a major plot point, that Sonic and Shadow could conceivably be mistaken for each other (by Eggman, Amy, the news reporter, and GUN; Shadow himself says Sonic looks like him in Heroes). Out of universe, it’s all a bit silly, but in universe we have to accept that their appearances are viewed as very similar. Likewise, the mural is intended to depict Super Sonic, even if its color scheme and exact design doesn’t do so in more than an abstract fashion. There is therefore an in universe line of resemblance: the mural looks like (Super) Sonic, and Sonic looks like Shadow.

Why does Gerald base Shadow on a mural’s magic hedgehog? I suppose the same reasons he bases Artificial Chaos on the ancient Echidnas’ god, or the cannon core on the Master Emerald shrine: personal fascination with the culture, or some scientific truths that justify him doing so. For instance, we’ve been told only male hedgehogs can harness the Emeralds to go Super - why not apply such powers to the Ultimate Lifeform?

I also like this theory (at least GUN scapegoating Sonic, not sure I buy it as part of a larger scheme). It makes me wonder if the GUN Commander from Shadow’s game (Abraham Tower, as he’s known in Archie) was in charge during SA2. Surely he would be fully aware of Shadow’s existence and not be fooled by his resemblance to Sonic. Either he wasn’t in a sufficient position of power during SA2 to direct forces away from Sonic, or he deliberately had Sonic falsely arrested to protect GUN’s image.

 

Tower joining GUN as a means to cleanse it of corruption both helps explain why he would join the organization that killed Maria, and adds further depth to his character in that his entire adult career was in service and memory of those on the ARK.

 

You and other people keep saying there's evidential support for this, but then your evidence is "it's not unreasonable to believe this". Hypotheticals are not evidence. Something being possible is not the same as evidence of its existence. Give me something from the story. Give me something written by a writer, not a graphics artist, that seriously suggests the mural theory has some weight to it. Pointing to other stuff Gerald knew about like Chaos or the altar doesn't count; correlation does not equal causation.

If you just want to believe in the mural theory because it's a fun headcanon, then fine. I'm not gonna take that from you. But personally I'm only interested in the truth, and when you start arguing that these headcanons have evidence of being true, despite having a mountain of evidence against them, based on the notion that they're fun, it only gets in the way of the truth. Maybe I'm in the wrong thread for that; maybe I should be poking the continuity thread instead, and not the headcanon thread. That's my bad, if so. But I'm in too deep for that now, so I might as well keep going.

Then can't you say Shadow's upbent quills are also the result of Black Doom's DNA? What if his quills are based on Doom's Eye? They kinda look similar.

It is true that Shadow looking like Sonic is treated as a big deal, but I think that's all a remnant from Shadow's original proposed designs, where he really did look a lot like Sonic.


Scenario writers are not artists; they have no role in each other's line of work. It's my belief that the story was written without Maekawa even knowing what Shadow looked like. All he had to work with was the idea of a black hedgehog that was cool, or cooler than, Sonic.

 

Personally I believe it's a case of desperation and delusion. When conventional medicines and surgery couldn't cure his granddaughter, he resorts to religions of sorts. Trying desperately to summon or rebuild what he interprets as Gods and their shrines to ask them to help Maria.

 

boy he really fucked up that one then

 

The whole fun of fan theories is using the series' canon baseline to find potential "evidence". Just because you really don't like the mural theory doesn't mean you need to insist the TROOTH in the headcanon thread, especially when said TROOTH is just based on your own headcanon. Where's muh canon evidence for this other artifact Gerald found that told him about Chaos 0 or whatever?

 

Yes, I do think there is a misunderstanding of my approach in my last few posts. I wasn’t attempting to provide any positive evidence for the claim - hence my saying I believed it just for fun. Everything I’ve said in response to you was just regarding your claim that the mural theory couldn’t be true, a positive claim in itself.

And yes, being very hung up on “the truth” in the context of headcanon is a little fruitless imo. I suffer no delusions that the theory is intended by real life creators, or could be supported to the same degree as scientific claims, or could withstand scrutiny in a court of law. It’s just a personal belief I hold about a fictional universe that I find enhances my enjoyment of the story and its characters which I don’t think is impossible given other in universe information. That approach to belief generally isn’t one that garners truth in a real world context, but again, this is just for my own entertainment in a fictional environment.

Gerald is known to have researched Echidna culture and based some of his creations on that culture. One of his creations, Shadow, has an in universe resemblance to Sonic. The mural is an element of Echidna culture known to the audience that depicts a being that we as the audience can reasonably infer is intended to resemble Sonic. That’s about all I need to say “wouldn’t it be neat if Gerald based Shadow on that mural?”.

The following is pure headcanon, spoilered for size.

Spoiler

I imagine a scenario in which Gerald, agonizing over the failure of the Biolizard and the need to completely reboot Project Shadow, turns to ancient Echidna research. Perhaps he does so merely out of comfort and relaxation, briefly forcing his mind to ponder something besides scientific data related to the ultimate life form, a scientific equivalent to curing writer’s block.

During this bout of research, he comes across images of the mural. Perhaps he took photographs of the mural himself on Angel Island, or Lost World, or perhaps they were taken by someone else entirely. Aesthetically he’s fascinated by the appearance of the super being depicted, and perhaps he even humorously notes the resemblance of the opposite mustachioed figure to himself. Why did the ancient Echidna depict a seeming non-Echidna in this mural in what appears to be a heroic context? Perhaps he knows from the runes surrounding the artwork that the mural is a prophecy, that the spiky being represents a hedgehog who is very powerful, a protector. He muses that in essence, that is his wish for Project Shadow, to create a being that offers a chance of life to those like Maria.

He’s struck with inspiration: perhaps he was approaching Project Shadow from the wrong perspective in focusing on the regenerative abilities of lizards. Scientific research has suggested that hedgehogs are particularly adept in channeling Chaos energy. Basing the Ultimate Lifeform on a hedgehog could prove more stable. His mind newly invigorated and buzzing with ideas, Gerald begins his earliest designs for the next stage of Project Shadow.

To be clear, the preceding is unabashed fan fiction. There’s no explicit evidence such a thing ever occurred in universe. But I find it to be an entertaining story allowed by accepting the mural theory. I don’t expect anyone else to buy into my very specific take, naturally, but I hope it illustrates my approach to the mural theory: it enriches my personal understanding of the characters and scenarios.

The image is misleading because Doom’s Eye’s tentacles aren’t permanently curled in that fashion.

Again, I’m not interested in the real life circumstances of SA2’s development with respect to the headcanon. Maekawa may have intended Shadow to be a dead ringer for Sonic (though even the original design has enough differences in color and quill shape that they still shouldn’t be mistaken for one another), but that’s not reflected in the final product, so what we are left with diegetically is a world where people view two beings as looking near identical when to our real life eyes that’s not really the case. In order for SA2’s story to make any sense, we the audience have to shrug our shoulders and accept that in universe, these two hedgehogs look remarkably similar. With respect to the mural headcanon, I am just barely expanding that suspension of disbelief to the mural’s depiction of Sonic. And in the context of my bit of fan fiction above, I’m not even going that far. All that’s really required is that Gerald is inspired by the mural to make a hedgehog.

 

A: My headcanon is that Sonic’s favorite color is green!

B: Do you have any proof of that?

A: Er, no, it’s just my own personal belief about the character.

B: Don’t you care about truth? What about all the evidence against it? Doesn’t the fact that Sonic is blue suggest *that* is his favorite color?

A: I mean, not necessarily… it’s possible he prefers green.

B: “Not necessarily”, “it’s possible”… where is the hard evidence for your claims? Why are you content just to make things up??

A: Because… it’s the headcanon thread?

(Just a bit of fun, please excuse the double post, and no disrespect intended, DefinitiveDubs. I fully appreciate your take on evidential support for belief in a real world context. I just don’t think it really applies here!)