Who wrote "The Truth of 50 Years Ago"?

I recently replayed SA2 in Japanese & watched all of Sonic X for the first time (also in Japanese), and I never got the impression that Shadow never met Maria. They both made it clear that Shadow’s memories were tampered with (or more like, partially omitted) so that he misinterprets Maria’s wish as revenge. At 3:50 in the video below, Shadow’s modified memories has Maria saying “Please Shadow… in my place… to all the people who live on that planet” and Shadow interprets that as “oh you want me to take revenge on the whole planet! Got it!” and proceeds to carry out Gerald’s plan to destroy the planet.



When Rouge points out his memories might not be real, it felt more like it was a setup for Shadow remembering during the Last Story what Maria really said, and that perhaps Shadow’s motivations up to that point were due to false memories (which ended up being true, because Maria never wanted revenge on the planet). Then in the Last Story thanks to Amy he finally remembers what Maria really said (at 23:43 in the video I linked to earlier “Please Shadow… in my place… to all the people who live on that planet… give them a chance to be happy. Grant everyone’s wish. I know you can do it, Shadow. You were born for that purpose.”), the bold parts being what was previously omitted from Shadow’s memories. So Shadow remembers what Maria really said and he’s all “wait that’s what Maria said? Well shit I better help save the planet to keep Maria’s promise!” It’s not that he suddenly cares about the planet now, but keeping Maria’s promise is the most important thing to him, regardless of whether it’s to destroy the planet or to save the planet.

When Amy triggers his true memories, I felt like for all intents and purposes this was meant to be portrayed as true actual events, not another set of false memories.

 

The thing is, the depiction of Maria's death in Sonic X 37 is completely different from how it's depicted in his first flashback. The real scene (where the soldier is strongly implied to be the more reliable narrator) shows that Maria fled on her own, without Shadow present, which is nothing like the version depicted in Episode 36, based explicitly on his own corrupted memories. We don't see what's inside either of the 2 capsules she released (The Gizoid is likely the second one), but if one of them is indeed the Shadow we know, we never see any sign of them being consciously aware of what actually happened. Literally nothing in his memory matches the actual Maria death we're shown. I also don't believe for a second Maekawa would greenlight sight an odd depiction of events if it didn't line up with an idea he'd at least been considering for a time. We know he had direct oversight into Sonic X's storylines, and no doubt he'd scrutinize Shadow's depiction the most directly.




Of course, that doesn't explicitly mean it's true in the game continuity, but the choice to show her death so differently doesn't seem accidental or unintentional. It seems like an explicit choice to verify just how differently events went down from not only what Shadow remembered before, but even what he remembered in episode 38. It's the strongest piece of evidence in showing just how unreliable his memory was, by far, even moreso than what's written in "The Truth of 50 years ago". Even the edited dub version still goes along with this, as it only cuts out the moment she's shot, but strongly implies the soldier went through with it.

Of course, I realize this idea may have been dropped entire when we get to STH2005, but as I've said before, I'm interested in what was intended at that time, less so what was later made canon. I would not be at all surprised if the upcoming backstory novella and animation explicitly makes clear that Shadow was awakened and spent time with Maria before her death.

But yes, the possibility that he never did fascinates me, and I stand by the fact that the original game and their documents strongly hint at this idea, especially in the JPN version.

 

I can't watch the first and third videos you linked ("This video contains content from TMSanime, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds") but I see your point with the second video (I forgot about that, apologies). That is interesting that it depicts the scene without Shadow awake and talking, and I'm also reminded of one of Shadow's memories in StH05 depicting a GUN soldier shooting Maria while they were running through the Ark together (as opposed to Shadow being trapped in a capsule). I always thought it was just because of poor writing and/or misremembering SA2's cutscenes.

I can certainly see it as something that was considered during SA2's development but from a storytelling point of view it would be very shitty if Shadow's "true memories" in Last Story ended up also being fake; if that was the case they should have maybe teased that in a post-credit scene (in SA2 I mean) or something. Maybe they planned to follow it up in a future game but then ended up changing course for whatever reason.

(I know that Sonic X was supervised by SEGA and all, but... there's two planets... Chris exists for some reason... Tails is just a minor character in the first two seasons... I mean it was a fun show and all, but it's very very far from the game canon)

 

I think that's why they've never comitted to the idea, even if the evidence to support it is there, and dare I say, rather strong. It would be a very unpopular and divisive idea among the fandom. In retrospect, even STH05's footage doesn't really confirm or debunk it one way or another like I initially thought because the game is FULL of unreliable narrators on what "really happened", and in depth context about real events is often left unclear. About the only accurate info we see on "what really happened" in that game turns out to be... Gerald's video in the last story, which looks like it's left for a Shadow who may not even be awake yet, and 2 brief scenes showing Shadow in the capsule when Gerald meets with Black Doom "waking up", but even that doesn't actually show him ever leaving the capsule or being fully finished, so there's still some ambiguity.

Again, I'd be shocked if they stuck with this idea, given how much Shadow and Maria's friendship is beloved in the fandom, but I consider the evidence for this theory in all the JP content to be overwhelmingly there. Heck, most evidence points to Gerald being nowhere near Maria at the time of her death, something that false memories in Sonic X Ep 36 flashback again shows (though the games do not). And STH05's depictions of the ark flashbacks are very different depending on which path you take, which again points to most of those depictions being unreliable narrators, or told to Shadow by other entities who want to influence and give him a specific narrative.

There's also other oddities in Sonic Battle's storyline that are worth paying attention to, like Shadow having Maria's data "heart" implemented into his memory to influence his personality. It's canon in the Japense version that his empathetic personality is literally based on hers.

Interestingly, Sonic X JP 37 also slightly changes the dialogue of the meeting between Shadow/Rogue in 2 specific ways...

1. To have Shadow openly acknowledge he knows the Biolizard is a prototype. He's not at all surprised by its existence.
2. To have Rogue acknowledge that 2 capsules were released from the ark, like in the soldier's flashback, likely as a setup for the Gizoid plotline (Sonic Battle was released almost the exact same week that this episode aired in Japan). So again, Sonic X's depiction of events is not at all a 1/1 match to the game.

However, Maekawa was the staff member who consulted with the production crew on the anime, and there's no way in hell he would let anyone else oversee Shadow's single known storyline at that point (Heroes came out only weeks after these episodes), without his insights and approval. Because of that, I am confident that the soldier's description of his encounter with Maria was approved by Maekawa and lined up with some of his original plans.

Again, let me repeat, just because there is evidence for this theory being true then, does not mean it's true or canon now. Maekawa loves to retweet fanart of Shadow and Maria hanging out all the time, so he certainly welcomes the idea that they were close friends, whatever the truth may have been during production.