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bird-inatrashcan · 7 days ago

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If you're up for it, would you be willing to talk about how the writing of women in the Sonic series has changed over time?

absolutely!! the female Sonic cast has always had a special place in my heart, for reasons that will probably become self-evident as I write this post, so I'm really excited to answer this question!!

to keep this long post somewhat readable, I'll divide the series into eras roughly based on the dominant writing style at the time as I see it.

[Note: if you enjoy this post, please do interact with it, I've put in a lot of effort! and I'd love it if anyone wants to indulge me with follow-up questions! however, also please note that I'd rather not get into debates on things like this on social media; if you disagree with something I've said here, I gently ask that you make your own post in response instead of replying directly]

- Classic era

most early franchise installments were light on story and the cast was largely portrayed according to broad archetypes. in the games, the only female character who made it into a finished product was Amy Rose, who was played as a damsel in distress for Sonic to rescue in Sonic CD. she was intended to be a humorous take on the "obligatory distaff counterpart love interest to the main character" trope, who was head-over-heels for Sonic, while Sonic did not return her feelings and clearly found her kind of annoying. while I definitely think there was some merit to making her a funny character rather than just a glorified trophy for winning the game, Sonic himself was written as an escapist character for a target audience of young boys, so there's also an undertone of "ew, cooties! girls are gross, right?" that wasn't very generous to Amy's character.

it's worth noting that more female characters did show up in alternate continuity spinoff materials, where there seemed to be a greater level of effort put toward creating lovable girl characters who were intended to be cool and interesting (Princess Sally, Sonic's intelligent, no-nonsense, tomboyish character foil and love interest from the Sonic SatAM cartoon stands out as especially unique). personally, I haven't engaged closely with spinoff material from that era, however, so I'll skip over those. they were mostly self-contained and had next to no impact on the central game canon anyway.

- Early modern era

I'll loosely define this era as "post-franchise reboot, pre-change in voice cast" (so roughly everything between Sonic Adventure and Shadow the Hedgehog). this was when the game canon first began to add more female characters, and there was a clear attempt to write more diverse and interesting girls. Amy was redesigned to look less similar to Sonic, and she became playable alongside newcomers Rouge and Cream. Tikal and Maria showed up as major supporting characters, albeit mostly in flashbacks, as both of them died long before the games' timeframe.

Amy retained her role from the classic era as Sonic's "annoying" self-proclaimed girlfriend, though she was reimagined as a spunky little upstart who had her own adventures when Sonic wasn't around as well. while her primary motivation was still to hunt Sonic down to try to force him to marry her, she was now moreso framed as an eccentric with a heart of gold, rather than a caricature of femininity. Rouge was introduced as a vampy femme fatale, highly intelligent and often closely involved with the deep lore of whatever story she showed up in. though she was taken seriously in a way Amy wasn't, she was also objectified (especially in her debut game) and involved in a love-hate, will-they-or-won't-they romantic subplot with Knuckles that I personally feel was painfully heteronormative and reductive to both characters. Cream was introduced as Amy's younger friend, a shy and vulnerable little girl who seems to have been mostly included for cuteness factor.

though these three main girls are different from each other, they're all based in stereotypical female roles defined by their proximity to the boys, neatly slotting into the "wife-mother/seductress/child" trifecta (what TVtropes calls "The Three Faces of Eve", after the 1957 film). though it's also notable that all three of them were "allowed" to be as cartoonish and zany as the male cast, which I think made them impactful, memorable and engaging nonetheless, despite the stereotypical aspects. all three of them were also fundamentally intended to be loved by the audience - Amy was funny and spirited, Rouge was competent and glamorous, and Cream was inspirational in her positivity and kindness. Amy especially seemed to be intended to appeal to female audience members as an aspirational go-getter type, and whatever the male audience thought of her was deprioritized. of course encouraging young girls to aspire to romance first and foremost is sexist, but the fact that there was an attempt to invite female fans into the franchise at all was a step up from the classic era.

personally, I also find Rouge's development across this era especially interesting, as well as how it set her up for the next era of games; her intended role was somewhat derailed come Sonic Heroes. in her debut game, Sonic Adventure 2, she was an ally of Shadow, who was killed off at the end of their story. however, Shadow became so immensely popular with fans that he was brought back in Sonic Heroes ... and from then on, the focus of Rouge's character began to drift from "minor antagonist to Knuckles" to "major ally to Shadow." as Shadow was always a closed book, Rouge functioned as an emotional anchor point for the audience in his stead, and as they were consistently paired up for subplots, increasingly there would be focus on Rouge's intelligence, compassion and loyalty over her unpredictability. more and more often, the audience was invited to relate to her and see the story through her eyes. I also think she was somewhat saved from being reduced to "Shadow's wife who has to save him from himself" just by virtue of nominally being Knuckles' love interest, which forced the writers to put effort into more closely defining the exact details of her relationship with Shadow, instead of relying on tired romantic clichés as shorthand. the franchise sort of accidentally stumbled into writing Rouge with way more internality than I think was ever intended for her character. on a personal note, she remains my favorite Sonic character to this day for this very reason. there's something about this transformation from objectified "eye candy" into a relatable, faceted viewpoint character with fully developed interpersonal relationships that I find weirdly heartwarming.

on a final note, Tikal and Maria complete the original set of "girl characters playing girl roles." Tikal is written according to the Native American stereotype of a young indigenous girl who is wise beyond her years and in tune with nature; burdened with trying to calm the anger of the aggressive, war-obsessed male members of her tribe, and ultimately dying long before the games' timeframe. Maria is used as a symbol of lost innocence: a young, blue-eyed, blonde white girl with a seemingly endless well of hope and compassion in her heart, despite suffering from a deadly disease, who was tragically killed sometime in the past purely to motivate a still-living male character. I'm being extremely candid here, because while both characters are iconic and widely beloved to this day, I think it's also important to be honest about the cultural context that spawned them. also, this post is about which roles have been "available" for female characters across this franchise, and it is unfortunately the god honest truth that pickings were slim in the late 90's/early 00's.

[more under the cut, because this got really long, haha!]

- Sonic X

though my main focus is the game canon, the at-the-time-iconic Sonic anime was closely based on the games, and it had a strong impact on future entries, so I want to include it here anyway. although Sonic X was released at the same time as the "early modern era" as defined above, I think it's worth spotlighting on its own because of just how much effort it put toward portraying Amy, Rouge and Cream as interesting, valuable characters with full ranges of emotion. it took an interest in exploring why the girls acted the way they did and how they felt about themselves, their lives, their relationships. it's certainly still loaded with sexism typical of the era and franchise, but it also assumes a level of investment in the girls on the audience's side that's refreshing even by current standards!

in brief, it explores Amy seriously wavering on whether it's even worth it to continue to try to pursue Sonic when he never gives her the time of day, Rouge's struggles to be vulnerable with other people (including a full character arc where she befriends another, anime-exclusive, female character), and Cream learning to cope with the harsh realities of wanting to be a hero like her older friends.

series 2/season 3 also introduces Cosmo, a young girl on a quest for revenge against the men who wiped out her colony. refreshingly, her grief and anger are treated as completely justified, and she ultimately succeeds in her mission. unfortunately, she dies in the attempt, and while her death is portrayed as a noble sacrifice she's happy to make to prevent her enemies from hurting anyone else, it also heavily emphasizes that she felt useless before and only finally feels fulfilled when she can give up her own life to protect others. I do think her arc is very well-written start to finish, and I love how much it centers her perspective and the ugly sides of her trauma, but there's an obvious bitter undercurrent to measuring her worth based on how useful she is to others.

- Later 00's era

defining this period loosely as including the more "experimental" 00's games (so Shadow the Hedgehog until Sonic Unleashed or so, plus a few straggler spinoff games released shortly after). this is where we first begin to see female characters filling narrative roles that don't "have to" be female. four new girls were added during this time who seem to have been intended to be recurring - Blaze, Marine, Wave and Shade. one-off deuteragonist roles were also given to female characters in the form of Elise, Merlina and Shahra.

while Amy, Rouge and Cream were based on stereotypes defined by their proximity to men, the girls of this era were based on broader archetypes defined by their proximity to the plot. Blaze was introduced as a new rival for Sonic, who was extremely powerful, mysterious, tormented, standoffish and violent, not dissimilar to his previous male rivals. although she was a princess and a "proper lady", these facets of her character were played for drama rather than purely to mark her as valuable; she had the world on her shoulders and extremely high standards for herself, the consequences of which were explored in detail. Blaze is also notable for being Sonic's co-star in two games where the two of them are the only playable characters. these games center their journey from enemies to friends, as well as Blaze's growing friendships with two female friends, Cream and Marine. Marine herself was introduced as a rambunctious little girl who constantly got in over her head and needed Blaze, Sonic and Tails to bail her out of trouble. while she had her moments of competence, there was a greater focus on her as a comedic character with a big ego and difficulty getting along with others. by just how much of the script is devoted to her antics and how charismatic she is, I absolutely get the impression that the audience was expected to love her - not despite her flaws, but because of them. in that way, she was similar to Amy during the early modern era, but without the heavily gendered writing. in fact, I think she may be the first female character where you could flip her gender and nothing about how she was written would seem out of the usual. in a similar vein, Wave was Tails' rival in the Riders racing game trilogy, a haughty teen prodigy who was the enemy team's mechanic. though she did have an attitude comparable to a stereotypical female high school bully, there was a bigger focus on her being highly skilled at her craft and deviously clever besides, so the feminized aspects of her character were mostly aesthetic. finally, there was Shade, a mysterious, powerful new threat, who would eventually defect to the heroes' side when she realized just how evil her boss was. while her personality wasn't all that faceted, she defined the story she appeared in; first as a sinister antagonist the heroes were struggling to keep up with, then as their guide through a mysterious otherworld.

sadly, all four of them would be sidelined by the end of this era for different reasons. Blaze's storyline was cut short when the disastrous reception to Sonic '06 caused Sega to change direction for the franchise and drop the majority of the supporting cast. while Blaze continued to appear sporadically in supplementary material and the occasional spinoff game, she has yet to return to prominence in the mainline games, and her storyline was never properly wrapped up. Marine was sadly poorly received by fans, who found her attitude annoying. barring the extremely rare cameo, she never appeared again after her debut game, seemingly as a direct result of her lack of popularity. Wave, along with her male teammates, was also relegated to cameos and spinoffs for many years after the third Riders game bombed. Shade was dropped from the franchise and her debut game de-canonized due to unrelated legal problems that seem to have scared Sega off from so much as mentioning she ever existed.

while Wave and Shade being sidelined seems unrelated to them being female, I think it's undeniable that Blaze and Marine have been undervalued compared to their male counterparts. more on what became of them later.

as for the original early modern girl trio of Amy, Rouge and Cream, Amy and Cream began to struggle to fit into the franchise during the later 00's era. while the series increasingly focused on female characters with active roles in the narrative, there was clearly still a certain shyness about including too many female characters at once, so Amy and Cream, who were defined by their personalities rather than by their plot relevance, fell into disuse. outside of her appearance as Blaze's friend in one game, Cream was dropped from the franchise early on during this era. meanwhile, Amy did continue to make appearances, but her character was flattened and her screentime reduced. she was now mostly defined by her temper and was frequently treated like little more than an obstacle. it seemed she was often included simply because "well, she's a main main character, she has to make an appearance" rather than there being any assumption that the audience would enjoy her character.

replacing Amy as Sonic's primary female companions were Elise (in Sonic '06), Merlina (in Sonic and the Black Knight) and Shahra (in Sonic and the Secret Rings). none of these girls had very defined personalities, but they were all at the center of their plotlines, and their relationships with Sonic were at the emotional core of their games. notably, Elise also temporarily replaced Amy as a more "serious" love interest to Sonic. I definitely think audiences were expected to like her more than Amy due to her style of waifish, demure femininity being much more popular at the time compared to Amy's loud, confident, kitschy "barbie girl" femininity. Merlina also notably became the game canon's first female final boss, though unlike most of the series' male final bosses, she was portrayed as misguided and tragic rather than truly malicious, and Sonic was able to make up with her in the end. this plays into the common trend in fiction of writing female villains as misguided and more "innocent" than their male counterparts; a male villain is a rival and an equal to be beaten, but women are fickle and childlike, so female villains cannot be truly evil, instead needing a sufficently strong-willed man to lead her back to the path of righteousness (I will again point to TVtropes for more examples - see the trope pages "Females Are More Innocent" and "High-Heel-Face Turn").

compared to Amy and Cream, Rouge adapted better to the sexist standards of the time, as her competence and her unique proximity to the still extremely plot-relevant Shadow "justified" keeping her in the spotlight. she had some of her best dramatic roles during this era - Sonic '06 stands out for strongly downplaying the male gaze-y aspects of her character in favor of focusing on her intelligence, relationships and relatability. her femme fatale theme became more of an aesthetic than a story role. there's a very satisfying moment toward the end of Shadow's storyline in Sonic '06 where this character who was once defined by her selfishness, unpredictability, untrustworthiness and imagined sexual availability to the audience swears eternal loyalty to her best friend, even knowing the whole world will turn against him and she will no doubt be demonized as well for sticking with him. I love how the fantasy she plays into is shattered here in favor of defining her true value by her capacity to simply be a friend.

however, Rouge was also dropped toward the end of this era during the purging of the extended supporting cast. this meant that Amy was, for a time, once again the only recurring female character in the mainline games.

- The struggle years

I'm giving this one a rude title because it was truly a bleak time to be female in a Sonic game. I'm defining this era as post-extended-cast-purge, pre-extended-cast-reintroduction (so Sonic Unleashed until Sonic Forces). during this time, there was an attempt to turn the brand around from being "melodramatic" to being lighthearted and funny, but very little effort was put toward adding new female characters who fit the new direction. as fans did not like Amy's flanderization during the later 00's period, there was an attempt to course-correct by making her calmer and less obtrusive, but without her spunky attitude and the interplay between her temper and her kindness, her character instead began to feel lifeless - it was hard to derive comedy from a character who wasn't allowed to be "too much" when her modern era incarnation was originally designed around being endearingly annoying. the only two major female characters joining her during this time were newcomers Zeena and Sticks.

in a group of six new villains, Zeena was the only female member, and she marked a return to female characters relegated to female roles only. the Deadly Six were created with an approach I can only call "people we assume you, the audience, would probably love to have an excuse to beat up." Zeena was depicted as a shallow, self-centered, lazy high school queen bee who only existed to be "put in her place." she was sultry and sexualized, but unlike Rouge's more glamorous sexualization, this was used to mark Zeena as trashy and worthless. with Sonic's characterization returning to something more explicitly escapist for young male fans during this era, the mean-spirited way he rejects her attempts to flirt with him and makes fun of her for being shallow reeks of a writer somewhere taking out their anger on girls they knew in high school, to the effect of "well, I didn't like you anyway!!" the only real "progressive" aspect of Zeena's character I can point to is that she is the only girl in the main game canon who is truly evil to her core with no redeeming qualities, but that doesn't say much when this characterization is paired with her condemnation as a "low value woman" (girl) (again, she's coded as like 15-19. leave her alone!!)

Sticks was introduced in the Sonic Boom spinoff, which dominated the franchise so heavily for a while that I remember I was actually under the impression it was intended to replace the mainline canon as a full reboot. she was introduced as a new member of the central cast, seemingly just to even out the gender ratios a tiny bit. like Marine before her, Sticks was written with a refreshingly gender-neutral approach; she was a feral child who grew up in the wild and had only recently started integrating into society. she was a purely comedic character, and her jokes revolved around her being paranoid, gross and socially inappropriate, which, I mean, #win. she had no depth to speak of, but a female character who is treated as delightful for being weird and nasty is rare.

unfortunately, Amy's Sonic Boom counterpart was reimagined as a direct foil to Sticks - a reasonable, responsible, socially aware, "motherly" figure, whose jokes revolved around her being kind of lame and boring. she conformed to a female character type popularized during this time period who was defined by her adherence to social rules; supposedly funny because of their abnormal dedication to being normal, but the joke quickly devolves into "women are over-emotional and care about things that don't matter." while it was never explicitly stated that Amy was older in this incarnation, she certainly acted like it - she was no longer allowed to be a silly 12 year old with age-appropriate quirks, she was now the "mom friend" and the "annoyingly straight-edge one." her depiction in previous media was hardly spotless, but the shift from "you will love this loud little weirdo" to "please tolerate Amy, we made her as wife-able as possible this time, so please don't be mad" is palpable.

tragically, Amy's depiction in Sonic Boom would go on to have a clear influence on her character writing going forward, even as the Boom continuity was dropped and the main game canon came back into prominence. it doesn't help that Sticks was dropped along with the rest of Boom, leaving this version of Amy without the foil character she was supposed to contrast with in the first place. when you take the "wild girl" half out of the "wild girl, boring girl" duo, all you have left is "boring girl."

- Revival era

I'm defining this era as everything from Sonic Forces and onward. Sonic Forces marked a return to the darker, more dramatic and more character-heavy writing of previous eras, and many characters were brought back who had previously been dropped or relegated to cameos and spinoffs. however, reintegration into the main canon was not equal opportunity across genders; of the female cast, only Rouge would return to prominence immediately (2017), with Cream returning in a starring role in a spinoff game several years later (2023), followed by Maria being temporarily revived in a time travel plot (2024), and Wave being set to return in an upcoming racing game (2025). Cream and Blaze still haven't reappeared in the mainline games outside of a remake of an older title where both play minor roles, and Marine, Shade and Sticks are barely acknowledged as having ever existed at all across the entire franchise, spinoffs included. Zeena has shown up along with her five male team members in supplementary material, with barely any lines and only treated marginally better. compare Cream and Marine to other "lighthearted"/plot-irrelevant male characters like Team Chaotix, and Blaze to the similarly "lore-overdosed"/difficult-to-reintroduce Silver; male characters who were all included in Forces from the get-go. as mentioned in the previous section, Amy would also take on many of her Boom continuity character traits, plagued by defensive writing that leaves her flat and lifeless.

I don't think it's too out-there to theorize that, due to the flaws in the female characters' writing in the past, the characters themselves are being devalued and downplayed. the obviously superior choice would be to include them and just write them better. this has worked for previously unpopular male characters like Silver and Big. the myth that early Sonic girls are all offensive female stereotypes isn't even true - if they wanted to spotlight less gender-conforming girls, Marine and Sticks are right there. not to mention the feminine girls have plenty of depth and story potential! I once again want to point to Sonic X and the way it treated the OG feminine girl trio as people with thoughts and feelings of their own.

there also hasn't been any effort in the newer games to introduce new female characters who are not stereotypes to replace the ones who were dropped. the only new major female character we've seen so far is Sage, a new recurring antagonist.

Sage is a computer program created by Doctor Eggman to serve as his personal assistant, whom he eventually comes to view as a daughter. though she is hostile to the heroes and seems to have a little bit of her creator's mean-spirited humor, she is moreso defined by her quiet, logical, yet sentimental personality, her developing feelings of her own despite being an artificial being, and her desire to be treated like family by Eggman. this stands in stark contrast to other artificial life previously created by Eggman, like Metal Sonic, Gamma, Omega, Orbot and Cubot, who were always treated like real people with feelings by the narrative without much if any dithering. Eggman also never formally accepted any of them as family, despite his relationship with Metal Sonic on occasion being depicted as subtextually father/son-like. with Sage being Eggman's first female artificial creation, whose arc centers around her questionable personhood, and the "happy ending" of her debut game involving her settling into a subservient familial role in the life of a male character, it's clear that she is treated differently from similar characters because she's girl. it doesn't help that Eggman seems to favor her over the others because she values him above all else, up to and including her own life, and she never challenges his ego.

I don't think this direction for her character is without any merit at all, but it really depends on how their relationship is framed in future games. if Eggman favoring her over his other creations because of her submissive personality is depicted as at least somewhat toxic to Sage's developing personhood, that could add some much-needed depth to her character, and it would gel extremely well with the series' themes of freedom VS oppression. the entire reason Eggman's character is depicted as a human being who uses robots to fight animal characters over "Chaos" Emeralds is because he represents humanity's attempts to gain total control and dominance over the natural world out of capitalistic greed. he's a selfish control freak. if the only person he can form a deep emotional connection with is an artificial being he programmed himself, whose only desire is to serve him, stylized as a well-behaved little girl with a questionable level of personhood who is perfectly obedient to her father, then there is something really interesting here. but it does require the narrative to admit that Eggman's love is clearly extremely conditional, and those conditions stand in direct opposition to Sage's ability to truly become her own person.

the mainline games and Sage aside, we have seen two spinoff games in this era that I think handle the female cast well - Sonic Dream Team and The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. I can't speak in detail on Dream Team because I haven't experienced it for myself yet, but it notably features a perfect 50/50 gender divide in its playable roster, a first since Sonic Rush Adventure released back in 2007! this is also the game I mentioned above where Cream plays a major role, and as far as I know, she interacts heavily with new female one-off character, Ariem.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog stands out for its strong characterization across the cast, and I think it's especially notable for finally putting some pep back into Amy's character. I actually think it has the best balance of her traits to date - she's confident and energetic and kind of bossy, she's cheerful and a total sweetheart, she likes being the center of attention, she has some of her temper back. she's also finally allowed to be genuinely eccentric again, and it's less centered around her crush on Sonic and more on the fact that she likes trashy boy bands and true crime, and she's way too excited to see someone "murdered" for their mystery game, and she's clearly having the time of her life playing pretend with her friends. she's even a little antagonistic and is allowed to get in the player's way, but since it's her party and her birthday, it's framed playfully instead of as a genuine problem. the other characters taking the event super seriously because it's Amy's birthday and it's important that it goes well because they love her also adds a lot of warmth around her character. the big twist that Shadow of all people was skulking around being shady because he was desperately trying to get her a gift she'd love last minute is heartwarming, and makes perfect sense, since we saw him develop a soft spot for her all the way back in Adventure 2. while many previous installments in the franchise have sneered at her or downplayed her quirks because she was "too much", this game insists that she is wonderful and lovable in part because of her quirks.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog also features Rouge and Blaze in major roles, and interestingly, they're paired off with each other as the character encounter for one of the levels, so we get some great unique interactions and funny moments between two female characters. because the stakes in this game are so much lower than usual, we also get a look into Blaze's character when she's letting her guard down and goofing off with her friends, which adds new dimension to her character. overall really solid character writing on this game, and though there's still a greater volume of male characters, the three girls that are there get some of their best writing yet.

outside of the main girl characters, it's also worth mentioning that Maria, who has been out of focus since the late 90's/early 00's, returned and became an active participant in the plot of Shadow Generations in 2024, temporarily brought back to life through time travel. I think this helped a lot to flesh out her personality and make her be more than just another fridged woman. I also really like how it handled her relationship with Shadow and showed more vividly why he misses her so much. older media tended to take it for granted that she was a younger sister figure to him, something vulnerable he cared for that he failed to protect. however, Shadow Generations flips the dynamic around and shows that Maria acted like an older sister to him, teaching him things, comforting him when he was sad, and defending him from people who thought he was a monster. flashbacks in the supplementary animated short Dark Beginnings also show that Shadow's aggressive, standoffish personality is not a trauma response - he was always like that, but Maria was able to see past his issues and understand him in ways others didn't. there's some (accidental?) autism coding in the way Shadow struggles to handle his own emotions and to connect with other people, which makes Maria's ability to connect with him all the more valuable. she's no longer just a symbol of innocence; she was a human being he had a unique connection to, and without her, that source of safety and comfort is gone. Shadow was the one who was young and vulnerable and needed to be protected in that relationship ... which also happens to attach perfectly to the fact that Maria died to save him. it works extremely well!

I do think there is some room to criticize the fact that for as much as we see of Maria's character during this plot, it's a bit of a shame that she remains perfectly loyal to the "endlessly optimistic and easy to get along with, despite all her problems" approach. I don't think she should necessarily despair or cause conflict, but I think hanging a lampshade on the way she is put on a pedestal by everyone around her would have helped. just give her, like, one conversation where she admits to being a little bitter at times and hiding it so others won't worry. it would have meshed well with the in-universe sexism of the time period she's from, too.

- Sonic IDW

like Sonic X, I also think the Sonic IDW comic series deserves its own section for doing some really, really interesting things with the female cast - it stands out for just how many new female characters are introduced, and how much focus they and the girls from the games receive. no less than SIX new female characters are added to the main cast, and for most of them, their major relationships and arcs are with each other. this has been explicitly stated to be an attempt to even out the gender ratios in the cast, and effort was clearly put into further diversifying their gender presentation as well.

Tangle is a friendly, energetic newbie hero and adventurer, who is strongly implied to be a butch lesbian. though she plays like a central main character and something of a mascot for the comic series, her characterization is mostly static; she's commonly used as a supporting character to the other new girls' arcs, similar to how Sonic often plays a supporting story role to the other game characters. Whisper is a troubled anti-hero with a dark past, who stars in her own highly actionized subplot; a story that is treated as tense, dramatic and exciting. the first 4-issue mini-series published outside of the comic's normal run is dedicated to Tangle uncovering the truth about Whisper's past and wearing down her walls. from then on, the two of them become "best friends" (subtextual lesbian relationship because Sega told the writers no gays allowed) and are usually seen together. some years into the comic's run, Lanolin was added to round out the team. Lanolin is a fierce, no-nonsense, militaristic leader, who takes charge and makes things happen. the narrative treats her as well-intentioned, but flawed, and though she's sympathetic, she is at times more of a hindrance than a help, which stirs tension between her, Tangle and Whisper. Jewel is a straight man character usually paired more-or-less comedically with Tangle, who stays out of the action to the best of her ability and handles administrative tasks it would feel out of character for the rest of the more action-oriented cast to want to bother with. Belle is a tragic character who stars in her own dramatic subplot, albeit mostly used as a tool to explore themes surrounding Eggman's character and the relationship between him and his creations. Surge is the comic's sole female villain, a hyper-violent, vindictive rival to Sonic and one of the story's biggest threats. she is defined by her rebellious attitude and extreme fits of anger, and her wildly complicated emotional landscape is explored through her relationship with her "sidekick", Kitsunami, a younger kid who's a dark mirror to Tails. their friendship is played both sympathetically (they're kinder to each other than to anyone else) and for horror (there's a huge power imbalance and at her worst, Surge is emotionally abusive).

because the game cast are forced to remain at least somewhat static in order to stay in line with their characterization from the games, story arcs with heavy character development are mostly handled by the characters created for the comic. since every new main hero is female, that means a huge increase in the amount of time spent on exploring female characters. Whisper, Lanolin and Belle especially go through detailed emotional arcs. the story also invests a significant amount of time (and another full 4-issue mini-series) in exploring Surge's character. there is character growth and developed relationships across the board.

one thing that is worth noting, however, is that so far, Surge is the comic's only female villain. in fact, before she was introduced in issue #50, there was a perfect gender divide in the cast of new comic-exclusive characters - every new hero added was female, every new villain was male.

I think this speaks to that same anxiety around female characters that have plagued the games in recent years: in an attempt to write "likeable" female characters, the girls are watered down and made less "extreme" than male characters. too much emphasis is put on them being intelligent, holding themselves emotionally accountable and always "doing their best"; but they must also consistently mess up and have flaws to show their humanity. female characters in older Sonic media were accused of being "annoying", "weak", "useless" and in the case of older alternate continuities, "too perfect", and so there is a burden placed on the current character writing to convince the audience that these girls are not that at all costs. however, this misidentifies the problems with those older depictions - people don't actually hate those older depictions for those reasons. none of the girl characters were hated for being "annoying", they were hated because poor writing made them grating rather than entertaining. they were not hated for being "weak" or "useless", they were hated for being poorly utilized in the stories they appeared in. they were not "too perfect", they lacked realistic depth and consistent traits. not to mention, they were judged more harshly because audiences are sexist! the way I see it, you can never trust fans to correctly identify exactly what's wrong with a character's portrayal, because most people only know how those characters make them feel, not why. so directly addressing "the female Sonic characters are [negative character traits]" with "we have written the female Sonic characters to NEVER be [negative character traits]" isn't a solution, it's a new, different kind of sexism. personally, I honestly prefer the type of sexism in older games, where every girl character is a stereotype, but they are written fearlessly, based on the assumption that the audience is going to LOVE this fun girl with all her quirks. it isn't less restrictive, but it feels kinder!

however, this is also why Surge is such a breath of fresh air in the current era. Surge breaks so many of the right conventions of the gendered writing in this franchise - she's a villain, she's gender non-conforming, she's gross and scrappy and gets her hands dirty, and she is intentionally written as loud, annoying, hypocritical and self-centered. when she fails, she fails spectacularly, with huge consequences for herself and for others, and she never takes responsibility or apologizes to anyone. and at the same time, the narrative treats her as fascinating, complicated, sympathetic and cool as hell! equal time is devoted to showing her tragic backstory and her fears and axieties as there is to showing the destruction she causes, the people she hurts, how damaging her behavior is to those around her and how much they hate her for it (or tragically maybe don't hate her enough, in Kit's case) - and the fact that for the most part, she just doesn't care. she's even got jokes! she's just as prone to mid-battle banter as Sonic is, she's just meaner about it! it's left up to the reader to decide if they love or hate her after getting the full story, but the narrative does insist that you learn the whole story regardless, and that rules! this approach reminds me a lot of how Shadow was handled early on, which is what made him such a legendary character in the first place. it absolutely rocks that we're seeing a female character treated the same way. there are hints that Surge may be headed for a similar rocky redemption arc as well, and though it's a shame to lose such an impactful villain, I think the fact that her villain era has already been explored in so much depth means that whatever happens next is justified. Surge has been allowed to fully express the worst aspects of her personality, no holds barred. even if the writers spontaneously forget how to handle the character, it won't erase the time spent exploring Sonic the Hedgehog's number 1 messiest little freak girl of all time.

I certainly also think there are signs of the overall writing for the female characters improving. Lanolin is also a later addition to the cast, and she has spent a significant amount of time as an accidental antagonist as she tries to do what's right and only ends up making things worse. the last time we saw her, she was apologizing for her mistakes and seemingly learning from them, but frankly I hope she just goes on to cause new, different problems. in my opinion, she is absolutely at her most interesting and engaging when circumstances conspire to make her headstrong personality work against her rather than in her favor (subsequent angsting included). Lanolin has also been a great addition to Tangle and Whisper's team; "two grim, gritty, tormented action heroes and one cheerful sweetie who thinks murder maybe isn't always the solution, but punching is ok" is a brilliant dynamic, both for jokes and for drama. the writers also exposed Jewel to the trolley problem recently, with far-reaching consequences, which added some more interesting characterization to her as well.

as for the female chararacters from the games who make an appearance in the comic, they follow a similar structure to the newcomers; heavily in focus, but with their quirks somewhat downplayed in the beginning. Amy especially has been dialed down too much, almost to the point of feeling like an everyman. Rouge is firmly a heroic character, without any real edge, though the increased focus on her being a jokester and troublemaker means she retains a lot of charisma and is entertaining in a different way, and it does reflect the fact that she has become closer friends with the rest of the cast over the years. Cream gets a lot of great character focus in the arcs where she appears, though I personally think she is made too vulnerable and is barred too heavily from directly impacting the plot. back in Sonic X, there was a similar level of tension around "should we let this small child go on dangerous adventures with us or no", and just like in the comics, her friends couldn't always protect her - but she was allowed to work through the heartbreak and keep fighting. the comics use her as a tool to up the stakes and pull heartstrings; Sonic X made us relate to her and root for her to win. there is also a clear double standard if you compare her to Charmy, who is the same age as her, yet he's on a team of detectives who hunt down hardened criminals for a living. Charmy is sometimes used as a point of vulnerability for his team too, but there isn't so much hand-wringing over it, they just kind of cross their fingers and hope the gun-slinging gangsters they fight will keep being bad at aiming.

Blaze's characterization feels the same as ever, and she's given an excellent amount of focus, showing up far more often in the comic than she has in the games. Wave has also made a few appearances along with the rest of her team; while she's still bickering with her friends as much as ever and that works great, I can't help but notice she is now written as a straight man to Jet's antics, with her haughty attitude and ego mostly missing. this is a shame, because in the games, Wave getting on Jet's case constantly despite being just as much of an egomaniacal blowhard as him was great characterization for both of them.

overall, I definitely think the IDW comics are a massive step in the right direction for the portrayal of female characters, especially in the more recent arcs, and I hope they'll continue to improve as well. the effort is clearly also rewarded and appreciated by audiences - Tangle, Whisper and Surge have all become so popular that they've showed up in multiple spinoff mobile games, and I'm really hoping this is testing the waters to maybe include comic-exclusive characters in the games in a greater capacity in the future. they're all excellent, so here's to hoping!!

- Miscellaneous thoughts

here's a little sub-section for subjects that span multiple eras, which became too clunky to fit into any one section. just a little pile of things I wanted to touch on!

Amy as Sonic's love interest: Amy's crush on Sonic has been handled in many different ways across the years and, in my opinion, often poorly. in concept, I think the idea of "over-excited young girl has a big crush on Sonic and annoys him about it" has the potential to be funny and endearing (and at times, it has been!), but the audience is invited to root for her to win him over on multiple occasions, which I think is sexist and uncomfortable. there's nothing wrong with depicting a tween girl with regressive, heteronormative ideas of romance - unfortunately, it's normal for a girl her age! - but portraying these feelings as anything less than humorously (and maybe once in a while, tragically) unhealthy to herself and to Sonic isn't right. that 12-13 year old girl absolutely should not be getting into a relationship with a boy that used to define her entire existence and who is three full years older than her. it would also reflect extremely poorly on Sonic, who's intended to read as a kind, considerate person! he should know better too!! I'm halfway convinced the only reason we've been safe from this grim specter of a future is because of the legendarily-huge subsection of the fandom who ship Sonic with Shadow instead, and Sega knows they'd throw down if anything else was canonized. it's not my thing, but please, hold the line, soldiers, you're the only reason I can sleep at night sometimes. god save Amy (and Sonic, to a lesser extent)

- Rouge's sexualization: how much Rouge's sex appeal has been played up across the franchise varies, and it's always been controversial. in her debut game, she was heavily objectified, despite still being a minor (listed as 17 years old at the time). in Heroes, her outfit was changed to address complaints from parents about her dressing inappropriately. from Shadow the Hedgehog and onwards, she got her old outfit back, but her chest plate was now depicted as a hard material that didn't hug her figure so closely. she was also aged up to 18 and her new voice actress had a much deeper voice to make her feel more mature. I personally think this was the era where her "seductress" theme was handled the most appropriately; it was treated like an aesthetic that spoke to her personality and archetype, but her sex appeal in the eyes of the audience was deprioritized and downplayed (this also coincided with the era where her personality was explored in more depth, which obviously helped). newer franchise installments have made various minor edits to her design to further de-sexualize her, like hiking up her clothes and reducing her chest size, though personally I think this approach is too conservative. kids won't die if they see a girl with big boobs dressed in a revealing way - but if they see her be respected and valued, both by the narrative and by the other characters, they might just learn that girls like her have feelings and are real people! tasteful, subtle, age-appropriate depictions of sexuality aren't the problem here, objectification is.

- Zeena's sexualization: I want to be locked in a room with the people responsible and I'm bringing devices that would make that puppet thing from Saw blush. I think I made my points clear in her section, but I just wanted to make it EXPLICIT that I will go to bat for Zeena Lost World like no one has ever gone to bat for an underdeveloped, mean-spirited, over-sexed caricature of a teenage girl before

- Blaze, Wave and Shade as girls of color: while much of the cast is coded as Japanese and/or simply "ambiguously culturally western", Blaze seems to be South Asian, Wave seems to be Iraqi (context clues say potentially Arab? Persian?), and Shade must be Native American (Maya?). I'd like to address the intersection between their gender and cultural coding, but I don't think I have the competence to meaningfully speak on it. I can't personally identify any huge problems with their gendered characterization through a racial lens, the way I can with Tikal, which is why I haven't addressed it in the main body of the text, but that certainly doesn't mean they don't exist. unrelated to gender, obviously Blaze and Wave already play into certain racial stereotypes (Blaze having mystical powers, Wave being a thief), and broad strokes coding like this is highly controversial. I'll take this opportunity to once again recommend reading Writing With Color (the tumblr blog and/or their associated independent web page), as I think getting a feel for the broader mechanisms behind gendered racial stereotyping will be a lot more illuminating than anything I can say here!

- sexism in other canons: I major in game canon and adjacents, with a minor in Sonic X and Sonic Boom, but I'm largely unfamiliar with other canons like the Archie comics, Sonic Prime and the movies, which is why I've left them out. however, I do think it is worth mentioning that the sexist writing in the Archie comics is so legendarily horrific that I think it has definitely had an impact on how female characters are handled in the games these days. I get the impression it was a tug-of-war behind the scenes between writers who were genuinely awful sexist douchebags and well-intentioned writers trying to work around and undo the issues the best they could, but obviously that kind of struggle still leaves a mess. Princess Sally's depiction in these comics stands out to me as one of the most victimized female leads in pop culture of all time, and while I don't have a personal relationship with the rest of the characters from her canon, I genuinely think she should be absorbed into the game canon just to get another chance to shine. so many years of being a narrative punching bag and when she was finally treated better, her continuity was cancelled and she was dropped altogether ... honestly upsetting. I hope she'll be back one day in some capacity.

- Closing thoughts:

this turned into like a whole essay and frankly I didn't really sleep that much while writing this out, but I hope it was fun to read anyway! I don't know how many people will put in the time to read through something this long, but I didn't want to hold back, because female characters always need more love in fandom, and I love all of these girls so, so much. let's hope the writing for the girlies continues to improve and we'll get to see more of them in the games soon!! <3

I hope they make a Sonic IDW DLC pack for the new racing game, I want to see Surge run people over with a car

#READ MY BELOVED'S ANALYSIS POST #sth #meta #media analysis #this post is so great. I love women let's all hear it for women

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