#happinessforNine

[bluebunnyears-08]

Why Nine Is Loved So Much Already

Just watched Sonic Prime and it is AMAZING! It has stellar animation, unforgettable characters, and an engaging and exciting plot.

Among all of that, however, one character stood out to me more than all of the others: Nine. The "edgy, emo" Tails from the first Shatterverse. He's already a prevalent character, praised for his design, nature, and fantastic acting by Ashleigh Bell. He's just an excellent character in general, being complex and complicated.

He has a snarky, distant, and almost broken personality, from what I've seen, he IS almost broken. He's nearly broken because of what drives him in the first batch of episodes: Hope.

Hope can be an excellent thing. It can help you overcome obstacles, it can help you move forward, and it can help you win. However, what that hope exactly is and how you achieve it determines your character and morals.

What Nine HOPES for is a better future for himself. That is a good thing, however, the way he tries to achieve it is morally grey. It is a selfish hope that can potentially hurt others. Nine KNOWS it's selfish, he just doesn't care, the world treated him like dirt, and EVERYONE on it treated him like dirt, why should he care about how it affects it?

One more thing to note is how he acts around the others, Sonic specifically. He is curt, snarky, aloof, and strictly business with them, seeing no personal value in them other than using them due to how the world around him is.

Sonic, however, he's softer and opens slightly up. Sonic is open, kind, and patient toward the kit, something Nine never got to experience. He likes Sonic but doesn't know how to feel about it. He doesn't show trust in the blue blur. He likes him, but he isn't sure if he can truly trust him. But despite that, through out the series, the only time he genuinely smiles is with Sonic, no one else.

That's why he wanted Sonic to join him to live in The Grim with him.

Sonic makes him feel good, he makes him genuinely happy. He never thought about getting Sonic home, he only thought about getting the hedgehog to HIS idea of a true home.

One where it's just the two, where nobody can ever hurt them again. To him, it'd be the perfect world, a place where it's just him and the person he's close to.

But then Sonic tells him it's not going to work out. The worst part?

He's right.

Not just because of the problems with the Shatterverse, but also because it really isn't going to work out for them. While it's never outright stated if looked closer you can see that Sonic likes TAILS, not NINE. He cares for Nine BECAUSE he is a version of his brother, not because he cares for the separate person he is.

Nine is NOT Tails. Not just because he is different from Tails, but because he just isn't. Compared to Sonic, Nine isn't much better either. He DOES like Sonic and WHO he IS, but it's because of what Sonic can GIVE him that he does.

To Nine, Sonic can bring him EVERYTHING he ever wanted: A home, love, care, companionship, and family. To Nine, Sonic is his HOPE. If he loses that, he's back to square one, and that is what he desperately DOESN'T want.

It's heartbreakingly tragic and horribly unfair to both of them.

Another thing is his backstory. It wasn't over the top, it was what everyone EXPECTED to happen. Because Sonic wasn't there he was bullied relentlessly and became cold and resentful of the world. It's simple and not over-exaggerated and I appreciate that. It's not annoyingly complicated or trying hard to make you cry, it's just a simple statement of what happened. And that's the part that hurts, that we were RIGHT.

Because we were already close and emotionally invested in Tails, it was easy for us to sympathize with Nine. This was a character we loved, and looked up to, only to become cold and emotionally exhausted towards everything around him.

But the part that is great about him is that we don't know what his arc is going to be. Is he the character that opens up more and makes friends, is he the character that remains neutral, or is he going to be the true villain? We can't figure it out.

He's complicated and confusing but it's BECAUSE of that that we love him so much.

The final reason is the fact that he's just THAT character you WANT to win. He's so heart-wrenchingly tragic you just want him to achieve his goal of being happy, no matter HOW he achieves it. Even if he becomes the true antagonist I KNOW that all of us would root for him anyway because he DESERVES to win because he LOST so MUCH.

And that's why he's quite possibly going to be the greatest character ever written (not that he wasn't already in my opinion) in the Sonic universe.