#like I think the fact that he doesn't angst 24/7/365 like some characters makes people forget that his backstory is pretty fucked up too

[sage-nebula]

I'm thinking about Knuckles, and how little we know of him, and how what little we know of him informs what we do know of him, and how that makes some of the writing around him (in various canon materials and adaptations) feel . . . kind of disrespectful, at times?

What we know of Knuckles' backstory is this: he is the last of the echidnas, and specifically a descendant of the Knuckles clan. The Knuckles clan was an empire under the rule of Chief Pachacamac, and when they tried to take the Master Emerald and Chaos Emeralds for the sake of their nation's power, Chaos went on a rampage and wiped most of them out. Pachacamac's daughter, Tikal, sealed Chaos into the Master Emerald along with her own spirit (sacrificing her body in the process), and those that remained enshrined the Master Emerald on a chunk of land that they hefted into the sky to become Angel Island. It's there that they vowed to protect the Master Emerald, but because there were so few of them already, now Knuckles himself is the only one who remains.

What we don't know is: how the remaining echidnas on Angel Island died out, and whether Knuckles' parents were around when he was born or not.

We don't know this, because echidnas hatch from eggs at least in real life, and we don't know that they don't in the Sonic universe. And we also don't know how long it would take for those eggs to hatch . . . essentially, we don't know if Knuckles was born alone on Angel Island, with only the little animals and the Chao there to keep him company. We don't know if perhaps he named himself Knuckles, after a clan he never knew, to try to feel some connection to his heritage. We do know that he doesn't know all there is to know about Angel Island, that he doesn't know the meanings behind a lot of the murals (which is how Eggman was able to trick him back when they first met), which would lead me to believe that if his parents were around, they weren't around for long enough to teach him about his culture or their sacred duty. That perhaps they weren't around long enough to give him a name of his own, rather than just taking the clan name.

All of this is to say, if Knuckles was born alone (or if his parents died when he was too young to remember them), and he's just had to piece together what little he knows about his people and his culture from what there is on his island . . .

. . . then it kind of makes moments in canon when Sonic or others pester him to leave the island or to stop taking it all so seriously feel kind of . . . insensitive at best.

Like, I do get it. Sonic himself doesn't care about his own past, he has no ties to any family (besides Tails) or culture, that's all fine for him. But it's clearly not fine for Knuckles, who very obviously wants that connection, especially if he's the one who named himself after his clan. And while I get it from a character standpoint for Sonic, part of me also feels like writers have validated Sonic's view in things like having Knuckles decide to go on a journey away from Angel Island after Frontiers, after his conversations with Sonic goaded him into it a little. Which again, as a writer I understand, because it's hard to do things with Knuckles if he never leaves Angel Island. You have to bring the plot to him, or else you can't include him. But at the same time, he's literally the last of his people. And the only connection he has to those people, those people who are lost and that he can never get back, are there on Angel Island, in ancient murals and ruins he's not sure he fully understands no matter how many years he spends studying them . . . I don't know, I just feel like some more understanding or compassion could be given to him for this. Like the way his eyes lit up in that IDW issue when Amy returned the echidna artifact to him -- that was something made by his people! That's a part of his history! He may not (probably doesn't) understand its significance, but now that's another lost connection that he has. And while Sonic might not care about things like that, Knuckles does. That's important to him, and that should be respected.

I don't know, that post about how Knuckles is not just a warrior (or, imo, a warrior at all, but a protector instead) has just had me thinking about him the past couple of days. I'm not saying that he should stay locked to Angel Island forever, I do think it does him good to socialize with his friends as well . . . but I also wish that the writing respected a bit more often the fact that he is the last of his kind, that the island and the ruins there and the Master Emerald are all he has left of it, the only way he has any connection to his culture at all. And honestly, much as I love Sonic, and as much as this is an E for Everyone series, I do think that, at times, Knuckles should get to tell Sonic to fuck off when Sonic starts going on one of his "don't be so stuck on your dusty old island" spiels he sometimes goes on. Because it's not really about the island, and Knuckles' feelings are just as valid as Sonic's. Perhaps even more so, on this topic.

But that's just what I've been thinking about.