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thej13579 · 1 day ago

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RWBY’s Tragedies

So, hot take: RWBY is actually quite a well-written show.

Throw your rotten apples, Youtube dudebros, but it’s true. The writing holds up. It’s not perfect, of course, especially in pacing, but the major plot and character arcs, and themes, are pretty well done. It does not subvert a lot of tropes, but it does explore them quite well–and tropes live or die based on execution. To ignore the literary tropes of RWBY is to do a disservice to understanding the story as a whole.

One of those tropes that I see so often misunderstood as it applies to RWBY is tragedy.

But wait! you say. RWBY is not a tragedy!

And you’re right: it definitely is not. However, RWBY has had tragic elements and tragic subplots since the very first season, and it will continue to have them. That does not by any means indicate that RWBY won’t have a “fairy tale” (heh) ending wherein the characters save the world and then lots of characters marry and have happy endings. That’s the most likely ending for RWBY, and frankly most of the characters will have earned their happy endings. But tragedy still plays a very important role in RWBY, and to ignore this element is to dilute the emotional resonance of what RWBY is trying to say as a story.

I think a great deal of this come from a misunderstanding of what tragedy is and is not. Tragedy does not and has never equated to nihilism and misery; while nihilistic tragedy does exist, it is one small (very small) fraction of tragedy. Tragedy is actually a very diverse genre, and to quote one of the twentieth century’s best-known tragic writers (Arthur Miller), tragedy “implies more optimism in its author than does comedy.” (I’m not personally sure whether I entirely agree with Miller on the comparison point, but I certainly do agree that tragedy is often optimistic, not pessimistic.)

Genres are themselves human creations to help us organize and think of different tropes and trends in storytelling; the lines between genres, mediums, and target audience (think ‘young adult’) is often blurred. But genres are also helpful in setting expectations (it’s why foreshadowing is so important). So with that in mind, let’s look at some of the tragic arcs in RWBY and explore how they differ from one another. We’ll look at neoclassical heroic tragedy, Shakespsearean tragedy, romantic tragedy, social tragedy, and revenge tragedy.

Heroic Tragedy

Pyrrha Nikos

Heroic tragedy is often called “Greek tragedy,” since a lot of it draws from Aristotle’s Poetics. Which fits Pyrrha, considering her allusion is to Achilles from the ancient Greek epic The Iliad… which is a heroic tragedy as much as it is an epic. It is also called classical (meaning Greco-Roman) or even neoclassical (an attempt to return to the Greco-Roman style of telling tragedies) tragedy. Some other ancient examples of this are Oedipus Rex and Antigone.

In general, these tragedies are never about a common person. They are about someone higher than the audience, whom the common people can aspire to: Oedipus is a brave king, Antigone is a devout princess, Achilles a great warrior, and Pyrrha an exceptionally talented huntress and maiden. The hero has a tragic flaw (hamartia), which is often hubris (too much pride), that leads to a dramatic reversal of fortune (Oedipus goes from being king to losing almost his entire family, his throne, and his eyesight). The gods and/or fate are also instrumental in the downfall of these tragic heroes; in Herakles, the gods trick the titular hero into murdering his family in a fit of madness. Oedipus is prophesied to marry his mother and kill his father.

However, choice still plays a role here. Jocasta’s attempts to avoid the prophecy unwittingly lead to Oedipus not knowing his own father nor mother; Oedipus’s determination to not harm his (adopted) parents, combined with his rash pride, lead to him fulfilling it. Antigone deliberately chooses to flout her uncle’s decrees, and her uncle chooses to enforce his rule even though his family will pay the price. But even in Antigone, there is an underlying idea that they are compelled to do so–Antigone because the gods would decree it, her uncle Creon because his role as king demands he enforce his words.

What is common here is a conflict between duty and love, and the presence of fate, or destiny. These are all prominent elements in Pyrrha’s arc. Being a maiden is her destiny, even if she does not actually inherit the power. She is a maiden, she is destined for it, because she chose it. But her conflict over the choice was precisely one between love (Jaune) and duty (she knew she would not be able to defeat Cinder, but felt compelled to try).

Pyrrha’s death is incredibly tragic. A young person, dead, for no purpose. But what gives us a sense of catharsis is that we know Pyrrha is remembered as a hero, and indeed is still present in her friends who are still fighting. While her fight against Cinder was always going to be pyrrhic in nature, her life was not pointless. She inspires others, even though her sacrifice is incredibly painful for her friends and leads to agony for them. That’s a realistic exploration of tragedy’s effects, but it is not the same as framing Pyrrha’s choice as wrong or Pyrrha as foolish for the decision. Rather, it’s just the simple reality that no matter how noble our choices are for ourselves, they can still affect and hurt those around us. There is nuance, but that does not inherently mean Pyrrha’s legacy is one of nihilism and misery.

Shakespearean Tragedy

James Ironwood

So it’s often said that Greek tragedies involve the gods or fate playing tricks, and Shakespearean tragedies are about humans being their own worst enemies. As established above, the difference between neoclassical and Shakespearean tragedies in terms of choice vs. fate isn’t nearly as clear-cut as is often presented: classic tragic heroes do make choices, and Shakespearean tragedies do hinge on coincidence a fair amount of the time. However, it is also true that Shakespearean tragedy does usually place a greater emphasis on choice and personal responsibility; hence, where this dichotomy comes from.

Some of the most obvious examples of a Shakespearean tragic arc are the titular characters of Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet, Coriolanus, and for a modern example, SnK’s Eren Jaeger. In each of these stories, the character is consumed by their worst self. Their flaws overcome them so that they become caricatures of themselves; unlikes Oedipus or Antigone, they become almost solely defined by their flaws. Othello is jealous, Lear is irresponsible, Macbeth ambitious, Hamlet confused, Coriolanus foolish, and Eren tantrums. They bring disaster on everyone around them: all those around Othello die, Macbeth plunges his kingdom into a war, Lear and Hamlet destroy not just their loved ones but their entire kingdoms, Eren destroys 80% of the world. Basically, this type of character becomes a destruction vortex, which is exactly what happens with Ironwood in the end: he destroys all of Atlas and dies when it plunges to Mantle (a plan he engineered).

James Ironwood is a perfect example. He is introduced to us as fearful, as unable to trust–with good reason! That’s the point. If you look at all the above characters, most have good reasons for feeling what they feel: Othello is a former slave and a black man in a racist society that scorns his marriage, Eren has been oppressed his entire life, etc. Like many of these heroes as well, Ironwood is well intentioned: he genuinely believes he’s doing the right thing. But he isn’t, and through his fear, he loses his own rationality (that’s like, a standard tragic trope). He turns on everyone who wants to help him and ends up dying alone and ignored.

Is this pessimistic? In some ways, yes, but we see plenty of examples of other characters choosing to break out of the mold of fear: the Ace-Ops, Winter, etc. It is clearly Ironwood’s own choices driving his destruction, as he is given chance after chance after chance to pull out of his spiral. But he refuses out of fear and paranoia, and it’s tragic.

We’re meant to feel sad for Ironwood’s death, not filled with schadenfreude: he could have been a great man. In many ways, like the Greek tragic heroes, these tragic heroes are great people. They are more than just their worst traits, and yet in the end we, the audience who have access to their complex legacy in ways most characters don’t, are left with the grief that comes with things ending in a sad way when they could have ended so triumphantly.

Revenge Tragedy

Salem

This isn’t inherently separate from the Shakespearean tragedy, but it is its own subgenre as well: the revenge tragedy. See, Hamlet. Revenge is the poison you brew for another that ends up poisoning you yourself. Hamlet had a right to feel upset–his uncle did murder his father!–but he becomes a murderer of his lover’s father, among others. Again, you kind of become a parody of your once-righteous claim.

Salem is a perfect example of this. She has a legit gripe with the gods (I’d argue the gripe is actually even more legit than it’s framed as being). What they did to her was unfair and cruel. And yet, in her life, she’s become a parody of the outraged girl she once was. She’s not only reenacted her trauma (losing loved ones and imprisoning people) on countless people throughout ages, but she reenacted it on herself. She chased Oz away for deceiving her, when she deceived the gods, and she presumably murdered their four daughters. She grew to dislike her father for seeing her as an object, and she sees everyone around her as objects.

While I do think Salem will be stopped without being killed (her name means ‘peace’ and that’s likely her ending–finally finding peace), I don’t think her perspective will be validated. Rather, she’s likely to finally, somehow, stop seeing someone as an object and see them as a person and realize what she’s done. I would bet Oz would then see her as a person as well instead of as just someone to stop/defeat, and thus, being acknowledged as a person, she will be able to be a human again–and die, because death is a universal part of the human experience, and it isn’t one fairy tales avoid.

Social Tragedy

Adam Taurus

This is probably the closest RWBY comes to nihilism. It’s hard to give Adam’s arc as deep a reading as most other characters, because a lot of his story is told to us and not shown. I basically agree with everything @aspoonofsugar says here. This isn’t to say that Adam deserved redemption or apologize for him (like, I think his arc was always meant to be a social tragedy), just to say that there was a lot left unexplored with him, and a lot simplified. Had these been explored more, the themes of his arc would have been a lot more resonant and impactful.

Adam is a revenge tragedy, obviously, and a Shakespearean one in that he is consumed by his own spite, but his tragedy also incorporates social themes in ways Salem’s does not. Examples of social tragedies include Tess of the d’Urbervilles and A Doll’s House, both of which explore the tragedy of a character who is mistreated because of their position in society (in those two examples, women in a sexist society). Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida also has elements of social tragedy, as does Othello (again, regarding how women are treated, or black men in a racist society, or regarding toxic masculinity), and so does Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. The point in seeing a character like Tess or Othello or Prince Myshkin essentially becoming what everyone assumed they always were isn’t to reinforce what society assumes of them, but instead to make the audience realize how wrongly they were treated, and how society’s bigotry forced these characters who were better than that into the roles of tragedy. (Also, not like there aren’t elements to critique in this kind of tragedy, but we’re keeping it a bit simple.)

Did Adam end up this way because he was just born a bad egg? Or, as choice is a major theme of RWBY, was it more society creating its villain, choosing Adam because of how he was born? And of course, Adam had a million chances to change but never did, and severed all the relationships that could have saved him.

If we look at Adam’s tragedy through that lens, what does any pity we might feel mean? How can our cast avoid a world with future Adams? These are the questions worth asking, and worth exploring later on (and they probably will explore it with Cinder, who is another social tragedy in the making even if I think her story won’t end quite the same way).

Romantic Tragedy

Penny Polendina

Now onto my favorite kind of tragedy: romantic tragedy. Romantic tragedy often involves alchemy: A Song of Ice and Fire, the books, is probably a romantic tragedy, and the best-known example is Romeo and Juliet. A modern example is also Attack on Titan.

If we look at Romeo and Juliet in comparison with Shakespeare’s other tragic heroes, we see a vast difference between their characters and those of Lear or Macbeth or Othello. They do not destroy their families. They do not create destruction vortexes that ruin their cities and countries: instead, while their flaws do lead to the end of their lives (flaws exacerbated by social issues and also expectations around revenge), their love eclipses their deaths and saves their city. It’s solve et coagula: dissolve and coagulate, rend asunder and bring together, death bringing life.

The point of being “star-cross’d” is that Romeo and Juliet do not deserve what happens to them. They deserve to live happy and together. They are two of the only characters not focusing on the feud: instead, they look for ways to improve their lives through joy and love. (Like, in contrast, Juliet’s father is introduced to us trying to marry Juliet to Paris… who is the relative of the Prince, which would give the Capulets a political edge in the feud.) They deserve far better than what they get. They try not to perpetuate the feud, yet they are the ones who pay the ultimate price because society constrains them: it will not allow them to have what they deserve. It’s not fair.

And that is a similarity with other Shakespearean tragedies: a lack of poetic justice. In fact, the lack of poetic justice is kind of the point. Prince Escalus even says towards the end of the play: “See what a scourge is laid upon your hate/That Heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!” Even though it brings life, there is little joy or happiness to be found, because Romeo and Juliet are still dead.

This is Penny’s story. She does not deserve to die. She wanted to live. She struggled with her suicidal urges and was finally, finally fully human in the body she wanted, and then was killed because a human body is weak. It’s not just. It’s not right. The characters are undoubtedly going to grieve Penny… but that is not the same as framing Penny’s death as a negative choice or as a suicide, because it is not framed that way.

It is framed as a sacrifice, a sacrifice that brings life. When Penny dies, there is a shot of red blood and clear tears, blood and water, which are distinctly associated with Christological imagery. In the Biblical Gospel of John, Jesus sacrifices his life to conquer death (oh look that’s partially what alchemy is based in) and “one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.” Penny’s death could not more clearly be a sacrifice. Triggering or not, to call it a suicide is misreading.

In case we weren’t entirely clear, the song “Friend” makes it explicit:

But I found that humanity It came with sacrifice, A pact To shield you from the Wicked even if I can’t Live for real It was worth it to know you

However, despite the Christological imagery, I do not think Penny’s arc is one of resurrection through her own body and self; that’s for God, and Penny did not want to be above humans (”the Protector of Mantle”) or below them (just a robot). She just wanted to be human, and she always was.

Through Penny’s death, life comes. Winter would not have survived without Penny giving Winter the Maiden’s powers. She buys time for most of Atlas and Mantle to escape. And in her sacrifice, she finally is able to make a choice for herself. Bringing Penny back again would be to undo the one choice she was able to make; this does not work for the story.

So, what was Penny’s flaw? Well, much like Romeo’s and Juliet’s flaw, it was partially rooted in a desire to have a different life than she had, and specifically in a similar sense to Juliet, it’s a desire to have her own autonomy. That doesn’t sound like a flaw, because it is a good thing that in a wrong situation can be exploited. Again, the point is that this isn’t fair. It’s wrong. It shouldn’t be this way. We’re supposed to be distressed and angry. Society is flawed much more so than Penny or Juliet in this. But Penny’s struggle to accept that she is a person with value, exacerbated by everyone around her, does contribute to her death, and this is upsetting.

As @aspoonofsugar says in her fabulous Penny meta, Penny’s arc is about actualization and individuation. These are distinct Jungian tropes in literature common in coming-of-age, psychological, and alchemical stories (all of which are types of stories that RWBY is).

Everyone controlled Penny, even with the best of intentions. Pietro, Cinder, Fria, Ironwood, even RWBY. Now, clearly the types of control are in no way equivalent, but we’re supposed to be frustrated with Penny’s lack of agency despite her very clear desire for precisely that. Even in the end, it’s her friends who ask Ambrosius to give her a human body (even though it was what Penny wanted, they come up with the idea rather than Penny coming up with it and thereby controlling her destiny). That Penny is only finally able to make a choice when she’s dying, and that choice is to die, is wrong. It’s unfair. It’s enraging. But that’s the point of tragedy: Juliet, also, had no choice besides to die or be hidden away in a nunnery again. Rather than be controlled, she chooses to die. But Penny, even more so than Juliet, is able to choose to die knowing that she will give life.

So onto Penny herself: let’s talk her desire to be human, which she always was even with the body of a robot. This isn’t a flaw exactly, but it’s a tragic element of her character. I’ve seen a lot of takes that Penny will come back because her arc is about learning to accept herself with a robot body, but while that would be a lovely arc, I do not see any evidence for that being Penny’s arc. Instead, I see it as being a trait exploited by a terribly cruel world (like as in a social tragedy) to the point where she finally did accept herself, but it was too late to save her life. That isn’t Penny’s fault. It’s unfair. It’s wrong and controlled by circumstances. But we can’t choose our circumstances, only how we respond to them, and that’s part of what it means to be human.

Even if you die, you lived, and in your loved ones, you live on, much as Romeo and Juliet’s fathers vow to honor their children. But it won’t bring the children back, and it won’t bring Penny back. We will see Penny mourned and Jaune in particular is going to have to wrestle with his identity given Penny’s request, but that also doesn’t negate the beauty of a sacrifice, which is by nature beautiful and ugly; it comes with a cost. Penny’s life and their death will be honored just as Romeo’s and Juliet’s were.

The point of RWBY has never been to undo tragedy, but to learn to live in part because of its lessons.

This has been consistent since Pyrrha’s arc, and will probably continue to be consistent throughout the series. All of these tragedies are a part of an ultimately hopeful, optimistic story.

#rwby #tragedy #opinion #analysis

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thej13579 · 8 days ago

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Who would be the first to confess? Or the first to realize their feelings?

I’m of two minds on this. In my experience, the more common concept is “Shadow falls first, Amy falls harder.” This Twitter thread sums up the trope very well:

[Image ID: a screenshot of a tweet by user absolutesilly on April 17th, 2023 that reads, “it’s important to me that the “A fell first, B fell harder” trope ISN’T about B loving A more. it’s about A spending a long time just getting used to having this (seemingly) hopeless pining going on in the background 24/7, while B is just. hit by a truck with it all of a sudden.

fell first: been suppressing their emotions for so long that it’s like white noise to them. always there but mostly manageable. a bruise that only hurts when you press on it

fell harder: if We Don’t Get Married Tomorrow I’m Gonna Start Biting People” /.End ID]

And I don’t think I even have to clarify which one’s which. Shadow’s love is quiet and intense. He’s loyal and devoted. His affection is usually of the slow-burn variety. He hasn’t had any canonical crushes so far, but you can see it in his familial/platonic love for those he cares about. It’s natural to assume romance would be the same way.

And falling hard and fast is what Amy does. Need I mention Sonic? And her desire for marriage?

“Shadow has a crush on Amy for months/years until he suddenly sweeps her off her feet” is common for a reason. I’ve written plenty of it myself, including multiple WIPs. It was how I saw these two for a very long time, and there’s no denying that it’s compelling and in-character. If I were writing a shadamy-esque relationship in a movie, I’d write them that way.

HOWEVER...

I don’t think game canon is following that trajectory.

Under the cut: lots of ranting and images/hints, both old and new. You’ll recognize a lot of this if you’ve read my meta analysis posts, particularly why I ship them, how they’d resolve their arguments, and my feelings on TMOSTH. There’s a tl;dr and relevant headcanon at the end.

In my opinion, “Amy falls for Shadow later” doesn’t quite jive with canon because I think there’s ample evidence to suggest she already has a crush on him. It’s not as strong or obvious as the one she has on Sonic yet, but it’s there, just a little. To make a long story short:

She doesn’t look at someone like this...

[Shadow the Hedgehog 2005]

unless she has a crush on them:

[Sonic CD]

She doesn’t go out of her way to seek someone out this fervently...

[Sonic Battle]

...unless she has a crush on them:

[Sonic X]

She doesn’t insist on bringing someone along like this...

[The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog]

unless she has a crush on them:

Wallpaper posted on Sonic Channel 2/22/21. Art by Yuji Uekawa

One fun aspect of all of this is that the social media team seems to agree with me and keeps noticeably leaning into it. The Twitter Takeovers obviously aren’t canon and I’m not putting those in the “evidence” pile, but it’s cute how they keep having Amy act flustered about her feelings regarding him, and it’s definitely not something I’m imagining this time. It’s most obvious at 18:14 here:

youtube

The gushing, the stuttering...it’s obvious what they’re implying. Cindy Robinson’s very convincing at sounding smitten with him, which isn’t surprising considering her feelings on shadamy:

The question before that one in the Takeover arguably counts, too, and the social media team was primarily in charge of The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, after all. This is consistent for them. There are plenty of other bits and pieces from them and the not-so-subtle marketing team these days, but I’d be ranting like a conspiracist and hunting down links all day if I got started on those.

^ Me at 2am.

I bring this up not just because it’s fun, but also to prove I’m not the only one who sees it. It’s definitely there, and it always makes me wonder what would’ve happened if she’d met Shadow first instead of Sonic. Would her little crush on Shadow have become the primary one if he’d entered her life first? Would we see this kind of thing all the time if Shadow were the protagonist?

[IDW issue 59]

Yes

We’ll never know, I guess! 🙃

Regardless, she met Sonic first, so her attention is...divided. She’s usually in-tune with her emotions, so even though her outlook on love is tinted somewhat by hero worship, I do think she’d figure out she had feelings for Shadow if her crush on Sonic were sidelined. As she got to know him better, she’d find even more things to love about him, and before long, she’d be hooked.

For Shadow’s part, it’s pretty clear to anyone who’s paying attention that he has a soft spot for her of some kind. In my experience, even non-shadamy fans will usually agree with this if asked. And why wouldn’t they?

1. He let her hug him and see him cry in SA2, then saved the world because she asked him to. There’s a reason fans hate it whenever Amy’s elevator speech at the end of SA2 is put in someone else’s mouth. It’s just not believable that he’d save the world for anyone else--not Sonic, not Chris Thorndyke--because the gentleness isn’t there for anyone but her. That had to be built and proven.

2. She inspired yet another heel-turn of his in the conspicuously-named “Miracle of Love” route in ShTH where “bad boy” Shadow ditches Black Doom to help her, resulting in a hero classification.

I think we undersell how big of a deal this is. For those who aren’t too familiar with Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), that story route starts out with Shadow ignoring Sonic and...*checks notes*...defeating fifty G.U.N. soldiers? The mission says “defeat,” not “kill.” But Black Doom says “finish off those soldiers,” “destroy them all,” “exterminate,” and “annihilate.” In a game where you’re explicitly encouraged to use firearms. On human soldiers. So this Shadow quite possibly has a significant body count by the end of the level, and then he immediately snubs Rouge to destroy Earth’s digital highway system. There’s a reason he can’t get a hero ending past that point if he doesn’t help Amy. Just like in SA2, she’s the only one left who can turn him into a hero. She speedruns his redemption with one jaunt through a haunted castle. This is the sequence:

[Source]

The way he trails off at, “I didn’t have any reason to help her, but since I was looking for the doctor anyway, I figured...” stands out, like he’d forgotten how good of a person he can be.

This brief Twitter thread summarizes the events in a much funnier way than I can:

3. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is the most recent and blatant example. Goes to a party. Dresses up in a silly outfit. Embarrasses himself to get her a thoughtful gift. Agrees to go to a concert for a band he can’t stand just to make her happy. I don’t think I even need to explain this one, but if you want to see me do so anyway, here’s that link again.

4. In Team Sonic Racing, he’s sweet to her when they’re on the same team...

...and he’s borderline flirtatious when they’re on opposing teams. ;)

His lines are delivered in a snarky, teasing way, especially when he calls her cute, and she’s matching that competitive banter.

[Source: this Twitter thread by MeliCross22:

Absolutely worth a read, and it includes links to the lines so you can actually hear them.]

The question is whether his soft spot is romantic in nature, and as biased as I am...I don’t buy it. In the first two, she’s just reminding him of who he is by calling to mind his memories of Maria, and “Miracle of Love” isn’t meant in a romantic way. Likewise, in TMOSTH, it’s extremely sweet of him and he wouldn’t do that for anyone else, but it’s still not inherently romantic. TSR is less cut-and-dried. It could be flirtation, but it could also just be the race stoking their competitive spirits. It’s also just a side game, and while it’s still canon, I don’t know if Sega would put that kind of dynamic between them in the main series. It could be a case of the TSR writers being secret shadamy fans who are tossing us crumbs, but it could also just be them mixing it up so there isn’t yet another instance of Amy saying variations of “Sorry, but I’m in it to win it!” every time she hits someone with an item. Trust me, it gets old.

Canonically, I don’t see Shadow as being romantically interested in anyone to a significant extent at the moment, Amy included. He’s been too focused on his past, his identity crisis, the alien invasion, etc. I don’t think there’ll really be room for romance in his life until he fully makes peace with his trauma. This moment at the end of his game...

...just doesn’t do that. Shadow Dark Beginnings has made it abundantly clear that he hasn’t moved on.

And this is where Amy comes in, because I think she’s the ideal person for the job.

Sega seems to pivot back and forth between “Shadow has no friends” and “Shadow has two friends, but he even keeps them at a distance sometimes.” Without people in his life who are willing to reach out, he withdraws, and it’s really not good for him. A lot of fans feel he’s hesitant to bond with others because no one else is immortal and he knows how painful loss is. It’s not explicitly stated, but it’s consistent with his behavior. Isolating himself is easy. It’s safe. It’s something he can control.

But it’s not sustainable.

He needs love. He needs it so much. It’s his very purpose, in the most literal sense. Maria said it best in episode 2 of Dark Beginnings:

“You have a big heart! It may be difficult for you to express it, but I know that deep down you really do care. About me. About everyone! What you do is what defines you. I know you’re having a hard time finding answers, but I’m certain you will one day. Then, you’ll find even more people you can trust.”

^ This is what I mean when I say Maria would love Amy. Amy’s the only other character who feels love as deeply as Shadow does, the only one who could fully understand, and she just so happens to be a clingy girl who’ll reach out to anyone, even people who think they want to be left alone. It’s baffling that Sega basically hasn’t let them interact for two decades because she absolutely would insist on befriending him.

Shadow hides, but Amy chases. She loves a challenge and doesn’t shy away if she feels she belongs with someone, even if that person runs. If she decided Sonic wasn’t right for her, I think it’s only natural that she’d pursue Shadow given her obvious fondness for him. The only difference is that when someone chases Shadow, he doesn’t run. He clings. He clung to Maria, he clung to Team Dark, and he’d cling to her, too, and I don’t think he’d stand a chance against her charm from there. He’s a romantic in his own way, and that soft spot of his would turn rose-tinted in a heartbeat. If there’s anyone who could convince him that love is worth it, it’d be her; I highly doubt she’d regret her past love of Sonic, and if he thought about it, I don’t think he’d regret his attachment to Maria, either. Amy told him the people of Earth deserved a chance to be happy. Now he lives on Earth with her. Couldn’t she convince him that he deserves that chance, too?

And if he hesitated and tried to ignore his feelings for Amy, I could see Rouge stepping in to kick him in the right direction. It wouldn’t be the first time she talked some sense into him for the sake of his own happiness:

[IDW issue 36]

tl;dr: Amy already likes Shadow. If she spent more time with him, those feelings would grow, and it wouldn’t be long before she’d be pursuing him in earnest. With her talent for breaking down barriers and his existing soft spot for her, it wouldn’t be a very long chase.

This headcanon is the one that I think portrays it best. I don’t think I’ll ever fully stop writing Shadow Falls First, Amy Falls Harder because it’s so damn compelling, but I love this interpretation, too, and it lines up too well with canon to ignore.

#sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #amy rose #shadamy #meta #analysis #character analysis

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