The Animals
Sonic the Hedgehog (and Tails)
Sonic the Hedgehog is a young, amiable freedom fighter. Despite his age, he has overcome Dr. Eggman’s attempts to create his Eggman Empire time and time again, preserving the environment and the fauna’s autonomy. His consistency in this regard has won him many friends and a reputation as a hero.
Sonic is also a egoist. He stands in contrast to Shadow because he does not care about the nature of his being. Sonic acts when the outcome of doing so readily conveniences him. His theme song (and worryingly, the theme song for the ‘Hero’ side as a whole) “Doesn’t Matter” has lyrics that say “it doesn’t matter who’s wrong or right”. Regardless, he’ll keep on running and destroying. “He’ll never give up the fight”; he enjoys being the hero and will allow disasters to happen so he can continue being a hero. In his world, the only consequences that matter are the ones that occur if he loses his current battle. Sonic is beyond good and evil. He freely travels between countries as if borders don’t exist. He has no passport, no ID, and wears gloves so his fingerprints aren’t on record. It’s hard to criticise GUN for being cautious around him, and possibly using Shadow as an excuse to capture the speed demon. Though I also can’t blame Sonic for undermining GUN at every opportunity. The Sonic world is just shades of dark grey.
Sonic can be seen as the average modern-day consumer, ignoring the plight of their fellow man except for when it benefits them. Sonic could have saved the world from Eggman for good a long time ago, yet he chooses to let him live time and again so he can look cool for the reporters. This indicates a crippling dependency on social currency (i.e. the average joe’s need for Facebook likes, Tiktok and Instagram followers, retweets, validation from strangers in general). His speed reflects his desire for instant gratification. Sonic will avoid any attempts by others to form a more intimate, mature relationship with him, running away from Amy just like he runs away from all his problems. Sonic also closely resembles Shadow, a bio-organic immortal weapon. The reason for this is alluded to be because Shadow’s design was based on a mural of Super Sonic fighting one of Eggman’s machines, just as how the Biolizard may have been inspired by a mural of Perfect Chaos harnessing the powers of the chaos emeralds.
The subtext is clear, however: the ultimate lifeform resembles the metaphor for modern humanity’s vices because humans are the ultimate lifeform. Not just comfortable at our seat on top of the food chain, we’ll destroy everything, from this planet to ourselves in pursuit of our own immediate comfort. Just as some would argue that we are worse than the monsters we create (Consider the villagers and Dr. Frankenstein’s place in popular culture as compared to the monster, or the oft-quoted ‘guns [GUN?]) don’t kill people, people do”) I would argue that Sonic is more monstrous than Shadow: Sonic runs at speeds exceeding sound on a regular basis. Shadow skates at these speeds using specialised air shoes that won’t wear down from friction. Sonic’s shoes would naturally wear down after half a day of running, he would have to constantly repair them. Not only would Sonic contribute to the needless suffering of the sweatshop workers making these shoes, but the worn material from doing so contributes to air pollution. Sonic’s short-sightedness/selfishness actively damages the environment and contributes to the suffering of all life on Earth. Shadow by contrast only presents an immediate threat to the world during the events of the game because he was reprogrammed by Dr. Gerald Robotnik to be an instrument of his vengeance.
Miles ‘Tails’, Prower is a victim of Sonic’s vanity. He could be making great contributions to humanity like Gerald before him, but he squanders his talents aiding Sonic. Assuming Tails is inventing or has invented shoes that last forever, what is he doing with them? Making them purely for Sonic’s benefit? Should he not be making weapons for the people, who are perennially surveilled and oppressed by GUN? The animals that get regularly kidnapped by Eggman could use some protection too. Tails could use the raw material left over from any of Eggman’s destroyed bases to make his own safe havens, instead of letting Eggman recycle it. Tails is evidently learning all the wrong lessons from Sonic’s heroism.
Rouge the Bat
Rouge the Bat is an agent for GUN. As you can infer from her legal last name, Rouge is an anthropomorphic bat, and if you will indulge me, a lot can be assumed from her design and profile. She has a pair of wings in addition to her humanoid arms. This means she has four arms, not unlike a machamp from Pokémon or Mortal Kombat‘s Goro. Her wings are not fully functional— she only has the capacity to glide in this game (in later games further in the Sonic timeline she is able to flap them, for short distances). She would surely be considered a misshapen freak by the standards of whatever anthropomorphic bat society she comes from, like Tails was to the foxes. It can be inferred there are already some racial tensions between Bats and Echidnas, if not between other races too (Knuckles derisively refers to Rouge as “Bat Girl” while Rouge says “Echidnas stink”. She said that with her whole, disturbingly ample chest!). Considering the presumable proximity of bats to the Meso-American Echidna tribes, Rouge may very well be an albino Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana)
Rouge is an outcast among outcasts. Abandoned by her peers, she would seek self-worth by hunting for jewels, a hobby she was uniquely suited for because she possesses both the manual dexterity of a human and the limited gliding ability of a shit bat. The treasures she’d find would make her feel pretty despite her deformities and she would naturally gravitate towards pursuing traditional forms of vampiric beauty and owning the deformity that gave her this talent.
Using the treasure money to receive an education and get a job as a government operative, she climbed the ranks both by exploiting the fascist patriarchy’s lust for small mammal women and showing a callous disregard for her own race. Rouge’s compliance would allow her to be an active participant in the war on drugs, introducing drugs into Bat communities all over the world and irreparably damaging them. The resultant crime rates would justify increasing the funding for GUN, providing them with enough ordnance to invade Eggman’s bases. This is similar to how Mexican free-tailed bats would see their populations dwindle because of guano mining and the employment of bat bombs in Japan during world war 2 which used that very same species of bat. This also goes some way to explaining why Rouge has so many physical abnormalities.
With this, Rouge’s position was secured and humanoid bats would never be seen again, on the small islands or otherwise. Rouge did more to purge the Sonic world of bats than the Knuckles Clan ever could. I would happily posit that if Batman existed in the Sonic universe, Rouge was the bat that broke into his manor and inspired him to take up the mantle. All for the sake of creating an environment with so many supervillains, American citizens would have to learn to rely on the police.
Despite all this, Rouge’s tale is ultimately one of redemption. While unsuccessful, she is the one to take the first steps in appealing to Shadow’s humani— his hedgehog-ity. Rouge works for the government but does not condone it. She shows surprise, perhaps even disgust, when she uncovers the truth of Project Shadow and in later games seems to work primarily as a treasure hunter, collaborating with the animals over the human agencies in most cases.
All these disparate elements of Sonic Adventure 2 are but a prelude to the real sinister story at the heart of all this.
