The Truth
Knock Knock, it’s Knuckles
https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/lordxavierbritish/blog/why-sonic-adventure-2-has-the-best-story-in-gaming/87241/
Knuckles is a person suffering from drug addiction and isolation. As the lyrics in his level’s BGM subtly relate to the player, the events of the game are a cornucopia of drug-induced hallucinations. The gameplay getting worse in SA2 as the game goes on can be seen as a metaphor for his downward spiral. LordXavierBritish posits that Ohtani had to fight to get his vision in the game. I disagree. This story was planned by Sonic Team from the start.
The groundwork had already been laid in Sonic’s previous adventure. “Unlike Sonic, I don’t chuckle, I’d rather flex my muscles”. This is a person who can no longer find any joy in life. All he can do is tense his arm to get the veins to show so he can get another hit of unreality. I might argue, however, that the truth might have been staring us in face prior to this. Knuckles has always been capable of both gliding and diving. When gliding, he descends slowly. When diving, he plummets precipitously with the intent to destroy. Either way, he could be said to be going “down” in a bad manner. He’s downbad. Now, dig this.
Knuckles is an Echidna, a marsupial known for laying eggs. The word “echidna” comes from the Greek “Ekhidna”, the name of an entity in Greek mythology that was responsible for giving birth to various monsters. The name “Ekhidna” means viper. Vipers are animals known for their venomous bite. Much like the bite of a crazed PCP or meth addict. The human bite, while not venomous, might as well be because of all the pathogens involved. What’s more, Ekhidna was appropriately a half serpent, half woman monster said to be a plague for men. The Italian artist Pirro Ligorio sculpted a statue of Ekhidna, “Parco dei Mostri”, in Lazio. The date of its creation? 1555. This is significant because 1+5+5+5=16. 16 is Knuckles’ age during the Sonic Adventure saga. Echidnas in the wild have a lifespan of 14-16 years. The person calling themselves Knuckles has dissociated to such an extent, that they may as well be dead. Like some kind of Schrodinger’s Echidna, he is both alive and dead until either he reaches out to someone or vice versa.
The impetus for their drug addiction could be a lot of things. It is almost certain that whoever Knuckles is, they are either American or someone who has a good reason to hate America, hence the Americentrism in the game. I suspect the rest of the games also reflect the state of the person who has come to refer to themselves as “Knuckles the Echidna”. What horrors led Knuckles to his fate? Who can say?
Snake in the Grass
…The answer is me. I can say. The real identity of Knuckles the Echidna is none other than…
…Gunsmoke from Black Dynamite.
If you are not in the know, Black Dynamite is a hard-hitting psychological and political thriller starring Michael Jai White as the eponymous character. Black Dynamite is a hardboiled Vietnam Veteran and former CIA agent that finds himself reinstated to the CIA after the death of his brother. Upon discovering that heroin is being distributed to Black orphanages, he wages a war on drugs, recruiting several Black militants along the way.
The group eventually uncovers a sinister government conspiracy; Anaconda Malt Liquor (the government-approved “delectable combination of the finest barley and hops” that has captured the African American imagination) was introduced into the market with secret chemicals that shrink the penises of Black men. This insidious attempt by the white patriarchy to once again control the bodies of Black people, and eventually their souls, was the brainchild of none other than Richard Nixon. To the protagonist’s regret, they find out this information too late. One of the militants, Gunsmoke (portrayed by Buddy Lewis) has already felt the effects of AML.
As Gunsmoke languished in his delirium, his cohorts begged him for any sign that he might still harbour a will to live. Unresponsive, Gunsmoke was shot in the stomach by Black Dynamite’s trusted second in command Bullhorn and left to die. He dedicated his life to seeing Black people flourish in both body and soul, only to see his own perish. Black Dynamite would eventually triumph and see Anaconda Malt Liquor taken off the streets, but the rest of his freedom-fighting coterie would meet their ends along the way.
…But what if Gunsmoke survived? That’s right, Sonic Adventure 2 is nothing more than what a vagrant, drug-addled Gunsmoke sees after he succumbed to the effects of Anaconda Malt Liquor and lived on upon receiving medical attention after the attempted euthanisation. With the beer taken off the streets, Gunsmoke had to take harder drugs to ease the physical and mental pains. Now, he begs and borrows as he wanders America. Surrounded by Americans. But alone with his thoughts. Thoughts like “this isn’t what JFK promised” or “why, Black Dynamite, why?”. These thoughts would be processed into easily digestible, but provocative imagery.
Am I suggesting that Shiro Maekawa wrote SA2 with the intent to seamlessly interweave it into the eventual narrative of 2009’s Black Dynamite? Yes. A thousand times, yes. Sonic’s name during the development of his first game was Mr. Needlemouse. He plunders jewellery to help him survive and steals rocks that give him power. The bonus stages are hallucinatory hellscapes. Clearly, the collaboration between Sonic Team and ARS Nova was set in stone a long time ago. Black Dynamite is the real first live-action Sonic the Hedgehog film. The parallels between the stories are numerous.
Gunsmoke sees himself as an Echidna both as recognition of his own impotence and as an attempt to hold on to what little machismo he can. As mentioned earlier, the Ekhidna of Greek mythology was the She-Viper, she had no penis. The animal, however, does have a four-headed penis that can be hidden inside its cloaca. Perhaps Gunsmoke hopes that deep inside, his inner four-headed penis can burst forth from the cloaca that is his ravaged body. It’s an interesting paradox— on some level, Gunsmoke blames himself for what happened to his squad. His own masculine attraction to beer left him neutered and at death’s door. Had he been less manly at the time, he might have been able to participate in the film’s final battles, and maybe everyone else could have survived.
The Sonic series has no shortage of serpentine boss monsters. Perfect Chaos and the Biolizard are the final bosses of both SA and SA2 respectively. Both find themselves reduced in some form or another at the end of their stories: the Biolizard fuses with the Eclipse Cannon to become the tumorous, suicidal ‘Final Hazard’; Perfect Chaos is defeated by Super Sonic and becomes the docile ‘Chaos Zero’. Being destructive, community-threatening forces that are ultimately left impotent, they are an allegory for both the drugs that destroyed Gunsmoke’s life, and his masculinity.
GUN represents the government and military and law enforcement agencies. GUN are called GUN because they’re the gun from which the ‘gunsmoke’ emanates. Every injustice perpetuated by “the man” created the Black man’s struggle and consequently created the Black militants. The middle class and the arms of the state are the ever-present robots, be they Eggman’s or GUN’s. The animals, both anthropomorphic and otherwise, are the lower class and vulnerable minority groups. Diverse, exploited, volatile, and at the forefront of youth culture and counterculture. The unnamed humans are the apolitical population. Those that don’t participate in politics, and can do little but watch with their creepily rendered, glassy-eyes as the eclipse cannon fires its carbon emissions into the ozone layer and the rising sea levels become Biollante from the Godzilla movies. Metal Sonic in all his incarnations is the attempt to market to and culturally appropriate the animals—he’s less a mechanical hedgehog and more a culture vulture. And Solaris from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) is naught but entropy. The tacit admittance that despite all we do, we will succumb to that inexorable march of time. We might release Sonic Rush, but our Sonic ’06 might be just around the corner.
It Does Matter
Knuckles is a character written to be envious of Sonic’s freedom, just as Gunsmoke is envious of Black Dynamite. Much like how Sonic does what he wants, BD shows little regard for the fatherless children he creates with every kill and every tryst. Both characters enjoy the good publicity their reputation as a “hero” affords them, but don’t do much to change the status quo. In SA2, Sonic, with the aid of Tails, makes a mockery of the secret service and meets personally with the President of the UF. Yet all he does is try and prove his innocence. Even when he saves the world he doesn’t attempt to use the ensuing publicity to draw attention to UF’s problems. Dr. Eggman did more to free the world from GUN’s tyranny when he held it hostage with the Eclipse Cannon, or when he released Dark Gaia and separated the planet into culturally distinct self-governing entities. If only Sonic and Eggman could find some common ground. Eggman’s violent lust for change could be tempered by Sonic’s eyes-on-the-ground perspective.
By that same token, while BD put a stop to AML, he didn’t try and leverage his advantage much more than asking that Nixon treat Black people right. He could have started a movement, or become a politician. He could have prevented the AIDS epidemic, provided free healthcare, or put more restrictions on gun usage. Because of their narrative foils, neither Knuckles nor Gunsmoke will be able to enjoy the peace they seek.
Tails is the white man that ostensibly tries to aid Black people and participate in their culture, but ultimately does little more than buy from Black music artists they relate to. Their heart is in the right place, but they have the most power to make a change for minorities and they squander it. Would that they only use that power!
Rouge represents everything Gunsmoke wants, but cannot have:
- Intimacy with a woman
- Someone with a deformity that he can relate to
- Wealth distribution
- Someone in the government with both the power to affect change for the greater good, and the willingness to use it
- The ability to glide for short distances (Knuckle’s own ability to glide using his dreadlocks is wish fulfilment on the ever bald Gunsmoke’s part, obviously)
Shadow’s story is an attempt by Gunsmoke’s own unconscious to help him. Shadow’s character in SA2 is marked at every turn by how redundant he is. He claims to be “Shadow, the Ultimate Lifeform” but both these statements are put into doubt. On a meta-level, he’s the latest of many foils to stand in Sonic’s way. He’d be far from the last, but he is the first one to be something approaching identical to Sonic and thus pointless. From Gunsmoke’s point of view, he’s a copy of a copy. Yet, that is why he can serve as a source of strength for Gunsmoke. Because even when you’re redundant, or you’ve lost your way to violence or robbed of everything you’ve held dear, it’s never too late to look at yourself in the mirror.
None of Shadow’s circumstances have stopped Shadow from becoming a fan favourite character and, for a fleeting moment, a hero. Shadow was robbed of his self-determination and autonomy, yet he persevered and managed to become the best of himself by holding on to a comforting memory of Maria. A memory that might not have been real, but was his all the same. Sonic, BD, and many like them, for all their faults, have a lifetime to right their wrongs. Similarly, though Gunsmoke is getting long in years, he still has time to make a change and potentially inspire others like Shadow inspired Sonic with his sacrifice. The cutscene before the Final Hazard boss fight features Knuckles looking quizically at Shadow and Sonic as they put aside their differences and transformed into Super Sonic and Super Shadow. This was a moment of clarity, the realisation that he could still be better in spite of himself.
Gunsmoke was failed by his government, just like Maria, Shadow, and Gerald. He spends his time alone, frustrated, and insecure, clinging to what little relevancy he has left, like Knuckles. He is now trapped in this hyperreality of his own making. The Sun will kiss him, the breeze will embrace him, but he’ll only feel janky controls, see a nausea-inducing camera, and hear poorly mixed dialogue drowned out by dope music. Gunsmoke is barely living. Hopefully, with both time and a support network, he can learn.
Postscript
After completing this article I decided to watch both the Sonic feature films because the recent release of Sonic 2 felt too serendipitous to ignore. I am delighted to report that they both explore the themes I discussed in this article. They’re more lighthearted and crass than the Sonic Adventure games, but Sonic’s recklessness and need for validation and direction are addressed, as well as the insidious nature of the government’s corruption and systemic racism. Even the drug-induced hallucinations are given a nod, the “it’s derivative” scene from the se-quill indicates that the events of the film are hallucinations and dreams drawing on lived experiences.
Check them out if you haven’t already! And SEGA, bring back Hyper Knuckles, you cowards >:C
He/Him
A flamboyant ultra nerd, Dave participates in the Underlevelled Tournament both for the thrill of the fight, and to avenge the orphans lost in the climax of the previous tournament.
Born: London
Height: ???
Weight: ???
Hobbies: street dance, collecting manga volumes, reading, editing
Likes: short-to-medium walks on the beach, pointing out how things can and will be misconstrued as racism, fighting games, RPGs, anime, Hades, alternative hip hop, conscious hip hop, Mara Wilson, overly long bios, ice-cream
Dislikes: insincere media, his own uncanny resemblance to Richard Ayoade, mayonnaise
