Zuggi

I'm sorry but the writing surrounding Blackwood in IDW Sonic is genuinely fucking atrocious and I don't think people realize just how badly this arc fumbled its own premise. You introduce this mysterious, aristocratic manipulator with an obsession over authority and control, pit him against BLAZE OF ALL PEOPLE, a princess whose characterization revolves around discipline, independence and responsibility, and somehow the best conflict you can come up with is having her conveniently fail to neutralize a SECOND mind control glove after destroying the first???? And then she spends the climax being weaponized against Silver while Dapple gets to play a decisive role in bringing Blackwood down. Do you understand how ridiculous that is? The problem isn't Blaze losing. It's that the narrative has to make her decision-making questionable just to manufacture a threat, then sidelines her in an arc that was supposed to explore HER dynamic with Silver. Blackwood had the ingredients to be a genuinely fascinating ideological foil to Blaze. An authoritarian nobleman who sees people as possessions confronting a princess who values duty and the autonomy of others? THERE WAS AN ACTUAL STORY TO TELL HERE Instead we got another mind-control plot with rushed resolutions and barely enough room to explore the very themes it introduces. Fml A cool design and theatrical dialogue aren't substitutes for compelling writing. Holy shit, what a waste of potential.

The way Archie Sonic gets reduced to some ridiculously overpowered version of Game Sonic is genuinely insulting to how well his character was handled This is a Sonic who's experienced war, betrayal, loss, watched his entire reality get rewritten and STILL refuses to compromise the very principles that define him And what makes that so compelling is that his optimism isn't some childish inability to take things seriously. It's a conscious refusal to let everything he's endured dictate the person he becomes (And this is why Scourge is his perfect dark reflection) His rebelliousness, his arrogance, his compassion, his unwavering belief in freedom. None of these traits exist independently of each other. They're what make his characterization so fascinating Archie Sonic isn't some bastardization of Sonic's character. He's arguably one of the most ambitious explorations of what Sonic the Hedgehog can actually BE, and I'm tired of people pretending otherwise