Characters / Sonic the Hedgehog - Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog characters index
Main Characters (Sonic the Hedgehog) | Recurring Characters (Team Dark) | Eggman Empire (Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik) | One-Shot Characters | Classic Era Antagonists | Modern Era Antagonists 1 | Modern Era Antagonists 2 | Other Groups and Species

Sonic the Hedgehog

First Appearance: Rad Mobile (cameo)
Debut in-series: Sonic the Hedgehog
Voiced by: Takeshi Kusao (Japanese, 1991-1993), Toshio Furukawa (Japanese ads), Kappei Yamaguchi (Japanese, 1993-1997), Masato Nishimura (Sonic the Hedgehog CD), Jun'ichi Kanemaru (Japanese, 1998-present), Tomokazu Seki (Werehog form, Japanese, Sonic Unleashed), Meg Inglima (English, Sonic's Schoolhouse), Ryan Drummond (English, 1999-2004), Jason Griffith (English, 2005-2010), Roger Craig Smith (English, 2010-present)^{additional VAs}Alexandre Gillet (French, 2011-present), Renato Novara (Italian, 2011-present)

^{Click here to see Sonic's Classic Era design}

^{Click here to see Super Sonic}

"Sorry for being brash. People who are all talk are the worst. I don't do what I do out of righteousness. I do what I do because I love to do it. But I'd never betray you."

— Intro message from the Japanese manual for the original Sonic the Hedgehog

What you see is what you get— just a guy that loves adventure! He's Sonic the Hedgehog!

Mixing blazing hot speeds with a cool blue edge, Sonic is an anthropomorphic hedgehog with plenty of personality who lives up to his name by being able to run at superhuman speeds. Not much is known about Sonic's past aside from that he was born on Christmas Island^note Which is, in fact, a real place, located southwest of Java, but belonging to Australia before traveling to see South Island. One day on South Island, he noticed all of his animal buddies began disappearing and the culprit was none other than Dr. Eggman. After foiling the doc's plans, Sonic would then make it his business to do in whatever Evil Plan the doc cooked up, establishing their long rivalry. Over time, Sonic has faced bigger and larger threats alike while making a whole slew of allies along the way.

Sonic is described as like the wind; unpredictable, always moving from place to place, and never settling down for long. Laid-back, carefree, kind, prideful, and armed with a wit as sharp as his quills, there's hardly anything out there that can stop the Blue Blur.

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A-D

• Above Good and Evil: It's laid out quite clearly in one of his theme songs, "It Doesn't Matter", that he cares little for the definitions of good or evil, or who is right and who is wrong in any given situation or belief; Sonic just follows his heart, doing whatever he feels is appropriate at the moment. Fortunately, his heart generally steers him in the direction of heroism, but there have been occasions where he's taken actions that clash with the "hero" perception, and he's generally completely unrepentant about them.
  Sonic: Guess I can't be the hero every time.
• The Ace: He regularly foils any plans the villains have with ease, he has amazing powers and fighting skills, he holds the title of fastest thing alive, and his sheer charisma has most of the cast looking up to him.
• Ace Pilot: It's not often addressed, but the Tornado is his plane, and it's the main way he gets from place to place. He can fly it just as well as Tails can, which can be seen if you play as Tails in Sonic 2 and Mania. He just prefers to let Tails fly because it's more fun for him that way.
• Action Hero: Sonic is a superfast hedgehog who regularly fights evil aliens, mythical monsters and other types of villains.
• Adaptational Hairstyle Change: While Sonic's original Japanese design featured six quills in an arc, the American artists misinterpreted Sonic's as a straight line similar to a mohawk. This stayed on both box arts and early North American cartoons and comics, until 1995 when his Japanese design was adopted worldwide.
• Ageless Birthday Episode: Despite it being his birthday in Sonic Generations, his age is never specified.
• Air-Dashing: In many games, Sonic is capable of dashing forward in midair, often as a homing attack. How he performs it specifically varies on the game.
• Allergic to Evil: It's been stated in the official Japanese Sonic Jam guide that Sonic tends to sneeze when he senses danger. This quirk is shown in Sonic CD's animated opening sequence.
• Allergic to Routine: Sonic always heads out on a new journey after the day is saved, finding peace and quiet to be pretty boring.
• All-Loving Hero: As far as the games go, no matter what happens, Sonic never holds grudges and easily makes friends out of former enemies. If it's to save the world, he won't even hesitate to work alongside Eggman, although he wouldn't exactly be happy about it.
• Always Accurate Attack: His signature Homing Attack that he has had since Sonic Adventure.
• Always Someone Better: Let's see... To Metal Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow, Jet... Let's just say if they're Sonic's rival, Sonic will almost always be the one on top in the rivalry. The only times someone usually manages to outdo them it's either because Sonic himself isn't initially skilled at the task (hoverboarding), cheated (Jet blowing up Sonic's hoverboard just as he's about to win), or using an ability he's unfamiliar with (Chaos Control).
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: Sonic's design was tweaked in the early days of the franchise (until 1995) to make him more appealing to Western audiences, giving him sharper eyes and arranging his quills in the style of a mohawk. This is a bit odd considering that Sonic's original design was already meant to appeal to Westerners.
• Anti-Hero:
  • Played with. While Sonic has his faults, they don't get in the way of his heroism. However, as his own theme song (see Sonic Adventure) states, he doesn't like to follow others' values or beliefs and lives by his own morals and codes, and always makes his choices based on what comes naturally to him by his own feelings. He also has a propensity for a lot of vandalism in his heroic acts. Still, deep down, he will always come out as the hero who saves everyone at the end of the day.
  • While he ultimately comes out as the hero, Sonic Adventure 2 includes him destroying countless military robots (before even having any idea that Eggman was up to something), resisting arrest by escaping from GUN, breaking out of Prison Island, and hijacking the president's car. Though, GUN did start it by wrongfully capturing Sonic believing he was Shadow.
  • In Sonic Unleashed (and arguably Sonic Generations), he causes what must be millions in non-Eggman property damage during his daytime runs.
  • Sonic Colors starts with him deliberately vandalizing Eggman's park despite not (yet) having any evidence of Eggman's wrongdoing.
  • In Sonic and the Black Knight, he even willingly attempts to become the story's villain by killing King Arthur to save Camelot from his tyranny. He even lampshades it. But to be fair, King Arthur was the real villain at the time.
    Sonic: I told you, I don't mind playing the bad guy once in a while.
• The Anti-Nihilist:
  • Established from the very first game via a Tagline on the Japanese box art:
    "Don't just sit there and waste your precious time. When you want to do something, do it right away. Do it when you can. It's the only way to live a life without regrets."
  • In Sonic and the Black Knight, he expresses this view to Merlina. As he points out, every world will eventually end; the only thing you can do is live your life to the fullest in the time you have.
  • Taken to its logical extreme in Sonic Frontiers in which Sonic fights THE END, more or less a literal embodiment of the heat death of the universe. Doesn't get much more nihilistic than that.
• Art Evolution:
  • Sonic has gone through a lot of redesigns in the series, most drastically his design overhaul from Sonic Adventure and onward. The only other character that exceeds him in redesigns is his own opponent, Dr. Eggman.
  • When Classic Sonic was made playable again thanks to time travel in Generations, his fur was made a lighter shade of blue than what was depicted in the 90s. This design change has persisted so far in his reappearances in Mania, Forces and Superstars.
• The Artifact:
  • Sonic's initial purpose as a character became this over time. Sonic was originally conceived by Sega as not only the company's mascot, but as a direct competitor and the antithesis of Nintendo's highly acclaimed Super Mario Bros. series. But once Sega dropped out of the hardware business and started publishing games on Nintendo consoles, Sonic's original purpose was obsolete, and he's since become a friendly competitor to Mario in many crossover games.
  • While his spinning moves have always been a hallmark of the character's abilities, some aspects of them eventually became obsolete in the context of later entries. For instance, the Spin Dash move, a staple ability since Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that was meant to make it easier for Sonic to gain momentum and attack (plus making it easier to go up slopes), was largely downgraded in power as an ability and basically made obsolete around the later 3D and Sonic Rush games. Those games would introduce the boost ability, essentially serving the same purpose as the Spin Dash and its sister move, the Super Peelout, but without the idle charge-up time needed. Later games such as Sonic Unleashed eventually dropped the ability to use the move altogether, although it still makes appearances in side-scrolling titles such as Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and Sonic Lost World. Sonic Frontiers' second update would properly re-introduce the move into a 3D platformer, with Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy all being able to execute the move.
  • Likewise, the Spin Attack, Sonic's basic method of simply ramming into enemies while spinning in air, was made obsolete in the 3D games as of Sonic Adventure, due to the introduction of the Homing Attack (which made an early bird appearance as a shield in Sonic 3D Blast). While his Spin Attack is still a main move in the side-scrollers, the homing attack still accompanies it as a backup move now.
• Badass Adorable: Core to the appeal of his character design pre-Adventure. As a 1991-character bible stated, "Sonic must appear youthful, tough, and cocky - but also cute." The primary goal of the Adventure redesign was to remove this, which may be why it's emphasized even more in Classic Sonic's contemporary appearances.
• Badass Armfold: He does this sometimes, often when he's bored.
• Badass Boast: He's let out a few over the years, and he backs each one up in spectacular fashion:
  • "You can't get away this time! There's only one REAL Sonic!"
  • "What you see is what you get, just a guy that loves adventure. I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!"
  • "I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog! I have no master except the wind that blows free!"
  • "Eggman! I AM going to save this planet, and I AM going to free these aliens! No copyright law in the universe is going to stop me! We can save ourselves a lot of time and broken robots if you just quit now!"
  • "The only thing that's gonna get conquered is your face, Eggman!"
  • "I'm in a class all my own. Time to put-up or shut up, Infinite!"
• Badass Bookworm: No genius, but he is a fan of literature such as 1,001 Arabian Nights and King Arthur and The Knights of The Round Table; not only did he go into those worlds, but he does also occasionally mention reading up on a few things. Even when he was younger promotional art from Harmony Vol. #124 showed him enjoying a good book on Christmas.
• Badass Cape: As Excalibur Sonic◊.
• Badass in Distress:
  • Averted in Sonic Adventure 2, where he reveals that he deliberately let GUN take him prisoner, believing doing so would allow him to learn more about Shadow. Unfortunately, the English dub made this much less clear.
  • Played straight in Sonic Forces, he was taken down by Infinite and held captive in the Death Egg for six months before being rescued by the Resistance's efforts.
• Badbutt: One of the poster children of this trope. Which makes sense, considering how fitting the archetypical badass into a kid-friendly environment has been a primary hallmark of the series since its inception.
• Bash Brothers: Has been this with Tails since Sonic 2. He also plays this with Knuckles when the two put aside their differences, which is also the case with Shadow. He even does this with his past self in Sonic Generations.
• Battle Aura:
  • As Super Sonic, he gets a glowing golden aura around his body, though this is more apparent in the modern 3D titles. In Sonic Frontiers' Another Story scenario, this golden aura is mixed with red arcs of lightning when he utilizes the Cyber Corruption's energy as his own.
  • As Darkspine Sonic, his flames tend to surround his body in this fashion.
• Berserk Button: Don't misidentify his species. He won't take it well.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's probably the nicest character next to Tails, Amy, Big, Cream and Vanilla, but push his buttons and... well... Erazor Djinn ^note and Eggman sometimes learned the hard way. This trait is even mentioned in some of his Japanese official character profiles, which state that he's good at keeping his cool under pressure, but on the rare occasions he gets angry, he shows a really mean side of his that surprises those who know him.
• Big Brother Mentor: He's this to Tails in most of the games and adaptations. He also acts like this to the Avatar in Forces.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • Sonic tends to be pretty laid-back and easygoing, but the second Tails is in any sort of trouble, he shapes up extremely quickly. He's also pretty protective of Cream when she's present, being even younger and less skilled than Tails.
  • He serves as one to Emerl in Battle. He starts out as more of a Big Brother Mentor, but by the end, he nearly has a Freak Out when Emerl is on his death throes.
• Big Damn Heroes: Expect this trope to happen once a game.
• Big Good: He's usually viewed as this by others, as shown in Sonic Rush and even Sonic Forces, despite not being the Resistance's leader.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: The entire conflict with the Time Eater in Sonic Generations takes place during his birthday; in fact, the creature crashes Sonic's birthday party.
• Black-Hole Belly: He literally becomes one in the DS version of Sonic Colors when he transforms into the Violet Void form. He will even consume the entirety of the Frigate Skullian, provided its HP meter is depleted enough.
• Blood Knight: Downplayed. While he doesn't go out of his way to seek a conflict or hurt people, there is no doubt that Sonic loves a good fight with anyone that can challenge him. The thrill of the adventure is what he lives for. Just look at his reaction◊ to fighting a Chaos Emerald powered up Metal Sonic from Sonic Mania Adventures. In Shadow the Hedgehog, when Black Doom summons a Black Bull to fight him and Shadow, Sonic's immediate response is to cheer "Woohoo! Now we're talkin'!"
• Blow You Away: Ever since Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic has been capable of wind-based attacks and is frequently associated with wind. While many of them seem to just be logical extensions of his super speed (i.e. he moves so fast he weaponizes the resulting turbulence), some aren't and are effectively wind projectiles.
• Blue Is Heroic: The poster child of this trope in video games. His blueness represents freedom and clear blue skies, as well as his generally easygoing nature. This is put in contrast with Eggman's redness as well as Knuckles's intense red and Shadow's red accents.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Generally very excitable, and willing to take down anyone threatening the world.
• Bold Explorer: Adventurer-type example: he's always in the mood to see his world and what it has to offer, which ties in with how the series changes settings now and again.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Far and away, the character most likely to do so. Even in his first appearance, he would stare at the screen and tap his foot impatiently if left idle, and in CD, he would outright leave and cause game over if left in that state for long enough.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He's one of the fiercest and most influential people on the planet, but he spends much of his time roaming the world or relaxing and only saves the heroics for when it's appropriate.
• Brought Down to Normal:
  • In Sonic 3, Knuckles cancels out his otherwise very powerful Super Sonic form with a single punch, and this also knocks the Emeralds out of him.
  • In the opening of Sonic Unleashed, Eggman uses a machine to force Sonic out of his super form and rip the Chaos Emeralds from him, which in turn causes Sonic to gain the new Werehog form from Dark Gaia's energy.
  • Occurs in Sonic Labyrinth when Eggman takes his speed and ability to jump by replacing his shoes with slow-down versions of his own creation. However, he can still Spin Dash just fine.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Amazing feats and adventures come naturally to Sonic, which is part of where his cocky attitude comes from. While this aspect of his personality has been played up occasionally since the beginning, his tweaked characterization starting from Colors put more emphasis into just how routine these things have become for him.
  Sonic: No seriously, we beat (Eggman) every time. It's like our job or something.
• Calling Your Attacks: "Sonic Wind!" "Chaos Control!" "Speed Break!" "Time Break!"
• Carpe Diem: Sonic and the Black Knight explores how Sonic fully embraces the flow of time, and how he recognizes that living one's life to the fullest is true happiness.
  Sonic: Merlina... Every world has its end. I know that's kinda sad, but... That's why we gotta live life to the fullest in the time we have. At least, that's what I figure.
• Celibate Hero: While he's aware of Amy's infatuation for him, he prefers to keep away from her when she acts on it. Most of the time, at least. He's not interested in Rouge's flirting, either. He shows a surprising tender side when interacting with Blaze, but that's more because he's trying to get her to open up and he's one of her few true friends rather than anything romantic.
• Challenge Seeker: Always enjoys a good fight. In Sonic Generations, when asked by Tails why he and his past self don't tackle the challenges together, he responds that it would make things too easy and not fun enough.
• Character Catchphrase: In a lot of the 3D games, he usually introduces himself with a cocky "I'm Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog!"
• Character Tic: Has a couple of tics befitting his Mascot with Attitude persona, like his smirk with accompanying finger-wag, his cocky nose-rubbing, and his tendency to place his hands at his sides while impatiently tapping his foot. Metal Sonic has a tendency to mimic these, being his Evil Doppelgänger.
• Characterization Marches On: The degree of his attitude tends to vary from game to game, especially in the 3D era. He had a fairly neutral personality in the likes of the Adventure duology, Unleashed, and the Storybook games; being confident in his abilities, but knowing when to get serious when a real threat presented itself, and equal parts of quirk and kindheartedness. In Sonic '06, most of his attitude was written out, and he became a more generic, straight-laced hero. Then, beginning with Sonic Colors, they went in the opposite direction and made his attitude much more prominent, as he became a cocky, confident hedgehog going on about how awesome he is, who only seems to take things seriously in the most dire circumstances. His friendship with Tails was also emphasized more, as their dynamic became more key to his characterization. Lost World follows up on this by having his cockiness screw him (and the world) over, showing a more insecure side to this personality. Sonic Frontiers takes this a step further, where the game tests his endurance and heroism by having those two things be what almost has him killed. Despite this, the game also showcases the kinder, selfless side of Sonic more than most other titles.
• Chekhov's Skill: He saves himself from one of Eggman's death traps in Adventure 2 by performing Chaos Control with a fake Chaos Emerald. He learned it by watching Shadow perform it.
• Chick Magnet: Downplayed, as while most of the female cast isn't wildly in love with him, they do enjoy his company. Amy has a massive crush on Sonic, he gets some Ship Tease with Blaze and Rouge, and there was that subplot with Elise in '06. He ends up lampshading this in Sonic Battle: "Got enough girls chasing me as it is."
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Most bios state that he can never leave troubled people alone due to his sense of heroism and great kindness.
• Clothes Make the Legend: Sonic's shoes are one the most iconic parts of his design, to the point that Sega has a rule that he cannot be shown without them or taking them off.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Averted: both the US manual and tie-in comic for the original game suggested that the source of Sonic's speed is his shoes, but this was never taken as canon, not even in other Sonic continuities from the early days — even the early Promo Comic dismissed that idea (and the game it was promoting said otherwise in the same manual!).^note It's possible, though, that it was meant to refer to the speed-up Item Box. However, it is commonly accepted that Sonic's shoes are instead designed to protect his feet from the friction and heat gained from going as fast as he does.
• Commitment Issues: One interpretation of Sonic's aversion to romance is him being scared of settling down and giving up his free and adventurous lifestyle.
• Conjoined Eyes: The standard design for himself and some of his friends. Word of God confirms that Sonic does have two separate eyeballs.
• Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: His impatience and snarky attitude towards the player for hold-ups shows in some of his idle animations. He'll even give you a Game Over if he's kept waiting too long in Sonic CD.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Confirmed by Naoto Oshima in a Twitter post to not have parents in game canon.
• Cool Big Bro: To Tails. Cream also views him this way, and he could be considered one to Blaze as well, despite only being a year older than her. He's even one to himself, or rather this younger self, in Sonic Generations.
• Cool Car: According to old supplementary material, Sonic has a favorite car in the the Lamborghini Countach, which is one of the cars the Cyclone in Sonic Drift was modeled after.
• Cool Plane: The Tornado. Which belonged to him at first, not Tails, contrary to popular belief.
• Cool Shades: Wears some in the Sonic Riders series.
• Cute Bruiser: Even in his Modern form, Sonic is only 3ft tall. The later games, such as Colors, Generations, Lost World, and Forces, appear to have made him even shorter (the Avatar is noted to be taller than him regardless of what species they are). Sonic also displays some other adorable characteristics, but this doesn't mean he should be underestimated.
• Cute Little Fangs: Was intended to have these from the very beginning until Sega of America had their final say on his design. However, if you look close enough at a few models, Sonic does have fangs (especially noticeable in Sonic '06). Sonic's Werehog form has prominent fangs as well.
• Dance Battler: Many of his moves are based off of techniques seen in the likes of Break Dancing and Capoeira.
• Dangerous 16th Birthday: The entirety of Sonic Generations, where your present from your favorite villain is having your friends petrified in this side of White Space.
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • The Werehog, Darkspine, Violet Void, Purple Frenzy, and Black Bomb forms certainly look evil. However, they do not act evil, nor do these forms carry out evil actions. Quite the contrary, actually. Some of them, however, do make Sonic much more aggressive.
  • This is even touched upon a bit in Sonic Unleashed. Sonic is just too heroic and kind-hearted to give in to Dark Gaia's evil, even while in his Werehog form.
    Sonic: Even at night, when I'm like this, I'm still myself. Not like all the other people we've seen. You must have been protecting me this whole time.
    Chip: I haven't done anything, Sonic. You're the reason you haven't changed at all. You're too strong to lose yourself.
  • Taken to extremes with "The Final Horizon" in Sonic Frontiers, where Sonic (against the Master King Koco's warnings) unleashes all of the power that the Cyber corruption has granted him, turning him into Super Sonic Cyber: his entire body is covered in a glitchy black and blue, and for a brief moment he has pointed fangs and ringed irises similar to the infamous Fleetway Super Sonic from Sonic the Comic. However, he only intends to obliterate the Big Bad, where after Eggman shoots him like a bullet from SUPREME's rifle, both the THE END and the Titan it was controlling is destroyed, with Sonic also losing this power after using it all at once.
• Deadpan Snarker: Played straight in the video games and most adaptations, with Sonic Storybook Series, Sonic Colors, and Sonic Lost World being some prime examples. Other portrayals remove the "deadpan" part.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Lost World deconstructs Sonic's Leeroy Jenkins. As if to parallel his bullet-like speed, Sonic kind of has a one-track, arrogant mind, and when he sets his mind on a goal, he will not rest until it is carried out, and this can make him do some very impulsive, foolhardy stuff. Lost World shows just how this type of mindset can backfire. Sonic impulsively kicking away Eggman's Cacophonic Conch allows the Deadly Six to rebel against Eggman, leading to them using Eggman's Extractor machine to drain the world of its energy, nearly killing Amy and Knuckles. It happens again later in the game where Sonic's recklessness causes Tails to be captured and nearly turned into a robot.
• Defeat Means Friendship: With the exceptions of Amy, who was a Fangirl, and Tails, who either idolized him or was orphaned and bullied, almost all of his friends and allies had to be "befriended" before they joined up with him.
• Demoted to Extra: There are a handful of games where he only makes brief appearances.
  • Knuckles Chaotix only had him appear in the Good Ending. He was originally planned to be the star of the game, as proven by the Sonic Crackers prototype, but Sega of Japan was worried that the series' brand image would've been hurt if Sonic headlined a game for the 32X add-on, which even they realized would be a flop, so they made Knuckles the game's star instead, and had Mighty the Armadillo fill in for Sonic during the gameplay.
  • He only makes an indirect cameo appearance via an item in Tails Adventure.
  • In Tails and the Music Maker, he only gets what amounts to a glorified cameo, as the focus is on Tails.
• Depending on the Artist: Sonic design tend to change with every game, but overall tend to remain rather consistent. However, his eyelids tend to change between the color blue and the same color as his arms. In fact, in both Sonic Generations and Sonic Forces, Classic and Modern have different eyelid colors.
• Depending on the Writer: Generally speaking, Sonic's personality is of the fun-loving and kindhearted guy who loves adventure, with something of an arrogant streak. The degree to which he leans in depends entirely on the continuity and adaptation. See Characterization Marches On above.
• Destructive Savior: In Unleashed and parts of Generations, he causes a lot of property damage in his runs through the stages.
• Deuteragonist: His younger self is this in Generations, and plays Tritagonist in Forces, being one of the playable characters, with exclusive stages meant to emulate the old 2D games.
• Determinator: Nothing slows him down for long.
• Determined Expression: His in-game sprites in the Classic Era depict him this way.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He has defeated, among others, a fully powered-up water god, a time god, a dark earth spirit, and a mechanized Eldritch Abomination. He did defeat all of them in super form (aside from when he defeated said water god without the need of his super form a second time), but it's still impressive.
• Didn't Think This Through: Sonic's unerringly stubborn towards following any ways outside his own and loves to charge in with reckless abandon. It's not really a matter of arrogance, so much as he simply believes in himself and his ability to succeed just that much. Unfortunately, when the go-to tactic is "bull in a china shop", Sonic has found his approach causing him to get in over his head quite frequently, on average needing Tails or another member of his circle of allies to get him out of danger, assuming they're not the ones in danger because of his devil-may-care actions.
• Does Not Like Spam: It is strongly implied in Sonic Unleashed that he does not like seafood, going by the extremely low EXP gainage after he is fed it. Although in Sonic Colors he expresses interest in trying out the seafood restaurants at Eggman's theme park.
• Doesn't Like Guns: He openly admits in Shadow the Hedgehog that he "wouldn't be caught dead" utilizing guns and other firearms. He doesn't mind other people using them, though (as evidenced by the fact that this line comes from him explaining to Shadow how to switch weapons), so it's less of a dislike for them, and more a matter of him simply preferring to use his speed to fight. He has no problem using skeet guns in the Olympic game series for events, though.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": He clearly dislikes being referred to as "Master" by Shahra in Sonic and the Secret Rings and insists on being called by his name. He also dislikes being called "Mr. Sonic", as Cream and Elise find out.
• Dual Boss: As one of the potential final bosses of Shadow the Hedgehog, he fights you alongside the GUN Diablon mech.

E-M

• Eagleland: Type 1. Take his snarky attitude, like of extreme/fun activities, and add in a "free spirit" cowboy personality, and you have Sonic in a nutshell. The fact that his main colors are red, white, and blue helps.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Sonic's first game appearance, predating his full-fledged debut, actually was as a knick-knack hanging inside the player's car in the Sega arcade game Rad Mobile.
• Earth/Wind Juxtaposition: Sonic represents the wind, being fast, carefree, and resistant to staying still. His rival Knuckles is said to embody the earth, being strong, stubborn, and preferring to stay rooted in one place. Some games have given Sonic and Knuckles control over air and earth respectively to match their Elemental Motifs.
• Easily Condemned: Clearly his reputation as the hero of Earth didn't stand for much in Sonic Adventure 2, considering GUN and the police were after him for a crime he obviously didn't commit.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Modern Sonic used to have flesh-colored eyelids like his younger self in the Adventure duology alongside the first two games of the Advance trilogy. From Sonic Heroes onwards, his eyelids are now blue like the rest of his body.
• Elemental Motifs: In the story and sometimes in his Image Songs Sonic himself has a strong wind motif because he's free spirited, independent, and of course likes to go fast. He's even been dubbed The Knight of the Wind. Some games go further and give him wind based powers, which vary wildly in how much control he has, how much he uses it, or if it's really just the force of wind generated by his Super-Speed and not its own magic. When others use wind powers in battle (like his sometimes Moveset Clone Shadow and other Speed-type or Fly-Type characters in general) they don't get the same associations. Shadow for instance is instead more associated with fire, and his go to "elements" when not cloned from Sonic's are Pure Energy and Time. He also has fitting green eyes to go with his wind abilities.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Sonic the Hedgehog CD conveys who he is fairly well, showing his great acrobatics, difficulty traversing water, and running into Eggman's next plan with no idea what's in store for him. All without talking.
  • The intro to the original Sonic the Hedgehog simply has him do his signature finger wag to establish him as THE Mascot with Attitude.
  • Sonic Riders does this in its opening cutscene, quickly showing us how Sonic's Chronic Hero Syndrome, interest in extreme sports, and love of competition come together when he's given a new skill to master and a new rival to beat.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Sonic is ultimately a very altruistic and kindhearted person, but there are a few villains that really get on his bad side:
  • Downplayed with Eggman. He usually hates the doctor with a fiery passion, but he won't let that get in the way of a team-up if it's for the greater good, and he seems to somewhat recognize his Hidden Heart of Gold in Sonic Frontiers.
  • Erazor Djinn is such a despicable piece of work that after Sonic spends the entire game being tormented by him and witnessing him murder his newest friend, the hedgehog has no issue with ruthlessly humiliating and killing him at the end.
  • Zavok starts off as just another Villain of the Week, but after kidnapping Tails and seemingly killing Eggman, Knuckles, and Amy and proceeding to mock him after the fact, Sonic's desire to defeat him reaches It's Personal levels. When he thinks about him in Frontiers, he hopes he's doing terrible.
  • The epitome of this comes in the form of THE END in Sonic Frontiers. THE END is the polar opposite of everything Sonic stands for: while Sonic is compassionate guy who values freedom and enjoys helping others in whatever way he can, THE END is a malevolent being obsessed with bringing "order" to the cosmos and will gladly massacre any innocent people that get in its way. After spending the entire game being manipulated by THE END and witnessing all of its atrocities firsthand, Sonic doesn't hold back during the True Final Boss.
    Sonic: (to the Ancients) He took your home world! He took your lives! Are you going to let him do it all over again? I need your help! We can end this!
• Even the Guys Want Him: Louie Montaine in Sonic Unleashed loves to go on about how hot he finds Sonic and lusts after his body after every successfully cleared mission he offers.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Subverted. These forms are ones that that he takes has him using evil powers, with Jason Griffith giving Sonic a harsher and gruffer voice than usual in the English dubs. That said, Sonic doesn't become evil while in these forms.
  • In Sonic Unleashed, he has a gruff voice in his Werehog form.
  • As Darkspine Sonic, he has a very sinister angry growl of a voice.
• Excellent Judge of Character: Let it be said that the characters that manage to fool Sonic generally are nigh-unrecognizable in their true evil forms, usually requiring elaborate guises and means to manipulate him. When he meets someone straight up, he tends to just about immediately cotton on to what they intend and how they work, like understanding that Chaos is just a Tragic Monster that needs to be calmed down, knowing Emerl is a fresh slate that can be set on the right path, and realizing in Sonic Frontiers that Sage is an Anti-Villain and the "spooky sky voice" is up to no good from the very beginning. About one of the only cases this really messes up is Team Sonic Racing, with Dodon Pa being neutral, and in that case everyone assumed he was secretly evil given he repeatedly kept giving off Red Herring hints to the contrary.
• Experienced Protagonist: The origins of his rivalry with Dr. Eggman have never fully been touched on, so by the time the first game starts, he's already mixed it up with the doctor before.
• Expressive Ears: They'll flick frequently when he's irritated with waiting (Sonic the Hedgehog 4's Idle Animation) and lie forward or sideways when he's asleep, disappointed, or feeling sick.
• Expressive Hair: His spines are usually treated as hair, and they tend to straighten out when he's sufficiently suprised.
• Expy: His Classic Era design is based on Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse.
• Extreme Omnivore: Eats anything, even moldy/rancid food (if Unleashed is anything to go by). Taken to the extreme in Sonic Colors when he absorbs Purple or Violet Wisps and morphs into a Purple/Violet monstrosity that chomps down on anything, even robots and other metallic objects.
• Extremity Extremist: In battle, Sonic uses his feet more than his fists, combining this with Dance Battler.
• Eye Color Change: Sonic's eyes are normally green, but when he goes Super Sonic, they turn red. When he gets a power boost from the cyber corruption in Sonic Frontiers' "Final Horizon" storyline, Super Sonic is upgraded, and his eyes turn from red to blue to reflect the change.
• The Face: He's easily the most social of the three, and usually does all of the talking.
• Face Palm: Does this fairly frequently.
• Fastest Thing Alive: Sonic can reach speeds higher than mach 1 on his own foot power. In most instruction booklets and official bios, he is referred to as "the fastest hedgehog◊" or "the fastest supersonic hedgehog◊" in the world. On at least one occasion in Sonic Riders, Jet says Sonic has a reputation for being "the fastest thing alive", and at least one official bios claims he can reach lightspeed. Omega notes Sonic can surpass even that in Sonic Colors and Sonic himself in reply calls lightspeed "small time". His only rival on foot is Shadow, who keeps up with him using hover skates.
• Fatal Flaw: Sonic can get rather cocky and reckless in the face of danger, something that can often be exploited by his foes or lead to him making rather dangerous mistakes. How prominent this is varies from media to media, though it has cost him dearly at least once in just about every interpretation.
  • This is taken to the highest degree in Sonic Lost World, when his recklessness causes the Zeti to break free from Eggman's control and become a larger threat than Eggman himself was, and later when his recklessness causes Tails to get kidnapped.
  • This is explored even more in Sonic Frontiers. In that game, a god-like Eldritch Abomination that apparently knows a lot about Sonic, his altruism, and persistence, sets him up so that all of that would ultimately be his undoing, and so that it can free itself from its prison. When Sage captures his friends, it tricks Sonic into believing that the Islands are in danger from the Titans, and that he must stop them in order to free his friends from Sage, who doesn't tell him why she imprisoned them in the first place. In the end, Sonic becomes so corrupted from the cyber-energy found in the Cyber Cages that Sage had set up that he goes into a death-like state and has to be bailed out by his friends sacrificing themselves.
• Final Boss: He is the final opponent in Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog's Dark stories.
• Finger Wag: His trademark pose.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Just about a number of characters started off as Sonic's enemies or opponents at one point or another, but they're now all invaluable friends/allies to him. The prolific examples include Knuckles, Shadow, Blaze, and Silver.
• Flight: But only when he's Super Sonic.
• Flying Brick: As Super Sonic.
• Foil: He has quite a few. Notable examples include:
  • Dr. Eggman, being a scientist who wishes to rule through technology and totalitarian rule to Sonic's nature-loving idealism.
  • Back when they were still adversaries, Knuckles. Red Oni to Sonic's Blue, his strength to Sonic's speed, and his stationary lifestyle to Sonic's nomadic one.
  • Shadow. They're on very different ends of the Idealism vs. Cynicism scale and often come to blows because of it, and this is after Shadow's Heel–Face Turn in his own game. Before said Heel–Face Turn, practically every meeting between the two got rather... violent.
  • Blaze. Her introversion to his extroversion, her insecurity to his confidence, her fire to his wind. Though their relationship is much friendlier than the other examples, as Sonic tries to look out for her, and they mutually and openly respect one another.
  • The End serves as a foil to Sonic and the complete antithesis of him, even more so than Eggman and other villains before it. The End is a nihilistic cosmic abomination that wants to box others into a world anathema of light or existence, and attempts to crush the hope of those that confront it, making it an embodiment of order. Sonic, on the other hand, is a free-spirited being that embraces the freedom of others, and always pushes forward no matter how hard things seem, and encourages others to do the same, which makes Sonic an embodiment of chaos.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Phlegmatic.
• Fragile Speedster: Whenever multiple characters are playable, Sonic has among the highest speed but lowest attack power and defense. In Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, he's fast enough to attack three times per turn, but most of his attacks don't deal much damage compared to Knuckles or Shadow. The only exception is in Sonic Frontiers, where Sonic is instead a Lightning Bruiser with by far the highest damage output and best combat options of any character, but lacks the mobility in the air that his friends all have.
• Friendly Rivalry: With Knuckles, as the two are now on good terms. This was a one-sided case with Shadow, who isn't interested in "friendly competition" as Sonic puts it in Shadow the Hedgehog. In the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series, he also has a friendly rivalry with Nintendo's mascot Mario.
• The Gadfly: He loves getting a rise out of his enemies, which is why he taunts them with such irreverence. This is proven in spades during his second encounter with Zeena in Sonic Lost World.
• Genre Motif: Sonic is associated with Pop Punk music, and many of his games' soundtracks have at least one Image Song falling under the genre. Combining edgy, rebellious punk rock with friendlier, softer pop elements is fitting for a character who has a lot of attitude but a heart of gold underneath it all.
• Genre Savvy: Eventually by Sonic Colors, Sonic might as well know he's in a platformer series, or barring that has fought Dr. Eggman so many times that he knows how the ropes go given how much he openly says he knows Eggman's up to no good even when the latter proclaims to the contrary. Somehow, Colors is also the one case in the series where Tails suddenly gains a dose of Arbitrary Skepticism just to contrast Sonic's savviness.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: He's the final Dark Side story boss of Sonic Adventure 2 and insists on constantly running away from you, only stopping to fire off his signature move when there's enough space between Shadow and him.
• Glass Cannon: In platform games, Sonic can destroy Eggman's inventions simply by spin or drop dashing on them, but the slightest enemy attack or collision makes him lose his rings, and a life if he doesn't have any.
• Golden Super Mode: Super Sonic, perhaps the second most famous variant after the Super Saiyans.
• Good Is Not Dumb: Despite his Stock Shōnen Hero traits and his stubbornness, he isn't actually stupid. He is an excellent combatant and can outsmart Eggman on many occasions when it comes to dealing with his schemes. According to Sonic Channel, Rouge thinks of him as someone annoyingly shrewd and the one guy she cannot outsmart.
• Good Is Not Soft:
  • Back in the very first game, you had the choice to either let Dr. Eggman flee or destroy the Egg Mobile and watch him plummet to his apparent doom (not that Sonic wants Eggman to die). His ass-kickings of the doctor in the early mangas show that the second option was probably the canon one.
  • In Sonic Adventure 2, when Sonic is captured by G.U.N and being transported to prison via helicopter, he busts out and takes out everyone aboard but the pilot.
    Sigma-Alpha 2: The hedgehog is gone; he's taken out everyone aboard and...
  • His sealing away of Erazor during the ending of Secret Rings comes off as this ^note particularly compared to how he treated Chaos, who had a similarly tragic past, in Sonic Adventure, and would have been disproportionate if Erazor hadn't established himself as a truly irredeemable villain beforehand.
  • In Sonic and the Black Knight, Sonic defeats King Arthur by killing him. Of course, it turns out that this King Arthur was an illusion created by the real villain, but he still did this willingly.
  • Borderline exaggerated in Sonic Frontiers. In this game, he's calmer and more mature compared to his previous appearances and actually spends a major chunk of the game seriously worrying about his friends, and yet as Super Sonic, he is able to bombard Giganto with energy clones, chain Wyvern in place to pummel the latter with impunity, and skewer Knight on energy spears. In the Final Horizon DLC, he almost gets into a physical fight with Eggman for dismissing his friends' sacrifices to save his life, and once he unlocks his new Super Sonic 2 form, he has the option of gorily crushing a possessed Supreme in a giant energy vise.
• Gratuitous English: He has a tendency to use it, to go with his 'tude. In fact this has been a trait of his ever since his games had voice acting, as seen in early titles like the Japan-exclusive Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car (released in the same year as his debut game) where he uses the occasional English phrase, or Sonic CD, where all his words are in English (even in the Japanese version). And even before then, official Japanese material advertised him with English phrases like "His name is Sonic" or "The most famous hedgehog in the world".
• Grind Boots: While everyone gains this ability by the time of Heroes, Sonic Adventure 2 has Sonic sporting a pair of Soap shoes (in their trademark red-and-white color scheme), due to a deal between Sega and the Soap brand.
• Guest Fighter:
  • Highly demanded by fans who wanted to see him in a fighting game with Mario since Super Smash Bros. Melee (and being part of an April Fools' Day prank by Electronic Gaming Monthly), he was included in the Super Smash Bros. franchise starting with Brawl.
  • He's also featured as a playable character in Puyo Puyo Tetris 2.
• Heal Thyself: In Sonic Battle, his "Sonic Heal" ability is described as him using his supersonic speed to heal damage.
• Hero Antagonist: In most games that feature Another Side, Another Story, he antagonizes the protagonist at some point while remaining his usual heroic self. He also serves as such in the dark paths of Shadow the Hedgehog, opposing the titular character when he goes off the deep end.
• Hero Protagonist: He's the main character of the series and is almost always at the forefront to protect Earth whenever it's in danger.
• Heroic Mime: Sonic was shown to be this back when he was younger in both Sonic Generations and Sonic Forces, largely expressing his attitude and emotions through actions rather than through speech like his modern self does.
• Heroic Safe Mode: In most modern incarnations, his response to most tragedies is to simply keep going.
• Heroic Willpower: Present to a truly ludicrous degree. He can shrug off a mind-controlling corruption without even being aware of it. Curiously, this didn't work in Sonic Rivals 2. The Ifrit gains control of his mind (if you're playing as Tails) with ease.
• Hero on Hiatus: When he temporarily dies in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), he's out of commission and it's up to the other characters to retrieve the Chaos Emeralds to bring him back.
• Hidden Depths: Sonic Unleashed brings us the Werehog, which displays facets of Sonic's personality that are rarely seen. He's shown to be insecure about how he appears to others, to subconscously admire the affection Amy gives him, and to have enough willpower to resist corruption from a god without even realizing.
• Holding Back the Phlebotinum: He never uses Chaos Control unless he absolutely has to.
• Home Stage: If Sonic is ever in a crossover or promotional material, you can bet 99% of the time that Green Hill Zone will be the stage or background used.
• Homing Projectile: He can turn himself into one using the Homing Attack.
• Hope Bringer: Is established as such in Forces. After his defeat and apparent death at Infinite's hands in the beginning, Vector even notes that with Sonic gone, people all over are falling into despair. During the Final Boss, Tails outright declares Sonic their "shining hope."
• Hot-Blooded: He's fairly passionate about saving the world from Eggman through-and-through.
• Human Hammer-Throw: In Sonic Frontiers, during the fight with WYVERN, Super Sonic can grab the Titan by the tail and spin it around before throwing it with enough force to send it flying into and smashing against the side of a mountain on Ares Island.
• Hurricane Kick: An R-Trigger trick in the Advance series.
• I Am Not Weasel: He's... ahem... rather temperamental about being called a rat rather than a hedgehog throughout Sonic and the Secret Rings.
• "I Am" Song: They call him Sonic. 'Cause he's faster than sound, he keeps on jumping around.
• Iconic Outfit:
  • Sonic's iconic red shoes which are decaled with white stripes in the middle and gold buckles on both sides. Contrary to popular belief, they're not sneakers, but red boots — the "socks" are actually their ankle sections folded down.
  • The Soap shoes from Sonic Adventure 2 which was done to promote the Soap brand. Sonic can wear them again in Sonic Frontiers as cosmetic DLC if one subscribes to the game's newsletter.
• Identical Stranger: When he first meets Shadow he immediately gets that people have mistaken them for each other. Amy, Eggman, and Shadow himself all acknowledge the resemblance at different points. To the audience it would be hard to mistake them having different fur color, quill shape, and even different outfits as far as boot and glove designs go. Apparently on whatever In-Universe metric to tell the anthropomorphic characters apart the two are almost identical.
• I Got Bigger: Sonic Generations confirms that "Modern" Sonic is the older version of pre-Sonic Adventure "Classic" Sonic.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Throughout the whole series, he pulls this against Perfect Chaos in Sonic Adventure, and he tried this against Emerl the Gizoid in Sonic Battle. In Emerl's case, it only partially worked, and the result? A sad ending.
• Image Song: "It Doesn't Matter", "His World", and "Second Wind". "Endless Possibilities" for his relationship to his Werehog form and Chip. For his relationship with the Wisps he has "Reach For the Stars", and for the Avatar he has "Fist Bump". There's also "We Can" in relation to his friends (though notably Tails and Knuckles) and "What I'm Made Of", based on his conflict with Metal Sonic. Sonic gets a new one practically every other game, sometimes multiple in the same game. Some other examples that could possibly refer to him as well as other characters are "Sonic Heroes" and "Live and Learn". In a meta sense, "One Way Dream" can be seen as this for the entire franchise up to this point, as it reflects on the highs and lows of the past while promising a bright future for the Blue Blur.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Mephiles stabs him to death just to get an emotional response out of Elise and therefore unseal Iblis out of its person-shaped can. Thank goodness the Chaos Emeralds are capable of resurrecting the dead...
• Improvised Parachute: He can actually use his cranial quills and hands to catch air like a makeshift parachute in order to make his descents through air slower in Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Him, Shadow, and Silver all share the exact same height and weight of 3 feet and 3 inches, and 77 lbs.
• Informed Attribute: Some of the game manuals describe him as being hot-tempered. This contrasts with the actual games, where he's simply cool and confident. Certain games such as Adventure 2 and Lost World show him losing his cool, albeit in a rather controlled and heavily provoked manner, leaning it more into Beware the Nice Ones than a defining attribute to the character. Certain alternate interpretations are more aggressive, though.
• Instant Expert: Sonic has a nack for picking up skills and abilities after only some slight training. He learns how to use Chaos Control in a Die or Fly moment, didn't take him long to learn air gear and outdo the professionals at the sport, and he even picked up sword play and managed to beat several knights who have spent years practicing their craft. Being Brilliant, but Lazy, the only reason Sonic doesn't end up with Mario's level of diverse jobs and skillsets is because he much more prefers just Walking the Earth and look for adventures rather than learn new tricks and skills.
• Informed Flaw: Word of God has stated that not having a full eight hours of sleep can severely affect Sonic's ability to function and also has a large impact on his running. This is never actually seen in the games, however, not even in Sonic Unleashed where Sonic stays up for days and nights on end due to his Werehog transformations.^note It is, however, shown in one episode of Sonic Boom, in which Eggman purposefully tires him out so he'll be helpless to fight back against his latest robot.
• Irony: The Blue Blur is unable to clearly swim at all to save his own life, mainly because of his infamous Super Drowning Skills since water is unambiguously his biggest obstacle whenever he's in it or in some instances he has to slowly trudge himself underwater to find air bubbles to acquire more oxygen just to stay alive. This trait is an extreme contrast in Real Life since hedgehogs themselves are actually shown to be decent swimmers all-around, although they're only able to keep themselves afloat on the surface of water rather than diving deep enough because of their stubby limbs.
• In-Series Nickname: Rouge calls him "Big Blue".
• Intergenerational Friendship: He's almost twice the age of Tails.
• Interpretative Character: Throughout the decades, Sonic has been (among other things) a superpowered alter ego, a Bugs Bunny-esque trickster, an egotistical bully, the abandoned son of a missing queen, and a hyperactive alien kid. The only things consistent with Sonic are that he's a heroic blue hedgehog with Super-Speed and some degree of pride in his abilities.
• Interspecies Romance: Despite coming off as a bit ambiguous on his part in-game, Word of God has stated that he did have a mutual attraction with Elise.
• Invisible Anatomy: Along with the other anthros, he does not appear to have toes when depicted barefoot.
• Involuntary Shapeshifter: In Unleashed. He can't stop his Werehog transformation from occurring at night or, in the case of the Wii version, in darkness within the Gaia Gates. He can temporarily revert back into normal form when in light or when exposed to light, but once he steps back into darkness, it's only a matter of time before he'll transform back into Werehog form. However, contrary to popular belief, Sonic did not consider the Werehog form a bad thing, and even enjoyed it in spite of it obviously handicapping his latent speed abilities, while giving him some new ones in turn.
• I Work Alone: His free-spirit attitude prevents him from staying in groups for long, but he's always willing to help.
• Jack of All Stats: Most of the cast is capable of using his signature moves (Spin Dash and Spin Jump) along with other abilities, but Sonic tends to be the most well-rounded in using his signature abilities.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed. He's not without his follies, but for the most part, the Heart of Gold part mainly overshadows the Jerk part; in this case, since his jerkish tendencies only show towards his enemies and he is generally nice towards everyone else.
• Kamehame Hadoken: In Frontiers, Sonic can obtain no less than three such techniques.
  • Sonic Boom involves Sonic rapidly spin-kicking in mid-air at a target until he starts generating small blue shockwaves that he then launches.
  • Homing Shot involves Sonic using a Spin Dash in mid-air to generate ten shockwave Energy Balls that then home in on a target.
  • Cross Slash involves Sonic floating in mid-air and firing large cross-shaped shockwaves from his hands at a target. Unlike the other two skills which are optionally unlockable, this one Sonic learns directly in-story after freeing Tails from imprisonment and absorbing the Cyber Space corruption.
• The Kingslayer: He sets out to kill King Arthur in Sonic and the Black Knight, even willing to be considered the villain of the story, because he knows freeing Camelot from Arthur's tyranny is the right thing to do. He eventually proves successful, knocking Arthur off his horse and scattering his remains to the wind. This escalates into a Klingon Promotion when it's revealed that, in the context of the story, Sonic himself is the real King Arthur.
• Klingon Promotion: Sonic killing King Arthur in Sonic and the Black Knight is meant to be him sticking to his heroic principles and freeing Camelot from an iron grip, but then it's revealed that Sonic is the actual King Arthur, making him the true ruler of Camelot.
• Knight in Shining Armor: What Amy sees him as. She's not too far off the mark, though, as Sonic is pretty selfless and some of his dislikes includes seeing people cry and any form of oppression upon others. He's also a bit of a Chick Magnet due to his kindness.
• Large Ham: His personality is very boisterous and magnetic. When he makes the scene, he will be sure to let everyone there know (subtlety is not a prominent trait of Sonic). He also likes to quip and taunt when he's in the middle of a skirmish, probably rivaling Peter Parker in terms of how much snark he dishes out.
• Last-Second Showoff: All the time, almost as often as when he's a Leeroy Jenkins.
• The Leader: Headstrong type for all of Team Sonic and Charismatic type for the cast of heroes as a whole. He often inspires others with his charisma, positive outlook and confidence. As one of the lead developers of The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog put it:
  Greg Bartha: Sonic has something that all of us want, which is a coolness and a confidence. He’s such a natural born leader. People naturally rally behind him and want to be like him. As a kid, I wanted to be like Sonic, to have that confidence, capability, reliability and dependability. And not only have those things but make it look easy. That’s what makes him such an ideal hero and inspiring character.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Varies depending on the story.
  • Even at his mildest, Sonic has no patience for waiting around or discussing tactics. Other than the Sonic Storybook Series, he rarely, if ever, gets called out on this even if it's invoked.
  • This is played straight in Sonic Lost World, however, when, despite Tails' warnings, Sonic kicks Eggman's conch away. Said conch was the only thing keeping the Deadly Six under his control, and they promptly attack everyone in sight, which prompts a retreat. Tails and Eggman do, in fact, call him out on it.
  • Sonic shows this on full display in Sonic Frontiers, which is what gets Sage to oppose him at first. When Sage captures Sonic's friends in order to ensure the safety of the island by removing external variables, Sonic is quick to try and save them, despite the harm this is bringing to both himself and the entire world. He eventually unleashes an ancient malevolent entity called THE END, and absorbs so much Cyber-Energy from the cages that he nearly dies. He even points out towards the end of the game how all of the trouble caused throughout the adventure could have been avoided from the start had he just earned Sage's trust first.
• Leitmotif: Sonic The Hedgehog Title Theme overall and for Classic Sonic, Live & Learn for Modern Sonic are the most recurring. He also gets a new theme song every other game (see Image Song above for examples).
• Le Parkour: Mostly shown off as Scripted Events or as cutscenes in most 3D games, it becomes a full-fledged game mechanic in Sonic Lost World, which gives him the ability to run and jump along walls and ceilings, complete with Speed Echoes.
• Lightning/Wind Juxtaposition: He is the wind, naturally. His rivals - most frequently Metal Sonic, but also occasionally Shadow and Knuckles - are depicted using Lightning in turn.
• Limited Wardrobe: Is virtually never seen wearing anything save White Gloves and his pointy buckled shoes in every Sonic continuity. The only exceptions are his Soap Shoes in Sonic Adventure 2 (after which he went back to his traditional "outfit") and the Sonic Riders trilogy. Sega also has a rule that Sonic is not allowed to take off his shoes.
• Lovable Jock: He's usually characterized as cocky and somewhat aloof, yet friendly and laidback. He's also a Big Brother Mentor to Tails, and is always supportive of him. He helped Tails overcome his timidness and insecurities after this one was bullied during his early childhood by his peers for his twin tails and dorkiness.
• Loveable Rogue: Downplayed. While clearly a hero, he is willing to go against the law, especially if they are after him. One of his official traits is his disregard for rules and irreverence toward authority, always doing what he feels like and living by his own feelings. Presumably what stops him from getting in trouble with law is that he's a world-renown hero, and his actions are usually in tune with law's interests.
• Magic Pants: Applies to both the Werehog and Darkspine forms. Werehog loses his gloves, then gains them back upon transforming back into normal form, whilst Darkspine loses his shoes, socks, and gloves and gains them back within a split second of turning back into normal form.
• Magnetic Hero: Very easily makes friends and allies, even from former enemies. There are times when he doesn't try to make friends with anyone, he just does.
• Manic Pixie Dream Guy: He plays a rare male version of this trope to Princess Elise in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), being an energetic guy who encourages the withdrawn princess to open up, show more emotion, and enjoy life.
• Mascot with Attitude: The Trope Maker.
• Master Swordsman: In Sonic and the Black Knight. Despite probably never using a sword before in his life, he manages to slay a dragon with just a training sword. And when he picks up Caliburn, he goes on to defeat the three Knights of the Round Table and King Arthur himself. Granted, a big part of his swordsmanship is him using his speed to utterly blitz the enemy.
• Meaningful Name: The term "Sonic" was derived from the Latin word for sound, "sonus", relates to sound and the speed of sound waves, and sometimes is related to speediness. True to the term, Sonic can run at supersonic speeds.
• Mellow Fellow: Certain interpretations convey him as thoroughly easygoing and hard to break, rarely holding grudges against even antagonistic characters. Other interpretations are subverted as he can be more Hot-Blooded.
• Mighty Glacier: In his Werehog form, he loses most of his trademark Super-Speed in exchange for Super-Strength and stretchy arms.
• Mind over Matter: Frontiers has him display the ability to psychically grasp large and heavy objects to move them with general ease, implicitly because his regular strength wouldn't do the job. While this is mostly done for puzzles involving large statues, one especially big example of this is when he lifts up KNIGHT's skyscraper-sized BFS in Super Sonic form and wills it to slice its former owner in half as the Finishing Move.
• Mini-Me:
  • "Classic" Sonic is Sonic back when he was younger, shorter and rounder.
  • Raising a Neutral Run/Run Chao will make it look more like a miniature Sonic in the second Sonic Adventure.
• Mirror Boss: Acts like this against Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2 during the first boss fight against him. He does it again in the final Dark Side boss, with the exception of him having access to his Sonic Wind move whilst Shadow doesn't have his Chaos Spear.
• Miscarriage of Justice: He was sent to prison in Sonic Adventure 2 so that GUN could use him as a patsy for the crimes of Shadow, whose existence they wanted to keep covered up.
• Monochromatic Eyes: His Darkspine form has them.
• Morphic Resonance: All of Sonic's forms share common design aspects to the 'normal' form. The Wisp forms also share yellow, pupiless eyes, ears, and spiky protrusions (except for Violet Void form, which has only the eyes and mouth, and Blue Cube form, which only has the eyes and inner ears). All of these design aspects resemble the normal form's eyes, ears, and quills to a great extent.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Some versions of him are very prideful. He sometimes prioritizes his beauty-sleep a little too highly, as well but as noted, he's still a good person.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Outside of a brief mention of his birthplace being Christmas Island, he's never really been given an official backstory in the games. Supplementary material either had Sonic has a magical hero who sprung to life after the death of a kind-hearted pilot who had him as a mascot or a normal hedgehog who gained superpowers in the same freak accident that turned "Dr. Kintobor" evil.
• Mysterious Past: The only things ever revealed about Sonic's past is that his rivalry with Dr. Eggman predated Sonic the Hedgehog and that he was born on Christmas Island. Sonic Origins would later retcon that encounter into being their first meeting instead.

N-W

• Nature Lover: An understated, yet consistent trait of Sonic's across all media, is his love of nature and everything in it. Which makes Dr. Eggman his natural enemy as he seeks to destroy the very nature that Sonic loves and turn it into a mechanical hellscape.
• Nerves of Steel: Very few things faze him. Danger and strong opponents only excite him, and even the pressure of the world's fate resting on him isn't enough to make him lose his cool.
• Next Tier Power-Up: He has two.
  • Hyper Sonic, achieved by using the seven Super Emeralds, the Chaos Emeralds empowered by the Master Emerald. Until Frontiers, Hyper Sonic was the only form (and still the only one he can potentially still access) Sonic had in the games that was outright stronger than his Super form, increasing his speed and power significantly, giving him an air dash that will destroy all Badniks on screen, and allows him to breathe underwater.
  • In Sonic Frontiers' "The Final Horizon" update, Sonic goes through several trials in order to turn his cyber corruption turn into a new power that grants him two new forms. The first form, described in-game as "Super Sonic's hidden power" but labeled internally as "Super Sonic 2" and by writer Ian Flynn as "Starfall Super Sonic", gives Super Sonic blue eyes, a reddish aura littered with electric bolts, and the ability to Perfect Parry, which allows him to reflect any attack, even the ones regular Super Sonic can't.When Sonic uses the full extent of the cyber corruption's power, he becomes "Super Sonic Cyber," a black-and-cyan, glitchy version of Super Sonic with monochromatic ringed eyes and visibly sharp fangs, almost reminiscent of Fleetway's Super Sonic. This form grants him enough power to obliterate both SUPREME and THE END simultaneously, whereas in the original ending, Sonic needed SUPREME's help just to fight THE END at all. However, not only is this form extremely painful to both assume and maintain (even twitching while he transforms), but in doing so, Sonic burns out his cyber corruption, losing access to both forms for good.
• Nice Guy: Probably the best example in the series, as Sonic is often noted for his compassion and selflessness.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: There are a few examples of Sonic unintentionally causing a lot of mistakes.
  • In Sonic Unleashed, his arrogance and fixation with belittling Eggman instead of paying attention to what he was doing was ultimately the catalyst of the game's plot and his Werehog transformations.
  • Zig-Zagged in Sonic Colors, when he destroyed Rotatatron/Globatron, an arm got lodged into a nearby structure, which turned out to be part of the mind control cannon. When Eggman tried to fire it, the cannon backfired. The resulting energy created a Nega Hyper-Go-On black hole that consumed the amusement park. On the other hand if that didn't happen, Eggman would've successfully fire his mind control cannon into the world without Sonic even aware of it.
  • In Sonic Lost World, he's pretty much responsible for the Deadly Six betraying Eggman and attempting to conquer the world for themselves by disposing of the Cacophonic Conch Eggman was using to control them without even bothering to find out what it was. Then he does it again, this time, causing Tails to be trapped inside a capsule and turned into a robot.
  • In Sonic Frontiers, he's told by a mysterious, omniscient voice across the Starfall Islands to destroy the Titans, which remains vague enough that he believes it will save his friends. Turns out this entity is THE END and Sonic is unwittingly releasing it from its cyber prison by doing this. Sage attempted to warn him many times, but being an Eggman A.I. that cannot fraternize with the enemy by design, she was forced to be unable to actually detail why. Given this and his lack of options since he'd never leave his friends behind, Sonic effectively had no real choice but to cause it; he even says partway through the adventure that he doesn't trust the voice himself, but if it's another villainous entity, he'll take them down too, which he does make good on.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: As Super Sonic, the hedgehog can't be wounded in any fashion, period. He's effectively indestructible for as long as the form lasts, and his powers have no clear ceiling on just how high they can go. However, while he's invulnerable, he's not outright invincible — comparable forces can bypass his defenses and knock the ring energy out of him which, while it still won't cause him physical injury, will run out the clock for how much longer he can stay Super. Additionally, characters and forces particularly attuned to the emeralds can knock them out of him with a well-placed blow. And the Titans in Sonic Frontiers even demonstrate that Sonic can still be outright killed in this state in certain situations.
• Ninja Run: He first used this as part of his Super Peel-Out in Sonic CD and it became part of his standard running animation since Sonic Jam, predating Naruto by various years.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: He states outright in both Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic Generations that adventures are no fun if they're "too easy."
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Towards Amy when she's frustrated.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: He ends up walking away from those falls with no injuries at all. This makes sense, as he can survive collisions at supersonic speeds, far faster than his terminal velocity would be. These include falls from space, as seen in Unleashed and Frontiers.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: A notable handicap of his—if it weren't for the rings protecting him, he'd have been roadkill years ago. This can be chalked up to Gameplay and Story Segregation however; Sonic has often been shown to be able to take a reasonable amount of punishment before going down, and sometimes the attacks he goes through are reasonably powerful enough (or relevant to the plot) that it mandates him taking lethal damage, even if he had a ring or his Super Sonic form on hand—such as two occasions in Sonic 3^note Knuckles literally cancels out Sonic's super form with a single punch in the opening, and the final boss of the first half of Sonic 3 can cancel out Sonic's super form by grabbing him and slamming him into the ground) and one point in Sonic 2006.
• One-Man Army: Wherever he runs, expect lots of trashed robots in his wake. Don't believe it? Watch the prologue to Unleashed. This trope is sometimes downplayed, when his friends back him up when Sonic is outmatched.
• One True Love: According to the "Test of Love" in Sonic '06, his soulmate choices for life are narrowed down between Amy and Elise.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: After Mephiles kills him in '06, his ghost/spirit appears in the form of a gust of ethereal blue wind that only Princess Elise can detect.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: Sonic the Werehog◊ in Sonic Unleashed. Even the "werehog" term was originally coined by the fans, and Sega just shrugged and went, "eh, why not?"invoked
• Out of Focus: In the games of the Dreamcast and early Modern era, while Sonic was still The Hero and the title character, his main role was to engage Eggman in his evil plot d'jour, rarely doing more than skimming the surface of the lore and motivations held by the other characters.
  • Sonic Adventure was about the sins of Knuckles's ancestors and an ancient grudge finally bearing fruit.
  • Sonic Adventure 2 was about Shadow the Hedgehog and a tragedy from 50 years ago.
  • Sonic Heroes was about the mysterious villain who emerged part way through everyone's story (and the only serious Character Focus was on Shadow's amnesia).
  • Shadow the Hedgehog was decidedly not about Sonic.
  • Even in the ostensible reboot Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) Sonic's back-and-forth with Eggman was eclipsed by Shadow and Silver dealing with The Man Behind the Man.
• Painful Transformation:
  • Absorbing some of the Seven Worlds Rings may have made Sonic strong enough to combat Alf Layla wa-Layla, but actually transforming into the form made him yell at the top of his lungs which may be justified as the emotions emanating from the Rings themselves such as rage, sadness, and anger were pulsating within him as well as being overcome with grief after Shara was killed.
  • In Sonic Unleashed, the Blue Blur's first experience of becoming the Werehog when some of Dark Gaia's energy was inserted into him wasn't exactly what one would say to be comfortable. The second time he changes into the Werehog, he gets covered in a darkening purple aura while screaming. One loading screen sequence shows Sonic having nothing but an anguished grimace as he prepares to change into the form. However, over the course of the game he became more resistant to the effects as he hardly flinched when he transformed into the Werehog for the final time.
  • In Sonic Frontiers, in "The Final Horizon" update, Sonic learns to use the Cyber Corruption that was hurting and plaguing him all game into new power for his Super form, boosting his power to an incredible level, however the Cyber corruption is still very clearly painful even in his Super Sonic form. While he manages to get to a level that doesn't immediately hurt him when ascending to Super Sonic 2, Sonic's transformation into "Super Sonic Cyber" has him visibly scream and twitch as he goes all out and uses the full extent of the cyber corruption's power.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: What he does to Erazor Djinn at the end of Secret Rings definitely counts. He uses Erazor's lamp to force him to grant three wishes, with the last one used to trap Erazor in said lamp until the end of time just before Sonic tosses it into the Evil Foundry, presumably destroying it forever. In any other context, this would be shockingly cruel for Sonic, but considering all the atrocities Erazor committed over the course of the game, like killing Shahra and openly mocking her for being weak afterwards, there's no denying he deserved every second of it.
• Personality Powers: He is one free-spirited wanderer with Super-Speed powers. He also has some level of aerokinesis, which again, reflects his carefree nature and inability to stay in one place for long.
• Physical God: After getting all seven Chaos Emeralds he can transform into his Super form which is powerful enough to destroy the entire world. In other entries he has his other godlike forms that are powerful enough to defeat other godlike beings. He even has a more powerful form called Hyper Sonic which can only be achieved by getting the seven Super Emeralds.
• Pinball Protagonist: He was afflicted with this horribly in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), in which the most influential roles are delegated to Shadow and Silver and he barely gets anything of noteworthiness done in the grand scheme of the story.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: 3'3'' tall, 77.2lbs in weight, and yet he can defeat monstrosities like the giant robots Eggman builds or Frontiers' Titans (who all tower over him) with only the shoes on his feet.
• Playing with Fire:
  • By acquiring the Flame Ring in Sonic Adventure 2, his somersault attack becomes stronger as he's covered in flames and allows him to break steel containers easily.
  • His Darkspine form is accompanied by being surrounded in a fiery orange aura which gives off the impression that he has some control of pyrokinesis. In Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games the Shy Guy's quiz informs the player that his Darkspine form also has control over not only flames, but wind, and darkness but the last two powers were never properly demonstrated on-screen.^note This was likely a reference to the three types of skills in Sonic and the Secret Rings, which fall under those three elements: Wind skills enhance Sonic's speed and maneuverability, Fire skills increase his offensive power and Darkness skills are various utility skills, typically revolving around rings, experience and the Soul Gauge.
• The Power of Hate: Three of the Seven World Rings that were ejected out of Alf Layla wa-Layla's form were accidentally absorbed by Sonic, one of being the Green World Ring, which contains nothing but sheer hatred. Given what Erazor had done to Shara earlier, other than being fueled with anger and sadness, hatred is pretty much what has driven Sonic the most to overcome and defeat Erazor Djinn in battle.
• Power Makes Your Voice Deep: In the English version of Sonic Unleashed, every time he transforms into the Werehog, his voice becomes more guttural and coarser. In the Japanese version, this was changed to a Baritone of Strength, which is likely to match the Werehog's look and design as well sounding rather threatening when he's fighting hordes of enemies.
• Power of the Void: He becomes a living, moving void in Violet Void form that consumes nearly anything he comes across and becomes bigger in the process.
• Power-Strain Blackout: Overuse of his Super form can cause this due to the amount of energy required to sustain it.
• Pragmatic Hero: Very much this in Sonic and the Black Knight. He was fully willing to allow The Grand Kingdom to come to an end rather than allow Merlina to use her magic to make it eternal, though it should be noted her attempt at making it eternal would have drowned the world in dark magic.
• Pretender Diss: Done in Sonic Rivals towards Metal Sonic.
  Sonic: A copy is still just a copy! It'll never be able to top the original!
• Primary-Color Champion: He has blue fur and wears red boots with yellow buckles on the straps.
• Protagonist Without a Past: Aside from his birthplace being Christmas Island according to early materials, nothing is known about his past.
• Pride: He's fully aware of his Super-Speed, and he's proud of it.
• Promotion to Parent: Most (if not all) incarnations where Tails isn't living independently has Sonic being the one who takes Tails under his wing.
• Punny Name: His Super Sonic form.
• Purple Is Powerful: For his Darkspine transformation, his body is colored indigo due to three of the Seven World Rings strengthening him to the point where he's able to outright whale on Alf Layla wa-Layla, who's basically a reality warping supreme monstrosity. By defeating Shadow in Sonic Generations, right after Sonic has collected 3 Energy Cores, the cyan colored aura of his Sonic Boost is replaced with a bright fuchsia glow as he can ram into small meteors, split them up into 3 fuchsia colored projectiles, and can send them hurtling towards Shadow, which will hinder his speed and boosting right into him greatly reduces his ring meter, which leads to his defeat.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs:
  • In Sonic the Fighters, his Super Rush attack combo (PPPPP) shows him throwing left and right quick punches up to 5 times in a row.
  • As Darkspine Sonic, he pummels Alf-Layla-wa-Layla's weak spot by dominating him with the speed of his fists with each punch until he starts to send him flying.
  • Some of Werehog Sonic's combo attacks shows him performing a Ground Punch variant of this trope by slamming his enlarged fists to the ground insanely fast that has a massive attack range, while another combo attack that's called the Crescent Moon Strike is where he's doing a flurry of mid-air punches. Knuckle Sandwich Combo also involves him doing this as well.
  • Sonic's fastest known instance of this is his Phantom Rush technique from Sonic Frontiers, where he combines this with Flash Step to attack so quickly he leaves afterimages behind as he strikes and appears to strike from multiple places at once. Taken to the extreme during the final boss of the "Final Horizon" update, where he punches and kicks so fast that they appear as delayed streaks of light, where they carry THE END up into the air.
• Razor Wind: His Sonic Wind attack, as depicted in Sonic Adventure 2, and the Cross Slash in Sonic Frontiers, where he launches cross-shaped wind-like projectiles at his enemies.
• Real Men Wear Pink: One of his hobbies includes admiring flowers.
• Rebellious Spirit: Downplayed example. Although he tends to live by his own moral code and disregard authority, he never intentionally breaks the law, and he doesn't seem to have a problem with society in general. Even if he can be a Destructive Savior at times, it's almost always unintentional collateral damage, and the law doesn't hold it against him.
• Red Is Heroic: While primarily blue, his red shoes are one of his most iconic items.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: In addition to the aforementioned above, he's also got this dynamic with likes of Shadow, Blaze, and Dr. Eggman (Red to the former two, Blue to the latter).
• Retcon:
  • Was 15 years old before, but recent updates to the official bios remove any reference to his (and everyone else's) age, giving him a Vague Age.
  • Sonic used to know Eggman before their conflict on South Island, Sonic Origins would change Sonic the Hedgehog into their first meeting.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Especially Classic Sonic.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: The Japanese script of Team Sonic Racing indicates that Sonic still remembers the events of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) prior to the Reset Button Ending, while Silver doesn't.
• The Rival: Sonic has many of them. The primary ones are Shadow and Jet, depending on the game. Knuckles once served this role, but he has since grown out of it.
• Rivals Team Up: With Knuckles, then Shadow, then Blaze, and then Silver.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: At least, as far the games' version of the Blue Blur is concerned; according to Sonic and the Black Knight, he's the genuine King Arthur.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: While he's nowhere near as rude, Sonic is the cocky and snarky hero in contrast to Tails' level-headed and mild-mannered personality.
• Running Gag: He tends to fall flat on his face when falling from great heights from Sonic Adventure onwards.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Oh-so much in Sonic and the Black Knight. He'll willingly become The Kingslayer to do what is right.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If he is left still for three minutes in Sonic CD without doing anything, he'll say "I'm outta here" and leave, resulting in a game over.
• Seen It All: By Generations, he's been through so much and seen so many crazy things that the situation with the Time Eater and being trapped in the White Space gets little reaction from him.
  Tails: Totally strange.
  Sonic: No stranger than rescuing genies in magic books, or saving aliens in an interstellar amusement park.
• Ship Tease: Has a lot of these.
  • He gets this with Amy. In Sonic Unleashed, Sonic gets depressed after Amy didn't recognize him as a werehog, thinking she mistook him for someone else again, and in a one-off dialogue sequence, the player can either accept or decline Amy's offer to a date. Accepting the date seems to be the canonical option if Sonic and the Black Knight is anything to go by. Naoto Ohshima has also indicated that Sonic would eventually get together with Amy upon reaching maturity as an adult. In Sonic Frontiers, he can express regret to himself about not making up his mind sooner and wishing to share an umbrella with her.
  • Shares one with Blaze at the end of Sonic Rush. He and Blaze have a long stare at each other and are trying to hold on to each other as long as possible before they get separated — Sonic in particular is holding on with both hands. It's as if they're both reluctant to part ways.
• Shoryuken: One of Werehog Sonic's moves, Sho-Hog-Ken, is essentially him doing a rising uppercut attack to enemies, which is undoubtedly a direct Shout-Out to Street Fighter.
• Showy Invincible Hero: In most of the games, with Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations being very good examples. There is no question Sonic will win, the only matter is how he will win, how cool he looks when he wins, and how much fun the player will have when he wins.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Besides snarking at his opponents, he can deliver these on occasions:
  • In Sonic Adventure 2, he gives one to Shadow, saying that he will make him take back those words about him "not being good enough to be his fake".
  • There are several of these in Sonic and the Black Knight when Sonic confronts Merlina, who explains that the only way to save Camelot from its tragic fate is to use the power of Excalibur's Scabbard and the Underworld. The conversation even ends with this exchange between the two characters:
    Merlina: My sorrow at its ruin runs deeper than the depths of the underworld... do you not understand?
    Sonic: No! And I don't want to!
• Signature Move:
  • The Rolling Attack in its many forms such as the Spin Dash, the Homing Attack and the Hurricane and Rapid Strikes from the old mangas, even though most of the other characters can roll around, too. In Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Wind was his special attack.
  • The Sonic Boost has become his signature move as of the Modern era games, where he even lacks the ability to do his old Spin Dash.
• Sigil Spam: Sonic makes a lot of cameo appearances in other Sega games. He even appears in the Sega CD and Sega Channel boot up. He is their mascot, and they want you to know it. Also happens In-Universe, where you'll see Sonic's mug frequently pop up on objects like the 1-Up monitors and the Sonic Item from Tails Adventure, to mugshots on casino slot machines. Sonic the Fighters even has a Sphinx with his face carved onto it!
• The Silent Bob: Sonic back when he was younger is notably this, always relying on his actions alone to point things out.
• Silent Snarker: Classic Sonic never has much of anything to say, but his mannerisms and movement more than show that he's still the same sassy blue hedgehog we love.
• Simple, yet Awesome: His key gimmick is simply running really, really fast. It looks cool, it's fun to do in-game, and it's how he saves the world time and again.
• Sleepy Head: He appears to have a habit of momentarily dozing-off in idle animations.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: While Sonic only wears shoes, his flesh-coloured arms are more exposed than the rest of his body, giving the impression that he's wearing a tank-top or a suit which leaves his arms exposed.
• Slide Attack: Occasionally used as one of his rare non-spinning means of melee, first debuting in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
• Sliding Scale Of Story And Gameplay Integration: Sonic never takes Falling Damage in any games and it translates into cutscenes as well, as he has fallen from ludicrous heights over the years, even from orbit a few times. Yet he always comes out no worse for wear each and every time.
• Small Town Boredom: One official source state that Sonic only began exploring because he was bored with his birthplace, Christmas Island.
• Smarter Than You Look: Especially compared to some of his early western portrayals. He is far from stupid.
• Smug Super: While how much one may vary between different media, one thing that's constant is Sonic's ego.
  • Taken to a new level in Sonic Frontiers' Another Story final boss, where despite the grave danger of using his new Cyber Corruption-enhanced Super Form, he still manages to smile and taunt THE END/SUPREME. His parries in this form become a backhand, when he performs a Grand Slam on THE END, he crosses his arms nonchalantly before assaulting them with his speed, and when he's hit with a move that drains all but 100 of his rings, he isn't afraid. Instead, he confidently smirks, uses the Chaos Emeralds again to transform, and powers right back up to Super Sonic 2.
• Speed Blitz: In Sonic Frontiers, the Phantom Rush move allows Sonic to, once he builds up the gauge during combat, start blitzing around an enemy so fast he leaves behind afterimages.
• Spider-Sense: A detail from Sonic the Hedgehog CD and classic promotional material that isn't seen in present day is that Sonic had a tendency to sneeze whenever he sensed that danger was about.
• Spin Attack: His primary method of attack, the Spin Attack, and its variations such as the Spin Dash and Homing Attack.
• Spinning Piledriver: Uses this technique named the Aerial Piledriver in his Werehog form.
• Spirited Competitor: Being the cocky guy he is, he loves to race others in order to prove the he is faster than them.
• Sprint Shoes: Item boxes in the games can award Sonic with power-up shoes that allow him to go even faster than normal.
• Static Character: Sonic's character doesn't really undergo any significant development in the games. Instead, Sonic usually acts as a motivator who inspires those around him to grow and change (like Tails in the Adventure games, for example).
• Stepford Smiler: In Sonic Adventure 2, he has clearly become depressed in the wake of Shadow seemingly dying to stop the Space Colony ARK from crashing into the planet. When Amy sees this and asks him what's wrong, Sonic assures her it's nothing and cheerfully informs her that it is time to head back to the planet. However, as soon as everyone has left the room, Sonic turns around and says goodbye to the fallen Shadow in a pensive and solemn tone.
• Stock Shōnen Hero: He's got the equivalent of spiky hair, a strong sense of justice, is fueled by The Power of Friendship, and (particularly in spin-offs) loves to compete with other speedsters to see who comes out on top. Even when a giant alligator chases down the team in a jungle level, his only response is "Interesting, let's see who's faster." Unsurprising since the series has several Dragon Ball Shout Outs, including 7 Cosmic Keystones and a Golden Super Mode that makes his hair stand on end. Naturally, he has a Stock Shōnen Rival counterpart in Shadow, and to a lesser extent, Knuckles.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Depending on the game or the situation, Sonic can go from outrunning planes and missiles to be being unable to catch Eggman, an overweight human, when the latter is running on foot.
• Super Drowning Skills: In most of the 3D games. He instead has Walk, Don't Swim in the 2D titles and in the Adventure duology.
• Super Mode:
  • Super Sonic◊, attainable with the power of all seven Chaos Emeralds, which makes him glow, fly, and takes his already established Super-Speed up a notch. Yuji Naka said it himself that this form was inspired by Super Saiyans. It shows well.
  • There's also Hyper Sonic (using the Super Emeralds' power), Darkspine Sonic, and Excalibur Sonic.
  • In Sonic Frontiers' Another Story scenario from the "Final Horizon" update, Sonic's super form gets enhanced by the Cyber Corruption's power, thanks to the trials with the four Titan Pilots and Master King Koco. Using a fraction of this power, he gains a secondary reddish lightning infused aura, which also turns his eyes blue, similar to when he maxes out his ring count in the game. When Sonic unleashes the full might of the cyber corruption, his body becomes enveloped in a glitchy black and blue hue, he gains silver ringed irises, with this form being so powerful that it ends up destroying the SUPREME Titan. These changes are only temporary however, where his last move to destroy SUPREME ended up burning through all his power at once. The forms themselves aren't classified as distinct forms for Super Sonic, but rather temporary upgrades provided by the Cyber Corruption. The closest these have to a name is "Super Sonic 2" and "Super Sonic Cyber" respectively, according to the game's internal files.
• Super-Speed: Why else is he called "Sonic"? Although his top speed has never been canonically established, he's shown to be capable of breaking the sound barrier whenever he kicks into high gear. One of his official character profiles even establishes that he's capable of reaching lightspeed. Which still isn't his top speed according to Sonic's encounter with Omega in the DS version of Sonic Colors.
• Super-Strength: Zigzagged. Sonic is definitely on some degree of superhuman strength, demonstrated on many occasions to push and pull huge objects that would surely weigh in multiple tons, but the far greater heights he demonstrates are simulated through using his momentum to throw a huge kinetic backing into his attacks, ala The Flash and other similar speed-based fictional figures. His signature Spin Attack maneuvers are all about this principle, hurling himself like a blue cannonball with a hypersonic velocity. When clocking in full speed, the Sonic Boost especially showing this, he can ram through cars, robots, and rock walls and not slow down. His striking power is shown repeatedly to be immense, as just by hurling himself into the air, he was shown able to send the colossal Egg Golem reeling and cripple its processing with one well-placed kick, and in the battle against Dark Gaia, a planet-destroying entity outscaling mountains, Sonic was able to pulverize its eyes with a Homing Attack barrage — before turning Super Sonic.
• Super-Toughness: Zigzagged. When spinning or boosting or with a ring on hand, he can handle smashing through legions of robots or dense objects at supersonic speeds, which would basically turn any real life thing into roadkill along with these destroyed objects. When he's not doing these or doesn't have a ring on hand? He's an One-Hit-Point Wonder and can die from even colliding with another hostile object.
  • In cutscenes though, he's rather resilient. He's experienced many, many, and many free falls in subsequent games such as in Sonic Adventure where he's fallen from immense heights. Twice. One is where he was buried in sand after falling into Emerald Coast, and the second time is when he fell off the Egg Carrier and plummeted all the way down to the Mystic Ruins, and basically shook it off without sustaining any lasting injuries.
  • At the beginning and end of Sonic Unleashed, he fell from orbit and hit the ground so hard that Sonic made a miniature crater with his head being heavily implanted into the dirt and pulls himself out of said crater in both his Werehog form and his normal form. He reacted by saying "ow" in an annoyed tone.
  • Going through atmospheric re-entry doesn't seem too fatal for him as he's even safely landed on Tails' Tornado without even breaking his legs at the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and right at the end of the FMV of Unleashed, he took a nasty fall into the Earth without even heating up for that matter.
  • In Sonic Generations, both Classic and Modern Sonic were crushed by the Time Eater's ginormous hand, however Modern Dr. Eggman has stated "that was supposed to soften you up", meaning that the 2 blue hedgehogs were still breathing but were highly incapacitated from the blunt impact.
  • In Sonic Frontiers, GIGANTO grabs Sonic at the end of their initial fight and hurls him with enough force to go flying across Kronos Island, slam through two ancient ruin structures along the way, and finally smash against a mountainside. And all it does at worst is knock him out for a bit. For reference, GIGANTO is strong enough to match blows with Super Sonic.
• Swiss-Army Hero: Especially in Sonic Colors. He can turn into a laser, cube, black hole, rocket, explosion-generator, organic Hover Tank, ball of spikes, drill, fireball, ghost, and a purple monstrosity that eats and grows in size with each eaten object.
• A Taste of Defeat: Naturally, no villain has stopped him from saving the world, but he has had his ass handed to him on rare occasions.
  • Eggman managed to outwit him in his super form at the start of Sonic Unleashed.
  • Silver just plain humiliated him in Sonic '06.
  • In more petty competition, Jet canonically beat Sonic in the World Grand Prix finals in the first Sonic Riders (albeit by cheating). This also marks one of the few times Sonic is genuinely enraged.
  • In Sonic and the Black Knight, Merlina beats him silly and breaks Caliburn while he can't even touch his enemy. It takes getting his newest Super Mode to turn the tables.
  • In Sonic Forces, Infinite serves his ass on a silver platter. Oh, and Eggman conquers the world.
  • In Sonic Frontiers, the first of the Titans he encounters, GIGANTO, easily No Sells his attacks on its head before grabbing and throwing him across the island with enough force to smash through several ruins and impact a mountainside. Sonic after waking up takes the lesson to heart and only fights the Titans once he has all the Chaos Emeralds.
• Taught by Experience: In Generations, he's able to defeat Perfect Chaos in his normal form, when he previously needed to become Super Sonic to do so. He even states this as a strength in Forces, where he's able to put up a decent fight against Infinite, whose Establishing Character Moment was curb-stomping and nearly killing him.
  Infinite: Impossible! Your abilities exceed your previous data!
  Sonic: Unlike mechs, I can grow. I get stronger every second!
• Teleporters and Transporters: Has the ability to teleport by using Chaos Control in-tandem with a Chaos Emerald, whether it's fake or real.
• Teleport Spam: He loves doing this in the last Dark Side Story boss in SA2 if you get too far ahead of him.
• Thrill Seeker: His love for adventure and excitement is a large part of the reason he fights Eggman and other Big Bads.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: Eggman tries to murder him by doing this in Sonic Adventure 2. Fortunately, he learned how to use Chaos Control just in time. Later, in Sonic Unleashed, Eggman throws a recently-transformed Sonic the Werehog out of the airlock, where he then enters Earth's gravitational pull and falls to the surface of the planet.
• Time Master: Using Chaos energy, he can warp time and space, but is not as proficient as Shadow, nor does he use these abilities very frequently.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • He defeats Perfect Chaos in Sonic Generations in normal form without resorting to transforming into Super Sonic.
  • On top of that, in the teaser for Sonic Forces, it's shown that Classic Sonic has perfected the Sonic Boost.
  • He shows a whole new height of this in Sonic Frontiers. Whereas in the past Sonic mostly has relied on his forward momentum to carry him in a fight, he's never particularly excelled in standing combat, often being where he's been most at disadvantage. Here, Sonic demonstrates an incredible efficiency as a fighter in all aspects, able to launch into a Speed Echoes attack barrage in a moment's notice, use his midair acceleration to propel himself in looping and high-flying maneuvers, and even produce shockwaves through his speed he can fire in an intense stream of continuous attack.^note None of these being what explicitly requires the context-sensitive cyber energy to perform. Perhaps most impressive in covering his weak points is how he can now use his speed to sweep his arm to execute a deflecting parry of just about anything.
• Tornado Move: In Sonic Rush, in the boss fight against him as Blaze, one of his attacks is him spinning around while airborne, which creates a massive vortex that sucks her in. The Blue Tornado in Sonic Heroes does the same thing, but on a much smaller scale.
• Totally Radical: He dips into this at times in his modern depiction, though this is actually averted in Colors, where he actually gets to use relatively modern slang like "epic".
• Touched by Vorlons: He gains the ability to shapeshift into various forms by fusing with Wisps temporarily.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Chili dogs. This was first introduced in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and many comic adaptations would borrow this trait, presumably because it was just an endearing detail. The games would later incorporate this into canon starting with Sonic Unleashed.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: In Sonic Lost World, he disposes of the Cacophonic Conch Eggman was using to control the Deadly Six without even bothering to find out what it was or what it did, which enables the Deadly Six to turn on Eggman and usurp his plans and operations, making them a bigger threat than before.
• Transformation Trinket: Chaos Emeralds, Super Emeralds, World Rings, Sacred Swords, and Wisps. All of them are catalysts for his transformations.
• Trash Talk: Sonic loves doing this, particularly to his enemies. Dr. Eggman is often his preferred banter target. Even his friends aren't safe from time to time, especially Knuckles and Shadow.
• Troll: Sonic loves to get a rise out of his enemies.
• Tsurime Eyes: As Super Sonic, Darkspine Sonic, and the Werehog.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Going hand-in-hand with Fire-Forged Friends and Magnetic Hero, Sonic's kindness and compassion are matched only by his capacity for forgiveness. Many of the friends he made, such as Silver and Shadow, once tried to kill him, but he never holds it against them.
• Übermensch: He claims in Sonic and the Black Knight that he'll fight for what he believes in and doesn't care whether that means he's the hero or the villain. Similarly, his Image Song "It Doesn't Matter" states that he doesn't care who's right and who's wrong, and he just lives by his own feelings. He's also described as being "free like the wind", and he makes it clear that he dislikes both being restrained and seeing others oppressed, which is part of the reason he fights tyrants like Eggman. This trait was even brought up at a point in Sonic X, when Rouge explains to the President that despite having helped the government fight Eggman in the past, Sonic was never on law's side — he just did what he felt like doing; his actions up to that point just happened to match the government's interests.
• Ultimate Life Form: In the final battle of Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow comes to the conclusion that Sonic might be this instead of himself. Given what Sonic has accomplished, he might be right.
• Unable to Cry: In the majority of media Sonic has been featured in, he's remarkably stoic and does not show sadness, loss, and/or disappointment in the form of tears.
• Unbuilt Trope: Sonic as a character is often associated with freedom, with this being highlighted by adaptations such as the SatAM cartoon, the Archie comics and the IDW comics, the latter of which even aims to deconstruct it somewhat through showing the negative consequences of Sonic's ideals. That all said, Sonic's original portrayal from the games is less so someone who actively fights for freedom and more in the vein of someone who simply wishes to live his life his way, not caring if his actions involve him going against everyone else's ideas of right-and-wrong. This is outright stated in an intro message from the Japanese manual for the first game, written from Sonic's perspective: in it, Sonic states that he despises people who are all talk and no action, and he affirms that he does what he does because he wants to do it (because he's a Nice Guy who cares about his friends), rather than because he needs to do it out of a defined ideal like justice.
  "Sorry for being brash. People who are all talk are the worst. I don't do what I do out of righteousness. I do what I do because I love to do it. But I'd never betray you."
• The Unfettered: A mild version; he wouldn't hesitate to put his life on the line for a friend, but he also wouldn't want to endanger his friends and is very protective of them.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Classic Sonic is this compared to Modern Sonic, as of Generations. He lacks Modern's Boost, can't turn as effectively in 3D stages (if used in such via a mod), and needs to buy access to the Homing Attack. That said, he runs about as fast as boosted Modern Sonic just on his own, and, if used in 3D stages via a mod, is an incredibly Difficult, but Awesome way to get incredibly fast times.
• Unstoppable Rage: Darkspine Sonic in Sonic and the Secret Rings doesn't stop expressing his hatred, rage, and sadness until Alf Layla Wa Layla goes down.
• Unwitting Pawn: Has a tendency to accidentally further Eggman's plots.
  • In Sonic Frontiers, the voice that guides him to destroy the Titans is THE END, a world-destroying Eldritch Abomination and the Big Bad of the game, who was imprisoned on the Starfall Islands, and destroying the Titans is the key to freeing it. Downplayed in that when questioned about the possibility of this by Sage, he outright stated he didn't care if it was evil or not, and would simply stop it as well should it prove less than benign, seeing rescuing his friends as his top priority.
• Vague Age: Sonic's age has never been entirely clear, besides him being a teenager. The most common cited age is 15, according to the original manual for Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Heroes, and the official Sonic Channel character profiles^note Though shortly before the release of Sonic Frontiers, the character profiles had the ages removed for all characters, though some sources gave his age as 10 or 16. Sonic Generations features Sonic's birthday, but it's never stated how old he is. The most ambiguous detail is the age difference between his Classic and Modern selves; despite Modern Sonic being taller and looking older, and recent games establishing Classic Sonic as Sonic in his youth, it has never stated how much older Modern Sonic is—if he's even older at all, as Classic Sonic has also been stated to be 15 years old in a style guide as late as 2015.
• Villain Killer: He's racked up a number of villain kills either by himself or with help from friends. Granted, many of these villains are mindless monsters, but maybe Dr. Eggman should feel lucky that he has Joker Immunity.
  • More specifically: he's taken down the Biolizard; taken down the Babylon Guardian; defeated Solaris before allowing Princess Elise to erase it from the timeline; subjected the Erazor Djinn to being imprisoned within his own magic lamp and later throwing said lamp into a pit of lava; taken down Dark Gaia; taken down the Black Knight without hesitation before being aware that he was a mere illusion; and personally landed the killing blow on THE END in the "Final Horizon" ending.
  • The fact that the Black Knight is also King Arthur himself in the story for the titular game prompts Merlina to discuss this earlier on:
    Merlina: If you remove that sword and defeat King Arthur with it, you shall forever be the worst of knights, slayer of kings...
    Sonic: (smiles) Guess I can't be the hero every time.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • Sonic and Knuckles tend to tease and snark at one another, as a result of their clashing personalities.
  • He also has kind of has this with Shadow to some extent.
• The Voiceless: Despite having a few voice lines in Sonic CD and being able to talk just fine in the future, Classic Sonic is this in Sonic Generations. The trait was carried into all of his future appearances such as Sonic Forces and Sonic Superstars.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Upon absorbing a Wisp, he can choose to make use of its Hyper Go-On power in order to change form.
• Walk, Don't Swim:
  • Sonic's major weakness is that he can't swim, so when he gets in water, he merely floats down or runs and jumps very slowly in it. Often, falling into a large body of water will also result in him immediately sinking to his death. Apparently, the reason Sonic has this weakness in the first place is because Yuji Naka, at the time the first game was made, erroneously assumed that hedgehogs were incapable of swimming, so he incorporated this into the gameplay.
  • In the swimming event of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, he manages to work around this weakness by wearing a lifejacket.
• Walking the Earth: When not saving the world, he's always running from place to place, but he'll immediately rush to the scene if someone is up to no good. Takashi IIzuka said in a 2017 interview that Sonic does not have a house. He's just constantly on the move and enjoying wherever life takes him.
• Wall Jump: First appears in Sonic Adventure (and again in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)), where Sonic can jump between certain scripted spots. It later appears in an unconventional form in Sonic Heroes, where it's used to cross chasms with walls on either side. Starting in Sonic Unleashed, he has a more conventional Mario-style Wall Jump.
• Weaksauce Weakness: He can't swim.
• Wheel o' Feet: This was his standard running pose prior to the jump to 3D.
• The Worf Effect: There are some occasions where he gets beaten by more powerful characters. He gets punched out of his super form by Knuckles with one punch, had trouble defeating Chaos (and Shadow in his solo game, if the player chooses to go against him), gets beaten by Silver twice to the point where he had to be saved by Shadow the second time and to run away in the meantime, gets killed by Mephiles (fortunately, it didn't stick), is beaten black and blue by Merlina as the Dark Queen before he goes Excalibur Sonic with the Sacred Swords, and gets kicked around like a ball by Infinite in one battle.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Not him, as Sonic and the Black Knight proves. Sonic is apparently inclined to live life to the fullest in the time he has and stresses to others that they should do the same.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He occasionally mentions that he doesn't like water in games such as Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic Colors DS, as well as the various comics and animated series he features in. Considering that the drowning music so often heard in underwater stages is considered to be the most frightening thing in the entire franchise, this is entirely justified.
• Willfully Weak: It's implied through Cutscene Power to the Max and certain scripted events that Sonic holds back his full speed. Whether it's to challenge himself or if it tires himself out to use his full speed is uncertain. He's also capable of using Chaos Control, just not to the same proficiency as Shadow, but he never uses this power unless he's in a situation where the only winning move is to teleport. While it could be explained that he can move faster to a location than Chaos Control can teleport him (he's able to see Shadow move past him mid-Chaos Control, proving he's can at least react to the ability), Chaos Control can also slow down time around its user, a feature of the ability Sonic's never tried to use.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: In Sonic Lost World, he disposes of Eggman's Cacophonic Conch, telling the doctor outright that it's never a mistake to "throw his toys away". Unfortunately, in this case, it was a mistake: the conch was a Restraining Bolt that Eggman was using to control the Deadly Six, who waste no time in usurping Eggman's Badniks and turning on him.

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