Sonic The Hedgehog / Tropes S to Z

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Tropes Numbers-B | Tropes C-E | Tropes F-L | Tropes M-R | Tropes S-Z

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Franchise Examples Zone Act 5:

S

• San Dimas Time:
  • The Games:
    • The level timers in Sonic CD, where you regularly travel hundreds of years through time mid-level on a regular basis. Subverted in that traveling through time will reset the timer to five minutes if the elapsed time was greater than that.
    • Time travel in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) is exemplified by the line, "Oh no! We've got to hurry!" — if you don't complete the level in time, something bad happens in another time period. Interestingly, Sonic actually ends up being too late for one event — which he fixes by simply hopping back in time a few minutes.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog in the Fourth Dimension, Dr. Robotnik brags that the heroic duo has only fifteen minutes left to exist because his robots in the past have found (and are about to kill) the first evolved hedgehog and fox on the planet.

• Sanity Slippage:
  • The entirety of Sonic Forces is caused because of this: the creature who would become Infinite flipped his lid after Shadow effortlessly defeated him, called him weak and to never show his face to him again before disappearing. He did not take it well, leading him to be used by Eggman as his weapon.
  • In Sonic the Comic in the events leading up to the Sonic Adventure adaptation, Robotnik begins to lose it, first trying to destroy Mobius, and later gathering the Chaos Emeralds, the Freedom Fighters, and Chaos itself to his retreat so they would all die together.
  • Dr. Eggman in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) goes into a slow burn example after Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy are able to rescue the captured citizens of Knothole, set them up in the nanite-built city of New Mobotropolis, and defeat the machine that defeated Sonic earlier. Things get worse when Knuckles-as-Enerjak destroys Eggman's city and sky fleet and, by the time issue 200 rolls around, Sonic delivers one last defeat that causes Eggman to flip out, tear his mustache apart and devolve into a blabbering mess.
  • As seen in The Stinger of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), being trapped on Mushroom Planet does a number on Robotnik’s already questionable mental health.
• Satellite Character:
  • The Games:

• Amy herself was initially designed almost solely as a girl with a crush on Sonic. Later games have attempted to give her chemistry with other characters, with varying degrees of success (and wildly varying portrayals, depictions range from a crazy stalker who everyone would rather avoid to a rather sweet girl who may or may not happen to have a Hair-Trigger Temper).

• Agent Stone’s role in Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) revolves entirely around serving as Robotnik's personal lackey.

• Save Both Worlds:
  • The Games:
    • In Sonic Rush, Blaze is trapped on Sonic's world with the Sol Emeralds. If the Sol Emeralds aren't returned, both worlds will be destroyed.
    • In Sonic Rush Adventure, Sonic and Tails discover they are trapped in Blaze's world. Eggman and Eggman NEGA team up at the end of the game to steal the Jeweled Scepter, which keeps the two worlds separated.
  • Towards the end of the second season of Sonic X, the two worlds are revealed to be merging into each other again, with the catastrophic effect of canceling out each other's timelines and causing time to come to a stand still. The only solution is to send the Sonic characters home.

• Schrödinger's Canon:
  • Mainline games are part of the same continuity and often reference each other. When it comes to spin-offs (handheld, arcades and anything that is not a platformer), however, their canonical status is overall unclear, with a case-by-case approach employing loads of Broad Strokes being safer than not.
    • Generally, if a game introduces a major character that ends up recurring in later titles, it can be considered canon (if only to establish how they got to meet the rest of the cast), even if timeline issues arise (as is the case of Blaze's origins and Eggman Nega's nature). This is the case with SegaSonic the Hedgehog (Mighty and Ray), the Sonic Advance Trilogy (Cream & Cheese), Sonic Rush (Blaze) and Sonic Rivals (Silver^note Due to the events of his proper debut game being Ret-Gone by the end.), as the aforementioned characters get to appear in later titles and are already known among Sonic's friends. Even stuff like Sonic Riders (which is a completely different genre) and the IDW comics (completely different medium) have become canon on virtue of Sonic referencing characters introduced there in Sonic Frontiers, in spite of potential continuity problems and no further acknowledgement of the plots that happen within those works.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog is a game that employs this on itself somehow. It features loads of Story Branching paths and, by the end, it is assumed many of those happened in succession, even if that is physically impossible in terms of gameplay.
• Science Hero:

• In Sonic X, Tails creates most of the equipment the cast use to against Dr. Eggman and the Metarex.
• In Sonic Boom most episodes that feature Tails as a major character tend to have him wielding some new invention he's built either to combat Eggman or improve the lives of his fellow villagers. Of course, in the grand tradition of the Science Kid Hero, this last part sometimes causes more problems than it solves.

• Screams Like a Little Girl:
  • Snively from Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) has several comical traits: a nasal voice tone, a goofy appearance, and when he is on the receiving end of abuse from his uncle Robotnik, a high-pitched scream.

• Screeching Stop: In just about any game you'll get a noise like this when skidding.
• Security Cling:
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, Tails does a full-body glomp onto Sonic every time lightning strikes.

• Sealed Evil in a Can:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic Adventure has Chaos, who was sealed inside the Master Emerald in ancient times, until Eggman shattered it to free the water monster inside as part of his latest scheme. Ultimately subverted, as Chaos isn't evil, just really pissed.

• Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) has the sun god Solaris, forcibly split into two separate forms due to an experiment acted upon it: Iblis and Mephiles. Princess Elise served as Iblis' can, with her control over her sorrow being the lid — if she cries, the can is opened and Iblis is unleashed upon the world once more. Somewhere else, Mephiles is sealed away in the Scepter of Darkness until an encounter with Eggman shatters it.
• Sonic Unleashed has Dark Gaia, who was sealed within the planet by his light counterpart a.k.a. Chip in a neverending cycle of planetary death and rebirth.
• By the end of Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic does this to contain Erazor Djinn, using his own magic lamp against him.

• In an episode of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), Robotnik steals a computer of magic spells from the formerly evil wizard Lazar, and Sonic attempts to get it back. When asked why he can't just destroy the computer, Lazar says that would release all the evil it contains.
• In the Sonic Boom episode, "Closed Door Policy", Amy sells all of Sticks' possessions at a yard sale. This includes a surfboard blocking the entrance to the underground lair of the Froglodytes, a race of frog-like warriors. When the entrance is unblocked, the Froglodytes escape, capture Sticks, and attempt to sacrifice her to their idol god. Thus, it's up to Sonic and his friends to travel to the Froglodytes' underground lair to save Sticks.

• Self-Deprecation:
  • The Games:
    • The HD versions of Sonic Unleashed features Eggman Robots that can be spoken to as civilians, when visiting Eggmanland after completing the game. Three of said robots are named, "EF-MD1991"^note The "MD" designation was left unchanged in North American releases, despite the Mega Drive being called the Sega Genesis over there., "EF-DC1998" and "EF-XB2006". Talking to EF-XB2006 prompts the robot into saying how he is the youngest of the fighters and therefore lacks experience. He's also apparently clumsy and is rubbish at doing anything right... it seems Sonic Team themselves didn't find THAT particular Sonic game any good. Also, once you complete Crisis City in Sonic Generations and release Blaze, she laments the fact that she was captured to begin with with a line that's rather... open for interpretation:
      Blaze: Sonic, I hope we can keep this slip up of mine just between the two of us, all right?
    • At the Sonic Boom festival, Sega released a trailer for the upcoming re-release of Sonic Adventure 2 declaring themselves "The masters of secrecy"... before showing all the web pages that revealed the existence of games like Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and Sonic Generations and declaring that the game will be "leaking onto consoles" this Fall.
    • The Tumblr page announcing Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice states in its tags that it was going to be a lot better than the last one. Which, considering Fire & Ice is a sequel to the Nintendo 3DS Sonic Boom game, and Fire & Ice is also for the 3DS, this turns Rise of Lyric into Canon Discontinuity.
    • In LEGO Dimensions, if Sonic is paired up with the Lumpy Space Princess, he'll start to remember Princess Elise... only to wave it off, claiming he doesn't remember it much.
    • On the 10th anniversary of '06, the official Sonic twitter feed celebrated the company's biggest Never Live It Down moment once again.
    • On July 22nd 2016, Sega ran an anniversary live stream featuring upcoming games Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, which went poorly thanks in no small part to a loud buzzing sound that made it hard to hear anything else. In Mania itself, after defeating the Studiopolis boss, a "technical difficulties" screen appears accompanied by that same noise.
  • Sonic Boom has a lot of fun at the expense of itself and its original incarnation.
    • "Let's Play Musical Friends".
      Tails: Try this video game. You run, roll and collect rings as fast as you can.
      Cubot: Ah, that sounds terrible!
    • In "Alone Again, Unnaturally", Tails claims his new inventions uses "blast-processing technology".
      Sticks: "Blast processing technology"? Those are just some phony-baloney buzz words to fool the simple-minded!
      Knuckles: Blast processing technology?! GIMME GIMME GIMME!
    • In "Mech Suits Me", Amy comments on how studios should stop recycling properties and try making something original. Followed by a very awkward silence.
    • In "Mister Eggman", Team Sonic is trying to keep a washer ring away from Eggman. Sonic complains that catching rings is boring.
    • "FiendBot" probably tops the list with their comments on Tomatopotamus 2.
      Tails: That's the best one in the entire series! Tomatopotamus never worked in 3D.
      Knuckles: Game companies always ruin their beloved franchises.
      Sonic: They never should've changed the color of Tomatopotamus' legs.
  • In the second trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Sonic describes himself as "an extremely handsome package" in his very first line, implying his design from the first trailer was not.
• Self-Punishment Over Failure:
  • In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode, "So Long Sucker", when Scratch and Grounder return to Robotnik's fortress after a failed attempt to catch Sonic, Grounder brings back the pieces of their planes and accidentally drops them on Robotnik's foot. Just to save Robotnik the trouble of doing so, Grounder kicks himself in the butt. When he and Scratch try to explain the situation to Robotnik ^note that an alien creature from another dimension sucked up Scratch's plane with his Vacuum Mouth, Robotnik doesn't believe it and demands that Grounder keep kicking himself.
  • In Episode 21 of Sonic X, a robot launches itself into the distance after failing to stop Sonic. It ends up crashing into Egg Fort II.
• Self-Serving Memory:
  • A bit of a meta-example: in Sonic Adventure, you play as six different characters whose stories are happening simultaneously. At a few points in the game, the characters fight each other and as you'd expect, the one who wins is whoever the player is playing as. The official strategy guide claims that this is because the characters all remember certain details differently. This explains:
    • Why Sonic runs away from Amy in one version, leaving her to catch up with him at the entrance to Twinkle Park, while in another, he walks her there like a gentleman.
    • The line "This plane's cool!" in Tails' version (when he flies by the end of Red Mountain to pick up Sonic) when no such line exists in Sonic's version.
    • Tails as a tagalong who always tries to be where Sonic is in Sonic's version of the stages, while Tails always beats him to the goal in his own version.
    • Oddly reversed around for Tails in Sonic's story, where he is depicted as more confident and reliable. In his own story, he has dialogue that makes him out to be insecure.
    • The Big Bad Dr Eggman is depicted as an incompetent buffoon who no-one takes seriously in Sonic's story, and a genuinely scary Knight of Cerebus in Tails'.
  • In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode, "Best Hedgehog", both Lucas and Dr. Robotnik have different flashbacks of themselves with their high school crush, Lucinda, which happened thirty years before the events of that episode. Lucas' flashback is much more true to the episode's events, as in Robotnik's flashback, Robotnik is a lot more handsome, Lucinda is in love with him, and Lucas is a lot braver, even going as far as to fight Robotnik for Lucinda.
  • Sonic Boom:
    • The episode, "Dude, Where's my Eggman?" has Knuckles pull this. When Orbot and Cubot ask him if they did battle yesterday, Knuckles remembers himself as beating Eggman easily with superpowers, winning over the girls and being elected governor while Sonic ran away. It overlaps slightly with Believing Their Own Lies as after he tells the story, he begins planning to write his acceptance speech for governor.
    • "Fire in a Crowded Workshop", another episode of the same series, is built around this trope. A fire breaks out in Tails' workshop, and Sonic, Knuckles, and Amy each have different versions of how it happened. Sonic's side of the story has him portrayed as an egotistical, tough ladies' man who can do no wrong while underlining his friends' flaws. Knuckles' side is very similar to the one in "Dude, Where's My Eggman", where he is depicted as a brave captain who puts out the fire in Tails' workshop with ice breath, while Sonic is depicted as a coward. Amy's side of the story has her see Perci as a "siren" with a Southern accent who the boys blindly want to do everything for, and despite that, Amy "selflessly" gives her aid. In spite of the differences between everyone's stories, Sticks rattling off a conspiracy theory about Perci being a spy/alien/government agent before running off screaming is the one thing that remains mostly constant.
• Sequel Hook:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic the Hedgehog 2 gains one retroactively in the 2013 remake. If you clear the game with all seven Chaos Emeralds, you will see the wreckage of the Death Egg plummet towards Angel Island, followed by Eggman angrily stomping on the ground with the wreck of the final boss mecha laying in the background. Then a certain pair of eyes appears in a hole in the bushes (in homage to the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 box art)...
    • Sonic Heroes ends with Shadow and Omega looking over the corpse of Metal Sonic and Shadow contemplating his revival.

• Sonic Mania ends with Sonic being sent into a time warp caused by a chain reaction between the Chaos Emeralds and the Phantom Ruby. It's left hanging what happened to him, but it's most likely he ended up in another dimension conquered by Dr. Eggman...

• Two of them in Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), both once the movie is over.
  • Just before the credits roll, Robotnik has gone even more insane while living on the Mushroom Planet and shaved himself bald but still has one of Sonic's energized quills, which he vows to use in order to get back to Earth.
  • In The Stinger, Tails has used a portal ring of his own to cross over into Earth, and he starts looking for Sonic.

• Shadow Archetype:
  • The Games:
    • If his name wasn't a dead enough giveaway, Shadow the Hedgehog represents this for the eponymous main character. Specifically, Shadow is what Sonic would be if he was willing to go through some extremes to get the job done.
    • The Babylon Rogues are this to the main trio of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles.
    • Jet to Sonic. They both live a free life, but Jet is a self-absorbed, petty jerk, who only cares about winning and respects no one but himself.
    • Wave to Tails. They both tend to be the smart one of their group, but Wave completely lacks the humble attitude of Tails, and is very nasty and selfish.
    • Storm to Knuckles. They're both the strong ones of their group, are extremely loyal, somewhat hot-heads, and tend to be a bit shy around girls (which somewhat expose their tough image), but Storm is rather rude, insensitive, and obnoxious, and hangs with the wrong crowd.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), Antoine is basically what Sonic would be if he lacked his cool and cocky attitude and more of a bigger idiot then he already is (at times).
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Scourge became this for Sonic, showing what would happen if Sonic decided to let go of his morals and cut loose. However, it's probably accurate to say that it's the reverse, that Sonic is Scourge's Shadow Archetype.
  • The incredibly freaky first appearance of Dark Sonic in Sonic X, in response to the sight of his friends being injured and imprisoned (and exposure to the negative energy of Fake Chaos Emeralds) Dark Sonic emerges from the normally far-calmer (by comparison, anyway) Sonic and proceeds to beat the living begeezus out of a couple of Metarex testing robots. Ironically enough, he was snapped out of it by Eggman.
• Sheathe Your Sword:
  • This is done in some games. Well, to an extent.
    • Sonic 3 & Knuckles:
    • The Flying Battery Zone Act 1 miniboss, Gapsule, involves you just making him hit himself. Technically speaking, you did NOT attack him!
    • The Act 2 miniboss, Barrier Eggman, is this as well. You defeat it by just avoiding its attacks until it apparently overheats and destroys itself.
    • The Sandopolis Zone Act 1 boss, Egg Golem, can be attacked, but the only way to actually destroy it is by making it fall into quicksand at the edge of the area. You can either repeatedly attack it to knock it back into the quicksand, or just stand in the quicksand yourself (repeatedly jumping so you don't sink) at the very edge of the screen and let it just jump into the quicksand by itself.
    • As well as this, Lava Reef Zone Act 2 boss, Hot Mobile. You just avoid falling in the lava or touching the bombs and eventually he will bomb himself to defeat.
    • The Quartz Quadrant boss in Sonic the Hedgehog CD involves you just avoiding his attacks, running toward him and letting the treadmill scrape off the floor of his machine. For someone with an IQ of 300, Eggman isn't very smart...
    • Averted in Sonic Advance 3. Egg Jack-in-the-Box, boss of Toy Kingdom Zone, slowly crawls toward one of the pits, and the way you defeat is by making them fall in the pit. But, if you let him approach the pit he is facing he'll simply slide back and forth in the arena for a while, and chances are that you will get hurt and killed in a blink. Or thrown into a pit.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog in Robotnik's Laboratory, the only way to get out of the spring traps (which are literally coiled springs) was to stop struggling at which point they just break apart.
  • In the Sonic In Your Face Special, the first story has Sonic and the Freedom Fighters being attacked by a giant robot cyclops. When he learns that the robot is designed to attack anything that moves, Sonic decides to stand perfectly still, and has the others do likewise. Sure enough, the robot shuts down after a few minutes.
  • In Sonic the Comic, at one point, Sonic faces Predicto, a Badnik programmed with all the information Robotnik had on Sonic, Knuckles, and the Freedom Fighters, allowing him to predict their every move. When brute force doesn't work, Sonic declares he can't win and gives up; as Robotnik had designed it under the knowledge that Sonic would never surrender, Predicto suffers a Logic Bomb... which is exactly what Sonic expected to happen.
• Shell Game:
  • In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode, "High Stakes Sonic'', Smiley the Shark and his robot assistant are about to use the "pea under a shell" game on a flock of gambling sheep. Sonic steps in for them, and naturally, the robot's hands are no match for Sonic's eyes. During the last attempt, the robot ejects the pea through a trap door. Sonic, however, grabs the right and left shells and tells the robot the pea's under the middle shell.
  • At the beginning of the Sonic Boom episode, "The Evil Dr. Orbot", T.W. Barker scams Mike the Ox through one of these by hiding the ball behind his back.
• Shock and Awe:
  • In Sonic Heroes, all Flying-type characters had the Thunder Shoot ability.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Sonic's body conducts electricity when he's using his Super-Speed. He produces enough while running to cause a blackout across the entire Pacific Northwest. It's quickly revealed that Sonic has no idea how to control it at first - when he starts sparking and glowing while upset during the highway chase, his reaction is a panicked "Not again!"
• Shout-Out:
  • Sonic's shoes were based on the boots that Michael Jackson wore in the music video for "Bad", while his personality is directly lifted from Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign.
  • The Games:
    • The series is fairly laden with obvious references, especially with the Death Egg (originating in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and seen many times since) and Super Sonic (Also originated in Sonic 2). But there's also less obvious ones, such as G.U.N, a play on S.H.I.E.L.D..
    • Eggman is a reference to the I Am The Walrus song.
    • Man, Rouge sure looks familiar....
    • Eggman's robot storage facility in Sonic Battle is named Gimme Shelter.
    • A quest in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood tasks you with retrieving a shopkeeper's prized possession in exchange for a piece of Eggman's old tech, which is needed to advance the story. The missing item in question? The shopkeeper's beloved red stapler.
  • Archie Comic's Sonic the Hedgehog has its own page.
  • Sonic the Comic:
    • Oh quite a few. Even British daytime television, for instance. Apparently, Richard and Judy were failed artificial life experiments by Decap Attack's Doctor Frank N. Stein.
    • According to Word of God, Grimer was named for Grìma Wormtongue from The Lord of the Rings.
    • One of the more obvious shout-outs appears in the 1995 summer holiday special. In Sonic's biography it outright says his favorite shows are Beavis and Butt-Head and The Ren & Stimpy Show.
    • The comic had several elements of Knuckles' floating Island clearly inspired by Laputa Castle In the Sky, most notably◊ the robots.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
    • In the prologue, Sonic describes Longclaw, the owl who raised him, as "Obi-Wan Kenobi if he had a beak and ate mice".
    • Sonic gives this little tidbit when the Echidna Tribe showed up during his monologue about his childhood:
      Sonic: Turns out with great power, comes great power-hungry bad guys.
    • In his rambling assault against Major Bennington, Dr. Robotnik asks Bennington if he ever read Charlotte's Web, saying that the book ends with the death of the titular spider after she lays an egg sac. He then compares Charlotte's egg sac to his ovular white drones.
    • Sonic's slow-motion sequence in the bar is accompanied by pop music, homaging Peter Maximoff from the X-Men films.
    • When Tom helps a duck and her ducklings cross a street, he addresses them as "Donald, Daisy, Daffy..."
    • Sonic is a huge fan of The Flash, owning and reading a lot of his comics.
    • Sonic is shown peeping on Tom and Maddie's movie nights over the years he has spent in secret at Green Hills, and Sonic's favorite is Speed. Sonic even imitates Dennis Hopper's famous "Pop quiz, hotshot" and notes that Keanu Reeves is a national treasure.
    • Another film Sonic briefly watches is The Naked Gun.
    • Wade comments on how Robotnik and his men remind him of the Men in Black, but they aren't "as likeable or charming as Will Smith". He later asks if they're going to wipe his memory when they leave, referencing the Neuralyzer used frequently in the franchise.
    • While fleeing the roadside bar, Sonic slides across the police car's hood like Bo and Luke do in The Dukes of Hazzard.
    • The scene where Maddie gives him smelling salts:
      Sonic: GOTTAGOFAST! (runs around the kitchen like a lunatic before stopping to stand on top of the kitchen island) Where am I? What year is it? Is The Rock president?!
    • Sonic flosses after overturning Robotnik’s tank and when he gets his room. Flossing is a dance which has become so synonymous with Fortnite that many people don't even know its actual name and just call it "The Fortnite Dance".
    • When Sonic takes the wheel of the pickup truck:^note This may be a bit of a Production Throwback, since the movie was produced by Neal Moritz, the producer of The Fast and the Furious.
      Sonic: I feel just like Vin Diesel! It's all about family Tom!
    • Part of Robotnik's dance, particularly when he goes "headless", is a tribute to Dick Van Dyke.
    • Once Tom reaches Rachel's house, he's holding a suspicious bag (containing Sonic). Being distrustful of him, she asks if he's hiding something illegal in the bag, such as guns or e-mails.
    • According to co-writer Pat Casey, Robotnik shaving his head with a piece of metal is a reference to Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now.
• Shrink Ray:
  • The Games:
    • In Sonic CD, shrink rays are present in Metallic Madness Zone. These allow Sonic to get through small spaces, and Sonic retains his regular jump height despite being smaller. There are also grow rays that return him to his normal size.
    • As Sonic Mania is a love letter to the games from the Genesis era, Metallic Madness Zone and its shrink rays return in that game. The boss of Act 2 is fought when Sonic and/or his friends are tiny.
  • In Sonic the Comic, Nack the Weasel uses size-altering cartridges which fire a ray that can shrink things or make them larger.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • The Games:
    • In Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow had called Sonic a fake hedgehog and that he isn't good enough to be his fake. Here's Sonic's response before the two start fighting (which, due to a glitch, interrupts Shadow's insult before he can finish, accidentally making it more fitting to this trope):
      Sonic: I'll make you eat those words!
    • From Shadow the Hedgehog, after Black Doom has given Shadow a Break Them by Talking about how it's Shadow's destiny to join him:
      Shadow: You're boring me to death, Black Doom!
    • 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 to make it eternal, only to have Sonic reply "What good is a world that goes on forever!?" The conversation even ends with this great 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!
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • In issue 74, after the freedom fighters find Robotnik on the walkway of some outer space facility, (up until that point they thought he was dead) there are at least two varietiesin a row:
      Sonic: You're toast if you don't tell me what happened to my family and the other roboticized mobians, Ro"butt"nik
      Robotnik: Come now, hedgehog. Can't you at least take a moment to welcome me back from the dead? Didn't your parents teach you better manners?
      Sonic: Why, you lousy...
      [Sonic runs at Robotnik, but Robotnik smacks him aside.]
      Bunnie: Ah'll show you manners!
      [Bunnie then punches Robotnik in the face, and Sonic and Tails stumble upon Robotnik's sweatshop.]
      Tails: Sonic, look!
      Sonic: I see it, Tails! ALL of the missing robians being forced to work in this suped-up outer-space sweat-shop!
      Robotnik: Forced? Quite the contrary, Sonic. I've merely RESTORED their LACK of free will. They have absolutely no say in the matter. How can you say that I've done something wrong? Why, look at all the new jobs I've created!
      Sonic: Create this!
      [Sonic then runs up at Robotnik and knocks him off the walkway.]
    • Sonic's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Eggman in issue 200 is essentially a retort to a similar speech Eggman himself gave Sonic twenty-five issues earlier.
  • In the Sonic Underground episode "Sleepers", Robotnik traps Sonic in a room and fires beams of vaporizing energy at him while taunting him. Sonic is not fazed in the slightest.
    Robotnik: Instead of "heir to the throne", you'll become the air that we breathe!
    Sonic: Yeah, yeah, whatever, round boy. [dodges another beam]
    Robotnik: Sooner or later, you'll get tired.
    Sonic: I'm already tired... of listening to you! Besides, this is a lame trap. I'm outta here!
    [Sonic dodges a massive barrage of laser fire, which blasts a hole in the wall and allows him to escape]
    Sonic: I'm tellin' ya, Buttnik: you'll get yours!
  • In Issue #11 of Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW), Master Overlord is ranting about his superiority to Sonic, only for Whisper to shoot him in the face.
    Sonic: Nice shot, Whisper. Ten points for timing.
  • During the climax of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Tom gives one to Robotnik in response to his dismissal of Sonic as a "silly little alien" who doesn't belong on Earth, telling him point-blank that Sonic may be an alien, but he knows more about being human than Robotnik ever will.
• Signature Laugh:
  • Dr. Eggman of the games has his "Ohohohoho!" laugh, originally from the Japanese version of Sonic Adventure, but starting with Sonic X, Mike Pollock began imitating the laugh in English.
  • In Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Scratch's "Bwah-HA-ha-HAAAAA!"
• Signature Line:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic Adventure:
    • "Aw, yeah, this is happening!"
    • "Get a load of this!"
    • "All systems, full power!"
    • "No way! I can't believe this!"
    • "You little fox!"
    • " All's well that ends well, right?"
    • Sonic Adventure 2:
    • "Rolling around at the speed of sound..."
    • "Found you, faker!"
    • "I'll make you eat those words!"
    • Sonic Heroes:
    • "We'll show that creep the real superpower of teamwork!"
    • "Because we're Sonic Heroes!"
    • Shadow the Hedgehog:
    • "Find the Computer Room!"
    • "Where's that damn fourth Chaos Emerald?!"
    • "You know what they say, the more the merrier!"
    • Sonic '06:
    • "IT'S NO USE! TAKE THIS!"
    • "Darn! We're not gonna make it. Let's speed up!"
    • "That tornado's carrying a car!"
    • "NOW LOADING..."
    • Sonic Colors:
    • "GOOD! GREAT! AWESOME! OUTSTANDING! AMAZING!"
    • "No copyright law in the universe is going to stop me!" to a lesser extent.
    • Sonic Generations:
    • "That looks like a homing shot!"
    • "Time for a change of pace!"
    • "Hey, Sonic! Enjoy your future! It's going to be great!"
  • Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • "Snooping as usual, I see?"
    • "That's no good!"
    • "I hate that hedgehog!"
  • Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie: "You might know everything I'm going to do, but that's not going to help you, since I know everything you're going to do! 'Strange, isn't it?!
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2020): "Uhh… meow?"
• Silicon Snarker: Orbot is very snarky towards the foolish Cubot and his boss, Eggman, especially in his first appearance, where he roasts Eggman for his latest failure. In his later appearances, he's more subtle about his sarcasm, but it's still there.

• Single-Episode Handicap:
  • Two episodes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog have situations where Sonic is unable to run fast. The first is when Sonic's shoes get stolen and when Sonic tries running without them his feet would literally burn up. The second is during one of the Chaos Emerald Saga episodes, when a wizard working for Robotnik against his will puts a spell on Sonic's feet, turning them to stone, and Sonic has to find him to reverse the spell.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) has two of these kind of episodes as well. The first is when Robotnik builds a machine to track Sonic when he runs at super-sonic speed, and the second is when a wizard puts a spell on Sonic that prevents him from running fast, holding his speed ransom until Sonic reclaims a computer of magic spells that Robotnik stole.
• Sixth Ranger:
  • In the games, Knuckles originally started out as Sonic's enemy only to eventually team up with him and Tails to form a Power Trio.
  • In the second season of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), Dulcy the Dragon becomes part of the Freedom Fighters at the very start of the season, though we're not shown how exactly. A more straighter example comes from Tails, who joins in at the tail end of the series.

• Skewed Priorities:
  • The Episode Shadow prequel DLC for Sonic Forces reveals that the entire reason why Infinite willingly let Dr. Eggman perform experiments on him with the Phantom Ruby so he could use its power to become a borderline Omnicidal Reality Warper and help Eggman take over 99% of the planet is pretty much entirely because Shadow had the audacity to call him "weak" after defeating him in a Curb-Stomp Battle...
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Sonic gets into an argument with Tom upon finding out he wants to move from Green Hills just as Robotnik manages to locate their truck and sends a ground drone after it. Even when it starts attacking the car, he still continues to argue with him about it.
• Sky Surfing:
  • The Games:
    • In several games, Tails will fly a biplane and Sonic will stand on the wings.
    • In the Sonic Riders series, a mark of true Extreme Gear mastery is being able to achieve legitimate flight on a gear rather than the Not Quite Flight that most regular riders are capable of. The Babylon Rouges all have the technique licked to some extent, but Sonic ends up having trouble with it at first.

• Slapstick:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic the Fighters is a game with lots of cartoon-style slapstick, and some of it can definitely happen to Amy (or the infamous Honey, who is now playable in the HD re-release).
    • In Sonic Riders, each character has a different attack they can perform on someone, nearly all of which are comical and played for laughs. It's quite funny to see Amy, Rouge, and Wave get flattened, burnt in cartoon fashion, electrocuted, etc.
    • One of Amy's attacks in the first Sonic Advance is basically a sliding pratfall on her face.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), the Bar Brawl has both men & women participating in it, and everyone present gets knocked out by Sonic moments later.
• Sliding Scale of Adaptation Modification: The series many spinoffs and tie ins are all over the place with this, and almost none of them follow the games to a tee:
  • The three DiC Sonic cartoons (Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), and Sonic Underground) land squarely on the In Name Only end of the scale. The only thing tying them to the games are Sonic himself, Tails, Robotnik (who all look and act very different from his game counterpart) and the very sporadic use of Chaos Emeralds and rings.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie is a Recognizable Adaptation. It doesn't reuse any story material from the games, but the art style and tone very closely match the original games, Sonic CD in particular.
  • Sonic X hovers between being a Near Identical Adaptation and a Pragmatic Adaptation, sometimes bordering on Recognizable Adaptation. The first two seasons directly adapt both of the Sonic Adventure games quite faithfully and follow the art style and personalities of the games to a tee, but it also adds a lot of new characters and story arcs that aren't in the games. The third season shifts gears and creates an entire new story arc that has absolutely nothing to do with the games aside from the characters sticking around.
  • The Sonic the Hedgehog Promo Comic is a Recognizable Adaptation, following the aesthetic of the original game to a tie, but having an origin story that is completely different from the game continuity.
  • The Sonic the Hedgehog Story Comic manga is a Near Identical Adaptation. It follows the art style and basic conflict of the games much more closely than the western promo comic, but throws in some minor anime elements and human characters that arent present in the first game.
  • The other Sonic manga published Shogaku Ninensei, CoroCoro Comic, and Shogakukan, in stark contrast, are In Name Only takes on the series.
  • The Archie Sonic comics varied with this. The early comics started as a Recognizable Adaptation (sometimes bordering on In Name Only, but just barely more faithful than Satam) of the games, but quickly veered off by introducing a truckload of new characters and story arcs instead of just adaptating the conflict of the games, making it a Pragmatic Adaptation instead. The Continuity Reboot did away with this, with the new timeline basically being a Near Identical Adaptation of the games with some Pragmatic Adaptation elements sandwiched in.
  • The UK-based Sonic the Comic has a similar situation of being both a Recognizable and Pragmatic Adaptation. On one hand, it does follow certain elements of the original games faithfully, but on the other hand, the liberties they take tend to greatly deviate from the source material. The unofficial continuation of it deviates even further from the source material.
  • Sonic Boom hovers between being a Recognizable Adaptation and an In Name Only adaptation. The core characters and their personalities are still intact, but absolutely nothing else from the games, not even the Chaos Emeralds, are present.
  • The IDW Sonic comics are a Near Identical Adaptation of the modern games, albeit with some pragmatic changes and additions made for the sake of story.
• Sliding Scale of Animal Cast:
  • Level 5 (Animal Cast with Human Protagonist) is inverted (most of the time), as the only 'human' character in the majority of the games is series antagonist Dr. Eggman. This is true for pretty much all of the games except for Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Sonic Unleashed, Sonic and the Black Knight, Sonic and the Secret Rings, and Sonic Generations. The various adaptations of the franchise vary on this scale, the only ones staying true to this category of an animal cast with only one major human character being Sonic Boom and the IDW comic.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) is a Level 7 (Human Cast with Animal Protagonist) taking place in the human world, with Sonic being pretty much the only Funny Animal character, apart from a brief appearance of Longclaw the Owl and an echidna tribe in the opening scene and Tails in The Stinger.
• Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence:
  • In the games, most of Dr. Eggman's robots are Bricks powered by animals, at least in the early years and some very recent stuff after Generations. There are a few, however, that reach level 3^note The two heroic E-100 series robots Gamma and Omega, Orbot and Cubot from Sonic Colors or 4^note Metal Sonic whenever he's not a straight up Brick, though he arguably reaches level 5 at times.
  • There are several different types of robots in the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) series.
    • Swatbots and Badniks are of the Brick category, always taking orders from Robotnik/Eggman and stricly attack fodder against characters like Sonic.
    • Robians (Mobians turned into robots) fall into the Brick or Average Joe Android; The former when they were under Robotnik's control and the latter when they were rescued by the Freedom Fighters. Sonic's dad is now the only robian who was not turned back to normal due to his past war injuries.
    • Nicole, Sally's personal mini-computer, falls under the Nobel-bot and Deus est Machina category. Her main role involves hacking machines, downloading vital information, and computer interface. She also has a mild sense of humor. It wasn't until an electrical accident switched her and Sally consciousness; Nicole's brief time in the fur/flesh inspired her to experiment on emotions and a new body, leading her to be in the latter.
    • In Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide, Dr. Wily notes that Dr. Eggman's roboticised creations are Bricks, as contrasted against his Robot Masters (who have Heart Drives). Eggman, having a history of betrayal by some of his more intelligent robots, considers this to be a good thing.
    Dr. Wily: [in reference to the newly-roboticized Tails Man] Doesn't seem to have much of a personality, though.
    Dr. Eggman: All part of the process, Al. You get less sass from your minions that way.
• Small Town Boredom:
  • One official source states that Sonic from the games only began exploring because he was bored with his birthplace, Christmas Island.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), this is Tom's motivation for wanting to leave Green Hills for San Francisco. He wants to join the SFPD because he wants to be challenged in his abilities as a police officer and have someone rely on him. There's no challenge for Tom in helping people recover bagels stolen by ducks and sitting at a speed trap. Sonic calls him out for wanting to stop defending Green Hills just for a higher ranking position in a bigger urban city. At the end of the film, he chooses to stay in Green Hills after all and let Sonic live with him and Maddie.
• Smart People Build Robots:

• Played straight and inverted in Sonic Boom. Tails and Dr. Eggman both create robots for a robot fighting tournament. The inversion is when Knuckles, who is dimmer in this continuity compared to the others, makes his own robot to enter. Tails and Eggman's robots look like something you'd expect from a prodigy and a 300 IQ scientist. Knuckles' robot is a cardboard box with wheels and vacuum cleaner parts attached to it.

• Smug Super:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic is quick to taunt his enemies and be very vocal about his Super-Speed, but how much he does so depends from time to time. As time has gone on, Sonic's taunting has become reminding Eggman how reliable his schemes tend to be (that is, not very reliable at all), which, while still very smug, is also completely valid.
    • Shadow is even worse. He likes lording it over the heroes as well as the villains, not just regarding his speed but every power he has as the "Ultimate Life Form". Telling people how inferior they are to him is practically his hobby. This backfires in Sonic Forces, where his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and post-beatdown mockery of Infinite inspires the latter to redouble his efforts and accept Dr. Eggman's Phantom Ruby experiments.
    • Infinite of Sonic Forces takes this so far that it actually works against him. He's so arrogant and obsessed with being The Dreaded that he has a habit of sparing people he probably should just kill, just to rub their defeat in their faces. Sonic and the Avatar beat him, and in the end, even Dr. Eggman is frustrated by his obnoxious behavior and withdraws his support.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog as depicted in Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) takes it farther than the games did at that point: incredibly narcissistic and overconfident, his tendency to overestimate his abilities and undermine his teammates' advise tends to get him into problems that his more cautious Badass Normal ally Sally often has to bail him out of.
  • Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) is arrogant, condescending, rude, and completely full of himself. However, he's got the brains to back it up by creating extremely dangerous and advanced machines. Even the US government hates his guts, but they let him try to catch Sonic because he's the only one who can.
• The Sociopath:
  • The Games:
    • Doctor Eggman is a family-friendly version. Firstly, he has no conscience to speak of, using living creatures as batteries and by extension, experimentation on sentient beings. He is determined to take over the world purely because he deserves to rule the world - while at the same time not being exactly clear on what he'd do afterwards. As well as this, he is always prepared to briefly ally with Sonic against greater evils, then toss him aside once he has no use. He has been known to lie without the twitch of a mustache. Most obvious is his vanity - despite his many, many failures, he continues to fight Sonic with very little variation to his methods. Continuing in that vein, he is portrayed as also being charming and polite even to his enemies. Like most real-life Sociopaths, he also lacks Character Development - while his origins have expanded over the franchise, his goals and methods remain the same.
    • The Sonic Rivals sub-series has Dr. Eggman Nega, who lacks Eggman's redeeming qualities and seeks to turn the entire planet into a playground of destruction.
    • Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) has the Big Bad Mephiles the Dark. He is apathetic, manipulative, and seeks destruction for the fun of it, seeing the universe as a stress toy he can play with until it breaks.
  • Despite his Laughably Evil qualities, Dr. Eggman in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)is a ruthless egomaniac who sees everyone and everything around him, humans and Mobians alike, as tools to benefit him at best and things to conquer and/or destroy at worst, and has no problems committing mass murder or even genocide to either reach his goals or simply to be a sadistic asshole, often with his trademark Evil Laugh and a Slasher Smile. No better is this displayed than with his Egg Grape Chambers; Eggman killed hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people by trapping them in the chambers and sucking their life force dry to power his machines and city, openly admitting he could easily find other power sources but finds this more fun. To drive the point home, Sonic and his friends have stated at least once that Eggman is an even more evil, cruel, and nasty villain than the original Dr. Robotnik ever was, and considering the list of atrocities Robotnik Prime managed to wrack up before he was taken down^note Among other things, he roboticized countless Mobians, overthrew King Max, polluted much of Mobius, and planned to use his Ultimate Annihilator to wipe out Knothole Village completely, that's saying a lot.
  • Dr. Robotnik in Sonic Underground is particularly merciless and is willing to imprison, roboticise and kill any and all who oppose him in the slightest, not to mention he has banned music as an additional measure to suppress freedom. He has successfully enslaved the planet.
  • Jim Carrey describes the Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) version of Dr. Robotnik's character in an interview as "pure, unadulterated evil", and it shows. Despite his humorous qualities, Robotnik is a ruthless narcissist who sees people only as tools to benefit him, has no problem killing anyone who gets in the way of his plans, doesn't care about any collateral damage, and his intentions are purely selfish.
• Someone Has to Die:
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Dr. Finitevus uses magic and the Master Emerald to turn Knuckles the Echidna into Enerjak, a godlike being bent on cleansing the earth with fire... an effect that can only be reversed by someone giving up their life. Several of Knuckles' loved ones immediately volunteer, but it's his father Locke who ultimately goes through with the sacrifice.
  • In Sonic X, Cosmo does this during the big series finale, requiring Tails to shoot the Sonic driver, which uses Sonic and Shadow as ammunition, into her while she is attached to Dark Oak in her adult tree form, thereby weakening him to a point at which he could be destroyed. Whether or not this was considered or spur of the moment is debatable, but it is said that this was supposed to have been her destiny all along. Cosmo, however, chooses to die not simply to fulfill her purpose, but because she wants to save her friends.
• Something We Forgot:
  • In Sonic Universe, after a hectic (and hilarious) arc, Amy, Cream, and Vanilla are talking over tea...when Amy suddenly remembers she dropped Nicole two issues ago.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), after defeating Robotnik, Tom and Maddie talk to each other for a bit. Eventually Tom mentions Rachel, resulting in the two of them realizing that she's still tied to a chair back at her house in San Francisco.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic the Hedgehog CD's American soundtrack got hit with a musical form of American Kirby Is Hardcore, as much of the music, particularly the boss, final boss and game over themes, sound more appropriate for a shoot-'em-up than a Sonic game. Wacky Workbench's Bad Future is accompanied with a disco-like theme in the US (the Japanese and PAL versions have something much more appropriately sinister), while its Good Future has more emphasis on work tools in the background despite the zone being turned into a toy land.
    • In Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island, the Final Fight theme on the Genesis version seems oddly relaxing for a final boss theme, and almost sounds more like ending credits music.
    • Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure's music is composed entirely of remixes of songs from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, making for 4 boss themes without the original Sonic 3 boss theme (after the Michael Jackson controversy led to it being cut from Knuckles). Act 1 boss is used for the Eggman fight in Gigantic Angel, Act 2 boss is the standard boss theme, final boss is used for the boss of Last Utopia, Doomsday Zone is used for the fight against Mecha Sonic, so for Chaotic Space there's... the extremely upbeat Sky Sanctuary theme.
    • Sonic Generations allows for one to select from music from all over the series' history. One can face some of the most intense bosses of Sonic's history with Green Hill zone's music in the background.
  • The opening of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), bafflingly, it depicts Robotnik's conquest and roboticization of Mobotropolis while a Bragging Theme Tune keeps going on about how cool and fast Sonic is.
  • The infamous use of Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" in the first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) is not only lyrically-inappropriate for the context of promoting a Sonic the Hedgehog movie, but it's also slow-paced and moody, clashing significantly with Sonic's inherent focus on being fun and fast.
• Space Is Noisy:
  • Lampshaded at the end of Sonic Colors, when Eggman is stranded in the vacuum miles from Earth while robot minion Cubot rambles on and on.
    Eggman: What I wouldn't give for the maddening silence of space right about now.
  • Lampshaded in one issue of the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)' Sonic Adventure 2 tie-in. Which points out that, while there is no sound in space, they're going with artistic license.
• Space Station:

• In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode, "Spaceman Sonic" featured, like the games, an abandoned Space Station, but unlike the games it wasn't Robotnik's property though that didn't keep it from feeling eerie, which certainly wasn't helped by the alien, giant, blob-like, flesh-eating monster that was wandering in the corridors looking for food.

• Spike Balls of Doom: Spiked balls, metal and otherwise, frequently make an appearance as a stage hazard. Sometimes they're static, sometimes moving, sometimes spinning.
• Spikes of Doom: Spikes are a common obstacle throughout the series. They vary in sharpness but almost invariably hurt.
• Spiritual Antithesis:
  • The Games:
    • As Mario's biggest rival in the 1990s, Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog was designed to be "the anti-Mario" in many ways. Mario is famous for his jumping ability, and his levels are generally platforming challenges that take place on flat terrain; by contrast, Sonic is famous for his speed, and his adventures are usually fast-paced sprinting challenges that take place on hilly terrain (though they also include platforming). While Mario resembles a portly middle-aged man, Sonic is known for his youthful personality and "hip" attitude. And Mario's adventures are set in a fairy tale kingdom, and they're tongue-in-cheek throwbacks to classic high fantasy; conversely, Sonic's adventures take place in futuristic cyberpunk-inspired cityscapes, and they're often throwbacks to classic science-fiction.
    • Sonic Mania and Sonic the Hedgehog 4 were both created as Genre Throwbacks to the original Sega Genesis trilogy, both taking place after Sonic 3 & Knuckles. However, there are many differences:
    • The character designs used in Sonic 4 were the ones used from Sonic Adventure onward, while Sonic Mania brought back the original character designs.
    • Sonic 4 was developed as an Episodic Game that was ultimately unfinished, while Sonic Mania is a fully complete game.
    • Sonic Mania features Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles as playable characters, while Sonic 4 only features Sonic as the main playable character — Tails was incorporated into Episode 2, but he was only player-controlled in co-op mode. Sonic 4 never got to feature Knuckles at any point.
    • Sonic 4 uses Zones that are similar to (or, in some cases, look just like) Zones from the older games, while Sonic Mania reuses the actual old zones with updated layouts to keep things fresh.
    • Sonic 4's soundtrack attempts to mimic the sound limitations of the Sega Genesis, while Sonic Mania favors a more modern sound.
    • Sonic 4 is a Sprite/Polygon Mix for the first episode, and 2½D for the second. Sonic Mania generally favors a bitmap graphic presentation instead, with Polygonal Graphics only showing up in the Special Stages.
    • Sonic 4 uses a game engine descended from the Sonic Rush series due to being made by the same developers. Sonic Mania instead uses an engine designed specifically to replicate the mechanics of the Genesis Sonic games.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) and Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog aired at the same time on the same channel, but approached the source material in vastly different ways. SatAM was a Darker and Edgier post-apocalyptic tale where Sonic was part of an underground resistance fighting against the tyrannical rule of Doctor Robotnik, who was a truly frightening villain that proved to be a serious threat. Adventures was a wacky and surreal comedy that paid homage to The Golden Age of Animation. Robotnik was an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain who rarely proved to be a serious threat to Sonic. While Sonic in SatAM rarely needed help from Tails and had help from a large supporting cast, Tails was more pro-active in Adventures and Sonic's only recurring companion.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • The Games:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) to the Sonic Adventure series. Featuring similar gameplay styles, multiple playable characters, hub worlds and attempts of a more serious storyline.

• Shadow the Hedgehog is sometimes considered one to Sonic Adventure 2, being a sequel that shares many elements and features a similar tone.
• Sonic Lost World is one to Sonic Colors, bringing back the Wisps, being a Nintendo exclusive, being less speed-oriented than most titles and having a similar tone and style.
• Sonic Forces could be considered this to Sonic Generations, as both games feature both Classic and Modern Sonic teaming up for an anniversary title.

• Sonic Underground borrows a fair amount of plot details and character designs from Sonic's previous Animated Adaptation Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM). Even some of the creative team and voice crew came in to reprise their positions.

• Spotlight-Stealing Title:
  • The Games:
    • The 360/PS3 "sequel" to the Sega Genesis Collection is entitled Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection in America but Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection in Europe.
    • Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. To be fair, over a third of the characters are from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.
      
      The sequel takes it up a notch, removing "Sega" out of the title and simply calling it Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. To be fair in this case, the game has a number of characters who aren't from Sega properties.
    • In-Universe example in Sonic Mania. If you beat the & Knuckles Mode as Knuckles, you get a special ending in which it's revealed that the whole Knuckles & Knuckles playthrough was just a retelling of the game by Knuckles called Sonic Mania & Knuckles.
  • Sonic the Comic originally featured comics of various Sega games at the time. You wouldn't know it from the title though.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere:
  • Springboards act as a common stage element, launching the player in the air. Often they're used as a way to slow down the player's horizontal speed to mark the beginning of platforming section.
  • Other common elements that act as springboards are bumpers.
• Spy Catsuit:
  • In the games, Rouge the Bat has a tight suit complete with a heart breastplate. Replaced with a generic Stripperiffic outfit in Sonic Heroes.
  • In Sonic X, Rouge has a "stealth" version of her game outfit that's all black in some scenes (the SA2 version has a good deal of white). It still has the pink heart breastplate (and the pink hearts on her gogo boots for that matter) though.
• Squashed Flat:
  • The Games:
    • Some characters in Sonic the Fighters have attacks that will flatten the opponent's head. And it's hilarious. You can even get smushed down to a small size (and on the XBLA/PSN versions, you get an achievement/trophy for doing so).
    • In Sonic Riders, players can get flattened. They will lose their board as they do so, however (but it reappears when they become 3D again).

• Happens many times in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, usually to Scratch and Grounder. One such example occurs during the episode, "The Mystery of the Missing Hi-Tops", when Scratch and Grounder manage to flatten themselves with their own steamroller. Their flattened selves float into an envelope that Sonic holds, then drops into a mailbox, declaring it, "junk mail".
• In "Ro-Becca", one of the comedy-focused episodes of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), Sonic and Rotor knock down a door that Antoine was standing behind. As they leave, the door goes back up, and we find that Antoine got flattened.

• The Starscream:
  • The Games:

• In Shadow the Hedgehog, you can have the titular character to turn against Black Doom, the Big Bad of the game, in the GUN Fortress Hero mission. Then after defeating Black Doom, Shadow takes the 7 Chaos Emeralds and declares to use them to take over the world for himself.

• In the Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) series, Snively constantly grumbles over having to serve the Doctor, but doesn't actually attempt to harm him. By the Second Season he has blatantly come to resent his uncle's abuse and makes a few shrewd plans behind his back (he once attempted an attack on Knothole while Robotnik was gone, and was savvy enough to make alterations to his base that would ultimately save his life when Robotnik stabbed him in the back and left him to die in it). He simply plays along until Robotnik is electrocuted in the final episode, then is seen donning his uncle's trademark yellow cape. He does, however, resemble Starscream in voice, especially considering his voice is done by Charlie Adler.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
  • For some part of the comic, Robotnik's nephew Snively served as his increasingly untrustworthy lieutenant, and eventually set in motion a plan to destroy Robotnik. In "Endgame" he actually succeeds in erasing the original Robotnik from existence.
  • Robotnik/Eggman has stated that he knows that Snively and several of his Grandmasters are planning to turn on him, but precisely because of that they serve him to their fullest, because they want to take over a strong empire. He actually applauds Lien Da for an underhanded attempt and chastises Snively for a sloppy one.
    
    Eggman has another reason for encouraging his Grandmasters to plot against him, he actually finds it fun to have enemies to defeat, seeing it as just a game to him. But he wants them to be aware of the consequences if they lose.
  • Also there's Miles, Tails' Evil Twin from Moebius. Originally loyal to Scourge (Sonic's counterpart), he eventually convinced the rest of the Suppression Squad to turn on him, and soon after set himself up as their new leader.
  • Conquering Storm is a low-key one but any advantage she see against Eggman, she more then willing to take such as providing Snively with the Iron Oni to use against Eggman.
  • Lien-Da Desposed of her Great-Great-Grandfather to gain the role of Grandmaster and tried to overthrow the Iron Queen. This didn't work out too well however. She then became one to Eggman. He in fact saved her from dying because he's amused by having his underlings trying to kill him as part of his "game."
  • Kragok was this to Lien-Da - he had agreed to share power as the Grandmaster after they did away with their father, only for him to take the entire thing.
• In Sonic the Comic, Robotnik also had to fight against Commander Brutus, a robot with an indestructible body and a copy of his own brain patterns, who started off as Robotnik's Dragon and then rebelled against him.

• Stealth Hi/Bye:
  • Shadow the Hedgehog pulls off an absolutely awesome subversion in "The Fall" stage of his titular game. The GUN Commander gives him a (completely unjustified) You Killed Maria rant with a gun between Shadow's eyes, then pulls the trigger while the camera is on his face. Cue the camera cutting to behind the Commander — revealing Shadow is gone. And then panning down to reveal Shadow is standing behind the Commander, arms crossed.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), while on the road, Sonic asks to stop at a tourist trap for the world's largest rubber band ball. As he's being told that they're not going to stop, Sonic's already gone. He returns with an armful of rubber band balls, a monogrammed baseball cap on his head and a paddle ball a moment later, admitting it was "lame".
    Sonic: The gift shop was cool, though! [bounces the paddle ball rapidly as Tom stares in disbelief]
• Stepping Stones in the Sky:
  • The Games:

• The intro movie in Sonic CD has a particularly badass example of Sonic jumping on falling rocks before Spin Dashing through a large boulder and hopping off it before it crumbles away.

• The Stinger:
  • The Games:
    • In the original Sonic the Hedgehog game, Eggman would be shown juggling the Chaos Emeralds if you didn't collect them all. If you had collected them all, he'd be shown foiled, jumping up and down on "The End." This style of stinger has appeared several times in the series since.
    • In Sonic Colors, after the 15-minute credit sequence, you get a scene of Eggman, Cubot, and Orbot licking their wounds until the next battle...
    • Following that in Sonic Generations, we're treated to a scene with Classic Eggman and Modern Eggman trapped in the same white void Sonic and his friends were flung in from the very start, only with no way out.
    • Sonic Lost World features Eggman apparently surviving his fall, with a Pocky pulling out his mustache, thinking it was a carrot. Orbot & Cubot came over to Eggman as he got up, then they question about his ripped mustache... the doctor then turns back, and the robot duo's reactions were... priceless, to say the least.
  • Two in Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
    • In the first one, Robotnik is seen having lost whatever sanity he had left as a result of being stuck on Mushroom Planet for months. Still determined to go after Sonic, he lets his mustache grow and shaves off his hair before putting on his goggles, giving the audience the Dr. Eggman character everyone is familiar with. Sorta subverted in that the scene in question actually happens after the closing title, before the actual credits begin.
    • The second one, taking place mid-credits, has Tails make his on-screen film debut by using one of Sonic's rings to land on Earth, having been unable to locate him back on Sonic's World. Using a tracking device he built, he discovers Sonic's location at Green Hills, Montana. Overjoyed, he jumps off a cliff and performs his signature Propeller Flying ability before heading to the town.
• Stolen MacGuffin Reveal:
  • Attempted by Tails in Sonic Adventure 2, by swapping one of the seven Chaos Emeralds with a replica set to malfunction and stop Dr. Eggman's plans to fire the Eclipse Cannon. Trouble is, Eggman had already seen signs of a duplicate emerald being around and easily tricks Tails into spilling the beans.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Knuckles went on a quest to find and retrieve the Sword of Acorns and, thanks to Mammoth Mogul's treachery, was able to get the Freedom Fighters and the Chaotix to fight each other. In the scuffle, Knuckles returns the sword, but it's revealed at the end that Mogul has the real sword in his possession. A few issues later, Sally calls back Knuckles in an attempt to ask him to try to retrieve it again after she, Rotor and Sonic find out the sword they have a fake (with Sonic quipping "What's fake? The sword or the cockamamie story?")
• Story Arc:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles were also part of an arc called the "Death Egg Saga", as the games deal with Sonic's attempts to stop Dr. Eggman from launching the Death Egg. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is a continuation of the "Death Egg Saga", since Eggman launches the Death Egg mk II in Episode II.
    • There is a three-game Story Arc dealing with Shadow. It started in Sonic Adventure 2, continued in Sonic Heroes, and resolved in Shadow the Hedgehog.
    • An in-game example is the character-based arcs in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), which has Sonic's, Shadow's and Silver's routes, followed by Last Story which is only playable when all others are completed.
  • The second season of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) started off more continuity-based to begin with, then kicked into full-on, development-a-week arc mode with the launch of the Doomsday Project.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) is broken down into "Years", which are smaller arcs which lead into each other as part of a single larger narrative.
    • Year 1 (Issues #1-#12) features the Sonic characters rebuilding after the events of Sonic Forces, dealing with Eggman's army coming under the control of Neo Metal Sonic, and unraveling the mystery of where Eggman himself disappeared to.
    • Year 2 (Issue #13-onwards) sees Eggman retaking control of his empire and unleashing the Metal Virus on the world.
• Stronger Than They Look:
  • The Games:
    • Knuckles is the strongest character in the Sonic universe, even if he's as small as Sonic or Tails.
    • In Sonic Chronicles, Sonic is the Jack of All Stats except for being the fastest character in the game. In the usual gaming fare, he's a Fragile Speedster and somewhat of a Glass Cannon but it really just depends on whether you can hold on to a single ring. In Sonic Unleashed, he does indeed play this straight, as he is able to move fast, destroy tough enemies, and lose only 20 rings per hit. Sonic's "Sonic boost" ability also contributes.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), easily Sonic. Though in the games he is usually much more a Fragile Speedster, here he can punch and kick robots (kicking makes sense...), and when already running, throw things multiple times his size with his momentum. He is also the only Freedom Fighter to have broken security cameras by throwing junk at them...with ONE hand...
  • Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) looks like the type of guy who relies on robots to do the fighting for him, but he is able to throw a man much heavier than him through a window.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • If you get an E Rank on a mission in Sonic Unleashed, the usual level completion theme will be played very, very badly. And it is hilarious.
  • Sonic: Mega Drive involves this at one point during the first issue. After Knuckles is defeated, he demands that Sonic hand the Chaos Emeralds over, and tells Sonic that Eggman told Knuckles everything. This results in a flashback which has crayon drawings of Knuckles being tricked by Eggman. There is a good reason for this; Tyson Hesse came up with that idea while he was in the shower in the morning before the page was due.
• Sudden Eye Colour:
  • As a part of the redesigns for Sonic Adventure, most of the game characters went from having Black Bead Eyes to having colored ones. Sonic has green, Tails has blue, Amy also has green, and Knuckles has violet.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Mighty, Ray, and Nack were given redesigns to make them fit amongst the post-Adventures redesigns. All three characters received blue eyes.
  • Sonic the Comic:
    • This happened in-universe. Originally, Sonic had black eyes that "glowed green with Chaos energy" when he went Super Sonic. Later, he was attacked by a creature of pure Chaos energy, and the experience turned his eyes permanently green (or red in Super Sonic mode), in order to match the changes to his videogame design. According to one post-series cover, this might have been retconned away so that he gained green eyes in the same accident that caused his blue fur.
    • To follow with the games changing art style, Sonic the Comic gave the Freedom Fighters new eye colors part-way into the Sonic Adventure adaptation. Amy and Tails have brown eyes, while Johnny and Porker Lewis both have blue eyes. Knuckles has Icy Blue Eyes as well.
• Super Drowning Skills:
  • The games tend to play with this trope.
    • Generally speaking, Sonic doesn't automatically die jumping into water (unless its a pitfall trap); the nightmare comes from getting out of the water, before he drowns - made difficult due to the removal of his speed and lack of fine control when submerged. The 3D games, however, with a few exceptions, tend to treat water as bottomless pits, to the point where, in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Sonic dies in knee-deep water that he could easily walk out of.

• Funnily enough, come Sonic Colors he seemed to finally overcome this by learning how to jump infinitely underwater. Of course, come the immediate sequel, Sonic Generations, he's somehow forgotten how to do this.
• Sonic Boom dances around the issue a bit. From what was seen, the "water" Sonic can't swim in is filled with all sorts of nasty chemicals, which would justify the "instant death on entry" response.

• Sonic X:
  • In the first episode, Sonic falls into a swimming pool and tried to get out for several seconds to no avail.
  • Even better, in the episode "Sonic vs Knuckles", Sonic gets knocked into water by Knuckles. He instantly has a panic attack, splashing wildly and yelling. It takes him a few seconds to realise he's barely ankle deep, with Knuckles looking on at him with an annoyed look.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), when Tom tells Sonic to "head west," Sonic speeds off, but then returns soaking wet with seaweed, a starfish, and a saltwater fish on his head. Sonic claims he got them from "crashing into the Pacific". Thus, much like his game counterpart, Sonic can't swim.

• Superpowered Evil Side:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic has one in Sonic Unleashed. At night, he'll turn into Sonic the Werehog, a bulky werewolf-esque form of himself with super strength and stretchy arms. Though his personality remains more or less the same except for the obligatory howling. This exception is lampshaded after it is revealed that Chip is actually Light Gaia, a benevolent spirit, who is guarding the earth. Sonic then asks, if it could be Chip who keeps him from succumbing to Dark Gaia and becoming evil when in Werehog form, to which Chip replies that he has nothing to do with him, it's Sonic's kind heart alone which lets him keep his sanity.
    • Sonic and the Secret Rings introduced the Darkspine form, which Sonic transforms into by using the World Rings of rage, hatred and sadness.
  • Sonic the Comic:
    • Super Sonic. In that comic's canon, the Chaos Emeralds are full of pure evil (as energy), rather than their neutral alignment as confirmed as video game canon by Sonic Adventure. Super Sonic came about by overexposure to the Chaos Emeralds, and as such... he's insane, and evil, sadistic, psychopathic... and equipped with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. When he split from Sonic and lost his powers he mellowed out, but returned to form when he got them back.
    • Doctor Robotnik is also this to his former self Dr Ovi Kintobor, due to exposure to raw evil Chaos Energy.
    • Sonic's Alternate Universe Evil Counterpart King Sonic inverts this trope by virtue of his own Super Sonic self being pacifistic in nature.
  • In Sonic X, absorbing the energy of a factory's worth of fake Chaos Emeralds coupled with seeing his friends tortured unleashed Dark Sonic for the first time in animated continuity. Complete with white eyes and navy-dark energy all over his body, plus the ability to tear anything that pisses him off to shreds.
• Super Prototype:
  • The Games:
    • Averted and then invoked in Sonic Adventure by E-102 Gamma. During his story, he faces off against his older brother E-101 Beta for a spot on Robotnik's E-100 series of enforcer mechs and soundly defeats him in battle. Later on, after revolting against Robotnik, Gamma goes on a mission to destroy his brothers to save the animals trapped inside. After handily defeating all of his brothers, E-101 shows up again, having gotten a dramatic overhaul with abilities far surpassing Gamma's. Gamma is still able to defeat him without too much trouble, though Beta sees to it that Gamma doesn't leave the battlefield.
    • Sonic Adventure 2 has the Biolizard, the prototype ultimate life form which was enormous compared to its successor Shadow the Hedgehog. It was locked in suspended animation by GUN until Dr. Eggman reactivated it in the process of inserting the Chaos Emeralds into the Eclipse Cannon and sent the ARK hurtling towards Earth, after which it was defeated by Shadow but recovered and merged with the Eclipse Cannon in order to ensure that the colony would fall, only to be defeated again by the combined efforts of Super Sonic and Super Shadow. It is subverted in that the Biolizard seems to suffer from severe asthma, and even with a huge life support system attached to it, it can't sustain combat for half a minute without getting tired.
    • Invoked (but not in any meaningful manner) in Sonic Heroes. One of E-123 Omega's combo-score quips is "Worthless consumer models!" Additionally, when he earns an E-Rank at the end of a stage, he laments that he couldn't even beat Gamma or Beta.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), the Metal Sonic Troopers — which both Rotor and Uncle Chuck designed and built, based upon the original Metal Sonic — are easily dispatched when they're turned against everyone, compared to the original Metal Sonic, who gave Sonic and co. a very hard time. And then there's all those replacement Metal Sonics Eggman keeps making, which always get rolled out and blown up within five pages. They've practically become a running gag.
• Super-Speed:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic is the video game example, who can run faster than the speed of sound,^note  That means he runs at approximately 768 miles per hour. and is generally billed as "the fastest thing alive." Notable in that in the Genesis games, he is actually capable of outrunning the screen's ability to scroll.
    • Sonic's actual top speed is never officially clarified. In some manuals he is referred to as a "hypersonic hedgehog", which would make him anywhere from 5-10 times the speed of sound. Sonic Unleashed suggests that Sonic's top speed is slightly higher at over Mach 10. Though in Sonic Colors he is observed by Omega to be approaching the speed of light (to which Sonic comments that light speed is no challenge).
    • When he turns into Super Sonic, Sonic gets a massive jump in his speed, to the point it's been stated he can casually hit the speed of light, if not surpass it. Hyper Sonic is explicitly described as faster than light.
    • Other characters in the series tend to have some degree of Super Speed as well. Tails is even able to keep up with Sonic while in flight (and in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Colors, outpace him), which in fact is partly the reason why they became friends.
    • Confusingly, in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for a few seconds before jumping into his Death Egg Robot, Dr. Eggman can actually run at the same speed as Sonic while being chased. This is brought up again in Sonic Lost World when one cutscene has the scientist running alongside Sonic.
    • According to Sonic Runners, all hedgehogs can reach Sonic's casual running speed. It's that Sonic is the outlier of this norm, being faster than them. This is how Amy is able to keep pace with him.
    • Of the four teams in Sonic Heroes; Sonic, Shadow, Amy Rose and Espio are the speed types and have similar movesets as a result. Shadow in particular is considered to be a match for Sonic's speed, though it should be noted that Shadow's footspeed is augmented by his Hover Shoes/Air Shoes and on occasion Chaos Control.
    • Metal Sonic is also a notable example as he was built to be better than Sonic in every way. While there are instances of Metal being faster, it comes with poorer traction (see: Sonic Adventure 2) and the risk of overheating as a trade-off (see: Sonic Generations). Of course, being the Player Character, Sonic tends to win their races proper.
    • Two techniques in the games, exclusive to Sonic, Shadow and Metal Sonic, are explicitly referred to both in name and description as light speed - Light Speed Dash and Light Speed Attack.
    • Blaze the Cat is also an example. She propels herself forward using her pyrokinesis, allowing her to run almost as fast as Sonic. In high heels, no less.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, not only is Sonic his usual high speed self, but Tails and Knuckles are shown to be super-fast to a degree as well. And when Metal Sonic comes on the scene , he quickly proves himself to be even faster than Sonic, and is able to go from the planet's surface to space and vice versa in seconds.
  • In Sonic X. Most of the anthropomorphs are shown to possess this to a degree, albeit a much lesser one than Sonic. Shadow is once again portrayed as being equal to him, until he takes his limiters off at least, in which case he becomes much faster still. This show arguably has one of Sonic's fastest quantifiable moments of super speed, showing Sonic as being literally fast enough to outrun a 'friggin' lightning bolt'.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
    • Sonic the Hedgehog. At one point Sonic zooms past Tom's police cruiser. The car's radar gun clocks Sonic's speed at 760 miles per hour, which is just under Mach 1.
      
      He also moves so quickly around a baseball diamond that he causes an EMP that causes a gigantic blackout in the United States' Pacific Northwest. He also speed reads a stack of comics on The Flash, moves fast enough to play table tennis and baseball with himself, and runs fast enough to be in multiple locations at once.
      
      He can use his power to enter Bullet Time, with everything around him appearing to stand still. Robotnik uses this against Sonic with one of his quills, able to enter the same state to keep up the chase.
    • Much like Sonic, Tails can move incredibly fast. He flies from the top of a cliff overlooking Green Hills into the town proper in just a few seconds, leaving an orange trail behind him.
• Super-Strength:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic is known best for his Super-Speed, but he's also capable of sending cars flying like footballs.
    • Knuckles is capable of shattering boulders ten times bigger than him with his fists.

• Sonic, Knuckles, Hyper Metal Sonic, Metal Robotnik all display great feats of physical strength in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie. A clash between Sonic and Metal was enough to dislodge a stalactite the size of a mountain!
• Sonia the Hedgehog in Sonic Underground is physically the strongest of the Hedgehog triplets. In one episode, she picks up and throws Dingo with relative ease.

• Surveillance Drone:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) featured such "spy orbs" utilized by Robotnik to monitor his city.

T

• Tagline:
  • The Games:
    • "ARE YOU UP 2 IT?" — Sonic the Hedgehog 2
    • "The Original Hero Is Back!" — Sonic Adventure
    • "What kind of hedgehog are you?" — Sonic Adventure 2
    • "A Tough Team for a Tough Job" — Sonic Heroes
    • "This time, speed won't be enough..." — Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
    • "The difference is night and day." — Sonic Unleashed
    • "3 Eras, 2 Sonics, 1 Epic Adventure!" — Sonic Generations
    • "Rise against the Deadly Six!" — Sonic Lost World
    • "By the Mania, for the Mania." — Sonic Mania
    • "Join the uprising." — Sonic Forces ^note "Join the resistance" has also been used.
  • "Scrape your knuckles. Catch some tails." — Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
    • "Try to keep up."
    • "A whole new speed of hero."
    • "Gotta. Go. Fast."
    • "When the world needs a hero... Think fast."
    • "If you were me, you'd be in your seat by now."
    • "Is that all you got?"
    • "Every hero has a genesis."
    • "Speed is his second name"
    • "Roses are red. Sonic is blue. Earth needs a hero. A hedgehog will do!"
    • "A Hedgehog Becomes A Hero."
    • "Don't Blink. You Might Miss It."
    • "Super villain vs Super Sonic"
    • "Racing into theaters soon."
    • "This Valentine's Day, put a ring on it."
    • "Chillin’ vs Villain"
• Tailor-Made Prison:
  • Dr. Robotnik builds one of these for Sonic in the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode, "Sonic Breakout". Sonic lets himself get captured in order to break a comic artist out of Robotnik's prison when said artist drew a comic making fun of him, but his plan backfires when Robotnik's specialized prison wing is meticulously designed to counter every one of his abilities and activate upon seeing his blue fur. He still escapes in the end by duping the system's color-trigger with a poster of himself taped to Grounder's back, which causes the security system to attack Grounder and Scratch, leaving him to get away.
  • In Sonic X, when Sonic is arrested for a crime, he's put in a cell that's underwater because they know he can't swim. Only Chris and his butler Mr. Tanaka get him out, Dressed like they're the stars of The Green Hornet.
• Take My Hand!:
  • Occurs during Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie. When Metal Sonic is about to fall into the Lava below, Sonic reaches out to him in a last ditch bid to help him. Just when he's gotten close enough, Metal knocks his hand away with the same statement he's been saying all movie: "There is only one Sonic", and he apparently doesn't think it's him.

• Take Over the World:
  • The Games:
    • The games usually have Dr. Eggman trying to take over the world in some way or another. And by Sonic Forces, he actually accomplishes this goal!
    • In one of the Dark endings of Shadow the Hedgehog, Shadow states that he plans to use the Chaos emeralds to conquer the universe.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), upon discovering Sonic and his immense power, Dr. Robotnik decides to throw the government under the bus and kill Sonic himself. Why? So that he can steal his energy to power his robot army, which he plans to use to achieve global domination.
• Take That!:
  • The games:
    • The name of the first boss of Sonic the Hedgehog CD is the EGG-HVC-001. HVC-001 was the serial number name of Nintendo's own Famicom console. As a bonus stealth insult, the HVC-001 is the easiest boss in the entire game. Fighting it in the Good Future also colors it pink, and this is probably the only explanation for that.
    • A promo video for Sonic Xtreme had a live-action Mario bemoaning how his series fell into obscurity due to Sonic.
    • To promote Sonic Mania Plus, Sega does a re-imagining of the "video game store" infomercial, except instead of Nintendo they're taking shots at^note They're using the Nintendo Switch version, which has a reversible cover and a 32 page artbook◊, they're directed at the Triple A First-Person Shooter market, down to the lootbox extortion. The game store shown has a sign that says "TRADE IN YOUR BRAND NEW CONSOLE FOR $5 CREDIT", a jab at game stores such as GameStop that give out relatively minimal store credit for trading in used games.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • An early comic featured a robot called the "Spawnmower". It acted much like the dark and edgy real-life comic hero it was named after, in that it stopped to make a dramatic pose every few seconds. Sonic was able to defeat it without too much trouble.

• Sonic the Comic:
  • The whole Special Zone arc was an Affectionate Parody of Marvel comics, most notably when Sonic walked in on a team of local superheroes in a fight with the Legion of Evil. After a comment about the property damage both sides are causing and a brief attempt to work out which side is which the cops arrive, at which point both groups make a quick retreat.
  • A later story introduces an obvious X-Men parody, including a Wolverine knock off with corks attached to his claws and the stated superpower of snarling, getting angry and talking about what a badass he was.
  • The Marxio Brothers. The Marx Brothers references were for comic effect, but the Mario ones enabled all sorts of anti-Nintendo gags. For example, they come from a far-off land, Super Marxio World, which even they hate, and their games are utter tripe.
• Sonic the Hedgehog and the Silicon Warriors:
  • Two of Sonic's animal friends become convinced that they are world-famous plumbers who must save a princess by jumping on people's heads. The descriptions are less than flattering: "...I musta wear a stupido hat and daft-looking blue overalls, and I musta have a big bushy moustache, and I musta run very slowly and say daft things-a in a silly fake accent..."
  • Later, when asked if he would like to play Super Gimbo Land, Sonic is insulted; as if he would ever play something so slow!
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Sonic views a planet covered in mushrooms with disdain, stating "I hate mushrooms" which has been confirmed by writer Patrick Casey to be a jab at a certain other video game franchise which used a lot of mushroom imagery and served as the Sonic games main rival for a long time.

• Take That, Audience!:
  • If you complete a level with an E Rank in Sonic Unleashed, the otherwise epic fanfare is replaced with a version that's basically a total trainwreck.
  • One Sonic Boom episode has Mark the Tapir, a nerdy, obsessive fanboy of Sonic who creeps everybody out with his stalker-ish mannerisms. It isn't hard at all to see him as a jab at certain members of the Sonic the Hedgehog fan community.
• Taken for Granite:
  • In Sonic the Comic, an incarnation of the gorgon Medusa turns mercenaries Prank and Totem Billy to stone with her gaze. When she uses her gaze on their teammate Kalus, who is already made of stone, he crumbles to sand instead.
  • Several episodes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog involve Sonic getting turned into stone. He gets better.
• Taking the Bullet:
  • The Games:

• In Sonic Colors, Tails pushes Sonic out the way of Eggman's mind control beam.

• In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), a heart-broken Mina Mongoose throws herself between Princess Sally and Sonic (who had just reconciled and admitted their feelings) and a bullet from Nack the Weasel. The comic makes it seems she died, but then she's seen in a hospital room recovering.

• Team Member in the Adaptation:
  • In Sonic the Comic, Nack the Weasel is portrayed as a member of Team Chaotix, a team he is not associated with in the video games. He ends up betraying them though.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Ray the Flying Squirrel, a character who, at the time, only appeared in SegaSonic the Hedgehog alongside Mighty the Armadillo, is portrayed as a member of Team Chaotix with Mighty as his big brother figure.
• Team Rocket Wins:
  • The Games:
    • Eggman has never bested Sonic in the long run, but there has been a handful of times where he managed to get the upper hand. In Sonic Adventure 2, this happens a couple of times — the destruction of Prison Island, the firing of the Eclipse Cannon, and the scene where Sonic nearly dies (and is conveniently saved because Sonic somehow knew how to use Chaos Control). In Sonic Unleashed, he actually manages to defeat Super Sonic, steal the Chaos Emeralds from him, tear apart the planet, and sent Sonic flying helplessly out into space.

• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • When the normally incompetent Scratch and Grounder are converted into ninja robots, they almost manage to kill Sonic and Tails; if it wasn't for Sonic and Tails escaping via sheer luck, and still at the very least they suffer no humiliating indignity this time.
  • In the Chaos Emerald four parter, Robotnik manages to outsmart or overpower Sonic on four consecutive occasions to claim all four Chaos Emeralds and transform into the "Supreme High Robotnik, MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE!" He handily defeats Sonic in their first bout, after which the heroes rely on a Temporal Paradox to defeat him.
• Sonic X had this happen once, but not when facing Sonic. Usually Eggman's schemes fail miserably, and his machines and robots are useless, but then he goes up against some Metarex that are attempting to hurt Sonic. Without warning, Boko and Deko, his worst robots, become super strong and beat everyone down, and Bokkun delivers a powerful uppercut kick, clearing a pathway for them all. On several occasions, while never outright defeating Sonic, Eggman managed to distract or overpower him long enough to get away with a Chaos Emerald. He actually gets his hands on all seven at least twice over (though on both occasions uses them on a haphazardous death machine).

• The Tease:
  • Rouge the Bat, anyone? She sarcastically flirts with Knuckles, Shadow, Sonic, Tails, Eggman... (Though the first two could also be not so sarcastic.)
  • Amy's "crush" in Sonic the Comic is implied to just be her teasing Sonic because she likes to see him flustered, in contrast to all other continuities where she's a Smitten Preteen Girl.
• Technopath:
  • The Phantom Ruby and by extension, Infinite from Sonic Mania can do this as part of its Reality Warper abilities, giving powerful upgrades to the Hard-Boiled Heavies as well as Metal Sonic in Forces.
  • The Iron Queen from Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) is the only known surviving user of the ancient art of Magitek, which allows her to control robotics and cybernetics (including Artificial Limbs) through mystical powers. There seems to be a limit to her powers, though; she supposedly cannot control the implants of the Dark Legion, for example (according to her, they're too complex for her to manipulate, despite being created by the same Mad Scientist that created the cybernetics of her other victims).
• Teen Genius:
  • Rouge the Bat, who is an expert treasure hunter and government agent despite only being 18.
  • Tekno in Sonic the Comic seems to be this, but due to the Vague Age principal of the comics it's unknown if she was a teenager or if she's currently one. She's a highly capable mechanic who was even forced to build robots for Robotnik in the past.
• Teleportation:
  • The Games:
    • Scrap Brain Zone, Metropolis Zone, Launch Base Zone, Death Egg Zone, Gene Gadget Zone, Panic Puppet Zone, Mad Gear Zone, and EGG Station Zone all use the same high speed elevators. The ones in Death Egg Zone even reverse the gravity.
    • Chemical Plant Zone has the pipes you can jump into that warp you around the level.
    • Oil Ocean Zone has the checkered cannons that work in a similar manner.
    • Death Egg Zone and Sky Fortress Zone have machines that fire Sonic around in neon rings, twisting and turning all over the place.
    • Sonic Adventure 2 introduced the "Chaos Control" ability, in which the user has to have a Chaos Emerald in order to warp (although an object with the same wavelength and properties as an Emerald will still do).
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide, Sonic got to experience teleportation first hand when Mega Man brings him to Light Labs. He promptly wants to toss his chili dogs.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Sonic Colors:
    Eggman: I'll harness [the Wisps'] Hyper-Go-On Power, and then nothing will stop me! I know, I say that every time, but this time, really, nothing will stop me!
    Orbot: Um, boss?
    Eggman: What? (turns around and sees...) Sonic?!
  • In the Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) episode "Ro-Becca", Antoine does this while walking in the pouring rain.
    Antoine: This is ze worst day of my life! (sobs) WHAT ELSE COULD HAPPEN?!
    (Antoine gets struck by lightning)
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), when Sonic and Tom have fun and cross off most of the items off of Sonic’s bucket list, Sonic asks Tom "what could possibly happen?". Then they get approached by three rough guys looking for trouble.
• That Came Out Wrong:
  • In the Sonic Boom episode, "Blue With Envy", this exchange occurs between Swifty the Shrew and Tails when Sonic challenges the former to a race to see who's the fastest:
    Swifty: Man, can you believe that guy? What a lameoid!
    Tails: That lameoid is my best friend! That didn't come out right.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), while Tom and Maddie try to sneak Sonic into a building through a luggage bag, the two people next to them can hear Sonic and ask if his child is in his bag. Tom says no, but then clarifies that "yes, it's a child, but it's not mine", which prompts the other two people to walk away looking visibly weirded out.
• That's No Moon:
  • Besides the obvious Star Wars reference in the Death Egg, the games feature the Space Colony ARK, which makes its first appearance in Sonic Adventure 2 disguised as a very large asteroid/meteor, half of which disintegrates to show the Eggman-like facade.
  • In Sonic the Comic story "The Return of Chaotix", Charmy think's that a massive rain storm is soon to happen, judging by the large cloud moving their way. Sonic is terrified, noticing that the "cloud" is actually "thousands of Metallixes, blotting out the sun"!
• Theme Music Power-Up:
  • The Games:

• With the Adventure series giving each playable character theme song, said theme tunes were often used as leitmotifs, which ended up having this effect at times. Take, for example, Sonic Adventure 2. Dr Eggman's Egg Golem. In the Dark Story, Eggman moves to strike Sonic, to his own theme music. Then Sonic's theme tune suddenly takes over. Sonic dodges the attack, jumps on the Golem's head, and—with a TERIAAAAA!—delivers a single flying kick to the mind-control device on the Golem's back, which destroys it and sends it attacking Eggman instead.
• In the DS version of Sonic Colors, 'Reach for the Stars' kicks in (for about ten seconds before you beat the boss, unfortunately) when you activate the 'Final Color Breaker'.
• Sonic Generations:
• In the Shadow rival battle, the stage's music gets replaced by "Live and Learn" or "All Hail Shadow", when Sonic or Shadow (respectively) gain full power of the power-up they're chasing.
• Another time is during the Time Eater boss fight, using the Super Sonic theme from Sonic the Hedgehog 4 mixed into the soundtrack. Does it first in the cutscene at the start when both Sonics turn super, and again for the last hit on the boss.
• In Sonic Forces, the main theme "Fist Bump" plays when Sonic and the Avatar team up to use Double Boost.

• They Would Cut You Up:
  • This is exactly what pissed off the Xorda in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) as Ivan Kintobor ordered soldiers to capture the Xorda representative and he dissected him. The Xorda responded by obliterating most of humanity.
  • Subverted in Sonic X. While the local authorities do take the giant humanoid bunny and her strange companion to a laboratory, at no point is it even implied that Cream and Cheese are in any actual danger.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Longclaw always stressed that Sonic had to keep his powers secret for this reason. Between the echidna tribe and Robotnik, she was right. Though it's after Sonic has spent time with Tom that the former started wondering if Longclaw was wrong and if it is possible for him to live peacefully with other people even with his powers.
• Thinking Up Portals:
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW), Eggman's new Hypercompetent Sidekick, Dr. Starline, is able to create portals to anywhere thanks to the power of the Warp Topaz in his glove.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), the main power of the Power Rings themselves is to open up doorways to different places and worlds. Longclaw first shows their ability by using one Ring to send young Sonic to Earth.
• Third-Person Person:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic Unleashed:
    • In the Japanese version, Chip does this. Notably, they continue to refer to themselves as "Chip" even after revealing their true name, Light Gaia.
    • Sadiq, an NPC in Shamar, does this in one line.

      "Wherever it is, Sadiq, Shamar's number-one tour guide, will... uh... um..."

    • Eggman does it in one line in Sonic Forces. "Dr. Eggman will still have the last laugh!" Sonic lampshades it by quipping to the Avatar, "Maybe he'd have more friends if he didn't talk about himself in the third person."

• Through a Face Full of Fur:
  • In Sonic and the Black Knight, Blaze the Cat (as Percival) has just been rescued by Sonic. Caliburn suggests that they "save the hugs and kisses for later." Cue Blaze's very first Moe moment.
  • In a "Sonic Sez" segment of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Grounder the robot's head turns pale green after smoking a cigarette.
  • Princess Sally blushes in a few episodes of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM).
  • Tails in Sonic X blushes a lot around Cosmo during the second half of Season 3.
• Time for Plan B:
  • There's this great exchange in an issue of Sonic: Universe, where Shadow the Hedgehog and his "Team Dark" attempt to get a Chaos Emerald from the God-Panda currently lording over them in the "Special Zone." After failing the mini-game, Omega turns to Shadow and asks if it's time for plan B. Shadow answers in the affirmative and Plan B basically comprises entirely of Omega unloading his entire arsenal, which makes up over half of his total mass, in the God-Panda's face.
    Omega: I enjoy Plan B!
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog in Robotnik's Laboratory, they eventually have to resort to Plan D, which Sonic hadn't actually got as far as thinking up. Fortunately, a Contrived Coincidence intervenes.
• Timey-Wimey Ball:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). Shadow's story depends on a You Already Changed the Past Stable Time Loop (Mephiles breaking out of the Scepter of Darkness in the present is the direct cause of Shadow traveling to the past and sealing Mephiles in the first place). Meanwhile, in the Future…, Sonic directly contradicts this by traveling from the Bad Future to the present and successfully Set Right What Once Went Wrong (by preventing the death that was a direct cause of the Bad Future). And due to his interactions with both Shadow and Sonic, Silver's story uses both sets of time-travel rules, depending on the scene. Even if there hadn't been a Reset Button Ending, the temporal paradoxes probably would have caused the whole plot to erase itself anyway.
    • Even that's not correct anymore, because Sonic Generations centers around the Time Eater, a creature that can take places out of time. One of the places he takes, is Crisis City, the Bad Future version of 06's world. Even though, 06 never technically happened and shouldn't feasibly exist for the Time Eater to be able to access the events that happened in it, it somehow does, meaning that '06 does exist, but doesn't exist, simultaneously. Also, you play Crisis City where '06 fits in the timeline, not adjusting for the fact that Crisis City technically comes from a future that presumably took place well after the events of Unleashed and Colors. Fair enough, since Sonic first visited Crisis City in that order, but it still adds another layer of Timey-Wimey to everything.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) screws up it's time travel rules quite confusingly. Sonic and Sally try to travel back in time to before Robotnik's coup in order to stop him, but soon discover that this is impossible and they can't change the past, merely act out or ensure predetermined events (Sonic causes Robotnik's arm to be robotized, saves his younger self from getting captured, etc.). However at the last moment Sally attempts to change the fate of her nanny by telling her future information and it works, even though it logically shouldn't have. Even more confusingly, Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory is in effect, so Sonic and Sally don't remember interacting with someone they now logically should. Sonic is appropriately confused.
  • In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog multi-parter Scratch and Grounder made it so a couple of Sonic's ancestors didn't meet, making Sonic disappear. But for some reason Tails is still there and able to fix this.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) has an interesting variation at one point. Knuckles, juiced up on Chaos Energy, was given the chance to bring back everyone on the Floating Island through his power. To do so, he keeps bouncing back in time and stopping a certain event. Not only does that have bad consequences for him, but what he doesn't know is that he keeps futzing up the actual Sonic events, creating timelines such as a pure SatAM world, one based off of the 1995 OVA and a timeline where Robotnik never initiated his coup. At the end, Knuckles decides to stop that and just bring everyone back from the prison the Dark Legion launched them into.
• Title Theme Tune:
  • "Fastest Thing Alive", the theme song of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM):
    "Blue streak / speeds by / Sonic the Hedgehog / Too fast / For the naked eye / Sonic the Hedgehog / Sonic / He can really move / Sonic / He's got an attitude / Sonic / He's the fastest thing alive!"
  • Sonic Underground's theme:
    "Sonic Underground! (Sonic) / Sonic Underground! (Sonic) / They made a vow, their mother will be found!"
  • ''Sonic X:
    • The American dub's theme:
      ""So-nic's on the run! So-nic's number one! So-nic's coming next, so watch out for Sonic X!"
    • The UK version of the theme tune takes this trope up to eleven, whereupon the entire song solely consists of only the title.
• Token Human:
  • Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik in the games until Sonic Adventure (except for Witchcart), when many human characters were introduced. However, since Sonic Colors, most Sonic games have been set out of Sonic's world, resulting in Eggman being the only human main character in them.
  • Chris Thorndyke became this in the second series (third season outside of Japan) of Sonic X, which had Sonic and his friends visiting planets populated (for the most part) by non-human aliens, and left the human cast from the first series behind (with the exception of Chris and Dr. Eggman).
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):

• Before the Reboot, the Chaotix had the soft spoken Saffron who preferred to wear dresses and the former Dark Legioner Julie-Su who has always been a bit of a warrior.

• Too Fast to Stop:
  • The Games:
    • It's actually possible to go fast enough that you could fall into a bottomless pit without realizing it right away. This gets even worse in the Sega Genesis games and the Sonic Advance Trilogy when the camera often can't keep up^note this even triggers a Game-Breaking Bug in the original game where if the camera can't vertically keep up with you if you're falling or otherwise going down really quickly, it will sometimes think you fell into a pit.
    • A more traditional example is that it almost always takes several seconds for Sonic (or any of the other characters, but especially Sonic) to slow down from full speed.
    • A less gameplay-related example would be Metal Sonic. His main weakness is that his speed relies on the engine in his torso. While he's one of the fastest characters in the series, his lack of friction and aerodynamic nature means he crashes into things very easily.
    • In a general sense, a character's Super Mode increases their movement speed to such a degree that it's near impossible to do precision platforming reliably.

• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • The Games:
    • Amy started off as sweet and helpful in her earlier appearances, but in the later games due to flanderization, she has become more aggressive, bad-tempered, and is prone to hit people with her hammer with little provocation. This can be Depending on the Writer, however.
    • Knuckles is usually humble and easy-going, even if he is slightly blunt and hot-headed, but in games like Sonic Battle and in the Sonic Rivals series, he's more hot-headed and a bit hostile towards others compared to his usual self.
    • In the Sonic Rivals series, Silver acts much ruder and hostile to everyone than in his debut in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). He seems to have gotten better in his cameo in Sonic Colors DS.
    • While both Team Dark members Shadow and Rouge aren't the most pleasant people to talk to, Sonic Free Riders takes their antagonistic tendencies argubly too far. Shadow's ego and Rouge's greed are inflated to the point of Flanderization and they basically treat everyone around them like dirt. And that's not even going into the horribly apathetic way they treat E-10000B, working the poor robot to the point where his circuits are overheating from exhaustion. The other teams are outright disgusted at their behavior and Cream in particular practically begs them to get E-10000B fixed.
    • Tails, inexplicably, does this in Sonic Lost World. The childlike naivete and humility that defined him in previous titles was spontaneously replaced with a smug, self-centered, obnoxious, whiny, and snarky attitude. He had a falling-out with Sonic because he was interested in teaming up with Dr. Eggman to corrale the Deadly Six, even though he was perfectly fine with it before! The worst part is that he never owns up to it at the end of the game.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), King Acorn in the pre-Continuity Reboot universe spiraled into this direction after the restoration of his body, disbanding the more battle-hardened Freedom Fighters to install his Secret Service and trying to force Sally into marrying Antoine, but went full tilt after his body was damaged by Antoine's Evil Counterpart Patch.
  • Amy Rose of Sonic X was initially a kindly bubbly girl with occasional Tsundere mood swings. By the final episodes she more consistently acts as an obnoxious and occasionally outright violent Stalker with a Crush to Sonic, to the point half her allies, and even some foes, are outright terrified of her.

• Tornado Move:
  • The Games:

• In Sonic Heroes, he and the other Speed characters can even whip up a tornado by rapidly moving in a circle.

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
  • One issue had Sonic take out a patrol of Swat Bots by sticking his arms out and spinning around, creating a tornado. However, Sonic starts bragging while he's still spinning, causing him to crash right into a nearby rock.
  • He's also created tornadoes by running in small circles.

• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Supplementary materials note that Tails likes Mint candies in the original games. More obvious in one of his limelight games, Tails' Skypatrol where mint candies serve as health power ups.
  • The older game manuals also mentioned Knuckles being partial to fruit, with grapes being his favorite.
  • Sonic Unleashed:
    • Starting with this game, chili dogs have now been retcanoned as Sonic’s favorite food, as they were in the previous American cartoons and comics.
    • There was Professor Pickle, who had a thing for cucumber sandwiches.
    • The Fairy Companion Chip, had a thing for chocolate. In fact, it's what inspired his name.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and Sonic Underground, Sonic loves chili dogs.
  • The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog interpretation of Doctor Robotnik was known for having a diet that contained nothing but eggs. It was noted by Grounder in one episode that "He's had eggs every day for the last ten years." In that same episode he brutally assaults Scratch and Grounder for not giving him his daily serving of eggs and made hotcakes instead.
  • Sonic from Sonic the Comic loves fast food in general but is especially into bean burgers.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
    • Sonic's is Chili cheese dogs, as has become typical for the character. He tasted his first ones at the bar, since because the hot wings he originally ordered never came on time, he tried (and accordingly ate an entire basket of) chili dogs instead during his slow-motion run through the Bar Brawl.
    • Tom being a cop loves donuts. He is said to eat donuts everyday and revolves his life around donuts by not just eating them but treating them like toys or imaginary friends to talk to.
• Tragic Villain:
  • The Games:
    • Gerald Robotnik. A champion of humanity and science, he inspired Dr. Eggman (his grandson Ivo Robotnik) into becoming a scientist while he devoted his research to cure his granddaughter Maria of her illness and caring for his creation, Shadow. However, after a massive miscommunication with GUN (and possibly involving Emerl from Sonic Battle), they stormed the ARK and the ambush led to Maria dying, taking the bullet for Shadow. With her death, Gerald became obsessed with revenge, and could not even stop himself from creating his plan to destroy Earth, even acknowledging his spiral into insanity.
    • His creation, Shadow The Hedgehog is also an iconic example. Maria was the only friend he ever had, and would basically do anything for her. Gerald knew this, and therefore he re-installed Shadow's mind to remember it as if she asked him for revenge. For that, he almost destroyed earth, until Amy convinced him that while humans can be selfish and cruel, they are trying their best to get a better world, and then he remembers what Maria truly asked him for: To help the humans of earth. That's where he does a Heel–Face Turn and sacrificed himself.
    • Chaos. He did everything out of protection for the Chao, and sought vengeance on all echidnas after their leader, Pachachamac, ordered them to kill Tikal, which truly hurt him.

• In Sonic X, Dark Oak, also known as Luke/Lucas, counts as one, as his tragic past happened during a war that took place on his former home planet of Seedrius-Flora/Greengate. Refusing to leave with the other Seedrians and abandon his home planet after having fought so long, he began using its Planet Egg to make the male Seedrians' transformations last longer to Hertia/Earthia's shock and dismay, forcing the females to destroy the males and leave them behind. But a few males survived and they became the Metarex. The motivation of Dark Oak and the Metarex is to erase all life of flesh and blood from the entire galaxy so that plants can rule, and therefore bring their own peace and tranquility to the galaxy, and they require the Planet Eggs and the seven Chaos Emeralds to do so. In the end, Dark Oak finally realizes the errors of his ways when Sonic and co. defeat him with help from Cosmo's Heroic Sacrifice - he realizes that Hertia/Earthia was right about his lust for power destroying his own people and him bringing nothing but pain and suffering to everyone. Hertia/Earthia appears before Dark Oak and gives him a second chance, and he happily reunites with her and they both depart for the afterlife.

• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • The Games:
    • A Sonic & Knuckles ad in English shows screenshots of Sonic and Knuckles' respective final bosses.
    • Metal Sonic is supposed to be the final boss of Sonic Heroes and the secret Big Bad manipulating things behind scenes, and the game and its manual treat him as a mysterious figure, refusing to call him by his true name until the final moments of the game. Despite all this, Sega of America heavily promoted the game with Metal Sonic's image.
    • Elise's bio in the English website of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) gave away the fact that she has Iblis sealed inside her and would release him upon crying. In-game, this bit of information is kept a secret until the player is well into Silver's story, with the only hint given prior to that being that Eggman wants her due to her being the key to the mystery of the Flames of Disaster.
    • Before Sonic Unleashed was released, there was at least one trailer for EACH ZONE except the last, on BOTH versions of the game. What's worse is this: The trailers were each around a minute long, and usually showed both day and night stages. Each zone in the Wii/PS2 version (save one) has ONE primary day stage, that can be easily beaten in somewhere around three minutes (a requirement for all medals, actually). Therefore, at least a sixth of each stage was spoiled. In at least two cases, this included the GOAL RING.
    • One of the trailers for Sonic and the Black Knight reveals Excalibur Sonic.
    • Sonic Generations was also bad about this. For a game all about reliving Sonic's history, they revealed literally every stage, boss, and rival in the game except for the final boss (the only one not to be from a previous game) in the trailers leading up to release.
    • While not trailer-related, Sega of America is a huge offender when it comes to media and ads related to Sonic games. The American manual of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has the story, but when you turn the page... BAM! The second picture shows a snapshot of the start of the final boss of the entire game. If you read the manual before turning on the game, good luck getting to it. The App Store page for the 2013 remake is just as bad about it, as the screenshot advertising the Boss Attack mode◊ showed the exact same boss.
    • American Sonic manuals tend to have lists of all of the game's levels (even the secret final ones that must be unlocked), with screenshots and descriptions.
  • The first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) ends with Dr. Robotnik marooned on a mushroom world, having gone bald, and sporting a giant mustache – making him resemble his video game counterpart, which only happens in the first stinger.
• Trapped in Another World:
  • Sonic is trapped in the Special Zone for about fifteen issues in Sonic the Comic.
  • Sonic X:
    • The series starts with Sonic and his friends getting stuck in an alternate dimension. In this case, they're transported to Earth from their World of Funny Animals home.
    • In the adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2, it is shown that Eggman was born on Earth and later ended up on Sonic's planet.
  • At the end of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Sonic uses his rings to banish him from Earth and trap him on the Mushroom Planet. By the time of The Stinger, he's been trapped there for 87 days and gone mad from the isolation, but nonetheless vows to return to Earth.
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay: Present in a lot of the games from the classic era (and Sonic Mania). You may try running full speed ahead one second, which is what many perceive to be the whole point of the series, only to crash into an enemy — or worse, get crushed by an object that then makes you lose a life — the next, as a result of having mere milliseconds to react to these things before they appear. Better sections in the series will have a short wall or upward spikes to let you know when it's time to stop running. This is, however, by design as series creator, Yuji Naka, had a fascination with memorizing levels to find the fastest route; this love of speedrunning was the inspiration for Sonic's mechanics and level design.
• Trilogy:
  • Classic: Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles (not including Sonic CD, Sonic 4, or Mania)
  • Adventure: SA1, SA2, and Heroes (followed by Shadow the Hedgehog)
  • Advance: Sonic Advance, Advance 2, and Advance 3
  • Rush: Sonic Rush, Rush Adventure, and the Nintendo DS version of Sonic Colors
  • Riders: Sonic Riders, Zero Gravity, and Free Riders
  • Racing: All-Stars Racing, All-Stars Racing Transformed, and Team Sonic Racing
  • Dash: Sonic Dash, Sonic Dash 2: Sonic Boom, and Sonic Forces: Speed Battle,
  • Boom: Rise of Lyric, Shattered Crystal, and Fire & Ice
• True Love's Kiss:

• In the 50th issue of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Sonic's kiss wakes Princess Sally from a coma.

• Two Girls to a Team:
  • Sonic Adventure: Amy and Tikal
  • Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Rivals, and Sonic Forces: Amy and Rouge
  • Advance games: Amy and Cream
  • Sonic Riders: Amy and Wave
  • Sonic Rush: Blaze and Cream
  • Sonic Rush Adventure: Blaze and Marine
  • Mario & Sonic: Amy and Blaze
  • Sonic Lost World: Amy and Zeena
  • Sonic Boom: Amy and Sticks

U

• Uncertain Doom:
  • Near the end of Sonic Forces, Eggman drags Infinite back to base and relieves him of his Phantom Ruby after he loses to the heroes for the last time, which is the last we see of him. Given the Ruby was embedded in his chest, it's unclear if removing it would kill him or not.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), because the portal ring closes before it's shown what happened, it's not clear whether the Echidna Tribe killed Longclaw or not.
• Undying Loyalty:
  • Throughout the games, Tails being Sonic's devoted right hand man is usually one consistent.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Agent Stone is an absolute kiss-up to Doctor Robotnik. Ironically, despite Robotnik complaining that humans are useless compared to perfectly obedient machines, Agent Stone does everything he's told without question or complaint.
• Unexplained Accent:
  • In Sonic Adventure 2, there's a scene where Eggman sees a news broadcast of Shadow stealing a Chaos Emerald and being mistaken for Sonic. The newscaster, for whatever reason, has a thick English accent, despite the fact that the city the game is set in is a pretty blatant Expy of San Francisco. Further, the actress clearly isn't actually English, and putting on the accent is making her delivery extremely awkward. Why the actress simply couldn't use her natural voice remains a mystery.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), Antoine Depardieu has a French name and accent despite everyone else around him having some sort of American accent. This is unexplained, except for a throw-away line that he had training in the "Delmont Province". The accent seems to be mostly there to have him fit the stereotype of a Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey (er...coyote).
• Uniqueness Decay:
  • The Games:
    • The Chaos Emeralds both invert the trope and play it straight. In the original game, their purpose was just to unlock the Golden Ending. From the second game onwards they became Plot Coupons that could be used as an unlimited source of energy and also unlocked the protagonist's Super Mode. In Sonic Rush and its sequel, the Sol Emeralds, a second set found in another dimension, are introduced, and before that there were the Time Gems and the the Chaos Rings.
    • Also, many of the cast had similar powers or statistics, but often at least some unique attribute. As time passed, more characters were created to mimic another's ability with only minor differences in controlling, so as to enable more counterparts for story mode and multiplayer. This was taken to the point that Sonic Heroes grouped together all the characters into "Speed", "Fly" or "Power" categories based on their abilities.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) and the Echidna race. First, there was just Knuckles. Then, we're introduced to his uncle, the power-mad Enerjak, and learn that Knux's father, Locke, was alive. Then, there's Athair, a former Guardian-turned-mystic. Then, we're introduced to the Dark Legion right before Echidnaopolis reappears with an entire city of Echidnas. Then, we learn that Athair is leading an entire tribe of echidnas to a mystical city of Echidnas. Before the Time Skip, we had Echidnas coming out of the woodwork. The time skip culled them down and the Continuity Reboot reset it back to how it was.
  • In Sonic the Comic hedgehogs are spiky and brown. Sonic turned blue in the same accident that gave him superspeed. Amy is pink furred, but it wasn't initially explained why (though her fashion-savvy nature might suggest she dyes her fur). The 1998 story "Amy's Secret Past" finally gave a reason: years ago, Robotnik was building a machine to emulate Sonic's powers. Amy (already a tomboyish Freedom Fighter despite it being too early for that) caught wind of it and stopped him. Amy was thrown into the machine, which fused her quills and turned her pink.

• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic depending on the game. Outside of the occasional wind based attack, all Sonic really has to go on is running really fast, rolling around really fast and breakdancing. Compared to a lot of his other cast members, his powerset is pretty basic and linear. but that doesn't exactly mean he can't get a bit creative to fill the gaps.
    • Chaos Zero is this whenever he shows up in a playable capacity. Lacking the advanced skills he gains after absorbing the emeralds, all he can really do is amble around slughishly and punch things. He's still able to make good progress in some cases because of how hard and how far he can punch.
    • Storm the Albatross from Sonic Riders. He's a big and clumsey thug, quite possibly one of the least coordinated characters in the games as a whole and his fighting skills are limited to tossing out haymakers and slapping things really hard. Given that he's strong enough to crush boulders with a punch and slap entire semi-trucks out of his path if need-be, that's is all he really needs to get by.
    • Infinite in Sonic Forces is a Superpower Lottery winner. He can fly, has Super-Strength, Super-Speed (even greater than Sonic), incredible durability and powerful energy blasts. But that's nothing compared to the powers of the Phantom Ruby, which can create intricate illusions so realistic that anything that happens to the victim happens to them in reality, which makes Infinite practically a Reality Warper. He can also use the Ruby to create construct copies of any character with all their powers, personality and memories of the original, and also alter them to make them much stronger and more dangerous. He can even use the Phantom Ruby to create inescapable black holes. However, the Phantom Ruby does all the work: all his fights are him basically floating around, using the Phantom Ruby and his blasts, and his only physical attack is a rather weak and easily avoidable forward dash attack. It is implied that he considers "real" fighting to be beneath him now, and whenever his powers are weakened or neutralised, he quickly finds himself in trouble. In addition, even with the Phantom Ruby, Eggman shows a lot more proficiency with it's use than he does.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • Enerjak. Demigod powers at his minimum, he constantly underestimates his opponents, becomes extremely frustrated with those on his level that he can't simply steamroll over, (causing him to make careless mistakes), and doesn't know how to strategize. Not helping is the fact that prior to gaining his power, Dimitri was a scientist echidna, not a warrior, so he has no experience in actual fighting. Knuckles, who is a trained fighter, lands several good hits on him, and even points out to him; "All that power and I'm still surprised at what a glass jaw you have!" and; "You may be stronger, but do you even know how to fight?"
      
      For a contrast, Mammoth Mogul, upon stealing Enerjak's power, was definitely more dangerous, specifically because he's had over a millennium to learn and master multiple different forms of combat, and was a match for Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles super forms simultaneously.
    • This is revisited in a Bad Future storyline, where Silver fights Dark Enerjak, An evil version of Knuckles, who matches him blow for blow in terms of pure power. When Silver starts using strategy in conjunction, Enerjak can't adapt and ultimately loses.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Sonic generally uses his speed to get through trouble, and since he's too fast no one can keep up with him or catch him. When Robotnik is able to match him in speed with his own skill, he briefly freaks out as that's the first time it's happened. And from then on, he has to rely on strategy, and eventually assistance from Tom, to defeat him.
• Unwilling Roboticization: Zigzagged.
  • First appearing as Early-Installment Weirdness from the earliest days of the franchise, the prototype idea for Eggman's villainy was that he would turn his victims into robots, only for the developers to decide in favor of the Lighter and Softer approach of having him stuff each animal inside of his robots to be their Living Battery instead. The Darker and Edgier adaptations like Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) would run with the roboticization and become the Trope Namer.
  • In the late modern era of the franchise, however, the trope began making inroads back into the main franchise itself. Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood has explicitly roboticized animals like the robo-dillos, and Sonic Forces ads featuring Eggman's propaganda for the Eggman Empire have him refer to his "robotomy treatment", showing innocent animals being turned into robots.
• Urban Fantasy: The series blends fantasy elements like the Chaos Emeralds with urban environments. Said environments were especially prominent in the post-Sonic Adventure era, but they were present in the classic games too, albeit less prominently.

V

• Vanity Is Feminine:
  • Sonic Lost World has Zeena of the Deadly Six, who largely cares more about doing her nails and makeup than helping her teammates take care of Sonic. Sonic, being Sonic, takes the time to mock her about it:
  Zeena: "The last time we met, you ruined my nail art. Now I have to reapply a whole new coat."
  Sonic: "Oh, my gosh, are you serious?! I am so, so sorry."
  Zeena: "Oh! Well, in that case..."
  Sonic: "Uh, no. What I meant to say is I am so sorry that you have nothing better to do in life!"
  • In the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) issue where Sally cuts her hair and coyly asks Sonic if he likes it, he responds that he'd never known her to be "so... girly." (Ironically this was intended as a sign of her de-Chickification, which had had her mooning and crying and generally being passive and ineffective.)
• Victory by Endurance:
  • Attempted but defied in Sonic and the Secret Rings. Despite being knocked out of his final boss form by Sonic, Erazor gloats that he's an immortal genie and can simply get back up and keep going until he beats Sonic. But he didn't count on Shahra having left Erazor's lamp for Sonic. Sonic defeats Erazor by sealing him within the lamp.
  • Defied in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics). Mogul hates Sonic with a passion, but has an ace up his sleeve: Mogul has Complete Immortality, and Sonic does not. Mogul chooses to show Pragmatic Villainy and just bide his time until Sonic dies, then try to Take Over the World. Too bad for Mogul that Sonic and the rest of the Freedom Fighters still don't make things easy for Mogul, and continuously thwart his schemes, whether they'll live to see them stopped or not.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie: This comes into play during Sonic and Metal Sonic's climactic battle. Due to their Psychic Link, they're able to anticipate one another's actions, making the fight exactly even. However, Sonic eventually begins to wear down, allowing Metal to get the upper hand and nearly kill him.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic Adventure 2 has Eggman's grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, who wanted to destroy the world. Seems like pretty typical supervillain stuff, but what makes him this trope is his surprisingly tragic backstory and motive, namely getting revenge on the world for the death of his granddaughter, Maria, which he blames both the people of Earth and himself for. The clincher is a pair of scenes, one of a speech of his before his execution and another where the main characters come across his diary that outlines his guilt-ridden slip into insanity, exacerbated by the good writing and how his actor nails the voice of a man with nothing left to live for.
    • Sonic Heroes, while a lighthearted break from the previous games, also contains Neo Metal Sonic, the traitorous creation of Eggman’s who kidnaps him and impersonates him, uses T-1000 like powers to take on horrifying draconic forms, and is taken seriously.
    • Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) has Mephiles the Dark, who manipulates the entire cast so he can eventually fuse with other Iblis to become his true self, Solaris, and destroy the time and space continuum. He also ends up killing the main protagonist and then laughing at Elise crying afterwards sadistically. The reason why Mephiles is as bad as he is? None.
    • While the games are in general Lighter and Softer from 2006 until Forces, the first game of that period, Sonic Unleashed featured an Eldritch Abomination known as Dark Gaia, who possesses Sonic and many others, swarming the planet with darkness, before revealing its horrifying true form. Sonic ultimately puts its eye out.
    • While Sonic Lost World is easily the cheeriest and bubbliest game in the series so far, it also is home to the Deadly Six, who managed to pick off Sonic’s allies one by one in a successful effort to break his spirit, and managed to claim the life energy of the entire planet to use it to empower themselves and later destroy the planet. Unlike other examples in the series, they do have plenty of comedic qualities, and Zavok seems to respect his “brothers” Zazz and Zomom, as well as his Master Zik. His later appearances, however, have him toned down.
    • Sonic Forces has Infinite, who was personally responsible for one of the series' darkest moments by effortlessly defeating Sonic, clearing the way for Eggman to Take Over the World within mere days. He's also one of the few villains in the series to be shown murdering someone onscreen; in this case, he killed the Avatar's teammates and gave Cruel Mercy to the Avatar with the intent of traumatizing them. Infinite was also responsible for one of the Resistance's biggest defeats, as a simple activation of his powers caused 80% of the Resistance to be defeated during the siege of Metropolis.
  • Zigzagged in Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM); the show is not especially Saccharine as, despite its Funny Animal protagonists, it's presented as a very bleak world. But, prior depictions of Mobius had been the cutesy, brightly colored videogames, and the somewhat bizarre but still mostly happy Mobius of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. In those worlds, Big Bad Dr. Robotnik was a goofy, bumbling idiot, who actually looked fairly cute and harmless in the games. In this show? Dr. Robotnik, voiced by Jim Cummings, is an ugly, twisted, heartless individual, established from the outset as ruthless, cold, spiteful, malicious — and worst of all, competent. Every battle against him was a legitimate struggle, and it's made quite clear that all of the bleakness and ugliness in Mobius stems from his cold, black heart. The zagging came in the second season, when Robotnik was made considerably more goofy and comedic, which took most of the sting out of him. He was set to become replaced by a new vile villain, Ixis Naugus, but the show got cancelled before this could happen.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), despite being in a lighthearted buddy comedy film and having humorous qualities himself, Robotnik still stands out for being a cruel, unpleasant, sociopathic asshole with no redeeming traits.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left:
  • The Games:
    • Present in most titles, especially when Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik is the main (and only) boss. Every time you defeat him, he comes back again in a bigger and sometimes-more-dangerous mecha to menace Sonic again and again.
    • Also very fond of this are Captain Whisker and his crew, the robot pirates from Sonic Rush Adventure. Since the cutscenes are just character art and text on a background, there was no need to explain how this was possible, and so the phrase "he got away again!" and variants thereof get used many, many times. This is also repeatedly Lampshaded:
      Sonic: Argh! He ran off again!
      Blaze: Those guys just will not sit still!
  • Invoked in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) issue #8. After beating Robotnik's super hero themed robots, Sonic is about to beat him up but slips on some motor oil. Robotnik then escapes riding Crabmeat, after which, Sonic pulls out the Comics Code handbook and comments that the villain always gets away in the end.

• Villain with Good Publicity:
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), this status was bestowed on long-time villain Ixis Naugus. Due to a combination of the public's mistrust of NICOLE following her previous brainwashing by the Iron Queen (fueled by Naugus' own Hate Plague magic) and Naugus' own actions to defend New Mobotropolis from both Eggman and the Battle Bird Armada, his support amongst the citizens reaches the point that they gladly appoint him their king. This ended up coming back at him when New Mobotropolis was rescued by NICOLE and Team Freedom (which was comprised of former council member Rotor, Actual Pacifist Cream and Cheese, Gentle Giant Big the Cat and reformed Badniks Heavy and Bomb), making Naugus look like a fool and allowing Rotor's replacement, Isabella Mongoose (that's Mina's mom), to demand NICOLE's return and sending him on a Villainous Breakdown.
  • Sonic X at one point does this with Eggman, when he claims to have blocked the sun by accident when his "Eggmoon" stops working when he really uses it as an excuse to be a hero and sell his lights for income. His robot lackeys, meanwhile, switch sides more often than football supporters. With the aforementioned sun-blocking via his Eggmoon, Sonic goes about destroying Eggman's towers, and even Sonic's friends perceive him to be the villain until Sonic explicitly tells everybody that the Eggmoon couldn't block out the sun all the time unless Eggman was moving it by himself.
• Villain World:
  • In Sonic Forces, Dr. Eggman finally achieves world domination with the help of a new villain named Infinite. Giant towering robots raze the land while characters such as Shadow the Hedgehog, Chaos, Metal Sonic, and Zavok help him in his campaign of destruction. Only an underground resistance movement stands in his way, with Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic, and the Avatar leading the charge against him.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) starts with Robotnik having already conquered most of the world. Sonic and friends make up the ragtag rebellion trying to take down Robotnik's uncontrolled industrial pollution and saving a population that's been massively Reforged Into Minions with his machines.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • The Comic starts off with Robotnik ruling the world and the Freedom Fighters aiming to overthrow him. They eventually succeed, but an alternate version of Robotnik shows up and retakes the planet, forcing them to start over again. Also has an example with Sonic's Mirror Universe counterpart, who after gaining power from the Master Emerald and renaming himself Scourge, took over his version of Mobius. A story arc with Silver in the Sonic Universe spinoff series also had an alternate Bad Future where Knuckles, during a point where he gained a near omnipotent Physical God super form, had a series of events that led to him turning evil, and eventually insane, taking up the mantle of an old foe of his named Enerjak. Despite gaining a 0% Approval Rating due to his descent into madness, he was so powerful none cast had any chance at stopping him, and the Freedom Fighters that Silver found in when he traveled to that timeline were only around because Enerjak was bored and let them live for entertainment.
    • While Robo-Robotnik does take over Robotnik-Prime's empire, the Freedom Fighters had gained enough ground in the interim that they had no problem pinning him down... The real point that his arc turned Mobius back into a proper Villain World is after the Xorda show up and Sonic gets teleported to the other side of the galaxy. With Sonic out of the way, Eggman was able to dominate the Kingdom of Acorn, as well as Angel Island, and the rest of his former empire.
  • The major premise of Sonic the Comic. In issue #8 Sonic was thrown months into the future, giving Robotnik enough time to Take Over the World. The comic then became about Sonic leading resistance against him, ending in victory in issue #100.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • The Games:
    • In Sonic Adventure, when Tails beats Eggman to the missile in Station Square, Eggman loses all sense of Large Ham-ness and, when he returns with the Egg Walker, he hisses out "You fool. Away. Before I make mincemeat out of you." The breakdown had actually taken place earlier, when his plan to destroy it via Chaos was foiled and his Egg Carrier was destroyed. Just after this, he had attempted to nuke the whole city (and by extension himself) with the aforementioned missile out of spite.
    • Metal Sonic in Sonic Heroes suffers from one throughout the Final Boss fight against Super Sonic and the powered-up Tails and Knuckles.
      Metal Sonic: Sonic... I was created for the sole purpose of destroying you. But, I could never seem to defeat you! That is why I transformed my body with my own hands!
      [...]
      Super Sonic: [after scoring the first hit] Hmph! You thought you could beat me by transforming into some sort of monster?
      Metal Sonic: But, that was in the past. Now, you're nothing more than a speck of dust to me.
      [...]
      Metal Sonic: [after taking the third hit] See me as I am, no longer afraid of anything! I shall become the ultimate overlord, ruling as the world's most supreme being!
      Metal Sonic: [after taking the final hit] Guoooo! Why! I had it all! I am the ultimate overlord, Metal Sonic! I am the real Sonic!
    • In the ending of Sonic and the Secret Rings, Erazor Djinn taunts Sonic about his immortality and how he can come back again and again... until Sonic pulls out his lamp, reversing Erazor's grin. After Erazor is forced to bring back Shahra and reverse the damage he's done via two wishes, Sonic makes the third wish, to seal him in his lamp forever. This is where Erazor REALLY breaks down:
      Erazor: Shahra, I know you're there! Please, stop him! We can start over, the two of us! I swear it! I swear it...! THE WORLD IS MINE! I CANNOT BE DENIED BY THAT FILTHY RAT! WHHHHHHYYYYY?!?^note Sonic's wonderfully calm response was to correct Erazor that he was in fact a hedgehog, not a rat.
    • In Sonic Colors, Eggman suffers from one right before the Final Color Blaster. It's notably the first time he's been reduced to complete incoherence in the games.
      Eggman: You. You... You...! Yooooouuuu!! YOU HORRID LITTLE HEDGEHOG!!!
    • Eggman again in Sonic Lost World (but only in the 3DS version).
      Eggman: I'm sick of you getting in the way EVERY SINGLE TIME!!
  • Robotnik in the Grand Finale of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), as Robotropolis explodes and he is forced to flee, references his catchphrase from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:
    Robotnik: I really... hate... that hedgehog... I hate him. I hate him! HATE HIIIMMM!! Hate! Hate!! HATE!!! HAAAAAATE!!!!!!
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • Dr. Eggman began to suffer mentally as a result of the constant defeat at Sonic's hands. This finally came forward after his latest defeat, which turned him into a babbling madman. He spent the next few issues in a padded cell, wearing a straitjacket.
    • Scourge also qualifies. After being betrayed by The Supression Squad and ganged up on by everybody, he retreats to his throne and goes super from the Anarchy Beryls he's stashed there. Then as he blasted everyone off of him and hunts down Sonic, he declares that he's going to spin dash both Mobius and Moebius in half, simply because he can.
  • During the "Sonic Adventure" storyline of Sonic the Comic, Dr. Robotnik cracks and goes from wanting to conquer the world to just flat-out destroying it because he sees it as the only way to rid himself of Sonic.
  • Throughout Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Dr. Robotnik gets more and more frustrated by Sonic and Tom's ability to avoid him. At the finale, he really loses it. When his Berserk Button gets pressed by Tom, he loses focus, and Sonic banishes Robotnik to the Mushroom Planet with a Power Ring as a result. There, Robotnik starts to Go Mad from the Isolation, complete with a Madness Makeover. In spite of that, Robotnik confidently vows that he'll find a way back and take his revenge on everyone.
• Villainous Friendship:
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide, Dr. Eggman and Dr. Wily start the Crisis Crossover because they find a mutual friend and kindred spirit in one another. The partnership works out very well up until late in the series: the stress of their failure to stop Sonic and Megaman, despite their teamup, combined with the fact that Dr. Eggman is a murderous psychopath who will casually throw Dr. Light to his death from their vessel once he decides Dr. Light is too dangerous to keep alive, which offends Dr. Wily because A: he considers that going too far and B: he wanted to keep Dr. Light alive to rub his triumph in Light's face, causes an irreconcilable break-up between the villains. They promptly start double-crossing each other and further ruin their efforts to stop Sonic and Megaman.
  • Bowser and Dr. Eggman take an instant liking to each other in the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series, and form a Big Bad Duumvirate in the story modes. These two bad guys get along quite well and maintain a steady alliance throughout, mostly due to their Commonality Connection, and they really dislike Sonic and Mario. Bowser Jr and Metal Sonic form a steady bond in the same series as well.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), the closest thing Dr. Robotnik has to a friend is Agent Stone, and even then, Robotnik barely tolerates him, acting rude and contemptuous of him despite Stone doing everything Robotnik asks him to.
• Villains Out Shopping:
  • Sonic Boom:
    • Despite being a notable villain, Eggman can be seen ordering hamburgers, complaining about mail service, and leisurely passing through the village in-between his attempts to destroy it.
    • The episode "Can an Evil Genius Crash on Your Couch for a Few Days?" plays with this. It opens with Eggman showing up on Sonic's doorstep in the middle of a rainy night, explaining that his island fortress has been destroyed and he needs a place to stay until it's repaired. Sonic reluctantly allows him to stay, and the rest of the first half or so of the episode shows Eggman, Sonic and Tails hanging out, playing board games, watching TV together, and Eggman even helps with the chores and helps Tails with his work. Then it's subverted when Eggman reveals that his fortress wasn't destroyed after all, and him staying over at Sonic and Tails's was part of his plan to keep them from getting any sleep, meaning they'll be too tired to stop his latest evil scheme.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), there's a scene with Robotnik enthusiastically dancing and getting down to "Where Evil Grows" by The Poppy Family in his lair (complete with red disco lighting and being chased by a virtual T. rex) while Sonic's quill is being scanned, only to be surprised by Agent Stone standing nearby and watching with his coffee.
    Robotnik: AAAAAAAGH!
    Stone: I just thought you might like a latte with steamed Austrian goat milk.
    Robotnik ...What do I look like, an imbecile? Of course I want a latte. I LOVE THE WAY YOU MAKE THEM!
• "The Villain Sucks" Song:
  • In Sonic Heroes, the song "What I'm Made Of", which is usually seen as Metal Sonic's Villain Song, can also be interpreted as Sonic's Badass Boast to Metal, daring him to come and copy his power and see how it's gonna end up for him.
  • When Dr. Eggman is found out not to have his doctorate in the Sonic Boom episode "Mister Eggman", the entire village sings about how they no longer fear him and give him the new nickname "Mr. Eggman". Which Eggman just misses.
    Eggman: Why do you all look like you just finished a musical number?
• Violently Protective Girlfriend:
  • A one-sided example occurs in the games with Amy Rose, exemplified when Silver tried to kill Sonic. A pic of her Death Glare during this scene is a good page image candidate.
  • In the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), if you try attacking Knuckles, you're going to end up in a world of pain anyway. Attack him in front of Julie-Su and that's only going to be doubled. Good luck trying to weasel out of that one...
• Vocal Evolution:
  • The Games:

• Sonic's first voice, Ryan Drummond, changed things up a little too. He sounds calmer in Sonic Adventure, then more energetic and a tad deeper for Sonic Heroes. His voice in Sonic Adventure 2 is essentially middle-ground.
• Mike Pollock's voice as Eggman has also undergone many great changes, from a near-exact match for the late Deem Bristow to menacing and serious in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) to hamming it up to high Heaven in Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations.
• Cindy Robinson's take on Amy was initially a rather squeaky Minnie Mouse-ish falsetto type voice. As games progressed, and especially following her work on Sonic Boom, her voice sounds much more relaxed and younger sounding, closer to how previous actors portrayed her. Between Sonic Lost World and Sonic Forces, Amy's voice in the games switched to match her Sonic Boom voice.

• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog has examples featuring both Scratch and Grounder;
  • If you watch some of the earliest episodes, you'll notice that they talk quite differently from their later performances— Scratch is voiced with a New York-influenced accent, whereas Grounder has a lower, stupider voice. These attributes disappeared over the course of the series. (Grounder still sounded dumb, but less so.)
  • An odd case in the German dub: Gerald Paradies and Oliver Feld had already adopted voices for the henchbots right from the get-go, but during the flashback in the first episode, Feld's voice for Scratch was really his own (up to the line "Mein zwillingsbruder? Bin ich so haesslisch?!"); then when he first interacts with Grounder, Feld switches back to the previous voice. Also, Paradies' Grounder also got slightly higher over the episodes.
• In the pilot episode of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) Princess Sally's voice sounded younger and more shrill. For the rest of the series, Kath Soucie used her natural speaking voice, albeit with occasional slight fluctuations between lower and higher pitched.
• Sonic X:
  • In the English dub, Decoe and Bocoe were originally voiced in stiff Robo Speak. As episodes passed however, they slowly began to fluctuate more frequently and eventually gained whiny emotional human-like voices akin to their Japanese counterparts.
  • Jimmy Zoppi's voice for Vector sounded drastically different in the character's first appearance, with a much more gravelly sarcastic sounding tone. Come his later appearances he has a much more throaty No Indoor Voice that almost sounds like an imitation of Bobcat Goldthwait. This change carried into his work in the games series.

• Roger Craig Smith's performance as Sonic in Sonic Boom is a noticably lower and more natural pitch than his voice for the games incarnation.
• Throughout Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Robotnik's voice is more or less Jim Carrey in Large Ham mode, but by the time of the ending, his voice has noticeably become a lot gravellier since his banishment to the Mushroom World. In fact, it comes off as quite an impressive impersonation of Eggman's traditional voice actor, Mike Pollock.

• Voluntary Shapeshifting:
  • Neo Metal Sonic has this ability in Sonic Heroes, demonstrating the ability in various cutscenes. Some of the forms he takes on include Dr. Eggman and Sonic himself, with his shapeshifting ability taking cues from the Mimetic polyalloy from Terminator 2.
  • The character E.V.E. from Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) was able to shift shapes to become stronger after each defeat by the titular hedgehog. She did this so flawlessly that Sonic even thought he was being attacked by multiple opponents. After reaching her ultimate form, however, this power was no longer used and may be an example of Shapeshifter Mode Lock.
  • D.U.F.U.S., Dr. Quark's robot from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode, "Robotnik's Rival" has this ability. At one point in the episode, he uses this ability to transform into Sonic and Tails and trick Robotnik and Quark when the real Sonic and Tails escape from Robotnik's dungeon. He feels guilty about tricking his master afterwards...but he gets over it, about ten seconds later.
  • Mimic the Octopus from Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) is a sinister yet limited example. He can only mimic another person's form, but not their abilities and his telltale sign is his brown eyes when morphed. When he was finally captured, he broke into a shapeshifting rage, turning into monstrous versions of other characters, particularly Vector.

W

• Walking the Earth:
  • In the games, this is the modus operandi for Sonic - every time he trounces Eggman and saves the world, he's off looking for the next big adventure.
  • A few storylines in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) had the Blue Blur and his Freedom Fighter friends travelling the globe to save the day:
    • The first instance was Sonic and Tails hunting down Ixis Naugus after his attempt to take over Mobotropolis failed.
    • The second instance when after Sally was roboticized, leading Sonic, Tails, and Amy to hunt her and Eggman down to save her.
    • The entire Shattered World Saga was this, with the Freedom Fighters travelling across the shattered planet to help people and to find the Chaos Emeralds so they can fix the world.

• Walking Spoiler:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic Heroes
    • Mentioning that Shadow the Hedgehog is in this game would clue you in to the fact that he didn't really die in the previous game. Then again, the fact that he had his own game after that, and has appeared in most Sonic games in some fashion since then, the fact that anyone ever thought he was actually dead is taken for granted.
    • Metal Sonic being the Big Bad in that game, although spoiled by trailers and even in-game cinematics and other materials, was a very big revelation at the time of Heroes' release, although it's not so much heavily under wraps these days.
    • In Sonic and the Black Knight, Merlina's really the Big Bad throughout the entire game, despite her benevolent actions at first which hides her ulterior motives.
    • Sonic Mania has Infinite's involvement. It is implied that the entire plot of the game is chasing after power that is connected to Infinite and the events of the end of the game sets the entire stage of Sonic Forces in motion.
  • The fact that Tails shows up at all in Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) is a spoiler in and of itself; he had never been mentioned before his brief appearance in The Stinger.
• We Are Not Going Through That Again:
  • In the second of the "Shadow Saga" (Issue #2) in Sonic Universe. Shadow requests Sonic's help in destroying a deadly cannon of Eggman's all the while we see a compressed rendition of Sonic Adventure 2 played side by side with the current timeline story. Eventually, that ends with Shadow plummeting to Earth after helping to stop the Biolizard as Sonic tries to reach out for him and presumed dead. While in the present Shadow has managed to use his powers to keep the cannon from firing and nearly drops to his death after exhausting it. This time, however, Sonic grabs him before he does citing "Yeah, we're not going through that again."
  • Sonic Boom:
    • In "Can an Evil Genius Crash on Your Couch for a Few Days?" Sonic lets Dr. Eggman stay at his house for a few days while the latter's base is under renovation. It later turns out this was a ruse so Eggman could exhaust Sonic and his friends so they'd be too tired to stop his Obliteratorbot. The Obliteratorbot malfunctions and attacks Eggman's base, forcing Eggman to team up with Sonic and his friends to stop it. At the end of the episode, when Eggman's base is destroyed for real, Sonic just decides to drop Eggman off at his destroyed base.
    • In "The Curse of the Cross-eyed Moose", Sticks sends her and her friends on a perilous journey to find a marmoset monkey when she believes they are cursed following her encounter with a cross-eyed moose. At the end of the episode, after Sticks believes the curse is removed, she comes across a moss-covered, seven-legged spider, believing she and her friends are cursed again. Before she can send them on another perilous journey, Knuckles flicks the spider away and says, "Curse broken!"
• We Can Rule Together:
  • The Games:
    • In Shadow the Hedgehog, you can choose to fight with or against Black Doom, and you can switch whenever you choose.
    • Likewise, Mephiles pulls this on Shadow in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
      Mephiles: Come with me, Shadow. Let us punish this foolish world of humanity.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • The villainous wizard Ixis Naugus attempts to sway his fellow villain Mammoth Mogul to his side. The trope is inverted somewhat when Naugus realises that Mogul is the more powerful villain of the two, and immediately swears himself into Mogul's service.
    • Scourge suggests to Sonic that they work together and rule the multiverse, the two of them working as one, because they're so powerful. You even get the feeling he wouldn't betray Sonic if he'd agreed to Scourge's way of thinking. Sonic freezes up, and Scourge takes it as a serious consideration, but Sonic later explains that he was so utterly disgusted at the suggestion that he couldn't even speak.
• Weak, but Skilled:
  • The Games:
    • Amy Rose. While she lacks the raw speed and athletic ability of pretty much anyone else within Sonic's circle, she's able to make use of her hammer, acrobatics and tarot magic to keep up. Notably, she actually spends a lot of the side-games of the Dreamcast era working to avert this in order to earn Sonic's respect and become a true hero like him. Some of the later games have her play a more active role in Sonic's adventures.
    • Cream the Rabbit. Being one of the youngest in Sonic's crew, she's obviously going to be very physically weak. However as many a foe (and player) has come to find out, when Cream teams up with Cheese, her chao companion, she can shred through enemies just as easily as anyone else.

• Amy from Sonic the Comic. She never gains the raw power of Sonic or Knuckles, but her smarts and ranged combat abilities allow her to be almost as effective under the right conditions.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), as shown in the Bar Brawl, Sonic doesn't have much strength behind him in a straight-up fist fight where he can't use his speed power; when he does Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs on a large biker, it does nothing at all. Instead, he wins by dropping a mounted bear's head on top of the thug and tripping him.

• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • The Games:
    • One dealing with a story element rather than character: In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, if you got all the Chaos Emeralds (from the Sonic 3 part) you could, in addition to turning into Super Sonic, upgrade them into "Super Emeralds" in the Sonic & Knuckles part. If you got all of these you could become Hyper Sonic, who was like Super Sonic only even more powerful. After this, the Super Emeralds and Hyper Sonic are never seen or mentioned again.
    • By the end of Sonic Lost World, the Deadly Six fight Sonic in Lava Mountain... and their fate after Sonic defeats them is never addressed. The DS version has them recycle their flying away animation while the Wii U version shows them poofing away in smoke. Eggman also mentions finding a way to bring them back under his control, so it's ambiguous if they died and he plans to revive them or are still alive in some way.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM):
    • The first season had at least one episode where Sally is searching for her father. In the second season, she finds him, but no attempt was made to connect it with the clues found in her previous searches.
    • In another second-season episode, they alter the past to ensure that their nanny survives to the present day, and it's revealed at the end of the episode that she does — and is never seen again.
  • In one of the two released pilots of Sonic X, there is a very short clip of that seems to show Sonic glowing silver and with larger quills, suggesting a new type of Super Form (or possibly the anime's take on Hyper Sonic). This form never appears or is mentioned throughout the entire running of the series. A picture of the hedgehog appeared on the official Japanese website of the anime, with the filename Nazo.jpg, with the word "Nazo" meaning "Mystery" in Japanese.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
    • Agent Stone disappears once Robotnik heads to San Francisco, with his fate unknown. It's implied that the military may have arrested him.
    • The military personnel that Robotnik meets with in Green Hills are nowhere to be seen after Robotnik tracks Sonic to Tom's house.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) explored this concerning Nicole the Holo-Lynx with the Sonic Universe storyline "Spark of Life". Dr. Ellidy, Nicole's accidental creator, is very put off around Nicole due to the fact that Nicole was actually his daughter, Nikki, who died during an attempt to save her life by digitizing her. This attitude concerns Sally, who even asks Big the Cat his thoughts on Nicole, who likes her just because she's nice. When the digital lifeform Phage causes trouble in Ellidy's systems and Nicole's in danger, Sally opts to be digitized herself to save her friend. When Ellidy tries to stop Sally from doing it because she's a princess risking her life, she essentially puts him in his place by telling him to never suggest that Nicole isn't a person worth saving.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
    • Despite ostensibly having more in common with a human than he does with an animal^note Opposable thumbs, human-grade larynx, human-grade cognitive ability, upright and bipedal in stature, wears clothing, human sensibilities; the list goes on the simple fact that he isn't human paints all of Sonic's initial encounters with people. It's also Robotnik's reason for being unbelievably blase about his survival or lack thereof, but that comes off more as an excuse given he treats everyone in similar capacity.
    • Subverted when Maddie sees him for the first time; she says even if he's a blue alien hedgehog he's still a person.
• What the Fu Are You Doing?:
  • Antoine in Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) attempts to learn martial arts ("King Fu") from Bunnie in one episode, but generally fails to do much other than spout Funny Bruce Lee Noises, damage everything in the environment but the practice dummy, and eventually send it flying through a window into Sonic's hut. He manages to save Sonic from a sneak attack with a flying kick late in the episode, though. That and a post-battle demo gain him praise, but he thinks the latter wasn't so good. He fumbles the second demo, lands on Dulcy's foot, and she wrecks the hut they're in.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Sonic is seen twirling nunchucks at one point, while making Funny Bruce Lee Noises... and he ends up whacking himself in the face with them and falling to the floor.
    Sonic: OH! [pained] I'm Okay!
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • The Games:
    • Zigzagged in Shadow the Hedgehog, the eponymous character can choose to do good, evil, or neither, depending on the stage. (Example, most stages allow all three choices, but some only allow Hero/Villain, there's even one that only allows Villain/Neutral). You can freely choose between allies, Sonic-Nobody-Black Doom-Sonic-Doom-Nobody, for instance. If you have the hero as your current ally, they berate you for killing GUN Soldiers, or Eggman's Robots, strangely enough. If you play the villain, Doom/Eggman/etc get on to you for killing Black Arms, or Eggman's robots. Oddly enough, in one stage, killing Eggman's robots while doing either Hero OR Villain gets you yelled at.
    • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Amy calls out Silver for trying to kill Sonic, whom he accuses of being the "Iblis Trigger" who will cause the destruction of his future. Despite Silver trying to convince her, Amy flat out tells him that she will choose Sonic over the world. This leaves Silver to question about his mission on saving the future.
    • As the general plot of Sonic Lost World is all Sonic's fault, he takes some crap from not just Tails, but also Eggman. Humourously enough, one of Master Zik's lines in Lava Mountain Zone 1 also invokes this:
      Master Zik: You beat an old man, are you proud?!
    • Sonic's Moment of Weakness in Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric gets him flak from everyone who saw it, save Eggman and Metal Sonic. Cliff also chews him out in much fewer words when he catches wind of it. The rest of the game is about Sonic and co. correcting his mistake.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • In Monkey Khan's debut, Sally released him from his imprisonment and he, in turn, began to attack the Egg-robots, angry that Dr. Robotnik had experimented on him and left him imprisoned for a decade. Sonic, frustrated at all of the changes happening in the world and hearing Khan's former affiliation with Robotnik, attacks the monkey. Sally angrily tells him to stop as Khan could potentially be an ally and all he'd done was fight against the robots that were attacking them. After Sally is kidnapped by Khan, Antoine gives him a similar though much calmer critique telling him he needs to take responsibility for his impulsiveness.
    • Sonic has defeated Dr. Robotnik. Suddenly, Robotnik flipped out, tearing off most of his mustache — Sonic winced in pain seeing that — and collapsed, babbling incoherently. When Sally showed up and asked what happened, Sonic didn't know, saying that he beat him like normal. Snively then walks up to them and says that Sonic didn't just beat Robotnik, he broke him. Snivley gives a Breaking Speech where he acknowledges, "eccentrics aside", Robotnik is a genius and master planner, having conquered the planet in a few years. He says that Robotnik was losing his mind as a result of Sonic being the one thing he couldn't figure out during his decade long reign, and Sonic winning again just now finally pushed Robotnik over the edge. Snively then asked to be left alone to take care of his uncle. As a result, Snively denied Sonic the thrill of victory, and instead made him feel bad about what he did.
    • Mina Mongoose called out the Freedom Fighters for keeping NICOLE around, even after she was brainwashed by the Iron Dominion, during which time it was shown just how big a threat she could potentially be. This ended up turning into a My God, What Have I Done? for Mina when she realizes her doing that allowed the wizard Ixis Naugus to take over Mobotropolis.
    • A later issue has Silver appear and accuse Antoine of being the Freedom Fighter traitor in front of Sonic. Sonic, tired of Silver's crap and already at wit's end due to Sally being roboticized and the aforementioned Antoine hanging on by a thread due to him saving the dethroned Elias from a bomb-loaded Metal Sonic, spin dashes him through a wall, dragging him to where Antoine is, then telling him to get lost.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
    • He wasn't exactly pleased with Tom for tranquilizing him and making him lose his rings.
    Sonic: I shouldn't even be on this planet right now, but I am. Why? Because you shot me!
    Tom: I know...
    Sonic: YOU SHOT ME!
    • He also isn't happy when Tom tells him of his plans to leave Green Hills for San Fransisco, so much so that his powers start to flare up.
• White and Red and Eerie All Over:
  • Sonic Forces:
    • The iconic Egg Pawns are redesigned to be much more menacing this time around, featuring simple white bodies with glowing red eyes or visors. While their previous incarnations were more akin to Adorable Evil Minions, here they are portrayed as unfeeling, militaristic automatons with no comedic traits whatsoever.
    • While Infinite himself does not count for this trope (he has some white fur, but his color scheme is predominantly black, red, and gray), the second boss battle against him qualifies. It takes place in a pristine white steel area, which contrasts with his red energy attacks.
    • The Death Egg Robot's final form is white with red claws and joints. It's very unnerving partially because it's a Starfish Robot with robotic tentacles, and also because Eggman uses the mystical Phantom Ruby to its full extent while piloting the robot, creating an eerie, dark battlefield for the robot to stand out against.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Dr. Robotnik's various drones and tech all share the same white paintjobs and ovoid shapes, with red Glowing Mechanical Eyes and Tron Lines. Said drones are portrayed as much deadlier than the Badniks of the main franchise.
• With Friends Like These...:
  • The Games:
    • Sonic and Knuckles in the earlier games. Even after the two became allies in the end of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, they still find themselves clashing with each other either due to their contrasting attitudes, worldviews, and egos. As time goes on, they're getting along better; but still snark and tease each other every now and then, and like to be smug when they get one over on each other.
    • Even after Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic considers Shadow a friend, which doesn't explain the times the two hedgehogs clashed due to their conflicting goals in various games, even during the time Shadow had amnesia. Even if Shadow doesn't consider Sonic a friend, he does work well with him when the situation calls for it; and does seem to at least care a bit about him deep down, despite being loath to admit it.
    • The Babylon Rogues from the Sonic Riders series come across as this, mostly Wave and Storm who bicker and insult each other to no end, but Jet is also often shown getting annoyed with Wave's nagging and Storm's daftness, respectively.
  • Sonic and Antoine in Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM). Antoine acts like a stuck-up jerk towards Sonic a lot, and Sonic constantly insults Antoine. While Sonic does show that he cares about Sally, Tails, Rotor, and Bunnie, it's really hard to tell if he even cares about Antoine. In one episode, when Antoine gets captured, Sonic just labels him an idiot and outright refuses to go after him. Sally is unable to really retort that Antoine would actually save him if the roles were reversed, only coaxing him into the job by reminding him of the potential danger if Robotnik gets a hold of the power ring he had at the point of his capture.
• A Wizard Did It:
  • This is more or less how Chaos Control in the games is explained (or lack thereof). Is it time travel, super speed, or teleportation? The games sure as hell don't know.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Doctor Robotnik complains about how everything the Chaos Emeralds do is explained away by them being Chaos Emeralds. Snivelly points out that he uses them all the time, and Robotnik replies along the bounds that just because he knows they work doesn't mean that he has to like it.
• The Worf Effect:
  • The Games:
    • Even as the archrival, Eggman is like this in the newer games. If he's set up to be the Big Bad, just imagine how tough that guy who destroyed his Death Egg in one shot is going to be!
    • Sonic himself suffered from this in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). All of his encounters with Silver end with him being dispatched rather easily^note although he wins the first battle thanks to a cheap shot, if you're playing as Sonic
    • The final level of Sonic Mania actually averts this. Heavy King turns on Eggman at the end of the game, but instead of usurping Eggman's position as Final Boss like what usually happens, the two are able to fight on even ground, and the Final Boss is a Mêlée à Trois between the two of them and Super Sonic.
    • The first thing we see from Sonic Forces's new villain Infinite is them kicking Sonic around like a ragdoll without getting hit once. That's right, this guy is faster than the Fastest Thing Alive!
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • The series did this a lot to Bunnie Rabbot, the strongest member of the Freedom Fighters. If she wasn't beaten to a pulp by the villain of the storyline (for example, Mecha Sonic, the roboticized Sonic), then she's getting her robotic limbs taken over and used against her.
    • If you really wanna know how bad things'll get, apply The Worf Effect on Sonic. Issue 175 is the best example of this as Eggman beats the hedgehog to a pulp, then gladly goes on to turn Knothole into a massive crater.
    • Shadow the Hedgehog of all people is mostly this with Knuckles a close second, Shadow one of the most ultimate badasses in the franchise and Sonic's equal, gets his ass handed to him and beat up the most in a battle by himself, and he is usually saved by others like Sonic and other team mates often requiring help to win. Knuckles used to have chaos powers and was the avatar of god in Mobius. Then he got his powers taken away from him, and like Shadow needs help to beat even weak fighters like Fang and Snively. He lost to Snively in a battle with Sonic and Tails.
    • Now that Silver has been established as being incredibly powerful thanks to his Telekinesis, if you want to show somebody can kick ass, you have them give Silver a beating. First he brought Super Scourge to a halt. So if that's awesome, next he's beaten by an Enerjak. After he brought down Enerjak, he was then subjected to a beating by Ixis Naugus (but not without displaying his awesomeness first).
    • A non-villainous example applies to Tails after he loses a Tournament Round to the newly introduced Honey the Cat. Although Honey is not evil, her interactions with Tails is noticeably more bossy and condescending, at least in comparison to her time with Amy and Sonic. Tails's loss to her also noticeably hurts his self-esteem, to the point where Sonic tries to cheer him up.
• World's Smartest Man:
  • In the games, Dr. Eggman likes to proclaim himself to be this. Although, given the ridiculously complex, innovative, and varied stuff he's built over the franchise (various mechs, whole bases, robotic machines, etc.), it's hard not to agree with him.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Dr.Robotnik definitely sees himself as this, and can definitely back it up, given how much more advanced his inventions are than anything else in the world. This trope is the reason the government puts up with his incredibly unlikable personality.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, the Big Bad of the games. He not only shoves little animals into robots, but his worst enemies also happen to be children. Even not counting Sonic himself (who is often placed at 15, though he's implied to be younger in the first few games), he is fighting 8-year olds and 12-year olds on occasion (heck, Cream from the Sonic Advance Trilogy is only 6). Justified that they are children with Superhuman abilities, and rather mature-acting children at that, but still.
    
    On the Game Gear, Eggman truly pumps this up a notch in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It is implied that Tails dies at Robotnik's hands if you fail to collect all the emeralds before Scrambled Egg Zone.
  • 12-year-old Chris Thorndyke from Sonic X is beaten up by Shadow and later kidnapped and brutally tortured, alongside the also very young Cosmo, by Black Narcissus. The second incident is so bad that not even Dr. Eggman approves!
  • Throughout Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Dr. Robotnik is trying to capture and eventually kill Sonic, who is just a teenager.

Y

• Year Outside, Hour Inside:

• In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), thanks to the wonders of relativity, when Sonic returned from his trip in space, he found out while it only took him a short time, a year had passed on Mobius.

• You Don't Look Like You:
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Dr. Eggman underwent a drastic redesign, looking like a realistic version of his Sonic Adventure appearance, omitting the goggles on his head and his cartoony limbs. This was very quickly abandoned, and the cartoony Adventure design has stuck ever since.
  • In the early days of the franchise in the West, Dr. Eggman (then known as Dr. Robotnik) was redesigned in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog by Milton Knight to have almost no resemblance to his original design beyond his moustache. This design then bled over into almost every piece of Western Sonic media in the 1990s, with Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) tweaking it to have a robotic right arm and thinner moustache, Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) and Sonic Underground reusing this tweaked design, and Robotnik's design in Sonic the Comic switching from its original game-influenced design to Milton Knight's for the remainder of its run.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • When Breezie the Hedgehog first appeared in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, she looked less like a hedgehog and more of a hedgehog-ish Jessica Rabbit. When she made it into the comic, she was redesigned, making her more in line with modern day Sega-type hedgehogs while still giving the impression that this was Breezie.
    • Issue 281's cover showed another redesigned character, this time Dulcy the Dragon from Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM). The original design was more of a Western Dragon with a large nosering which was used in pre-reboot comic. Her post-reboot look turns her more into an anthropomorphic dragon, ditching the nosering gaining what appears to be some armor.
    • Ray the Flying Squirrel tended to look considerably different from his game counterpart. For starters, before the reboot, he had no membranes, making him technically a regular squirrel.
    • Compared to his Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) counterpart, pre-reboot King Acorn has always looked older, slimmer and frailer.
  • The president of the United Federation was slim and brown haired when introduced in Sonic Adventure 2. He's older, portly, and grey-haired in Sonic X.
  • Subverted with Dr.Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog (2020). In the first half of the film he looks absolutely nothing like he does in the games. He's skinny instead of fat, has a full head of hair, keeps his smaller mustache well-groomed, as well as wearing a long black coat and square sunglasses in his initial scenes. This changes over the course of the movie, seeing as he eventually wears his trademark red bodysuit and goggles later on, and finally appears like the game version with a shaved head, bushy mustache and has gained weight in The Stinger.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • In the Sonic X episode "An Enemy in Need", this is Amy's reaction to Knuckles when he, having once again been tricked into believing Eggman will change his ways, saves Eggman from her:
    Amy: Knuckles, you have got to be kidding me! How many more times are you gonna fall for Eggman's tricks?!

• Later in Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Tom talks to Maddie about using Rachel's truck, since Tom's vehicle is totalled. Rachel's response is to quote this word for word.

• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • Imperator Ix, during the events of Sonic Chronicles, promptly blows Shade off Angel Island for questioning his motives after Sonic and his team rough him up. After he jacks the Master Emerald and sends Angel Island plummeting into Metropolis, Shade allies with Sonic and company to abort his scheme.
  • In an episode of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Dr. Robotnik fires one of his minions via telephone because he "doesn't need them anymore".
  • In Sonic Universe's "30 Years Later" storyline, King Shadow breaks Lien-Da's armband, causing her to fade into the time-line after she rescues him from stasis. This seems to be because she questioned releasing Tikhaos.

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YOU'RE TOO COOL!

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