The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is both famous and infamous for having a massive cast across its multiple universes, with every one of them being Base-Breaking Characters in some way. The characters listed here are those that are especially hated.
Sorted by media.
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Video Games
- Omochao gets a lot of heat for being an Annoying Video Game Helper with a grating voice and advice (which couldn't be disabled until Sonic Generations), and was often the grade of "keep your HP above zero" and "hit the boss". To make matters worse, not only is he a downgraded Tikal — who served the same role, but with less of Omochao's flaws and was actually relevant to the story — but also replaced Cream in Team Sonic Racing for Team Rose's line-up, with no mention of her anywhere. While the series has made several self-aware references to his unpopularity (such as with him being ammo for the hidden Omochao Gun in Shadow the Hedgehog), many fans wish they could just remove his batteries and leave him that way for good.
- Shadow the Hedgehog: The G.U.N. Commander has his fair share of people who see him as Unintentionally Unsympathetic. A younger brother figure to Maria, he's so heartbroken by her death fifty years later that he blames Shadow for everything that happened aboard the ARK, despite rising to take leadership of the faction that caused Maria's death. Then, all the Commander gets development-wise is a Heel Realization when he realizes Shadow wasn't at fault. Other than a brief appearance in Sonic Chronicles, the character has been quietly dropped, and there are few fans who mourn his absence.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (2006):
- Princess Elise's role is essentially to get kidnapped repeatedly and reduce Sonic's role in the story to having to chase after and lose her each time. She also has barely any clear traits beyond being blandly nice, and — outside of the two levels where she accompanies Sonic — can't do much to help the heroes. Yet these pale in comparison to her Interspecies Romance with Sonic, culminating in her kissing his corpse to resurrect him in the finale, adding both shipping controversy and Squick to the mix. And if Elise kissing Sonic wasn't enough, her saying "I don't care what happens to the world" was the final nail in the coffin for her as a character. Reception towards her has begun to soften, however.
- The Duke of Soleanna caused the events of the game by tampering with a force well beyond his control, killing his colleagues in the process, and sealing it in his seven-year-old child so she would clean up his mess. As if that wasn't enough, he gave her the near-impossible task of never crying, ostensibly to keep Solaris contained but written as if he came up with it on a whim. Not helping matters is that he's also the voice of the Hint Rings; another source of unwanted in-game assistance.
- Sonic Lost World: The Deadly Six are generally disliked as a group for being one-note villains, unfitting in terms of character designs, derivative of the Koopalings, and little explanation for their existence. While Zazz and Zor do have some fans for being the more amusing ones of the bunch, the following... really don't:
- Zavok is loathed as an extremely blatant Bowser rip-off in a franchise that became famous for defining itself against Mario, not helped by how bland his character is. His overexposure in the games and media following his debut only added fuel to the fire.
- Zeena, for being an obnoxious and sexist Alpha Bitch stereotype. Also doesn't help that she's one of the most obnoxious of the team to fight.
- Zomom, who has a particularly ugly design and little personality past being a food-obsessed Fat Bastard.
- Master Zik, who has an unappealing and overly-stereotypical Old Master design.
- The Deadly Six's reputation improved in the IDW comics due to more threatening and more cruel characterizations. Zavok benefited the most thanks to a more intimidating Giant form and the Bad Guys miniseries' focus on his cunning side. While they are still seen as Base Breaking Characters due to usurping Dr. Eggman and Dr. Starline as the Arc Villains of the Metal Virus arc, they aren't as widely loathed as they are in the games.
TV Shows
- Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM): Dulcy was considered a pointless addition to the main cast, her sudden introduction not helping. While she at least had points in her favor such as Cree Summer's pleasant delivery, Dulcy's biggest problem was her lack of use despite her potentialnote outside of transportation or repeated jokes about her clumsiness. It's as if a cooler character was just out of the audience's reach.
- Sonic X: Chris Thorndyke for taking the spotlight away from the canon cast, even getting more screentime than Sonic himself. Chris compensates by being an unpopular character in his own right, with no meaningful development across two seasonsnote , lack of relatability despite being an Audience Surrogate, unnerving dependence on Sonicnote , and bare contributions to the plot (aside from getting kidnapped or taking other characters' rolesnote ).
- However, by the events of third season, a good chunk of fans changed their opinion of him, now that he became more mature and had less screentime, eventually becoming a Base-Breaking Character instead, as some fans still haven’t changed their mind.
Comic Books
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
- Like in SatAM, Dulcy for her unpopular stories and wasted potential. They did make an honest attempt to redeem her after the Continuity Reboot: she gained Adaptational Intelligence, leading a separate group of Freedom Fighters and was given a more fitting redesign. However, fans didn't think much of it due to the mixed reception of the Unleashed arc, and the cancellation of the comic book.
- Drago Wolf goes beyond Hate Sink or Love to Hate into this. For many, his abusive behavior hit too close to home and was out of left field in a Sonic comic. His other contribution to the Endgame arc, framing Sonic for murder, made little sense and sidetracked the story. Not even writer Ian Flynn liked Drago, gleefully stating that he only used the guy whenever he wants someone to be thrashed by the heroes (at one point even getting his teeth knocked in by Big the Cat of all characters). However, readers thought this missed the point. They didn't want to see Drago beaten up; they just didn't want to see him at all. If anything, him not appearing in the IDW comic is usually seen as being almost worth the original comic's cancellation.
- Tommy Turtle. He was originally a one-shot character that revealed that he had given Sonic a life lesson when he was younger and had performed a Heroic Sacrifice to save Sonic from an ambush. However, he ended up returning after a Time Skip, healthy, whole... and attempting to replace Tails and Rotor without being much of a character. When Ian Flynn took over, he compiled a list of characters in the series and arranged them in popularity, finding out that Tommy was dead last (even lower than Drago Wolf), and Tommy was turtle soup.
- Rosemary and Amadeus Prower, Tails' mother and father respectively, are disliked for leading a civil war against the Acorns. Rosemary is disliked more than Amadeus due to her more prominent role in said civil war and continuing to vote against the Freedom Fighters out of an overwhelming distrust of the Acorn crown. Amadeus at least managed to settle things with the Acorns peacefully and have a change of heart, but Rosemary continued to constantly make things worse than if she weren't there for the Freedom Fighters, complete with arguments against the crown that bordered on Irrational Hatred. While the Jerkass Has a Point due to Maximilian's Horrible Judge of Character leading to the Great War, it didn't help Rosemary's popularity with the reader base. She and her husband never survived the Genesis Waves.
- Locke, Knuckles' dad, is very much hated for being framed in-story as a wise, sympathetic, well-intentioned figure despite all the questionable (and sometimes outright monstrous) ways he guides his son into becoming an ideal guardian, from constant spying and manipulating to bombarding an unborn Knuckles with radiation in order to mutate him. Even Locke's Heroic Sacrifice to free Knuckles from his Enerjak persona did little to rescue him from scrappydom, especially since he still needed half a dozen different callouts about all the stuff he did beforehand in order to take a hint about his own responsibility in that situation. Seeing that his creator, Ken Penders, wrote him as a stand-in for his own father, it's almost impossible to not notice a case of Creator's Pet seeping through.
- Ash Mongoose has received much hatred due to having no personality beyond being Mina's boyfriend and a jealous jerk to Sonic unprovoked. His Heroic Sacrifice is mocked and derided — as he could've easily just thrown the bomb instead of holding on to it — and earned him few-to-no redemption points. Even when he appears to have buried the hatchet with Sonic, his next appearance has him still acting like an ass and looking for any excuse to be hostile towards him. Many fans reacted with glee at the notion of him eventually losing Mina to Tails in Mobius: 25 Years Later.
- Abby the Koala from Mobius: 25 Years Later, Knuckles and Julie-Su's maid, is a very minor character who nevertheless has a rather large hatedom. It stems from a combination of her creepy design (she looks a bit too much like an actual koala when put next to the other, stylized characters) and her characterization veering too close to a stereotypical Mammy for most people.
- Shortfuse the Cybernik from Sonic the Comic. Overpowered, with little personality besides an allegedly short temper which did nothing to make him stand out (everybody hated Robotnik), and a Holier Than Thou attitude. Most fans found him both annoying and tiresome, especially since he told his backstory every time he appeared, sometimes twice in one issue, which has become a Running Gag amongst fans.
Other
- Rachel from Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) was supposed to be disliked as an obnoxious sister-in-law who butted heads with Tom for no apparent reason. But she unintentionally went well beyond that as she contributed nothing to the plot, and was considered by most viewers to embody the worst aspects of the Sassy Black Woman trope. Her reception greatly improved in the sequel, as she took a level in kindness and badass by helping Maddie rescue Sonic, Tails and Tom from the anti-villainous G.U.N. in a tense and hilarious sequence, but is still rather divisive due to her — irrelevant outside of a few key moments — wedding subplot lasting way longer than it needed to.
