Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-4236081-20140624112006/@comment-25936854-20150223224741

I'm poor with words, but I would like to voice my opinion. I shall try to keep it compact, to minimize embarrassment to myself.

I actually do like Shadow, his powers, personality (in some ways more-so than others), and his history. I actually think he's far, far better than any Dragonball Z character, more complex, more likeable even in his villainy. I do also think he is somewhat "cool"; and I roll my eyes when I see/hear him described as "Emo". I agree that his god complex is rather grating at times, but in my mind, that just makes it more fun to grind him into the pavement as Sonic. (Insert winking emoticon here)

However, I think that Shadow is, indeed, far overrated, and too often he is cited- wrongly, in my opinion- as being superior to Sonic, and as being the indesputable victor in a hypothetical, final showdown between him and Sonic. Most of the rants about Shadow's supposed superiority and "guaranteed" victory over Sonic tend to slap insults onto the latter and conveniently ignore many of his achievements while listing the "advantages". That certainly says something about these overzealous supporters, I think. I guess now we know where Shadow's ego swells up from.

I am tempted to go into detail about my opinion about Shadow's powers and how they relate to the Sonic universe- and in particular, how he fares against Sonic- as well as the widespread misconception about him being objectively superior to Sonic in every way, but I shall refrain, as this is already a longer post than I had intended it to be. A nutshell of my opinions: Shadow is indeed powerful, and does have some advantages over Sonic, but as you point out, Acenitro, he is NOT canonically superior over all the other Sonic characters (despite what he himself and his overzealous fans like to think), let alone this god that so many people seem to believe him to be.

My hypothesis is that many people seem to enjoy being "the rogue", the "crook" (Hence the popularity of the even more overrated [in my opinion] Grand Theft Auto series). There are clearly many "Sonic fans" who have this preference, as well. and so seem to exalt this supposed savior of darkness who can "Stop the goody-two-shoes in his tracks", or some other such nonsense.

This having been said, I'm sure that there are some Shadow fans who actually are rational, reasonable, and don't make the mistakes cited above. To any such persons reading this: I apologize for any offense I may have caused, and tip my hat to you for your more mature, cosmopolitan mindset.