Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24165717-20141120174501/@comment-24658561-20150722214557

SpeedOfSoundSonic wrote: Rainbowser wrote: That's too late. His degradation to a second sidekick for Sonic began after Shadow entered the scene (probably because they decided to let Shadow be part of the main cast and they didn't want to have the same type of character twice) so it was on the move. The Master Emerald just disappeared from the plots and since Heroes he started hanging out with Sonic and Tails (two guys he didn't even like that much in the games before SH) for no good reason. A lot of past games treated him like an idiot, I'll give you that, but saying that's the way he always was is just incorrect. He's been flanderized and misused over the years and Boom put it at it's worst. Shadow is a much better character than Knuckles, so moving him to main cast was probably a result of people wanting to see more of him because of how good of a character he was. Knuckles, on the other hand, is much more suited to the role he was given. Obviously the creators believed that Knuckles' character's stupidity needed to increase.

Again, Knuckles was always a halfwit, so I don't see why you're complaining about it now.

You can't compare Shadow to Knuckles. You can't compare Shadow to any Sonic character except maybe Sonic himself.

Shadow has a fully developed, canon past(that's a BIG Mother rip-off btw), Knuckles(and every other Sonic character else) hasn't.

Shadow has his own game, Knuckles(and every other Sonic character except for Sonic and Tails but Tails' ones aren't canon, modern games and noone remembers them) hasn't. (And no, Knuckles Chaotix doesn't count because it has Knuckles in it for the same reason Yoshi's Island was called Super Mario World 2.)

Knuckles was horribly flanderized and his purpose got erased, Shadow wasn't. (Except for Boom of course, because EVERYBODY in Boom is flanderized.)

The original Knuckles is difficult to get into a story because he's that type of character that has everything he needs, so that everything needs to be either endangered or destroyed so he has something to fight for. Shadow always fought for himself or the promise he gave Maria, so he can be written into basically any story and the writers have an easier job on him.

The reason why I'm complaining now, is that it just got worse and worse over the years. Flanderization usually doesn't happen over night, it happens very slowly with every appearance the character makes. Knuckles is a good, if not great character with a lot of potential that is just wasted. All the build-up with Angel Island and the Master Emerald... Wasted. He's gullible, stubborn and not as smart as other characters like Tails, but he isn't a total imbecile. I agree with this I found on Facebook. It's worth checking out and explains my point better than I could here without posting another comment that is way too long.