Blaze the Cat

Blaze the Cat (ブレイズ・ザ・キャット) is a fictional character from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. She is an anthropomorphic cat and a princess hailing from an alternate dimension, where she is both the regent of her world and the appointed guardian of the Sol Emeralds, a role similar to that of Sonic and Knuckles combined. As her name suggests, she is gifted with the power of pyrokinesis, which lets her create and manipulate fire in any way she pleases.

Blaze is normally calm and elegant, but tends to conceal her true feelings. Devoted to her position, she sometimes gets herself bogged down by her own strict discipline, which made her anti-social, shy, and unfamiliar to the concept of having friends. After spending time with Sonic and Cream, however, Blaze has discovered the true meaning of friendship, allowing her to accomplish tasks for the good of her people and the innocent which she could never do alone. Despite the initial boundaries separating them, Blaze now travels freely between her dimension and Sonic's to visit her friends.

Concept and creation
Blaze was designed as a character who was equivalent yet an alternate version of Sonic's character. An undated concept of Blaze which was very similar to her final design except her eyes were rounder and her ponytail was turned front instead of back, she was supposed to wear clothing similar to the Arabs, since she was wearing a shalwar and a mid-riff top.

According to the early character spread sheet files of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) it is mentioned that Blaze wears a cape to hide her flames because she was teased. However the games have never shown her wearing a cape besides her purple outfit. This was later clarified by the concept artwork gallery in the Nintendo 3DS version of Sonic Generations where one of the pictures showed Blaze wearing a white and pink laced cape.

An ex-member of Sega on Sonic Wrecks released concept art of Blaze which was said to be done in early 2005 in PowerPoint documents. Her design was very similar to Shadow's however it is possible the character was in a mere silhouette form.

Appearance
Blaze is a lavender-furred, anthropomorphic cat with gold eyes. Her muzzle is white, her inner ears are peach colored and the tip of her long tail dark purple. Her fur is longer on each side of her head and sweeps slightly upwards. She has four plumes of "hair" done up in a high ponytail with dark purple tips.

For attire, she wears a long, purple, flared, mantle-like coat of sorts with a dark pink hemline, white tights, a gold collar, a red hairband and a similarily red gem on her forehead. She also wears white gloves with fuzzy cuffs and high heeled, dark pink shoes with white stripes and also fuzzy cuffs.

For the purpose of Extreme Gear racing, Blaze wears a purple catsuit with pink, white straped boots. The suit also have yellow stripes over the chest, elbows and knees areas.

Personality
A noble soul, Blaze is normally calm, solemn and level-headed, but tends to conceal her true feelings. She is often described as elegant, which is demonstrated through her body movements and her ballerina-like fighting style. Being royalty, Blaze is quite mannerly and typically maintains a relatively quiet, stoic and formal air among others. She tends to have body language less casual than most others, such as in Sonic Generations, where she stands straight and tight rather than relaxed like the rest of the cast. She also usually speaks in a polite and lady-like tone. While honored of her heritage as royalty, Blaze is down-to-earth and dislikes being called by her title.

While Blaze gives the impression that she keeps her emotions in check, she is inwardly highly emotional. She possesses a fiery temper, and when she loses her composure she is quite frightening, aggressive, harsh, and prone to making bad decisions. She is similarly very serious about her position as princess and guardian of the Sol Emeralds, initially suspecting anyone even looking at them the wrong way. Also, when dealing with enemies, she never holds back her strength and is not above the idea of using lethal force. She is usually highly disciplined and focused, never allowing herself to lose control, and can be quite stubborn and impatient once she has put her mind to something. Her intensive demeanor however, is motivated by her own genuine concern for others' safety. In truth, Blaze has a kind heart, and always stands up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Because of her own self-imposed strict discipline though, she is often tense and frequently suffers from great self-pressure.

Initially, she held a personal dislike of her pyrokinesis because it left her to bear her responsibilities alone and it made other children tease her for her inability to control it, which made her view her flames as a curse. She later learns to accept them from Sonic's advice and came to see them as a blessing.

Because of her past and devotion to her duty, Blaze developed a habit of being self-reliant, which led her to building up walls between her and other people. This made her anti-social, withdrawn and shy. As a result, she would bottle up her secret feelings, leaving herself in an inner turmoil. She also lacks in social skills and has a hard time opening up and talking to people. She was also initially wary and curt towards strangers and frequently rejected offers to help, even becoming defensive and angry. This attitude also made her somewhat selfish as she berated Sonic's offers to help and eventually ended up fighting him.

After interacting with Sonic, Cream and their friends, Blaze developed much more socially, making her more amiable, friendly and gentle towards others. She also came to understand the true meaning of friendship, making her willing to trust and accept help from others. While she still prefers handling things on her own and remains somewhat reclusive, she will accept her friends' help and is genuine grateful for their aid. Recently, she is seemingly much more sociable, participating in Sonic's birthday party simply for the sake of friendship and is much quicker to open up and relax in front of her friends.

Blaze is very honest and almost blunt when dealing with annoyances such as Marine, even outright telling her that she is a nuisance. She also had a tendency of judging others poorly in Sonic Rush, making her seem somewhat overconfident and arrogant.

Blaze suffers from acrophobia and just the sight of heights makes her terrified, nervous and uncomfortable as seen in Sky Babylon. However, she is not much for admitting her fear and will try to hide it.

Pyrokinesis
Blaze is born with the power of pyrokinesis, the ability to create and control fire in any way she desires. This ability is so deeply rooted in her that her soul itself is alit with flames. Though Blaze initially had trouble controlling her flames, she has since become very adept at using them, handling her flames delicately enough to creates small embers in the palm of her hands or defrost frozen creatures without harming them. Her control over fire is not limited to her own flames, but also those in the environment, allowing her to bend foreign flames to her will.

With her pyrokinesis, Blaze can conjure up flames at any place on or all over her body for various offensive effects, such as turning herself into a burning projectile, forming a cloak of flames or increase the damage of her blows. She can even ignite and raise large columns of fire from the ground from afar. Offense aside, she can also use her pyrokinesis defensively by conjuring up fields of fire around her as protection. She can also use her flames to propel herself forward, increasing her speed and/or granting her limited flight. Blaze's pyrokinesis also gives her limited heat resistance, making her invulnerable to certain types of flames, such as those in the environment.

Because Blaze's soul is alight with flame she can serve as a vessel for Iblis who would otherwise reject anyone not a member of the royal family of Soleanna. Even so, she was not able to completely contain Iblis, as his power would still emanate from her.

Physical Abilities
Like many other characters in the series, Blaze is able to run at super speed, though she is not as fast as Sonic or Shadow. Regardless, she is still remarkably fast and possesses high speed movements and fast reflexes, something which even Sonic has acknowledged.

In line with her graceful nature, Blaze is also a quick thinker with lucid movements. She is incredibly acrobatic and nimble, and possesses impressive dexterity. She is shown being able to jump very long distances while landing perfectly safely, and can, while airborne, perform several tricks with precise movements. On the ground she is also able to perform tricks such as top spins, axels and axel jumps.

As the guardian of the Sol Emeralds, Blaze has a deep connection to the emeralds. Like Knuckles, she can sense the Sol Emeralds' energies, and can as well sense disruptions in the world she resides in. Before she understood the meaning of friendship from Sonic and his friends, Blaze was unable to harness the power of the Sol Emeralds, but after embracing the friendships she had forged, she gained the ability to tap into the Sol Emeralds' energies and use them to empower her.

Combat Skills
Being the guardian of the Sol Emeralds, Blaze is a very skilled fighter. She is arguably one of the strongest female characters in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, being the only female so far who has been able to tie with Sonic in combat. Fiercely dedicated to her duty, Blaze is as intense in battle as she is graceful and an equally skilled combatant.

Fighting Style
Most of Blaze's combat moves focuses on using graceful and delicate movements, similar to ballet moves, to strike precise and hard blows at her opponents. When attacking, she tends to use her feet when launching physical blows. Most of Blaze fighting moves comes from her pyrokinesis and relies heavily on their execution. By using her pyrokinesis in conjuring with her moves, Blaze can create unique and dynamic attacks that deals destructive damage on her targets, making her a fierce force to be reckoned with in combat.

Techniques and Moves
Blaze’s primary offensive maneuver involves turning herself into a tornado of fire by spinning around. Her techniques Burst Dash and Spinning Claw lets her charge fire and then launch her at full speed along the ground as a fiery tornado that destroy anything it collides with, similar to Sonic’s Spin Dash, but it does not keep its speed or goes faster. She can likewise perform an attack similar to the Homing Attack, called Fire Claw, where she quickly launches herself at the enemy and attacks them.

By using her pyrokinesis, Blaze can make her able to briefly hover in the air with her Burst Hover by igniting fire under her feet. By also enveloping herself in fire, she can increase her speed further by launching herself as a large fire projectile, called the Fire Boost, which destroys any opponent caught in her path, similar to the Boost.

Also, her Axel Jump and Axel Tornado allows her to jump into the air and twirling, making herself a fiery tornado that damages anything she makes contact with.

Miscellaneous Skills
In Sonic Rush, she appears in front of Sonic in a burst of flame to take the blue Sol Emerald. This could mean that she can teleport through her flames, or by a way that may or may not be related to Chaos Control (or a form similar to Chaos Control possessed by the Sol Emeralds).

In some instances Blaze is shown being able to levitate in the air. Such cases are seen in her battle against Sonic in Sonic Rush and in her mission with Classic Sonic on Planet Wisp in Sonic Generations.

Blaze is also shown to have much knowledge on the various aspects of her world, such as its history, ancient languages and legends, and knows much about the various aspects of the Jeweled Scepter. Also in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), she explained to Silver how the Chaos Emeralds work, indicting that she know very well the emeralds just like her own gems.

Burning Blaze
After realizing the importance of friendship and allowing herself to open up to people, Blaze learned how to harness the power of the seven Sol Emeralds to transform into Burning Blaze. In this state, all of Blaze's abilities far surpasses her normal ones, and she is as well able to fly and is nearly invulnerable. Her pyrokinesis is also amplified, allowing her to shoot large fireballs. This form's main weakness is that it consumes a lot of Ring energy and needs Rings to be maintained.

Color Powers
By harnessing different variants of Hyper-go-on from Wisps, Blaze can use specific Color Powers to transform into a certain form, such as a drill, a laser or even a planet, each one possessing its own unique abilities. So far, Blaze has been able to transform into the Cyan Laser, Yellow Drill and Indigo Asteroid. However, these transformations require a steady supply of Hyper-go-on to be maintained.

Weaknesses
In Sonic Rush, she admits that she was kind of afraid of heights. In Sonic Rush Adventure she showed signs of being afraid of heights (as she seems afraid to go to Sky Babylon). Though she doesn't say it herself, Gardon said she is terrified of heights.

Blaze's temper also makes her prone to harsh and bad decisions. Her rough decisions were also noticed by Sonic in Sonic Rush Adventure where she completely lost her temper whilst threatening the 'Eggmen'. Sonic warns her telling her not make harsh decisions and as a princess she should be keeping a "level-head"; reminding her that she needs to look after her people, which Blaze slowly and regretfully realized.

Blaze also had a rather bad habit of getting over-confident in threatening people to whom she thinks 'deserves' it, and Sonic is shown to disagree with it. This was shown several times in Sonic Rush Adventure, a few times in Sonic Rush and finally once in Sonic Colors (DS version only).

Blaze has been shown to have a tendency to judge others poorly and seeing less value in others. Examples are in Sonic Rush when she expected no one to know that their worlds were in great danger but was proven wrong when Sonic and Tails were also aware. Her poor judgment of others led her to have a fight with Sonic and misjudge Cream until she realized how helpful she was.

Blaze's blunt honesty causes her to say harsh things. In Sonic Rush Adventure she tried to leave Marine behind in missions due to Marine's risky behavior and even went far enough to hurt her feelings by calling her a 'nuisance' to keep her from coming along on a dangerous mission to Pirate Island.

Cream the Rabbit
As Blaze was traveling alone, after defeating Dr. Eggman for the first time, Cream the Rabbit had surprised her by hiding. Blaze was a little hostile, but Cream instead walked up towards her and invited her to her house, along with her mother, Vanilla the Rabbit. Blaze thought this to be calmingly eerie about the way they would treat a stranger. Cream then agreed to show Blaze around, starting their adventure, acting similar to Tails in the Sonic campaign.

Throughout, Blaze was only focused on collecting all of the Sol Emeralds but as they travel, Blaze soon feels a bond, finally seeing Cream as a friend and not a guide. She was very worried about Cream's safety after she destroyed the Eggman robot that captured Cream and briefly thought Cream had been consumed in the explosion, causing her to frantically search the robot's wreckage before she found Cream had used her flying powers to escape the explosion. Even when Blaze left to her own dimension, they had hinted on missing each other's company. In Sonic Generations, they are seen interacting with each other again at Sonic's birthday party.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Blaze was told by many people to team up with Sonic the Hedgehog for her quest. However, believing that she could handle everything by herself, Blaze became affronted by this. When Sonic appeared, he refused to let her battle Eggman alone (Eggman at the time possessed the final Sol Emerald), Blaze became angry and attacked Sonic instead.

After the battle (which was never properly concluded), Blaze came to realize that her selfishness lead to the battle. They became friends, as Blaze had learned that it was okay to accept help from others. Later, when Dr. Eggman and Eggman Nega team up, Sonic and Blaze team up in the process. When Eggman kidnaps Cream in an attempt to call Blaze to confront him alone, and even though it was not according to plan, Sonic trusts Blaze to bring Cream back safely. Although she loses faith in herself after rescuing Cream as the Eggmen had defeated her, Sonic cheers her up, and because Blaze regains faith and learns the power of true friendship, she can now transform into Burning Blaze with Sonic into Super Sonic. After the fight, they had a moment to give their good-byes, Blaze had thanked Sonic and the two made a promise that they'll meet again, the two shook their hands and are separated by the pull of their dimensions. The ending shows Burning Blaze flying back to her world speaking to herself realizing that her flames weren't a curse but a gift. When she was thinking about it, she remembered Sonic telling her that she has learnt the power of the Sol Emeralds and that she had inherited the power of flames; he then says, "And Blaze now you have the power! You know what I mean, right?" Blaze smiles and says once again to her vision of Sonic that she'll see him again.

In their next meeting, Sonic ends up in her dimension, along with Tails. This time, they work together as allies to stop the doctors' plans. After defeating the doctors in Deep Core, Blaze then tells Sonic that maybe the Emeralds brought Sonic here as if it were destiny. Sonic was a little stunned then he smiled and said, "Who knows?" Blaze then smiles and pulls out her hand to shake hands with him and they did so, like they did before and the two left each other again, though Blaze remained positive that they would meet again. It also noted that when Sonic is waving bye at her, she seems to turn her head away, oddly fluttering her eyes.

Blaze also seems to rely on Sonic the most and has respect for both him and his skills to the point where she considers him as her most trusted ally and friend. This is shown when Blaze tried to hide her fear of heights, she only said Sonic's name even though Marine and Tails were with her. Sonic also seems to stand in front of her for protection in a few scenes. Sonic appears to be concerned about her, like when he tried to cool her down when she was heated up and he said to her who is going to take her place as a princess and guardian if "something happens" to her when she was taking a risk to fight for her Jewelled Scepter.

In Sonic Generations, Blaze is one of the attendants at Sonic's birthday party and helps preparing it for his arrival. In her own words, despite being uncomfortable with crowded events, she wants to be there for him. She also has a certain respect for Sonic, and said that she "bows to his skills" after getting all Red Star Rings and states she's impressed when he first completes Crisis City with an S-rank in Sonic Generations.

Knuckles the Echidna
Blaze and Knuckles met when Cream saw Knuckles the Echidna and greeted him, and though Cream wanted Blaze to be friends with Knuckles, it didn't work out right. Knuckles was friendly until he saw Blaze holding a few Sol Emeralds, he mistook them for Chaos Emeralds he therefore gave Blaze advice to give them to Sonic. Blaze gets angry at Knuckles and tells him that she has no Chaos Emeralds. Knuckles accusing her for lying, made an attempt to harm her, but Blaze dodges and clobbers Knuckles, knocking him out and leaving him lying in a crevice. Knuckles later wanted revenge against Blaze though but was distracted by Amy. Cream also convinces Blaze that Knuckles is actually a 'nice guy', which made Blaze feel relieved. Near the end of the game, however, Knuckles no longer shows any dislike for her as he was there with Sonic's other friends while helping Blaze with the Sol Emeralds.

Amy Rose
Blaze and Amy Rose first met in Sonic Rush when Amy asks Cream where Sonic is. Cream then introduced Amy to Blaze and came in good terms until Amy assumes that Blaze might like Sonic the way Amy does. Blaze however denies it, saying that she "couldn't care less about anyone named 'Sonic'". Amy helps Cream and Blaze later on by getting away from Knuckles who planned to attack Blaze.

In Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games Blaze and Amy seems to be close friends in the trailer when the two were seen smiling and holding hands.

However in Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games Blaze stops Amy from sending a personal letter to Sonic by challenging her to a sport. Blaze also gives an annoyed expression by putting her hand on her face says, "Oh brother!" when Amy is flirting with Sonic by calling him "darling".

In the gameplay trailer for Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, she and Amy can be seen having a conversation.

In Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Blaze and Amy has a special winning animation, in which Amy jumps to Blaze's back right and left, and finally warms up Blaze's shoulders, much to the latter's shock.

Silver the Hedgehog
Silver the Hedgehog is Blaze's friend from the distant future whom she is described to have a brother-sister relationship with in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) exclusively. The two have searched for and battled the Iblis together for what seems to be many times. As they travel through the present, they both make it a priority to find the Iblis Trigger. During the course of events Blaze shows to be more mature and focused than Silver, and is prone to feel insecure about him at times, As she supported Silver, even when she wasn't there, she eventually sealed Iblis inside herself rather than Silver. Blaze transported herself to another dimension, however, Silver is still unsure if he wants Blaze to vanish from his life, but Blaze leaves even with Silver's disapproval and wishes Silver luck in his new life without Iblis and herself.

After the defeat of Solaris, the timeline has been erased and therefore Blaze never met Silver. Sonic Colors (DS version only) shows Blaze and Silver meeting each other after the timeline changed. She is also seen talking to Silver in Sonic Generations (PC and console versions only). The two of them are also together in the Nintendo DS version of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, in which they challenge the player to Dream and normal Ice Hockey in the Adventure Tours.

In Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games and Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Blaze and Silver have a unique gold medal pose if they work together in a team event.

Miles "Tails" Prower
Blaze first met Miles "Tails" Prower with Sonic when they were searching for her. They have interacted indirectly, but after her fight against Sonic was finished, Tails tried to convince Blaze to stop fighting and to believe in Sonic so she can rest. She was going to take that into consideration and thanked him for it, but she insisted in fighting Dr. Eggman herself. In Sonic Rush Adventure, Blaze finds Tails to be a valuable ally, when it comes to machines and sea crafts.

Marine the Raccoon
The two were allies in Sonic Rush Adventure, though Blaze initially showed her dislike of Marine the Raccoon by leaving her behind in missions. However, Blaze has no choice but to let Marine come if she promises to stay with the group. Before Sonic, Tails, and Blaze depart to Pirates Island to unlock the door and finish off the pirates, they decided to leave Marine behind this time, she however doesn't accept it. Blaze confesses to Marine that she is a nuisance which hurts her feelings. Sonic and Tails disagree with what Blaze said and told her she was too harsh on Marine. After Sonic and Blaze save Marine from the Ghost Titan and defeat it, Blaze is disappointed at Marine for sneaking on the Deep Typhoon to come to Pirates' Island which would've put her in grave danger. Marine however surprises Blaze by finding her stolen Jeweled Scepter. Blaze thanks Marine for the great contribution thus realizing how wrong she thought of Marine and even asks Marine to come along with them for the first time. At the end of Sonic Rush Adventure Blaze comforts Marine who is sad about Sonic and Tails' departure and then look at the sky hoping to see them again. Blaze's relationship with Marine is very similar to Sonic's relationship with Tails.

Doctor Eggman Nega
Blaze's most nefarious adversary is undoubtedly Eggman Nega. Blaze hated Eggman Nega for ruining her life by threatening her kingdom and people, taking her Jeweled Scepter and Sol Emeralds, and her friends. Their relationship could be said to be similar to Sonic and Eggman, though the rivalry between them is more bitter in nature. Blaze is quick to anger whenever Eggman Nega says or does anything evil, such as what he said in Sonic Rush Adventure "It will only take the fraction of this power to wipe your kingdom off the charts!" Since Eggman Nega has appeared in the Sonic Rivals series and Blaze hasn't, it is unknown if she knows any of Eggman Nega's doings during these games and is unaware of the fact that he is actually Eggman's descendant and not a doppelganger from her dimension.

Captain Whisker
Blaze appears to be easily annoyed and angered by Captain Whisker due to the fact that he took her Jeweled Scepter. She finds him to be a waste of time and doesn't treat him as seriously as she does other villains.

Dr. Eggman
Like with Eggman Nega, Blaze has a grudge against Dr. Eggman (but since Eggman isn't totally insane and evil, it's not a major one). She hates the idea of Eggman building "Eggmanland" in either her or Sonic's dimension.

In Sonic Rush it was because of Eggman that Blaze was lost in Sonic's dimension. Dr. Eggman steals Blaze's Sol Emeralds in her world, which causes her to chase after him. While in pursuit, she sees a bright light and then passes out. When she wakes up, she questions whether or not she's in a different dimension; she finds out that she is in another one entirely and Eggman still has all of the emeralds. Throughout the game, she is tracking down Eggman to collect all of the Sol Emeralds back.

Also, in Sonic Rush Eggman sends a letter to Blaze that he has kidnapped Cream, which makes Blaze furious, and tracks him down to save her friend. Blaze destroys Eggman's robot and rescues Cream.

Friends/allies

 * Silver the Hedgehog
 * Amy Rose
 * Cream the Rabbit (best friend)
 * Cheese
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Vanilla the Rabbit
 * Sonic the Hedgehog (close friend; partner in combat)
 * Vector the Crocodile
 * Marine the Raccoon (close friend)
 * Coconut Crew
 * Gardon
 * Classic Sonic

Enemies

 * Eggman Nega (arch-enemy)
 * Dr. Eggman
 * Orbot
 * Cubot
 * Pirates
 * Captain Whisker
 * Johnny
 * Mini & Mum
 * Iblis
 * The Time Eater