Christopher Thorndyke

"Don't miss it!"

- Chris at the end of the sneak peek of the next episode (Japanese version).

Christopher Thorndyke (クリストファー ソーンダイク), also simply known as Chris (クリス), is the main human protagonist and one of Sonic's best friends in the anime series Sonic X and its comic series published by Archie Comics. He is a twelve-year-old kind and caring boy and who lives in Station Square on Earth, which is regarded as an alternate version of Sonic's home planet in another dimension. At the start of the series, Chris finds Sonic at the bottom of his swimming pool and saves him from drowning and hosts him, Tails, Amy, Cream and Cheese for most of the series. Chris, very much like Tails, looks up to Sonic like an older brother figure and is always willing to do whatever he can to help his new-found friends and thwart the plans of Dr. Eggman.

History
Chris lives with his grandfather Chuck Thorndyke (who is a scientist), his bodyguard and butler Mr. Tanaka, and his maid Ella. He lives in a large, luxurious mansion due to his parents' success in their individual fields of work. Chris' father Nelson Thorndyke runs an electrical appliances company, while Chris' mother Lindsey Thorndyke is a famous actress. As a child, Chris rarely saw his parents, which made him become very lonely to the point where he feels threatened by abandonment when Sonic and the rest of Chris' friends return to their world, even though it wasn't their fault that they had to leave. His uncle, known as Sam Speed, is the head of a police car-chase team, known as the Speed Team, drives a Formula One race car and has some sort of rivalry with Sonic. Chris' elementary school teacher is Mr. Stewart, who turns out to be a spy working for the government later in the show.

At the end of the second season and during the third season, six years has passed and Chris becomes eighteen years old. Early in the third season, he uses a portal to travel to Sonic's home in the show. After this point in this series, Chris is still in his pre-teen design and still speaks and thinks in his younger voice since the passage of time is different in Sonic's dimension. Yet, he has the memories and the skills he gained of the past six years of his life prior to traveling to Sonic's world. Chris no longer takes the back seat in the X-Tornado; instead, he is shown as flying it capably, which his younger self would never have been able to do so. Chris also comments in one episode that he is a black belt in karate. Additionally, he has also shown to have become a quite capable engineer, enough to impress Tails. He invents different gadgets and devices like Sonic's Hovershoes, a hoverboard and a new, better Chaos Emerald scanner for the Blue Typhoon. He is also seen in a few episodes using Flash Bombs as a distraction and he also uses a laser gun as a weapon.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic is Chris's best friend. Chris first met Sonic when he crash-landed into the swimming pool of his parents' mansion, and at first, he had to keep the fact that he saved a blue, talking hedgehog a secret by saying that Sonic was a cat, unfortunately for Chris, his grandpa Chuck discovers Sonic and suspects that he is a robot. However, he later proves instrumental in helping to rescue Sonic's friends and finding the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic and Chris quickly form a close bond that turns into an everlasting friendship that not even separate worlds can break. Like Tails, Chris is as close to Sonic as a younger brother would be. Sonic has always been there when Chris really needed it, as Chris admits in episode 51 when he says to Sonic: "You have always been there for me".

Miles "Tails" Prower
Chris and Tails are good friends throughout the first two seasons and are seen riding in the X Tornado together. Chris helps Tails give Sonic Power Rings when Tails is too busy to do so. In season three Chris and Tails become closer friends due to Chris being an accomplished scientist in the season and having more to relate to now. Tails comments that Chris reminds him a lot of Chuck now.

Amy Rose
Amy Rose is another one of Chris's friends, the two tend to get along quite nicely, but when Sonic gets in the mix, Amy tends to become annoyed. At one point, she even threatened to hurt Chris if Sonic didn't come out of hiding, although it is later revealed that she didn't mean it seriously. Chris and Amy have both admitted to being a bit jealous of Sonic's freedom to do anything at any time.

Knuckles the Echidna
Not much can be said about Chris's relationship with Knuckles except that the two get along well enough. After Chris gets captured by Eggman due to Knuckles believing his lies in episode 25, Knuckles makes it his objective to find and rescue Chris. Throughout the series, Knuckles is shown to be concerned for Chris's safety such as in episode 45 when they entered a fighting tournament, Knuckles refused to fight Chris in the Quarter-Finals because he did not want him getting hurt, and also, Chris was concerned that he would be facing Amy or Rouge in the Semi-Finals if he won, resulting in Chris forfeiting the match.

Cream the Rabbit
Cream is also one of Chris's friends, they are seen tagging along together in some episodes and are generally friendly to each other. Despite this, in episode 7, Cream gets mad at Chris after he makes a comment about how his mom is rude to leave the party without telling the guests. Cream is upset because she overheard his mom crying about how she is never able to be there for him and that Cream can't see or even talk with her on a phone with her mom since she is back on Sonic's world. Later, Cream forgives Chris and makes him a crown of flowers which, according to Sonic, is something that she only does for people she really likes.

Cosmo
Cosmo is a friend of Chris as well, they get along pretty well. Cosmo starts to look up to Chris after he nearly succeeded in rescuing her from Black Narcissus during which time Chris tells Cosmo that she reminds him a lot of himself before he met Sonic. Like the others, Chris is greatly saddened when Cosmo sacrifices herself to save the Galaxy.

Helen
Chris and Helen are very close friends in the first two seasons of the anime and Helen is the most trusted human friend of Chris. In the second series, Helen and Chris have become boyfriend and girlfriend and they both excel at machinery. Both also felt lonely due to the fact that their parents were working really hard and had little time for them. However Helen's family was doing it to get by and she was able to restore her relationship with her parents much quicker than Chris was able to with his.

Danny
Danny is Chris's childhood friend and helps Sonic and the others a few times in the first season. In the Archie comics Chris and Danny are shown to be on the same soccer team. In the pilot episode of the series, Danny was going to have a much larger role then he ended up having but he would still have a smaller role than Chris.

Frances
Frances is another close friend of Chris who helps Sonic and the team out in the first season. Frances is seen as a tomboy and enjoys poking fun at Chris and Danny.

Shadow the Hedgehog
Chris takes an interest in Shadow especially when he returns after supposedly sacrificing himself to stop the ARK from hurtling into the earth. Shadow does try to hurt Chris at one point, but Chris is rescued by Rouge, who later abandons him and then Chris must be rescued by Knuckles. Although at times Chris has shown signs of dislike for Shadow, he has also shown signs of liking him. Chris kept Shadow's rings until Shadow came back and Chris returned them to him. Chris did shed one tear when he learned Shadow was supposedly dead. Chris also convinced Shadow that Maria would want him to help people before Shadow lost his memory. Also, he reminds Shadow of Maria.

Reception
While he was received positively in Japan, Chris is sometimes criticized by the American and European fans for his roles in the Sonic Adventure adaptions as he takes the place of the other characters that had an important role in the games. For example, during the adaptation of Sonic Adventure, he journeys with Big and Cream as they go looking for Froggy (even though it should be noted that Cream has never gotten any criticism for usurping Tails' role in finding Froggy). In the adaption arc of Sonic Adventure 2, he replaces Amy as the one who convinces Shadow to save Earth. He also receives Shadow's ring as Rouge the Bat did in that game. He has also been criticized for other reasons such as shutting down the portal so Sonic couldn't return back home. But in the end of the second season, Chris realized what he was doing was wrong and that he was binding his best friend to a place that he didn't belong and let Sonic return to his own world. In the 3rd season, Chris returns and reunites with Sonic and his friends. He joins Sonic and his friends to help Cosmo defeat the Metarex. When the Metarex was destroyed, Cosmo sacrificed herself to save her friends and the galaxy. And in the end of the third season, Doctor Eggman revived his rivalry with Sonic, now that Chris is out of the way. He has also been criticized for his dependence on Sonic. Despite the criticism, there's still a considerable fan base that accepts and likes Chris along with the other liberties Sonic Team took with the anime.

Trivia

 * His design bears a passing resemblance to Sora from the Kingdom Hearts franchise.
 * Chris was one of four Sonic X characters exclusively promoted by Sonic Team (the others being Danny, Nazo and Cosmo), and one of only two characters promoted by 4Kids Entertainment (along with Chris' grandfather Chuck Thorndyke).
 * While never physically appearing in the video games, Chris does appear on a poster for Sonic X next to Sonic in the Missions 3 and 12 of Mission Mode of Sonic Adventure DX in the form of a poster promoting Sonic X. His voice is also heard congratulating Sonic whenever Sonic solves a problem in the Sonic X Leapster game.
 * He invented five pairs of shoes for Sonic on Season three, one of which appeared to be Sonic's Soap shoes from Sonic Adventure 2.
 * He also appears as a main character in the Sonic X comic.
 * Chris reminds Shadow of Maria because of their caring personalities and the similar look in their eyes.
 * Chris making it home safely at the end of the series is never confirmed, only heavily implied by Eggman.
 * Even though he only appears in Sonic X (minus the Leapster game and the cameo in Sonic Adventure DX), Chris was created by Sonic Team. He also appeared with Sonic in the most episodes of Sonic X (76), leaving out episodes 17 and 68.
 * Chris unintentionally managed to make both Sonic and Shadow come to tears.
 * Even though Chris does not appear in the games, he is the only main male human that Sonic has been good friends with as Sonic's other human-like friends were female. (Elise, Shahra, Merlina).
 * Chris learned martial arts growing up but is unable to defend himself with them at first because of not being used to be in a twelve year old body.
 * Sonic's Sonic X actor, Jason Griffith stated that he originally wanted to voice Chris during auditions as he wanted to see what it's like to be a human companion of Sonic, but the producers felt his voice was more appropriate for Sonic only.