Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-679780-20170306231922/@comment-1669199-20170309010903

I tried writing a post on this last night, but for whatever reason it didn't go through, so I'm going to try again now. If there's one little thing about the canon/lore that I can admit that genuinely gets on my nerves it's the entirety of Blaze's current existence. It's not that I dislike her character or anything (in fact, anyone here who's known me long enough or at least taken the time to read certain sections of my User page will already known she's my favorite character in the whole franchise), I just hate how her mishandling has essentially reduced her to a walking plot-hole in the series' lore. Allow me to explain what I mean further below. Fair warning to potential spoilers. There's also a TL;DR down below if you want to get the short version of my arguments.

Point 1: I'll start off with her different backstories introduced in the Sonic Rush games and Sonic 06. Within the series proper Blaze is first introduced in Sonic Rush for the Nintendo DS, where she's a princess from an alternate dimension who's in charge of protecting artifacts similar in nature to the Chaos Emeralds (called the "Sol Emeralds") which are also native from her world, only she along with these artifacts end up in Sonic's World, which kick-starts the plot of the game, where Blaze herself seeks to get these artifacts back and find a way to return home with them. She can essentially be summed up as a female version of Knuckles with a touch of royalty, faster speed, pyrokinetic powers and a brain that doesn't experience degradation over time (though to be fair to Knuckles, it's not really his fault the writers across the series more or less collectively decided to reduce him to dumb muscle who couldn't see through an obvious ruse to save his life, although I admit to being ignorant as to whether this characterization still holds true in recent entries in the series, and not just in the games.). Sonic Rush Adventure, serving as a sequel to the previous game, expands on this backstory further.

Then Sonic 06 happened and introduced Blaze with a new backstory, this time as a friend of Silver's from the same bad future of Sonic's World that he himself is also from. By the end of the game she gets sent off to another dimension with half of a very angry god inside of her, never to be seen again -- not even during the game's climax when all the timelines come together and the cast faces off against said angry god in it's complete form. Why she didn't appear then is a mystery I don't feel like getting into right now. Long story short, this new backstory completely contradicts how she was previously portrayed, and to this very day fans speculate as to how exactly these two different backstories relate to each other in any way, down to even whether or not the Blaze seen in Sonic 06 is even the same character as the one from the Rush games and vice versa. SEGA/Sonic Team has provided different answers to this seeming contradiction multiple times over the years, and even a few of these statements contradicted each other at times, leading to even further confusion among the fandom. Bottom line, ever since the events of Sonic 06 Blaze has essentially been reduced to cameo appearances throughout later installments, hardly ever getting even so much as a minor role in any new game's plot, and is normally only playable in multiplayer games that have no bearing on the actual lore, such as the Olympic Games series. The clear lack of desire by Sonic Team, or virtually every continuation of Sonic that features her in any capacity (like the Archie Comics), to further utilize her in any capacity tells me they don't really intend to clear up the confusion surrounding her different backstories in any clear-cut way anytime soon, which I will get into further detail now:

Point 2: Let's be honest, even Cream the Rabbit has had more minor-to-major roles within games that were made after her debut in the Sonic Advance series of games than Blaze has had, which at times baffles me when I take into consideration how Sonic Team has on several occasions went to the trouble of thinking up justifications as to how certain past characters both classic and modern were able to make simple cameo appearances in certain games. Blaze is among these characters (the most recent example I can think of is her appearance in the DS version of Sonic Colors, since as far as I'm aware she has more than just a cameo appearance in Sonic Generations.). The way I see it, even if it's just to clear the air around her backstories once and for all, only to never really use her for anything outside of cameo appearances again, Sonic Team could bring her into another game or two where she could play an important enough role to where she can have some sort of influence on the game's plot, or at least provide some much-needed exposition -- something. At this point I'm getting tired of hearing the different responses to Blaze's inconsistent portrayals by staff members of the games, which as I mentioned previously have had a habit of contradicting each other, and in general didn't really seem all that well thought out. You'd think it'd be so easy to just simply say what is up with something rather than go to the trouble of including it in a game in some way, but apparently with SEGA/Sonic Team they struggle even with this. So since they can't be bothered to think over a proper response, then they should try putting their perspective(s) of this issue in the only form they seem to have an easier time communicating through than actual human language: their art/games. But alas, I've become cynical with the Sonic series as of late, and I doubt that they'll ever utilize Blaze for even a minor role in any game (or any thing besides the games, really.) within the foreseeable future, if ever -- just like with many other characters that have essentially been tossed to the side to collect dust.

I am a fan of good story telling, but at the very least I can be satisfied with a coherent story as long as it put some sort of effort in keeping itself consistent, and actually showing that it actually cares in being consistent with itself if it bothers to bring up any semblance of continuity at all. But to me Blaze is a representation (and not the only one, I assure you) of the lack of care that the creative staff behind the games, or even throughout the entire franchise since she's appeared in more than just the games, have in regards to keeping even the simplest aspects of their creation's lore consistent with itself, and they treat her as the black mark in the series' lore that they made her out to be by reducing her to having the magical power of frequent justified cameo appearances (again, if they can go to the trouble of finding ways to have her make cameo appearances then they can certainly think of ways to have her play minor roles in future installments since she would otherwise have no real reason to be in the places where she makes her said cameos) that don't really add to anything other than just her being there at that given time, and never try to do anything with her beyond that except have her as a playable character in multiplayer games that don't add to the series lore. The fact that she's my favorite character in the series only adds further insult to the injury they've created when they turned her character into a walking plot-hole in the lore. Like I said at the beginning of this whole thing, I don't dislike Blaze as a character - I just hate how she's been reduced to what I now see her as and how we're likely not going to have the issues surrounding her completely fixed up anytime soon, if ever.

'''TL;DR: SEGA/Sonic Team's creation of two different backstories for Blaze the Cat has essentially not only created a plot-hole in the series' lore that they refuse to properly fix for whatever reason, as a consequence of this they've reduced her character to being the frequent cameo character that at times they think of ways to justify her appearing in certain games as a cameo, all the while never really adding new to her character. In essence, she's the reminder of a mistake in the lore that just won't go away or try to fix itself.'''