About Knuckles and Julie-Su. You're wrong about what makes Knuxulie inc*st.
This isn't the stuff I usually post, but it's something I want to point out because the Sonic Archie Comics has been growing on me lately. As a Knuckles superfan, I wanted to put my two cents on Knuxulie and why I, as well as everyone else are not particularly fond of it.
I think I have made it clear that this is merely a subjective point of view, though, I try not to add any bias here. I may be wrong at some points, so feel free to correct me. (Make sure you read the alt texts. Excuse me if my English is horrible.)
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What makes Julie-Su and Knuckles inc*stuous is not because of their distant lineage. Inc*st isn't just about blood relation. It's not just about how two persons of the same blood are mingling with one another, it's also because of power imbalance and many other major issues between two relatives who are living under the same roof. I think it's almost comparable to the argument about how relationships between adoptive/step-siblings isn't inc*st due to the absence of any genetic relation, with the heavy implication that adoptive or step family aren't true relatives, completely disregarding any genuine family dynamic.
But what about Julie-Su and Knuckles? Their connection to one another is so far off and their respective families aren't living in close proximity to one another. Their family ties, close or not, are essentially gone. Surely these conditions wouldn't make their relationship inc*stuous, right?
Well, regarding family ties, it hasn't diminished. I know most of you already know the overly complicated lore of Penders' Echidnas, so I won't be diving deep into it. Anyway, the family fued between the twin brothers, Dimitri and Edmund's families are still acknowledged by both parties and has persisted for centuries. Knuckles' great-great-great-something grandfathers are still alive and kicking, helping their descendant fight off the Dark Legion that is currently led by Julie-Su's still-living great-great-something relatives. Narratively speaking, Knuckles and Julie-Su's character both serve as a way to unite the bloodlines. Because of this (they wouldn't have any other choice, anyway), they acknowledge each as family, and that's where the problem starts.
Despite all of this, they would still be closely tied from either their families' centuries-long feud or their still living relatives that consider each other as family, a dynamic that is shown even in Mobius: X Years Later. Although Julie-Su is shown to resent her biological family for the childhood ab*se she suffered at their hands, she still views them as her kin and values them as her people. Their predicament is even exacerbated after the Egg Grape incident which wiped out nearly all of the Echidna race, forcing them to keep each other alive for the sake of conserving their species in spite of their ongoing conflict.
Regarding Ken Penders (the one responsible for all this madness), and if we also include the atrocity that is The Lara-Su Chronicles since it contains what Penders intended for the story, there are times where he sometimes puts emphasis on the "family" part. I also want to point out that Penders constantly shoves it down everyone's throats that Knuckles and Julie-Su aren't married, and their relationship is still the way it was when they were teenagers even though they now cohabitate and have a daughter together. We can't say that they are calling each one's relations as family-in-laws because they aren't legally bound by matrimony.
... Companions or Significant Other would be the terms they use. Julie-Su & Knuckles are the parents of Lara-Su. They just never felt they needed a piece of paper to justify their commitment to each other.
- Ken Penders' tweet
Now if these conditions were different, that the family never had a feud, has largely forgotten about their connection, and they don't view and treat each other as family, then perhaps their relationship wouldn't be considered inc*st. But then there's the matter of people taking it the wrong way.
The key problem here is that even if you establish that two characters are distantly related to one another and lack any genetic relation that their previous ancestors once had, there is still the looming presence of their ancestry to the readers. They will still look at the family tree, no matter how many generations removed they are, and still attribute negative things to it. It's just something you have to accept as both the reader and the writer. As far as I know, Ken Penders wasn't forced to make Dimitri and Edmund brothers. He even gave his audience a choice to vote on whether or not to rewrite the two as simply close friend/colleagues than siblings, though that never followed through.
In short, Knuckles and Julie-Su being distant cousins isn't exactly what make it inc*st, and Lara-Su isn't inbred (their genetic relation has been completely diluted). It's them still recognizing and regarding each other as family is what makes it inc*st. The family wreath is also still going to tick off the readers whether you like it or not.
