On Sonic’s Emotional Characterization – A Thought Experiment on Sonic's Parentification
Treat this as a sequel to my last essay, which you can find here. No pressure - you can read this stand-alone, but the context certainly helps. Plus, I think it’s a good read (but, of course, I might be biased lol).
Both of these are long, so buckle up!
Ever since writing my last essay on the topic, Sonic’s emotional characterization has been making the rounds in my head. The more I think about it, the more impressed I am with the emotional nuance Sonic Team has woven into this blue rodent. As a student of Sociology and Humanities, I’ve noticed a lot of interesting facets of Sonic’s character align with the literature of parentification – the acting of a child as a parental figure to someone else – and self-parenting. While I doubt this was intentional on the part of Sonic Team, it’s an interesting thought exercise for me to see how Sonic’s personality remains consistent with those in similar circumstances.
Psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson’s Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents is a self-help book of sorts, written to help those emotionally neglected in childhood cope with their feelings in the present; Gibson showcases the different kinds of adults that these children might grow into, different kinds of emotionally immature parents, and how adults can learn to healthily process their emotions. In the book’s first chapter, she shares real-world examples of emotionally neglected adults that she’s worked with within her clinic. Below is an excerpt from the chapter, titled “Natalie’s Story.” The emphasis is mine:
Natalie, fifty, an award-winning business consultant, was an emotionally neglected child who nevertheless created a rewarding adult life for herself both personally and professionally. Unfortunately, the emotional neglect she experienced as a child still haunts her in the form of dreams, which she described like this:
“I have recurring nightmares with the same theme. I’m in a desperate situation that I can’t get out of. I’m trying frantically to find a solution, a way out. Different roads, different keys, different doors – none of them are a solution. I’m all alone, and there’s only me trying to solve the problem; there’s no one else. Lots of times I’m responsible for other people who are watching and waiting for me to fix everything, but here they give me no help. There is no comfort to be found. I have no protection and I’m not safe. Then I wake up and my heart is racing.”
Natalie’s dream captures what it feels like to be emotionally alone. She has to deal with everything by herself and doesn’t consider asking anyone for help. This is how children of emotionally immature parents feel. Their parents may technically be present, but they offer little help, protection, or comfort.
In her family life, Natalie still takes care of her elderly mother, who lives with Natalie and her husband and kids. But no matter how much Natalie does, her mother still complains that Natalie has never loved her or helped her enough. Since childhood, Natalie has felt the responsibility for her mother’s emotional state. Meanwhile, Natalie was on her own because her mother wasn’t a person she could turn to. Children like Natalie often grow up as little adults, helping their parents, giving them no trouble, and appearing to need practically nothing. These capable kids may seem like they can parent themselves, but they can’t. No child can. They just learn to cling to whatever emotional scraps they get because any connection is better than none at all.
Yet, who would guess Natalie’s early insecurities as she strides into meetings, all business in her impeccable suits? She has a good marriage, successful children, and close friendships. She knows how to relate to people from all walks of life, and her emotional intelligence is off the charts. Natalie’s dreams pull back the curtain to reveal the emotional loneliness that remains within her. Despite creating a fulfilling adult life, inside she remains vulnerable to anxieties about being alone and unsupported. Not until she was nearly fifty did she begin to understand how her relationship with her mother fueled her underlying feelings of anxiety. That was one of the most meaningful discoveries of her life. Finally, she saw the reason for those nightmares.
While there are obvious differences between Natalie’s story and Sonic’s history (unless there’s some serious canon lore I’ve never heard of), a lot of Natalie’s feelings, anxieties, and experiences transfer well to Sonic given his distinct lack of parental figures, heightened tenfold by the fact that he’s taken up the primary role as world saviour, protector of all.
Parentification of a child often occurs in the case of permissive, neglectful, or in Sonic’s case, absentee parents. He’s been alone for likely a long time before the start of the series, likely coping with emotions for years by himself. Further, remember that everyone is strikingly young in this franchise (the oldest characters with confirmed ages, Vector, Big, and Rouge, are only 20 and 18, respectively), and members of our core cast are proper children. Regardless of their capabilities, these characters still need to be cared for to a degree and have a lot of vulnerabilities.
Boy genius or not, Tails has attitude and confidence problems and frequently second-guesses himself. He’s also known to easily allow extreme stress, fear, insecurity, and sadness to overwhelm him. He benefits from Sonic’s brotherhood more than Sonic’s pure friendship.
Sonic Lost World (I’m so sorry but it counts): Tails struggles to accept Eggman’s partnership because he feels that Sonic doesn’t trust him to handle things. This feeling isn’t invalid on the part of Tails (as we see later that Eggman wasn’t all that necessary and planned to double-cross Sonic and Tails anyway), but any shift in Tails’ dynamic with Sonic proves to upset him.
IDW Metal Virus arc: again, not unjustified, but Tails becomes inconsolable multiple times throughout the arc. Tails’ reactions to awful circumstances are a lot more emotional, public, and prominent compared to other characters like Amy and Espio (who both hit extreme lows but never let that show to the crowd for too long), but this is by design because of Tails’ age.
Cream, without a doubt, is the most innocent, naïve, and sheltered character in the series, partially due to the presence of her mother, Vanilla. Not a bad thing, at all, and it doesn’t make Cream a bad character or any less of a hero – she just exists to contrast our more hardened characters. While Sonic doesn’t act as a primary caregiver for Cream, he talks to her how you’d expect an adult to talk to a child: not patronizingly (I’m talking good adults, folks), but at a level and with a syntax she can understand.
IDW 18: Sonic masters a balance between establishing stakes but keeping calm in the face of adversity, and he does this for Cream to give her the confidence and strength to act. He runs into the scene angry and annoyed with the circumstances, but the second he sees Cream and Vanilla in danger, he doesn’t even consider letting that show. We see his persona reset for a moment after Cream flies away (showing again that he knows when he needs to perform), and what he says truly solidifies the stance he takes with Cream (and it’s beautiful).
Conversely, Sonic seems more “authentic” and willing to show vulnerability (barely and comparatively) to his older friends and comrades, but of course, he still holds himself back. Here, he’s prone to show more aggression and holds a sassier tone. Neither side of Sonic is a bad one, but I feel it’s important to understand that multiple sides do exist.
Despite her age, Amy proves wise beyond her years and has proven that to Sonic many times. I’ve seen arguments that the relationship that Sonic has with Amy is familial in nature, but the conversations we see them carry and the tone Sonic takes with her in a casual setting is fundamentally different from his tone with Tails. What’s more, while she’s not immune to being overwhelmed and blinding fury, she hides and copes with extreme stress a lot better than others.
Metal Virus: Amy’s lowest points are always expressed while she’s alone or, in the few minutes she ever had time, to Sonic. Amy’s the character to process her darker emotions alone and will only admit to them and show vulnerability when she’s mostly over the dark moment in question. She’s excited for Jewel to take over the resistance efforts, but she remains bubbly and playful in her conduct through this admittance of vulnerability – it’s a more mature way of looking at things.
Sonic Adventure 2: Amy puts her personal grievances of being relegated to “resident cheerleader” aside to step up and confront Shadow, which turns out to be the single saving grace the team needed to stop the ARK.
IDW 35 showcases the same mentality when Amy fights Clutch’s robot. In general, Amy’s instincts to stress are to “suck it up” to play the hero because she objectively knows she can.
Amy’s personality (and her ability to insert herself into Sonic’s head and emotions) makes her a strong candidate for someone he can talk to more neutrally. I encourage you to read IDW 2 and 15 (where Sonic and Amy are alone) and compare that to IDW 37-40 (where Tails is actively present). I think the difference in tone (regardless of the different writers) is evident and interesting; in one, Sonic’s a partner and in another, Sonic’s the leader. For now, here are some snippets:
Sonic and Knuckles’ friendship has always been chummy, rival, and playful in nature. When they’re together, it’s always business and mutual respect. Such a random and insignificant detail from Sonic X episode 73 is that Sonic stays up into the night with Knuckles – kind of reminds me of “adult time” and that just makes me laugh a bit.
Shadow, ambiguous, in my honest opinion, but you know what I mean:
It’s hard to include Shadow here as a friend, but he’s important to note as Sonic views him as, if nothing else, an equal to whom he needs to justify himself. The two are often at odds, and while Sonic’s plot armour allows him to prevail almost every time, it’s never at the outright disregard or slander of Shadow’s opinion.
While Sonic trusts all his friends equally to be safe, make smart choices, fight alongside him at times, and to be good friends to him, Sonic’s inherent approach to younger characters illustrates a strong sense of parentification. With older characters, his tone matures, and he seems more willing to hash things out with them – his first instinct with them isn’t to motivate and play “cool big brother.” Sonic demonstrates parental characteristics and feels a need and desire to be a family member in addition to a friend. Parentified children hardwire themselves to look after others before, and often at the complete expense of, themselves, and this trait is a defining factor of Sonic’s toward all his friends – objectively for a second, Sonic is extremely protective.
Let’s bring this parentification back into the frame of emotional neglect and compare the overlap between Natalie and Sonic:
Sonic’s heightened emotional intelligence as a result of not being able to offload feelings and having developed high self-awareness.
Sonic is highly independent and self-parents, leading to somewhat of an inability to rely on others for physical and emotional comfort on a daily basis.
Sonic shows discomfort in opening up about his feelings, as well as asking for and accepting emotional affection and help.
NOTE: Sonic isn’t always above asking for help when there are people readily available and the stakes aren’t super high (combo attacks, the entirety of Sonic Heroes, Sonic Forces (yeah, I’m shocked too)).
Sonic’s always been in a position of power, authority, or a caregiver/protector of someone/something (his friends and the world).
Sonic is more inclined to handle things on his own when he doesn’t already have allies, going to far as to push possible allies away as an instinct to protect them, such as when he tells Chip to run during the climax of Sonic Unleashed and when he pushes Tails into an evacuation shuttle before the final boss of Sonic Colours. Often, even when his friends are present, Sonic tends to handle Eggman and other threats independently – how often does he ask for help versus when it’s assumed or offered to him?
Sonic is more complicated of a character than we give him credit for. He's nuanced in personality, emotionally intelligent, and reeling from the effects of his responsibilities. It's nice to see real-world applications of this hedgehog's personality - it makes him feel more three-dimensional and justified.
