They got their victory ice cream 🍦🎉✨

Why Knuckles’ Characterization in the Movie Works

In recent years, Knuckles has become a character whose sole defining trait has been his physical strength, and with characters like that it is common to have them become unintelligent comedic relief. This portrayal of Knuckles (I am specifically referring to the games, I haven’t read all of Archie so I can’t make a judgement on that) evolved over time as Knuckles’ role in the games became less and less vital. This is because the character had a duty to guard the Master Emerald on Angel Island, and any time he wasn’t on the island guarding the emerald, he needed an excuse to not be there, or fans would start asking questions.

As his appearances decreased in frequency (overall) and his relevance to the plot was minor at best, his old personality faded away until all that was left was the comedic moments, almost as if the creators were trying to justify still including Knuckles without seeming like a blatant plot device or completely irrelevant.

The second Sonic movie challenges this by going back to Knuckles’ roots and exploring what it is that makes him Knuckles. He’s the last of his kind, has been isolated for most of his childhood, and is dedicated to the Master Emerald. Standard Knuckles backstory, except the movie explores this further.

One thing I loved about SCU!Knuckles was his strong sense of loyalty and honor, and his intense belief in those concepts. His naivete coupled with his unwavering dedication to those morals causes him to believe that others would behave the same way: even if Eggman isn’t a good person, surely he wouldn’t leave behind Stone and be disloyal, right? But not everyone thinks like Knuckles does, and that’s something he has to learn.

His “stupidity” is not stupidity at all, rather naivete that comes from social isolation, faith in the morals his tribe instilled upon him, and culture shock. His intelligence is shown throughout the movie as he questions Robotnik’s actions that contradict Knuckles’ morals, and how he can emotionally connect with Sonic, someone who was still, at the point of their heart-to-heart on the beach, basically Knuckles’ enemy. He’s not a dumb character by any means, but when it’s a matter of brute force over intelligence, he’s of course going to pick force. He has the strength, why not use it? If he can punch his way through a problem, he doesn’t really need to think of any other solutions.

(Side note, I love the moment during the final battle where he “pretends” to be a hologram, it’s so clear that he is unused to using strategies like that in battle lmao but he tries anyway! Maybe punching his way to victory is his instinct, but he’s willing to go along with other strategies if they seem to be the better option.)

With Knuckles’ characterization fixed, the movie could have left it there and the fans would have been more than satisfied. He would leave with the Master Emerald at the end of the movie to carry out his duty of guarding it, and we would hopefully see him again in the future.

But instead, it solved the problem that the games had by doing something I don’t think anyone expected:

Knuckles isn’t guarding the Emerald alone.

By having Sonic and Tails join Knuckles in the responsibility, not only does it make the bond between the characters seem much stronger, not only does it mean that Knuckles will no longer be expected to be on his own unless he has a good reason to abandon his duties, but now Knuckles can be involved in any aspect of the future films and it wouldn’t seem uncharacteristic.

I love love LOVE this version of Knuckles so much and I can’t wait to see where the character goes from here.

(Also, I think it could be very interesting if the third movie has Knuckles and Shadow specifically clash due to Knuckles believing so strongly in loyalty, but seeing Shadow prepared to destroy the entire world out of “loyalty” to Maria, seeing a negative side of loyalty could create an interesting arc for Knuckles while ensuring that the two characters don’t seem like copies of each other, a concern other people have had)