Shadow the Hedgehog: The Original 'OC'

 Don't steal

With the news that Jason Mamoa is in the scopes to play Shadow the Hedgehog for the, already-on-the-slate, Sonic The Hedgehog 3 movie, I've been thinking about the role our ultimate lifeform plays within the Sonic canon. We can assume that the movie makers are looking to smoothly transition into adapting the 3D universe games and so it's only a matter of time before they run out of material and we start seeing freakin' 'Mephiles the Dark' up in this franchise, so let's savour the characters very tip of the decent before this franchise fully tumbles off the cliff and into the abyss. But then, saying that; is Shadow really the brink, or is he the first slip off into the deep end? Because when you stop and think about it, I mean really analyse his role and personality, then Shadow really is just the single biggest recurring fan made OC, (or Original Character) who somehow finagled his way into becoming an established series veteran. 

When it comes to fan fiction, there's a stigma around the concept of OC's, or fresh characters who are slotted into existing franchises with new stories, because most observers instinctually see these personalities as poorly conceived self-inserts. And a lot more times than not, that is exactly what they are. Pixie-dream characters with no real personality, weight within the fiction of the world or decently carved place within the heart of the story they've been shoved into, usually made by children, and typically containing about as much creativity as is required to select the 'paint bucket' tool in photoshop and recolour Shadow to be green. (Yes, I know there's a green Sonic in the Archie Comics. This franchise is notorious for blurring the line between canonicity and OC content.) OC's are typically overpowered, effortlessly cool, (although 'cool' in the way that a 10 year old boy would describe use that word) sometimes break the thematic boundaries of the rest of the narrative world with their ill-fitting presence, and if we're really lucky; they're full of angst. Now with that description of what the worst of OCs can be, let's take a look at Shadow the Hedgehog.

Introduced in 'Sonic: Adventure 2', Shadow is the serious, brooding foil to Sonic's aloof irreverence. He is coated with pitch black fur, apart from an inexplicable blood-red stripe up his forehead. He just so happens to be able to run as fast as Sonic, the apparent fastest thing alive, thanks to rocket boots strapped to his feet. He has a tragic backstory involving cloning, being some sort of ultimate weapon, and seeing a young girl, his only friend, be shot dead in front of his eyes. He speaks in nothing but gruff, offish tones and rides the line between antihero and villain in a manner vaguely similar to Knuckles the Echidna's first debut. And though this might not tie into his debut, I feel it's far too important to who Shadow is as a character not to bring up that he eventually had his own spin off game where he was not only the first character to swear in this franchise (at least in the games, I don't know what sort of sick stuff they were up to in those Archie comics) with liberal use of the 'outrageous profanity': "Damn!"; but he also made gratuitous use of, to the point he's even depicted with them on the front cover, guns. Real ballistic lead throwers. Shadow the Hedgehog just shoots people. Straight up. Do you feel the edge yet?

There's a pattern whenever it comes to properties that linger just a little past their freshness, where some new creative slides into the ideas room to try and revitalise the flagging fiction with extremes either in new story scenarios, major character events, or just reshuffles of characters we thought we knew. Then there come along ever more 'ambitious' ideas people who endeavour to mix all three together so as to create a character who exists to be 'extreme'. And whilst sometimes, amazingly, that works wonders and excites the source material once more, at other times it can feel shallow and formulaic. As though you've just personified the very concept of a being that is 'cool' in hopes that your audience will resonate with that, rather than create a living, breathing, 3 dimensional character who has likable traits to them, but believable flaws and weaknesses too. Think 'Carnage' from the Spiderman Comics, made to be Venom but stronger, more violent and all around better; at first it really worked to make an interesting foe that fans wanted to see more frequently, but then as the creators started to realise that their shallow creation didn't really have much in the way of 'depth' about him, they had to start making changes to either flesh him out into being a character or double down on the 'edgy cool' factor. Which is what has led one of the most recent iterations of Carnage being, hold on while I check Google... a super powerful Symbiote god-being with metal wings and devil horns (like a bloody death metal album cover) called Dark Carnage. Dark Carnage? What, did the 'big book of edge' run out of slick bad-guy adjectives so you had to revert to basics?

I don't think Shadow has ever fallen to those extremes in any of his iterations, but god knows it isn't for lack of trying. A lot what defines this character is the same sort of insubstantial inner conflict that would make, and I'm sorry to make this comparison yet again, an adolescent nod their head for the truthful powerful mirror of their own personal struggles. You see, Shadow is the perpetual victim of being misunderstood, just like every youth of the 2000's thought they were, and though he's originally presented as the antagonist because being the bad guy is cool, it isn't long before he's switching around with the whole 'enemy of my enemy' logic back to the tentative side of the franchise heroes. But here's where the 'insubstantial' part of his writing shines, because Shadow never even properly flirted with being bad again. Despite his attitude, despite his lone-wolf demeanour in a series that came to support togetherness as it went on, and despite literally carrying around a gun and shooting people, presumably dead, in his own spin-off; Shadow has forever been the 'dark hero' in the franchise, which makes his whole presentation seems like a front.

And all of this, the angst, the basic recolour design, the, later controversial, use of firearms unlike any other character in the whole series, line up perfectly with the designs of a fandom character. Which is why it makes so much sense that Shadow the Hedgehog actually was created by- no I'm kidding, he was made by Takashi Iizuka, a real adult who worked on the franchise. But that model for creating series addendum characters would be whole heartedly gobbled up by the Sonic fandom community to fuel the birth of endless recoloured 'OC' creations that have gone on to be one of the most prevailing legacies of Sonic fandom. Something as simple as palette switching and turning all the personality switches to one-note really resonated enough to break free of Sonic fandom as well, and spread into internet fandom the world over. I think we can safely say that without the influence of Shadow's legacy, we wouldn't have ever had such iconic characters as: Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. And then where would we be as a society?

Since Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow has been a near inexorable addendum to the Sonic lineup, bought back into the franchise time and time again despite, you know, literally dying at the end of his debut game. He showed up in Sonic Heroes, that aforementioned spin-off game where he used guns (and which remains the only Sonic game in the franchise with branching narrative missions dependant on arbitrary good-or-evil choices made by the player. Does that make it more of an RPG than Cyberpunk? Maybe.) Sonic 06, Sonic Battle, (a fighting game) Sonic Riders, Sonic Rivals 1 & 2, Sonic Forces and so many other games and even some TV shows inbetween, each time being his same surface-level surly self. Enough to make his personality 'iconic' and thus feasibly untouchable. Meaning Shadow is not only the first and most influential 'OC don't steal', he's also destined to be the longest lasting, as to even dare of fleshing him out in any way is to face the unrelenting bullying-might of the Sonic community. And the Sonic the Hedgehog movie creators will tell you from personal experiences how good the Sonic Community is at bullying. (It did work out in the end, though.)

Which brings us back around to Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and what exactly will be done with Jason Mamoa's Shadow the Hedgehog. (presuming he says 'yes' to the role.) I think that in current year it's impossible to completely recreate a character who is presented and acts exactly like Shadow does without facing considerable, justified, mockery. And the Sonic movie has already demonstrated that this version of the property isn't taking itself nearly as seriously as the 3d era Sonic games were known to get, so perhaps we may be looking at the first iteration of a Shadow with some actual charm to him. Because Mamoa is dripping with charm, you'd be wasting a casting otherwise. Could this mean a new dawn for this shell of a character to finally become more than the prototypical OC he has served as for over 20 years now? We may only speculate.