Media Essays: Silver the Hedgehog: Untapped

Written by The Wandering Fox

Teddy: This is interesting.

Freddy: What? The fact that he’s talking about a Sonic character other than Tails?

Teddy: Yeah, with him being a fox lover, and a cat lover, I thought he’d be talking about Tails or Blaze. Then again, Erin is a Blaze fan and Media Man would do a stronger job at doing a Blaze essay.

Freddy: Yeah, that maybe true. But still, Silver will be an interesting character to discuss. I think he’s got a lot there.

That he does.

It’s me the Wandering Fox again and while I was doing my usual browsing of Sonic fans and their thoughts on a few characters, there’s a character who’s certainly become as divisive as the IDW comics themselves. That character is Silver the Hedgehog. Introduced in Sonic 06 Silver has had a slightly rocky life since he debuted, either being the butt of many jokes in the fandom or by some writers, or glorified naivety to the point where he’s now what many call a Steven Universe caricature. He is so divisive that Ian Flynn and Evan Stanley can’t even stop themselves from contradicting each other and SEGA with what they’re doing with the character.

I do remember in my early days of finding Sonic that I watched Sonic 06’s clips and was quite surprised by Silver as I never heard of him until then, and I thought he was a character with a lot there that was going for him with him and his abilities, his love for tranquility, his desire to help others, him learning to trust the right guys, then there was the ending with me thinking of Silver’s life afterwards with the series. I was annoyed with how he was done in Archie, either being a murder happy idiot who just tried killing anybody he thought was the traitor, was inconsiderate enough about Antoine’s near death and impact on Bunnie, or how he didn’t do research on the fact he was working for Mammoth Mogul who was a bad guy in the present. Then there’s IDW.

That has obviously given Silver a fandom, one group of whom think he should be a bit closer to his 06 portrayal in terms of naivety and a blunt character though has a good heart while others prefer him as how he is in IDW with him as a wide eyed fanboy of the heroes. Though if there’s something quite a lot of fans agree on it’s that Silver does deserve a lot better. He’s a character with untapped potential to myself and fans and there’s little bits here and there from his happier future that has you left further wishing you had more from Silver. Hence here I’m going to offer up some ideas of what can be done with Silver.

Consistency

If there’s something the IDW comics and the rise of Ian Flynn has shown, there’s a lot of bad communication skills between Ian Flynn and SEGA, not helped by how Flynn has got himself in bloody waters with SEGA here and there with his Bumblecast. But Silver is a point of intense contention between many fans, Flynn, Stanley and SEGA. The IDW comics are meant to be set in the games universe but Silver’s life in the comics has been shredded by Flynn and Stanley who not only say Silver’s future is still in a bad mess but he has no control over his time travelling, when in past games they’ve revealed Silver’s future is fine and he only comes back if he can tell something is wrong and comes back to help. He can time travel through using two Chaos Emeralds with Chaos Control, with somebody to help him. Silver also lives two hundred years from the present. Flynn and Stanley keep forgetting Silver’s future is okay and he comes back by his own choice, often instead having him being bitter and upset his future is in a bad place and he has no freedom of how he travels back in time, often having him appear through mysterious wormholes.

Sonic Rivals confirmed Silver’s future was changed following Sonic 06 and he came back to stop Eggman Nega from causing any darkness in the future. In Sonic Colours DS he reveals to Sonic and Tails that his future is full of blue skies and everybody has a smile. Evan Stanley tried to say Sonic Rivals wasn’t canon to try and cover herself for these errors in spite of the fact SEGA confirmed they are canon ages ago. So, Evan’s either lying or she couldn’t be bothered to do her research by looking up Sonic game guide books or asking somebody at SEGA to help her. The thing she said that Rivals wasn’t canon is dumb as she said that in 2020 when Eggman Nega, who was confirmed to be Eggman’s descendant, was confirmed again in 2019 at the Olympic Games.

IDW.

Sonic Colours DS.

Then there’s the most recent Sonic art by SEGA which reveals Silver’s happier future.

Look. Blue sky. Big buildings. Silver lives in an apartment. He likes to bake pies and apparently, in a picture you'll see later in the essay, he has a job as a mailman. So Ian, so Evan, what do you have to say about this when it’s SEGA themselves who did it? Let me guess they’ll say “Uhhhhhhhh, it’s before the apocalypse”. No. Look at the stuff I just showed you. His future is fine.

So, let’s get things straight. Silver is two hundred years in the future from Sonic’s present. He often battles Eggman Nega. He comes back to stop his future from being damaged by whatever Eggman or another baddie is doing. His future is okay. Angel Island is renamed Onyx Island. Those are the facts.

Silver’s personality has to be sorted as well. I do think him being a fanboy is far too removed from the character we met, and him being wide eyed and goofy is a bit much. You can make him naïve without making him an idiot or a goofball. It’s why though I like Bryce Papenbrook as him I think it’d be nice if he did a mature Silver who’s still naïve with wonder like he was in 06 but is still a hard with being a hero, a guy who fights as hard as he can to get what he wants. Bryce could do that well, he just needs somebody to give him a good script, which does Silver well.

That’s all we need, consistency. But trying to have Ian Flynn being consistent is asking him to write Lex Luthor right and we know what he did with him. Oh, what’s that? Flynn’s gonna blame SEGA and DC for that one? Geez Ian just grow up and admit you have flaws, stop blaming others.

With that done, let’s look at what could be done with him.

Standing On His Own

When I say this I don’t mean give him a spin off game this instant. It’d be nice if he got one but not now, that’d have to take a lot of planning. When I say have him stand on his own I mean try and avoid the pitfalls many have made with him: don’t make him a fanboy. Quit it with the meme references. Try and have him stand by himself as his own character without Blaze or another Sonic character. Give him a story that many can feel proud of. Ironically I thought his first Sonic Universe story was pretty decent, but even then it was Silver battling Ian Flynn’s edgy evil alternate universe and he was surrounded by edgy alternate characters like those of Enerjak or Fiona.

This is where I go into ideas now so Flynn, if you’re reading this, and let’s be honest you are, DON’T copy me. SEGA told you to stop pitching fan ideas, how about you stop stealing them? If I were rich enough and had some connections I’d pitch similar ideas to SEGA myself of my own ideas, but I’m not. I’m just a guy who’s just a basic bloke so the most you can do is respectfully do as you’re told and stop stealing from ordinary guys hm?

First of all, if you want Silver to stand as his own character then just do a comic miniseries with him battling Eggman Nega. I don’t know with the creative issues with Nega but if SEGA were to be a bit more up for giving him a go in other Sonic corners then yeah, have him. Just have Silver foil a plot of his, it could be Eggman Nega stealing Onyx Island for an evil scheme, there’s no time travel, it’s Silver having to save Onyx Island. You could reveal that in the two hundred years onyx has been found on Angel Island and it’s become a attraction for businesses and thieves and there could be a magical element in the onyx hence it’s called Onyx Island in the future and Eggman Nega wants it. Just have Silver battle him, he fights a giant robot, we see Silver being the hero of the future and his own little story is him remembering how Sonic, Tails and those like them were as heroes and how he has to be his own, he’s hard, he’s tough though he’s focussed and is much of a lover for the simpler things and wants to look after that. Don’t reveal anything that could be forcing the past to change, other than the hint of onyx on Angel Island, which even then doesn’t have to be mentioned in the past. Silver saves the day, he returns Onyx Island and is happy that all is good.

If a game were to be made of him I’d rather they take their time with it, though the most we might get is another Generations sequel where we play Sonic Generations again but you then have the chance to play Silver with Blaze as a side character and you have him and her fight Mephiles, Eggman Nega, the Ifrit and whoever else there is they wanna have him fight. The game with Silver though don’t think they’ll do any big revelations in revealing who he’s descended from as we don’t need to know. The utmost they’d do is maybe reveal what Onyx Island is in the future, some different places we can go and look at in the future, specifying if there’s any other Robotnik’s around and what they are to Eggman Nega, and have Sonic and the others in the background as a helping hand.

Ideally my idea for a Silver game is not focus on time travel but instead try and be fun and creative with the Sonic Universe of the future. You could introduce newer and cooler Zeti, different aliens based on Japanese yokai, a Sonic Museum dedicated to Sonic and friends, return to old locations which have seen a big upgrade like the Ark or even Green Hill. The story could easily be Eggman Nega or another baddie stealing some Onyx Emeralds from Onyx Island for an evil scheme and Silver has to stop them. For gameplay just make it like the open world of Sonic Frontiers and have a select stages like Adventure, Silver has certain functions that can have him fly, grab objects with his telekinesis and a few battle combos with his psychic swords. Wether there’d be brand new side characters is hard, you’d have to go and tell us there’s a Guardian on Onyx Island but wether that Guardian could do as a supporting character in the game I don’t know, you don’t want to do a copy of Tails and Knuckles otherwise you have the question “Why isn’t this Sonic, Tails and Knuckles?”. Then in the final have Silver go super, it’d be great to play as him again.

Would Silver be ever having a cartoon series? I think no. Not yet at least. We know Paramount is interested in Silver so whatever they do with him is gonna affect him going forward in other Sonic corners, but if he were to be given a cartoon, please do not let the Sonic Prime writers do it, that series was utterly bad. Don’t let Ian or Evan do it as they keep buggering up with continuity they don’t work well at all with each other. Get a Japanese writer and have him do it, with him doing research on Silver in the games and have a anime team do it. Do the single season which is about Silver fighting Eggman Nega, maybe a trip to the past with Sonic, have him meet Blaze, have him fight other baddies, then with it done you call it a day. It’s a simple series, you can have a multi part story, an enemy of the week story. Just make it a single series that need no follow ups.

You could even do an episode where Silver helps people like what’s doing here, which was drawn by SEGA, the drawings do have us see what the Sonic characters do in their days when they aren’t fighting a evil doctor.

To me, Silver doesn’t need to have his backstory revealed, we just need a good story with him. We just want him done well. It isn’t that hard. With SEGA while they are fine with Silver making guest appearances they obviously aren’t as up to give him a spin-off game thanks to his debut in a game that is hated by lots of fans, but if Paramount were to do something decent with him then they might be fine with giving him a chance. But as we know it’s up to SEGA. They want to do it then I want them to take it easy with Silver. It’d be nice if Silver could be the comeback king but we have to wait and see. Though if they do and it’s good I’ll buy it.

Teddy: He didn’t need the Cynical Crown.

Freddy: He didn’t. Lovely stuff.

Yeah, let’s try and do some upbeat stuff a bit more in the future. Let’s go then guys, we have other things to do. To you all thank you, if you have a comment then do tell me what you think?