Commentary Concerning the Mecha Sally Story Arc

Before I get started I wanted to say that this is in part a response to Skythehedgehog47's “Too Much Sally?” article.  I was going to post this as a comment but as you can see it turned into something more than that.  I wanted the commentary below to be a demonstration of what I consider to be the baseline standard of character development not only for the Archie Sonic series and SatAM, but also any story or any kind that one were to write.

As for the too much Sally question, it's not that there is too much Sally, it's that there is not enough development of the other characters.  What has been done with Sally in the past should be the gold standard of how other characters should be developed.  As an example, Penders did this sort of development with the echidna characters and their families, as well as their society and culture.  It is unfortunate that this standard was not applied to Bunnie, Antoine, and especially Rotor, as well as other characters.

For instance as an example with Antoine, I always had the sense that he was a victim of psychological abuse on some level, probably from his father who was a military man.  Since it seems that Antoine's family was a 'House of the Sword' it was expected that Antoine would carry on the family oath of service to the House of Acorn.  However, when Antoine showed as having a timid and sensitive personality, his father Armand lashed out with messages both verbal and non-verbal of extreme disappointment.  It is also possible that he was a musical or art prodigy of some kind, and while his father disapproved, his mother encouraged him and supported him in pursuing his natural talent. Thus there would have been tension in the home between Antoine's mother and father over how to raise their son and what his future should be. Then the coup happened, and Antoine carried with him this unshakable sense of being a terrible disappointment. This of course had a deep impact on his life of exile in Knothole, thus affecting his relationships with others.  With his father missing or dead, he was never able to make amends and find closure until much later.  In regards to his relationship with Bunnie, she would know this about him, and this is what would drive her love for him despite his behavior.

With Bunnie we got some character development, but that has always fallen short with her for some reason.  For instance, who are her parents and what personal values did they impart on her?  Did they love her, and were they kind to her?  What happened to them after the coup?  We know that she is supposed to be the Mobian equivalent of a 'southern belle'.  Although that is an excellent baseline to start from, it needs to be deeper than that.  There is also the fact that in SatAM, it is mentioned that she is Sally's 'Lady in Waiting'.  In order to satisfy this role, her family would have to be close to the Acorn house, and serve some important function in their society.  Her education from Rosie and Julayla would be focused on fulfilling this role, and would shape her deeply as a person.  She would be well indoctrinated in the history, culture, customs, and societal values that define them as a people.  This also means that should Sally die or be unable to rule, Bunnie would be expected to step up and be queen, should no other heir apparent be available.  The only author that I know of that went into that kind of detail with Bunnie, is Dan Drazen in his fan-novel "Runaway".  I never liked it that in the comic she was merely relegated to being just a hair dresser when she wasn't "freedom fighting".

With regards to Rotor, he is admittedly more difficult to flesh out and develop because he is such an introvert and closed shell.  Even Penders fell short with him, with his best effort of character development being that he allegedly wanted to make him gay.  He was one of the palace kids taken care of by Rosie so we can assume that he comes from an important family.  That family is probably academic in nature, and that seems to be the direction that the Season 3 comic (or Sea3on) authors are going with.  Go read the Queen Nicole arc of Sea3on, which is the current chapter as of the writing of this article.  There is a walrus character that we can assume is Rotor's grandfather, or perhaps granduncle, who is an archaeologist.  This would make sense considering that Rotor is the introverted intellectual.

In closing, I want to state that the intellectual debasement of the Archie Sonic fandom under Ian Flynn's authorship is absolutely appalling.  Instead of the kind of character development I've delved into above, we instead have an author, and I use that word loosely, who thinks that advancing a character's development (particularly with the female characters) means using plot devices that are tantamount rape, torture, mutilation, and disfigurement as a means to giving the cast a makeover.  Furthermore, Ian has done everything in his power make sure that the women (even Lien-Da) are submissive to one male character or another.

The idea that a strong independent woman like Sally would be totally cool with having her body violated against her will is patently obscene.  It is also important to note that not only was she violated on the outside, but most importantly she was violated on the INSIDE as well.  Not only was this done against her will, but it was also done with her ability to say "NO!" or "STOP!" as well as her ability to fight back completely deprived from her.  Ian has been in the process of destroying Sally's character for quite sometime now.  The first move in this direction was to bill her as a “Tomboy Princess”.  Yes she has qualities that can be considered tomboyish in that she is a rustic tough survivor, and has a utilitarian manner of dress in terms of her casual wear.  This is of course a product of her life of bare-bones survival in Knothole where life was about the basic things that really mattered.  But in spite of this, that has never changed the fact that Sally at her core is an elegant, cultured, feminine woman with the mantle of an entire culture's future on her shoulders; this is what I would call the SatAM/Penders/Drazen Sally.  This is the real Sally that we all knew before Ian took over.

Ian's Sally on the other hand, is a boy with internal reproductive organs, who only behaves something akin to feminine when Ian wants us to believe that she might be putting out. Or when she is depicted as having a stereotypical moment of psycho-emotional weakness.  The whole Monkey Khan situation is a perfect example of this in action. And of course, consistent with Ian's apparent misogynist world view, his Sally has been portrayed as being monumentally stupid at key moments; not arresting and imprisoning Robotnik/Eggman and Snively after issue 200 is a perfect example. Allowing herself to get her high-value-target self roboticized instead of trusting Nicole to get the job done, and getting the hell out of there.  If you put some thought into it, all she could really do was push an 'OK' button.  She doesn't need to be there to sacrifice herself because Nicole can push her own 'OK' button.  Sally is a walking book of royal secrets, and by letting herself get roboticized she endangered not only her own people, but others around the world as well.  The real Sally would have never let this happen, and would have brought with her satchel charges to do some real damage.

Then there is what he did with Bunnie, using the plot device of 'magic' to restore her real organic body to then parade what a weak and stupid women she is.  This plot line culminated in her engaging in a bizarre and vulgar quest of nihilistic self-mutilation by going to her Uncle, who works for the very man who enslaved and violated her best friend, to have her limbs amputated and replaced with ugly legionized prosthetics in order to regain her self-worth.  The message from Ian is that Bunnie as a women, a wife, a possible future mother to Antoine's children, and as a member of her society is a worthless piece of weak and stupid female filth.

Of course at the end of this misogynist tirade Ian and the team would trot out the new freedom fighters.  Sonic, Tails, and everyone would congratulate them on how cool and trendy they all look now, and all the characters (especially the women) would just love their new appearance as the best thing to ever happen to them.  I don't know how Ian's parents and school teachers raised him, but violating a woman's body is never to be considered cool, awesome, or trendy.

And finally with the reboot, we have none of the characters acknowledging any of their lost family members or friends in any way whatsoever.  Their families have been holocausted, and nobody breaks down into tears of sadness and rage over the dead, nor do they show any resolve to make things right.  What we do get is Sonic applauding Sally's new disfigured post-rape appearance.


ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS -- 03 February 2014

First of all I want to thank everyone that has commented on, and viewed this article.  I cannot tell you how much writing this has allowed me to get a huge weight off of my chest that I've been keeping inside of me for the past two years.  I tend to be rather introverted, and have a tendency to not talk about things, like the situation with the Sonic comic, with other people.  I spend a lot of my time reading various things of interest, both fiction and non-fiction, as well as watching various documentaries and lectures on various subjects; thus being social is something that tends to take a backseat.  Frankly I should have started venting about this a year or two ago instead of keeping it inside me.  This has been a huge spiritual release for me, and I take comfort in knowing that there are others who feel as I do.

I fell in love with SatAM when I first discovered it, as I'm sure many people reading this here did.  It presented a world and characters that really sparked the imagination of many.  To me it was a much needed mental and emotional escape during a very hard time in my life.  I was in Junior High when the culture was beginning to promote and embrace the gangbanger lifestyle.  I saw the boys behaving in the most vulgar ways conceivable, and girls beginning to behave like whores.  Needless to say I was absolutely terrified as it seemed that the very Gates of Hell had been opened, and all goodness and virtue fled.  Girls that used to pride themselves in the fact that they were smarter than the boys suddenly abhorred intellect and started celebrating the most detestable whorishness.  Girls who used to view beauty as being synonymous with intelligence and thoughtfulness, gave themselves over to utter degeneracy because that is what MTV told them to do.

For me SatAM was an escape from all of what I saw going on in the world around me.  And to be honest, I watched SatAM in large part because of Sally.  She is everything that women are no longer; the hard-to-get woman where beauty and intelligence are one.  A woman where the grace and elegance of femininity stands as a contrast to the often crude and unrefined masculine.  A woman that does not concern herself with mindless frivolities, and does not define herself with adornments, but defines herself through the radiance of her character and true honest empathic relationships that she forms with those around her.  A woman whose mind and soul burn as brightly as the brightest sun, and whose friendship and loyalty is the ultimate gift.

Then there was the Mobians themselves as they were in SatAM and the comic before Ian.  They stood as a stark contrast to how humans think and behave.  Whereas humans revel in monumental cruelty, amoral carelessness, and callous environmental destruction; Mobians revere friendship, love, kindness, loyalty to one another, and hold dear to their hearts a sense of love and respect for the world around them.  Their cities are beautiful works of art, not out of vanity, but out of an expression of an inner beauty that they project outward into the world.  Mobians, at least those in Mobitropolis and it territories, built their society based on the seeking of truth and understanding.  Whereas humans, build their societies on lie after lie after lie, with the end result being crime, poverty, and war.  Are Mobians perfect? No.  Do they have crime and war? Yes.  But they have an inner light that shines in them that humans are sorely lacking.

SatAM was more than a just a Sonic show, in fact it was much bigger than that.  Building on what SatAM started, the Archie Sonic comic was more than just a Sonic book.  The characters were more than just "Sonic" characters, they were a unique people with a unique culture that was just begging to be explored.  Even the writers on the comic before Ian, particularly Penders, instinctively realized this and built the world of the Archie Sonic comic that we knew until before the 'Mega Man' crossover.  The characters, their world, and their story even pulled in educated people like Dan Drazen and Bookshire Draftwood who would write some of the most imaginative world and culture building fanfiction ever made.  Mobian cultural traditions such as 'First Honor' and the Solstice Festivals became well known in the fandom.  Then you have newer writers like Gojira007 who came up with the tradition of the "Lover's Bloom" in his Solstice story "And to All a Good Night", which was the most truly Mobian thing that I have read in a long time.  This is what Ian Flynn calls "old and niche"!

I cannot tell you how angry this whole situation with Archie has made me.  What I just described above is what is being thrown away with this so called 'soft reboot', which is really in fact a very hard reboot.  Characters that have real depth and potential to them are being thrown away, and replaced with offensive counterfeits that have rewritten back-stories that are nothing more than insulting attempts at a bland unimaginative remixing of ideas that have the effect of washing out what made these characters great.  Preceding this 'soft' reboot, was a vulgar and juvenile story where one of the most unique, strong, independent, intelligent, compassionate, beautiful, and genuine women in any franchise was subjected to being violated, paraded around as a tool, and sent to maim and kill her loved ones all for the sake of shock value.  To top that off, the other characters showed barely any love for their friend, especially Sonic who has known her since he was little.  The only one that really seemed to suffer grief was Nicole, who was then given the Old Testament village stoning treatment.

Enabling this, is a strange cult of uncompassionate, unempathetic, spiritually empty Ian Flynn 'fans' that will make up any excuse to justify anything that he does.  In the name of scoring points for Ian, they will even go so far as to engage in character defamation against people like Ben Hurst who as I understand it spent his last days on this Earth working at the Smithsonian.  They have no real connection to who the characters are as people, nor an appreciation of what it means to the characters to be who they are.  Nor do they make any attempt to empathically connect with what the characters are thinking and feeling, or what they should be thinking and feeling.  They shun and abhor real thought, and go out their way to not ask real questions.  They clamour for the mediocre while smiling Ian happily jingles the car keys in front of their faces, and they libel and slander those who brought them something that was relatively bold and imaginative that has allowed an otherwise minor franchise to endure outside of Japan for 20 years.

In closing, I can only hope that the memory of the true versions of these characters, their world, and their story can endure.  Ian is in the process of destroying who these characters are, especially to the younger audiences.  He did not save the SatAM cast by preserving them in the new SEGA-fied world, he is draining them of their individuality and is going out of his way to show the utmost disrespect to fans who have followed these characters for almost two decades.  I would not mind this reboot so much, if we could get a second series that took the best from SatAM and the best from the former Sonic comic universe, and gave us a mature (as in 'Legend of Korra' mature) reboot with the authentic forms of the characters and an authentic Mobius.  That way SEGA could have their 'like the games' comic for little kids, and we could have something great for the loyal fans who continue to love these characters even as we start getting old.  But so long as 'New Archie Sonic Universe Stockholm Syndrome' sets in, as I am beginning to see, all that was will die.  And in it's place?  The triumphant mediocre.