#rationalsonicfan

[gritsandbrits]

So About Chris Thorndyke

I just read a post slamming critics and haters of Chris Thorndyke from Sonic X, calling them out for being sheltered nerds and that anyone who vilifies Chris in fanfiction should "shut the fuck." Whatever that's supposed to mean. This is a response post that hopefully debunks everything wrong with the initial post.

Chris Thorndyke is considered a terrible character for many reasons, with the main reason being that he doesn't have a character to begin with. His parents, house staff, relatives and friends have more personality than him. Hell, even secondary human characters like Topaz and that old guy that fired the shot that killed Maria were more compelling than Chris. This has nothing to do with his species; even if he was an anthro he would still have the same problems. Some may argue that Chris is just an innocent angel who really does suffer from loneliness and neglect. Some argue that he got in the way of characters and even ships, which is pretty dumb on the shipping part since Sonic isn't even a romance series (weird coming from someone who ships Sonic and OC of all things). While Chris may have at least one or two redeeming qualities they are overshadowed by his bad ones, but not all of them are on fault of the character himself. Let's go a bit further.

- Chris's Flaws

His flaws and negative traits aren't actually portrayed as such. Usually they're played to garner sympathy for the audience instead of motivation for Chris to improve himself emotionally and physically. Now, I do not condone flanderizing characters, but some people tend to "vilify" Chris as a way for his flaws to be presented as what they actually are: FLAWS! Because again, he doesn't have much personality anyways. Trying to write Chris as a full character is tricky because on the actual show there's not really much to work with. Even with a few episodes showing what he does like and do outside of Sonic, they weren't explored deeply as they should. With his flaws of being self absorbed, whiny and ungrateful, he was only called out for them only twice: first by Cream then by Dr. Eggman. The former was understandable since she didn't have her mother around, but the latter was a bit of a stretch since it came from Eggman (then again plenty of viewers don't mind Eggman calling Chris out because it was the closest thing that came to Chris ever getting put in his place). When he was eighteen he built a machine to go back to Sonic's world without ever telling anybody or even asking anyone else if they wanted to see their anthropomorphic friends again. He just went by himself, and he built the machine for himself and not to help anyone else, which is a huge clue to how selfish he was. And yet the audience is still supposed to sympathize with him.

- On the subject of Spotlight Stealing

One major gripe people have with Chris is that in order for him to be considered a character with depth, he had to be assigned moments from characters that really needed development. The original post mentioned that they didn't like Sonic X!Amy for how she was handled. I agree, but taking one of her deepest character moment from the games and giving it to Chris so that HE could have development didn't quite work either, especially since it required Shadow to punch him and stuff just because Chris touched his arm in a non-threatening way. In fact, in the original game Shadow never beat up Amy when she talked to him, even when she hugged him he didn't slap her away. For Chris to have talked to Shadow required flanderization on Shadow's part by having him beat up a non-powered kid as a pretty contrived way to enforce the importance of Chris's speech, even though Shadow has NEVER been violent like that before. Hell even in his own game he never beat up on kids; when Amy talked to him and hugged him he never beat her up. Then again, writers on both ends of the spectrum has this awful idea that Shadow is a completely violent and amoral character (King Shadow from Archie's Mobius 30 Years Later ring a bell?) But back with Chris...

- Chris's role is redundant

Sonic already has a close best friend/brother figure: his name is Tails. In order for Chris to be Sonic's friend and confidante means that Tails would have to be shafted to the side, even though there's no need to do that. Sonic can be friends with both characters but in Sonic X Chris basically took over Tails's role. We already have someone who greatly admires Sonic to the point of wanting to impress him: her name is Amy Rose. Chris essentially took her role too, which is why she ended up being flanderized into a temperamental maniac who seems to take a backseat to the action because now she doesn't have an important role to play as that too have been taken by Chris.

- Wealth and Relatability

Of there's one GIGANTIC reason why People don't like Chris, it's the fact that he's wealthy and has a sense of self entitlement. Wealthy characters can have entertaining and likable personalities but with Chris he's just generic even for being the audience surrogate. In fact he's less of a relatable character and more of a character that causes the audience to covet what he has: money, an ever-present support system, being friends with Sonic, and interacting with the Sonic cast.

Of course, if Chris had been a poor or middle class kid he still would have been a boring character but him being wealthy sealed his doom. He's wealthy but what does he actually do with that wealth? If he's nice and friendly should he have started a charity to help people in need, or supported his disabled friend Helen? I'm not even going to mention the obvious (that whole fiasco with refusing to let Sonic go home at the cost of both planets) because people have already said what needed to be said about that.

Chris being rich lessened the relatability aspect of the series, especially since Sonic X aired on local television meaning the majority of viewers probably didn't have cable or the money to even afford it. Some of these so called "sheltered nerds" that criticize Chris simply don't relate to him because of how wealthy he is and how it's not presented as a problem, unlike a lot of these "sheltered nerds" who likely grew up poor or middle class families.

- Lonely and Depressed, or just plain Angsty?

It's neat that Chris has genuine friends who love him just the way he is and not out for his money which is kinda refreshing, but the show still tries to paint him as lonely. His parents work a lot because being an actress and a CEO of a major company are very demanding jobs. That's another thing: we don't really get to see the side of his parents. Usually when his parents are around it has something to do with plot convenience, like a Chaos Emerald showing up at one of his parent's job (I'm pretty sure there was an episode about that but I haven't watched the series in years). This isn't unlike Chris getting dumped at boarding school and being bullied by his classmates, or his friends trying to manipulate him into giving them money and fame. As for his friends, they did play an important role in the beginning until they were dropped all of a sudden to put more focus on Chris and Sonic. Amy for all her worth is capable of hanging out with other people not named Sonic; Chris has that ability to but that was shoved to the side, leaving no way for us to explore more of his life outside Sonic.

- Not so Abusive Parents

We're supposed to hate his parents for neglecting him, yet they called an Army to look for Chris when he ran away with Sonic; Chris's dad dropping everything to be with hkm when he caught a cold; both parents feeling guilty for not being able to be with Chris as they should and conflicted over their jobs because they work so hard to provide for him and the other members of the household.

What's odd is that Sonic X sounds like one of those anime and cartoons that have bully characters who exist simply as an obstacle to the main characters but Sonic X never had those types of characters so you can't say Chris was bullied because there's no bully archetype present in the show. Plenty of kids who have watched the show have probably been bullied, some even for liking Sonic. There are more kids who didn't grow up with money or a family, or had toxic friends and abusive parents.

In conclusion Chris has many flaws from both a character standpoint and from a writing and narrative standpoint. He lacked character and quirks, he had to be given the roles and depth from other characters in order for him to have depth, and he wasn't all that relatable and likable in the long run.

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