Hello everyone! I hope y'all are doing well! Tonight's topic at hand is Princess Elise from Sonic the Hedgehog, not to be confused with the original released in 1991 (although I'm sure y'all already know that) released in 2006. A while ago, back when blog post Pure Good discussions and Approved/Rejected Good was just starting to become a thing, Princess Elise was a hero that was proposed and approved pretty early on compared to other heroes. However, while the proposal was well written, it did leave out some details regarding the character that I think are too mitigating for her to qualify. I had been thinking it over for a while now, and I've decided to make a removal for her (although I decided to a while ago, I'm just making it now). I got permission from Jester of Chaos (keep in mind that a weird glitch has recently been discovered that will not take you to the specific thread where I got permission; it will take you to Jester's message wall and I recently made the new thread so it should be at/near the top; I originally got permission back in December and so because of this glitch, y'all would have to go through a ton of messages in order to find the original thread so I made a new one to make it easier to prove I got permission) to make a removal for her so with all that said, I'm here to present why I personally think Princess Elise doesn't qualify for the pure good category. Let's get started!
WHAT IS SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (2006)? WHAT'S THE WORK?[]
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), or Sonic '06 for short and what it's commonly referred to as (and what I'll call it for the rest of this blog post), is a 3D platformer video game by Sega released in 2006. Unlike Sonic Rush, another Sonic game released a year earlier, this game is neither 2D, nor does it feature the Boost gameplay mechanic, although later Sonic games (Unleashed, Colors, Generations, etc) would implement this mechanic in 3D. Instead, it's gameplay is more along the lines of the Sonic Adventure gameplay style (Adventure, Adventure 2, Heroes, and Shadow the Hedgehog). Anyway, due to the rushed development of the game and Sonic Team being split apart to work on another Sonic game at the same time, Sonic and the Secret Rings, the game was simply released as an untested Alpha Build, which resulted in numerous bugs and glitches, which the game was criticized for. The game in general was panned by critics and fans of the series for it's gameplay design, convoluted story full of plot holes, and, as stated, glitches. In fact, the game has become quite infamous for being considered by many to be one of the worst Sonic games, with many also calling it one of the worst video games ever made. The game at first seems to be a sort of reboot for the series, but the Crisis City level appearing in Sonic Generations seems to imply that isn't the case.
WHO IS PRINCESS ELISE? WHAT HAS SHE DONE?[]
Princess Elise is one of the main supporting characters of the game, and Sonic's love interest. Elise is the Princess of Soleanna and the daughter of the Duke of Soleanna.
When Elise was a young child, her father conducted an experiment to use the "Flames of Hope", otherwise known as Solaris, to time travel to the past, so that him and Elise could see their deceased mother again. However, the experiment went wrong, and the flames split into Iblis, the strength of Solaris, and Mephiles, the mind of Solaris. Silver the Hedgehog, who was originally going to destroy Sonic to save his future from Iblis but ended up helping Sonic, fought off Iblis and helped the Duke and Elise temporarily escape. The Duke, using the last of his mortal strength, sealed Iblis inside of Elise, and entrusted her to Silver. The downside of Iblis being sealed in Elise's soul however, was that if she cried, Iblis would be released. Silver gave her unconscious body his blue Chaos Emerald as good luck charm before traveling back to the present.
Elise, now 17 years old, was about to light the torch to celebrate the Festival of the Sun before Dr. Eggman attacked and attempted to kidnap her and take her Chaos Emerald. Sonic the Hedgehog arrived and rescued Elise from Eggman's robots, but as he was escaping, he fought more of the robots which resulted in him being distracted allowing Eggman to kidnap her. Before he took her away however, Elise gave Sonic the Chaos Emerald that Silver gave her.
Eggman imprisoned Elise in his Egg Carrier, but Sonic and his friend and teammate Tails rescued her. Eggman sicked his Egg Cerberus after Sonic, but he managed to defeat it and escape. After they were escaping however, they were ambushed by an army of Eggman's robots. As Tails held them off, Sonic and Elise arrive at some grassy plains, where Elise provides Sonic with some more information regarding the Flames of Disaster, explaining that it was the reason Eggman attacked her. Elise was rather distressed by the entire debacle, but Sonic raised her spirits and gave her some helpful advice about how to stay optimistic. With Elise feeling like her old self again, Sonic escorted Elise back to Soleanna.
Sonic and Elise arrived at the city of Soleanna and were attacked by Silver, who hadn't reformed yet. Sonic fought him off, but Eggman arrived and seized the opportunity to capture Elise once again. Sonic and Tails, along with another friend and ally of their's, Knuckles the Echidna, confront Eggman in his base. There, Eggman offers to release Elise at the cost of Sonic forfeiting Elise's Chaos Emerald. Sonic reluctantly agrees and gives Eggman the Emerald, but Eggman goes back on his deal, and, using a prototype time machine he constructed, sends Sonic and co. to the future, but not without reassuring Elise that they're still alive and were simply sent to a different era in time. With help from Amy Rose, another of Sonic's acquaintances, Elise escapes Eggman's base and the two go to the castle where Elise is captured again.
After Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles use the power of Chaos Control to return to the present, Sonic pursues Eggman and rescues Elise once again. But then Silver attacks them again and while Sonic was occupied with the battle, Eggman captures Elise yet again. Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic's rival and buddy, defeated Silver and allowed Sonic to flee and catch up to Eggman.
Elise then jumps off of the Egg Carrier, as she would rather die than be in Eggman's custody, but is caught and saved by Sonic. Eggman unleashed Egg Genesis, but Sonic and Elise retreat into the jungle. Elise almost cried once Sonic told her he would leave Soleanna after Eggman's defeat after she asked him if he would, but she embraced Sonic, with Sonic assuring her everything would be alright.
Elise was forced to surrender herself to Eggman in order to protect the city after Eggman threatened to destroy it if she didn't concede to his demands, and as Eggman was flying away via Egg Carrier, it exploded due to an engine malfunction, killing both him and Elise. The death of Elise is what resulted in Iblis being present in Silver's future. Sonic and Silver both use Chaos Control to time travel and rescue Elise.
As Sonic and Elise were returning to the city, Mephiles, the mind of Solaris as mentioned earlier, kills Sonic by piercing through his body with a blast of energy. Elise, not being able to control her distress and grief, cries in anguish, releasing Iblis. Mephiles fused with Iblis becoming whole once again as his true form: Solaris, the Sun God. Elise and Sonic's friends mourn Sonic's death, but as Elise senses Sonic's presence in the wind, they get the idea to use the Chaos Emeralds to revive Sonic.
Sonic's friends collect the Chaos Emeralds and assemble them to bring Sonic back from the dead. Elise prays for Sonic's revival, and she kisses him. Sonic is revived, and with the power of the Chaos Emeralds, transforms into his Super form, Super Sonic. Sonic shares the energy with Shadow and Silver, granting them access to their super forms as well, Super Shadow and Super Silver respectively. As Solaris attempts to destroy all of reality, including every existing timeline, Super Sonic, Super Shadow, and Super Silver all defeat Solaris in different time periods simultaneously, destroying him. After Solaris's defeat, Sonic and Elise are transported to an empty void.
Sonic and Elise were transported back in time before the Duke's experiments, when Solaris was just a small flame. Elise was sad and frightened at the fact that if they blew out the Flames of Disaster, they would never meet, as it would prevent Solaris from ever existing making the events of the game never happen. Elise exclaims that she doesn't care what happens to the rest of the world if it meant being separated from him, but Sonic insisted that as long as Elise smiled, and accepted that even when life gets difficult and there are seemingly insurmountable challenges that are presented your way, to just go with what is presented and hold on to faith and to stay optimistic. Elise is convinced and extinguished Solaris, preventing any of the conflicts sent their way from ever unfolding.
Time is then reset, and the rituals are being celebrated, without Eggman interrupting, with Sonic simply watching and admiring the joy that results from the festivities.
REASONS PRINCESS ELISE COULD QUALIFY?[]
Well Elise was portrayed as an overall pure individual without any obvious character flaws and she did deeply care about Sonic and wanted to undo the damage that her father started. Elise also did sort of revive Sonic (I'll explain this point shortly) and did blow out Solaris in his original form which did result in his defeat.
REASONS PRINCESS ELISE SHOULDN'T QUALIFY?[]
The first point I want to mention is a fairly large and notable one; Elise spends most of the game as simply a damsel in distress, and I feel that's a strong start to this argument. Elise spends most of the story just getting captured and getting rescued by Sonic. I'm aware that damsels in distress can technically qualify in some cases (ex: Princess Peach and Kairi from Kingdom Hearts), but they need to simply do more than that and contribute a lot more to the conflict, as naturally, one who mostly just gets captured simply can't be considered heroic enough to count. And, of course, the other characters in the game consistently do plenty of heroic acts throughout the game, such as defeating major threats, stopping Eggman, stopping Mephiles, stopping Iblis, saving Elise, helping the people of Soleanna, time traveling in order to prevent disaster, etc. and it can't be said that that is the same case with Princess Elise; she really doesn't do much compared to the other characters.
Yes, she did revive Sonic and prevent Solaris from existing, but even those instances weren't entirely out of her own desire to do good. The thing where she revived Sonic, it was more so the Chaos Emeralds that revived him, with Elise simply kissing Sonic out of affection. After all, how would she have actually known that the kiss would have healed Sonic? It also doesn't help that she played no part in actually gathering the Chaos Emeralds, and it was the other characters doing that ultimately resulted in Sonic's resurrection. And as for the thing with Solaris, first of all, Elise, again, played no part in directly defeating Solaris, rather it was Sonic, Shadow, and Silver, and their defeat of Solaris that actually allowed Sonic and Elise to travel back to small flame Solaris in the first place. Also, Elise did show a fair bit of reluctance to do it at all if it meant being separated from Sonic. And on top of that, Elise even outright states that she doesn't care what happens to the world if it meant never meeting Sonic. It shows that her feelings towards Sonic come across as a little selfish and irresponsible. And I get it, she values the person she genuinely loved more than strangers or random people, but considering she's the Princess of Soleanna, it's her job to look after her people, and she outright admitted that she cared about Sonic more than the people of Soleanna, y'know, the people she's supposed to look after and the people that look up to her. And that's not even just the people of Soleanna, Solaris would've wiped out all of existence and Elise says she didn't care if it meant being separated from someone she practically just met. I know all I can offer is my opinion, but I just don't think someone who's truly Pure Good would disregard and hesitate to save all of existence of meant being separated from someone they care about to do so. Pure Goods makes sacrafices, do what's in the greater good's best interest and value others more than themselves; they do not only out act like their feelings matter more than anyone else's. It might sound like an exaggeration to say that's what she did/what she acted like, but I don't think it is considering she thought her feelings were more important than, again, all of existence. So considering Sonic directly defeated Solaris was the one who taught Elise that everything would be alright, it was more so Sonic who was responsible for the defeat of Solaris, along with his friends who, in the case of Shadow and Silver, directly helped him beat Solaris, and the other friends who overall were the ones who revived Sonic via being the ones who actually got the Chaos Emeralds, like I already mentioned.
And that leads into my final point for why I don't think she qualifies; she just simply fails the overall admirable standard of the series and, like I already mentioned, the game. In the game, it's Sonic who directly defeats Eggman, Shadow who directly defeats Mephiles, and Silver who directly defeats Iblis. And sure, comparing the protagonists to a side character might not sound like a fair comparison at face value, but when you consider that there the other side characters that do more than her, it shows how little she stands out. Speaking of which, the side characters assist the protagonists in the defeat of the 3 major villains, rescue Elise, assist the people of Soleanna, and with the main 3 hedgehogs, go back in time to reverse a lot of damage and death, namely Elise's death. And I know, she's just a human and presumably doesn't have powers like the main cast have, but that's a pretty weak excuse when you consider just how little she does. I basically already explained that but yeah, she's just a damsel in distress most of the game and mildly assisted Sonic in blowing out Solaris's flame. Also, and this was a point I brought up in my removal proposal for Jasmine from Pokémon, she's a princess, so she actually has much influence in the world of Sonic seeing as how she's such a prominent figure in society, so actual resources rather than physical power shouldn't complicate things at all either. And also, Tikal, a side character from Sonic Adventure, didn't physically fight at all either in that game, but she still did enough to contribute to the main conflict in an exceptionally selfless manner and showed great compassion, and she therefore qualifies as Pure Good and she had less resources than Elise. And finally, I know that many other Sonic characters, particularly the ones present in this game, have corrupting factors while Elise doesn't have many at all, but Pure Good isn't just about corrupting factors. By that logic, technically there are NPC's that don't have corrupting factors (not actually using that as a reason for cutting her, just debunking the argument that simply not having corrupting factors alone is enough to make a hero stand out). Besides, the point I brought up about her saying she doesn't care what happens to the world, in my opinion, is indeed a corrupting factor. And besides, it really doesn't help that Tails is present in this game, who does much more than her, has no corrupting factors, and is, in fact, a Pure Good in the series. And then there are other Pure Goods from the series in general that aren't present in this game, but still, the admirable standard of a work addresses the entire series, not every individual entry in said series, which means Elise has too compete with Tails, Cream, Tikal, as previously mentioned, etc and, again, Elise is a princess so she technically has more resources than those characters, and not having physical power is no excuse either as proven by Tikal, and the fact that Elise does so little. So yeah, even for a minor one-shot character, I personally don't think she really does enough to stand out in the work, and thus, is another reason she should be disqualified from the category.
FINAL VERDICT?[]
Considering how much hate this game and character receive, I kind of wanted to cut her some slack, and I really didn't want this removal to come across as any sort of personal attack on the character, but ultimately I just don't think Princess Elise qualifies for the Pure Good category. But of course, that's just my take though. Please share your comments down below. As always, thank y'all very much for reading, and have a great day!