The Optics of this Moment
Hey so, I'm sure nobody is tired of discussing back & forth about Blaze in the recent IDW arc yet right? 😅
I've seen just about every conceivable (rational) point be made about this from it being disappointing, to excuses for Blaze's loss, to excuses for the writers writing her to lose, and so forth.
I am all too familiar with this feeling of "Man, they are seriously screwing over my favorite character here" and how much it's been shining through after Issue #90. Years of being a Knuckles fan gave me tons of calluses.
I wanted to offer one more perspective on why this most recent business with Blaze is striking a chord with fans. It's the optics. It's less an issue of "Blaze lost a fight/encounter" and more an issue of "Why did they do it that way?". They hyped up Blackwood as this detestable heel from the get-go; a self-absorbed chump waltzing around pretending that he's royalty with no properly established fighting ability, and genuinely believing that he'd be able to blab out his evil plans to rizz up Blaze without even requiring mind-control.
And we see Blaze verbally tear into him for being the one-dimensional filler villain that he is.
And almost immediately thereafter, we're presented with the image of her cradled in the dude's arms.
Apart of me thinks it's brilliant. It's a very effective - if cheap - way to capitalize on the creative decision to have Blaze be a mind-control victim and get us to REALLY hate the bad guy.
The rest of me, though, can't help thinking: "No......just no. Of all the characters to do this with, of all the female Sonic characters they chose to do this with, they just had to pick Blaze. They just had to make her give a grandstanding speech about duty & values, and then wind up as a doll in the arms of the guy who gets handsy with his maids and crumples up their consent like it's tissue paper.
It feels just a little bit like manufacturing shock value for shock value's sake, especially when the specific means by which they did it involves Blaze being outsmarted by a spinning oar and a splash of water.