Why Eggman Was A Threatening Villain And How He Became A Joke 

Grab Atlas VPN for $1.39/month before the deal expires: atlasv.pn/ThePJShow Thank you all so much for the patience and I hope you enjoyed the video:) So, what are your thoughts on Eggman as a character. Do you agree with my thoughts? Disagree? Let me know in the comments below and I will do my best to respond to all of them.

Eggman is probably the smartest and dumbest character in the series.

When Eggman has his respectful send-off to Sonic, if you quit you can listen to his inner thoughts on having finally beaten Sonic. Which reveals he was playing up the respect while basically celebrating himself on the inside.

This is the villain who pissed on the moon, he deserves respect.

I love how he was handled in the movies. He was funny, but not treated like a joke. He’s a genuine threat

You can only have a villain suffer abject failure so many times before they become a joke. Word of advice to any future gamemakers, let the villain win sometimes, or at least throw in some stalemates and pyrrhic victories.

Eggman is the reason why 'Intelligence' and 'Wisdom' are two different stats in D&D, and real life.

His peak definitely was when he pissed on the moon

I did like most of Eggman's threat to the Zeti. It was like he got absolutely _tired_ of being treated as a joke, and his narcissism finally made him go, "I will literally devour you while you are alive and screaming you pompous wretch", and hell, him actually breaking that wall is intimidating as fuck, and helps remind that _he regularly works on robots including moving them to stations._ Lifting weights that would make some strong men blush He just needed to maintain his cohesive, smarmy speech patterns when punching the wall

I feel like Eggman in the Sonic Movie is a great step in the right direction. Sure he’s extremely comical, but there were multiple scenes where he’s dealt with people who underestimate him. (Yeeting the biker, the bully drinking out of a straw story, even won some matches against Sonic) He’s what “Boost-Era” Eggman tried to be.

I always hated Eggman’s portrayal in Unleashed. You have the opening cutscene where he outsmarts and defeats Sonic in his Super form no less and it’s like “Oh shit Eggman did it! And he sent Sonic to his death and split the world apart he really means business this time.” Then you see him in the Africa continent and nobody is afraid of him and a goddamn child throws a rock at him, hits him and even his robot is laughing at him. Then in the ending cutscene where he tries to kick Orbot and misses and lands on his ass like a loser. Like why would I take this guy seriously when literally no one not even the game does?

A major problem with recurring villains like Bowser and Eggman is a thing called villain decay. They're at their most menacing in their first outing as a villain, and to preserve that, subsequent entries need to either scale up the evil by making them do more evil things, strike the hero where it hurts, like killing a loved one or destroying their passion project, or let the villain win. Otherwise, the villain will lose some of their threat because we've dealt with them before, and after said villain has been defeated tens of times, it's really hard to keep them feeling like a true villain. The logical extreme of this is Team Rocket, which Eggman as fallen to a couple times in the past, namely in the Boom TV series, where they're less "villain" and more "minor inconvenience."

I was unreasonably pissed off by Kunckles’s line “normally I’d just laugh at an Eggman plan” in Sonic Forces because of how painfully unfaithful to the characters they’ve become. Eggman has never just been a joke to them, and for them to try implying that’s always been the case is so disheartening.

Fun fact: In the Fleetway comics, whenever his badniks failed to capture Sonic, they will be forced to jump in this pit of lava and it will turn them into new robots and we all know that there are animals still trapped in the badniks so he basically killed more than hundreds of animals.

I always agrees with your characters analysis . However , for Eggman being scared of Metal Sonic , i think it’s because he is the one who build it and in Heroes , he knows that he has absorbed the datas and how invincible he really is .

What these character retrospectives have taught me is that MANY writers either underestimate these characters or just don’t know what to do with them, they have a fine line to walk across, like Sonic he can be cocky, but not to the point where he’s an asshole, Knuckles is deceivable, but not to the point where he’s an idiot, Tails relies on his pals a bit, but not to the extent where he can’t do anything without Sonic holding his hand, and Eggman has a goofy kind of charm, but not to the extent where it’s basically his whole thing and gets overtaken by the fact he’s still a disastrous villain, i’m happy that Ian Flynn is writing Frontiers as what i have seen of his work implies he knows how to tightrope across that line for these characters and their writing to an extent, and i know Frontiers looks VERY shaky but i do expect at least a better written cast than what we have been getting these past years for these characters…

I think the Sonic movies gave eggman his credibility back (and the same for knuckles) yeah he’s a bit comedic for a threatening villain but still i think Eggman discovering a way to power his machines with sonic’s speed from his hair quill is a genius move which pays off considering nothing of the sort has been done before in the games (Unless you want to include Eggman escaping Sonic in the sonic3&K final boss where the only explanation really is he used one of the speed shoes power up boxes)

I personally prefer Eggman being a balance of both serious & comedic. Like Aku from "Samurai Jack," Mojo Jojo from "The Powerpuff Girls," Hades from "Hercules," and most Power Rangers villains.

13:06 I love how even though Tails responds with some cheesy “we all did it together” thing that doesn’t really relate to the conversation, Eggman just tells him that he’s right. He doesn’t want to make Tails feel bad in a somber moment of grief, and he doesn’t want to upset the people surrounding him, the only people who care about him.

It feels like lots of the characters have been flanderized just to appeal to kids. By having simple, one-dimensional personalities the kids can have a good laugh.

Honestly the IDW comic moment where he completely stomps Starline in a fight and then manually, hand-to-hand smashes him into the floor is probably my favorite Eggman moment since Adventure 2

8:25 I remember that situation being a little different. It was something about Shadow, Eggman's wife, and Obama.

Eggman: "As a child, I looked up to my grandfather because of all the great things he accomplished in his life. He was my hero! and I wanted to be a great scientist like him. But... Did he really mean to destroy us?" Tails: "I don't know, but what I do know is that I don't care!"

In defense of Heroes, I can see Eggman thinking all hope is lost when one of his perfect creations runs amok, especially when it took over his entire army at that point. He thought he could control Chaos because he doesn't respect anyone but himself, but he assumed Metal Sonic invincible because anything made by himself HAS to be good. I actually like the sophistication of Eggman in 2006, since his ensemble ever since Adventure looks like he thinks himself elegant and not JUST a kid having the time of his life, but I can see how his robots this time around are oddly restrained from his trademark style. He's still a pompous genius throwing himself a party and he's still a threat (even reliving his gambit on the Ark by manipulating Sonic's emotions to get the Chaos Emerald in his Fake Solaris scene), but I see why others thought he was too plain and that it would have been cool for him to do something more proactive in the finale (though, he didn't have any machines with him, so it doesn't feel entirely out of character for him).

I like the idea of Eggman being somehow a joke... After all of the godlike creatures that he saw, and were obviously more of a threat than him, he probably just realised how he cant barely compare

Playing devil’s advocate for a second, I think the main reason Eggman was having such a negative and defeatist attitude in the face of Metal Sonic in Sonic Heroes was the fact that EGGMAN CREATED HIM! In the previous games, whenever he was betrayed or inconvenienced by Chaos, Shadow, Rouge or the Space Colony ARK itself, he was content in the knowledge that since they weren’t his creations, he could always devise a counter strategy or robotic creation to come out on top. But Metal Sonic was HIS creation. Eggman made Metal Sonic to be the perfect robot to destroy Sonic and his friends. Especially when Metal Sonic copied the life form data of Sonic, Shadow and just about everyone else that could be considered a potential threat. Then transforming into a giant Metal Overlord, Eggman knew he couldn’t create something to beat it. Or at the very least, not create something fast enough to prevent Metal Sonic from killing him. At that point, it’s hard to determine if Eggman should be the type of narcissist to believe his creations are perfect and are above reproach, or if he should be the type of narcissist to think he can top himself and his robotic creations. I could be wrong though.

Dr Eggman is basically the Dr Neo Cortex of Sonic the hedgehog now with the main difference being the fact that Cortex is a little more pathetic and we actually kinda like how pathetic he is

The ending scene of Sonic Adventure 2 where Robotnik reflects on how much he loved and respected his grandfather as a child, but also the horror that same man unleashed, might be my favorite scene in the entire series. I may be baised, since as a Nintendo kid in my youth, playing Sonic Adventure 2 during my teen years was my first real exposure to the series (though I also grabbed the Gamecube version of Mega Collection afterward) but I also adore Adventure 2's take on him. From that bit of human introspection on something nobody could help but feel strongly about, to the calculating and ruthless presence he has while explaining the plan to snatch the Chaos Emerald off Prison Island and blow it up (and the sheer confidence they can do it when he wraps with "We only have 30 minutes to pull this off, and we only get one try!"), it's just such a good depiction. Adventure 2 gives him a grandiosity that I feel no other game really captured, even Adventure 1, such that if he didn't have such thoroughly immoral goals, you'd almost want to root for the guy.

I think one of my favorite Eggman roles is in the first Sonic Mega Man crossover. Thanks to having a second evil scientist to accompany him, it's a great showcase for how ruthless he can be. The event that causes the big rift between Eggman and Wily was that Wily just wanted to defeat and humiliate Light, but Eggman took it a step further and threw him out of the Wily Egg with the intent to kill him so he's no longer a threat. And by the end when both Eggman and Wily are defeated, Wily just reflects on his defeat while Eggman risks shattering his reality because he refuses to lose after coming so close. It shows how threatening, cold hearted, and persistent the character can be with competent writing.

We can all agree the best voice actor for Eggman is Alfred Coleman

On the topic of Engman being both intimidating and goofy as well as his early voice actors: Alfred Coleman as Eggman in the Real Time Fandubs walks that balance well and does justice to the character. There is a reason why Eggman’s Announcement is iconic.

"Because you just told me fox boy!" One of the best lines in sonic adventure 2

10:26 I love hearing sonic yelling from the other side at tails it’s so fucking great.

One of my favorite Eggman lines is from the comics, when they tell him that his subordinates are busy, to which he replies "I dont care that they're busy. When I say jump they ask how high, on the way up."

Strangely though. You can have a comedic and threatening villain, even without much seriousness. The main point is that the villain's threat is never part of the joke. It wouldn't solve the issue, but I feel it's the biggest contributing factor

In response for Lost World specifically: I think one issue for things like Knuckles and Eggman having a seemingly change is because, their OG games didn't really have much dialogue and cut scenes... we had a lot to imagine for them... I also think we need to remember that Eggman just lost way too much to Sonic... like, because he lost so much, he no longer seems like a threat. Not to mention that Sonic and the gang kinda know him too well by later points... Like, if you know him well and constantly beat him, would you still view him as a threat??? And it's shown that after so long, Eggman got comfortable with his enemies, so for him, being looser and less serious kinda makes sense... plus, he himself is now too used to losing. But when we get to enemies that are only enemies, we can see how dark and crazy he can be... so it actually fits..

In Sonic Heroes, wouldn't bringing the Egg Fleet on Metal Overlord just make him stronger? That's literally exactly what just happened in the previous cutscene, Neo Metal destroyed a bunch of ships and used their parts to transform.

I love Eggman's big goof moments, but I also love him being a genuine threat and has the guns to back it up. The movie version of him is a perfect example. Jim Carrey, the writers, everybody involved in the story of the movies have blown it out of the park with Robotnik as a character

In eggmans defense in heros, he knew exactly how strong metal sonic had become at that point and knew that the 7 emeralds were the only chance they had. Back in adventure, he went up against perfect chaos with an idea of how strong he was, since eggman had been with chaos for all of his forms, he knew how much power he had gained with each emerald, so he figured he had fire power to take him down, not realizing just how strong perfect chaos actually was

I was literally just talking to my sister about how Dr. Eggman is a lot smarter and a lot more threatening than most people in the fandom realize. He has actually come very very very close to taking over the world more times than the average cartoon villain.

Pissing on the moon is definitely Eggman's greatest accomplishment

Adventure 2 Eggman was Eggman at his most peak from being a threatening villian by threatening the President to outsmarting Sonic and Tails and to eventually realising his mistake he made by following his Grandfather's plan Both him and Knuckles were written at their peak in Sonic Adventure 2 Also PJ you should make a video of how Knuckles is like in Sonic X and maybe even Eggman himself too

Going a bit on how intimidating Eggman’s voice was in the old Adventure games, I always remembered the way Eggman takes in the final Tails Boss fight. He isn’t loud, he isn’t brash. He just got beat by sonic and Sonic’s little friend (in Eggman’s view) just thwarted his backup plan. He is pissed, and just the low way he tries to intimidate Tails made it clear to me he was not playing around anymore.

I love him in SA2. So serious compared to pretty much every other version of him.

After playing frontiers and the Final Horizon expansion story I totally feel like eggman has essentially become one of the heroes. He helps sonic so much and never argues with him or threatens him or attacked him. I get that they wanted to emphasize the “greater evil” trope of The End being so dangerous we need to team up. But that’s overdone. They did that in Advanced 3 with Gemerl and in SA2 with the biolizard.

I think most people don’t talk about 06 egg man. He spoke with a much calmer and laid back tone similar to how he was in the adventure era, like he was always a step ahead of the heroes

I think the reason he was so defeatist when Metal revealed to be the mastermind in Heroes, was in itself narcissistic, because he's only saying that knowing Metal is his creation. Saying that HIS creation cannot be stopped because he made him invincible.

23:18 makes him out to actually have meaningful threats, which just makes it all the more upsetting that it didnt end up panning out

I'm sorry but I already can't take this seriously when at 0:25 I just hear "I've come to make an announcement"

What you said any peak Eggman makes me really appreciate what Jim Carey does for the character in the Sonic movies. He’s zany, but he’s definitely a narcissist and a threat, and you see that in how Sonic, despite his quips, does take him seriously.

A perfect eggman (for me) would start off goofy and then become more and more menacing as the game progresses. That way the story also corresponds with the ganeplay. The enemies are more powerful because eggy is ramping up his aggression, and doesn’t want you foiling his plans Endgame eggman should be threatening, he shouldnt react to sonic’s disses and punchlines, when hes winning hes kackling and when he loses hes furious. That is eggman to me

One thing that's worth noting about Adventure 2 was that firing the Eclipse Cannon wasn't even a bluff as he attempted to actually go through with it

I will say, I loved Eggman in Chronicles, and wish we had gotten a sequel. I also think part of his change was due to Sonic X, where he was more of a joke based character. The games saw how he was in the show and based it off that.

I believe the reason why Eggman is way less intimidating in recent instalments is because of Orbot and Cubot. The two bumbling sidekicks who constantly annoy the main villain and test his patience with their incompetency is nothing new, but the problem is that those two actually became recurring characters, and with them constantly getting under Eggman's skin and interfering with his heinous schemes... they just showcase how truly inept he is. That, combined with the fact that he's always being upstaged by a bigger threat.

I thought Mike Pollock was great in Sonic and Tails R, though that was largely down to the dialogue avoiding all Meta Era tropes like the plague and it not being afraid to take itself seriously. Hell even within the first episode, Eggman pulls something of an Unleashed, beating Sonic at the very start as he's trying to use the Chaos Emeralds by causing them to shatter which sets the story in motion.

I really think the movies did the characters justice. Especially Eggman. he crack a whole lot of jokes, sure, but his tone of voice makes it a threatening kind of comedy, like he knows he’s gonna win, so he doesn’t try, kinda like a mustached joker. That just makes him more threatening. And, best part, he’s actually FUNNY.

18:54 Eggman's Piss Laser V2 Edit: Sonic Frontiers gave us Eggman's Piss Laser V3!

I also think the 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog movie also gives us a perfect Dr. Robotnik/Eggman by giving us the comedy, the genius, and threatening nature of the main villain. Throughout the movie, he kept Sonic on his toes.

Rewatching this, it makes me realize how in the Sonic Movie and Sonic Movie 2 (no spoilers) they really do capture his character really well Makes me appreciate it

I personally like Michael B. Pollock as the voice actor for Eggman... I might be biased since I kinda grew up with the modern voice actors...but I think the current voice for Eggman fits him more in my opinion...

15:30 WTF I NEVER STOOD LONG ENOUGH TO HEAR THAT!! 0_o The amount of empathy put into that dialogue of truth. Felt like a beautiful release to Shadow's ears like holy shit even mine :O

About the defeatist situation in Sonic Heroes, I really liked that interpretation. Because he felt so betrayed and disappointed by his supposedly greatest creation. It's a more humble part of his life. It would've been crazy if this gave the Sonic Team a way to have his character slowly change in a meaningful way through the next games, it could've been beautiful.

Eggman is a character who has arguably suffered the most out of the whole cast, from the direction the series took as it wore on, in part because the decay was already setting in before the meta era rot really kicked in for the rest of the gang. IMO, the Meta Era took the complaints people had about Eggman during the "Dark Age" and fixed the wrong issue. The problem wasn't ever that Eggman wasn't the final boss anymore, because he very frequently was- In the handheld titles. The problem was that he wasn't a big-deal villain anymore. They made him the final boss again, but he's still just as much of a joke, if not more, as he was when he was being punted over the horizon by Dark Gaia. That said, I must admit I've never really liked Ian Flynn's take on the character, entirely because of Archie. Due to the oddness that was Eggman's backstory in the Archie book, Flynn wrote him less as a version of the character present in the games, and more a sort of hybrid between SEGA's post-Heroes Eggman and SatAM Robotnik, and those two versions of the character... do not gel well. Archie Eggman was so sadistic and outright vile that it took all the humour out of his more comical moments- It's kinda hard to laugh at the guy singing E.G.G.M.A.N. when it's happening in the same story arc where he carves up one of the protagonists with a blowtorch, seemingly while she's still conscious and aware of what's happening to her. Especially because it was painfully obvious that he'd never have to deal with a lasting defeat: While SEGA's Eggman will always end up flying away from a ruined plan, battered and burned and vowing revenge but clearly beaten, the Archie version was an emperor who controlled much of the planet and basically never lost. Even when he went crazy for a year, he incurred no relevant losses beyond one of his lieutenants having her head explode, but it's okay, he just rebuilt her to the point that it was impossible to tell that the cherry bomb he surgically implanted in her brain had detonated. Apparently he was a wizard or something. SA2 will always be peak Eggman, I think.

I did like the line "Wow, do I really get that crazy?" said by Past Robotnik in generations. Shows that he's aware of how...well....over the top he is in his quest to defeat Sonic. A nice bit of self(?) reflection

In Heros as the creator of Metal Sonic he knows how dangerous Metal actually is and that Metal evolved beyond Eggman being able to use a fail safe and he knows how hopeless the situation is without the emeralds

I agree entirely. He functions best as a villain with the occasional comic relief rather than _being_ that comic relief. Early era Archie comics, plus SatAM, he had the odd comical moment, but was otherwise brutal. A _threat._ After that, and in IDW, he took on his more familiar shape and occasional menace, but gradually became jokey. In the games? Just...eh. He's gotten about as bad as the writing and that saddens me. On that note, why is it that in every media that isn't the games, he and the others are done so decently, but the game writing is in a spiral? Y'know...aside from the obvious "It's not Sega writing them." Why is Sega doing this to these characters? And it can't be about longevity, because Mario has been around longer and Bowser is still treated like a threat. And occasional sports rival. And board game companion. And racer. ...It's complicated between them, but they're at least consistent with him going "Roar, I'ma do the thing!" then _doing_ it. Not cracking a joke or being the joke.

"Something that kinda happens" is a great description for Sonic Forces. It is by far the most incomplete-feeling mainline Sonic game (though I've never had the pleasure of trying Sonic 06), which sucks because you can see and imagine all the cool stuff that they clearly wanted to do before we got what we got.

It always seems frustrating when someone takes a character that you love, then decide to turn everything they say into a joke.

I don’t think that egg man was being out of character is sonic hero’s. Egg man has everything thought out most of the time. PJ used the example of SA1 to compare to how he was out of character. In SA1, he brought in Chao to level a city but he also knew that chao might not be a blind follower. He built the Egg Carrier 2 because he knew something like this might happen he even says so in his dialog (7:01). His narcissism, feelings of being more powerful than anything ever, and lack of knowledge about chaos power lead him to believe that he could take out chao which wasn’t true. In Sonic Hero’s, eggman had built metal sonic, and as seen in previous games, he is a blind follower of eggman. Eggman never would have expect metal sonic to defy him so he didn’t prepare for it. He also knew how powerful metal sonic was since he designed him. Maybe eggman might have done more if he had his army but metal sonic took that so there was nothing he could really do. Eggman also knew that any of his efforts to thwart metal sonic would be futile since he knows the power of metal sonic since eggman made him. He knew the only way they could defeat him was with the 7 most powerful things in the sonic universe which explains his negative attitude. He keeps his genius status by actually refraining from fighting metal sonic head on. Like PJ said, it would be cool if eggman helped fight metal overlord but eggman probably saw it as a suicide run and geniuses like eggman don’t just kill themselves to their own creations.

8:30 And what does he do? He comes to make an announcement and PISSES ON THE MOOOOOOOOON!

Honestly, I always felt like that overkill was the perfect word to describe Eggman's methods. He always goes so far to accomplish (arguably) so little. Pretty much like you said, he resurrects an ancient God of destruction by destroying the Master Emerald and then gives it the seven Chaos Emeralds to grant it unlimited power just to build Robotnikland (Sonic Adventure's story in a nutshell), and that's just one example.

Eggman outsmarting Tails in Sonic Adventure 2 was so satisfying

Snapcube's Eggman somehow perfectly captures an extremely drunk version of peak Eggman

The virgin regular villains: *Makes practical and intimidating weapons of destruction* The chad Eggman: “Lol imma put my face on everything.”

I don't know if this would be considered a "hot take" but my favorite Robotnik/Eggman is from the SAT,AM cartoon. The blacked-out eyes with just red dots for pupils, and the robot arm give him a sense of mystery. It makes you ask what happened to him that caused him to have these features. And the show starting with him having already won and controlling most of the planet adds to his threatening factor. Also, I was pleasantly surprised with Jim Carrey's Robotnik from the recent Sonic movie and I'm curious what they'll add to him in the upcoming sequel.

In unleashed arguably eggman won he built an amusement park which is implied to be something he has been working on since the classic era with the whole starlight zone being a city and whatnot. He then proceeded to build a space amusement park in colours granted colours story was off it was a great progression of his desire to build an amusement park.(only thing i liked a lot about colours tbh) He wanted to be a genius just like his grandfather they don't seem to tap into that anymore. Eggman honestly is an interesting villain but really depressing cuz they completely forgot that side of him in forces. The one that wanted to build an amusement park and do science like his grandpappy. You can be too boring and serious(not funny) and too un heartfelt. Yet you can also be too much comedic and make him not a threat at all. The modern sonic games pretty much either fall into overly serious eggman or comedic eggman. Which both of them kinda forget the balance between the two and the heart of the character his drives his motivations his goals they pretty much do whatever with him instead of really thinking. I really think we need another game with playable eggman which we haven't gotten since sa2(and sonic chronicles but nobody cares about that and it isn;t mainline) Because it would be interesting to get into the psyche of this mad doctor. The original theme of the series was nature vs technology and i feel like they could tap into that as the amusement park thing also tied into it. heck why not delve into the relationship between shadow and eggman. He should have some admirable qualities as shadow is his grandfather's ultimate creation whom eggman clearly has a fondness for his granddad, also the fact that shadow is technically eggman's uncle.

This is more of a head canon but the fact that eggman immediately thinks there is a fake chaos emerald in SA2 instead of another gem or the equipment being faulty hints that he at least tried to create his own chaos emerald and that feels very much in character. “If I can’t have the chaos emerald, I’ll just make them myself”

I just realized why Eggman might've had that attitude after being freed in Heroes. With something like Chaos, he was attempting to use some godlike being he doesn't fully understand. But when it comes to Metal Sonic... Eggman built him himself. If anyone knows what Metal Sonic is capable of, it's Eggman. With that said though, yeah, Eggman should have done a bit more.

One of my favorite traits of Eggman in the Adventure games is that he's kinda like Doctor Doom. He's seeking world domination, yes. But that's not out of a desire to drain the world dry or destroy the world or make everyone suffer. Eggman has absolute complete belief that the world would be better under his rule. The Sonic games don't have enough depth usually to get into a why, but Adventure 2 and yes, Shadow the Hedgehog, eventually did it. The corruption, incompetence, and crimes of GUN finally give us the last piece we need to get him. This is what he grew up hearing about. His (presumably) paternal grandfather's victimhood, the death of his cousin, this is his family's story. This is what he wants to replace, the government that would gun a child down in the midst of numerous other atrocities. Eggman is the hero of his story. He doesn't mind that he has to get his hands dirty or rule with fear. He's willing to do that because he believes that if people would just let him prove himself, he'd show them all that they would thrive under him. He will harness the power of the gods in order to take over the world. Yes, it's ego. But it's well-intentioned ego. He believes in himself so much that he believes he can save us all from the current system. He's trying to be a hero to a world he feels doesn't understand that, and he doesn't mind being the villain today to prove himself. Notice why he admires Gerald. "He was a hero." Eggman wants to be the hero, even if it means fighting the world.

You know what I would love to see from Eggman? Him getting betrayed by whatever eldritch abomination he’s summoned, and then taking back control halfway through, making it an interesting turn of events from what normally happens

His them song in SA2 encapsulated everything you needed to know in one damn verses. "*I* am the enemy! I *WILL* succeed! My missonn yeah I must compleat! My name is Eggman, *don't forget my name*! If you ask me again, I'll tell you the same!" Ego, little silly and threat. But then that entire theme made sure you knew what you needed too.

I forgot about the brief but sincere exchange between Tails and Eggman at the end of SA2. It’s a shame because here we really see how far both characters have fallen. While the Sonic/Eggman rivalry was timeless, I always appreciated the rivalry between Tails and Eggman; the established evil genius and the precious young inventor who could very well develop a similar level of genius. There was something almost sweet about that dynamic.

You've missed something incredibly big about his character, and that's the effect it has on each installment of the franchise. As the main antagonist, he almost completely shapes a game's direction, particularly the plot points. Think about how much more intricate the story is in sonic adventure 2. He thinks he's the most important human ever, so he deserves to take over the world. That, with how proactive he is, leads him to directly threatening the president, which leads to the writers placing a government spy, rouge, in his ranks to spot his bluff even after he blows up the fucking moon. So just in him being himself, the story must develop into something much more interesting. That is, when Eggman is taken seriously, he inevitably forces the story to have more developments, which is an amazing situation they've taken for granted.

Timestamps 0:00 Intro 0:58 Sponsor 2:06 Classic Eggman 5:01 Sonic Adventure 1 7:37 Sonic Adventure 2 13:21 Sonic Hero's 14:41 Shadow The Hedgehog 16:02 Sonic 06 17:27 Secret Rings 17:34 Sonic Riders 18:10 Sonic Unleashed 21:19 Sonic Colors 22:21 Sonic Generations 22:41 Sonic Lost World 24:18 Sonic Forces 26:25 Sonic Boom 26:51 Sonic IDW Comics 27:24 Conclusion 27:56 Outro

Very late comment but a bonus point i thought was neat: At 9:37 Eggman KNOWS there's a fake emerald,but he doesn't know WHO HAS the fake. He only figures out who has the real and fake emerald at 10:00 as PJ said:Eggman tells Tails to TELL SONIC meaning he likely heard that Tails told Sonic to put the emerald somewhere aka the Eclipse Cannon. As PJ also said why would they HELP Eggman? So logically,Sonic's team made a fake to destroy the Eclipse Cannon or at least tamper with it. at 10:46 Eggman knows the real emerald isn't on Sonic so he fires him out the ship,almost KILLING HIM. If it weren't for Shadow using Chaos Control during his introduction(in the Hero Side Story)Sonic would be DEAD! (Which also shows how observant and smart Sonic can actually be) anyways,that's all i have to say about this neat thing i thought of,really good character analysis btw PJ

Jim Cummings as Robotnik in the 1993 TV series terrified me as a child. I think that may be one of my favorite interpretations of the character.

An interesting little experience I had with the sonic series and Eggman. So as a person who at first only really learned bits and pieces of sonic lore while knowing the general concept I kind of assumed for a while that Eggman was the last human left alive and was trying to save or preserve his people. It sounds weird but the main thing I noticed when looking at sonic after a while is that Eggman is the only human while everyone else is a talking animal then I think someone mentioned something about sonic's world being future Earth and I kind of reached this assumption that Eggman was the last human left or at least one of the last ones left and was trying to save his people. Honestly after learning about his actual motives and his portrayal I was pretty disappointed. He went from being a person turned into a villain by desperation to preserve his people to a cartoon "I wanna take over the world villain". I realize the conclusions I reached were pretty wild but its disappointing to have created this image of a serious, complex villain with a sympathetic goal in a cartoony world(kinda like the Kirby villains) just to find out they're just another generic "I wanna rule the world" villain which is viewed as a joke most of the time.

24:54 - To be fair, Chemical Plant already IS dystopian, I don't think there was much they could do there. Other locations, yeah, but Chemical Plant is... Chemical Plant

24:50 a concept that was used in Kirby Planet Robobot, a world dominated by a giant eempire and futuristic dystopian designs of locations we were used to see so full of life

I think it definitely needs to be a perfect balance of serious and goofy to make Eggmans character likeable as a comic relief but can still be respected enough to also be perceived as a genuine threat in the story. Too goofy can lead to the joke that is the meta era Eggman but too serious leads to the dull and bland Eggman of 06.

personally i think the cutscene where eggman threatens the zetis was pretty badass, it even displays some of his classic narcissistic demeanor when he calls them eggman wannabes.

I have never watched or played any sonic game seriously BUT hearing that conversation with eggman and tails struck a chord with me. The voice acting and writing was SO good! I have never seen that side of eggman nor did I know it was there. Truly seems like an S tier villain during that era.

Ok, all i can think of when i see Eggman is " I PISSED ON THE FUCKING MOOOOON YOU IDIOT!"

I think the problem with sonic characters nowadays is simply struggling with the demographic audience-which would explain the tonal shifts- and more importantly and ironically enough, it struggles how big the series is. With the vast amounts of spin-offs it seems to struggle to decide what is canon and what isnt. For example a simple animated series *cough cough* sonic boom and X *cough* that was originally a joke and non-canon makes some people think that they are canon and so they think that knuckles is a temper-headed idiot, tails a smart scaredy cat, sonic is a douche, and eggman is just a bad joke villain. Ok the example is preety bad example

What a great character Eggman was, hopefully the new era of sonic will bring these character back in action at their finest

We need how Eggman went from Joke to a genius

12:26 I think Eggman probably cooperated with Sonic & his friends to ensure that he at least has Earth to rule over, usually ``I`m gonna rule over the world`` villains don`t want the whole world to be destroyed, since if it does they would have nearly nothing to rule over, or at least wouldn`t be able to rule on the planet they want to, since it got yeeted out of existence. Now before someone says ``But he was ready to blow up the Earth with the eclipse cannon`` , he probably wasn`t. He knew that if no one stops his plan, the big government leaders *will* surrender to him, it`s obvious no one would want the planet to just get blown up by -Eggman`s p!ss- a large laser cannon. So either he just wanted to save Earth just to ensure he has the chance to rule over it... or even he has his moral standards & genuinely thought that his grandpa went too far.

While I know he died so he couldn't play Robotnik forever, I feel Bristow's death was also the death of Robotnik as well. Yes... I know the issue isn't just the voice actor of course and also part of the writing, but I would also say that both writing and delivery both play a role. Pollock always did his deliveries in a way like he's playing a comical guy. The writing then made it even worse with how they make the character acted. When you had the sinister, yet sincere tone of Bristow with some of the comical gestures of Robotnik in SA1 and SA2... it was the perfect blend. (And before someone say Eggman had no comical parts in SA1, don't tell me you didn't laugh or at least chuckle when he told Tails to wait for him while they raced to the end of Speed Highway or when Chaos blasted him out into the air after destroying the 2nd Egg Carrier. And while you might've laughed, you still took Eggman seriously. Especially that final glare he had after the fight with Perfect Chaos.)

I agree with a lot of the video but for heroes , didn’t Metal Sonic literally have control of Eggman’a entire fleet and was at basically at perfect chaos levels of power so Eggman didn’t really have any options to fight except the chaos emeralds? So his more defeatist attitude kinda makes sense. Even he understands sometimes when he is out matched.

Watching this made me realize how good Jim Carrey’s interpretation is in the movies! Great video!