For many Sonic fans, whether they be fans of the video games or the newest film series,
they tend to focus mostly on the characters’ personalities and their power levels. But
part of a character’s overall power is their intelligence, and there’s a wide range of smarts
(or lack of smarts) within the Sonic Cinematic Universe? So, who’s at the top of the class?
I’m Caleb with WickedBinge and this is Sonic 2 characters: Dumb to Brilliant.
Fair warning, there are going to be massive spoilers for both Sonic films in this video.
First off, we have the characters who are… Not The Brightest.
Starting this list off with who we consider the Dumbest character in the Sonic film franchise,
we have Officer Wade Whipple. Yeahhh, this guy can’t really catch a break on our lists, can he?
When it comes to being a sheriff of Green Hills, Wade is much less competent than Tom.
When Green Hills is thrown into a blackout in the first film, Wade quickly crumbles
under pressure and can’t even remember the instructions that Tom gives him. He’s also
extremely gullible and is the one to give Dr. Robotnik a clue as to where Tom and Sonic are,
even if he was trying to play it cool while on the phone. In the second film, Wade actually seems to
become even dumber. When he first meets Tails, he assumes that Tails is Sonic’s dad since the two
are both ‘aliens’, despite Tails obviously being much younger than Sonic. Wade also once again
struggles in the role of temporary sheriff when Tom is away. We can’t deny that Wade is a good
guy at heart that does try his best, but when it comes to smarts, he’s definitely lagging behind.
While not a huge player in either film, we had to give a shout-out to Commander Walters
(aka the Olive Garden guy). In the first film, he was the one to suggest putting Robotnik in charge
of the ‘mysterious power outage’ situation - and from there his incompetence continues to shine.
We learn in the second film that the fake wedding had been his idea, wanting to use it as a means
to capture Sonic. This was a pretty dumb plan, given that if it weren’t for Robotnik returning,
Sonic wouldn’t even be at that wedding. He also partially doubts Maddie when she
tells him that Sonic is on their side and Robitnik is still alive.
To add insult to injury, he thought simply giving Rachel an Olive Garden gift card
would make up for all her trauma. Yeah, this guy really shouldn’t be in charge.
Following him, we have Maddie’s sister, Rachel. Much like Wade, she’s shown to not be
very smart. When she sees Tom with an unconscious Sonic in the first film,
she immediately accuses him of having things like “plutonium” and “emails”. The main reason
she’s ranked here, however, is how easily she was tricked by her ex-fiance, Randall. Yes, Randall
might have fooled everyone else too, but given that Rachel got to know him personally and never
once suspected that he was working with G.U.N. or the government, it may show how oblivious she can
be. She’s also still willing to potentially have a relationship with him after the truth comes out
which may or may not be a dumb move, depending on how real Randall’s feeling for her actually are.
Finishing off this section is the ever-loyal Agent Stone. We will hand it to Stone, it takes quite
a lot of skill to make fancy lattes and coffee foam art - and Stone has these skills in spades.
At the same time, though, he can be a bit oblivious. When it comes to his interactions
with Dr. Robotnik, he’s often either struggling to keep up with the doctor or saying the wrong thing,
which in turn makes Robotnik aggravated with him. Still, we had to rank him at the top of
this section given that he was able to keep all of Robotnik’s tech safe while he was away, allowing
Robotnik to quickly rise to power once again. The mid-credits scene also shows Stone hiding in
disguise amongst the G.U.N. agents, likely waiting for the perfect moment to strike so that he can
assist his Doctor once again. So yeah, maybe there’s more to this barista than meets the eye.
Our next section on this list is what we like to call Average Folks,
the characters who land somewhere in between Dumb and Brilliant.
Starting off this section is the film’s main star,c. Being a kid, we can’t really blame
Sonic for sometimes being clueless or unobservant. Given that he was alone in the woods for so long,
he can sometimes struggle with social cues which usually ends up leading him into trouble.
He’ll also often act first without thinking, which can also be a pretty dumb move.
But for what it’s worth, Sonic still shows a bit of smarts when it comes to his powers
and how he uses them. It only takes a couple scenes for Sonic to learn how to effectively
use his spin-dash against enemies. The same goes for his so-called ‘Quicksilver’ ability,
where he’s able to run faster than the speed of light, as we see him do in the first film’s
bar fight scene. We also see that Sonic can be emotionally intelligent, being able to easily
form friendships with people - with the biggest example being how he was able to connect with
Knuckles over their shared tragic pasts and in-turn quickly getting Knuckles on his side.
As Tom says, Sonic still has some growing up to do, but he’s far from being just some dumb kid.
After Sonic, we have one of his best friends as well as his surrogate father figure,
Tom Wachowski. Although we often see Tom using his fists more often than not, this sheriff does
have quite a bit of brain power. In the first movie, he was smart enough to evade Robotnik
tracking him and Sonic down for the most part, using a mix of strategy and good driving skills.
Tom also easily figured out how to use Sonic’s portal rings
just by observation and listening to Sonic’s explanation of them. We should also mention
how wise Tom seems to be as a parental figure. He gives great advice to Sonic in both films,
and in the latter this advice about waiting for the right moment and what it means to be a true
hero comes back in a major way. Overall, Tom’s a pretty smart guy, even if he can be a goof.
The final character to make it into this section is the one and only Knuckles. Now,
we’re sure many of you would think that Knuckles would be much lower on this list,
given his reputation for being a bit of a meathead dummy in other Sonic incarnations.
However, there’s a huge difference between being naive and being dumb. Sure,
he may have been tricked by Robotnik, but given how young he is and all the time he
spent alone as the last of his kind, can you really blame him for being so easily swayed?
The same goes for his confusion about concepts like “fun” and especially his lack of knowledge
about so-called simple things like baseball, technology and ice cream - of course he wouldn’t
know about things from Earth, he only just got to Earth! Finally, we have to point out how Knuckles
was able to successfully train himself, becoming a strong Echidna warrior at a young age despite
not having any other Echidnas around to teach him. For these reasons, he gets our top Average spot.
Next up, we have the characters who are College Bound - the ones
who are just barely below our super geniuses.
For our first College Bound character, we have Maddie. Funny enough, Maddie is one of
the characters who actually has been to college. As a vet, she knows a ton about animals and how
to help and take care of them. This allowed her to help Sonic when he was injured, despite Sonic
being an alien to her. But while we don’t get to see a ton of her veterinary skills in these films,
we do see a lot of Maddie’s street smarts - such as when we see her break Tom,
Sonic and Tails out of G.U.N. 's custody. She’s able to do this by figuring out how
to properly use Tails’ various gadgets and weapons on the spot, which is certainly
impressive. For these reasons, she easily ranks above both her sister and even her husband.
Following her is Rachel’s fiance and the secret G.U.N. agent, Randall. Obviously, the character
who was able to trick so many others into believing he was just an ordinary guy would make
it pretty high up this list. However, he was dumb enough to actually fall in love while undercover,
as well as declare this love while in front of his boss. We don’t really see him use a ton of
his agent skills outside of blending in and going undercover, so this spot is as far as he goes.
Finally, we have the last of the Owl Warriors, Longclaw. For the Master Emerald to have stayed
hidden for as long as it was, it can be assumed that Longclaw was pretty strategic
when it came to protecting it. After all, owls are often seen as very wise birds,
and an owl warrior should be no exception. While we don’t get many scenes of Longclaw,
we do see how quickly she’s able to think on her feet when it comes to protecting herself and
Sonic, as well as how easy it was for her to think ahead. Really, the only thing that could bring her
ranking down slightly is how she didn’t think to try and train Sonic while she could. She may have
given him a map and a “never stop running”-focused plan, but it could be argued that teaching him how
to more effectively use his speed beyond just running away would have been the smarter move.
We’ve now arrived at the top of our list with our Genius-level characters.
Taking our Runner-Up spot for Smartest Sonic Film character is the famous flying fox,
Tails. Like in many previous incarnations, Tails is essentially a prodigy when it comes to things
like inventing and piloting airplanes. This kid is only eight years old, yet he was still able
to create devices that could do things like track down Sonic from across the universe,
produce holograms or defend him against enemies. Even when he’s in danger or nervous, he’s still
able to think on his feet - like when his faulty translator got him and Sonic into trouble.
When it came to their dance battle in Siberia, Tails was also able to follow Sonic’s lead just
by observation - and given how fast Sonic moves, that’s pretty impressive. Really, the only thing
holding Tails’ back from our top spot is an issue the other kid characters have in these movies:
his naivete. This point comes from the scene where Tails tries to defend Sonic from Knuckles,
despite the two of them having a moment of peace. If not for this mistake,
Knuckles might have been convinced to join Sonic’s side even sooner than he did. Still, this was an
understandable mistake made on miscommunication, so it doesn’t bring him too far down.
For our title of Smartest Sonic Film Character, we just had to give it to Dr. Robotnik.
As much as we may hate to reward a villain, there really is no other character that we
could put here. Robotnik is a brilliant genius who just can’t be beat when it comes to wits.
He’s a master tracker, a talented inventor and a cunning schemer. He knows how to manipulate
people like Sonic and Knuckles, often using their weaknesses against them with ease, and he always
seems to have a contingency plan. Really, just the fact that he was able to survive on a hostile
mushroom planet with just the bare essentials for who knows how long would be more than enough to
put him in the upper half of our list. Really, the only ‘dumb’ moments that he has is when he’s being
cocky and letting his guard down - which Team Sonic is able to take advantage of. However,
when he’s focused and on his A-Game - well, good luck stopping him. While other characters may
outmatch him in terms of strength and power, there really is no one smarter than Robotnik.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking, and tell us what we should
cover next! Remember to hit that notification bell and binge our Dumb to Brilliant playlist,
where we figyre out which characters have the most wits. But most importantly, stay wicked!