Knuckles the Echidna

"As far back as I can remember, I've been living here on this dark island, always guarding the Master Emerald from anything that could harm it. I don't know why I was given this job, why it was my fate... destined to be here... forever."

- Knuckles, Sonic Adventure

Knuckles the Echidna (ナックルズ・ザ・エキドゥナ Nakkuruzu za Ekiduna?) is a fictional character from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. He is an anthropomorphic echidna and the current guardian of the Master Emerald, a powerful ancient relic which is his solemn duty to protect from anyone seeking to abuse it. He is also the sole remaining descendant of the Knuckles Clan and the last of the echidnas on Earth. His dominant traits are his superhuman strength, and the two spike-like knuckles on each of his hands, from which his name is derived from, which he can use to dig with and climb walls.

Why He's Tougher Than Leather

 * 1) A loner by nature, Knuckles is independent, headstrong and serious, yet gullible and short-tempered to a fault.
 * 2) He is entirely devoted to his duty, spending most of his time on Angel Island protecting the Master Emerald, and rarely cares for anything that is of no importance.
 * 3) When his friends and others are in need of his help, Knuckles can always be relied on being willing to leave his post and prove himself a faithful and good-hearted hero.
 * 4) He is one of Sonic's greatest rivals and best friends. In fact, he can well be considered Sonic's best friend next to Tails.
 * 5) Knuckles has plenty of amazing, hip-hop/jazz stylized music In Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, like Unknown from M.E (his main theme), A Ghost's Pumpkin Soup (the infamous Pumpkin Hill theme), and Space Trip Steps.
 * 6) He spawned some internet memes, like the Ugandan Knuckles meme, "Do I look like I need your power?" and his iconic line from mh:awesomegames:Sonic Adventure: "OH NO!".
 * 7) Like Shadow, he's pretty relatable to introverted kids.
 * 8) Nowadays he seems to be much more trusting to Sonic than he was at first glance, since they're shown working together instead of fighting most of the time.
 * 9) His unconfirmed but implied love chemistry with Rouge.
 * 10) He usually has a great voice actor portraying him, like Scott Dreier, Dan Green, Travis Willingham and of course, Idris Elba.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) He's extremely gullible, often tricked by Dr. Eggman into believing that Sonic is the enemy which is a great cause for many of their confrontations, though he still fixes his mistakes by doing what's right and as mentioned in WHTTL#7, they don't fight each other anymore.
 * 2) It appears that he's been sleeping on the job, since he's hardly seen guarding the Master Emerald in the recent installments.
 * 3) While his voice actors do a great performance for Knuckles, Michael McGaharn, who voiced him in Sonic Adventure, sounds so bad it sounds like text-to-speech and lacking emotion.
 * He, along with many characters in recent appearances, has suffered from character derailment, being often treated as a joke and the dumb hothead who doesn't trust anyone and anything, or a background character that is used for badly executed comic-relief moments in later titles like Sonic 06, Lost World and Generations.
 * 1) *This "funny" aspect about Knuckles's Flanderization was very easy to notice in his Boom iteration.
 * 2) *He also doesn't appear at all in Sonic Rush Adventures and Sonic Unleashed, likely to see less of his character derailment go even farther.

Videos
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Trivia

 * According to the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 manual, Knuckles' favorite food is grapes. This is referenced many times through the series.
 * That said, real life echidnas eat invertebrates like worms, ants and termites as opposed to grapes (or any fruit, for that matter).
 * He was originally going to have a Jamaican accent, despite being based on an Australian creature, for example watch this video.