Knuckles the Echidna isn’t the brightest character in the Sonic franchise, and over time fans have begun to regard him less as the gullible, naïve type and more as the dumb, strong one. While die-hard Knuckles fans blame a lot of this characterization on the Sonic Boom animated series, there is no doubt in the wake of his appearance in Sonic The Hedgehog 2 that he’ll continue to be viewed as the least intelligent of Sonic’s friends, no matter who gets introduced next.
Many of the dumbest things Knuckles has ever done are indeed contained within the episodes of Sonic Boom. However, there are several others from his history in Sonic games that will make fans raise eyebrows about how little intelligence the powerful echidna actually possesses.
7 Turning On Sonic Because Of Eggman TWICE
Fool me once, shame on you. But to fool Knuckles into twice believing that Sonic was the evil one trying to steal the master emerald and gain ultimate power was particularly devious of Dr. Robotnik. When Knuckles was initially introduced to the Sonic mythos in Sonic 3, Robotnik convinced him that Sonic was evil, which was fair enough since Knuckles had never even met the blue blur at this point.
However, in Sonic Adventure, Knuckles already knew Sonic better than he had before. Yet Robotnik was once again able to convince him that Sonic was trying to collect the emeralds for himself and turned the friends against one another. Knuckles really needs to work on these trust issues. There is a lot that the Sonic movies can learn from the games, the most obvious one the second film picked up on is that Robotnik won't struggle to manipulate Knuckles.
6 He Can’t Read?
This is the first of several Sonic Boom entries. One of many throwaway jokes in the series that isn’t afraid to make Knuckles appear intensely unintelligent for a quick laugh. In Season 1, Episode 5 of the animated series, Knuckles grabs a piece of paper from Amy, who has her own list of historic moments, to try and read it.
However, after pulling out his glasses and pondering the page for a moment or two, he proclaims “Oh wait, I can’t read” and Sonic snatches it away from him. This is one of the finest examples of Sonic Boom sullying Knuckles to make a quick joke, albeit not a bad one.
5 A Sun Burn From The Moon
There are a lot of occasions throughout the Sonic Boom series that could be pointed out as similarly dropping the audience's opinion of Knuckles' IQ by twenty or thirty points in order to pull a quick joke about how dumb he is. Unfortunately, die-hard Knuckles fans may never forgive the show for turning him into such a stereotypical “strong-but-dumb” archetype role.
Another such occasion is Season 2, Episode 22 of the show. A confused Knuckles enters with a burn on his shoulder and insists he “must have gotten a sunburn from the moon” which, suffice to say, is one of the least smart things that anyone has ever said. The Sonic franchise has got a bright future but that doesn't mean every character is all that bright.
4 Operation Big Wave
Sonic Forces is a messy game narratively, but it did nothing worse for any Sonic character than Operation Big Wave. Knuckles, with Sonic out of the way, got the resistance to launch an all-out frontal assault on Robotnik, who controlled most of the planet at this point.
During the mission, where the player is controlling their own OC created for the game, a voice line from Amy reveals how badly the plan went. She tells the player that “80% of our forces have been wiped out” which means that the ridiculous plan Knuckles came up with clearly got hundreds, if not thousands, of people killed. More strategic planning error than a laughable stupid moment, but this should surely haunt Knuckles fans forever. This kind of death and destruction is one thing the Sonic films may not want to embrace about the franchise's history.
3 Eating Napkins
It’s easy to guess from the title alone that this brings us back to Sonic Boom. Knuckles may not understand words, or how the sun works, but this might be even more egregiously dumb. After burning the food they were meant to eat that evening, Knuckles proclaims that burnt food just doesn’t taste the same without Amy there.
It is at this point that Tails kindly points out that Knuckles isn’t eating the burnt food, he’s eating a napkin. Tails himself has done some dumb things but this one takes the cake. While this doesn’t come across as overly funny, it is a brutal indictment of how little intelligence the show’s version of Knuckles actually possesses. Or perhaps he just has damaged taste buds? And sight? It’s difficult to defend.
2 Turning On Sonic Because Of Eggman AGAIN
Possibly the saddest moment in the history of Knuckles (outside of Sonic Boom of course) comes from Sonic Advance 2. While Robotnik had previously tricked Knuckles twice into believing that Sonic was evil and after the master emerald, doing it once Knuckles and Sonic were already good friends is even sadder.
At this point, the writers clearly just wanted another reason for these two to square off, but in doing so they make Knuckles appear desperately unintelligent. Believing Robotnik over Sonic yet again is the point at which his trust issues or lack of intelligence have become unfathomable.
1 The Duckling Incident
If fooling Knuckles once, twice or even three times wasn’t bad enough, how about 87? Knuckles, once again in Sonic Boom, was on a search when he found a field of baby ducks. After lifting one and remarking on how cute it was, it proceeded to explode. Knuckles was shocked but continued to lift each new duckling he found, even though they always exploded.
In a remarkably “taken too far” version of the Charlie Brown and the football joke, Knuckles actually managed to do this 87 times before finally making it through the field. Even at that point, it seems he just ran out of duck bombs to try and lift, rather than learning from his previous mistakes. This level of intelligence is something that Sonic The Hedgehog 2, fortunately, changed about Knuckles.