The Antoine and Bunnie Retrospective - 77

“My Special Friend” - Knuckles the Echidna #29

We open up in Knothole with Antoine and Sally having a fight. 

Where, oh, where to start. Turns out Antoine knew about Elias and what the mission entailed when he flew that plane back in KtE 19. But he didn’t inform Sally until now because the King had ordered him not to. 

Was he in the right to keep such a secret from his best friend? Probably not. But Antoine was raised his whole life to be a solider. To follow orders and to respect the wishes of the royalty. No one ever warned him that the individuals  in charge might have conflicting views. And that doesn’t mean Ant won’t speak up if he feels something is wrong. It’s just he so explicitly trusts his king and his decisions that the idea that Max might be full of shit hasn’t occurred to him yet. (Nor most of the citizenry for that matter) 

And now his misplaced loyalty has hurt him and his friend, deeply. Sally and Antoine have had so few arguments in the book that this confrontation really stands out as being something serious. And in any other book this would be a turning point in their development. A reason to begin questioning the status quo and ones priorities. 

It would also be the prefect time for Sally to open up to Twan and tell him all of the BS Max had in store for both of them. But nope, Sally’s too “independent” to just tell people about her problems and seek help. That’s probably her greatest character flaw. She holds herself to impossible standers and underneath her calm collected exterior she’s really a mess of nerves.

So sadly Antoine will never come around to question his king or his responsibility as a knight. However Sally does attempt to finally confront her dad on her own. 

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Now you’d also think that this would be the moment that Sally stands up for herself and tells her dad to fuck off, right? Only no, it isn’t. He gives her the same excuse as always. She accepts it, and in the very next scene she’s trying to rationalize what’s been happening to her. 

Ok list of the things that are wrong with this argument. 

1. Your father was not privy to Robotnik’s return at that time, and that wasn’t his excuse for turning on the Robians. Also he was mentally ill and possessed by an evil wizard. 
2. No you would not have done the same thing Sally. You were already there and didn’t agree with him then and if given the chance now I doubt you’d still do it. Honestly, all you are doing is lying to yourself in order to make yourself feel less guilty for not loving your abuser enough. A misplaced guilt that you only possess because your abuser has fucked with your head for too long.
3. Shut up Nicole! You are not helping. You’re the only person she’s confided in so far and instead of supporting her you’re only compounding the problem by trying to explain away an abuser’s behaivor. 
4. This is all very accurate to how abusive relationships work and how people remain trapped in them. Unfortunately the book isn’t self aware enough to realize this. You could have told a beautiful, deep, and important story with all this comic, but you fucked it up! 

Anyways Sally tries to get the Brotherhood to help in the fight against Eggman. Only they got their heads too far up their asses to do anything useful. Sally afterwards discusses things/argues with Knuckles. 

Knuckles is in a similar predicament as Sally, only he’s a little more removed from the toxic relationships of his forefathers. He has a pair of supportive parental figures he can turn to, his mother and his step dad. He realizes that the the treatment he’s received is fully wrong. He just can’t figure out a way to fix it. Which you can’t. The only way to fix an abusive relationship is to leave it.

However the argument doesn’t end well and Sally pushes Knuckles away the same as she did Antoine. 

She’s placing her frustrations on her friends shoulders because she knows they will still be there afterwards. She’s afraid to push too hard against her dad. Afraid of losing him again, if not physically, then emotionally. She equates the lost of his approval and attention with the lost of his love.Something that she’s been starved for ever since he went missing when she was a kid.

But her friends? They’ve always been there, despite her loud denials to the contrary she knows damn well that when everything is over they will still be friends. Right now she’s just deflecting everything she would actually want to say to her dad on to them. 

It’s not Antoine’s trust she’s lost, nor Knuckles’ dependability. It’s her dad’s.