Ermm Infodump About Knux's Fists Under The Cut

ermm infodump about knux's fists under the cut

I'm probably missing something here, but I always found it kind of strange how some artists will depict Knuckles without gloves as having these spurs on his hands. I guess that is quite a literal and straight forward way of representing the shapes of his gloves, and I don't think there's anything wrong or incorrect about this depiction (especially if it actually showed up in cannon somewhere and I just didn't see it), but personally I don't see it that way.

I always kind of figured that those two little points were meant to be something that he was concealing underneath his gloves rather than something that is a part of his body.

My logic being... The gloves he wears are boxing gloves. Boxing gloves are meant to soften the impact of a punch so that you don't kill your opponent or otherwise seriously mess them up while participating in the sport. Knuckles was introduced as an antagonist who later on became a good guy, right. So I kind of figured that the reason he had shapes under his boxing gloves (which are supposed to be for fairness's sake) are because he's 'cheating'. Putting something heavy or even dangerous underneath or around your boxing gloves can negate the softening effect and cause even worse damage to your opponent.

His tribe is called the Knuckles tribe. He's named Knuckles because he's the last one. I figured his tribe was called the Knuckles tribe because they specialized so well in hand-to-hand combat that the weapons they developed and were known to use were brass knuckles. I figured that's what he was hiding under there, and that's why I draw him without the boxing gloves, fully exposing weapon that has been hidden underneath his gloves this whole time.

(I like to draw them hanging on his side when not in use so his hands are free to grab stuff.)

So I guess in summary, I kind of figured it was meant to convey the message that Knuckles can and does fight dirty. We continue to see that he will resort to underhanded techniques here and there, even if they've become less frequent with time. (Most recent example I can think of is when he threw a rock at the last robot standing in the Frontiers Prologue)

To me, conveying them as random spurs (something echidnas don't really have) feels a bit too literal and loses some flavour. Also I like decorating the iron knuckles to have aztec serpents carved into them or something, as if maybe they belonged to his father or he uncovered them from the ruins on Angel Island or something. It adds some culture and history to his character that I really like.