#i was makign a fanfic talking about shadow philosophy and found this post

[emeraldhub225]

What I unpicked is that Shadow can 'die' - being stuck in stasis - but he is stuck in a limbo, and can be reawakened at any time.

Something like Shadow should genuinely be harder to create than destroy. If Gerald and Black doom worked together, they may have a chance of killing him. Since he is artificial, he won't have a chance of going into the afterlife (there is a canon afterlife, Shadow himself stated), but on the other hand, Black Doom gave him life. His army may have gone to hell, it isn't exactly confirmed. What is confirmed that the black arms are living organisms, and can die. It doesn't necessarily mean Shadow can too, since he likely has the base of his body made into a hedgehog (confirmed by Maria), and the spirit that Black Doom gave him, (made of somebody with a kind heart, because that is what Gerald would order, instead of a destructive heart which Black Doom would've wanted).

It leaves his spirit open for chemistry as Black Doom altered with it many times, I believe in SA2 he was actually remotely controlled by Black Doom rather than Gerald to take revenge for Maria. In the Shadow manga, Maria wasn't exactly killed by a GUN soldier, she was indirectly killed by Black Doom to provoke Shadow into destroying the world 50 years later, which adds onto the point that Black Doom manipulates him.

Black Doom is dead, but with things like the time eater, he is brought back. Mephiles stated that in the future, Shadow's power is feared, hitting at a slight possibility that by one way or the other, Black Doom came back. The point is if he could die, he would end up in hell if he had a possessed spirit, and he would end up in heaven if he got to choose his own path.

A way do disband Shadow completely is by wiping him out of time like Solaris. Solaris was wiped out by blowing a flame, while Shadow doesn't have something like a lone flame. He isn't a diety of sorts, but deities were messed around with in Sonic 06, so if somebody as smart as Gerald or Egggman, or have the powers of Black Doom, they could find one and create something similar to a flame to abolish Shadow from the past, present, and the future. He wouldn't he in hell or heaven, he would have no life to die from, and he would have no birth to live from. No limbo, no stasis, just completely gone.

This would be the similar to travelling back in time by inducing a chaos control (in my AU, Gerald created a realititve mirror which he could use to make it function like there are two people if he is the only male hedgehog left. In my terms, he could find a scientist that could create it) to travel back to where Gerald was thinking about Project Shadow, and do something to wipe himself out.

This also messes with Shadow's reasoning for ending his life. He isn't the type of person to end himself, although circumstances could change and again, he could get manipulated.

Stated somewhere where I don't remember, or it's a theory, Shadow wouldn't time travel to save Maria. In Sxsg, Shadow wanted to tell Maria about what was going to happen at the ARK, but didn't, as Gerald told him not to and for the fact that rewriting the past causes many complications. What if Shadow was at such a low, he didn't care about complications? He didn't care about the timeline being all wibbily wobboly, even if that wasn't what Maria wanted. Compromising his thoughts to Maria only wanting the Earth and humanity to be safe, he travels back in time to save his loved ones? He could also be turned back on this opportunity, since it could do more harm to him than not.

(In Sonic generations and Forces, Sonic regularly hung out with classic Sonic, I wonder how he doesn't worry about the complications of visiting the past and his past self. He's the type of person to never consider the long run, but when has the long run ever failed because of him in this situation?)

Either way, his loved ones are all mortals, and he would have to lose them one way or the other. He could bring them back by time travel over and over again to live his life forever with the same people, but lifetime over lifetime he doesn't keep repeating history because he knew what happened before, and to prevent it from happening again he does something different. For example, if Shadow went on a picnic on Jan 2nd 2025, the next time he revisits Jan 2nd 2025, he will go on a hiking trip.

But this doesn't mean Shadow is dead, it means Shadow doesn't want to be dead.

What if there was a being transcending Shadow completely, that it was capable of killing him (taking his spirit out of his body) using not strength, but magic? What if this being could creage a gateway between reality and afterlife, which Shadow could use? This would mean, as a being so powerful, Shadow could be awaken back into reality. On the other hand, this also means that every other mortal can be brought back to life.

Anyways, another method of killing him would probably be to shred him into a gazillion pieces, melted into a soup, then ejaculated into the other side of the universe so nobody could put it back together. If somebody did happen to rebuild him, he wouldn't be the same person, unless the person that rebuilds him are his creators, Gerald (brought back by Black Doom's ability to toy with time) and Black Doom. For him to be ejaculated into the 88494847371694938726 corners of the universe, his memory would be a part of those pieces. If Shadow has a brain, it will be in it, or if his memory part is artificial he would have a chip. His creators could regather the pieces and glue him together. This brings the question to where his spirit went - it cannot be shredded just like his body. Without the spirit to power the memory, the memory would be useless. So for the spirit that is still living on somewhere, Black Doom can bring it back and resummon life to Shadow. I believe that if they do this perfectly, it will be the same Shadow the hedgehog from before. (Ignore that humans and someone like Black Doom that was defeated by Shadow can have many anomalies in their work.)

The chaos emeralds brought Sonic back to life in Sonic 06. He wasn't fully dead, and his spirit was still felt by Elise. This is the same as when Shadow was 'dead', after SA2, after the meterex saga, etc. The 7 chaos emeralds could've brought Shadow back too. If negative chaos emeralds existed with the same power, they could banish Shadow's spirit instead of bringing it back into his body. At the same time, the negative chaos emeralds do not need to exist. The chaos emeralds adjust to the person using it, if they have a good heart, the emeralds will be used for a good purpose, stated in Sonic X. If the person has a bad heart, the chaos emeralds will be used for a bad purpose.

All 7 chaos emeralds have only worked for a good purpose when with Shadow. When Sonic 'died', everybody there when reviving him had good intentions. If Shadow was 'dead', it brings the question to whether it is the people around him that will make the emeralds act in a negative way, or Shadow himself will prevent the negative causes just by being there. Eggman doesn't have a pure heart, and he was there while reviving Sonic, and Sonic came back to life. It was 8 against 1, though, and he wanted Sonic to be back.

It could be said that Elise was the one handling the emeralds. It could also be said that the emeralds had a good cause because of Sonic and Elise's connection. If a villain with bad intentions collected the 7 emeralds to kill Shadow in stasis, with Shadow's good relation to chaos, the effect could be cancelled out.

Last point, in Sonic X, Shadow said the best part of his life was being 'dead'. He may enjoy being in stasis. 😆

Shadow can’t die, not really.

He’s immortal, an experiment he was built from the ground up. He was made to be a cure, to outlive everything and everyone. To be invulnerable.

He can’t die 

When all is gone thousand of years into the future, what will happen? He’ll have nothing left, everything will be gone but him. Maybe a way to die would be to undo everything. 

Take apart his body and mind, unmake him by the atoms, unmake what was made. Separate the consciousness from the body, separate what made him alive. But where would you put what you unmade? He would still be there, because you broke something doesn’t make it gone. you still have the parts that made it together, that held him up and made him a being. He would still be there, a lingering sense of what he used to be, who he used to be. 

Or maybe not, maybe he is gone, separating them you might be killing him, stripping him of what made him himself. But he’s still there, or maybe not, after all you might’ve taken him apart but if you put it back together, is it the same?

He’s not the same mobian that met Maria,

He’s not the same mobian who fought with Sonic,

He’s not the same mobian that fought black doom,

That fought to choose for himself, and not what others told him was him,

Choose to make something of himself,

Chose to be, 

Chose to live.

May be the same pieces but they were still pulled apart, they were still undone, they were put back together yes. But that doesn’t change the fact they are not where they used to be, they don’t have the same connection or maybe even the same place. 

That may look like shadow, and think like him, have the same memories as him, but is it him? 

Or maybe it is, after all it is the same pieces when you pull him apart it’s still the same guy, that’s still him, he didn’t pass, he has the same parts same consciousness.

He still, there. He’s unmade, not dealing with what was, he’s gone but that’s not mercy, that’s not death. He’s gone, but not really. He still didn’t pass.

If there is an afterlife he wouldn’t join it, he can’t, he didn’t pass, he was unmade, torn apart by the seams, he was unbuilt, separated, but he didn’t die. 

Maybe the closest thing would be stasis but that’s not death either, that’s more like a sleep, a deep sleep. He’s not conscious but he is awake, that’s not death, time is moving, he is not, but he’s not DEAD.

In all of these versions he would still be awake, and after that he would be alone, he would never have what he used to have, he would never have the life he fought for, the friends he fought for. He would be alive but not really he wouldn’t be living, maybe he would just be awake, a consciousness of what he was, can be, an is. But he’s still alone.

Maybe that’s how he was always meant to be, 

Alone.

Awake.