Longclaw: the owl who raised Sonic in the movies

Longclaw is the anthropomorphic owl who took in and raised the young Sonic, in the prologue of Sonic the Hedgehog, released in 2020. A character exclusive to the Paramount movie continuity, she appears in no canonical Sega game.

Who is Longclaw, the owl who raised Sonic?

In the Sonic movies produced by Paramount, Longclaw is an anthropomorphic owl who plays the role of guardian, mentor and adoptive mother to the young blue hedgehog. The cast list of the first feature presents her as the protector of the young Sonic, without ever giving her a blood tie to him: she took him in and raised him, and nothing more about her family origins is established on screen.

The character is a creation specific to the movie continuity. She belongs to the childhood the films invented for Sonic and exists nowhere else: not in the canonical Sega games, not in the classic animated series such as SatAM, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog or Sonic Underground, not in the Archie Comics books, and not in IDW's ongoing series — only the official prequel to the second film, published by IDW, puts her on the page.

Her description shifts from one version to another: the English material speaks of a “brown owl”, the French material simply of an owl. No real species is settled in the movies, and her home world is never named there — the label “Mobius”, inherited from Western media, does not appear on screen.

The 2020 prologue: the ambush, the arrow and the bag of rings

Longclaw appears in the very opening of Sonic the Hedgehog, released on 12 February 2020 in France and on 14 February 2020 in the United States. The prologue shows the young Sonic ambushed by a tribe of echidnas that has come to seize his power; his protector covers him during the escape and ends up wounded in the wing by an arrow fired by the enemy chief, whose name is never spoken in this film and who was only identified as Pachacamac later on.

Realising she will not be able to save them both, she gives the child a bag of golden rings able to open portals to other worlds, repeats that the only way to stay safe is to stay hidden, then sends him off to Earth while she remains behind to hold back the echidnas. The hedgehog lands near Green Hills, in Montana, where he will live hidden in a cave for ten years.

🌙 To follow Longclaw's instruction and stay hidden, Sonic spends ten years in a cave in Montana; your bedroom, though, has no reason to stay in the dark, and our Sonic lamps and night lights bring the light back as soon as evening falls.

The only abilities the film gives her are the ones seen on screen: flight, combat and mastery of the rings. The move sets circulating under her name (Homing Attack, Wind Boost, Cyclone Charge and so on) come from promotional mobile games and have no existence in the movies.

What the movie shows — and what it does not

Contrary to what is often read, the 2020 film does not show Longclaw's death. The last image of her sees her standing up to the echidnas, then the portal closes and cuts the scene. The outcome of the fight is never put into images, even if synopses of the film routinely speak of a sacrifice.

Her death is therefore only established retroactively. It is the second film that credits her as “Sonic's late caregiver” — his departed protector — and the third that has Sonic speak explicitly of his loss. The first feature, for its part, leaves the question open: it sets up an absence rather than filming an ending.

This economy of means takes nothing away from the character's weight. Longclaw has only a few minutes of screen time, but she sets the hero's starting point: a child raised under the instruction never to show himself, sent alone to an unknown planet with a bag of rings as his entire inheritance.

🧸 In the bag Longclaw hands the child before sending him off to an unknown planet, there is nothing but rings; in your family, when a little one sleeps away from home for the first time, it's more likely one of our Sonic plushies and cuddly toys that gets tucked into the bottom of the bag.

The movie that created her

Sonic Poster - The Movie

A poster for the first Paramount feature, the one whose prologue introduces Longclaw: the artwork puts Sonic, the hedgehog she raised, centre stage rather than the owl herself.

€24.90

View the product →

The war between owls and echidnas revealed by Sonic 2

The second film, released in the United States on 8 April 2022, places Longclaw inside a far wider story. According to the lore it introduces, the echidnas had forged the Master Emerald by fusing the seven Chaos Emeralds; judging that power too dangerous, the order of owls to which Longclaw belonged stole it from them and hid it on Earth, setting off a centuries-old enmity between the two peoples.

It is from this second instalment, and from it alone, that she is presented as the “former guardian of the Master Emerald”: that status is never raised in the 2020 film, and it holds only for the Paramount continuity. In the games, guardianship of the relic falls to Knuckles and the echidna line: the account of the theft by the owls is an addition specific to the movies.

This lore also gives meaning to the meeting between the two orphans. The film reveals that Knuckles lost his entire tribe on the very day Sonic lost Longclaw: the two characters are the last survivors of two camps that wiped each other out, which turns their duel into a mirror rather than a simple confrontation.

After the first movie: hologram, mention and absences

Longclaw “returns” in the second film, but indirectly: the quest is set off by a map she had left Sonic, in which a holographic message recorded during her lifetime is hidden. It is that message that tells the hedgehog about the Master Emerald, and Donna J. Fulks is credited again for the occasion. The trail then leads the heroes to a compass hidden in a Siberian temple.

🧭 The trail opened by Longclaw's map leads the heroes to a compass hidden in a Siberian temple, the kind of destination nobody sets out for without an extra layer; for your January outings, our Sonic sweaters give you that layer with no expedition required.

In Sonic 3, released in the United States on 20 December 2024, she does not appear physically. She nonetheless remains the character's founding grief: Sonic brings up the loss of his guardian in front of Shadow in order to argue that the love borne for the departed counts for more than revenge.

Her name, on the other hand, does not appear in the credits of the Knuckles series shown on Paramount+ in 2024. The figure from the past who resurfaces there is Pachacamac, the late chief of Knuckles's tribe, back as a ghost and voiced by Christopher Lloyd — not to be confused with his namesake from the games, whose role and context differ.

Video games and voice acting: where to find Longclaw

Longclaw follows the opposite path to most of the franchise's figures, born in the games and then picked up by the adaptations: she comes from the movies and has never entered the Sega canon. Her only playable appearances are promotional operations tied to the film and later than its release: Sonic Forces: Speed Battle in April 2020, then Sonic Dash.

On the voice side, the character is played in the original version by Donna J. Fulks — also credited as Donna Jay Fulks — in the 2020 and 2022 films. In the French dub it is Françoise Cadol who is credited, and the character's name is not translated: she remains “Longclaw” in the French version as in the original.

There remains the line with which Sonic sums her up, and which has done the rounds among fans: he compares her to “Obi-Wan Kenobi… if he had a beak and ate mice”. In a single sentence, the whole character is there: a sacrificial mentor, treated with the offhand humour that defines the hero.

Summary

Frequently asked questions

• Does Longclaw exist in the Sonic video games?
  No. She is a creation of the Paramount movie continuity, introduced in 2020. She appears neither in the canonical Sega games, nor in the classic cartoons, nor at Archie Comics, nor in IDW's ongoing series. Her only playable appearances are promotional additions made after the film, in Sonic Forces: Speed Battle (April 2020) and Sonic Dash.
• Does Longclaw really die in the first film?
  Her death is never shown on screen: after sending Sonic to Earth, she faces the echidnas and the portal closes on her. The death is only confirmed afterwards, the second film crediting her as a departed protector and the third having Sonic say that he lost her.
• Why does she send Sonic to Earth?
  To keep him away from a tribe of echidnas that has come to seize his power. Wounded during the escape, she hands him a bag of golden rings that open portals, orders him to stay hidden, then sends him off to Earth: he lands near Green Hills, in Montana.
• Does Longclaw come back in the following films?
  In the second film, yes, but indirectly: the map she left behind contains a holographic message recorded during her lifetime. In the third she does not appear and is only mentioned by Sonic in front of Shadow.
• Who provides Longclaw's voice?
  In the original version, Donna J. Fulks, sometimes credited as Donna Jay Fulks, in the 2020 and 2022 films. In the French version, Françoise Cadol is credited for the role. The character's name remains “Longclaw” in every version.