Thorn Rose: the wild Amy Rose of Sonic Prime

Thorn Rose is Amy Rose's counterpart in Boscage Maze, one of the Shatterspaces of the Netflix animated series Sonic Prime. An obsessive guardian of a jungle she is unknowingly smothering, she goes from antagonist to ally in a single episode.

Who is Thorn Rose, the Amy of Boscage Maze?

Thorn Rose (ソーン・ローズ, Sōn Rōzu) is the alternate version of Amy Rose from Boscage Maze, one of the Shatterspaces born from the destruction of the Paradox Prism in the Netflix animated series Sonic Prime. The character exists only in that continuity: she is absent from the main games, the films and the comics. She shares her species, her silhouette and even her voice actress with Amy Rose, but nothing of her temperament.

In the French dub she is called Rose Sauvage, her world becomes “Dédale Bosquet” and the Scavengers “les Ravageurs”. Her original name plays on thorn, the spine: another prickly plant, echoing the hedgehog. As for the voices, Shannon Chan-Kent in English, Taeko Kawata in Japanese and Naïké Fauveau in French voice Amy Rose and all of her alternate forms, with no separate casting for Thorn.

Her personality, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of the model: the series describes her as deprived of Amy's compassion and common sense, and above all fiercely possessive. She only ever talks about “MY” jungle, exactly the way Amy talks about “her” Sonic. Her former friends, for their part, now refer to her by a single word: “the monster”.

Boscage Maze, a Green Hill turned jungle

Boscage Maze is not a creation of Thorn's. It is a Shatterspace born from the destruction of the Paradox Prism: a version of Green Hill that the power of the green Prism Shard turned into a jungle. Thorn did not grow this world, she proclaimed herself its guardian.

The problem with the place fits into one sentence: the canopy blocks almost all the sunlight. The jungle floor lives in permanent darkness that smothers the ecosystem, which is precisely what Thorn claims to protect. The setting alone sums up the character's contradiction.

Its recorded inhabitants are few: Thorn, Birdie, Froggy and the Scavengers. The latter have not lived on the ground for a long time: driven out by Thorn, they built a village perched above the trees, out of her reach.

“The monster”: the season 1 twist

Thorn is revealed in “Unwelcome to the Jungle”, the fourth episode of season 1, released on Netflix on December 15, 2022 (French dub: “La loi de la jungle”). The episode is directed by Erik Wiese and Kiran Sangherra, from a script by Brittany Jo Flores. Sonic turns up looking for “the monster” and starts by knocking out Birdie, a giant Flicky, before being told that the bird is only the pet of the creature he is hunting.

The story gives no one the good role. Prim lies to Sonic about where the green Prism Shard is in order to get his help, and the Scavengers attack Thorn in the middle of an attempt at mediation. Thorn, for her part, leads Sonic to the Great Green, a huge palm tree under which the Shard is buried, then betrays him as soon as he has dug it up: she draws the stone onto her hammer and grows trees that finish blocking out the light.

The turnaround does not come from a defeat in battle. Sonic draws her back toward the Great Green and the clash punches a wide hole in the canopy: the sun returns, and Thorn finally discovers the real state of the jungle she thought she was defending. She realises she has become the monster and bursts into tears; the reconciliation that follows is mutual, since the Scavengers apologise as well.

Hammer, green Shard and Terraformation

Her weapon is a size-shifting hammer that she pulls out of a hiding place never shown on screen. It is not the Piko Piko Hammer: the handle is wooden, the head looks to be made of stone or petrified wood, and vines have wrapped around it since the green Shard passed through. It is a local equivalent, specific to Boscage Maze.

The “plant powers” shorthand, however, is misleading. The series only shows Terraformation — trees, roots and vines bursting out on demand — when the green Prism Shard is fixed to the hammer. Without it, Thorn remains a formidable fighter but one with no plant power, who relies on her athleticism and her agility, and who takes down Eggforcers bare-handed in season 2.

That dependency becomes a problem as early as the second season: the Chaos Council tears the Shard away from her, then launches Operation: Chaos Terraformation on Boscage, which makes buildings spring up in the middle of the jungle. The detail matters: the assault is led by Dr. Babble and Dr. Don't, backed by the Eggforcers, and not by the series' other antagonists such as Mr Dr Eggman.

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Birdie, the Scavengers and the treetop village

Birdie (“Plumette” in the French dub) is a giant Flicky who is at once a pet, a mount and Thorn's only friend during her solitary period. The hedgehog often fights from her back, and eventually lets her fly free.

The Scavengers of Boscage Maze make up the rest of the local cast: Prim Rouge (“Rouge Prim” in the French dub), Mangey Tails (“Tails Teigneux”), Gnarly Knuckles (“Bourru”), Hangry Cat (“Chaffamé”, the counterpart of Big) and Froggy. Friends of Thorn before the series, enemies after she drove them off the ground, they become her allies again at the end of episode 4.

Two confusions are to be avoided. The Rouge of Boscage is indeed Prim, and not Batten (aka “Batten Rouge”), who belongs to No Place and to the crew of the Kraken. And the local Knuckles, Gnarly, has nothing to do with Knuckles the Dread, the pirate variant from another Shatterspace.

Thorn, Rusty and Black: do not mix up the three Roses

Sonic Prime splits Amy into three variants that must not be mixed up: Thorn guards the jungle of Boscage Maze, Rusty Rose is the cyborg hedgehog of New Yoke City in the service of the Chaos Council before she switches sides, and Black Rose, aka Captain Rose, is the pirate from No Place who became captain of the Kraken. No family tie links them: they are three dimensional versions of the same character.

They cross paths in season 2, when Thorn clears a path toward the Void alongside Sonic and Nine — an ally at that stage of the story, the main antagonist in season 3, before a final change of heart in which he restores the Shatterspaces. In season 3, as the worlds decay, Thorn rescues inhabitants of New Yoke City, takes part in the rescue of the pirates aboard the Kraken, then in the battle of the Grim, where she catches Rusty and Black in mid-fall. The three Roses then recognise each other as “sisters”.

In total, Thorn appears in 10 of the 23 episodes of the series, up to the finale “From the Top” (French dub: “Recommencement”), released on January 11, 2024. On the games side, she remains confined to mobile: Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, Sonic Dash, Sonic Dash+, Sonic Prime Dash and Sonic Rumble Party. She is even the only one of the three Roses missing from Sonic Speed Simulator.

Summary

Frequently asked questions

• Is Thorn Rose the same hedgehog as Amy Rose?
  No. She is her counterpart from the Boscage Maze Shatterspace in Sonic Prime: same species and same silhouette, but an opposite personality, possessive and brutal. In the original version as in the French dub, however, the same actress voices both, Shannon Chan-Kent and Naïké Fauveau.
• Does Thorn Rose have power over plants?
  Only when the green Prism Shard is fixed to her hammer: that is Terraformation, which makes trees, roots and vines burst out. It is not an innate ability, and she loses the Shard to the Chaos Council in season 2. Without it, she still has her hammer, her athleticism and her agility.
• Is Thorn Rose a villain?
  She is the antagonist of the episode that reveals her, “Unwelcome to the Jungle” (S1E4), but her arc continues into the following episode, at the end of which she reconciles with the Scavengers and remains an ally of Sonic until the finale. She wanted to protect her jungle and discovers that she was destroying it.
• What is she called in the French dub?
  “Rose Sauvage”, voiced by Naïké Fauveau. Her world is translated as “Dédale Bosquet” and the Scavengers become “les Ravageurs”. Her first episode is titled “La loi de la jungle”, the last one “Recommencement”.
• Which episodes and which games does she appear in?
  In 10 of the 23 episodes of Sonic Prime, from December 15, 2022 to the finale of January 11, 2024. On the games side, she is playable in Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, Sonic Dash, Sonic Dash+, Sonic Prime Dash and Sonic Rumble Party, mobile titles only.

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