Christopher Thorndyke

Christopher Thorndyke (クリストファー ソーンダイク), also simply known as Chris (クリス), is the main human protagonist in the anime series Sonic X and its comic series published by Archie Comics. He is a kind and caring boy who lives in Station Square on Earth. At the start of the series, Chris finds Sonic at the bottom of his swimming pool and saves him from drowning and hosts him, Tails, Amy, Cream and Cheese for most of the series. Chris, very much like Tails, looks up to Sonic like an older brother figure and is always willing to do whatever he can to help his new friends.

Appearance
At the age of twelve, Chris usually wore a red and white shirt, a belt hanging off the edge of his jeans, and stylish shoes. At the age of eighteen, Chris began wearing a pale yellow long sleeve turtleneck, blue jeans and brown shoes. He later wears a lab-coat when he created a time machine to go to Sonic's world.

When arriving at Sonic's world, he reverted back to his twelve-year-old self as his clothes as a teenager became loose before it replaced his primary clothes from his twelve-year-old self.

Early life
Chris lives with his grandfather Chuck Thorndyke (who is a scientist), his bodyguard and butler Mr. Tanaka, and his maid Ella. He lives in a large, luxurious mansion due to his parents' success in their individual fields of work. Chris' father Nelson Thorndyke is a big-wig businessman who is the CEO of a software company, while Chris' mother Lindsey Thorndyke is a movie star. As a child, Chris rarely saw his parents, which made him become very lonely and finds his luxurious mansion to be pretty boring. At some point, he made friends with Danny, Frances and Helen who were his classmates.

At the end of the second season and during the third season, six years has passed and Chris becomes eighteen years old. Early in the third season, he uses a portal to travel to Sonic's home in the show. After this point in this series, Chris is still in his pre-teen design and still speaks and thinks in his younger voice since the passage of time is different in Sonic's dimension. Yet, he has the memories and the skills he gained of the past six years of his life prior to traveling to Sonic's world. Chris no longer takes the back seat in the X-Tornado; instead, he is shown as flying it capably, which his younger self would never have been able to do so. Chris also comments in one episode that he is a black belt in karate. Additionally, he has also shown to have become a quite capable engineer, enough to impress Tails. He invents different gadgets and devices like Sonic's Hovershoes, a hoverboard and a new, better Chaos Emerald scanner for the Blue Typhoon. He is also seen in a few episodes using Flash Bombs as a distraction and he also uses a laser gun as a weapon.

Personality
Chris is a calm and well-mannered boy, though sometimes a bit energetic with a hunger for adventure. Despite being a "rich kid," Chris very is down-to-earth, thinking himself no different from everybody else and does not want to be treated differently despite coming from a rich family. Because of his parents' frequent absences since childhood however, Chris would often suffer from loneliness and thus longed for close companionship. Chris' friendship with Sonic and his friends would ease Chris' pain, but it would also make him worry, panic or even sink into a mind depression whenever he feared they would leave him.

Chris deeply treasures the bonds he makes with other people and will do anything to preserve them. However, this tends to give him a reckless or selfish streak, like when he fell into one of Eggman's traps in an attempt to help Sonic and his friends get home, or when he deliberately kept Sonic from returning home so he would not leave him. Regardless, Chris has a good heart and is always remorseful when his feelings get the better of him.

At the age of eighteen, Chris seemed to have gained somewhat of an attitude, especially around Helen.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic is Chris's best friend. Chris first met Sonic when he crash-landed into the swimming pool of his parents' mansion, and at first, he had to keep the fact that he saved a blue, talking hedgehog a secret by saying that Sonic was a cat, unfortunately for Chris, his grandpa Chuck discovers Sonic and suspects that he is a robot. However, he later proves instrumental in helping to rescue Sonic's friends and finding the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic and Chris quickly form a close bond that turns into an everlasting friendship that not even separate worlds can break. Like Tails, Chris is as close to Sonic as a younger brother would be. Sonic has always been there when Chris really needed it, as Chris admits in episode 51 when he says to Sonic: "You have always been there for me".

Miles "Tails" Prower
Chris and Tails are good friends throughout the first two seasons and are seen riding in the X Tornado together. Chris helps Tails give Sonic Power Rings when Tails is too busy to do so. In season three Chris and Tails become closer friends due to Chris being an accomplished scientist in the season and having more to relate to now. Tails comments that Chris reminds him a lot of Chuck now.

Amy Rose
Amy Rose is another one of Chris's friends, the two tend to get along quite nicely, but when Sonic gets in the mix, Amy tends to become annoyed. At one point, she even threatened to hurt Chris if Sonic didn't come out of hiding, although it is later revealed that she didn't mean it seriously. Chris and Amy have both admitted to being a bit jealous of Sonic's freedom to do anything at any time.

Chris, however, does have some fear of Amy, as he forfeited a karate match with Knuckles as the winner would then face Amy, as they were in a martial arts tournament for a Chaos Emerald.

Knuckles the Echidna
Not much can be said about Chris's relationship with Knuckles except that the two get along well enough. After Chris gets captured by Eggman due to Knuckles believing his lies in episode 25, Knuckles makes it his objective to find and rescue Chris. Throughout the series, Knuckles is shown to be concerned for Chris's safety such as when they entered a fighting tournament, Knuckles refused to fight Chris in the Quarter-Finals because he did not want him getting hurt, and also, Chris was concerned that he would be facing Amy or Rouge in the Semi-Finals if he won, resulting in Chris forfeiting the match.

Cream the Rabbit
Cream is also one of Chris's friends, they are seen tagging along together in some episodes and are generally friendly to each other. Despite this, in episode 7, Cream gets mad at Chris after he makes a comment about how his mom is rude to leave the party without telling the guests. Cream is upset because she overheard his mom crying about how she is never able to be there for him and that Cream can't see or even talk with her on a phone with her mom since she is back on Sonic's world. Later, Cream forgives Chris and makes him a crown of flowers which, according to Sonic, is something that she only does for people she really likes.

Cosmo
Cosmo is a friend of Chris as well, they get along pretty well. Cosmo starts to look up to Chris after he nearly succeeded in rescuing her from Black Narcissus during which time Chris tells Cosmo that she reminds him a lot of himself before he met Sonic. Like the others, Chris is greatly saddened when Cosmo sacrifices herself to save the Galaxy.

Helen
Chris and Helen are very close friends in the first two seasons of the anime and Helen is the most trusted human friend of Chris. In the second series, Helen and Chris have become sweethearts and they both excel at machinery. Both also felt lonely due to the fact that their parents were working really hard and had little time for them. However Helen's family was doing it to get by and she was able to restore her relationship with her parents much quicker than Chris was able to with his.

Danny
Danny is Chris's childhood friend and helps Sonic and the others a few times in the first season. In the Archie comics Chris and Danny are shown to be on the same soccer team. In the pilot episode of the series, Danny was going to have a much larger role then he ended up having but he would still have a smaller role than Chris.

Frances
Frances is another close friend of Chris who helps Sonic and the team out in the first season. Frances is seen as a tomboy and enjoys poking fun at Chris and Danny.

Shadow the Hedgehog
Chris takes an interest in Shadow especially when he returns after supposedly sacrificing himself to stop the ARK from hurtling into the earth. Shadow does try to hurt Chris at one point, but Chris is rescued by Rouge, who later abandons him and then Chris must be rescued by Knuckles. Although at times Chris has shown signs of dislike for Shadow, he has also shown signs of liking him. Chris kept Shadow's rings until Shadow came back and Chris returned them to him. Chris did shed one tear when he learned Shadow was supposedly dead. Chris also convinced Shadow that Maria would want him to help people before Shadow lost his memory. Chris also reminds Shadow of Maria.

Reception
While he was received positively in Japan, Chris is sometimes criticized by Western fans for his roles in the Sonic Adventure adaptions as he takes the place of the other characters that had an important role in the games. For example, during the adaptation of Sonic Adventure, he journeys with Big and Cream as they go looking for Froggy (even though it should be noted that Cream has never gotten any criticism for usurping Tails' role in finding Froggy). In the adaptation arc of Sonic Adventure 2, he replaces Amy as the one who convinces Shadow to save Earth. He also receives Shadow's ring as Rouge the Bat did in that game. He has also been criticized for other reasons such as shutting down the portal so Sonic couldn't return back home. He has also been criticized for his dependence on Sonic.

Trivia

 * Chris was one of four Sonic X characters exclusively promoted by Sonic Team (the others being Danny, Nazo and Cosmo)
 * While never physically appearing in the video games, Chris does appear in a cameo on a poster for Sonic X. Next to Sonic in the Missions 3 and 12 of Mission Mode of Sonic Adventure DX in the form of a poster promoting Sonic X. His voice is also heard congratulating Sonic whenever Sonic solves a problem in the Sonic X Leapster game.
 * He invented five pairs of shoes for Sonic on Season three, one of which appeared to be Sonic's Soap shoes from Sonic Adventure 2.
 * Chris reminds Shadow of Maria because of their caring personalities and the similar look in their eyes.
 * Chris making it home safely at the end of the series is never confirmed, only heavily implied by Eggman.
 * Even though he only appears in Sonic X (minus the Leapster game and the cameo in Sonic Adventure DX), Chris was created by Sonic Team.
 * He appeared with Sonic in the most episodes of Sonic X (76), leaving out episodes 17 and 68.
 * Chris unintentionally managed to make both Sonic and Shadow come to tears.
 * Even though Chris does not appear in the games, he is the only main male human that Sonic has been good friends with as Sonic's other human-like friends were female. (Elise, Merlina etc.).
 * Chris learned martial arts growing up but is unable to defend himself with them at first because of not being used to be in a twelve-year-old body.
 * Sonic's Sonic X actor, Jason Griffith stated that he originally wanted to voice Chris during auditions as he wanted to see what it was like to be a human companion of Sonic, but the producers felt his voice was more appropriate for Sonic only.