So I finally started watching TFA; and, while I’ve not seen all of it yet, and I missed a few episodes, there’s what seems to me to be a recurring theme that I find frankly pretty disturbing and which makes me ask: is it being written this way on purpose?
‘Cause, see, first we have the Dinobots, and then Wreck-Gar, and then the ‘Structies; and in every case, wherein the newly awakened ‘bots fail to measure up to some not-explicitly-defined-or-explained metric, or they make bad choices in large part because of the Autobots’ prejudices and/or refusal to actually EXPLAIN ANYTHING, the new guys are effectively exiled. And I gotta say, if that’s how Autobots treat you? One strike and you’re out, without even getting a “hi, welcome to Earth, here are the rules” rundown? Hell yeah, I’d be talking to the ‘Cons. (The ‘Structies episode really pissed me off, in case that was unclear.)
It’s more obviously intentional in the flashbacks, that the Autobots are coming from some sort of military structure and the attitudes and social mores related to that are deliberately depicted to reflect that; Sentinel is clearly intended to be an authoritarian jerkwad, and it’s possible – even likely – that the prejudices and crappy attitude that he exemplifies are part and parcel of the Elite Guard culture?
And here’s the thing … if this is actually being done on purpose, if the show is actually intentionally written to make an adult audience go, “… whoa, wait, that’s really not okay,” then that’s honestly really cool and I have mad respect. But if it’s just lazy writing and flat characterization and some particularly egregious black-and-white Purity-culture level BS, then I’m going to be hard-pressed to want to watch more of it. Especially when there’s such brilliant fic out there which does incorporate that level of nuance, where the ‘bots aren’t pure shiny heroes and the ‘cons did, in fact, have a reason to be pissed off – @mllemusketeer, @astolat, @reyairia and @lyresnake, I’m lookin’ at you.
//cracks knuckles
‘aight, my dude.
Yes, Zuzu and I portray the autobots and the decepticons as more nuanced in Battlesleep. And yes, the Autobots have their flaws. I think, in a way, it was meant to parallel the red scare back in the 50s. There is a reason why the Autobots are so paranoid; had it not been for the invention of spacebridges the cons would have kicked their asses.
(Funnily enough, despite the red scare parallels, it’s implied in the Almanac that it’st he cons that lean heavily capitalistic and the bots that are more socialist but hey let’s skip that for now).
That being said, I think the writers of TFA did not show enough of the Decepticons being evil compared to what is said in the almanac and whatnot. The Decepticons developed a chemical/bioweapon shown as the rust plague and tested it against their own army. Lucifer is implied to be a concentration camp. Megatron decided he wanted to destroy Earth over a ridiculous misunderstanding. The bots might have their issues but you’re trying to compare say, a capitalist united states to a totalitarian dictatorship. The thing is, between fanfiction villifying the Autobots and the fact that we just assume that villains gotta be villains and forget how awful they’re being, we often end up paying more attention to the bad mistakes the “good side” is doing, which causes an unintentional magnification effect.
Are the bots flawed? Yes. I like that about TFA, they are flawed and they go about things the wrong way. They are, however, not functionalist or totalitarian, they’ve just been through a lot of shit culturally.
Not to mention, holy shit, can you imagine what would happen if it was found out that the Director of National Intelligence was a fucking foreign spy?
There has been lazy writing; Sentinel being the dickish buffoon was a result of that. Still, Sentinel may be a dick, and dislike organics, but he never threatened genocide over it. And he had good reason to be disgusted at Blackarachnia. She was a traitor and was doing horrific experiments on Wasp, he had every right to attack her.
And despite lots of writers’ claims that the Autobots are functionist, there is absolutely no evidence of that – to the contrary, Bulkhead was allowed to switch professions.
Also Sentinel =/= all Autobots. The Council actually disliked him a lot and fought with him over a lot of his decisions, which shows that his behavior was particularly disruptive, and not the norm.
Anyway, if you’ve been reading Battlesleep and you’ve taken from it that the Decepticons are the lesser of the two evils, I recommend you read it again because that was clearly not our intention.
No worries – I definitely know the ‘Cons are not the good guys. I was just really surprised and taken-aback by how the Autobots – specifically Optimus – reacted to the Dinobots, Wreck-Gar, and the Constructicons, and it made me curious if that was me being overly sensitive or if the writers were setting up a certain amount of “hey, even the good guys can make bad decisions; what’s important is how you fix it once you realize it was a bad decision.”
FWIW, one of the many reasons that I like to write villains like the Cons is because most simplified hero narratives have blatantly inconsistent villains. They want the villain to be intriguing and appealing and powerful (so you enjoy watching them), but they also want them to just be the bad guy so the hero has an excuse to pound them. That inconsistency opens up the entire story.
(The heroes are ALSO often inconsistent, but generally the narrative works overtime to make them look good by the end, and I am a suspicious reader who gets contrary when a creator is telling me something too hard that way.)
The truth is that neither Decepticons or Autobots are good nor bad guys. They are not real. “Canon” is not real. It’s all just a story. And the stories you or I tell are literally just as true as the story by whoever wrote the original cartoon or movie or comic. Canon is just a convenience. It’s a bunch of building blocks that your audience can recognize. But we’re good at recognition: you can take a block and turn it upside down and put it on an angle or chop it in half and people will say “oh hey I recognize that” and we can enjoy the ways in which it’s the same and also the ways in which it’s been changed.
I haven’t actually seen the episodes you’re describing so can’t talk about them specifically, but in any canonical TF story, their actual goal is to sell toys, and everything else gets subordinated to that goal: characterization of both Autobots and Decepticons, the worldbuilding, the plot, etc. Thinking as a TFA writer, if you have to introduce a bunch of new robots in an episode, and you want Optimus and team to also have screentime in that episode, then you need extreme conflict between Optimus & team and the new robots or else you don’t get enough punching.
As for should you keep watching, FWIW, I myself watch only as much of canon as I need to get what people in fandom are talking about, and after that primarily to get some more fun new blocks to work with. An episode of canon is like a new Lego kit. I don’t really want the thing in the box, I want to expand my ability to play.
“in any canonical TF story, their actual goal is to sell toys”
So I finally started watching TFA; and, while I’ve not seen all of it yet, and I missed a few episodes, there’s what seems to me to be a recurring theme that I find frankly pretty disturbing and which makes me ask: is it being written this way on purpose?
‘Cause, see, first we have the Dinobots, and then Wreck-Gar, and then the ‘Structies; and in every case, wherein the newly awakened ‘bots fail to measure up to some not-explicitly-defined-or-explained metric, or they make bad choices in large part because of the Autobots’ prejudices and/or refusal to actually EXPLAIN ANYTHING, the new guys are effectively exiled. And I gotta say, if that’s how Autobots treat you? One strike and you’re out, without even getting a “hi, welcome to Earth, here are the rules” rundown? Hell yeah, I’d be talking to the ‘Cons. (The ‘Structies episode really pissed me off, in case that was unclear.)
It’s more obviously intentional in the flashbacks, that the Autobots are coming from some sort of military structure and the attitudes and social mores related to that are deliberately depicted to reflect that; Sentinel is clearly intended to be an authoritarian jerkwad, and it’s possible – even likely – that the prejudices and crappy attitude that he exemplifies are part and parcel of the Elite Guard culture?
And here’s the thing … if this is actually being done on purpose, if the show is actually intentionally written to make an adult audience go, “… whoa, wait, that’s really not okay,” then that’s honestly really cool and I have mad respect. But if it’s just lazy writing and flat characterization and some particularly egregious black-and-white Purity-culture level BS, then I’m going to be hard-pressed to want to watch more of it. Especially when there’s such brilliant fic out there which does incorporate that level of nuance, where the ‘bots aren’t pure shiny heroes and the ‘cons did, in fact, have a reason to be pissed off – @mllemusketeer, @astolat, @reyairia and @lyresnake, I’m lookin’ at you.
//cracks knuckles
‘aight, my dude.
Yes, Zuzu and I portray the autobots and the decepticons as more nuanced in Battlesleep. And yes, the Autobots have their flaws. I think, in a way, it was meant to parallel the red scare back in the 50s. There is a reason why the Autobots are so paranoid; had it not been for the invention of spacebridges the cons would have kicked their asses.
(Funnily enough, despite the red scare parallels, it’s implied in the Almanac that it’st he cons that lean heavily capitalistic and the bots that are more socialist but hey let’s skip that for now).
That being said, I think the writers of TFA did not show enough of the Decepticons being evil compared to what is said in the almanac and whatnot. The Decepticons developed a chemical/bioweapon shown as the rust plague and tested it against their own army. Lucifer is implied to be a concentration camp. Megatron decided he wanted to destroy Earth over a ridiculous misunderstanding. The bots might have their issues but you’re trying to compare say, a capitalist united states to a totalitarian dictatorship. The thing is, between fanfiction villifying the Autobots and the fact that we just assume that villains gotta be villains and forget how awful they’re being, we often end up paying more attention to the bad mistakes the “good side” is doing, which causes an unintentional magnification effect.
Are the bots flawed? Yes. I like that about TFA, they are flawed and they go about things the wrong way. They are, however, not functionalist or totalitarian, they’ve just been through a lot of shit culturally.
Not to mention, holy shit, can you imagine what would happen if it was found out that the Director of National Intelligence was a fucking foreign spy?
There has been lazy writing; Sentinel being the dickish buffoon was a result of that. Still, Sentinel may be a dick, and dislike organics, but he never threatened genocide over it. And he had good reason to be disgusted at Blackarachnia. She was a traitor and was doing horrific experiments on Wasp, he had every right to attack her.
And despite lots of writers’ claims that the Autobots are functionist, there is absolutely no evidence of that – to the contrary, Bulkhead was allowed to switch professions.
Also Sentinel =/= all Autobots. The Council actually disliked him a lot and fought with him over a lot of his decisions, which shows that his behavior was particularly disruptive, and not the norm.
Anyway, if you’ve been reading Battlesleep and you’ve taken from it that the Decepticons are the lesser of the two evils, I recommend you read it again because that was clearly not our intention.
No worries – I definitely know the ‘Cons are not the good guys. I was just really surprised and taken-aback by how the Autobots – specifically Optimus – reacted to the Dinobots, Wreck-Gar, and the Constructicons, and it made me curious if that was me being overly sensitive or if the writers were setting up a certain amount of “hey, even the good guys can make bad decisions; what’s important is how you fix it once you realize it was a bad decision.”
The Constructicons I think were mostly the writers being intensely classist.
The Dinobots, well, Optimus had a point, they were dangerous, unstable, and difficult to reason with. Sure I didn’t agree with him, and I think the writing didn’t either, but there was a point. Given his past, it’s totally understandable he’d want to play on the safe side. He also didn’t know they were sentient.
Wreck-Gar I think was mostly Ratchet fucking up and he admits to doing so.
Optimus in TFA is pretty flawed and much different from his more gentler self in TFP, but that just makes it more fun to work with him and give him character development IMO.
Cybertronian Database 