Revenge of "Wing Shift"

[beckyh2112]

You know, the constant bashing of Megatron is getting kind of annoying. Ohnoes, everyone thinks he's a horrible leader who has lost sight of the Decepticon cause. Ohnoes, he's so terribly incompetent and possibly insane. Ohnoes, he has a small dick

Comments

[beckyh2112]

Oh, Starscream denies he's competent, but Starscream is biased. ;-)

Yeah, evil is pretty much doomed to lose, because that's the way the genre works. We're not reading horror, we're reading action-adventure science fiction. Or watching, as the case may be. Good wins, evil loses.

But!

Evil loses because good has luck, pluck, and skill on their side. Good does not win because evil can't navigate their way out of a paper-bag with a GPS receiver. Incompetent evil that manages to hold its own against the good guys just means the good guys are incompetent, too.

Um. Wandering off-track.

If you've never watched Beast Wars, you should give it a try. Their Megatron is one of my all-time favorites. Even with incompetent troops, extremely crazy troops, anywhere from two to four people trying to undermine him at any given moment, acts of God Vok, treacherous spiders, an immortal psychopath that's only barely kept on a leash, aaaaaand the Maximals, he still almost wins three or four times!

[childofatlantis]

On a random note, have you ever read and of the Star Wars expanded universe novels? Grand Admiral Thrawn is my standing example of how a villain SHOULD be done - he's competent, cunning, ruthless but not mad with bloodlust, incredibly intelligent, and has sound (from a certain point of view) motives for everything he does. The only reason the good guys triumph is sheer luck and a coincidence of events that otherwise would not, individually, have taken him down. And it's so beautifully handled that you actually spend half the story holding your breath every time he comes just that close to discovering what they're up, because you know that if he did, that chance would never come again - and they'd lose.

[beckyh2112]

Mmmm, Grand Admiral Thrawn.

The Thrawn books are pretty much the only EU stuff I read at all, and I tend to reread the entire quintet every three or four years. He's one of my favorite villains - he's not really evil for the sake of being evil. He's also not really a realistic strategist/tactician, but sometimes realism needs to go hang.

[dragoness_e]

If you ever want a realistic strategist/tactician, read Caesar's Gallic Wars. Real-life is about as realistic as it gets, and Gaius Julius Caesar is one of the best that ever was.

However, be prepared for the exceedingly dull parts if you're not into logistics and politics. (Admittedly, ancient Gaul's politics were entertaining and bloody.) The key things to pay attention to are how Caesar used politics strategically, dividing the Gauls against each other, and set up his logistics in advance so that no matter which bunch of Gauls decided to rebel next campaigning season, he and his legions would have the supplies in place to support their campaigns against them.

His tactics are also fascinating: Caesar always tried to arrange battles such that the enemy was decisively defeated with minimal loss to his own forces. His troops were not expendable (he ripped one of his officers a new one for making a flashy attack through a wall breach that risked too many troops unnecessarily), and they knew it. As a result, they were incredibly loyal

[charles_rb]

"he still almost wins three or four times!"

More impressive are the amount of times he DOES win! He gets a Protoform and effortlessly gets around Terrorsaur's coup in Double Jeopardy; defeats the Maximals and destroys their signal array in The Probe; manipulates everyone successfully when the Vok were coming and kills Optimus Primal; gains command of Rampage; turns a total defeat around and swings Ravage to his side; destroys the Axalon; captures the Sentinel program; kills Blackarachnia (not his fault she got better...); and simply by returning to Cybertron he _conquered the entire planet_.

And then the near-victories: Victory, Call Of The Wild, Coming Of The Fuzors, Other Visits, The Agenda, Cutting Edge, Master Blaster, Nemesis... And I'm not even counting Beast Machines where among his many victories and near victories is "defeats everyone bar Primal and almost becomes A LIVING GOD".

BW/M Megatron should release a Guide To Leadership for businesses.

[beckyh2112]

Oh my. It's actually been a couple of years since I watched Beast Wars, so I've forgotten a lot of those.

[charles_rb]

I'm doing a bit rewatch so I can remember this all.

God he was an awesome Megatron, yes.

[charles_rb]

"then I think that's the point, isn't it? Evil doesn't pay and only good people succeed."

Except in the comics where the Decepticons keep conquering Cybertron. And I _mean_ "keep", they get beaten twice in the post-movie strips and _come back_...

The moral there is quite disturbing when you think about it - "if an Optimus figure isn't around, good is FUCKED"...

[charles_rb]

I was thinking more the Marvel stuff (and also the IDW stuff, though there Cybertron is _dead_ rather than conquered - it's _Earth_ the 'Cons are going to be conquering, moo hoo ha ha...).