...man, I sort of hope that Prowl gets possessed by the ghost of Scrapper via merge-memories stored in the Constructicons and Prowl has this long slow mental breakdown where he loses his identity.
Mind you, I'm several issues behind (only read as far as Dark Cybertron #10), but did anything particular bring this one? Is IDW Prowl still beating out even Starscream in the "#1 Jerk of Cybertron" contest?
Prowl will never not be a jerk. As far as I am concerned, he has accumulated more Jerk Events than he can ever atone for.
(Sort of like how, in Planescape: Torment, the Nameless did something so awful that he wanted immortality to have enough time to atone for it all... and then messed it up anyway.)
Starscream, by comparison, is sort of okay? And Starscream murdered his friend for power and then turned his heroic sacrifice into a massacre to ruin his memory. Which mostly just shows how terrible Prowl is and always will be.
What triggered this... ehn, I was just talking with a friend about the lack of consequences for actions, and I was trying to think of something grisly but plausible that could happen to Prowl.
Also, I've noticed I make allowances for Starscream because it's Starscream. We don't have high expectations for him--he's a notorious villain with chronic backstabbing disorder. Prowl, on the other hand, was supposed to be one of the good guys. I have way less tolerance for characters claiming to be good guys and then behaving badly than I do for designated villains behaving badly. I even feel encouraged by villains who don't behave as badly as expected and even show hints of being occasionally decent to someone.
I think everyone makes allowances for their favourite characters.
The question is whether you can realize that you are making allowances and what you do when someone points out evidence that conflicts with your overly rosy view. (I am thinking about someone whom you probably don't know, here.)
The Autobots in general are supposed to be good guys, but IDW G1 did a bad job of portraying that.
1) I think IDW coasts too much on nostalgia. It expects you to have seen the G1 cartoon or... something? And so it expects that you will have a preconceived notion of Autobots as good and Decepticons as bad
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You have a good point about IDW coasting on nostalgia for most of the secondary characters. They did do a lot of character-building work with the primary characters: Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream. The very beginning of the series (back when we had actual humans involved--where the hell did they go?), Ratchet got a fair amount of screen time. (Even back then, Prowl was a dick
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Optimus Prime is actually fairly weakly/inconsistently/villainously characterized. He spent most of the ongoing running away from his problems and then undermining Bumblebee's authority. He spent Autocracy being an overly violent authoritarian. Optimus Prime is just not that heroic in IDW? I have trouble thinking of anything he did that was heroic that wasn't absolutely required. Like, okay, so he stopped Shockwave... if he didn't, the universe as we know it would have ended. And stuff like that
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Ratchet: Wrote off that Drift murdered a sick patient. Keeps saying that he wants First Aid to replace him but keeps undermining First Aid's authority and development as a leader
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I did say that "the nicest bunch of guys so far is a pack of renegade Decepticons". I didn't say they were objectively nice, just relatively, compared to everyone else. Besides, they get to start with fewer "good expectations" because they're Decepticons. I expect atrocious behavior, and the fact that all they did was talk about continuing to cannibalize Fulcrum for spare parts (they actually stopped after he turned out to be alive), and then actually took him in as a comrade actually makes them pretty damn decent for Decepticons. Face it, even Fulcrum, the idealist who condemns the thugs and sadists, is a xenophobic racist
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To a certain extent, you may be preaching to the choir. I won't deny that Fulcrum is a xenophobic racist! I'm glad you clarified, though. I do see people who insist that the Scavengers are outright good, which... they aren't. They are still bad. Just less bad. Which is sort of head-bangery
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*snicker* I like the way the TFwiki article on Mike Costa has potholes leading to articles that contradict everything he said about writing Transformers. Dude does not only not know how to write aliens, he doesn't understand the franchise he's writing for.
You would be referring to when Soundwave was captured in TF:Prime? The Autobots made some terrifying threats, but they didn't actually torture him as I recall. Being a Decepticon, from a military where they do torture captives, he believed them. (My recollections may be incorrect). The writers are a little too on-board with the modern Hollywood and actual U.S. law enforcement attitude that it is okay (e.g., legal) to lie to and threaten a suspect as long as you don't actually physically torture them. Psychological torture is apparently A-OK. Me, I have these old-fashioned notions of honor and ethics, and don't think any of that crap is moral or ethical. 'Necessary evil' is a thing, and people forget that the 'necessary' part does not make the 'evil' part go away. And often, it's
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(Sort of like how, in Planescape: Torment, the Nameless did something so awful that he wanted immortality to have enough time to atone for it all... and then messed it up anyway.)
Starscream, by comparison, is sort of okay? And Starscream murdered his friend for power and then turned his heroic sacrifice into a massacre to ruin his memory. Which mostly just shows how terrible Prowl is and always will be.
What triggered this... ehn, I was just talking with a friend about the lack of consequences for actions, and I was trying to think of something grisly but plausible that could happen to Prowl.
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The question is whether you can realize that you are making allowances and what you do when someone points out evidence that conflicts with your overly rosy view. (I am thinking about someone whom you probably don't know, here.)
The Autobots in general are supposed to be good guys, but IDW G1 did a bad job of portraying that.
1) I think IDW coasts too much on nostalgia. It expects you to have seen the G1 cartoon or... something? And so it expects that you will have a preconceived notion of Autobots as good and Decepticons as bad ( ... )
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A lot of the so-called good guys have more sustained bad guy moments than the Constructicons do. So they made some arenas and killed some dudes.
You can get Autocracy as a TPB now: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/transformers-chris-metzen/1112356710?ean=9781613772904 Amazon has it, too, whatever store you like can probably order it ( ... )
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You would be referring to when Soundwave was captured in TF:Prime? The Autobots made some terrifying threats, but they didn't actually torture him as I recall. Being a Decepticon, from a military where they do torture captives, he believed them. (My recollections may be incorrect). The writers are a little too on-board with the modern Hollywood and actual U.S. law enforcement attitude that it is okay (e.g., legal) to lie to and threaten a suspect as long as you don't actually physically torture them. Psychological torture is apparently A-OK. Me, I have these old-fashioned notions of honor and ethics, and don't think any of that crap is moral or ethical. 'Necessary evil' is a thing, and people forget that the 'necessary' part does not make the 'evil' part go away. And often, it's ( ... )
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