Megatron to Orion Pax- Transformers Exodus, Alex Irvine (via kkalcollection)

And people wonder why he was pissed off when the Council went with the safe guy…

(via fierceawakening)

seriously and I’m supposed to side with Orion/Optimus and the council in that decision? To believe that Megatron was just throwing a jealous tantrum? It just stinks as savior ally. You have no right to tell those who are basically slaves that they should peacefully compromise with those who denied them right to even own names and just cross their fingers that they’ll learn the compassion they haven’t shown in millions of years.

(via reyairia)

Yeeeeeeep.

It really feels like someone, maybe it was Irvine, maybe it was one of the ghost writers (I am extra convinced that there were at least a few pushing these books around), that wanted these books to really mean something. And it just got pulled around too much in order to please too many higher ups to actually make its point.

(via lackaday)

The thing that bothers me the most about Aligned is that one of its major messages is “history was written by the winners.” I’m sure that’s not intentional, and I kind of hate to even say it because there were some really pushy pro-Decepticon people in the fandom who I kind of cringe to be associated with, but it’s true.

You have this character who is from a social class where he’s not only poor and ridiculed but NAMELESS. He’s part of a culture where violence is celebrated and earns you status, at least with your own people. He uses this cultural framework, which is again, saturated with violence, to earn standing in his community and even takes a name (a really audacious, fuck you world I’m here name.)

He’s clearly intelligent and thoughtful, and becomes (or always was) political. His political struggle is violent, or always intended to become violent (I’m going with the interpretation that he was presenting a moderate face in public but actually was the one planning the terrorist attacks, bombings, etc. behind the scenes.) Even when he disavows violence (again, lying as an astute political move; he knows how the game is played), he stresses understanding its use and refuses to apologize for it.

Then he gets involved with someone who is appalled by violence but is also someone who is far less affected by the system AND someone whose daily life is not saturated by violence the way his is, who is more moderate.

Immediately the story becomes about how awesome Moderate is.

Once that happens, what happens to him? He becomes a caricature. He becomes crazy. He becomes One Of Those Violent Thugs.

And what’s everyone talking about by the time the show’s in full swing?

How mean he is to his boyfriends.

Honestly, part of me feels like I shouldn’t even say this because I’m white, but to me it reads like every Aggressive Scary Black Man From the Hood stereotype, with the added gross of that giving us reasons to question his politics/see it as insincere/see it as a product of his ego or his temper.

Like… again, I’m not saying that his character’s perfect, or that the interpretation that he is abusive isn’t valid, or that an abusive person being an activist or a freedom fighter or whatever would cancel it out. 

I’m questioning how this character ended up set up this way. I’m questioning the choices the writers made and how and why they were so invested in making this character so unsympathetic, after giving him this rich and understandable backstory, that they basically ended up dismissing their own character in a way that really, really looks gross to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love OP. I love the idea that if the show hadn’t lost its nerve or decided to be more friendly to (well off) kids (whose families have no reason to find meaning in a character like Megatron), there could have been real debates about the use and moral appropriateness of violence in overthrowing oppressive regimes. But it’s not what we actually got.

(via fierceawakening)

ALL OF THIS.  Optimus made a choice to compromise with an oppressive regime, and it’s presented as if it were unquestionably the right choice.  I think you could argue either way, but in reality, it was very definitely a moral compromise, and very definitely against the wishes of those who were actually affected most severely by that regime (Megatron and his supporters).  I loved the way that scene played out; I loved that it made Megatron’s anger so understandable; and I don’t get why Exodus, and the Aligned narrative as a whole, immediately flipped to, “So Optimus was a hero and Megatron was All Teh Evilz!”

(via decepticonsensual)

To build off of what decepticonsensual is saying, it is probably the case that Megatron’s backstory was presented to us only in order to set up that very framework that pervades lazy and/or archaic mythical writing and world-building in general.  “Optimus is the good character from the good background and good country and good race, and Megatron is the evil character from the evil background and evil country and evil race.”  This framework is presented, with Megatron’s past intact, not so that we sympathise with Megatron, but so that we will be horrified by his background and rise to power.  In the mind of Hasbro, I believe we were meant to see the narrative as beginning with the Villain’s rise to evil, in order to be relieved when the Hero steps in.

We can compare this to some stereotypical high fantasy setups.  On the one hand you have your white, blue eyed, male hero from the Temperate Kingdom who was raised as a farmboy / squire / mage apprentice where even farmboy is presented as being distinctly middle class and Pastorale* and not a hard working life.  He comes from a comfortable background and a good family which is probably adoptive because he’s secretly a prince, and he holds values that are suspiciously like his modern-day author’s.  On the other hand, you have your dark, sometimes literally dark skinned, dark eyed, male villain from the Bad Weather Kingdom (even if he’s usurped the throne of Temperate Kingdom, he’s a foreigner) who was raised in a harsh warrior / backstabber rogue / dirty miner culture and has known only conflict, betrayal, and conflict his whole life, and uses these as his own powers.  He was bred by a terrible twisted hive of scum and villainy, and is nothing but scum and villainy himself, because that’s where he came from.  He is over the top evil, and acts in irrational evil ways because evil.

Let’s compare and contrast.  On the one hand you have your blue eyed, male hero from Temperate Iacon who was raised as an archivist (mage apprentice) without a hard working life.  He comes from a comfortable background with a good mentor, which is adoptive because he’s secretly a prime, and he holds values that are suspiciously like his modern-day author’s.  On the other hand, you have your dark, red eyed, male villain from Bad Weather Kaon who was raised in a harsh warrior mining culture and has known only conflict, betrayal, and conflict his whole life, and uses these as his own powers.  He was bred by a terrible twisted hive of scum and villainy, and is nothing but scum and villainy himself, because that’s where he came from.  He is over the top evil, and acts in irrational evil ways because evil.

Wow.  Looks similar.  I wonder if any one els-The slimy, pallid skinned,shadow-clad vizier, usually a magician or someone with special powers, who comes from The Aristocracy and exists to whisper sweet sedition in the ear of whomever he parasitises-The helper creature from another species, sometimes another world, who can go places that the hero cannot, and who gives the hero both emotional support and deus ex machina rescues and boons-ah, the band’s all here.

The problem comes in that these archetypes were then placed in a decidedly morally grey universe.  In this environment, where they are allowed to grow past stereotype into fully fledged and emotionally complex characters, the archetypes can no longer hold the moral simplicity and immediate audience sympathy / hatred that they held before.  When the hero’s good upbringing is found to be the privileged and coddled result of societally sanctioned injustice, his innocence of heart becomes blindness to suffering, and his seeking of the moderate and outwardly loving and pacifist path turns into supporting the continued power of an oppressive regime, can we see him as a pure hero any more?  Can we fully support his actions when they will lead to the continued suffering of others whose pains we have seen first hand?  When the villain’s harsh upbringing is found to be the result of his caste’s oppression and ghettoed separation from wealth and basic rights, where violence is forced on them as a panacea for their emotional and physical problems, bred into their work habits and state sanctioned pass-times, can we see him as being a corrupt soul from the start?  Do we not have sympathy for his plight and the plight of his people?  When the villain begins his journey by fighting against the oppression of not only his people, but all who are degraded by the corrupt elite, how can we see him as pure evil?  If he were secretly a blue eyed prince sold into slavery, would we not be fighting with him as the hero?

It is my tentative theory that the characters of Aligned were imagined by higher-ups to hold to the archetypal good-evil dichotomy that has been found to work time and time again, but those characters were then written as parts of a much more complex universe where even as they played out their roles perfectly to the letter, the context of their actions changed entirely how the audience interpreted them.  A secondary problem, at least one of timing, is that Aligned came out in a United States where people were becoming increasingly aware of income disparity and the injustice and predation of our political and business leaders.  In this mindset where the consumer of the media is more apt to side with the downtrodden “99%,” having the villain be the leader of a revolution to save and find justice for the 99%, and having the hero be a member of the 1% who eventually says “but the 1% aren’t so bad, why don’t we let them continue to do what they do, so long as they make me their figurehead?” was perhaps a bad idea.  It resulted in completely understandable audience reactions that sympathised with the cause for which the villain fought, though not necessarily the villain himself.

One can easily view the Aligned universe as a work about the corruption of the Decepticon cause into military dictatorship, and the elevation of the Autobot cause from being dogs of the oppressive state to freedom fighters themselves upholding the liberty that the Decepticons once stood for.  You can also view it as a tragedy about the corruption and fall of the Decepticon cause, the downtrodden who fought for it, and their leader who Lear-like fell into madness.  Or you can view it as being what it was probably initially trying to be : a story about how good and virtuous Optimus Prime who is never wrong leads the Autobots against those eeeeevil Decepticons who do nothing but mess everything up for everyone.  Problem is, somewhere along the way, we got some really good writers who described a morally grey Cybertron and a fallen revolution that points the story away from that initial intention.

Oh yeah also turns out Optimus Prime is a long lost member of the 13 this whole time lololol.  See, he really was the special and perfect and immaculate Jesus Figure allll aloooong.  Even though it would have been so much more interesting for him to be a Buddha instead.**

*Pastorale, a genre of poetry and prose where the life of a shepherd or farmboy is presented as being 10% work, 90% sitting around under a tree and singing / fluting to lovely ladies.

**A Buddha Narrative being one close to what was presented in Orion Pax’s backstory : a child of privilege and sheltered innocence wakes up to the death and suffering of the world, then tries to forge a peaceful middle path to end the suffering of others and their release from the eternal cycle that forces them into castes.

Except instead Orion went on to become Optimus, a figurehead for the force that perpetuates the cycle and forces people into suffering, so that he could switch religious analogues and be the innocent Son of God (Primus) who is sacrificed for the sins of the world.  Only those who believe in Optimus are the righteous ones who will see heaven (renewed Cybertron).  And those people who are still trying to escape the cycle of suffering?  Unrepentant evil souls who refuse to accept that suffering is there to test whether they’ll follow Optimus and Primus’ secret plan or not, even though they know it’s true because Optimus Prime is real and shooting at them, and they’re totally acceptable cannon fodder.  This is why it’s a bad idea to mix and match religious analogues.

(via obfuscobble)

At the risk of being horribly contrary, I think that, while you guys make interesting points and arguments, I still cannot divest from the fact that Megatron, while having a good goal, chose to go about achieving that goal through the use of terrorism, forcing individuals into Decepticon service under threat of death, and wholesale slaughter.  The fact that in the novels he’s the mastermind for numerous terriorist activities while at the same time putting up a face of political moderation and distancing himself so that he can avoid any blame to me almost nullifies sympathy.

It’s not that the Autobots are portrayed as being wholly good.  Hell the Council knows there’s a problem, and is paralyzed by indecision.  They don’t know what to do or how to do, and spend all their time just analyzing and talking about it.  So it’s not like they’re even trying to maintain the status quo because they know there’s no status quo anyway.  Part of the reason Alpha Trion puts forth the idea of Orion getting the Matrix is because he wants to save Cybertron, not just rewind things back to a happier time.  He’s made very aware that sure, Orion will probably save Cybertron, but no, you won’t get back your Golden Age.

Now if you want to go “Well why not pick Megatron?”  Again, this is a guy who is at this point openly associated with the Decepticons, who are, again, responsible for multiple acts of terrorism, and who clearly holds nothing but disdain for everyone associated with the system he hates, and probably plans to see them all dead.  Even if we set aside Orion-as-Thirteen, does it honestly surprise anyone the Council picked Orion?  Or that Orion accepted?

Maybe, as Scobble puts it, it was a case of bad timing on the release of the story, but no matter how I read it, I cannot continue to sympathize with the “downtrodden 99%” once they start engaging in terrorism and murder and justify it as a necessary action to liberate themselves.  Orion accepting the mission and becoming Optimus wasn’t a moral compromise to the system or the regime, since the regime knew the system was broken and wanted to fix it, even if they couldn’t figure out how.  It was an agreement that things needed to be fixed and he was the one they felt was most likely to succeed that wouldn’t involve killing people to do it.

(via in-alptraum-verloren)

I think you’re missing the point.

Well we all know that Megatron is a villain. He was made a villain. And he fulfills that villain narrative. He is a villain in every sense of the term.

But that doesn’t change the fact that when you take two steps away and look at it from a more meta-textual level. The one where you realize that oppressed groups have been time and time again been talked over and villainized. And suddenly things kind of start to fall apart. Within the narrative, yes, the actions and characters show who is a villain and who is a hero. But the way the narrative goes about it is rather problematic.

It just reminds me of how Fox News exaggerates the actions of oppressed groups to try to scare the white male majority. “Oh yeah women want proper equal rights, but next thing you’ll know you’ll have to be paying for their birth control and they’ll be stealing all the custody of the children and blah blah.” Literally replace the story of the rise of the decepticons with any marginalized, oppressed group in the real world and it starts looking like propaganda.

It isn’t about whether the decepticons are really good guys. Hell, I don’t really believe that for a second.

It’s about the narrative being problematic in and out of itself. It’s about, how obfuscobble puts it, making a very morally gray universe and expecting me to belief that the characters who came from that moral grayness are black/white morally and there is no room for doubt.

(via reyairia)