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quetzalpapalotl · 1 year ago

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Gonna play the exrid apologist again, but regarding Optimus and Prowl I think there is this unfair assessment of Prowl's role being to exonerate Optimus from the atrocities of the Autobots and that what Prowl did in relation to OP is never adressed.

While Prowl has much worse on a reputation in Mtmte and Wreckers, exRID plays it as him being dubious but the extent of his antics being genuinely unknown to the likes of Optimus and Prowl.

Now this doesn't mean that Optimus is scott free, he is ultimately responsible for the actions of the Autobots as their commander. There's the implication that he had his suspicions about Prowl but turned a blind eye, and regardless, this is behavior that's explicit of him in other instances, like how he pays lip service to not liking the Dinobots methods but Grimlock calling him out in that at the end of the day what Optimus' wants is results in OP #25.

But again, there is the fact that Prowl's most obvious and nefarious stuff is potrayed in Mtme, like the New Institute, which is what I hear most when expressing disappointment on this topic.I have talked about how I find is something that exists for Chromedome's characters while leaving a lot of messy implications chronologically and for other characters. And the Roberts goes out of his way to specify that the NI was something Orion was unaware of and wouldn't approve, but if Optimus really was still unaware of its continued existence then he looks like a fucking idiot, which doesn't save much face in contrast to giving it the go. This sort of thing shows up a lot in how JRo writes OP.

But the thing is, I don't think is all that fair to criticize exRID's narrative based on things that were happening simultaneously in Mtmte. For as much as Barber is the continuity guy, I think he should get a break to tell the story he wants to tell.

It is fun to try to get a general reading for yourself (and I do have my own explanations for the incongruities), but I don't think it's a failure of exrid's narrative to not adress details from another series by someone who wasn't the primary writer for these characters at the time when it's already much more mindful of this than average.

Point is, I think that when assessing something like the narrative quality of the relationship between Prowl and Optimus in exRid/OP what should be taken into account first and foremost in how it is presented in exRid/OP itself.

#it like say Rodimus is Mtmte is not bad character on the basis that he is completely different to his spotlight #or exrid soundwave in that he is not like he was in phase 1 #like ideally all of this would be perfectly congruent and cohesion does enhance the experience #but ultimately what takes priority on an author's take is what they are doing and how are they doing it #i guess it's hard to draw the line with comics when ultimately they are all piggybacking on previous stuff #but with these two series I feel is different because they were being published at the same time #like something like the shockop relationship in exrid obviously should be taken with the context of Mtmte bc that's from where it takes off #but an if things obviously work a bit different then that should be accepted #quetzal rambles tf

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