#its how they end up with inane takes like claiming the decepticons arent colonizers | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lord-squiggletits · 1 year ago

Text

Also in general I find it annoying how the fandom punishes IDW Optimus more for doing bad things in the process of trying to do good, than they punish other characters who did way worse things and were basically unrepentant about it?

This isn't just an IDW OP thing though. In general people seem to be fans of Good Guys and Bad Guys but when a hero does morally gray things or when a villain has shades of humanization/good acts people lose their shit with Disk Horse. Really it just comes down to the fact that people don't like having their conception of morality challenged, and when they read stories (or God forbid actual real life events) that challenge their notion of clearly defined Good and Evil, it tends to make certain types mad lol.

I think one of the worst Optimus takes I see is when people try to make him evil in ways that don't make sense. Like idk someone claiming that IDW Optimus justifies war crimes because of The Greater Good when he literally doesn't and is in fact quite aware of when he does morally dubious things or is responsible/complicit in bad things happening.

It just annoys me because there are interesting ways to make Optimus problematic or to see him as problematic but no one can do it without making Optimus OOC or they do it in a really boring way.

Mostly it feels like it stems from an inability (or refusal?) to believe that morally good individuals can be responsible for bad things happening on a wider scale. Or even that a good intentioned person can cause harm on an individual level. It feels as if people have to make Optimus OOC "evil" (as in dumb, ignorant, committing crimes, not caring about others' well being) because they can't grasp the idea that he can be simultaneously good and bad at the same time. Or they have this idea that only bad people do bad things and if someone ever does bad things it must make them a bad person.

I don't know. No one ever seems to have this problem with other characters in Transformers so I think it's just a byproduct of people projecting their personal/political issues onto Optimus lmao

#squiggposting #same reason is why certain fans cant write good decepticons or evil autobots for shit #like they DESPERATELY WANT to be able to boil the plot of idw1 to good and bad #its how they end up with inane takes like claiming the decepticons arent colonizers #or how optimus is actually serving his own conscience by asking autobots to protect organics #like bro come on just admit the decepticons are anti functionists that are also xenophobes #or that the autobots are anti imperialists but also had close ties to the prev govt #idk im just rambling #but its like. the reality of idw1 is that it's a plot that cant be boiled down into good v bad #but instead of accepting that some ppl just do insane troll logic to try and convince you #that good is actually evil and vice versa #so like instead of being able to accept that war is messy and destructive #while the people fighting it are simultanelusly doing it for good reasons #instead people sre like. omg did you know autobots died. optimus is a terrible leader #or like they cant understand that OP ordered mass death not because he didnt know it wss evil #not because he convinced himself death is good #but because OP is a commander making hard decisions trying to win a war which is inherently violent #ppl deadass dont get that OP can lead an army while simultaneously wanting peace #which is so crazy to me. lmao. anyways #most TF writers cant write war stories #not least bc many fans come from sheltered privileged societies that have never known unrest or violence

189 notes · View notes