#there are a lot of idw meg stans who shit on idw op for being a cop but like

[lord-squiggletits]

IDW Megatron stans can shit on IDW Optimus all they want but it won’t change the fact that IDW OP has something that IDW Megatron can only dream of having (a post-war character arc that directly addresses his/his race's culpability in historic Cybertronian imperialism and racism).

[lord-squiggletits]

The source post/user of this take will go unnamed but

This take is actually infuriating to me because it ALMOST made a good point about Optimus until the person claimed that Optimus "sacrifices" his soldiers for "[his] own higher moral standard."

Because uhhhhh fuck no.

The entire point of Optimus as a leader is that he asks the Autobots to make hard decisions BECAUSE IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

He asks them to protect alien organics, despite the fact that organics hate them and barely see them as sentient, because defending innocent life from being extinguished even if they don't like you is the right thing to do.

He asks the Autobots not to attack humans, even in self-defense, because Cybertronians are the one who brought war to their planet and humans are the victim of their occupation. Because it's the right thing to do.

He asks the Autobots to forgive the atrocities of war and commit to living peacefully with Decepticons and neutrals (even being willing to exile himself and abdicate leadership at one point) because abandoning vengeance so that Cybertron can heal is the right thing to do.

He punishes an Autobot who murders Decepticons/Autobots for their war crimes, not just because of the reasons above, but because as the Autobot leader, he would be a hypocrite for allowing his own soldiers to murder freely while the Decepticons remain outcasts. Was it an easy (or even perfect) choice? No. But it was the right thing to do.

Because doing the right thing often requires making things harder, denying yourself the easy path to victory, and yes, even sacrificing your life. And this is a choice that millions of people have made, in fiction and in real life, because goodness is so precious that it's worth sacrificing for.

I fucking hate this warped logic where apparently, Optimus' virtue is actually just "dangerous" and all he's doing is sacrificing his own people's lives in the pursuit of (presumably) an abstract "moral standard." No. Optimus Prime has a moral code and doesn't just ask others to follow it, but commits to it himself. He places himself in the face of danger and needless inconvenience for the sake of aliens who barely even know him or like him (multiple people think he's super weird for this btw, Optimus' pro-organic stance is actually super radical by Cybertronian standards). Optimus Prime has a moral code and he asks his Autobots to do the right thing and THE AUTOBOTS WILLINGLY FOLLOW HIM because of their unified commitment towards their moral code. Every Autobot who fights the war does so willingly and can leave pretty much at any time. Unlike a certain other leader who has an entire Division dedicated towards murdering people who don't want to fight any more.