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baebeyza · 3 years

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So about them TF animes

Had been thinking about TF villains and the sweet “pure evil” trope that I oh so love and what it means to humanize a villain.

Had a talk some time ago where my discussion partners basically said that pure evil versions of Megatron aren’t good and that a story about war should have more grey morality.

You know my opinion on the matter- I fucking love Megatron as a pure evil villain, I don’t care about his motives, I just wanna see him be evil and have fun :D

One thing I said is that the anime shows tend to not give the villains any real reason to be evil while the cartoons after G1 did, which led to the conclusion that the animes aren’t as good as the cartoons in regards to villain writing.

Lemme make a counter argument to this:

NO. The TF anime villains are not worse than the cartoon villains. The anime villains tend to far more humanized than the cartoon villains!

Do the villains from japanese G1, Beast Wars II, RiD01 and the Unicron Trilogy have grey morality about them and any reasonable motive behind being evil? No.

Do Beast Wars, Beast Machines, TFA, TFP, Cyberverse and WFC (IDW too) villains have any reasonable motive for being evil? Yes.

- Beast Wars Megs says he’s fighting against Maximal oppression, - Beast Machines Megs says he fights for harmony, - TFA Megs says he fights to return home, - TFP Megs started as a revolutionary, same as Cyberverse (and IDW), - RiD15 Steeljaw says he wants to create a decepticon homeworld, - WFC is the same as TFP and is special to me because he is seen to be far more conflicted about his methods than any of the above.

“Good” motive, ey?

But lemme tell you one thing- Beast Era Megatron is an evil bitch. Nothing about what he says is true. TFA Megs isn’t a good person either. TFP Megs even less. (and no we don’t care about his last minute redemption in the movie) Cyberverse never demonstrated any true motivation to fight for something good either. (WFC is another box and I don’t wanna go too deep into IDW because I haven’t read most of it, but I know that in Phase 1 he gives no shits and is just evil for evil sake) The idea of them having “good motives” means nothing, because their characters are still vile and evil.

What about the anime villains? They don’t have any good motive or backstory. They do evil for evil sake. Only BWII Galvatron can be said to have a good motive, but that is basically “peace through tyranny” and it doesn’t get explored as he basically spouts his reasoning at the very end. But besides Headmasters’ Megazarak, Victory’s Deszaras and RiD01/Cybertron Megatron, who are truly some evil bitches, most anime Decepticon leaders are more humanized than those of the cartoons, despite not having a good motive. Headmasters’ Galvatron is a far more nicer version of him than in G1. He is shown to be friendly and hugging his men on multiple occasions. Masterforce’s Overlord is a caring leader for his men! He went against the true evil leader when that one tortured two Decepticons and joined the Autobots in the end! Also Overlord is a robot formed by Giga and his wife Mega, who act as parents to the Decepticons under their wing. BWII Galvatron is a truly chill and nice boss with a soft spot for his younger brother, with whom he has some nice and heartwarming development in the end. Armada Megatron is shown to care for his men on multiple occasions and agrees to join forces with the Autobots against Unicron because of Starscream. He even had a sweet moment with the human characters. Energon Megatron/Galvatron has some moments of genuine worry and care for his men too, especially Starscream, who is his favourite. And these villains DONT have a good motive for fighting a war! They are evil for evil sake, written as evil villains to oppose heroic heroes, and they still got more nuance then the villains who DO got good motives! When do TFA or TFP Megs ever show genuine care for their men??? TFP Megs didn’t even show care about Soundwave being captured! And TFA is only nice when it benefits him and it is quite clearly only used for manipulation. Beast Era Megs couldn’t care less about the safety of his men. And Cyberverse didn’t even want to help against the Quintessons and everything he did afterwards was to save his own ass.

So what’s the good motive for then??? It doesn’t make them more nuanced and it doesn’t make them less evil!

In general, the anime Decepticons are far more humanized then the cartoon ones. You see them caring for another or having friendly interactions far more often than in the cartoons. Headmasters’ got Sixshot as a genuine nice guy when he’s not ordered to do evil and leaving the Decepticons, Masterforce has the Decepticon humans be genuine friends with nice banter and the Godmaster brothers caring for each other as well + Sixknight switching sides, Victory has the Dinoforce who all care for one another and even the Breastforce are shown moments of liking each other + Greatshot switching sides, BWII’s has Starscream and BB love each other as well as Thrust and Dirge + the Seacons being a really loving family, RiD01 has Sky-Byte as a villain who does good shit the whole time with the Predacons liking him, Armada has Demolishor being a caring teammate and Starscream as a tortured soul who is secretely very kind and switching sides, Energon has Demolishor and Cyclonus shown to be very good friends more than in Armada, Mirage being a lovesick fool, Starscream being saved by Scorponok and Sixshot loving his brother and wanting to avenge him, Cybertron has the four remaining Decepticons become buddies and end the show deciding to do evil together, after helping the Autobots save Planet Animatros. And not to forget that Soundwave and Sideways were genuine friends.

I am not saying that none of the cartoons have humanized Decepticons (roll call: BW Dinobot, Blackarachnia, Rampage + that scene where Inferno plays cards with Wasp and Quickstrike, BW Jetstorm and Thrust, TFP Breakdown, Knock Out and Dreadwing, Most Cons in Cyberverse + Globber switching sides) But you see, in those cartoons people argue that the villains have a good motive! And you got less examples of those Decepticons switching sides, being genuine friends or shown to care for their teammates.

While the Decepticons in the animes DONT have any good motives! They don’t fight for anything good and they didn’t start wanting to fight for anything good, and yet they are still shown to get along better as a team than the Decepticons in the cartoons, who are SAID to have once fought for something good!

So what does it matter how they started as a movement? How does the “had a good motive once” feature into their dynamics and actions?

Tl;DR The animes not giving the Cons a real motive to be evil is NOT a problem my peeps, as seen by the cartoons not writing their Decepticons any less evil then the animes do.

The animes tend to write them as more “human” than the cartoons do. PS: I didn’t mention Beast Wars Neo because I haven’t finished that one yet. Also I never ever believed that the Beast Wars cons ever fought for anything good apart maybe Dinobot, but Megatron says he fights against slavery, so :/ Also I do NOT hate the cartoons ffs, I just couldn’t let of the notion that the anime decepticons are somehow less than the cartoons ones just because they don’t have “good motives”. If anything the cartoons are more offensive for giving their clearly evil characters “good motives”. Like you either make a true grey moral stories or you just don’t give your damn pure evil villains “good” fucking motives. Which is why I just ignore the fact they supposedly have “good” motives, like who the fuck even cares when the villains themselves don’t represent that???

#transformers #tranformer rant #transformer posting #long post #decepticons #anime #cartoons

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