#they invented a fucking caste system and colonized the galaxy

[lord-squiggletits]

After I write that new IDW Optimus meta, the next one is gonna be a post of "why I really hate that theory about Rodimus being a better Prime than Optimus and how it doesn't even match the themes of IDW OR canon fact about how the Matrix functions."

But the TLDR that I feel like encapsulates where a lot of this fanwank comes from, is that I feel like ppl don't properly appreciate that the context of Optimus and Rodimus' leaderships are extremely different.

Like, Rodimus only led a ship of about 200+ people. This means that the scale of his leadership responsibilities and the risks/consequences/stakes of his actions as leader were much smaller in scale. However, it also means that just because he only led one ship of people doesn't mean that his choices weren't important/weren't indicative of his personal character (that is to say, just bc it was only one ship doesn't mean that it had no meaning or significance at all).

On the other hand, Optimus led an entire freaking army over a 4 million year war that arose from political tensions that began even before he/most of the people in the war were born. That means that the consequences of his leadership had extremely far reaching consequences no matter what he did, which grants him a large degree of culpability/blame for his actions. HOWEVER, it must also be said that under the pressure of fighting an impossible war, just because OP wasn't able to "stop it sooner" doesn't mean that he was a morally bad/incompetent leader, because a whole galactic war is such a huge burden that one person can't possibly stop it or influence/control everything to make the most morally correct and peace-causing decisions.

TLDR can we please stop pitting Optimus and Rodimus against each other when the contexts of them being leaders was so vastly different (and they had such different leadership styles in general) that you can't really say "who's the better leader" without minimizing either of their accomplishments/magnifying their respective flaws.

Also, canonically speaking the Matrix can be wielded by anyone who's confident/at peace/self-righteous enough to believe they're worthy of it, which was shown not only by the ending of LL where a bunch of regular ass crewmates were able to use copies of the Matrix, but by the fact that the first Prime/ruler of Cybertron Nova Prime was a massive piece of shit who colonized people, yet was still a Matrix bearer who wielded the true/original Matrix.

And also Primus is literally Just Some Guy and not some omnipotent god who's an objective arbiter of morality that can point at a guy and go "YOU are the Specialest Boy Ever and are Divinely Mandated To Be A Good person"

So the entire premise of why ppl even make theories and debate about this is beyond me lol. In IDW1 the Matrix is more of a social/cultural symbol than it is an actual measurer of morality, which is in line with IDW1's consistent themes of challenging the inherent rightness of authority

#squiggposting #like frex i wouldn't say rod is inherently a worse leader just bc OP was a general and he wasn't #not every good leader needs to be The Top Leader In Charge and small scale impacts are important in their own way #likewise i wouldn't say that OP is inherently a worse leader because bigger and badder things happened under his leadership #bc the problem is that when you're a leader of a whole ass army the scale of all of your actions is much larger #so just as your heroic deeds and victories will be larger. so too will your fuckups and flaws #OP and Rod are also both good people with good intentions so like #which one of them is a 'better person' is generally subjective and more up to how you individually measure their virtues/vices #meta #i mean literally one of the central sources of conflict in idw1 (functionism) was put into place by a religious body #sooooooo why is it ppl are using the matrix as a religious justification for who The Best Prime is? #like bud the last time cybertronians used religion/alleged godhood as justification for their leader/government #they invented a fucking caste system and colonized the galaxy #even if the matrix had some divine power to objectively decide on Moral Goodness it's kind of a shit judge of character