Bots were built as workers

Cons wetre built as wariors

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So then they had no choice in the matter? I don't buy it.

 

If the Cons are wiped out, it's only because it's the consequences of their own choices.

 

but really..... this is digging a bit deeper than is warranted. I seem to remember seeing "Heroic Autobot" and "Evil Decepticon" on every TF box when I was a kid. If they had wanted it to be understood differently, they could have rephrased that, don't you think?

 

Anyway, "good vs. evil" was very much on the minds of people in the early 80's, when everyone was wondering if we were going to get nuked by the Soviet Union.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'll take a crack at it.

 

Why are the Autobots considered as good? Why the Decepticons considered as evil? Obviously, it's not because of religious reasons, but rather, based on the new morality of the secular culture.

 

The Autobots - they go around preaching freedom, protection, and doing the common good for all life. They go around donating their spare time to help those they can afford to do so. They claim to fight the evil Decepticons so that the humans and Autobots won't get hurt. They won't, however, interfere with internal squabbles (re: Triple Takeover, when Optimus Prime told the Autobots to back off from a Decepticon standoff.) They go around on patrol, making sure those evil Decepticons don't have an opportunity to spread their evil ways and if they do, they will respond in kind. They won't allow Autobots to work along side with the Decepticons on non-combative ventures (re: Master Builder) or else the said Autobots would get into trouble. I guess that makes George W. Bush Optimus Prime, then.

 

Decepticons want to establish their hegemony within the Universe to promote their own power base. They don't go out of their way to help the natives, they destroy those who oppose them, and impose their way on people. They have no beliefs of a higher being, but will do so if it would further their own expansionist cause. They revise histories (re: Megatron's Master Plan), spread propaganda, and make themselves look good at times of trouble. Sounds a lot like the Europeans during the 1500s to the 1900s (colonalist period) to me.

 

Good and evil isn't so clear cut. Even though the characters are written to be "heroic" or "evil," it is what the writers consider as such that is questionable.

 

I bet you the Autobots won't seem so heroic to a lot of Americans if they were written by members of Al Qaeda....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OMFG IT'S A KIDS' SHOW

ANTI-FANBOY'D

I just get really tired of this "morality is in the eye of the beholder" bullsh*t, especially when it's applied to a friggin' cartoon. If you want to say "America isn't always right," then just say it.

I just get really tired of this "morality is in the eye of the beholder" bullsh*t, especially when it's applied to a friggin' cartoon. If you want to say "America isn't always right," then just say it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've got no problem with that. Of course, if America's wrong, then who's right? No one, IMO. That's why we're human. We have flaws. Transformers' characterizations are "HUMAN-LIKE", meaning they have flaws. Then again, what are flaws? Flaws could be in the eye of the beholder as well. :redface Decepticons are just too simplistic in their mindset for me. :P

AM- You make a good point about the Decepticons, but I'd like to counter it with this: They turn into sweet jets and tanks and stuff.

 

Moving on, I really try to avoid projecting too much onto the TFs, myself.  Like poetry, there's no limit to how complicated we can make it, but a lot of it- most of it, is coming from ourselves, not the source we're discussing or thinking about.  (What an awful, run-on that was.)  The Autobots are good.  And the Decepticons are bad.  And that makes both of them fun to root for.

Bots were built as workers

Cons wetre built as wariors

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So then they had no choice in the matter? I don't buy it.

 

If the Cons are wiped out, it's only because it's the consequences of their own choices.

 

but really..... this is digging a bit deeper than is warranted. I seem to remember seeing "Heroic Autobot" and "Evil Decepticon" on every TF box when I was a kid. If they had wanted it to be understood differently, they could have rephrased that, don't you think?

 

Anyway, "good vs. evil" was very much on the minds of people in the early 80's, when everyone was wondering if we were going to get nuked by the Soviet Union.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'll take a crack at it.

 

Why are the Autobots considered as good? Why the Decepticons considered as evil? Obviously, it's not because of religious reasons, but rather, based on the new morality of the secular culture.

 

The Autobots - they go around preaching freedom, protection, and doing the common good for all life. They go around donating their spare time to help those they can afford to do so. They claim to fight the evil Decepticons so that the humans and Autobots won't get hurt. They won't, however, interfere with internal squabbles (re: Triple Takeover, when Optimus Prime told the Autobots to back off from a Decepticon standoff.) They go around on patrol, making sure those evil Decepticons don't have an opportunity to spread their evil ways and if they do, they will respond in kind. They won't allow Autobots to work along side with the Decepticons on non-combative ventures (re: Master Builder) or else the said Autobots would get into trouble. I guess that makes George W. Bush Optimus Prime, then.

 

Decepticons want to establish their hegemony within the Universe to promote their own power base. They don't go out of their way to help the natives, they destroy those who oppose them, and impose their way on people. They have no beliefs of a higher being, but will do so if it would further their own expansionist cause. They revise histories (re: Megatron's Master Plan), spread propaganda, and make themselves look good at times of trouble. Sounds a lot like the Europeans during the 1500s to the 1900s (colonalist period) to me.

 

Good and evil isn't so clear cut. Even though the characters are written to be "heroic" or "evil," it is what the writers consider as such that is questionable.

 

I bet you the Autobots won't seem so heroic to a lot of Americans if they were written by members of Al Qaeda....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OMFG IT'S A KIDS' SHOW

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

:lol

 

Oh, and one more thing: in "The Master Builder", the Constructicons DOUBLECROSSED Hoist and Grapple during that "non-combative venture"

 

KTHX.

AM- You make a good point about the Decepticons, but I'd like to counter it with this: They turn into sweet jets and tanks and stuff.

 

Moving on, I really try to avoid projecting too much onto the TFs, myself.  Like poetry, there's no limit to how complicated we can make it, but a lot of it- most of it, is coming from ourselves, not the source we're discussing or thinking about.  (What an awful, run-on that was.)  The Autobots are good.  And the Decepticons are bad.  And that makes both of them fun to root for.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Agreed. Truly evil people (or robots, okay fine) are not fun to root for. Which is why... it's a cartoon featuring cartoony violence and cartoony characters. Hasbro has to sell Decepticon toys too...

UUmmm I thought the cons were evil cus the writers told them to be... :tfhuh

my original point is that it would be wrong for the "heroic" autobots to commit genocide against the decepticons since the autobots are suppose to be better than that. also, since both factions are of the same overall tf race, it would be like America exterminating every last German back in WW2, rather than giving the germans the chance to surrender with dignity.

LMH needs to chill just a little bit.

In fact in recent threads he has spouted off the very philosophy he is arguing against here.

 

The Bots and Cons were clearly defined as Good and Evil in the early 80's cause thats what the mentality was in the USA and what was deemed appropriate for a kids show (paraphrased LMH)

 

HOWEVER - and then in the 90's we saw a radically different World view and a Radically different TF show being developed - nothing was as black and white as JohnPrimeWane was... So we got BW/BM - which is ironically LMH's fave stuff...

 

I dont see a problem at all with Us now in the 2000's and post 9/11 world to expect a simmilar World View to inform our current Transformers.  And since ID and DW want to update G1 Tfs - they should be adressing these OLDER characters with the NEW world view and sentiments.

This is largely what is missing from Armada/Energon/Cybertron (among other things) is this larger world Context...

 

And LMH as much as you Starscream about it being a Childrens Cartoon - i would like to point out that at least Half of the fandom comes form teh Marvel comics - in terms of referenc point and that was written with a slightly more mature reader in mind...

 

Hunter