TF Animated Ep15 - Megatron Rising part 1

[GoktimusPrime]

(OFFTOPIC)

Dude, as a teacher you've been a "friend" to kids too long to understand that with sari he had to be the "parent". That is a command role which is too often confused with the friend (wrong) role of trying to gain compliance and teach socially acceptable behaviour.

Being a teacher and/or parent of children are absolutely command roles! As a teacher or parent you can be friends with the child(ren) under you, but your primary role is to be their teacher or parent, which means that you are the authority figure.

(/OFFTOPIC)

And of course the kid will then drop the "you don't love me" bomb to try and regain their past freedoms.

Having freedoms is fine, but freedom is power - let's all do the Spiderman mantra now: "with great power comes great responsibility"! In Sari's case, being the key's custodian is a priviledge, one which comes with great responsibility - and part of which is not playing with it like a toy. Prime was right to reprimand Sari for mucking around with the key, but I thought the execution was out of character for Animated Prime and could've been handled gooder.

As for his comrades, he's simply pissed at being left out of the loop and disobeyed by his charges.

And that's fine, but why let your emotions cloud your judgement? As the Jedi teach, allowing your emotions to conquer you is the path to the Dark Side.

I thought I already explained that to you.

I'm not asking "why is Prime so angry" - explain it all you like, that was never my question.

And I've also highlighted it before, maybe I need to make the font bigger:

Animated Prime.

This is not BW/machines/rid/g1 prime at all. He's not even currently in the same league of command as those previous primes were, so there is no comparison.

*sigh* re-read what I've written and try again.

I was comparing the way that the other Primes/Primals were written in terms of character development - I was never saying that he's the same as those other Optimi.

The whole over the top anger/frustration thing that Prime had in this episode was conceptually good but I felt that in execution was overdone making it feel kinda out of character for Animated Prime. In previous episodes of Animated, Optimus Prime has never come across to me as being someone who would be so passionately and recklessly out of control with his emotions and allow those emotions to consume him, as it did Obi-Wan's appre--, uh, Animated Prime in this episode.

Look at Darth Vader (now please don't accuse me of suggesting that TF Animated is in the same continuity as Star Wars - this is just another character development comparison!!!) - we saw that Anakin Skywalker has always been a creature of passion and great emotion. In Episode I he had great compassion (selflessly wanting to help Qui-Gon Jinn & Co) and fear (for his mother). In Episode II we see that Anakin is frequently thinking more emotionally than logically in several situations, which cost him his right forearm at the hands of Count Dooku and of course, fostered the forbidden love between him and Padmé. His slaughter of the Tuskens was a sign of his anger and rage. But in spite of that, we do see Anakin always making a conscious effort to contain and control his emotions - even though it's an increasingly difficult challenge for him. After he killed the Tusken village he broke down and cried - admitting that it was wrong for him to do it and confessed his sin to Padmé (he later confessed it to Palpatine and a Tusken Jedi who advised him to confess to Yoda, but he never did) - "I'm a Jedi. I know I'm better than this."

In Episode III Palpatine seduced him to kill Dooku, but even then he instantly regretted it when he said, "I shouldn't have done that." - but finally he was consumed by his passion which of course allowed him to fall to the Dark Side of the Force. His passionate self, which came to be known as Darth Vader, betrayed and murdered his more rational self, Anakin Skywalker - hence why Obi-Wan told Luke that Vader killed Anakin.

So this is an example of an in-character character development. The story justifies Anakin "coming of rage." Obviously Prime's anger is no where near at the same level, but I felt that there was a lack of substantial development to build him to that level of anger and frustration, and the way that he coped and dealt with his anger and frustration just seemed out of character for him.

It's like, "WWAOPD" - "What Would Animated Optimus Prime Do?"

Gah, sorry, bell just rang so I don't have time to conclude this post well. :/