raisedbymoogles (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
raisedbymoogles) wrote2012-11-04 01:15 am
raisedbymoogles) wrote2012-11-04 01:15 am
Entry tags:
Galvatron/Rodimus (part II) and Optimus/Megatron ship manifesto
What can I say? I was feeling meta. And a certain person encouraged me. ;) ...just to warn you, this is long and rambly and not structured especially well.
Galvatron/Rodimus doesn't work for me in spite of Galvatron's instability and Rodimus's self-doubt, but because of them. That's what I mean when I say their broken pieces fit together. You can get a clearer picture of this if you compare them to Optimus/Megatron, a pairing I have dabbled in but do not ship quite so obsessively.
(EDIT: Okay, this became an Optimus/Megatron ship manifesto as much as it is a Galvatron/Roddy one. Um, enjoy? XD)
Wherever you stand on the question of how much of Megatron still exists in Galvatron, they are two very different characters in terms of motivation and methodology. Megatron has the same clear, consistent goals from episode to episode, for all his methods sometimes go a bit off the rails (*cough*purplegriffin*cough*). His defining ambition: to rule Cybertron unopposed. A major and necessary step on the road to achieving this goal: get an army's worth of fuel by draining Earth. Almost every episode shows him trying a different method of achieving this - sucking energy from the sun or from Earth's core, messing with gravity, extorting or enslaving human populations, etc. No matter how elaborate or just plain weird the scheme, they always remain consistent with his ultimate goal. Megatron even goes so far as to team up with Optimus Prime on three separate occasions (off the top of my head) to either save Cybertron from destruction, or save Earth from some kind of destruction that he cannot personally benefit from. This ability to set aside grudges in service to a more important goal is one of his more mature and laudable traits, one that is rare in heroes and villains alike (and in real-world people for that matter), and is my jumping-off point for him when I want to write Optimus and Megatron having a relationship rather than a grudge-fuck. At the same time, this clarity is what dooms the relationship: unless something about their circumstances changes drastically, Megatron's goal cannot ever truly be reconciled with Optimus's defining goal of keeping Earth free.
Galvatron is a more contradictory character, difficult to pin down. He's consistently villainous, granted (although he is presented in a more sympathetic light in Webworld, and in Starscream's Ghost to a lesser degree), but what are his ultimate goals? One episode he wants to rule Cybertron; the next he wants to destroy it. One episode he's up to no good on Earth; the next he displays no interest in it whatsoever. One episode Ultra Magnus is his most hated enemy; the next it's Rodimus or the Quintessons. Galvatron's desires change from episode to episode, sometimes even during the course of an episode. He almost seems to live at the mercy of his own id, dragged from whim to whim with no overarching purpose to give them direction or meaning. This makes it both harder and easier to ship him with someone of the opposite faction. On the one hand, he can be temporarily distracted from his grudges but can't really make a conscious choice to set them aside for a larger goal, because he doens't have one. On the other, with no real goals regarding the 'Bot/'Con war in general there's nothing really standing in the way of him acting on, oh, say, a sudden hard-on for the Autobot Leader. Just for example.
Optimus and Rodimus share more personality traits in common, most of them good ones, but the most obvious difference between them is Optimus's self-assurance versus Rodimus's self-doubt. Rodimus is portrayed, quite realistically, as someone who is young and ill-prepared for the burden of destiny, who has bought wholly into the idea that Optimus was Practically Perfect In Every Way and so doubts his ability to follow suit. In contrast, Optimus is almost a MacGuffin, less a fully-rounded character than the embodiment of an ideal. He practically comes out of the box spouting inspirational speeches ("War Dawn"), with no hint of the 'help, I don't know what I'm doing' that plagues Rodimus's every step. He does not dither or debate; he always knows exactly what to do, and rarely needs to ask for advice. When the plot requires he make a mistake, he waits until the status quo is restored before owning up to it in a kingly manner that does not require him to lose an ounce of stature. This is the Optimus Prime that captured childhood imaginations across the country in the 80s, and for the most part that's a positive thing, but here and there the cracks show: the startlingly callous way he treats the Decepticons who beg for his help in "Child's Play," for example. Or the times when his battle plans are long on heroism but short on intelligent strategy, see "Fire on the Mountain." Or the times when he allows Megatron to manipulate his sense of honor, getting him to basically surrender Earth to Megatron (twice, Optimus? You let him do this to you twice?). Confident Optimus is all well and good, but for me the more poignant and character-building moments are the ones where that calm, decisive self-assurance breaks down: when he loses his temper at the end of "More Than Meets The Eye, Part 3", when he is audibly stressed and impatient in "Kremzeek!", when he is demoralized by public opinion in "Megatron's Master Plan" or horrified by his own actions in "The Ultimate Doom." These are moments in which Optimus Prime the myth is stripped away from Optimus Prime the person, and in almost every instance the one who does this - the only one who can do this - is Megatron. That's my foundation for Optimus's side of the Optimus/Megatron pairing: Megatron does not worship Optimus. Megatron challenges Optimus, pushes him into action, hammers at his weaknesses and in so doing forces him to live up to his own myth. The story in the first two seasons of Transformers is very much the story of Optimus Prime versus Megatron; it's no wonder they're such a popular pairing.
The focus of Season 3 is less on the conflict between two factional leaders than on the Autobots' efforts to rebuild Cybertron. If Optimus's overarching motivation is to thwart the Decepticons at every turn, rebuilding is Rodimus's: we see him exploring Cybertron's forgotten past, establishing diplomatic relations with other species, working to maintain relationships with Earth. In this goal, the Quintessons are his real enemy and the Decepticons are just another thing he has to deal with every so often. This shift in focus allows Rodimus to act with sympathy and respect towards Decepticons who aren't actively making trouble for him. This is highlighted in Five Faces of Darkness: we see him go from reflexively hostile towards Decepticons, to feeling pity for them, to asking Blitzwing to join him at the end of the arc, and presumably granting asylum to him after Galvatron kicks him out of the Decepticons, although this is never explicitly stated. Later in the series he takes in Octane, and cooperates with the ghost of Starscream. If resentment towards anything with a Decepticon brand still lingers among Autobots, Rodimus doesn't seem to share it. This lends him the flexibility that makes cross-faction pairings plausible: a trait Optimus Prime does not and cannot share. However, Rodimus Prime and Galvatron cannot be said to share the same connection in canon that Optimus and Megatron do. They don't interact every episode. As far as I can recall, they never team up. There's more canon support for Rodimus/Starscream than Rodimus/Galvatron, for crying out loud. This means I have to come at the pairing obliquely, fitting together their histories and personalities in a way that makes sense to me. The nuts and bolts of that, I covered in this post. But basically Rodimus is in exactly the right position to offer Galvatron exactly what he needs: something to focus on, a larger motivation to give context and direction to his impulses, and a doorway to becoming much more than what Unicron intended for him. And Roddy's just reckless enough to offer all of this with his whole spark. Galvatron, for his part, offers Rodimus the antidote for his self-doubt and survivor's guilt, in his own way challenging Rodimus's assumptions about himself as Megatron challenges Optimus's.
Galvatron/Rodimus doesn't work for me in spite of Galvatron's instability and Rodimus's self-doubt, but because of them. That's what I mean when I say their broken pieces fit together. You can get a clearer picture of this if you compare them to Optimus/Megatron, a pairing I have dabbled in but do not ship quite so obsessively.
(EDIT: Okay, this became an Optimus/Megatron ship manifesto as much as it is a Galvatron/Roddy one. Um, enjoy? XD)
Wherever you stand on the question of how much of Megatron still exists in Galvatron, they are two very different characters in terms of motivation and methodology. Megatron has the same clear, consistent goals from episode to episode, for all his methods sometimes go a bit off the rails (*cough*purplegriffin*cough*). His defining ambition: to rule Cybertron unopposed. A major and necessary step on the road to achieving this goal: get an army's worth of fuel by draining Earth. Almost every episode shows him trying a different method of achieving this - sucking energy from the sun or from Earth's core, messing with gravity, extorting or enslaving human populations, etc. No matter how elaborate or just plain weird the scheme, they always remain consistent with his ultimate goal. Megatron even goes so far as to team up with Optimus Prime on three separate occasions (off the top of my head) to either save Cybertron from destruction, or save Earth from some kind of destruction that he cannot personally benefit from. This ability to set aside grudges in service to a more important goal is one of his more mature and laudable traits, one that is rare in heroes and villains alike (and in real-world people for that matter), and is my jumping-off point for him when I want to write Optimus and Megatron having a relationship rather than a grudge-fuck. At the same time, this clarity is what dooms the relationship: unless something about their circumstances changes drastically, Megatron's goal cannot ever truly be reconciled with Optimus's defining goal of keeping Earth free.
Galvatron is a more contradictory character, difficult to pin down. He's consistently villainous, granted (although he is presented in a more sympathetic light in Webworld, and in Starscream's Ghost to a lesser degree), but what are his ultimate goals? One episode he wants to rule Cybertron; the next he wants to destroy it. One episode he's up to no good on Earth; the next he displays no interest in it whatsoever. One episode Ultra Magnus is his most hated enemy; the next it's Rodimus or the Quintessons. Galvatron's desires change from episode to episode, sometimes even during the course of an episode. He almost seems to live at the mercy of his own id, dragged from whim to whim with no overarching purpose to give them direction or meaning. This makes it both harder and easier to ship him with someone of the opposite faction. On the one hand, he can be temporarily distracted from his grudges but can't really make a conscious choice to set them aside for a larger goal, because he doens't have one. On the other, with no real goals regarding the 'Bot/'Con war in general there's nothing really standing in the way of him acting on, oh, say, a sudden hard-on for the Autobot Leader. Just for example.
Optimus and Rodimus share more personality traits in common, most of them good ones, but the most obvious difference between them is Optimus's self-assurance versus Rodimus's self-doubt. Rodimus is portrayed, quite realistically, as someone who is young and ill-prepared for the burden of destiny, who has bought wholly into the idea that Optimus was Practically Perfect In Every Way and so doubts his ability to follow suit. In contrast, Optimus is almost a MacGuffin, less a fully-rounded character than the embodiment of an ideal. He practically comes out of the box spouting inspirational speeches ("War Dawn"), with no hint of the 'help, I don't know what I'm doing' that plagues Rodimus's every step. He does not dither or debate; he always knows exactly what to do, and rarely needs to ask for advice. When the plot requires he make a mistake, he waits until the status quo is restored before owning up to it in a kingly manner that does not require him to lose an ounce of stature. This is the Optimus Prime that captured childhood imaginations across the country in the 80s, and for the most part that's a positive thing, but here and there the cracks show: the startlingly callous way he treats the Decepticons who beg for his help in "Child's Play," for example. Or the times when his battle plans are long on heroism but short on intelligent strategy, see "Fire on the Mountain." Or the times when he allows Megatron to manipulate his sense of honor, getting him to basically surrender Earth to Megatron (twice, Optimus? You let him do this to you twice?). Confident Optimus is all well and good, but for me the more poignant and character-building moments are the ones where that calm, decisive self-assurance breaks down: when he loses his temper at the end of "More Than Meets The Eye, Part 3", when he is audibly stressed and impatient in "Kremzeek!", when he is demoralized by public opinion in "Megatron's Master Plan" or horrified by his own actions in "The Ultimate Doom." These are moments in which Optimus Prime the myth is stripped away from Optimus Prime the person, and in almost every instance the one who does this - the only one who can do this - is Megatron. That's my foundation for Optimus's side of the Optimus/Megatron pairing: Megatron does not worship Optimus. Megatron challenges Optimus, pushes him into action, hammers at his weaknesses and in so doing forces him to live up to his own myth. The story in the first two seasons of Transformers is very much the story of Optimus Prime versus Megatron; it's no wonder they're such a popular pairing.
The focus of Season 3 is less on the conflict between two factional leaders than on the Autobots' efforts to rebuild Cybertron. If Optimus's overarching motivation is to thwart the Decepticons at every turn, rebuilding is Rodimus's: we see him exploring Cybertron's forgotten past, establishing diplomatic relations with other species, working to maintain relationships with Earth. In this goal, the Quintessons are his real enemy and the Decepticons are just another thing he has to deal with every so often. This shift in focus allows Rodimus to act with sympathy and respect towards Decepticons who aren't actively making trouble for him. This is highlighted in Five Faces of Darkness: we see him go from reflexively hostile towards Decepticons, to feeling pity for them, to asking Blitzwing to join him at the end of the arc, and presumably granting asylum to him after Galvatron kicks him out of the Decepticons, although this is never explicitly stated. Later in the series he takes in Octane, and cooperates with the ghost of Starscream. If resentment towards anything with a Decepticon brand still lingers among Autobots, Rodimus doesn't seem to share it. This lends him the flexibility that makes cross-faction pairings plausible: a trait Optimus Prime does not and cannot share. However, Rodimus Prime and Galvatron cannot be said to share the same connection in canon that Optimus and Megatron do. They don't interact every episode. As far as I can recall, they never team up. There's more canon support for Rodimus/Starscream than Rodimus/Galvatron, for crying out loud. This means I have to come at the pairing obliquely, fitting together their histories and personalities in a way that makes sense to me. The nuts and bolts of that, I covered in this post. But basically Rodimus is in exactly the right position to offer Galvatron exactly what he needs: something to focus on, a larger motivation to give context and direction to his impulses, and a doorway to becoming much more than what Unicron intended for him. And Roddy's just reckless enough to offer all of this with his whole spark. Galvatron, for his part, offers Rodimus the antidote for his self-doubt and survivor's guilt, in his own way challenging Rodimus's assumptions about himself as Megatron challenges Optimus's.