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leclairageI recently got an anon ask on tumblr and ended up writing a short essay about how much I love Megatron. I've cleaned it up a bit to post here!
This is…such a difficult question. Um. Thirst?
But no. To be serious, I think he’s just so deeply interesting. It’s difficult to articulate.
I’ve talked about this elsewhere before, but I tend to think of characters (in the sense of ‘what is in character vs out of character’) as a flexible thing? Not even in terms of canon v fanon—which is especially complicated with a media property like transformers where there are so many continuities to choose from.
It’s more like a character is a tag cloud, or a mind map, made up of their canon (and even fanon) qualities, and all these traits and attributes float in and out of the definition of who they are.
Part of what’s interesting about writing fic is that I can pick a different arrangement of traits for a character whenever I want—and see how that plays out in whatever scenario. As long as its connected to the word cloud, it’s in character.
So Megatron is aggressive and short-tempered and thoughtful (G1), but he’s also meek and dreamy and careful (IDW backstory). In TFP he’s a Jock, and in IDW he’s a Nerd. (Well, in TFP he’s a Jock who writes a lot of Inspiring Literature and becomes best friends with a librarian, so there’s an argument for Jock who is a Secret Nerd there)
There are many different ways to write him, which is really interesting to me. Is war-era IDW Megatron the ‘broken’ version of his earlier self? Can we extrapolate back to a G1 Megatron who was similarly ‘soft’ and not disillusioned? (Maybe yes, maybe no, etc)
There are definitely overarching traits (IMO): I’d describe him as an idealist hemmed in by his own ruthless practicality in most continuities, and he’s consistently strong, stubborn, an unstoppable force.
He’s usually leading some variation on a class/race/caste-motivated rebellion, which is always compelling to me. He’s determined and dedicated, and he loves words. The more I think about this the more interesting things I find in my internal ‘tag cloud’ for Megatron.
And in all continuities he’s an inspiring and charismatic leader who successfully changes his world.
I love having the opportunity to establish why he led the revolution—to play with ‘what if it hadn’t gone wrong’ or ‘what if it didn’t go wrong at all and the autobots are the bad guys’ or ‘how did his original mission get twisted into this and can he get back?’ And then, how isolating is it being at the top of a movement like that? how did that change him? How does violence fit in with who he is? What about all the grandstanding?
He doesn’t trust easily, but he also views fear as something to be bulldozed over, so once he makes the decision to trust he doesn’t hesitate about acting on it, at all.
Also, on the topic of Megatron and fear,![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
red--thedragon wrote cocked to the right, a short fic that explores IDW!Megatron’s relationship to fear, and it destroyed me. The way they write him in that fic isn’t my hard and fast headcanon—as I say I’m headcanon-flexible—but I absolutely love it for IDW. Fair warning, it’s Sad.
And IDW!Megatron is so extremely enigmatic, that it's easy to have multiple headcanons that all make sense. When is he manipulating? When is he being honest? What parts of the Megatron myth are real? So his character ends up being flexible even while staying ‘in character’.
Anyway, I love Megatron.
Anon asked:
Ohh why is megatron one of your top favorite characters?
This is…such a difficult question. Um. Thirst?
But no. To be serious, I think he’s just so deeply interesting. It’s difficult to articulate.
I’ve talked about this elsewhere before, but I tend to think of characters (in the sense of ‘what is in character vs out of character’) as a flexible thing? Not even in terms of canon v fanon—which is especially complicated with a media property like transformers where there are so many continuities to choose from.
It’s more like a character is a tag cloud, or a mind map, made up of their canon (and even fanon) qualities, and all these traits and attributes float in and out of the definition of who they are.
Part of what’s interesting about writing fic is that I can pick a different arrangement of traits for a character whenever I want—and see how that plays out in whatever scenario. As long as its connected to the word cloud, it’s in character.
So Megatron is aggressive and short-tempered and thoughtful (G1), but he’s also meek and dreamy and careful (IDW backstory). In TFP he’s a Jock, and in IDW he’s a Nerd. (Well, in TFP he’s a Jock who writes a lot of Inspiring Literature and becomes best friends with a librarian, so there’s an argument for Jock who is a Secret Nerd there)
There are many different ways to write him, which is really interesting to me. Is war-era IDW Megatron the ‘broken’ version of his earlier self? Can we extrapolate back to a G1 Megatron who was similarly ‘soft’ and not disillusioned? (Maybe yes, maybe no, etc)
There are definitely overarching traits (IMO): I’d describe him as an idealist hemmed in by his own ruthless practicality in most continuities, and he’s consistently strong, stubborn, an unstoppable force.
He’s usually leading some variation on a class/race/caste-motivated rebellion, which is always compelling to me. He’s determined and dedicated, and he loves words. The more I think about this the more interesting things I find in my internal ‘tag cloud’ for Megatron.
And in all continuities he’s an inspiring and charismatic leader who successfully changes his world.
I love having the opportunity to establish why he led the revolution—to play with ‘what if it hadn’t gone wrong’ or ‘what if it didn’t go wrong at all and the autobots are the bad guys’ or ‘how did his original mission get twisted into this and can he get back?’ And then, how isolating is it being at the top of a movement like that? how did that change him? How does violence fit in with who he is? What about all the grandstanding?
He doesn’t trust easily, but he also views fear as something to be bulldozed over, so once he makes the decision to trust he doesn’t hesitate about acting on it, at all.
Also, on the topic of Megatron and fear,
And IDW!Megatron is so extremely enigmatic, that it's easy to have multiple headcanons that all make sense. When is he manipulating? When is he being honest? What parts of the Megatron myth are real? So his character ends up being flexible even while staying ‘in character’.
Anyway, I love Megatron.
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Date: 2019-08-25 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-25 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-25 04:41 pm (UTC)Honestly Aligned Megatron would have been a great scientist if he wasn't prone to putting the ideology before the research.