#bc a lot of ppl here really seem to struggle with reconciling OP as a good person and OP

[lord-squiggletits]

One of my least favorite parts of how JRO wrote Optimus is that he wanted so badly to continue his dark and gritty world building making the Autobots problematic, but evidently couldn't reconcile this with Optimus being a Heroic Paragon, so instead he leaned way too hard into "oh Prowl was the one who did this and it was behind Optimus' back" which if anything I think makes Optimus look worse, not better. Because then it's like, okay I know Optimus trusted Prowl a lot as his friend but you CANNOT TELL ME that over the course of 4 million years, Optimus as the leader of the Autobot army who literally would have access to 99.9% of all the records they produce, would never notice or question where some of these odd/inconsistent details were pointing. It just seems really inconsistent with how a real military would actually function, especially regarding Optimus' character, who is incredibly thorough and responsible and wouldn't neglect to keep up with all the details of his army.

Hell, Optimus knows who the Wreckers are and had them on call for tricky operations when he needed them (Stormbringer) so he's literally not at all ignorant of/averse to the use of special wartime units composed of dubious individuals. He's the fucking commander of an entire army, of course he knows that War Is Hell (TM) and no one's hands are clean. That's not even getting into all the stuff he got up to in phase 2/3, I mean everything from the annexation of Earth to OP breaking humans out of prison against Council orders shows that Optimus is no stranger to immoral and/or unlawful means.

It also leads to a lot of annoying fanon where people write Optimus (sometimes unintentionally, sometimes not) as like some sort of ignorant fool who's unaware of the machinations of his own army or has some sort of naiveté of "b-but we can't use bad tactics against the enemy! I would never condone the use of morally gray means in war!" No, IDW Optimus knows perfectly well all of the bullshit he's enacted/condoned for the sake of trying to win the war. Some stuff is definitely out of character for him and was only machinated because of Prowl, but I think this fandom REALLY underestimates Optimus' personal agency/responsibility as the commander of a whole ass army and ESPECIALLY underestimates Optimus' capacity to condone morally gray Bullshit Of War while still being a good person individually as well as, comparatively, the lesser evil compared to Megatron/the Decepticons.

Anyways what I'm saying is JRO may be a good writer but he's really hesitant to make Optimus morally gray and does some asspulls sometimes to justify most of the bad things the Autobots did as "Optimus just didn't know," and since the majority of the IDW1 fandom only reads JRO's stuff they go running with this premise of ignorant/uninformed Optimus when there's evidence elsewhere in canon to show that Optimus is, in fact, very highly aware of the bullshit he's allowed "for the greater good" and the only stuff he was "unaware of" was the stuff he would literally never agree to the ethics of, like bombing innocent neutrals disguised as Decepticons to get them to join the Autobots.

#squiggposting #idw op love #i feel like part of the issue is that for a franchise whose entire premise is war #i feel like a lot of this fanbase. hasnt actually read a lot about war (fictional or nonfictional) #bc a lot of ppl here really seem to struggle with reconciling OP as a good person and OP #as a war leader who had bad things happen under his rule #and bc they dont know much about war in fiction or IRL they treat this as like. one extreme or the other? #when like if ur someone whos read a lot of war literature it's very easy to comprehend both of these as being true #like idk i think the 'OP was ignorant' defense isnt even how being a commander works #but it's also a cop out to make OP less interesting/morally gray than he could be #like idk how to explain that war is an inherently corrupt/immoral institution where in pretty much all of history #the act of waging war in itself is a moral compromise. war is literally about killing more of the other side than they do you #you are treating human life (and society and gov and the environment) as tools for victory #no matter how righteous your cause is or if you follow rules of engagement you literally are going to do bad things #so like this idea the fanbase seems to have where they like. want OP to be sheltered/ignorant of these realities #is SO not how reality works and wouldnt ever be in character for like 99% of optimi #i'm still trying to pull together my thoughts on this sorry the tags are so incoherent