What are your thoughts on Sentinel Prime TFA?
I would say just look at my blog but like, serious answer? He’s a wonderful narrative foil for Optimus who I feel often gets left out of many fandom discussions on TFA despite how genuinely important he is to its overall story and Optimus as a character. He is very much a showcase of who Optimus could become if he let himself become obsessed with the rules and glory instead of relying on his team and trusting his instincts, even if they contrast what the laws and rules say.
But outside of Optimus? Sentinel on his own is character who’s kind of ignored by narrative when it comes to his traumas and issues. Like Optimus, he lost a friend on Archa 7, possibly more if you interpreted the way he and Elita-One acted towards each other as them being a couple. Optimus trying to save Sentinel and himself after Elita’s signal went offline broke their friendship and caused Sentinel to push away possibly the only mech who could understand what he was feeling.
Optimus’ choice to take the fall, possibly to save Sentinel from not only losing a friend but also his shot at a dream both of them shared prevented Sentinel from growing past the incident and instead let him shove it deep down. His issues with organics are a trauma response that often gets played for a laugh (though interestingly it’s shown that despite his fear and disgust he actually handles humans and organics better than the average cybertronian) and despite the focus we get on Optimus’ response to spiders in Along Came A Spider, we never quite see that same sympathy aimed at Sentinel. Hell, the most we get is his upset during Predacons Rising where he’s shown walking off after BlackArachnia and Waspinator transwarp away after only now finding out that not only did BA live, but she has completely changed from the bot he once knew.
Even so, despite Optimus keeping this secret, they do still reconcile fully about Archa-7 at the end of the episode, shifting the conflicts in their relationship to being more about about their competing rank stuff and their own senses of how things should be handled (See the concepts for them fighting over the rank of Magnus in the scrapped season 4)
Sentinel is at heart, not a bad guy. He’s a blowhard who sticks too close to the rules when maybe he should be bending them actually to help, and he’s definitely an ass, but he still cares. One thing I find most heinous about fandom interpretations of his and Optimus’ relationship in canon is that they hate each other or that their relationship is abusive when if anything it’s far from the truth. They are two people who share a complex background that they both clearly are still hurting over and while they do still care for each other, they can’t go back to the way they were back in the academy despite what they try. If Optimus didn’t care about Sentinel, he could have easily let Sentinel humiliate himself several times over. If Sentinel didn’t care about Optimus he could have called Jazz during Headmaster Returns and wouldn’t have forgiven or soothed him a bit during their respective talks during Predacons Rising.
Sentinel Prime is a flawed character, but he’s still important and still trying to do what’s right. He can be an asshole, but he’s also a bot who’s dealing with his own shit too. I think he’s an incredibly important part of TFA as a whole and the show wouldn’t be the same without him tbh. Not even just because he’s pookie, but because he plays such an integral role. I think he gets a bad rep because he’s the guy being mean to other people’s favs, but he’s so interesting and good that I always have to insist people give him another look just so they can see him for more than just the egotistical outside.