a needlessly long pharma meta re: functionism and his ambition
bringing up pharma’s marginalization in what i’d just reblogged made me really want to elaborate in a formal post, because he’s my favorite across the entire franchise and i genuinely believe that this is a core aspect of his character
under the page break i talk about functionalism and how i think it’s all really really important to my analysis of why this guy is the way he is. i also talk about ratchma ig but this analysis doesn’t require ratchma being a romantic engagement to make its point
SPOILER WARNINGS for mtmte 4-5, 17-21, and lost light 23 ahead
to start establishing their history: james roberts has heavily implied (mostly in his recent qna) that pharma and ratchet are of similar ages... or at the very least, old enough to have been studying at the same level together. neither have official ages, but we can assume (through mtmte 9-11) that they were alive and working during the height of cybertron’s functionist state during nominus prime’s reign
functionist cybertron would’ve been (to no one’s surprise) really loath to allow someone like pharma (a jet) not only in the medical field, but in the scholarly position as he was. pharma’s a surgeon, but he’s also an epidemiologist who conducts medical research. this wouldn’t have been viewed as “jet work” at the time, so he would’ve had to acquire an alt-mode exemption on the basis that his hands were forged for medicine. if it weren’t for his forged status (and specifically his hands), he would not be able to pursue any of this
this makes ratchet pharma’s superior not just in autobot rank (and arguably medical expertise), but because pharma is marginalized by his status as a jet. pharma was doubly hardworking while they studied together; he would work instead of party and work more instead of relax. ratchet, as an ambulance, had his status fairly guaranteed so long as he could do a decent job. pharma was subject to having to constantly prove his capability, because despite his license and his hands, he was still obviously working outside of his alt mode
(because of his compliance with the system, it’s fun to note he also professes a lot of internalized functionism… and he’s often given incentive to stick with that! tyrest only saves his life because he’s forged. he only has his job because he’s forged. of course he’s going to display some functionist attitudes about medic hands himself — that’s the reality he’s forced himself to accept in order to succeed)
i do totally believe pharma could’ve been an ambitious and egotistical loser regardless of functionism, but i don’t think that should be the takeaway here. mtmte is super political and has a lot of things to say about how functionism and the war both impact the characters. there’s not much reason to separate character from setting context, because that’s not how good writing (esp. political writing) works
that said, pharma is established as an ambitious control-freak who undergoes wildly risky medical procedures to show off (re: first aid in mtmte 4) and has made great strides in medical research (most notably discovering a cause of, and later curing, cybercrosis, in mtmte 17-21). first aid says it himself: despite pharma’s cold attitude, he’s an incredible doctor
and yet, every noteworthy accomplishment of his we know of (minus saving minimus’s life after overlord’s attack on the lost light) is in some way perfected by ratchet, not by pharma himself. ratchet is the one who properly develops pharma’s cure for cybercrosis from pharma’s notes, ratchet is the one who administers the vaccine for red rust, ratchet is the one who had once been the senate’s and zeta prime’s cmo, ratchet is the cmo and the one chosen for prowl’s earth mission. (it’s also worth mentioning that when pharma/adaptus speaks in lost light issue 23, he refers to “the best medics in the galaxy”… then says “not even my beloved ratchet”, implying that pharma himself believes ratchet to be superior to all other medics in the galaxy. james roberts loosely confirms that he is at least one of the best when asked if megatron ever surpassed him in an interview)
consistently, ratchet is shown not just to be pharma’s current competition, but to be the competition. he’s the autobot medical professional, and someone pharma believes to represent the best of their field. here’s my secret main point this entire post is getting at: pharma’s obsession with ratchet can be better credited to functionism than it can be to his romantic crush
pharma, as someone who already has something to prove because of his alt mode situation under functionism, has his work cut out for him when it comes to competing with ratchet. ratchet isn’t just his companion, ratchet is his goalpost. ratchet represents a person unburdened by functionalism and respected by the leaders of cybertron and the autobot faction.
these are traits that pharma’s tantalized by, because for all he tries, pharma is not ratchet. ratchet is more impersonal, with higher highs and lower downs. they have a lot of opposites going on; ratchet is an alcoholic while pharma is a teetotaler. ratchet does on-the-field emergency medicine, pharma likes his labs. ratchet will remain important to pharma’s ultimate goal of proving himself until pharma becomes like him; pharma will never be like him
so regardless of how he may feel romantically or platonically toward ratchet, pharma has more than enough reason to deeply care about his opinions and responses to things. when ratchet ignores pharma’s reasoning in mtmte 5, pharma isn’t being rejected just by his old friend — he’s being dismissed by the entire autobot medical complex (and perhaps even in his mind, the only medical institution that really matters). because pharma has such a desperate attachment to this field, ratchet’s rejection hits because it creates a rift not just between them, but between pharma and his life’s work
pharma’s decisionmaking in mtmte 4-5 was swayed massively by his mania (i take this word choice to be implying he has bipolar, which totally makes sense as messatine was manufactured to be stressful to him). it was swayed even moreso during the tyrest arc, where the whole “ratchet is a head on a life cord” thing comes from
despite what a lot of pharma takes assume, i strongly believe no part of the tyrest arc — not pharma’s torturing him, not ambulon’s death, not the competition — is meant to “win ratchet over”. pharma knows so deeply that ratchet is better than him, that it’s one of the few things he communicates through adaptus in lost light
it’s my interpretation that pharma’s instead trying to get a reaction out of him — more specifically, pharma wants ratchet to acknowledge him specifically, outside of his involvement with any of ratchet’s friends or coworkers he seems to care more about. to him, ratchet seemed to care more about dead patients and first aid and ambulon and everyone else way more than pharma himself over the course of 4-5… and regardless of how justified ratchet was, pharma needs to be recognized by ratchet
this is an excruciatingly long essay that could probably just be summarized as “i don’t like the yandere pharma image and i read a lot of james roberts’ twitter posts”, and i have a lot of thoughts on pharma beyond just these points, but to avoid getting too off-topic, that’s largely the way i interpret his relationship with functionism, and i’m a little bummed i don’t often see pharma meta bringing this up too much