TL;DR
S2a undermines the concept of redemption so badly it makes me want to cry.
Megatron changing for the better is interesting because it’s complicated. He used to be a warlord, a tyrant, people suffered directly as a consequence of his actions. Unfortunately ES fails to show us these consequences. The closes we have are Starscreams words and that is far from showing us anything.
There are no flashbacks, no actual conversations. Nothing but the present and most of it is from childrens perspective.
This lack of nuance is frustrating. For all we know Megatron might’ve acted exactly the same, but changed factions therefore he is a good guy know.
And this “autobots = good, decepticons = bad” morality is so on the nose in s2a it’s actually kind of pathetic.
The new season needed a villain, and all the hatred for cybertronians apparently evaporated (everybody else just had a change of heart ig and the only 2 people who actually disliked them are dead) and the cons were “always” bad so it doesn’t matter.
It allows the writers not to think about Megatron and problems accompanying his redemption because his victims are terrible so… it’s all fine, don’t worry 👍.
Perhaps it isn’t this way and I majorly misinterpreted the show.
The existence of the chaos terrans really makes me doubt it tho. It also makes me incredibly mad.
Aftermath literally comes into existence, has no idea what’s going on, who is everyone and they’re all fighting. So he does too. And immediately gets called terrible, basically the evil version of the terrans.
WHAT KIND OF MESSAGES IS THAT?
That because you aren’t from a perfect family you’re evil? That is what I got out of it.
Terrans = whole Emberstone = good
Chaos terrans = broken Emberstone = bad
For a show about acceptance and empathy that is a terrible plot point 😀
The episode with Aftermath and Jawbreaker (was extremely boring imo but that’s not important) gives you the impression they’re going to further develop Aftermath. Have him questioning orders and thinking about his choices. But no, he STOLE the entire water from a cave in one tank (how did he even manage???)
Spitfire is an even worse example.
On her first day alive, she gets told that if she wins a race she gets to go on an autobot mission.
She wins, by endangering Alex, and they tell her she won’t get the reword. It’s all understandable but the writers clearly don’t know anything about raising children or children in general.
Yes Spitfire did a bad thing and has to be taught that her behaviour was bad. No they cannot be mad at her for not immediately understanding and agreeing with them. That’s why children (especially toddlers) are infuriating. They don’t know better so you have to teach them, but they will find a loophole to help them get what they want (obviously depends on a child but we are rolling with Spitfires personality). Now depending on what they’ve done to get to it you either reward them or punish them. Because they don’t necessarily understand what they did wrong, even if it’s obvious to you, it can be hard to explain in a way that satisfies a child.
Spitfire lashing out and attacking Twitch is common for kids who believe that someone got something they deserved. It’s especially common if a kid has problems with aggression.
That could’ve been an interesting character development and a good message. Sometimes children won’t be easy to deal with (as all the terrans are, sure they can make bad decisions but ultimately they don’t cause much problems), sometimes they have unpleasant personalities or behavioural problems but it doesn’t make them evil. Being there and loving a child isn’t enough to raise them, discipline is needed and so is patience.
But no.
Aftermath and Spitfire are chaos terrans so they are evil by proxy. Too bad lol.
Twitch and Thrash needed to learn everything. So did Nightshade, Hashtag and Jawbreaker. There was a great deal about self discovery.
Aftermath and Spitfire already have alt modes (at least Spitfire I don’t actually remember Aftermath) and they are just terrible, no good people.
Case closed, problem solved.
Oh. And then they died so…
Unlucky 🤷♀️
Redemption in media, especially kids media is important. It sends a message that you can in fact mess up in life, make a couple (hundreds) of mistakes and still come out on top.
But redemption is earned, and it can be (and often is) hard to changed for the better (as opposed to changing for worse).
You shouldn’t change for those you have hurt but so it won’t happen again, so you won’t hurt others again.
Some will come back, some will not.
It IS important that you try nonetheless.
Because no matter what explaining isn’t excusing and no one is born evil.
This show is so FRUSTRATING to me because I cared, and still do obviously (I wrote two versions of this but accidentally deleted the first one so had to write one again).
I really hope S2b will be back on track about acceptance and redemption.
I think Starscream deserved better but sincerely hope they (autobots) will get a hold of him, and him and Megatron will actually talk.
At least let Starscream have his father-daughter relationship with Hashtag, please 🙏.
