1, 2, 8 for Zeta?
1. Canon I outright reject
There's so little canon for Zeta that if I start rejecting things I'm left with nothing lmao. But I must say, I hate his dirty grey and gold color scheme he has in Autocracy and Spotlight Orion Pax. It looks hideous. The white, teal and yellow one Burchman gives him is wonderful and for me that's how he looks like and that's the color scheme I ask for in every commission.
2. A canon or headcanon hill I will die on
I really don't think they kept empurating people under Zeta, and I'm sure he got rid of whatever law was in place that forbid people to get hands and faces back (people having the resources to do so is another thing altogether). It would be such a stupid thing to do otherwise, empurata is about making a very public, very cruel statement and early Zeta Prime was all about pretending to be different from the old Senate. Keeping that practice is just not worth is and banning it would look good. Zeta got rid of official functionism, keeping empurata would just not make sense.
8. Unpopular opinion about them
I mean, it's hard to say given that no one else talks about him. Half the people I have talked to straight up forgot who Zeta is and the people who remember him don't like him because he's not a character that you're supposed to like.
I suppose finding him compelling at all is an unpopular opinion, and even then I don't blame people for not caring. Autocracy, which was the introduction to the character and was supposed to establish everything about this time period, presents him as very one note and his realtionship to Orion in it makes no sense (but that goes for all of Autocracy).
However I do think that Barber does with him in the short time he could spare for it is interesting. While Zeta's is not very deep as a character in and of itself I think he is massively important for history and to understand Optimus, especially if you want to make some sense of his wildy varied portrayals, especially Autocracy (which again, makes no sense), which is the entire purpose of Zeta's character in the New Cybertron flashbacks.
Zeta is why Orion stayed an enforcer after the previous Prime wanted him dead, Zeta is from whom Optimus learned the power of symbols, Zeta is who taught Orion how to objectify himself, Zeta is why Optimus went from wanting someone else to take the reins to his neutoric need to be in control, following Zeta is what quickstarted Optimus vicious cycle of guilt and responsibility. He is the most important character that barely shows up.
