Transformers die all the time in fiction. But people don't tend to like it when their favorite character is killed off (but they seem to have no problems if the character survives but never appears again not even as a cameo).

(I don't know who produced this)

Now, I personally dislike using fiction characters in stories. I'd rather every Transformers character have a toy whatever happens to them since there's enough toys about now and you're not going to give meaningful characterisation to every character with a toy. There will always be some toy left out.

If I were to write fiction, I'd use as many toys as I could in my stories. Smelting Pool victims - they would be www.tfu.info Faction Index - 1-2-3 Transformers. But in stories set before a unimportant characters death, I would like to use them in backgrounds at least showing that they are alive.

 

I find the Bayverse characters getting automatically killed off extremely offensive.

 

Every character is acceptable to kill off. Noone should be safe. Each and every one should live in constant fear of a sword of damocles perched above them, waiting to inflict catastrophe beyond the wildest dreams of G2-comics Simon Furman.

 

What? Transformers stories featured fictional characters? I thought they were all real!  

*stops drinking gasoline to become a transformer*

 

WOW! What a flowchart... Im sure the one who made this is a COMPUTER PROGRAMMER...

 

Character deaths are a tough balancing act.

Never have any death or near death and characters can seem too safe. Risks just don't seem as big if there isn't something on the line.

But if you go kill crazy then death stops having any impact. One death can be pretty shocking but if you are on death #28 in a story then it's not shocking just routine. The more you kill the more likely you are to have older fans give up on the story because people don't like their favorite characters getting killed and it's hard for new fans to latch on to characters if they are just going to get killed a little while.

Only killing one side or only killing obscure characters is also a tough way to selling death that have any meaning at all.

 

I think the only acceptable loses are Drones and featureless troopers.

 

And the Bay-verse Twins!  

 

Every Decepticon is acceptale to kill off in my opinion (i dont hate them but i rather have the villians die or get Jailed or get any type of punishment, but ntot escape, unless the escape is for comedic reasons or important to the plot Or if the villian(s) redeems himself

 

I'm happy to kill off pretty much anyone, although for more important characters I'd like it to be meaningful or impactful or shocking. If it's just some TF getting their throat cut as a matter of course so another TF can sneak in somewhere then slice a lesser-known instead. I think really it has to be weighed up depending on who and how and why.

Although my first thought when seeing the thread title was 'kill BayFormers Bumblebee'.  

 

Well as a kid in '84 I was under the impression that all you had to do was fix Transformers if they got wrecked. The only true death was dis-assembly or the smelting pool. That's the way Bob Budiansky originally intended. In IDW right now we have Ramjet, Thrust and Dirge dead. WHY?

But if there's gotta be deaths...

From season 1-
Generic seekers
Reflector

season 2-
Protectobots
Cosmos
Seaspray
Aerialbots
Stunticons

season 3-
Sky Lynx
Technobots
Pipes
Hubcap
Outback
Swerve
Tailgate
Broadside

season 4-
all Targetmasters and headmasters including Fort Max and Scorponok

season 5-
every 1988 toy on the market. Every character created from '88 on with the exception of Sunstorm and Slipstream.

 

Part of me wants a version of this chart that starts with "Are you Simon Furman?", where 'yes' points straight to death.  

 

Vehicons drones.

As for actual charecters.

G1 Gears
G1 Huffer
BW Qwickstrike

 

Apparently no one bites the bullet like the big bot himself.. Optimus Prime.

 

kill everyone, it is a bloody WAR

 

Given how many times Prime and Megs, the head honchos, have died, anyone can be snuffed out.

Death with Transformers (and comics in general) is a funny old thing though... what with time travel, alternate realities, floppy disks containing personalities and other amusing get-out clauses, very rarely are they really dead...

There were a few in the old Marvel UK comic, of course. Future Shockwave most definitely died in #147 when Death's Head squashed his brain module... but a few issues later we were "back" to the present day, where Shockwave was in command...

Confused? You will be.

But death and Transformers... forget about it.

 

everyone except, apparently, Optimus Prime.

 

Now I know you didn't make it, so no offense to you, but that chart's a little biased, don't you think?

 

So only OC's and popular G1 characters get to live?

Yep. Sounds like a fan fic.

 

Well, I killed off Mirage...so I guess I'm not normal...*Vangelus Sigh*