Well, actually no. He didn't. He said he isn't a child. Which is correct. But as I pointed out, the idea of adulthood and childhood are not discrete concepts for Cybertronians... they don't really apply. We already know Tailgate isn't literally a child.

Sorry bud. I think you're the one pushing too hard. Metaphors are messy and don't always add up 100%. That's kind of what makes them metaphors. But there is no way you can (credibly) argue that Tailgate is not coded as a child, and meant to evoke childlike qualities of vulnerability and innocence in this series. That would require a triple backflip of suspension of disbelief. And those traits, as presented, make him a child analog. Which is different than a literal child, naturally... but still something that carries connotations for the reader.

The subtext is there. It would be absurd not to comment on it. For a while it created some legitimate tension in the readership, because it was unclear where Roberts was going with it... but that's a bit more understood now. But you seem to be proposing a muzzle order for things you don't like. Sorry, that's not your call.

Uh... that is exactly the narrative subtext of the story. Tailgate's naivete is directly associated with his child-analog status... (and literally his age/experience). Getaway's rhetorics are meant to sound alarm bells, because these are the familiar warning signs and phrasings we've had drilled into us since our own childhood.

First, I think you're acting as if you don't understand how subtext and metaphor work. Secondly, it's all there in the writing. Your denying it doesn't make it not so. People are not reading against the grain with this... we're not a bunch of sickos trying to pollute everything with our deranged fantasies. We recognized these elements because they were already sown into the text.

I don't Twitter. But I'll bring it up with him at the next Con we both attend, for sure... I missed his last two TFcon appearances, which I deeply regret. But it does justify a discussion that's more complex than 100 characters in the open-air snakepit of the internet public. I think that his wording in his previous twitter responses to this question has been deliberate and carefully chosen, and for good reason.

But even beyond that, this is one of those things where authorial WOG is sort of irrelevant. You can't make a character into an EXPLICIT child-analog, and then say that you didn't. In simplistic terms, it would be like Abrams or Lucas claiming that the Empire in Star Wars aren't analogously coded as Nazis, or CS Lewis trying to claim that Aslan isn't Jesus. At best, Roberts could claim that all those contextual clues were entirely accidental/unconscious... which wouldn't actually reflect very well on his self-awareness, and I wouldn't buy it anyway... but the strong subtext would still be there.

Ok, there's the Cevel I remember... willing to use ANY offense, any cause as a lever, any desperate, sympathy-raking attempt, any hastily-assembled moral high ground to silence someone who disagrees with him, on matters trivial or otherwise. But I'll leave that there, so we can swerve back onto a civil track.

Firstly, the pederasty subtext should be mentioned because it's there. I don't do triggers, sorry. You don't address or talk about issues by hiding them away from society.

Secondly, if there is a trigger-point here... it's already in the text itself.

Lastly, it's not 'fanon'... though I agree that some people do seem to deliberately ignore the complexities of the discussion just so they can dump another stigma on the series. If someone here said that Cyclonus is a pedophile because Tailgate is a child, I would have disagreed with them... for the same reasons, and probably wrote almost exactly the same response... because it is a gross simplification of the issue.

In this case, NotRamjet's comment slipped past me... but I saw your comment, and I think that you didn't seem to be making distinctions between metaphorical intent / archtypal analogs, and actual diegetic in-text realities. I think that the difference is significant and important, and we should be attentive to it. In that way, my response is directed to both you and NotRamjet... and to the topic in general.

I didn't even think that I was being contentious. As I said, you were partially right, and I just wanted to make the point that Tailgate is still a literary analog to a child... in absolutely un-ambiguous terms.

Likewise, Whirl is analogous (in a more cartoonish way) to a bratty kid... but we don't treat him like a kid in every context. Like I said... it's a multivalent, shifting analogy. The best analogies are because they permit some play and flexibility.

Disagree if you want. I think you're denying something that is patently clear... but whatever floats your boat. You think I'm tilting at windmills... okay, fine. But don't try to shut me down, don't make yourself into a harried victim, and don't try to make me into some kind of villain here.

zmog

 

Not at all from the stimulating discourse we're having. I just didn't want us to get in trouble by the mods for derailing the thread or anything.

I love that about IDW. Especially adding the already-established colony worlds like Velocitron and Junkion.

Yeah, it doesn't make much sense. Though for the record, I'm on the other side of the fence on the solution to that - I'd rather give TFs functionality for their sexual characteristic kibble, or at least the kibble that are present. But I can definitely agree that it's just not handled properly at all.

I know, right? I saw nothing wrong with RoTF Devastator's testicles, but from what many other fans said about it, it seemed like that was the worst thing that happened to the character. But, it made perfect sense to me. Definitely a double standard going on, and that one instance made it perfectly clear.

It wass a facetious point, yes. But like I said afterward, I was assuming that you didn't mean to go into detail that's as minute as that, so that was just meant to be a random note at best.

If I wasn't so convinced already that you're a pretty cool person, I might've took that as an insult. =( I can tell you that my own preference for Cybertronian sexual reproduction and anatomy does not stem from that at all. Despite my life-long identification as a cishet male, I personally wasn't obsessed with sex as a teen, nor do I wish to project my sexual feelings onto my preferences for giant robots.

I can't speak for anyone else though, and I hope I'm not an exception, but I definitely recognize the issue as more than such a selfish lust applied to children's toys.

Oh no, I don't think you're exaggerating. And I do recognize that as an issue. But I think that there are better solutions out there, especially when it comes to the moral analogy of this subject. Is it better to take sexually-stimulating fiction away from people, or is it better to teach them to better understand sexuality? If the former method is used, they'll still be as perverse and disrespectful as before, but just won't have access to it. But if the latter method is used, they'll start developing a different view on the subjects of their lust, and would start seeing them as more than a pair of boobs soldered onto a bot's front chassis.

At least, the latter seems like a better approach to me. But I'm curious to know what you think. By the way, that analogy was based originally on the 'give a child a fish/teach the child to fish' parable.

IMHO, that is a very interesting way of looking at it.

True! It was pretty innovative how they handled Cybertronian relationships.

Hahaha =p I would've loved to see it.

I'll agree that it's not the answer. No, I support it purely from personal preference, but I'll be the first to admit that the alien robots depicted in the Transformers franchise needn't be sexual at all. And honestly? Even if they were, I don't think they necessarily need to look like humans with metal bits slapped onto them. Hell, they'd still be robots, and that would still be just another modular function they could swap out when needed. =p

 

That's an RID issue and besides most fans don't care about the human characters to begin with.

 

Yes, thanks. What a relief.  

Yay! Engaged, respectful discussion! We can disagree without it making one of us into a horrible person, right?  

Yeah, the nature of Cyclonus' relationship/attraction (to use that term loosely) to Tailgate is still ambiguous. And in a sense, it can only be ambiguous since the boundaries that we usually set between different types of friendship are not clearly drawn with Cybertronians. I thought I kind of put that out there when I said:

For many people around here, even the notion of romantic love is an abstract once it's divorced from a physical/sexual relationship... which usually stems from their age or life experiences. I think that those with longtime partners can typically understand that a bit better. As in that case, in this case too, the absence of sexuality makes the entire situation unstable. Sexual contact is usually where humans draw the line between many different kinds of relationship.

I think that friendship/mentorship/guardianship is the stronger factor in the Cyke/TG equation... more than... co-dependence? But even with the conversation with Whirl, there is a vagueness that permits different interpretations... and of course obstructs absolute declarations too.

And for those inclined to see romance everywhere in IDW, I suppose the question is what separates Cyke/TG from those other pairings? Is it the lack of clear co-dependency? Is it the sense that they are not psychological equals? There again, the presence of a power imbalance (and let's be clear, a relative difference in intellectual "maturity") steps in and automatically suggests certain boundaries for us... because it implies an inequal relationship... one that we tend to associate with adult/child bonds. The whole reason we tend to feel uncomfortable about a Tailgate/Cyclonus romance is exactly because we can't help thinking of Tailgate in child-like terms... because that is how he has been portrayed... even if we know we're also dealing with asexual robots.

Also, up till now, it's been a mostly exclusive bond, and the tension (especially with Cyclonus' brooding and his conversation with Whirl) seems to hinge on this...the sense that Cyclonus was both worried about Tailgate, but also worried that their bond wouldn't be "special" anymore. It's hard not to draw analogies to romantic bonds there... but it's still not definitive either. And maybe it doesn't have to be definitive, because we know (and have been reminded) that Cybertonian ≠ Human.

I think that what Cevel said was true... it would be very awkward for Roberts to unequivocally declare their relationship to be romantic in nature, for all the above reasons. I think that it's enough to simply say that TF relationships aren't completely definable in human terms... and leave it where it is.... an extremely strong friendship and sense of mutual obligation and concern.

On a side note...
I don't recall... has it been established that regular Cybertronians have the Amica Endura bond?

I only remember it coming up in the context of Caminus... not sure if it's ever been applied to non-Camiens.

zmog

 

Yeah, that feels like a dangerous rabbit hole to me, but also doing that removes some of what makes TFs special as a fictional species... the fact that (in spite of their similarities) they are a machine-based people with very different culture that recalls our understanding of mechanical industrial objects. It feels like bringing them closer to generic, "human" psychologies and biologies would be losing something that makes them a bit more unique. That's me though.

Well, it was sort of a tawdry scatalogical joke... but yeah, not world-breaking. Additionally, we can really just chalk it up to unfortunately-placed vehicle kibble. After all, it wasn't an actual scrotum hanging there for no reason. It is still functional vehicle kibble. It's a stretch... but sure.  

Haha! Sorry! You're probably noticing now that I can't miss an opportunity to go into detail.  

Not intended as an insult, nor was it directed at you. But I DO think that a big part of the attachment to sexualized Transformers comes from that (fairly normal) childhood experience... that of reconciling your awkward developing sexual understanding by projecting it onto the images and fictions around you... which is why we do get people with sexual fixations on cartoon characters. I mean, a casual stroll through Deviantart will sort of bear that out.  

No... it seems like you see it as a fairly easy narrative shortcut to sort out the long-time gender crisis in Transformers. I get that. I also get that we "cishet" males are still wired to generally see images of something with pronounced feminine traits and say "I like that!"... again, pretty normal.

While I'm fine with that impulse, I guess what I was saying is that such impulses don't have to be catered to all the time, or in the "serious" versions of our fictions. By the same token, just because people like to see sexy-bikini armour in their MMORPG, doesn't mean that all female armours in MMORPGs should be bikini armours... because that sort of denigrates the larger worldbuilding for the sake of some cheap thrills.  

Again, not aiming that at you. It's a more generalized discussion...

In this specific case (Transformers and gender) I think that they can achieve the same end. It can help us think more about and understand sexual identities better, by removing sexually-stimulating (and often inequal) content from this particular fiction (which, as I've said, is a fiction where it's already awkward and not totally intuitive).

Heh... maybe. But I'm not sure that's necessarily born out by our history re: comics, video games, etc...  

Well, we're halfways on the same page, anyway. I'm a fan of keeping the human-identification aspect of Transformers... a bit unstable.  

zmog

 

You've phrased this very awkwardly. There is no metaphor here. CD + RW identify as male. Hence, they're male. Whether they have a concept of gay has not been touched upon, but by our definition, they are. Gender ID is a thing and not a metaphor for a thing. Biological sex is the question mark in the fiction.

As for Tailgate, I know many people with childlike qualities who I would consider vulnerable or impressionable. They're not actually children. They're adults and can take responsibility for their actions. Just as Whirl is emotionally a young rebellious girl (but over 4 million years old) and Megatron feels like an old fragile man (but is younger than Cyclonus and Rung who both have fresher looking avatars), so is Tailgate an adult with limited life knowledge, working his way through mental maturity, but not a child nor a metaphor for one. He's a metaphor for inexperience. There's a huge difference.

 

Okay, seriously? Real talk, there's a time and a place to talk about sensitive issues like the abuse of minors, and I really, REALLY doubt that doing so in a wishy-washy "he is kind of a kid but not really but he has these qualities but those qualities don't actually make him a kid" way is really the way to start approaching them. By making it so indistinct it actually makes an attempt to make any sort of point in the narrative lose ground. If he's not actually a child in the Cybertronian sense, then what does that matter for the events in-universe? And if it's meant to be part of a message or greater lesson metatextually for the reader, the only positive point of making such a thing ambiguous is just the most inconsequential add-on of alien traits for the sake of having an alien trait.

While I'm all for adding alien traits to what should be an alien fictional race, when worldbuilding is done off-handedly like this with delicate subject matter and results in mostly confusion and/or disgust, I don't think it'd be a wise decision to go through with it. I mean, what is the over-all positive point to this "Tailgate is a child-analog" thing metatextually besides basic and sloppy worldbuilding? It's supposed to make people think...about what? That like the deal with Getaway demonstrates, child predators are bad? That's kind of a no brainer, and since Tailgate is not actually a child in any way that seemingly counts in-universe, doesn't that kinda soften the point to mush? Why not just have Getaway be a predator without the pederast subtext if the result would be the same? Is tackling pederast themes in a Transformers comic, under a heavy layer of subtext (that is also contradicted several times) and well-not-really-but-it's-close-kindas the best way to make any sort of statement?

What is this deep, subtextual meaning behind this decision supposed to be? If Tailgate is not a child in any way that really counts maturity or consent-wise regarding entering into a relationship, what's the point?

As far as triggering goes, what you seem to be taking as some sort of carefully-plotted malicious tactic to make you look bad is actually nothing more than not wanting to see people I know and love having to be poked at about this repeatedly whenever the relationship between Tailgate and other characters pops up. You and I may not have been put through some of the things they have, but I for one don't enjoy continually bringing up and dangling things like this in their face when in reality the canon is ambiguous and subtextual at best. Roberts has only come out to say that Tailgate has a handful of what some would consider child-like qualities, but he is an adult. He hasn't come out and said "I wanted to write a plot with a child-analog being creepily manipulated".

It's easy to say "well no one should hide from difficult stuff like this" when you're on the outside looking in, but I do know from some other things I have experienced and have had trigger me into panic attacks that it's better to deal with these things on your own terms rather than have them continually and unexpectedly shoved in your face by others, especially in an effort to make someone feel bad for liking a pairing or something.

Personally I think this whole deal is just a bunch of individual pieces of the narrative piling on one another in a way that could suggest more than is actually intended. Why is Tailgate's avatar a toddler? It was just a jokey thing added in as a sort of preview to how little life Tailgate would turn out to have actually experienced. Why does Tailgate have some traits that could be considered "child-like"? Because he's a character that was intended to be a relative newcomer and audience stand-in to explain backstory to, as has been mentioned in interviews several times, and naivete and innocence goes hand-in-hand with accomplishing that.

And really, would it be so impossible to think that kind of thing is what actually happened? I mean, there has been well-written and intellectual stuff in MTMTE...mostly in the first "season". But with this season and stuff like the personality ticks and the shallow and disappointingly human high-schoolishness of #41 and #42? Or the sitcom-y and clumsy metatextual humour of Swerth? The continued fumbling of anti-climaxes? Or the increasing humanization of the characters in general? I don't think everything Roberts writes has some deep, hidden, intellectual meaning...especially lately. I wouldn't put it past him to write Tailgate as a sweet innocent who's still very much in his mind an adult and not think too much about the consequences of his avatar and such, or at least I could see him not bothering to dwell on it even after it's been brought up to him.

What a few people are taking as some sort of weird subtextal pederast theme thing I'm just taking as Roberts writing a naive and innocent adult. I don't really think there's a black and white innocent child vs. mature adult dichotomy. There are plenty of adults in reality that are naive. I take issue with the insistence of the idea that at some point Roberts took it upon himself to intentionally and bizarrely insert underage abuse subtext with a character who's not considered a child in-universe.

EDIT: Dammit, Mort, you said it better than I could. Thank you.

 

I dunno about you guys, but I think I liked the Cyclonus/Tailgate relationship better when it was basically two guys who were both old as shit and awkwardly bonded because they had no one else, and I really could have done without the romantic implications.

 

Biological sex has become a question mark again, though for a while it wasn't.

I don't feel that I've phrased that awkwardly, so much as the fiction itself is awkward around that subject unavoidably. My point is that "TFs that identify as male" aren't "really" male, because conceptually they don't actually have a cultural frame of reference from which to even begin to construct that gender identity (as we identify it).

At least as far as has been demonstrated, though IDW has been hinting at a major retcon for some time now, which I suspect they are still dancing around because not everybody is completely on-message yet. We'll see.

Adding to the awkwardness is the question of language, since we are operating through the ol' "Tardis Filter" as Roberts likes to call it. What is the context for the pronoun/gender discussion? When TFs refer to themselves as "male" are they actually articulating the Cybertronian term for "standard, majority, normative identifier" and "female" as "other"? Or even as some kind of intergalactic loanword?

Even more so, self-definition depends on differentiation... on boundaries. Discontinuities actually define forms and concepts, otherwise you are just dealing with a sea of undifferentiation. For Cybertronians to define themselves as "male" for 10 million years, with no memory of having binary gender seems sort of absurd, since the whole construct of male/female as gender identities is socially constructed on the foundation of a binary biological designation. You don't slot yourself into a binary when there is no corresponding alternate.

Also, on Earth, where gender identities have grown out of ever-present biological determinations, these identities are still themselves entirely contingent on their cultural context. To be male in one culture and era means something rather different than in another. In short, the common male/female conception of gendered identity is completely an Earth-contingency.

In other words, how can a character "feel" like they are female if they have no corresonding history or culture that defines what "female" even means (or what is not female, for that matter)? Gender identities (unlike sex or sexual orientation) are not inherent or innate. They are historically contingent on culturally ingrained and developed norms (even if they then depart from those norms).

We generally all acknowledge that gender identities are cultural constructs... which raises the question of how we can apply them to species so very far removed from that culture, and from those historical/biological set of circumstances?

Okay, so the shortcut answer there is easy... because comics.
Comics... literature... these are systems of symbols themselves. But I think the idea can still be unpacked.

Of course, the awkwardness persists because of the almost ridiculous lack of worldbuilding and backstory pertaining to even what would be called "casual" knowledge of Cybertronian culture and origins. The gender "question" initiated waaaay back in Spotlight:Arcee (where, for what it's worth, it was muddily implied in its faux-intellectual sort of way, that biologica/social gender are interchangeable) and still today, something as fundamental as this remains completely, sometimes even brazenly, unexplored. So I think that part of the issue is that 11 years in, IDW still hasn't sorted their shit out. They're still not making sense on a surprisingly basic question.

And of course, gender identity is very much one of the big questions, the big social shifts, of our current cultural moment. So these questions are already in the air. These definitions and conceptual understandings (while having been bounced around for decades in academia) are just now becoming a widespread object of interest in mainstream culture. Which is a good thing... but that doesn't mean that we shut ourselves off entirely from the complicated questions.

Actually, there's barely a difference at all. Tailgate is not a "metaphor for inexperience"... he is literally, explicitly inexperienced. There's nothing "meta" about it.

To say nothing of the fact that inexperience is itself a semiotic token for childhood... when someone is immature, naive or over their head, we often refer to them as being "like a child" or "a babe in the woods". The concepts are linked. In this particular case, it's not even 'inexperience' in the sense of being new to a job, or never having flown a plane... instead, it is revealed that Tailgate was literally online for only 2 weeks before joining the Lost Light. Immaturity and inexperience due to having only recently been "born" is inextricable from associations with childhood.

And how is that inexperience communicated with textual clues and codes? By making him look and behave immaturely like a child. By having him have to "go to school" with Magnus. By highlighting his frequent emotional outbursts, complete with a spout of "tears" coming out of his face. By making his avatar express his identity directly through child icons. By casting Cyclonus into the role of Victorian governess. By giving him a freakin' skateboard that he rides around the halls like a hyperactive kid.

Everything about him is filtered through our associations with childhood. You say he's not a metaphorical child, but the arguments you use to support this only point to the literal fact of his not being a child.

Which again, is the whole point of him being a metaphorical child... because in real life, we aren't symbols. We just are what we are. But literary constructs do have extradiegetic valences that construct meaning through our associations... and Roberts has done just about everything short of giving him short pants and a giant lollipop to drive home the childlike touchstone of this character.

Now, to be clear, saying that Tailgate is a child analog does NOT make Cyclonus a pedophile. I'm not saying that. I don't even think he's a pedophile analog.

There was definitely a metatexual tension recently, because the story portrayed Cyclonus with similar social cues that you would use for a jilted/jealous suitor, and coloured Getaway in the very dark tones of a child abuser. People weren't imagining things. These were in the text. It was written that way to achieve certain effects. However, invoking those associations doesn't mean that those things are diegetic truths about the characters.

Ergo, Cyclonus can't be a pedophile because A) transformers aren't sexualy attracted to things, B) because TFs don't have totally analogous relationships to ours, and C) because Tailgate isn't technically a child.

But that doesn't mean that those metaphorical aspects of the characters are irrelevant to the story, or don't tell us something about them or how to feel in some situations.

In the case of Megatron and Rung/Cyclonus, and their avatars... let's clear something up. Megatron's avatar shows him as "old" because psychologically and metaphorically he IS an "old man". He feels weak and fragile, and carries the weighty burden of his years... his experiences... his crimes, his defeats, his concessions... have made him "old". So, right now Megatron is a symbolic old man and his avatar reflects that. It has nothing to do with his actual physical age... it has to do with what the story is trying to tell us about him.

Rung is not supposed to symbolize old age or obsolescence... in fact all the textual references to him being a historical constant, or in surprisingly good physical condition, all point instead to his unchanging status... an apparent agelessness (that may still be potentially meaningful, since there is some implied mystery around Rung).

Ditto Cyclonus. His character arc and narrative value right now is not defined by his being an "old man". Instead his story is about him being a traditionalist with archaic values and a stern, repressed teacher-guardian figure (for a corresponding childlike figure no less)... so he gets a Victorian governess... a far more specific signifier, that connotes less "old age" than it does being "old fashioned".

In each case, these (rather blatant) cues tell us something about the characters and how we should think about them as story elements. It's no different than with Tailgate, and his "childlike" role and persona.

zmog

 

These people who you know who have childlike qualities - have they been conscious and absorbing information about their surroundings for less than ten years?

Tailgate isn't himself a metaphor for anything. There's nothing really metaphorical about him. What you're saying is that aspects of his behaviour, character and experiences map directly to aspects of the behaviour, character and experiences of some people. But it's not one neat package. Some things fit and others don't. Tailgate has only been aware of himself and the world he lives in for the span of a matter of years, and is surrounded by people who are millions of years old - that just doesn't match with your 'vulnerable, impressionable' human adults.

It's like how no Cybertronian can really be considered to be a cypher for a disabled person - because disability doesn't mean the same thing to a race that are far more easily repaired than us. But that doesn't mean that aspects of their experience aren't mirrors of aspects of the experience of a disabled person.

One of the reasons Transformers is fascinating is that the ways in which these characters are simultaneously like us and yet not like us are quite stark, and challenging. Reading in to their relationships a direct and complete reflection of a human relationship seems to me to be wilfully ignoring one of the most engaging aspects of the fiction.

 

His avatar is a metaphor for inexperience.

The things that might make us think of Tailgate as a child in real terms are:

1) he was online for a very short amount of time before MTMTE
2) he has a child for an avatar

The avatar we're both agreed is a representation of something (as is for all the others), not a direct translation of Cybertronian to human. Whirl isn't a teenager, Megatron isn't older than Cyclonus, Tailgate isn't a child.

The short online life-span has been confirmed as =/= childhood through various JRo tweets and in story MTO to battle storytelling as well as Tailgate himself being on his way to work at the time of his fall.

Six months ago I was cautious about this, but through in-story world building and author confirmation, I am now 100% happy that Tailgate is not a child in-universe nor is he meant to be a metaphor for one. I do believe that he's inexperienced, naive, trusting, unassertive and other things that make him young for his age. Because of that, I like it better that he's not in a relationship just yet and I found it upsetting that he was preyed upon as he was. I appreciate that JRo has taken the time to let Tailgate's avatar 'grow up' (and it will be a nice touch if next time we see it he's even older) before delving into the nature of his relationship with Cyclonus. Which is still unresolved.

 

Yes, exactly. Which makes him a metaphorical child. If the avatar is a metaphor for his inexperience, by using the image of an infant and then later a child... then we are using the symbol of childhood (and even more pointedly, of "growing up") to understand Tailgate's psychology and narrative function. The 'child' is used as the metaphorical complex that provides insight into Tailgate's persona and behaviours... it is how the reader is supposed to understand his personality.

Yes, again correct. They are not literally any of those things. They are however allegorized in those ways (in fairly broad, blatant terms) by the conventions of the text.

Why is this even a point of disagreement? Chromedome and Rewind are not "literally" a gay couple, but we understand them as a "gay couple". Megatron is not literally an old man, but is a metaphorical "old man" at this point. We know that Whirl is not literally a misbehaving problem child who "acts out", but we understand that this is a symbol that describes and explains aspects of his character in human terms. But Tailgate can't be an child metaphor? Seriously, bud...

It seems like we're having difficulty here reconciling the whole premise of how allegory functions in literature... you keep defaulting back to hard diegetic specificities and treating them as if they utterly obviate the thematic and metaphorical reading, instead of acknowledging that stories legitimately carry multiple levels of meaning and codes... they don't overrule each other. They exist simultaneously.

Often in stories, the "meta" level... the power of allegory... is arguably AS (or even MORE) significant than the "nitty gritty facts" (especially as these "facts" are also fiction... a framework around which thematic meaning is draped). We all studied Aesop's fables in primary, right? We all understand that fairy tales are about transmitting social values, and that James Cameron's AVATAR wasn't really just about aliens, right? Stories communicate meaning and values on multiple levels. Considering the degree to which Roberts uses allegory in his writing (especially lately) it's a bit nuts to deliberately cast a blind eye to that... even if it makes you feel icky. Stories sometimes do that too.

You're scraping here. Yes, we KNOW Tailgate is not a literal child... and that Cybertronians don't actually have a "real" childhood. You don't have to keep trying to overstate that.

Tailgate's lack of experience is directly correlative to his consistent and ongoing portrayal, treatment, and depiction in childlike terms. It doesn't matter if he had a function/job (as if child labour isn't a thing?). It doesn't matter if other TFs may be somber and mature as soon as they're minted. What matters is how all of this functions in the metaphorical mix that surrounds and informs Tailgate's character. It tells us how to relate to and understand his character. He's "the kid" of the crew. Which honestly nobody would have disagreed with in any way, before the shadow of awkward relationships loomed over the story. In other words, I think you protest too much.

So please don't condemn me for pointing out that Tailgate has been child-coded for a long time. If it bothers you that much, blame Roberts for writing it as such, and then (perhaps recklessly) constructing a story that creates an unsettling child abuse subtext. Maybe that was unwise on his part?

Personally, I don't think he needs to backpedal on this, because the metaphorical and literal values of the characters allow us access to a greater range of engagement, while retaining some distance. We KNOW Tailgate isn't a real little kid. But if we didn't still (consciously or subconsciously) see Tailgate as being like a 'kid', then the whole growing subplot with Getaway wouldn't have carried the same unsavoury and emotional charge.

And as much as we hated Getaway, I'm betting a lot of us still felt a weird measure of relief when his plan became clear... "oh thank god, he's just trying to use him as a child assassin!". Espionage plots are a bit less icky than some of the other possibilities.  

Okay, good for you. I think you're wrong, of course... and this is because you're treating the in-universe understanding and the metaphorical one as if they are totally synchronized... essentially the same thing. You're not acknowledging that they can communicate things on different levels. In fact, that's the whole point.

And if you're referring to the tweets that have already been cited, those are not what I would call "confirmations" from Roberts. They are conspicuously worded in such a way as to point out the obvious and calm people down, while not actually discounting the literary and allegorical devices he was using. Considering the pitfalls of being an author on social media, I can hardly blame him.

"Make him young for his age.." you say?
So if he's young for his age that would make him like a... a...?
Don't leave me hanging here, man... he would be young and innocent and naive, just.. like... like a child, perhaps?
Maybe, you might even say that he is "child-like"?
Gee, where would we ever get an idea like that from?  

Exactly. It made you uncomfortable, because despite everything you are trying to say to the contrary, you were treating and understanding his character, on a psychological level, as a child.

Okay bud... so you're telling me that you are feeling better that Tailgate is "growing up" metaphorically before relationships come into the equation, and you want to see his avatar "grow up" to reflect that... but that doesn't mean that he was ever a child metaphor. Got it.  

I give up.  

zmog

 

It makes him inexperienced. Being childlike or being young for your age =/= being a child. Not in human fiction and not in TF fiction. No need to write another essay about it.

Actually, here. This is what Tailgate was billed as in season 2.

Other than that, you've put a lot of words in my mouth. I've written, like, two paragraphs in this thread.

I've written in other threads that I did see Getaway as an obvious (child or not) predator. I'm not saying that up to now we weren't meant to be questioning Tailgate's age. I'm not even saying that Roberts didn't want us to be uncomfortable and have these conversations. I'm saying that the fiction has now reached the point where *I* feel like any misgivings I had on where all this was headed are gone because a) nothing questionable happened, b) it's been clarified that there is no concept of childhood and c) Tailgate is shown to be maturing before any CE relationship with Cyclonus does or doesn't happen.

So looking back now I can say, yeah, that was a difficult one, but it didn't go where I thought it may have been going and I don't need to keep wondering whether TG is a child analogue, because he's not.

 

You know (besides the tweet response from Roberts that may or may not be him dancing around the subject so the people that said he hated disabled people could call him a supporter of pedophiles or something equally as dumb) I wasn't sure if Tailgate was supposed to be a child analogue or not, but after reading SMOG's post I'm not sure how you'd think he isn't. Especially since Tailgate's avatar seems to be a child growing up (too) fast. If you'd like to explain why you think he's not further, please do, I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't really understand your stance.

 

Sure. As I said, I think that up to now we were meant to be questioning whether TG is or isn't a child. My personal ambivalence stemmed from the duration of his online life, along with his avatar, and had little to do with his behaviour. In my view, he doesn't act like a child (hoverboard or not), he acts like a naive adult. To put it in human terms, he acts like someone who lived in a small town, went into cryo-sleep for 100 years and then woke up in a brave new world and doesn't know how to behave or what to expect from people. And turns out there are a lot of assholes about. Kind of like what happened. But anyway, till now I was unsure whether there was a concept of childhood for Cybertronians and what that meant. Since, we've had some more world building and seen that MTOs go straight to battle. No childhood. That put me at ease.

Then the Roberts QA:

Kijikun2 asked: Can you clarify - would Tailgate have been considered an 'adult' by Cybertronian standards when he fell?
James Roberts replied: Yes. He is naive, trusting, loyal and dependent - you could say these are childlike qualities. But he is not a child.​

I don't think Roberts is dancing around anything. He was crystal clear: by Cybertronian standards TG is an adult. So there's one tick for me off the worry list.

With that in mind, the avatar is a mental state, not a human equivalent. Whirl has a teenage avatar, right? So we should also be uncomfortable with him and certain situations, but we're not. We think of him as an adult behaving like a teenager in his mood swings and emotional immaturity and what have you. If he had a CE we wouldn't go 'omg, but he's coded as a young girl'; we'd not think about it at all. We don't think of Cyclonus as a Victorian, we think of him as Cyclonus who acts like a strict school teacher from time to time. We don't think of Megatron as an old man, we know he's in a state at the moment and will snap out of it and kill everything eventually/when the new writer comes along. We wouldn't wonder how come he's still going, because he's like, so old. So no, I don't think that Tailgate's lack of experience and child avatar mean anything more than that he acts like a child in certain situations and that as he's slowly maturing, this is reflected in the avatar growing up.

That is not to say that I don't think the child imagery is problematic - it is. If Tailgate & Cyclonus had become CEs 6 issues ago and then we were told that no, it's OK, TG's an adult, I would have cringed. But that's not how it played out. I'm happy with the handling.

Hope that clarifies how I view it. I'm afraid I don't have Smog's seemingly endless free time/super fast typing skills for longer posts  

 

Question: why were you worried about James' intentions as the author more than you're worried about the story right in front of you?

I'm not being facetious, but if your concern is that a story has some kind of pedarastic theme, that concern shouldn't really be allayed just by an author telling you it isn't meant to come across that way. Because any author could say, "Oh yeah, it isn't meant to be like that" when trying to defend a disturbing piece of work.

The other thing is that James saying that Tailgate would be considered an 'adult' by Cybertronians and not a 'child' doesn't actually mean anything unless we know what these concepts mean to Cybertronians. Suppose he were writing about an Ancient Greek-like alien race and he'd said, "To people in this race, a 12-year-old boy is considered to be an adult, definitely not a child." That would hardly allay the concerns of readers if the 12-year-old boy was then shown being molested by an older man.

The important thing, to my mind (and as you rightly point out) is that clearly, within the fiction, there can be no sensible child/adult divide in the Cybertronian race. The whole concept goes completely out the window when you have characters brought on line with pre-programmed social awareness and zero sexuality to speak of.

 

Oh, I must have misremembered the tweet. Thanks for clarifying, totally understand what you're on about now and I agree, he's not meant to represent a child but instead naivety and childlike (emphasis on "like") wonder.

 

Very true, and it happens frequently.

I also think it's important to realise what Roberts answered was:
"Yes. He is naive, trusting, loyal and dependent - you could say these are childlike qualities. But he is not a child."

 

Gee, I'm so sorry I wrote an essay.  

But you're right... what's the point of explaining, if all you're going to do is utterly ignore what's being said and attempt to dismiss it with an arbitrary declaration like the one above, one that completely ignores the key point.

(And yet, I can hardly NOT write an essay, right? It's me, after all.   )

How many more times can I spell it out: YES I GET IT, TAILGATE ISN'T A REAL BOY. I never said he was. Please stop repeating that like it actually serves your point.

However, Tailgate is also a metaphorical construct meant to evoke childhood, and to elicit the reader's emotional responses as if he were a child. The fact that that he's a 6-million-year-old robot (albeit with a 2-year-old brain) from a world without children or sexuality is largely irrelevant to his allegorical value.

So like... dooooood... why do you keep treating metaphor and literalist distinctions as if they are the same thing (or that they can only be one or the other)? This isn't complicated semiotics theory. It's not existential. This is really basic 'understanding how stories work' kind of stuff.

Being childlike and "young for your age" in a fiction almost always makes you exactly a "child analog". In stories, characters don't just exist for and as themselves in literal terms, they also represent ideas and thematic concepts. This is what literature is, and James Roberts makes HEAVY use of allegory in his work.

This is not news. We knew that right from the beginning. We know Cybertronians don't have real "childhoods"... we've known about MTOs for a long time now. There is no literally no child-abuse happening in this series.

But Roberts himself points to TG's "childlike" qualities. Giving a character those childlike qualities in a story codes them symbolically as a child. That's the whole point of doing it.

To flip the script, the use of children in Iranian cinema of the 1980s works the opposite way. The children are literally children in those stories. However, they function as metaphors for social prescriptions, gender relationships, and political criticism. Although they are children in the story, reading them as socio-political allegories unlocks a secondary layer of meaning and engagement.

An ingenue, as a convention, is actually itself a metaphorical child... but more specifically a sexually-charged child metaphor (as pointed out in that wiki), which I don't think really helps your argument. The virginal waif as a figure in opera and classic melodrama operates as the symbolic expression of innocence in a moralizing and masculinist society... imposing social control over women by identifying them with children.

I mean, this isn't the raving delusion of some random internet demogogue. This is sort of English Lit 101, isn't it? Literary allegory and devices have historical relationships and meanings. It's not all "in my opinion". This is a language that has been evolving and circulating for hundreds (if not a thousand) years.

Can you elaborate where I've put words in your mouth? Because even though I've written a lot of words here, I'm willing to take credit (or blame) for almost all of them.  

Okay, your B. point here is unnecessary here because I've already said it (like... a million times now) and because it only refers to the internal TF frame of reference, not the readers' outside perspective... as I've harangued about above.  

This isn't really about yours-or-my "comfort" levels, or even about TG's relationship with Cyclonus. It's about simply acknowledging how stories and allegory work.

As you admit (in a roundabout way), the whole notion that something "questionable" even COULD have happened in this story hinges on our recognition of Tailgate as a child proxy in the (meta)narrative. Having Roberts say "well, he's a robot, not a child" doesn't erase that.

I'm not sure what you think my agenda is here... what it is that I'm trying to say. I'm simply pointing out that Tailgate is rather firmly and uncontestably a child allegory within the text. It's not even ambiguous.

I'm not making any further judgments than that, necessarily... not about themes of pederasty or whatever (although I think Roberts did play that card to enhance Getaway's creep factor). I'm not trying to 'out' Roberts, or reveal some grand secret scandalous reading of the whole series.

It's just a basic literary device, and it irks me that many people don't seem to be identifying that there is a distinction between internal and external meanings, between explicit story meaning and implicit thematic meaning.

I guess I feel like I need to correct that oversight... like someone repeatedly spelling a word wrong, using an expression in the wrong context. Eventually you want to clarify. Maybe that's a didactic impulse on my part. Whatever...

This is about the actual literary function of a character in a narrative, not their "literal" function... and in Tailgate's case, this does not even need to include the most recent pederasty anxieties. He's always been constructed in symbolic terms of childhood. Where Tailgate is now doesn't wipe out what he has been up till now. If he "matures" then his symbolic value changes... but if you're going to symbolically "grow up" in a story then that means, categorically, that you were growing up from something... a state of childishness. And "growing up" is itself a direct idiomatic reference to the emergence from childhood.

These associations are totally wired into the visual and symbolic language attached to Tailgate. You can't retroactively extricate him from all of that. He will have to 'grow' out of it (and he is), but that doesn't rewrite the character from the beginning.

But in the meantime, we can also all breath a bit more easily, because yes... we are not reading a story where a child is literally abused or shacked up with an old samurai (or even with a Turn of the Screw-esque governess). Metaphors are flexible, after all.

Except he is, and he has been for a while... so what you're saying is that you're ignoring all of that because it made you feel uncomfortable. Okay sure. But just because this somehow keeps getting lost, to re-iterate:

Tailgate = child allegory
Tailgate ≠ actual child (human or cybertronian)
actual child ≠ child allegory

I don't think he acts like a "naive adult" though. Or rather, what defines a "naive adult's" behaviour as being different than childlike behaviour? I think that things like the avatar and the hoverboard make it pretty clear how his "behaviour" is supposed to be understood. If it makes you feel better to think of him as a Frodo, a Forrest Gump, or a Mr. Deeds... okay, fine. He's a naive hick who steps into the predatory world. Sure. That's not really the symbolism that has been used for him, but okay... if it makes you feel better...

The fact that he could maintain the imposture of a member of the Primal Vanguard means that (obviously) TFs don't recognize "childhood" from outward appearances... or recognize "childhood" at all, really. But from the point that his deception was revealed, he is treated very similarly to a child, including his avatar, behaviours, and the role of "guardian/governess" that Cyclonus takes on... and the readers are meant to pick up on those cues. You simply cannot symbolize a character with the image of a baby (later graduate him to preteen) and then say that we're not meant to see him as a symbolic child. Metaphors are flexible of course... you also don't take a child to a bar and you don't send them into combat situations. These are some of the concrete reminders that he's still just another Transformer, in terms of the diegetic world. There are two different levels at work there.

That's because the Whirl's avatar does not depict an archetype that is associated with "innocence and naivete". It's a different sign... alternately (depending on the artist) the "problem child" or the "rebellious hellraiser punkrock girl". Neither of those has the same symbolic value as Tailgate's child-avatars (innocence, naivete, vulnerability) nor do they tie into the character's personality traits in the same way. They are different icons.

For example if Tailgate's avatar were Damien from The Omen, or a Peter Pan-esque wild-boy, then that would carry different associations... but not ones that actually work with his personality and personal themes.

Being specifically identified as a sour victorian governess has a whole host of cultural associations, including repressed traditionalism, conservatism, moral instruction, and stern discipline. It's related to the "strict schoolmarm" motif, but with an extra underpinning of gothicism (literary gothicism, not "dresses in black and listens to The Cure" gothicism, which might be where Milne got confused   ).

Except that we DO think of Megatron as an old man now. The text has just told us to, in no uncertain terms. Megatron is "feeling his age" both physically and spiritually. His body is wracked by poisons, and his spark is bearing the wear of having hopped bodies so many times. He is world-weary and has had to confront the sins and fiery idealism of his "youth", while feeling like a bit of an irrelevant antique in this new postwar world. Even his avatar, despite displaying a patriarchal majesty, is fragile, grey-haired, bleeding easily, and subconsciously manifesting with a cane. Being "the regretful old man" is part of his story function right now. He'll get better. We know that. But for the moment, this is one of his personal themes. Why choose to ignore the subtext that the author has placed directly in front of us?

The whole point of a metaphor is that it uses the image or idea of one thing, to provide insight on another thing that seems different, but that it shares important qualities with, especially for the reader's understanding. So thinking of Megatron as an "old man" helps us better understand his character's emotional state and crisis, and the underlying theme of powerlessness and regret. That's what being a "metaphorical old man" is. It does not mean you're supposed to actually be an old man in every way. Likewise, thinking of Tailgate as a "kid" helps us better understand his mentality and behaviour, and his transition from naive innocence to maturity (ie: "growing pains")... but he is different from a child in many significant other ways (pointedly, being an ancient robot).

I'm happy with the handling too. But it seems like you're saying that you DID understand Tailgate as a "child" archetype 6 issues ago. Nothing has changed really since then. Roberts has only stated the facts. We knew that he's not really a "child". We know that expresses "childlike" qualities. We know that it's not a simple definition, and that TFs don't have human-like "childhoods" with all the same ethical associations.

So nothing has actually changed in that respect. Tailgate is still the same symbol he always has been (though growing up is part of his idiom, so we can expect more changes). And even if he had pledged a CE with Cyclonus (though that would have felt premature at that point anyway) it wouldn't matter, because TG's not a child, and a CE isn't actually a real "marriage", and TFs don't actually have sexual relations... so hypothetically, within the narrative universe, there would be nothing wrong with it, right?

Except it would, because metaphors do affect how we read characters. Usually this is a good thing, if the metaphor works thematically. Sometimes it breaks down, or seems to be sending the wrong message. Sometimes that's just because a writer makes an indelicate choice, or is inconsistent. In Roberts' case... hard to say. Casting Tailgate as a "child" analog was no problem until the relationship angle started to cross paths with it... so maybe he just didn't include enough breathing space there. But it did make us really dislike Getaway, didn't it?

I don't have endless free time, unfortunately...  

I do however, have a lot of distractions. This is one of them. If you don't have the time to read an "essay", then you can forego replying and we can both take a break.

zmog

 

smog where do you find the time to write all of this out? geez man i don't even have time to read it all.

and it's a shame because you do make good point buts man...it's like a chore...