Serious talk, it's been 2 years and the fandom has not really warmed up to the character.

Drift was in a similar boat years ago but then James Roberts came along and re-defined Drift in MTMTE.

What do you think would be a great way to re-define Windblade? or Victorion too?

 

Fandom hasn't? I dunno, I see a lot of fanart and I think she's pretty great and her original series did so well as to justify getting sequels... she's doing quite well with the fans to my eyes.

Also there already exists a couple very different versions to boot. Diplomat Windsaber vs murder combiners Windsaber from the show...

 

Just give her a decent personality. As it is, she has LITERALLY none. People keep telling me she has one, but I can't see it. Where is it? Kind of aloof "city speaker" with the social skills of a shut-in does not count. Nor does it make for compelling fiction.

And the initial mini did do well but it didn't do GREAT. It was slightly above par. Hence the reason it DIDN'T GET AN ONGOING, which was the original plan.

Oh, and god please, get rid of the kabuki/geisha theme, or minimum, tone it down. The RID version is a step in the right direction.

 

I actually kinda like the "naive person who is given an important role" trope, it has been used several times in stories and is an easy archetype for people to relate to.

Mind you, Windblade doesn't exactly show much personality beyond that trope but I don't think the execution is bad per se. Despite of Scott's flaws as a writer, she hasn't really made Windblade annoying up to a Mary Sue level (Believe me, I can recognize those traits a mile way). I just wish she had more development aside from what we have already seen.

 

... if you think she has no personality, you really haven't been paying attention. She's not only got personality but gone through a good amount of character development (and social skills of a shutin? Yeesh, you must be looking at someone else
and not the one that verbally spars with starscream). Windblade is a very social character who nonetheless keeps a lot to her chest and... well, there's a lot there I won't go through all the details. Scott does perhaps go too subtle with her at times, because there's so much where people here go "why doesn't she...?" and I'm like, "Did you not see this part where??". A lot is done in reaction shots, expressions, and pointedly avoiding topics.

Also it wasn't planned to get an ongoing originally- but it did get a sequel series that in turn got an ongoing with her in the lead, as well as appearances in two shows... really it's hard to picture a new character doing better. In that I cannot think of any other new character who has gotten so much ever.

One shouldn't mistake personal opinions of a few as 'the fandom'. The fandom frankly seems to love her, and has definitely made her a huge success.

 

See, y'say "fandom," but what you mean is "TFW2005."

 

I liked her at first for being a naive but determined new-comer to Cybertron's pre-war age. But then things got... weird with the whole Chromia thing. Windblade v2 was when she got genuinely frustrating though. Partly for being a hypocrite whenever Starscream was involved (seriously, she chastised him for doing the exact same thing she was doing), and partly for just being kind of bland. She was still the protagonist of the story, but now that she was no longer naive, nor new to Cybertron, there just wasn't anything to like about her. What interested me about her character when she first appeared was the mystery behind her. We knew she was from a different colony, but we didn't know what she had experienced, what made her a city-speaker, and what she had in mind for Cybertron. In MTMTE (and Animated for that matter) each character has a backstory to them to explain how they got to where they are now, linking to either a weakness or a skill each had in their possession. Windblade has none of that. We know everything there is to know about her at this time, and none of it really stands out.

She's never been a "Mary Sue", though. People think they know what that means, but they don't. They really don't.

I don't think she can be "made" better at this point. The best idea I can think of is if her city-speaking role resulted in some kind of "virus" that manifested in linking up with too many different Titans. As such she would have several conflicting voices arguing within her head, each spouting their own ideas of wisdom. Thus she would become part super-genius, part mentally unsound, and part important piece in the grand political puzzle, as her knowledge would become valuable to certain parties.

 

Meh. I think we're pretty representative of the the fandom as a whole. We have opposing opinions, and we don't typically agree on everything. I mean, there are sites that are pretty much echo chambers. They're not representative of the fandom either.

 

Hah, no way. I'm on multiple other forums (not TF specific but with TF fans) and tumblr. People have opposing opinions there and don't agree on everything.

There's no single place that is representative of the fandom, but this forum tends to be more hostile to Windblade (as well as Scott-as-a-writer, and fembots in general) in my experience. If I'm at 4 different places, and one's the outlier, then it's pretty unlikely that it's representative in that respect.

Plus, y'know, both the sales and the fact Windblade has done so well commercially to get her second series and then keep the lead in TAAO rather says IDW and Hasbro considers her a major success with the fans. If Hasbro and IDW think she's a hit and have the sales numbers to support it, and my fandom experiences back that up, says to me that we just have the grumpy outlier here- and even here I don't think it's near the majority, just a few vocal individuals.

 

Give them real personalities.

 

This subforum, btw, has, what, a hundred active posters at a time (rotating some)? A smaller portion of which are very active? It's not really that much of the fandom.

Which, hey, done since the first mini. Problem solved!

Really, if you think Windblade doesn't have a personality... well, I don't really have an answer for that. She's got a quite developed personality even by TF standards. We've seen more of her inner life and handling of various situations than we have all but a few main characters/MTMTE characters.

Which is also a large part of why Scott gets paired with artists good at doing emotions on faces so much- it really is important for conveying a lot of the facets of Windblade.

 

Duh? She got enough following to say that at least some fans like her. Sure, she's not Optimus in terms of popularity... But who is?

I also prefer her comic book personality instead of being given another generic angsty action grrrlll as by now this kind of characters is a trope on their own. Better variety the way she is.


I don't know why people think that if characters has no over-the-top exaggerated traits they have no personality. Normal people who aren't cartoon comedic cutouts also exist, you know?


Her Generations toy is less than expected, though. Never really warmed up to this piece of plastic and with incoming NuRiD replacement it looks like I'll never have to.


And yes, CW machinima Tsundereblade is a rather bad characterisation, but for the sake of the character... Let's hope this will be quickly forgotten along with the rest of this web show. Just accept this machinima is the way it is and move on. Tsundereblade isn't the only bad part of it. :X

 

i think she's great, she's a real Transformer trying to do the right thing, not some out of school nerd that wants to be cool or some stereotypical female that Nautica is

 

'Xactly! I mean, I'm pretty sure she's more popular than Drift now, who's the only other breakout star in the last decade.

Like, I really dig her 'in strong pursuit of her ideals, but in the service of whatever-works solutions even if they involve deep moral compromises that wear at her,' thing. And I don't get how some people miss that that is a central thing to the character that they even spell out with words. To me, it's a very clear and not-too-common personality.

Agreed.

 

Have her turn out to be a dude. She realizes that she feels more comfortable using he/him pronouns and being thought of as a masculine gendered mech, not a feminine gendered one. Then Hasbro'd be doing something progressive with gender instead of something regressive and cringey.

Some character development would be nice. I'll give credit where it's due, M. Scott picked a difficult "negative" trait to work with when she gave Windblade "naive" as her main flaw. That's not an easy one to show stark development in a primarily visual medium, without making a character actually become cynical or jaded. A change to "Positive/Hopeful but wary" is not an easy thing to convey because it's often not clear that they've abandoned their naiveness. When done that way, it's basically so subtle it will go unnoticed unless it's crassly highlighted.

I'm not sure it DOES count as a real flaw, because it's just the natural result of being inexperienced/untried. It goes away with experience, rather than being something most people with it constantly struggle with. Without an internal flaw for her to really struggle with and be tested on, she has no real character conflict and it's difficult to really care about her journey. Too much external struggle with her character, not enough internal.

So, character development is the big improvement to help Windblade IMO. Since that is apparently never gonna happen, make her a cute make-up wearing boy bot  

 

Nothing? Unless you're a hipster or acting like an uncultured rube for grandstanding purposes neither one of them are particularly offensive.

There's three different versions of Windblade floating around and unless you seriously like Combiner Wars Windblade for some reason I think the comic Windblade is fine-- a diplomat who is willing to compromise herself enough to turn into a version of Starscream herself because her moral compass compels her to do that, which serves as a counterpoint to how everyone dumps on Starscream who does the same things while his own moral compass tells him to do it because it makes him look good. RiD Windblade is more of a warrior who thinks she's hot stuff.

Victorion's biggest problem is her color scheme which sometimes comes off better in the comic than it does in real life.

 

Great, tell me all about Pyra Magna, Stormclash, Skyburst, Dust Up, Jumpstream, and Rust Dust, but don't use Victorion or the Torch Bearers as a group, as individuals, please tell me about their personalities.

Or can't you because you thought I was talking about Windblade and completely ignored "Them" in my response and leapt to Windblades defense without reading the topic?

 

Again, a segment of the fandom keeps saying that, but I'm just not seeing it. Nickel has a personality. Aileron has personality. We as readers get their motivation and the reason behind their actions. It's almost like Windblade is being denied a true personality. She's like Optimus in that regard (another character that I find boring outside of the marvel g1 run).

Or, y'know, the third option. People aren't doing it for any of the silly reasons you listed. They've just read the comic without those pesky ideological lenses, and decided the Windblade character is bland and boring. Almost every other female transformers has personality in spades compared to Windblade.

Christ, "grandstanding"? This is a transformers message-board. We're all dorks. No one is trying to "out-dork" anyone here. We're just voicing our opinions.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Make an interesting character that also happens to be a woman. Don't make a character's defining characteristic their gender. Ellen Ripley is one of my favorite Sci-fi characters. Her gender doesn't matter. It's her character and actions that make her compelling. I also like Buffy Summers, she's another interesting character that happens to be a woman. Gender shouldn't enter the equation when creating an interesting character.

 

By not changing her.
She was a terrible robo-jane eyre when Scott first wrote her. She has become a politically very influencial figure that speaks with an authority almost equal to the likes of Optimus and Soundwave.
She was yet another character forced upon us because hasbro wants fan interactivity, but she has become an interesting and partially ambigious character.
Stop the Hype! We dont need another Driftgate!

 

Oh, sure, the Victorion team needs more. Pyra has a little- basically she wants to either make someone into her image of Prime or take the role herself- the rest have almost none.

Windblade has plenty.

Just not seeing it is the key phrase there. It's not that rare that I see you refer to things not-happening with her that have explicitly happened. "We as readers get their motivation and the reason behind their actions"? We get a lot of that with Windblade too- in both internal monologue and conversations with others on exactly the subject. End of mini one, the good of the many, no matter who else benefits or gets credit. Combiner Hunters, make compromises to keep their imperfect setup together long enough for it to become stable. We've got her origin, we've got her goals, we've got her conflicts over those goals, we've got her showing mixed emotions and struggling over he actions because she doesn't *like* pursuing her goals, we've got her adapting to politics with Starscream and becoming more and less like him in turns as she tries to balance pragmatism and not being like Starscream. We see her looking up to and advising Optimus... and her opinion of him slowly crumble as he steps into a more religious/less open role.

If I come across as snippy on the subjects at times, it's because to me it honestly does look like you're either not paying attention when reading her stuff and/or writing it off for whatever reason. If I had a dollar for every time someone around here said "Windblade doesn't have X/never does Y/never gets called on Z/etc." on something that's actually been the focus of at least one major scene and often multiple issues where exactly that happens, I'd be able to afford a few good restaurant meals at the least.

I really do view the problem as not paying attention/noticing rather than her not having one. And some of that is Scott's writing aiming for understated pretty often, but c'mon, if you're here on the forum, you've also had me and others specifically point this stuff out on a number of occasions.


On Optimus- sometimes (ok, pretty often nowadays) his personality is on the boring side, but he still has one, I can't think of a major version that's really 'denied a personality'. Even if it is just being a stoic moral backbone- which is pretty different than Windblade's. Some're better than others, Animated has the 'rookie stepping up' thing, G1 cartoon's actually pretty fun at times, he's team dad but he's *fun* team dad (the humor often gets left out of later ones). TF Prime Optimus is, well, a stoic veteran who is pretty boring, but he does have the relationship with Megatron going for him.