Hey guys, this is just a fun little project I did to distract myself from actual work today. Below is the chart and then a brief summary of why I placed each Optimus in each alignment. Let me know your thoughts! Lawful Good: Bumblebee Optimus, however brief his appearance has been, seems to be the "purest" or "most G1" version of the character we've seen on screen. He seems brave, caring, and actively trying to protect his peeps. Neutral Good: Protoform Optimus at this point doesn't necessarily have any intentions towards humanity other than to get the allspark and leave. He prefers to not involve us, hence the covert nature of his intended mission. He is kind but he is ultimately neutral. Chaotic Good: The Optimus we're all most familiar with. He's ultimately very good at heart but can be a bit unpredictable and is occasionally bloodlusted. Lawful Neutral: This Optimus was the most difficult to categorize, but being bloodlusted he was dropped from the "good" tier. I think when he's combined with Jetfire he still wants to protect Earth, but is more in the mindset of "do what's necessary" True Neutral: This Optimus is broken. He's in the most basic survival mode and doesn't have any goals anymore. He is defeated and demotivated. Chaotic Neutral: This is the pessimistic Optimus from AoE where he is still essentially directionless, but having gained a powerful new form he is unpredictable and prone to being bloodlusted. Lawful Evil: This is another one that was hard, but I ultimately chose the knight form because, although he has his knight pride, he is essentially out for blood. He will not harm innocents, unless he has to, and he is still skirting the line of even being considered a hero anymore. Neutral Evil: This is Optimus after he's been "Nemesised" but before he goes on a rampage. He is simply absorbing Quintessa's story and learning about the history of Cybertron. He has drank the kool-aid, but hasn't been let loose yet. Chaotic Evil: Do I even have to explain this one? He is NEMESIS Prime now, and you are NOTHING!
Interesting way at looking at things, although I think it would be more effective with multiple robots rather than only Optimus, as there are categories for which I don't think he fits at all. For instance, I wouldn't consider Nemesis Prime "Chaotic evil," because he was just doing the bidding of Quintessa and wasn't just going on a rampage all by himself. I also don't think Rusty Truck Optimus had no goals. He seemed to want to get to his Autobots and want to protect them pretty clearly.
Exactly, the whole point of an alignment chart is to compare different characters to each other. I don't think any character in fiction is complex enough to fit into all nine categories, and even if they did, putting them into a chart by themselves doesn't really tell you anything.
TBH Optimus is one of the only Transformers with an actual story arc in the movies, which is why I thought it'd be interesting to see if he could fill out a whole chart by himself. I mean, he kinda wanted to, but when Cade found him he was in stasis lock, unable to do anything or go anywhere, and even when he was revived he didn't have much motivation. I guess it's easiest to fit him into these categories if you consider his relationship to humankind. At that point he just wanted to get his autobots and GTFO probably. They were being hunted by the very beings they'd sworn to protect. OK I was just having a bit of fun I didn't know there were rules to this. I don't play D&D or anything I've just seen these charts online. Your comment makes me feel like I should just delete this.
That sounds like goals and motivation to me. I don't think you need to delete it. I just don't think it works for any single character. I don't even think there's an example of a character in Transformers where all versions from all universes combined would fit all of the squares. Yep.
I like this, nice job! It's surprisingly accurate! Sure, some may not like this but I for one like to see something new and different in the movie section.
I definitely agree with this! I think it’s an interesting take to look at it from a single character perspective. I am saddened that the fun of the whole thing is being sucked out of this for you!
I'm not trying to suck out the fun, nor was I trying to stop you from creating this topic. I'm just here having a Shrektastic time discussing your thread topic! And I just didn't see Nemesis Prime as "Chaotic Evil." But it's all good. Lots of us, myself included, like to ogre analyze toy-inspired fiction.
