TFA "End Game"

[dragoness_e]

You know what? I'm still bummed out that they killed my two favorite characters of the entire show. I have entirely too much real grief that I have a hard time expressing for the real people I've lost (or am losing), and it easily displaces onto fictional characters I love.

I liked almost all the characters; some as in "like", others as in "love to hate" because they were such good villains (Sentinel Prime, I'm talking about you). Of the characters I truly liked, Prowl was my favorite Autobot--sympathetic, wise, badass, yet shown to have grown into that after starting out as a young punk. He died entirely in-character, and his death was such that it would cheapen it for him to be brought back. You can't bring back a character like that who has grown beyond what can be conveyed within the limits of a 22-minute cartoon aimed at children without diminishing him terribly, so I hope they do not.

Ani-Starscream captured enough of the personality of G1 Starscream to make him easily my favorite Decepticon (Megatron was a close second), though he did not have that note of emotional vulnerability that made G1 Starscream so oddly sympathetic. He was a very UN-sympathetic character, and yet... I still felt a sneaking sympathy for the back-stabbing glitch who never could beat Megatron. Possibly because he never quite "got it", and he never won; if he came out on top temporarily, he managed to shoot himself in the foot somehow. He was the perpetual underdog, yet as persistent as ever G1 Starscream was. I think he'd be a lot less interesting if he came out on top and stayed on top and proved to be a capable leader. (For instance, movie-Starscream does not interest me in the least. He lacks something to be a 'real' Starscream. Armada-Starscream was not a Starscream, he was a BW Dinobot with a different name).

As it is, he's a sympathetic character to every viewer who feels like they're never quite on top in the world, and that half the reason they keep falling down is their own weaknesses. A lot of us can see ourselves in Starscream, unlikeable traits and all.

And they killed him, the persistent one who hadn't even let death stop him, who could be knocked down but would never stay down. They put him down for good, and so casually. It was the inevitable consequence of what and who he was--the consequence of his own faults coming home to roost--it was in-character and appropriate, yet far more tragic than Prowl. Prowl was fulfilled, and went out doing what he wanted to do, saving everyone. Starscream never got what he wanted, probably never figured out what he wanted, and we probably wouldn't like it if he got what he thought wanted... and now he's gone without the chance to even try again. True, he had his chances, more than had his chances considering that Megatron killed him at the end of season 1 and everything after was borrowed time and second chances. Starscream didn't go out doing what he wanted to do, he was rudely surprised by the one flaw in his conditionally immortality coming back to bite him. His dying screams tell us that he very much didn't want to die and was far from ready to go.

But the show's over, so he'll stay dead. Starscream always dies in the end (or gets Put On A Bus after dying) (so Movie-Starscream had best watch his back), but it is the end when he dies. Once Starscream is gone, they're rolling the last closing credits of the last show very soon.

If TFA returns, Starscream will return.

I'm really glad they didn't kill my 3rd favorite character off. If Megatron had bit it, I think I would have thrown something at the screen. As it was, I think he's only the second Megatron to be captured by the Autobots and the only one to actually make it to Cybertron as a defeated prisoner. Something tells me he is not a happy camper. He'll definitely be back if there's a season 4.