Talk:Optimus Minor

I know I introduced a new concept with putting toy bio sections under fiction, but frequently, toy bio info contradicts other fictions, and therefore doesn't belong in the introductory paragraph. For axample, Minor's toy bio discribes him as having trouble controlling his savage animal side, but this is not displayed in the IDW comics, AND in IDW he is not a product of Megatron's cloning experiments. Is there an inherent incompatibility between a Toy Bio section and this wiki? Why is it bad to have a toy bio section? --Crockalley 15:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Crockalley: in the event where a character has a bio that doesn't match-up with his cartoon/comic portrayal, I think it is entirely appropriate to have separate section to cover that under the fiction heading. --KilMichaelMcC 17:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. It makes sense when necessary. Also, sometimes bios have events that dont' belong int he bio proper. (Optimus Prime's battle int he Mirtonian constellation, for sinstance, does not belong in his main bio.) -Derik 17:55, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Thirded. Also, can we be more aggressive about source-citing in the intro paragraph? Whenever an intro is longer than a sentence or two, I start to doubt its relevance. For instance, I'll see a bunch of suspiciously-highly-detailed info about some Nebulan's personality and history, and I'll wonder: Did this come from a Marvel TFU profile, a DW profile, an actual story, a tech-spec bio, what? As a rule, I think that ANY piece of info that only exists in one place should be confined to its continuity of origin. But, if that's too extreme a policy, then there should be citations of some sort within the intro. - Jackpot 18:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I often find myself wondering where a lot of this information comes from. If it's not under a heading in the fiction section, there's often no clues as to the information's origin. --Crockalley 19:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that, unless we have another contradictory source, the assumption is that information is universal, which feels right to me. But getting more strict about inclusing a 'sources cited' section might not be bad. (Not necessarily footnoted, in most case that level fo distinction is unnecessary.) -Derik 19:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

And my assumption regarding TF fiction is that if something is stated in only one continuity, then it's not necessarily applicable to the others. It can be, but presenting it as though it's universal limits the possibilities of all the other continuities. For instance, Soundwave. His intro-paragraph presents the backstabbing-opportunist-who-everybody-hates-and-distrusts aspect of his tech-spec bio as though it applies universally. Yet there's little to no sign of that in his cartoon portrayal. He MIGHT be blackmailing other 'Cons "off-camera," but he could also be as straightforward as he seems. In fact, the "Animated continuity" section has to specifically mention he "only infrequently exhibit[ed] any traits that could be consider[ed] to be in line with his tech spec." So if it wasn't universal, why was it in the intro? I think tech-spec bios should get their own "Fiction" subsection, and for that matter, comic profiles should be separately called out within their continuities. - Jackpot 20:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

In reply to you, Derik: If the info is under the heading "Marvel Comics", that's self explanatory. But there's a lot of info that's not under a heading, and in those cases, I think it would be appropriate to indicate a source. --Crockalley 20:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the best approach is this: If there is only one real portrayle of a character (say Bumblebee) that goes at the begining. If there are different portrayles given fairly equal establishment (say Blaster, Comic vrs. Toon) then there should just be a note up top and appropriate character profiles under the respective fiction sections. If (as with OP Minor here) there's one Major fictive portrayle (IDW where there's an actual story) but then one minor that disagrees (a few techspec lines) the Major should go at the top, and then in the fiction section should be a seperate Toy Bio entry with the differnt persona. Would that make sense? ZacWilliam 23:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree fully with this. A one-sentence opening for a character page just... looks bad if there's anything that could actually fill it. Besides, it'd hardly be the first time fiction and bio didn't line up completely. --M Sipher 23:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed --Crockalley 00:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like we have a fundamental difference in taste. Not only does a short opening not look bad to me, but like I said above, the longer it is, the less I trust it. I quickly begin to suspect that it's either paraphrased from a comic profile (which seem in most cases apocryphal to the actual stories) or cobbled together from multiple continuities into a whole that doesn't really exist in any (see Soundwave again). As for OpMinor in particular: Since he gets actual characterization in only one continuity, I don't think he needs an intro at ALL. Just weave his personality traits into his "IDW Comics" bio. The only reason I can think of for an intro to even exist is if the story-bio section is too long or complicated to expect an average Wiki-surfer to read. But that's certainly not the case here, and in the places where it is the case (such as, say, Optimus Prime), there are enough universal elements supported by all continuities to construct an unobjectionable, relevant intro. - Jackpot 03:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, you want to avoid character bios that have ca jumbled continuity. That works fine for most characters, but a character with multiple incarnations... how the hell do you write a bio without mixing continuities?

Look at Springer. He's a wise-cracking Han Solo type who thinks of hismelf a a modern knight in the cartoon, an angsty self-doubting Wrecker in the Marvel Uk comics, and a confident but non-joking team leader in Dreamwave. In the cartoon he frequently uses a sword or lance, in the Marvel comic he's a gun-wielder, in Dreamwave he actually uses the jumping abilities his bios talked about but he never used.

Where does the truth of thie character lie? The bio here tries to be as broad as possible, mentioning all hsi abilities, and putting his different characterizations into a context that makes them not seem like total contradictions, but just two sides of the same coin.

I argue that the entire point of the top bios is the give that at-a-glance no-particular-continuity view of a character. If a reader wants to knwo all the introcacies, they can read the entire entry. The point of the introduction is to introduce. And further- whu should the introduction choose one continuity to favor aboce others? "Well, there's a wide degree of variation, but this is the RIGHT one."

Also? Soundwave WAS a traitorous backstabber in almost every continuity except the sunbow cartoon and the Kids Stuff storybooks. You can argue tyhat the cartoon was so priminent that maybe the backstabber aspect of his personality shouldn't be given such a front-and-center highlighting in the introduction, I might even agree with you, but it's only a 'glaring inaccuracy' if you hold the cartoon up above all other continuities. In the UK, Soudnwave became leader of the Decepticons for a time based entirely on his worst examnple of backstabbery. That part of his personality deserves highlighting just as much as his 'loyal spearcarrier' side. -Derik 05:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Certainly I don't think the intros should favor one continuity over the others. Like I said, the only information that I think properly belongs in an intro is that which can be supported universally. For instance, "Shockwave is a cold, unemotional, high-ranking Decepticon who never took on a Terran alt-mode." Those statements are all evidenced by his portrayals across continuities. Since I'm in favor of keeping the intros as brief as possible, I'm happy to stop there. But if more is really called for, then I think distinctions have to be made. "Across continuities, he has been portrayed in distinctly different ways: As hyper-logical and obsessed with attaining leadership of the Earth-bound Decepticons; as steadfastly loyal to Megatron and content to maintain stewardship over Cybertron for him; or as a seemingly benevolent but iron-fisted dictator who ruled a peaceful Cybertron for ages and considered the still-battling Earth-bound TFs barbaric." This goes hand-in-hand with my earlier call for better citation. That text could easily be accompanied with footnotes or sidenotes. Or even be rewritten to include mentions of which continuities the various portrayals came from. - Jackpot 06:56, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Shockwave took a Terran alt-mode in Hearts of Steel. And probably the DW Joe crossover, too. So we're down to "Shockwave is a cold, unemotional, high-ranking Decepticon." Except sometimes he's called Shockblast. And I bet you could make the point that the cartoon didn't really convey the "cold and unemotional" aspect very well, and to state it in the top could be considered kind of misleading, so we're really down to only "Shock*." Which is really ridiculous. Are we going to be pairing down everyone's bios as new continuities are established which don't touch on every single point of a character's personality? IDW's given Dogfight lines, but they haven't shown that he's quick to anger yet. Should we dump half his profile section until they get to that part? --ItsWalky 13:57, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand where you're coming from, wanting it to be absolutely clear where a character's personality info is from, but at the same time I REALLY dislike the idea of doing away with the characterization paragraph intro. I think it's probably most likely that folks will look up a character to find out what they were like, that first techspec bio style paragraph, as much as what they did (their fiction biography). It's certainly why I'd look up an obscure character. If you hide that info or obfuscate it by diffusing it throughout the fiction's chronicle of events you make the wiki a lot less useful and helpful in many situations.

Really characters with multiple conflicting portrayles are still BY FAR a minority across the huge spectrum of TF fiction. I see no problem in treating them as what they are: Special Cases, giving them a note to that effect, and seperate characterization profiles at the start of each fiction section. This way, the ones it is an issue for are delt with and the majority, for whom it poses no problem, maintain the more attractive and useful profile first style. ZacWilliam 10:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I have a few comments to add to this discussion:

• This conversation probably should have been moved to the community portal's talk page because it concerns site-wide policies. I only randomly decided to look at it because I'm bored and it seemed like a lot of people had been posting to it. It it were posted to the portal, though, I would have known it was important.
• Toy bio information should absolutely be allowed under "Fiction".
• I wish nearly everything on the Wiki were cited, but that would be a lot of work, and also most of the editors aside from me don't like the idea of "breaking the fourth wall" by giving citations.
• I like that our character pages have an intro, and I like that it is a continuity-nonspecific overview of the character's personality. As Walky describes, we can't really limit the intro to things which we know are correct in all continuities, because there's always going to be some "minor" universe where it isn't true and you end up with nothing to say at all.
• On the other hand, if some portrayals are vastly different than others, then (as the discussion seems to be settling on) I think there should be some sort of statement of that before the table of contents. I don't know how to do that without breaking the fourth wall. I also don't care. But some of you do.
• Like Jackpot, I don't like it when the intros get long, although my threshold is higher than his. A three paragraph "overview" is excessive except for especially notable characters (Optimus Primal and Megatron (BW) both have long, but appropriate introductions). I don't mind an intro which is only two sentences. If that's all there is that can really be said without pushing into inaccurate continuity-melding, then so be it. The intro for Omega Supreme (G1), for example, seems quite sufficient to me.
• There's no reason that a "Fiction" subsection can't start with a personality overview instead of diving right into a list of events in those cases where a separate overview is needed.

--Steve-o 02:53, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion has been moved to Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal. --Crockalley 14:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Toy Photo

After putting mine back together, I checked here for more information, and noticed the lack of a photo. Please excuse the poor quality- I'm rather new to photographing small objects like this. If anyone can come up with a better quality image, feel free to replace it... in the meanwhile, I hope someone comes up with a good caption. - Ayellowbirds 14:53, 1 July 2010 (EDT)