Death

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This article is about the end of life. For the Horseman of Unicron, see Airazor (Armada){{#switch:{{#sub:Airazor (Armada)|-1}}

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And lo, the children did weep. They wept hard too.

Transformers is a children's franchise, but at its core, it's a story of war. This means that the death of major and minor characters sometimes figures into the fiction.

Given the ambiguous nature of Transformer physiology, there is very little consistency regarding what is fatal to a Transformer, even within a single storyline. Damage that one Transformer might shrug off can prove fatal to another, or even to the same character in a different story. Sometimes just a laser blast or two will do the trick. Other times, characters survive being melted, crushed into cubes, and even utterly disintegrated. It does not take a terribly cynical viewer to conclude that the threshold of survival is generally determined by the needs of the plot.

The out-of-universe reasons for a character's death can vary from plot development to the arrival of new toys. Conveniently enough for writers who are beholden to the whims of a toy company, the majority of Transformers characters are machines, which means that death isn't necessarily permanent. Across the various universes, characters that appear to have been killed have been known to pop up alive again at a later date, or go through some sort of resurrection.

"How can you all be so cold and unfeeling? He died a hero!"
"Don't you even have mechanical hearts?"
"The humans don't understand! Our form of life is vastly different from theirs!"{{#if:|{{{quote2}}}}}{{#if:Spider-Man, Sparkplug Witwicky, and Optimus Prime"Prisoner of War!"|Spider-Man, Sparkplug Witwicky, and Optimus Prime{{#if:"Prisoner of War!"|, "Prisoner of War!"|}}|}}

Causes of death

Scorponok is just as puzzled as the rest of us.

There is little consistency in what can kill a Transformer. Sometimes it takes just a shot. Other times, even totally annihilating a Transformer's body still doesn't do the trick. Even the most basic method of killing, which is to destroy or otherwise cause the loss of a Transformer's spark, varies quite a bit in its details from story to story, character to character, and series to series.

However, over time there has been some convergence of concepts regarding Transformer design across the various franchises and storylines. The concept of Sparks as a Transformer's driving life force has become nearly universal, and with it, the notion that loss of Spark equals death. Various 2005 IDW continuity comics, particularly More Than Meets The Eye, have delved deeply into this, positing that a Transformer can die if their Spark, brain or (in a new and unique twist) transformation cog are sufficiently damaged, known as "Rossum's Trinity‎". MTMTE also makes note of the difficulties in killing a Transformer, and how things like decapitation may not be lethal in the right circumstances.

If one is so inclined, these concepts can be applied retroactively to many, if not all, older stories - so that various means of death described below can be seen simply as the means of inflicting the requisite damage on a Transformer's vital bits.

When a Transformer dies, the loss of their life force (or artistic convention, out here in the real world) often results in them turning gray. The most well-known example by far is Optimus Prime's death in the animated movie; Prowl can also be glimpsed turning gray as he falls during the shuttle assault. This idea has shown up in a few other places, such as the Animated cartoon and the More Than Meets the Eye comics, the latter of which coined the term "aggressive depigmentation" to describe the phenomenon.

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• Weaponsfire
• Explosions
• Impact trauma
• Disassembly
• Bifurcation
• Crushing
• Melting
• Disintegration
• Consumption
• Decapitation
• Destruction of brain
• Destruction of spark
• Loss of spark
• Energy overload
• Energy depletion
• Disease
• Aging
• Suicide

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Resuscitation and resurrection

{{#if:RodimusLast Bot Standing #2|

“	Dying came easy to us. You were never mourned for long because someone nearly always found a way to bring you back. So you could pick up right where you left off.	”
{{#if:Rodimus| —Rodimus{{#if:Last Bot Standing #2|, Last Bot Standing #2}} }} }}

Robots are machines. They can be switched off, taken apart, blown to bits, and put back together. Ergo, in many continuities and cases, "death" is not nearly as permanent a condition as it is for us fragile fleshy types.

• Reconstruction
• Spark transfer
• Unique substances
• Divine intervention
• Undeath

Immortality

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Real world reasoning

• Drama / character culmination
• Consequences of war
• Increased threat
• Cast thinning
• Character motivation
• Clear space for new toys

Fleshling death

"The humans' spark is fragile."
"WHAT?! Impossible! Their spark's not eternal?"
"One life. That's all they've got."
"Bahh. Then they really are poorly designed."{{#if:|{{{quote2}}}}}{{#if:Demolishor and Megatron"Energon Grid"|Demolishor and Megatron{{#if:"Energon Grid"|, "Energon Grid"|}}|}}

In general, Transformers fiction is pretty squeamish about showing the deaths of Earth's organic creatures. But it's a war, and sometimes it does happen. The out-of-universe reasons generally fall into three categories: Consequences of War, Emotional Pathos, and BLOOD IZ KEWL.

The various cartoons tend to show organic death the least, as they are most clearly aimed at, and easily accessible by, children. Comics tend to be less reluctant to show the impact of the Transformers' war on innocent lives, though the death rate varies by series. Latter-day Generation 1 books especially revel in high body counts, because squishing stupid humans is killer and awesome and radical and hardcore. Even the occasional children's storybook has been known to off mass quantities of the dumb fleshies.

Characters who die a lot

• Optimus Prime
• Starscream — He dies quite a lot.
• Dirge (G1) — the unlucky guy who also gets killed off in many continuities
• Quake — the unlucky guy who gets killed over and over in the same continuity, but doesn't seem to mind.
• Cy-Kill — a Go-Bots character transferred to many Transformers comics just to be killed off violently, for no other reason than the lolz of ending his toyline, his universe, and finally his life... repeatedly.
• Sentinel Prime (G1) — the unlucky Prime who must die.

See also

• Transformer funerary practices
• To sell toys