I used to talk about this a lot but
IDW Prowl is probably one of the most complex characters in the comics and I absolutely hate it when hes reduced down to “the asshole character”
Cause like
Yeah sure hes got a bit of a stick up his ass
But I feel like people just end there analysis of him there
Has he committed a lot of war crimes and done unethical stuff
Yes
But so has literally EVERYONE else in this universe
Starscream is literally the pinnacle of war crimes
The comics make a point calling out even Optimus for his questionable actions and orders during the war with the Dinobots saying he makes them do the dirty work for him
Megatron literally commits genocide and yet his story ends with an alternate version of him going free and exploring the universe with the LL
The literal war lord was treated better and is looked upon more positively than Prowl and I think it just came down to how fucked Prowl got by the writers
Because while Megatrons redemption was all in your face and you got a shit ton of flashbacks that try to justify the eventual atrocities he would commit you don’t get that with Prowl
Even when Prowl is absolutely in the right you constantly have it disregarded by characters making jokes about him overreacting (being mad OP is sending the space tyrant away with free reign of his own ship isn’t overreacting btw-) and as such you start to think of him as a genuinely irrational character when hes not
Prowl is bad at keeping the relationships he forms yes
But he is not always at fault for that
While his relationship with CD ended poorly Chromedome is also shown to be kinda of a dick sometimes and commits his fair share of fucked up things such as when he literally ATTACKS PROWL AND FORCES HIS WAY INTO HIS MIND TO PROTECT HIMSELF FROM THE CONSEQUENCE OF HIS ACTIONS WHEN PROWL THREATENS TO TELL REWIND ABOUT THE SHITTY STUFF HE DID IN HIS PAST
This leads to Prowls inevitable snowball out of control when this attack leads to an opening for Bombshell (I think its been a while since I read the comics) to use his tech to mind control him forcing him into combining with the contructicons
Something we learn is an immensely intimate thing with their minds being kinda melded
This was something Prowl did not want
And when all was said and done and he was calmed down he still had to live with that gesalt he was forced into with them following him around like fanboys
Nobody ever even really stopped to check in on him
And as such he understandable went a little bit insane
He had just faced an immensely traumatic invasion of his body and mind and on top of stress form feeling like everything was out of his control and like he couldn’t stop the bad things from happening alongside bitter emotions being brought back up with a return visit to Earth and reunion with spike AND the fact that he feels like Optimus doesn’t trust him and like hes just letting Starscream do whatever he want (something that understandably freaks him out seeing as how he spent 4 million years fighting Starscream) he just kinda snaps
He trys to destroy the space bridge so that no one else can leave or get through and so he can regain some semblance of control
Is it wrong
Yes
But he was not in a good state of mind and no one was helping him at all
And immediately following his arrest afterward Prowl is confronted by OP who is supposed to be his friend and when Prowl doesn’t say the right things to him to placate him Optimus’ response is to punch him out a window and beat the shit out of him
And not being given any room to breath this is immediately follow up my him getting kidnapped by Tarantulas who is very obviously an impactful and negative part of his past
Prowl just has bad event, one after the other, happen to him over and over again and not only does no one check up on him afterwards to see if hes okay but everyone actively makes fun of him for being understandable unstable
Prowl is a fucking tragedy and not many people seem to be able to see beyond what characters in the comics think of him
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maybe a controversial opinion but while i really love jiang cheng as a character he is deeply self-centered as a person. and seeing people fight tooth and nail claiming he isn't, or is just misunderstood, or that he has genuine valid reasons to be selfish when plenty of other characters make the difficult choice to forego status and opportunities for what they believe is genuinely right to do (read: wei wuxian, wen ning, wen qing, lan wangji, jiang yanli, mianmian, etc.)
it's just odd to me. especially if they're talking about the novels.
mxtx didn't give jiang cheng the name "sandu shengshou" as a quirky coincidence. there's a REASON she named him & his sword after the 3 poisons of Buddhism (specifically ignorance, greed, and hatred). it's crucial to the story that jiang cheng is NOT selfless and that wei wuxian IS.
it's important to accept that wei wuxian is, by their society's standards, not morally gray; he represents several Buddhist ideals in direct contrast of jiang cheng and multiple people attest to wei wuxian's strong moral character, which is a lot of why jiang cheng even feels bitter about him to begin with.
it's crucial, because by the end of the novel jiang cheng realizes the extent of this and begins to let go!
the twin prides thing wasn't jiang cheng wanting them to 100% mirror the twin jades. he does care about wei wuxian, but he wanted wei wuxian to stay his right hand man, in part the way wei changze was for jiang fengmian.
and if there's one thing you can notice about wei changze in the novels, it's that literally nobody talks about him. he is only ever mentioned when his cool mysterious mountain sect wife cangse-sanren is mentioned, or (even more rarely) when they discuss him as a servant to jiang fengmian. regardless of jiang fengmian's own feelings, wei changze was considered lesser to him and didn't seem to outdo him, since nobody's out there years later still waxing poetry about wei changze's skills.
it may not be the only thing jiang cheng wants out of a twin pride dynamic, but it is a big part of it. regardless of his parents' intentions in taking wei wuxian in and treating him certain ways, this twin pride right-hand man thing is what jiang cheng has felt owed since childhood. he gave up his dogs for wei wuxian, people gossip about his sect heir position with wei wuxian there... jiang cheng wants the reciprocation of what he views as personal sacrifices.
he is ignorant to the depth of what wei wuxian must've suffered for over 6 years as a malnourished orphan child on the streets. he hates how wei wuxian's intelligence, witty charm, and cultivation abilities are naturally stronger than his own. he does care about wei wuxian a lot and want them to be together as sort of-brothers, sort of-friends, sort of-young master and sect servant...
...but if it's between that unclear (yet still caring) relationship and being able to save himself just a little bit more, jiang cheng nearly always manages to clam up in the face of danger and choose the latter, which ultimately benefits himself most. maybe it's a stretch to call that sort of thing greed, but it certainly isn't selfless.
there are of course plenty of justifications for this. it's his duty as sect heir. his home and sect was severely damaged by the wen attack and subsequent war; he had to protect himself, etc.
but doesn't that prove the point?
wei wuxian may be charming, but in terms of pure social standing, he is lower and far more susceptible to being punished or placed in harm's way by people who have more power and money. to protect wei wuxian, yunmeng jiang's long-term head disciple and semi-family member, even in the face of backlash and public scrutiny would've been the selfless thing to do. this is what wei wuxian does for the wen remnants in the burial mounds.
jiang cheng does not choose this. it's not even an unreasonable choice for him to make! nobody else in the great clans is doing such a thing, stepping out of line to take on a burden that could weaken them in the long-run. wei wuxian himself doesn't hate jiang cheng for it; he lets go of these things and focuses on what good he can do in the present.
jiang cheng thinks further into the future - what would happen to him if he continued vouching for wei wuxian and taking his side? what about jiang cheng's face, his sect's face? would wei wuxian even care to reciprocate somehow? everyone expects him to cut off wei wuxian for being dangerous, for threatening his position, for...
do you see what i mean? to call jiang cheng selfless for falling in line with exactly what people expected him to do after the war is not only wrong, it's foolish.
"but they faked their falling-out!" okay. why fake it to begin with, except to protect jiang cheng and the jiang sect's own face? is that selfless? who does it ultimately serve to protect? wei wuxian canonically internalizes the idea that he stains all that he touches, including lan wangji, and agrees to the fake fight because he doesn't want to cause the jiang sect harm. regardless, it eventually slides into a true falling-out, and in the end jiang cheng is more or less unscathed reputation-wise while wei wuxian falls.
that isn't selfless. it's many things! it's respecting his clan and his ancestors, it's making a good plan for the future of his sect and cultivation... but it isn't a truly selfless in the interest of what's right rather than in the interest of duty and what's good for him and his family lineage.
that brings me to my next point: even though wei wuxian hid the truth of the golden core transfer, jiang cheng spent nearly 20 years believing that the golden core "renewal" he was given was a birthright gift of wei wuxian's from baoshan-sanren, an immortal sect teacher of wei wuxian's mother's and a martial elder to wei wuxian.
of course we all know that's a big fat lie, but jiang cheng believed that wei wuxian gave up a critical emergency use gift to him for decades! he was lied to, yes, but jiang cheng immediately agreed without even needing to be convinced. the light in his dead eyes came back with hope the moment wei wuxian even said baoshan-sanren's name. he accepted wei wuxian's offer to give that up to him and take it via identity theft without missing a beat.
with how mysterious and revered baoshan-sanren is, that's obviously not a light sacrifice to just give up to anyone, no matter how close they might be to you. pretending to be wei wuxian to take the gift could even be considered dangerous. what if she found out and got offended? could wei wuxian be hurt by that?
jiang cheng doesn't even hesitate. wei wuxian is the one who mentions that if jiang cheng doesn't pretend to be him, the immortal master could get angry and they'd both be goners. and funnily enough, the day they do go to "the mountain", jiang cheng is the one worried and suspiciously wondering if wei wuxian was lying to him or had misremembered.
of course they've both been traumatized like hell prior to this point. but still: it speaks to how broken he was at the moment as well as to his character overall.
i digress: jiang cheng "gets his golden core back" via what he believed was a gift that should've been wei wuxian's to use in serious emergencies. rather than use it for himself, wei wuxian risked his own safety and gave it to jiang cheng... and jiang cheng still ends up embittered and angry, believing that wei wuxian is arrogant and selfish.
if he truly views them as 100% brothers and equals with no caveats, why would he think that way? it's not like he needs to grovel before wei wuxian for doing that, or to reciprocate... but this is what i mean when i say jiang cheng feels he is owed things by wei wuxian. wei wuxian's actions hold a very different weight in jiang cheng's mind, and jiang cheng himself doesn't ever act the same way, except once.
is it wrong for him to feel like he is owed something? it depends. many asian cultures, including my own, feel that a person owes their family in ways that may not make sense to westerners. for example, it's considered normal for a child to owe their parents for giving birth to them, or to other caretakers for feeding, clothing, sheltering, educating them, etc.
however, something like verbally saying "thank you" or "i'm sorry" to family is considered crazy- why would you owe that? you're supposed to inconvenience your family; saying thank you or sorry is the sort of thing you say to a stranger or acquaintance. i get half-seriously lectured by my elders on this a lot even now, even though they know such phrases are just considered good manners in the US.
this muddies up the idea of wei wuxian being jiang cheng's family vs his family's charge or servant even more. jiang cheng wants wei wuxian to be close... but ultimately doesn't really choose to use what power he DOES have to protect wei wuxian. he considers himself still owed something that in his mind wei wuxian flagrantly never repays.
this isn't even getting into how despite spending a majority of his time with the yiling patriarch he never once noticed that wei wuxian stopped using any spiritual power-based cultivation. even lan wangji, who met them far more rarely, realized that something was wrong and that wei wuxian had taken some sort of spiritual damage, hence the "come with me to gusu".
of course manpain is fun and i'm not immune to the juicy idea of them reconciling and talking things out... but jiang cheng is deeply mired in his own desire to be "above" wei wuxian in multiple ways, and doesn't realize the extent of wei wuxian's actions, the intentions behind them, and the consequences wei wuxian knowingly faced for them.
to not recognize this about jiang cheng, especially in the novels, is really revisionist if you ask me. i reiterate that i really do like him a lot. he's flawed, angry, traumatized and has poor coping mechanisms, an overall fascinating character... but he is not selfless nor ideal, and i seriously draw the line at people saying he is.
wen ning shoves this all into his face at lotus pier to disastrous results. it is the reason why jiang cheng's a total mess at guanyin temple, and the reason jiang cheng ultimately doesn't tell wei wuxian about the fact that he ran towards the wens on purpose.
for that one last act of his to have really been selfless, he needs to not seek anything in return. he did it purely because it was right to do to protect someone else. if that means wei wuxian never finds out about it, so be it.
that moment that ended up causing jiang cheng irreversible harm is not a debt that wei wuxian owes him. it hurts, but no matter how bitter it is, that realization is so important to him changing in the future.
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I have thoughts about the opening of TWW as it stands now, it just doesn't work for me because it makes all of the involved characters look incompetent at best and straight up stupid at worst. You are telling me there was no serious council meeting to decide whether they should bring a city with civilians into uncharted territory without scouting ahead?
When Dalaran was ported during Legion it was out of necessity (as it was under attack) and then it housed some of the strongest people on Azeroth (the Class Hall representatives) while also reinforcing it's defenses. Sure they were going to port it anyway, but it happened now with little preparation because they were getting bombarded. In TWW Khadgar asks you to go help people nail shelves to the wall before teleporting. And everyone knows that Magni's vision showed a city burning at Khaz Algar. Does it never occur to anyone that maybe we are in danger bringing a city over without any prior knowledge of this location?
Also everyone keeps saying that this was done because there was no other choice, the citizens of Dalaran should've known what they are in for (dying apparently), Dalaran was used as a military base before, Xal'atath sabotaged it from within (where? lmao) and like all of this could've been fixed in one scene while also not making everyone look like an idiot.
Instead of the pointless Radiant Echoes quest, have the pre-patch event be Alleria leading hunting parties after Xal'atath that always lead to a dead end. Have Alleria literally be stressed and worn down over days and weeks so that she is too distracted to even suspect Xal'atath might be in Dalaran already. Use the repetitive gameplay aspect of the event to wear down the player too and give us that sense of pointless hunting that Alleria is also experiencing at this point.
Then have her attend a council meeting with Khadgar and the others, including Drenden, and have Thrall, Jaina, Anduin and Magni there too. Show us how tired Alleria is of this chase and have Khadgar comfort and encourage her that she is doing everything she can. Then have him voice his concerns about porting the city on a whim, Khadgar is as responsible for the lives of the people in Dalaran as the ones they try and help. Have the council disagree with this porting.
And then have Drenden stand up and say how even though he is new, he knows of how Dalaran stood against the Burning Legion and how the world needs them now and this is a sacrifice that must be made. Almost convince the player he is not Xal'atath. Have Xal'atath as Drenden address Khadgar directly and play into his heroism and goodness and cast any doubt aside about this porting before he makes the final call. Show us how Xal'atath sways the entire council to do this one decision on a whim. Even have Khadgar tell Drenden to secure the wards around the city.
This will just pay off so much in the scene between Xal'atath and Khadgar because you know she dogwalked him during that council meeting and played into his virtues and ultimately he now thinks its his fault he moved the city here and cost all those people their lives. Why not have him die with regrets? Feeling like a failure?
To top it off, in the scene where Drenden reveals himself as Xal'atath to Alleria, why have him just grin to her and act like Xal'atath in drag? Give him few more seconds of sounding like Drenden, tell Alleria that maybe she is just tired of all this hunting, put his hand on her shoulder and just have the realization that he is Xal'atath slowly sink in so that Xal'atath reveals herself once Alleria already knows.
Not saying this would be perfect, but just one scene like the council meeting could've established so much about these three characters and add more weight to the loss everyone suffers. Let them be human, let them have doubts and disagreements, show Xal'atath playing right into that and actually manipulating the stage and the council right under the players noses too.
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