#villainized by the narrative as if they were treated at 10000% reprehensible

[lord-squiggletits]

I actually disagree with the idea that IDW1 villainized the Decepticons and I'm genuinely not sure where people got this from. Especially when they claim "the Autobots get to be treated as heroes always" when if you read a shred of exRID you know that they are literally not.

There are so many Cons that are treated as people and humanized, especially if you recognize that even some of the pure evil/antagonistic Decepticons still got written as having trauma, being wronged by other characters, having emotions, etc etc.

Decepticons that get to be protagonists/heroes/good guys: Soundwave, Thundercracker, MEGATRON, Barricade, Grimlock and Drift (ex-Decepticons if you count them), Soundwave's cassettes...

Decepticons that are antagonists/villains but still get treated like people, have sad moments, or sometimes do good things with the bad: STARSCREAM, the Scavengers, Tarn, Deathsaurus, Nickel, Shockwave, Ravage...

And I know for sure that I'm probably missing at least half a dozen others. And I didn't even get into the categories of neutrals who are evil, Autobots who are evil, or the entire Senate and Functionist Council who are enemies of the Decepticons but very clearly depicted as evil.

TLDR:

"Autobots don't get criticized--" Not true, read exRID

"Decepticons are always villainized and don't get to be heroic--" Not true, read exRID and also reread MTMTE