Additional Disparate Thoughts On Transformers

(So I was going to post something last night, but ended up on the computer a bit too late, and decided to skip it. I may do a makeup post today or tomorrow.)

I was ruminating on Transformers fiction the other day, and since then, have ruminated a bit more on it. Today, I'll remark on a phenomenon found perhaps more heavily in the Transformers fiction and fandom than anywhere else, but which is still common and prevalent elsewhere: Kid appeal hate.

Kid appeal hate is a calm, rational term for the furious, irrational behavior associated with characters who are aimed at amusing small children. (The characters themselves are pretty crazy sometimes too.)

No character draws more ire than the one formulated to seem cool and fun to little kids. Why? This is probably mostly because, in Transformers at least, the majority of the Internet fandom is made up of grouchy old farts who have nothing better to do. (Just kidding-it's more like an extremely vocal minority.) I sometimes think of this, within Transformers, as the "Kicker effect." Why?

Because out of all the kid appeal characters, Kicker seems to get the most hate. (Even more than Wheelie, thank you.) This is rather ironic, seeing as how it's not Kicker that's "broken," it's Energon, the series that he's a part of. I'll go into what most annoys people about kid appeal characters for a moment, and then point out why it's silly to blast Kicker over it.

1. Kid appeal characters whine a lot, and do annoying things for no apparent reason.
2. Kid appeal characters are mostly useless.
3. Kid appeal characters are always just sitting around, waiting to be captured and used as cheap plot devices.

Now, admittedly, Kicker is guilty of whining. But almost everybody whines in Energon. The series contains the most-sustained sheer volume of terrible dialogue in Transformers history, perhaps in the history of the English language.

On to point two: Kicker is not useless. Granted, he's got at least a mild case of "Marysueitis." But how are you going to balance the usefulness of a human character against the sheer size and power of a Transformer without making the human unreasonably good or just a bit too pathetic? Anyway, Kicker possesses vaguely defined powers, mostly linked to his magic glowing hair, which let him find Energon a lot more quickly and reliably than vast sensor arrays and entire armies of searching Transformers. Most of the time.

That, and the fact that Kicker is, in his suit, more than capable of taking care of himself. As far as I know, in the series Kicker never got captured and held hostage. And he frequently took the fight to the enemy-he once tried to attack Unicron. (Perhaps he took the idea too far too fast-that's not only a complete 180, it's bugpoop insane.)

My sister is an unabashed fan of Kicker, because unlike 95% of kid appeal characters, he moves the plot himself instead of sitting around commenting on it.

And-here's a shocker for Transformers fans, no doubt-my kid brother (about seven years old) loves Kicker. He thinks Kicker is a really cool dude, and started drawing the adventures of Kicker and stuff, after recently watching a few episodes of Energon we have on tape. (Also, he seems to be slowly developing the ability to pick out plot holes. They grow up so fast.)

Hmm, could it be that the kid appeal character appeals to kids? What a revolutionary thought!

Quite frankly, the same could be said of characters from other stuff, such as Star Wars. I like Jar Jar Binks, for instance, and I'm not the only person in my family who does. Yes, it's possible to like kid appeal characters. You just have to take them on different terms than other characters.

(Note to enraged fanboys: Putting that axe you're grinding through your monitor will only succeed in forcing you to buy a new monitor or quit the Internet. I recommend the latter.)

Signing off.