Randomhero wrote:You obviously hasn't read the dozens and dozens of posts about roller and terminus. A lot of people wanted to know about roller and terminus.
So you're a bit disappointed about being surprised? So what if things arnt the same as how you envision it. It means you're not right and you get a surprise.
I thought for a year Proteus was Tarn and was damn certain he was only for that to be the complete opposite. I was wrong and couldn't be happier that I wa wrong because that means this book continues to be fresh and unpredictable.
Again, this is just my personal opinion on things, but I should probably explain my thoughts a bit more. Again, again, Roberts really, really likes to set things up so that they can payoff later, but with him it's too much of a good thing when you're trying to conclude a narrative. I know that this isn't really a conclusion to the series, but for this particular story and in terms of things leading to this story both
Roller and Terminus played their part. I don't begrudge anyone for wanting
to know what happened to them, and I won't deny that you could something interesting with
their fates later. However, previously
terminus showed up in a single issue. Here
he acts as a motivator for Megatron's later worldview, not to compromise or give in to authority.
Sometimes, change must be forced, by force.
His disappearance, and the fact that no one cares about it due to him being some crippled miner, drives this point home to Megatron and the audience. Beyond that,
he only just shows up now to diffuse Megatronand to refute what I saw, in my opinion, as positive character development for
Megatron. It showed that, deep down,
he hasn't really learned anything about real restraint or moderation, and is resorting to binary extremes, again. That said, it's fine for a character to have flaws, but they need to develop eventually or address it in some way.
With
Roller, the vast majority of everything going on with him has been a red herring for Tarn.
He feels the need to latch onto a charismatic authority figure, Optimus then Megatron, and is insecure about his ability to please said authority. He bemoans the fact that he doesn't have a particularly special ability, and resorts to an addictive performance enhancer to compensate. He's billed as one of Prime's and Ratchet's original friends. He has a similar silhouette and build to Tarn. He disappears, and no one knows what happened to him. Tarn also attaches to a charismatic figure, has a highly addictive personality, uses performance enhancers, was a member of Optimus' circle at one point, and has memories that could feasibly have been Roller's. No one save Megatron knows who he really is, and a guy with his build as well as reason to hate Optimus' and crew for leaving him hasn't been seen in millions of years. Basically, in my view,
Roller's position in the story has been solely to mislead the reader, and to
counter it with the actual reveal.
Him showing up now doesn't add much to this arc, except for the audience to go "What!?" when
he appears right before Tarn's mask is removed. From a narrative perspective, knowing what we know now,
his disappearance served its purpose. It would almost be better if
he didn't show up, drama wise, because it really slaps the audience in the face with the reveal while I think more subtlety would have been better.
If you really think about,
Terminus' and Roller's appearance now and in this way means that
their original departure means less. There isn't any mystery anymore. For instance, we can't have a dramatic reveal
to the effect that the circumstances behind Roller's and Terminus' disappearance are actually part of a larger plot by the Cog or something. We know
they were just plucked from the time stream by the Necrobot. Interesting stories about why
they were missing can't be told now in a future arc. For people who really wanted to know what happened, this can't be the kind payoff you wanted. It's just not an interesting twist.
In terms of the story confirming to my expectations, you have a point. The writer doesn't owe me anything. But I can be disappointed. To elaborate, there's a difference between the plot and character development. I'm not necessarily irritated that Megatron didn't do the exact thing plot wise that I would have wanted, but I am miffed that his character, at the conclusion of the arc, didn't actually progress entirely.
He's still stuck in extremes. Unless of course, the writer addresses this character flaw where another character goes
"you haven't changed!" That could be interesting on its own, but it isn't addressed. Instead it feels like all the development the character has gone through is sort of wasted. You can play with my expectations, fine. I actually like the fact that
Tarn isn't Roller. It's a good twist that drives home a point to that character, given the unsubtle way Roberts delivers it. I didn't expect
Ravage to die either. I won't say I necessarily liked it, but it was emotional and works well enough.
Second Rant over, Primus this chain is long.
TLDR, the twist with
Tarn not being Roller isn't the issue. The issue is that
Roller and Terminus, having served their narrative purpose for this particular story,
appear in such a way that either doesn't do much for the arc or regresses character development. For future arcs, this also means there can't be a better payoff. In my view, it would have been better for
them to show up after dying of the light is over so we can have a better, impactful revelation than this.
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