AllNewSuperRobot wrote:You see, my jumping on point to G1 was The Movie. So I don't have the sentimentality for Season One and Two. So when it comes to seeing what I want to see, I only have the evidence presented within the context of The Movie. I don't have the exchange in episode 16 to colour my perceptions of what I was watching in the moment. To me, Prowl was "the one with smoking eyes", Ironhide was that red guy, put down at Megatron's feet and Prime died by his own making, because he couldn't finish a fight he started.
The episodes are fresh in my mind because I am been streaming them lately.
So, it sounds to me (and I apologize for how this may come across) that without character context you make a judgement based solely out of perceived motives that you in all likelihood create out of an impression of putting yourself in the character's shoes. So, from what you saw, Prime made a fatal mistake that you attribute to arrogance or hubris.
To me the classic example of Hubris: (to use a historical reference) was in WWII during the Battle of the Denmark Strait when the British Admiralty ordered the battlecruiser HMS Hood (in reality a WWI era Light battlecruiser given the armor comparative distribution for the time) against the top of the line German Super-Battleship Bismarck. The Hood had very little chance of surviving the battle, let alone winning. In the end, there were three survivors from the crew of about 1,400. I'm sure there are better examples, but this is the one that stands out for me. Much more akin to Hot Rod attacking Megatron during the encounter. This wasn't that sort of scenario with Optimus Prime, however. Prime was as much a "battleship" as Megatron was. So, there is no hubris in him believing he is a match for Megatron.
To me, in the movie it was Prime's death that raised the stakes for the drama of the movie. Sure a lot of G1 Autobots bit the dust prior to that, but they were supporting characters and in many cases were completely interchangeable. Dialogue or plot advancement from one could easily be replaced by another. There was no indication to me that Prime was going into a battle that he could not or would not finish.