Humor me for a somewhat longer and more self-indulgent
editorial, and join me on an excursion into the realm of my Personal
Mythology. Personal Mythology is what I call those symbols that
stand for the most important concepts in one's life - a symbolic
representation in the mind, of that which has influenced you the most
and makes you who you are. Much like the Archetypes described in
Rob Boersma's letter in Con-Tacts #12, these are personal
archetypes - symbols whose meanings you will never fail to
understand, because you formed them, or rather, accepted them into
yourself, earlier than you can probably even remember. I will disagree
with Rob on one point and claim that there are indeed such things as
personal archetypes, because these are the character concepts that you
will always respond to in the same way, whether positively or
negatively. And those concepts are not necessarily shared by the
population at large.
In my case, the realm of Personal Mythology is a landscape of
scorched wastelands and impenetrable jungles, populated by the most
lethal creatures ever to exist in fact or fiction. The theme here is
survival - self-sufficiency, independence, uniqueness, and triumph
over whatever harsh conditions may exist. And in a mirroring of
natural selection, a certain number of personal archetypes have battled
their way to the forefront: the unquestioned, all-powerful, and awe-
inspiring leader; the absolutely loyal and dependable second-in-
command; the powerful and dangerous female command figure. Each
is represented by a number of characters, some self-created, some
taken up from the media. And when I come across a character on
screen or in print who fits one of these molds, I'll instinctively
gravitate toward them and respond positively. Which perhaps
explains, in part, my intense identification with the Decepticons.
Because as a group, they match my personal archetypes - and as
individuals, at least two of them fit precisely into two of my very
specific search images. (You will surely recognize Megatron and
Soundwave in two of the above descriptions.)
So when I heard that Megatron's next incarnation as a toy
was going to be a Tyrannosaurus, I couldn't have been more delighted.
Never mind for the moment that the new cartoon has proven this isn't
the real Megatron - never mind for now that the personality they
gave him is not worthy of the name. Let's separate the toy from the
cartoon continuity entirely, for the moment, and discuss just the name
as representing the real Megatron, and the form, the Tyrannosaurus
mode.
For the first time in a long time, I'm impatiently looking
forward to a new toy. Not because I will ever "really" consider the real
Megatron to have a Tyrannosaurus form, or ever write about him that
way, or probably ever accept this laughable imposter who is using the
name and the form on the BW cartoon - but because the concept of
Megatron as a Tyrannosaur fits my Personal Mythology so well that I
couldn't have planned it better myself. If you distill Megatron's
personality down into its most basic components, into that which
makes him so extremely appealing to me, you would find the same
components that have made the Tyrannosaurus my favorite dinosaur
from the very beginning.
You see, I am a dinosaur fan - have been since the age of
five, and have never entirely outgrown it. At the time, dinosaurs
represented the ultimate in sheer unbridled power. When they stalked
across the landscape of my imaginings, the earth itself trembled; they
roared their battle challenges to each other and flung themselves after
their prey and their enemies with magnificently fierce abandon. I
brought the ancient Cretaceous landscape vividly to life for myself,
wandered scorched plains and steaming swamplands with more
familiarity than I have ever found in the modern world. And the
undisputed, feared ruler of this entire realm was a majestic
Tyrannosaurus.
He had a name, which is irrelevant here, and only two living
beings could approach him in safety - one being his friend the glossy-
black Brontosaurus, the great Thunder Lizard (mixing and matching
geologic eras, of course, but hey, this is Personal Mythology and not
scientific fact), and the other being myself. All the world feared the
great hunter, except those surprising exceptions who had no need to. I
should emphasize, too, that this Tyrannosaur was nothing even
vaguely resembling "me Grimlock." And he's as far as you can
possibly get from the safe, dumbed-down, and cutesified versions of
dinosaurs that are so sadly spoon-fed to kids today. Even at the age of
five I would have been offended to be presented with a Tyrannosaur as
a dull, dumb, lumbering, happy-go-lucky beast with a vapid smile and
"cheerful" colors. The Tyrannosaur is the mightiest terrestrial killing
machine that has ever graced the face of the planet - this was no
shuffling, shambling, tail-dragging scavenger but an extraordinary
hunter with a mouthful of serrated steak-knives, stereoscopic vision,
legs fashioned for running, and the keen instincts of a top predator -
and to tone down that unbelievably efficient lethality, is to insult
everything dinosaurs stand for, at least in the mind of this particular
Plumed Serpent.
But where is the connection to Transformers? Well,
somewhere along the way, the two concepts got linked up for me. The
fact that there were Dinobots may have helped a bit, but they were
on the wrong side; it was the Decepticons who gave me the same
feeling of awe and excitement that I remember as a kid, pursuing my
dinosaur fantasies. Megatron himself, as a representative of my
personal archetype of the all-powerful leader, got subconsciously
linked to that ancient Tyrannosaur somehow, so that I have often had
dreams in which I pictured Megatron in the form of a Tyrannosaurus.
Oddly enough their colors are similar (I pictured my old Cretaceous
companion in pale gray, simply because my only Tyrannosaur toy
happened to be molded in that color plastic - not too different from
Megatron's pale silver-gray) - but that's a superficiality. Megatron,
like my ancient Tyrannosaur, is a predator at heart. He takes what he
needs from the world around him, and none dare oppose him. He will
never be tamed, never be conquered. The effortless power, the
absolute certainty that he may do as he pleases, the disdain for any
rules other than his own, inspire not fear and disgust in me, but
boundless admiration. If one such as this considers you a friend, then
nothing and no one will ever dare harm you again.
So this upcoming toy is a powerful symbolic image for me, on
several fronts. Not as a "real" form for the real Megatron, but as a
tangible representation of that symbol. As a way to tie the distant past
to the far future in one single shape. I have by now seen a picture of
the toy, and the Tyrannosaur mode looks appropriately exceptional.
The robot mode is almost worthless, but that doesn't especially bother
me. It's not Megatron, after all. It's a personal archetype that
walked right out of the landscape of my own mythology. The very
earth trembles as those great clawed hindfeet strike the ground, as the
head full of serrated daggers swings around - as the mighty
Tyrannosaur roars a thunderous challenge to the world he rules! ...
Wait, are we talking about Megatron, or about my Cretaceous
childhood companion? I'm sorry, but I seem to have lost track....
--Raksha the Plumed Serpent
|