I like the Dinobots. As a long-time Dinosaur fan, herpetologist, and erstwhile student of paleontology, I have always liked the Dinobots. Their presence in the cartoon is perfectly suited to those wonderful scorched desertscapes of the first season, and hints at the strata of geologic history, the sands of time. Even the initial inspiration for the team, touched upon some of my fondest childhood fantasies: the exciting discovery of fossil remains. Although they were cheapened into mere comic relief by the third season, the first-season Dinobots were by no means laughingstocks; who would dare laugh at them? They weren't the brightest lights in the sky, but they were none the less truly compelling characters and warriors worthy of regard and respect. Now, lest you think that's a sacrilegious thing for a Decepticon to say, I will make the case that they never should have been Autobots at all. In fact, I will here proceed to rehabilitate the Dinobots as Decepticons. And there's more to it than simply my own conviction that Dinosaurs should always be good guys.
Grimlock's motto ("Among the winners, there is no room for the weak") is a pure Decepticon mindset. If Grimlock is drawn to the side of the light, then his troops will follow. And so it should be. The Autobots pushed these powerful, ponderous fighters aside. The Decepticons accepted them openly for who they were.
From the very beginning, the Dinobots were treated like dirt by the Autobots, especially by Prime, who seemed to have a hate-on for them from day one. No sooner had they been activated and got a little out of hand, than he ordered them buried alive (he's got a macabre fondness for that kind of thing, doesn't he?), coldly rejecting all of Wheeljack's pleas to give them another chance. Wheeljack had to directly disobey orders to upgrade their minds and revive them - and, seeing as they then saved Prime's worthless hide, he grudgingly accepted them.
But, he kept them relegated to a storage closet most of the time. Whenever he couldn't handle a situation himself, he reluctantly let the Dinobots out of their pen and bossed them around. No wonder Grimlock was unwilling to fight for this guy, unless goaded and prodded and threatened by his own mortality ("Me Grimlock not care whole planet fall apart!" ... "With you on it?"). In "Heavy Metal War," when the Dinobots were under overwhelming attack from Devastator, Prime flat-out refused to help them, under some pathetic pretext. And no sooner was "Dinobot Island" discovered, than Prime shipped them off and hopefully out of his sight for good. No wonder they "deserted" to Cybertron as soon as they saw an opening!
Now, "War of the Dinobots," brilliant episode that it was, none the less missed a golden opportunity. Grimlock, Slag, and Sludge did the right thing by joining Megatron's cause, and the correct outcome would have been for them to remain Decepticons. The Dinobots, like the Decepticons, are beings who value power, self-determination, and strong leadership - none of which are exactly held sacred among the Autobots. In fact, the Dinobots' instinct-driven battle style is such anathema to the Autobots that they're segregated and isolated from the others most of the time.
Really we began with several newly-created Transformers, whose natures did not correspond to the group among which they found themselves. A group that treated them as mere objects to be used when absolutely unavoidable, and then hurriedly hidden out of sight again. Perhaps even to be left to die when one could think of a convenient excuse. The Dinobots were not individuals who made a conscious commitment to the Autobot cause - they simply had the misfortune of being created there. So if they were to seek their true place in the world, early on at the time of "War of the Dinobots," after already having been treated as they were, there is no real betrayal involved. Admittedly they would be walking away from Wheeljack, who was perhaps the only one who held them in any regard - but at the same time he sent them to risk their lives for a "leader" who considered them something to be scraped off his boot.
I speak, as you may have noticed, mainly of Grimlock, Sludge, and Slag. Although I would welcome Snarl and Swoop if it came down to it (though Swoop, as a Pteranodon, is not technically a Dinobot; you geologists out there will know what I mean), they just never really caught my attention - perhaps because they did not, even briefly, realize which side they should be on. So, I don't harbor much attachment to them. It's the original three that I love, who deserve better than the fate of wearing an Autobot slave-brand. I propose that we save them. On Decepticon Dominion Mush, we corrected the ending to "War" and allowed the Dinobots to remain where they truly belonged. As the sun sets over the desert, our prehistoric heroes are redeemed. Let them enter proudly into the ranks of the Decepticons.
--Raksha the Plumed Serpent
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