So my over-riding drive to write random scenes got derailed when I got onto the Dinobots. In the decade plus since I last wrote them, I've become considerably more aware of the representation of disability in media and the associated issues. Obviously, the cartoon Dinobots don't represent any specific condition (and it would be horrendously misguided to try and map a real life condition onto them), but it's made very clear on multiple occasions that their brains don't have the cognitive abilities of the other Autobots.

Anyway, after doing some research on writing characters with cognitive disabilities, I've gone back over some of the Dino-centric episodes, and it's kind of fascinating. Obviously, it's an incredibly problematic portrayal of cognitive disability on a number of levels, but I've got a background in child development so I tried to assess the Dinobot perspective and their reactions that way, and it hung together a lot better than I thought it would.

Do we consider the Dinobots to be aware when they're first created or only after Wheeljack upgrades their brains towards the end of SOS Dinobots? Either way, they're shoved out to fight insanely quickly with very little preparation--standard procedure if you go by other onscreen creations, but these guys literally have to define 'friends' as 'the ones wearing the Autobot symbol'. And there's no real categorisation for enemy... small wonder Megatron is able to manipulate them so easily in War of the Dinobots... though at least they have a demonstration of what friendship is about by the end of it, when Optimus Prime saves their lives.

Over the course of Season Two, the Dinobots are treated as reinforcements. They're not involved in day-to-day plans, or even the main mission. They're there to provide extra muscle when needed, something Grimlock at least is aware of. Not only that, but the Autobots (and humans) have no issues with complaining about their stupidity in front of them. Small wonder the Dinobots end up valuing strength and combat over intelligence and words. It's the only way they can have any self-esteem! (Grimlock does not lack for self-esteem, but he's practically the Dinobots only source of positive reinforcement.)

Some things Optimus gets right: Praising / thanking the Dinobots after the battle; trusting Grimlock with the responsibility of managing the other Dinobots. Some things he gets wrong: The lack of motivation for following orders; it never seems to occur to the Autobots that if the Dinobots don't want to do what they're told on such a frequent basis, perhaps they need some sort of support. Also, the Dinobot Island episode when they saw how the Dinobots' behaviour and combat ability improved when they were given a different environment, so they congratulated them for learning how to control themselves and brought them right back to the confines of a military base.

Wheeljack is their main advocate pre-movie, but he misses the boat on the above stuff too. It's interesting seeing how Grimlock progresses from recognising the Autobot's casual exploitation of them to advocating for the Dinobots himself, over the course of season 2, culminating in his decision to remove them from the Autobots completely in Desertion of the Dinobots, after they were almost killed on a mission he objected to doing in the first place.

Post movie, we see a slight shift in attitude, at least from Rodimus Prime who really actively *tries* to include Grimlock. It's particularly evident in Grimlock's New Brain where Rodimus' frustration with Grimlock stems from the fact that he invested the time to support him and get him involved with non-combat aspects of Cybertron life. And even when he and Grimlock are furious with each other, he's concerned for Grimlock's safety. (In his turn, Grimlock is significantly more loyal to Rodimus than he was to Optimus, and he takes a genuine interest in more political matters.) Meanwhile, the other Dinobots have been given their own space to enjoy downtime, fishing and hunting. (Which raises more questions than answers, but hey... their interests are being supported!) While the portrayal of Grimlock can get pretty ropey in season 3, it seems like the Dinobots overall managed to improve their circumstances over the course of the show and were much happier for it.

I'm not sure how modern incarnations of the Dinobots are handled--are they still dumb or do reboots go the comic route and make them as intelligent as but more violent than your average Autobot?

On Tuesday, July 4, 2023 at 10:16:05 AM UTC-6, Velvet Glove wrote:

> Obviously, the cartoon Dinobots don't represent any specific condition (and it would be horrendously misguided to try and map a real life condition onto them), but it's made very clear on multiple occasions that their brains don't have the cognitive abilities of the other Autobots.

Ooh, neat discussion! Well, they're clearly not on the same level of the rest of the Autobots. I suppose from the perspective of the writers, it made sense. They turn into dinosaurs, so they should all have walnuts for brains. But, they kind of vacillated between being intellectually stunted to being cave men to being children.

I don't think they were ever meant to represent any form of mental retardation. I think they were just primitive, as if they had been plucked from the Cretaceous era and plopped into modern times. What's weird is that, even though they were the archetypical "big dumb animal" Transformers, the creators weren't super consistent with how other animal teams or dinosaurs got treated. The Predacons didn't have stunted speech, and were just as capable as any Decepticons. Trypticon didn't talk like Cookie Monster. Sky Lynx was, I think, an attempt at flipping the stereotype on its ear—he was a big, scary dinosaur-looking thing, so they made him an haughty, intellectual chap with a clipped accent. The Terrorcons are arguably the closest thing we got to dummies like the Dinobots, though they didn't talk like Cookie Monster either; they spoke of themselves in the third person, more like Elmo. (I leave it to you to decide whether Cookie Monster or Elmo is smarter.)

It's worth mentioning that in Marvel Comics, a) all the Dinobots were originally on board the Ark, so they're Autobots by birth, and b) Grimlock is the only one who does the "me Grimlock" bit, and the others speak normally.

> Do we consider the Dinobots to be aware when they're first created or only after Wheeljack upgrades their brains towards the end of SOS Dinobots?

They didn't even *talk* until they got those upgrades, did they? They were, essentially, brainless robot animals until that point. All they did was snarl and growl and destroy stuff. Kind of like my cats.

> Over the course of Season Two, the Dinobots are treated as reinforcements.. They're not involved in day-to-day plans, or even the main mission.

I think there was probably a discussion that went something like this: If the Dinobots are so strong and so powerful, why don't the Autobots just use them all the time, for every mission? Well, maybe they're stubborn and hard to control, so they just keep 'em in the closet until the Autobots really, really need them. I think this also freed up the writers, who could do, say, a Powerglide story or a Hoist story without audiences wondering, "Wait, where's Grimlock?" all the time. But, this resulted in the Dinobots being treated like less-than-Autobots. An alternate solution would have just to give them their own headquarters, something they ended up doing with the Protectobots, Combaticons, etc.
> Some things Optimus gets right: Praising / thanking the Dinobots after the battle; trusting Grimlock with the responsibility of managing the other Dinobots. Some things he gets wrong: The lack of motivation for following orders; it never seems to occur to the Autobots that if the Dinobots don't want to do what they're told on such a frequent basis, perhaps they need some sort of support.

They're slaves. The Autobots keep 'em locked up until they need 'em, yell at 'em when they don't do what they're told to do. But, they're such a rambunctious bunch, and basically impossible to control, so I'm not sure what the solution would have been. Letting them just live on Dinobot Island would have been great, assuming a scenario where there aren't Decepticons stealing energy and tampering with history. They could just stomp around and be free with their own kind, and Teletraan would probably be a lot safer, too. But, it also made sense for the Autobots to keep them close, so they could send 'em into battle at a moment's notice.

Then again, even a super-smart Grimlock *still* sort of ended up going his own way and didn't listen to the other Autobots. I think it was just his nature to be stubborn.

> Wheeljack is their main advocate pre-movie, but he misses the boat on the above stuff too.

Wheeljack created them, but he wasn't very good at mothering them. I don't think he ever got a handle on what it really took to motivate them properly.
> Post movie, we see a slight shift in attitude, at least from Rodimus Prime who really actively *tries* to include Grimlock. It's particularly evident in Grimlock's New Brain where Rodimus' frustration with Grimlock stems from the fact that he invested the time to support him and get him involved with non-combat aspects of Cybertron life. And even when he and Grimlock are furious with each other, he's concerned for Grimlock's safety.

It's really the movie when the Dinobots made the shift from cave men to being children. Suddenly, they weren't robots who could also transform into dinosaurs. They were big, metal dinosaurs, first and foremost, who could also sometimes change into robots, and that's an important difference. It made them cuter, I suppose, but did we ever need cute Dinobots? Is that what made them appealing? Long before Beast Machines and Bob Skir came along, we had Ron Friedman rewriting the Dinobots to fit into the specific narrative he wanted to create, and it stuck for all the rest of season three.

So in season three, Grimlock is this big, goofy galoot. Instead of rebellious and arrogant, he's just dumb and clumsy. I'm not sure it improves the character or not. As far as the rest of the Dinobots go, they all end up being a problem that the season three Autobots just sort of inherited. Nobody who created them is left alive, so it's a bit like a problem child who goes to live with his grandparents after his mom and dad are eaten by leopards. It's not an ideal situation, but what else can you do? And characters like Hot Rod and Kup didn't ever have the time or inclination to stand there and try to argue with them or reason with them the way Optimus or Wheeljack did. Hot Rod just threw ropes around them and herded them like cattle.

So, it's great that by season three, the Dinobots don't have to live in a closet. They don't appear in a lot of episodes post-movie as a group, so it's hard to get a feel for how they function day-to-day. If they really do just get to roam around on Cybertron and go fishing, then that's great for them. With Wheeljack and Ratchet gone, I don't really get a strong sense that any of the remaining Autobots particularly likes the Dinobots or enjoys having them around. (Daniel seems to enjoy Grimlock's company, but they're intellectual equals, so it tracks.)
> I'm not sure how modern incarnations of the Dinobots are handled--are they still dumb or do reboots go the comic route and make them as intelligent as but more violent than your average Autobot?

In the live-action movies, Optimus basically punches the shit out of Grimlock to get him to listen, and then Optimus rides him like a horse.

Zob (whether that's better or worse is anyone's guess, of course)

On Wednesday, July 5, 2023 at 12:13:59 AM UTC+1, Zobovor wrote:
> I don't think they were ever meant to represent any form of mental retardation. I think they were just primitive, as if they had been plucked from the Cretaceous era and plopped into modern times. What's weird is that, even though they were the archetypical "big dumb animal" Transformers, the creators weren't super consistent with how other animal teams or dinosaurs got treated. The Predacons didn't have stunted speech, and were just as capable as any Decepticons. Trypticon didn't talk like Cookie Monster. Sky Lynx was, I think, an attempt at flipping the stereotype on its ear—he was a big, scary dinosaur-looking thing, so they made him an haughty, intellectual chap with a clipped accent. The Terrorcons are arguably the closest thing we got to dummies like the Dinobots, though they didn't talk like Cookie Monster either; they spoke of themselves in the third person, more like Elmo. (I leave it to you to decide whether Cookie Monster or Elmo is smarter..)

Yeah, while the cartoon definitely ended up classing all beast-type Transformers as connected on some base level, it doesn't seem like beast=lower intelligence, though there *is* a disproportionately high number of them that have some cognitive issues. (I'm using 'cognitive' because 'mental' can cover a much wider range of issues like personality disorders, etc, and my read is that the Dinobots' behavioural issues largely stem from cognitive ability rather than their core personalities. But I'm not in any way trained in this stuff... I just know the tip of the iceberg from early child development.)

Anyway, I've only been looking at the Dinobots, but I will mention that Octane has a really sweet (if exploitative) relationship with Trypticon in Thief in the Night, which I might want to revisit sometime. Trypticon is definitely presented as lower intelligence in that episode, including some third person commentary. (80s cartoons were absolutely hideous in their rendition of impaired language development... comes up all the time in baby-talk.)

But while the Dinobots were never supposed to represent disability, they *are* characters with a low IQ who are nevertheless canonically considered fully sentient Autobots on the show. I'm just trying to work out how we can take the cartoon's very careless portrayal and create a more realistic and sensitive view of cognitive impairment.

> They didn't even *talk* until they got those upgrades, did they? They were, essentially, brainless robot animals until that point. All they did was snarl and growl and destroy stuff. Kind of like my cats.

Underestimate your cats at your peril. Ours is the Benevolent Dictator of our Household, May She Live Forever.

> They're slaves. The Autobots keep 'em locked up until they need 'em, yell at 'em when they don't do what they're told to do. But, they're such a rambunctious bunch, and basically impossible to control, so I'm not sure what the solution would have been. Letting them just live on Dinobot Island would have been great, assuming a scenario where there aren't Decepticons stealing energy and tampering with history. They could just stomp around and be free with their own kind, and Teletraan would probably be a lot safer, too. But, it also made sense for the Autobots to keep them close, so they could send 'em into battle at a moment's notice.

Again, I have no experience working with adults with special needs, but there were more things the Autobots could have tried. The takeaway they should have learned from Dinobot Island was to give the Dinobots more space: they needed to acquire rights to an area of land where the Dinobots could spend time. (This is probably easier said than done, but they managed to acquire land for Autobot City, so I figure actually obtaining land was doable. Though it would have to be done with the expectation that the Dinobots would completely destroy the ecosystem on that land.) The other key thing would have been giving the Dinobots time away from general Autobot social hubbub... They do have communication issues and they often struggle to articulate their feelings, so conversations are going to be stressful and tiring. Being somewhere quiet without people talking to them, about them and around them would let them wind down from time to time. Maybe their closet was intended as a time-out room where they could have peace. It should have been kitted out with relaxation strategies (what Dinobot relaxation strategies might be, I don't know... but sensory input often helps with human stress issues and that might explain why the Dinobots would enjoy fishing so much).

Some kind of outreach programme... it's not clear how much assistance they were given with integrating into Autobot society. We see the Autobots playing football with them one time and that's it? And even in that scene, the Autobots are complaining about it in front of the Dinobots. (The amount of times this happens is absolutely awful.) It's also notable that in Desertion of the Dinobots, Swoop knows all about heat-seeking missiles, but everything on the history disc was new to him. Did nobody try to teach the Dinobots about their heritage? Or, y'know, what they were fighting *for*? (It might be that that particular history was on the more obscure side, though it feels like it shouldn't have been...) Assigning the Dinobots individual buddies/mentors should have been a pretty standard integration tactic. Swoop worked very well with Spike and Carly, and interestingly, the other Dinobots followed *his* lead in thanking Carly for fixing them, with Grimlock being the last one to speak.

Finally, it's a major red flag that your brute squad keeps saying they don't want to follow orders. The Autobots sort of imply that if the Dinobots can't say *why* then there's no good reason not to follow orders, but in actuality, they should work with the Dinobots to help them express themselves. Surprisingly, Optimus Prime is very good at talking to Dinobots, including at least one instance where he gives them the language to deal with the situation. But he only seems to do it in the course of duty. The Dinobots needed some extra-curricular tuition, as it were.

> Then again, even a super-smart Grimlock *still* sort of ended up going his own way and didn't listen to the other Autobots. I think it was just his nature to be stubborn.

Definitely. One of the things I'm trying to pin down is individual personality traits.

> It's really the movie when the Dinobots made the shift from cave men to being children. Suddenly, they weren't robots who could also transform into dinosaurs. They were big, metal dinosaurs, first and foremost, who could also sometimes change into robots, and that's an important difference. It made them cuter, I suppose, but did we ever need cute Dinobots? Is that what made them appealing? Long before Beast Machines and Bob Skir came along, we had Ron Friedman rewriting the Dinobots to fit into the specific narrative he wanted to create, and it stuck for all the rest of season three.

As much as I'd love to blame everything that changed for the worse on Ron Friedman, I think the Dinobot shift probably has more to do with Flint Dille, based on Grimlock's storyline in FFoD...

> And characters like Hot Rod and Kup didn't ever have the time or inclination to stand there and try to argue with them or reason with them the way Optimus or Wheeljack did. Hot Rod just threw ropes around them and herded them like cattle.

*Hot Rod* threw ropes around them and herded them like cattle. Rodimus Prime's relationship with Grimlock was much closer. In FFoD part 2, there's an exchange when Grimlock says he saved Rodimus Prime's life on Quintessa, and Arcee doesn't believe him (why she doubts this account, I've no idea... saving Autobots was the entire Dinobot MO at that point). Rodimus *immediately* backs him up: "No, it's true. He did." What people say about you to a third party is a very key point in trust: Rodimus isn't saying this to pander to Grimlock; he's sticking up for him when he doesn't have to.

I've always figured this exchange is to indicate that Quintessa was a turning point for Hot Rod/Rodimus and Grimlock's relationship--Grimlock earning Hot Rod's respect that day. It doesn't really work for me that one rescue would completely overhaul Hot Rod's view (it worked for Grimlock and Optimus, but only briefly), however whatever's happened between the Movie and FFoD, Grimlock and Rodimus have consolidated a functional working relationship. In FFoD 1, Grimlock was assigned to be Rodimus' partner / (surprisingly ineffective) bodyguard on a stealth mission, and he was absolutely devastated by Rodimus' apparent death. It's also worth noting that while Grimlock's been reduced to a more slapstick brand of comedy already, he *is* the one who points out to Springer and Arcee that Rodimus can't be dead if the Matrix didn't emerge. The storyline wants us to be clear that Grimlock is smarter than he's given credit for.

Anyway, after that, we regularly see Grimlock going along on missions that he never would have done on season 2, such as crime investigation in Thief in the Night. One of the things I was surprised by was how often he's having conversations with Perceptor--*Perceptor*! I'm disappointed we never got a full odd-buddy comedy episode out of this pairing.

(When I say 'how often', it happens two or three times across Thief in the Night and Grimlock's New Brain, but that's a relatively high proportion of his appearances in season 2. I think he only hangs out with Daniel in Madman's Paradise.)

Interesting thread! I'm late to the party so instead of responding to all these posts bit by bit I'll just chuck in a few of my own observations and theories.

I'd be very curious to have seen the thawing of Autobot/Dinobot relations in the years leading up to the movie, specifically concerning Hot Rod, Kup, and Prime. I think the Dinos genuinely liked Hot Rod, and the hints are there during the movie. Hot Rod calls them big bozos twice in the movie, sure, but it's not said with hostility, moreso endearment (and under duress in the first instance). Sort of like how good friends will call each other "dumbasses" when the time calls for it, and note Hot Rod is not bitten in half by Grimlock for his transgression. The friendship carries over when Hot Rod becomes leader, which leads to Grimlock rubbing shoulders with the likes of Perceptor in Rodimus's "court" moreso than he would have pre-movie. As to *why* Grimlock and co. liked Hot Rod...Hot Rod was a bit of a rebel and outsider himself, and maybe the Dinobots recognized a bit of a kindred spirit..

As for Kup, well him and Hot Rod are usually a package deal. And besides, the man said himself, Grimlock loves his war stories.

Now Prime...when we last saw the Dinobots, way back in "Desertion", they initially balked at following Prime's orders and then went AWOL. (It must be remembered that the Dinos disappear early/midway through Season 2, and the movie was their "big comeback" story in a way). But in the movie, Prime siccs them on Devastator (always a huge risk) and Grimlock not only obeys but enthusiastically says he loves a challenge. So, did Grimlock just want a piece of Big Green here or had relations actually improved between Prime and Grimlock at this point to where they were actually cordial with one another? That was the hook we ended "Desertion" on, but of course that was over half a season and 20 years time in-universe ago, so it's nice to see if this was somewhat followed up on.

Another piece of the puzzle to the seeming infantilization of the Diinos in Season 3 is the loss of Wheeljack. He can be safely assumed to be the Dinobots' biggest supporter in the early days (not that we got to actually see much of it) and I always had a bit of headcanon that the Dinos took Wheeljack's death particularly hard. Hard enough to cause some of the seeming regression we see? Perhaps.

On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 4:15:36 AM UTC-6, Velvet Glove wrote:

<snip>

Wow, is this an actual, honest-to-gosh psychological analysis of the Dinobots?! This is so much fun.

> Anyway, I've only been looking at the Dinobots, but I will mention that Octane has a really sweet (if exploitative) relationship with Trypticon in Thief in the Night, which I might want to revisit sometime. Trypticon is definitely presented as lower intelligence in that episode, including some third person commentary.

Trypticon is weird, because he straddles the line between cave man language and normal speech. He proclaims, "Nothing can stand in my way!" in "The Ultimate Weapon," which is a grammatically correct sentence that I think the Dinobots would have struggled with. I wonder if he would still talk the same way if he were a humanoid robot rather than a dinosaur. (Metroplex seems to be a bit mentally stunted as well, and he refers to himself in the third person pretty often...)
> I'm just trying to work out how we can take the cartoon's very careless portrayal and create a more realistic and sensitive view of cognitive impairment.

Something we haven't looked at yet is the idea that Vector Sigma is, according to Optimus Prime, the "only way to create cybernetic personalities like WE have." I think he added that disclaimer specifically with the Dinobots in mind. The Dinobots weren't created using Vector Sigma, so there may be an upper limit to how intelligent Wheeljack and Ratchet were able to make them. They may also not even be truly "alive" by Transformer standards. (But, the Technobots were created without Vector Sigma as well, so you kind of have to jump through some hoops to get all this to make some semblance of sense.)
> They do have communication issues and they often struggle to articulate their feelings, so conversations are going to be stressful and tiring. Being somewhere quiet without people talking to them, about them and around them would let them wind down from time to time. Maybe their closet was intended as a time-out room where they could have peace.

In at least a few episodes, it seems like they turn the Dinobots off when they stuff them into the closet. There's at least one episode ("Heavy Metal War") where Teletraan has to wake them up, and Grimlock's eyes are dark until he gets the signal and is switched on. So, I don't think going to the closet really counts as down time for them. They're probably not even aware of the passage of time.
> Some kind of outreach programme... it's not clear how much assistance they were given with integrating into Autobot society. We see the Autobots playing football with them one time and that's it? And even in that scene, the Autobots are complaining about it in front of the Dinobots.

It's not super obvious, because they're drawn very small, but it appears to be the Dinobots overseeing weapons production on one of the Moon Bases at the very beginning of The Transformers: the Movie. So, evidently they were at least given jobs to do by that point other than waking them up long enough to smash things. But, yes, complaining about the Dinobots, often to their faces, is a recurring theme. Perceptor even grouses about their brain power at the beginning of "Grimlock's New Brain" with Grimlock right there in the room.

> It's also notable that in Desertion of the Dinobots, Swoop knows all about heat-seeking missiles, but everything on the history disc was new to him. Did nobody try to teach the Dinobots about their heritage? Or, y'know, what they were fighting *for*?

That's a really good point. We saw Optimus give the Aerialbots a condensed history lesson after their creation, but evidently nobody set the Dinobots aside long enough to give them a similar lesson. (Maybe that's why they like Kup's tall tales so much. He's the only one who will tell them stories!)

> Assigning the Dinobots individual buddies/mentors should have been a pretty standard integration tactic.

That would have been interesting to see. Pair up the Dinobots with their more-or-less Autobot equivalents. Brawn and Grimlock could pal around together and arm-wrestle to see who's toughest. Huffer and Snarl could both mope around about how much they miss Cybertron. Cliffjumper and Slag would get along famously, since they're both hot-headed. Sludge is quiet, so maybe he could be paired with Bluestreak, who would of course do all the talking.. Trailbreaker and Swoop both have secret fears, so maybe they could start a support group or something?

> Finally, it's a major red flag that your brute squad keeps saying they don't want to follow orders. The Autobots sort of imply that if the Dinobots can't say *why* then there's no good reason not to follow orders, but in actuality, they should work with the Dinobots to help them express themselves..

The Autobots never quite played the "we made you, so you have to do what we say" card, but I think it's implied. But, the Autobots were also the intellectual superiors to the Dinobots, so trying to convince them to march into battle is a bit like trying to convince a stubborn four-year-old to put his shoes on. The Autobots viewed the Dinobots largely as tools at their disposal to be utilized as needed, not as equals.

> As much as I'd love to blame everything that changed for the worse on Ron Friedman, I think the Dinobot shift probably has more to do with Flint Dille, based on Grimlock's storyline in FFoD...

That's possible. Regardless of who it was, there was a clear and deliberate shift in the way the Dinobots were characterized. I happen to prefer the brutish warrior versions to the childlike versions. Grimlock was especially dumb in "Madman's Paradise" to the point where he was almost out of character.
> He *is* the one who points out to Springer and Arcee that Rodimus can't be dead if the Matrix didn't emerge. The storyline wants us to be clear that Grimlock is smarter than he's given credit for.

I think Grimlock's simple-mindedness means he notices simple, obvious things. Whether that makes him smart or merely child-like is up for debate.
> They don't really capitalise on his relationship with Rodimus; Grimlock's New Brain made it clear that Rodimus is putting in some effort with Grimlock, but it would have benefited from some reconciliation scene between the two.

I don't see Rodimus holding a grudge against Grimmy. I'm sure they patched things up.
> Anyway, having done a *lot* of appearance analysis, (even if I'm sure I've missed a bunch of stuff): The Dinobots start off not being given any explanation of friend or enemy, you just 'save' friend and 'destroy' enemy. They get a better understanding of what friendship means in War of the Dinobots, but that early black-and-white view does persist, to a rather worrying extent when Grimlock has no compunctions about killing Spike, Carly and Sparkplug once he's deserted--they're very lucky Swoop breaks his usual obedience to save them from a stomping, and even that's out of self-interest rather than any respect for sanctity of life.

Yeah, Grimlock would have absolutely stomped the humans into chunky meat paste. No question. (I'm sure THAT would have given Optimus Prime a nice moral quandary to get all angsty over...)
> Grimlock demonstrates a lot of social mimicry throughout the series... he adopts and adapts the standard Autobot command to "Dinobots, transform and destroy!" (Again... 'destroy' should have been a major red flag that some philosophical intervention was needed!)

I think when you're build to smash stuff, "destroy" is what you understand. Probably why Optimus Prime gave the order in the movie to destroy Devastator. Not stop him, not immobilize him. Just destroy him.

> By Atlantis Arise, he's learned standard conversation conventions, giving grudging compliments and engaging in banter. (Swoop, on the other hand, takes jokes purely literally in Desertion of the Dinobots). It's already clear he wants to be more involved in Autobot society, and in Dinobot Island he supports Wheeljack's attempts to train the Dinobots and runs his own training sessions in what appears to be an awkward imitation of military drills.

The Autobots didn't really instruct the Dinobots on how to properly master their own abilities. They were pretty much left to their own devices so they could do flying stuff and tail stuff until they figured it out. Did they get demonstrably better? It's hard to say.

> Based on the Dinobots' speech patterns, they're capable of speaking quite well and were probably programmed with full grammatical syntax though perhaps a reduced vocabulary. They also usually use pronouns correctly, with the exception for the 'me, name' pattern. So I think that's a deliberate choice... they've formed their own patois.

Well, we did have "I am Snarl!" in "War of the Dinobots" (instead of "me, Snarl") and we also got "I, Slag, lead Dinobots away... 'till I get better idea!" in "Call of the Primitives," which is still a little grammatically strangled, but less so than if it had been Grimlock. The weird speech could have just been a programming holdover from the Wheeljack days. He set out to create dinosaurs with simple brains to make them authentic, so maybe they were unable to break free from that, even after all the memory upgrades and such.

On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 11:38:43 PM UTC+1, Zobovor wrote:
>
> Wow, is this an actual, honest-to-gosh psychological analysis of the Dinobots?! This is so much fun.

Me? Take things several steps beyond what would be the moderate, rational approach to enjoying a creative work? How dare---yeah, yeah, OK. Story checks out.

> > Anyway, I've only been looking at the Dinobots, but I will mention that Octane has a really sweet (if exploitative) relationship with Trypticon in Thief in the Night, which I might want to revisit sometime. Trypticon is definitely presented as lower intelligence in that episode, including some third person commentary.
> Trypticon is weird, because he straddles the line between cave man language and normal speech. He proclaims, "Nothing can stand in my way!" in "The Ultimate Weapon," which is a grammatically correct sentence that I think the Dinobots would have struggled with. I wonder if he would still talk the same way if he were a humanoid robot rather than a dinosaur. (Metroplex seems to be a bit mentally stunted as well, and he refers to himself in the third person pretty often...)

Given a choice between The Ultimate Weapon and literally any other episode, I'm going to use the other episode's canon. The Ultimate Weapon is this horrendously generic, dumbed down and out of character hash of an episode that is not nearly under-rated enough.

You do raise an interesting point about the mental capacities of city-bots!

> Something we haven't looked at yet is the idea that Vector Sigma is, according to Optimus Prime, the "only way to create cybernetic personalities like WE have." I think he added that disclaimer specifically with the Dinobots in mind. The Dinobots weren't created using Vector Sigma, so there may be an upper limit to how intelligent Wheeljack and Ratchet were able to make them. They may also not even be truly "alive" by Transformer standards. (But, the Technobots were created without Vector Sigma as well, so you kind of have to jump through some hoops to get all this to make some semblance of sense.)

Yeah, I seem to recall there being quite a few exceptions to Vector Sigma, (I mean, was the entire population of Paradron originally created on Cybertron??) to the point that I discarded that bit of canon in my universe, except as a more sentimental kind of thing: the Dinobots not being created by Vector Sigma was part of the reason they were 'othered' by the Autobots, but it's possible to create fully intelligent Autobots without it. But you absolutely could go the other way.

> In at least a few episodes, it seems like they turn the Dinobots off when they stuff them into the closet. There's at least one episode ("Heavy Metal War") where Teletraan has to wake them up, and Grimlock's eyes are dark until he gets the signal and is switched on. So, I don't think going to the closet really counts as down time for them. They're probably not even aware of the passage of time.

Oh, dear god, that's even worse. "Just go shut-down until it's time for violence."

> That's a really good point. We saw Optimus give the Aerialbots a condensed history lesson after their creation, but evidently nobody set the Dinobots aside long enough to give them a similar lesson. (Maybe that's why they like Kup's tall tales so much. He's the only one who will tell them stories!)

And they are the only ones who will listen to them! Maybe that's why they decided to stay on Cybertron in Season 3 despite Desertion of the Dinobots putting them off it. They never understood what life was about on Earth, but after a few years of Kup telling them stories of life across the Galaxy, they actually have a better idea of what to do out there!

> > Assigning the Dinobots individual buddies/mentors should have been a pretty standard integration tactic.
> That would have been interesting to see. Pair up the Dinobots with their more-or-less Autobot equivalents. Brawn and Grimlock could pal around together and arm-wrestle to see who's toughest. Huffer and Snarl could both mope around about how much they miss Cybertron. Cliffjumper and Slag would get along famously, since they're both hot-headed. Sludge is quiet, so maybe he could be paired with Bluestreak, who would of course do all the talking. Trailbreaker and Swoop both have secret fears, so maybe they could start a support group or something?

I love how most of these are minibots. It makes sense, but the mental image is hysterical. You could also argue that they need contrasting personalities rather than matching ones. We could have Grimlock and Groove together... Slag and Red Alert... Maybe not.

> The Autobots never quite played the "we made you, so you have to do what we say" card, but I think it's implied. But, the Autobots were also the intellectual superiors to the Dinobots, so trying to convince them to march into battle is a bit like trying to convince a stubborn four-year-old to put his shoes on.

Speaking as the person who convinces stubborn four year olds to put their shoes on in a professional capacity, you still owe them a logical reason for it. "You have to put your shoes on so your feet don't get hurt." Or a choice: "You can put your shoes on, or you can stay inside." Or otherwise figure out what's upsetting them and resolve that *before* fighting the shoes battle. And if you want them to take care of their environment, you teach them to take pride in it; you teach them how to be good friends, etc.

The thing is, you need to take a very holistic approach to doing that, and the Autobots aren't exactly used to raising children! And honestly, the 80s cartoon morals were more about 'good guys do what they're told' than reasoning.

(Full disclaimer: what I do during a work day and what I do during 24/7 parenting have proved to be two totally different things. My kids have heard 'because I said so!' a *lot*.)

> > As much as I'd love to blame everything that changed for the worse on Ron Friedman, I think the Dinobot shift probably has more to do with Flint Dille, based on Grimlock's storyline in FFoD...
> That's possible. Regardless of who it was, there was a clear and deliberate shift in the way the Dinobots were characterized. I happen to prefer the brutish warrior versions to the childlike versions. Grimlock was especially dumb in "Madman's Paradise" to the point where he was almost out of character.

I like the Dinobots being in dinosaur mode more often, just as a personal preference, but looking through the episodes, I'd agree that the characterisation was much better across Pre-movie. It's a lot more respectful to the Dinobots, thinking harder about their logic and motivations. Post-movie, it's more patronising, and happier to have them do things "because they're dumb."

This essentially covers what I took away from the advice on how to write characters with cognitive disabilities sensitively. Logic is really key, because what they're doing should make sense to your character even if not those around them.

For the record, the other advice is:

* Know what you are talking about. (Less applicable here, as the Dinobots don't have a recognised real world condition, but it's why I wanted to analyse them properly.)
* Avoid the tropes of them being inspirational to others or the story being told from the perspective of an able carer who has to deal with the trials caused by the character with the disability; i.e. invite your audience to empathise *with* the disabled character rather than with the able ones. (Yeah, I realised that I've written the Dinobots a few times, but never once from their perspective. That's now changed.)
* Don't make them saints and don't say their disability has granted them a special ability or insight. Don't patronise them! (Avoiding sainthood is easy with the Dinobots, but that last bit about being not being patronising is really making me paranoid, at the moment.)

And lots more nuance besides, obviously.

> The Autobots didn't really instruct the Dinobots on how to properly master their own abilities. They were pretty much left to their own devices so they could do flying stuff and tail stuff until they figured it out. Did they get demonstrably better? It's hard to say.

Optimus said they did, so it was true. Standard cartoon continuity canon... See also Dark Awakening (below).

>
> So if it's a deliberate affectation, is that why Grimlock dropped it after he became super-intelligent?

I think so. His first line is "I, Grimlock, used my rear molars." Approximating his usual pattern out of habit and then giving it up because he had too much in his head that he needed to articulate?

> What's interesting is that I think if it had been any other Autobot who had the ability to explain how he felt about the situation, I'm sure the other Autobots would have understood and sympathized. If it had been, say, Powerglide or Tracks or somebody and they went, "Look, I just got blown to smithereens and put back together, and now you want me to march right back into battle? Forget it! No way!" That's a perfectly valid response.

Yes, and it sucks for the Dinobots that nobody makes the slightest effort to think about it from their perspective. Not even Wheeljack!

> > Swoop, Snarl and Slag all show the ability to reason through a problem and they can sustain a conversation with others. Swoop and Snarl are also capable of recapping events to provide relevant information to those who were absent (Quite extensively in Swoop's case!). Sludge is the only Dinobot who may not be able to sustain a conversation--he gives contingent responses, but he typically provides information based on his immediate experience. Slag assumes leadership in Grimlock's absence, but doesn't appear to defy Grimlock any more than the others. The Dinobots only reject Grimlock's leadership in Grimlock's New Brain, when they perceive him not acting like a Dinobot. (This is arguably the one instance of Sludge demonstrating logic in the show, when he articulates *why* he doesn't like Grimlock any more.)
> Sludge is a special case, I think. He doesn't even seem to be aware of what's going on, most of the time.
>
> The whole business with Sludge and Snarl still believing Ultra Magnus to be dead, even after seeing him alive with their own eyes, is kind of funny. Their assumption is not "well, Magnus is clearly alive, so obviously Optimus Prime lied to us," but rather "not only is Magnus still dead, but we must also be dead as well." This almost makes me think they all imprinted on Optimus Prime so strongly when he was alive that for him to represent betrayal was simply impossible in their minds. After all, he still wore the Autobot symbol, so he must still have been a friend...

On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 12:49:59 PM UTC+1, Sky Raider wrote:
>
> Now Prime...when we last saw the Dinobots, way back in "Desertion", they initially balked at following Prime's orders and then went AWOL. (It must be remembered that the Dinos disappear early/midway through Season 2, and the movie was their "big comeback" story in a way). But in the movie, Prime siccs them on Devastator (always a huge risk) and Grimlock not only obeys but enthusiastically says he loves a challenge. So, did Grimlock just want a piece of Big Green here or had relations actually improved between Prime and Grimlock at this point to where they were actually cordial with one another? That was the hook we ended "Desertion" on, but of course that was over half a season and 20 years time in-universe ago, so it's nice to see if this was somewhat followed up on.

That's actually an interesting point I hadn't thought about. There's no resistance at all there... (Probably because season 2 hadn't been written at the time, but meta reasons are boring.) I suppose you could argue that they probably hadn't got to fight Decepticons for a good while and were bored of being stuck under cover on the Moonbases, but I like the idea that Prime did eventually reach an accord with them.

> Another piece of the puzzle to the seeming infantilization of the Diinos in Season 3 is the loss of Wheeljack. He can be safely assumed to be the Dinobots' biggest supporter in the early days (not that we got to actually see much of it) and I always had a bit of headcanon that the Dinos took Wheeljack's death particularly hard. Hard enough to cause some of the seeming regression we see? Perhaps.

Yes, I've seen other fans explore this idea as well, that they had a particular attachment to Wheeljack, and I was looking at going down this route for the story, though when I went back over the series, there really isn't much evidence that Wheeljack was very *good* at raising the Dinobots. Heart in the right place, but... So I've kind of dragged that back a bit for my purposes, though as with your thoughts on Optimus above, it's very possible that Wheeljack got a lot better over 20 years of practice!

Velvet Glove (My universe does account for Carly and Spike building on the friendship they sparked with the Dinobots in Desertion of the Dinobots, so I'm probably being unfair to Wheeljack and Prime!)