Howdy! Got this bit of an essay my friend Devi from the Cell wrote about the Blue One. With her gracious permission she has allowed TC to post it here. Keep in mind this is her essay and her opinions are her own aaand this is actually a two-parter that TC lumped together. The originals you can find nyah and over over nyah. Let the wild rumpus start!
Ah, Thundercracker... Remember how nightwind69 said that (I'm paraphrasing) she never needed to make a self-insert character because there already was a canon character (namely, Screamer) that she could see herself in? I can see a lot of myself in Thundercracker - I know exactly what it's like to have a complicated, doubt-riddled mind.
I can see the darker side of myself - or of human nature in general - reflected in TC, too. Have you ever looked at people, and bitchily thought that you're better than them? I have to admit I have. Thundercracker has, too - he literally and figuratively looks down on those who can't fly. Did you ever just want to direct a flamethrower at those who pissed you off? (Be honest!) TC doesn't just want to, he does it. To go on a small tangent, it just occurred to me that I tend to like flame-shooting/-spewing characters - Thundercracker, Slag, Inferno, and TM II Megatron. I think it's the whole catharticness of making things BURN!!! that appeals to me. I'm not an arsonist IRL, but the mental image is, like I said, cathartic.
You know the Quaker song (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's a Quaker song) "'Tis a gift to be simple"? I can't say I've ever enjoyed that gift, and neither has TC. He (like me) is the type that thinks way too much.
If Skywarp - to translate things into human stereotypes - would be the big, dumb football player that girls are interested in because he's hot and because there's nothing complicated about him, TC would be more like a somewhat more intellectual, more angsty kid that sits in the cafeteria all by himself, huddled in his black blue trenchcoat, and probably writing goth poetry or something - no, wait, that sounds more like Dirge. ;-) The "all by himself" wouldn't be true, either, because in this particular case, the "football player" and the loveable doubt-bunny became best friends (or "more than friends", depending on your interpretation). (Now that I'm thinking about it, wouldn't "The Story of 'Warp and TC" make a wonderful movie?)
Speaking of friendship - I can easily see 'Warp as the gregarious, popular type (in fact, his MTMTE profile says he's popular among his fellow Decepticons). With TC, I'm not so sure. I think friendship/comraderie is an important thing to him, but - is there even any canon evidence for him having friends other than Skywarp? (Now I'm getting the mental image of Thundercracker as the doubt-ridden angsty kid who couldn't believe his luck when the popular football player - mean to say, 'Warp - accepted him, of all people, as his friend.)
It's one thing I'm really not sure about (isn't it funny how Thundercracker, the doubting one, plunges me into doubts as I try to figure him out?). I could see Thundercracker as sociable - there is the comraderie with his wingmates (though his relationship with Starscream is clearly not as close and amicable as the one with Skywarp); and he's often seen as the "peacemaker" among the group. But OTOH, I could also buy into the "his doubts make him insecure" viewpoint and see him as someone who doesn't really feel like he has anyone with whom he can talk about what's on his (complicated, doubt-filled) mind.
Of course, if anything, TC isn't just the angst kid who sits alone (or alone except for his best friend(s)), he's also, and very much so, a warrior. He doesn't sit around and whine, he goes out and kicks aft.
Another interesting thing in regards with Thundercracker - his MTMTE profile mentions he was "aimless" before Megatron came along and recruited him for the Decepticon cause, and that "his need for meaning" makes him stay with the Decepticons despite his doubts. (His TFU bio says, "Only the words of his Decepticon companions about the rightness of their cause, the destiny of conquest that is their birthright, convince him to go on. He is persuaded because he wants to be persuaded. Without a sense of purpose, Thundercracker would find his life unbearable.") This is also something I can relate to/identify with. I mean, the "aimlessness" (the "I'm not really sure what to do with my life, what I'm good for in this world" feeling), and the need for meaning, the need for a sense of purpose.
That kind of aimlessness and desperate need for meaning can cause people to become fanatical adherents of an ideology just to not have to deal with those frickin' doubts for once. Again, this is something I can relate to.
Man, now I see TC as the kind of (aimless, searching-for-meaning) person that's vulnerable to being recruited into a cult (and Megs as the charismatic cult leader). And this is not the mental image I want to have of him. "He was vulnerable, and the evil Megatron exploited it and snatched him up for his destructive cult" - that makes TC look like a victim, rather than someone who's joined the Decepticons out of his own choice. I generally prefer to see my 'Cons as "Decepticons by choice" whenever I can, because it makes them look stronger. They're taking charge of their own lives, they can make their own choices, and they've chosen to join the bad guys. So there. (That being said, there may be many different individual reasons for people to join the 'Cons.)
One cute thing (IMHO) about TC is his tendency to "babble" and think out loud, like he did in "Fire on the Mountain". This is also something he has in common with me.
Now to the ever-interesting subject of Thundercracker's doubts... Again, this is something where I'm not sure what to make of it. It's said that his doubts tend to surface when innocent human lives are endangered. But why? Especially when you consider that he also has a strong contempt for flightless creatures, which is what humans are. So, he has only contempt for them, but at the same time, he has qualms about hurting them? That's a big (seeming?) contradiction right there; and to try and explain that contradiction could be very interesting.
So, why isn't TC all "Whee! Killing innocent humans, yay!"? Some possible explanations, in no particular order:
1) "It's because of compassion." - Yes, I could see Thundercracker as having a compassionate/caring/empathetic side (he certainly does care about Skywarp, for one thing). However, people can care about their own, and still be ruthless killers otherwise. (Like I once said, I'm sure there were Nazis who loved their families.) So, is whatever compassion TC may have really the reason for him having doubts about butchering humans? Something to ponder.
2) (As Dinobot 2 would say...) "There's no sport in it." - Maybe it's a matter of Thundercracker not finding it satisfying to kill beings that are much weaker? Like, a matter of pride - "I'm a warrior fighting worthy opponents, not just a slaughterer of the easily slaughtered."
3) The "TC = veteran" theory - maybe he's grown weary of the war. Maybe he's seen too many friends die. Maybe after all those vorns, he wonders if the glorious future of Decepticon conquest he's been promised will ever be attained, and if so, if it will be worth the price. (Not really an explanation for his feeling loath to slaughter innocent humans, but for his doubts about the Decepticon cause in general.)
4) The "TC was never really convinced of the rightness of the Decepticon cause" theory. Of course, that's kinda circular reasoning - he's got doubts because he's got doubts. ;-) But what I'm thinking of is related to the "desperate need for meaning" point above. Maybe he joined the 'Cons not so much because he really, from the depth of his spark, wanted to be a Decepticon more than anything else, but more because he was hoping it would give them a purpose in life? Then later, the doubts caught up with him.
Actually, maybe a more precise metaphor for what TC is would not be a person who joins a cult, but a person who joins a hate group? I'm imagining someone who's always been pretty aimless in life, only driven by a diffuse feeling that he is, or should be, superior to others and deserves to beat up all those bastards, dangit! Then the local White Aryan Supremacy Whatever recruiter comes along and tells him, "Yes, your feelings were right. You actually are superior, because you belong to the master race!" and he sucks it up like a sponge.
I can imagine it could have been like that with TC - he was searching for meaning, trying to make sense of his life, his contempt for non-flyers being one of the few things, if not the only thing, he was sure of, and then Megatron came along and told him, "Yes, your feelings are right; we actually are superior to those ground-crawling Autobots!"
TC as a hate group member - that's another mental image I'd rather not have... Doesn't exactly make him look sympathetic, you know?
One other thing about Thundercracker is that he's blue, which is the most generic of all Seeker colors. In other words, he's the guy with plain average looks (as opposed to Skywarp, who's got the purty color scheme). Well, actually, TC is purty, too, but he'd be very average-looking in the optics of other Decepticons - blue Seekers are just very commonplace. It's kinda the equivalent of having mouse-brown hair as a human. I wonder what that means for how TC feels about himself. There's no canon evidence that he gives a damn about his looks either way, but it's still an interesting thing to think about, at least for me.
Another thing about my views on Thundercracker (you are, of course, free to have your own) - I'm not into "Thundercracker the traitor" or "Thundercracker the Autobot". Yes, he has doubts about the Decepticon cause. No, that doesn't mean he's a traitor, or that he'd just up and defect at the first opportunity. Think about what I said about Thundercracker's "darker side". His motto quote is "The deadliest weapon is terror," for crying out loud! Does that sound like an Autobot to you? Wouldn't someone with such a mentality feel more at home among the Decepticons - you know, the group that believes it's perfectly okay to terrorize others - than among the Autobots, doubts or no doubts?
Also consider that most Autobots, including their leader, can't fly. Do you really think that Thundercracker, with his utter contempt for flightless creatures, would want to join a faction of "ground-crawlers" and take orders from a truck?
I also think that TC would stay with the Decepticons for Skywarp's sake alone. He couldn't bring himself to abandon 'Warp, let alone face him as an enemy. (Of course, that still leaves the door open for "Skywarp gets killed, and TC's grief drives him to join the Autobots" AUs, but eh... And in that case, it would also be possible that Thundercracker stays with the Decepticons because that's what 'Warp would have wanted and he wants to honor his memory, ne?)
Finally, how often did we actually see Thundercracker act like a traitor? If I'm not mistaken, the only time he deliberately did something detrimental to Decepticon efforts was in 'Fire on the Mountain', and that was to get back at Starscream. I hardly consider that proof that he'd rather be an Autobot.
Conclusion: Thundercracker is a loyal Decepticon with doubts; he's not a traitor.
**To go on a complete and utter tangent, I just had an idea for a filk of "We don't need another hero" -
We don't need another traitor
We don't need another Dinobot
All we want is just some loyal Decepticons
Yeah, I know it doesn't fit the meter of the original to the last syllable. Gimme a break, I'm not Thuringwethil.**