Transformers Fan Character Archetype Test copyright 2006 by Dave Van Domelen Updated 9/14/06 (explained the reasoning behind items, moved to Fanfic directory) A lot of Transformers fans have characters they created and use in many ways...in fanfic writing, in art, as MUSH characters, etc. Even people who can't write or draw often have fan characters, getting other people to draw them or just making them tweaks of existing characters (i.e. "My character is a G1 Sweep, but he has no mustache, just a black goatee."). This is a test of what general kind of character yours is. The order below is not the order of the letters used to represent them, so as to preserve some suspense the first time you use this. :) (I may eventually adapt this to a blogtest format. This test, and these archetypes, are intended pretty much just for Transformers fan characters, and several items won't even make sense for a character who's not a robot in one of the Transformers universes. Builder/Scientist - Focuses on how the setting should work. Art will be detailed and technical, stories will focus on some aspect of how things function (i.e. an entire story to explain where Prime's trailer goes). Tends to be interested in worldbuilding rather than character or plot. Not always literally a scientist, could be a builder or a historian or other career suited to explaining how the world works. Bystander - This character really isn't there to interact in stories. Maybe it's really just a character you like to draw, or a MUSH character who doesn't strive to be on center stage. In any case, the character isn't the center of a story. Combat Specialist - The defining characteristic of this sort of character is kicking skidplate. They may not be the best fighter in the story, but they're good at it. Typical of a MUSH character who's optimized for the fight scenes. Conqueror - Maybe the faction leader, but likely one of the lieutenants, a power behind the throne, or head of a splinter group. Maybe not the best in a one-on-one fight, this one is very good at war in general. Human Interaction - Humans are fascinating to this character, who goes for as much cultural immersion as possible. May even be a human uploaded into a Transformer body. Mary Sue - Always wins the fight, gets the guy (or girl, or both) and gains the acclaim of peers and foes alike. Total wish-fulfillment character. Noble Defender - Protect the weak, stand up for principle, that sort of thing. Usually an Autobot/Maximal archetype, but sometimes shows up in Decepticons. The Noble Defender can also be a member of the rank and file who is strongly committed to the philosophy of their faction, or personally loyal to the leader (although loyal Decepticons won't score a whole lot of points in this area). Plotter - Spies, strategists, double agents and the like. The actual fighting isn't really of interest, it's all the maneuvering that leads up to the fight. Might be more involved in internecine backstabbing, or in fomenting that sort of thing on the other side of the border. Romantic Lead - A character built for social interaction, if not outright sex (with great ingenuity sometimes employed in figuring out how robots can have sex in the first place). Frequently pines for someone on the other side of the war, leading to divided loyalties and lots of drama. Whackjob - Consequences? What consequences? The whackjob character probably has a dozen incarnations, in part because getting killed off or invited to leave comes with the territory. Sometimes mistaken for a combat monster, but isn't necessarily in the fight to win it, and will deliberately do stupid things at the wrong time. Tries to be comic relief, even when none is called for. For each item below, pick the response that best fits your fancharacter, and keep track of the total number of each letter. For instance, AAA means three points for archetype A. Whichever archetype has the highest score is the one your character most fits. Keep in mind, though, that if your character is strongly associated with a less common archetype than those on this test, you may get a high score in something that seems totally wrong. Keep in mind, this is all based on my experience with Transformers fan characters and fanfic, which is not encyclopedic. Some of the "points" are not because the things define an archetype, but because they seem to go along with it more often than not. 1. Personality: What is your character's personality based on? Yours, idealized - AAA, E, FF, H, J Yours, not idealized - AA, E, F, II Some other real person - A Someone from fiction - A, B, F, J A mix of several of the above - A No obvious influence - I 2. Era: Where does your character hang out? A single continuity (only G1, BW, AEC, etc) - H, I Lives through several connected (i.e. G1 and BW) - H, J Exists in several, but in different forms - FF, G, II, J Has crossed continuity lines as the same incarnation - D, G Can cross into any era of TFs - A, G Not confined to just the TF continuities - AA, E, F, G 3. Combat ability Universal threat - AAA, BBBB, HH Best there is at what they do - AA, BBB, GG, HH, J Warrior of reknown - A, BB, F, G, HH, JJ Competent in a fight - B, I, J Knows which end of the gun to point at the enemy - D, I Pretty useless in a fight - DD, E, F, G, I 4. Opinion of your own faction: Autobot, Decepticon, whatever. They are the one true way, anything else is scurrilous propaganda spread by the other side - A, GG, HH, J Staunch proponent, but able to see the flaws - C, H, JJ They're better than the other side, but sometimes you wonder - B You're a neutral - D, III Your sympathy is for the other side, but you hide this - E, F, J You're surrounded by idiots - HHH You're a spy for the other side - CCC, G 5. Opinion of humans: Presuming any exist in your continuity. You wanna be one, or you once were one - EEEE, G They're very important and/or interesting - EEE, F, JJJ Cool to hang out with - EE, I Can take 'em or leave 'em - C, D, I Feh, squishies - B, H BURRRRRRNNNNN!!!!! - B, GG, H 6. Views of romance: Not just sex, can be platonic love as well. Make love, not war - AA, FFFF It can make for an interesting plot hook - A, E, FFF Eh, maybe a subplot - E, FF It can be fun as an occasional diversion - F, G, I Robots shouldn't be HAVING romances - D, G 7. Views on strategy The best way to win is without having to fire a shot - A, CCC, H, J Proper planning and advance preparation are key to victory - CC, HH, J Someone should probably go gather intel before the attack - B, C You don't get involved in planning - B, D, F, G, I Scouting missions are a good excuse to get in some extra fighting - BB Oh, come on...let's just go shoot them until they stop moving - BBB, GG 8. Views on intrigue The real enemy is within your own faction - CCCC, G The occasional power grab keeps everyone on their toes and makes us stronger in the long run - CCC, H Backstabbing is great, so long as it only happens on the other side, preferably at your instigation - CC You don't really get involved in that sort of stuff - D, E, I The enemy is in front of you, not behind you - B, JJ 9. Views on intellectual pursuits The truth is out there, and far more important than petty wars - DDDD Knowledge is power, your mind is your weapon - CC, DDD, EE As long as the big brains keep turning out new weapons, that's cool with you - B, C, H Useless eggheads, you'll take a soldier any day - BB Scientists all end up threatening to destroy the world, even if they don't mean to - C, G For each of your picks, total up the numbers of each letter, and compare to the archetype represented by that letter. 0-4: Most likely a coincidence that you got points in this one. There might be a little flavoring, but that's it. 5-8: There's definitely times when people can tell your fancharacter is this sort, but it may not be your main trait. 9-12: Your character is clearly this type. A. Mary Sue - It's all about ME! B. Combat Specialist - It's all about the fighting C. Plotter - It's all about the sneaking around and intrigues D. Builder/Scientist - It's all about how it works E. Human Interaction - It's all about the humans F. Romantic Lead - It's all about the nookie G. Whackjob - It's all about the insanity and/or comic relief H. Conqueror - It's all about ruling the world I. Bystander - It's not about much of anything, just here to watch J. Noble Defender - It's all about protecting something or someone Note: even if you don't score 9+ on Mary Sue, if you do score 9+ on more than one of the following, your character is probably a Mary Sue anyway: Combat Monster, Plotter, Romantic Lead, Conqueror. Also, if nothing is above 4, then your character is probably a Bystander, although it's possible they're just some uncommon archetype not listed here. Example: Channel is a character I created for a MUSH, but lately is mostly an art subject. While I was playing him, he was generally behind the lines, acting as techie and medic, while also cheerleading for the Autobots. 1. No obvious influence - I 2. Several in different forms - FF, GG, II, J 3. Competent in a fight - B, I, J 4. Staunch proponent - C, H, JJ 5. Take 'em or leave 'em - C, D, I 6. Occasional diversion - F, G, I 7. Not a planner - B, D, F, G, I 8. Don't get involved - D, E, I 9. Knowledge is power - CC, DDD, EE A: 0, B: 2, C: 4, D: 5, E: 3, F: 4, G: 4, H: 1, I: 8, J: 4 So, Channel is definitely a bystander, although he's also a Builder/ Scientist to some extent. When he does get involved in the story, it's likely as tech support. If you didn't get a strong spike in any one area, it doesn't mean your character lacks a strong concept. It just means it doesn't fill one of what I consider the ten most common archetypes, or is balanced across several. If your highest result is only one higher than the number two, you're probably either "mixed" or "none of the above". Statistical analysis: Okay, so I do a fair amount of test statistics stuff for my job, and I do kinda like it. So, of course, I'm going to do at least a little analysis on my own test here. :) The lowest possible scores for each archetype are zero (there's always an option in each item with no points for any given archetype), and the highest possible score is 12. The highest score on a single item for each archetype is as follows: A: 4, B: 4, C: 4, D: 4, E: 4, F: 4, G: 2, H: 3, I: 3, J: 3 Being a Whackjob isn't about any one thing on this test. :) It's also clear that A-F were the first archetypes to come to mind, as they each have a question that provides 4 points. The expectation value of the test (i.e. if you randomly picked options a whole bunch of times and averaged out the scores) is as follows: A: 3.7, B: 4.3, C: 4.3, D: 2.9, E: 3.3, F: 3.3, G: 3.6, H: 3.4, I: 2.8, J: 3.1 Keep in mind, these are NOT averages of the actual population of fancharacters. This calculuation assumes that responses would be distributed equally over the population, which is likely not the case. It does, however, make the cutoff of 4 for "background noise" look a little less arbitrary. Some of the archetypes "spike" on certain questions, with most of their points being found in one or two items. Given that some questions were written with a specific archetype in mind (for instance, item 5 is the "do you like humans?" question), this isn't too surprising. A: Items 1 and 3 B: Items 3 and 7 C: Items 7 and 8 D: Item 9 E: Item 5 F: Item 6 G: No spike H: Items 3 and 4 I: No spike J: No spike There are only 8 responses (out of 52) that give points to just a single archetype, while 24 responses give points to three or more archetypes. Nuts and Bolts: Here's where I explain some of my less-obvious choices for coding and point scores. I'm not going to explain the self-evident ones, like why "Make Love, Not War" gets you four points for Romantic Lead. :) I'll address each response that I think needs it, for whichever archetypes I think bear explaining. 1.1 will be item 1, first response, 3.2 would be item 3, second response, and so forth. 1.1: This is the "wish fulfillment" response, where the character is based on a better version of you. While most strongly Mary Sue, it also tends to go along with leader types (H and J) and romantic leads (FF). Also, being based on a human makes it more likely the character will get along with humans (but not a guarantee). 1.2: Similar to 1.1, but if you're not your perfected self you probably don't see yourself as a leader (hence no H or J). 1.3: The arch-Mary Sue of TrekFic, Marissa, has her personality modeled after a female relative of the author. Okay, so it's a tenuous link. If you disagree, code this oen as E instead. 1.4: The A coding is again inspired by Marissa, who really did appear in one episode of Next Generation. Yes, a tenuous link. 1.5: "Like a cross between me and Jackie Chan" sort of thing. 2.1: Conquerors tend to be focused on a particular goal of conquest. 2.2: ...but they can stick around for a while, as can defenders of a principle. 2.3: Romantic Leads want to get it on with as many canon characters as possible, so versions may be created that appeal to the stars of various eras. Bystanders are often art projects, and get redesigns for each new continuity, rewritten to fit. Whackjobs go where the action is. 2.4: Science-oriented Builders often have an excuse to explore multiple timelines, and Whackjobs don't care about things like consistency. 2.5: Mary Sues go where they want. 2.6: See above, plus romantic leads often go have romances with characters from other properties, and human interactors bring in humans from their favorite other properties to play with. 3.1: Noble Defenders DON'T get points here, because they're usually not the baddest guy on the block...they just have the guts to hang on against things much stronger then they are. 3.2: Whackjobs like having the mad skillz to wreak havoc. 3.3: Romantic Leads often follow the path of the warrior with the tragically doomed love. 3.6: If a Whackjob can't be really good in a fight, he'll be so horrible in combat that it's silly. 4.1: Whackjobs are often parodies of their own faction. 4.3: This might deserve a point for I as well, take one if you want. 4.5: The E and J coding usually goes with Decepticons who like humans. J is also seen when a character has a code of honor that fits aspects of the enemy's philosophy (an Autobot who believes in survival of the fittest, a Decepticon who believes in mercy for fallen foes, etc). Romantic Leads often love someone from the other side, giving them a tendency to waver in their loyalties. 4.6: Conquerors often don't believe in their factional philosophy at all, just using it as a way to recruit cannon fodder. 4.7: Whackjobs just aren't very GOOD spies. 5.2: A Romantic Lead may be in love with a human. See, for instance, every Kiss Play fanfic that ever was or will be written. 5.6: Combat specialists are often more than a little disdainful of weak humans. Whackjobs often target humans because they know it'll piss people off. 6.1: Mary Sues can end a war by seducing the leader of the other side. 6.2: Human Interactors may interact a little too closely with the humans. 6.3: Ditto. 6.4: The one point for F here is that ANY tendency towards romance in robot fiction can tag you as a romantic. 6.5: Why not more codes? Well, most archetypes don't really care one way or the other. Builders sometimes get concerned with the purity of the setting and consider teh sexx0rz to be a contaminant. Whackjobs just like stirring up trouble on the matter. 7.1: Mary Sues are often so clever they mousetrap their enemies. Both Conquerors and Noble Defenders appreciate a bloodless win. 7.6: This is where the Combat Specialist becomes the Combat Monster. 8.1: And the enemy is probably the Whackjob himself. 8.5: Noble Defenders tend to be a little naive. 9.2: In the case of the Human Interactor, it's human knowledge in particular that is important. 9.5: And the Whackjob is probably the one who will blow up the planet. Plotters get a point here simply because they are a suspicious lot.