Sentinel Prime, later Sentinel Magnus, is a major character in the 2007 animated TV series, Transformers: Animated series.
He is the former best friend of Optimus who upon a fatal decision by Sentinel resulted in the loss of his close friend and implied girlfriend, Elita-1, to which Sentinel acts nothing more than a petty bully towards Optimus for being expelled even though the only reason he did so to cover up Sentinel.
Growing more arrogant and ruthless, Sentinel becomes more and more unsympathetic as he becomes the militaristic dictator over Cybertron upon Ultra Magnus' coma.
He was voiced by Townsed Colesman.
What Makes Him Hateable?[]
- He is a massive xenophobe against all organics who demonizes organics and deems them inferior. When reuniting with Elita-1 after years, Sentinel takes more issue with Elita-1 transformed into a technorganic thanks to his decision than even she herself, making some disgusting comments.
- Back during the academy, he just sneered at Optimus for being unable to defeat Megatron at a virtual program during training.
- Sentinel constantly belittles Optimus and treats him as nothing but trash despite him actually doing far more heroic deeds like thwarting the Decepticons' plans personally for his expulsion from the Academy, despite the only reason that happened was because Optimus decided to take the blame to cover for Sentinel, showcasing how ungrateful he is. It is implied that he's still resentfully blamed him for the loss of Elita-1.
- He was a very crude minor towards Bumblebee when he was trying to prove there was a Decepticon spy despite his mistakes.
- He shows no respect to Optimus and his crew when the Orion was lost while what his words seemed civil, his thoughts are not then acted cranky towards Longarm and tells him some things are best left behind as a refusal to continue the search for them.
- He is a huge control freak to the point of using his own status as an Elite Guard in order to boss the other Autobots around like Optimus and his crew to follow his orders.
- He was willing to stoop so low to actually pay depraved bounty hunter Lockdown to capture Decepticons and falsely claim he did it all by himself and then continues doing so despite the fact Optimus says it was Prowl after their last encounter with Lockdown.
- He idiotically caused the Decepticons to break out of their cells in the Steelhaven after giving out a harsh order on Jazz to travel through an electrical storm and ultimately didn't inform the Autobot command about their escape though he did send an S.O.S code to Optimus just to keep the Decepticons imprisoned and barely did anything else besides being useless, arrogant and being held hostage.
- While having some sympathy in "Predacons Rising", he subverts this immediately in his next appearance upon becoming acting Magnus, Sentinel rules over Cybertron as a ruthless dictator, turning it into a police state with multiple curfews and frequent body searches and any opposition to his regulations will be met with arrest, making the citizens of Cybertron miserable. Sentinel is ultimately the highlight of Megatron's rhetoric of freedom of Decepticons, in which while he's only using it as a rhetoric to rally up support, he is far from wrong to claim that the Autobot government is no less tyrannical than him.
- Overall, despite technically being a hero, he is only by name as he was intentionally made to be the series' biggest jerk. Sentinel has little-to-no sympathetic traits except his relationship with Elita-1 which give him some sympathy in "Predacons Rising", but any sympathy was limited to just that episode, with the rest of his appearances he is nothing but a pompous Smug Snake who is a jerk to everyone and made to be as unlikeable as possible so the audience can be satisfied with what all humiliations he endures, especially after said episode when he becomes a full-on dictator. Sentinel is so unlikeable that even some of the series' most depraved villains like Megatron end up more rootable and likeable than him. Sentinel would've been a full-time antagonist itself had the show continued.
- When Optimus returns to Cybertron with Lugnut, Shockwave and Megatron as prisoners, Sentinel shows no gratitude, annoyed that they are being cheered more on by the Team than they did so for him.
- According to unutilized plans for the cancelled Season 4, Sentinel would have become a full-fledged villain like his Bayverse counterpart, and likely suffering the same fate would be played out for catharsis and karma.
Trivia[]
- He and Porter C. Powell are the only characters from Transformers: Animated to be Hate Sinks. He is also the first Autobot to be deemed a Hate Sink.
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 Hate Sinks
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