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aspoonofsugar · 3 months

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RWBY's Alyx In The Ever After

Here comes a meta on the Alice's inspiration of volume 9! The whole season is packed with allusions to Carrol's two works: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass. I will try to focus on the references most important for our girls' journey and on how Alice's story is used to convey a central theme of the volume: growing up.

TWO WORLDS, ONE ALICE AND THE SAME STORY

Carrol wrote two books about Alice's adventures.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland tells the story of how Alice falls down the rabbit hole and discovers a magical world. Here are some highlights and key elements (skip them if you already know the story).

Alice sees a white rabbit who keeps repeating they are late. She follows them into a deep hole and arrives in a strange room. There she finds drinks and cakes, which make her big and small. She tries to use them to grow the right size to enter a beautiful garden full of red roses. Still, she messes up, starts crying and almost drawns in her own tears. She survives together with a mouse, a dodo and other animals. The mouse starts telling her a story, but gets offended and scared when Alice mentions her kitty Dinah.

Alice meets the White Rabbit, who confuses her for their housemaid. Alice goes to the White Rabbit's house, but drinks a potion and becomes a giant. She eats some tarts, shrinks and runs into a forest. There she meets a Caterpillar, who gives her a magical mushroom to manage her size. Now in control of how big and small she is, she keeps exploring the world. She interacts with a Duchess, her pig child and her Cheshire Cat. The Cat gives Alice directions to reach the March Hare's House.

Alice arrives at the Hare's house and meets the Hare, the Hatter and the Dormouse, while they are having tea. She joins the party and discusses with them until she gets fed up and leaves. By this point, she sees a small door in a tree, opens it and finally arrives in the garden of red roses. The garden is the Queen of Hearts’ Kindgom and Alice gets invited to play croquet. Alice does her best, but is annoyed by the Queen's cheating. After some other adventures, Alice is forced to take part in a theft trial. The whole thing is a farce and eventually Alice gets angry with the Queen and the other Wonderland people. She grows big, shouts they are all just a pack of cards and destroys the Queen's Castle. She wakes up and tells her sister about the dream.

Alice Through The Looking Glass is about Alice's journey in the Looking Glass dimension, where a chess game takes place. Here is a quick summary (again, skip it if you know the story):

Alice enters a mirror and finds herself in a magical world. First of all, she discovers some living chess pieces and tries to move them around. Then, she tries to read a short poem called the Jabberwocky, but she can't understand it. Finally, she goes outside and talks with the flowers of the garden. They tell her about a flower that wears a crown and Alice soon meets the Red Queen. They have a conversation and Alice discovers the world is a giant chessboard and accepts to play the game as the white pawn. Her objective is to cross the chessboard, so she can become queen (as per the rules of chess). She goes through a square by train. Then she suddenly finds herself in a forest where she forgets who she is. Once out, she meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who fight each other. They point Alice towards the Red King who is sleeping and dreaming the whole world.

Later on, Alice meets the White Queen and talks with her. Then she reaches a strange shop and has a boat trip together with a goat. She finds herself in the shop once again and moves towards an egg, which turns into Humpty Dumpty. They chat about the Jabberwocky and the meaning of words, but eventually Humpty Dumpty falls. All the White King's men arrive to try and put him back together, so Alice meets the King and his two messangers (who are the Hatter and the Hare). Together with them she looks at the Lion and the Unicorn's fight.

At this point, Alice is caught by the Red Knight, but the White Knight comes and saves her. The two of them travel together and the Knight sings the Aged aged man song. He helps Alice reach the final square, where she is crowned Queen. A banquet is organized to celebrate Queen Alice, but there is a commotion. Alice loses her temper and reproaches the Red Queen by shaking her. The Queen turns into a small black cat and Alice wakes up in her house with her two kitties. She is left wondering if she is the one who dreamt it all or if the Red King did.

The two worlds get often mixed up in adaptations and Alice's adventures are reduced to a single journey. This happens because the two books tell the same story. They metaphorically show Alice's growth.

In Wonderland, Alice's different sizes represent confusion over who she is, which is normal for children growing up. This insecurity is why Alice initially can't grow the right size to enter the garden. Still, she succeeds by the end and eventually grows big (grows up) in the climax.

In Through the Looking Glass, Alice starts as a pawn, goes through a journey and finally gets crowned queen. This motif conveys her inner growth.

In other words, Alice's story is a coming of age journey. She starts as a child and symbolically develops into a more mature version of herself.

The Girl Who Fell Through the World is the same. Alyx is a selfish kid, who becomes a different person by the end:

A door opened for Alyx at the Tree. Before she goes back home, the girl had a great many questions to ponder. After all the lessons she learned, and the friends she'd made and lost. Who had she become? Would she still be the same Alyx when she went back home? The leaves of the tree rustled, and on the wind, Alyx heard one more question… What… are you?

"What are you?" is the central question of Lewis's fairy tale. Let's try to better understand it by exploring the setting (the Ever After), the protagonist (Alyx) and their connections with Carrol's works.

THE EVER AFTER (THE WORLD)

The Ever After alludes to Wonderland / the Glass World. Here are some examples:

It's made up by acres, like the Glass World is made of squares

People shrink like in Wonderland

Time and space work funnily, like in the Glass World

It has talking animals, like Carrol's stories

It has several characters from Alice's books, like the Jabberwalker (Jabberwocky), the Curious Cat (Cheshire Cat), the Herbalist (Caterpillar), the Red Prince (Red Queen) and the looking glass insects

Its inhabitants use words in peculiar ways, just like the characters in Alice's worlds

It's a dimension full of nursery rhymes and sayings that become real things. For example, the Ever After takes the meaning of metereopatic and inverts it. Here, people's moods are not affected by the weather, but the weather gets influenced by emotions

The name "Ever After" itself comes from two sayings:

Happily Ever After is the ending of most fairy tales. It describes perfect happiness that lasts forever, which is an idea rooted in childhood

Hereafter references the life after death. It ties this dimension with death and grief and makes it a realm of the deads

So, the Ever After combines together the themes of childhood and death. The end result is a world built on the concept of ascension:

Curious Cat: When we break or wear out or simply finish what we were made to do, we’re called back. But Herb… his heart was too weak to listen, so I gave him a little bit of mine. Now that Herb’s properly returned, he’ll be fixed up nice, and made into the Herb he wanted to be when he was still “Herb”. Then he’ll come back and find his purpose. Could be the same as before, or maybe not. I know, I know, where you're from, things… die… but we’re just not like you at all. We… ascend. Herb will have a purpose again.

Afterans don't die, but ascend. They get to live "ever after". Just like in an imaginary world thought up by children. And in a sense, that's exactly what the Ever After is:

It is a proto-dimension, where the brothers play and experiment, as children do. The moment they introduce the Jabberwalker (death) things change, the balance is broken and the Brothers must grow up and find a new equilibrium. This is something that happens to everyone. Growing up means to deal with death and to accept it. It is the only way to embrace life fully. The Ever After is a place that helps the characters do exactly this, which makes it the Underworld of RWBY in three different ways:

It is the world under Remnant. The world that comes before. This is why the characters fall into it. It is a place linked to the past of the universe (the Brothers) and to the past of the characters (a childhood book).

It is the world of the deads, where the characters deal with loss by going through the five stages of grief. In this sense, their fall is a metaphorical death.

It is the world which exists under many piled up emotions. It is where people get in touch with their interiority by falling within themselves:

Inside A new me, I'm ready But who will I find?

So, childhood, death and interiority. These are the three ingredients of this setting. Let's see how they get mixed up in the story of the girl who fell through the world.

ALYX (THE PROTAGONIST)

Alyx alludes to two Carrol's characters, as her design implies:

She is modeled after Alice herself. She wears a blue dress and a bow like her Disney counterpart

She has several details linking her to the White Rabbit. For example, her bow resembles small rabbit ears and she has a gold rabbit-shaped brooch

This isn't surprising because Alice and the White Rabbit are written as foils in the original book. According to Carrol:

"And the White Rabbit, what of him? Was he framed on the "Alice" lines, or meant as a contrast? As a contrast, distinctly. For her 'youth', 'audacity', 'vigour', and 'swift directness of purpose' read 'elderly', 'timid', 'feeble' and 'nervously shilly-shallying', and you will get something of what I meant him to be."

RWBY takes this idea and combines Alice and the Rabbit in one character. The result is an ambiguous young girl:

Oscar: I thought the idea of falling through Remnant into a new world was exciting. I never understood why she was so sad when she finally made it back home. But now it makes more sense. She wasn't the same girl anymore.

Ozpin: I was recently reminded of an old fairy tale. A young girl flees the consequences of a choice, to a magical place. But, having never learned from her initial failure, she only succeeds in spreading it.

Yang: But she was kind of a mean person, right? She lied and cheated her way through most of the book. Weiss: She was trying to survive. The morals of those old stories are so simplistic.

Alyx is described as a lost child, a corward, a mean person and a survivalist. Everybody interprets her differently. This is true also for the two people who know her personally.

Jaune turns Alyx into a villain, who sacrifices her brother and lies to everybody:

Jaune: I think… Alyx traded him to the tree, in order to leave. And then she wrote him out of the story.

Lewis tones down Alyx's negative traits and makes her the heroine of his book:

Blacksmith: Yes. Only Lewis returned home. The Girl Who Fell Through the World is the story as he wished it happened.

A monster and a hero. Everybody makes Alyx black or white, while she is gray, like her small knife:

Weiss: What did Jinxy want from Alyx (for her knife)? Blake: Her saddest memory… and her happiest.

She is gray because she is a real person. Still, she gets reduced to a character. This duplicity is at the root of her two allusions:

-Alyx plays the White Rabbit (a character) in RWBY's story in volume 9. The girls try to re-live her journey, so that they can escape. As they make progress, though, they discover Alyx doesn't meet their expectations. They take detours and find their own path.

Similarly, Alice quickly loses interest in the White Rabbit, after she meets him. She switches goals mid-journey, from the White Rabbit's house to the garden of roses.

-Alyx is Alice (a person) in her own story, which gets turned into a fairy-tale by Lewis. The Girl Who Fell Through the World even comes from a line in Carrol's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:

Presently she began again. `I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward!

So, Alyx is both an extra (a character) and a protagonist (a person). At the same time, she is the mix of Alice and the White Rabbit in another sense. On the one hand Alice is a young girl who grows up. On the other hand the White Rabbit is "always late". So, Alyx is a child, who matures, but does so too late:

NeoCat: Decided she wanted to fix everything that she had broken in the Ever After! Including poor Jaune! So Lewis went, and in the very last moment… Alyx didn’t…

She mistreats the Afterans throughout her journey and has a heel-realization only in the end. By then, though, the Curious Cat is already broken by her lie and kills her. Still, Alyx does grow up and makes a final choice, who defines what she is:

Blacksmith: When Alyx’s life ended, she chose to leave a part of herself behind. A wish to fix what she had broken.

She truly turns into the heroine Lewis portrays her as. Sure, Alyx never gets the chance to become an adult and to live a long life, but she still grows into herself.

In conclusion, Alyx's story ties together the themes of childhood and death, as it is both a fairy tale and a tragedy. Still, hers is only the first adventure set in RWBY's Wonderland. The second is the one of our protagonists'. How do they fare in this strange dimension?

THE SAME WORLD, NEW PROTAGONISTS AND A SEQUEL

Weiss: Great! So we’re not in the stupid story after all. We’re in its stupid sequel!

RWBY find themselves in Alyx's world and start a journey similar to hers. However, they soon realize they can't leave the Ever After by following into Alyx's footsteps. In other words, RWBY start by thinking they already possess the interpretative key to solve the Ever After:

Blake: In the story, Alyx fell from the sky and met with the Hunter Mice, got trapped in vines, fought a Jabberwalker, and got her knife stolen by… A talking raccoon. Yang: Yeah. And then she beat the Red King at a board game, met the Curious Cat, the Rusted Knight, and finally got out through… Blake: The tree

They follow the Girl Who Fell Through the World, but things go bad and it is only when they start living their own story that they are able to go back to Remnant.

This resembles Alice's adventures, which take place in games. The first book uses cards, while the second is inspired by chess. However, both stories end with Alice refusing the rules. She escapes both dreams by stopping to play. She destroys the card castle in Wonderland and ends the pompous party in Through The Looking Glass. Both books have Alice think with her own head, instead of following someone else's laws.

Alice's two endings tie with the books being an exploration and critique of Victorian society. The strange worlds the girl visits are society seen through the eyes of a child. The end result is a place full of madmen because adults' rules and laws make no sense to kids. Alice is asked to conform to a morality, which is pompous and superficial, but she chooses not to and grows in her own person.

RWBY focuses on the opposite idea. The protagonists aren't children lost in the confusing world of adults, but grown-ups, who find themselves in the universe of their childhood. As a result, they are asked to face their inner children, say goodbye to them, but without betraying their ideals and dreams. They must grow-up to be the heroes they dreamt of as kids. Still, in order to do so they must leave behind a childish vision of the world.

Finally, RWBY's adventure is framed as a sequel to Alyx's, just like Through The Looking Glass is a sequel to Wonderland.

The two Alice's stories are written as mirrors of each other:

Wonderland happens in Summer, while Through the Looking Glass is set in Winter

Wonderland makes use of Alice changing sizes to move the plot. Through the Looking Glass instead has the world act strangely around Alice, with time and space twisting

Wonderland is a game of cards, while Through the Looking Glass is a match of chess

Similarly, RWBY's journey mirrors Alyx's:

Alyx's story is one of broken things that ends in death

RWBY's story is one of healing that ends with a rebirth

In particular, Alyx, just like Alice, becomes friends with a cat, but hurts them and has them change for the worst:

Blacksmith: One act of dishonesty… caused an unfortunate change…

Ruby instead, differently from Alice, grows fond of a mouse and inspires them to become a hero:

Blacksmith: One small kindness in one small moment would be such a marvelous transformation.

A LITTLE SILVER LINING

Little alludes to:

Alice Liddle, the real life counterpart of Carrol's Alice

The Little of Little Red Riding Hood, which is fitting as Ruby carries the mouse in her hood

Stuart Little, a mouse, who is born in/gets adopted by a human family

The dormouse and the mouse of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Little alludes to Alice because Ruby herself plays Alice in volume 9. The small mouse simply highlights this role with their presence. As a matter of fact you can read Ruby and Little's foiling as an inversion of Alice and the White Rabbit's:

Alice is a brave and strong-willed child, while the White Rabbit is old and acts cowardly. Moreover, Alice starts her journey by following the rabbit.

Ruby is a teenager hero, who appears big and mature to small and child-like Little. As a result, the mouse leaves everything behind and follows Ruby around.

In other words, Little is Ruby's child-self and is characterized as our protagonist at the beginning of the series. This is why they are the Little of Ruby's Little Red Riding Hood. They embody the small child who sets up to explore the world and help others.

In particular, Little stays true to his Stuart Little movie-counterpart:

A Little always finds a silver lining

Jinxy: Bidding starts at… Enough hope to fill this jar!

Little becomes Ruby's silver lining, as they are the one giving our girl hope throughout her journey in the Ever After. In a sense, they symbolyze Ruby's wide-eyed idealism, which is what activates her silver eyes.

What about Little's Wonderland allusions?

Just like the Dormouse, they often fall asleep, whereas their first meeting with Ruby resembles Alice's interaction with the mouse:

Alice almost drawns in her own tears and survives together with the mouse, a dodo (Carrol's self-insert) and other animals. Alice chats with the mouse, but she upsets them after mentioning her cat Dinah.

Ruby starts crying and makes it rain. Then, she meets Little, helps them and cheers up. However, she gets startled when the mouse starts talking and she unwillingly scares them by mentioning Blake's cat ears. A dodo is also present at the scene.

Ruby and Little's meeting is also loosely similar to Alice's conversation with the live-flowers. There Alice is surprised the flowers can talk, asks them if they have seen other people and has trouble reaching her destination because she moves toward it, instead than in the opposite direction (as per looking-glass logic). Finally, the flowers mention the Red Queen.

Ruby is shocked Little talks, asks them about her friends and can't reach the tree because she lacks acceptance. Finally, the Hunter Mice foreshadow that cats should not be trusted:

Mouse Leader: You have our sincerest apologies! Please understand that our kind is a bit skeptical of cats… and snakes… and cats.

In general, Little and the Hunter Mice are reflections of Ruby and RWBY. Little is a child who dreams of becoming a Hunter, like Ruby. The Mice prey on big and scary monsters, like RWBY fight Grimms. So, these characters set up our heroines' journey through the Ever After. A challenge to redefine who they are and what being Huntresses means. Let's now focus on this adventure and on the strange creatures RWBY meet in their personal version of Wonderland.

THE RED PRINCE HAS A GREAT FALL

The Red Prince alludes to:

The Queen of Hearts, as he is pompous, a cheater and executes his soldiers

The Red Queen, as he meets RWBY at the beginning and challenges them to a game of chess

Humpty Dumpty, as he cracks like an egg, after realizing RWBY are humans

'They gave it me,' Humpty Dumpty continued thoughtfully as he crossed one knee over the other and clasped his hands round it, 'they gave it me — for an un-birthday present.' 'What is an un-birthday present?' 'A present given when it isn't your birthday, of course.'

Humpty Dumpty comes up with the idea of un-birthday and RWBY goes to the Red Prince's birthday party, which celebrates the King's rebirth as a Prince:

Curious Cat: Oh, it was all very sad. The Red King couldn’t cope when he lost to Alyx, a crying mess. Thankfully, he was called back and fixed up, and now he’s the Prince you met.

The Prince represents a psychological regression, an un-growth, which adds an ironic spin to his "royal birthday". Not only that, but Alyx is the one responsible for this transformation:

Blake: So, that’s why he cheats, when the Red King didn’t. But that still doesn’t explain why the Red Prince was so much meaner. Curious Cat: While the Prince may not remember Alyx’s deception after ascending, the heart very rarely forgets.

In Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts cheats in her game of croquet, while in the Ever After Alyx plays dirty to win. In other words:

The Red Prince behaves like the Queen of Hearts because he is imitating Alyx, the player who defeated him

The Red Prince (from king to prince) is the opposite of growth (from pawn to queen)

The Prince is a character who suffers a loss and isn't able to overcome it:

'Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall: Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the King's horses and all the King's men Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty in his place again.'

None of his horses nor men are able to put the Red King in his place again, which is why he ascends and becomes a Prince. He chooses to run away from his failure and escapes into childhood.

RWBY find themselves in a similar situation:

Weiss: We hatched a crazy plan that put a whole kingdom at risk, and we don't even know if we saved the Relics from… Maybe… Jaune and Winter were able to get them out, despite… everything… despite us…

They suffered a great fall. Will they be able to put themselves back together again? This is the question the Prince embodies, which is why Ruby's match against him mirrors RWBY's journey up until volume 8:

Ruby leads an army of hopeless soldiers, but inspires them to fight

Everything seems to be going well and they conquer more and more space on the chessboard

Still, something unexpected happens and RWBY is targeted by both friends and foes

The girls manage to put up a wonderful fight... only to fall down the table

Isn't it similar to RWBY's experiences in Atlas, where they are let down by Ironwood, have their plan ruined and finally fall because of Cinder?

The Red Prince's game is a metaphor of RWBY's past, which is an inversion of Alice's initial game of chess:

In Through the Looking Glass, Alice sees the chessboard and the pieces she will later on cross and meet throughout her journey. She has an anticipation of the game she is about to play.

In the Ever After, Ruby re-lives her biggest defeat. She plays again a match she has already lost:

Ruby: I don't know how that went so...wrong.

She feels she let Atlas's people and her friends down, so Weiss, Blake and Yang almost die in a fall. Speaking of WBY, their shrinking means two things:

They are turned into pieces Ruby moves around because our leader feels she has to carry her team on her shoulders.

They become small because Weiss, Blake and Yang have all faced their smallest and weakest parts, so they could grow. Ruby instead doesn't change because she has been stagnating.

ADVICE FROM AN HERBALIST - GROWING UP

After the game with the Red Prince, RWBY's priority is to bring WBY to their original size. In their quest, the girls meet the Herbalist:

Who alludes to the Caterpillar:

"Who are you?” said the Caterpillar. “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.” “What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar sternly. “Explain yourself!” “I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.” “I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar. “I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.” “It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar. “Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; “but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?” “Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar. “Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said Alice; “all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.” “You!” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. “Who are you?”

Alice meets the Caterpillar, while he is smoking a hookah atop a mushroom. The creature has a key conversation with the girl, as he teaches her how to control her transformations. As a matter of fact he advices Alice to eat the two different sides of the mushroom to turn big and small. In the Disney adaptation, he blows smoke in Alice's face multiple times and ends the scene by becoming a butterfly.

The Herbalist lives in a mushroom and uses the tree leaves to create smoke that forces people to confront "what they are" and "what they wanna become". At the end of his meeting with RWBY, he ascends and is later on reborn as a Butterfly.

Herb's role in the Ever After is to help others become their ideal selves, just like the Caterpillar helps Alice reach her ideal size. At their root, both characters deal with identity and change:

Herbalist: You are making this far more complicated than it needs to be. We all have our titles, our roles to play, but in order to help you become whatever it is you need to become, you should really have a better understanding of what you are now.

It is just that the Caterpillar does so physically, while Herb psychologically. To be more precise, RWBY divides what is united in Carrol's work. Alice's transformations symbolize her inner changes, so to control her size means she understands who she is better. In RWBY, instead:

The girls want to go back to their original size and to reach the tree physically. The Cat frames themselves as the one, who can lead them towards both goals. In fact, they help the girls make the Growgurt Parfait.

The girls need to mature psychologically and to reach acceptance. This is their path to Remnant and to the future. The Herbalist knows it and tries to help RWBY. However, RWBY's ignorance of the Ever After leads to a misunderstanding.

In any case, Herb manages to make the girls self-reflect. In particular, his mist forces them to face their past selves. WBY deal with who they were and show they are ready to bloom into their final selves. Ruby instead is frozen and can't accept who she is:

Past Ruby: So, are you a Huntress? Like the ones you read about in books? Ruby: I… I don’t know…

In order to find herself, she has to go through a deeper exploration and to accept her darkest emotions. This is why she gets invited to a certain tea party.

A MAD TEA PARTY - DEATH AND GRIEF

"In that direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round,lives a Hatter: and in that direction,' waving the other paw, `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."

Alice's Mad Tea Party involves three characters:

The Hatter

The March Hare

The Dormouse (the Mouse in the Disney movie)

The trio is stuck at forever five o' clock because the Hatter killed time, while singing. As punishment, Time traps him and his friends in an everending tea party. In the book, the Hatter and the Hare are both mad and try to put the sleepy Dormouse in a tea-pot. In the Disney adaptation, the trio is celebrating an unbirthday party, which ends with the Mouse reciting a poem and entering a tea-pot.

RWBY has three characters allude to the mad tea trio:

Illusion Roman alludes to the Hatter

Juniper alludes to the Hare

Little alludes to the Dormouse/Mouse

Moreover, each one of them resembles a dead character and accompanies the person who misses this character the most:

Roman is the product of Overactive Imagination and embodies Neo's feelings over her friend. He stays by Neo's side and speaks for her.

Juniper shares Pyrrha's golden color scheme and is called after Jaune's team when Pyrrha was alive. She is Jaune's partner in the Ever After.

Little has a personality similar to Penny's and is excited to be Ruby's friend. They attach themselves to Ruby and tag along in her journey.

So, Neo, Jaune and Ruby travel together with a magical creature who embodies a lost loved one. This fits the Ever After being RWBY's realm of the deads, a place for the characters to face grief. Not only that, but these three traveling companions link Neo, Jaune and Ruby themselves to the mad tea party. In other words, the characters' losses are driving them insane. Neo, Jaune and Ruby are mad out of pain. This is why their unhealthy copying mechanisms are highlighted in scenes involving tea.

Neo's mad tea party

Neo, as the Hatter lashes out at Ruby and organizes a tea-party to celebrate Red's un-birth:

Neo-Roman: You don’t deserve to die, Red. You deserve to be broken down… Torn apart… wiped from existence.

Jaune's not crazy breakfast

Jaune, as the Hare invites RWBY to his house, where he shows his own instability and hero complex:

Jaune: This isn’t crazy… I’m not crazy… This… isn’t crazy, it’s easy!

Ruby trapped in a tea-pot

Ruby, as the Dormouse, gives up a part of herself and seals it in a tea-pot. Or in this case, the Teapot Lady:

Ruby: Here! I’ll give you this! I-It carries a mother’s promise!

What is more, the last time Alice looks at the tea trio, she sees the Hatter and the Hare trying to put the Dormouse in a tea-pot:

Similarly, Ruby's interactions with Neo and Jaune push her to drink the tea-tree and to ascend. In a sense, Neo and Jaune shove Ruby into the tea, as if she were a sugar-cube:

In general, all three characters need to face their loved ones' loss. Only in this way, they can accept themselves and move on. In order for them to grow, they must struggle with death. That is their major conflict in the Ever After and what makes them the three main characters of the volume. Fittingly, they are all major foils of Alyx herself:

Neo plays the part of the villain, but deep down she is a girl, who can't express herself. Like Alyx, she acts selfishly and lets her negative emotions control her. However, by the end she chooses to truly face herself and change.

Jaune plays the part of the hero, but deep down he is a child lost in a magical world, just like Alyx. This is why he needs to reconcile with her to move on.

Ruby plays the part of Alyx, the broken little girl, who loses herself in the Ever After. Still, she is deep down a Huntress and just needs to find herself once again. Her actions heal, whereas Alyx's hurt.

The Alyx who runs away from her responsibilities in a magical world, the Alyx who is saved by a hero and the Alyx who grows up and learns a lesson. Neo, Jaune and Ruby play all these different versions of the Girl Who Fell Through the World. Moreover, they all have additional Carrol's allusions, which define their arcs in the Ever After.

NEO - THE JABBERWOCKY

Neo alludes to the Jabberwocky, which is a nonsense poem Alice finds in Through The Looking Glass. This poem:

Tells the story of a child slaying a monster

It is impossible to fully understand

Both things apply to Neo:

She kills the Jabberwalker, but assimilates them in her illusions. In other words, she is both the child who slays the monster and the monster itself.

She doesn't speak and has trouble communicating with others. Even when her illusions talk for her, she isn't understood:

Say something real Do you only speak in riddles, chatterbox? I'm waiting for your ugly mouth to Say something real Do you only speak in riddles, chatterbox? I'm waiting on your ugly mouth to spit it out

In other words...

The Jabberwalker represents death and dies unheard:

Jabberwalker: Stop… It… Cease! No! NO! NOOOOOO!

Neo is a villain whose grief stays unrecognized:

Ruby: If you’re looking for an apology, you’ve wasted your time! Not only by others, but by Neo too. She kills a part of herself in the Jabberwalker.

Not only by others, but by Neo too. She kills it in the form of the Jabberwalker. And yet, her grief keeps festering and comes to the surface through her semblance (the illusory Jabberwalkers). Neo's refusal of it leads to this feeling consuming her, until she gives up control on her body and life:

Curious Cat: You’ve lost something most important, haven’t you? And now you have nothing left. How delightful! An empty host, perfect for me to fill.

It is only by earnestly facing her own pain and vulnerability that Neo saves herself:

NeoCat: No! These cracks, these feelings! I can’t… I can’t!!!

And is ready to finally change:

So Neo plays a monster (the Jabberwocky/the Jabberwalker), but is deep down a lost child (Alice/Alyx). She is the most negative interpretation of Alyx, as she is selfish, runs from her responsibilities and hurts others. And yet, she is a person and can change if she is given the chance. She is the Alyx our protagonists need to empathize with:

Ruby: She’ll find herself, one way or another.

JAUNE - THE WHITE (KNIGHT) RABBIT

Jaune alludes to:

The White Knight in Alyx's story, as he is a knight, who travels with her and tries to help her

The White Rabbit in RWBY's story, as he tries to guide RWBY, but isn't reliable

The White Knight rescues Alice from the Red Knight and accompanies her to the last square, where the child gets crowned queen. He is described as an odd inventor, but he is one of the kindest people Alice meets. Before separating, he sings Alice a song whose name is The Aged Aged Man. Alice is said to remember this scene vividly in the future.

Jaune becomes an aged aged man in the Ever After and is described by Lewis as an ally to Alyx . As the Rusted Knight, he tries to help the girl and her brother and is remembered fondly by both siblings, despite Alyx's betrayal.

The White Rabbit is a nervous wreck, who is always late and has his home messed up by Alice, who grows big and gets struck in it. Similarly, Jaune is unstable when he reunites with RWBY and even quotes the White Rabbit's famous line:

Jaune: I’m late! I’m late!

Not only that, but RWBY's arrival in the Ever After cracks his heroic persona and he starts showing how hurt he really is:

Jaune: I’m sorry, I… I know I’m not okay. I- I’m not right, but… How am I supposed to be…? I’ve been alone… for SO… LONG! Here… On that bridge… I was the only one that could do it! I was the ONLY ONE!

Until he has his house indirectly destroyed because of Ruby (or so he lashes out):

Jaune: They’re gone… because of you! The Walkers came for you, because Neo. Hates. YOU!

In general, Jaune is late to ascend:

Blacksmith: I’ve been waiting a long time for you. Jaune: Well, I made it.

Which makes him similar to Alyx. This isn't by chance because Jaune and Alyx are tied. For example, the moment Jaune breathes the tree's smoke, he sees Alyx, instead of his past self. Why is that so? Two reasons:

Jaune frames himself as a hero (the White Knight), but is actually just like Alyx (the White Rabbit). He is a person lost in an unknown world, who takes time to mature.

Alyx is Jaune's inner child, the same way Little is Ruby's. Jaune enters the Ever After and meets a child, who accompanies him in his journey. However, he fails to protect this child and she dies (like Ruby sees Little killed by Neo). Still, just like Little comes back as Somewhat, Alyx too returns in an unexpected form:

Jaune: That’s Alyx’s knife. Wait, how did you have this?

And heals Jaune:

So, Jaune and Alyx share the White Rabbit allusion because symbolically Alyx represents a part of Jaune. She is his least idealized and most vulnerable side. She is the child, who is stubborn and cowardly. She is the damsel in distress Jaune tries to negate and control, which is why she rebels against him:

Jaune: She said she wouldn’t let anyone get in the way of her leaving. That she’d do whatever it takes. And then she was gone.

And yet, she is also the part of Jaune who grows and leads him toward a better self:

It is only through accepting Alyx in both her flaws and tragedy:

Jaune: Can you… answer a question for me? I need to know if it’s true what the Cat said that Lewis went back and… Alyx… Blacksmith: Yes. Only Lewis returned home.

That Jaune is able to move on. Just like it is only by letting go of the Paper Pleasers, that he gets to meet the Genial Gems. As a matter of fact the Paper Pleasers' transformation takes inspiration from another fairy-tale: The Three Little Pigs.

Three little pigs build houses to protect themselves from the Big Bad Wolves. The first pig builds a house of straws, which gets destroyed. The second makes a house of sticks, that fares better, but is ultimately blown away. The third one uses bricks and is able to defend himself from the wolf:

Yang: No flood or fire will ever hurt them again.

The Paper Pleasers are made of paper, which makes them vulnerable to fire and water. The big bad wolves come:

And the Paper Pleasers are destroyed, as a result. In the end, though, they are reborn as rocks, which means they are now stronger and more resilient.

Jaune goes through a similar process. He keeps himself together through the frail paper mask of a noble hero. By the end of the volume, though, he is ready to be reborn as a gem, with a stronger self-identity.

So, Jaune plays a hero (the Rused Knight / the White Knight), but is really a child who refuses to grow (Alyx / the White Rabbit). He is the Alyx that is slow to realize her shortcomings, but eventually fixes them. He is the Alyx who starts as a child, but grows into the heroine of her own story.

Alyx: Maybe it’s time for a change, to be the kind of man you always wanted to be.

RUBY - THE RED QUEEN

Ruby alludes to:

Alice, who explores two magical worlds in order to grow up

The Red Queen, who moves faster than other chess pieces

In Wonderland, Alice reaches the garden of red roses through a door in a tree. In Through The Looking Glass, Alice crosses the chessboard and is crowned queen. Similarly, Ruby travels through the acres and finally reaches the tree, which leads her home through a portal. What is interesting is that Alice's two destinations loosely use red rose symbolism:

A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VIII)

There’s one other flower in the garden that can move about like you,’ said the Rose ‘but she’s more bushy than you are.’ ‘Is she like me?’ Alice asked eagerly, for the thought crossed her mind, ‘There’s another little girl in the garden, somewhere!’ ‘Well, she has the same awkward shape as you,’ the Rose said, ‘but she’s redder—and her petals are shorter, I think.’ ‘Does she ever come out here?’ ‘I daresay you’ll see her soon,’ said the Rose. ‘She’s one of the thorny kind.’ ‘Where does she wear the thorns?’ Alice asked with some curiosity. ‘Why all round her head, of course,’ the Rose replied. ‘She’s coming!’ Alice looked round eagerly, and found that it was the Red Queen. (Through The Looking Glass, Chapter II)

The Queen of Hearts' garden is full of red roses, while the Red Queen is described as a red flower with thorns. In short, Alice's final goal is either to find red roses (Wonderland) or to become one (Through the Looking Glass). Well, Ruby has to find who she is (a red rose) and to be reborn as a queen (queen Alice).

The Red Queen is characterized by her speed. In particular, in her scene with Alice, she states that:

‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’

Ruby is the same. Her semblance makes her fast, which ties to her being quick-witted and precocious. At the same time, Ruby's speed is a metaphor for her coping mechanism. She keeps pushing forward, so she doesn't have to face her emotions. This makes so she keeps on running, but can't advance or grow. This is why Ruby's development happens in a moment of quiet:

A moment of quiet is all it takes To reclaim a life and a promise made

She stops and has a moment with herself, where she faces her own repressed interiority. She confronts her losses and her ideals in the form of Summer Rose. Ruby's mother is her inspiration and who our little rose wants to resemble. Alice wants to become a Queen. Ruby wants to become a Huntress. And yet, Ruby is at the point, where she doubts she can fulfill her dream. She doesn't know if she can truly grow up. So, she is asked to make a choice.

She can either become a copy of Summer (the Red Queen):

Or she can stay in the Ever After forever, as Alyx (Alice):

Will she grow up by leaving her ideals behind or will she lose herself in childhood? Will she regress like the Red Prince? And what can she become if even Summer isn't perfect?

Ruby: Are you just trying to tell me that it’s useless? That I shouldn’t even try? Is that the big lesson I’m supposed to learn? Just… give up?

Ruby chooses to simply become herself:

Ruby: This one (Crescent Rose). What happens… if I choose me?

She is asked if she wants to become Alice in Wonderland or if she prefers to become the Hunter of Little Red Riding Hood. Her answer is to be Little Red Riding Hood, who is growing into her own Huntress:

I'll be who you were and I'll be even more

She isn't giving up on her dream of saving people. Still, she is the protagonist of her fairy-tale:

I am the reflection of who prevails I'm what inspired the fairytale

Alice's doubt at the end of Through The Looking Glass is if she is the dreamer, or if the Red King is. Ruby is instead unsure of who she is dreaming of:

I know it's you and I, when I look inside

Ruby dreams of Summer, both out of grief and as a hero. In volume 9, she starts dreaming of herself. She becomes her own dream:

Somewhat: You do feel… familiar. Like a happy dream I can’t remember.

She becomes her own hero:

(I can guide me, I can guide my way out)

So, Ruby plays the lost child (Alyx), but is strong enough to be a hero (a Huntress). To be precise, she is both. She is Little Red Riding Hood and the Hunter. She is the Alice, who chooses not to give up on her childhood purity, but to grow into an adult in her own way. Without cynism and with hope.

Somewhat: It will be alright, Huntress.

CURIOSITY KILLS THE CAT

Neo, Jaune and Ruby all face death, look inside and grow. Someone else is instead unable to do so:

The Curious Cat alludes to the Cheshire Cat, who is depicted as:

Alice's ally in Carrol's Adventures in Wonderland. The Cat gives Alice directions and chats with her during the Queen's croquet game.

A jerkass in the Disney Adaptation. The Cat frames Alice for a prank to the Queen and gets the girl in big trouble.

RWBY takes both characterizations and shows how the Curious Cat goes from a helper to an enemy because of Alyx's betrayal:

Jaune: Alyx broke her promise to the Cat.

At the same time, the Cheshire Cat owes their name to the saying to grin like a Cheshire Cat. The Curious Cat is instead designed after the proverb curiosity kills the cat. Interestingly, the original form of the saying is care kills the cat, which mirrors the Curious Cat's original purpose:

Blacksmith: And so, using the skills and tools they have been given, they began to design their own creations… in utmost secrecy. The God of Darkness breathes purple fire at the fire. The God of Light picks up a wooden figurine of the Curious Cat and breathes black smoke, thus bringing the Cat to life. Blacksmith: Soon they realized their new creation could do their job for them. Finding the broken parts of the Ever After.

The Brothers make the Cat to care for the Afterans. Their role is to show empathy and help everyone reach the tree, so they can be fixed. In short, an existential pet therapy. However, the Brothers leave their creation and later on the Curious Cat meets Alyx. As a result, their care slowly turns into curiosity for the Brothers' new creations. Still, Alyx's lie quickly changes this neutral curiosity into jealousy:

Curious Cat: I’m not like the other Afterans here, I’m cursed with curiosity. I need to know everything! But more than anything, I need to know why my makers left me here…

The Cat has their heart broken, but there is no-one to care for them:

Blacksmith: A terrible thing to have a broken heart… And there’s nobody to send them back to the Tree for repair.

This makes the Curious Cat a foil to two characters:

Like Salem, they are outside the cycle of life and death. Or in this case the cycle of ascension. They need to go to the tree, so they can heal and be reborn. However, they can't, as they are designed as a mechanism of the cycle itself, rather than a participant.

Both Gods: So long as this world turns, you (Salem) shall walk its face.

NeoCat: Taking a page out of the caterpillar's book, hm? The leaves have no effect on me.

Like Ruby, they give up pieces of their hearts to others. Still, they grow tired and feel there is no-one, who would do the same for them.

Ruby: Why are you asking me? Because I’m the leader? Because I’m just supposed to have something to say? Cuz I don’t… I mean, why do I have to be the leader anyway? Why do I have to always be the one to pick people up? What about me? “No time”, right? “Gotta get home!” “Gotta help Jaune!” Gotta find someone who isn’t just going to screw everything up! “Gotta stay positive!” Right?!

Curious Cat: Mmmm, when we break or wear out or simply finish what we were made to do, we’re called back. But Herb… his heart was too weak to listen, so I gave him a little bit of mine.

Like our heroine, the Curious Cat is left hopeless and empty by a bad experience. Still, they refuse to face their pain. They never reach acceptance of themselves and others, so they spiral. In particular, they are a negative mirror of all the other Ever After characters:

Like the Prince, the Curious Cat is tricked by Alyx, which is why they hold a grudge against humans. Still, the Prince has some hope to change, while the Curious Cat can't.

Like Herb, the Curious Cat has grown tired of their role of guide. Still, Herb manages to ascend and be reborn as a butterfly. The Curious Cat instead dreams of escaping the magical world.

Like Jaune, the Curious Cat is hurt by Alyx's betrayal. Moreover, both Jaune and the Cat refuse to face themselves and ascend. Still, Jaune wishes to help others. The Curious Cat instead starts hurting them.

Like Neo, the Curious Cat targets Ruby and uses her as a scapegoat. Neo blames all her pain on Ruby and thinks that by killing her, she can feel better. The Curious Cat instead thinks Ruby is the perfect host for them to escape the Ever After. By the end, though, Neo gives up on her revenge. The Cat instead fails to understand humanity:

Curious Cat: You’re broken! You break everything you touch! I call Humans… weak! Confused! Incomplete!

The Curious Cat is then the villain of the volume because they share the other characters' conflict, but fail to solve it positively. Ruby looks inside (the tree), while the Curious Cat looks outside (Remnant). Ruby chooses to become herself. The Curious Cat wants to possess another. Ruby starts developing empathy towards others:

Ruby: But what will happen to Neo?

The Curious Cat instead uses their empathy to manipulate others:

Curious Cat: I gave him (the Hawker) something new to do for the moment. Now go! Your friends need to get big again, or we’re all Jabberwalker dinner!

Their obsession towards humans and Remnant leads to his defeat and demise by the Jabberwalkers' hands. So, curiosity kills the cat, indeed. Is that really the Curious Cat's end, though? The proverb curiosity killed the cat has sometimes the added part but satisfaction brought it back. The Curious Cat is dismembered by the Jabberwalkers' clones. Not by the original Jabberwalker. Does it mean the Curious Cat can't ascend anymore, or is there some hope for them?

The Blacksmith whittles a wooden figurine of the Hawker, previously killed by a Jabberwalker's clone, and places it with the other figurines of the Afterans.

The series leaves it ambiguous. Speaking of ambiguity...

WHAT IS THE BLACKSMITH?

What is the Blacksmith? She is known as:

The Blacksmith

The Tree

Ruby: I wasn’t expecting to be here. Are you the Tree? Blacksmith: You could say that. But that is a simplistic understanding of the Tree, and what it does.

The Lively Carpenter (possibly)

Weiss: Of all the characters from the book, why did it have to be the Cat? Why couldn’t we have gotten help from the Lively Carpenter or the Rusted Knight? One was sweet, one was handsome, and neither of them had the attention span of a goldfish!

She is hard to define and is a god-like entity. Symbolically, she serves as the Great Mother, as she is an avatar of the Tree, that gave birth to the Brothers. She guides Ruby and the other characters towards self-actualization and adulthood. At the same time, she explains the balance between life and death, creation and destruction:

Blacksmith: She will have the chance to return her broken heart… And becomes something new. Such is balance.

So, she is tied to both transformation (growth) and death (grief). These ideas are well expressed by her design. On the one hand she appears bigger than humans and is a blacksmith, who molds others. On the other hand she loosely resembles several dead characters:

In her first appearence and in the opening she appears made of golden metal, which makes her look similar to Pyrrha

Se is robotic, like Penny

Her hair resembles a detail of Alyx's outfit

This doesn't mean she is any of these characters, but simply that in a volume focused on dealing with loss, her appearance has missed people come to mind. So, she herself embodies this idea:

Blacksmith: Nothing. No one is ever truly lost.

The deads still exist in the heart of their loved ones and in the stories that are remembered and told.

ALYX'S EVIDENCE

Blacksmith: The Girl Who Fell Through the World is the story as he wished it happened.

The Girl Who Fell Through the World is a children classic written to deal with grief. It is a tragedy turned into a fairy tale, which is what RWBY must do with Remnant itself. It is what they have already done with their sequel to Alyx's story:

Blake: Do you guys think… we might have… made things even worse in the Ever After? Just like Alyx did? Ruby: I’m… not sure. I'd like to think we did at least a little good. Right?

Alyx herself offers some important teachings. Some evidence worth to consider:

Alice grows up by waking up from the fairy tale. Alyx instead grows up the moment she chooses to stay in the fairy tale and fix it.

Alyx is similar to two Maidens our characters have met in their journey.

1- RWBY frames growing up not as forgetting who you were as a child, but as becoming a person your child-self can be proud of. This is why Little becomes Somewhat:

They look similar to Ruby. At the same time they are still far from being complete:

Ruby: Do any of those sound close? Somewhat: Hmmm. Somewhat. Yeah. Somewhat. I’m not any one thing, I’m somewhat of a lot of things!

Otherside, Did you mean to make me half or whole? Will I ever be (complete)? When will I become all of me?

However, they are on the right path. Just like our protagonists.

2- Alyx is a girl all the characters misunderstand and objectify. In the end, though, she manages to affirm herself by leaving behind a part of herself. Doesn't she remind you of anyone?

Penny: I won’t be gone, I’ll be part of you.

Penny is a child, who gets controlled and manipulated and dies too soon. She still self-actualizes and affirms who she is with a final choice and legacy.

Alyx is a girl who is selfish and cruel, but finally opens her eyes and chooses to change. She dies, but manages to fix what she has broken and saves Jaune. Her story probably mirrors the outcome of Cinder's arc. Our Cinderella will have a heel realization and affirm who she is in a final act of selflessness.

In other words, Alyx's story is meant to be a bridge between Penny's tragic death (past) and Cinder's final sacrifice (future). It is used to help the characters overcome Penny and Atlas, so that they are ready to help Cinder and Vacuo:

Ruby: Where will this take us? Blacksmith: Not where, when you are needed most.

#rwby #rwby meta #rwby volume 9 #greenlight volume 10 #once upon an allusion meta #my meta #ruby rose #jaune arc #neopolitan #curious cat #red prince #herbalist #little #somewhat #the blacksmith

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