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yamaoni · 3 years

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The Second Great War of Remnant has begun. Once more, Vale and Mantle are embroiled in a massive conflict, only this time, they are on the same side against Atlas.

I don't think it was a coincidence that so many people drew parallels with the last episode and WWI. We've never seen people fight that way in RWBY. Grimm don't use projectile weapons the way humans do, so the benefits of the trench are diminished; especially if you compare it to the drawbacks.

Now, I understand not everyone in the Atlas military has their aura unlocked and the squishy soldiers need some cover, but if The Long Memory didn't nuke every grimm on Atlas, the lines would have been overrun and then there would have been nowhere for them to retreat to.

You think the very real hand to hand struggles in the trenches of WWI were bad, imagine being trapped in a narrow trench with a bear. Or having this thing explode out of the ground under you.

I refuse to believe no-one in Atlas ever thought, "if we put the dirt from the trench in a box, no only can we give our soldiers cover, we can also give them an elevated position to fire from."

The top of a wall has been the primary defensive position for the people of Remnant for a long time. You can see them in the establishing shots of most settled places the team has visited. So why are we seeing a trench now?

Simple.

Show, don't tell.

RWBY has done a pretty great job, especially in the last few seasons, of showing the audience what it is trying to convey without explicitly telling them. They especially like drawing from well known folk lore to give insight into the future of the show.

Only difference here, instead of drawing the parallel between characters, they're drawing parallels between worlds.

Remnant's first Great War started with Mantle suppressing freedom of expression, the destruction of Art and Color. Ironwood always has little in the way of color, but in his first broadcast since everything started hitting the fan, he has none.

That broadcast also included evacuation ships being blown up by fighter-bombers, Dunkirk. It threatend to level a city if they didn't surrender, Battle of Brittan. All delivered by a dictator trying to scare his opponents into submission through careful use of film.

Theories

If the rest of the season is WWII, I have several theories on plot direction. Considering how well they did keeping up with both ends of the battlefield it wouldn't surprise me if they followed all of them at the same time.

Operation Dunkirk

Or, the evacuation of Mantle.

Players: Penny, Nora, Ren, Happy Huntresses

The Happy Huntresses involvement is a given. Not only has saving Mantle been their goal the whole time, they're also stuck in the middle of it right now.

Penny is the Protector of Mantle. It would be a shining moment for her character to fully throw off the virus Watts implanted and overcome Ironwood's threats to do so. Just crossing my fingers that it doesn't end like the Iron Giant.

Nora is currently Penny's tether to sanity, so she has to go with, and I doubt they would separate Ren from her for the next arc so he's going too.

Surprise twist for this plot I'm betting will be the Starwars "they aren't warships, just people" scene everyone loves to rag on. After all, the broadcast went out that they needed help and, at least at Dunkirk, it was fishing boats and pleasure crafts that retrieved the 338,000 surrounded on all sides.

Why We Fight

Or, countering Ironwoods propaganda.

Players: Robyn and Qrow

For one, these two are unaccounted for and in the heart of Atlas' military machine. If anyone has means to do so, it's them.

The film, Why We Fight, also countered the dramatic cinematography of Goebbels propaganda by painting it as ridiculous and making a folksy call to action much like Robyn has done in the past.

Operation Fortitude

Or, the deception of Ironwood.

Players: Emerald, Jaune, Oscar

This is the mission to make Ironwood think the team is going after the relic. This theory is why I actually thought of and wrote out this whole thing. Thanks @maxiemumdamage, I had things I was supposed to do tonight.

https://maxiemumdamage.tumblr.com/post/644291955872890880/willing-to-bet-my-own-soul-that-emerald-uses-her

Only difference in my theory and their's, is Jaune is going to be playing the part of Penny.

I say this for two reasons. One, Joan of Arc pretended to be a man. While we've gotten both Jaune pretending to be something he's not and him in a dress, this would pose the first time in the story he could do both. Two, it would put him on a direct collision path with Cinder. It needs to happen at some point to bring his arc to a conclusion, but man I hope we're not about to watch him burn.

With Ozpin active again, Oscar has to go along to direct them to the vault. He's also one of two backing the idea of Emerald joining the team and Jaune wouldn't be willing to work with her without him.

Operation Overlord

Or, busting down the doors of Atlas Acadamy.

Players: Ruby, Blake, Weiss, Yang

Where Operation Fortitude was the faint, Operation Overlord was the real deal. For those that aren't history buffs, this is D-Day.

I think this is the reason we've only seen the main team fighting together once since their split from Beacon. And even then, that fight was at most pairs of fighters and not all four of them supporting one another.

RWBY tricked us into thinking season 4 was the post-timeskip level up we come to expect from anime when really we ended up watching the training flashbacks as they happened instead.

We've seen hints of it with the various team ups and combinations, but are we really ready for how much ass kicking they are about to do?

I'm hoping for a One Piece level of badass entrance that can give me shivers whenever I go to watch it again like the walk to Arlong Park still does to this day.

(Aside: if you try telling me RWBY isn't anime, I'm just going to ignore you. Anime is an art movement. If you don't understand what that means, watch this video. https://youtu.be/uFtfDK39ZhI)

youtube

Now last and certainly not least

Operation Valkyrie

Or, the death of Ironwood.

Players: Winter and Marrow

The long awaited defection. Plenty of speculation has already floated around about if and when these two where going to cave to their morals and jump ship. I don't know how many of us were expecting the straw to break the camel's back to be a nuke held over Mantle, but I certainly wasn't.

What worries me, is Operation Valkyrie failed and all its conspirators were executed. As if there weren't enough death flags for Winter before.

Even if it's not Winter that kills him. I don't see Ironwood surviving this season. Even if it means he goes out like another hated dictator. It's not like it would be the first time RT had a fallen hero chose to use his own sword.

Wildcards

Or, Murphy will have his due.

Players: Cinder, Watts, Neo, Tyrian, Mercury, Clover

These players can go any which way. Three we know for sure are going to be active in the coming episodes and I wouldn't be surprised if the other three play a part as well.

Oscar made a hell of a light show for Tyrian and Mercury to see behind them. Not to mention, Salem will still need a ride home when she pulls herself back together.

Clover keeps getting mentioned even though he's hospitalized. If he was truly out of commission for the rest of the season, they would have made us think he's dead before bringing him back like they did with Penny.

Up to now, what we've seen is a three way conflict. But one of the hallmarks of Remnant's First Great War, was making temporary alliances to fight off grimm.

The grimm might be gone, but the wild cards can't complete their own objectives if they are dead. The question is who's goals better align with their own.

Two surprise twists I can see here. One, Mercury stabbing Tyrian on his way to defection. He was raised by an assassin and has not going to get a better chance than that. Two, Clover joining Operation Valkyrie. He might have accepted that sacrifice is a necessary evil to ensure Atlas' survival, but might go Schindler's List on us and find horror in what Ironwood plans to do.

TLDR

I spent way too long writing this out. All the WWI imagery means we're getting a WWII movie with RWBY characters. Major death flags for Penny, Jaune, and Winter.

Also I finally figured out how to do a readmore. Apparently it's just been a long time since I updated.

Note: kept seeing things talking about clovers death and I kind of went ???? Isn't he barely alive in medical? Went back and watched that scene and though I am 90% sure he is dead still kind of weird that they have him in his own room instead of a morgue and the initial framing made my mind instantly think he was propped up on a hospital bed. I mean, I guess we needed to have all the ACEOPs there for their reaction to Ironwood... but it definitely made me think he was alive. That and they have a bandage on his chest wound... when he's supposedly dead. Also have a phantom memory of Harriet saying something about him being in critical but I think that's my memory playing tricks on me.

Having his face exposed instead of covered by the sheet and seeing him in the same frame as Winter being treated also didn't help my gut reaction of "Oh Shit! He's alive? How?!" If I'd followed up more on the "how" might not have made the blunder of writing his return as the final twist in my theory. Oops

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kitkatopinions · 3 years

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The baby boy himself, Whitley!

(for the ask meme)

Whitley is so my baby, I love my child so much. I’m realizing I say ‘I’m really excited for this one’ for like every character I get for this ask game, but it’s because I’m having so much fun! These take a bit to write, but they are honestly so interesting to me, so as an fyi, if anyone does have any character they want to ask my about, but thinks they might be too late, or I might be uninterested, I’m still totally interested! It just might take me a bit to answer. :)

My top three ships for the character

Whitley/Oscar is my top ship for this in canon currently. It works best if Ozpin could somehow be separated from Oscar (which is theoretically possible I guess,) but yeah. Farm boy vs rich boy, they look cute together, their personalities could vibe, and they’re both snarky, but at heart caring and compassionate. Whitley/Mercury. I mentioned this in my Mercury ask, but I was writing a fic with @why-i-hate-rwby-now where Whitley and Mercury were thrown together and had to work together to escape their abusers, and I just kind of started shipping them while writing it. O.O Also Whitley/Penny is cute as heck and I could totally see her grounding him and also making him loosen up, while Penny thinks he’s funny and interesting.

My three least favorite ships for the character

Whitley/Blake. I don’t understand this ship, Blake just feels like more of an adult atm compared to Whitley - a literal child. (Yes, I realize I ship Whit with Merc, but A. I thought Merc was sixteen while I was writing that fanfiction and he acts kind of on the young side, while Blake has been acting ‘as an adult’ and being treated ‘as an adult’ for two seasons at least while directly talking to Whitley, and has always been more of a mature character for her age anyway.) But on top of that, Blake seems to treat Whitley like an in the way child and is kinda judgey to him, while Whitley barely seems to notice her. Whitley/Henry Marigold just feels bad. And Whitley/Yang. Again, Yang has been written as a nineteen year old demanding to be treated as an adult (though I wanna say she’s less mature than Blake) but also Yang is a hotheaded character and has been acting pushy lately, and that’s fine as a character flaw, but I feel like it just puts me off her for Whitley especially.

My biggest criticism for the character

He’s treated like he’s not a victim??? Like, his abuse and neglect and even his struggles are just... Not really gone into or acknowledged very much, Weiss acts like he has to prove himself before she can show him the slightest bit of sympathy or affection when she’s his big sister, his relationship with Jacques is glossed over and he isn’t given closure there, Willow’s neglect isn’t really acknowledged seriously, Winter seeming totally disinterested in him doesn’t feel like it even matters, Weiss is treated as blameless in her and Whitley’s problems. And the writing kind of frames Whitley as having gotten a redemption, when the worst things he did was be a bit of an asshole while in an abusive situation as like a fourteen-fifteen year old with no aura or glyphs or fighting ability. Emerald and Whitley’s volume 8 arcs should not be comparable! Emerald is a full on murderer and was still willingly working with Cinder to attack people as a nineteen year old woman, and yet she and Whitley are treated very similarly by the narrative (helping one person and then that ‘making up for’ their ‘past mistakes’ and then them just being on the good side and carrying the team’s actions until the pathways arrive and they both go to Vacuo. To be clear, I think this framing was too much for Whitley since he never even needed a redemption at all imo, and not enough for Emerald, the literal murderer of Penny who was just recently willingly helping Cinder try and murder Penny once again.) Whitley should’ve been treated as the child he is, he should’ve been treated as the victim he is.

My favorite thing about the character

His potential dynamics, but specifically with Weiss. He and Weiss both had almost the exact same upbringing, only Weiss actually had more support, but guys... The way the two of them coped had similarities, but were also very different. Weiss hid behind anger and sternness, Whitley hid behind peppiness and smiles. Weiss copied Winter, Whitley copied Jacques. Weiss was always afraid of people putting on acts around her, Whitley was constantly putting on acts as a means of survival. Each of them are plagued by jealousy, pettiness, judgmental behavior, and they both have good qualities that are similar, but they both are too prejudice against each other to see those good qualities and need to learn to understand where the other is coming from. Weiss is a fighter, but a follower, while Whitley seems to have a bit of a ‘fawn’ tendency, but plans and enacts schemes under the table (even if it doesn’t have to be, like with Nora! Whitley’s instincts were to just figure out how to help Nora and then go off and do it alone without telling any of the obviously antsy people with guns what he was doing - after he was spying on them lol.) I just love the possibilities that exist with two characters that are so similar, but so fundamentally different. Also I’d love to see him resentful of Winter and snarky and passive aggressive with her, and Winter not really getting the problem, and Weiss having to mediate between them. Idk, there are so many possibilities of amazing interactions and connections Whitley could have with the others, and he could be a really new, good viewpoint if he was allowed to flourish. And maybe became kind of a ‘guy in the chair’ more permanent part of the team. Like, I know we don’t need more character bloat, but let me dream!

A headcanon I have about them

Before Weiss lost her inheritance, Whitley was sort of tasked with learning everything but being head of the company, like he was learning the financial side of things, the technological side of things, ordering, inventory, scheduling, all about Dust and mine operations... And Whitley’s naturally academic and a fast learner, so he absorbed a lot of it. But yeah, I think Jacques was trying to train Whitley up to be a sort of always available PA of Weiss’s that could handle anything she didn’t want to do / was too busy to do, and that was something Whitley really resented too. His skillset was essentially being crafted around helping Weiss, but never learning how to actually manage the company itself and severely lacking in the social side of things, like he’d never be able to make a proper speech. Also, like pretty much everyone I think he plays piano and writes his own music compositions (which in my headcanons he subconsciously writes to include vocals only for him to then get bothered that even his music seems influenced by Weiss. XD) Also I know this is three headcanons, but if he had been trained to fight, he would’ve used duel pistols and would’ve eventually developed a ‘born out of trauma’ semblance.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

I’d just allow his status as a victim to be recognized and for him to have the sympathy I feel his character deserves. I’d have him and Weiss both framed as having contributed to their bad relationship, but Weiss - as the sister four to five years older than him - would be the one who makes the first moves towards repairing it, proving she has changed enough to put aside her pettiness and be there for the brother she does truly love. I’d also get Willow away from him, or at least let Whitley be angry and distant and not have their relationship fixed over the course of an in-universe day. This is why I say there should’ve been another Atlas season, which I think is what I’d do when it boils down to it. With every plot point coming fast and then being pushed on the back burner for the next plot point, there’s no time to focus on any of it or to give the character’s sufficient growth from it. So then things like Willow having her hand glued to Whitley’s shoulder feels very ingenuine, because their ‘growth’ was so rushed. So yeah, I’d really just add an extra season and let Weiss recognize that Whitley is also an abuse victim, make her be the one to start making steps to be there for him, and let things like his relationship with his mother come slower and not be an easy fix. Also I’d have Winter acknowledge that she has a brother more regularly and have her actually care about him, even if she hasn’t shown it well at all.

What I I think of their character allusion and what (if anything) I would change about it

Whitley has no assigned character allusion and his name doesn’t offer very many hints, since it literally just means white meadow/field snow, but it’s easy enough to assume that like Weiss and Jacques - Snow White and Jack Frost - Whitley’s character allusion has something to do with the cold. I agree with the general opinion that he’s connected to ‘the Snow Queen,’ and is likely meant to be Kai, a once kind hearted boy who gets a piece of a magic mirror in his eye that only lets him see the bad in people and gets kidnapped by the snow queen. His best friend Gerda goes on a quest to save him - encountering a land of eternal summer and a talking crow amongst other things - and temporarily forgets him due to an enchantment, but then finds him almost frozen over and saves him by crying on him and through the power of her love that literally makes people and nature bend to her will, Gerda rescues Kai and dislodges the mirror piece from his eye so that he can be cheerful again. Pretty in tune with how the writers wrote things. I don’t mind this, but if Whitley is meant to be Kai and Weiss is meant to be his Gerda, there were two missed opportunities here that could’ve been great. One, Gerda is reminded of her love for Kai whenever she sees red roses, and Ruby and Whitley have a few similar mannerisms and kind of similar coping through their ‘cheery exterior’s’ even f Ruby’s lost all her sass and Whitley’s never had her spazzy, dorky, rough around the edges traits. I think it would’ve been cute and make for a more interesting dynamic if Weiss had mentioned to Ruby in volumes 1-3 that Ruby reminds her of her brother, and if it had made Weiss both harder on Ruby (since she and Whitley are estranged and he does drive her crazy a lot lol) but it also made Ruby all the more endearing to her and is one of the reasons they could be friends fairly fast despite Weiss’s early animosity (since she loves her brother and the traits he shares with Ruby compliment hers.) The next missed opportunity I can think of is that everyone thinks Kai is dead in the Snow Queen for a bit, but Gerda doesn’t believe it and goes looking for him instead. You could easily fit this into a narrative where everyone else has given up Whitley as a lost cause, but Weiss won’t believe that and is determined to help and to get close to Whitley again, which is what I think I’d want to go with. But also, a Whitley death fake out? That could be very good and very emotional. And it’d be easy omg. Weiss could think the Hound has killed him sometime during the fight (even if just for a moment,) but also if Whitley had been the first one to fall in the void instead of going through to Vacuo O.O

Idk if we’ll ever get his character allusion confirmed, but if it isn’t someone from the Snow Queen, I feel like the whole fandom will say “What?!” at the exact same time. XD

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kob131 · 3 years

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Geez, this person really went all out with this BS rant against the show/staff. www(.)reddit( lcom/r/RWBY/comments/kiqatg/why_rwby_will_always_be_an_okay_show/

... You know I have been trying to step away from directly addressing RWBY bullshit. But...fuck it here.

If you ever talked to me about how I felt about RWBY, I would say that RWBY pre-Volume 8 has been a touchy subject for me. I felt very validated by two videos, "Why RWBY is Disappointing" and "The White Fang Problem".

Yes yes, and people with parental issues feel validated by their abusive spouse. That means nothing, especially given that one of those videos you mentioned is riddled with bullshit.

"Why RWBY is Disappointing" validated my criticism of RWBYs writing. The fact that Miles and Kerry can't and refuse to take any kind of criticism that doesn't hurt their feelings is complete [insert bad word here]. All criticism is going to hurt your feelings. Yes, you should probably ignore the long winded rants that make themselves out to be self important- why is there a mirror here? But there is truth to all criticism.

And there’s a kernel of truth in the best lies- they’re still LIES.

Not to mention the video you mentioned here (which I am assuming is Hbomberguy’s) pulls the SAME SHIT it calls out. Like say...decrying critics pesonally attacking the writers...while proclaiming Jaune and Neptune as self inserts even though Miles AND Kerry is on the record saying that at least Jaune isn’t written by his voice actor.

I'm currently learning about Branding and how important it is to know your audience. Take self.care breaks, talk with someone you trust. Someone who isn't Miles or Kerry! If your reading this. An outside perspective can help. The reason I say that is because if you two constantly talk to each other you're going to end up in an echo chamber. TALK TO FIONA! She's literally your target audience!

Because hey, a man who contradicts himself numerous times and made personal attacks on the creators that only the most malicious and self righteous do is SOOOO trustworthy right?

Remember that tweet Hbomb brought up in his video as an example of criticism the creators should listen to? The one that demanded Miles get back to work and tried to use the catchphrase of his dead friend to manipulate him?

What a fucking target audience.

I know they mentioned ‘Fiona’ (likely the character’s voice actress) but there’s a supposed fan, one that pretty much sums up the critics, and a perfect example why it gets tossed out.

Moving on, the other video validated something I wish it didn't. "The White Fang Problem" brought to light something I knew was there but either ignored or I wasn't thinking. The White Fang has always made me a little uncomfortable. As a minority, it didn't translate well in my head. The minority are the bad guys. The Civil rights group were the bad guys. I brushed it off for a long time but after that video I couldn't.

Ah huh. So uh, the existence of Blake, Ghira, Kali, Sun, Illa, Velvet, Neon ect. is just incovienable to you huh? And don’t give me that ‘But civil rights group!’- The first episode had them break up a peaceful protest and it’s repeatedly hammered home that the current White Fang doesn’t give a SHIT about equal rights. And no, that concept is not racist- Judging from a story I read, that happened to the New Black Panthers in REAL LIFE.

It became a moral issue. Watching RWBY became a moral issue. RWBY is still pushing right wing talking points.-

Being right of you is not right wing, Especially given how you just acted.

I dont believe Miles and Kerry are racist. I do believe that Miles and Kerry both hold skewed beliefs in what right and wrong is.

Projection.

The way Miles and Kerry treat self defense and protest shows that they know nothing about being Black. They didn't do their research. They didn't talk to minorities about how they were being portrayed. They simply believed that they were right and we were wrong.

Ah huh, ah huh, ah huh-

Monty wrote the White Fang this way. You know, the ASIAN man of FOUR NATIONALITIES. So uh, congrats on saying at the absolute most- Nothing.

Now these two videos are old news. They've been posted on this very same subreddit. But you can't go around and say how much of a progressive and open minded individual you are when the fact that RWBY is a racist show and treats minorities very badly. So no one talks about them.

Or that, as I showed: these videos are bullshit.

Also its kinda homophobic too, not because of Bumblby but because despite Tera and Saphorn being a happy married couple they never kiss on screen. Have you seen happy married couples? Have you seen gay happy married couples? They literally do nothing but kiss. Its cute and adorable and deserves to be spread as far and wide. Despite the show having two straight couple kisses, granted one was in Volume but still, they couldn't get the married couple to kiss? Just saying.

... And not all gay couples are the same, even if I’m sure you’re thinking of TEENAGERS.

You know, judging people based on a preconcieved notion (AKA stereotyping) is pretty fucking bigoted itself...

Watch people be in the comments typing away that this isn't a romance show and how I shouldn't expect romance in an action adventure show despite the long list of evidence to the contrary.

Ah yes, that long list of ONE kiss by a TORPEDOED SHIP.

Such convincing rhetoric.

So you can see I was not coming into Volume 8 with my rose colored glasses. I'm sure many of you hate me because of all my comments, but I don't care. I was ready to leave RWBY. I didn't care. RWBY had taken up so much of my life but I don't care. I was not going to support a show that didn't improve.

Ah huh-

You just came in with jade-colored glass and accepted anything that validated you instead of questioning yourself. You talk about branding but that’s ALL you’ve branded yourself as.

So I watched. And something happened. Something strange. RWBY was moving in a direction I didn't expect it to. Oscar got what he deserved. The Heros were oblivious to the danger that is Salem. Things were headed in the direction that would change the characters forever. It'll be just like Beacon but better. And then they had to ruin it.

Oh we are about to get some real bullshit.

Oscar somehow convinces Hazel to betray Salem. What could have been an avenue to a multi season story arc for Oscar that included the stories villains became a shitty uninspired redemption arc. Kill me.

No he didn’t and this has been something hinted at since Volume 4.

There's still hope for the season but at this point I lost all hope.

This is the scene that killed Volume 8 for me. Oscar should not be the one who defeats Salem. In fact he should be an avenue to learn more about the villains. He served his purpose with the heroes, now he has a new arc with the villains. Oscar doesn't turn evil, but he's like a conscious. Salem doesn't want to kill him because he can be useful in finding the last remaining relics and maidens.

Assumptions.

Oscar has a heart to heart with all the villains including Salem. Oscar learns to be his own man and accepts he's now one with Ozma but he doesn't have to be another Ozma. He doesn't have to make the same decisions.

Its a great Arc for Oscar. It also makes sense for his character. Ozma feels Salem is pure evil but Oscar can learn for himself.

Headcanon.

But they won't do that. Instead they're going to take the easy way out. Like always.

Bias getting in the way.

Miles and Kerry love wrapping up each season in a little bow. This is why RWBY is so okay.

They say as every RWBY Volumes ends in a cliffhanger.

This is Beacon but if Miles and Kerry thought that RWBY should still be in Beacon. This is Beacon but without major character death. This is Beacon but the main villain loses because the heroes can't lose. Cinder isn't threatening. None of the villains are. Salem is in a Grimm! She should know everything! Why is there no creativity? Why is she not an over powered mess in A GRIMM!? Her own domain?! Why are the writers writing her not as a powerful goddess reaffirming her as a threat but as a human being. Yes I know what that sounds like but hear me out.

‘None of the villains are threatening!’

‘WHY IS THE MAIN VILLAIN NOT BEING TREATED AS THREATENING LIKE I THINK SHE IS!’

‘Why is there no creativity?’

‘DO THE MOST UNCREATIVE THING POSSIBLE!’

How about I keep mocking you?

If Salem can be out smarted by a 10 year old boy, why did it take Ozma so long to defeat her? Oscar should fail. RWBY should fail. They should go through character arcs that help them better understand Salem. Because that's how you defeat Salem.

Pushing your own thoughts onto the show. Also assumptions AGAIN.

I always believed that Ozma and Salem are very similar to Ruby and Weiss. Yes I know how it sounds but it makes sense.-

Too bad your AU fanfic doesn’t matter.

But they won't. Miles and Kerry will use Oscar to defeat Salem. Why? Who knows at this point. I dont know why Miles and Kerry keep pushing Oscar into the spotlight. Its exactly how they treated Jaune Pre-Volume 7. Jaune had to be the focus so often we hated him. And they're doing it again with Oscar

Ah huh. You know, the whole NOTHING Jaune did in Volume 6 was SOOO spotlight stealing, along with his REMOVAL FROM THE CAST FOR SEVERAL EPISODES.

Wanna bet this is another case of ‘penis on screen, me hate’?

They refuse learn and they refuse to improve. If Volume 8 doesn't improve im leaving RWBY. It doesn't matter to any of you. I'm saying it more for myself. So I don't continue with a show that constantly disappoints me. But more so, I don't support a show that views people like me as lesser. If the writing improves it proves that they can grow and get better but if it doesn't it means they will continue to treat Faunus as misguided and horrible characters. And I refuse to support a show that uses my likeness to get brownie points from people who are unaffected by such messages.

A. No, that’s who refused to do self reflection and improve.

B. Should have done that in the first place.

C. No, once again- You blind yourself from the shit that disproves you.

D. You heard him- Treat the Fanaus like shit and make the humans in the right. You know, the opposite what the show is doing now since it’s SOOO horrible.

E. You are not the center of the universe.

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psyga315 · 4 years

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Prelude

First, a bit of backstory. There was an interview made during the summer in between Volumes 4 & 5 that had the cast say what sort of themes one could expect for Volume 5. Among these were stuff like “building yourself back up again”, “shouting ‘we’re not done here!’”, “solving problems on your own”, and lastly, from Barbara herself, “Strength” and “Growth”. For someone who was just starting to realize why people were turned off by the darkness of Volume 3, this was uplifting to say the least…

Shorts

The Character Shorts kinda hyped the Volume, though they sunk in their own way. Weiss’s Character Short effectively foreshadowed her loss to Vernal. This tough and talented girl gets her ass stomped rather quickly and needed to be bailed out. Winter’s line about how she “won’t be around to save her” was foreshadowing to her not actually being in the season, but when I first heard it, I thought she meant “Hey, I’m going to die this volume, lol!” and that’s without bringing up how the trailer fails to hype Weiss up like the other trailers did.

Blake’s Trailer was alright, especially in taking steps to address a problem regarding Menagerie, but it felt more like Ilia given the backstory dump we got that feels all the more like mandatory reading. The problem is that, and it’s perhaps the very first problem I’ve heard about RWBY, is that the trailers (and by extension, anything that’s a spin off of RWBY like World of Remnant) feel more like you need to watch this rather than you can watch this. It’s confusing, but let’s use Blake’s Short as an example.

Ilia talks about her backstory as it is contrasted with a chase between Blake and a random dude we never see again. Assuming you’ve never watched the trailer, you’d just get the truncated version of “MUH PARENTS ARE DEEEAAAD!” and not the bits where she was forced to resent her own race because it was easier to blend in to her surroundings, like a chameleon. It’s ironic, since RWBY would do the reverse problem with Adam, where his trailer isn’t mandatory but we barely get a backstory for him beyond “I got branded, but everyone will speculate that it’s because I did something bad and not that it drove me to do bad things”.

First Episode

The first episode proper promised a lot. In fact, a good chunk of the first half promised a lot. However, it became much clear in a second viewing that a lot of it was just padding at worst and showing us where the characters are at best. But what I think was done dirty the most in this episode was introducing Mistral. We were hyped in Volume 4 (thanks to World of Remnant) that Mistral was this dichotomy of rich, cultural people and the seedy underbelly of criminals and that, at least one of the elements would be utilized in Volume 5. Unfortunately, all we got were a few mat paintings that contrast what Lionheart was saying in regards to Mistral being in chaos.

And so, the most we get out of Mistral are those mat paintings and a perpetually raining downtown that we don’t see much of, even when it gets briefly revisited in Volume 6. We’re supposed to be invested in the city and yet all we get are empty rooms and 2D art. They took great steps to improve this in Volume 6 with Argus, though, so if there’s any consolation, it’s that they learned from their mistakes here.

But we now get into the biggest problem of why Volume 5 is disliked. Because of the situation, the group are left to basically wait until Lionheart convinces the council to get them some Huntsmen. The heroes. Wait. In a volume where the writers were talking about the themes of improving yourself and pulling through with your own strength.

Do you guys see the problem here? I know people have bitched about Volume 5 to hell and back and you’ve probably heard the complaints to high noon, but this entire issue is what rots Volume 5 to the core the most. Not the piss poor fight scenes, not the inconsistent characterizations, it’s that the plotting decides to take a back seat when the volume was meant to be about taking action.

As the episode goes on, you see the problem unfold. Ruby and friends hit a dead end until Oscar appears and has Ozpin exposit things to them, Weiss is denied a chance to save people and fight the Grimm until the Grimm come to her, Blake is hit with the dead end of the Albains deflecting blame, and Yang had the chance encounter with Bakugou where he knows the hideout of her mom.

The closest person who is taking action here is Yang, who established that she is actively looking for Ruby (technically Raven, but as we see later on, moot point). Blake’s situation is being handled by her dad, Weiss is sitting in the plane until the Grimm come for her, and Ruby is sitting on the couch that I’m pretty sure has her grooves molded into the cushion with how many times she’s sat there.

Episode 2

A minor complaint before we go to Episode 2, we had the Stinger repeat itself because the crew thought that people wouldn’t see the stingers. This is the show, mind you, that makes a point to include scenes at the end of every volume, regardless of how long they are or what point they serve in hyping the next Volume. Hell, one of the major complaints about Volume 2 was about the stinger not mattering. So why did they suddenly decide that the viewers might not see the stinger in a culture where the MCU exists?

Alright, cooling things down, we have three major scenes in Episode 2. Salem’s chat with Lionheart was meh at best and wtf at worst. I get the idea of Salem using different approaches to get people to do what she wants, but the cool aspect of Salem was that her approach was not what a villain would normally be. Instead of berating or choking her minions should they fail or talk back, Salem instead talks people down like she’s a mother to them. Even when Tyrian fails, she doesn’t hurt him, but rather tell him that he disappointed her. So, having her choke Lionheart, even when in hindsight it made some sense, is kinda an odd thing to do.

But not as odd as Salem’s whole “Not you, Arthur” bit. A lot of people drew points to that and the best I can explain is that it’s either a typo (she’s meant to say not yet or not now) or Arthur and Watts are some sort of Jekyll & Hyde thing. Unfortunately, it seems Watts is more a parallel to Watson rather than Jekyll, so that brings me to believe that it’s a typo and so, rather than have an easy explanation for a problem, we just have a compounded problem. One of many.

And there’s something funny to be said about Salem warning Cinder about Silver Eyes when Ruby barely learns about it this Volume. And also that she wants to speak with Tyrian but we never see what comes of it. At all.

I only have one new thing about Weiss vs. the Bees. Originally, the pilot was supposed to be gay, but held off on it because they’d be killing off their first revealed gay character, something that wouldn’t look good to the fanbase. Now, while I understand the reason behind it, I have to question the logic behind why they think it isn’t okay for their first LGBT character to be offed, but instead be someone who seemed okay with murdering her crush’s parents while sending said crush to her abuser.

But more on that later, we have Sienna to discuss. Now, there’s a lot to dissect. For one, RT has obviously realized that they’ve messed up and brought Sienna back for a bit (while taking the heat for “if she’s so badass, why did she go out like a chump”). However, in hindsight, what purpose did she actually serve outside of some cute nod to Shere Khan?

All she did was tell Adam that he’s going too far and that’s it. And really, it just seems hypocritical for the leader of the White Fang to effectively restructure the organization into a terrorist group, murder tons of people, and then suddenly back away and say “woah, too much” when Adam proceeded to help torch Beacon. It’s to the point where one question most people want to ask at cons is “did Sienna order the hit out on the SDC”, since we don’t actually know and that it could be a radical leader of that quadrant like Adam.

It felt more like Sienna should have been just the leader of Mistral’s White Fang faction instead of ruling over all the White Fang, which would make more sense as Adam would need permission to attack a kingdom that isn’t his stomping ground. Then there’s the introduction of Hazel, who at first is presented to be a pretty decent character, not wanting to kill people if he had no choice, but as time goes on, is basically your stock “big soft guy with a secret hulk side” character.

Unfortunately, this episode didn’t help enforce the theme of taking action when it’s the villains who are doing it and seeming to be two if not twenty steps ahead of the heroes.

Episode 3

Episode 3 has that whole speech thing I overlooked. Barring Ghira’s speech that the crew said is based off Obama’s “we killed Osama” speech (which, if it is, paints the whole situation of Sienna’s death in a rather dark light) before Ilia interferes. Now, I actually liked that Menagerie is hesitant to stand up for Haven. After all, humans hated their guts so much that the island was originally planned to be a place where people could dump Faunus on. There were lynchings and enslavements that are still going on to this day, just in subtler forms, Of course the Faunus wouldn’t want to fight.

Then Ilia swoops in and robs Blake of any agency she has with the scene. If RT wanted to not let Blake convince the people until three quarters to the end, they should have cut the subtlety and have some annoying kid go “IT’S TOO EARLY IN THE PLOT TO DO YOUR SPEECH!”. Hell, let Blake tell her story about her team, but the audience balks at the fact that she’s not only friends with a Schnee, but also a human who crippled a guy on live television. Remember that plot point?

We then cut to Oscar and this is perhaps the reason I decided to do this revisit of Volume 5. The way Ozpin talks of action and resolve, it felt like we’re going to the root of the themes of taking action. No more being subject to the events of the plot like in previous Volumes. Now? Now is the time to fight back! And that built up to… what? One training scene and Ruby learning headbutt?

Granted, we see later on that there was a bit more to the plan, but for the most part, it seemed like an excuse for “character growth” as opposed to actual character growth. A training arc isn’t just some short scenes of a person lifting weights and jogging up stairs. Its meant to be a sort of means of growth for the character. There’s a reason most training montages have the character suck at first, but then get better by the time the montage ends. It’s because it’s the quickest way to show growth. But even without that, you could get some serious mileage for a pulled off training arc.

Rocky IV and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back have some good examples of it. Rocky IV had the titular hero train and work out in the middle of a cold, mountainous range, while his opponent is simply given steroids. It shows the dichotomy between the two and how they view their eventual fight. Empire, on the other hand, had that masterful scene with Luke in the cave, where he has a huge moment of both foreshadowing and character growth.

Here? We just have Ruby learn headbutt like she’s nothing more than a Pokemon. There could have been a lot more done with it, like having Ruby put a lot more force in her punches, causing others to realize she’s extremely angry about what happened to Pyrrha and Penny, or, if the need to exposit about Semblances is needed, bring something new to the table that isn’t going to confuse the fuck out of people… Something like:

“Your Semblance might not reveal itself until you need it most” or something like that. Not “A semblance is someone’s personality, but not. Wow! Exposition!” or “Hey, remember how we said Aura was passive? Welp, not anymore!”

Not to mention that Jaune is seemingly cool with Ozpin suddenly coming back from the dead. Here’s the thing, last Volume had him upset with Ozpin about what happened to Pyrrha, something that didn’t seemed to resolve itself. Keep in mind that, for all rights and merits, Jaune believed Ozpin to have died. In fact, it was that confirmation that Ozpin had lost against Cinder that convinced Pyrrha to kill herself. Now here he is, seemingly stuck in the body of another kid and he just outright said this is a normal thing for him.

You’d expect him to have something more than “golly!”. The fact that he didn’t seem to have any aggression towards Ozpin until after he ran to his hidey hole in Volume 6 seems rather odd given that his entire character is that he’s angsting about Pyrrha and angry at Cinder for what she did. The group seem rather content to just sit back and let the plot happen, which is the opposite of what the crew was trying to convey with their themes.

Episode 4 and Episode 5

I still stand by what I said regarding how Episode 4 was a good episode, finally having a reunion between two members of Team RWBY, but it’s perhaps one of the last good things about RWBY we’ll ever see in Volume 5. Because Raven’s promise to tell Yang “the whole truth” turns out to just be regurgitated exposition at worst.

But first, we need to have Blake, the woman who doesn’t want her race to be labeled, turn out to have labels for her friends. Okay, granted, it’s not that dumb but it is kinda patronizing that we need to have a character tell us what another character is. While the rest of her speech is pretty effective in defining Blake’s character, making her perhaps the only character these themes of growth and strength actually apply to, it still is annoying that the most we take away out of this is her boiling down every character to a single word, then bringing up how Adam is going to ruin everything for the Faunus. You’ll see why this is a problem later. I liked the setting of Menagerie’s Shallow Sea marketplace thing and felt like Menagerie is wasted potential.

Ruby’s whole speech still feels like damage control, but with the added complaint of Ruby deciding to blame Salem for something Cinder did. Now, I heard the common excuse a lot: “Salem told Cinder to do it so it’s all her fault”, but that problem with that? Cinder told Emerald to kill Penny. So… Yeah. It is her fault. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded this if Ruby didn’t word it like Salem personally killed Penny and Pyrrha. Like as in, she just up and appeared out of nowhere and shot both Penny and Pyrrha in the head.

It still doesn’t fix the fact that Ruby is basically “hey, remember how I’m supposed to be upset?”

Lastly for Episode 5, we have the White Fang do the brilliant plant of murdering the chieftain who just spoke out against them. It’s dumb. Extremely dumb. What the hell do they think will happen after they murder the chieftain in cold blood? Menagerie is just gonna magically bend over and obey the White Fang? But perhaps the biggest waste is the White Fang in general.

You have these two sneaky fox brothers who seemingly oversee everything and even state that they’re only letting Adam do what he wants until he’s no longer of use to them, a buff bat dude, and a spider-lady… And they’re never seen again after this Volume. I get the idea, because RT is trying to wrap up the Faunus subplot as quickly as possible, but the problem that you can’t exactly introduce new characters or hidden depths if you’re just gonna throw them out with the bath water.

If they wanted to end the subplot, why did they put all the effort in some random characters that are just gonna be defeated off screen with a tea tray? Then again, this is a problem endemic to RWBY. Introduce this character, then quickly shoo them away before you’re committed to writing a plot for them. If you know you were going to half-ass the White Fang conclusion, why bother with stuff like more White Fang members or the SDC brand? In fact, why bother with the White Fang to begin with if you’re going to do so little with them?

Episode 6

Moving on before I lose my cool, we have Qrow aimlessly walking around downtown Mistral. Now, the crew said that Maria was supposed to be here… But… Why? What purpose would she serve? If she’s just gonna be a “hey, look, cameo to foreshadow Volume 6”, then that’s a horrible purpose. You know how most Cinematic Universes tanked because they spent more time hyping the next twenty movies when they should focus on their pilot? That’s what she would have been like.

Not to mention that she would have been caught in the crossfire of why Volume 5 was bad. “So here we have this random old lady who doesn’t matter at all to the plot so why is she even there” and then “Oh wow, she’s a SEW. They’re doing damage control to justify her unneeded presence in Volume 5”. And, don’t get me wrong, Maria is a fun lady and all that, but there needs to be a reason she was there beyond “hype for next Volume”.

What makes the problem worse was that they’re planning to include Maria so as to have a sort of Yoda to teach Ruby. This makes the complaint of “why didn’t Ruby ask about the Silver Eyes” even more of a complaint because now it seems like they decided “hey, we’re going to address it next volume, so let’s not bother bringing it up here”. Which is even worse than “hey, people noticed we didn’t address this so let’s completely invent this character for the sole purpose of addressing it!”

And then there’s Raven who is all “lol, I know more than you realize but I’m not actually gonna answer anything trolololololol” AARHG!

Okay. Okay. Before I completely lose my marbles, there’s one thing about the scene with Raven that’s stupid.

It’s the “there’s no such thing as magic” thing.

Okay. I get it. Turning into a bird is something that, in the world of RWBY, seems impossible. But there’s a ton of problems with this:

What makes summoning dead Grimm to fight for you so much more different than magic?

You’re willing to believe in magic rocks that augment your fighting style and are in fact part of a company that profits off magic rocks, yet turning into a bird is the messed up thing?

The guy who gave her this ability is currently inhabiting the body of a young boy and has said to basically devour his soul in due time, as well as create the magic that’s responsible for torching your school and your friend… And the BIRD is the most messed up thing!?

“But Raven made it sound like she was forced into it”. She didn’t seem to have any fucking problem with it though. Not only that, but it didn’t seem like a big dark secret that Ozpin wouldn’t want uncovered. In fact, he even said he gave Qrow and Raven the ability to turn into birds in an amused way.

Even more so when everyone but Yang seemed to respond to it with disbelief rather than outright anger. There’s a reason this whole bird issue was made fun of in Jello’s “So This is Basically RWBY” video.

Also, before we move onto Episode 7, I wanna bring up that the scene where Qrow visits the Shields is perhaps the reason why I hold Ozpin’s censorship of Lionheart’s role in the Battle of Haven to be one of the most scumbag moves he could have made. “Your mom’s dead, but don’t worry, the guy who sold her out is a hero!”

Episodes 7-10

Right, back to Episode 7. Okay, I’ll admit, it was a nice reunion scene all things considered, albeit with some rather unnerving things like Yang asking Weiss if she let the Boarbatusk skewer the trophy wife or even the dumb, patronizing “we haven’t made character arcs for us to go through so I’ll just say we had some”, since they had the great idea to use Ren, who is voiced by Monty’s brother, as the mouthpiece for that.

Unfortunately, this is the episode I always think back to when I think of Volume 5. The perfect epitome of a slow, monotonous Volume. The problem I have is that, yeah, it’s meant to be this breather episode, a calm before the storm, but this just feels like a long lull that’s made even more insulting with the cliffhanger. All it has is people dumping exposition that viewers have either figured out or weren’t even burning questions and I think the awkward silence that followed Ozpin saying how he was the wizard that gave the Maidens his power is the perfect epitome for just how boring the volume is. The dude just revealed a massive plot twist and it’s treated as nothing more than a “did you know” factoid.

While I liked how they addressed that Blake leaving Yang would have had some serious negative emotions in Yang, it felt rather half-assed that they basically resolved it with “hey, my mom’s drunk, so shut up and accept Blake the moment she comes back”, especially since it comes from Weiss, who told Blake at the end of Volume 1 that if she ever runs away again, she best let RWBY know. If they wanted to ship Bumblebee so badly, this would have been a great hurdle for them to come across instead of just “hey, let me resolve this plot for you”.

Now, the whole thing with Ilia… Let’s get the elephant out of the way. The way they revealed her sexuality, I feel, could have been done better. “You wanna know why I’m gonna kill your parents and bring you to your abuser? Because I wanted you to look at me like a lover!” There’s a reason why some fans label her as a “psycho lesbian”.

However, I want to bring up that Rooster Teeth did an excellent job at building tension during the climax of the Menagerie Arc. Sure, the cliffhangers were tiresome, but you couldn’t help but admit you were at the edge of your seat and it even did a good job at subversion. Even if they allegedly didn’t even intend for it to happen.

The constant dryness of exposition and dialogue exchanges is what made Episode 10 so much better than the other episodes. Not just because it’s action-orientated, but because it finally tries to get back to the themes that it was originally supposed to tell. Throughout the entirety of the middle portion of Volume 5, the group basically took a backseat and allowed characters and plots to happen to them rather than advocate for themselves. The closest thing we got to the theme of “building yourself back up” is Weiss talking to Yang about Blake.

In fact, the only actual characters taking action are the villains. Constantly roadblocking the cast, setting them in for a trap, and even aiming to screw each other over. These guys have more advocacy and agency than the main characters. The most any of them did was…

Burn down their own house and blamed everyone else for it, all while saying that the house is the message Adam wants to send.

Use a girl’s unrequited feelings towards them to their advantage, straddle them, and guilt tripped her enough for her to consider switching sides.

Cry about how things are not going their way until their hands start magically glowing.

Yelling at someone until they cry bitch tears and then have them run away without even bothering to close the door leading to the dangerous artifact everyone had been working so hard to keep out of enemy hands.

In the volume where the theme is “solving problems on our own”. Just because Yang drops the word strength a few times when bitching out at Raven doesn’t mean that the theme had been accomplished. In fact, they do nothing of their own accord and just follow a script. Even Ozpin, the supposed smartest guy in all of Remnant, doesn’t even bother to figure out a way to counter the trap. Just instead walk in. Hell, if Yang didn’t spot Raven, they’d be mulched.

But, back on track. Episode 9 was an entire waste that failed to pay off the expectations of what we had with the cliffhanger set up in Episode 7. “But it subverted your ex-” NO. There’s a good way to subvert expectations and being promised a fight after episodes of bland exposition only to have it be “lol, no, it’s just gonna be more talking” is not a good subversion.

No. Here’s a better way. Set up the cliffhanger like normal, but don’t show Cinder’s dragged out negotiation with Raven. Instead, have her “allying” with Cinder be a twist. That way, people’s expectations for what happened are actually, you know, subverted?

The Battle of Haven

But, you know where this is leading to… The Battle of Haven. Really, I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been covered by someone else. We all know it makes all the Vytal fights look like masterpieces by comparison, we all know the jokes about useless Weiss or Lionheart hogging the staircase, or even the plot holes of Raven knowing Cinder’s arm being Grimm but doing nothing about it or Blake, despite spending the past volume saying how Adam must be stopped, suddenly doesn’t care about him…

So let me cut it simply:

The reason this battle sucks might have to do with the crunch.

We don’t know how long this issue with Rooster Teeth had been going on for, but if it is indeed what people say it is and that animators don’t get paid for the last quarter or third of their work, then that might explain all the cut corners animators and writers made. Why the fights are broken up into one on ones or why fights are cut out entirely. Maybe they weren’t getting paid enough and thus, the quality of RWBY suffered as a result of it.

And that’s perhaps the shittiest thing about the Battle of Haven. It could have been this epic fight that would have made up for all the boring, drawn out scenes of exposition and chatting, but because Rooster Teeth got too greedy or even because of our own impatience (which, again, isn’t helped by the aforementioned long, drawn out scenes), we are treated to a final battle so broken and tiresome that the Battle of Winterfell manages to be a better final battle, with the only thing holding it back being that Haven had a better identity twist.

And if, for whatever reason, it isn’t due to crunch issues, then we have another problem. This was meant to be this hyped up rematch between the heroes and villains, who haven’t seen each other since the latter ruined the lives of the former. This would have been excellent to see how the killers of Jaune and Ruby’s friends would interact with them, how Yang would react to the person who framed her, even how the group had grown since their last battle…

But… if crunch wasn’t to blame for the quality dip and the writers intended for the fight to go the way it went… I have to say… What the fuck were they thinking!? So many moments could have been brought up here and yet they decided that they weren’t important enough to focus on! And now, with this battle over and done with, those moments lost their luster. If they decide to bring them up, it’d be too little, too late at best and “why the fuck are you bringing this up now” at worst.

I’ll deal with one commonly used example to get what I mean. Adam was established in Volume 3 to be a threat only made strong because he uses Blake’s emotions against her and has a Semblance that lets him dish out aura-breaking damage. Blake easily defeats Adam and has him on the ropes, only to let him run with a few excuses that some people have debated to death and back, when it would have been much easier for Blake to have to choose between apprehending Adam and helping Yang. Then, when he inevitably returns to haunt Blake next volume, suddenly he’s a threat that Blake is afraid of again despite Blake having “grown” to oppose him.

They wanted that “triumph” over him, but realize that by doing so, they’ve burned that opportunity to have the triumph be meaningful. Same goes with Emerald and Mercury. They had a good opportunity for Ruby to effectively call them out for their crimes like how Jaune did to Cinder, but instead she just headbutts Mercury. Yang had at least some closure on her arc with Mercury, but it was meh.

The Point in All of This

Hell, speaking of wasted opportunities, the reunion of Team RWBY, something that the opening had hyped and one that the fans had been waiting for since Volume 3 ended, is nothing more than an afterthought. They couldn’t even be assed to show Blake’s first fight back with Ruby and Weiss. That’s how little they cared. It’s like everyone was just wanting to get that paycheck but they needed to rush that final episode out the door and also need to make room for Gen:Lock and Nomad trailers. They didn’t even care about the stinger, as they basically ignored any sort of information relating to the stinger.

Perhaps the biggest reason why Volume 5 sucked so hard was that it was running off the heels of Volume 3. Everyone basically accepted that Volume 4 was meant to be a breather Volume, with lower stakes and lower drama (with the exception of possible death flags for Ren and Nora), but the moment they made Volume 5 the grudge match everyone wanted, then the stakes got raised back to the heights of the third Volume, only for it to fail to live up to the expectations. Sorry, I think I mean to say “subvert the expectations” in this day and age.

Though, I think the huge problem with all of this, and perhaps the biggest bottom line I can say, is that it might be due to Volume 3 going too over the edge. By killing important characters and even dividing the team, the villains had raised stakes up so high, that people began to take the show more seriously. When characters were vaguely hinted to die, be it through threats from the villains or even flashbacks, people fretted that they would die. When the villains go back to striking distance with the heroes, people desired a grand battle. When the show tried to deal with the ramifications that happened with RWBY separating, people wanted to know what was going through the characters’ heads.

And when Volume 5 failed to deliver/“subverted their expectations”, people considered it a bad volume.

But worst of all, it failed to live up to its own themes. Jaune was the only person to build himself back up again through deus ex hands, and we saw next Volume that it needed a statue for him to feel better. No one was in a position of giving up only to be defiant and shout “we’re not done here”, but instead cry “it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”. The big problem of Volume 5, make sure the relic is secure, is only solved because two characters had a catfight in the basement and the survivor didn’t bother to lock up because their daughter was too busy bitching at her. No one really grew or strengthened their resolve. The triumph… wasn’t theirs to have.

Although, it seems Rooster Teeth had learned from their mistakes, with Volume 6 being leaps and bounds better than Volume 5, regardless of what you thought of the latter half. Best of all, the themes promised in Volume 5 were shown prominently in Volume 6, albeit some of the scenes capitalizing on those themes feeling more like a child is having a tantrum because they couldn’t have the airplane.

To close out this rather long winded discussion, and to give people a tl;dr on the whole matter, Volume 5 failed to address the themes it had presented and instead just padded itself out, expecting people to accept it because it’s RWBY.

#RWDE #RWBY #Volume 5

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toooldforfandom-liveblogs · 4 years

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RWBY V07E05 - Sparks

Wow, this could be about anything and everything.I saw a thumbnail with Robyn in it so I know she appears, so that's something. I think Sonic Harriet throws sparks when she's powering up, Yang's semblance has sparks too. It could also be about the "spark the fires of revolution" or "the spark that can ignite hope." Considering the current political climate I'm guessing it'll probably be closer to the former than the latter.

Let's do this!

What a blessed way to start the day and the episode. Penny is living her dream considering staying close to her friends was the only reason we heard about why she wanted to stay at Beacon.

This is so wholesome that every day I fear more and more for everyone's lives.

The one thing I don't like about the Maya style is the way they enlarge the eyes anime-style for cuteness points. I'm sure it _could_ work but it just looks weird and somewhat out of place to me. I remember Yang and Weiss cooing over Saphron's child looking more disturbing than cute.

This is the cutest thing I have ever seen.

Yeah, yeah, fights, explosions, grimm, * yawn *, whatever.

Finally, here's the huntsman I want to see. There's no way this "simple" mission doesn't end up with him somehow becoming a hero.

Or perhaps he is already a hero.

A highly wanted hero.

This is amazing. And tragic. He has everything he ever wanted when he had just entered Beacon, and now they are all probably at the bottom of his priority list.

I'm not sure how to interpret this. Winter gets distracted and Weiss feels like she's not doing enough to impress her sister? It kinda fits with their little moment in the OP, but I hope Weiss grows past that this season. It's not exactly a healthy dynamic.

Ooh, one more OP scene.

I feel like my mind is blowing. He does have a ton of aura, what if he could harness it for more than just healing? Is his semblance just "healing" or is it actually aura manipulation (since he's actually just jumpstarting the other person's aura generation)? I already want to see where they go with this. Something like Vine and his arms? Or something more like a larger shield around him?

Note from the future: I had a complete brain fart when I wrote that and forgot that his semblance is “aura amplification” but most of what I wrote still applies. I’m really curious about what can he do with a _lot_ of aura.

I think this tiny line is just enough to make me more interested in Ren than I have been since Volume 4.

There was a hint with him blowing off Nora because he wanted to focus on the mission. Was it just that or does he want to become a better/stronger huntsman for something different than the obvious (which would be to protect people from having the same fate as his parents) to the point of considering everything else as secondary? I remember Nora was speculated to be from Mantle... How does it all fit?

My heart.

And Ruby is the other one who's living her dream, she _always_ wanted to be a Huntress. No doubts, no late night conversations about her future next to a fire, no soul-searching questioning. And it probably helps that while while this montage is happening, she doesn't have to question her decisions or think too deeply about the future.

Aw. I like the progress from getting his mug stolen to giving Marrow one.

oh no

She's _really_ good at poking insecurities, huh?

I'm speechless. Nora is riding her weapon like a witch.

Here's another example of what I was talking about. In any previous season Ren would have shook his head, smiling at the lovable scamp that is Nora. Now he almost looks sick of her attitude?

Woo! They are talking!

Now talk about death.

Sorry, _this_ is the cutest thing I have ever seen.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS, WRITERS. WHO HURT YOU.

thinking emoji

Nevermind everything I have said about Ironwood. He's evil and deserves everything bad that's probably going to happen to him.

The biggest mood. In real life _and_ for, well, everyone in the show, but especially Ruby.

I'm not sure if it's her sleepy face or something else but Ruby looks really grown up here.

From one ship to the other.

Poor Clover, wasting his efforts complimenting the guy when Qrow has a thousand-feet high shield made of self-hatred.

oh?

oh my god, he's perfect

AAAAAAA FINALLY, ROBYN!

So that grafitti _was_ important.

I was thinking the same thing. Wouldn't she, being a candidate to being elected, need to keep her nose clean?

There goes the possibility of one of the Ace Ops being a traitor for Robyn's group.

Did she fail a dice roll on her semblance check?

Hmm. Only Qrow has used that word so far in the show, once of Ruby and once for Oscar. Probably a coincidence but still.

By showing us how willing Robyn was to attack a military convoy, she either thinks she's going to lose the election (maybe because she thinks it's rigged) or thinks it won't matter for some reason. Why would she risk the possibility of fixing things from the top otherwise?

There are no traitors (yet) in the Ace Ops because she'd know why Amity is so important.

Did she call off the attack because Penny is a powerhouse or because she only thought she could win by ambushing them + a number advantage? Maybe it was all a bluff to get more information.

For having such a short intro scene, Robyn is _really_ interesting.

And she seems to have fewer scruples than Ironwood, making her and the whole conflict even more interesting.

Where's Ruby and Nora with the popcorn!?

Okay, nevermind, I misunderstood Weiss's deal earlier. Go Weiss!

Aw, she likes that Weiss is finally standing up to her a little.

But is that what Weiss really wants? Now that I think about it, we haven't heard anything about that since... I don't know, V2? Beacon changed a lot of things and getting disowned changed even more.

Her main goal was to get her family back, both RBY and Winter, but now with that done, what does she want? Does she still want to clean her family name?

Wow, this is an even more interesting conflict between them.

...yeaaaaaaaah, sure How many episodes before that's proven wrong? Unless Ironwood is really being setup as the total Anti-Ozpin and he really did tell everything to Winter? Naaaah. Since she knows about the relics and the maiden, maybe it'll have something to do with Amity Arena? Orbital weapons, anyone? No?

All the technology in the world and they haven't invented chairs.

She's either been all over the world or she's painting what she's never been able to see. Both are tragic, considering her current state.

Wow. I guess that's one way to make sure the power goes to Winter but wow, that's awful.

...you know what happened to the last person who said that?

On the other hand, maybe the fact that Winter choose of her own volition to become the winter maiden, with all the time in the world, without Ozpin breathing down her neck, is going to make all the difference.

They _really_ nail his awful, awful character.

He's strong-arming the population into voting for him. But doesn't he have Watts fixing the elections for him? Or is it _because_ of Watts that he's doing this? Nothing says riots and unhappiness like having a ton of people suddenly become unemployed.

yyyup.

The montage was okay (with some cute and interesting character moments in between all the fighting) and FNKI's cameo was fun, but everything after that was _gold_.

Poor Ruby, she pairs with Penny, Yang and Weiss this episode but no Blake. Those lines they spoke to each other in the past couple of episodes were too much.

I'm really curious about what's going with Ren. They have been showing him just enough that it has to be more than a coincidence. It really feels like he suddenly gained a focus towards being a huntsman that he didn't have before and that, so far, came from nowhere. But why? Is it Nora related? Is it even going to be explained this season? He's just background enough that the writers could be setting up for next season. The big Yang/Blake drama arc is over so they are introducing Ren's? Uhm.

Jaune being thirsted over is amazing and he deserves it. I want to see what he's going to do with his aura, especially now that Tyrian is back, he expressed a direct interest in him so maybe a fight is coming (since he already had his chance with Cinder for the time being)

Ruby living her dream life is so cute that I'm just waiting to see how it all crashes and burns. Penny's words about having to choose between what she wants and what she needs to do were very on the nose about Ruby's situation. Well, everyone's situation since Winter apparently had to deal with that and _chose_ to make both the same. Have we had anyone who chose the opposite? I guess Raven, making her a pretty good contrast to Winter.

Weiss's future is still in the air but I hope she doesn't abandon reclaiming her family name. Unless Whitley actually ends up becoming a sane human being and Weiss ends up entrusting everything to him to continue being a Huntress?

Clover is being pushed pretty hard as an all-around perfect good guy. So he's either going to die, he's a traitor or had an awful _awful_ past. Because nothing good lasts in Remnant. He did seem genuine when he wished Robyn luck though (even if it's probably kind of his thing).

Robyn was on screen for maybe four minutes and it was enough to make me very intrigued about where this season is going. The way they are setting up the conflict as [grey vs grey] vs black, with multiple interconnected plot threads, is pretty ambitious so I hope they manage to stick the landing.

There's the election, Robyn apparently not caring about the election, Jacques definitely not caring about the election, the villains' plot that requires general discontent, Ruby's secrets, Ironwood's plan, Ironwood's secret secrets, Winter possibly becoming the Winter maiden or dying or both. And then you have the smaller things that may or may not happen, like Ren's thing, Clover's being too good for this earth, _Penny_ being too good for this earth, the way it feels like it's going to be Beacon V2. Neo and Cinder are still missing but we know are on her way.

In comparison V6 was a walk in the park, with a pretty clear goal all the way through. So, yeah, I'm a bit worried about where this is all going. It has a _ton_ of potential though so I can't wait for the next episode. Until next time!

#rwby #rwby liveblog #rwby v07e05 #rwby v7

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blackcatmanor · 4 years

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Predictions for RWBY V7 Ending (w/ photos)

RWBY vs Ace Ops

The Ace Ops will square off vs RWBY and the initial outcome will be RWBY getting away. A lot of people think the "Ace Op Traitor" theory will come true vis-a-vis Marrow using his semblance to freeze his team, but I don't think that'll happen. I think RWBY will have to work together to simply get away from the fight, and they will have to maneuver around the campus while avoiding the Ace Ops. Overall the Ace Op conflict will be resolved another way....

Winter Maiden powers- Fria will die and Winter Schnee will get the powers. I am the most ambivalent about this prediction because I also half think they are setting up another Maiden misdirect like volume 5's twist, and the obvious Maiden candidate will not have/get the powers. With Ironwood desperately trying to direct the powers to Winter, it would be a large misdirect for the plan to fail completely.

However, the reason I am leaning more towards Winter Schnee getting them is because I think the overarching story is setting up that the RWBY girls will get the maiden powers and will therefore be the force that eventually stops Salem. Presumably Raven's final thoughts would be about her daughter, so Yang will get Spring powers. Cinder is being set up for a big confrontation with Ruby so she'll get Fall, which leaves Winter and Summer. So Winter Schnee may be an in-between conduit for Weiss to receive the Winter powers (*sniff* :’( I hope I’m wrong), and somehow someone in Vacuo will have to get to know Blake enough to get her the Summer powers upon death.

Ozpin Returns- Ozpin will return to help Oscar and resolve the overall conflict with James, and Ozpin will be the only person who can talk him down off the ledge. He already appeared briefly when Oscar was in trouble, so now that he is in mortal danger I think he will help Oscar fend off Cinder and Neo until RWBY/JNR can show up and assist.

This could set up a lot of epic fights, with Oscar/Ozpin fighting them first and unlocking Oscar’s semblance (because he mentioned in 6 episodes ago so by RWBY logic it’ll be unlocked now), and RWBY and JNR arriving as well to fight Cinder and Neo.

After fighting off Cinder and Neo, I think Ozpin will then atone for his secrets to RWBY and Ironwood. There has been a lot of talk about Ozpin's secrets this volume so he will have to address this topic (and hopefully RWBY will have to atone for their secrets as well, otherwise they are huge hypocrites). They all vow to be honest with one another, and use their newfound honesty and power of friendship to urge Ironwood to change his mind and save Mantle. He could also be encouraged to do the right thing by the reluctant members of the Ace Ops, such as Marrow and Clover.

This would mean that V8 would still be in Atlas, with Ironwood trying to complete the Amity tower in order to call for help from Vacuo (if you remember in S6 Tyrian mentions "if Ironwood comes to his senses and calls on aid from Vacuo..."), with a looming time constraint of Salem's impending arrival.

The villains score a victory: I think a lot of the criticism of RWBY lately is that the villains don't really succeed in anything. Ever since the fall of Beacon they have repeatedly failed, and I think the Writers are going to be looking to reverse this narrative. Additionally, Salem said to Emerald that Cinder had to redeem herself, so I think Cinder will get a win this volume, especially since Watts and Tyrian did not. Maybe Cinder will grab the lamp and escape, giving Salem 1 question she can use if and when she learns how to use it. Maybe to ask where the relic of choice is at Beacon.

A main character suffers an injury

Based on the CRWBY teases this week, I feel like we are going to get another character maiming. And let me explain why I already hate this on principle.

1. It's been done- twice. When Yang's arm was cut off it was shocking, because it showed that our characters were in a world where the element of danger existed. However between the fumbling of that story line (more below) and Weiss being maimed only to be saved and continue fighting a mere 1 episode later, it's becoming a cliché and points a glaring spotlight on the plot armor the four characters have. No one realistically believes any of the main 4 girls will die, but a well-used maiming can interesting if used sparingly and executed correctly (more below). However, the mishandling of Yang’s maiming, and Weiss’ injury in Volume 5 officially removed all emotional return elicited from character injuries, and continuing to carve up main characters will have diminishing returns unless they rely on gross-out value, which, a RWBY animator said they animated a scene that’ll make people barf, so I guess that’s the strategy now. *eyeroll*

2. It has no meaning to the story

So a character might lose a [insert body part here]. With the technology available to them being seemingly boundless, what does it matter? Lose your eyes? Here are fully functioning robot eyes! Missing an arm? Here is a robot arm with quick eject feature. The characters never have to make do with living a life minus one body part, which makes the possibility of a character losing a body part seem pointless and devoid of character impact.

Nonetheless, even with the technology available able to quickly replace missing body parts, it still could have an emotional impact if such an injury changed who the Victim is as a character. But alas, that is also a problem here: maiming in RWBY never impacts someone as a person, nor does it becomes a catalyst for character change or growth. The pain and trauma of losing a limb or being maimed is never teased out and explored. Let's look at the most notable maiming’s:

Maria was the only person whose injury actually had emotional stakes, as it changed her entire existence. She actually has PTSD-like symptoms (unlike Yang- fight me!), as we are told her trauma prevented her from returning to her life as a Huntress. She was too scared and traumatized to fight anymore, with a (possibly irrational) fear that someone would try to finish killing her because taking her eyes wouldn’t be enough. However, for being the only character with demonstrable PTSD-like issues, the way they handle the revelation she was a brave warrior forever changed by a traumatic injury was super weird. She says she gave up on fighting, so she is a coward and disappointment, while implying that Yang is *so brave* to be able to keep fighting after her injury. And no one argues differently.

She wasn't cowardly, she was traumatized. The fact that the writers paint Maria as some coward who “only looked after herself” was super strange, and her helping the group implies that she has to redeem herself in some way for her “cowardly” actions. However it does shed an important light as to maybe why getting maimed doesn't affect our main cast- because apparently having any hesitation to fight after losing your eyes makes you super *lame-o*! to Miles and Kerry.

Yang- This is the first, and most egregious example of traumatic injuries having zero impact on a main character. For someone as gung-ho as Yang, losing an arm should have made her more incredibly traumatized because her "jump into combat" attitude is directly what cost her a limb! This should have fundamentally shaken Yang to her core, having her question her abilities and her tactics and entire life of training. Instead we got a hand that sometimes shakes with vague triggers, which really just served as a catalyst to the romance between her and Blake. Once they become an item the hand shaking stopped entirely and we NEVER saw it again! Also, no one clap back that Adam being gone means her “PTSD” is gone. The cause of your “PTSD” being gone doesn’t mean your actual disorder goes away.

Weiss is another example of massive injuries having no impact on the main cast. She was impaled as a plot device for Jaune to unlock his semblance. She is completely back to normal 1 episode later, with no ill effects. The writers somehow wrote a “Weiss being impaled” story line while completely avoiding Weiss within it! That is almost skillful.

So, characters being injured has been done, to almost zero emotional yield. If they go the maiming route they are going to have to do it a lot differently than they have handled these injuries in the past, and actually spend time fleshing out what happens to someone who suffers this kind of injury. These events should have emotional impact and not just serve as a way to have the main characters end up looking like grizzled pirates.

I just hope they skip it entirely, but I’ll keep an open mind. If it does happen I am predicting Blake being injured because it’ll be a way to further the Bumblebee relationship, and it will also be a juxtaposition between Yang’s injury with Blake taking off, and Blake’s injury with Yang being there for her.

#rwby #rwby vol7 #rwby predictions #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #ruby rose #rwby bumblebee #marrow amin #harriet bree #ace ops #ozpin #rwby oscar #cinder fall #maria calavera

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ganglylimbs · 6 years

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Analyzing the Gay

Ok, seeing rumors that there’s going to be another lgbtq+ character induced in the next volume of RW/BY, so I decided to go through who it most likely is and what I personally hope for (spoiler, reality and what I hope for don’t come anywhere near each other).

Assuming it’s not going to be a new character induced into the show, judging by how they introduced Ilia, and how they’ve talked about how they want to handle LGBTQ+ characters, my guess is that they’re going to introduce them via relationship/relationship talking

And (I hate saying this because I dislike being rude to the writers) but we can probably forget about the LGBTQ+ character being the TQ+ part (honestly, I’m crossing my fingers for the B part but even then it’s 50/50).

The top contender is the Bees becoming canon, especially because Barbara was the one to announce it. The only reason I can think why it’s not them is that (didn’t see the tweets/news myself so I don’t know if Barbara said character or characters) it would be introducing two lgbtq+ characters and the announcement was for only one new character (?) I know, it’s a nitpicky point, but if we’re just analyzing, then let’s analyze.

I honestly think they are going to have the bees become canon because 1.) Barbara was the one to say it (implying that it has something to do with Yang) and 2.) if it’s not the bees, the Tumblr side of the fandom will riot. It’s a small, but, unfortunately, loud group that will raise hell. I guarantee that if, with this announcement, the bees don’t become canon, there is going to be cries of queerbait. No matter who is announced as queer, they will claim that they were queerbaited. Because there is a certain side that is obsessed with RWBY being queer-but only certain characters.

Here is the problem with that. First off, as certain as I am that the bees are becoming canon, I’m even more certain that Yang is the queer character. Like, no doubt in my mind, Yang is 100% queer. There is just so much evidence (even if you want to discount the songs, which I understand) there’s still a mountain of evidence that Yang has gay feelings of something. So let’s get that out of the way. Yang is queer in some sort of way and I 100% think she has a thing for Blake.

If I were to make Yang the queer character and touch on the Bee subject, I would have Yang confess to Blake but Blake rejects her (ideally because Blake is aromantic. Not going to happen because, again, I doubt we’re going to get anything but LGB. Also, following my own nitpicky rules, that would be two queer people). So instead, to make it flow with the show, she says she’s not ready for a relationship (if, by some miracle, this all does happen this way, please let this be the excuse. Please, I beg. Because the other reason would be that she’s in love with Sun and even as a Blacksun shipper that would be bad. Bad, bad, bad. Just. Please don’t go that route.). So Yang is heartbroken, but they move on (because friends to the end and group as family, please and thank you). And what’s this? A relationship forms between Ilia and her? They form a kickass team? Ilia helps get Yang’s fire back and Yang introduces Ilia to all these great things that she was kept from while in the White Fang. They protect each other and it’s awesome.

You may be asking, why go to such lengths to shoot down a relationship already built up in the show, just to have one of the people get into another relationship?

Because, meta, I hate ship wars. I think they are a disease on fandoms and honestly, I’m tired of going into the tag and seeing posts about how x ship is better than y ship, or how y person is “abusive” so shipping them with x makes you abusive (which, hey fandom, we should probably discuss what is or isn’t someone being abusive. Your favorite character being sad or angry at someone is not them being abused). I’m sick of seeing posts about why one ship will not be canon or why one ship is better than the other. I’m tired of it.

And unfortunately, there are only two solutions to this problem (a third would be, as a whole, fandom holding each other accountable, but that will not happen because neither side can admit they are part of the problem. It’s always the other sides fault for the toxicity of the fandom, an easy excuse for people to continue being shitty.). So either both parts of the ships end up together in a poly ship of some sort (not going to happen) or neither ship happens. Which is what I prefer. (Especially to the god awful 4th option which is a love triangle. please. Just no.)

Anyways, none of that will happen because the fandom will riot, so I’m pretty sure the bees will become canon. In the story, I’ll love it because the two have great chemistry, a mountain of reasons why they should be together, and it’s a good love story. Out of canon, the fandom will be insufferable and I’ll hate it.

If I could have my choice for how queer Yang ends up (besides what I already wrote) either she ends up with Ilia or with Weiss, because they have a budding romance there and I’d love to see it more. Or they introduce a new character in to be her love interest. If I could really get my way, despite the writer’s inexperience with lgbtq+ people, she’d be in a polyamorous relationship with two characters.

Next is Blake. If Blake turns out to be the new queer character (and they don’t do bees) my guess is they build up her relationship with Ilia.

Which brings me to something else I would like them to explore. Anime (and most stores with teenagers in general) tend to be focused on The One. On one hand, I totally get it. It’s a story and you have a limited time to focus on relationships. If it’s a romance book, people tend to not want to read about the main character constantly breaking up with people. In film, time is even more limited, so the main character falls in love with B and that's it. They live happily ever after.

Except that’s not what happens with teenagers.

So if I had my way, it’d be both Ilia and Blake falling in love with several other people before finally falling for each other. But if books and T.V. are limited for time, then wew, RWBY is even more limited. This isn’t a big sticking point and I honestly would love to see a relationship between Blake and Ilia. Especially a story of Blake helping Ilia heal and introducing her into a more loving lifestyle.

(Actually, if I really had my way Blake would be aro, not only because it fits her perfectly, but because how great of representation would that be? An aro who has a loving relationship with her family, has a loving relationship with her friends, is a protagonist trying to get shit done? It would be amazing).

If Weiss is the new queer character, I would think they will either try to build up Yang and her’s relationship, introduce a new character, or try to make Ruby/Weiss happen (which, for personal reasons, I rather they try to make Yang and her happen or the new character).

But definitely, please, for Yang/Weiss. Because really, the building blocks of Yang/Weiss are there, even before vol. 5. There is a real connection there, and I’d love for them to explore them.

And if I could really have it my way, I’d have them make Weiss trans too.

If it turns out that Ruby is the new queer character they would either do Ruby/Weiss or this could be the reintroduction for Penny. I would be more than ok with that, especially if Penny 2 doesn’t remember Ruby and Ruby has to work at being friends again. And then that blossoms into a relationship and I love it.

Really, if I could have it my way, I’d hope they make Ruby ace/aro. Again, a great representation with loving friends and family.

Other possibilities for who the queer character is, are them introducing a new character into the show. Which I’m ok with, but I feel like that would get more complaints about how there are too many people in the cast.

They also could reveal Winter as queer since they’re going back to Atlas and Weiss would want to reunite with her. I’d love this actually, especially if it involved Winter flirting with Ilia.

Emerald is a great contender too. Her breaking down over Cinder and revealing that she loved her in a fit of anger? That would be great. (Another con is I’m pretty sure the fandom will do her dirty like they did Ilia when it was revealed that Ilia had feelings for Blake. Despite, you know, the fandom as a whole deciding both were queer beforehand-and this goes back to that small loud group only wanting certain characters to be queer.)

A few more (admittedly cracky theories) could be them bringing back Scarlet (with the rest of team SSSN) and having him revealed as queer.

If they want to make the fandom implode, have Jaune revealed as the queer person. While probably not, it could work to introduce someone who can help him process Pyhrra’s death, and not really heal him, but get him set in the right direction. Again, probably not because there’s already talk about him having too much screen time (which...could probably be another rant of mine) and because he already had a relationship and I feel like people would hold that against him.

Out of left field is going to be Sun as the queer character. This is mostly just me wanting my boy to be happy and if the bees are going to happen, I want him to be with someone too.

Another left field one is probably Oscar, which I think it would be interesting to explore. Like him already having all these problems to deal with as well as having a crush on someone? That’d be so interesting. I also wonder if this will get so many people going “uh, uh, uh, this boy can’t have any sexual/romantic thoughts at all because he has Ozpin in his head and that makes this pedophilia.”

A few more is Qrow or Tai being queer. Ozpin, maybe?

Anyway, after all of this, in conclusion, what most likely will happen is the bees become canon. If they don’t, I would love for Ilia to build up a relationship with one of the girls. Or have that Yang and Weiss’ relationship continues to develop.

#long post #analyzing the queer #let me know who you guys think it is #despite the tone of this post #i'm actually really hyped for it #I'm ready for that queer loving

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kalico-to-the-letter · 7 years

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REVIEW: RWBY – Vol. 5, Ch. 4: “LIGHTING THE FIRE”

I mean, that’s putting it mildly. Good Lord. Lighting fires in our damn hearts and shit.

Welcome to my review of the 4th Chapter of the 5th Volume, entitled, “Lighting the Fire”. This week gave us: Me taking an L for once, people getting schooled, and the hug to end all hugs.

Spoilers?

Okay, then.

In “Lighting the Fire”, RWBY hands me an L for the ages. And the best part is that I love it.

Much of this review is going to be me eating my words.

Back in the first episode, I had problems with where they were taking Yang as well. The conclusion of her storyline last season told me for sure that she was going after Ruby instead of her mom. So when the premiere had her looking for her mother after all, I called bullshit because it looked like a continuity fuckup. And I remember lowering my grade for that episode because of that.

Even watching this episode, and watching Yang’s interaction with Raven, I was legitimately mad at how stupid it all sounded. So, you’re still looking for Ruby, but you’re going to get your mother to take you there because you worry that Ruby didn’t make it to Mistral? Okay, that makes a tiny bit of sense, but it’s not solid logic. You think Raven will do it for family? I’ve never thought that highly of her, but maybe that’s just me.

And then Yang mentioned the goddamn portals, and I felt like dying from the explosion in my brain. Of course. Of fucking course. Yes, I’d completely forgotten about Raven’s portals because I’m a moron. And when I thought about for a second, it all clicked for me. It’s perfect logic. It makes so much damn sense now, even looking back. It’s all been leading to this point, and Yang’s had this plan in her head since she landed in Anima.

In the past, I’ve never thought much about Yang. She always seemed the shallowest of the four main characters. She’s always had good moments, but to me she never had much of a place in storylines. And then she got wrongly disqualified from the tournament, and hurt trying to save Blake; those events in Volume 3 opened my eyes. It’s why I was so big on her rehab storyline last season, and so excited to see her get back with Ruby. She’s undergone such a drastic character evolution in these past couple of years.

Now, she’s confident, but in such a mature way. She knows what she wants, how to get it, and is prepared for the consequences. She’s still willing to gamble, but now she knows how to press her agenda without showing her too much of her hand. That and she can still fight like a boss.

I was content with the RNJR stuff from this episode, but I would’ve been more interested in the Menagerie storyline being put here. I’ll get to that in my observations. I liked Ruby’s reaction to getting punched in the face i.e. punching back harder. Makes sense. All in all, the sparring was interesting when you throw in the Ozpin/Oscar dynamic, but that’s the shape of it. The idea of evolving semblances is very cool. It’s like having different Super Saiyan stages. I’d like to see it happen.

I thought the show was going to troll us when Yang walked in to Raven’s camp. Having Weiss summon her avatar when the camp is distracted by Yang’s presence? That is prime bait for trolling, right there. Have Weiss sneak out and neither of them realise that they were in the same place. It would have mind-bendingly stupid, and I was prepared to give the show an L for it, because I definitely saw it coming.

Which means I didn’t see coming what actually happened.

This is why I wrote so much about the reunion towards the end of last season and prior to this season. Because it was going to be so damn special. And I was just talking about all four of them getting back together at once. I never predicted that a reunion between just Weiss and Yang could hit me so damn hard.

It’s the little things, too. That moment when they recognise each other across the camp; Weiss busting out of her cage and immediately going back-to-back with Yang; the two of them catching each other up as quickly as possible.

Of course, the big things do their job as well. And the images of Weiss throwing her arms around Yang are something I will treasure. Having Weiss surprise Yang and me and telling Yang that she missed her – that was everything to me. I could feel the love. And I’m not talking from a shipping point of view. I mean the bond between them. I buy it, just like that.

How are you going to have them hug and tell each other they missed each other, while Weiss’s giant avatar dissolves and blows away in the wind. The words you’re looking for are Sweet Christmas.

That hug. That freaking hug. BRUH. The FEELS though. The CHILLS it gave me.

What do you want me to say about it? What can I say about it? What can I critique about that moment? Nothing, that’s what.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna watch the ending of this episode again. And maybe another ten times after that.

Additional observations:

- I’m not going to revise my grade for the premiere or any other episode. Every review is a snapshot of a moment in time, and I was genuinely annoyed by that development at the time. It is what it is.

- How did I forget about the portals, though? The last time she used them was when she met Qrow last season, and the only other time was at the end of Volume 2, but that’s not much of an excuse. So I’ll accept an L there. No one’s perfect.

- I’m not going to ignore the biggest irritant to come from last week, though. I’m still sour about last week’s episode, and I really think that for all the good in this episode, it still missed the mark by not addressing the Menagerie storyline. Like, they couldn’t tack a few minutes of that storyline on to this episode? Because they needed to, and them not doing it means that that storyline is really suffering. It’s still stuck feeling like it hasn’t gone anywhere since last season, when it should really be the hottest storyline in the whole show.Going into this episode, a lot of the questions I prepared for myself were about the White Fang/Menagerie storyline. That was my expectation, sure, but I expected it to be addressed because it really felt like it needed to be. Next time, though? Let’s just say if they don’t, I’m going to start mentally campaigning for Blake’s immediate airlifting out of this storyline.

- I do think it would be hilarious if Oscar awakens his semblance before Jaune. Be looking at Jaune like, “Whose mans is this”.

- Yang fighting those goons, though. That fight scene. So good. The fight scenes have been consistently brilliant for a long time now.

- Weiss’s stuff has been the best of this season, without a doubt, while Yang’s has had good potential. Putting them together is such an obvious move, but a great move nonetheless. This is now the biggest angle in the show, and it should be all over the next episode. it would be missing the trick not to capitalise on this. I don’t know how much more time they’ll have as just the two of them – I think Cinder might attack soon, and I don’t have a problem if Weiss and Yang are there for it or not. It would be bigger if they were involved, but it might be too soon for such a momentous thing to happen. It’s actually a good opportunity to send them off to Ruby and then build on the characters of Raven and Vernal, and make us understand their relationship. But I digress.

- Should I give props to this show for not trolling me with the Weiss and Yang stuff? By the way, I see all you shippers out there, coming out of hibernation, looking for a fresh kill.

Grade: A-

Final thoughts: It’s hard to be critical of “Lighting the Fire”. If this were an mediocre episode with one brilliant moment, it would be a different story. Last week gave us questions that needed to be answered, and that context hurts this episode when the show is ignoring those questions. But on its own, here RWBY presents you an episode which is strong overall, with focused direction, a brilliant ending, and that goddamn reunion. – Kallie

#rwby spoilers #rwby reviews #rwby5 #rwby volume 5 #rwby

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rerwby · 7 years

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RWBY Volume 4 Commentary Play-by-Play

Chapter 1:

Kerry talks about how each episode had a ‘fuck you’ shot, which is a particular shot that was difficult to create across all departments.

I’d say the whole volume was a fuck-you shot to the fans but

In a little conversation about how much they’ve planned in the show, Kerry talks about how they’ve actually been hanging on to team WTCH (Watts, Tyrian, Cinder and Hazel) since the beginning.

I’m leaning towards believing this since Salem was one of the first things conceived for the show, so her team would follow. Makes you wonder if Miles was always gonna have his “crazy” Tyrian though or if that came later.

I doubt it because I don’t believe Monty would make characters as boring as Hazel and Watts right from the start.

Regarding Oscar and his story this volume, Miles and Kerry had more rewrites with him than with anything else in RWBY, trying to figure out the right way to present it. At one point, Oscar’s first major scene was going to be in chapter 7, instead of 4.

Yeah it’s not breaking news to say that they did the opposite of what would be a good idea.

Mentioned in the commentary, but in more detail in the special features, is the fact that CRWBY had a rough start to the volume due to the new production pipeline, which continued for several episodes.

According to Miles, the Petra Gigas was originally supposed to appear in the Emerald Forest during Volume 1. It was supposed to be a part of the giant nevermore/deathstalker fight, as was a giant Bourbatusk.

Wondering how they would have fit 4 whole monsters in that fight, but I guess that’s why they ended up splitting two bad guys between teams instead.

On that note, they talk about how incredibly different the original 4 episodes of Volume 1 were compared to what we got, and that Fennec and Corsac were originally Volume 1 villains.

Just saying that I believe this. They said that Roman originally played a smaller part in Volume 1? How was this possible? Insert more villains.

On the origin of the Geist, Kerry talks about how, at the time Monty was working on the White trailer, he and Miles were thinking of ways for it to make sense, and came up with the idea of a poltergeist Grimm. They say that particular Geist is called an Armor Gigas.

So Weiss fought a Grimm in her trailer it turns out. Idk how to feel about that. In a way it makes sense because, as we’ve seen with Winter’s summons, the Schnee summons are light versions of Grimm. It makes little sense though when you consider that the Geist inhabits inanimate things and therefore the armor isn’t a natural feature of the Grimm.

The crown on Jaune’s shield was first inserted by layout artist Rachel Doda when creating the storyboards. Kerry thought it was a perfect touch and decided to include it in the official design.

Iunno what fatal flaw to focus on here. Is it how this makes it sound like Jaune’s god damn weapon model design was THAT important that Kerry noticed? That it implies melting Pyrrha’s armor down was a last-minute thought? That the plot hole of Pyrrha fucking disintegrating and therefore leaving no armor or cape for Jaune was made entirely because Kerry liked how a shield looked?

Chapter 2:

In regards to the infamous map, Kerry mentions that in one version of the script, RNJR was going to lose the map in a fight of some sort. A similar was also supposed to happen in Chapter 6 involving Tyrian, but decided against it because of how busy CRWBY already was.

So instead of losing it for a reason they just lose it for the sake of it. Cool.

According to Miles, Jaques is loosely based on Jack Frost, something they try to hint at in the way he keeps his study.

The name kind of gave it away without any other hints.

Kerry says that writing the final scene of chapter 2 was the first time he cried while writing. Likewise, Miles said he lost his shit while performing mocap for the scene. Apparently everyone who worked on it had a pretty strong emotional reaction to this scene.

Wow. The people working on this show were seriously so disillusioned that they thought Pyrrha’s relationship with Jaune earned that kind of reaction. Not even gonna mention how the existence of the recording makes no sense, especially since Pyrrha signs off on it. Why would she do that on a generic fighting guide. I can’t believe how attached these people were to the Alpha Hets.

Chapter 3:

On the topic of writing RWBY with multiple different storylines all taking place at the same time, Miles called it a ‘scary experiment’ but is happy overall with how it turned out.

I can’t say anything more than what’s been said on this.

I also have nothing to say on the technical stuff. I’m really not versed enough in it.

Miles talks about how they tried to have Salem feel a bit motherly, and not overly cruel, because she’s “better than that” and that she has a certain way of talking to each of her lieutenants.

She seemed pretty cruel to me lol. They need to have Salem do more before they announce these kinds of intentions, because now they’ve just given us a preconceived notion and they won’t have to write it that way.

Chapter 4:

Apparently Yang’s eye color was decided because of Taiyang’s and Raven’s eye colors. Red and Blue making purple.

This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.

Burnie is apparently very invested in voicing Taiyang, and takes it very seriously. He would go over the script with Miles and Kerry before recording sessions and they talk about how Burnie will listen to Yang’s lines and efforts, and try and make Taiyang’s similar, as a way of representing how Yang was influenced by her Father. It’s also mentioned that Joel is similar when it comes to portraying Oobleck.

Wow! Joel and Burnie, two voice acting veterans who formed RT, are invested in their roles? Don’t get too shocked by actors who actually try, guys!

When it came to naming all the villages in Anima, they wanted to keep the theme of Mistral being heavily inspired by Eastern influences, so they named villages after the Japanese names for certain flowers.

Blah blah magical mystical Asia land

Originally, the inn and the pub were the same building, but were separated when they couldn’t figure out how to fit Raven into the scene.

Can you imagine if we had to see RNJR somehow not notice Qrow like twenty feet away from them? Thank god he sat in that pub across the street.

Chapter 5:

Miles says he cried while writing Blake’s reunion with her parents, and that the Belladonna’s are some of his favorite characters.

I mean iunno that scene didn’t scream emotional to me but I also have daddy issues so

Fennec and Corsac, as mentioned earlier, were characters originally conceived pre Volume 1, being the 2nd and 3rd Faunus thought about after Blake.

Makes you wonder if by the time of their conception, Faunus were a thing or if Monty was just making up furry OC’s.

Chapter 6:

In the charity scene, Koen says that there are around 100 different, unique people in the room, each with differing clothing.

Jfc guys went kinda overboard there. Didn’t look like 100+ when I watched it.

When describing Henry Marigold to concept artist Erin Winn, Kerry told her to draw a ‘posery, imposter Neptune’.

That’s about what I guessed yep. Now is there a reason for it to be Neptune? To show that Weiss grew past her affection towards him? Or because it was the first person who came to mind? Who knows.

Tyrian’s jacket, despite being one of Kerry’s favorite design aspects, was a real hassle for the animators and the rigging team, so much so that he was animated without his jacket on, and then would add it afterwards.

I remember when capes were in Kingdom Hearts. Then they realized they were too much work so they removed them to avoid continuity errors and such. It was a smart and humble move, because the capes looked cool. I guess Tyrian’s jacket was just really that awesome though.

Chapter 7:

The original plan with Ozpin was to not reveal him as having anything to do with Oscar until the very end of the Volume.

Just gonna keep reminding us of that huh guys?

This episode was the first time proper reflections were used in a mirror in any Rooster Teeth production. Before they would simply fake it.

well that is a legitimately very interesting fact

When it came to Tyrian swearing, some thought went into whether they could get around it, originally having him say witch instead. Ultimately, Miles and Kerry decided it was the right time for things to get a bit more mature.

Best decision they ever made, thank god.

I love the idea of Miles being all modest and going “ah yes time to be mature.”

Chapter 8:

Miles says the whole campfire scene was probably the most difficult thing in the Volume to write, simply due to how much they needed to cover. Also, Kerry says more people worked on this scene than any other in the Volume.

The RWBY writers struggling with exposition?

The two brothers was Miles’ idea, and his first major contribution to the series, obviously one of the first parts of the show that was conceived.

And it was made known that Miles conceived one of the worst parts of the entire story. And he just copied it from a Grimm Tale.

Miles was the one who wrote the majority of Blake scenes in Volume 4. When she’s slapping Sun, Miles only intended it to be soft slaps on the shoulder, so he was quite surprised by the end result.

Isn’t this why you, like, direct your scenes? To avoid miscommunication like that?

Chapter 9:

Apparently there were several colour combinations the were tried with Ilia that “did not work”.

Apparently the animation crew’s passion is graphic design.

All the patches of mud on the ground were originally water puddles, but Kerry forgot that while the scene was being animated.

Again, directing.

Chapter 10:

In the scene with Nora being bullied, Miles jokes about that if you feel bad about it, those other kids likely died the next day. To follow that up, Kerry then mentions that they actually considered to have one of those kids lying face down on the ground in the background during the attack. Damn.

Idk how to feel about this but it is kind of disturbing that Miles would be so quick to make that joke.

According to Miles, they actually described Ren’s father in the script as “A handsome Hanzo looking motherfucker”.

guessed everyone who knows of overwatch’s existence

One of the ideas they had that didn’t make it into the episode involved Ren’s father going to see the mayor. Since he’s a hunter, and he had just returned from a hunt, Li was going to talk to the mayor about how they didn’t find any animals and it was almost as if they had been spooked away, and that they should get a Huntsman to come and investigate.

That probably would have made some sense.

According to Kerry, Jaune and Ruby’s moment was originally going to end with them hugging, but was cut due to time and Kerry not wanting people to “worry”.

So Lancaster gets shot down completely, cool. Cool thing of a creator to do. How dare we imply Ruby and Jaune are close after all they’ve been through.

Chapter 11:

Recording Tyrian’s efforts in this episode was a ton of fun according to Miles.

Yeah I bet Miles loved Tyrian.

Kerry’s “proudest accomplishment of this Volume” was having the photo of Whitely on Jacques’ desk be face down after Ironwood slams down on it.

Cool?

Kerry talks about Sun’s abs (as you do) and actually reveals that, contrary to popular belief, they didn’t remove them, but instead Sun’s model was made to be more muscular and they would be picked up by lighting and shadows instead.

Pretty sure Sun’s torso is a tube with the new models.

Chapter 12:

When talking about the fight, it’s mentioned there were several different versions of it. They don’t go into detail, but Kerry does mention that Qrow was originally supposed to do something, but Miles reminds him it’s something they can’t talk about.

God, what is left for Qrow to reveal? We got his weapon’s forms, his Semblance, his transforming thing, what else? Tbh my bet’s on Ozpin’s cane. They planned for him to use the cane but decided against it because of their artifact bullshit.

#rwde

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psyga315 · 5 years

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With Volume 7 just beyond the horizon, I figured to look back at my thoughts for Volume 5 and, through more cooled down eyes, boil down why I consider it to be the worst volume of RWBY. When I wrote my review of Volume 5, it was literally the night the episode premiered, so I was boiling. But now? I’m going to look through the review with fresher eyes and clarify what sort of problems I had with RWBY. First, a bit of backstory. There was an interview made during the summer in between Volumes 4 & 5 that had the cast say what sort of themes one could expect for Volume 5. Among these were stuff like “building yourself back up again”, “shouting ‘we’re not done here!’”, “solving problems on your own”, and lastly, from Barbara herself, “Strength” and “Growth”. For someone who was just starting to realize why people were turned off by the darkness of Volume 3, this was uplifting to say the least… The Character Shorts kinda hyped the Volume, though they sunk in their own way. Weiss’s Character Short effectively foreshadowed her loss to Vernal. This tough and talented girl gets her ass stomped rather quickly and needed to be bailed out. Winter’s line about how she “won’t be around to save her” was foreshadowing to her not actually being in the season, but when I first heard it, I thought she meant “Hey, I’m going to die this volume, lol!” and that’s without bringing up how the trailer fails to hype Weiss up like the other trailers did. Blake’s Trailer was alright, especially in taking steps to address a problem regarding Menagerie, but it felt more like Ilia given the backstory dump we got that feels all the more like mandatory reading. The problem is that, and it’s perhaps the very first problem I’ve heard about RWBY, is that the trailers (and by extension, anything that’s a spin off of RWBY like World of Remnant) feel more like you need to watch this rather than you can watch this. It’s confusing, but let’s use Blake’s Short as an example.

Lastly, there’s Yang’s short, which had the minor hiccup of contrasting what an interview said about running out of Aura means you can’t use your Semblance. The Aura thing is something that can be discussed for another day, but the basics you should take away from this is that, for some time, people didn’t know how running out of Aura is symbolized. Most people take the flickering as the signal as the next hit on those guys are usually the one that does them in. As such, you had this huge debate on what kind of flickering means Aura broken and what just meant Aura is low, which, personally, could have been avoided if the writers and/or animators just utilized that Aura dust thing (seen prominently in the Bumblebee vs Adam fight) as their definitive “aura broken” animation instead of just using it some of the time. The first episode proper promised a lot. In fact, a good chunk of the first half promised a lot. However, it became much clear in a second viewing that a lot of it was just padding at worst and showing us where the characters are at best. But what I think was done dirty the most in this episode was introducing Mistral. We were hyped in Volume 4 (thanks to World of Remnant) that Mistral was this dichotomy of rich, cultural people and the seedy underbelly of criminals and that, at least one of the elements would be utilized in Volume 5. Unfortunately, all we got were a few mat paintings that contrast what Lionheart was saying in regards to Mistral being in chaos. And so, the most we get out of Mistral are those mat paintings and a perpetually raining downtown that we don’t see much of, even when it gets briefly revisited in Volume 6. We’re supposed to be invested in the city and yet all we get are empty rooms and 2D art. They took great steps to improve this in Volume 6 with Argus, though, so if there’s any consolation, it’s that they learned from their mistakes here. But we now get into the biggest problem of why Volume 5 is disliked. Because of the situation, the group are left to basically wait until Lionheart convinces the council to get them some Huntsmen. The heroes. Wait. In a volume where the writers were talking about the themes of improving yourself and pulling through with your own strength. Do you guys see the problem here? I know people have bitched about Volume 5 to hell and back and you’ve probably heard the complaints to high noon, but this entire issue is what rots Volume 5 to the core the most. Not the piss poor fight scenes, not the inconsistent characterizations, it’s that the plotting decides to take a back seat when the volume was meant to be about taking action. As the episode goes on, you see the problem unfold. Ruby and friends hit a dead end until Oscar appears and has Ozpin exposit things to them, Weiss is denied a chance to save people and fight the Grimm until the Grimm come to her, Blake is hit with the dead end of the Albains deflecting blame, and Yang had the chance encounter with Bakugou where he knows the hideout of her mom. The closest person who is taking action here is Yang, who established that she is actively looking for Ruby (technically Raven, but as we see later on, moot point). Blake’s situation is being handled by her dad, Weiss is sitting in the plane until the Grimm come for her, and Ruby is sitting on the couch that I’m pretty sure has her grooves molded into the cushion with how many times she’s sat there. A minor complaint before we go to Episode 2, we had the Stinger repeat itself because the crew thought that people wouldn’t see the stingers. This is the show, mind you, that makes a point to include scenes at the end of every volume, regardless of how long they are or what point they serve in hyping the next Volume. Hell, one of the major complaints about Volume 2 was about the stinger not mattering. So why did they suddenly decide that the viewers might not see the stinger in a culture where the MCU exists? Alright, cooling things down, we have three major scenes in Episode 2. Salem’s chat with Lionheart was meh at best and wtf at worst. I get the idea of Salem using different approaches to get people to do what she wants, but the cool aspect of Salem was that her approach was not what a villain would normally be. Instead of berating or choking her minions should they fail or talk back, Salem instead talks people down like she’s a mother to them. Even when Tyrian fails, she doesn’t hurt him, but rather tell him that he disappointed her. So, having her choke Lionheart, even when in hindsight it made some sense, is kinda an odd thing to do. But not as odd as Salem’s whole “Not you, Arthur” bit. A lot of people drew points to that and the best I can explain is that it’s either a typo (she’s meant to say not yet or not now) or Arthur and Watts are some sort of Jekyll & Hyde thing. Unfortunately, it seems Watts is more a parallel to Watson rather than Jekyll, so that brings me to believe that it’s a typo and so, rather than have an easy explanation for a problem, we just have a compounded problem. One of many. And there’s something funny to be said about Salem warning Cinder about Silver Eyes when Ruby barely learns about it this Volume. And also that she wants to speak with Tyrian but we never see what comes of it. At all. I only have one new thing about Weiss vs. the Bees. Originally, the pilot was supposed to be gay, but held off on it because they’d be killing off their first revealed gay character, something that wouldn’t look good to the fanbase. Now, while I understand the reason behind it, I have to question the logic behind why they think it isn’t okay for their first LGBT character to be offed, but instead be someone who seemed okay with murdering her crush’s parents while sending said crush to her abuser. But more on that later, we have Sienna to discuss. Now, there’s a lot to dissect. For one, RT has obviously realized that they’ve messed up and brought Sienna back for a bit (while taking the heat for “if she’s so badass, why did she go out like a chump”). However, in hindsight, what purpose did she actually serve outside of some cute nod to Shere Khan? All she did was tell Adam that he’s going too far and that’s it. And really, it just seems hypocritical for the leader of the White Fang to effectively restructure the organization into a terrorist group, murder tons of people, and then suddenly back away and say “woah, too much” when Adam proceeded to help torch Beacon. It’s to the point where one question most people want to ask at cons is “did Sienna order the hit out on the SDC”, since we don’t actually know and that it could be a radical leader of that quadrant like Adam. It felt more like Sienna should have been just the leader of Mistral’s White Fang faction instead of ruling over all the White Fang, which would make more sense as Adam would need permission to attack a kingdom that isn’t his stomping ground. Then there’s the introduction of Hazel, who at first is presented to be a pretty decent character, not wanting to kill people if he had no choice, but as time goes on, is basically your stock “big soft guy with a secret hulk side” character. Unfortunately, this episode didn’t help enforce the theme of taking action when it’s the villains who are doing it and seeming to be two if not twenty steps ahead of the heroes. Episode 3 has that whole speech thing I overlooked. Barring Ghira’s speech that the crew said is based off Obama’s “we killed Osama” speech (which, if it is, paints the whole situation of Sienna’s death in a rather dark light) before Ilia interferes. Now, I actually liked that Menagerie is hesitant to stand up for Haven. After all, humans hated their guts so much that the island was originally planned to be a place where people could dump Faunus on. There were lynchings and enslavements that are still going on to this day, just in subtler forms, Of course the Faunus wouldn’t want to fight. Then Ilia swoops in and robs Blake of any agency she has with the scene. If RT wanted to not let Blake convince the people until three quarters to the end, they should have cut the subtlety and have some annoying kid go “IT’S TOO EARLY IN THE PLOT TO DO YOUR SPEECH!”. Hell, let Blake tell her story about her team, but the audience balks at the fact that she’s not only friends with a Schnee, but also a human who crippled a guy on live television. Remember that plot point? We then cut to Oscar and this is perhaps the reason I decided to do this revisit of Volume 5. The way Ozpin talks of action and resolve, it felt like we’re going to the root of the themes of taking action. No more being subject to the events of the plot like in previous Volumes. Now? Now is the time to fight back! And that built up to… what? One training scene and Ruby learning headbutt? Granted, we see later on that there was a bit more to the plan, but for the most part, it seemed like an excuse for “character growth” as opposed to actual character growth. A training arc isn’t just some short scenes of a person lifting weights and jogging up stairs. Its meant to be a sort of means of growth for the character. There’s a reason most training montages have the character suck at first, but then get better by the time the montage ends. It’s because it’s the quickest way to show growth. But even without that, you could get some serious mileage for a pulled off training arc. Rocky IV and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back have some good examples of it. Rocky IV had the titular hero train and work out in the middle of a cold, mountainous range, while his opponent is simply given steroids. It shows the dichotomy between the two and how they view their eventual fight. Empire, on the other hand, had that masterful scene with Luke in the cave, where he has a huge moment of both foreshadowing and character growth. Here? We just have Ruby learn headbutt like she’s nothing more than a Pokemon. There could have been a lot more done with it, like having Ruby put a lot more force in her punches, causing others to realize she’s extremely angry about what happened to Pyrrha and Penny, or, if the need to exposit about Semblances is needed, bring something new to the table that isn’t going to confuse the fuck out of people… Something like: “Your Semblance might not reveal itself until you need it most” or something like that. Not “A semblance is someone’s personality, but not. Wow! Exposition!” or “Hey, remember how we said Aura was passive? Welp, not anymore!” Not to mention that Jaune is seemingly cool with Ozpin suddenly coming back from the dead. Here’s the thing, last Volume had him upset with Ozpin about what happened to Pyrrha, something that didn’t seemed to resolve itself. Keep in mind that, for all rights and merits, Jaune believed Ozpin to have died. In fact, it was that confirmation that Ozpin had lost against Cinder that convinced Pyrrha to kill herself. Now here he is, seemingly stuck in the body of another kid and he just outright said this is a normal thing for him. You’d expect him to have something more than “golly!”. The fact that he didn’t seem to have any aggression towards Ozpin until after he ran to his hidey hole in Volume 6 seems rather odd given that his entire character is that he’s angsting about Pyrrha and angry at Cinder for what she did. The group seem rather content to just sit back and let the plot happen, which is the opposite of what the crew was trying to convey with their themes. I still stand by what I said regarding how Episode 4 was a good episode, finally having a reunion between two members of Team RWBY, but it’s perhaps one of the last good things about RWBY we’ll ever see in Volume 5. Because Raven’s promise to tell Yang “the whole truth” turns out to just be regurgitated exposition at worst. But first, we need to have Blake, the woman who doesn’t want her race to be labeled, turn out to have labels for her friends. Okay, granted, it’s not that dumb but it is kinda patronizing that we need to have a character tell us what another character is. While the rest of her speech is pretty effective in defining Blake’s character, making her perhaps the only character these themes of growth and strength actually apply to, it still is annoying that the most we take away out of this is her boiling down every character to a single word, then bringing up how Adam is going to ruin everything for the Faunus. You’ll see why this is a problem later. I liked the setting of Menagerie’s Shallow Sea marketplace thing and felt like Menagerie is wasted potential. Ruby’s whole speech still feels like damage control, but with the added complaint of Ruby deciding to blame Salem for something Cinder did. Now, I heard the common excuse a lot: “Salem told Cinder to do it so it’s all her fault”, but that problem with that? Cinder told Emerald to kill Penny. So… Yeah. It is her fault. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded this if Ruby didn’t word it like Salem personally killed Penny and Pyrrha. Like as in, she just up and appeared out of nowhere and shot both Penny and Pyrrha in the head. It still doesn’t fix the fact that Ruby is basically “hey, remember how I’m supposed to be upset?” Lastly for Episode 5, we have the White Fang do the brilliant plant of murdering the chieftain who just spoke out against them. It’s dumb. Extremely dumb. What the hell do they think will happen after they murder the chieftain in cold blood? Menagerie is just gonna magically bend over and obey the White Fang? But perhaps the biggest waste is the White Fang in general. You have these two sneaky fox brothers who seemingly oversee everything and even state that they’re only letting Adam do what he wants until he’s no longer of use to them, a buff bat dude, and a spider-lady… And they’re never seen again after this Volume. I get the idea, because RT is trying to wrap up the Faunus subplot as quickly as possible, but the problem that you can’t exactly introduce new characters or hidden depths if you’re just gonna throw them out with the bath water. If they wanted to end the subplot, why did they put all the effort in some random characters that are just gonna be defeated off screen with a tea tray? Then again, this is a problem endemic to RWBY. Introduce this character, then quickly shoo them away before you’re committed to writing a plot for them. If you know you were going to half-ass the White Fang conclusion, why bother with stuff like more White Fang members or the SDC brand? In fact, why bother with the White Fang to begin with if you’re going to do so little with them? Moving on before I lose my cool, we have Qrow aimlessly walking around downtown Mistral. Now, the crew said that Maria was supposed to be here… But… Why? What purpose would she serve? If she’s just gonna be a “hey, look, cameo to foreshadow Volume 6”, then that’s a horrible purpose. You know how most Cinematic Universes tanked because they spent more time hyping the next twenty movies when they should focus on their pilot? That’s what she would have been like. Not to mention that she would have been caught in the crossfire of why Volume 5 was bad. “So here we have this random old lady who doesn’t matter at all to the plot so why is she even there” and then “Oh wow, she’s a SEW. They’re doing damage control to justify her unneeded presence in Volume 5”. And, don’t get me wrong, Maria is a fun lady and all that, but there needs to be a reason she was there beyond “hype for next Volume”. What makes the problem worse was that they’re planning to include Maria so as to have a sort of Yoda to teach Ruby. This makes the complaint of “why didn’t Ruby ask about the Silver Eyes” even more of a complaint because now it seems like they decided “hey, we’re going to address it next volume, so let’s not bother bringing it up here”. Which is even worse than “hey, people noticed we didn’t address this so let’s completely invent this character for the sole purpose of addressing it!” And then there’s Raven who is all “lol, I know more than you realize but I’m not actually gonna answer anything trolololololol” AARHG! Okay. Okay. Before I completely lose my marbles, there’s one thing about the scene with Raven that’s stupid. It’s the “there’s no such thing as magic” thing. Okay. I get it. Turning into a bird is something that, in the world of RWBY, seems impossible. But there’s a ton of problems with this: 1. What makes summoning dead Grimm to fight for you so much more different than magic? 2. You’re willing to believe in magic rocks that augment your fighting style and are in fact part of a company that profits off magic rocks, yet turning into a bird is the messed up thing? 3. The guy who gave her this ability is currently inhabiting the body of a young boy and has said to basically devour his soul in due time, as well as create the magic that’s responsible for torching your school and your friend… And the BIRD is the most messed up thing!? “But Raven made it sound like she was forced into it”. She didn’t seem to have any fucking problem with it though. Not only that, but it didn’t seem like a big dark secret that Ozpin wouldn’t want uncovered. In fact, he even said he gave Qrow and Raven the ability to turn into birds in an amused way. Even more so when everyone but Yang seemed to respond to it with disbelief rather than outright anger. There’s a reason this whole bird issue was made fun of in Jello’s “So This is Basically RWBY” video. Also, before we move onto Episode 7, I wanna bring up that the scene where Qrow visits the Shields is perhaps the reason why I hold Ozpin’s censorship of Lionheart’s role in the Battle of Haven to be one of the most scumbag moves he could have made. “Your mom’s dead, but don’t worry, the guy who sold her out is a hero!” Right, back to Episode 7. Okay, I’ll admit, it was a nice reunion scene all things considered, albeit with some rather unnerving things like Yang asking Weiss if she let the Boarbatusk skewer the trophy wife or even the dumb, patronizing “we haven’t made character arcs for us to go through so I’ll just say we had some”, since they had the great idea to use Ren, who is voiced by Monty’s brother, as the mouthpiece for that. Unfortunately, this is the episode I always think back to when I think of Volume 5. The perfect epitome of a slow, monotonous Volume. The problem I have is that, yeah, it’s meant to be this breather episode, a calm before the storm, but this just feels like a long lull that’s made even more insulting with the cliffhanger. All it has is people dumping exposition that viewers have either figured out or weren’t even burning questions and I think the awkward silence that followed Ozpin saying how he was the wizard that gave the Maidens his power is the perfect epitome for just how boring the volume is. The dude just revealed a massive plot twist and it’s treated as nothing more than a “did you know” factoid. While I liked how they addressed that Blake leaving Yang would have had some serious negative emotions in Yang, it felt rather half-assed that they basically resolved it with “hey, my mom’s drunk, so shut up and accept Blake the moment she comes back”, especially since it comes from Weiss, who told Blake at the end of Volume 1 that if she ever runs away again, she best let RWBY know. If they wanted to ship Bumblebee so badly, this would have been a great hurdle for them to come across instead of just “hey, let me resolve this plot for you”. Now, the whole thing with Ilia… Let’s get the elephant out of the way. The way they revealed her sexuality, I feel, could have been done better. “You wanna know why I’m gonna kill your parents and bring you to your abuser? Because I wanted you to look at me like a lover!” There’s a reason why some fans label her as a “psycho lesbian”. However, I want to bring up that Rooster Teeth did an excellent job at building tension during the climax of the Menagerie Arc. Sure, the cliffhangers were tiresome, but you couldn’t help but admit you were at the edge of your seat and it even did a good job at subversion. Even if they allegedly didn’t even intend for it to happen. The constant dryness of exposition and dialogue exchanges is what made Episode 10 so much better than the other episodes. Not just because it’s action-orientated, but because it finally tries to get back to the themes that it was originally supposed to tell. Throughout the entirety of the middle portion of Volume 5, the group basically took a backseat and allowed characters and plots to happen to them rather than advocate for themselves. The closest thing we got to the theme of “building yourself back up” is Weiss talking to Yang about Blake. In fact, the only actual characters taking action are the villains. Constantly roadblocking the cast, setting them in for a trap, and even aiming to screw each other over. These guys have more advocacy and agency than the main characters. The most any of them did was… 1. Burn down their own house and blamed everyone else for it, all while saying that the house is the message Adam wants to send. 2. Use a girl’s unrequited feelings towards them to their advantage, straddle them, and guilt tripped her enough for her to consider switching sides. 3. Cry about how things are not going their way until their hands start magically glowing. 4. Yelling at someone until they cry bitch tears and then have them run away without even bothering to close the door leading to the dangerous artifact everyone had been working so hard to keep out of enemy hands. In the volume where the theme is “solving problems on our own”. Just because Yang drops the word strength a few times when bitching out at Raven doesn’t mean that the theme had been accomplished. In fact, they do nothing of their own accord and just follow a script. Even Ozpin, the supposed smartest guy in all of Remnant, doesn’t even bother to figure out a way to counter the trap. Just instead walk in. Hell, if Yang didn’t spot Raven, they’d be mulched. But, back on track. Episode 9 was an entire waste that failed to pay off the expectations of what we had with the cliffhanger set up in Episode 7. “But it subverted your ex-” NO. There’s a good way to subvert expectations and being promised a fight after episodes of bland exposition only to have it be “lol, no, it’s just gonna be more talking” is not a good subversion. No. Here’s a better way. Set up the cliffhanger like normal, but don’t show Cinder’s dragged out negotiation with Raven. Instead, have her “allying” with Cinder be a twist. That way, people’s expectations for what happened are actually, you know, subverted? But, you know where this is leading to… The Battle of Haven. Really, I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been covered by someone else. We all know it makes all the Vytal fights look like masterpieces by comparison, we all know the jokes about useless Weiss or Lionheart hogging the staircase, or even the plot holes of Raven knowing Cinder’s arm being Grimm but doing nothing about it or Blake, despite spending the past volume saying how Adam must be stopped, suddenly doesn’t care about him… So let me cut it simply: The reason this battle sucks might have to do with the crunch. We don’t know how long this issue with Rooster Teeth had been going on for, but if it is indeed what people say it is and that animators don’t get paid for the last quarter or third of their work, then that might explain all the cut corners animators and writers made. Why the fights are broken up into one on ones or why fights are cut out entirely. Maybe they weren’t getting paid enough and thus, the quality of RWBY suffered as a result of it. And that’s perhaps the shittiest thing about the Battle of Haven. It could have been this epic fight that would have made up for all the boring, drawn out scenes of exposition and chatting, but because Rooster Teeth got too greedy or even because of our own impatience (which, again, isn’t helped by the aforementioned long, drawn out scenes), we are treated to a final battle so broken and tiresome that the Battle of Winterfell manages to be a better final battle, with the only thing holding it back being that Haven had a better identity twist. And if, for whatever reason, it isn’t due to crunch issues, then we have another problem. This was meant to be this hyped up rematch between the heroes and villains, who haven’t seen each other since the latter ruined the lives of the former. This would have been excellent to see how the killers of Jaune and Ruby’s friends would interact with them, how Yang would react to the person who framed her, even how the group had grown since their last battle… But… if crunch wasn’t to blame for the quality dip and the writers intended for the fight to go the way it went… I have to say… What the fuck were they thinking!? So many moments could have been brought up here and yet they decided that they weren’t important enough to focus on! And now, with this battle over and done with, those moments lost their luster. If they decide to bring them up, it’d be too little, too late at best and “why the fuck are you bringing this up now” at worst. I’ll deal with one commonly used example to get what I mean. Adam was established in Volume 3 to be a threat only made strong because he uses Blake’s emotions against her and has a Semblance that lets him dish out aura-breaking damage. Blake easily defeats Adam and has him on the ropes, only to let him run with a few excuses that some people have debated to death and back, when it would have been much easier for Blake to have to choose between apprehending Adam and helping Yang. Then, when he inevitably returns to haunt Blake next volume, suddenly he’s a threat that Blake is afraid of again despite Blake having “grown” to oppose him. They wanted that “triumph” over him, but realize that by doing so, they’ve burned that opportunity to have the triumph be meaningful. Same goes with Emerald and Mercury. They had a good opportunity for Ruby to effectively call them out for their crimes like how Jaune did to Cinder, but instead she just headbutts Mercury. Yang had at least some closure on her arc with Mercury, but it was meh. Hell, speaking of wasted opportunities, the reunion of Team RWBY, something that the opening had hyped and one that the fans had been waiting for since Volume 3 ended, is nothing more than an afterthought. They couldn’t even be assed to show Blake’s first fight back with Ruby and Weiss. That’s how little they cared. It’s like everyone was just wanting to get that paycheck but they needed to rush that final episode out the door and also need to make room for Gen:Lock and Nomad trailers. They didn’t even care about the stinger, as they basically ignored any sort of information relating to the stinger. Perhaps the biggest reason why Volume 5 sucked so hard was that it was running off the heels of Volume 3. Everyone basically accepted that Volume 4 was meant to be a breather Volume, with lower stakes and lower drama (with the exception of possible death flags for Ren and Nora), but the moment they made Volume 5 the grudge match everyone wanted, then the stakes got raised back to the heights of the third Volume, only for it to fail to live up to the expectations. Sorry, I think I mean to say “subvert the expectations” in this day and age. Though, I think the huge problem with all of this, and perhaps the biggest bottom line I can say, is that it might be due to Volume 3 going too over the edge. By killing important characters and even dividing the team, the villains had raised stakes up so high, that people began to take the show more seriously. When characters were vaguely hinted to die, be it through threats from the villains or even flashbacks, people fretted that they would die. When the villains go back to striking distance with the heroes, people desired a grand battle. When the show tried to deal with the ramifications that happened with RWBY separating, people wanted to know what was going through the characters’ heads. And when Volume 5 failed to deliver/“subverted their expectations”, people considered it a bad volume. But worst of all, it failed to live up to its own themes. Jaune was the only person to build himself back up again through deus ex hands, and we saw next Volume that it needed a statue for him to feel better. No one was in a position of giving up only to be defiant and shout “we’re not done here”, but instead cry “it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”. The big problem of Volume 5, make sure the relic is secure, is only solved because two characters had a catfight in the basement and the survivor didn’t bother to lock up because their daughter was too busy bitching at her. No one really grew or strengthened their resolve. The triumph… wasn’t theirs to have. Although, it seems Rooster Teeth had learned from their mistakes, with Volume 6 being leaps and bounds better than Volume 5, regardless of what you thought of the latter half. Best of all, the themes promised in Volume 5 were shown prominently in Volume 6, albeit some of the scenes capitalizing on those themes feeling more like a child is having a tantrum because they couldn’t have the airplane. To close out this rather long winded discussion, and to give people a tl;dr on the whole matter, Volume 5 failed to address the themes it had presented and instead just padded itself out, expecting people to accept it because it’s RWBY.

#RWBY #RWDE #CRTQ

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