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Yang Xiao Long - A True Defender

Yang Xiao Long is one of the titular characters of RWBY and, since her inception, has been one of the most popular characters in the series for a variety of reasons. I, for one, was interested in Yang immediately; her personality, character design, fighting style, and general way she carries herself are all things that appealed to me on many levels. In fact, if I were to attribute my initial interest in RWBY to any one character or element, I would probably attribute it to Yang. Part of me doubts I would have been interested in RWBY if not for her, she was that strong a hook for me.

This will be me talking about several points I wanted to talk about in regards to the character, any criticisms I have had to how the character is written, and where I think the character will be taken in the future.

 “I’m more than meets the eye”

Yang is a character who, at first glance, may seem easy to figure out; she’s a bombastic blonde, rough-and-tumble brawler, with a sunny disposition. She may come off as brutish and maybe even a little airheaded as girls of her appearance are generally stereotyped as. She even has an ahoge (the cowlick) which is typically translated to “idiot hair” in Japan and jokingly given to characters that are perceived to not be very smart. Yang has also been called a bimbo in the series, to my recollection more than once.

However, Yang does display surprising levels of emotional maturity when the time comes for it. I say this not only due to having to help hold her house together at a young age to take care of her sister Ruby, but also for how she treats her peers. When Blake is obsessing to the point of self-destruction over the White Fang, it is not her fellow Faunus Sun that is able to make her see reason, despite having already fought the White Fang with her multiple times, but it is rather Yang. Yang knows exactly what to say and how to say it to make Blake come back to her senses, when nobody else could.

Her sunny disposition didn’t last forever, however. From Volume 4 onward, Yang began to develop a colder, more cynical side to her personality. Not that she never experiences levity anymore, nor that she never had moments of seriousness before, but her general attitude surrounding certain topics had hardened significantly. I do not believe that this change in her was solely due to losing her arm. Blake’s leaving, and the emotional toll of her confrontation with Raven (and their after-effects), I both believe to be contributors to this as well. Realizing the depths of Ozpin’s secrets in Volume 6, and that Raven’s worldview (which Yang tried vehemently denying when they first met) may be more correct than she originally gave her credit for, likely contribute to it as well.

With a general overview done, I’ll get into more specific things I wanted to talk about Yang as a character.

 The Meaning of Strength

What does it mean to be strong? Does it mean simply to be the strongest fighter? Does it mean to be able to lord over others? Does it mean to simply survive? A strong underlying theme shared between Yang, and a number of characters she has opposed over the series (Adam, Raven, and even Mercury), is this question in particular. I think what sets these characters up as foils ultimately, is how they choose to answer this question rather than any outlying connection. Adam and Yang both having strong ties to Blake isn’t the only thing that sets them up as enemies, this is as well.

Yang is an incredibly strong fighter. She’s incredibly strong physically in general, even. However, I do not believe that these are what make Yang strong, and I think Yang’s character arc will largely be about realizing this. Yang can see weakness in others who perceive themselves as strong, she calls out both Raven and Adam for it on separate occasions, but she rarely if ever refers to herself as being strong.

I feel that what makes Yang strong, more than anything, is her drive to defend those she loves, to any end. No matter who she has to face down, no matter how broken she is, Yang will stare down any foe and pay any price to defend the people she loves. She’ll throw herself into the jaws of a monster to save her sister. She’ll accept grievous injury in order to save her partner. Even scaring Raven away and taking the Relic is, in a way, protecting her; accepting the Relic paints Yang as a target rather than her mother, and in that one moment Yang was stronger than Raven had ever been for accepting that burden. The words “I’m scared, but I’m still standing here” encapsulate Yang to a T, if you consider her from this angle, since strength of this nature is not about being invincible.

I believe Yang will reach the peak of her character when she fully realizes, and accepts what it means to be strong. The manner in which may even result in her death, since I do think that if any of the main four characters were to die in a climatic moment, it would be appropriate thematically for it to be Yang; for a character who gives her all to defend those she loves, to give everything else in order to do so.

 Ozpin and a Moral Compass

An interesting point that came up for Yang occurred in Volume 6. Upon learning that the Relic attracts Grimm, Yang gets angry at Ozpin, lashing out at him, accusing him of going back on his word of “no more secrets” (which is admittedly a valid accusation). However, Yang does this while, presumably, having never told Ozpin or the others about Raven’s identity as the Spring Maiden. This did cause a bit of controversy around her character. Some have called this hypocrisy, that Yang will criticize Ozpin for withholding secrets but keep this secret as well.

Let me begin by saying that it is not clear if the writers intended to create this potential plot thread. It would not be the first time they have unintentionally done something like this; people criticized Sun in Volume 4 for being a bad team leader for presumably just abandoning them so that he could go around chasing Blake for months on end, and they even referenced this with a throwaway line when he met up with Neptune again in Volume 6. This leads me to believe that portraying Sun in this way wasn’t intentional, as it may not be now. There is also the chance that everyone was just informed offscreen that Raven is the Spring Maiden. I would dislike this, but, again, it wouldn’t be the first time major info was divulged offscreen, with Jaune knowing who Yang’s mother was without anybody ever telling him.

However, if it is intentional, I think that this potential hypocrisy can have an interesting light on Yang as a character. It is similar to Steve Rogers, or Captain America; a man who constantly took the moral high ground when arguing with Tony Stark, but still saw fit to hide the fact that Bucky killed Stark’s parents from him in order to protect his best friend. Yang would be basically doing the same thing; revealing that Raven is the Spring Maiden would paint a potential target on her back, not just for anyone who finds out but for Ozpin as well, who may wish to have the powers returned to somebody he has more control over, even Yang herself or one of her teammates. Since she does not fully trust Ozpin at this time, she does not wish to share something like this with him for this reason. This is not to say it is the good, or moral thing to do, but it is what she is electing to do based on protecting somebody she cares about and not being as open with Ozpin as she criticizes him for not being in kind.

There also are the points that Yang only blew up at Ozpin like this after one of his secrets nearly killed them all, that the Spring Maiden’s identity is irrelevant since even if they knew it was Raven they don’t know where she is, also that Haven is currently defenseless due to Lionheart murdering all the Huntsmen, but these are all aside the point that she ultimately still chose to do it, in my opinion.

If this is intended, I believe that this highlights a self-righteous streak within Yang, as well as a codependent need to defend those she loves at any cost, even when it is arguably not morally right to do so since Raven has done nothing to earn any kind of protection from Yang; Yang may simply wish to due to the attachment for the woman who birthed her and, judging from Raven’s actions in Volume 5, may still have some kind of attachment to her daughter despite her posturing. These are what can easily be considered character flaws, which are important for a character to have otherwise they come off as too perfect, which is just as bad as being severely flawed. This is actually an issue I have with some characters in the series personally, but that is best left for another time.

 Powerlevels and getting stronger

Powerlevels are a topic in nearly any action anime out there, RWBY being no exception. However, for Yang, I think the discussion takes on a more literal sense in her progression as a fighter.

Yang’s main power is that she can use damage to increase her strength and speed significantly, entering a glowing powered-up form as she does. In fact, her first character song (I Burn) outright refers to her as a Super Saiyan. So it’s not really a stretch to assume that Yang was inspired by some extent by Goku and the Saiyans from Dragon Ball Z. One thing DBZ is kind of infamous for, in this vein, is the introduction of powerlevels and how they would dictate the outcomes of many fights, or how “the bigger number always wins”.

This is reflected in more than a few of Yang’s early fights; when she found herself outmatched in skill (Mercury in Volume 3), out-muscled (the Paladin), or found herself succumbing to a carefully-laid out strategy (Flynt and Neon), Yang was always able to just up her powerlevel and overwhelm the opponent with superior strength and speed. This continued up until she first met Adam. I’ve expressed my grievances with this encounter in the past, but the intent and outcome of this scene for Yang is very clear and more than acceptable; that she finally met somebody who she couldn’t beat through raw power alone (some will bring up Neo, but Yang never actually used her semblance against Neo).

It is for this reason that I think that Yang’s progression as a fighter is meant to somewhat be the antithesis of this inspiration in her design. Yang’s training arc in Volume 4 was not about getting stronger, or “upping her powerlevel to a bigger number”, it was about getting smarter and more skilled. She has yet to learn new or more powerful abilities like Ruby or Weiss, but rather has simply learned to use what she currently has better. It is a subversion of how you typically expect a character to get stronger in most shonen anime, especially in ones that Yang was clearly inspired by. Deku has a literal stat he can upgrade as he gets stronger in terms of the percentage of One for All he can control, Yang does not have that.

Does this mean that I don’t think Yang will get straight power boosts in the future? Not necessarily. Yang’s semblance has shown to be the only one of the main four to not evolve in any significant way yet, and there is the very real possibility that she will inherit the powers of the Spring Maiden from her mother, since many speculate that Raven will not survive to the end of the series. However, her most major increase in strength thus far was not even an increase in strength, which I think deserves some praise from a writing standpoint.

  “She’s just Fanservice”

A criticism I’ve seen regarding Yang more than once is that she just exists to be fanservice for the audience; that she’s there to win her fights and show how “cool” she is, be physically attractive, and get touchy-feely with others (in this case mostly Blake) for shippers. This is a criticism I have seen emerging a bit more with the end of Volume 6, with how much spectacle she had in her fight against Adam.

Yang is not the first character of her nature that I have seen criticized in this matter. Bakugo Katsuki from My Hero Academia, and Levi Ackerman from Attack on Titan are two other prominent examples of people criticizing them for this. However, I feel that just labeling these characters this way is an easy way for people who don’t like them to write off their popularity, since I don’t think any of these characters exist to simply be fanservice.

Are there fanservice elements to Yang as a character? Absolutely, I don’t think this criticism came out of nowhere. Are there people who like her just for the elements I’ve listed and may even be frustrated when she’s being portrayed as more than that? Yes, I won’t deny that. I’m sure out of the myriad of Yang fans out there, there are at least a couple that fall into this archetype. Yang’s personality and character design, like Bakugo and Levi, has inherent wide appeal, which attracts a wide crowd. She also is, for lack of better terms, both “waifuable” and “shippable”, just like the characters I am comparing her to. Yang is currently the most popular character in RWBY fanfiction on Archive of our Own, and I do not think that this is by chance.

Do I believe that this makes Yang merely a “fanservice character”, or a character who exists only to make the audience clap and cheer? No, I do not, and I think that Yang does serve an important role in the story.

I believe that Yang’s purpose in the story is to, more than anything, be the pillar of strength in the group. When Maria says that somebody in the group is stronger than she was already, everyone looks to Yang, her clearly being the first person they all think of when they consider a strong individual. When Yang is left broken and defeated by Adam, it is treated with the same severity of Pyrrha, another major character, having her life come to a tragic end. When Yang is down and defeated, it almost always corresponds with a low point for the protagonists as a whole.

I believe having a character like Yang, someone who has the fortitude to be there and strive to win no matter what, can be important in a story, even if she’s not at the emotional center of every conflict she takes part in (although in some cases I think she should be, but we’ll get to that). She’s a character who I think plays well into RWBY’s theme of “Keep moving forward”, whose resolve evolves as the story does. For that reason, I do not think that it is fair to write off Yang as “just a fanservice character”.

  My own Criticisms

If I had to criticize one thing in regards to Yang’s writing as a character, it would probably be the lack of focus placed on her in many scenes. Yang should, by all rights, be one of the most developed characters in RWBY, but many elements of her are rarely given the time they need to truly shine as bright as they can. This is mostly due to a combination of the writers sometimes focusing on other things, and the show’s runtimes in general being erratic.

She was hardly even in Volume 1 to the point where she wasn’t even in the climax, she got a bit more spotlight in Volume 2 but that was short-lived, she got a decent amount of focus in the latter half of Volume 3, her screentime was wonky in Volume 4, and in Volume 5 nearly every conversation she has becomes about somebody besides herself (Raven, Blake, etc). Even in Volume 6, when she finally encounters Adam again, the two do not focus much on each other characterwise at all, but rather how they relate to Blake. I hate using this word as of late, since with a certain other character’s death the fanbase has soured me to it so much, but it is disappointing for a character with so much potential to get pushed off to the side so often, since a lot of plotlines involving her are potentially emotionally resonant.

Things like the Yang manga anthology, albeit of dubious canon status, are excellent reads because they explore these aspects of her that get so often glossed over in the show proper. Tidbits about her backstory like unlocking her semblance via saving Ruby from a Grimm are compelling, but it is rare for Yang to get spotlight enough for stuff like this to come to the limelight.

With the story progressing the way it is, and the abundant issues the series has had in the past with runtimes and focus, I am not sure if Yang will get the focus I feel she ultimately deserves, which is a shame, because I think that for the most part they have done well with what they HAVE given her so far.

  Predictions for the Future/Conclusion

Where Yang will go from here will depend largely on outside forces. I believe after meeting Raven and fighting Adam again back-to-back, we may very well get a cooldown period for her where she just chills in the background. I would like some furthering of her, given what I said about her lack of focus earlier on, but as of now I think that this would only come out of development of her personal relationships, primarily with her team members, Blake especially, as I believe the two still have some to talk about in regards to both Blake leaving and the fact that Adam has been killed by their own hands.

Adam’s death could also be an interesting point. The idea that, perhaps, Yang will realize where her morality lies on killing her enemies will come from it is an interesting idea. 

Weiss will also be dealing with much in Atlas, including her own siblings. Having grown up such a close sibling to Ruby, perhaps Yang could have a talk with Weiss about the strained relationship she shares with her young brother Whitley. Out of anyone Weiss is close to, I don’t think there would be a better candidate for such than Yang. 

I also believe that Yang and Hazel may have potential setup for a conflict in the future, as the two possess many parallels; both fight with fists, both have siblings as primary motivators, both have semblances related to pain (one gets stronger from pain, one ignores it), both have rage to them, and both have acted a guardian figures to those they fight alongside in the past. This is mere speculation, but I do think that it would be an interesting conflict to see, although I could elaborate more on this in a Hazel discussion rather than a Yang one.

Despite several mishandlings over the course of the series, Yang is still one of my favorite characters in it. She’s a character who I see a good amount of potential in when I look at her, some of which has been capitalized on well and some of which could definitely be utilized better. She is a character who I am curious to see where she can go in the future.

#rwby #rwby character discussion