I got RWBY and the Atlas arc on the brain again and I just want to throw some more praise at CRWBY for how they used Jacques in this arc.
They prime us to hate his guts before we even meet him. Everything Weiss has told us about her home life, and everything Blake has said about the SDC indicates to the audience that Jacques is an abusive, controlling, racist shitheel. We know he's awful before we ever see him.
So in these scenes they set him against Ironwood, a character who we're familiar with and came across as dodgy but ultimately on the side of the angels in his past appearances. Ironwood is one of the only two people in all of V4 who is actually supportive of Weiss, and he stands up to the antagonist of her arc every time they interact.
And then we get to V7, and slowly, gradually, it becomes apparent that most of Jacques' interactions with Ironwood are a giant case of "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point." He's frequently right for the wrong reasons (I.E. calling out Jimmy for closing the borders, not because unity in the wake of the Fall of Beacon is important, but because it's hurting his profit margins), but he's consistently one of the characters who calls Ironwood out the most for his fascistic shit.
But because we know he's Jacques and he's awful (and he is awful, this is not a Jacques Schnee Defence Post), the writers are able to bury that a little until all the pieces fall into place in Volume 7.
I could probably write a full-on essay about how good Ironwood's descent into tyranny is, and the role that the villains play in it, because this show is so fucking good when the writers get to cook. Maybe I will at some point.
I don’t think it really hits everyone that Winter would have died in Winter v Ironwood if Penny didn’t sacrifice herself. Of course Penny didn’t know what was happening on Winter’s side but her sacrifice was the ONLY thing that gave Winter a leg up on Ironwood.
Ironwood trained Winter. He knew exactly how to defeat her once they started fighting because he TAUGHT HER HOW TO FIGHT. They weren’t equally matched. It was an unfair fight!
hello! this will be a comic collab with my friend on twitter, @Sky_Yey. I did Penny and they did Weiss. It will take some time to upload the panels but i hope it’ll be worth it 🙌