#i'm pretty sure the team strq family drama is somehow going to be even messier than the SCHNEEs

[anthurak]

Something I find interesting about rewatching Yang’s scenes talking about her childhood in Volumes 2 and 5 is how she doesn’t really… defend Tai’s actions and the way he seemed to have effectively checked out on her and Ruby for several years after Summer’s disappearance.

Now sure, she doesn’t really decry him, but we don’t hear Yang trying to claim that her father ‘had his reasons’ for what he did or otherwise trying to justify his actions. She just presents what Taiyang did fairly matter-of-factly. Likewise, I think we can see a similarly frank assessment of Tai’s parenting from Ruby in Volume 9 when she directly acknowledges that Yang raised her.

Putting these together, I really get the sense that both Yang and Ruby are very much aware of Tai’s actions and how he let them down as a father, rather than trying to defend or cover for him.

So why has Yang and the story as a whole only given a general, indirect acknowledgement of Tai’s actions and never really confronted him directly about how he let his daughters down as a father?

Well, I think it’s because that rather than trying to defend or cover for their father’s actions, Yang and Ruby are engaging in that much less melodramatic but ALL too common practice of just… not talking about the problems of a close family member.

Rather than going through the surely difficult and ugly process of confronting Tai over how he failed them as a father, Yang and Ruby have taken the fair easier option of simply not talking about it. Even though both of them, particularly Yang, are very much aware of the problem.

It also probably doesn’t help that in the present of the show, Tai has grown into, if not a good parent per-say, at least a decent one. Which in turn probably gives Yang and Ruby even more reason to just… not talk about that time he kinda-sorta abandoned them for several of their formative years.

See also, what Tai does to help Yang’s recovery in Volume 4. Sure, some of his methods were questionable, but he did ultimately help Yang recover and move on, which I think in turn makes Yang all the more reluctant to confront him on his past failings as a father.

So where do I think this is all going?

Well, with the Volume 9 finale clearly sowing the seeds for a major arc of Ruby and Yang diving into aspects of their family history they never knew about, most notably the long-awaited truth of what REALLY happened to Summer, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if some other long-brewing issues started bubbling to the surface as well.

As I’ve stated in other recent posts, at this point Yang’s original recounting of her family history to Blake all the way back in Volume 2 now absolutely REEKS of ‘unreliable narration’, and that there is clearly a WHOLE fucking lot that Yang, and Ruby, have no idea about regarding their parents.

So if during the process of Ruby and Yang finally digging into their family past, they happened to discover that Tai and Qrow have been keeping some massively important pieces of information from them all this time, effectively lying to Ruby and Yang for YEARS?

(say about, I dunno… Ruby’s ‘real’ father actually being a certain angry/depressed bird woman?)

Well I’d say that would be just the thing that could blow the lid off right off a LOT of resentment towards her father that Yang has been bottling up all this time.

I’ve stated this before, but I think it’s worth keeping in mind that ALL of Team STRQ have been presented as well-meaning yet massively flawed/shitty/fuckup parents to Ruby and Yang in each their own way. For one, all of them bailed on their daughters in one way or another, whether it be Raven and Summer bailing physically, Taiyang emotionally/psychologically, or Qrow doing a bit of both.

Thus far, we’ve seen two members of Team STRQ confronted by either Ruby or Yang over their failings as a parent and been subsequently driven to improve: Raven by Yang in Volume 5, and Qrow by Ruby in Volume 6. Which in turn leaves Summer and Taiyang, the supposed ‘good parents’ as the more ‘overt’ text of the show has led us to assume.

Of course, over the course of the last three volumes, we got more and more hints, before the ending of Volume 9 confirmed, that Summer Rose was not in fact the perfect ‘supermom’ that Ruby and Yang remember her as, having lied to and walked out on her family to go on mysterious mission with Raven from which she never returned.

And reading between the lines, Tai’s own problems as a father have been sitting right in front of us since Volume 2, only just beneath the surface as Yang and Ruby decline to really talk about them.

So with a story arc focused on exploring the truth about Summer Rose looking to be close on the horizon, a long-simmering confrontation between Yang and her father (one that could likely strongly parallel her confrontation with Raven) seems likewise inevitable.

#rwby #rwby analysis #rwby theory #Yang Xiao Long #Ruby Rose #Team STRQ #Taiyang Xiao Long #Qrow Branwen #Raven Branwen #Summer Rose #rwby character analysis #rwby character development #team strq were ALL fuckup parents #i'm pretty sure the team strq family drama is somehow going to be even messier than the SCHNEEs