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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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I’m still curious if Clover ever frustrated you. You didn’t answer that. He never angered me. Clover was a supportive friend, and while he (UNDERSTANDABLY) didn’t toss out a superior’s order, he was clearly giving Qrow more leeway then other criminals, and I don’t doubt he would’ve taken him to Ironwood. RT, I’m pretty sure this is writing 101, but maybe don’t have the bad guy be the one trying to negotiate their way out of a fight while the hero is like “Nah, fuck you”.

No, Clover never frustrated me. I can understand why many weren’t a big fan of him — he’s very much the confident edging on cocky stereotype — but my personal feelings always ranged from, “I’m neutral” to “It’s nice for Qrow to have a friend and I’ve got nothing against the ship, even if I’m an Ozqrow fan.” I’ve strongly defended Clover’s actions on the airship. To my mind he acted appropriately given the level of information he had — as you say, he was given an order by a superior, an order that was by no means unreasonable or dangerous to Qrow — despite this, he was still giving Qrow a certain amount of leeway given their friendship — compare him begging Qrow to come with him vs. him instantly taking him out at the beginning of Volume 7 — Robyn is the one who shot first, Qrow is the one who willingly joined her, and from then on out Clover was defending himself. And then he was murdered. The visceral reaction to “just following orders” stems from our real world knowledge of how people can easily succumb to heinous acts when they’re blindly following an authority figure, but Clover had no reason to think this act was heinous, because it wasn’t. The visceral reaction to him fighting Qrow instead of going after Tyrian stems from a meta-knowledge of the text. We know Qrow is the hero and that he’d never hurt Clover... but Clover doesn’t know that. They’ve been friends, what? A few weeks? Maybe a few months? Regardless, Qrow just helped Robyn attack him. Robyn just agreed with Tyrian that they had to take Clover out. Qrow just refused to come in even though that would get Robyn medical assistance more quickly. To say nothing of the suspicious — but incomplete — information Clover has on hand: something bad has happened back at the office, Salem is on her way, she’s had agents in the city this whole time, and Ironwood wants Qrow’s entire group arrested for some reason. From Clover’s POV that looks so bad. As far as Clover knows he has two enemies in this fight, Qrow and Tyrian. The fact that we then watched Qrow willingly team up with Tyrian — justifying those concerns — resulting in Clover’s death, only for Qrow to later blame Clover and Ironwood for everything, and many fans still don’t question this shows how powerful the “These are the Good Guys and these are the Bad Guys” assumptions go. Nothing the characters actually do on screen breaks that neat divide.

At the beginning of Volume 7 I was suspicious of both Ironwood and the Ace Ops. Given that initial, dictator-y coding, I thought there was a good chance that he was lying to the group. This plan was BS. His kindness was just a way to lure them into a false sense of security. The friendships developed with the Ace Ops were just a mask. And then... none of that was true. Ironwood’s open, trusting, grateful nature was 100% real and the compassion the Ace Ops extended to the group — claims of “We’re not friends” aside — was likewise real, it’s indeed frustrating that the story has so thoroughly tried to erase that for a simplistic, “Military people are bad” message. Clover is a part of that. He was a good man who did nothing our heroes didn’t also do: pushing for Amity, keeping the Salem secret, etc. He was told by Ironwood to arrest Qrow and, having no reason to toss aside years of trust, especially when the implication was he’d just take Qrow to talk things out, he agreed. Qrow is the one who chose violence, chose Tyrian, and Clover was murdered. Then Qrow sits in a jail cell and blames the victim for his death, plus Ironwood for his own idiotic decisions. By the time he’s out, characters are actively rewriting Volume 7, with Robyn claiming Clover was a bad huntsmen and Harriet and Vine saying that he’d definitely have dropped a bomb on a bunch of innocent people. After all, wouldn’t anyone associated with Ironwood?

RT wasn’t able to write characters doing actual bad things and they likewise weren’t willing to end on a morally gray note. So when Ironwood went evil and they wanted all his subordinates to be simplistically evil too, Clover — the only one dead and unable to be hastily “redeemed” like Harriet — is said conclusively to be someone we never saw on screen: the awful huntsmen who’d have killed thousands and was responsible for his own death.

#rwby #mymetas #Anonymous

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blackcatmanor · 4 years

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RWBY V7 Episode 12 Photo Review (Spoilers)

..................WUT

I mean….I can’t really process what happened

So let’s get this part out of the way:

The Good:

Penny and Winter are the true BFFs

Penny becoming more human is endearing to see, and it’s been interesting to see her struggle with understanding emotions against Winter, who also struggles to understand them, in a way. Penny challenging Winter but never abandoning her to join RWBY is nice, and their light conflict is very well done because it shows Penny’s growing humanity struggle against Winter’s much chillier perspective. I really like the dynamic between these two and hope they continue on in the next volume (If Winter dies too this volume I’ll ragequit RWBY), and to be honest it’s become more of a cute bond than Ruby and Penny this volume. Don’t @ me

The fights

Although a lot of the “fights” in this volume were done off screen, when there is fighting this volume it has been extremely good. The camera moves around a lot less so we get a better sense of what is going on, and the moves feel more deliberate to whoever is doing the fighting, such as Ruby and Harriet who dart around a lot, delivering only occasional blows (and Ruby taking more of the blows because she’s not as good as Harriet in hand-to-hand), while Yang and Elm go all-out lady brawl (and it’s nice to see Yang’s semblance again)

Exception: Weiss.

Weiss’ over-reliance on Summoning is making her boring to watch in fights. Seeing the 300 different ways the animators show her spinning around and waving her sword like a magic wand is getting OLD. If you’re going to have her summon all the time, fine, but stop focusing the camera on her. Just show her very distantly in the background waving her sword/wand and focus on how people fight whatever she summons.

The meh:

RWBY vs Ace Ops- welp… I didn’t think the Ace Ops were gonna lose, I thought RWBY would flee and barely get away because the Ace Ops were supposed to be the best of the best. I guess I’m glad they didn’t just go down like total chumps (except Vine- sorry dude), but apparently if you train with the Ace Ops for 6 weeks, you’re as good as them. *Shrug* Who knew? It’s like Fitness Bootcamp- Train with a soldier on an obstacle course once and you’re basically ready to become a member of Seal Team 6, right?

I wish they would have explained this a little more- maybe looping back to the discussion they had in Episode 4 about being friends vs teammates. Maybe RWBY’s personal bond gives them more incentive to win, while the Ace Ops are just going through the motions because it’s just a job to them. Plus I think Elm and Marrow’s inner conflict also maybe helped tipped the sales towards RWBY, perhaps they weren’t trying their hardest, but I wish this was a little more clear

JNPR vs Neo

It’s kind of weird that Neo didn’t incapacitate Oscar, if she was planning to try trapping JNR as well… Or maybe Oscar barely managed to get away? Regardless, Neo had the lamp, so why stick around and wait for more people to show up? The plan was for her to get the lamp FROM Oscar, not necessarily grab Oscar as well. Maybe Neo has her own agenda, which would be cool, but from this episode it looks like she completed her objective but then waited around to fight some more. Maybe getting the lamp was too easy and she likes a challenge...? Who knows (I am saying that a lot for this episode, huh?)

Cinder vs Winter and Penny

This is obviously meh because not much happened, and it’s just set up for the big final fight. With the Ace Ops incap’ed, hopefully RWBY can come in as well to finally fight Cinder directly after dancing around her in V5. I think most of this will go down probably in the Relic room because a grand fight in a cramped hospital room is hard, so I think Cinder will be able to Grimm-snatch the Winter Maiden powers and go down to the relic room, or she will incapacitate whoever does get the powers and drag them there, only to be stopped by RWBY for a big battle. However I don’t think it’ll be Winter Schnee getting the powers since it’ll take too long for the transfer device and they are out of time. I KINDA think now it might be Penny- a girl with an aura/soul- somehow she’ll receive them and it’ll be part of her becoming a real girl (like Pinocchio). Who knows? At this point who gets them is totally up in the air.

The Ugly:

I guess I was right about Tyrian escaping custody again, but it wasn’t because of Salem intervening with Grimm like I thought. It was because Robyn is a terrible person!

Robyn- Please kindly f- off:

I officially HATE Robyn the most. After teetering on a “meh-leaning-towards-general-dislike” feeling, I loathe her now and I hope she gets killed off quickly. She’s a one-dimensional generic hothead character with no personality that is purposely stuck in to create conflict. She is the good guy’s Tyrian- but Tyrian has a reason to be chaotic: He’s an insane zealot. Robyn is just a poorly written idiot.

Robyn just does stupid things that get in everyone’s way all of the time, and actively works to undermine the hero’s at each turn. She prevented the launch of Amity by stealing all the supplies, and now she is going to try and fight in the middle of a cramped ship, risking Tyrian’s escape rather than waiting 5 minutes to duke it out with Clover once Tyrian is safely in jail. The entire time they were squaring off on the ship I kept thinking “Uhm Tyrian’s right there….Tyrian is RIGHT THERE! He’s gonna get out!” Robyn is a liar. She doesn’t care about the people of Mantle, because she’s doing things that could (and did) lead to a serial killer who killed Mantle Citizens escaping.

Not to mention she could have taken Qrow’s advice and talk to Ironwood first! Literally 2 episodes ago you were saying the General had your support and now you’re like “I’LL FIGHT ANYONE, ANYWHERE. Forget talking to people to get the full details and actually following through upon that trust I claimed I had in Ironwood two episodes ago, I’m gonna risk everyone’s lives to fight this out RIGHT here!” She’s the worst!

Confrontation with Qrow and Clover-

This falls under the Ugly because, despite some good dialogue between Clover and Qrow, with Qrow expressing that he feels manipulated while Clover tries to explain his own point of view, every decision made from here on Qrow’s part is inexcusable and totally irrational.

Tyrian joins the fray and inexplicably Qrow agrees to team up with him to take down Clover because THAT can’t possibly fail spectacularly.

Tyrian suggests “putting the kid to bed” but the entire time I knew Tyrian would betray Qrow and go too far with attacking Clover because OF COURSE HE WOULD. But I thought he would sting Clover as a chance to get away, because Qrow would have to focus on getting Clover help. However, what we got was…much, much worse.

Qrow’s questionable decision making

Hey DUMMY- Why not team up with Clover first to neutralize Tyrian again, and then you and Clover can duke it out. Or you and Clover can go talk to James like you wanted to 10 minutes ago!

Oh right…because “You got a score to settle” with Tyrian because this is now a cheesy western where your ego is more important than logic.

I think his bad luck semblance is really just an idiot semblance- like occasionally his semblance makes him do stupid things, leading to horrible outcomes but he mistakenly chalks it up to “bad luck.” It’s also frustrating because this volume they were setting Qrow up to grow into a good character- someone with a lot of anger from the past who learns to cope with it, and learns to accept friendship from others. I guess that’s all over.

So, sadly, Tyrian then murders Clover. It was shocking I will say that...I actually GASPED, and it led to this really cool shot:

But the shock was partly for the wrong reason. Like I said before, I thought Qrow being a dumb-dumb would lead to Clover being injured, sure, but KILLED? Yikes! Qrow’s idiocy leading to Clover being injured would be frustrating, but not unforgivable narratively and he could learn from it. He would learn to not treat his friends as transactional, and automatically write them off when one hint of struggle happens. Qrow’s idiocy in teaming up with a serial killer and getting Clover killed kinda makes Qrow unforgivable in my book. Does CRWBY want me to hate Qrow? I guess so, especially because Clover’s dying scene didn’t exactly stick the landing and alleviate my anger towards Qrow either....

So poor dying Clover is lying there, and a visibly shaken Qrow kneels next to him. So the thought is Qrow is going to realize his horrible mistake, and dive down a pool of self-loathing: tearfully blaming himself, blaming his bad luck, APOLOGIZING, upset about how it’s all his fault, etc. Instead, he delivers (with a straight face) the weirdest line ever about James taking the fall. UHHH- WUT? You teaming up with Tyrian led to this. WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

This sucks. On several levels. Clover’s death was just plain poorly done and a good character was wasted. I really liked Clover. I thought Qrow was going to actually get a break from being shit on this entire series and finally get, at a minimum, a friend that would continue to help him grow and develop as a character, pushing Qrow to see the best in himself and stop continually hating himself. With that cut short, I of course felt super sad and emotional about Clover’s death, even to the point of almost crying.

However, I can’t pretend like a significant part of that isn’t pure frustration anger about how this episode played out. Not only did Clover’s death came about in the dumbest way, but his final words with Qrow were wasted by the weird “James will take the fall” bit.

Qrow should have blamed himself and his semblance (I mean...it actually kinda is his fault, not gonna lie), and Clover could have maybe been the ultimate friend to him, telling Qrow that it happened because Qrow was fighting for what he thought was right, and even though the outcome was horrible he shouldn’t stop fighting for what he believes in…? I dunno….ANYTHING other than “GRRR James will pay”

I can’t help but remember a mere few minutes ago.....

This episode.....woof.

In a long series, you want your hero’s to sometimes lose just to keep it interesting, and to give them something to have to crawl back from. However, what’s interesting is seeing the characters try their best, make reasonable and decent decisions and still suffer a loss, because it makes us want to continue to cheer them on and watch as they make a triumphant comeback. Seeing hero’s simply choke and fail because they make the dumbest, irrational decisions with no logical reason is just frustrating and excruciating to watch, and seeing those moments lead to other characters suffering makes your “hero’s” unlikable.

This argument was made for the V6 climax- that RWBY made a dumb decision and others suffered the consequences, making them “evil” to some hateboner watchers, but I thought this assessment was over dramatic. You have to take things in context, and literally nothing came of RWBY’s decision to steal an airship: the universe was the same as it was before with some filler in the middle. No one was injured or killed, and even the damage to the city was minimal (one roof). Clover, though, is full-on dead and that is entirely Qrow’s fault. I just can’t believe the writers put this down on paper, re-read it, and though- “yea....Someone who totally make the decision to team up with a murderer to subdue their good friend....this is gonna be GREAT.”

But who cares about the story- NEW MERCH DROPPING SOON AMIRITE?!

Ok that was a low blow, but the writing and characters inexplicably took a logical nose dive this episode, after having a lot of thought put into last episode. The characters (especially Qrow, but also Robyn and to a lesser extent Clover) could have made some reasonable and logical decisions and Clover still could have died, which would have had way more impact and made the situation seem way more hopeless. Instead we got Robyn kicking off the shitshow by being just the worst, and Qrow taking the shitshow torch and cranking it up to 11, effectively un-doing all of the development we’ve seen from him this season.

Lastly, even if you are going to have the characters completely fail at making decisions and it leads to a horrible outcome, at least stick the landing and don’t have them go off on some odd tangent about how this is someone else’s fault. *facepalm*

Overall I’d give this episode a very generous 2/10.

The 2 points is because of the decent fight animation and occasionally decent dialogue.

I’m tired...

#rwby v7 #rwby spoilers #rwby vol7 #Robyn Hill #qrow branwen #clover ebi #marrow amin #ruby rose #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #weiss schnee #penny polendina #winter schnee #cinder fall #tyrian callows #rwby salem #oscar pine

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blackcatmanor · 4 years

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RWBY V7 E9 Photo Review (spoilers)

A solid episode that mostly could have been tacked onto E8, but with notable moments.

Characters done right:

Robyn- A dark horse that emerged as MVP of the episode by a hair. Her snark was toned way down and you felt the frustration when Jacques says “I only meant to win the election” and she throws a chair with a scream of “ONLY?!” Her concern for Mantle citizens upon learning of the Grimm invasion also felt genuine and raised the tension of the episode.

I will say though she also had the dumbest line in the episode with

“You don’t trust your own council to help you? Operating in secret? These are the actions of someone who’s hiding something.”

What do you think a secret is?! A secret is something that is hidden! What is this line?!

Best Girl Weiss: A close second goes to best girl Weiss with the line of “Jacques Schnee, you’re under arrest…..can I do that?” OMG I hate how cute you’ve become!

Special Mention- Clover: A lot of cool character moments with Clover this episode, featuring his team bonding and general bad-assery. The moment he holds onto Elm for support and then they shake hands before she jumps shows that the team cares for each other, which is going to make me even more homicidal if Clover turns out to be a Spy. If any of the Ace Ops are going to be a spy, I think it’ll be Harriet or maybe Vine (okay maybe that’s because they are the two Ace ops I like the least- don’t @ me)

Characters done wrong

Obvious Neo is obvious- the super long pan on her face made the “reveal” at the end super lame. It would have been better if they cut the scene before the Neo evil smirk, as it would have just looked like a waitress that was just shocked by a bunch of huntsmen darting out the door. It would have given the end a lot more shock factor when the waitress enters a room to have an out-of-shot woman ask “Tell me you found what we are looking for” before the waitress changes back to Neo and Cinder’s stupid face is revealed.

I do hope that Neo is going to betray Cinder. Cinder’s character is the absolute worst in both writing and acting. The character has zero depth, motivation or charisma and the delivery of lines is atrocious with the cringey attempts at sounding cool and seductive. Neo constantly rolling her eyes at Cinder is a mood, and it’s like she’s an audience stand-in.

If Cinder dies it could also be a great catalyst for a lot of interesting changes, including having a maiden whose identity is unknown. Or Neo could become the maiden and go rogue, giving us a chance to see her as more than a sidekick.

Story stuff done right:

Villains- Although the Jacques story line was wrapped up too soon, it was still a nicely done arc and does a good job of depicting the villainy of Watts who, like Salem, only uses people until they are no longer useful. Using Jacques’ codes to shut off the heat without Jacques’ knowledge is proof of that.

I am excited to see Watts’ true evil prowess going forward, especially now that people know he’s alive. Hopefully Watts will evade capture and cause further mayhem right under Ironwood’s nose, which will show that the Villains in RWBY are actually capable of being competent and doing evil things. In each volume after V3 they have been bumbling idiots incapable of securing a single victory, but V7 thus far has been good at maintaining a decent level of menace with Tyrian and Watts teaming up.

Building a universe- I like the rapport being built with the council, because it anchors the characters’ actions in a real world setting, whereas previously their actions and story felt independent of a greater universe. We are now getting into a phase where these characters have to make decisions along with a political infrastructure, which is a cool new dynamic. The dialogue also felt a lot more realistic without Jacques snarking, as the council was able to outline real concerns and Ironwood felt legitimately on the defensive. I’m a little disappointed they skipped the part where Ironwood tells them about Salem, because seeing their reaction in real time would have been interesting, but it’s a cool development that he shared that info with them nonetheless.

Story stuff done wrong

Opening scene: This scene should have been the cliffhanger in the last episode before the break- with people worriedly trying to get answers and Pietro and Maria exchanging uncomfortable looks. I understood that the snow meant people would be freezing in Mantle but the kid’s excited reaction last episode made for a really non-tense cliffhanger.

Evil Jacques we hardly knew ye: I think the reveal of Jacques’ betrayal was too premature. I would have liked to see him reap the rewards of being underhanded a little, maybe become emboldened and try to solicit Watts for more evil schemes, only to have it crash down around him. I know the writers wanted it for Weiss to absolve Ironwood at the last moment, but maybe they could have had the meeting interrupted by the Grimm invasion of Mantle, and the council re-convenes next episode to make a final ruling in Ironwood’s position as council member and headmaster for Weiss to make the grand reveal. That would have also allowed this episode to be dedicated to the action surrounding the invasion.

So. Much. Shipping: I love a good ship, but it was so awkward this episode. The tone of the entire episode felt tense, with huge arguments, revelations, arrests, attacks, but it interrupted by the onslaught of shipping moments crammed into the middle. I think the concept of some of these are cute- especially Ruby and Oscar (though depending on what Ozpin is up to it may be creepy), but it all should have been put aside because these people are supposed to be professional huntsmen. The inserts were so jarring it was actually kind of cringey (like the Bumblebee run-by when Rosegarden are talking, and the sexy Bumblebee smirk after the Renora moment). As for the Ren and Nora moment, I didn’t think was as ship-ey because she was trying to be reassuring since Ren seems so tense, and without the Bumblebee smirk it would have actually been very sweet.

Ozpin’s return? The weird tease about Ozpin being back is jarring, especially in a volume built around trust and telling the truth. I hope it is just Ozpin coming back in brief moments- like in the Volume 6 crash- and Oscar doesn’t know what to make of it so he doesn’t want to tell the group until he knows what’s doing on.

However, I have a feeling it may be more sinister- based on the bits in the last few episodes how Ironwood remarks Oscar is becoming more like Ozpin, and this episode he said “It’s like you were there.” I think maybe Oscar proper is slipping away, being absorbed by Ozma’s soul and he’s aware of it, but isn’t saying anything. In either case I don’t like it because it means Oscar is hiding something which contradicts literally everything he’s been saying the whole volume and it also puts a creepy undertone on the Oscar/Ruby cuteness from the episode.

Lack of action:

This episode had a *fair* amount of action with the dragon grimm plane chase, but I wish the talking parts were wrapped up last episode or put on hold this episode to address the Grimm invasion. Volume 7 is following a lot of the same patterns it’s been criticized for in the past, which is ALLUDING to action, but having it all happen off screen (the riots after the SDC closure, the Grimm attack after the election, etc). This volume has been better than previous volumes with little snippets of action- such as Tyrian’s attack and the scuffle between Robyn and Bumblebee, but there hasn’t been a great big fight since Episode 3, which is 5 episodes in an action anime without a substantial fight, and to keep the blue-balls going after the break is annoying.

I do think that next week will deliver on the action and we will finally get to see the Robyn/Qrow vs Tyrian fight in the opening credits. Maybe Ironwood, too since he is shown in the credits shooting at something in Mantle…? I hope so at least.

Overall score: 7/10

A lot of this episode could have just been part of last week’s episode, which would have given us a nice dose of action after the break. Also the panic about Salem from the council and Robyn could have also been part of the reason the Grimm invaded in this episode, in addition to the heating riots. Nonetheless it doesn’t mean it was a bad episode, though the shipping was a bit distracting.

Random thoughts:

I wonder if they’re going to have to address the fact that they crashed an airship into mantle....

I also wonder if Whitley will bring his dad a shiv in a cake to bust out of jail. In seriousness though, I hope they address Whitley more this season. This episode actually made me feel bad for him. 10/10

#rwby #rwby bumblebee #rwby spoilers #rwby v7 #rwby ozpin #ozpin #rwby rosegarden #Robyn Hill #jacques schnee #weiss schnee #ruby rose

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