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rachetmath · 2 months

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Jaune More MC Ruby?

Ruby: That’s why I’m the MC and you're the side character.

Jaune: So because you have silver eyes you’re special?

Ruby: Yep.

Jaune: Even though I cheated Beacon.

Ruby: Yep.

Jaune: I was bullied.

Ruby: Yep.

Jaune: My partner is dead. And because I let my guard down, Ozpin died, and Oscar had no choice but to come on this journey. You know, because of me.

Ruby: Yep.

Jaune: And because Cinder, who works under Salem killed my partner, I have beef with the main villain and her whole crew.

Ruby: Yeah.

Jaune: Salem, who I have way more in common with than most people, the deemed goddess I’m defying her, just like she did with the brothers over a loved one's death. Are you following me so far?

Ruby: … Yeah…

Jaune: Hazel, who mind you, lost his sister. He lost his sister because of the world Ozpin had created, like I did, with Pyrrha.

Qrow: She had a choice.

Jaune: A few days' choice which turned into minutes when Beacon was attacked. Then discovering how bad the situation is, you know with Salem being immortal, I almost hurt if not killed Oscar, making me at the spur of the moment, just as bad as Hazel. And mind you I was willing to fight you on that.

Ruby: Uh… yeah…

Jaune: Tyrian, has the opposite to my semblance. Wasn’t he more interested in me than you? And you were his target.

Ruby: Mmhmm.

Jaune: Let’s talk about Cinder again. Cinder had two stray kids who followed her. I have Ren and Nora. Neither have parents. Also, we both want power but for different reasons. We even have different views on destiny.

Ruby: Oh damn.

Jaune: Atlas. Oscar did Ironwood not act like how I did in Argus but worse?

Oscar: Yeah he did. Jaune even saw Salem in person before you did.

Yang: So did we. You saw her face to face.

Oscar: I’m Ozpin. What is that supposed to mean?

Ruby: Oscar, not helping.

Jaune: Neo. We both lost our partners. The difference is that I have friends while she has none. The cat, him, and I almost have the same ability except he manipulates your soul or takes it. He might as well have been a devil version of me.

Weiss: O. Dear lord.

Jaune: Watts. … … … You know what no. He-he was no. Like he could have done better, he’s an example of being smart yet making the dumbest choices.

Weiss: True.

In the Twilight

Watts: What?! My decision was understandable.

Ironwood: No. No, they were not.

Penny: Like you could have logically put your two weeks in and left for another kingdom. Or country. Like Vale. Mistral. Anywhere. You could have helped where you could've been needed. Which would have made you better than my father.

Watts: I wasted my life.

Back to Remnant

Ruby: Um….

Jaune: You know what I have to ask this question. What is the moral of the story and how does your character fit into this?

Ruby: Well my-

Jaune: Let me retort. I lied. I was bullied. I had no idea about anything in the hunting world. I needed a teacher. I lost someone important to me. I have beef with the main villains. I train to get stronger to be of use to others.

Ruby: So?

Jaune: Okay. No one believed in me. But I still went to chase my goal. I lost the best thing in my life. I still moved forward. I had to kill someone. Still moved forward. I’m an old man trapped in a boy's body. Still moving forward. Fighting the odds that are stacked against me. I have seven who no one knows about. Yet your family is more interesting.

Ruby: Your point?

Jaune: The moral of the story is that no matter your circumstance you can always be better. Never allow destiny or grief to influence your entire life. No matter what odds that stand before you, you can ultimately change your fate. And no matter the darkness a simple soul can light up the night and unite everyone against a greater evil. Even when the whole world is against you, you are never alone to endure it. If we stand united and look past our differences only then the wor;d would be a better place.

Ruby: Well my mom died at Salem’s hands.

Jaune: And?

Ruby: It's still relevant.

Jaune: You're right. But how many times has your mother been mentioned and you bothered to get information about her?

Yang: I-

Jaune: Bitch shut the fuck up. You were looking for the deadbeat mom more than the mom who stepped up.

Ruby: Well um… um…. Damn. Oh, but I-

Jaune: You weren’t the sword. I may not have known Penny as long as you, but the fact, that I could've saved her proved her death hit harder than Pyrrha's. I’m close to walking in Raven’s path.

Ruby: Shit.

Jaune: And back to your mother. She was a silver-eyed warrior. But Salem is still here. Do silver eyes work on her?

Ruby: Um.

Jaune: Because Salem is still both the brothers' creation. The old humanity. She can't be phased by the black liquid even though everything they touch decays.

Ruby: She's immortal.

Jaune: Yeah but again when Maria told you her story didn't she try using her silver eyes on humans and it didn't work?

Ruby: Cinder.

Jaune: Grimm arm.

Ruby: The hound.

Blake: Silver-eyed person too but only stunned them.

Ruby: Blake.

Blake: What a minute he had animalistic ears. Should I be concerned for my people?

Jaune: Yeah… we’re not getting into that. The point is if you go see Salem and your silver eyes don't work then your mom died for nothing.

Ruby: Oo. Um…

Jaune: And let's get back to the other villains. Besides Emerald, Mercury, and Tyrian, some of them have valid reasons to join Salem.

Ren: Jaune!

Jaune: Ren, your village got destroyed.

Ren: Nevermind.

Me: Hold up. Let me start. With Cinder, a huntsman saw what she was going through and didn't bother to help her. She was alone. The world abandoned her.

Jaune: So Hazel was right. In fact, Raven had a point.

Oscar(Ozpin): Mr. Arc I-

Jaune: Motherfucker Hazel had every right to be angry. Dude shadow missions involve us going with experienced hunters. Yet his sister died and Ruby could’ve died. Shadowing them. Following their lead. Does that not show how bad the hunting system is? Not just that we got hunters who died in the line of duty. Not to mention how some were sexually harassing the girls. And some of them are just plain crazy or assholes. Not to mention Blake, Qrow, and Raven. You let them in. And to make matters worse you chose Pyrrha, a first-year student, to be your maiden.

Oscar(Ozpin): She was my best option.

Jaune: So Glynda wasn't on the table? A high-ranked fourth-year student wasn't on the table? Man, at least you could have chosen Ruby considering she has silver eyes and is a young upcoming prodigy. That would have made her more important. Like Ozpin Ruby off the bat was better than Pyrrha.

Qrow: Hey, I would have stopped that.

Jaune: O, so… it was okay with Pyrrha… but not your niece. I see. Hypocrite.

Qrow: Damn. Set myself up for that.

Jaune: Watts, despite his stupidity, had a point. James would abuse any source of technology just to have some level of control over something. Why did you think he wanted your sister instead of Penny? Why do you think he wanted Amity up as quickly as possible? Why do you think he hacked into Penny? Everything was always about control.

Weiss: Well our lives weren't easy.

Jaune: That I won't deny. Yet we are all still bad people.

Yang: Jaune my mother -

Jaune: Raven and Summer left you. Summer no one cared enough to talk about. Raven doesn't matter at all. Willow waited until her children were teenagers or young adults to start dealing with an abusive father. And Kali… yeah she should have slapped some sense into her daughter.

Weiss: Well your mom doesn't love you.

Jaune: Don't care. Back to Jacque though how does he and James know each other? Why do they have beef with one another? Unless… o. Oh no. Don't tell me. Did James set Jacque up with Willow? And in return, he helps James rise to power. Or did James love Willow but because of his career he couldn't marry her? Could Winter be-

Weiss: Please stop. I do not need those theories in my head.

Jaune: Fine. The point I'm trying to make is… … well how about you explain.

Me: It's crazy how Jaune fits the main character role better than Ruby.

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bridgyrose · 8 months

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Something it feels like a lot of people miss in RWBY is how often the villains are pushed into their roles by others or society.

Salem was forced into the role of villain by the gods, punished with immortality after trying to get Ozma back, then pushed deeper when she tried to fight back, lost everything, and wanted to try to end her curse on her own terms. Now with the God of Light using Ozma as his tool, Salem keeps getting pressed deeper into her role becoming the villain everyone wants her to be.

Cinder was abused by the orphanage and the madam, only ever catching a break with Rhodes until she saw no other way to save herself than fighting back against the madam. Rhodes pushed her into the role of villain by treating her like one and forcing her to fight again.

Hazel was used because of his grief of his sister's passing. We dont know much, but it can be inferred that Gretchen died while as a student in Beacon since she died in a training mission, but Hazel was pushed to find Salem. After meeting her and trying to kill her, his grief and anger was pointed towards Ozpin, turning him into a weapon for Salem.

Tyrian's a serial killer and seems to be the odd one out at the moment.

Watts gave into his jealousy after Pietro's project was chosen. From the sound of it, Ironwood never fully appreciated everything he did for Atlas, but that's all speculation and possible unreliable narrator.

Emerald was a street kid living on her own. She fell into Cinder and walked the line of villain because it gave her a place to belong until she found something more.

Mercury was abused by his father and trained as a killer. He sees no other purpose for himself and gladly lives that lie for now.

Neo was neglected and abused by her family, initially turning to shoplifting as a way to get attention, only to find herself getting deeper into crime after meeting Roman. She found someone who understood her and cared about her in him, so it wasn't a hard choice.

Adam was branded by SDC workers and gave into his anger when the White Fang wasn't getting the results he wanted. He treaded a slippery slope of wanting to help and defend the White Fang, eventually getting pushed to want humanity to fear faunus and serve them like the faunus did humans.

Ironwood gave into his paranoia and anxiety, isolating himself more and more as things went wrong. Noble goals were pursued in the worst of ways, bringing his fleet as security for the Vytal Festival, closing kingdom borders to help ease tensions of war between kingdoms, redirecting supplies from Mantle's wall repair to Amity, every act playing right into Salem's hands until he was pushed to do things his way to stop Salem and save Atlas, isolating himself further until he sank with his kingdom.

Every single one of them have been pushed into their roles because none of them had the support they needed to do better. For some, like Ironwood, Adam, and Watts, that was on them for giving into their feelings, blinding them to what was going on around them. Salem, Cinder, Mercury, and Tyrian haven't had much of a choice, pushed into being villains by their actions and by others. Emerald, Hazel, and Neo never had the support they needed to tread a different path, and once they did, that support led them down the path of villains.

Villains aren't born, they're created. Pushed down a path to follow as the easy way out because no other doors open to them. Which will make it all that more interesting to see how the remaining, living villains will be dealt with. Will they be given a hand and support needed to change? Or proven right that all they are are villains with no hope of change?

#rwby #cinder fall #neopolitan #arthur watts #mercury black #james ironwood #tyrian callows #emerald sustrai #i still think Cinder would take the chance to do better if it was offered to her #if Emerald and Neo can be offered that chance #Cinder and Mercury can to #and all of this still makes me wonder how Salem will be stopped #if its a smaller more simple spul needed #then maybe hope or compassion with be the key

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bestworstcase · 3 months

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I'm just thinking about your points about Penny and dehumanization and the heroes essentially taking decisions away from Penny while trying to protect her. Penny and Winter don't interact until Penny passes the Maiden powers to Winter in Volume 8. But in 7 - the last time they see each other - Winter buys time for Penny to make her decision with Fria. Which I think puts a neat layer into Penny ultimately saving Winter in the Winter versus Ironwood fight.

You can read Penny being puppeteered as a continuation of the dehumanization and how Atlas treats individuals. And she never really has a chance to fight that personally. The whole Cinder blowing up the evac plan happens first. But Peny being the tipping point with Winter versus Ironwood, especially in the reading that they were both baring the weight together... The thing is it is very very hard to get out of bad situations solo. And Penny did get someone out. I hope this makes sense

what always gets to me is. winter panics when penny rescues her ("what are you doing?! my life doesn't matter!") because it puts fria and the staff in jeopardy. and then not five minutes later she makes what is clearly a conscious, deliberate choice to step back and let fria choose penny as her heir, throwing herself in between them and cinder with her aura still depleted, against ironwood's orders. it's such an important moment bc it reveals that winter absolutely meant what she told penny earlier about wrestling with her feelings because she values her humanity—winter is not mindlessly following orders or blindly self-sacrificial, but she is willing to die for what she believes is right.

(winter is also the reason we know fria's name, because she makes a point of saying fria instead of calling her the winter maiden. which is the moment her break from ironwood becomes narratively inevitable, that rejection of fria's dehumanization)

i think the way penny frames the situation to jaune is really revealing of her perspective on… everything that's happened to her since she became the maiden. in her eyes it snatched away what little autonomy she had; ironwood and the ace-ops pulled out all the stops to manipulate and then outright control her, and all of her friends collectively decided that the maiden power was too valuable and too vulnerable for penny to do anything except go hide somewhere they hoped salem couldn't follow. everyone puts so much emphasis and importance on the magic that when penny is being eaten alive by watts' virus she considers the situation in terms of "i can make sure the powers go to [ruby]."

so when cinder fatally wounds her--and penny recognizes that there isn't enough time to heal her (& there isn't, he had less than sixty seconds before cinder had weiss disarmed on the ground)… "let me choose this one thing."

it's weiss, or winter, or cinder. if jaune hesitates or ignores what penny tells him, cinder kills weiss and then him and then claims the power for herself; if he mercy-kills penny now, penny can make sure the power goes to weiss so that weiss can get herself and jaune out alive…

…or she can give it to winter, her best friend. who for all she knows is already in vacuo right now, as penny has no way of knowing that ironwood is free or that winter is in danger.

in many ways, winter is the wrong choice in that moment; weiss and jaune are in danger, cinder has both relics, and without the magic weiss doesn't stand a chance. winter is not here, and penny has no idea where she is--or even if she's still alive!--so the pragmatic choice, the "correct" decision, the thing she "needed" to do, was make sure the magic went to weiss.

penny's whole arc in atlas is about the unreconcilable conflict between what she needs to do and what she wants to do, and in the end--forced by horrible circumstances to make a binary choice--she chooses to do what she wants. to follow her heart. to think of her friend. to take a small moment of peace and happiness for herself by saying goodbye to someone she loves very dearly.

and that's the moment of triumph over ironwood, who saw his own humanity as his greatest weakness!! penny choosing to do something for herself, because it's what she wants. in coldly rational terms it was the wrong choice, but thematically it was the right thing for penny to do--the human thing--so it saves not only winter but also weiss and jaune, too (although both of them do fall, because penny took a risk and a central theme of V8 is that risks don't always turn out for the best).

it's such a well-constructed tragedy. and it's thematically so important that penny choosing her friend over her 'duty' is the only reason winter survives, bc that final battle between ironwood and winter symbolizes the ideological conflict of the atlas arc--is human feeling strength, or is it weakness? has he made hard but necessary choices or has he sacrificed everyone and everything that truly mattered?--so of course penny's humanity is his undoing.

#you chose nothing. this was a *gift*#WAUGH.

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iamafanofcartoons · 1 year

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Why Ironwood’s actions made him a villain, and Team RWBY’s actions made them heroes.

Let’s go into some perspective about why Ironwood + his regime, and not Team RWBY, was the actual “worse than salem” group. And why Team RWBY are the heroes, and Ironwood and his regime the antagonists.

Let’s turn back the clock to before James threatened to nuke Mantle or blackmail Penny into helping him, and shot down planes that would carry people to safety.

“He genuinely offered all his resources to Team RWBY and co to maximize all the chances of them getting better and winning.” While squeezing Mantle dry.

Pre-V8 he still was authoritarian militarist, who locked down Atlas and Mantle, crippling its trade and defense capabilities of other regions, which led to a lot of people left to starve or die to Grimm, and he was also squeezing Mantle dry on top of it with a blatant disregard to its safety, and only giving it token "support", while his Huntsmen were more concerned with arresting people protecting Mantle, than helping them fight back Grimm.

Mantle was dying in volume 7, and it was all James’ fault, and critics were demanding that after Ironwood squeezed and bled Mantle dry, that Atlas abandon Mantle.

The writing is on the wall, but people are so focused on how he treated RWBY and co that they completely miss (ironically, unlike RWBY and co themselves, as it was their major concern) how he treats literally everyone else.

Of course he would treat them well, they are a very useful asset! Unlike people of Mantle, who could die in a ditch for all he cares.

That's not to say that he wants them dead, of course... he just doesn't care about them. He doesn't care about the people he's sworn to protect.

“ For Mantle, the entire point of the Huntsmen down there was to secure it and cover for the lack of resources. “

Lack of resources he himself created, funneling every drop of dust to his pet project.

James was always a borderline dictator. And he could pretty much brow-beat the Council to do what he needs, seeing how he held two seats out of five, and one was vacant.

“But James isn’t authoritarian!”

Authoritarian: Favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.

“But Ironwood was trying to prevent invasion of Salem’s agents”

They infiltrated Atlas through Mantle, by means of using outdated security. With Watts even explicitly pointing out that Atlas got the shiny upgrades, but no one cared to get them to Mantle. And Cinder and Neo still got in. Ironwood failed spectacularly. As he always does.

People were losing their jobs and their living because of lockdown, and those who kept theirs, were working in harsh conditions. Grimm regularly invaded Mantle. People couldn't even get their children to schools without Huntsmen protecting them.

“Its for the greater good”

I just don't see any merit in humoring ideas that treat people as expendable pieces on the path to some lofty goal. "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make" logic is the logic of villains.

“Ironwood employed Penny and the robots, that shows he cares!”

The robots were shown to be like Star Wars Movie stormtroopers in terms of effectiveness, and Star Trek Redshirts in terms of survivability.

Also, not caring for someone implies not giving any thought to their problems, and in this particular case those problems were directly or indirectly created by Ironwood's actions or negligence. Sending Penny down there is a band-aid, an illusion of action. Also he was running her 24/7, having girl do the job of an entire military and her sole energy source and repairs comes from her dying father, who’s also being run ragged on Jimmy’s project.

“But Team RWBY used the satellite?”

Should we just discard the progress, if it was made by amoral means? Or should we rather use it, to at least in some way honor those who suffered for it?

“But Ironwood didn’t commit murder till he shot Oscar”

Murder is not the only weapon in dictatorship's arsenal. There’s media control and forbidding public functions and mass gatherings, which Ironwood did in the first episode of V7. There’s also banning weapons unless you’re in the dictator’s private army, which Clover literally confirmed in the 2nd episode, even ignoring Qrow’s license.

“Influential people aren't simply council members. People with money and connection need to receive privileges in exchange for services they may provide. That's how politics work. “

And yet, he literally SINGLEHANDEDLY LOCKED DOWN ATLAS. And neither other council members, nor other "influential people", represented in a show by Jacques, could stop him, despite it hurting their bottom lines. Whoops.

“ Y'all keep forgetting what being a soldier/military man entails. You obey your superior without question. That's not authoritarian, that's how any self-respecting army functions. “

Huntsmen aren’t supposed to be soldiers, they’re warriors who act with a code and serve society, not a general who treats everything like a contest of measuring “GLYNDA!”

Ironwood privatized the Huntsmen System, thus preventing Atlas Huntsmen from serving society, with the exception of the Happy Huntresses, who Clover called “Worse than Grimm” to Qrow. Imagine that defying Ironwood makes you worse than Grimm? Apparently that’s all it took for Robyn Haters.

Speaking of Clover...obeying orders without question? You mean like how Clover decided to defend Ironwood’s decision to abandon Mantle, try to arrest Qrow, and completely disregard the mission to capture Tyrian because “Good soldiers follow orders?” Then the Qrow vs Tyrian vs Clover fight makes sense. Tyrian wanted to cause chaos, Qrow wanted to stop Ironwood and Tyrian, and Clover wanted to obey Ironwood’s orders without question. Qrow made the mistake of thinking that Tyrian, who had never lied before, had meant that “putting the kid to bed” simply meant incapacitating Clover, not killing Clover. Meanwhile Clover had no problem arresting anyone who wasn’t licensed by Ironwood or carrying weapons that weren’t part of Ironwood’s army. I guess Clover did die as he lived...not a huntsmen, but a soldier.

“ Unless they showed someone's corpse or Team RWBY looking at beggars, there wasn't any sign of famine or death as you mention. The most there was is extra security and frequent robot patrols. “

Just because there are no corpses lying around on the streets, doesn't mean that people aren't suffering. A lot of the times their suffering goes unseen. You can't deny that Mantle looks like a mix of cyberpunk slum and depressive post-USSR Eastern Europe city. That's enough to make an educated guess about the state of the city and its inhabitants.

Just because Ironwood sacrifices some things, doesn't give him the right to sacrifice something he doesn't own - namely, other people.

Watts of all people called Jimmy out on neglecting Mantle's security. Aside from that, how did he help Mantle aside from sending a few Huntsmen there, which is, again, a band-aid, and an illusion of action?

“Ironwood trusted them like he trusted Ozpin” Remember what he did to Ozpin in V2. You know, the whole going behind his “Friend’s” back to get Ozpin, Salem’s chief nemesis and founder of the schools, fired? And also putting Penny in the Vytal Tournament despite nobody allowing it if they knew she was an android? This is the same guy who talked about trust? Ironwood is a hypocrite because he loves to talk about trust while betraying everyone else’s.

Remember the episode “Sparks?”

Unrest doesn't happen like *snap* and everything blows up. Tension grows gradually and usually goes unnoticed, until it's at the point when a slightest spark is enough to ignite the situation. What Jacques and Watts did was that spark, but the groundwork was laid by Ironwood's actions raising the tension between Mantle and Atlas. And that growing unrest could be seen as far back as e1 of that volume - specifically, in the drunk racist and Forest.

“Ironwood didn’t expect Watts to be alive!”

Someone broke through a military grade cyber security and caused all Atlesian robots and mechs to go "Execute Order 66″ on people. Whether or not it was Watts is irrelevant, because it's a known (to Ironwood) fact that there's someone capable of doing it*.* You don't need a hindsight to account for it, just a regular sight and basic common sense. Which Ironwood has none. That Ironwood, knowing this, only went as far as updating the infrastructure in Atlas, but not in Mantle, is not just negligence, it's a sabotage of his own goals.

The fact is that Ironwood's methods revealed his disregard for people with whom his goals don't align.

“Ironwood was to take drastic actions! There needed to be sacrifices"

The sacrifices began when he locked down Atlas and Mantle. They were just incidental, a product of ignorance and negligence.

“Atlas was the mightiest military” Name one battle they won that didn’t involve Team RWBY’s help?

Their ships could barely fire upon some giant worms, and had not been updated since the great war, causing them only to be able to effectively fire single laser shots against other ships.

An elite huntsmen can take out tons of weaker grimm. And Ironwood’s ships were useless against grimm as well. The paladins could work...yes.But they had a nasty habit of being stolen or hacked...which was again, ironwood’s fault.

“Qrow was willing to trust Ironwood!”

Even though Qrow told them in V6 that they should ask Ironwood for help, by the time the team actually met Ironwood, Qrow had changed his position to not talking to him. Sound familiar? Something Lionhart?

Ironwood didn't take defensive measures against Salem's forces. We see in the very first episode that whatever Ironwood is doing to keep Salem's forces out of Mantle isn't working.

We learned in episode 2 that he was not only aware of his actions having literally the exact opposite effect of what he was promising the people of Mantle, but he also accepted that.

Even before the main cast met Ironwood, they knew he either had no idea what he was doing, or he wasn't on their side any more. They didn't know which it was, but they already knew they couldn't count on him.

The grand sum of Ironwood’s character is:

“I can tolerate leaving thousands of innocents to die for some vague concept of the great good, but I draw the line at insubordination and lying.”

“But Ruby and Yang were being hypocritical in going behind Ozpin’s back!” A huge part of volume 7 was that Ruby realized that Ozpin was ultimately morally grey, and morally grey I mean his actions he took while thinking of other people. Selfishness is the complete opposite of morally grey, which instantly disqualifies Raven Branwen (mass murderer and thief), Adam Branwen (Mass murderer and terrorist), and Roman Torchwick. (Thief, murderer, and racist) from ever being qualified as morally ambiguous. As a result, Ruby ends up acknowledging Ozpin’s points, and even starts working with him again in V8. Yang on the other hand was agreeing with Blake’s points during the cargo truck ride and decided to go: “Hey Robyn, I know jimmy is oppressing your people and your actions against him are valid, but he’s trying to restore global communications for the greater good and his ‘protector of mantle’ didn’t actually kill your constituents, so if you could please stop taking back what’s yours, James will eventually repair mantle.”

And Robyn went: Okay.

Yang and Blake got Robyn to be willing to compromise with Ironwood, something Ironwood cannot do himself, and something he is incapable of getting people to do unless he abuses his military and political power, which he does on a regular basis.

“But Robyn was a terrorist who sabotaged the project!”

She was taking back the supplies that were meant for Mantle, that Ironwood was stealing from Mantle, for his personal project that was done without the council’s authority. She was giving those supplies back to the people of Mantle. Which emboldened the suppliers of Mantle in giving them hope that they could pressure Ironwood to repair Mantle’s defenses. Ironwood’s response? Call the entire city of Mantle “A few cityblocks”

“Robyn’s outfit and equipment was ridiculous compared to Ironwood’s military”

Yeah, when you’re in a city that’s poorer than Vacuo and oppressed by a small-minded man with a giant ego, you don’t tend to have access to the best equipment, clothes, etc. Not to mention that unlike Vacuo, Huntsmen aren’t allowed to protect people in Atlas unless they’re part of Ironwood’s private army.

“Team RWBY were selfish, Ruby is acting just like Roman!”

Lying to save lives and prevent human extinction is not the same as lying for your own self interest. When the gang steal and airship to get into Atlas, it isn’t an evil thing. They are doing it so they can save lives and protect innocent people. The good guys make sacrifices when they have to, where there is absolutely no other choice. Ironwood would sacrifice anything he could to protect his people, you can debate whether or not he’s a true villain, but he goes to far. Sacrifice isn’t a last resort for him, he believes it is. But most villains believe they’re on the right side. This is why most “Rewrites” that try to “Fix” Roman, Adam , or Ironwood go out of their way to rewrite the plot and characters to try to claim that the Villains are in the right, and to shame any female characters who stand in their way. The both the White fang and the good side use violence. But the white fang use violence and seek division and persecution as vengeance for their own struggles. Ultimately, through salem’s manipulation, they divide the intelligent creatures of Remnant. They attack hurt innocent people to further their own goals. The good guys use violence so that violence can be ended. Remind you of anyone? Cough cough, Batman! The sin of the cynic is acting purely in self-interest. Torchwick's line of "lie, cheat, steal and survive" refers to putting his needs first and foremost. It's not the same as resorting to desperate methods to save lives. Like, Jaune cheating his way into Beacon is motivated by self-interest, but his idea to steal an airship in V6 was motivated by keeping others safe. He isn't proving Torchwick's ideals are right in the latter instance, it's quite the opposite. Same with Ruby.

I'm not sure how people can say that Ironwood was proven right when we are shown that there were ways to save the people of Mantle. It's not even a one-time thing either, he thought that he had to keep forcing Mantle to make sacrifices but it turns out it was completely possible to make a compromise with them.

And if we're going to be completely honest it's Ironwood's refusal to compromise that's the biggest factor regarding Atlas's fate. For example, Neo was able to steal the lamp because his soldiers unintentionally gave her the opportunity and a way to escape. It's what led to Robyn acting the way she did on the plane and everything involving Penny was because of him.

Frankly, the only point I can give critics is the white Fang and it's only because the series so horrifically failed to demonstrate the difference between Sienna and Adam.

“But Ironwood was prepared to compromise with Robyn”

He wanted to have her taken into custody 1st and only then was he going to "negotiate," with her... I don't think I need to explain how this is not under any circumstances an actual compromise.

The actual compromise between Ironwood and Mantle took place in the Schnee Manor and that was entirely thanks to Blake, Yang, and sadly Jacques. And that was a compromise that he broke mere hours later when he decided to completely unnecessarily abandon them all to die... A decision he made without seeking any advice and then straight up threatened the people who dared question him on it.

“Sleet: The fact of the matter is, you've operated with a fair amount of autonomy for the past few years, James. But we need now is for you to work with us “

So Ironwood disrespected his peers and did whatever he wanted, and when called out on it, refused to listen to his colleagues, his equals.

A person arrested and completely at James’ mercy ISNT really a negotiating.

“I can either throw you in jail for the rest of your life OR you can agree to work under me, under my terms and conditions.”

What a “””negotiation.“”” Much fair.

“But Ruby is the villain in the trolley scenario!” If the Trolley is the floating city of Atlas, then the people of Mantle are the ones lashed to the tracks, and Ironwood put them there. Salem is coming up behind the Trolley, and Ironwood wants to bulldoze over the Mantle people. Ruby and the Gang want to get the people on board, but Ironwood refuses to let them on. To the point where he will do anything to prove he’s right and somebody is wrong. Ironwood is literally the man who cuts off his nose to spite his face. So Ruby and Crew use Ambrosius to get everyone to a new destination.

“Ruby and crew destroyed Atlas!” According to Cinder, RWBY saved thousands. And if you think an infrastructure is what makes a kingdom, then you forget that a kingdom is nothing without living breathing people, who live in Atlas, who have made it to Vacuo, and while Vacuo is about as xenophobic as Atlas, they put power in the people, and everyone there works together for the common society. Aka, the greater good. The people of Atlas can do good for each other, when Ironwood isn’t sabotaging everything.

“Ruby sabotaged Ironwood’s broadcast!” Ironwood’s broadcast was “Hey world, I want you to ignore every bad thing I’ve done and every red flag I’ve given off because there’s a greater evil in the world, and I want you to let me use my army that failed to protect everyone into your borders just like I forcibly brought my army into the Vytal Peace festival. I promise I won’t do anything behind your backs like use your events for weapon testing of the human soul like I did back then?

What was Ruby’s Speech? “Hi Everyone, I’m a Huntress, my job is to help you all. Listen, Atlas is under attack by the same bad person that brought down Beacon. We’re all in the same mess. Yeah, she can’t be killed, but everyone working together has been able to stop her the past 80 years, and if we all work together again, we can do it again. Here’s some people you can trust to validate the info, but Ironwood can’t be trusted because of all his actions in the past and his red flags. I believe in you all, because you all can do incredible things, and together everyone can stop Salem”

So Ruby was trying to unite humanity, give EVERYONE the hope and strength to work together and fight Salem, and stop Ironwood from getting too big for his britches.

Ruby was not being a savior, Ironwood was trying to act like he was. Ruby was trying to make humans and faunus alike the saviors. Power of the People.

“Ironwood is a battle-hardened experienced general!” Remnant had been at peace for 80 years, the only conflict was Grimm and the White Fang. And Adam represented the main bad people out there...in Vale. So Ironwood basically used a display of military bravado for everything (Glynda’s words) and people think that’s battle experience? If that’s the case, then Team RWBY and JNPR have loads of experience both on Ironwood in terms of tactics, and on the Ace Ops in terms of combat. Oh wait! THEY DO! That explains why Ironwood fails so spectacularly against Salem and her agents tactics till Team RWBY comes along to help, and why Team RWBY can defeat the Ace Ops.

”He was completely different back in volumes 2-3!″

Why did people look at Adam Taurus, a wannabe edgelord who tried to murder innocent passengers on a train....and then people decided to defend his every action? Claiming Adam was “misunderstood?” What, like Vergil from Devil May Cry, who murdered innocent people for power and had no problem unleashing monsters onto civilians, just like Adam did in Volume 3?

Why did people look at Ironwood, who brought a war fleet to a international peace conference, got screamed at for his warmongering by the Assistant Headmaster who kept her voice relatively level even against team rwby’s food fight, got the headmaster fired for not obeying Jimmy, and used the conference to conduct weaponization of the human soul projects....and claim he was a savior?

So yeah...Ironwood was cool, had drip, had charisma, had good intentions. But his actions spoke louder than his words. Sadly people only listened to his words. Must be his Messiah Complex.

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itsclydebitches · 11 months

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Something really heartbreaking to think about is that Ironwood probably thought RWBY and co allied with Salem. He sees Emerald, who he doesn’t know switch sides, fighting with JNPR as well as Winter, his lieutenant, to stop him. I really wonder what his last thoughts were. His allies turn against him, Winter betrays him, and they side with Salem. It’s no wonder he gave up.

That could have definitely been a thought Ironwood had, but only if he knows who Emerald is and I'm not sure he does? She seems to have kept a low criminal profile - evidenced by her being able to attend Beacon for the festival/Ironwood only being concerned with Roman as an agent - and during the attack she's up on the rooftops, watching the grimm do the work for them. She then heads back to Salem's lair, spends the majority of the ensuing Volumes there/visiting the occasional spot outside of Atlas, and then when she does enter the city it's via Salem's whale. I think her switching sides and leaving might be the only time she and Ironwood could have feasibly crossed paths after Beacon and, as said, she was "good" by then. Unless I'm forgetting something, Ironwood's reaction to seeing Emerald with the group would probably be less, "Omg Salem minion!" and more Volume 5 Cinder @ Jaune: "Who this?"

Which, you know, really highlights the lack of developed connections among our cast. Characters stay within their own circles and though we assume they should understand the role the rest of the cast plays because we have that information, the reality is they've never interacted, or even - as far as we know - gathered intel on them, like the Ace Ops had on Tyrian.

Regardless, yeah. Personally, I think a lot about the Inner Circle members that have joined Salem (Lionheart), or are trying to straddle the line (Raven), so when your allies show up to take you out, what are you likely to assume? Remember, Ironwood left the group after they'd already betrayed him to Robin, after someone (Cinder) managed sneak into his office, after Watts nearly took out Amity through insider access (Jaques), after Salem herself sent a grimm to tell him, 'You've lost. It's only a matter of time.' So Ironwood is already primed to look for Salem agents, based on both past and present experience, and then the group he tried to have arrested comes back.

Why would they do that? He tried to have them arrested, the Ace Ops clearly failed, they've been sneaking around the city since (Ironwood has that call with Penny)... and now they've staged an attack on him. Obviously they're trying to take him off the board, but only the audience has the full, moral picture as to why. What's Ironwood more likely to assume? That this group is stalling his plan to leave with the Relics/some survivors for two days and then personally stage an elaborate plan to take him out, all because they're just that morally repulsed by an imperfect solution that would at least somewhat hinder their mutual enemy... or that they're doing all this because they're working for that enemy?

The convoluted nature of the group's justifications vs. what Ironwood would likely assume is not only tragic, but further highlights just how Bad this all was. It's been said a million times now, but the fact that the writing (via our characters) spends a whole Volume more concerned with taking out a flawed ally than fighting the LITERAL VILLAIN SITTING OUTSIDE just really says it all to me. Do they want to do something about the whale? No, they only go there to get Oscar and the whale's destruction is a bonus no one saw coming. Do they want to fight the massive grimm army teams like FNKI are battling right outside? No, they need to rest in the mansion and watch over Nora. If they can't think of a way to get everyone out before Salem crushes them, are they willing to just let Ironwood, a city full of people, and the relics hopefully get to safety while they do what they were gonna do anyway: minor damage control, sitting around debating, and not engaging with Salem?

Nope.

Our villains did more in that Volume than the heroes did. Emerald left, Hazel 1v1ed Salem, Cinder was her normal, messy self, and Ironwood not only kept them from being overrun with his army but had a whale bomb ready to go. Meanwhile, the heroes were laser focused on fighting their own allies instead of doing anything about the baddies, right down to Qrow deciding that fighting Clover is more important than transporting/fighting/tying up Tyrian.

If I were Ironwood I would ABSOLUTELY think that the group had joined Salem, or were at least trying to play both sides like Raven did in an attempt to save themselves, because the alternative is too absurd for anyone to hit on without that omniscient perspective.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

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rocknroll7575 · 4 months

Text

King and Queen

Watts walked away from the sight of the defeated James Ironwood and his so-called "Ace-Ops" as they lay bloody and broken on the ground.

A smile graced the mad scientist's face as he walked away, believing victory was his, however, before he could fully leave Amity Arena, the entire place shook, and he looked up in confusion.

"What is going on?" He asked.

"While Arthur Watts, the self-proclaimed strongest Wizard of the Modern Era, had won a battle against a group of some of the most powerful Huntsmen ever to walk Remnant, he was not prepared for what he was about to come face to face with..."

The barrier around the top of Amity broke apart as if it was made of glass and fell down from the sky as if he was the gods himself descending from the heavens, was Ozma, in control of Jaune's body, and on the wizard's face, was anger, anger so great it was sure to make even the Grimm run in fear.

Watts smiled when he saw the old Wizard in control of the young man, "Ozma, how delightful to see you, I've been waiting for this moment for such a long time," Watts said.

Ozma landed on the arena floor and unsheathed Crocea Mors, "You're going to pay for what you've done today, Watts," He told him.

Watts chuckled, "I will?" He asked, "I don't know if you realized it yet, Ozma, but the reason you were the strongest Wizard in history was simply because... I wasn't born yet,"

"Is that so?"

Watts turned around only to see Salem, wearing what appeared to be the old dress she had worn so long ago, but this time, it allowed for more mobility and even looked redesigned to take some damage in a fight.

Watts was confused at her presence, "And who are you?" He asked.

"While Ozma was no doubt called the "King of Wizardry" One should also know that a King..."

Salem's entire body began to emit a sort of black and red energy around her and Watts couldn't believe the amount of Magical energy radiating off of her and that's when he felt another set of powerful energy coming from behind him.

It was Ozma and he was emitting magical energy that was green and gold, and it was matching the output of Salem.

Salem looked at Watts with an amused smirk, "I'm Salem Briar, Wife of Ozma the Great,"

"...Is never complete without his Queen,"

Watt's eyes widened with shock as he was now faced to face with the greatest Wizard and Witch of history, and he had no idea how he was going to deal with this, as there was no plan he made, for such a situation.

"The self-proclaimed Greatest Wizard of the modern age was about to learn why these two have gone down in history..."

#rwby #rwby meme #rwby guardian ghost au #rwby ozma #rwby salem #arthur watts #rwby au

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ironwoodprotectionsquad · 6 months

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I just saw a reddit thread asking "what villains in fiction were actually in the right", and Ironwood was one of the responses with a reasonably high number of upvotes. And, idk, that just made me a little happy.

I hate that he is a villain but I love that people outside the fndm can see that he was right and done absolutely dirty by the writers.

It still kills me that the writers are so in creative and so insecure about their main characters the only thing they could even think to do with James is turn him into a Saturday morning cartoon villain while bragging about how “morally gray” the situation is.

I know I’ve talked about this before but CRWBY could have kept James morally gray and had their Saturday morning cartoon villain by making another character. It works because it’s their favorite game anyways. Since they don’t seem to actually want the office scene to be morally gray and want RW/BY to be right….have James either die in the fight against Watts or have him arrested and someone else step in. That way they’re not massacring a loved character and team RW/BY can be in the morally right against someone who maybe is in Jacques pocket or even Salems.

Sorry to go on a tangent but you get the point lolZ. Anyways that does make me happy because seriously James deserves so much better.

#rwde #james ironwood #ironwood protection squad #pro james ironwood #pro ironwood #general ironwood #general dadmiral #dadmiral ironwood

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platinumrosetail · 1 year

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Hi how your day going and I heard from someone you do Rwby and Avatar

Can I have yandere Salem Glenda Good witch neo and Jean and cinder x baby bat fawns reader

Like They found her and take her in as there own

Sure! And I love rwby! And I’m guessing the autocorrect corrected jaune to Jean by accident? Sorry if I’m wrong 😅 oh, also to clear up any confusion, i had taken off cinder with the permission of the requester!

Warning: noob author, female reader, platonic yandere characters, and others.

Characters: salem, glynda, neo, jaune.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Salem:

Tyrian had found you and brought you to his majesty, salem. You were a little thing, all alone s she decided to take you in as you reminded her of her daughters when they were as small as you are now.

If salem was busy to keep you with her then you were babysat by hazel, and on some occasions watts, but mostly hazel and if both were busy then emerald would babysit you to the dismay of mercury.

She teaches that grim are the good guys while her ex husband is the bad guy, plus she created a little playmate for you to keep you busy yourself and distract you on when she need to do her duties as queen of grim.

Though one time you did meet ozpin by accident from mercury as he lost you when he somehow was put in charge of babysitting you as the others that are usually the one to take care of you was busy and Tyrian was a definite no from salem so you went to mercury albeit hesitant on Salem’s part as he’s sort of a brat.

(Sorry if you like mercury.)

Anyway, ozpin was surprised to see a baby bat Faunus on a bench with no parent or guardian anywhere, after hew brought you with him until he contacted the police you disappeared via with the help of one of salems many grims, good thing she had watts put a tracker on you beforehand or else mercury b in even more trouble than he already was in fact he would’ve been dead if you haven’t taken a shine to him for some reason.

You unlocked your semblance which was (s/n) (semblance/name) and some created chaos that was unintentional to happen, most of the unfortunate events fall on mercury funny enough which she and the others get a laugh about and now they all hold it over his head as he is forced to hold you or he gets punished for not holding you like you had requested from him by salem.

She would find a way to keep you to her, either by killing you both after she gets rid of the immortality curse or make you immortal as well, it doesn’t matter, as long as you stay with her then she was fine with anything, not even ozpin can fight against her on this.

Glynda:

Glynda had found you in a box like shelter and after having no luck on finding the parents or guardian of you she decided to adopt you.

She made a small spot in her classroom so she can watch you while she works on teaching the kids on grim and other things. The kids all loved you, they make sure Cardin stays away from you and if he doesn’t then they’ll get Glynda and she give him one hell of a punishment for even thinking of messing with her child.

You’ve met her colleagues, oobleck, port, and the principal ozpin. Ozpin is the godfather, oobleck is the crazy uncle and port is the grandfather that can make you fall asleep by just saying one word.

They all take turns babysitting you though it’s mostly ozpin as oobleck will go overboard and port will go on with his stories and forget about you entirely, sometime even ironwood and qrow would babysit you when they visit, not for long though as ironwood is a very busy man and qrow doesn’t want his bad luck to rub off on you.

Qrow is your favorite along with ozpi even if qrow don’t show up as much as you liked him to. One time you made both of them kissed by ‘accident’ when in reality you did it on purpose even with your baby mind not fully maturing yet.

(I’m a qrow x ozpin shipper so please respect my option and don’t post hate comment as i will report and block as you can simply m,I’ve on from this post if you don’t like it.)

Sometimes when all teachers are busy along with qrow and ironwood, team rwby and team jnpr would babysit you and get extra credit by Glynda but they mostly did it so they could get to see you and spend time with you.

She wil make sure to keep you safe from the grim and all the other things that come with it.

Neo:

Neo was given to you by one of the thugs of roman after she spotted you in the corner of her eye.

Roman became the grandfather after that, he openly complains how he’s too young to be a grandpa but secretly likes it especially cause it means he gets to help raise sweet little you with your new mother, neo.

Neo doesn’t care that if you’re biological parents are around, alive, or dead, better dead than alive cause if they were then they would i she’d they were dead before she and Roman got their hands on them.

She shares her ice cream with you once you’re old enough to eat it.

You are spoiled by Roman and neo as they want you to have a good life with the support of them, all you have to do in return is stay with them so they can keep you safe from all the terrible people and grim.

She will make sure that you stay with her and don’t wander off when you two go out in public, sometimes Roman either joins or take you with him when he’s by himself though he can’t stay for long with how the fuzz is on his tail

Neo makes sure he doesn’t smoke around you as she doesn’t want you getting sick, neither does Roman so he makes sure to remind himself to not smoke in your presence as he knows that abides shouldn’t be around to get second hand smoking plus with how your enhanced smell is with you being a Faunus might make second hand smoking even more harmful to yo.

Jaune:

He had found you when he and the rest of team jnpr, aka Nora, prryha, and ren was out to spend time together and was advise by Pyrrha and ren to show ozpin and asked if they should bring you to the authorities or if they need todo something else.

Ozpin shocking enough had said that he can adopt you and take care of you if they aren’t able to find your parents, which endeded up being what happened as they never found any signs of your parents which made them think of the worst.

Jaune takes up being the father to you while ren is sort of the mom as he kinda take care of the group with Pyrrha, speaking of Pyrrha she is the godmother and aunt, Nora is also a aunt as well.

(I ship jaune x ren, i hope you can respect my opinion and not post hate comments as you can either ignore it or leave, thank you.)

For babysitters it’s usually team rwby as jaune doesn’t have anybody else at beacon to take care of you though Glynda and ozpin do babysit you when team jnpr and team rwby can’t take care of you because of missions that are handed to them as there is no on else that team jnpr trusts or are friends with that stay at beacon and they don’t want to give you to professor oobleck or port.

You had called ren ‘mama!’ Which shocked all but Nora who laughed her but off at ren getting called mom by a baby and started making jokes along with telling team rwby what had happaened.

Jaune shows and introduce you to her sister and wife along with their child who immediately took a shine to you through the scroll (phone).

He’ll make sure that he and his friends will make this a safe place to live without the fear of any bad guys or grim just stay near him and you’ll be safe, okay?

(A/n: i hope y’all like it!! I don’t think i have much to say so hope y’all have a wonderful day/evening/night!)

#anime #various x reader #anime x reader #x reader stories #rwby x reader #x child reader #yandere x reader #yandere #platonic

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neopoliitan · 1 year

Text

Volume 3, Volume 8, and Stakes

So I’ve always been vocal about my criticisms of Volume 8, and I thought I’d hone in and focus specifically on the Fall of Beacon vs the Fall of Atlas, and why the former sticks the landing when the latter doesn’t.

By rights, the destruction of two cities and the displacement of their citizens should be the higher stakes finale of the two, but for some reason RT’s description of V8′s final episodes as “traumatic” don’t stick to me. I find that this is for multiple reasons.

Lack of Stakes

The primary reason Volume 8 seems to fall flat is its lack of stakes. Volume 3 was a truly ‘traumatic’ event in the series, whilst Volume 8′s finale mostly pays lip service to the concept but doesn’t fully commit. Let’s break down exactly what was lost from the protagonists’ angle in each climax:

Volume 3:

Pyrrha, a character who had been in the show from the start and was one of the immediate secondary cast.

Penny, another character who had been in the show, since late volume 1.

Yang’s Arm, temporarily robbing one of the primary characters of their health and/or ability to fight.

Team RWBY, with the team fully disbanded by the end of the Volume.

Ozpin, the headmaster and protector figure - with his loss there’s an increased vulnerability for the cast.

Beacon, the primary setting and safe place for the cast.

The Fall Maiden

Volume 8:

Penny, while a popular character, had already died once reducing the stakes and impact of her demise.

The Relics, which are important but ultimately MacGuffins and the villains already had one of them.

Vine Zeki, one of the Ace Ops, arguably the one with the least focus and a rival force to the heroes up until an episode before the finale.

Atlas and Mantle. Like Beacon they were the primary setting, but were constantly portrayed as a troubled society - leaving the question of whether they are worth saving in the back of the viewer’s mind. Robyn even refers to them as a ‘chunk of land’.

“Team RWBY & Jaune” - almost not even worth putting on the list as the viewer instantly knows these "deaths” are moot and won’t stick.

It’s clear that Volume 3 cut much deeper with its choice of character deaths & repercussions, while Volume 8 took a much lighter path, killing off a character who had already died once (Penny) and another who had barely any presence in the show to begin with (Vine). V8 also committed to things telegraphed from a mile away such as the relics. Let me stress that I believe in sticking to your guns even if fans predict it, but it does neuter the impact somewhat - and do fans really care about the relics most of the time?

Plus no one really predicted Beacon to fall so violently, while we all knew that Atlas would drop the minute we found out A) it was a floating city and B) the staff of creation was holding it up.

Antagonists

To start, let’s do the same thing as before, except with what the villains lost.

Volume 3:

Cinder - though there was a big, bold question mark over her fate.

Roman Torchwick - A popular but obvious arc villain who outright states how small-time he is.

Volume 8:

James Ironwood - Volume 8 makes the decision to triple down on making James an unlikable antagonist to the point he’s the primary threat despite Salem having made landfall. By the time his death arrives, I’m pretty sure a lot of viewers are sick of his rapid decline and him overall.

Arthur Watts - One of Salem’s top lieutenants, killed unceremoniously like Ironwood.

Hazel Rainart - Another of Salem’s top lieutenants, killed off after a wobbly ‘redemption’ arc.

Monstro - Salem’s secondary base of operations and the crux of her invasion.

Emerald Sustrai - Switches sides (to me her arc feels heavily truncated and a little unearned, likely due to how much v8 threw at the wall)

The Hound - Supposedly the biggest Grimm threat and slasher villain in the show so far, killed almost comedically by a statue.

Jacques Schnee - With ne’er an actual confrontation between him and Weiss.

Neopolitan - Betrayed by Cinder and cast into the void, though like RWBYJ her supposed “death” is transparent.

Volume 3 is almost a unanimous victory for the villains, and what losses they do have are nixed by the introduction of Salem at the end of the finale - her arrival implies that anything her side suffered is small-time now that the Big Bad is here.

Meanwhile, Volume 8 significantly trims down a bunch of long-standing major antagonists to the point Salem only has three lieutenants left. Where the losses are weighted on the heroes’ side in Volume 3, Volume 8 has a much more even balance. Compounded by the severity of Salem’s losses compared to the protagonists’, she basically came off worse.

Now let’s consider the lack of consistency on who’s supposed to be the villain of the volume. Here’s a sheet of who the main antagonist is of each episode in Volume 3 contrasted with 8:

While Volume 3 has Cinder as a consistent primary villain practically the entire time - Mercury, Emerald, Roman and Adam all working to fulfil her plan even when they’re focused upon - Volume 8 has no less than three antagonists battling for control of the narrative. Salem, who is supposed to be the main villain of the show, is killed nine episodes into the volume. She gets better, but taking her out for so long and posting Ironwood and Cinder back into the position of primary villain makes it feel like the series could just as easily function without her.

It’s clearly a method to A) Have Emerald switch sides, B) Kill Hazel instead of doing anything with him, C) Reveal the power of Ozpin’s cane, but I can’t help but find the concept of killing off the Main Villain of the Entire Show In Episode Nine So You Can Focus On The Secondary Villains For The Climax utterly ridiculous. There’s no world in which it shouldn’t have been the opposite way around.

And while Volume 3 kills off a villain like Roman whose role in the show was effectively complete and introduce a roster of more threatening ones in Volume 4, Volume 8 can’t wait to sweep Hazel and Watts under the rug - leaving them both feeling like characters the writers made, promptly decided they wanted to do nothing with for four years, then killed off callously when they had potential to make Salem’s team a true threat.

I’m running out of steam now, but that’s my general thoughts on why specifically the finale and ultimate outcome of Volume 8 fall flat in comparison to Volume 3′s, and why this synopsis for Volume 9 feels... unjustified at best:

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #rwby volume 3 #rwde #rwby analysis #long post

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unofficialadamtaurus · 2 months

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Huh. Agreed with that fight's outcome, but *not* a fair chunk of the writeup's details. Mainly: given how he *physically* struggled with Watts' beanpole ass, Jim just ain't outmuscling Yang or Adam "ragdolled my tetherballed ex like a line drive" Taurus, and the threat level of combat-rated prosthetics strikes me as oversold-at best they seem to roughly match an aura-endowed person's meat limbs, and mayyybe the lack of nerves helps a smidge. Basically: Adam sweep unless Jim brought a Paladin.

Yeah, Ironwood's strength is definitely variable in the show. One-handing a beowolf, stopping a charging Manticore(?) in its tracks...and then Watts poses up a notable challenge. Personally I want to subscribe to the superhuman strength end of the spectrum.

Even if we put the prosthetics at about the level of aura-enhanced fleshy bits, I still think Ironwood is strong and smart enough to counter Adam for a while. But yeah, I see the fight bending towards Adam. His semblance and agility are just too good.

#anon #unofficial adam answers #james ironwood #not even sure a paladin would help tbh. adam absorbs any bullets and then bisects the thing #since it's not like the paladin has aura

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the-path-to-redemption · 1 year

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I firmly believe CRWBY is afraid of the girls that make the acronym. That’s why the side characters get all the development.

That’s why Nora got the scars saving Atlas, Oscar got Ozpin, Jaune got aged up. That’s why none of the girls are a maiden. That’s why stuff that really narratively matters keeps happening to the side characters.

RWBY is their merchandising ticket. If something permanent happens to the girls or they take up more plot narrative. Then it might be like Vol 4-5 Blake where a lot of people don’t like them. And they can’t have that. Who will buy their RWBY merchandise? They need to keep the girls safe and palpable so they can keep slapping them onto everything.

Like even the current arc, let’s be honest it’s basically a filler arc that has no real over all plot narrative in their fight with Salem. And even here, it should have been in anyone else’s hands should have been old lady Ruby. Since we know this transformation won’t stick for Jaune. This could have been a interesting direction fro her. Instead we got this nothing that won’t be mentioned as Soon as the volume ends.

Holy shit yeah, you put this in much more eloquent wordings than I can.

Honestly, while I would argue that no one but Jaune actually have the respect a character should have, it's true that the main girls almost never had any substantial development for them that actually meant something. Not since Mistral at least.

Even when they did, it all went to shit. Blake became a coward, Yang became someone who no longer have empathy for her friends and family like she did in Vol 2 for Blake, Weiss couldn't bring herself to see that her own brother was suffering like she did and became a comic relief for no reason. And poor, poor Ruby's development while interesting for the most part, it was never developed organically.

I don't mind them not being maidens, that would just be too much with how much the narrative just want them to be right all the time, but you're right that the side characters were the one making actual development. Nora did, Oscar did, Ironwood did, Watts did.

Not Ruby, Weiss, Blake or Yang. And we see what they're good for, especially with Yang and Blake. They're tools to keep RT relevant after each scandals because God forbid logic be taken seriously here.

#answered #anonymous #rwde #rwby critical #ruby rose critical #weiss schnee critical #blake belladonna critical #yang xiao long critical

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oddlyhale · 11 months

Text

Tough Luck brainrot rewrite of V7-V8:

Winter had been so worried about becoming the next Winter Maiden that she felt unsure of how to talk about her worries. Clover had always been there to hear her out.

Like Ironwood, Winter sometimes lets herself silently spiral too much into worrying about the big and little things. Clover was always there to bring her back to not think so hard and to trust that the others have everything on their ends figured out, that she shouldn't try to micromanage everything.

Winter is the one that highly suggests that Team RWBY+JNR go out to train with the Ace Ops. She speaks highly of them, especially of Clover. Weiss jokingly suggests Winter may have a crush, which Winter bashfully denies.

Clover, though, does admit to Qrow that he really does like Winter, so this entire process of her becoming the next maiden has quietly worried him. He doesn't want her to become the newest target for Cinder and Salem. Qrow, while not always being the best at advice, gives some of what he knows, learning from his own past mistakes. To be honest, something he wishes he was with Summer.

Winter and Clover are getting closer throughout V7. They have a moment alone where it seems like Clover is ready to commit himself to her, when suddenly, Cinder and co. attack. They have to separate to deal with the different villains.

Clover gets killed by Tyrian and Qrow's poor decision-making. Winter is attacked by Cinder. She is radioed by the Ace Ops that have arrested Qrow and Robyn, as well as Watts and Jacques. That is where she learns that Clover is dead. She knows Qrow was with Clover last, so she decides to ask him what exactly happened.

This doesn't exactly go well. Winter is distraught by the news that the person she romantically loved is dead and she never got a chance to tell him how much she loved him.

Clover's body is not on the other side of the hall from Winter's hospital room (that's fucking weird that it was set up like that in the first place.) Instead, after Winter is done recovering, she goes to see him in the morgue. She makes a promise to Clover that she will get the person that killed him.

Harriet, knowing Winter loved Clover deep down, gives her his lucky pin.

Winter learns how Clover died, though not through Qrow. Robyn tells her because Qrow was far too ashamed to admit what happened. Winter's feelings towards Qrow had soured greatly to the point where she says she would rather leave him with Jacques to rot than help him. While the anger was impulsive, Winter leaves without apologizing.

While fighting Ironwood, Winter feels stung by the situation. She saw Penny in the white void, knowing that she has died. Now, she needs to fight the man that she looked up to as a second father. Instead of blasting him with her new maiden powers, she tries to make him listen to reason, but to no avail. Instead, she leaves, easily avoiding the canon blasts with her new agility. She doesn't know what to do at that point.

At the end of V8, when Winter becomes the next maiden, she is once against struck with grief that she couldn't save Weiss from falling. She keeps losing the people she loves so fast that it makes her feel horrible that she isn't fast or strong enough for them. She still helps get the survivors out to Vacuo's desert, but she still cries silently about the four losses in such a short amount of time.

The whole time during V8, Winter could be seen wearing the lucky pin on her lapel.

#winter schnee #clover ebi #tough luck #v7 and v8 rewrite for a ship #winter schnee x clover ebi

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bestworstcase · 9 days

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Summer from Mountain Glen backstory would also fit with Salem's recruitment pattern. Hazel -> Gretchen. Watts -> Penny project chosen. Cinder -> Glass Unicorn. A concrete reason for dissatisfaction with the system, albeit some (Watts) pettier than others. Mountain Glenn which were buried and commute blocked off. Yeah that would definitely qualify.

Small thing - apparently from Grimm Eclipse there's one voice line from Yang that amounts to "It must have been nice here once" - though I can't find the source of that quote. Which if Summer was from Mountain Glenn holds a completely different impact as a statement from a survivor's daughter decades later.

as the resident Watts Defender i feel obliged to trot out watts was from mantle again, ’cause i think greenlighting the penny project was more the thousandth cut in a death-by-a-thousand cuts situation; esp. because i don’t think being pissed about the penny project is all that petty, given the context of ironwood challenging this team to come up with “the next breakthrough in defense technology” and then picked the proposal for [checks notes] a costly prototype robotic child super-soldier that requires the partial surgical removal of someone’s literal soul to function and can therefore never be built more than once, let alone manufactured at scale. like imagine being watts.

ironwood: we need to innovate to remove men from the dangers of the battlefield, so i want all of you to come up with a proposal for the next big breakthrough in defense technology. watts probably: okay well, our combat AI is still too rudimentary to let the synthetic soldiers fight unsupervised, so i’ve designed a heavily-armored walking tank that can run faster than a car and jump dozens of feet into the air in order to keep our living officers safe on the front lines while dramatically improving our offensive capabilities against hordes of grimm. pietro: i think we should carve out a piece of my soul and put it in a robot to create one (1) nigh-indestructible synthetic super-soldier who we’ll design to look like an atlas academy student. ironwood: i pick the robot girl :)

like are you joking.

we don’t know for certain that the paladins were watts’ proposal but that does seem to be the implication and like—if that’s so then ironwood held on to that proposal for years after watts faked his death and eventually put ’em into production as the penny project neared completion, which… tracks with “you just stood atop it and called yourself a giant.” in the face of such egregious favoritism and interest in technological spectacle and novelty over practical solutions i’d probably quit in disgust too!

/tangent

but yeah summer being a mountain glenn survivor is intriguing enough that i’m a little regretful i didn’t think of it before nailing down her backstory for time does this adlscfj—although not enough to scrap my plans for it lmfao—it puts a real face on this historical tragedy that has been kind of looming silently over the story. and the face is the character who’s haunting the narrative from her secret place as salem’s general. very juicy.

oobleck looks at mountain glenn and sees lives that could have been saved—why weren’t they? what motivated the inaction, the choice to cut mountain glenn off, leave people to fend for themselves in the undercity? what kept people there, living in caverns with grimm nesting over their heads, rather than evacuate to vale? (your so-called free world.)

if that was summer’s childhood and she escaped and got taken in by the huntsmen academy system, raised in these values, how might she feel about vale? about beacon? about herself as a huntress? how sharply might she feel the dissonance between what huntsmen are supposed to be and the sacrifice of mountain glenn? is that what drove her to confront salem, a determination to not be complicit through her inaction? is that why she chose to stay? etc.

it also adds some really interesting potential layers to summer holding beacon and presumably participating in the razing of vale. like is this something she has enough moral qualms about to give her pause or is it an act of long-delayed retribution to her. juicy!

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episodeoftv · 8 months

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Round 1 of 8, Group 4 of 8

propaganda and summaries are under the cut (May include spoilers)

RWBY: 7.11 Gravity

TW for mutilation, I think? Pretty sure the skin on his arm gets burned off but it's just colored a darker shade of red, no blood or anything)

Between Watts, Tyrian, and the seemingly endless swarm of Grimm, evil is encroaching on our heroes from all sides. The biggest threat, however, may be hiding where they least expect it.

Legit one of the best RWBY episodes of all time. It starts with a battle between the military Commander and later self-proclaimed Dictator of Atlas, James Ironwood, and Arthur Watts, a disgraced former Atlesian scientist and villain. They have the first gun-only fight in the show and it's awesome, held in a former combat arena that changes just as Watts hacks it to his whim during their fight. The fight ends with Watts trapping Ironwoods only good arm (the right half of his body is completely replaced by robotics) in a forcefield, and just as he turns around, Ironwood painfully pulls his arm out, leaving him heavily injured, before taking down Watts. The second half of the episode deals with Ironwood, arm freshly bandaged, finding a symbol of one of the main villain's other minions inside his very own office. This drives him into a spiral of paranoia, where he abandons all the progress the heroes and him have made this season, to replace it with a utopian dream of rising his kingdom high into the athmosphere, out of the villain's reach (for now) Little bit of context: The main villain, Salem, can only be stopped if literally all people on this world work together. She plans on uniting four relics which will call back the gods to this planet, and if they return and humanity does nit coexist peacefully, they will wipe them all out. So yeah, that's a big deal. While Ironwood and team RWBY (protags) argue, an apparition of Salem appears in his office, reminding him of how unstoppable she is, which further drives him into a spiral and makes him warrant an arrest for team RWBY. The episode ends with RWBY preparing to fight Ironwood's special ops team, the Ace Ops. https://youtu.be/QFngxDIYOqY

Tangled: The Series: 2.14 Rapunzel and the Great Tree

tw fakeout death? As mentioned Rapunzel magic-burns tf out of her friend's arm

The path of black rocks leads Rapunzel and her companions to the Big Tree, an ancient, magical place. They encounter the unpredictable Hector and discover the moonstone magic formula. Hector proves to be a dangerous adversary to the group and Rapunzel realizes that her only chance to save her friends is the uncontrollable Moonstone magic formula.

fun little disney princess show has an episode with a showstopping emmy-winning solo, villain with 2 minutes of screentime who became a tumblr sexyman, and then DEEP LORE THAT RECONTEXTUALIZES THE ORIGINAL MOVIE'S MAGIC SYSTEM AND ALSO THE DISNEY PRINCESS GETS TEMPORARILY POSSESSED AND SINGS AN EVIL REPRISE OF HER MAIN SONG AND HER HAIR AND EYES GO BLACK AS SHE BEGINS TO SUCK THE LIFE OUT OF EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE AROUND HER AND AT THE END OF THE EP SHE'S ONLY DRAGGED OUT OF IT AFTER BURNING HER FRIEND'S ARM TO BONE

#rwby #tangled: the series #tangled the series #poll #polls #round1 #r1g4

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itsclydebitches · 1 year

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Am I the only one that feels like that Maya!RWBY would get washed by Poser!RWBY, combat-wise? Comparing the scenes from Poser-era to Maya-era, and I find that Team RWBY in the former had better weapon usage and Semblance/Aura versatility than the latter - especially when you look at each of the trailers (I know it's 'Rule of Cool', but still...), not to mention much more coordinated team attacks. Like, Beacon!Weiss is proficient in Time Dilation and Elemental Glyphs while being a proficient fencer; in comparison, Maya!Weiss is just... a summoner. That's it. Like, she's written as if she has no other skills. 'Blek' is knocked down so easily these days and uses her Semblance as a means of escape; Blake, on the hand, not only is a proficient swordswoman but shows versatility with a Kusarigama, marksmanship, and double wielding. Oh, and that's not including her masterful use of her semblance to create afterimages to pull off blitzkrieg combos, and later infuse them with Dust for surprise feints. And how can I forget her fucking aura slashes! Yang, is tankier in Poser, and she uses her Semblance as a last resort/'uno reverse' - letting her CQC skills do the talking; meanwhile, "Yang" just... activates her semblance at the drop of a hat, ruining that surprise factor while slowly becoming heavily reliant on both it and her "weapon upgrades" (which are, in reality, downgrades since her previous explosive rounds were much more versatile in comparison). And Ruby... I can't really say much except that scythemanship-CQC combination and semblance usage were more dynamic. I know it's partly due to Monty and Shane's insane animation skills, but I feel like there's more to it than that. Sorry, these are just my observations.

Wholeheartedly agree. I mean yes, we're all continually acknowledging that we can't have the choreography and vision of the Monty years, but even beyond that recent fights have, for the most part, been shockingly forgettable for me. An immediate exception to that is Ironwood vs. Watts (which uses the environment really well) and I liked portions of the WBY vs. Chessman fight from V9E3, but on the whole the girls feel nerfed despite the claims of, "We're full-fledged huntresses now, capable of beating some of the best in the world."

To add to what you've already got above, some details that immediately spring to my mind are:

Yang repeating the same combat mistake that she made back in Volume 3, resulting in "dying" rather than losing an arm

Ruby now using her semblance primarily to travel (within Atlas HQ, out of the Red Castle, etc.) rather than pulling off cool dodges, ping-ing off of things for extra speed, or creating a tornado-like effect as seen in the food fight. As mentioned many times in the past, sometimes it's not even used for an obvious need, like scaling the mountainside while fighting Cordovin, because the story wants a 'cliffhanger.'

One of the reasons I liked the chessman battle was because we had some actual team attacks, but recent Volumes are still weighed down by separating the teams - even when the story claims that's the key to victory (AKA Ace Ops battle).

This extends to moments like YJB just taking turns against the Hound, or Neo standing there dumbly as Oscar runs the length of a hallway to punch her.

I rarely feel like fights are won with any exciting flourish or narrative satisfaction anymore. (Which is another reason why Ironwood vs. Watts works so well for me: destroying your arm as a massive 'fuck you' to what your enemy thinks you're capable of withstanding to catch them unaware in their confidence is AMAZING.) I still think about Weiss summoning a wall of ice for Harriet to knock herself out against and I'm like... really? That's it?

Ruby doesn't really use her sniper rifle anymore. I loved that she used that to obey Qrow's "Stay back!" command while still trying to help. That used to be another way to slow descent, get in quick shots between swings, help an ally like when she hit Nora with the lightning dust...

I could go on. So many of the new fights are just plain boring to me. Think about how much is solved through the Big Powers now. Ruby takes out The Apathy with her eyes (though I put that in only to establish the pattern. I do like that the emotion-based grimm was defeated via care for another, not fighting.) The Hound goes the same way. Oscar sets off an explosion of magic against Salem. Winter Maidens up to blast Ironwood, etc. They're all incredibly easy wins that, for the most part, just require the magic wielder to stand there and shoot the Powerful Magic Beam at the enemy. Meanwhile, other potentially well-choreographed fights are seeped in narrative problems, like Qrow and Tyrian vs. Clover. Now toss in moments like Blake begging Ruby for help, or her and Weiss being unable to get up the vines, or them straight up forgetting that Cinder is in the city (because strategy is as important as power) and yeah, OG!RWBY would wipe the floor with them.

OG!RWBY is made up of a prodigy child wielding "one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed," a sword master capable of manipulating time, her teammate's powers, versatile glyphs, and her family's dust supply, a tank who supposedly went on a journey to better harness her ability to absorb and redirect energy (which as you say used to be an awesome surprise, not a response every time Yang gets mildly annoyed at someone), and the child of combat activists who, by her own admission, had to fight early and well to survive outside the Kingdoms. Team RWBY now feels like they're powerful primarily because a) they claim they are and b) they've got various forms of magic in their back pocket.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

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