Crwby confirmed that they died instantly from the explosion. If you don't have aura being right next to an explosion strong enough to pick you up and hurl you that far through the air is pretty fatal.
IWIW RWBY
- Thread starter michaelb958
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Crwby confirmed that they died instantly from the explosion. If you don't have aura being right next to an explosion strong enough to pick you up and hurl you that far through the air is pretty fatal.
Or at least close enough to it that not having immediate medical assistance will make it fatal really damn quickly.
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Time to rename the thread IWIW RWB.
michaelb958
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My kingdom for a hit-with-rolled-up-newspaper button.
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This is indeed the Gun-Gun. In a setting of impractical weapons that rely on Rule of Cool to even function, this one stands out. I think at least a part of it is because of the wielder. Ironwoods two guns, while being worryingly named, were simple and practical. This weapon is unwieldy at best, given that the only way to hold it is the two pistol grips angled out from the side and either hold it out in front of you. On top of that, it uses Ironwoods guns as the pistol grips, which means Ironwood has to be the one using it, which brings up his paranoia and lack of trust yet again. And speaking of paranoia, when was this made? Is it something he had before this volume and never had a reason to use, or is it something that he had the scientists and engineers cobble together in the past hour solely to have a big gun to use against Penny?
Like I said, his shield of 'we're the reasonable ones here, honest' fell apart when Ironwood tried to murder Marrow. He's trying to rebuild his justifications, and failing hilariously.
Ha, didn't think about that first point, but it does fit.
She had to make one last attempt to talk reason into her fallen father figure, even if she knew it was going to fail.
Nora: LAND NOW.
Jaune: Too much chance they'll squeeze out from under us. Let them leave.
Ren: I know Nora. I'm sorry we can't too.
Emerald: I sense history here...
Emerald getting the chance to play hero, and be trusted with such a crucial part of the plan, was a heck of a risk on the heroes part, but it certainly paid off for them. And for her, honestly. Positive reinforcement really helps with redemption arcs.
There were people that tried to make out JNRS out to be the bad guys here, because how dare they fake surrender to the man threatening to murder a city! That's a war crime!
These people don't appreciate the look of glee on Emeralds face right before she vanishes. "I'm helping!"
And the way he just glares at her. He's so disbelieving at Winter turning on him that he just STANDS THERE and lets Nora treat his head like a crochet ball. Just like she's been wanting to all volume.
Power of friendship, power of 'fuck you guys' one of the two.
Let's face it, indulging in justified grudges with a trio of idiot cops can be tough to resist.
The body language of both characters in this scene gets me every time, the cartoony exaggeration a well needed moment of levity in what is otherwise an often tense episode. It's much like Jaune excusing himself during Nora and Rens heart to heart the ep before.
He certainly is.
I think it's not just that it's a relatively simple concept. The machinery to keep Atlas afloat is all existing tech in universe, just on a larger scale, so there's not really a lot of creativity in it. On top of that, he's been doing it for 80 years, and I get the impression it was as much to keep the relic from possibly being (mis)used by anyone, given the consequences to Atlas, as it was for saving on the power bill. Guy is bored.
And his response to seeing Penny is to be amazed and impressed. Say what you will about him, he respects skill and quality.
This is a gamble on the heroes part, of that there's no doubt. Even if Ozpins knowledge included the possibility of Penny being able to manifest without a body. But at the same time, the only other alternative at this part is to let Penny die, to kill her themselves, or try and hold out long enough to reach amity, and hope that Pietro can do something. And the later runs against against the time constraint of Ironwoods ultimatum and Salem pulling herself back together. Basically, if this doesn't work... They're essentially making the first two choices anyway.
Penny being slightly more human in her appearance here threw me for a bit. Wouldn't she be more or less a duplicate of the form she already had? Then after some thought, I realised something slightly heartbreaking. Her mechanical aspects were just used for a horrible violation of her body, identidy and free will. This could easily be seen as her finching away from those elements of herself after what she's been though. Which made me want to hug the girl. Fortunately, RWBY were here, and all got hugs, with Penny clearly delighting in the different tactile responses between her first two bodies and this one. And possibly also in getting to experience marshmellow 'hell' with hugging Yang.
Not that good a reassurance there Jaune.
The grand proclamation fading into "Oh it's you." AmBROsius is a hoot. Sadly, they didn't follow up with showing him how he made Penny possible. I think he'd like being thanked for his work.
Often, otherdimensional places should not be poked without sufficent knowledge...
Honestly, I don't think Winter would leave him in a falling island, no matter how much she hates him. There's a difference between justice and vengeance, after all.
Someone has never heard of OHSA or Worksafe.
The fact she's already hiding among the people there had REALLY worrying implications at the time.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
It's only a war crime if you're at war.
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There's also the age old question of legitimate authorities vs armed civilians, the fact it's not set on earth so there probably aren't international treaties, the fact he was the one targeting civilians, the fact that war crimes tribunals even in the real world aren't some black and white judge of morality, the fact his subordinates were helping the heroes remove him from power...
And the fact that Emerald looked to happy so be legit helping. This is the important one for me.
Also, I forgot to comment, the fight song there is 'Be Strong and Hit Stuff'
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michaelb958
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Yarn for crochet does usually come in a ball to avoid tangling, but I think you meant croquet.
All less-than-two-days of it.
Well, we know there was at least one, to end the Great War and doubtless specify some other things about the ensuing peace (and festival, and tournament).
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Yes I did. This time, I can't blame autocorrect, that was entirely my brain.
She needed something pleasant to imagine while being bedridden and in pain.
Dunno if that classes war crimes the same as the real world does.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
RWBYJNR aren't just any civilians, though, they're licensed peacekeepers. This is basically an elite police unit trying to arrest a guy perpetrating a coup.
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And that brings us back to 'no, it's totally legal, moral, and clearly the calm and rational choice to shoot the wall next to your political rivals!'
The best bit is, it's apparently only him. Everyone else walks through fine. Just something about Jaune.
Also, check the military recruitment poster in this scene. Cordovin cameo! It was about this point that it occurred to me she's going to likely be on the first airships to arrive at Atlas after seasons end. The woman who, almost too late, recognized the difference between what is legal and what is right, who held absolute faith in James Ironwood in V6. That faith has to be burning at her ever since Rubys broadcast.
Their plan, as I understood it, is two fold. They don't just have to find somewhere for the refugees, but the staff of creation. I doubt they're going to repeat the 'let Oscar keep carrying it around as a sign of trust' mistake from V7, which means it needs to go in a vault. And at this point, the only one they have access to is in Vacuo. The Vale vault key is Cinder, and the vault is covered in Grimm on top of that, and Mistrals key wandered off to regret her life choices. In addition, they know, thanks to Emerald, that Salem had diverted her plans from Vacuo to target Atlas, and that her agents just left. It's a relatively safe assumption that the city is still there. There are still long term issues, mostly based around the fact that Atlas is the reason Vacuo is the worst off of the Four Kingdoms and there's serious resentment there, but in the short term, it does make sense.
She's the Protector of Mantle, she's supposed to be protecting these people after all. And she was able to take Cinder in the end the last time they fought...
Also, because say what you will about Cinder, she's willing to play whatever role is necessary to achieve her goals. I didn't believe her for a second here personally. I've seen how much Cinder needs to Burninate everyone who dared to deny her her rightful glory plenty of times before this. Neo, being a short sighted idiot who is still aimed in the wrong direction, clearly brought it.
The way she looks so sad here always gets me. She wants her knowledge to help people, she adores clever thinking... and here she has to help them ruin everything. I feel for the girl, I really do.
One bit I love and hate about this bit was Neo killing the last person on the floor. The playful casualness of it serves as such a great reminder of how deranged she is. This is a professional killer who loves her work, and her recent issues with Cinder were personal, not out of any moral stance. So many people love to go 'oh, poor little Neo, alone in the world because Roman was murdered, she just wants justice on those that wronged her,' but the fact is, this is the second kingdom she helped murder, without any real hesitation or regret. Even in V3, at the height of Cinders gaslighting, a part of emerald was able to recognize she was in the wrong. Neo? Doesn't care.
Cinders line there to Watts. 'you deserve this'. That was a giant death flag for Watts, and I was really wondering just what Cinder had planned for him.
Disturbingly enough, I don't think that detail occurred to any of them over the past volume.
And we don't have a Schnee around to make Harriets natural enemy. Walls.
Seriously, this right here? This is using the drones in ways that the drones design and abilities take full advantage of. Ironwood pushed them out to replace soldiers in situations that require THINKING, but ignoring injury to the point of limb removal and pressing on? That's a drone advantage. And I once again wonder if Watts designed the drones in the first place.
Harriet does have a talent for making things worse.
Yeah, time constraints really bit Winter in the ass there. Sure, she wasn't expecting the cells to be turned off, but given the island is going to fall, there was no guarantee they'd stay online anyway. Should have at least had a guard take the pistols.
And the fascinating thing is, you feel regret at his death. No one deserves to be executed by a madman just because he decided to indulge in a petty grudge. And that's what that is. At this point, Jacques was no threat to anyone, and Ironwood knew it. That was entirely for personal satisfaction, not even some weird 'judge, jury, executioner' mentality. And in so doing, the man that named his weapons things like Due Process denies real justice to all of Jacques victims.
While they haven't shied away from character deaths at any point, killing one of the title four after someone else has already been killed this ep seemed... unlikely, to put it mildly. Which confirmed that Ambros warning was about the void leading somewhere. The question then becomes just how the team would be reunited. Would they fight Neo and Cinder off, but somehow learn Yang was alive and go after her? Would Penny's unique nature as a free soul being involved? There were a LOT of questions and theories in the fandom in the week between this ep and the next. Some of them were... iffy, I must admit.
And STILL people insisted there was no evidence of Bumblebee.
Penny, how long have you been trying to decide what to do? Give the staff to one of the civilians at least, tell them to find Oscar!
And yet Neo honestly looked scared. There is a wrath in Blake right now that surpasses anything she felt regarding Roman.
If nothing else, I think he finally acknowledged that his starting position was flawed, and actually thought through what that meant for their other decisions.
And there's the final confirmation that their entire 'just workmates' attitude was bullshit, even if they never admitted it.
I don't think she was trying to push it off course. She was trying to break it.
It's all about him, in the end. Like I said at the end of the last volume, any good in James Ironwood is long gone, replaced by ego, anger and fear. He will sacrifice everyone and everything pointlessly. It is a true tragedy, one that you can follow the chain of events from his very first appearances in Volume 2, when he brought military fleets to sporting events, and ranted about people not trusting him while politically backstabbing them. I wish he hadn't become this monster, but I can see all too clearly how it happened.
It's that simple a technicality that spelt disaster.
Yeah, the next ep... yeah. My opinion on that ep changes on a near daily basis, even after all these years.
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michaelb958
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But more than that...
The thing about war crimes is that they have war punishments.
And more generally, just like with civilian crimes, not everything that looks like a war crime actually is. (As an example of how that works for civilian crimes: It's illegal to punch someone - unless you're e.g. in a boxing match with them.)
A war crime is "superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering...inflicted upon an enemy". Note the words superfluous and unnecessary. Assessing whether something that looks like a war crime actually is one involves two tests: First, was there a military justification for the act? Second, even if there was, was the harm (of the potential war crime) disproportionate to the advantage gained? Targeting of civilians for its own sake automatically doesn't have a military justification - compare targeting enemy troops in the field, or military bases, or maybe military or even dual-purpose factories depending on whether you could and/or did do so when civilians weren't there. Wikipedia's example is that if you're hitting an ammunition depot, anything that happens to one farmer plowing a field nearby is not a war crime - you didn't deliberately set out to harm them, and (as cold as it is) there's only one of them - but by the time the number of civilians endangered reaches the thousands, "an extraordinary military advantage would be necessary" to make it okay.
So let's assume there's a war on (because otherwise this post is a bit pointless). We can fairly safely conclude that Ironwood taking all of Mantle hostage and threatening to execute them all unless his demands are met is a war crime: there's no military justification because he's directly targeting civilians, and even if there were, the harm would be disproportionate to the 'rescue' (big scare quotes) of the probably notably fewer civilians in Atlas. As for Team ALPN+E faking Penny's surrender: As many point out, false surrender is a well-defined war crime just like deliberately targeting civilians is. The thing is, there's a military justification of 'targeting enemy military leadership to prevent them doing the war crimes they'd announced in no uncertain terms', and a big mitigating factor of having nowhere near enough force available for a conventional military action to accomplish it. They'd still get dragged to tribunal, but any decent defence would run a proportionality analysis on the number of civilian lives that Ironwood had pledged to snuff out versus the number of people being deceived by the false surrender (basically just Ironwood, who demanded the surrender or else he'd do war crimes) and put the prosecution in a real bind.
Which is true, if by "justice" you mean 'murder', and by "those that wronged her" you also mean 'and anyone whose murder was the slightest bit expedient, or maybe even just convenient'.
A person cannot be made to understand something if their
...which is a thing that only works in reality where aircraft are flimsy at air travel speeds.
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Two aircraft colliding can be catastrophic, let's be fair. If Robyn was a more experienced pilot, she probably could have made the other ship crash.
V08C14 The Final Word
michaelb958
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V08C14 The Final Word
Every Chapter in Volume 8 has had a single-word title, except this one. Way more concerningly, the episode description is a lyric from the title theme (the descriptions are usually a little vague like that), followed by literally this text:
Which is very good of them to say but has IMPLICATIONS ABOUT THIS CHAPTER'S CONTENT. I'm screaming internally, even more than I've been ever since Yang was made to do the one thing Ambrosius told them not to.
List of suicide crisis lines (courtesy of Wikipedia). Note, in particular, that the US National Suicide Prevention Hotline now has a new name and number (but the old number reportedly still works).
And just in case that wasn't enough implication, the content warning isn't an epilepsy warning, it's about "themes of death". Haha now we get a death warning!
To try to distract from that for a little bit, title sequence foreshadowing checklist!
- Abrupt glitch-cuts between intact and half-ruined shots of Mantle (and in one case Atlas). ☑
- Title card, as Ruby stands behind the rest of Teams RWBY and ALPN and we look over (but way above) her shoulder. The perspective is quite something.
- These individual shots of Team RWBY (with glowing motes) have projected nostalgia shots to tell us about happier times. Blake's is from as far back as her colour trailer. (I missed Weiss' entirely at first because I wasn't expecting hers to be projected on her body.)
- Ironwood has Atlas projected on his uniform. Wipe transition to Ironwood looking battered and Atlas looking ruined. ☑
- A hand I'm not good enough to identify drops Clover's emblem. Zoom in to it; we see the Ace Ops, and Qrow (back to back with Harriet), reflected in the clover leaves. ☑ Transition fully to Qrow's scene; Robyn offers him a hand and helps him up. You'll be shocked to learn they're in a cell. ☑
- Now Oscar is in a bigger cell, having a bad time, with Grimm watching from outside the bars, and now Inexplicably Winged Salem looming over him. ☑
- Team RWBY's weapons fall. Also not ominous at all! /s ☑☐☐☐
- Team ALN stand at points of a triangle in the scenic tundra, facing outward. Ren is refusing to acknowledge Nora at all. Nora's not handling it well. ☑ (Bonus point for the lightning in front of Nora's face foreshadowing her overclocking her Semblance. ☑)
- Weiss and Winter walk past each other on a glyph. While Winter is obscured behind Weiss, her outfit gains something I can't identify wrapped around her upper torso. Medical purposes? ☑
- Glyph background for Whitley and Willow (their mother). ☑☑
- That glyph falls to a chequered floor and shatters. It's a giant chessboard; Salem summons herself onto it and turns the black pieces (familiar imagery) into Grimm, which charge at the other side, where Ironwood stands alone as the white pieces vanish, and then so do all but the square he's standing on. No prizes for getting that symbolism. ☑☑
- Watts and Pietro lurk on opposite sides of a mirror, doing tech things. ☑ Only the Pietro in the mirror (not the real one) turns to look at Penny (and then disappears ☑), who looks pensive as the mirror cracks. Transition away before it shatters... ☑☑
- A snowflake blows into Ren's hand. Jaune tries to reassure him; Yang (on a hoverbike ☑) and Oscar are also there, completing Team APRY. A rose petal (I think) blows past Nora a little distance away; the rest of Team RSPBV drop in on either side of her. Camera instantaneously flips around to reveal that they're watching Amity caught between Atlas on one side and Salem's siege on the other ☑; Penny takes flight and hovers (visually) under Amity (another one for the 'not ominous at all /s' file). ☑
- Split-screen, of the type the animators got fond of using last Volume, in which Ruby and Yang nod at each other (possibly signalling Teams RSPBV and APRY reconciling ☑). This starts the fight scene with the Grimm. Most of them get a moment, then the scene freezes as Cinder strolls past the action. ☑ She strolls off the end of the action shot past suddenly Neo and Emerald ☑ (Emerald waves goodbye! ☑), then clutches her Grimm arm in pain as fire erupts around her. ☐
- Transition through a fireball to Hazel, Tyrian, Mercury, then Salem. ☑ (Interesting that Emerald and Mercury appear separately. ☑) Reflected in Salem's eyes we see the Relics of Knowledge and
ChoiceCreation (nobody caught that typo? for shame). ☑☐ The Relics, now seen together, dance together and emit blue mist, which fades to- ☐ - -Ruby looks up. Before her, Atlas and Mantle abruptly glitch-cut from half-ruined to intact, in reverse of the start of the titles. Teams RWBY and ALPN seem pretty happy about that. ☑ We sit around for a second (an eternity in this context) basking in it, then a crevasse opens under Team RWBY and they fall (Ruby drops Crescent Rose). ☑☐☐☐ They seem to fall into some transparent medium, trailing little golden motes, then stop. ☑ Ruby looks up at Creation, emitting many more motes and far out of reach, before Grimm arms close over her view... ☐
- Short answer section! Words interspersed with chalkboard-looking drawings:
- "Happy", swiftly crossed out and suffixed with a question mark. ☐
- The jaws of a Grimm, resembling the one Salem tasked at the end of Chapter 1. ☑
- "Ever", swiftly crossed out and replaced with "Never". ☐
- Penny's right eye, and adjoining part of face and hairstyle. Initially the pupil and iris are in red chalk, the eye socket and eyebrow in cyan, and the face in something beige-looking; then the pupil and iris briefly change to cyan (blink and you'll miss it), before it all changes to red and the eye closes a bit to look angrier. ☑
- "After", swiftly replaced with "Again" crossed out. ☐
- The dropped weapons of Team RWBY finally land. ☐☐☐☐
- The music ends. Crescent Rose is driven into the earth alone, in the same pose as its chalk drawing that we just left. Its only company is the tundra, the night, the shattered moon, and after a moment the creator credit and some rose petals blowing by. Not even Ruby. ☐
So. Chapter. Apparently half of The Whale still hasn't quite evaporated. Some Grimmstuff in what's left of the interior (now open to atmosphere) is coalescing into something. Is this Salem respawning?
Meanwhile in the Creation Vault antechamber, Winter and Ironwood fight. Ironwood asserts that he's "sacrificed everything" (V07C11 callback), to which Winter retorts between being shot at that he has in fact "sacrificed everyone else", with a list. Of course, Ironwood is in absolutely no condition to be talked down now:
Oh really now. Get him, Winter.
Meanwhile in the Central Location, Team RWB+P (RSPB?) cannot be said to be having a good time. Cinder and Penny continue to fight in the air above the bridges, at times getting uncomfortably close to the trickle of evacuees. Cinder's attempt to grab Penny with her Grimm arm (yet again) is interrupted by Weiss' Queen Lancer summon taking out the stretched Grimm arm (yet again).
Jaune reminds Nora of "priority one", which is the evacuation.
Weiss actually swept up Penny with the summon rather than just smacking Cinder with it. Penny asserts that she can buy time for the evacuation because Cinder is fixated on her. Weiss is reluctant to accept that, but neither of them had situational awareness so Cinder is unopposed in flinging a fireball that kills the summon. Both of them land heavily (Aura flickering) on the exit portal's platform. Cinder follows, and smirks. Penny realises that Cinder is smirking because Weiss dropped Creation. Penny jumps in the way.
Cinder. Just, dammit Cinder. Cinder makes an attack run on Penny, but has clearly lost her own situational awareness because here's Blake to kick her in the head and send her bouncing away. Blake shouts at Weiss to get up. Weiss does, grabbing Creation and running as Blake moves to assist Penny.
Meanwhile in Mantle's airspace, Qrow and Harriet fight. Qrow tries to talk her down by invoking Clover, which Vine isn't there to tell him is exactly the wrong move.
Harriet abuses physics a bit to get the plane to pitch up, causing The Bomb to start sliding backwards towards the open hatch. Qrow braces himself behind it and manages to stop it. Harriet yells at him to not do that, which is fortunate because she could instead have pressed the attack while he was very busy.
The plane lurches again because Vine has grabbed on to it. He's standing in front of the windscreen of Robyn's. Well he's not really standing there, Elm has anchored there and is holding him up. Elm has long since been convinced that Ironwood was never bluffing and Vine has clearly convinced her not to go along with it.
Everybody give Ren a quick thanks for sowing that seed. Harriet is taken aback and starts reconsidering her life choices.
Qrow falls over sideways and The Bomb starts sliding backwards again. There's nothing anyone can do, except for Qrow to get Clover's emblem out of whichever inner pocket he put it in and will it to do something. It does: The Bomb slides slightly sideways; just as it reaches the start of the ramp (which is steeper, so there'd be no stopping it), it reaches the side of the hull, catches, and stops. Everybody breathes a sigh of relief.
The Bomb's timer starts. Watts did it. Dammit Watts!
Meanwhile in the Central Location, Ruby continues to defend herself against Neo. It's not going great, much like literally everything else that's going on right now. Fortunately, here's Weiss to bat Neo into an entry portal.
Cinder bats Penny aside with a fireball, dissuades Blake with a firewall, and primes an eruption right under Ruby and Weiss (the latter of whom has just said "We have to do this for Yang."
). Weiss notices first, and responds by shoving Ruby back and passing her Creation. Weiss is sent straight up. When she comes back down, the impact breaks her Aura.And here's Neo back again. Ruby is on the back foot, and Neo soon knocks Creation out of her hand, knocks her back off the platform, and catches Creation. Neo now holds both Relics. ☑
Ruby lands on a bridge and stops. Crescent Rose lands on the same bridge and skids off, falling into the void. ☑ Neo looks over from the entry platform, looking as murderous as ever - and now Ruby is unarmed.
The Bomb is counting down from half a minute. Qrow reports that the autopilot's stuck on - thanks so very much Watts (/s). It is now Harriet's turn to realise the horror she's unleashed:
I... what else do you even say there? The background music gets sad-pseudo-choir as Vine lifts himself out of Elm's grip into the Bomb-plane, then passes Harriet down to Elm. Elm realises what Vine's about to do:
Harriet now cottons on, enters complete breakdown, and has to be dragged back by Elm. I'm not in much state to analyse right now because I'm also literally in tears. Vine wordlessly orders Qrow out the back as Robyn takes the other plane away.
Vine now pretty much burns up his entire soul overclocking his Semblance, enveloping the plane in a cocoon of what Lovecraft or Escher might call his hands. This contains enough of the explosion that Mantle is saved. For the moment.
Harriet and Elm can only stare at another
"Whatever you wanted," says Ruby, "I hope it was worth it."
Neopolitan clearly thinks it was. She stabs at Ruby. Ruby responds by diving off the bridge to avoid being stabbed, then Semblancing around and back up behind Neo to shove her off. Go Ruby! Neo drops her weapon on the bridge and throws Creation in the air to grab the edge with both hands. Ruby can't grab Creation on the way down because Cinder toasts her in the back; she ends up dangling by holding Neo's ankles. Cinder grabs Creation and walks over to this fascinating arrangement. Neo extends a hand to be helped up.
Would you look at that, Cinder has actually learned absolutely nothing beyond 'conceal your true intentions if others would disagree'. "You should have never threatened me," she tells Neo, reaching past her outstretched hand to pluck Knowledge off her belt. Cinder now holds both Relics. ☑ As an encore, she kicks the parasol into the void. "And you," she tells Ruby as the silver eyes charge up, "should have never been born." Which is immensely hurtful to Ruby, but more hurtful still is slamming Creation into Neo's other hand to force her to let go. Neo somehow still is surprised by this sudden but inevitable betrayal as she and Ruby fall.
Penny and Blake fly in to witness this scene. Penny immediately throws Blake. Blake grabs hold of Ruby and throws her weapon again; it anchors in a passing bridge.
Cinder incinerates the weapon-ribbon. Ruby and Blake go hurtling into the void and disappear in motes. ☑☑
Penny is, well, I don't have a word for how Penny's feeling about that. It's probably an amplified version of how I'm feeling about that.
Here's Weiss, who has just lost her entire found-family. Weiss picks up Blake's gun and starts shooting at Cinder.
Jaune orders Nora to go get anyone combat-capable back from Vacuo. Shit, they don't know that's impossible and they're just locking Nora out of the fight too.
Weiss is knocked down. Cinder says incredibly hurtful things to her before breathing fire at her. Penny lunges in to block the firestream. Penny has a fuming retort at Cinder before Jaune swoops in to attack her (Cinder).
Jaune, Penny, and Weiss stare down Cinder. Cinder briefly has a bad time as her Grimm arm writhes. ☑ Nobody takes advantage of it. "She's back," Cinder declares, and starts raining down Maiden-empowered hits.
Before long, firewalls separate the three of them. Penny, in the center compartment, loses situational awareness before screaming in a pitch that tells me bad things. Sure enough, Cinder's grabbed her around the torso with that damned Grimm arm and started siphoning. Actually, no, it's worse than that, some of those talons are in her torso.
First-person view from Penny's perspective: Cinder retracts the arm to deal with Weiss. Penny collapses backwards. Jaune trusts in Weiss to buy time from Cinder and sprints over to Penny to start Amping.
Penny reaches for Jaune's sword. Jaune draws it. Penny. No. Penny no. PENNY NO.
Weiss is disarmed of Blake's weapon, which falls into the void. ☑ Winter's not looking so great either. Weiss, whose Aura was already broken, is knocked down near a platform edge. Winter takes a cannon (melee, not firing) to the face and is combo'd from there into Aura break.
This is all secondary to Jaune wrestling with approximately all the inner demons.
Cinder comes at Weiss again, but all pauses to hear Jaune scream, and cry, and watch blood drip from his sword.
PENNY.
Penny gives a white void an enthusiastic salutations.
Well, actually the target was a very confused Winter.
Winter asks what's going on. "I thought of you," says Penny, "and here we are." Winter is the latest to the realisation that Penny has died. Winter is not having a good time, and externalises her realisation that Winter was the real "machine, just following orders" all along. Winter is quite surprised to see that Penny is no longer of mechanical construction.
"You were my friend," says Penny (a theme of this episode), and transfers the Maidenship. We learn that the Maidenships are partially gestalts through Penny saying she'll be "part of you", or maybe Penny's just being symbolic. Winter starts crying, which is absolutely understandable because I have too. Sad reprise time!
Penny beams, and fades away first as the screen whites out again.
"So, says Ironwood, "the destiny I chose for you has arrived." Rich of him to say literally any of those words.
"You chose nothing," says Winter at the most hateful we've ever heard her, "this was a gift.". Ironwood shoots at her again, which she easily reflects back at him before diving for the entry portal.
Jaune now has the undivided combat attention of Cinder fucking Fall. Yet another strike from a summoned glass sword shatters Jaune's own sword. As Jaune tries to work that into his worldview, Cinder shouts her frustration about not getting the Winter Maidenship: "Where did it go?!". Cue Winter herself to deliver the answer by frost bolt.
The Maiden battle resumes, but with a different Winter combatant.
After some time of this, featuring the old 'tide of spectral birds' trick, the Staff of Creation is knocked loose from Cinder's grasp and falls onto a platform. This draws Cinder's attention to Jaune and Weiss, who have nearly made it out through the exit portal - there are no evacuees left, what else do you do?
Cinder sends a fireball, which Jaune burns his forcefield grenade to keep off them. This puts both of them on top of Cinder's next primed eruption. Winter screams (figuratively) through the air at them, but can't get there anywhere near in time. The eruption knocks Jaune aside and breaks his Aura, and knocks Weiss off the platform entirely. Now Winter really is screaming through the air as Weiss disappears into motes. ☑
All Jaune sees is Winter return to the platform alone and collapse in tears. That's really damn common right about now.
Cinder reclaims Creation from the platform on which it fell (which Winter wasn't doing because Cinder sent her after Weiss). Winter tenses to resume battle, but reconsiders as a terrible ghastly screaming noise rocks the entire Central Location. Jaune persuades Winter to head for Vacuo. Winter pauses to swear vengeance on Cinder.
Cinder, for her part, decides her work here is done and just rockets off through an entry portal, and then they all start disappearing - and then the disappearance travels down the bridges towards the exit portal. Winter, in flight, looks back to see Jaune not in flight (obviously) and not keeping up, but her own momentum carries her through the exit portal, from which she is as powerless as anyone else to come back. It's now just Jaune in a footrace to reach the exit portal before all structure in the Central Location returns to the void from whence it came.
Jaune is a split second too late.
Nora beats her fists on the Vacuo side of the exit portal in a frantic attempt to be let back through. Oscar, Ren, and Emerald have their hands quite full dealing with all the Grimm. Suddenly their hands are not full because the Winter Maiden blows all the Grimm away. They turn to see Penny with Creation. They instead get Winter and the disappearance of the exit portal.
Winter, on the other hand, has to face her mother and surviving sibling. Rather than deal with any of that, instead she goes Grimm-massacring. Which honestly makes some kind of sense! Short-term problems and all that. But also,
.Ironwood can only lie on the floor of the Vault antechamber as Cinder walks down the steps from where the entry portal was. From the other direction glides a coherent cloud of black smoke which Cinder addresses as "master", so I'll presume it's Salem. Yep, Salem manifests into her full form as Cinder spins an absolute lie about how she couldn't stop Ruby and friends from using up Knowledge's last question, or Neo from then killing them. Stab her for it, Salem.
Salem does not stab her for it. Instead she seems to buy it at face value, commending Cinder on her accomplishments before taking both Relics and leading her off.
As Salem quizzes Cinder some more on her AAR, Ironwood scrabbles for his gun.
Cinder really has learned absolutely nothing about teamwork, merely delayed betrayal. In this case, her replacement Creation was eternal flame to burn Watts to death, or at least trap him in the soon-to-be-ruins of military command. And with that, Cinder has murdered anyone who could contradict her version of events (with the possible exception of some terrified civilians who don't know the significance of anything they might have heard and somehow remembered through the trauma).
Ironwood aims his gun at Cinder's back. "And that's checkmate," Cinder tells him, causing him enough of a flashback that he can't fire before she flies away. He can only slump to the floor as he realises, far, far too late, that he was playing right into Salem's hands the entire time.
Atlas finally falls and crushes Mantle. Salem and Cinder depart without imperilling any other air traffic. Speaking of which, Qrow, Robyn, and the three surviving Ace Ops are staring out the back at The Impact. We've lost SFX again so we can't hear what Qrow's screaming over comms or Robyn's trying to tell him; we can only be pretty sure that he's in the beginning stages of his own complete emotional breakdown at losing two-thirds of the family he still had.
Some part of The Impact broke open a river or a spring or something, because the crater formerly known as Mantle, not to mention the fallen Atlas, is rapidly flooded. Apropos of the fate of Atlas (and hopefully only Atlas), some music:
Credits: Aaaaaa this is a Penny-perspective song. How could you. Why.
Post-credits scene: It's a beach (with Crescent Rose stuck in it ☑), in front of a jungle, in front of a backdrop of a really big tree.
I will now be eating some bad icecream. And no, I assure you, there will be no fucking strawberry in it.
As says the author's note trailing chapter 14 of my favourite ongoing fic Two Minutes' Silence, that I think is now spoiler-free:
(And so the last thing I ever watched on RTArchive [before they preemptively made way for Viz Media's TBA distribution] was Atlas crashing and everybody dying. Not actually very thematic considering the hopeful coming resurrection of the franchise, but I'm still a little bit irritated at my chosen media source vanishing again.)
Next time: Chapter defies summarisation.
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- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah. This ep. I continue to go back and forth on elements of it to this day. More specifically, Pennys death, her choice to have Jaune help her, if that was really a choice or something the narrative (And being pressed to be the savior for so long in Penny's case) forced on them, if it was really necessary for the plot and characters, so on and so on. My stance changes on a day to day basis.
hellgodsrus
Actual Real Game Dev!
- Location
- Behind You
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, similar to MatrixDragon I go back and forth on this a lot. Sometimes I'd argue it's one of the only two episodes post start of Volume 6 that I dislike, sometimes I'm like 'wait, literally everything in this episode but the one thing fucking slaps and is some of the best of the show'.
I think ultimately it suffers from Volume 8's main problem (and why I personally rank it lower as a whole than Volumes 6 and 7 despite individual episodes consistently being, in a vacuum, as good as those two Volumes), which is a weird mix of tight interconnectedness from the time frame and disconnects chapter to chapter in terms of some set ups. I don't know if I can explain it better than that but I'll try when I'm back at a proper computer.
I think ultimately it suffers from Volume 8's main problem (and why I personally rank it lower as a whole than Volumes 6 and 7 despite individual episodes consistently being, in a vacuum, as good as those two Volumes), which is a weird mix of tight interconnectedness from the time frame and disconnects chapter to chapter in terms of some set ups. I don't know if I can explain it better than that but I'll try when I'm back at a proper computer.
Grey Rook
Genuine Nerd
- Location
- The Quantum Foam
Yeah, that one is really good. I've got to say that it takes real guts for a writer to just kill off their protagonists even if doing so is part of a time loop plot. Also seeing the steps that RWBYJ take to improve things on their second go-around, and the outcomes of their actions... My major complaint is that it doesn't update nearly frequently enough, but there's nothing to be done about that.
- Pronouns
- He
Seems is the big word here. How much does Salem know or suspect? I can't say, her face isn't giving a single thing away.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I mean, if it keeps Cinder as a useful tool to believe she fooled Salem, Salem will happily indulge her. It's all about convincing her there are no chains.
LordDarthYoda
#1 Jenova's Witness
- Location
- The Bottomless Pit
Yeah the big question is does Salem believe Cinder? But I think right now it doesn't matter if she's lying or not. Salem got the results she wanted either way. Now if Ruby shows up alive again then Salem should start wondering as Cinder probably freaks out over it. "Why won't you die?!"
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engiSonic
Yesterday's Minder
- Location
- Deep below ground
Penny is almost certainly being symbolic, and also echoing what Winter said to her at the end of V7 about Fria.
There's no indication that the powers hold any of the previous Maiden's consciousness; those who murdered to get the powers (Cinder, Raven) don't seem to be dealing with the voices of angry ghosts constantly distracting them, after all.V7C13 said:
The only implied exception to this seems to be the Aura Transfer Machine since it transfers, well, Aura (i.e. soul) which drags the still-attached magic alongside it, instead of a natural transfer where the magic disconnects from the dead maiden and binds to the new one.
And the final word spoken in this episode is:
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SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Being spoiled on them bringing Penny back and making her human just to kill her again is why I've never watched this volume, personally.
Penny also had a voice in the back of her head telling her to kill herself for at least a few hours due to Watts too.
She might have been less physically human and more a being of pure aura and magic that mimics the shape of a human based on how Penny thinks it works, but that would be a really complicated thing to explain beyond her robot parts seeing her in a really weird way after they were split.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah. Penny's state of mind at this point was a complex thing.