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RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

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Stop: So gotta few things that need to be said real quick.
  • Staff Post
    • so gotta few things that need to be said real quick.
    We get a lot of reports from this thread. A lot of it is just a series of people yelling at each other over arguments that have been rehashed hundreds of times since the end of the recent Volume. And I get that the last Volume - and RWBY in general, really - has some controversial moments that people will want to discuss, argue about, debate, etc.

    That's fine. We're not going to stop people from doing that, because that's literally what the point of the thread is. However, there's just a point where it gets to be a bit too much, and arguments about whether or not Ironwood was morally justified in his actions in the recent Volume, or if RWBY and her team were in the right for withholding information from Ironwood out of distrust, or whatever flavor of argument of the day descend into insulting other posters, expressing a demeaning attitude towards other's opinions, and just being overall unpleasant. That tends to happen a lot in this thread. We want it to stop happening in this thread.

    So! As of now the thread is in a higher state of moderation. What that means is that any future infractions will result in a weeklong boot from the thread, and repeated offenders will likely be permanently removed. So please, everyone endeavor to actually respect the other's arguments, and even if you strongly disagree with them please stay civil and mindful when it comes to responding to others.

    In addition, users should refrain from talking about off-site users in the thread. Bear in mind that this does not mean that you cannot continue to post tumblr posts, for example, that add onto the discussion in the thread, with the caveat that it's related to RWBY of course. But any objections to offsite users in the thread should be handled via PM, or they'll be treated as thread violations and infracted as such.
     
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  • Staff Post
    • Pugman said:
    Well I think Medusa has been getting better press in recent years as people have shifted from "Medusa is monster with snake hair an petrifying stare that must be slayed" to "Poseidon is shitty and a rapist and Athena is a bitch and cursed an innocent victim"

    ......oh gods keep Neptune away from Ruby!

    -We don't have an Athena yet, do we? I think we only have Mercury and Neptune, and Neptune's older brother who was only in a flash back in 1 book.
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    Medusa was originally born as a monster. It wasn't until the Anti-Gods Ovid decided to write Roman fanfiction was she changed into a victim. Poseidon didn't give two shits about her being a monster and plowed her anyways.
     
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    Pugman said:
    Well I think Medusa has been getting better press in recent years as people have shifted from "Medusa is monster with snake hair an petrifying stare that must be slayed" to "Poseidon is shitty and a rapist and Athena is a bitch and cursed an innocent victim"
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    Eh, the story's a little muddied either way, since there's also the interpretation that the whole snake thing wasn't a curse but a blessing, since she was elevated from her duties as a priestess to do what she pleased.
     
    From what I gathered even the ancient Greek sculptors and vase-painters in the fifth century BC were already envisaging Medusa as being beautiful as well as terrifying instead of just being a hideous monster with Greek poets at also starting to make references to fair-cheeked Medusa in the fifth century BC.
     
    Zam said:
    While that is a popular re-imagining of the myth, my understanding is it is a rather unsubstantiated one rooted in a guy with a political agenda rewriting a lot of well known myths to work out his very specific complexes about feeling persecuted by those in power. Not that, that in of itself means said myth wouldn't be utilized but I felt that was worth noting.
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    Heh, true. There is a fair amount of agenda stuff in old myths.
    Heck, I've heard the existence of the Minotaur is one rooted in a rivalry or something.
     
    Pugman said:
    Heh, true. There is a fair amount of agenda stuff in old myths.
    Heck, I've heard the existence of the Minotaur is one rooted in a rivalry or something.
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    The theory/interpretation is that the version we've received is a pro-Athenian myth that demonizes the Cretans, whom the Athenians were once a tributary vassal of back when Crete was dominant politically and economically, and that other versions might have existed that had a different perspective. Effectively, it's an argument that the Athenians were mythologizing their history by turning "Athens has to pay grain or whatever in tribute to Crete, but as Crete wanes in power Athens asserts its independence and stops paying tribute" as "Athens is being forced at swordpoint to give up its young children to be eaten alive by a man-bull monster birthed when the gods cucked the Cretan king, because fuck Minos, and also our legendary hero-king Theseus kicked its ass and sailed off with Minos's daughter to boot." Also it should be noted that bulls seem to have played a key role in the Cretan religion, so the choice of a bull-man specifically was definitely not random.

    A lot of myths likely come out of similar roots; back when history was a nascent discipline and your only dating system was "who was ruling which city-state at the time?", it was a lot easier for even relatively recent history to fade into literal myth and legend.
     
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    Leingod said:
    The theory/interpretation is that the version we've received is a pro-Athenian myth that demonizes the Cretans, whom the Athenians were once a tributary vassal of back when Crete was dominant politically and economically, and that other versions might have existed that had a different perspective. Effectively, it's an argument that the Athenians were mythologizing their history by turning "Athens has to pay grain or whatever in tribute to Crete, but as Crete wanes in power Athens asserts its independence and stops paying tribute" as "Athens is being forced at swordpoint to give up its young children to be eaten alive by a man-bull monster birthed when the gods cucked the Cretan king, because fuck Minos, and also our legendary hero-king Theseus kicked its ass and sailed off with Minos's daughter to boot." Also it should be noted that bulls seem to have played a key role in the Cretan religion, so the choice of a bull-man specifically was definitely not random.

    A lot of myths likely come out of similar roots; back when history was a nascent discipline and your only dating system was "who was ruling which city-state at the time?", it was a lot easier for even relatively recent history to fade into literal myth and legend.
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    Gods I love myth and history. So much crazy shit to sift through.

    I hope Rooster Teeth gives us another book from the world of Remnant like they did with the Fairy Tales book.
     
    Interesting tidbits from RWBY The Grimm Campaign.


    The magical artifacts that have been dug up all use at least a little bit of Aura when activated. So that pretty thoroughly discredits the idea that Aura is some newfangled concept that wasn't around in the age of gods and magic.



    Magical items discovered so far include

    1. A cloak that can distort light to make the wearer invisible/near invisible via optical illusions.
    2. A bracelet that sucks up a huge amount of Aura when used and then fires it as a highly destructive beam. In the latest episode it was hinted that it could be very overpowered if multiple people charged it at once, as it seemingly has no upper limit on how much Aura it can absorb. This thing would be scary in the hands of Gillian or that son from The Hunters Children who could combine the auras of everyone in contact with each other (ie one person holds him then someone holds that person and so on).
    3. The jawbreaker, so named because Pyke Rite suggested he should eat it to keep it out of enemy hands. When thrown it exploded like a grenade and then reforms so it can be thrown again.
     
    Mook said:
    The magical artifacts that have been dug up all use at least a little bit of Aura when activated. So that pretty thoroughly discredits the idea that Aura is some newfangled concept that wasn't around in the age of gods and magic.
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    Not exactly. These artifacts don't have to be exactly from the time of Salem, Oz, and Humanity 1.
    Humanity 2 has been around for ages itself so these could be from those times.
     
    Random Truth
    I at one time thought Emerald had some kind of Praying Mantis motif going. Green, sickle blades, luring in victims with trickery.
     
    Teen Spirit said:
    I mean Salem has no aura.
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    Says who? She could simply be not bothering to use it because she's immortal. And she takes several hits that would splatter a normal human without getting scratched.


    When she first got cursed and when she was protected from the Pool of Grimm we clearly see Aura shield effects on her.


    Mahrac said:
    Neither does Cinder's arm because it's Grimm, so that might be a side effect of her dive into the BoD's pool than aura not being a thing in her time.
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    Also this. Judging by the veins she has been snorting Grimm juice for a long time now. Who knows what that does to a person.



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    Pugman said:
    Not exactly. These artifacts don't have to be exactly from the time of Salem, Oz, and Humanity 1.
    Humanity 2 has been around for ages itself so these could be from those times.
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    No. These are explicitly MAGICAL artifacts, something humanity 2.0 has had no capacity of making since they don't have magic. And there's way too much of this stuff to have been made by Oz or the Maidens, especially since he or Salem would have collected it if they knew about it.


    And Eddy really went out of his way to emphasize that the ruins these things came from where older than old, ancient beyond ancient. Far older than any other ruins ever discovered by a order of magnitude. That narration is clearly there to establish that these ruins are from the first age of humanity, before the big gap between the great flood and the birth of the second humanity.
     
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    Pugman said:
    Lack of rest. Who knows how many pain killers. Stuck in his PTSD. He is scared but refuses to believe it. Basically a control freak. Every time something goes wrong we see him slid further. The fact that V8 takes place in less than 3 days at least and everything keeps going wrong for him.
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    Fair enough that you could infer this as a justification for his behaviour, its just that the show doesn't really clarify this as its done previous villains. With Raven, they both let her talk about her survival of the fittest philosophy, and then showed how she doesn't follow it and her cowardice in her conversation with Yang. You see her get torn down despite having enough power to do something about it.

    With Ironwood you see a man in V7 constantly trying to do what he perceives to be the right thing, but in a racist/classist? (not considering mantle a relevant part of the kingdom) way. We're shown both the avoidable harm this is causing, but also understand that Salem is supposed to be a threat that would cause more harm if nothing is done about her.

    The conflict is on a surface level between utilitarian viewpoint and an optimistic one that isn't balanced because of the major faults on both sides (Ironwood abandoning people he absolutely could save if he was willing to risk a single Atlas airship to save anyone local to Mantle well before it became an issue, and Ruby not having a viable plan to stop Salem from killing everyone anyway at the time). Whichever fault you found most disagreeable tended to set your stance on the issue.

    When V8 rolls round the conflict looks like Ironwood is starting to escalate when he kills the councilor to consolidate power and commit to his plans, probably holding Qrow and JNPR hostage for Penny seemed like a reasonable progression of his position.

    Its planning to nuke Mantle that seems like a major psychotic break that feels rushed.

    The best example I can think of in the problem with having him go full supervillian is an issue that popped up a lot in Legend of Korra. The equalists had legitimate grievances with how society had been structured to advantage benders. The grievances had escalated to the point that a terrorist movement could take advantage of them to gain support from a large section of the population. Korra gets handed a win against a much larger societal issue by having Amon be a secret waterbender invalidating the movement in the eyes of the public, but not touching the underlying issues that caused it.

    Rather than have Ruby grapple with the question of whether its okay to abandon people who really need help in order to save as many lives as she can by having Ironwoods side be amoral but guarantee some level of success (e.g. dropping the Lamp in the well at the Apathy farm and living the rest of their natural lives in peace) and have her refute that, it just had him be so blatantly evil that siding with him doesn't warrant consideration.
     
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    Eos_Astraeus said:
    Its planning to nuke Mantle that seems like a major psychotic break that feels rushed.
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    But it's entirely consistent with his flaws.

    One of Ironwood's flaws is that he has to be the hero in the story, because that justifies all the extreme decisions he's made.

    If Team RWBY succeeds in saving Mantle and protecting Atlas, then that means his decision to abandon Mantle was never justifiable. So he cannot allow any plan but the one HE made to be carried out.
     
    Matrix Dragon said:
    And when your plan starts with the direct murder of an innocent woman, and the indirect murder of an entire city, you've got a bad plan and should try again.
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    You have a point with Fria (even if it's more a case of "have to kill her before an agent of Salem does", which is as fucked as "talk a girl into getting her soul taken over by a Maiden"), remember that Mantle was technically already murdered by Watts shutting off the heat and then locking out access for anyone else to turn it back on plus the onslaught of Grimm that came from that panic. What Ironwood was doing is the equivalent of passing by a bleeding out person on the street. Murder by inaction, yes, but remember Watts (you know, the guy actually working for Salem?) had a hand in it.
     
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    Psyga315 said:
    You have a point with Fria (even if it's more a case of "have to kill her before an agent of Salem does", which is as fucked as "talk a girl into getting her soul taken over by a Maiden"), remember that Mantle was technically already murdered by Watts shutting off the heat and then locking out access for anyone else to turn it back on plus the onslaught of Grimm that came from that panic. What Ironwood was doing is the equivalent of passing by a bleeding out person on the street. Murder by inaction, yes, but remember Watts (you know, the guy actually working for Salem?) had a hand in it.
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    Ironwood had Watts in custody. He could easily have him turn the heat back on to fix that problem.
     
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