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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
    • Mook said:
    Like. Getting some much needed rest when you've been awake and running from crisis to crisis for 48-62 hours is important. Whodathunk. Maybe Ironwood would have had the presence of mind to go pick up his Scroll if he'd gotten a few hours of sleep at some point. Or better yet, maybe he would have had the self control to not throw it in the first place if he hadn't run himself so ragged.
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    Like in all honesty Ironwood should not have been in command due to his injuries and recovering from surgery. He got his arm degloved and then immediately hacked off and replace. One way or another, his judgement was impaired massively after his fight with Watts.

    LilithFairen said:
    They were literally accomplishing vital objectives to their goals at Schnee Manor and the hatedom wants to complain that they weren't instead wasting their time on small fry.
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    Yeah I kind of stopped listening to the hatedom a while ago, they're an at best silly bunch at worse there's some really freaking problematic elements to the Ironwood and Adam fandoms. And I wish Youtube would realize that me liking RWBY AMVs does not mean I want to watch a video with a thumbnail that calls Team RWBY the villains of the show.
     
    Teen Spirit said:
    Like in all honesty Ironwood should not have been in command due to his injuries and recovering from surgery. He got his arm degloved and then immediately hacked off and replace. One way or another, his judgement was impaired massively after his fight with Watts.


    Yeah I kind of stopped listening to the hatedom a while ago, they're an at best silly bunch at worse there's some really freaking problematic elements to the Ironwood and Adam fandoms. And I wish Youtube would realize that me liking RWBY AMVs does not mean I want to watch a video with a thumbnail that calls Team RWBY the villains of the show.
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    Unfortunately the Youtube Algorithm does not see it that way, they see you like RWBY content and they will show it in your feed regardless of weather it is good or ill RWBY content.
     
    It says pet owners but this is 2022 me in regards to any kind of news about Volume 9 or Arrowfell to be honest. 😅


    View: https://twitter.com/OfficialRWBY/status/1478433571148902402


    Tython82 said:
    Unfortunately the Youtube Algorithm does not see it that way, they see you like RWBY content and they will show it in your feed regardless of weather it is good or ill RWBY content.
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    In more positive RWBY fan (actual fans this time) content news Kerry found a cool thing.

    View: https://twitter.com/kerryshawcross/status/1478069381825499138

    Reddit - Dive into anything

    www.reddit.com www.reddit.com



    Also
     
    I think that RWBY's early volumes definitely could be fixed up. They're very rough in a lot of ways and while they mean well they can be clumsy in how they handle certain things. Things like the Maidens could have also been foreshadowed better.

    I mentioned this before but there are things I'd do regarding the racism plotline.

    1.) In one rewrite (during the bit they're hunting for Blake after she ran away) Weiss starts her development when she sees the poverty Faunus endure and gives a Faunus some money to buy clothes....only to shortly afterwards see that same Faunus being manhandled by store staff and police because they immediately assume said Faunus MUST be a thief. Weiss has to clarify in order for the police to back off and the entire experience leaves her deeply shaken.

    It's dramatic enough to make its point but low-key enough to avoid being overwrought (it also helps that such things have happened. There was an incident last December when a black man went to cash his $900 employment check. Rather than call the employer to verify per procedure, the bank manager immediately assumed the black man was a thief and called the cops. This triggered a needless scene before they ultimately called the employer and got confirmation that YES this Black man WAS employed and WAS given $900.)

    2.) Expand the Weiss Banesaw fight. In the story he's literally just a guy with a chainsaw who Weiss fights. I felt that they could have had a more extended conversation, or HE gets a face reveal before Adam. I think this works for two reasons.

    a.) Weiss isn't a bad person but even if she intellectually realizes Faunus are being mistreated and that what's happening is wrong, actually SEEING it is a whole other kettle of fish. Quite a few white people who came down south during the civil rights movements to help were blindsided when they saw the sheer viciousness of the racism, and even Black northerners were taken off guard (Bryan Stevenson of Just Mercy grew up in the North. He was still shocked by how bad things were down south.) If a black guy could be blindsided by how bad racism down south was imagine a privileged heiress being in the same spot.

    b.) The SDC mines are in universe the source of a lot of mistreatment for the Faunus.....yet the viewer never sees it until Adam unmasks in Vol 6. We're only TOLD, which is different from seeing it. Giving Banesaw a face reveal (with injuries/signs of abuse that aren't a brand, like say a breathing apparatus) would show the viewer how bad things are in the mines as well Weiss.
     
    LordYam said:
    I think that RWBY's early volumes definitely could be fixed up. They're very rough in a lot of ways and while they mean well they can be clumsy in how they handle certain things. Things like the Maidens could have also been foreshadowed better.

    I mentioned this before but there are things I'd do regarding the racism plotline.

    1.) In one rewrite (during the bit they're hunting for Blake after she ran away) Weiss starts her development when she sees the poverty Faunus endure and gives a Faunus some money to buy clothes....only to shortly afterwards see that same Faunus being manhandled by store staff and police because they immediately assume said Faunus MUST be a thief. Weiss has to clarify in order for the police to back off and the entire experience leaves her deeply shaken.

    It's dramatic enough to make its point but low-key enough to avoid being overwrought (it also helps that such things have happened. There was an incident last December when a black man went to cash his $900 employment check. Rather than call the employer to verify per procedure, the bank manager immediately assumed the black man was a thief and called the cops. This triggered a needless scene before they ultimately called the employer and got confirmation that YES this Black man WAS employed and WAS given $900.)

    2.) Expand the Weiss Banesaw fight. In the story he's literally just a guy with a chainsaw who Weiss fights. I felt that they could have had a more extended conversation, or HE gets a face reveal before Adam. I think this works for two reasons.

    a.) Weiss isn't a bad person but even if she intellectually realizes Faunus are being mistreated and that what's happening is wrong, actually SEEING it is a whole other kettle of fish. Quite a few white people who came down south during the civil rights movements to help were blindsided when they saw the sheer viciousness of the racism, and even Black northerners were taken off guard (Bryan Stevenson of Just Mercy grew up in the North. He was still shocked by how bad things were down south.) If a black guy could be blindsided by how bad racism down south was imagine a privileged heiress being in the same spot.

    b.) The SDC mines are in universe the source of a lot of mistreatment for the Faunus.....yet the viewer never sees it until Adam unmasks in Vol 6. We're only TOLD, which is different from seeing it. Giving Banesaw a face reveal (with injuries/signs of abuse that aren't a brand, like say a breathing apparatus) would show the viewer how bad things are in the mines as well Weiss.
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    But the Maidens were not "properly forshadowed" because they were last minute additions by Monty.

    and I will say this again. The "racism plotline" is/was/and was always going to be a side thing in the story. Racism was not a main focus of the show.
     
    The early volumes are jank as shit, but I'm not sure that you can actually fix them and still adhere to the limitations of the time. It's easy to say that this scene or that scene should have been added, but you have to remember that in those first two volumes, they were literally finishing the episode hours before it aired. They often had to push episodes back several days because it just wasn't done. If you add anything to V1 or V2, you need to find the thing of equal time and effort that you're going to remove to balance it. I'm sure there are so many things that could have been done better because V1 in particular just does not flow. But talking about adding shit to fix anything in V1 or V2 just doesn't jive with the reality of the production in those days.
     
    I feel like if one wants to suggest 'fixes' that are feasible the best way to do it is to try and calculate what you remove to give more time.

    For instance, I might like to see Blake & Velvet interact post Cardin, but to do that I need to cut Jaune's bully arc in half which doesn't bother me but would be required cos I can't just add scenes in without removing others.
     
    Zam said:
    I feel like if one wants to suggest 'fixes' that are feasible the best way to do it is to try and calculate what you remove to give more time.

    For instance, I might like to see Blake & Velvet interact post Cardin, but to do that I need to cut Jaune's bully arc in half which doesn't bother me but would be required cos I can't just add scenes in without removing others.
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    Could be easy if you add up the hypothetical scenario with "what if the effort and resources they had in later volumes were applied to the early volumes", which easily adds about an hour of content to be added.
     
    Pugman said:
    But the Maidens were not "properly forshadowed" because they were last minute additions by Monty.

    and I will say this again. The "racism plotline" is/was/and was always going to be a side thing in the story. Racism was not a main focus of the show.
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    1.) This does in hindsight mean it's somewhat janky. Sometimes adding things works (Vader being Luke's father is one of these things) but a lot of the time it's just bad. Even Vader left a few minor cracks. It worked but that was luck.

    2.) Even if it's not the main focus racism still needs to be handled with care, and while the show meant well it was VERY clumsy with how it handled things (though it's gotten somewhat better in later volumes). Basically if you aren't going to handle it with care don't include it at all.

    I get the concept of Growing the Beard (The first three books of the Dresden files are widely considered inferior to the rest of the series, and the first two and and a large chunk of book 3 were written when the guy was barely out of writing school/still far more immature) but it's still fair to point it out. Early RWBY volumes were VERY rough and there are a lot of cracks there. I can understand people rewriting the early volumes to be more coherent.
     
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    Racism is not the focus of RWBY. Much like how in some fantasy you have issues between races like Elves vs Dwarves and Anyone With Orcblood VS The World and not have it be a major overall story focus and if anything is more focused to 1 or 2 characters.

    The Faunus Story, by and large, is not Weiss' story or narrative. Her story is her being more than her family name. Forcefully tying faunus stuff to her story is bogging that down when she has plenty of stuff to deal with within her own family and how she interacts with her team.

    The Faunus Story, by and large, is more tied to Blake's story. Shuffling it to Weiss is taking stuff from Blake.

    Could it of been handled better? Sure. But these "fixes" I am seeing are not the way.
     
    When you have the civil rights group (or former rights group that got corrupted) as a goon squad for the villains it's not a good look unless you handle it with care.

    Again, even if it's not the main focus it needs to be handled delicately, and a lot of people have had a problem with how the show handled it. Some of their objections were stupid (failing to realize that people like Adam DO exist in revolutionary movements) but not all of them were.

    Weiss is a member of a privileged class that benefits from the suffering of the series minority and the show itself has her be fairly prejudiced when we first meet her. In that case no, tying Faunus stuff to her makes perfect sense if only to have her overcome her prejudice. When you're family wealth is built on the minority being brutalized having them not face it at some point makes any change insincere.
     
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    LordYam said:
    When you have the civil rights group (or former rights group that got corrupted) as a goon squad for the villains it's not a good look unless you handle it with care.

    Again, even if it's not the main focus it needs to be handled delicately, and a lot of people have had a problem with how the show handled it. Some of their objections were stupid (failing to realize that people like Adam DO exist in revolutionary movements) but not all of them were.

    Weiss is a member of a privileged class that benefits from the suffering of the series minority and the show itself has her be fairly prejudiced when we first meet her. In that case no, tying Faunus stuff to her makes perfect sense if only to have her overcome her prejudice.
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    And why does she have the prejudice in the first place? Her Father. Everything about Weiss is wrapped up in the trauma placed on her by Jac. Her issues are not with the faunus. Heck, we see Weiss put her issues aside to be a better friend and teammate twice in the first volume alone. First to cool her head and give Ruby and chance, and then at the very end when she makes it clear to Blake that she doesn't care about her White Fang past and instead just asks that Blake come to her friends/team before someone else. That first season showed that with time to think and sometimes someone to talk to Weiss is smart enough to be able to put aside formerly held beliefs and instead try to come to an understanding. And she is able to do that without having faunus issues shoved in her face.

    Give me a bit and I'll try my hand at a rewrite.
     
    Pugman said:
    And why does she have the prejudice in the first place? Her Father. Everything about Weiss is wrapped up in the trauma placed on her by Jac. Her issues are not with the faunus. Heck, we see Weiss put her issues aside to be a better friend and teammate twice in the first volume alone. First to cool her head and give Ruby and chance, and then at the very end when she makes it clear to Blake that she doesn't care about her White Fang past and instead just asks that Blake come to her friends/team before someone else. That first season showed that with time to think and sometimes someone to talk to Weiss is smart enough to be able to put aside formerly held beliefs and instead try to come to an understanding. And she is able to do that without having faunus issues shoved in her face.

    Give me a bit and I'll try my hand at a rewrite.
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    That's the thing. If your livelihood is built on another group suffering, you're going to ignore it unless you're forced to face it. Weiss might be able to make SOME progress but she realistically won't be able to fully overcome her prejudice unless she's forced to face it directly.

    Edit: As I said earlier, "When you're family wealth is built on the minority being brutalized having them not face it at some point makes any change insincere."
     
    Especially since the SDC burn never really factored into shit and is just there for Adam to say that Blake dumping him was somehow worse than a scalding iron to the face.
     
    Even if Jacques wasn't abusive to her she'd still be prejudiced because her family wealth is built on Faunus exploitation; her prejudiced views would arise from the same reason privileged white people view Black people as inferior, or why an aristocrat would view poor people as inferior. They benefit from the system and acknowledging that they're human would mean admitting that they're benefitting unjustly.

    As such the only way Weiss would realistically change was if she was brought face to face with the cruelty her family's company inflicted.

    It doesn't even need to be from seeing Adam's face. Another story has her meet Banesaw a second time. She's largely overcome her bigoted views but naively thinks the sins of the past can just be dealt with easily and without fuss. Then Banesaw takes his mask off and not only reveals a scarred face, but a breathing apparatus that he needs to survive due to the shitty working conditions giving him permanent breathing problems. In that story this is the final thing that completes Weiss's development and (when she takes over the company) prompts her to use her position to mend things with the Faunus.
     
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    LordYam said:
    Even if Jacques wasn't abusive to her she'd still be prejudiced because her family wealth is built on Faunus exploitation; her prejudiced views would arise from the same reason privileged white people view Black people as inferior, or why an aristocrat would view poor people as inferior. They benefit from the system and acknowledging that they're human would mean admitting that they're benefitting unjustly.
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    ... OK, I'm just gonna say it.

    You do know there were slavery abolitionists since slavery was a thing right? And not just the slaves themselves or other exploited people, but people even born into positions of power who were able to figure out it was wrong and campaign against it.

    The idea that everyone in the past was too bigoted, evil or ignorant to realize what their culture was doing was wrong is a fallacy that actually helps encourage shrugging off the crimes of the past as "Oh well everyone was like that then". No, they weren't and the idea that there weren't is legitimately damaging rather than helpful.
     
    Alright, for this Pugwrite let's go with the Remake Option (crew is allotted the kind of budget and tools they currently have so they can make 15-20 minutes average long episodes).

    Most beats stay the same;
    Ruby chases off Roman, meets Oz, gets to go to Beacon early
    Meet the cast, Emerald Forest, Teams formed
    etc. etc.

    Changes;
    During Jaune's training also show us other pairs between the full 8-man cast training, too.
    Slow build the tension between Weiss and Blake. Weiss was prickly at this point and both she and Blake are still relatively fresh out of bad places.
    Have Yang and Ruby try to mediate at times between them as we see the partners get to know each other.
    WhiteRose bonding, Bee bonding, Freezeburn bonding, Ladybug bonding.
    Vytal festival is approaching and there are the occasional reports of Roman and the White Fang hitting places.
    The stress of training plus comments from Weiss and Blake cause things to explode.
    "The White Fang would never work with Torchwick, he's a human." "Why not? they're both criminals as far as I can tell." cue argument, Blake outing herself, and fleeing and running into Sun.
    The search for Blake by RWY and Penny goes the same, but an added scene where Yang talks to Weiss to help her come around to giving Blake a chance, which would in the long run tie into the talk Weiss gives Yang in Volume 5.
    Now, during this entire volume we have the occasional scene of Roman having to use the threat of Adam to get the occasional grunt in line. "Do I have to call Adam and tell him that you lot are slacking? That you are to tired to fight for the cause? Do I hear whispers of leaving the group? Need I remind you what happens to people that turn on the White Fang?" That kind of stuff, that way we have the specter of Adam Taurus during this volume.
    The fight at the docks goes as usual, maybe with Ruby getting to do more then pose dramatically on a roof before getting beaned, BUT we also get Roman making comments to Blake about Adam. "Ah, the kitty cat that ran away. Adam's been looking for you."
    Penny chases the bad guys off and RWBY reunites as the Monochrome pair make peace with each other and agree to not let their respective pasts color their views of each other.
     
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    Also, aside but replacing a bad corporate CEO with way too much power, with a good one doesn't actually magically make everything better even if they do make efforts to improve things.

    The inequality, the corruption and abuse are too baked into not just the systems of one company but whole countries, cultures and ideologies.

    And that's not even getting into the fact that "Top down liberation" is a rather flawed concept to begin with.

    LilithFairen said:
    By highlighting the fact that such is only the result of a gigantic jerkface constantly lying to them, and having them all turn on him once it becomes clear to them what a gigantic jerkface he really is?
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    Plus that the original splinter faction had their arm twisted to join, and as you noted that the villain guys whole apparatus wasn't actually popular but built on manipulation and efforts by like his twenty supporters to prop him up and utilize disinformation to make it work.

    I feel that a lot of people would benefit from reading up on the IRA and how they started losing a lot of public support in later years thanks to shifts in leadership and corruption, leading to abuse of power and a loss of focus and standards.
     
    Zam said:
    Also, aside but replacing a bad corporate CEO with way too much power, with a good one doesn't actually magically make everything better even if they do make efforts to improve things.

    The inequality, the corruption and abuse are too baked into not just the systems of one company but whole countries, cultures and ideologies.

    And that's not even getting into the fact that "Top down liberation" is a rather flawed concept to begin with.


    Plus that the original splinter faction had their arm twisted to join, and as you noted that the villain guys whole apparatus wasn't actually popular but built on manipulation and efforts by like his twenty supporters to prop him up and utilize disinformation to make it work.

    I feel that a lot of people would benefit from reading up on the IRA and how they started losing a lot of public support in later years thanks to shifts in leadership and corruption, leading to abuse of power and a loss of focus and standards.
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    Some have said the IRA comparison doesn't work but I don't know enough to comment.

    And we only really get the "forced to join later." Again there were good intentions but I can see why a lot of POC were dissatisfied
     
    LilithFairen said:
    Aside from the Ironwood stan trying to vilify Jacques (not that Jacques needs the help) because it was recently brought up on Tumblr how Jacques called Ironwood out on his budding villainy...

    Saying that the SDC logo being on the boxes means the SDC were the ones smuggling Dust is a pretty big reach, and is effectively saying that if you smuggle Bounty paper towels, that must mean the company who makes Bounty paper towels is the one doing the smuggling. 🙃


    By highlighting the fact that such is only the result of a gigantic jerkface constantly lying to them, and having them all turn on him once it becomes clear to them what a gigantic jerkface he really is?
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    Again that came later. Volumes 1 and 2 were kinda shit on that score.

    And psyga please stop quoting ironwoods fanboys. The guy was a villain and he brought his fate on himself
     
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