RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

kokuenDG · May 1, 2022

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.

Epsilon Rose · Mar 3, 2022

gman391 said:
If RWBY starting out had the budget, the time and the writing that we all wished they had, they probably would have done that. But this whole Weiss thing? Is not beating a dead horse. The horse has been turned into glue, used to put together a balsa wood model plane, which was then launched into the fire and turned into ashes. These ashes were then used as soap to wash a window. Okay the metaphor has gotten away from me at this point. However, I want it to be clear that this is a very old, very dated, and very done take. So is the Adam take, so is literally everything about Ironwood at this point.

This isn't meaningful criticism, because we can't change how they did the show nearly a decade back. If you sat down Miles and Kerry now they'd probably agree with you that they went too fast on that. That if they had a chance to do it over again they would do a lot of things differently. However the truth is that they didn't have the time or budget to do the in depth character work too show Weiss coming to terms. They followed the at the time generic 'person realizes they were racist and stops' because it was coming from a place much more naïve and hopeful. It was a very special episode right at the tail end where those stop being something people accepted uncritically. It's a trope that hasn't aged well in any media, and one that I'm sure that the writers desperately wish they hadn't used in hindsight.

While I agree there are valid justifications for why those arcs happened the way they did and that they can't be changed, that doesn't mean there isn't value in discussing them. Analyzing how older arcs fell short and how they could have been improved helps improve our understanding of media and can inform our own writing, both in general and in the realm of RWBY fanfics specifically. Personally, I found the discussion quite useful in helping consider elements of a story I'm toying with writing, at least when arguments weren't being turned into strawmen.

gman391 said:
However, I will suggest that if we crucify people for trying and failing to get something right. We're not going to have any one try at all. CRWBY definitely made a lot of mistakes.

Who was trying to crucify them?

Zam said:
I already outlined explicitly how I reached that conclusion by utilizing the specific language your initial post used and your suggested goal of rewriting Adam in favor of any of the other characters who fit the role better and wouldn't undermine Blake's own arc by being written as such.

Your "analysis" was a combination of blatantly ignoring and misrepresenting what I wrote, but I'm not going to continue that conversation with you, because you clearly do not care about what I actually write on the topic.

Zam said:
I think Summer died after Raven rejoined the group, but otherwise, agreed, the fact she went back to a place she likely didn't exactly have fond memories of because the familiarity of it was better than the existential dread fits well, especially with Tyrian's "You're too afraid to leave it".

Did Raven rejoin the group after leaving Yang with Tai? I thought the timeline was Raven and Tai have Yang > Raven and Qrow find out about Salem > Raven goes AWOL > Sumer and Tai have Ruby > Summer disappears > Raven uses Summer's disappearance to justify becoming even more distant. I could be very wrong about several parts of that.

Zam said:
Hmm, its tricky to say, ironically Salem is sort of like an inversion I am thinking she knows what she went through was unjust and seemingly done by mere chance or for petty reasons and resents it, leading her to rage against the heavens.

Inversion is a good word for it. Salem imagines she has far more control over the world than she actually does and flies into a rage when it proves her wrong. This happens consistently, possibly because she can't bring herself to acknowledge her own lack of power in the same way the other characters can't bring themselves to acknowledge the randomness of the world. This also helps to explain why she'd want to bring the relics together and end all life, when I would have expected her motive for wanting the relics was to prevent Oz from eventually trying the same thing: She still thinks she can control the brothers, and doesn't acknowledge the possibility of ending up on a completely desolate world, again.

Honestly, Salem is one of the characters I want to explore more in my own writing, because she occupies a very interesting position and I'm not entirely happy with how the show has handled her.

Zam · Mar 3, 2022

Epsilon Rose said:
Did Raven rejoin the group after leaving Yang with Tai? I thought the timeline was Raven and Tai have Yang > Raven and Qrow find out about Salem > Raven goes AWOL > Sumer and Tai have Ruby > Summer disappears > Raven uses Summer's disappearance to justify becoming even more distant. I could be very wrong about several parts of that.

Given Summer died two to three years after Raven left, while by all accounts of what we are aware of Raven bailed shortly after Yang was born and dropped off the face of Remnant to anyone that wasn't Qrow and even then he may not have known where she was at first.

Epsilon Rose said:
Inversion is a good word for it. Salem imagines she has far more control over the world than she actually does and flies into a rage when it proves her wrong. This happens consistently, possibly because she can't bring herself to acknowledge her own lack of power in the same way the other characters can't bring themselves to acknowledge the randomness of the world. This also helps to explain why she'd want to bring the relics together and end all life, when I would have expected her motive for wanting the relics was to prevent Oz from eventually trying the same thing: She still thinks she can control the brothers, and doesn't acknowledge the possibility of ending up on a completely desolate world, again.

That's an interesting point, her anger at Ozpin's swift revival and her "Why do you keep coming back" thing, could definitely be read in such a way, though I am unsure that's an old thing so much as a more recent development compared to what I was talking about but definitely on the same general path. Interesting point about the Relics, as it is I am still suspicious of those being her true motives but I guess we'll see.

LordYam · Mar 3, 2022

Epsilon Rose said:
While I agree there are valid justifications for why those arcs happened the way they did and that they can't be changed, that doesn't mean there isn't value in discussing them. Analyzing how older arcs fell short and how they could have been improved helps improve our understanding of media and can inform our own writing, both in general and in the realm of RWBY fanfics specifically. Personally, I found the discussion quite useful in helping consider elements of a story I'm toying with writing, at least when arguments weren't being turned into strawmen.

Who was trying to crucify them?

Your "analysis" was a combination of blatantly ignoring and misrepresenting what I wrote, but I'm not going to continue that conversation with you, because you clearly do not care about what I actually write on the topic.

Did Raven rejoin the group after leaving Yang with Tai? I thought the timeline was Raven and Tai have Yang > Raven and Qrow find out about Salem > Raven goes AWOL > Sumer and Tai have Ruby > Summer disappears > Raven uses Summer's disappearance to justify becoming even more distant. I could be very wrong about several parts of that.

Inversion is a good word for it. Salem imagines she has far more control over the world than she actually does and flies into a rage when it proves her wrong. This happens consistently, possibly because she can't bring herself to acknowledge her own lack of power in the same way the other characters can't bring themselves to acknowledge the randomness of the world. This also helps to explain why she'd want to bring the relics together and end all life, when I would have expected her motive for wanting the relics was to prevent Oz from eventually trying the same thing: She still thinks she can control the brothers, and doesn't acknowledge the possibility of ending up on a completely desolate world, again.

Honestly, Salem is one of the characters I want to explore more in my own writing, because she occupies a very interesting position and I'm not entirely happy with how the show has handled her.

1.) Analyzing older arcs is fine if it's done in good faith. There are people who say things about the Star Wars OT (that the acting and dialogue is pretty corny at times, that Lucas DOES copy other scenes from different movies), but a lot of the criticism is done in bad faith since a.) The films THOSE guys cherish are often just as guilty of copying others and often do it FAR more poorly (Tarantino rips off whole sections of City on Fire for Reservoir dogs, the climax of Untouchables is based on the Potemkin Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin, hell even the Shining's scene with Jack Nicholson breaking down the door is from the Phantom Stagecoach) or b.) don't give any quarter (they won't admit that certain dialogue and acting is actually perfectly fine, or that the story structure holds up well).

Oftentimes it's because they want to convince themselves they're CULTURED DON'T YA KNOW and so they deliberately think putting Star Wars down will elevate other films they like (Which have their own problems; many of the new hollywood films they wank off to were violent purely for the sake of it and were often misogynistic as hell/shittily written on account of neglecting story and characters for the message).

Many of the people going after RWBY have been like those guys. Not interested in fair analysis so much as trying to put the series down to prove that they're somehow cultured.

On the other hand it's resulted in fans digging in and trying to retroactively justify or spin certain early flaws as not being flaws.

2.) A lot of idiots on youtube HAVE been trying to crucify them. Unicorn of War went off the deep end, as did twin iinks and judgmental critter.

3.) You kind of DID ignore certain problems with Adam. The point was that while Sienna could have definitely been fleshed out, more development meant she COULD have been the character people thought Adam was; as such there was never really a need to add more nuance to him. It also doesn't help that there HAVE been a lot of people like Adam who infest revolutionary movements (case in point, Robert Mugabe, who was so utterly awful that many started looking back fondly on the White Supremacist Government that preceded him, Eldridge Cleaver was a serial rapist, Huey Newton beat women) and people like Unicorn have either ignored this or gotten upset when it's pointed out (other people on different threads; back in August some people got upset when I said the Black Panthers had a problem with sexism in their ranks).

There are also a lot of people (Eruption Fang) who don't want to admit that Adam was ALWAYS foreshadowed as being kind of a psychopath and that they only supported Adam because he looked cool and badass. Basically they didn't want to look at the hideous interior.

Now again, I get why certain people felt there were unfortunate implications. But I also think that had other characters been better handled that would have been a non issue.

Zam · Mar 3, 2022

This is mostly musing, but it is interesting how Neo barely even comes up to Elm's waste without her heels, I want them to meet when Neo has no shoes.

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

LordYam · Mar 3, 2022

Neo's 4'9 with heels, Elm's about 7 feet.....so yeah she's pretty tiny.

gman391 · Mar 3, 2022

LordYam said:
Snipped for space

I don't think I'm articulating my point well. Let me try again, when I used the term scar tissue. I meant that almost literally. There is a certain amount of emotional and psychological scar tissue you accumulate as a fan of anything. We're not allowed to really like things on the Internet, especially not things that have very noticeable flaws. This scar tissue comes from too many fights trying to explain why we like the thing we like when popular consensus is bad and we should feel bad for liking it. You learn to either ignore criticism, or to come out swinging, because any other response just gets you dogpiled and forced from the metaphorical field.

And the thing is, that people take that learned reaction, those scars, back into the fandom. Because the only thing that people are more eager to get into fights over besides shipping , is who is a *true* fan. So the scars keep building, keep growing, and a point comes where, even reasonable criticism is ignored or fought. Not because there isn't an intuition that they have a point. Rather, someone decided to poke at their scar with a needle and that means its go time once again.

Is fair? No not really
Is it healthy for the fandom? Again, no not really.
Is it something easy to solve? No not really. I'm not even sure if it is solvable.

The only solution I can see is to be aware that people are coming at this from different places and respect that. To realize that although the internet has beaten the habit of giving people the benefit of a doubt out of us, that we should still do that.
But that's not an easy ask.

Any more than putting down the word shivs is I suppose, and I'm guilty of that too.

Epsilon Rose said:
Also snipped for space

It's not that I think there's no value in it. It's just that I don't think it's a fight that anyone can win anymore. If that's people want to do, well okay, but it's more appropriate to do it in a pm rather than draw it out in a public thread. The best way to do media analysis and dissection on the internet is to do it with people you know and trust. Which is something that you can't really get on a forum anymore. I don't know most of you from Steve, and while I want to give people the benefit of a doubt, it's really hard to do. Like I said above, conditioning is hard to undo or even ignore.

As for who was trying to crucify them. Man the twitter mob went after Lindsey fucking Ellis one of the most prominent youtube leftist video essayists we had. The idea that they won't or haven't gone after RWBY for being insufficiently pure is just a fantasy. They're already catching it from the other side to speak for being too 'woke'

Zam · Mar 3, 2022

There's been no end to the abuse and harassment CRWBY have suffered over the years, particularly from "Critics" who couldn't tell a good story from a paper bag so long as they could project onto the listed protagonist.

I don't wholly agree with the above, I frankly think a lot of the issues are overstated or that the solutions suggested don't seem to actually give any consideration of what makes a good story but only exist to serve certain characters or harm others.

But I do agree there's a lot of frustration exhaustion and vexation that comes from having to go over this same shit, with mostly he same people every few months to no end, especially when much of said stuff is nearly a decade old.

Epsilon Rose · Mar 3, 2022

Zam said:
Given Summer died two to three years after Raven left, while by all accounts of what we are aware of Raven bailed shortly after Yang was born and dropped off the face of Remnant to anyone that wasn't Qrow and even then he may not have known where she was at first.

Is that the timeline? Do you have any sources I could check for that? Back to the original reason I'm even in this thread, the relative timing of Raven's departure and Summer's disappearance are two of the more important pre-canon events I wanted to nail down, so having something I can look at, even if it's not conclusive, would be really helpful.

Zam said:
That's an interesting point, her anger at Ozpin's swift revival and her "Why do you keep coming back" thing, could definitely be read in such a way, though I am unsure that's an old thing so much as a more recent development compared to what I was talking about but definitely on the same general path. Interesting point about the Relics, as it is I am still suspicious of those being her true motives but I guess we'll see.

I don't think she's surprised he keeps coming back, but it definitely annoys her that she can't put him down permanently.

I thought some of the things she said in Volume 8 made it pretty clear that Oz was right about her motives, as odd as that seems and as much as I'd prefer something else. With these parallels in mind, I could also see an eventual reveal that she was being honest about her motives: she's not just stringing everyone along, while secretly planning to get all life erased, and really does want to use the relics to create "a better world", or what she thinks of as a better world. It would be a continuation of the original mission Oz set her on, but twisted into a monument to how much more powerful she is compared to both Oz and the Brothers, while also serving as a testament to her control over the world. ... I'm not sure how much I like that interpretation, but I think it makes sense and it could be an interesting twist. It would also be better than "Evil lady is Evil because she's crazy," which is something.

LordYam said:
You kind of DID ignore certain problems with Adam. The point was that while Sienna could have definitely been fleshed out, more development meant she COULD have been the character people thought Adam was; as such there was never really a need to add more nuance to him.

🤷 I don't think those are really examples of me ignoring problems with Adam. In my hypothetical I'd like to see Sienna developed in a slightly different direction, serving as a more reasonable counterpoint and peer to Ghira, and fully expect Adam to continue to be a crazy asshole, just in a slightly different way. So, pointing out that Sienna could have been developed into the same role and that real life revolutions had crazy assholes doesn't really impact my position?

Zam said:
This is mostly musing, but it is interesting how Neo barely even comes up to Elm's waste without her heels, I want them to meet when Neo has no shoes.

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

I did not realize Neo is somewhere around half a foot shorter than Ruby.

gman391 said:
The best way to do media analysis and dissection on the internet is to do it with people you know and trust. Which is something that you can't really get on a forum anymore. I don't know most of you from Steve, and while I want to give people the benefit of a doubt, it's really hard to do. Like I said above, conditioning is hard to undo or even ignore.

I can't agree with any of that. Discussing things with friends you trust, in private, is a valid way to do media analysis, but it is not the only way. If what you're saying was true, then this thread and every other thread in this subforum is a waste of time and they should all be shuttered. It would also mean that if you don't have any close friends who share a fandom with you, and like doing critical media analysis, you're just SOL, so sad, please be quiet and hide in a corner now.

Scar tissue from old flame wars is a legitimate problem, and legitimately hard to overcome, but demanding any controversial discussion only happen in private is not healthy and will only exacerbate toxicity in a fandom, because the only people who would talk about things that don't agree with the hive mind are trolls and newcomers who are about to get lit on fire as if they were trolls.

gman391 said:
As for who was trying to crucify them. Man the twitter mob went after Lindsey fucking Ellis one of the most prominent youtube leftist video essayists we had. The idea that they won't or haven't gone after RWBY for being insufficiently pure is just a fantasy. They're already catching it from the other side to speak for being too 'woke'

I don't doubt that some people on the internet have, and would, try to crucify them. —It is the internet, after all.— But that is neither here nor now, in this thread. Saying we shouldn't crucify people for getting something wrong doesn't really make sense if we aren't crucifying people and you're actually referring to potential conversations happening elsewhere.

LordYam · Mar 3, 2022

gman391 said:
I don't think I'm articulating my point well. Let me try again, when I used the term scar tissue. I meant that almost literally. There is a certain amount of emotional and psychological scar tissue you accumulate as a fan of anything. We're not allowed to really like things on the Internet, especially not things that have very noticeable flaws. This scar tissue comes from too many fights trying to explain why we like the thing we like when popular consensus is bad and we should feel bad for liking it. You learn to either ignore criticism, or to come out swinging, because any other response just gets you dogpiled and forced from the metaphorical field.

And the thing is, that people take that learned reaction, those scars, back into the fandom. Because the only thing that people are more eager to get into fights over besides shipping , is who is a *true* fan. So the scars keep building, keep growing, and a point comes where, even reasonable criticism is ignored or fought. Not because there isn't an intuition that they have a point. Rather, someone decided to poke at their scar with a needle and that means its go time once again.

Is fair? No not really
Is it healthy for the fandom? Again, no not really.
Is it something easy to solve? No not really. I'm not even sure if it is solvable.

The only solution I can see is to be aware that people are coming at this from different places and respect that. To realize that although the internet has beaten the habit of giving people the benefit of a doubt out of us, that we should still do that.
But that's not an easy ask.

Any more than putting down the word shivs is I suppose, and I'm guilty of that too.

It's not that I think there's no value in it. It's just that I don't think it's a fight that anyone can win anymore. If that's people want to do, well okay, but it's more appropriate to do it in a pm rather than draw it out in a public thread. The best way to do media analysis and dissection on the internet is to do it with people you know and trust. Which is something that you can't really get on a forum anymore. I don't know most of you from Steve, and while I want to give people the benefit of a doubt, it's really hard to do. Like I said above, conditioning is hard to undo or even ignore.

As for who was trying to crucify them. Man the twitter mob went after Lindsey fucking Ellis one of the most prominent youtube leftist video essayists we had. The idea that they won't or haven't gone after RWBY for being insufficiently pure is just a fantasy. They're already catching it from the other side to speak for being too 'woke'

That's fair. Part of the reason I threw the "cowardly little shit" insult was because Pugman basically said "RWBY's not real, so why should it be." That.....just seems like a very weak argument, and from what I've seen it's almost ALWAYS done because the person doesn't really have anything to say.

It's like how when there was a debate over the WEG numbers for the Executor; some fans wanted there to be more attempts at consistency. Certain people were all "oh it's just a movie you're taking this to seriously". Thing is when you looked at their motivation (they were fond of certain sources, and more rigor would have seen those things confined to the wayside or changed) and their motives were more fundementally selfish (they were basically just upset that the sources THEY cherished were being subjected to scrutiny and they reacted violently.) Oftentimes they got downright NASTY (Paolo Hidalgo of Lucasfilm had a murderous hatred of tech heads that I strongly suspect comes from them saying that WEG numbers were poorly defined; since applying standards would hurt the sources he cherished he deluded himself into thinking applying standards was bad. It didn't help that some of the tech heads were kind of assholes about it.)

I felt like Pugman was doing the same thing (basically pulling the equivalent of "it's just a movie" to avoid going into actual detail and acknowledging that maybe something he liked could have been better handled) and so I got annoyed.

Zam's a smart guy, but I also think that he's motivated in part because the things HE likes are being attacked. He likes certain plot points and decisions and feels that they're being attacked; the sheer amount of bile that's been sent the show's way makes it easier to shut out criticism of the things he likes and convince himself that they're just all haters.

As such the fact that a lot of people (White AND POC) just genuinely found Weiss's development shallow and unrealistic and that they might be entirely right on that score is something he rejects out of hand regardless of whether there's merit to it or not. I can get it given the inanity of the hatedom but I do think that it has clouded his perspective.

Epsilon Rose said:
Is that the timeline? Do you have any sources I could check for that? Back to the original reason I'm even in this thread, the relative timing of Raven's departure and Summer's disappearance are two of the more important pre-canon events I wanted to nail down, so having something I can look at, even if it's not conclusive, would be really helpful.

I don't think she's surprised he keeps coming back, but it definitely annoys her that she can't put him down permanently.

I thought some of the things she said in Volume 8 made it pretty clear that Oz was right about her motives, as odd as that seems and as much as I'd prefer something else. With these parallels in mind, I could also see an eventual reveal that she was being honest about her motives: she's not just stringing everyone along, while secretly planning to get all life erased, and really does want to use the relics to create "a better world", or what she thinks of as a better world. It would be a continuation of the original mission Oz set her on, but twisted into a monument to how much more powerful she is compared to both Oz and the Brothers, while also serving as a testament to her control over the world. ... I'm not sure how much I like that interpretation, but I think it makes sense and it could be an interesting twist. It would also be better than "Evil lady is Evil because she's crazy," which is something.

🤷 I don't think those are really examples of me ignoring problems with Adam. In my hypothetical I'd like to see Sienna developed in a slightly different direction, serving as a more reasonable counterpoint and peer to Ghira, and fully expect Adam to continue to be a crazy asshole, just in a slightly different way. So, pointing out that Sienna could have been developed into the same role and that real life revolutions had crazy assholes doesn't really impact my position?

I did not realize Neo is somewhere around half a foot shorter than Ruby.

I can't agree with any of that. Discussing things with friends you trust, in private, is a valid way to do media analysis, but it is not the only way. If what you're saying was true, then this thread and every other thread in this subforum is a waste of time and they should all be shuttered. It would also mean that if you don't have any close friends who share a fandom with you, and like doing critical media analysis, you're just SOL, so sad, please be quiet and hide in a corner now.

Scar tissue from old flame wars is a legitimate problem, and legitimately hard to overcome, but demanding any controversial discussion only happen in private is not healthy and will only exacerbate toxicity in a fandom, because the only people who would talk about things that don't agree with the hive mind are trolls and newcomers who are about to get lit on fire as if they were trolls.

Don't doubt that some people on the internet have, and would, try to crucify them. —It is the internet, after all.— But that is neither here nor now, in this thread. Saying we shouldn't crucify people for getting something wrong doesn't really make sense if we aren't crucifying people and you're actually referring to potential conversations happening elsewhere.

Purity Culture and The Dresden Files - The Fandomentals

The Fandomentals reviewed the first of Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files previously, analyzing the problems in the 2000 debut novel, specifically the issues

www.thefandomentals.com

It's about the Dresden Files but it discusses a broader trend among many left wing analysts. Oftentimes they refuse to acknowledge that people can grow or that things ARE influenced by the time they're in (Han Solo and Leia's romance might be a bit problematic by today's standards but it's still a lot better than most rom coms of the time and even today). Jim Butcher has some dumb thoughts and he's definitely fairly clueless on a few things but he HAS grown a great deal and has been willing to listen when people couch the points fairly.

Basically we need to accept that writers CAN grow out of things. Hell I've said things online that I deeply regret and which caused me to cringe when I saw them again (I made a revoltingly sexist comment in 2010 about how a female character can handle rape because she was a soldier; two years later it was pointed out and I was "oh my god I actually SAID THAT? WTF was wrong with me.") People CAN change, and there are those on the left who refuse to take nuance into account. At the same time, there are people who refuse to change and are proud of not changing, or pretend to change but walk it back. Stephen Amell of Arrow made dumb comments about Ahmed Mohammed; a black fan pointed out that this was problematic; he seemed to get it apologized and complemented her (saying she had a beautiful voice.) Three years later he walked it back, doubled down on the bigotry and low key insulted her by saying he barely remembered her even if he felt she was brave for speaking.

It's not always easy to guess what's what.

Zam · Mar 3, 2022

Epsilon Rose said:
Is that the timeline? Do you have any sources I could check for that? Back to the original reason I'm even in this thread, the relative timing of Raven's departure and Summer's disappearance are two of the more important pre-canon events I wanted to nail down, so having something I can look at, even if it's not conclusive, would be really helpful.

We know Ruby is two years younger than Yang as she is fifteen when Yang is 17, and Ruby expressly notes in episode 1 she is two years away from Beacon age while Yang is attending now. Raven meanwhile is a bit harder to pin down but its established she left shortly after Yang was born if only due to Ruby's timeline and the total lack of reference point Yang has for her until she finds something hidden. Beyond that is a bit of guesswork tied to the fact, it strikes me as unlikely Raven would up and vanish once, then do so a second time. As narratively speaking I don't think it serves much purpose to not just have them folded into one and even when addressing Yang on the topic, Raven seems to view her discovery of the truth and leaving Yang as being in the same period of her life.

Epsilon Rose said:
I don't think she's surprised he keeps coming back, but it definitely annoys her that she can't put him down permanently.

I thought some of the things she said in Volume 8 made it pretty clear that Oz was right about her motives, as odd as that seems and as much as I'd prefer something else. With these parallels in mind, I could also see an eventual reveal that she was being honest about her motives: she's not just stringing everyone along, while secretly planning to get all life erased, and really does want to use the relics to create "a better world", or what she thinks of as a better world. It would be a continuation of the original mission Oz set her on, but twisted into a monument to how much more powerful she is compared to both Oz and the Brothers, while also serving as a testament to her control over the world. ... I'm not sure how much I like that interpretation, but I think it makes sense and it could be an interesting twist. It would also be better than "Evil lady is Evil because she's crazy," which is something.

The surprise thing was from V6, Salem didn't expect Ozma to reincarnate that quickly and reacted poorly to the revelation, while her anger at it when addressing Oscar/Ozpin was her ask 'why' implying she doesn't know or doesn't accept that Ozma can't just quit.

As it is, I feel like if Ozma was accurate there'd have been more fanfare to the revelation; though if Salem does just want to die, then I feel there's almost no chance of her getting anywhere near her goal before Cinder betrays her.

Epsilon Rose said:
I did not realize Neo is somewhere around half a foot shorter than Ruby.

Her badness levels are very high for someone so small.

LordYam said:
Zam's a smart guy, but I also think that he's motivated in part because the things HE likes are being attacked. He likes certain developments, and the sheer amount of bile that's been sent the show's way makes it easier to shut out criticism of the things he likes and convince himself that they're just all haters.

Or ya know, I just have a different opinion to you that I have articulated in detail through multiple PM conversations which you can easily reference.

LordYam · Mar 3, 2022

Some of those were fair, but at the same time a lot of it felt like cavalier rejection out of hand regardless of merits. Yes there have been people who have just stopped being addicts/racists....but those are pretty far and few between, and gman made a strong case that it was very much a "very special episode" right when those things stopped being taken seriously. Or that it came from a place of naiveté and idealism that was brutally crushed when Trump's election showed racism was very much alive and much more hard to break.

I was also deeply annoyed at the "RWBY'S NOT REAL" card being pulled since I've seen it used by people who are really just upset that the things THEY like are being subjected to scrutiny (hence why I called him a coward). Pablo Hidalgo did it to avoid admitting that the numbers he worked on and cherished were kinda crap. As such he became hostile to ANY analysis no matter how fair.

Epsilon Rose · Mar 3, 2022

Zam said:
We know Ruby is two years younger than Yang as she is fifteen when Yang is 17, and Ruby expressly notes in episode 1 she is two years away from Beacon age while Yang is attending now. Raven meanwhile is a bit harder to pin down but its established she left shortly after Yang was born if only due to Ruby's timeline and the total lack of reference point Yang has for her until she finds something hidden. Beyond that is a bit of guesswork tied to the fact, it strikes me as unlikely Raven would up and vanish once, then do so a second time. As narratively speaking I don't think it serves much purpose to not just have them folded into one and even when addressing Yang on the topic, Raven seems to view her discovery of the truth and leaving Yang as being in the same period of her life.

Maybe I misunderstood you earlier then, because that explanation roughly lines up with what's in my head. I did, somehow, fail to grok that Yang is only two years older than Ruby. 😓 For some reason it felt like there was a larger gap there.

On a related note, the trip into the forest, and subsequent rescue by Qrow happened when Ruby was about 5, right?

Zam said:
As it is, I feel like if Ozma was accurate there'd have been more fanfare to the revelation; though if Salem does just want to die, then I feel there's almost no chance of her getting anywhere near her goal before Cinder betrays her.

I think Salem is some shade of suicidal, for understandable reasons. The question is whether she wants the artifacts for that or something else. I'd learn "something else," because I think you're correct about her odds of succeeding.

Zam · Mar 3, 2022

Epsilon Rose said:
Maybe I misunderstood you earlier then, because that explanation roughly lines up with what's in my head.

I did, somehow, fail to grok that Yang is only two years older than Ruby. 😓 For some reason it felt like there was a larger gap there.

On a related note, the trip into the forest, and subsequent rescue by Qrow happened when Ruby was about 5, right?

I maybe misunderstood what you were going for with the Raven and Qrow leaving thing perhaps? Not sure.

Yang: Its the parentification/Elder Sister Syndrome trauma

I think Yang was the one who was five, she said Ruby couldn't really talk yet and while Ruby may have had delayed speech development, I don't think Summer was around when Yang was seven.

Epsilon Rose said:
I think Salem is some shade of suicidal, for understandable reasons. The question is whether she wants the artifacts for that or something else. I'd learn "something else," because I think you're correct about her odds of succeeding.

That is possible, it'd be hard to blame her for being unhinged by this point. Mhm, ultimately, I definitely think there's more going on and or that we're going to see than just what's been told. Ozpin was the one who said he was cursed by the gods for failing to stop Salem and that they'd stop her now, only for the next volume to shatter aaaaalllll of that like fine chin hurled at a wall of spinning buzz saws, so I doubt that dealing with what he's outlined is the end game whatever happens.

gman391 · Mar 3, 2022

Epsilon Rose said:
I'm still doing that snipping for space thing

I didn't say it was the only way. I said it was the best way, and I still think that holds true for fandoms you're emotionally invested in. While a lot of friendships have been formed over people loving the same thing...a lot of have been ended too. Threads like this still have meaning to discuss the show and for new people to hopefully find those friends. As well as posting whatever new trailer or art drops from Rooster Teeth.

But if a fight has taken at this point multiple pages with no signs of either side backing down, I think it's fair to ask them to take it outside yeah? I come here to read cute head canons and learn that Weiss looks good in anything not to see a multipage argument about why season one was bad actually.

As for the 'we' it's more a reflexive habit from discord and other forum threads that move fast enough that people can get worked up fast and getting into strange places. That and there's definitely been times in this 1000+ page thread when people from Leila Han's LW of RWBY wandered in to pick a fight or two because it wasn't leftist enough. (I actually have nothing against Leila Han or anything. I don't agree with their opinions but that's a different topic) And while the we (as in this thread) are pretty good. The we as in (SV as a whole) are pretty damn bad about that. It's a pretty common past time on SV to dunk on RWBY for being bad.

LordYam said:
Sniper no Sniping

I definitely get where you're coming from on that. I tend to think the tech heads are missing the point of Star Wars myself. But the broader point of people wanting to protect the things they like with a deflection holds true...but I think the thing that they want to protect is Weiss. Now you don't have to like Weiss, I didn't like Weiss on my first watch of RWBY (I was convinced Blake was the best because Ninja. Now Yang is best because Yang)

But, if you do like Weiss...you don't really want to see her go through that. Not because it wouldn't be good or realistic or anything. You don't want to see it because you don't like that part of Weiss, and you're glad she got over it. No one likes seeing their favourite characters be 'the bad guy' and racism very much is something that makes you the bad guy. Even if it's ultimately only a minor part of the character over all. See Ashley Williams in Mass Effect who a number of fans never forgave for ultimately having a very milquetoast view that most aliens weren't our friends and that we probably shouldn't let them have free reign of the Alliance's most advanced warship. Which well the first point was proven absolutely right and the second is a very reasonable view for an officer of the military to have about anyone not part of that military. Generations of media have convinced people that being racist is something only bad people do. Unlearning that is a ton of work.

In that light, reflexively defending Weiss makes a lot more sense. If you love Weiss, you don't want her to be a bad person. If you find the story of her growing past her trauma as an abused child into a strong woman compelling, you don't want to taint that with 'and also she's a racist'. That's not really logical per-say, but I feel it's emotionally understandable.

Zam · Mar 3, 2022

OK I might regret this but I also might not and that potential is worth fighting for.

Here's the thing with the Adam stuff.

My contention with people who bring it up is not just or even really because there are asshole Adam stans who make edits of Ada killing Blake & Yang or write and say gross stuff or otherwise want him to be the MC. Those people suck but they also are not worth engaging with.

The tension with people not like that bringing up changes to Adam that they feel could improve the White Fang storyline (Which I have always said has its flaws) is, yes, partially that I think other characters could fit the roll better but why do I want them for that role?

Well let me tell you, its not just personal preference.

Its because Blake's story has a lot of different layers, narratively, thematically, characteristically, and a lot of that is heavily tied up in her history with Adam and his efforts to take the White Fang and use it as a vehicle for his own glorification.

On the main level, we've obviously got the usual storyline, moral conflicts, selfishness VS selfness, protecting the innocent, ETC, that's also fine and surface level and often what I think people focus on but there's more to it than that.

For instance, there's people who describe Blake as bein something of a 'ranger prince' thematically speaking and it fits well. Blake was born into the White Fang her family has a strong history with the White Fang. (If we go by the comics, Adam quickly zeroed in on Blake's last name) There's flags and symbology, battles for political influence and the influence of a nation, of ideals and souls, of the 'prince' being led astray, and seeking redemption as a ranger before returning home to claim their birthright. Within this thematic narrative, Adam is essentially stealing Blake's agency and narrative, and thematic role by taking the White Fang, he's the pretender to the throne, the thief.

Then there's her story on a personal narrative level, Blake's story is about someone who was groomed, gaslit, abused and who ultimately had to flee her abuser in a bid to save herself from being consumed by them entirely while viewing herself as a coward for doing so, convinced she should have fixed him, convinced he and his allies actions are her personals responsibility. It s a story about an abuse victim finding her way to a safe space, finding a support network that will stand by her in tough times, won't blame her for his actions, won't abuse her and will in fact actively try to help and protect her.

Then she's found, he tears down her life, and again, cursing herself as a coward for how he's twisted her mind she runs, to protect her loved one's and punish herself. Yet despite that she finds her family again, one she feared would never welcome her back, but they do, and she sees a friend grappling with similar but different problems to herself and manages to help pull her from the same unhealthy circumstances she was in. Blake is revitalized, she's healing and she returns, rejecting Adam's influence over her, avoiding being drawn into his twisted mind games, and she reunites with the people who were first there for her when she escaped him.

Then, in the ensuing volume they have their final face off. she's not alone, she's not afraid and she's not going to let him win again. Its a story of an abuse victim overcoming their abuser, of overcoming their trauma and finally being able to move on, her story doesn't 'end' there like in so many others, it goes on as she moves onto bigger and better things. That story resonates with a lot of people who have faced abuse, its a story that rather particularly would not benefit from stuff trying to give Adam more 'competence' or 'depth' or otherwise better qualities. (And if someone wants to argue abusers are people too, sure, but call me only when you want to start humanizing Jac Schnee to... Or rather. Don't. Please don't.)

The point is, there's a lot more to Blake's story and more to the point a lot for major reasons not to try and change the story to Adam's benefit by rewriting him as a mentor or a more "Grey" figure. Because it completely removes these aspects entirely from Blake's own history, from one of the title characters arcs. Ultimately, Adam was a personal villain for Blake, Blake is a main character, her story and trauma shouldn't be subordinated or erased for the benefit of his character. If someone wans the White Fang plot-line to better handle these topics, Sienna, Illia, the Albain's and more are right there, ready and willing to be utilized, and they all can be without it doing any harm to Blake's personal narrative.

LordYam · Mar 3, 2022

1.) The thing about the tech heads is that they are well aware that perfect consistency is impossible; thing is there needs to be SOME effort at internal consistency or else it all falls apart. If a mistake could be easily avoided by a few minutes research (the executor length was due to someone misreading the novel and never bothering to correct it) than it's entirely fair to point out the problem. In that context screeching about how "it's just a movie" was really just a deflection.

Pablo and a lot of others were just upset that their cherished sources were attacked so they reflexively attacked ANY and all analysis even if it was mild (didn't help that Curtis Saxton WAS kind of a dick; brilliant physicist, full of shit on just about everything else).

2.) Weiss I brought up because I can definitely see her being the moderate racist; someone who is arrogantly certain that any Faunus who is oppressed by the system/opposes it must deserve it/be evil respectively. That's a very easy trap for even otherwise good people to fall into since less face it we want to think the system's fair, and oftentimes they don't just stop being racist. They have to be directly shown (I mentioned the guy who only realized how bad the sexism was when he presented the same ideas his female coworker saw rejected accepted....and the only difference was that he was a guy.) Or a lot of white people who only realized how bad the police can be when video cameras meant that cops committing murder couldn't be as easily denied.

That's another reason I brought up the Lucifer example; Chloe Decker in the show is a good person, and a lot of people like her. She also however grew up with a cop father, and he was a good man hence she believed the system was automatically just. As such when she's told that a man who brutalized an innocent black teenager got promoted rather than punished despite being guilty she's genuinely taken aback and she only realizes how misplaced her faith was after the events of the episode prompt her to do some digging. It doesn't make her a BAD person, far from it, but it does show that even nice people can unwittingly have biases.

Zam and Pugman I think LIKE Weiss, and having her earlier less savory aspects being dealt with in more detail is uncomfortable, hence why they and many others violently reject it. It's not because it makes sense (since no Weiss just stopping being racist doesn't actually make sense) but because they don't want to dwell on their character's flaws (Which is not to say it can't be done badly; I didn't like what happened with Luke in TLJ because while I can definitely see him still being impulsive and having a temper I don't see him actively drawing a loaded weapon over his sleeping nephew. There's a BIG difference between a thought crossing your mind and drawing your weapon and Luke would have had SOME growth over 24 years).

PS I mentioned to eyl how even if the Palestinians HAD accepted Partition the Israelis would have just brutally expelled them later on trumped up pretexts....and he was genuinely befuddled at the concept. He could NOT comprehend that the Yishuv would do something that monstrous. When I provided documentation proving that 70% of all Palestinians only fled because the Yishuv expelled them on masse he was also upset, and when I pointed out how statistically most palestinians supported the two state solution in the and how that proves that if Israel had made actual concessions they might have gotten long term peace he couldn't accept it.

The guy's attached to Israel and he can't admit that Israel never really cared about peace, or that Palestinians have reasons to resort to violence.

Zam · Mar 3, 2022

Comparing the real world geocide of the Palestinian people to liking a character who had a character arc you thought happened too quickly is certainly... A take...

LordYam · Mar 3, 2022

It's more people can get defensive about things they like. Eyl is attached to Israel so he can't admit that the Yishuv he grew up hearing stories about were heartless conquerers who butchered people for fun and to take their land because they saw the others as subhuman filth. As such he denies Israel's responsibility in the tragedy because it would ruffle the illusions he has.

Maybe extreme but the principle (not wanting to admit a flaw in something you like) is the same even if the intensity varies (people liking a character I felt had a rushed arc is FAR less severe as you rightly point out).

There are people who can't admit that their close friends are absolute monsters (one show has the victim of the week be a the head of a pedophile ring; the killer turns out to be one of the many people he'd raped getting revenge. They have to break the bad news to the victim's wife, and she accuses them of spreading horrible lies about her husband).

Zam · Mar 3, 2022

Guess

View: https://what-the-heck-is-rwby.tumblr.com/post/677716490228776960/

Who

View: https://what-the-heck-is-rwby.tumblr.com/post/677716767198625792/

Reached

View: https://what-the-heck-is-rwby.tumblr.com/post/677717120961904640/

'That'

View: https://what-the-heck-is-rwby.tumblr.com/post/677717528140709889/

Confrontation

View: https://what-the-heck-is-rwby.tumblr.com/post/677717779287359488/

Read him for dirt:
Help

Konradleijon · Mar 3, 2022

Zam said:
Guess

View: https://what-the-heck-is-rwby.tumblr.com/post/677716490228776960/

Who

View: https://what-the-heck-is-rwby.tumblr.com/post/677716767198625792/

Reached

View: https://what-the-heck-is-rwby.tumblr.com/post/677717120961904640/

'That'

View: https://what-the-heck-is-rwby.tumblr.com/post/677717528140709889/

Confrontation

View: https://what-the-heck-is-rwby.tumblr.com/post/677717779287359488/

Read him for dirt:
Help

yes i mean i'm totally okay with killing racist mine supervisors that use whips or breaking discriminatory shops. but murdering innocents crosses the line.

SoothingCoffee · Mar 3, 2022

Adam is so over the top cringy, creepy, and edgy that I can't help but loop back from hating him into kinda-sorta liking (laughing at) him. He's peak comedy gold. Like, I'm rewatching his scene at the end of Volume 3: the city's burning, people are dying, and then this guy showed up over a body, and starts a poetry slam session (creepily) at Blake (creepily), spitting out lines like "you and I could have light up the fire of revolution together!" that I can't help but go "this (creepy) motherfucker" and "bro, really?". Then at his death when he got his sword knocked away, and he go "oh noooo", and immediately going "i guess i die now".

I'm like, dude your entire sctick depends on your sword -- why didn't you have backup weapon. Edit: There's also the fun bit with Blake literally going "i literally don't have the time to deal with you" and Adam going "no, nuh-uh, you're gonna make time!"

StellarSeeker · Mar 3, 2022

SoothingCoffee said:
Adam is so over the top cringy, creepy, and edgy that I can't help but loop back from hating him into kinda-sorta liking (laughing at) him. He's peak comedy gold. Like, I'm rewatching his scene at the end of Volume 3 -- the city's burning, people are dying, and then this guy showed up starting a poetry slam session (creepily) at Blake (creepily), spitting out lines like "you and I could have light up the fire of revolution together!" that I can't help but go "this (creepy) motherfucker" and "bro, really?". Then at his death when he got his sword knocked away, and he go "oh noooo", and immediately going "i guess i die now".

I'm like, dude your entire sctick depends on your sword -- why didn't you have backup weapon.

The best part is that this was too subtle for some people.

GuestLurker · Mar 3, 2022

Psyga315 said:
The big plot twist: space is actually breathable in RWBY's universe, so they're able to survive.

Amity was going down, not up, last we saw them.

Zam said:
I think they would have told the same story just with more detail and depth.

Isn't that what they're asking for though? Weiss to stop being racist, but showing more than two scenes about it that they feel like skipped the middle part, and potentially some side things where she looks into things she was taught as a kid and how they compare to real life? It probably wouldn't need to be big after she agrees to not hold things against Blake, maybe even asks her for help figuring out what things she believes hurt people. Maybe the occasional conversation going on on the side about Blake explaining to her how messed up a thing she thought was simple and clean actually is, but not focusing more plot time beyond a few overheard conversations the scene walks in on to show how she's learning.

It's really not a focus thing, but if you can shove in a few spare lines of interaction by imagining them having more time and budget for it you could make it relevant to the character without having it get in the way of the plot, and expand Blake's connection for the people who don't get that the Faunus issues are Blake's thing in the series.

LordYam said:
You find a quick change believable; I don't. I also think that Pugman pulling the "IT'S FANTASY SO WHY SHOULD IT DELVE INTO IT" is just him being a cowardly little shit.

Considering how much people complain about how they handled less nuanced aspects of the racial issues earlier on, the writers probably lacked the confidence to go over the finer points of it with Wiess at the time.

Maybe they'll touch on it more with Whitely with Nora or someone commenting on it being like what they had to do with Wiess over the time skip between volumes one and two? Acknowledging that it wasn't as simple as it first looked, but still allowing for things to keep going for everyone?

LordYam said:
That's just you being a coward. If a story handles topics from the real world it MUST handle them intelligently even if the story itself is fantasy, and RWBY is no exception. If Lucifer (Which is VERY silly) can handle that, so can RWBY. Saying otherwise is just trying to avoid feeling uncomfortable

How long into Lucifer did it take to get to that part? How much skill did the writers develop to feel comfortable handling that with the deftness it needs? Was it season one with a team new to writing dramatic and heavy things like that?

Epsilon Rose said:
Having her blindsided by bits of casual racism or systemic injustices that she didn't even realize were racist/unjust would also tie in well with recurring themes of inequality and classism we see throughout the show, particularly during the mantel arc we she could have been used to highlight institutions that she took for granted, and thought were fair/normal, but which are deeply problematic. It would also add more depth to Ironwoods treatment of Mantel and Winters acceptance of that treatment, since Winter is another person who recognized their father's racism, but who has not been forced to confront its implications.

While that would be nice, Volume Seven was already really dense, so what would you cut to fit the time for that?

There are a lot of things that probably should have been in the show more, but a lot of complaints don't seem to take into account the limits of the medium and how that effects what we actually get to see focused on in the show.

Epsilon Rose said:
I'm legitimately not sure how I feel about that one. On the one hand, having him quit cold turkey makes a lot of sense from a story writing perspective and there was a decent amount of focus given to his continued struggles.

On the other hand, alcohol withdrawal can be fatal. The only reason my old neighbor didn't die trying the same thing is because I heard him screaming, in agony, in the middle of the night and called for help. ... I'd rather not encourage more people to try it without medical supervision.

I'd never heard that part about it, at least for alcohol. Maybe his aura and the like helps deal with the physical aspects of it, and he had Atlas medical teams to help if he needed it for however long they were there before everything went to shit outright?

Epsilon Rose said:
Your first response to me (after the timeline stuff that originally brought me here) was to accuse me of wanting to lionize "a child groomer and abuser," when I was rather explicit about not wanting to lionize Adam and simply talking about how he could have been used more effectively as a villain.

They may have made assumptions because a lot of people who do what they were worried you were doing use pretty much that exact argument, and humans tend to get jumpy at patterns.

LordYam said:
The Dresden Files (a series I enjoy) had a VERY rough start. Everyone agrees the first two books (and possibly book 3) were kinda shit. The fans still like certain points but they happily admit that the earlier stuff is kinda crap. It felt like some of the fans in this thread liked the earlier volumes but didn't want to admit that they were in many ways deeply flawed and so were retroactively trying to say that "oh it wasn't THAT bad you're just being a hater" rather than admitting that, while there was plenty to love, there was also a lot to genuinely criticize.

How often have you run into people who hold up the problems of the first three as an original sin that is worth condemning the entire series for? A lot of RWBY fans are kind of traumatized by dealing with that for so long that it gets hard to recognize when someone is trying to help. Speaking of, since we can't go back and change how it was handled, do you have any ideas for how to deal with it? Say, the various manga that keep being made set during the Beacon parts touching on it instead of trying to get the show to address something that was skipped over more than a year ago in-universe?

Huh, I guess you moved past that. I had a few things that I thought were good at least?

gman391 said:
Please stop sharpening your word shivs on people.

That is a beautifully descriptive way to describe the situation.

Zam said:
Hmm, its tricky to say, ironically Salem is sort of like an inversion I am thinking she knows what she went through was unjust and seemingly done by mere chance or for petty reasons and resents it, leading her to rage against the heavens.

She's kind of moving forward the way a chainsaw does, destructively and always looping back to where it started until something breaks.

Epsilon Rose · Mar 3, 2022

GuestLurker said:
I'd never heard that part about it, at least for alcohol. Maybe his aura and the like helps deal with the physical aspects of it, and he had Atlas medical teams to help if he needed it for however long they were there before everything went to shit outright?

It seems like a lot of people don't realize alcohol withdrawal can be really bad, which is why shows treating major alcoholics going cold turkey as a natural solution bothers me. The issue isn't so much "how does it affect the writing" or "could it be explained away in universe" as "how does this affect people's perception of the real world," because even if we know a work is fiction and certain elements of it are fantastic, we also assume other parts are grounded in, or informed by, reality.

However, on the topic of in-universe justifications, access to Atlesian medical personel isn't really a factor, since he went cold turkey in the middle of the woods, and it seems like there was some time between the farm and getting to town. Aura making him tougher and helping his regeneration, combined with the fact that he's literally magic and can turn into a crow, could explain it though, as could basic quirks of biology. I'm pretty sure quitting cold turkey can produce a range of results, even in the real world.

Matrix Dragon · Mar 3, 2022

Epsilon Rose said:
since he went cold turkey in the middle of the woods, and it seems like there was some time between the farm and getting to town.

He REALLY didn't go cold turkey there. He found the wine cellar, remember?

RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

Good Civ Inspector

The King of Unrest

Banned Forever

Banned Forever

The King of Unrest

Banned Forever

Banned Forever

The King of Unrest

Banned Forever

Banned Forever

Umumumu

The King of Unrest