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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
    • Epsilon Rose said:
    Did it? I know Oz said she couldn't, but the current state of the world, and the speed at which Vale and Atlas fell makes it seem like she probably could, if her goal was to actually wipe out humanity.
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    Vale was a year long none linear sabotage campaign and even then all she got was Beacon.

    Atlas only fell and more to the point only fell as hard as it did because of Ironwood's perpetual fuck ups, a factor which Salem was basing her plans around. Its why she was fine with leaving Atlas to rot until she heard Ozpin was going there because he might be able to make Ironwood behave rationally.
     
    Zam said:
    Vale was a year long none linear sabotage campaign and even then all she got was Beacon.

    Atlas only fell and more to the point only fell as hard as it did because of Ironwood's perpetual fuck ups, a factor which Salem was basing her plans around. Its why she was fine with leaving Atlas to rot until she heard Ozpin was going there because he might be able to make Ironwood behave rationally.
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    Literally in canon:



    There's been a change in plans. Her Grace must act swiftly if we are to prevail.
    If General Ironwood comes to his senses and calls upon aid from Vacuo, all may be lost for us!
    And so the good doctor and I are being sent to Atlas... to prepare.    ​



    The ultimate ace up Salem's sleeve that allowed her to conquer Atlas was Ironwood's bad decisions. If Cinder hadn't planted that chess piece the invasion could have been repelled long enough for Vacuo to and other Kingdoms to help.
     
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    Also, Vale itself hasn't fallen. Beacon itself fell, and Kevin's corpse is attracting more Grimm to it, making the school near impossible to retake, but the kingdom is still there.
     
    Pugman said:
    And yet we have had other characters lose limbs and not lose their shit.
    Also, recall the context.
    If getting the arm is him losing/giving up his humanity then remember why he has that new left arm.
    He was still sane after he flayed it to choke Watts.
    When did he lose the arm?
    In the few hours between the end of V7 where everything is falling apart around him and V8 where he is trying to regain order and control of everything.
    Now, think back to V7 and recall that Ironwood was pondering if Salem's lack of humanity what made her strong
    So, putting it all together, this is NOT an albeist message. This is Ironwood making the choice to ditch humanity, both his own and his people, to get the job done and do what he thinks is the right thing and that was to abandon Mantle and escape with Atlas.
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    The fact that the show has handled these topics well before doesn't mean it didn't send harmful messages in V7&8. People can make mistakes or change their views.

    All that context does not change the central point. Ironwood getting another prosthetic is being used to signify his "loss of humanity" and increased depravity. Ironwood sacrificing his arm in a fight should not be treated by Watts as a sign of his upcoming fall. That is following a long and bigoted tradition of showing disabilities as a sign of a character's inner moral flaws. Losing a limb, even by choice, does not make someone less human.
     
    mr_stibbons said:
    The fact that the show has handled these topics well before doesn't mean it didn't send harmful messages in V7&8. People can make mistakes or change their views.

    All that context does not change the central point. Ironwood getting another prosthetic is being used to signify his "loss of humanity" and increased depravity. Ironwood sacrificing his arm in a fight should not be treated by Watts as a sign of his upcoming fall. That is following a long and bigoted tradition of showing disabilities as a sign of a character's inner moral flaws. Losing a limb, even by choice, does not make someone less human.
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    I feel like your counter argument kind of just ignored everything Pugman and I (Though I didn't rate a mention) said on the subject, and also ignores, you know, Yang who also has a prosthetic but unlike Ironwood clearly doesn't have a hang up about it.
     
    Zam said:
    I feel like your counter argument kind of just ignored everything Pugman and I (Though I didn't rate a mention) said on the subject, and also ignores, you know, Yang who also has a prosthetic but unlike Ironwood clearly doesn't have a hang up about it.
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    I am dismissing things that are not relevant to the argument. Yes, the show handled Yang's disability better, but that doesn't mean its unfair to criticize how it handled Ironwood's disability. Writers can be inconsistant about these things. And Ironwood musing about the strength found in abandoning humanity does not help Pugman's argument. It just backs up mine, that the show treats Ironwood losing an arm as symbolic of his moral decline.

    Your theory that Ironwood in particular has hangups about his disabilities is a good one, and I'd credit it more if we didn't have the writers on tape talking about him losing his humanity without saying that it is all in his head. Or, any part of the show explicitly pushing back on the idea that Ironwood's cybernetics are shameful. When the entire cast seems to agree with him that the amount of cybernetics he has is disconcerting, and his character arc does not push back against this idea, but instead has gim descend into villany as he gains more cybernetics, occams razor posits that the show does think he has too many cybernetics.

    It's important to remember that the origin of these tropes posited that every piece of metal on your body had a humanity cost, and too many would make you go crazy. That would track with what we see here-just losing an arm or your eyes is bearable, but Ironwood is now out of humanity and has gone crazy, and therefore dies a monster.
     
    mr_stibbons said:
    I am dismissing things that are not relevant to the argument. Yes, the show handled Yang's disability better, but that doesn't mean its unfair to criticize how it handled Ironwood's disability. Writers can be inconsistant about these things. And Ironwood musing about the strength found in abandoning humanity does not help Pugman's argument. It just backs up mine, that the show treats Ironwood losing an arm as symbolic of his moral decline.

    Your theory that Ironwood in particular has hangups about his disabilities is a good one, and I'd credit it more if we didn't have the writers on tape talking about him losing his humanity without saying that it is all in his head. Or, any part of the show explicitly pushing back on the idea that Ironwood's cybernetics are shameful. When the entire cast seems to agree with him that the amount of cybernetics he has is disconcerting, and his character arc does not push back against this idea, but instead has gim descend into villany as he gains more cybernetics, occams razor posits that the show does think he has too many cybernetics.

    It's important to remember that the origin of these tropes posited that every piece of metal on your body had a humanity cost, and too many would make you go crazy. That would track with what we see here-just losing an arm or your eyes is bearable, but Ironwood is now out of humanity and has gone crazy, and therefore dies a monster.
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    See this is what I mean by ignoring or maybe missing the point. Ironwood has had a complex about his prosthetics since he was introduced. He goes out of his way to hide them. He treats Penny like a tool and not a person. He admires what he perceives as a strength in Salem's lack of humanity and views technology as an ideal weapon to win any conflict. Thus, to Ironwood, losing his arm means giving up another piece of his humanity, its not accurate, its a toxic mental state, rather than a theme of the show. That's my take at least.

    When has anyone complained about his cybernetics? Also I gotta ask, do you have the exact quote, like have you actually watched it, cos I've seen the writers themselves complain about people giving them shit on Twitter for stuff people who claimed to be transcribing the commentary misunderstood, lied about or exaggerated.
     
    Zam said:
    See this is what I mean by ignoring or maybe missing the point. Ironwood has had a complex about his prosthetics since he was introduced. He goes out of his way to hide them. He treats Penny like a tool and not a person. He admires what he perceives as a strength in Salem's lack of humanity and views technology as an ideal weapon to win any conflict. Thus, to Ironwood, losing his arm means giving up another piece of his humanity, its not accurate, its a toxic mental state, rather than a theme of the show. That's my take at least.

    When has anyone complained about his cybernetics? Also I gotta ask, do you have the exact quote, like have you actually watched it, cos I've seen the writers themselves complain about people giving them shit on Twitter for stuff people who claimed to be transcribing the commentary misunderstood, lied about or exaggerated.
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    The exact line is "along with his, his cool.. Tron rings.. and then of course Ironwood now losing.. another part of his humanity. Get it?'".

    You could dismiss that as just a silghtly problematic joke, if you want to continue ignoring much of my points, like how the show handles Penny turning human. People don't insult ironwood's cybernetics to his face, but characters do double-take and recoil when he enters a scene without his shirt on. Even concedeing the point that Ironwood is uncomfortable revealing his cybernetics on public, it's a big leap to the idea losing his arm has a negative effect on his behaviour in V8 because of this specific mindset. There isn't any onscreen angst from Ironwood about getting a new mechanical arm, quite the opposite he walks in at the start of V8 like nothing is the matter, and never brings it up again. Neither does he bring up the idea that he has to be "inhuman" to fight Salem-there's a lot of hard men making hard decisions nonsense, but not talk about abandoning humanity. Which leaves me with the conclusion that the lost arm is mostly symbolic if his moral decline, not a cause.

    As an aside, I don't recall any point at which Ironwood treats Penny as not a person. He mostly treats her like the rest of his soldiers, and while that isn't a healthy dynamic I don't recall any specific animosity towards Penny. He even seems soft on "her" when he thinks she has been hacked back to his side at the end of V8, when he had plenty of justification to reveal any hidden bigotry.
     
    mr_stibbons said:
    As an aside, I don't recall any point at which Ironwood treats Penny as not a person. He mostly treats her like the rest of his soldiers, and while that isn't a healthy dynamic I don't recall any specific animosity towards Penny. He even seems soft on "her" when he thinks she has been hacked back to his side at the end of V8, when he had plenty of justification to reveal any hidden bigotry.
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    While I agree that Kerry's comment in the commentary is off colour and there were... considerably better ways of putting what he's referring to (I think what Kerry was trying to say was the way he just hacks the arm off later and replaces it is bad rather than just it being damaged but), we DO see him being explicitly bigoted about Penny in the meeting with the Council and Jacques - while he doesn't call her 'it', he does say that she is completely 'under his control' (a statement that we see Penny reacting to by looking really uncomfortable).
     
    mr_stibbons said:
    The exact line is "along with his, his cool.. Tron rings.. and then of course Ironwood now losing.. another part of his humanity. Get it?'".

    You could dismiss that as just a silghtly problematic joke, if you want to continue ignoring much of my points, like how the show handles Penny turning human. People don't insult ironwood's cybernetics to his face, but characters do double-take and recoil when he enters a scene without his shirt on. Even concedeing the point that Ironwood is uncomfortable revealing his cybernetics on public, it's a big leap to the idea losing his arm has a negative effect on his behaviour in V8 because of this specific mindset. There isn't any onscreen angst from Ironwood about getting a new mechanical arm, quite the opposite he walks in at the start of V8 like nothing is the matter, and never brings it up again. Neither does he bring up the idea that he has to be "inhuman" to fight Salem-there's a lot of hard men making hard decisions nonsense, but not talk about abandoning humanity. Which leaves me with the conclusion that the lost arm is mostly symbolic if his moral decline, not a cause.

    As an aside, I don't recall any point at which Ironwood treats Penny as not a person. He mostly treats her like the rest of his soldiers, and while that isn't a healthy dynamic I don't recall any specific animosity towards Penny. He even seems soft on "her" when he thinks she has been hacked back to his side at the end of V8, when he had plenty of justification to reveal any hidden bigotry.
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    More or less what @hellgodsrus said.

    I mean, given her circumstances just moments before I'm not sure being jazzed is an as much as an issue, its bit weird, I won't deny, but there's a thin line between, for comparisons sake, disability advocacy, erasure, eugenics and acceptance. That is to say, some people who were born unable to hear don't vibe with hearing aids, others do, both are valid. Also I don't recall any double takes our recoiling in horror. I don't really see how, Ironwood spent periods in V7 admiring Salem's lack of humanity, then he obliterates his own arm mostly to make a point and proceeds to hack of the weakened limb to force himself back into action, the same way he forces Winter into a body brace to compensate for her shattered bones. He treats himself and his own soldiers like machines that need maintenance, not like people who need recovery. Also he explicitly does talk about it in his conversation with Oscar, Oscar even straight up says keeping their humanity is more important.

    As to Penny, he doesn't let her have friends, or any real life outside of her obligations, he actively isolates and tries to control her interactions with others both in V2 and later volumes. Also, you know, blatantly violating her bodily autonomy in order to turn her into a literal puppet at his beck and call, plus the aforementioned, talking of Penny like she's a tool he controls by hellgodsrus again.
     
    As it is, even if the discussion continues, I don't think I'll be apart of it, I've said what I can say after all.

    I do think that joke confuses issues and despite my words, I do think Penny's situation was maybe not handled perfectly, but I don't think that invalidated everything we saw before this point, or necessarily indicates a sharp turn towards ableism, so much as a complicated narrative arc and situation not landing 100%.

    Anyway, oh my gosh, Tyrian as a RWBY 'Critic' XD

    View: https://team-hlrt.tumblr.com/post/677892927893159936/
     
    gman391 said:
    To push back slightly. While in principle there's nothing wrong with Ironwood's semblance be "The American Military's whole thing" there was I think a problem with presentation. Much like there are signs for when Yang, or Ren use their emotion based semblance, I think there needed to be a much clearer sign that Ironwood was or wasn't using his. As it was on my first watch I hadn't even played the Amity Arena game and never saw any sign personally that he was using his semblance. Just being a dickhead.

    If it was more signposted when Ironwood was using his semblance to enable his bad decision making I think it would go over better. But then I also think that Ironwood didn't have a semblance until Amity Arena meant he needed one and they just sort of had to wing one that wouldn't mess up the story too much.
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    I wonder if that's not the point that we can't see when he has it activated, that way you can never know if he's under the full possession of his faculties or is in unfettered mode.
     
    hellgodsrus said:
    While I agree that Kerry's comment in the commentary is off colour and there were... considerably better ways of putting what he's referring to (I think what Kerry was trying to say was the way he just hacks the arm off later and replaces it is bad rather than just it being damaged but), we DO see him being explicitly bigoted about Penny in the meeting with the Council and Jacques - while he doesn't call her 'it', he does say that she is completely 'under his control' (a statement that we see Penny reacting to by looking really uncomfortable).
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    Thank you, I had forgotten that scene.

    Zam said:
    More or less what @hellgodsrus said.

    I mean, given her circumstances just moments before I'm not sure being jazzed is an as much as an issue, its bit weird, I won't deny, but there's a thin line between, for comparisons sake, disability advocacy, erasure, eugenics and acceptance. That is to say, some people who were born unable to hear don't vibe with hearing aids, others do, both are valid. Also I don't recall any double takes our recoiling in horror. I don't really see how, Ironwood spent periods in V7 admiring Salem's lack of humanity, then he obliterates his own arm mostly to make a point and proceeds to hack of the weakened limb to force himself back into action, the same way he forces Winter into a body brace to compensate for her shattered bones. He treats himself and his own soldiers like machines that need maintenance, not like people who need recovery. Also he explicitly does talk about it in his conversation with Oscar, Oscar even straight up says keeping their humanity is more important.

    As to Penny, he doesn't let her have friends, or any real life outside of her obligations, he actively isolates and tries to control her interactions with others both in V2 and later volumes. Also, you know, blatantly violating her bodily autonomy in order to turn her into a literal puppet at his beck and call, plus the aforementioned, talking of Penny like she's a tool he controls by hellgodsrus again.
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    Penny's transformation bothers me because the show had previously sent some strong messages that Penny was a person even if she was "made of nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts". Having Penny respond ecstatically to being given a more normal body really feels like a refutation of those themes-the show is saying sure, you should accept Penny as a robot, but really she'd be happier with a normal body. This comes off very paternalistic and condescending. It's not like Penny had even voiced a desire to be a human girl, she was very happy as she was.

    Ironwood losing his arm "just to make a point" is speculation at best. He's out of ammo for his remaining gun, we don't know if he has any more rounds on him or how long it would take for him to reload with one hand free, and neither he nor us know if shooting the trap will help him there. Pulling his hand out is a reasonable choice if he doesn't want to risk Watts escaping.

    "Forcing" Winter into the brace is also speculation, we don't know how Winter feels about the brace, how bad her injuries are, or the medical tradeoffs of the brace as opposed to other hypothetical treatments, or if Ironwood explicitly ordered her back into the field. It is in character for Winter to put the mission over her well being and Ironwood's point that Atlas is facing an unprecidented Grimm attack and they could use all the help they can get is entirely valid. Regardless, this is a tangent, as neither of us is arguing that Ironwoods relationship with his subordinates is healthy.

    The word humanity does not come up in Ironwood and Oscars' discussion V7E13. Oscar says Ironwood is abandoning Remnant out of fear, while Ironwood claims he is seeing the bigger picture and doing what's right. This isn't evidence that Ironwood is seeking strength in abandoning his humanity.
    Zam said:
    As it is, even if the discussion continues, I don't think I'll be apart of it, I've said what I can say after all.

    I do think that joke confuses issues and despite my words, I do think Penny's situation was maybe not handled perfectly, but I don't think that invalidated everything we saw before this point, or necessarily indicates a sharp turn towards ableism, so much as a complicated narrative arc and situation not landing 100%.

    Anyway, oh my gosh, Tyrian as a RWBY 'Critic' XD

    View: https://team-hlrt.tumblr.com/post/677892927893159936/
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    Yknow, noping out of a discussion of Ableism in RWBY by posting a joke shitting on people critiquing RWBY for ableism is shockingly uncivil move. Also, please stop reposting the serial harasser in this thread.
     
    mr_stibbons said:
    The word humanity does not come up in Ironwood and Oscars' discussion V7E13. Oscar says Ironwood is abandoning Remnant out of fear, while Ironwood claims he is seeing the bigger picture and doing what's right. This isn't evidence that Ironwood is seeking strength in abandoning his humanity.
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    I'm going to ignore the whole accusation things and just point out an inaccuracy, I wasn't referring to that discussion, I was referring to this one:

    Ironwood: We have to stop Salem. Nothing matters more.

    Oscar: Some things matter more, I think.

    Ironwood stops walking.

    Oscar: Keeping our humanity. It's what makes us different from her.

    Ironwood resumes walking and stops in front of the elevator's control panel. He taps the screen.

    Ironwood: Sometimes I worry that's her greatest advantage. Without humanity, does she still feel fear? Does she ever hesitate? When Salem hit Beacon, even with all my ships, all of my soldiers... I was no match for her. I've never felt so helpless.
     
    mr_stibbons said:
    People don't insult ironwood's cybernetics to his face, but characters do double-take and recoil when he enters a scene without his shirt on.
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    Freaking when? The only time Ironwood enters a scene without his shirt on is after he got shot down in volume 3 and no one shows any kind of reaction to his cybernetics, let alone recoiling away from them. Cardin does a surprised Pikachu face but that's because he was gaping at Ironwood's action hero entrance that just saved Cardin's ass from being fried by 15+ Atlesian Knights.


    If anything the only time Ironwood's initial cybernetics were actually on display is the moment when he was portrayed at his most heroic and unambigiously good.



    mr_stibbons said:
    Penny's transformation bothers me because the show had previously sent some strong messages that Penny was a person even if she was "made of nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts". Having Penny respond ecstatically to being given a more normal body really feels like a refutation of those themes-the show is saying sure, you should accept Penny as a robot, but really she'd be happier with a normal body. This comes off very paternalistic and condescending. It's not like Penny had even voiced a desire to be a human girl, she was very happy as she was.
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    Penny's transformation was specifically only possible because she's a regardless of whether she's made of nuts and bolts or squishy guts. And considering how hard you're going on about author commentaries about Ironwood it feels rather off that you completely ignore all the many volume 8 commentaries about how Penny's robotic nature gives her an advantage and helps her save the day again and again, and how it was ultimately the loss of her robotic parts that led to her death in her final battle.


    Yeah she likes being able to fully feel the touch of another human being when she's soft and squishy. She was somewhat less enthused about how having squishy guts makes it a lot easier for people to rip and tear said guts. In reverse there's tons of scenes of Yang loving her new prosthetic arm and enthusiastically showing it off. Like, what exactly is the problem with people being happy with body modifications that lets them experience new sensations better than they could before?


    And it feels odd to focus on the Atlas arc supposedly having an anti-prosthetic message when it introduces us to a wheelchair bound scientist who is the embodiment of the Beatiful Cinnamon Roll Too Good For This World, Too Pure meme and who as part of said cinnamon roll tendencies works pro bono in a pharmacy specializing in building and maintining cybernetic prosthetics.








    I don't know about you but to me it doesn't look like racoon girl over there is suffering from any kind of moral degradion because she got herself some nuts and bolts to replace a squishy meat hand. Nor does Maria with her cybernetic eyes (which the CRWBY obviously put a ton of love and care into designing and animating).
     
    Mook said:
    Freaking when? The only time Ironwood enters a scene without his shirt on is after he got shot down in volume 3 and no one shows any kind of reaction to his cybernetics, let alone recoiling away from them. Cardin does a surprised Pikachu face but that's because he was gaping at Ironwood's action hero entrance that just saved Cardin's ass from being fried by 15+ Atlesian Knights.


    If anything the only time Ironwood's initial cybernetics were actually on display is the moment when he was portrayed at his most heroic and unambigiously good.




    Penny's transformation was specifically only possible because she's a regardless of whether she's made of nuts and bolts or squishy guts. And considering how hard you're going on about author commentaries about Ironwood it feels rather off that you completely ignore all the many volume 8 commentaries about how Penny's robotic nature gives her an advantage and helps her save the day again and again, and how it was ultimately the loss of her robotic parts that led to her death in her final battle.


    Yeah she likes being able to fully feel the touch of another human being when she's soft and squishy. She was somewhat less enthused about how having squishy guts makes it a lot easier for people to rip and tear said guts. In reverse there's tons of scenes of Yang loving her new prosthetic arm and enthusiastically showing it off. Like, what exactly is the problem with people being happy with body modifications that lets them experience new sensations better than they could before?


    And it feels odd to focus on the Atlas arc supposedly having an anti-prosthetic message when it introduces us to a wheelchair bound scientist who is the embodiment of the Beatiful Cinnamon Roll Too Good For This World, Too Pure meme and who as part of said cinnamon roll tendencies works pro bono in a pharmacy specializing in building and maintining cybernetic prosthetics.








    I don't know about you but to me it doesn't look like racoon girl over there is suffering from any kind of moral degradion because she got herself some nuts and bolts to replace a squishy meat hand. Nor does Maria with her cybernetic eyes (which the CRWBY obviously put a ton of love and care into designing and animating).
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    For the third time in this discussion, the fact that RWBY has been pretty good about representing disabled people doesn't mean it can't fail at that. Yes, Pietro and his clinic were well done. That doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to talk about Penny and Ironwood.

    And as for Penny losing because she is human, combat power is not the same thing as quality of life. Penny can be objectively a weaker fighter while human, but also presented as happier and better off as a human.
     
    Zam said:
    Anyway, oh my gosh, Tyrian as a RWBY 'Critic' XD
    undefined
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    Do we know Salem's actual end game? I thought there was some intentional ambiguity on that point, with Oz thinking its one thing, Salem telling her minions its another, and hints that she's lying to them and actually wants something else?

    Not that her end game being intentionally ambiguous is a bad thing or a sign of bad writing, since lack of information and assumptions leading to bad decisions seems to be a running theme in the show and there have been a lot of assumptions about Salem with very little solid information to back them up.

    Zam said:
    Ironwood: Sometimes I worry that's her greatest advantage. Without humanity, does she still feel fear? Does she ever hesitate? When Salem hit Beacon, even with all my ships, all of my soldiers... I was no match for her. I've never felt so helpless.
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    On the topic of Ironwood's mentality, that line is telling. All of his ships and soldiers were useless in Beacon because they never should have been there in the first place and his tech was compromised from the word go. It had nothing to do with Salem's lack of humanity, but he can't admit what actually went wrong and needs a way to keep seeing his military as the ultimate force.
     
    Epsilon Rose said:
    Do we know Salem's actual end game? I thought there was some intentional ambiguity on that point, with Oz thinking its one thing, Salem telling her minions its another, and hints that she's lying to them and actually wants something else?

    Not that her end game being intentionally ambiguous is a bad thing or a sign of bad writing, since lack of information and assumptions leading to bad decisions seems to be a running theme in the show and there have been a lot of assumptions about Salem with very little solid information to back them up.
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    Given that both Oz and Tyrian have both told Emerald that Salem's endgame is the end of humanity (which Tyrian is giddy for).
    Oz has been dealing with Salem for ages, and Tyrian loves destruction and sees Salem as a Goddess.
    So given that BOTH of these individuals agree on what Salem is aiming for, I don't see reason to doubt it.
     
    Zam said:
    Ironwood spent periods in V7 admiring Salem's lack of humanity
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    Ironwood said:
    Sometimes I worry that's her greatest advantage. Without humanity, does she still feel fear? Does she ever hesitate? When Salem hit Beacon, even with all my ships, all of my soldiers... I was no match for her. I've never felt so helpless.
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    How exactly is this admiring?

    It's clear that when he's talking about her lack of humanity, he's scared. Not only does he outright bring up how it worries him that Salem has no humanity to hold her back like them, but he even brings up his PTSD from Beacon. He never admired this part of her.
     
    Zam said:
    As it is, even if the discussion continues, I don't think I'll be apart of it, I've said what I can say after all.

    I do think that joke confuses issues and despite my words, I do think Penny's situation was maybe not handled perfectly, but I don't think that invalidated everything we saw before this point, or necessarily indicates a sharp turn towards ableism, so much as a complicated narrative arc and situation not landing 100%.

    Anyway, oh my gosh, Tyrian as a RWBY 'Critic' XD

    View: https://team-hlrt.tumblr.com/post/677892927893159936/
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    I mean to be fair Tyrian being smarter than RWBY critics isn't surprising considering he's probably one of the more intelligent members of Salem's group.
     
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