RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

Stop: So gotta few things that need to be said real quick.
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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There are several people in this thread who are critical of the show, could you all please knock off the sniping?

When we say RWBYCritics, we don't mean you. We mean the sort that nest in that particular subreddit, send abuse to anyone that enjoys the show, makes claims like Winter should be gang raped to force breed a more loyal Schnee, claim Adam was murdered in cold blood... Those sorts of idiots. We've been mocking them for a long time and won't stop anytime soon.
 
Yeah if it comes off like we're mocking people here I do apologize but that is not my intention. RWBY critic to me is a very specific brand of redditor or youtuber.
 
Yeah if it comes off like we're mocking people here I do apologize but that is not my intention. RWBY critic to me is a very specific brand of redditor or youtuber.
There are fans who are willing to talk about the flaws and how they could be done with more tact if they had more time or planning or bits that could do with some extra polish in hindsight and the like, then there are people who go on dumb rants about the show that have little to do with it beyond using the names. Tyrian is smarter than the later group by a lot.

It's not bad, but it feels like she'd do better with shoulder length at least. Might be because the central crown looks weird compared to having it on the side ponytail to hold it in place.
 
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.

Counterpoint: Neither Oz nor Tyrian are unbiased sources when it comes to Salem and Oz's assumptions being bad has been a recuring theme. Similarly, while their views are normally very different, the idea of Salem wanting to destroy everyone plays into their personal biases equally well. (Oz assumes she's crazy and corrupted, Tyrian likes murder.)




Hmm. That is cute, but not really what I think of when I hear "Weiss with short hair." It's a bit too poofy. I think something like a flapper's bob would be more fitting, with her personality and hair. Then again, the poof works well if you want to portray a more carefree and happier Weiss, maybe one who doesn't have to deal with Jaques and his nonsense.

Something like this:


Or maybe this, as a middle ground:
 
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If her goal is not to end it all then what could it be?
Like, with everything we know about Salem and how she has been destabilizing civilization and collecting the relics what else?
It's either "Rule All As Grimm Queen" which was her first plan back with Oz (God King and Queen phase) and is what Merc and Em were lead to believe, or it's "Suicide By Divine Smite" where she aims to use the Relics while humanity is a mess to call back the GodBros. and get them to kill everything and hope she is ended as well.
There isn't much sign it's anything else.
 
I can imagine it backfiring with the Gods being so pissed that they just smite her then be on their way, with the rest of RWBY being the cast going "... Now what the fuck do we do for a finale?"
 
If her goal is not to end it all then what could it be?
Like, with everything we know about Salem and how she has been destabilizing civilization and collecting the relics what else?
It's either "Rule All As Grimm Queen" which was her first plan back with Oz (God King and Queen phase) and is what Merc and Em were lead to believe, or it's "Suicide By Divine Smite" where she aims to use the Relics while humanity is a mess to call back the GodBros. and get them to kill everything and hope she is ended as well.
There isn't much sign it's anything else.

I suspect that may be one of the things that Team Gilligan might be finding out this volume...
 
If her goal is not to end it all then what could it be?
Like, with everything we know about Salem and how she has been destabilizing civilization and collecting the relics what else?
It's either "Rule All As Grimm Queen" which was her first plan back with Oz (God King and Queen phase) and is what Merc and Em were lead to believe, or it's "Suicide By Divine Smite" where she aims to use the Relics while humanity is a mess to call back the GodBros. and get them to kill everything and hope she is ended as well.
There isn't much sign it's anything else.
And if her goal is to rule the world as a dark queen, she's not exactly jumping on opportunities to start her Queendom. When giving Ironwood her ultimatium, the demand is "give me the relics" not "give me rulership of your kingdom". She's made no attempt to actually take control of Vale or Mistral after causing havoc their either.
 
If her goal is not to end it all then what could it be?
Like, with everything we know about Salem and how she has been destabilizing civilization and collecting the relics what else?
It's either "Rule All As Grimm Queen" which was her first plan back with Oz (God King and Queen phase) and is what Merc and Em were lead to believe, or it's "Suicide By Divine Smite" where she aims to use the Relics while humanity is a mess to call back the GodBros. and get them to kill everything and hope she is ended as well.
There isn't much sign it's anything else.

It's worth noting that the last time she tried to suicide by god, the gods killed everyone but her, leaving her to rot on an utterly barren world. She knows this, so it would be odd for her to think it would go any better the second time around.

Conversely, depending on what he told her, she might realize that calling the Brothers is Oz's escape clause, since the God of Light didn't specify humanity needed to be united to end his re-incarnations, just that he needed to pass judgement on them. In that light, it makes a lot of sense that she'd worry about Oz having control of all four artifacts.

As for taking over the world, I'll admit that might be one of her goals, but it doesn't seem like it's an end goal, so much as she's doing it to spite Oz and show him up. After all, before he found her again, Salem seemed content to keep to herself and ignore everyone else. She seems to have only started employing the grim after her breakup with Oz.

And if her goal is to rule the world as a dark queen, she's not exactly jumping on opportunities to start her Queendom. When giving Ironwood her ultimatium, the demand is "give me the relics" not "give me rulership of your kingdom". She's made no attempt to actually take control of Vale or Mistral after causing havoc their either.

Similarly, she has an entire continent to herself and the ability to trivially defend territory from the main threat new cities on remnant would face. If she wanted to rule over humanity, she could easily start kingdom building on her own, even without revealing who she is to the general public, which would both directly work towards her nominal goal and give her a much stronger base for any future actions. Or, even simpler, she could bankroll a true competitor to the SDC and drastically weaken Oz by weakening two of his, nominally, strongest assets.

I can imagine it backfiring with the Gods being so pissed that they just smite her then be on their way, with the rest of RWBY being the cast going "... Now what the fuck do we do for a finale?"

I don't know if I'd call that a backfire, since it seems like Salem would be quite happy to die.
 
It's worth noting that the last time she tried to suicide by god, the gods killed everyone but her, leaving her to rot on an utterly barren world. She knows this, so it would be odd for her to think it would go any better the second time around.

Well given how she interacted with the Gods 3 times in the past and did not seem to get the memo, her trying a 4th time does not seem all that odd.

I mean, the woman is driven by spite. So if the goal is to call the gods back for that final judgment it would be her way of spiting everyone.
Spite Light by showing him how wrong he is by having his trial not passed, spite Oz by making him fail said trial, and spite EVERYONE by putting them in the path of Snap 2: The Snappaning.
 
Well given how she interacted with the Gods 3 times in the past and did not seem to get the memo, her trying a 4th time does not seem all that odd.

She approached each of her interactions with the Brothers very differently and they all had markedly different results. Further, by the time of Oz's reincarnation, it seems like she wants nothing to do with the Brothers or anything related to them; she viewed Oz's secret association as a betrayal and made no mention of wanting to use the relics or wanting to call the brothers back.

I mean, the woman is driven by spite. So if the goal is to call the gods back for that final judgment it would be her way of spiting everyone.
Spite Light by showing him how wrong he is by having his trial not passed, spite Oz by making him fail said trial, and spite EVERYONE by putting them in the path of Snap 2: The Snappaning.

It wouldn't really be spiting the God of Light, because he expects humanity to fail the trial. Similarly, it wouldn't really be spiting Oz or causing him to fail the trial, since he's not on trial; it would just be granting him release from his cycle of reincarnation, which is almost the opposite of spiting him. Finally, I don't think she cares enough about most mortals to go out of her way to spite them like that.
 
My own two cents? I don't think Salem's made a single rationally-motivated decision in her life. She just ain't that kind of person.
 
after watching the end of Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger
I now have the silliest way for Ruby to stop the gods and get them to leave for good
ROCK-PAPER-SICCORS!
 
Part of the reason that I bluntly doubt Ozpin is that I think there'd have been more fanfare about finding Salem's true motivations, look at how we found out the truth about Ozpin, we got a multi-layered divine flashback narrated by Jinn that ended with Ozpin vanishing for months and nearly everyone having a breakdown.

If nothing else we should have gotten some strong music cues and maybe someone real reaction; like maybe they were having Ozma pull a Cassandra but (Shrugs) I struggle to see it.

Plus, as noted previously, if that is her plan I wholly expect Salem to fail well before she gets close to it and be taken over by Cinder.

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?
I thought we already had this discussion? Within the context of the post this is just stating Tyrian'sbeliefs.

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.
This is a solid insight there, yeah, he can't admit to his or his force own weaknesses or lack of ability in some regards, or even concede to anything less than success, hence blaming Ozpin in V4, so there must be some other explanation in his mind.

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.
Because he talks about it as an advantage and his tone indicates a certain degree of "I want that" , frankly the "I'm scared" read feels not only way too generous, but kind of baseless.

In other news, short hair weiss!
Much floof, very good.
 
I thought we already had this discussion? Within the context of the post this is just stating Tyrian'sbeliefs.

We did, hence my confusion; the first post in the Tumblr thread makes it sound like Salem's goals are definitively known and Tyrian's understanding is canonically correct.
 
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Because he talks about it as an advantage and his tone indicates a certain degree of "I want that" , frankly the "I'm scared" read feels not only way too generous, but kind of baseless.

Not to mention it kind of fits other characters.
It has been brought up many times that Cinder emulates both The Madame and Salem. So Ironwood trying to emulate something that scares him is not that odd. If we fear it, it has power over us. If we take that aspect and make it our own then it shows we don't fear it.
So both "I want" and "I fear" work because it is directed at the same thing.


We did, hence my confusion; the first post in the Tumblr thread makes it sound like Salem's goals are definitively known and Tyrian's understanding is canonically correct.

Tyrian is Salem's most loyal and devote follower. Not much reason to lie to him so long as she is a force of destruction.
 
We did, hence my confusion; the first post in the Tumblr thread makes it sound like Salem's goals are definitively known and Tyrian's understanding is canonically correct.
Ah, I see, I mean many do believe those goals and even if they don't it wouldn't make sense for Tyrian not to believe them so (shrugs)

Also this is just cute, Kdin's livestreams with a RWBY fan make cute memes:

So both "I want" and "I fear" work because it is directed at the same thing.
Well laid out to be sure.
 
Bleh. I tried to add this as an edit earlier, but Vivaldi decided to start playing games with Take a Break mode, for some reason.

Because he talks about it as an advantage and his tone indicates a certain degree of "I want that" , frankly the "I'm scared" read feels not only way too generous, but kind of baseless.

I'd point out that Awe and Awful are related for a reason. Ironwood may be legitimately scared, but that fear also belays a form of envy. He views his own ability and his army as close to the be all and end all of strength, but he also perceives Salem's lack of humanity as letting her do similar things better. That is both a direct challenge to his world view and a route to escape that challenge, so he can both fear Salem's power and want it for himself.

While I still don't like his semblance, it's also worth noting that there is a degree of connection here as well. In his eyes, Salem's lack of humanity lets her go determinator more strongly than Mettle does for him, and it extends to her forces in a way that Mettle doesn't. Now, the interesting question is did he jump to her lack of humanity as a strength because it's similar to Mettle being one of his strengths, and he's just being egotistical and projecting himself on to her, or did he come to that conclusion separately and the similarity lead him to believe is was also a solution he could use?
 
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