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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The birds are also the only ones of Team STRQ we know the region of origin of.
I have read some fanfics where Summer and Tai are native to Vale, others have put Summer in Atlas and Tai from Vacuo >.>

Speaking of Taiyang, I forgot if we ever got word or a theory on what he is even based on.
We know what Summer is (The Last Rose of Summer), we have an idea for Raven (The Raven's Huginn and Muninn of Odin), and Qrow pulls from 2 things (the aforementioned birds, plus the Scarecrow of Oz).
But what of papa Tai?
 
The birds are also the only ones of Team STRQ we know the region of origin of.
I have read some fanfics where Summer and Tai are native to Vale, others have put Summer in Atlas and Tai from Vacuo >.>

Speaking of Taiyang, I forgot if we ever got word or a theory on what he is even based on.
We know what Summer is (The Last Rose of Summer), we have an idea for Raven (The Raven's Huginn and Muninn of Odin), and Qrow pulls from 2 things (the aforementioned birds, plus the Scarecrow of Oz).
But what of papa Tai?
Well, he's about as unimportant as the horse from Journey to the West. . .
 
The birds are also the only ones of Team STRQ we know the region of origin of.
I have read some fanfics where Summer and Tai are native to Vale, others have put Summer in Atlas and Tai from Vacuo >.>

Speaking of Taiyang, I forgot if we ever got word or a theory on what he is even based on.
We know what Summer is (The Last Rose of Summer), we have an idea for Raven (The Raven's Huginn and Muninn of Odin), and Qrow pulls from 2 things (the aforementioned birds, plus the Scarecrow of Oz).
But what of papa Tai?
Well his name refers to him being a dragon or a big dragon or something, so that might be a place to start?
Supposedly he's the Yellow Emperor of Chinese Mythology, who does indeed have a dragon form.
 
I actually would find it bizarre and amusing if Summer was the only member of Team STRQ who didn't come from Mistral.
 
Yang was listed as Asian on the thing, I assume because Raven's aesthetic is seen as coding.

Well, there's also the fact that Raven is from Mistral, which is very diverse but overall skews East Asian, and she and Qrow weren't named by their actual parents, so those two could be a lot of things, and quite possibly multiple at once.

Generally, I'd argue Weiss is the only member of Team RWBY we could actually slap a single race on just going off their parents' names, appearances and backgrounds. Which is probably at least partly intentional, given Miles Luna is mixed-race and Monty Oum was, too.
 
Well, there's also the fact that Raven is from Mistral, which is very diverse but overall skews East Asian, and she and Qrow weren't named by their actual parents, so those two could be a lot of things, and quite possibly multiple at once.

Generally, I'd argue Weiss is the only member of Team RWBY we could actually slap a single race on just going off their parents' names, appearances and backgrounds. Which is probably at least partly intentional, given Miles Luna is mixed-race and Monty Oum was, too.
Plus there's also the while anime thing.

tvtropes.org

Mukokuseki - TV Tropes

Mukokuseki (jp: 無国籍) is the deliberate lack of ethnic features included in the character design of Japanese fictional characters. It literally means "stateless" (i.e. "without nationality"), though the term relates to more …





Is this kid white or asian? Going by appearance you'd assume he's a white European kid of sort.

But going by the fact that he lives in fantasy Japan, speaks and writes Japanese (there's even a plot point about him picking apart specific Kanji)....
 
Plus there's also the while anime thing.

tvtropes.org

Mukokuseki - TV Tropes

Mukokuseki (jp: 無国籍) is the deliberate lack of ethnic features included in the character design of Japanese fictional characters. It literally means "stateless" (i.e. "without nationality"), though the term relates to more …





Is this kid white or asian? Going by appearance you'd assume he's a white European kid of sort.

But going by the fact that he lives in fantasy Japan, speaks and writes Japanese (there's even a plot point about him picking apart specific Kanji)....
There is a divide between ancestry and culture, so that makes it even less clear cut in fantasy worlds with completely different histories than our world.
 
This reminds me of some interesting conversations I had way back in the day with my Japanese housemate. Her reaction to manga and anime was "They look Japanese to me."

There's also the element that the source material, manga is B&W, so there's another degree of coding that is lost, at least to Western readers.
 
This reminds me of some interesting conversations I had way back in the day with my Japanese housemate. Her reaction to manga and anime was "They look Japanese to me."

Reminds me of how Japanese fans were criticizing Aerith's design in the FFVII remake, saying her face was too long and it made her look "too Western."

There 100% is coding in anime and manga artstyles for someone who's supposed to be explicitly White/Western, it's just usually not the obvious kind that most Westerners would notice.
 
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There 100% is coding in anime and manga artstyles for someone who's supposed to be explicitly White/Western, it's just usually not the obvious kind that most Westerners would notice.

There is a varying degree of shorthand in visual depiction in manga, oftentimes dealing with facial feature and body proportions. I remember the old "Bishoujo Around the World" magazine that showed ways some mangaka might indicate different areas of origin. But even then it wasn't a definite thing...
 
There 100% is coding in anime and manga artstyles for someone who's supposed to be explicitly White/Western, it's just usually not the obvious kind that most Westerners would notice.
Being tall and blonde is just the most obvious.
There is a varying degree of shorthand in visual depiction in manga, oftentimes dealing with facial feature and body proportions. I remember the old "Bishoujo Around the World" magazine that showed ways some mangaka might indicate different areas of origin. But even then it wasn't a definite thing...
Picture is a bit faded, especially the tops of words.
 
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