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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
    • Abstract Ideas said:
    Further bring said husband back from the dead and give him four artifacts and then pit him against his wife for millenium?
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    You forgot the part where the God of Light gave him the impossible task of uniting humanity (ironically something he was close to doing 80 or so years prior to the start of the show) that even Sisyphus would call easy with his ex being the one making things difficult, adding to the irony cake that her curse is what's making this task even more impossible.

    Then add more layers to that irony cake when you realize Ozpin gave up on this mission altogether (or at least just decided to play a stall game) while the closest guy we had to actually decide to do the mission (without even knowing about it in the first place) is what this thread has called many times to be the villainous dictator.
     
    Mahrac said:
    Demeter tried to do one via famine because of the whole Hades and Persephone thing.

    Which we are not getting into because whatever version you listen to, it wasn't the fault of the world's population.
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    True, but the other gods went and tried to stop her and eventually did.

    Idle aside though, I read some really interesting meta on how some are critical of the "feminist re-telling" of the myth where Persephone is a willing participant in all of this. Because the original story is very clearly a mother mourning her daughter being taken from her by a patriarchal system of arranged marriages in which she and the daughter have no agency and taking that away is sort of snubbing all the women who dealt with that. Not to say the feminist re-tellings aren't good in their own way though, but definitely interesting.
     
    Zam said:
    Hey now, at least the Greek Gods never committed planetary genocide cos of a few hundred people. They were assholes on smaller more personal levels.
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    I thought they did commit genocide. Humans were made of clay and were susceptible to something (the evils from pandora's box, maybe?) and so the gods killed all of the humans, except for a few, who picked rocks off the ground, and tossed 'em behind their backs, making new humans, which being made out of stone, could resist the whatever it was better. It's been a very long time since i read greek myths, tho.
     
    Abstract Ideas said:
    I mean, Christ, curse a woman with eternal life for being understandably angry at watching her husband die and be revived again multiple times? Massacre all humans on Remnant just because of a few kingdoms that got greedy and fooled by said immortal woman? Further bring said husband back from the dead and give him four artifacts and then pit him against his wife for millenium?

    They're not on the levels of the Greek gods in terms of 'being an asshole', but that's honestly not saying much.
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    Well, I'm sorry, I think it's personally justified that humanity was angry that the gods held immortality from humanity

    Seriously if immortality is Just an arbitrary on off button that the gods can activate at fucking will
    What all loving being would do that?
    It would be one thing if death and life are a constant. All things must die eventuall
    Decay exists.


    But the gods and Salem are living proof that those rules are arbitrary.
     
    Jaytjones said:
    Well, I'm sorry, I think it's personally justified that humanity was angry that the gods held immortality from humanity

    Seriously if immortality is Just an arbitrary on off button that the gods can activate at fucking will
    What all loving being would do that?
    It would be one thing if death and life are a constant. All things must die eventuall
    Decay exists.


    But the gods and Salem are living proof that those rules are arbitrary.
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    That could be one aspect that RWBY Rewrites could tackle:

    What if humanity succeeded in making themselves immortal, only to end up causing their own version of the Cancerverse and that's the Salem RWBY has to fight.
     
    Zam said:
    Idle aside though, I read some really interesting meta on how some are critical of the "feminist re-telling" of the myth where Persephone is a willing participant in all of this. Because the original story is very clearly a mother mourning her daughter being taken from her by a patriarchal system of arranged marriages in which she and the daughter have no agency and taking that away is sort of snubbing all the women who dealt with that. Not to say the feminist re-tellings aren't good in their own way though, but definitely interesting.
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    To be entirely clear on the Persephone/Demeter front, since that just got mentioned on the Greek gods side for my own personal comparison to the Gods of Light and Darkness-

    The original myth is shockingly consistent about how the entire thing goes, to be honest. Like, straight-up- it's a mourning mother who gets her daughter taken away by two of the biggest dogs in Greek mythos- Hades and Zeus- and wins. Like, comparing that story to how the God of Light and Darkness handled things is doing an injustice to Demeter and Persephone, since Demeter and Persephone would be the Ozma and Salem of the story. Check it.
    Homeric Hymn to Demeter said:
    15 She [Persephone] was filled with a sense of wonder, and she reached out with both hands

    to take hold of the pretty plaything. And the earth, full of roads leading every which way, opened up under her.

    It happened on the Plain of Nysa. There it was that the Lord who receives many guests made his lunge.

    He was riding on a chariot drawn by immortal horses. The son of Kronos. The one known by many names.

    He seized her against her will, put her on his golden chariot,

    20 And drove away as she wept. She cried with a piercing voice,

    calling upon her father [Zeus], the son of Kronos, the highest and the best.

    But not one of the immortal ones, or of human mortals,

    heard her voice. Not even the olive trees which bear their splendid harvest.

    Except for the daughter of Persaios, the one who keeps in mind the vigor of nature.

    25 She heard it from her cave. She is Hekatê, with the splendid headband.

    And the Lord Helios [Sun] heard it too, the magnificent son of Hyperion.

    They heard the daughter calling upon her father, the son of Kronos.

    But he, all by himself,

    was seated far apart from the gods, inside a temple, the precinct of many prayers.

    He was receiving beautiful sacrificial rites from mortal humans.

    30 She was being taken, against her will, at the behest of Zeus,

    by her father's brother, the one who makes many sêmata, the one who receives many guests,

    the son of Kronos, the one with many names. On the chariot drawn by immortal horses.
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    Ovid's Metamorphoses - Rape of Proserpina said:
    So she spoke. Then Cupido [Eros] guided by his mother, opened his quiver and of all his thousand arrows selected one, the sharpest and the surest, the arrow most obedient to the bow, and bent the pliant horn against his knee and shot the barbed shaft deep in Dis' [Haides'] heart. Not far from Henna's walls there is a lake, Pergus by name, its waters deep and still; it hears the music of the choiring swans as sweet as on Caystros' gliding stream. Woods crown the waters, ringing every side, their leaves like awnings barring the sun's beams. The boughs give cooling shade, the watered grass is gay with spangled flowers of every hue, and always it is spring. Here Proserpina [Persephone] was playing in a glade and picking flowers, pansies and lilies, with a child's delight, filling her basket and her lap to gather more than the other girls, when, in a trice, Dis [Haides] saw her, loved her, carried her away--love leapt in such a hurry! Terrified, in tears, the goddess called her mother, called her comrades too, but oftenest her mother; and, as she'd torn the shoulder of her dress, the folds slipped down and out the flowers fell, and she, in innocent simplicity, grieved in her girlish heart for their loss too. Away the chariot sped; her captor urged each horse by name and shook the dark-dyed reins on mane and neck. On through deep lakes he drove, on through Palici's sulphurous pools that boil in reeking chasms, on past Bacchiadae [Syracuse], where settlers once from Corinthus' isthmus built between two harbours their great battlements.
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    Claudian - The Rape of Proserpina said:
    [247] Meanwhile Proserpine is borne away in the winged car, her hair streaming before the wind, beating her arms in lamentation and calling in vain remonstrance to the clouds: "Why has thou not hurled at me, father, bolts forged by the Cyclopes' hands? Was this thy will to deliver thy daughter to the cruel shades and drive her for ever from this world? Does love move thee not at all? Hast thou nothing of a father's feeling? What ill deed of mine has stirred such anger in thee? When Phlegra raged with war's madness I bore no standard against the gods; 'twas through no strength of mine that ice-bound Ossa supported frozen Olympus. For attempt of what crime, for complicity with what guilt, am I thrust down in banishment to the bottomless pit of Hell? Happy girls whom other ravishers have stolen; they at least enjoy the general light of day, while I, together with my virginity, lose the air of heaven; stolen from me alike is innocence and daylight. Needs must I quit this world and be led a captive bride to serve Hell's tyrant. Ye flowers that I loved in so evil an hour, oh, why did I scorn my mother's warning? Too late did I detect the wiles of Venus. Mother, my mother, whether in the vales of Phrygian Ida the dread pipe sounds about thine ears with Lydian strains, or thou hauntest mount Dindymus, ahowl with self-mutilated Galli, and beholdest the naked swords of the Curetes, aid me in my bitter need; frustrate Pluto's mad lust and stay the funereal reins of my fierce ravisher."
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    Like, everyone gets in on the action and they all agree- from the Orphic Hymns and the Pseudo-Apollodorus all the way to Pausanius- all of them agree that Demeter and Persephone are the ones who get wronged* and that Zeus and Hades were both typical Greek god assholes- but the biggest part that distinguishes them from Salem's story-

    Is that Demeter wins. She successfully forces Zeus, god of never suffering from the consequences of his actions, to suffer from the consequences of his actions and gets him to send Hermes to go command Hades to release Persephone from the Underworld**. If that was Salem's story, then the God of Darkness would dunk on the God of Light, re-unite Salem and Ozpin, and it'd be a happy ending instead of the Remnant we got.

    *It's part of the reason I'm not a big fan of modern re-tellings, because Jesus- for once, the Greek gods suffer from the consequences of their actions and everyone just goes 'nah, Demeter was just an overbearing mother figure and Persephone went willingly with Hades' nowadays? They kept this shit consistent for a thousand years- through Greece and Rome- and you decide to change it now?

    **Admittedly, with the added caveat that Persephone gets trapped in the Underworld for a third of a year*** because of the pomegranate seeds.

    ***It's not really made clear as to why the pomegranate seeds do that, to be clear, since parts of the Homeric Hymns (387-400) were lost and those specific lines probably had to do with explaining with why Persephone got stuck in the Underworld. Instead, we got a jumpcut from Persephone getting allowed to leave by Hades after Zeus calls him to Persephone going 'mom, I'm stuck in the Underworld now and I got tricked by that bastard Hades into eating a pomegranate seed'.
     
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    Sandstar said:
    I thought they did commit genocide. Humans were made of clay and were susceptible to something (the evils from pandora's box, maybe?) and so the gods killed all of the humans, except for a few, who picked rocks off the ground, and tossed 'em behind their backs, making new humans, which being made out of stone, could resist the whatever it was better. It's been a very long time since i read greek myths, tho.
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    Kind of backwards actually. There were people under the Titans, but after the Olympians took over Prometheus stole fire for them, which they punished with Pandora's Box, and later Zeus saw cannibalisms and since he and his siblings had trauma from being victims of that in the past he decided to get rid of it all, starting the Greek permutation of the Flood Myth which involved them trying to catch the contents of the box while they were on the water, and the surviving family was told to throw rocks over their shoulders afterwards and the rocks turned into the new humans once they were done as I remember reading it.

    But yeah, genocide did happen, but it wasn't over a personal attack that wouldn't do anything, so not quite as petty.
    Psyga315 said:
    That could be one aspect that RWBY Rewrites could tackle:

    What if humanity succeeded in making themselves immortal, only to end up causing their own version of the Cancerverse and that's the Salem RWBY has to fight.
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    Then the gods could turn off reproduction with that as a deal people need to make, after explaining that things are supposed to be finite despite their ability to arbitrarily create and destroy on a whim on top of the humans' own magic.
    Abstract Ideas said:
    and that Zeus and Hades were both typical Greek god assholes
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    At least Hades was technically following the law about it, which is better than most of his family when they see someone pretty. Zeus caused all of it be not even involving Demeter.
     
    Light - made things
    Dark - destroyed said things
    rinse and repeat till Dark makes Grimm
    Light - tired of the back and forth proposed a joint project
    thus with the gift of Knowledge, Choice, Creation and Destruction built into this new creation Man is now part of the world.
    Now, Man is born (Light) does it's thing, and dies (Dark).
    A new life, an eventual death. A creation, a destruction. Both Brothers get what they like out of man.


    EDIT:
    HAPPY TEN YEARS OF RWBY
     
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    Sandstar said:
    It's been a very long time since i read greek myths, tho.
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    I've not heard that myth before so I can't really comment.

    Jaytjones said:
    But the gods and Salem are living proof that those rules are arbitrary.
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    Mh,, that's a big thing that always jumps out to me, the rules and systems and functions Light considers sacrosanct are just rules he made up for his experiment and are also rules he will violate on a whim if it suits him.

    Abstract Ideas said:
    To be entirely clear on the Persephone/Demeter front, since that just got mentioned on the Greek gods side for my own personal comparison to the Gods of Light and Darkness-

    The original myth is shockingly consistent about how the entire thing goes, to be honest. Like, straight-up- it's a mourning mother who gets her daughter taken away by two of the biggest dogs in Greek mythos- Hades and Zeus- and wins. Like, comparing that story to how the God of Light and Darkness handled things is doing an injustice to Demeter and Persephone, since Demeter and Persephone would be the Ozma and Salem of the story. Check it.



    Like, everyone gets in on the action and they all agree- from the Orphic Hymns and the Pseudo-Apollodorus all the way to Pausanius- all of them agree that Demeter and Persephone are the ones who get wronged* and that Zeus and Hades were both typical Greek god assholes- but the biggest part that distinguishes them from Salem's story-

    Is that Demeter wins. She successfully forces Zeus, god of never suffering from the consequences of his actions, to suffer from the consequences of his actions and gets him to send Hermes to go command Hades to release Persephone from the Underworld**. If that was Salem's story, then the God of Darkness would dunk on the God of Light, re-unite Salem and Ozpin, and it'd be a happy ending instead of the Remnant we got.

    *It's part of the reason I'm not a big fan of modern re-tellings, because Jesus- for once, the Greek gods suffer from the consequences of their actions and everyone just goes 'nah, Demeter was just an overbearing mother figure and Persephone went willingly with Hades' nowadays? They kept this shit consistent for a thousand years- through Greece and Rome- and you decide to change it now?

    **Admittedly, with the added caveat that Persephone gets trapped in the Underworld for a third of a year*** because of the pomegranate seeds.

    ***It's not really made clear as to why the pomegranate seeds do that, to be clear, since parts of the Homeric Hymns (387-400) were lost and those specific lines probably had to do with explaining with why Persephone got stuck in the Underworld. Instead, we got a jumpcut from Persephone getting allowed to leave by Hades after Zeus calls him to Persephone going 'mom, I'm stuck in the Underworld now and I got tricked by that bastard Hades into eating a pomegranate seed'.
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    It is very cool and interesting to get the perspective of someone more well educated than myself on these matters to chime in, so thanks for doing so!

    Yes, exactly that, very well put there and as you say she actually is which is a huge deal, especially given how aggressively misogynistic Greek culture was.

    Ooooh those are excellent reads, I only ever really saw the story summarized, I had no idea it was so aggressively explicit, thanks so much for sharing, these are powerful verses, I can see why the story has persisted through the ages.

    Mhm, very well said there, yeah the narrative really is on their side and I very much agree, people with the modern retelling are like "Its more girl power this way" but like, no? I'm not saying the re-tellings are inherently bad (Unless they make Demeter a villain) but the original is objectively more girl power in my opinion and just generally deeper and grander and has the actual weight of history behind it. As an aside, I think the seed thing ties in to a common reframe where by ingesting something of the underworld you become bound to it, it seems to pop up in a lot of belief systems.

    Also excellent insights on the comparison between Salem & Ozma there too, I had never considered that but it is fascinating to behold!
     
    Zam said:
    I've not heard that myth before so I can't really comment.
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    www.thoughtco.com

    Ancient Greek Flood Myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha

    Deucalion and Pyrrha are two characters who are described in the flood myth in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Learn about their role in Greek mythology.
    www.thoughtco.com www.thoughtco.com

    This is what I'm remembering. Appropriate for this thread, I guess :)

    GuestLurker said:
    Kind of backwards actually. There were people under the Titans, but after the Olympians took over Prometheus stole fire for them, which they punished with Pandora's Box, and later Zeus saw cannibalisms and since he and his siblings had trauma from being victims of that in the past he decided to get rid of it all, starting the Greek permutation of the Flood Myth which involved them trying to catch the contents of the box while they were on the water, and the surviving family was told to throw rocks over their shoulders afterwards and the rocks turned into the new humans once they were done as I remember reading it.

    But yeah, genocide did happen, but it wasn't over a personal attack that wouldn't do anything, so not quite as petty.
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    Yah, that's right. Like I said, it's been a verrrrry long time since I read the greek myths.
     
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    Can't really talk about Greek myths and apocalypses, without bringing up Helios, who nearly destroyed the world just because he couldn't say "no".
     
     
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