Honestly, there's just too much stuff in this thread for me to read through, so I'm going to just skip through the thread and hope it hasn't been mentioned yet. Frankly, I don't like the more recent episodes. I like parts of it, such as Yang being injured (though i'll agree that it's irritating how often Yang gets beaten down) and the Roman speech. The only reason i'm happy with that is because Roman isn't dead. I mean, seriously. Anyway, I just don't like the overall tone of it.
Ok, I'm going to do my best to address this point by point. It's kinda long, so it might take a while and I might miss some stuff.
First up I'll make the point I've made like six times already: Yang is not getting beaten down more than anyone else.
Let's look at the evidence and do a comparison right from the start of the trailers through to end chapter 11 of Volume 3 of
all of RWBY. Both Ruby and Yang get through their trailers without really getting scratched, while Blake and Weiss take blows that take them temporarily out of the fights they're in. Yang's fight is also
notably more impressive in that she's fighting trained humans, with aura and weaponry of their own. We'll ignore episode 1 and move straight into dropping into the forest where Yang loses one strand of hair to an Ursa and then kicks its ass - Blake kills another while its back is turned and Weiss and Ruby are klutzes. We then get to e8 - Ruby is almost killed by being overeager, Blake almost falls to her death because Nora's careless, Weiss and Yang remain unharmed with Yang getting extra credit for
jumping into a Nevermore's mouth. No real fights involving the team until Blake's bout with Torchwick which it seems a little unfair to count given that no-one else is really there, but Ruby does get knocked out of the fight in under a second when she does show up.
So we end V1/Trailers with, by my count, Yang having lost maybe
two strands of hair and taken a blow from a baseball bat that charged her semblance in comparison with two near death encounters and injuries on other teammates. Yang has so far got a 100% win rate.
V2: Episode 1. Yang gets knocked back by Pyrrha baguettes, beats Ren hands down, is sent flying by Nora but doesn't seem too inconvenienced by it (the whole food fight is...really irritating actually, but that's a problem for another time). Weiss is taken out almost as soon as she starts fighting in a pretty serious way, and Blake is beaten by Pyrrha-OP bullshit. Ruby makes it through totally unharmed. We then get the e4 fight scene where Yang is punched through a pillar...but it's shown to not even slow her down at all, and in fact to be crucial to them winning. No-one else is really hurt on team RWBY afaik. Mountain Glenn...Yang's showing against the random Grimm is pretty mediocre, but pretty much all of team RWBY's is. We then get the train fight, where Weiss gets a badass moment and then is pwned, Blake beats Torchwick, Ruby does fuckall and Yang is pwned. First real loss for Yang. We then get the breach fight where...almost everyone does fuckall cause it's such a non-threat. Yang does kick some ass in this fight though.
Total count now is something like eight fights, of which Yang and Weiss have definitively lost one each, and Blake and Ruby have
arguably lost one or two. Yang still, however, has the most impressive showings in fights and nothing that really can be seriously called an injury.
V3: Episode one fight has good showings for Blake and Yang - Blake pretty much solos Reese, and Yang deals that final knockout blow while having also had a good showing against...monk lady, shit I don't know her name, apart from one stumble due to her unusual weapon. Ruby and Weiss both kinda look like chumps though, especially Ruby. Uh, then we have the Neon fight - where she does spend the first half of the fight being incompetently distracted and taunted to near failure, before miraculously carrying the day with untold destruction, and Weiss gets really unlucky (she almost takes out Flynt - if it weren't for the surprise of the killer quartet she probably would). The fight with Mercury which she wins - yes, he was probably holding back, but she still
wins the fight hands down. Then the Adam fight, where she gets fucked up - compare with Ruby vs Torchwick/Neo (Ruby gets fucked up, Grimm/umbrella/overconfidence ex machina), Weiss vs Paladins (Weiss kicks ass), and Blake vs Adam (Blake gets the shit kicked out of her).
Yang's loss count is now at two, with one chump showing and one cheap trick post fight; and she has the only serious injury on the team, true (well, maybe Blake's gut wound should count...). Ruby has, by my count, three or four losses (that initial fumble with the Deathstalker almost killing her, getting punk'd by Torchwick at the end of V1, the train), as do Weiss and Blake.
So quit talking bullshit.
Also, while elsewhere you go into applaudable detail, here you just say 'I don't like the tone' without any clarification. Could you expand?
My first problem is the sudden ALL THE CHARACTERS that occurs. Okay, there are a lot of them, but it's a case of too many cooks in the kitchen for me. They're basically a bunch of students running around being completely inconsequential except for a few characters. Basically they take a bunch of named characters and demote them to mooks to showcase a few named characters. Also, Velvet bores me. So that battle was boring to sit through. Anyway, it felt like I could sit through everything that the defending students did and shrug because it meant almost nothing, except for Weiss getting the hang of summoning.
But almost none of them are developed? Let's count the new characters who we actually know a little about - Coco, Yatsuhashi, Velvet, Sun, Neptune. Five people. Hardly
reams. Maybe Flynt and Neon if we're being super generous. The rest are basically 'Private Friendly' - which is fine, because Private Friendly won't just be called Private Friendly and will, IRL, have a name and backstory etc. - so it makes sense other trainee hunters would too,
even if their role is only as private friendly. In fact it's a
strength of the show that even the random friendlies have unique backstories and personalities, because otherwise the universe would be
flat dull and half constructed.
Not sure why Velvet bores you. Again, I think I need clarification?
Second is Cinder. Cinder isn't a good villain in my eyes. I don't feel like she's threatening, and whenever she does something damaging it happens because "lol l33t hax" or "I'm literally the best Hunter to ever Hunt". Plug a phone into a central computer? Boom, you now have an undetectable virus that can control everything from the contestant randomization to the speakers in the stadium. I wouldn't even mind that if it wasn't for the fact that it's legitimately undetectable apparently. And somehow any attempts to investigate what she might have done to the computer turned up nothing. And how this virus can basically plug into anything and take control in a matter of moments. If the technology-centric country of Atlas can't invest in half-decent cyber defense, how did the terrorists get an expert who can make a super-virus like that? And she can apparently dress up in a Haven Uniform and get a whole room assigned to her, when i'm willing to bet that none of the Haven kids recognize them. Yet they were in the class and on record as attending. Because Cinder is extraordinarily talented at manipulating people. And stealth, and fighting, and literally everything she does.
Fair enough on the hacking - I do think that they really
really should've expanded on that a little more. Hopefully they'll address that in V4. Not sure where you're getting 'best huntar evar' from though - we've seen her in four, maybe five fight scenes. First was as shadowy figure vs Glynda where they seemed
pretty evenly matched. Second was against Ruby, a student, and a bunch of mooks, and she fought for about three seconds before running the fuck away. Third was the snip we get of the round of 4 in the tournament, where again
she's fighting a group of kids with the support of a cyborg assassin, Emerald and Neo. Fourth was the Amber Ambush, which is arguably her best showing, what with her taking down Amber's Aura (which does sweet FA), briefly clashing blades with Amber, and dealing the killshot. She was
barely there. How is any of this 'best huntar evar'? A better target for this criticism might be - much as I love them - Qrow or Glynda, who we haven't seen fail
at all ever. At anything.
Moreover, I think you're forgetting Dance Dance Infiltration here. She's shown typing on the CCT terminal for some time before the chess pieces begin to appear - so no, it's not just as straightforward as plug a phone in and control everything. Moreover, the way she talks about 'new access point' regarding Ozpin's desk seems to suggest it spreads like, well, an actual
virus, requiring contact between contaminated machines in order for her to take control. Hardly an 'insta-win' button, even if it is ridiculously OP. Also, where are you getting undetectable from? No-one's detected it yet because she hadn't really
done anything, and by the time she had most people were busy getting shot/eaten.
Fair enough on the stealth. The Haven students thing is something else that
really needs to be explained.
Then there are the maidens, which everybody is essentially screaming in terror over. I heard someone on the thread mention that Cinder was only at half Maiden power and capable of scaring Adam, so how much must full Maiden Cinder be? Well, we've already seen a full powered Maiden before, and she was defeated by three hunters. THREE. HUNTERS. This is a nation with an entire academy devoted to training hunters who apparently fear a Maiden who can be taken down by three hunters, even if one is exceptionally skilled. Sure, maybe they're afraid of a rogue Maiden because of her individual power against say a squad of hunters, but they also should have access to the other three Maidens. Who actually probably should have been informed once they knew someone was targeting Maidens for their power, but that's not something I remember well enough to talk about. I feel like the power of the Maidens vary heavily based on what the writers want to happen. The villains are fighting a maiden? Her blows can be tanked and she can get beaten up if she engages three people at once. A villain has Maiden powers? She now possesses inconceivable power, and is a threat to the entire world or something.
Going to agree with
@MinorGryph here and say that - especially given the new trailer - Cinder's plan seems to be stall Oz so they can't deal with the dragon. Ozpin felt he needed Maiden Pyrrha + him to fight the dragon/Cinder - now the maiden power's on the dragon's side, he's calling up Qrow, Ironwood and Glynda to do their best as replacement Pyrrhas. That's not exactly overwhelming power, though it is scary.
Amber was defeated by an
AMBUSH. By a cyborg ninja assassin who killed his world renowned assassin dad, someone who found out about Maidens god knows how and may control Grimm, and someone with literally the perfect semblance for setting up an ambush. AND SHE STILL ALMOST WRECKED THEIR SHIT. Look at Beginning of the End again - Amber would have
killed anyone who wasn't a cyborg with that blast of fire she used on Mercury, she does severely injure Emerald with the frozen leaves which Merc again
only survives because superior cyborg race, and then she wrecks Cinder and Mercury before
almost killing Emerald. Like, how is that not pretty fucking powerful? Maybe not as much as some people are hyping it up to be but
still.
Other three Maidens...yeah we just don't know enough about that. I don't think there
are another three Maidens atm - I certainly didn't get that impression from the expositional lump in Fall. And even if there are, maybe they can't leave their appointed kingdom? Who knows.
Also, as someone else pointed out, Cinder's main accomplishments as a full Maiden so far are punching Jaune and knocking aside a door. Real impressive.
In short, while I understand and agree with parts of your opinion, I think others are wild overreaction/flat out misremembering or misinterpretation.
Also
@thesevenwielder - maybe if you left a disclaimer at the bottom of your posts saying 'feel free to engage me in rational debate' like LD did rather than being a snarky dick and hanging around the thread devoted to a show you've said you don't really like we'd maybe take you more seriously.
