RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

[kokuenDG]

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.

 

[Zam]

No they were planned early I remember a stream where monty thought up the team shortly after he created team RWBY
And the plan was ALWAYS meant for them to show the difference between what is Normal IE JNPR and what was not IE RWBY its WHY they show up so early.
And I feel the teams will become MORE muddied now since at least for a bit team RWBY will be out of action with Yang's arm and Blake suffering wounds.

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I think we're just interpreting what was said differently, and like I said, from what I heard they were meant to have a similar degree of presence to CFVY over the much larger one that was felt which is more what I was talking about.

 

[MinorGryph]

That isnt proof that just means Yang was firing shells down its throat to hurt it not that its STOMACH is as strong as its skin. Also we didnt see an effect not that there wasnt one key difference there. Also if I recall right it wasnt to no effect in fact I just looked your point is wrong.

As you can see it DID work.

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Uh no, veering it into a cliff when it tried to dislodge her worked, shooting it did zilch.

Considering it ATE him and not tore him apart chances are good they have stomachs and the red thing is graphic limitations and them not wanting to animate all the gore inside a body.
Also speaking as a former bird owner here BEAKS dont work that way. Seriously they dont Birds that eat things that need to be crushed like nuts have a gizzard which is like a second stomach that contains rocks or hard material they use to crush things.
Beaks are good at CRACKING things which is not what we saw happen with Roman.

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Dude, your waifu is dead. At this point you're just coming up with theoretical ways he *might* have been able to survive and ignoring what happened in the actual scene.

 

[Azecreth]

Meh, as it stands I suppose I'm willing to accept it, but I might need convincing. Specifically, if one were to look beyond the obvious irony of him saying that his goal is to survive and then immediately dying (which one might accuse of being a cliche in and of itself),it seems like a way of getting rid of the first 'big bad' without having to stain Ruby's hands, to at least force her to make the choice of what she should do about Roman, whether it be cutting him down or incapacitating him so he can face justice.

Ultimately, I suppose, the question is whether Roman's death fulfills and provides a satisfying conclusion to the 'arc' of sorts that has been built up around him and Team RWBY, and I'm not sure on that.

Though I still want to see a body or more concrete proof, but that's just me.

 

[revanninja]

I think we're just interpreting what was said differently, and like I said, from what I heard they were meant to have a similar degree of presence to CFVY over the much larger one that was felt which is more what I was talking about.

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No I recall monty mentioning in an early stream that he wanted them to be B team from the get go as a compare and contrast sort of deal.
No question they have gotten bigger but they were always suppose to be there.

Uh no, veering it into a cliff when it tried to dislodge her worked, shooting it did zilch.

Dude, your waifu is dead. At this point you're just coming up with theoretical ways he *might* have been able to survive and ignoring what happened in the actual scene.

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So it wagging in the air clearly stunned and dizzy is ONLY from dislodging Yang which it didnt do Yang jumped? Yeah right. Also it dipping and almost flipping in midair is clearly just because it was dislodging Yang who jumped.
Go watch the fight what you are saying is wrong its not even CLOSE to what the VIDEO is showing.

and my waifu? uhmm no buddy not even close now you just failed. I am not making ideas up that has been YOU. I have said it makes no sense that Roman died like how did because he had his weapon and near full aura he should have been able to blast out.
Then you said it was as hard as inside as out. I called BS and have proven your thing is BS with the very fight you claim as proof.
You also claimed the beak crushed him which A no he got very OBVIOUSLY swallowed and B Beaks dont work like seriously they dont.

I ahvent made a theory about him being alive at all. What I have done is express and doubt over the source which is known again to lie and disbelief that roman would be killed so easily.

 

[Zam]

No I recall monty mentioning in an early stream that he wanted them to be B team from the get go as a compare and contrast sort of deal.
No question they have gotten bigger but they were always suppose to be there.

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Again I think we're interpreting, B team, differently. I'm not saying they were never meant to be there just that they maybe weren't meant to eat as much screen time as they did.

 

[revanninja]

Again I think we're interpreting, B team, differently. I'm not saying they were never meant to be there just that they maybe weren't meant to eat as much screen time as they did.

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For B team to matter you kind need to give them screen time otherwise you wont care. If they got less screen time they wouldnt really do their job of giving us a contrast I feel.
Since the B teams job is to show just how good A team is you need B to be filled in.
Any less and their effect becomes less effective.
At the same time though you need to show why people should care we are focusing on B instead of A this episode.
Its a balance one I think RWBY has done a good job with for the most part since we know who B team is and have a good feel for who they are and where they stand which highlights A team more in the contrast.

This isnt us Interpreting it differently this is us having different views on what is considered the amount B team needs which I honestly think we need a bit more of. Sure we know Jaune and Pyrrha but Nora and Ren? We really dont know much about them.

 

[Zam]

For B team to matter you kind need to give them screen time otherwise you wont care. If they got less screen time they wouldnt really do their job of giving us a contrast I feel.
Since the B teams job is to show just how good A team is you need B to be filled in.
Any less and their effect becomes less effective.
At the same time though you need to show why people should care we are focusing on B instead of A this episode.
Its a balance one I think RWBY has done a good job with for the most part since we know who B team is and have a good feel for who they are and where they stand which highlights A team more in the contrast.

This isnt us Interpreting it differently this is us having different views on what is considered the amount B team needs which I honestly think we need a bit more of. Sure we know Jaune and Pyrrha but Nora and Ren? We really dont know much about them.

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I don't really agree but I think our perspectives diverge so far that we probably won't reach an agreement if we were to continue this debate.

 

[revanninja]

I don't really agree but I think our perspectives diverge so far that we probably won't reach an agreement if we were to continue this debate.

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Agreed on that point

 

[thesevenwielder]

Okay, I think Cinder is a boring villain. Of course, I have already stated that, and that she's a boring "just as keikaku" Aizen ripoff. But words are just words, so I'll try to explain just why I think Cinder is uninteresting.


First is her expression. We never see it slip once (barring the end of ep. 11), not even a flash of anger or eyes widening in surprise. I have seen stoic or otherwise single-expression characters in plenty of fiction before. Usually their expression turns to one of surprise for at least a moment before returning to normal. But Cinder never shows any sort of emotion no matter the circumstances. It gets boring if nothing else.

Second is my biggest gripe, her "just as keikaku" behavior. But first some background. For those of you who don't know, the word "keikaku" comes from a fan translation of the anime Death Note, where the main character, Light, says "just as planned" with the subtitles unnecessarily placing the Japanese word "Keikaku" in place of plan, with a small translator's note saying "translator's note: 'keikaku' means 'plan.' It's a humorous take on the absurd "I have planned for everything and every eventuality" bit that some characters have going for them. Likewise, Aizen is the name of a villain from the anime Bleach, where the end of the villain's arc is basically him saying that he has planned every. single. event. from the series thus far. Both fans and detractors of both series use both Aizen and Keikaku as mocking those "I have planned for every eventuality" characters.

With the background out of the way, let me list how this is a problem with Cinder. Never once is she seen being even slightly caught off-guard by events not happening in her favor. I can understand if she appeared off-guard for even a moment before adapting accordingly, but that never happens. When the Breach happened before schedule, we never see her looking even slightly set-back. I wouldn't mind if she looked a bit irritated before saying something like "we can work with this" or something, but she doesn't even look remotely upset. When she finds out about Penny, we don't see her surprised at finding a humanlike robot with a soul exists, we just see her say "this will work great for our plan." Really, all I want to see is her taken aback. Finally, during the fight with FNKY, while Neon was juggling Yang, I would have liked to see her or even her minions a bit worried that their plan might not work out as planned. Instead, everything goes all accoring to plan with no visible setbacks whatsoever. If Cinder was affected by anything maybe not going as planned, we the audience never see it.

Really, these are all simple fixes. Give a line or two of dialogue that shows she's adapting to changes in her plan, rather than going all "I expected everything to play out as its playing out.Show her worried or surprised for at least a moment. A children's show pulled off a "keikaku" villain better than RWBY. The TV show Gargoyles was where the term "Xanatos Gambit" came from, named after the chief villain David Xanatos who set up plans in such a way that even if the titular Gargoyles foiled them, the failures managed to advance his agenda. And it was convincing. While I admit rose-colored glasses may be tinting my memory, I'm pretty sure I'm not, and David Xanatos was a much better villain of their type than Cinder. I repeat, this was a children's show made in the 90's. Rooster Teeth has no excuse. They're a lot bigger than people give them credit for, having merged with Screwattack.



Anyway, that is my explanation with Cinder. Hopefully this sheds some light on why I despise Cinder compared to the other villains large and small, and shows you that my problems with her aren't baseless.

 

[Zam]

Anyway, that is my explanation with Cinder. Hopefully this sheds some light on why I despise Cinder compared to the other villains large and small, and shows you that my problems with her aren't baseless.

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I don't think anyone said they were baseless just that they disagreed, which, for me, I still do, I've seen these argument before but I don't really agree with them and that's all there is to it, I've offered my perspective on Cinder repeatedly so I doubt doing so again will make a difference, but laying it all out was probably a good idea regardless as it feels more constructive and in-depth and offers us some perspective.

 

[JarringToaster]

But Cinder never shows any sort of emotion no matter the circumstances.

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Ah yes. Look at Cinder and her complete lack of emotion.

Never once is she seen being even slightly caught off-guard by events not happening in her favor.

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Even if there are events that don't happen in her favor, these events never threaten her overall plan. She has no problem with unexpected elements that don't completely screw up her plan.

Give a line or two of dialogue that shows she's adapting to changes in her plan, rather than going all "I expected everything to play out as its playing out.

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When she finds out Penny's a robot, she literally tells Mercury and Emerald how there's going to be an alteration to the plan, showing that her plans are adaptable.

 

[Leingod]

Hmm. You know, I'm wondering something now. What was Cinder's "Plan A?" That is, what was she planning to do before she found out about Penny?

 

[JarringToaster]

Hmm. You know, I'm wondering something now. What was Cinder's "Plan A?" That is, what was she planning to do before she found out about Penny?

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I'm guessing that she was planning on having the White Fang attack during the tournament to cause panic, which would then attract the Grimm. Pyrrha's maiming of Penny was just a catalyst for all that to happen faster.

 

[revanninja]

Hmm. You know, I'm wondering something now. What was Cinder's "Plan A?" That is, what was she planning to do before she found out about Penny?

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Most likely get someone killed.
With penny she got the ability to do that AND show that Atlas is creating human robots.

But my guess is kill someone have Emerald make them do a big attack and then just before it hits the other mess with their brain so they dont use Aura to shield themselves.

 

[thesevenwielder]

Ah yes. Look at Cinder and her complete lack of emotion.

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By "lack of emotion," I mean that expression right there? That's the one. single. expression always on her face. It never changes. I thought RT had spent all the animation budget on other things.


Even if there are events that don't happen in her favor, these events never threaten her overall plan. She has no[/quote]
No what? You cut off there.

When she finds out Penny's a robot, she literally tells Mercury and Emerald how there's going to be an alteration to the plan, showing that her plans are adaptable.

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She also says "this will benefit our plans." Which actually goes nowhere, because Penny being an Atlas robot potentially under the magic virus' control never happens. Instead, what happens could happen to any other person. The only difference is RT didn't want to animate ludicrous gibs.

 

[Triggerhappy]

She also says "this will benefit our plans." Which actually goes nowhere, because Penny being an Atlas robot potentially under the magic virus' control never happens. Instead, what happens could happen to any other person. The only difference is RT didn't want to animate ludicrous gibs.

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Or y'know : "Look everybody. Atlas infiltrator robot! Why would the largest military on the planet. Which has planted its airfleet in your skies for your 'protection', need a murder bot disguised as a little girl?"

 

[JarringToaster]

By "lack of emotion," I mean that expression right there? That's the one. single. expression always on her face. It never changes.

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Right. Single expression that's "always" on her face.

Spoiler

Spoiler

You know it would help your argument if you were actually right.

She also says "this will benefit our plans." Which actually goes nowhere, because Penny being an Atlas robot potentially under the magic virus' control never happens. Instead, what happens could happen to any other person. The only difference is RT didn't want to animate ludicrous gibs.

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Multiple people have already mentioned it, but the point of Penny being a robot is to make the point that Atlas entered a robot under the guise of a human girl into a tournament when they also brought airships of protection. It's to set off their paranoia of Atlas even further.

 

[Zam]

Hmm. You know, I'm wondering something now. What was Cinder's "Plan A?" That is, what was she planning to do before she found out about Penny?

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I figured she'd just have Pyrrha be tricked into killing her opponent of visa versa myself, the gore and horror likely would have still been enough to upset people to lure in Grim even if she couldn't incriminate Atlas further with it.

You know it would help your argument if you were actually right.

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To be 100% fair he did way something like "with the exception of episode 11"

 

[Jorlem]

Like I said, this is the thing that irks me the most. Not hacking the robots from their command station. Taking the ship in the fireplace. It just seems like the command ship would have specialists stationed on board. Enough to at least put up a fight.

And Neo, while deadly, clearly isn't that amazing. Ruby was able to defend herself for a whole half minute. Prodigy or not that isn't a great showing for the ice cream.

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Why would there have been specialists on board? Remember, they put out a request for every Huntsman available to help with the upswing of Grimm activity following what happened with Yang and Mercury. Presumably any specialists they had available would have been reassigned to the combat zones where they were desperately needed.

 

[Triggerhappy]

Why would there have been specialists on board? Remember, they put out a request for every Huntsman available to help with the upswing of Grimm activity following what happened with Yang and Mercury. Presumably any specialists they had available would have been reassigned to the combat zones where they were desperately needed.

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Even when desperately pressed a military force tries to keep a mobile reserve to plug holes in the defense. Because disengaging already pressed troops in one sector to cover another is usually good way to generate lots of casualties.

The Cruisers would be the best place to station that mobile reserve. And by the time anyone would have a chance to respond elsewhere, Neo was already boarding the ship.

 

[revanninja]

Even when desperately pressed a military force tries to keep a mobile reserve to plug holes in the defense. Because disengaging already pressed troops in one sector to cover another is usually good way to generate lots of casualties.

The Cruisers would be the best place to station that mobile reserve. And by the time anyone would have a chance to respond elsewhere, Neo was already boarding the ship.

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While what you say is true there are a couple things.
Where do they consider the most important. Usually its a good idea to keep reserves near the place that is consider the most important to protect that way all forces are intercepting the trouble away from the important thing. They can act as extra guard when not in use and if they need to be called out they are moving the threat away from the thing.
In this case the important thing would most likely be the tower. Or the Tournament.
If they consider airships not as carriers but as force multiplier where the value is not the troops but the firepower the ship itself brings then you have a different rule of thumb.
We also dont know how the forces are broken up Robot vs Flesh and Normal vs Specialists. For all we know due to the fact their cant be that many Specialists otherwise there would be a LOT more stink on Atlas it could be 1 Specialists for every 300 normal troops.

Also I have to point out in an emergency situation like this Specialists would be among the first responders so it could be simply Neo just waited till all the Specialists on her ship were off her ship before taking command.

 

[Zam]

Plus we don't know how good the average specialist is, I mean, within Beacon we have people at the top like Pyrrha and, barring those who snuck in and are hard to gauge, those like CDRL who were still good enough to qualify for the tournament and make it to round 2 and presumably people below them. I can;'t imagine grown up specialist versions of people who might be as strong as or weaker than adult CDRL are much of a threat to Neo.

 

[mistakenot]

The only example of an Atlesian Specialist we've seen is Winter, who flies her own airship. Qrow says "you Atlesian Specialists think you're so special". Qrow tells Ironwood he's "not one of your special operatives".

To me, it sounds like while Atlesian Specialists follow orders and accept missions from the Atlesian military, making them less freelance than most huntsmen and huntresses, they still tend to operate independently. You put marines (Atlesian soldiers) on guard duty, not special ops (Atlesian specialists). The grunts, of course, are Atlas's robots.

 

[Leingod]

Never once is she seen being even slightly caught off-guard by events not happening in her favor. I can understand if she appeared off-guard for even a moment before adapting accordingly, but that never happens. When the Breach happened before schedule, we never see her looking even slightly set-back.

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Not even remotely true. When they find out the Breach has gone off early and Mercury asks what they're going to do, Cinder frowns slightly and the camera zooms in on her eyes as she narrows them and they dart around a bit in thought.

When she finds out about Penny, we don't see her surprised at finding a humanlike robot with a soul exists, we just see her say "this will work great for our plan."

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Also not true. Her eyes widen and she goes "Oh!" then she gets a happy smirk as she keeps reading the file and thinks about the implications.

Really, these are all simple fixes. Give a line or two of dialogue that shows she's adapting to changes in her plan, rather than going all "I expected everything to play out as its playing out.

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Seriously? Her reaction is never, "I planned this all out and knew this would happen," she just goes, "Meh. Didn't go exactly how I expected, but good enough anyway." She doesn't say, "It's cool, I planned this out in advance" when the Breach goes off early and Torchwick gets captured, she says, "All in all, I'd call today a success." Because it is. It caused a bunch of worry, got the Council mad at Ozpin for failing to keep the city safe, which put Ironwood and his soon-to-be compromised robots in charge.

A children's show pulled off a "keikaku" villain better than RWBY. The TV show Gargoyles was where the term "Xanatos Gambit" came from, named after the chief villain David Xanatos who set up plans in such a way that even if the titular Gargoyles foiled them, the failures managed to advance his agenda. And it was convincing. While I admit rose-colored glasses may be tinting my memory, I'm pretty sure I'm not, and David Xanatos was a much better villain of their type than Cinder. I repeat, this was a children's show made in the 90's. Rooster Teeth has no excuse. They're a lot bigger than people give them credit for, having merged with Screwattack.

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Okay, one, calling Gargoyles "a children's show made in the 90s" like it's Spongebob or something and RWBY should be ashamed to be compared unfavorably to it is incredibly disingenuous. Gargoyles was made by Greg Weissman, who is basically an animation legend who is renowned for his great work making characters and stories that transcend the medium of "children's animation." His work on the DCAU speaks for itself.

Two, about half the time Xanatos is less "such a brilliant planner that he wins even when he loses" and more that he just looks on the bright side and plays the long game. His Iron Man-Gargoyle suit gets trashed when he takes on Goliath with it? Good combat data he can use when he makes the second one, and he was getting worried he was getting out of shape so this was a good workout. The other half of the time, he succeeds mostly because he keeps his options open and his plans able to be adjusted easily so that even if he doesn't get exactly what he wants, he can take some smaller victory that often sets him up for a larger one down the line. And yes, that is a very good portrayal of a brilliant plotter, because it's far more realistic (and has more realistic chances of success) than the "I planned out every move to the last detail" stuff that you usually see in fiction.

Third, the above is pretty much exactly what Cinder does. What's her goal? Get the rest of the Fall Maiden's power. How does she plan to accomplish that? Cause a bunch of chaos so that she can get the opportunity to break into the vault. It's an extremely simple plan that can be adjusted on the fly and it's easy to execute so long as you've got secrecy on your side and plenty of manpower and resources, and thanks to her strong-arming the White Fang and recruiting Roman & Neo as cat's paws, she's got plenty of all of that. And if you're going to complain that she has too many resources, I'll point out that Xanatos had a massive super-corporation with more money than God and sci-fi supertech and was up against like six dudes in loincloths with mid-tier super strength and flight.

 

[Leingod]

First of all, apologies for the double-post, but I'm cross-posting from SB:

Bit behind the times, but after rewatching Volume 3 up to this point in anticipation for the finale, I decided to put up my thoughts about the Amber vs. CME fight. On an unrelated note, I'm pretty sure the official name for their team as Haven students was CMSN (pronounced "Crimson"), using Emerald's last name (Sustrai). I'm pretty sure someone's made that connection long ago, but I haven't seen it yet, so...

First off, all the people who are saying that CME had that fight in the bag, or that Amber was disappointing? I have no idea what they're talking about. Amber owned most of that fight, and surprise was literally CME's only advantage. Cinder herself was the one who dealt all the important blows, and for most of the fight Mercury and Emerald are either distractions or help set Cinder up for an attack. And considering Cinder was able to fight Glynda on even terms without using any powers that she didn't also demonstrate in her fight with Amber (except for the ability to block shots with her bare hands, which Amber demonstrates), that shouldn't really be held against Amber, especially if the theory that she had only become the Fall Maiden (she is, after all, quite young-looking) turns out to be true. Let's go over this one step at a time:

First of all, Amber sees through Emerald's illusion at the last second thanks to her kicking up some dust, leaps back and deploys her staff, blocks every shot from Emerald's guns with a hand-barrier thing and then sends Emerald flying away with a gust of wind. Mercury ambushes her, but Amber fends off both him and Emerald without trouble despite the surprise and sends out a huge gout of flame that Mercury only gets out of without any serious damage because he blocks with his prosthetic legs, which she had no reason to suspect were a thing. That bit of defense allows Mercury to kick her into the ground and Emerald follows up by Goomba Stomping her while she's down.

Amber gets up immediately and just goes full Old Testament, flying up into the air, creating a big-ass storm and gale-force winds. Emerald and Mercury are completely on the defensive at this point, repeatedly dodging lightning bolts by a hair's breadth. Both of them attack her with their ranged attacks and do literally nothing; Amber doesn't even flinch. Then she freezes a bunch of leaves to turn them into flechettes and launches them en masse, causing very clear damage to Emerald (despite her Aura, which we know is still active) and Mercury only avoids the same fate thanks to his legs once more (though he probably only minimized the damage rather than avoiding it completely). Cinder runs in for an attack, which Amber sees coming and launches a fireball. Cinder counters by using the rock and fire to make a bunch of big-ass spears that she sends flying into Amber, which does enough damage to knock her out of the air.

Amber gets up a little more slowly this time, a little disoriented, not helped by Emerald using her Semblance to make Cinder and Mercury look like they're flash-stepping as they both charge her. Despite being unarmed and up against all three members of CME at once, Amber continues to more than hold her own: first easily blocking Cinder's swords and kicking her away, then fighting off both Mercury and Emerald, not taking a single hit herself and knocking them away several times until Cinder fires three arrows at Amber's feet that do that "scream then explode" thing, causing an Aura Break. I'd like to point out, BTW, that since Maiden powers and Aura are completely different sources of power, one shouldn't expect a Maiden to automatically have a lot of Aura.

Amber, clearly wounded, still gets to her feet and goes full Maiden again, blowing Cinder away with a gust of wind, throwing Sith lightning at Mercury, then blasting Emerald with a fireball (Emerald uses her Semblance to dodge the first, but the second hits her square). Amber's injured enough to have trouble walking (using her staff as a cane), but CME is all down for the count and Amber's about to cave Emerald's head in before Cinder sneak-attacks with an arrow to the spine.

So in all, Amber was dominating most of that fight. CME only ever got the advantage in small bursts, and only when they brought out a surprise that Amber couldn't have reasonably expected (Emerald's Semblance, Merc's legs, Cinder's Dust wizardry and then getting up fast enough to get a sneak attack in). In terms of both skill and power, Amber was clearly superior to all three of them, even at once. Her only failing was not recognizing Cinder as the biggest threat and taking her out first (but if she had done that, Emerald might have been able to use her Semblance to save Cinder and/or buy enough time for her or Merc to get up, so you could argue Amber didn't really make the wrong choice, per se) and other suboptimal tactical choices (again, if we assume she's only recently become a Maiden and is fairly young that can be chalked up to inexperience), not because CME was just plain stronger than her or better fighters.

Cinder, Mercury and Emerald managed to beat Amber because they had good tactics, good teamwork, and enough surprises up their sleeves to keep Amber off-balance at critical moments. None of those are advantages that having more raw power would have really helped Amber all that much with countering, unless you want the Maidens to be able to just reduce people to dust by looking at them or something.