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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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    [Discussion] Chibi Season 2, Episode 17: The Mystery Bunch
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    • RWBY Chibi

    Ren is precious, Sun tails details were neat and haha, oh wow, I feel bad for him, "Goona go cry... tears of happiness!" Also Ren is so steady! Seriously though those pain expression were hilarious XD

    Winter is the smartest/most connected person in that room, sneezing Penny is adorable, as was her sliding/dancing intro and gob smacked Winter was amazing XD

    That scarf is a cool addition, they are so self aware it almost stings XD well we knew the old man had to break at some point, and oh my gosh that ending made it perfect!

    EDIT: Now I see why I like the scarf so much, it matches Pyrrha's eyes and ear rings, plus the smiling smug look is just fun XD
     
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    • That Penny transition is adorable! The second this episode hits Youtube I'm making a gif of that. :lol:

    Also
    Here are mirrored versions of the computer virus popups for those who are curious












    Also can I just say I love Winter in this? She is so cute when she's not looking angry or dismissive. :D


    This episode also confirms my headcanon that:
    Faunus with tails have better balance than normal people. Of course those Faunus advantages comes with their own disadvantages. That's one extra place someone could hit you or grab you and its really sensitive. :drevil:
     
    Gus announced a RWBY board game at PAX West, time stamp at 3h, 12m, 40s.
     
    How would you even make a RWBY board game? Board games don't have stories.
     
    Xalgeon said:
    How would you even make a RWBY board game? Board games don't have stories.
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    You do realise that among other things there is a Game of Thrones board game and a Battlestar Gallatica board game, right?

    As for how to make a RWBY board game it's probably this:


    Edit:
    The guy behind this contacted Rooster Teeth to work with them on making the game a reality and Miles and co seemed to really like it. And in the video above they mention working with a really cool partner so I think its the same game.
     
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    [Video] RWBY Volume 5 Blake Character Short
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    • Trailers out:

    OK that was super impressive, amazing animation, incredible lighting, great bouncing back and forth between flashback and present time.
    Illia's interference made the get away plausible, especially as both she and Blake can barely seem willing to fight one another and so mentally stumble and freeze up.
    I loved Illia's backstory, seriously, this is the kind of thing I had been hoping to see/hear about Faunus treatment and living since day one, kudos!
     
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    • Xalgeon said:
    No, I didn't.
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    Its totes a thing:




    Zam said:
    Trailers out:

    OK that was super impressive, amazing animation, incredible lighting, great bouncing back and forth between flashback and present time.
    Illia's interference made the get away plausible, especially as both she and Blake can barely seem willing to fight one another and so mentally stumble and freeze up.
    I loved Illia's backstory, seriously, this is the kind of thing I had been hoping to see/hear about Faunus treatment and living since day one, kudos!
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    The trailer is not out yet at the RT site. Man they're really struggling with those glitches huh? Still, man those animation improvements! :eek:

    Illia's color changing looks so much more natural this volume, they really perfected that transformation. :o`:eek:

    Word on that Illia backstory, its fantastic. Really shows how shitty people can be and why so many Faunus have been driven into the White Fang despite or even because of its extremism. Its also nice to see that we're getting more low/mid ranked White Fang goons that aren't just faceless mooks.


    Also that Blake concept art! It looks so freaking cool! :eek:
    Sun: I knew she would look better without the bow. :cool:
     
    My only nitpick with the trailer was the choreography. There was way too much time wasted between events and it made the characters look a little incompetent when you know how skilled they actually are.

    Like, in what way is a cart rolling down a hill a major obstacle for Hunters-in-training? Sure, you can say that they had to stop it to prevent other people from getting run over, but a) they should have been able to find a way to do that without immobilizing Sun; and b) why did Blake freeze up as well?

    I will say that while I expected more from the choreography after the Weiss trailer, the animation itself was beautiful. Illia's backstory was also well done, if not exactly delivered in a way I enjoyed (e.i. in a voice-over monologue that wasn't even part of a real episode). They did a really good job of making me sympathize with her.
     
    Nidhoggr said:
    Oh, I know it's not her fault so much as it is the fault of the writers.
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    What fault? She's a freshly introduced character. She has had all of two appearances in the show before this and the entire point of those was just to introduce the character so that we wouldn't be going all "who the fuck is this chick?" in this trailer and to serve as the catalyst for Blake leaving Menagerie.

    I mean I don't give much of a fuck about that lizard guy Blake and Sun was chasing aside from being stoked that we're getting to see more White Fang members as people rather than faceless goons. Is that somehow a great sin by the writers that they didn't make me care much about a minor character in the first scene he was introduced in when that scene was not focused on him? :rolleyes:

    Or maybe you know, he's a minor character and isn't the focus of the scene and the writers don't have to make me care about him when the goal is to make me care about Illia in that scene. Maybe he can get a scene tells us more about him and makes us sympathize with him later, maybe we won't. Its not bad writing either way, its just writing.

    Sasha said:
    My only nitpick with the trailer was the choreography. There was way too much time wasted between events and it made the characters look a little incompetent when you know how skilled they actually are.

    Like, in what way is a cart rolling down a hill a major obstacle for Hunters-in-training? Sure, you can say that they had to stop it to prevent other people from getting run over, but a) they should have been able to find a way to do that without immobilizing Sun; and b) why did Blake freeze up as well?
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    Yeah I hope this slow reaction stuff isn't going to be a trend, there was way to much of that back in Volume 4. Like with Ren spending like 10 seconds just to decide to use his Semblance to protect Jaune after the Nuckelavee had already started charging. Still in this case I think it was them stretching things out a bit to match the action to the narration in a way. Hopefully the actual actions scenes going forward flow more smoothly like the Weiss trailer did.
     
    Mook said:
    What fault? She's a freshly introduced character.
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    It's less to do with her status as a freshly introduced character, more to do with her being introduced that late in the volume, and frustratingly, that late in the series itself. It took 4 volumes before we got a somewhat sympathetic member of the White Fang that wasn't Blake.

    Which is incredibly baffling considering that they had a character that could have filled that role in Adam, but they took him in a much more boring and honestly unnecessary direction.

    His character should have been "I'm doing what I have to save my species, I don't particularly enjoy this but it was never going to be a clean process" but instead they went with "I'm having so much fun killing all these people, hey Blake why did you leave me, you're mine and you can't leave me, my relationship with you was abusive apparently, I don't think anyone saw this aspect of my character coming! Faunus rights!"

    That is what I'm annoyed about. Among other things.
     
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    Nidhoggr said:
    It's less to do with her status as a freshly introduced character, more to do with her being introduced that late in the volume, and frustratingly, that late in the series itself. It took 4 volumes before we got a somewhat sympathetic member of the White Fang that wasn't Blake.

    Which is incredibly baffling considering that they had a character that could have filled that role in Adam, but they took him in a much more boring and honestly unnecessary direction.

    His character should have been "I'm doing what I have to save my species, I don't particularly enjoy this but it was never going to be a clean process" but instead they went with "I'm having so much fun killing all these people, hey Blake why did you leave me, you're mine and you can't leave me, my relationship with you was abusive apparently, I don't think anyone saw this aspect of my character coming! Faunus rights!"

    That is what I'm annoyed about. Among other things.
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    Up until this point the focus has not really been on the White Fang. Roman was the public face of the operations in Vale and Cinder was the mastermind behind the scenes. It makes sense to not put to much focus on the White Fang to early, keep things vague and go more in depth when their turn comes up in the later arcs. There really wasn't enough time in those early volumes to give focus to both Roman+Cinder+Emerald+Mercury and the White Fang on top of that. And we did get a sympathetic White Fang character, Tucson. He had the poor fortune to not live long sure but it showed that not everyone in the White Fang agreed with what was going on.


    And as for Adam.


    Seriously. What you want and what the writers should do is not the same thing. Its just what you want, nothing more and nothing less. Personally I would have really disliked it if Adam was some sympathetic figure who only does what needs to be done because at that point it becomes hard to justify Blake leaving without making her seem dumb. And honestly while its been a bit of a slow burn now that we've gotten here I can honestly say that I like the current dynamic a lot better.

    We have Adam that represents the very worst aspects of the White Fang, we have Blake that represents the best aspects and we have Ilia caught in the middle. Not drinking full glasses of the kool aid but at the same time to filled with rage and invested in the cause to quit like Blake did. She works as a good way to represent the average person in the White Fang and gives a face to all the people Blake needs to convince to follow her if she's going to change the organization. Adam meanwhile works great as a villain, representing all the zealots in the organization and being a extremely powerful combatant that should provide a epic fight scene when the time comes to defeat him. His deeply personal relationship with Blake and the sheer intimidation he holds over her both as a result of it and his power also works great as a way to trigger her character flaws and make her ditch Beacon so that the crew could split up for this part of the story.

    Plus so far they've done a pretty good job of representing PTSD and the trauma of losing a limb, the Ilia short really showed that they can do a great job handling racism so Adam being abusive seems like something that they're going to tackle eventually and I'm fairly confident that they can handle it properly.

    Edit:
    On an unrelated note the MurderofBirds reaction video is up.
     
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    Mook said:
    Plus so far they've done a pretty good job of representing PTSD and the trauma of losing a limb, the Ilia short really showed that they can do a great job handling racism so Adam being abusive seems like something that they're going to tackle eventually and I'm fairly confident that they can handle it properly.
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    Okay you got to explain this to me, how was Yangs 18 minute arc in any way shape or form a good handling of PTSD?

    Like I get it if you trust the writers to expand on it and make it better in volume 5 but I really do not see how her volume 4 appearance in anyway stands on its own.
     
    Nidhoggr said:
    Which is incredibly baffling considering that they had a character that could have filled that role in Adam, but they took him in a much more boring and honestly unnecessary direction.

    His character should have been "I'm doing what I have to save my species, I don't particularly enjoy this but it was never going to be a clean process" but instead they went with "I'm having so much fun killing all these people, hey Blake why did you leave me, you're mine and you can't leave me, my relationship with you was abusive apparently, I don't think anyone saw this aspect of my character coming! Faunus rights!"
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    I agree with Mook in regards to Adam and would like to add that I don't think Adam ever was meant to be taken as anything other than bad news. He was introduced in the Black trailer with the following events:

    Having either lied to or hidden info about their mission (mass murder) from his partner, essentially tricking her onto a mission she would not want to be a part of.

    Deciding that rather than robbing the train for useful resources he'd rather blow the entire thing up.

    When his partner expresses horror/concern for the civilian personnel, he dismissively noted "What about them?"

    &, somewhat questionable, is an abrasive and belligerence commander who, when Blake expresses fear about having to serve as a live distraction for an enemy that just stomped her face in moments before, just yells at her to do it. If they'd intended for him to be sympathetic, something like "trust me" or "I know you can do it!" would have worked well, but Adam just roars "Do it!" which may also highlight how he is a user of people or too much of a coward to enter a fight he isn't confident he can win, but that's another level of analyse.

    End result, Adam was introduced lying to Blake, dismissing her, and wanting to commit a pointless act of mass murder. I don't see how anyone could look at that trailer and expect he'd be the sympathetic face of the villains. I mean I was worried it might happen, but I didn't think it would make sense to.
     
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    Zam said:
    I agree with Mook in regards to Adam and would like to add that I don't think Adam ever was meant to be taken as anything other than bad news. He was introduced in the Black trailer with the following events:

    Having either lied to or hidden info about their mission (mass murder) from his partner, essentially tricking her onto a mission she would not want to be a part of.

    Deciding that rather than robbing the train for useful resources he'd rather blow the entire thing up.

    When his partner expresses horror/concern for the civilian personnel, he dismissively noted "What about them?"

    &, somewhat questionable, is an abrasive and belligerence commander who, when Blake expresses fear about having to serve as a live distraction for an enemy that just stomped her face in moments before, just yells at her to do it. If they'd intended for him to be sympathetic, something like "trust me" or "I know you can do it!" would have worked well, but Adam just roars "Do it!" which may also highlight how he is a user of people or too much of a coward to enter a fight he isn't confident he can win, but that's another level of analyse.

    End result, Adam was introduced lying to Blake, dismissing her, and wanting to commit a pointless act of mass murder. I don't see how anyone could look at that trailer and expect he'd be the sympathetic face of the villains. I mean I was worried it might happen, but I didn't think it would make sense to.
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    I would also like to add that Adam seems to be extremely entitled. He basically says that he is entitled to Blake during the Fall of Beacon, hell if he wasn't so obsessed with Blake I could easily see him harassing his female surbodinates and civilians.
     
    ShadowEMT said:
    I would also like to add that Adam seems to be extremely entitled. He basically says that he is entitled to Blake during the Fall of Beacon, hell if he wasn't so obsessed with Blake I could easily see him harassing his female surbodinates and civilians.
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    Indeed so, he seems to have a very "its all about me" attitude, which as I understand it is common in many abusers, along with the kind of "Why do you hurt me" kind of thinking when rejected.
     
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    I think what I liked best about the short was that it did a good job of showing Menagerie as the kind of place that the WoR implied that it was: crowded and cramped due to the limited physical size. There were lots of people in the crowd scenes (in fact, the two things work together: by showing the city itself as being cramped and closed-in, it lets them show crowds with fewer actual character models than a big, open plaza would take), and the chase through the back streets involved buildings with a lot of verticality. (Though I think it would have worked a little better if that verticality could have been seen in the initial scene.) Menagerie felt more like a real place in that little short than it ever did in V4.

    As for Adam, I think there's some complexity there because there's actually three separate ways they could have gone with his character:

    1) The Freedom Fighter. This is the "sympathetic" version, or at least the "understandable" one (i.e. even if his actions are still unambiguously villainous, his motives make us think "yeah, we can see how that would happen). This guy is fighting for Faunus equality and firmly believes that he's doing the right thing, that humans who work for the Schnees are corrupt and evil and undeserving of his concern, etc. This is the guy that we can look at and say, "I understand how Blake could have been in a relationship with him, but was ultimately torn away when her ideals and ethics diverged from his, but even so she looks back at her days with him with pangs of nostalgia and conflicted feelings." (It will be noted that V3E7 strongly implies that this is who he would be, given that Cinder blackmailed him into working with them. See also V2E1 where Blake's doodling his symbol.)

    2) The Terrorist. Basically #1, but presented in such a way as to lack mitigating factors and/or to emphasize his callous cruelty: collateral damage isn't something he accepts as a necessary evil, but something he seeks out to inflict fear and horror on the people he sees as his enemies. Can be combined with actual sadism, but might just be presented as being detached and inhuman: rather than being driven to violence by the depth of his passionate love for his people, he's gone around a bend and been driven out of himself. (His actions on the train can lead to this variation, with his callousness, and the end of V2E12 implied this, with him appearing to be a willing partner and co-conspirator with Cinder.)

    3) The Psycho. This is the guy we actually got. It's not actually about The Cause at all, but about him personally. It's about hurting humans (whether or not he dresses it up in "because of what they did to me" excuses). It's about hurting Blake: she runs away, so he openly states to her face that he's going to destroy everything and everyone she cares about with his own hands. Oppressive, sadistic, and controlling, with the "you made me do this" language of the abuser.

    Personally, I would have been fine with Adam being #2, the villainous variant. Indeed, part of the whole "Blake abandons the White Fang" storyline is supposed to be the realization that their ethics cannot be justified, that Blake herself was Adam #1 and then realized that their means were untenable.

    But "yandere ex-boyfriend" is another matter. It moves the Adam-Blake storyline away from the ethical conflict over Faunus rights and the means necessary and/or justifiable to achieve them. It means that Blake was a teenaged girl trapped in a relationship with a violent abuser and that she almost certainly ran away from him rather than (or at least equal to) The Cause. This makes her apparent wistful thoughts about him in V2E1 completely out of place. (And if he never showed that side of himself to her while they were together, it makes his characterization completely inconsistent.) It muddies the waters of Blake's character arc about the rights of Faunus, the role of the White Fang, why she stayed with them when Ghira and Kali left the Fang, and what motivated her to finally leave with bad yandere romance tropes. It's disappointing and cliched.
     
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