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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
    • firefossil said:
    In any case S5E4 finally answered how aura works, which is literally "when characters feel like it working". That it is NOT passive, its an active effect. If you are caught by surprise, or blow a concentration check, then it won't help you, or won't fully help you.
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    I think the first indication of that, was when Jaune got cut by that branch during initiation, and Pyrrha asked him why he didn't activate his Aura.
     
    firefossil said:
    In any case S5E4 finally answered how aura works, which is literally "when characters feel like it working". That it is NOT passive, its an active effect. If you are caught by surprise, or blow a concentration check, then it won't help you, or won't fully help you.
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    Though in the Yellow Trailer, Junior shows us that you CAN become good enough to deal with superhuman blows you didn't expect.

    Yang tricks Junior into thinking that she's giving up in the face of all of his armed men. He expects a kiss, and gets a suckerpunch with so much force behind it that he flies across the room, where he suffers a hard impact.

    That should have killed him, but all it manages to do is knock him briefly unconscious, and then only because he suffered two blows to the head. Just as a blow to Yang's head knocked her out briefly against Neo.

    But when Junior wakes up, he doesn't act impaired by injuries at all. Indeed, he proceeds to give Yang the toughest fight since she walked in the door.

    And I do mean "toughest". Being prepared for a fight, the man takes a crushing Super Combo from Yang that destroys his weapon and sends him flying across his club again, but this time he rolls with the blows and regains his feet. He even managed to counter-attack enough to rip out some of her hair.

    It took a second burst of Super Mode power for Yang to put Junior down, which suggests that he is at least TWICE as hard to hurt as Mercury Black or Torchwick's Paladin.

    (This is not to say he's a better fighter than Mercury, who is much better at landing and evading blows. Since toughness is voluntary, and there's a good possibility Mercury subtly threw his fight with Yang, Mercury could have even let Yang deplete more of his Aura than he needed to.)


    Meanwhile, Torchwick wasn't so confident he could shrug off a slice from the sword that Blake was holding to his throat. He stalled for time, possibly activating his Aura slowly and subtly, until he was ready to shoot an explosive round under their feet.

    And Sienna Khan, seeing that Adam had brought his own loyalist guards to surround her, must have gotten the false impression that Adam meant to capture her alive and detain her. Likely, that was deliberate on his part, to fool Hazel as well as Sienna. Sienna, of course, avoids fights she cannot win, so she would avoid activating her Semblance lest her captors be provoked to put her down. Surrendering but deciding to shoot her mouth off arrogantly, Sienna is taken by surprise when Adam throws everything away to stab her in the gut.
     
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    Sunder the Gold said:
    Though in the Yellow Trailer, Junior shows us that you CAN become good enough to deal with superhuman blows you didn't expect.

    Yang tricks Junior into thinking that she's giving up in the face of all of his armed men. He expects a kiss, and gets a suckerpunch with so much force behind it that he flies across the room, where he suffers a hard impact.

    That should have killed him, but all it manages to do is knock him briefly unconscious, and then only because he suffered two blows to the head. Just as a blow to Yang's head knocked her out briefly against Neo.

    But when Junior wakes up, he doesn't act impaired by injuries at all. Indeed, he proceeds to give Yang the toughest fight since she walked in the door.

    And I do mean "toughest". Being prepared for a fight, the man takes a crushing Super Combo from Yang that destroys his weapon and sends him flying across his club again, but this time he rolls with the blows and regains his feet. He even managed to counter-attack enough to rip out some of her hair.

    It took a second burst of Super Mode power for Yang to put Junior down, which suggests that he is at least TWICE as tough to hurt as Mercury Black or Torchwick's Paladin.


    Meanwhile, Torchwick wasn't so confident he could shrug off a slice from the sword that Blake was holding to his throat. He stalled for time, possibly activating his Aura slowly and subtly, until he was ready to shoot an explosive round under their feet.

    And Sienna Khan, seeing that Adam had brought his own loyalist guards to surround her, must have gotten the false impression that Adam meant to capture her alive and detain her. Likely, that was deliberate on his part, to fool Hazel as well as Sienna. Sienna, of course, avoids fights she cannot win, so she would avoid activating her Semblance lest her captors be provoked to put her down. Surrendering but deciding to shoot her mouth off arrogantly, Sienna is taken by surprise when Adam throws everything away to stab her in the gut.
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    While a lot of this does make sense, Sunder you have to admit that the headcanon is strong here. For example you are speculating that Aura being activated can be noticed - something that is not shown anywhere in the show. Another example is Junior's toughness. We know from watching the show that students at Beacon gain strength as they study. The sophmore team - Coco and her friends - are substantially stronger than the freshmen teams of RWBY and JNPR. So it could just as easily be that Yang's power has increased during the school year. We also have no idea what point in the timeline the club fight happens. That's further possible evidence that Yang's power has increased substantially since her trailer.

    So whose headcanon is right? Yours or mine?

    Personally this feels like more of the "reverse foreshadowing" that RT has been doing.
     
    Junior could've just activated it when she walked into his club. Presumably there's nothing that says he couldn't activate it just to be on the safe side.
     
    Tython82 said:
    Well we do have the scene in S5 Episode 4 when Ozpin takes over we see a green glow encircle him before he fights Ruby. So yeah I would take that as an indicator of knowing a person has activated there Aura.
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    And how many times does that happen in the entire series? Jaune glows when his Aura is unlocked. He also gives off a light show when he protects Cardin from the Ursa. I can't think of any other examples off hand. Can you?
     
    Regarding headcanon my impression is that Aura isn't a binary. Overall there's been three kind of reactions to hits:
    A: Characters tank a hit with little or no knockback or physical side effects.
    B: Characters are sent flying, act as if they've physically taken a hit with groaning and limb rubbing, but no maiming or fatal injuries.
    C: Characters react little different than we would, getting knocked out, stabbed through, or otherwise injured like a normal person.

    My impression is that A what happens when a character is actively using Aura to augment, parry, or block attacks, whereas B is more an instinctive "I don't wanna die" combat reflex where a character's Aura envelops them as they get painfully treated like a human ping pong ball but avoiding any permanent harm. C is what happens when aura is entirely down, due to being out of combat, being out of aura, or being just too discombobulated to use it.
     
    Nicholai said:
    And how many times does that happen in the entire series? Jaune glows when his Aura is unlocked. He also gives off a light show when he protects Cardin from the Ursa. I can't think of any other examples off hand. Can you?
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    The only other examples I can think of for the aura glow is all of the aura breaking that occured in season 4 such as Qrow/Tyrian/Nora/Ruby
    Edit:Also wasn't that scene with Jaune and Cardin said to be the first hint of his semblence according to the writers?
     
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    Maybe the light-show of activating aura only occurs when you haven't practiced it that much?

    Sure Ozpin knows how to easily do it but Oscar's aura is still fairly untrained.
     
    Tython82 said:
    The only other examples I can think of for the aura glow is all of the aura breaking that occured in season 4 such as Qrow/Tyrian/Nora/Ruby
    Edit:Also wasn't that scene with Jaune and Cardin said to be the first hint of his semblence according to the writers?
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    On your edit - they said that. Did they ever follow up on it?

    On the aura glow examples, anyone else have an example we've missed?
    jwolfe_beta said:
    Maybe the light-show of activating aura only occurs when you haven't practiced it that much?

    Sure Ozpin knows how to easily do it but Oscar's aura is still fairly untrained.
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    Which would make sense if they explained that in the show somewhere. Or maybe, maybe, in a Word of Remnant segment. As it stands that's a good headcanon explanation or it is something the writers still need to explain somewhere.
     
    The fact Sienna said "Follow beneath you" also implies she thought Adam was just trying to cow her into stepping down over planning a murder, she may have intended to fight after making that statement, or planned to go along with it long enough to get a grasp of the situation and then make a comeback, or escape, but Adam acted sooner and more bloodily than she expected.
     
    jwolfe_beta said:
    Maybe the light-show of activating aura only occurs when you haven't practiced it that much?

    Sure Ozpin knows how to easily do it but Oscar's aura is still fairly untrained.
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    Pretty sure that was just for the viewers benefit.



    firefossil said:
    Regarding headcanon my impression is that Aura isn't a binary. Overall there's been three kind of reactions to hits:
    A: Characters tank a hit with little or no knockback or physical side effects.
    B: Characters are sent flying, act as if they've physically taken a hit with groaning and limb rubbing, but no maiming or fatal injuries.
    C: Characters react little different than we would, getting knocked out, stabbed through, or otherwise injured like a normal person.

    My impression is that A what happens when a character is actively using Aura to augment, parry, or block attacks, whereas B is more an instinctive "I don't wanna die" combat reflex where a character's Aura envelops them as they get painfully treated like a human ping pong ball but avoiding any permanent harm. C is what happens when aura is entirely down, due to being out of combat, being out of aura, or being just too discombobulated to use it.
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    Possible. Another possibility is that people on Remnant are just superhuman in general. Aside from the whole "Jaune landing strategy thing" Ruby punched Oscar in the face hard enough to send him flying a couple of meters yet didn't seriously hurt him, and his Aura was explicitly not active. Combine that with the fact its now been made explicit that anyone can heal themselves with Aura and the possibility of people surviving deadly shit even without the force-field aspect becomes a lot more viable.
     
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    So no chart this week since the maker of the Status charts felt that Episode 5 did not provide enough material for it this week but it will return next week so perhaps a 2 for 1 chart will be in order.
     
    Tython82 said:
    So no chart this week since the maker of the Status charts felt that Episode 5 did not provide enough material for it this week but it will return next week so perhaps a 2 for 1 chart will be in order.
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    Well, there was new material.

    It's just that it is to the tune of 'death flags, death flags EVERYWHERE!'. Oh and that Adam is so far around the freaking bend he's probably reached Albuquerque.
     
    I mean, I whonestly forget, what happened? I remember disappointment and boredom.

    Not even enough for fun jokes.
     
    jwolfe_beta said:
    It's just that it is to the tune of 'death flags, death flags EVERYWHERE!'.
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    I keep seeing this, and it still doesn't make any sense to me. The villains outright saying "we are going to assassinate these characters" before it happens should make it less likely that those characters will actually die, not more likely - it's the inverse side of the Unspoken Plan Guarantee. That's not a death flag, it's a sign that the plan will fail.
     
    AliasBot said:
    That's not a death flag, it's a sign that the plan will fail.
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    We knew they were going to pull something potentially lethal with Penny in v3 from all the foreshadowing/plotting.

    Also remember that only Blake is to be taken alive (after she's lured away) and Sun is in the cross-hairs just as much as her parents. Maybe they'll die, maybe Sun will or maybe the guards we've seen manage to hold the line while the Belladonnas escape.

    But one thing is for sure, the WF aren't going to half-ass this operation. They screw this up/fail and all of Menagerie is going to be calling for their heads.
     
    jwolfe_beta said:
    But one thing is for sure, the WF aren't going to half-ass this operation. They screw this up/fail and all of Menagerie is going to be calling for their heads.
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    I think it will regardless given what the brothers said. I think they are hoping that by removing the Belladonna's they will have simply cowed those who might stand against Adam and secure their control over Menagerie, even if it is through fear.
     
    RWBY's been a bumpy ride and I'm never sure how to feel about it, but I never hate it. I think my first taste of RWBY was a couple of months after the Red trailer, which was on my Youtube recommendations after watching a string of amateur film projects/MMD videos. Barely even heard of Roosterteeth or Red vs Blue so from what little I searched for, I thought this was going to be like... a string of SFM animations. I quickly forgot about RWBY since that trailer was the only thing that existed, then came back since V1 was complete so I watched it and to be honest ...I thought it was a joke. As in, I didn't want to think bad of the creators or their writing skills so I assumed they could've been anime fans who deliberate stuffed every cliché in the book to have a laugh, while also having action that was legitimately fun to watch. I was only really there for the eye candy.

    Then came V3. I didn't know the volume as a whole was so divisive until super recently from posts here and elsewhere, but I actually really liked it over V1 and V2. I thought V3E6 and the tone change was well done. I remember constantly thinking, "I actually care about this show now" because the stakes were raised and I wondered what else the writers had up their sleeves. It felt like they stopped playing around and I was so interested in where they were going to take this. And I don't have anything to say about V4 so maybe that says it all.
    I just felt like venting this out, not like I'm heavily involved in the fandom besides posting here. I'm not sure what caught my attention this episode either, it's in no way as game-changing as Yang vs Mercury and yet I didn't feel this way upon seeing Sienna getting stabbed.
     
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