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.

 

[Vindictus]

I can see that, definitely, but that school of thought is also what's making me roll my eyes, because what the end of volume 3 gives us is basically what all of the detractors of RWBY say they wanted in the first place. So saying the show gets worse because of it to someone explicitly asking for that kind of thing seems inherently dishonest. Especially when we can't discuss it except in the vaguest possible terms.

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Well, yes. I suspect that Leila will prefer RWBY post volume 3 myself, but, well, [No Spoilers Thread] so I can't explain why.

 

[gamebrain89]

New to the thread so apologies if this has already been debated to death here, but anyway. A buddy and I have spent a lot of time talking about this, and the end of the episode from last week, really seemed to push it back into our little chat. So I decided to paraphrase our discussion to see about getting other people's thoughts. Our biggest issue seems to be that, overwhelmingly, the Villains in the story never lose. And when they do, they don't. (This is all ripped from a discussion we had over skype on the subject.)

Volume 1, Episode 1. Torchwick and Cinder get away with a briefcase full of Dust, none of the minions (who couldn't possibly have escaped, could they? Hell, they never return to Junior, so.) give anything away to the good guys, nobody follows or tracks the very conspicuous airship flying about in the middle of town with battle scars from having just fought a high-ranking huntress. None of the resistance given by the good guys matters to the bad guys.

Then Volume 1, last episode, Torchwick gets away again, presumably none of the many White Fang members left strewn across the battlefield amount to anything, intel-wise, Ozpin doesn't poke further into the situation with the students involved so absolutely no information is obtained by the good guys, and even if Torchwick didn't actually get away with any Dust it didn't even begin to slow down Cinder's plan. None of the possible complications from this fight ever come back to bite the bad guys.

Volume 2, Painting the Town, Torchwick wrecks a lot of cars on a highway, painfully conspicuously, in an Atlesian Paladin which was just shown off as a defender of the people. Ironwood gets no flak for this, he's not even questioned onscreen. Torchwick escapes, again. Ozpin doesn't ask what the hell happened, and thus the only piece of intel the good guys get doesn't become useful til too late.

Volume 2, Dance Dance Infiltration, Cinder gets in and escapes clean, despite Beacon Tower being arguably the most important building in the school, especially to Ozpin and company. Nobody checks the goddamn computers she was mucking with, despite them apparently being the centerpiece of the entire online network that keeps Vale connected to itself and the whole rest of the world. There are apparently no freaking security cameras. Ironwood shouts "THEY WERE HERE, OZPIN" a whole lot but nobody asks the simple question "why? Why were they here? What were they doing?" Did they think she thought the Fall Maiden was in the computer room, skyping with the other Maidens while on life support? And so the freaking hax virus goes utterly unopposed, despite even my lowest-end IT instincts telling me that the Tower should have been at least checked out, and at most shut down for emergency maintenance as soon after the attack as possible, and despite said virus having a visible tell that was showing while Ironwood was in the room.

Then there's the whole Mt. Glenn thing. Cinder's gang are the ones to hand Torchwick in, so that was totally according to plan. The operation doesn't take down Vale, but softens things up for Volume 3's hellhole. The one complication the bad guys could face, the fact that the White Fang aren't going to be as willing to listen to Cinder anymore, gets shot down as soon as its brought up by Adam showing up and saying "they'll listen to me." AND HE'S 100% CORRECT. He somehow, offscreen, convinces the White Fang to stick it out, despite the plan having cost more than a few lives.
Then comes Volume 4, wherein, to name a few things, Neo singlehandedly takes over Ironwood's flagship and sets Torchwick free, no scraps of metal get strewn about when Yang breaks Mercury's legs, there is literally no plan/prepwork to deal with the trauma of a battlefield accident at the VYTAL FESTIVAL TOURNAMENT, not even after the first time it happened, Ironwood, Qrow, and/or Glynda don't immediately start for Beacon Tower because now is obviously the best time for the enemy to attack it, the White Fang somehow capture a buttload of Grimm to release into the city and aren't noticed flying in with these monstrosities despite Ironwood's giant fleet of military bravado...

The matches in the tournament go exactly the way they need them to, despite them having no active control over that, other than in Yang's case, where they had a man actually fighting. There's so many potential outcomes that could have happened there, that they would have had no control over. Literally the only fumble they've had in five seasons has been "Oh, Ruby's Speshul and Plot dictates she freeze everything here." But still Vale falls, and they get the mantle, and go on their merry way, mission accomplished, Bonus, Cinder killed Ozpin! Literally the only blow taken there was "Cinder's scarred up and mute for a while."

to quote JamestheFox, "It's painfully annoying, now that I've actually gone and looked at the trend since the beginning. If shit turned out so perfectly for the good guys even half of the time, I'd be okay with the bad guys having so many wins. Like, if Qrow and company had shown up, and Lionheart had given them literally everything they needed, or something, I could be okay with the bad guys having achieved such success. If they had cut out the "oh the message to Haven rests at the bottom of the sea now" scene, I'd be cool with things in Menagerie. Because at least then something Blake and company did would impact the bad guys plans. Let the good guys pull an unopposed victory that furthers their goals every once in a while. Give our villains reason to squirm - Cinder became far more interesting when she had reason to grouch about being bested by Ruby."

 

[Lexica]

to quote JamestheFox, "It's painfully annoying, now that I've actually gone and looked at the trend since the beginning. If shit turned out so perfectly for the good guys even half of the time, I'd be okay with the bad guys having so many wins. Like, if Qrow and company had shown up, and Lionheart had given them literally everything they needed, or something, I could be okay with the bad guys having achieved such success. If they had cut out the "oh the message to Haven rests at the bottom of the sea now" scene, I'd be cool with things in Menagerie. Because at least then something Blake and company did would impact the bad guys plans. Let the good guys pull an unopposed victory that furthers their goals every once in a while. Give our villains reason to squirm - Cinder became far more interesting when she had reason to grouch about being bested by Ruby."

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Mmm. I definitely see what you're saying about the villains seeming to get away with a whole lot of stuff, but some of it at least I think should just be put under 'assume the bad guys are competent'.

Like, how did the bad guys escape the cops? I don't know, but we can assume that they know what they're doing and that they had some kind of plan in place to evade authorities. There's no need to go over every detail of the plan for that because this isn't a heist movie and the specifics aren't important to the plot.

As for them fixing the matches in the tournament, that doesn't really seem that hard. From what we've seen, Mercury seemed clearly competent enough to make it to the finals without any real need for fixing, and once they're there anyone will do for the first part of their plan. Similarly, both Penny and Pyrrha are essentially guaranteed to make it to the end. Not that they even necessarily need Pyrrha- it seems like anyone with a really destructive semblance or weapon could have been used to break Penny at the final step of their plan.

They really only need to fix one thing in the finals- ensuring that Mercury has a fight before before Penny does.

The virus in the CCT is kind of silly though, yeah. At least they needed physical access to the bridge of one of Ironwood's ships to take control of the killbots, so it wasn't as silly as it could have been.

Edit: Though maybe I'm missing the point. I agree that putting the villains under more stress and pressure from the good guys would probably have improved things. I just don't agree with the idea that everything about the villains' plot was totally dumb and impossible.

 

[gamebrain89]

Like, how did the bad guys escape the cops? I don't know, but we can assume that they know what they're doing and that they had some kind of plan in place to evade authorities. There's no need to go over every detail of the plan for that because this isn't a heist movie and the specifics aren't important to the plot.

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"Assume the bad guys are competent" is all fine and good but this happens like every time Torchwick and his goons got beat and at least some of them had the shit beat out of them and couldn't have been in a very good position to get away. It's really looking more like "The good guys are incompetent" than anything, and that's just poor setup, as much as some choices and lack of action considering some events make it seem like that's the case.

As for the tournament, they can set up who fights who, but there's other circumstances they had no control over or knowledge of that could have easily screwed up a bunch of stuff, at least as far as Pyrrha and Penny making it there. Jaune and Pyrrha could have had an off day and lost. Pyrrha could have withdrawn from the final or semifinal or whichever it was, because of Emotional Turmoil due to Ozpin's frankly astronomically shitty timing. Penny, being the first of what had to have been frankly a scarily complicated piece of machinery, could have had some unforeseen issue and been forced to withdraw, or Ironwood or Polledina could have simply gone "Eh, seen enough, lets not risk our investment." and pulled her out early. Or Penny could have lost earlier. Point being they had no way to perfectly predict any of this but they just continued on like it was a foregone conclusion. The whole set up of the tournament and their endgame smacks of Gambit Roulette, to me.

 

[Nicholai]

See now the irony in complaining about RWBY fans dogpiling negative opinions and me being dogpiled for my defense of RWBY. But seriously, if you genuinely want to talk about RWBY season 3 let's do it in the actual RWBY thread.

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Sure. Let's talk about that in a thread most populated by the people who adore RWBY and the direction it has gone. I'm sure this is going to go soooooo well.

For everyone else, in another thread the topic of why RWBY Volume 3 is divisive came up.

As @Vindictus just pointed out there are some people who enjoyed the lighter, humorous fare from Volumes 1 and 2. Those people were very upset at the rather abrupt shift in Volume 3. They looked at the darker tone and just left. They generally didn't even bother watching the rest of the Volume when it was released. I'm aware of several IRL who have never gone back to RWBY. They were that angered by the change in the tone.

So let's look at this in terms of what people enjoy. Everyone enjoys something different, some mix of elements that is uniquely them. For example some people enjoy grim and dark fantasy like Warhammer 40K. Others don't. Some people enjoy the comedic science fiction of Eureka. Others loathe the show. The list is as wide and varied as there are people who consume media and then talk about it.

Now let's look at RWBY in specific. The first two volumes were lighter, more comedic fare. There were hints of the darker aspects but those were generally extremely limited. In Volume 1 the darker hints were mostly in the second verses of songs that people had to buy to listen to. In Volume 2 the darker hints were all immediately followed with an extremely hard turn back into "Harry Potter comedy." For example Mercury and Emerald are implied to kill someone. It isn't shown. Instead the screen fades to black and, wait for it, the next scene is the Epic Food Fight where Weiss uses a swordfish, Blake uses a string of sausages, Yang uses a pair of turkeys as improvised boxing gloves, and Pyrrha uses soda cans like grenades.

Got that firmly in mind? Do me a favor and grab a piece of scratch paper. Now draw two circles that overlap. Label one "Harry Potter comedy" and the other "dark fantasy." The area where they intersect are fans of both Harry Potter comedy and dark fantasy. The area where they don't are the exclusive fans of each.

Why is that relevant? Consider the people who have said that they would drop RWBY in a heartbeat if they went back to the tone of Volume 1 & 2. Those are the exclusive fans of the dark fantasy genre. That group also includes the people who only joined the RWBY fandom because of Volume 3. By contrast the people who are in the Harry Potter comedy exclusively are all the people who dropped RWBY before Volume 3 even finished.

 

[Lexica]

"Assume the bad guys are competent" is all fine and good but this happens like every time Torchwick and his goons got beat and at least some of them had the shit beat out of them and couldn't have been in a very good position to get away. It's really looking more like "The good guys are incompetent" than anything, and that's just poor setup.

As for the tournament, they can set up who fights who, but there's other circumstances they had no control over or knowledge of that could have easily screwed up a bunch of stuff, at least as far as Pyrrha and Penny making it there. Jaune and Pyrrha could have had an off day and lost. Pyrrha could have withdrawn from the final or semifinal or whichever it was, because of Emotional Turmoil due to Ozpin's frankly astronomically shitty timing. Penny, being the first of what had to have been frankly a scarily complicated piece of machinery, could have had some unforeseen issue and been forced to withdraw, or Ironwood or Polledina could have simply gone "Eh, seen enough, lets not risk our investment." and pulled her out early. Or Penny could have lost earlier. Point being they had no way to perfectly predict any of this but they just continued on like it was a foregone conclusion. The whole set up of the tournament and their endgame smacks of Gambit Roulette, to me.

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I think I basically agree with your premise here. More scenes of Cinder and co acting like they were actually being threatened or pressured would definitely have gone a long way to improve things. They did have a certain... unrealistic confidence up until the end of season 3.

Sure. Let's talk about that in a thread most populated by the people who adore RWBY and the direction it has gone. I'm sure this is going to go soooooo well.

For everyone else, in another thread the topic of why RWBY Volume 3 is divisive came up.

As @Vindictus just pointed out there are some people who enjoyed the lighter, humorous fare from Volumes 1 and 2. Those people were very upset at the rather abrupt shift in Volume 3. They looked at the darker tone and just left. They generally didn't even bother watching the rest of the Volume when it was released. I'm aware of several IRL who have never gone back to RWBY. They were that angered by the change in the tone.

So let's look at this in terms of what people enjoy. Everyone enjoys something different, some mix of elements that is uniquely them. For example some people enjoy grim and dark fantasy like Warhammer 40K. Others don't. Some people enjoy the comedic science fiction of Eureka. Others loathe the show. The list is as wide and varied as there are people who consume media and then talk about it.

Now let's look at RWBY in specific. The first two volumes were lighter, more comedic fare. There were hints of the darker aspects but those were generally extremely limited. In Volume 1 the darker hints were mostly in the second verses of songs that people had to buy to listen to. In Volume 2 the darker hints were all immediately followed with an extremely hard turn back into "Harry Potter comedy." For example Mercury and Emerald are implied to kill someone. It isn't shown. Instead the screen fades to black and, wait for it, the next scene is the Epic Food Fight where Weiss uses a swordfish, Blake uses a string of sausages, Yang uses a pair of turkeys as improvised boxing gloves, and Pyrrha uses soda cans like grenades.

Got that firmly in mind? Do me a favor and grab a piece of scratch paper. Now draw two circles that overlap. Label one "Harry Potter comedy" and the other "dark fantasy." The area where they intersect are fans of both Harry Potter comedy and dark fantasy. The area where they don't are the exclusive fans of each.

Why is that relevant? Consider the people who have said that they would drop RWBY in a heartbeat if they went back to the tone of Volume 1 & 2. Those are the exclusive fans of the dark fantasy genre. That group also includes the people who only joined the RWBY fandom because of Volume 3. By contrast the people who are in the Harry Potter comedy exclusively are all the people who dropped RWBY before Volume 3 even finished.

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My point is that talking about season 3 as 'where it all fell apart' in Leila's thread has little to do with any of that. Do I agree that people probably dropped RWBY and hate what it's now become because of season 3? Sure. The reasons why make sense. You've provided them clearly.

What we can say from Leila's commentary so far though is that she hates the school setting. She's very clearly stated her preference for something much closer to post season 3 RWBY than season 1 and 2 RWBY. So it strikes me as more than a little dishonest to hide behind the curtain of spoilers while bad mouthing RWBY's direction post season 3. Maybe you disagree, but I hope that you can at least see where I'm coming from here.

 

[gamebrain89]

I just don't agree with the idea that everything about the villains' plot was totally dumb and impossible.

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I think I basically agree with your premise here. More scenes of Cinder and co acting like they were actually being threatened or pressured would definitely have gone a long way to improve things. They did have a certain... unrealistic confidence up until the end of season 3.

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Yeah, neither of us is really saying that everything they did was dumb or impossible (Though I will personally call out the Virus thing as one of the most idiotic use of "Magical Computers" ever, only beaten out by NCIS and the "Two People, One Keyboard" bit.). It's that they got away with all of this damn near unopposed and with absolutely no hiccups. Cinder probably considers losing an eye and her voice one, but really, it turned out to be pretty much only cosmetic damage and the whole Cabal of Chaos went on their merry way, having accomplished exactly what they wanted anyway.

 

[Nicholai]

I think I basically agree with your premise here. More scenes of Cinder and co acting like they were actually being threatened or pressured would definitely have gone a long way to improve things. They did have a certain... unrealistic confidence up until the end of season 3.


My point is that talking about season 3 as 'where it all fell apart' in Leila's thread has little to do with any of that. Do I agree that people probably dropped RWBY and hate what it's now become because of season 3? Sure. The reasons why make sense. You've provided them clearly.

What we can say from Leila's commentary so far though is that she hates the school setting. She's very clearly stated her preference for something much closer to post season 3 RWBY than season 1 and 2 RWBY. So it strikes me as more than a little dishonest to hide behind the curtain of spoilers while bad mouthing RWBY's direction post season 3. Maybe you disagree, but I hope that you can at least see where I'm coming from here.

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So on Cinder and successes -
Consider what the heroes accomplished during the first three volumes. Things like fighting Roman at the docks, Ruby facing Cinder in the CCT tower, or how they forced Roman to kick off the breach early.

Got that firmly in mind? Now consider how those played out through the rest of the series. At best the protagonists came out net neutral. At worst they made things easier for Cinder.

Roman getting driven off? No consequences for Roman or Cinder. Cinder gets seen by Ruby? Well, Ruby should be able to give a description and help the investigation along. But no, there's no investigation even though they have Cinder's height, hair color, eye color, skin color, and know that she ended up in the ballroom. Roman kicks off the breach early? We find out in a WoR the next Volume that negative emotions, like, say, having a swarm of Grimm appear in the middle of town and terrifying everyone, draws in more Grimm and makes Cinder's plan easier to pull off.


All of that ties into my concern about how Leila will see Volume 3 - assuming she ever gets to it. Those things are basically recursive plot holes. They cause more problems the more you think about it. Consider just the White Fang. Roman is insulting towards them throughout Volume 1. He gets a fair number of them either killed (laser beams, crashes and dust explosions courtesy of Penny) or captured by the police. Why are they still willing to work with Roman and Cinder? Then there's Volume 2 where Roman gets a lot of them killed during the breach debacle. Anyone left in their base would be stuck in an underground structure that was about to be swarming with Grimm. (Or they went above ground to face the same problems plus anyone Ironwood sent after them.) Anyone thrown from the train either died on impact or were trapped in tunnels with a huge number of Grimm. Anyone still on the train when it crashed, well, we see the people who crawl out of the wreckage. None of them are White Fang. So why are any of the White Fang members besides Adam willing to work with Roman and Cinder? Hell, why are any of the White Fang members willing to work with Adam at all?

 

[hellgodsrus]

Yeah, neither of us is really saying that everything they did was dumb or impossible (Though I will personally call out the Virus thing as one of the most idiotic use of "Magical Computers" ever, only beaten out by NCIS and the "Two People, One Keyboard" bit.). It's that they got away with all of this damn near unopposed and with absolutely no hiccups. Cinder probably considers losing an eye and her voice one, but really, it turned out to be pretty much only cosmetic damage and the whole Cabal of Chaos went on their merry way, having accomplished exactly what they wanted anyway.

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Except they still don't have the relic, Vale didn't fall, and they don't have Kevin active. Their plan was a partial success, but it wasn't a full success. Salem plays it up in Volume 4 but that's because she's a good boss who doesn't trash her underlings. Hell, even Cinder's most important accomplishment - killing Ozpin - turned out to basically be fucking worthless cause he cheats like a motherfucker. Tyrian basically did nothing right in Volume 4, and Ilia basically gave the tools to the Belladonnas for them to start pointing out to people that the White Fang is pretty dodgy. Hell, Lionheart's deception has basically been seen right through at this point thanks to Ozpin knowing he's not following instructions.

The bad guys have had plenty of losses and near misses. Volume 3 went really well for them because it was an ambush from stealth and unless you fuck up those always look absolutely horrifying and terribly successful out of nowhere. And even then, it arguably only happened because Cinder fucked up and didn't check her six while draining Amber, which is what lead to her only having half the Maiden power in the first place.

 

[Lexica]

So on Cinder and successes -
Consider what the heroes accomplished during the first three volumes. Things like fighting Roman at the docks, Ruby facing Cinder in the CCT tower, or how they forced Roman to kick off the breach early.

Got that firmly in mind? Now consider how those played out through the rest of the series. At best the protagonists came out net neutral. At worst they made things easier for Cinder.

Roman getting driven off? No consequences for Roman or Cinder. Cinder gets seen by Ruby? Well, Ruby should be able to give a description and help the investigation along. But no, there's no investigation even though they have Cinder's height, hair color, eye color, skin color, and know that she ended up in the ballroom. Roman kicks off the breach early? We find out in a WoR the next Volume that negative emotions, like, say, having a swarm of Grimm appear in the middle of town and terrifying everyone, draws in more Grimm and makes Cinder's plan easier to pull off.


All of that ties into my concern about how Leila will see Volume 3 - assuming she ever gets to it. Those things are basically recursive plot holes. They cause more problems the more you think about it. Consider just the White Fang. Roman is insulting towards them throughout Volume 1. He gets a fair number of them either killed (laser beams, crashes and dust explosions courtesy of Penny) or captured by the police. Why are they still willing to work with Roman and Cinder? Then there's Volume 2 where Roman gets a lot of them killed during the breach debacle. Anyone left in their base would be stuck in an underground structure that was about to be swarming with Grimm. (Or they went above ground to face the same problems plus anyone Ironwood sent after them.) Anyone thrown from the train either died on impact or were trapped in tunnels with a huge number of Grimm. Anyone still on the train when it crashed, well, we see the people who crawl out of the wreckage. None of them are White Fang. So why are any of the White Fang members besides Adam willing to work with Roman and Cinder? Hell, why are any of the White Fang members willing to work with Adam at all?

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But now you've gone totally tangential to the original point. Do you or you not agree that discussing volume three the way it was being discussed in Leila's thread was inherently dishonest?

 

[gamebrain89]

Except they still don't have the relic, Vale didn't fall, and they don't have Kevin active. Their plan was a partial success, but it wasn't a full success. Salem plays it up in Volume 4 but that's because she's a good boss who doesn't trash her underlings. Hell, even Cinder's most important accomplishment - killing Ozpin - turned out to basically be fucking worthless cause he cheats like a motherfucker. Tyrian basically did nothing right in Volume 4, and Ilia basically gave the tools to the Belladonnas for them to start pointing out to people that the White Fang is pretty dodgy. Hell, Lionheart's deception has basically been seen right through at this point thanks to Ozpin knowing he's not following instructions.

The bad guys have had plenty of losses and near misses. Volume 3 went really well for them because it was an ambush from stealth and unless you fuck up those always look absolutely horrifying and terribly successful out of nowhere. And even then, it arguably only happened because Cinder fucked up and didn't check her six while draining Amber, which is what lead to her only having half the Maiden power in the first place.

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Did they ever really mention which Maiden was needed to get at the relic in Beacon? I don't remember that ever being stated. It stands to reason it wasn't Fall, because...well. Beacon's gone, swarmed with Grimm, and there's little reason they couldn't have just gone after it again later, because they're too busy dealing with the place getting trashed by Grimm and evacuating and the Ozluminati were equally occupied. I'm like 75% sure the whole point there was just to expose where Amber was so they could get at her. The big Grimm is likely only temporarily taken off the board, too, so...not really a lot of actual loss there.

 

[hellgodsrus]

Did they ever really mention which Maiden was needed to get at the relic in Beacon? I don't remember that ever being stated. It stands to reason it wasn't Fall, because...well. Beacon's gone, swarmed with Grimm, and there's little reason they couldn't have just gone after it again later, because they're too busy dealing with the place getting trashed by Grimm and evacuating. I'm like 75% sure the whole point there was just to expose where Amber was so they could get at her. The big Grimm is likely only temporarily taken off the board, too, so...not really a lot of actual loss there.

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Actually they say it's Fall*. And given that they haven't found it... that means it was a loss. Or at the most, a half success (third success or two thirds success depending on what you count the death of Ozpin as).

Edit: *To be precise, Qrow says 'Fall for choice' when describing the relics, but they don't say which academy has which Relic. It can be assumed given that they went for Fall and Beacon first that Choice is there, given that they seem to want Spring before moving on Haven, but you're right that that is an inference.

 

[gamebrain89]

Actually they say it's Fall. And given that they haven't found it... that means it was a loss. Or at the most, a half success (third success or two thirds success depending on what you count the death of Ozpin as).

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Or they just haven't gone back for it yet because Cinder was out of commission, I suppose. So more delayed gratification than anything, seeing how Beacon's ruins are nominally under their control, as Salem appeared to be talking to agents there over Metroidvision in Volume 4.

 

[Nicholai]

But now you've gone totally tangential to the original point. Do you or you not agree that discussing volume three the way it was being discussed in Leila's thread was inherently dishonest?

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First - you are inserting your own bias into how Leila will view Volume 3. I pointed out reasons that I think Leila will disagree that Volume 3 is great. Reasons that you are not answering because you only want to focus on the "dishonest" discussion. I'm assuming that either you can't answer any of the points I raise or you are just dismissing everything I said.

As for the dishonesty, um, what? People pointed out that there's a divided opinion. Other people pointed out that we can't discuss it fairly there. I came here to discuss it with you. At what point did I ever address whether it was dishonest or not? From my perspective it has nothing to do with honesty. Instead it has everything to do with respect. Leila doesn't want spoilers in her thread so, being respectful, we should take it somewhere else or just not discuss it.

 

[Lexica]

First - you are inserting your own bias into how Leila will view Volume 3. I pointed out reasons that I think Leila will disagree that Volume 3 is great. Reasons that you are not answering because you only want to focus on the "dishonest" discussion. I'm assuming that either you can't answer any of the points I raise or you are just dismissing everything I said.

As for the dishonesty, um, what? People pointed out that there's a divided opinion. Other people pointed out that we can't discuss it fairly there. I came here to discuss it with you. At what point did I ever address whether it was dishonest or not? From my perspective it has nothing to do with honesty. Instead it has everything to do with respect. Leila doesn't want spoilers in her thread so, being respectful, we should take it somewhere else or just not discuss it.

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Obviously we can't discuss spoilers in Leila's thread. I was one of the people to point that out and suggest we come here. What I'm saying is that talking about people being divided about volume 3 while ignoring the context for why that is is inherently dishonest. We can't tell Leila 'people are divided over volume 3 because it radically changes the tone more towards what you've said you would prefer,' but people can say 'volume 3 is very divisive and as many people love it as hate it' while then going on to talk about how RWBY fans dogpile any and all criticism.

Both of those statements are biased, sure. But it's irritating that due to the spoiler rules only one of those biases is able to get any traction. Thus, dishonesty- because your bias is the only one allowed, it's dishonest to put it forth the way it has been.

 

[JamestheFox]

As the other half of @gamebrain89 's isolated discussion, I'll pick now to butt in as well.

It should be noted that the same scene that shows they don't have the Relic implies, thanks to Volume 5 revealing the nature of the Metroid-esque Grimm, that Salem still has entirely undetected agents in Beacon, likely keeping things in the area on track (considering the lack of audible response to Salem, I'd wager it was Neo, but who knows, not my point).

Tyrian basically did nothing right in Volume 4, and Ilia basically gave the tools to the Belladonnas for them to start pointing out to people that the White Fang is pretty dodgy. Hell, Lionheart's deception has basically been seen right through at this point thanks to Ozpin knowing he's not following instructions.

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Tyrian's defeat turned out to be a blessing in disguise, considering the info Qrow survived to deliver to Salem's doorstep, and the one serious injury he took is being fixed with nigh unto no problems via the wonders of prosthetics (which also likely means combat upgrades, yay). And despite having wrecked Tyrian's tail (in many ways), Salem still appears confident that she can use Ruby to further the Evil Plan.

As for the Belladonna family, having dirt on the White Fang means nothing if the populace is apathetic and the warning they sent to Haven is sleeping beneath the waves (having been slain offscreen of all things).

Overall, the villains' problems have either been cleaned up without issue or cleaned themselves up before even being made. I've yet to see an actual, unconditional loss.

As for Oz, it means nothing if Oz knows Lionheart is being suspicious if he's doing nothing about it (be it by choice or necessity).

What I want to see is for the villains to struggle a bit here, maybe suffer an unmitigated defeat every now and again - the kind where they can at best come out neutral, but are likely to end up worse off for the loss. It'll make them more interesting to have to struggle past it.

The bad guys have had plenty of losses and near misses. Volume 3 went really well for them because it was an ambush from stealth and unless you fuck up those always look absolutely horrifying and terribly successful out of nowhere. And even then, it arguably only happened because Cinder fucked up and didn't check her six while draining Amber, which is what lead to her only having half the Maiden power in the first place.

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Cinder and company still got away, with superpowers at that, and despite being there to see them in all their glory, Qrow didn't give their descriptions to Oz or recognize them when they were fighting on live TV. I mean, you could argue that Emerald thought fast and hid their true identities from him, but he had the drop on the trio, so he almost certainly had to have seen something to work with.

 

[hellgodsrus]

Cinder and company still got away, with superpowers at that, and despite being there to see them in all their glory, Qrow didn't give their descriptions to Oz or recognize them when they were fighting on live TV. I mean, you could argue that Emerald thought fast and hid their true identities from him, but he had the drop on the trio, so he almost certainly had to have seen something to work with.

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Which is why when he reports in in Volume 3 he says that he knows the Infiltrator is the one responsible for Autumn's condition. I.E., the people he fought. The blame for not doing anything lies with Ozpin 'let's put all my eggs in the Pyrrha basket', and it's clearly shown as such ('Such arrogance' 'Ozpin is a fool' 'I told you Ozpin would fail').

On their defeats in V4-5 being minor... I disagree but I also need to sleep. I'll return to this tomorrow.

 

[Vindictus]

I mean, it's pretty obvious at this point that we're going to have Team RWBY chasing Salem and Co. through the four kingdoms as they attempt to counter her plans. We're probably going to have the team finally get all back together at the end of S5 just in time to lose Haven to the Grimm Hordes, S6 and S7 will be set in Atlas and Vacuo (in no particular order) as they fall, S8 will be the struggle to retake the fallen kingdoms, and then S9 will be taking on Salem in Rodrom (Which is NOT MORDOR SPELLED BACKWARDS HONEST TRUST ME)

 

[Darmani]

There's a lot of stuff I love about RWBY and moments of what I feel are amazing writing, in the same vein there are other things that either run as an undercurrent to the series or pop up and in both cases can feel either very badly written or really both me (& others) that don't get treated as problems that cause me a lot of grief.

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Care to elaborate on these undercurrents if you feel it would be too controversial just send it to me in a private message

 

[Zam]

Care to elaborate on these undercurrents if you feel it would be too controversial just send it to me in a private message

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I'll go with a PM then, sorry.

 

[Nicholai]

Obviously we can't discuss spoilers in Leila's thread. I was one of the people to point that out and suggest we come here. What I'm saying is that talking about people being divided about volume 3 while ignoring the context for why that is is inherently dishonest. We can't tell Leila 'people are divided over volume 3 because it radically changes the tone more towards what you've said you would prefer,' but people can say 'volume 3 is very divisive and as many people love it as hate it' while then going on to talk about how RWBY fans dogpile any and all criticism.

Both of those statements are biased, sure. But it's irritating that due to the spoiler rules only one of those biases is able to get any traction. Thus, dishonesty- because your bias is the only one allowed, it's dishonest to put it forth the way it has been.

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BTW Nicholai, just wanted to say sorry for getting a bit heated in the RWBY thread. Was just a bit irritated about the whole thing and was kind of unfair to you.

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So, getting everything in one place - and no worries about the tone. I'm familiar with frustration.

First up - language issues are not your friend! Until you explained it I wasn't sure what you were talking about. Words can mean different things and I am used to "dishonest" in a debate meaning that the person debating is not actually engaging in a conversation trying to find the answer. Instead the person is trying to win. They'll use tactics like attacking the other person, whataboutism, and other cheap tricks to avoid answering questions.

End result was that I looked at your complaints about dishonesty and had a 1+1=swordfish moment of confusion.

Secondly - I keep typing and then deleting the rest of this post because I'm not sure how to proceed without starting another argument. So I'm going to be as honest as I can and hope you're willing to extend me a little patience.

People were talking in very general terms about how Volume 3 was where RWBY got good for most of Leila's thread. In fact Leila has commented on that she has heard the same thing. It is only recently that folks felt confident enough to mention how not everyone likes Volume 3. So when you talk about how biased the thread is I just don't see it. People spent a few weeks* talking about how it got better. I don't believe that having forumites talk for a day about how some people disagree is an overwhelming bias.

* - Guessing on the time scale, I don't have time to run this down tonight.


Edit - I cannot believe I forgot this. Earlier you mentioned how the detractors said that they wanted the tone shift that Volume 3 provided. The catch there is that some of the detractors wanted that. They were then happy. The cost was having an entirely different set of detractors who were not happy with the change.


And on a completely unrelated note ..

I'll go with a PM then, sorry.

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Could I get in on that? (Honestly curious.)

 

[Zam]

Could I get in on that? (Honestly curious.)

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Sure thing, I'll invite you to the chat now.

 

[jenalysis]

I don't consider saying that season 3 changes the tone is a spoiler. Then again, given the drama in that thread, I'm afraid to mention much. Even saying something gets explained later gets you yelled at.

 

[Mook]

And despite having wrecked Tyrian's tail (in many ways), Salem still appears confident that she can use Ruby to further the Evil Plan.

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Where the heck are you getting that from? Salem has indicated no such thing. What she has indicated is that since Ruby is still at large Cinder (aka the most important game piece Salem has access to) needs to be extremely careful to avoid Ruby lest she end up being killed or worse.

Having Ruby still be at large is absolutely a loss to Salem's side. With Ruby out of play there's little to nothing that can really stand against their Fall Maiden. With Ruby in play they need to be extremely careful about how they employ Cinder or else all their plans can crumble at a moments notice if the Silver Eyes get used at the Wrong/Right Place at the Wrong/Right Time.

Sure knowing where Spring is speeds things up but they likely could have found her eventually anyway and with no Ruby or Qrow they would have basically no opposition from the Ozluminati.

Tyrian's defeat turned out to be a blessing in disguise, considering the info Qrow survived to deliver to Salem's doorstep

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You're ignoring the other side of that coin. If Qrow hadn't survived then he could not have reported Lionheart's suspicious behavior to Ozpin and Oscar would have likely walked right into Salem's clutches, which would have been a far more crippling blow than just finding out about Spring a little earlier.

No Ruby or NJR.
No Qrow.
No Ozpin.
No independent Hunstmen.

Basically no organized resistance against Salem in Mistral at a crucial moment. If Tyrian hadn't fucked up it would have been a complete victory for Salem. There's no way you can say that Ruby dismembering Tyrian wasn't bad for Salem's plans.

As for the Belladonna family, having dirt on the White Fang means nothing if the populace is apathetic and the warning they sent to Haven is sleeping beneath the waves (having been slain offscreen of all things).

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The populace is not apathetic, people were cheering along with Ghira when he talked about taking back the White Fang and horrified to learn that Adam was planning a coup. They're just not super keen on leaving their homes and risking their lives to fight for the Kingdom that held their population in chains a mere 80 years ago and has "No Faunus" signs on its stores even to this day.

But whether Ghira survives the White Fang's assassination attempt or Blake steps up to fill his shoes after he becomes a martyr it seems fairly clear that the Adam's attempt to silence the Belladonas is going to backfire and backfire hard. Illia's Scroll was important because it let Ghira sow the seeds of discontent against the White Fang and those seeds will be ripe for the harvest after the White Fang openly attempts to assassinate the chieftain for speaking out against them.

Also I really don't get why you find it weird that a nameless messenger got killed off-screen. Like that is really not something that needs to be shown on-screen anymore than Ghira actually sending the messenger needed to be shown. All we needed was to know that Ghira is not dumb and sent his fastest messenger as soon as he could and that the Albain's are not dumb, realized that he would do so and sent their fastest interceptor (hence the character having wings, so that its immediately clear to the viewers that this character can cover a lot of ground quickly).

 

[gamebrain89]

snip

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Because it's yet another example of a potential problem for the bad guys being handwaved away off screen. The people writing this show have a pretty serious Telling instead of Showing problem. If it didn't keep happening over and over I'd probably not have commented on it. But continually, some potential issue is negated with a single short exchange of dialogue and never heard from again.

Adam walks in and says "the white fang listens to me." And then the fact that a bunch of them died in Mountain Glenn and would be a major wrench in getting people working with Torchwick and company is never mentioned again.

Adam says he has the support of the fang over Sienna, to the point they're down with murdering her and faking her as a martyr, but we are given no set up Or other indication that's the case, other than again, a few short sequences of dialogue.

Tyrian's defeat and loss of limb is treated as a joke and fixed in three sentences, which makes it hard to take it as a serious win or loss for anyone.

They just as easily could have done an equally short sequence showing winged boy stalking the messenger on its way to Haven and fade to black ominously rather than more talking heads and it would have worked way better.