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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
    • gamebrain89 said:
    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.
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    You know if you're going to argue with the walls why even bother using the Quote function? Otherwise if this is supposed to refute any of my points it would help to know which part of my post you were actually responding to. -snip- doesn't really tell me much.
     
    gamebrain89 said:
    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.
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    Another thing to keep in mind is that the creative team behind RWBY has made mention of setbacks. But here's the catch - how many Volumes was it before any of that appeared in RWBY? If you shotgun the entire series in a weekend you can get to that point before the fridge logic sets in. If you watched Volumes 1-3 as they aired that was several years before any of that was shown. You had several years of being irritated by that behavior, several years of it eating away at your suspension of disbelief like acid. And then in Volume 3 the only signs that things aren't implausibly easy for the villains is arguably when Ruby uses her Silver Eyes.

    Sadly I think that's a lesson that the writers at RT still haven't learned.
     
    Mook said:
    You know if you're going to argue with the walls why even bother using the Quote function? Otherwise if this is supposed to refute any of my points it would help to know which part of my post you were actually responding to. -snip- doesn't really tell me much.
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    Seeing as I was trying to be polite and not cover a huge part of the window with a quote, and I directly answered the question you asked at the end of the message immediately proceeding mine, I don't see how it's hard to follow what I said.
     
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    gamebrain89 said:
    Seeing as I was trying to be polite and not cover a huge part of the window with a quote, and I directly answered the question you asked at the end of the message immediately proceeding mine, I don't see how it's hard to follow what I said.
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    Its hard to follow because you say stuff like this:
    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.
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    Which takes it as a given that Tyrian's defeat isn't taken seriously even though you're responding to a huge post where I talked about how the villains do take his defeat seriously. If you disagree with that then it would be nice if you actually responded with actual counter-arguments instead of pretending that said part of my post doesn't exist.

    gamebrain89 said:
    Because it's yet another example of a potential problem for the bad guys being handwaved away off screen.
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    And when you list out a bunch of incidents its hard to tell which part of my post this quote is supposed to refer to when you don't actually include the specific point its arguing against. Are you referring to Tyrian? Or the messenger? Apparently its supposed to be the messenger? Even though neither my post nor your proposed solution has anything to do with how easy or not the villains are having it.


    gamebrain89 said:
    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.
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    How would this have fixed "the villains have it to easy says gamebrain"?

    It would still have been just as easy for the villains we just would have gotten a different perspective. And no they could not have made such a sequence just as easily. For one thing they would have needed to make a character design for the nameless messenger, then they would have needed to make a model for the character, then they would need to make a rig for the character which if you watched the CRWBY episodes you would know takes hours just for something as simple as making sure the model can wave its arms without becoming deformed, they would need to make a appropriate location for the ambush to happen, set up cameras and stuff, find some way to clue us in that this guy is a messenger and this other guy is with the White Fang which is difficult when they're the only two characters in a five to ten second long scene. Etc.

    There is a lot more work needed to make a scene with the messenger getting ambushed in a way that isn't dumb than there is in just having Yuma walk in and say "he rests beneath the waves" when asked about the messenger. The conversation with the Albains was short, precise and effective. It let us know that the messenger was dead, that the Albains ordered the hit, that the hit happened out over the ocean with no witnesses thus showing their competence and it introduces a villain that might take part in the attack on the Belladonna household.

    Your proposed solution would have required at least two scenes, one to establish the messenger as a character and another to show him getting shanked, and it still wouldn't have been as clear as the original scene was.

    gamebrain89 said:
    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.
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    Ghira: Adam Taurus is planning a coup against Sienna Khan.

    Boom. There's your setup. Any competently executed coup involves subverting or removing the military forces controlled by the previous leader. Adam doesn't even need to have gotten anywhere near the majority of Sienna's bodyguards to switch sides, just the few we actually saw in that scene. All he would need is to ensure that only those loyal to him were present when the coup was taking place and he's in the clear, that's the entire point of telling the rest of the Fang that Sienna was killed by a human.

    Also when the people informing us that Sienna is totally on to Adam and is about to take him out are immediately revealed to be on his side that doesn't register as a sign that he has widespread support? o_O

    gamebrain89 said:
    Tyrian's defeat and loss of limb is treated as a joke
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    I feel this is worth going over again. No Tyrian's defeat and limb loss is not treated as a joke. The only person not taking his limb loss seriously is Watts and he immediately becomes more serious when he learns that Ruby was the one who did it and even notes that RNJR needs to be taken seriously after all.

    And for context this is the guy who walks up to a eldritch abomination and starts poking it just so that he can make fun of Cinder for being injured. Watt's spent his entire introduction tearing into Cinder for getting her ass kicked by Ruby so of course he's going to make fun of Tyrian when he hears about him failing.

    Cinder meanwhile is furious about Tyrian failing to capture Ruby and again Salem both treats Ruby being still at large as a extremely serious threat and is shown to be furious with Tyrian for failing at killing Qrow. Just because Tyrian failing didn't immediately cause Salem's entire house of cards to come tumbling down is no reason to think that it was anything other than a clear defeat.
     
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    Mook said:
    Even though neither my post nor your proposed solution has anything to do with how easy or not the villains are having it.
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    Which confuses me why you are arguing about something I wasn't even talking about to start. But fine, in the interest of clarity, You asked why James thought the messenger being killed off screen was stupid.

    Mook said:
    Ghira: Adam Taurus is planning a coup against Sienna Khan."
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    Show, don't tell. And this tells me absolutely nothing other than "One dude is planning a coup with a minimum of 1 other person, Illia." Suddenly jumping into him having the loyalty of the majority of the group present to the point they're down for cold blooded murder of one of their own with no context makes it feel very forced.

    Mook said:
    How would this have fixed "the villains have it to easy says gamebrain"?
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    Not what I was talking about, and again, show, don't tell. Talking heads explaining everything is lazy writing. As to the other point, I'm fully aware how much work animating is. But you can't tell me they don't have no name throw away character rigs handy. Because there is very little chance they don't. They use them in every episode.

    Mook said:
    The conversation with the Albains was short, precise and effective.
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    Again. Show, don't tell. It's lazy writing and they over use it. As I said, if it didn't happen nearly as often as it does I would not be picking at it. It's more than forgivable in small doses. But it's happened over and over, and it gives the impression that they don't give care enough about potential setbacks to the villain to address them with more than a lip service "oh it's been dealt with" line of dialogue.


    Mook said:
    NoTyrian's defeat and limb loss is not treated as a joke.
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    They literally wrote a joke about it into the scene. And see previous. They pay lip service to it being serious but then they go on about there way, with little change to their actual objective or how they are approaching it over all. And Ruby doesn't count as a serious threat to Cinder yet, because from a Doyalist perspective all she is is "Author Fiat" in character form until she gets direct control over the Deus Ex Machina eyes.

    Mook said:
    Just because Tyrian failing didn't immediately cause Salem's entire house of cards to come tumbling down
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    And this is absolutely not what we are saying, in the slightest. But every turn they just continue onward with a vague smile or comment and potential setbacks disappear never to be mentioned again. The music plays up how impressive these kids are and theyre gonna kick ass and the do, superficially. But it really doesnt feel lile they are being treated as such. And I've watched it happen every volume for 5 volumes. It takes away a lot of my investment in the protagonists ability to meaningfully impact anything and you'll have to forgive me for not being able to ignore it.
     
    Nicholai said:
    Cute. That said, I hope you understand the point I was trying to make.
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    Sure not everyone is fan when a show changes it's tone. I mean you can look at Harry Potter for that. Though calling Rwby a dark fantasy at any point is really reaching. The entire framing in the thread of Rwby getting dark is quite weird in general. RWBY went from a Comedy with action to a Shonen with comedy. Having a side character die or bad guys winning a battle is very run of the mill action show after all. Right now the show isn't even as dark as Naruto was that many seasons deep and no one calls Naruto a super dark show.
     
    Tasrill said:
    Sure not everyone is fan when a show changes it's tone. I mean you can look at Harry Potter for that. Though calling Rwby a dark fantasy at any point is really reaching. The entire framing in the thread of Rwby getting dark is quite weird in general. RWBY went from a Comedy with action to a Shonen with comedy. Having a side character die or bad guys winning a battle is very run of the mill action show after all. Right now the show isn't even as dark as Naruto was that many seasons deep and no one calls Naruto a super dark show.
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    Hell the darkest moments have some of the best jokes in RWBY. Like when they're fighting that giant horse Grimm and it's super dramatic and Ren is freaking out they still take time to throw in a joke about Ren accidentally getting a look up Nora's skirt. It's short and manages not to ruin the drama, which is damn hard to pull off, but it helps to let some emotion out of the scene so the audience isn't overwhelmed. They do that in a lot of the show, give the audience a release valve to keep things from getting too bogged down. This is a very clear choice on their part to avoid making the show too dark.
     
    Tasrill said:
    Sure not everyone is fan when a show changes it's tone. I mean you can look at Harry Potter for that. Though calling Rwby a dark fantasy at any point is really reaching. The entire framing in the thread of Rwby getting dark is quite weird in general. RWBY went from a Comedy with action to a Shonen with comedy. Having a side character die or bad guys winning a battle is very run of the mill action show after all. Right now the show isn't even as dark as Naruto was that many seasons deep and no one calls Naruto a super dark show.
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    Welcome to subjective views and complicated definitions.

    Is RWBY dark by your standards? Apparently not. But not everyone agrees with you. And the single most common complaint I've heard about RWBY from the fans who dropped it was something along the lines of "It went too dark." Thus the label I am using. Finally consider that the end of Volume 3 was pretty dark. And it stayed pretty dark consistently. There was very little humor. The more recent Volumes there's a lot more humor. So the mix of "light" to "dark" is more "gray" than Volume 3 was.

    VolantRedX said:
    Hell the darkest moments have some of the best jokes in RWBY. Like when they're fighting that giant horse Grimm and it's super dramatic and Ren is freaking out they still take time to throw in a joke about Ren accidentally getting a look up Nora's skirt. It's short and manages not to ruin the drama, which is damn hard to pull off, but it helps to let some emotion out of the scene so the audience isn't overwhelmed. They do that in a lot of the show, give the audience a release valve to keep things from getting too bogged down. This is a very clear choice on their part to avoid making the show too dark.
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    .. and I got Blake'd on the same point while typing this. Got to love the internet.

    Speaking of subjective views, in my experience the people I know IRL who enjoy RWBY the most tend to be people who also enjoy Attack on Titan and WH40K. Those are both considered grim and dark works. Is that the entire RWBY fandom? Of course not. But it does affect my subjective view of the RWBY fandom.
     
    Nicholai said:
    Welcome to subjective views and complicated definitions.

    Is RWBY dark by your standards? Apparently not. But not everyone agrees with you. And the single most common complaint I've heard about RWBY from the fans who dropped it was something along the lines of "It went too dark." Thus the label I am using. Finally consider that the end of Volume 3 was pretty dark. And it stayed pretty dark consistently. There was very little humor. The more recent Volumes there's a lot more humor. So the mix of "light" to "dark" is more "gray" than Volume 3 was.


    .. and I got Blake'd on the same point while typing this. Got to love the internet.

    Speaking of subjective views, in my experience the people I know IRL who enjoy RWBY the most tend to be people who also enjoy Attack on Titan and WH40K. Those are both considered grim and dark works. Is that the entire RWBY fandom? Of course not. But it does affect my subjective view of the RWBY fandom.
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    I mean RWBY certainly has it's dark moments, and there are times where it seems like they're having a real debate over if they're making a show that kids would relate to or one geared mostly to their adult fanbase. So I don't depute the recent volumes are darker in tone, I just don't think it's to a great degree, or at least not as great a degree as people in the fandom make it out to be. A lot of the "dark" parts seem to coincide with a simple rise in the stakes of the narrative.
     
    VolantRedX said:
    I mean RWBY certainly has it's dark moments, and there are times where it seems like they're having a real debate over if they're making a show that kids would relate to or one geared mostly to their adult fanbase. So I don't depute the recent volumes are darker in tone, I just don't think it's to a great degree, or at least not as great a degree as people in the fandom make it out to be. A lot of the "dark" parts seem to coincide with a simple rise in the stakes of the narrative.
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    Right. And that's your entirely valid, entirely subjective viewpoint. But do me a favor and think back to when Volume 3 was airing. I assume you were part of the RWBY fandom at the time. Do you recall the people going on the RT forums and posting about how they were cancelling their RT subscription because of RWBY? Do you recall the people getting into flame wars on the RT forums? Or on SB and SV? All of those people had entirely valid, entirely subjective views about how dark the show was getting.

    Just like yours.

    Now consider that internet shouting match between fans. Given that it went on for weeks or months, depending on where you were looking at it, I'd say that the tone shift was pretty significant. But, and here's the important part, was it significant to you, VolantRedX, personally? If the show shifted from something you enjoyed to something you also enjoyed I'd guess the effect was minimal. If it shifted from something you sort-of-enjoyed to something you greatly enjoyed then it was a positive, significant change. And for those fans who dropped RWBY it was a significant change from something they enjoyed to something they didn't enjoy at all.

    But, again, all of that is subjective to the viewer.
     
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    Nicholai said:
    Right. And that's your entirely valid, entirely subjective viewpoint. But do me a favor and think back to when Volume 3 was airing. I assume you were part of the RWBY fandom at the time. Do you recall the people going on the RT forums and posting about how they were cancelling their RT subscription because of RWBY? Do you recall the people getting into flame wars on the RT forums? Or on SB and SV? All of those people had entirely valid, entirely subjective views about how dark the show was getting.

    Just like yours.

    Now consider that internet shouting match between fans. Given that it went on for weeks or months, depending on where you were looking at it, I'd say that the tone shift was pretty significant. But, and here's the important part, was it significant to you, VolantRedX, personally? If the show shifted from something you enjoyed to something you also enjoyed I'd guess the effect was minimal. If it shifted from something you sort-of-enjoyed to something you greatly enjoyed then it was a positive, significant change. And for those fans who dropped RWBY it was a significant change from something they enjoyed to something they didn't enjoy at all.

    But, again, all of that is subjective to the viewer.
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    I'm not arguing with you. I'm not even disagreeing with you. Why are you trying to debate a point we're agreeing on?
     
    Nicholai said:
    Welcome to subjective views and complicated definitions.

    Is RWBY dark by your standards? Apparently not. But not everyone agrees with you. And the single most common complaint I've heard about RWBY from the fans who dropped it was something along the lines of "It went too dark." Thus the label I am using. Finally consider that the end of Volume 3 was pretty dark. And it stayed pretty dark consistently. There was very little humor. The more recent Volumes there's a lot more humor. So the mix of "light" to "dark" is more "gray" than Volume 3 was.


    .. and I got Blake'd on the same point while typing this. Got to love the internet.

    Speaking of subjective views, in my experience the people I know IRL who enjoy RWBY the most tend to be people who also enjoy Attack on Titan and WH40K. Those are both considered grim and dark works. Is that the entire RWBY fandom? Of course not. But it does affect my subjective view of the RWBY fandom.
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    Okay let's use comparisons since I am not seeing how RWBY is in the same space as Attack on Titan and WH40k. First what is an action show or season of a show that is less dark than season 3 RWBY. Second what is a show or season of a show that is just as dark as season 3 RWBY. We can even go back to Harry Potter and ask which book of Harry Potter is season 3 or is season 3 darker than Book 7 in your opinion?
     
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    VolantRedX said:
    I'm not arguing with you. I'm not even disagreeing with you. Why are you trying to debate a point we're agreeing on?
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    Sorry, this is one of those things that drives me NUTS in real life. I've got a group of friends who get together to play board games, watch movies, and occasionally MST3K things. There are sub-groups who like and loathe RWBY. They are always trying to convince one another that their view is the right view. The rest of us usually cut them off before it gets to far but the point that neither sub-group is willing to admit is, hey, art is subjective. Thus I tend to rant about it.

    Seriously, my apologies again.
     
    The thing that burns my ass about RWBY, even as someone who wasn't that interested in the first place, is the complete gulf between what it originally seemed to want to be and what it actually was. Like, look at the original trailers and marketing for the thing. It built itself up as this thing that was going be highly stylized, somewhat surreal, with high octane action mixed in with melancholy. Even if the trailers were all flash and no substance, the flash looked interesting and unique.

    Then it comes to actual show and it's like they went out of their way to make the thing as blandly conventional as humanly possible. The entire fucking setup of the story taking place in a battle school is like the polar opposite of the kind of dramatic, action driven adventure story the trailers were selling to us. Which, by the way, is partially why Jaune is a shit character, because he's emblematic of the series retreating into the tired and conventional instead living up to the potential of it's aesthetic.

    It makes me wonder if anyone actually gave that much of a fuck about the series, even Monty Oum, if they didn't have a plan beyond the initial aesthetics of the marketing materiel and just didn't bother trying to turn that style into a story. I can't even say that RWBY is all style and no substance, because even the style of the show as it is is so much less than what it should be.

    And by the way, the complaints about the story getting too 'dark' melt my brain. Because the series as per it's few attempts at thematics and whatever remains of it's original aesthetic should be at least a bit darker than it is. We've got, what? Grimm fairy tales references, winter and autumn imagery, parental issues, gothy faux J-rock with depressing lyrics, everything about the series that isn't painted over with a coat of lame sub-fanfic crap points to a series that should be a hell of a lot more dramatic and melancholy than it is.
     
    Maybe this show is an example of how Rule of Cool can't save everything.

    ...On the bright side, it was very cute catching Jaune set the table with chopsticks like that!
     
    Unwatching the thread 'cause honestly, I enjoy the show and I'm done seeing people rag on it. You're welcome to your opinion, and I'm welcome to not have to see it.

    Fully Operational Ginger Robot Out.
     
    Shadows said:
    Unwatching the thread 'cause honestly, I enjoy the show and I'm done seeing people rag on it. You're welcome to your opinion, and I'm welcome to not have to see it.

    Fully Operational Ginger Robot Out.
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    We criticize because we care, or at least I do. I suppose I can't speak for anyone else. If you want to act like it's a personal insult and make a big show over it, that's your choice. Bye!
     
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    I actually really like where RWBY is at right now. This is sort of what I hopped the show would be like: adventure, mystery, magic, and a looming threat to defeat. Seems more interesting than another Shonen Battle School anime.
     
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