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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
    • Definitely. In fact, judging from Neo's extremely technical and elegant fighting style, Yang's Semblance was entirely negated here. Yang's abilities revolve around being a tank--she soaks up hits that by all rights should pulp her, and turns it into overwhelming might for herself. But against several precise blows, she doesn't absorb nearly enough power to make up for the damage taken. Whereas against most foes overkill is preferable to ensure their demise, against Yang the best way to take her down is a death of a thousand cuts.
     
    mysterius said:
    As well as deflecting or sidestepping Yang's strikes, Neo seemed to reflect some of Yang's attacks against her (see the first punch Yang opened up with). I think that might have confused Yang's semblance, assuming Yang can't punch herself to get fired up. Neo landed relatively few strikes of her own and only moved in for the kill after Yang tired herself out.

    (Also, I love Neo's expression when she prepared to stab Yang. Even if she remains a mute character, she's still gaining personality.)

    Weiss put up a better fight against the White Fang lieutenant than Yang did against Neo, but she lost because her fighting style is more formal (see her internal thoughts when facing the pack of Beowolves in Volume 1) and she can be taken off guard by fisticuffs (see the Black Knight in Weiss's trailer).

    I'm not sure if Weiss would have won against Neo, but Yang would certainly have fared better against chainsaw dude. Kind of funny how they should have swapped opponents.
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    This is the kind of theorycrafting I love. (Insert rant about biggatons here)
     
    Sinsystems said:
    Also am I the only one who things something is up with Neo, when the Mystery Woman arrived her 'oh crap' reaction seemed a little bit too quick.
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    Wasn't it mentioned somewhere that the more intricate the grimm mask, the higher up in the White Fang you are? Or am I completely misremembering that?

    Because if its true, Mystery Woman would very visibly be one of the higher ranking members of the White Fang. One glance at the head gear would be all that's needed for an 'Oh crap' reaction.
     
    Nah, I think the only mention of the mask's appearance and the White Fang was that someone early on started it (and an implication that the person might have been Adam). Every other mask we've seen besides chainsaw guy's has been exactly the same, regardless of apparent rank. If the mask denotes rank, they did a good job of keeping that hidden.
     
    God, I loved this episode. Something to note as well: a good chunk of Beacon's senior staff are off shepherding the first-years. Unless they've gotten back by now, that's a significant chunk of Beacon's experienced manpower missing.
     
    I suspect Weiss and Yang would have destroyed their respective opponents if they'd switched opponents, actually. :V

    Also, Blake combining her Semblance with Dust to create clones with varying effects was awesome.
     
    Neo is not stupid.

    You saw that revolving dust weapon selector like on Wiess's sword? There was dozens of selections.

    Only a full Huntress would have something like that. And she was a full grown adult.

    Neo may be good, even awesome, but I highly doubt she is on the level of a fully trained huntress.

    Neo was very right in leaving as quickly as possible.
     
    Seriously, if a lady wearing an awesomely scary mask with a really frigging long sword shows up with the intention to fuck your shit up unless you get the hell out ASAP, you get the hell out, ASAP.
     
    Nidhoggr said:
    Yeah, that's probable, it did seem like she recognized her, but we just don't know yet, so we'll have to wait.
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    In the meantime, team RWBY has to deal with the pest problem that developing in the city. The good news is that between the Doc and Zwei they probably won't have to deal with any White Fang mechs.
     
    I usually try to keep from speculating myself, I prefer to just let things come as I watch them, but....with Mysterious Red Lady, I can't help a specific speculation coming into mind here.

    I do think this is Mama Xiao Long we're looking at here.

    And I think we have a Darth Vader-ish situation on our hands.

    When she first appeared, I was really confused--she looks by all rights to be an exceptionally high-placed White Fang member, either second-in-command or outright leader, with her obvious power if not the fanciness of her mask. But it is a Grimmified mask, the same motif of the White Fang. Unless there's something that hasn't been introduced yet, only the White Fang are known to wear Grimm masks.

    This then brought the question: If Mysterious Red is with the White Fang, why is she attacking Neo? And if she's protecting Yang, then why didn't she do anything else about the train going on?

    Her hip-skirt that is almost identical to Yang's is suspiciously coincidental to me, and with the comments that "we've been looking at a half-faunus this whole time", I think it's very plausible that Mysterious Red is indeed a faunus, and is indeed Mama Xiao Long. Sucal's catch that her portal seemed -very- similar to "ominous blasty shadow orb" in the first volume intro, plus the fact that she didn't do anything about the train, makes me think she is indeed White Fang through and through--and possibly the bigger bad behind even Cinder.

    Here's what I think might have happened (everything from here operating under the assumption that Mystery Red is Mama X.L.).

    We know Mama Xiao Long was once a Huntress, on a team with Taiyang Xiao Long, Summer Rose, and Qrow. But then, right after having a kid with Papa Xiao Long, she up and left. If she was a Faunus, she might have been actually drawn to the White Fang after one instance of discrimination too many (and also didn't want Yang to suffer anything because of her heritage). She would have joined the White Fang before they turned violent--Blake was also born around this time (same age as Yang), and as a child, the White Fang were still relatively peaceful. With the idea that Mama Xiao Long is a high-ranker due to her power and mask...then she either was completely on board with, or even entirely behind the White Fang's violent turn, for whatever reasons she might have. She might be working directly with Cinder, and entirely believes in whatever this master plan is that involves setting Grimm on a blood rampage through Vale. But...

    Yang is still her daughter, and that counts for something.

    Mysterious Red didn't show up until Neo was actually about to coup de grace a K.O.'d Yang, and only swiped at Neo a few times--and wasn't even really trying to hit Neo, or at least that's what it seemed like to me. But Mysterious Red was undoubtedly telling Neo to fuck off, and--as has already been pointed out--Mysterious Red didn't do anything about the train.

    I think Mysterious Red is behind this plan. I think she wants it to succeed--but at the same time, she doesn't want her daughter to actually die. So she basically popped in on Neo, who was about to straight-up kill a helpless Yang, not even in a fight anymore, which is probably a tad bit over RoE. Mysterious Red was telling Neo "You might be working on the same plan as me but don't you fucking dare kill my daughter or I will fucking end you." To which Neo was all "Shit shit sorry madam sorry I'm going now bye D: " Hence me saying Darth Vader-esque; Mysterious Red could be Mama Xiao Long, and she could be an out-and-out antagonist here.

    And that's my speculation.
     
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    Wild speculation:

    Turns out Yang's Mom is secretly a faunus all along(with very subtle hints to her race), and Yang is none the wiser about her heritage.
     
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    NephyrisX said:
    Wild speculation:

    Turns out Yang's Mom is secretly a faunus all along(with very subtle hints to her race), and Yang is none the wiser about her heritage.
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    I figured that with Ozpin mentioning Ruby having Silver eyes that meant she was the faunus we didn't recognize. I also think that the specific reason that Ozpin doesn't follow the conventional naming scheme is because he's from another world just like the Wizard of Oz he's named after.
     
    Alternatively, Ozpin's aged exceptionally well. :V There would still be people alive who were alive during the last war.

    Aura extends lifespans confirmed. :p
     
    LordPanther14 said:
    I figured that with Ozpin mentioning Ruby having Silver eyes that meant she was the faunus we didn't recognize.
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    I assumed that was because her eyes are the same colour as Summer's. Or Taiyang's. He knew their parents, that's what I'm getting at.

    horngeek said:
    Alternatively, Ozpin's aged exceptionally well.
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    He probably has, Monty did say in a livestream that Ozpin has been around for a long time. Maybe his Semblance keeps him from getting old or something. Or, maybe the Ozpin that we see isn't really him but some sort of projection controlled by the actual Ozpin, kinda like the Wizard he's based off of.

    That would fit in with the bit from episode 3 of Volume 1 where Ruby and Yang react to Ozpin's speech:

    Yang: He seemed kind of... off.

    Ruby: It's almost like he wasn't even there.
     
    An interesting analysis of Neo's ever-changing eyes. Thanks to Jomasten for sharing this on Tumblr.

    rwby-rose said:
    I was super excited to see her eyes change to a third color! I think the white being there along with the brown and pink really rounds out the neopolitan in Neo, ahaha~.

    …

    I wrote the rest of this post before this part: these are my speculated 'rules' for Neo's eye colors, and you can keep them in mind for the lengthy, guided explanation that follows and compare for consistency as you please:

    • When eye colors are on the sides that do not match the hair, it is a 'transitional' blink between expressions.
    • Eye colors being on the sides that match the hair means, loosely, recognition of a situation.
    • White in any eye indicates intense feelings.
    • Both eyes matching indicate strong familiarity.
    You might notice that I've specifically avoided putting a name, ie: happiness/fear/etc. for any of the feelings aside from familiarity. This is very intentional, because (for reasons that I will explain in this post), I believe the eye colors cover broad ground as far as what they could mean. The most Neo's eyes will tell is when her emotional state changes: but it's up to the viewer to infer exactly what it is she's feeling.

    …

    With regards to white eyes, one eye is white even before seeing Lady Grimm-



    The eye on the brown side of her hair turns white when she's moving in on Yang. Given that Yang is unconscious and unresponsive and helpless at this point, she doesn't really have a reason to be afraid yet, so that leads me to believe that the white eyes are not exclusively reserved for fear: I think the white eyes mean that she is very intensely feeling emotion, be it excitement/fear/etc.

    Furthermore, when her eye color matches the side with the corresponding hair color, her expression consistently (save for one instance; I'll be returning to this later) becomes more self-assured, and also indicates the recognition of Yang as a rival:



    and when the eyes/hair color are mismatched, it appears to be something of a 'transitional' expression between emotions:



    Here she is again, taking in the unexpected situation of someone else appearing. It's kind of hard to explain, but the pink eye being on the side with the brown hair appears to be an 'in-between' expression, where she's sizing up her competition/the situation. Moving on to the next image:



    -in the space of a moment are two brown eyes -> mismatched pink/brown on opposite sides to the hair -> both brown again. I'm going to propose that two matching eyes are indicative of strong familiarity. She knows the train. She looks up, 'processes' the fact that Yang is right in front of her, that 'in-between' expression again, and then-yes, she's VERY familiar with Yang, the one who attacked her back in episode four.

    For the duration of her fight with Yang, up until she's going in for what would've undoubtedly been the kill, her eye colors remain on the sides that are the same as her hair color. There's no 'in-between' expression: there's no surprises in this fight for her at all. Yang can't touch her. There's nothing for her to figure out, and it's laughably effortless for her.

    And then, there's the surprise appearance of Lady Grimm:



    There are three changes in this image with regard to her eyes that are kind of hard to see, so here:



    The first frame, keeping in mind that this is the continuation of the gif where she turns at the first sign of Lady Grimm's presence, still 'transitioning' between surprise and the realization that follows:



    Then, the eye colors are on sides that match the hair, so she knows something about the new situation she's found herself in. But it's different than with Yang. These are the same eye colors she's had for the entirety of her fight with Yang, where she all but decimated her. She recognizes the presence of a rival. But-



    -her eyes go white. They match. This indicates strong familiarity, and intense feeling that not even murdering Yang would've inspired in her. And it's NOT good, at least not for Neo. She knows this person and very likely knows that she could die in an instant right here if she does anything but flee. And it doesn't take any keen analysis to see the fear plainly on her face.

    With all this on the table, I'd like to suggest that Neo almost certainly does not control her eye color herself: she wouldn't have a reason to show her emotional hand to a potential opponent. We've never 'seen' the eyes change color: it happens during a blink. The most she could do to control what she shows, in that case, is to not blink.

    It's pretty early in the game to guess too much about Neo. But one possibility is that maybe Penny isn't the only robot, and every time Neo blinks her body runs a 'check' on her emotions and the eye colors display accordingly.

    Or, she's not a robot, and the eyes changing is just a part of her aura/semblance/something.

    But it's fun to think about. Also, I hope it goes without saying that I'm just speculating and that I'm not holding it as fact, only possibility.

    TL;DR: Neo might be a robot idk
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    They released the song Team JNPR danced to on Dropbox during the Extra Life stream!
     
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