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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
    • Mook said:
    My personal hope for the future is that his family built their house on one of those floating island things and live a nomadic life sailing around Remnant. It could explain him going to vacation in frontier towns like Shion while still seeming to be so sheltered.
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    That's silly as hell and would come right the hell out of left field, IMO. It is, however, a hilarious mental image to think of them having to childproof a flying island to keep baby Jaune from splattering to his death every time he tripped over his feet.

    Mook said:
    Alright. I concede that some actual fans bought into your theories. Those theories are still complete and utter bullshit.
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    I feel like we're now long past the point where both sides should really have just dropped the subject.
     
    Leingod said:
    I feel like we're now long past the point where both sides should really have just dropped the subject.
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    Fair.

    Leingod said:
    That's silly as hell and would come right the hell out of left field. It is, however, a hilarious mental image to think of them having to childproof a giant island to keep baby Jaune from splattering to his death every time he tripped over his feet.
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    That is a hilarious mental image. Thank you for that. :lol


    Commission: Floating Island Tavern

    This was what spawned the idea.
     
    Incidentally, when it isn't devolving into personal attacks and claims of deceit, intellectual dishonesty and/or stupidity, I quite like debating the merits of RWBY, because I feel like it pushes me to identify and articulate the things I like about it. Things like the use of obvious and subtle body language despite the massive limitations in their animation, which is one example of something I never really thought about until people started asking what I actually liked about the show.

    There is a lot more to like about this show than just the flashy fight scenes and interesting designs in my opinion, so I'm actually grateful when someone's critique pushes me to reevaluate the show, since a lot of the time it leads to me either better articulating what I like about it or just learning some new bit of context from someone's observation or hearing a headcanon that I think is cool.

    But then one, the other or both sides of a discussion takes it personally, says something or a lot of somethines, and then the mods get called in. Being a RWBY fan is a complicated experience, sometimes.
     
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    Leila Hann said:
    Thank you for making this point, as I think it highlights the issue that quite a few posters (including myself) have failed to communicate to each other.

    When you're looking at a work of fiction, there's always the dichotomy between what the characters are doing, and what the writers are doing. "Psychopath Yang" was a product of me looking at what the writers had done, and trying to read some kind of sensible characterization into their creation. She wasn't always written in a way that lends itself to that interpretation, but it happened often enough (and mostly toward the beginning of the show) that it was my best fit solution for quite a while.

    What caused me to STOP my Let's Watch, by the way, is also related to this. The bad and inconsistent writing got to the point where I could no longer force myself to see any of the characters as people at all, or the setting as an actual world. Best fit solutions stopped working. And, at that point, there's not much use in trying to engage with the work.
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    The best part is that you stopped right at the point where the show actually seems to gain a lot more consistent storytelling and narrative thought, even if it's still basically middling. That to me is the funniest part of all of this. RWBY is really basically average. If you can enjoy it for what it is, an action cartoon aimed at teenagers, it usually hits about a 6.5 to a 7 out of 10. It's neither good enough to defend to hilt like some people on this site do. Nor is it really all that bad compared to a lot of shit that gets a lot more budget and manpower than a small time web cartoon made by a bunch of first time creators. Yeah a lot of shit has no more explanation beyond "this needed to happen because that's the plot we set up so deal with it" but that's not unusual for the genre RWBY is aping. Shows like Kim Possible, Danny Phantom and even Teen Titans would often just have things happen because that's just what the story called for. It needed to happen for the plot to unfold and you're really not supposed to think too hard about it, it's just a show after all. So I think that the debate shouldn't be a matter of recognizing if these flaws exist, they objectively do, but whether you're willing to simply go along with it because it's not really all that important in the end.

    RWBY works really well if at any point you have a question to just tell yourself "it's just a show I should just relax". Even then RWBY is hardly a work of art, but it's not all that bad.
     
    Leila Hann said:
    I don't know how many times I need to tell you that this was definitely not the case in the thread's early pages, and that people like @Jcogginsa and @hellgodsrus were among my most frequent contributers to begin with, but if you're not willing to accept that easily verifiable fact and engage with me accordingly, well, I did my best.
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    I also left when it became clear that the thread had become a hatesink for all things RWBY. Which wasn't your fault, I stress to add. But I think given that - and given the fact that so many in favour voices left, or didn't join because of that reputation - the thread did become an echo chamber in the almost literal sense. I have an odd definition of fan that I know you disagree with but - and I add this to @Mook as well given that he's now probably under the impression I completely agree with you - I would not characterise anyone who was still posting in the thread last I read it (about the start of Volume 3) as a fan of the show in any real way.

    EDIT: And I've just noticed we all agreed to drop this. Uh, ignore me?
     
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    VolantRedX said:
    The best part is that you stopped right at the point where the show actually seems to gain a lot more consistent storytelling and narrative thought, even if it's still basically middling. That to me is the funniest part of all of this. RWBY is really basically average. If you can enjoy it for what it is, an action cartoon aimed at teenagers, it usually hits about a 6.5 to a 7 out of 10. It's neither good enough to defend to hilt like some people on this site do. Nor is it really all that bad compared to a lot of shit that gets a lot more budget and manpower than a small time web cartoon made by a bunch of first time creators. Yeah a lot of shit has no more explanation beyond "this needed to happen because that's the plot we set up so deal with it" but that's not unusual for the genre RWBY is aping. Shows like Kim Possible, Danny Phantom and even Teen Titans would often just have things happen because that's just what the story called for. It needed to happen for the plot to unfold and you're really not supposed to think too hard about it, it's just a show after all. So I think that the debate shouldn't be a matter of recognizing if these flaws exist, they objectively do, but whether you're willing to simply go along with it because it's not really all that important in the end.

    RWBY works really well if at any point you have a question to just tell yourself "it's just a show I should just relax". Even then RWBY is hardly a work of art, but it's not all that bad.
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    Personally, I like RWBY more than even my opinion on its merits should really allow for. For me, at least, the show holds a kind of charm to it that I can't really place and that I don't really see very often in most other shows I've watched (and I've watched pretty much every one of these shows you're comparing it to). I especially really like the characters and grew really attached to them over time.

    hellgodsrus said:
    I also left when it became clear that the thread had become a hatesink for all things RWBY. Which wasn't your fault, I stress to add. But I think given that - and given the fact that so many in favour voices left, or didn't join because of that reputation - the thread did become an echo chamber in the almost literal sense. I have an odd definition of fan that I know you disagree with but - and I add this to @Mook as well given that he's now probably under the impression I completely agree with you - I would not characterise anyone who was still posting in the thread last I read it (about the start of Volume 3) as a fan of the show in any real way.
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    Well, I've seen people on there say, for example, that Volume 5 had a much better ending than Volume 3 and actually listing things they liked about it, so there's that.

    EDIT: But yes, let's agree to stop right here and now.
     
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    Oh! You know what else Jaune being a farm kid would have worked well with? His seven sisters. Farmers in general usually want to have big families so that there's plenty of laborers that you don't have to pay in actual money.
     
    Leingod said:
    Oh! You know what else Jaune being a farm kid would have worked well with? His seven sisters. Farmers in general usually want to have big families so that there's plenty of laborers that you don't have to pay in actual money.
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    Who knows, they could still have some kind of agricultural background. Or maybe they were religious of the "go forth and multiply type"... Or maybe they just never bothered using birth control. Jaune's parents being a bit ditzy would honestly explain so much. :D
     
    Mook said:
    Who knows, they could still have some kind of agricultural background. Or maybe they were religious of the "go forth and multiply type"... Or maybe they just never bothered using birth control. Jaune's parents being a bit ditzy would honestly explain so much. :D
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    Or they just really, really wanted a son for some reason and kept trying until they got one, like a reverse Weasley situation.

    ... Oh my God, Jaune Arc is Ron Weasley. How did I not realize this?
     
    Leingod said:
    Or they just really, really wanted a son for some reason and kept trying until they got one, like a reverse Weasley situation.

    ... Oh my God, Jaune Arc is Ron Weasley. How did I not realize this?
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    In some ways?

    I'd say he's closer to Harry in others, with his fish out of water thing. They just forgot the part about him actually having a reason to be a fish out of water.
     
    Leila Hann said:
    In some ways?

    I'd say he's closer to Harry in others, with his fish out of water thing. They just forgot the part about him actually having a reason to be a fish out of water.
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    Well, yeah, it's not a perfect comparison (thankfully), I was mostly just making the joke based on the family thing. The number seven even factors in there, except that Ron was one of seven children, total, while Jaune has seven sisters. Seven is a "magic" number that appears all the time in fairy tales, incidentally.

    The familiarity with the wizarding world is definitely something Ron had that Jaune emphatically doesn't; most of the similarities lie in things like how Jaune is the one who generally contributes the least in tangible terms (Harry was the best at DADA, Hermione was the best at everything else, Ron generally either provided backup in fights or emotional support otherwise, minus a few standout moments), how he's the one who's usually the butt of physical comedy, the strong implications of self-loathing over what they perceive as their own mediocrity/uselessness (Ron feeling like he can never match up to anything his brothers haven't already done and feeling overshadowed by his friends, Jaune plainly recognizing and hating himself for essentially being "the idiot stuck in a tree while his friends fight for their lives" and whose only proposed alternatives to becoming a Huntsman includes a dark joke about suicide that make me, as someone who has experienced suicidal depression and made jokes exactly like that, distinctly uncomfortable).
     
    Leingod said:
    Well, yeah, it's not a perfect comparison (thankfully), I was mostly just making the joke based on the family thing. The number seven even factors in there, except that Ron was one of seven children, total, while Jaune has seven sisters. Seven is a "magic" number that appears all the time in fairy tales, incidentally.

    The familiarity with the wizarding world is definitely something Ron had that Jaune emphatically doesn't; most of the similarities lie in things like how Jaune is the one who generally contributes the least in tangible terms (Harry was the best at DADA, Hermione was the best at everything else, Ron generally either provided backup in fights or emotional support otherwise, minus a few standout moments), how he's the one who's usually the butt of physical comedy, the strong implications of self-loathing over what they perceive as their own mediocrity/uselessness (Ron feeling like he can never match up to anything his brothers haven't already done and feeling overshadowed by his friends, Jaune plainly recognizing and hating himself for essentially being "the idiot stuck in a tree while his friends fight for their lives" and whose only proposed alternatives to becoming a Huntsman includes a dark joke about suicide that make me, as someone who has experienced suicidal depression and made jokes exactly like that, distinctly uncomfortable).
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    Yeah.

    Honestly, Rowling hinted at something interesting with Ron in the early books, with him being an exceptional chess player. If she had built on that and made him the "tactical thinking guy" in general, it would have made him less of a buttmonkey as the series went on.*

    RWBY seems to be trying to do the same thing with Jaune. But as far as I've seen, the only practical examples are him saying Nora and Pyrrha's names during "Players and Pieces" and them immediately doing things that its really not clear if they would have done on their own anyway, him calling the useless group huddle in "New Arrivals," and him suggesting a plan to defeat the Geist in "The Next Step" which his teammates promptly ignore. If he actually gets to BE a tactician later on in the series as opposed to just being called one, then that would definitely help.




    *Not that chess players neccessarily ARE always good at general tactics in real life, but in fiction chess skill is often used as a marker for that. And, well, I'd rather have had one more cliche added to the series' pile of them than suffered through some of Ron's treatment in the later books.
     
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    Leila Hann said:
    Honestly, Rowling hinted at something interesting with Ron in the early books, with him being an exceptional chess player. If she had built on that and made him the "tactical thinking guy" in general, it would have made him less of a buttmonkey as the series went on.*
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    Yeah. I tend to disagree with people who say Ron was a terrible or useless character; I just think he was a wasted one. He didn't change or develop as much or as quickly as I felt he should have, and that left him a character who wasn't really fulfilling the role I believe he was meant to. Which is a similar complaint I have with Jaune, funny enough.

    RWBY seems to be trying to do the same thing with Jaune. But as far as I've seen, the only practical examples are him saying Nora and Pyrrha's names during "Players and Pieces" and them immediately doing things that its really not clear if they would have done on their own anyway, him calling the useless group huddle in "New Arrivals," and him suggesting a plan to defeat the Geist in "The Next Step" which his teammates promptly ignore. If he actually gets to BE a tactician later on in the series as opposed to just being called one, then that would definitely help.
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    Well, he does give some actual tactics before the stupid team huddle, like ordering them all behind cover to think of a plan (though unfortunately they made yet another joke of it by having him shout "Retreat!" to do it), where he quickly laid out an actual plan: Jaune and Pyrrha hold off the melee guys, Ren distracts and if possible neutralizes the sniper, Nora gets to the top of the mountain to power up. He also orders Pyrrha to go defend Nora when the sniper switches targets. It's not exactly Sokka-level stuff, but it was something, at least.

    Incidentally, that first fight in Volume 4 definitely struck me as trying to play Jaune as being like Sokka, but failing miserably because they pushed the joke too hard. Sokka took comical injuries and relayed simple but effective plans in really stupid terms, too, but the characters still quickly realized it and praised him for his quick thinking when it was over. Jaune was just a joke start to finish.

    EDIT: At least now he's got a pretty useful support-oriented Semblance that will make him much more useful in and out of fights going forward without just making him a straight-up better fighter. I definitely appreciate that he is now a proper Paladin.

    *Not that chess players neccessarily ARE always good at general tactics in real life, but in fiction chess skill is often used as a marker for that. And, well, I'd rather have had one more cliche added to the series' pile of them than suffered through some of Ron's treatment in the later books.
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    It's one more little thing I really liked about Yang Wen-li from Legend of the Galactic Heroes: despite being far and away the best strategist in an entire series centered around great strategists, he's not very good at chess, and the reason for that makes sense. He's famous for making "miracles," for doing something unexpected and seemingly impossible that his enemies never expect or see coming to secure victory. He can't really do that in a game that's been as exhaustively analyzed and studied and is so regimented in its rules and high-level play as chess, so he's mediocre at best when he plays it. I'd like to see more subversions of the trope like that.
     
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    Stop: OH GOD NOT AGAIN
  • Staff Post
    • oh god not again I have spent the last two days dealing with RWBY Thread storms. This is getting tedious.
    Zam said:
    Or I could be mad at the person deliberately misconstruing the entire story/character for the purposes of bashing I have my issues with RWBY but this is both rude and intellectually dishonest.
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    These are serious, not very polite suggestions. This is your freebie. The next time you decide to accuse someone of being 'both rude and intellectually dishonest' for disagreeing with your interpretation of a character, it's an infraction unless you can really, really prove it. And having read both threads and watched the show myself to check, no, this would not qualify.
    Mook said:
    Next is..... Wow. I thought I was used to your insanity but this really takes the cake. Could you please stop fucking lying? :rage:
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    This is your freebie, since 'Could you please stop fucking lying?' is way past civil discussion.
    mistakenot said:
    All else aside, this claim displays egregious bad faith.
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    This is yours. No, this post displays disagreeing with your view, honestly derived. Accusations like this can lead to points.
    Mook said:
    Indeed.

    Edit:
    (Oh yeah, in case some people didn't get it, the joke is that Zwei is capable of using box cutters to open the cans of dog food)
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    You already had your freebie, so this is a flat official warning.
    Zam said:
    You don't get to tell me what I can be mad at.
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    The same applies for you. You don't get to descend to 'rude and intellectually dishonest' for her being mad at the bad writing, and calling her a liar about it.
    Jcogginsa said:
    I got banned from that thread because I didn't go along with the Echo Chamber. It was 100 percent an echo chamber
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    You were banned, as was pointed out, for flipping your shit and resorting to bold, extra large font accusations of other posters being liars. By a different mod, too, so unless we're all part of the conspiracy, you were not banned for 'not going along with the Echo Chamber'.
    Mook said:
    Oh you are just adorable. But seriously though, Leila, have you considered that maybe the problem is you?
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    Mook said:
    Stuff like this just makes it seem completely pointless. Why bother arguing with you when you are so clearly debating in bad faith? You go around accusing us of making desperate attempts to insert headcanons while still clinging to one of the most blatantly reaching cases of headcanon I have ever seen.
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    Mook said:
    Actually the best you can do is to actually consider why so many people think that you're intentionally misconstruing the show and reconsider if the arguments you've made that made them accuse you off that are actually correct. I mean sure I can believe that you aren't deliberately misconstruing the show when you say stuff like "Yang is a psychopath who tries to isolate her sister and left her dog to starve", but when you keep clinging to that argument even when people point out everything wrong with it the only possible conclusion is that either you are being dishonest or delusional.
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    And here you shoot right off into infraction territory, since this is just condescending insults. 'you are being dishonest or delusional' is way past civil. Do better. 25 points and a week out of thread.
    Mook said:
    The fact that those people who :turian:actually like RWBY:turian:actually buy into your batshit theories.

    And you've certainly convinced me that you are way to invested in your... unique interpretations to be worth arguing with. I will concede that you actually believe the stuff you're saying. I don't think I want to fathom how your mind even works in order for that to be the case but I can accept that you aren't being dishonest.
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    If you weren't already getting a Rule 3 infraction, this would be one on it's own. Do not repeat.

    For everyone declaring grabbing someone by the testicles and crushing them while asking questions, all I can say is I'm very glad you were not in Iraq dealing with detainees with me, and I invite you to try it in front of a cop on a random stranger. I think they will disagree with your determination that this is not sexual assault or severely painful.

    Thread reopened. And I'm going to be keeping a strict and close eye on this one, now. So everyone be very polite. Someone disagreeing with you is not them being 'dishonest or delusional'.

     
  • Staff Post
    • ... I think this is what Zoidberg felt like when Robot Santa Claus gave him a pogo stick. Moving on:

    Tython82 said:
    Ruby and Weiss Astral Finishers from Cross Tag Battle

    Also is it me or is Weiss's scar on the wrong eye??
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    Weiss's isn't bad, but Ruby's is solidly "Meh" for me because the backdrop doesn't move, so it really just looks like she's just hanging in the air for several seconds for no reason. It just comes off as kind of lazy instead of recreating the Nevermore kill like it's supposed to.

    Personally, I think it should mimic that storm of attacks from the Red Trailer instead, with Ruby flying in and out of the screen and slashing the enemy each time she passes by in a flurry of rose petals.
     
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    Weiss' attack is excellent. I wish she just summoned the sword instead of waste her time and effort summoning the entire knight.
     
    Leingod said:
    Personally, I think it should mimic that storm of attacks from the Red Trailer instead, with Ruby flying in and out of the screen and slashing the enemy each time she passes by in a flurry of rose petals.
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    So, in fighting game terms.... just Maximum Spider but with rose petals?

    I mean, I don't disagree with you that her finisher is kinda lame, but I feel like in-and-out-of-screen attack rushes are a bit overplayed by this point.
     
    Barnaby said:
    So, in fighting game terms.... just Maximum Spider but with rose petals?

    I mean, I don't disagree with you that her finisher is kinda lame, but I feel like in-and-out-of-screen attack rushes are a bit overplayed by this point.
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    I'm not a huge fighting game fan, so what's "overplayed" by genre standards don't really factor in for me.
     
    Sworl said:
    Yeah, but that kind of ties in to what I was pointing out earlier about applying the same standards to characters.
    If it is reasonable to think Jaunes behavior here makes him a creep; then it is reasonable to think that Yang encouraging it makes her a bitch/creep.
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    I was clarifying a commonly held position, not offering an opinion, in a bid to highlight the double standards and hypocrisy I felt I saw. Now can we please drop this? Its clear this discussion is a waste of time.
     
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