Remove ads

RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

Reader mode
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.
     
    Last edited:
  • Staff Post
    • Delphisage said:
    It didn't have to be presented as invisible-until-it-breaks, though. Aura is the most clearly inspired by Halo's energy shields, and those things showed pretty clearly whenever they got hit by something, even showing how low the shields were getting in later titles by getting brighter and more visible as they kept taking hits. Here, the only way to tell how strong or weak an aura is is if it gets broken or if they just straight-up show us an HP bar.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    It's not inspired by halo's energy shields, it's based more on general HP things in general. The point is to have anime-esque leap around fights with people taking a bunch of hits and have a mechanism for it- the original trailers didn't have energy effects at all, and early S1 used it very sparringly (like when Ren stopped the snake's teeth). They, visually, wanted 'people taking and blocking hits,' type thing.

    Note the personal-energy-field for invulnerability thing is an old explanation that Superman and many others have used. I think it's more like the crew's experience with halo has leaked in a little in later seasons when they add effects, but it's not the conception to have regular energy sparks.
     
    Q99 said:
    It's not inspired by halo's energy shields, it's based more on general HP things in general. The point is to have anime-esque leap around fights with people taking a bunch of hits and have a mechanism for it- the original trailers didn't have energy effects at all, and early S1 used it very sparringly (like when Ren stopped the snake's teeth). They, visually, wanted 'people taking and blocking hits,' type thing.

    Note the personal-energy-field for invulnerability thing is an old explanation that Superman and many others have used. I think it's more like the crew's experience with halo has leaked in a little in later seasons when they add effects, but it's not the conception to have regular energy sparks.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Except tons of fiction have had characters being superpowered, super-athletic and super-durable without some kind of overcomplicated system in place to excuse the unreality of all that crap. They didn't need to introduce any kind of system. Aura was initially told to the viewer as something that enhances people's abilities, but in practice it really just acts as a shield for taking blows, and let's please not get into how confusingly unspecified the interplay between aura and semblance is. Besides, my complaint was that this show is lacking in visual signifiers for aura doing whatever it's supposed to be doing in each scene, and how Season 5's big fight scene just blatantly abuses offscreenitis to keep backtracking on itself.
     
    Last edited:
    Delphisage said:
    Except tons of fiction have had characters being superpowered, super-athletic and super-durable without some kind of overcomplicated system in place to excuse the unreality of all that crap. They didn't need to introduce any kind of system. Aura was initially told to the viewer as something that enhances people's abilities, but in practice it really just acts as a shield for taking blows, and let's please not get into how confusingly unspecified the interplay between aura and semblance is. Besides, my complaint was that this show is lacking in visual signifiers for aura doing whatever it's supposed to be doing in each scene, and how Season 5's big fight scene just blatantly abuses offscreenitis to keep backtracking on itself.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Wait, wait, if Aura "but in practice it really just acts as a shield for taking blows" then how do you explain Yang throwing cars, and Semblance, or any of the other super powered stuff?

    Anyway I imagine the reason they don't keep Aura up constantly is cos it would like like a DBZ rip off and possibly be a lot more irksome to animate, render and not look that great in Maya.
     
    Zam said:
    Wait, wait, if Aura "but in practice it really just acts as a shield for taking blows" then how do you explain Yang throwing cars, and Semblance, or any of the other super powered stuff?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Again, action show. I expect these characters to eventually perform abnormal feats of strength.

    Anyway I imagine the reason they don't keep Aura up constantly is cos it would like like a DBZ rip off and possibly be a lot more irksome to animate, render and not look that great in Maya.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The latter explanation just seems like an act of excusing laziness. The former...what? DBZ is characters engulphing themselves in flames and bright lights to posture at each other. I'm just asking for reactive energy shields for the occasional strong blow.
     
    Delphisage said:
    Again, action show. I expect these characters to eventually perform abnormal feats of strength.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    They did so in the trailers and as far as I am aware, pretty much every show explains how to one degree or another, it would be weird for characters to throw around cars and there not be an explanation as far as I can tell.

    Delphisage said:
    The latter explanation just seems like an act of excusing laziness. The former...what? DBZ is characters engulphing themselves in flames and bright lights to posture at each other. I'm just asking for reactive energy shields for the occasional strong blow.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Why did you put them out of order? And you can call it that if you want but glow effects, especially controllable ones are not easy in Maya, well generally in after effects actually but especially then in Maya are very... finicky to say the least. Beyond that, it sounds more like a personal preference complaint to me, I'm not hugely bothered by it, even if I do think the handling of Aura could be a bit clearer at times, but its hardly some make or break it huge flaw to me. Though we are getting more of those, such as the Tyrien fights.
     
    Delphisage said:
    Again, action show. I expect these characters to eventually perform abnormal feats of strength.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Are you arguing for less explanation for stuff...?

    You might prefer shield style, but given a choice between a unified explanation for their physical abilities and only explaining part of it and having shield visuals, I think most'd think the former is better, resource issues aside.


    The latter explanation just seems like an act of excusing laziness. The former...what? DBZ is characters engulphing themselves in flames and bright lights to posture at each other. I'm just asking for reactive energy shields for the occasional strong blow.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    "It doesn't look good with their software," is not what I'd call laziness. "It'd slow things down/take resources," is a good reason in itself, because every show in everything ever has limited resources, and if it makes complex shots harder to do, that limits their ability to push the edges in other ways.

    And they've specifically been using visuals largely as a sign aura is going down. It's already used for one story purpose, changing it late doesn't sound like a good idea for consistency reasons. Reactive energy shields seem like an odd thing to take as a given that they should do- aura really isn't halo energy shields.
     
    Last edited:
    Ugh. I don't know, I just really fucking hate thinking about aura. And I'm not usually the one to get headaches thinking about how stuff like this in other works...works. Point is, I don't like how it works as an invisible shield that arbitrarily breaks whenever the story deems it necessary to boost the tension, or how everything about it is just blatantly made up on the fly, or how arbitrarily invincible Hazel was.
    Also, I refuse to believe that it wasn't inspired by Halo when they outright compared it to Halo's "overshields".
     
    Last edited:
    Delphisage said:
    Ugh. I don't know, I just really fucking hate thinking about aura. And I'm not usually the one to get headaches thinking about how stuff like this in other works...works. Point is, I don't like how it works as an invisible shield that arbitrarily breaks whenever the story deems it necessary to boost the tension, or how everything about it is just blatantly made up on the fly, or how arbitrarily invincible Hazel was.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Like... it was there from the very early episodes. We've found out more of it's limits with time, but this isn't new.

    Hazel was very non-standardly invincible, but he's also one of Salem's main four and was injecting himself with dust to power up (so he had *fuel* for his regen). For a brick/hulk type character at high level, that's the kind of thing I'd expect.

    Also, I refuse to believe that it wasn't inspired by Halo when they outright compared it to Halo's "overshields".
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Keep in mind, (1) Monty came to them and seems likely to have had the concept in mind first, and (2) the RT side previously worked on RedvsBlue, a halo-based game, so of course they'd use that sort of analogy when describing it.

    Note that Monty made fights that looked basically the same before he even joined them. In short, Aura was codifying what his style of fights produced in Dead Fantasy and the like.


    *Edit* Link to the first Dead Fantasy That's where Aura comes from.
     
    Last edited:
    Psyga315 said:
    Aura is basically the Force. Plays quick and loose with the rules.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Yeah, but that's the Force. It's something we expect to be invisible. When something is literally called Aura, and has shown itself to visually manifest constantly and consistently, you expect it to appear more often than "when the plot says so".
     
    Delphisage said:
    Yeah, but that's the Force. It's something we expect to be invisible. When something is literally called Aura, and has shown itself to visually manifest constantly and consistently, you expect it to appear more often than "when the plot says so".
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    When was Aura established to "has shown itself to visually manifest constantly and consistently"?
     
    Zam said:
    When was Aura established to "has shown itself to visually manifest constantly and consistently"?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Raagh...My recollections are of Episodes 6 and 14 of Season 1 with Jaune, as well as probably episode 8 and Season 2 episode 4 with Yang. Also episode 11 of Season 3 with the aura transfer and Jaune's overshield in Season 5 Episodes 12 and 13.
     
    Delphisage said:
    Raagh...My recollections are of Episodes 6 and 14 of Season 1 with Jaune, as well as probably episode 8 and Season 2 episode 4 with Yang. Also episode 11 of Season 3 with the aura transfer and Jaune's overshield in Season 5 Episodes 12 and 13.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I do not see how that means that Aura was established to "visually manifest constantly and consistently". Most of the times we've seen it is when someone is doing something extreme with it or something odd is happening, a Semblance acting up, an Aura being literally transferred, ETC.
     
    The only time I can think of where we've seen Aura without it being any of the special cases that Zam mentioned (Semblance activating, Aura Transfer, unlocking Aura, Aura breaking) is in Volume 1 episode 6, when Ren blocked the Taijitu.
     
    I also mentioned Season 1 Episode 14, where Jaune's aura just randomly flares up and manages to knock back Cardin when he's in danger.
     
    I don't have any evidence. I just have more belief in the idea that the scene from that episode was supposed to be demonstrating Aura than the idea of it trying to demonstrate semblance.
     
    Delphisage said:
    I don't have any evidence. I just have more belief in the idea that the scene from that episode was supposed to be demonstrating Aura than the idea of it trying to demonstrate semblance.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Then you are a fool. They already did a scene demonstrating Aura. It was Ren's fight with the King Taijitu. It was quite obvious since Pyrrha was doing a voice-over explaining Aura during the entire encounter and the scene cut to Ren during specific parts of her explanation. The same episode also demonstrated Aura by having Jaune heal the cut on his cheek with Aura.

    Having a second scene demonstrating the exact same properties of Aura (defense and healing) that we had already seen earlier in the same volume would have been redundant. What it did serve as was a early hint at what Jaune's Semblance would be, Aura Amplification. Hence it being the only time where Cardin (or anyone else) hurt themselves when punching Jaune (or anyone else) with a active Aura.
     
    Maybe they looked back to that when deciding what they were gonna have his aura would be but I'm just not sure they plan that far ahead.
     
    cB557 said:
    Maybe they looked back to that when deciding what they were gonna have his aura would be but I'm just not sure they plan that far ahead.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    That's an understandable take, given they apparently planned Jaune early (regardless of my opinions on him) I'd be a bit surprised, but I can see why it doesn't mesh perfectly for some, it doesn't even entirely for me. Though that is more cos I am worried it means he can enhance his own Aura so he'll use it to be in fights over play a supporting role.
     
    Mook said:
    Then you are a fool.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Don't be rude.


    Delphisage said:
    I also mentioned Season 1 Episode 14, where Jaune's aura just randomly flares up and manages to knock back Cardin when he's in danger.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I didn't remember this, so I had to go back and check if it's actually a thing that happened.

    ...Curse you for making me rewatch a shitty Jaune episode.

    EDIT: Yeah, there's some sort of bright flare when Cardin is about to punch him that apparently hurts Cardin?

    That doesn't seem to relate at all to the Semblance that he develops in Volume 5, which was to share Aura with others.

    They might have originally been planning on a different Semblance for Jaune and then changed their mind later.

    Alternately, Ren killing the King Taijitsu seems to indicate that it's possible to project the Aura forcefield slightly further from yourself than just skintight and even use it offensively to a degree, so maybe Jaune reflexively did that? Weird that it only happens when he's attacked by bullies and not actual monsters or murderers.
     
    Last edited:
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top