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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
    • There's a saying that goes something along the lines of "sufficient incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." Either way, homophobia or not, the only gay character in the show is getting fridged. And this after all the hullabaloo of "wanting to have a gay character feel 'natural'" despite it being effortless to 'naturally' add gay characters. And they failed on that front by having the only gay character turn out to be a psycho lesbian who is determined to murder Blake's parents and force Blake back into the arms of her abuser because "you never noticed me". Add in an even less convincing heel-face-turn than MLP villains.

    It doesn't make Miles Luna look good, is what I'm saying. If he isn't homophobic, then he is having a hard time showing it.


    Moving on, how exactly are we supposed to take the villains seriously? Apparently Cinder is back based on that cover of v6, but twice now she's gotten beaten and humiliated, and has been made a total joke by the plot. Ditto Adam, who apparently is only capable of killing mooks and only accomplished defeating any actually tough enemies by sneak attacking them, using distractions or having them otherwise not functioning at 100%. Meanwhile Watts has accomplished a whole lot of nothing, Hazel is a hypocrite whose incompetence led to defeat, Cinder again not only shifted her plan to attack Ruby in revenge, but then... totally forgot about the entire reason she was there in the first place. Oh, and Tyrion lost his tail after his first encounter with JNRR+Qrow. And as always, the Grimm are not a threat, to the point where they only make one appearance in v5.
     
    thesevenwielder said:
    Moving on, how exactly are we supposed to take the villains seriously?
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    Some of my favorite villains I don't take seriously.

    Adam is a violent, petty manchild. I don't take what he says or how he presents himself seriously, because I'm hoping we'll get to see it as the fragile persona hiding an even more vulnerable and fragile and small person underneath. Hazel is more human for being a hypocrite. He knows he's wrong- because how couldn't he, everything he's seen and done should have shown how stupid he's been- but at the same time can't admit it to himself. Raven has all that stuff going for her and more. She's the biggest loser of the bunch and that's why I like her. Cinder... well, she had potential. Maybe they can turn her around, but I just don't see it happening this late in the game for her.

    But I agree with you about Watts and Tyrion. A villain being "crazy" as a character trait is lazy, and I just can't get myself to care about Tyrion's obsession with Salem. Watts is even worse, he's basically just window dressing.

    The villains I like are emotionally complex, they don't need to be competent all the time. They don't even need to be competent most of the time. With all the magic in the setting, it gives the writers a blank check to let the villains be explicitly useless and have them focus on being some kind of philosophical or emotional counterpoint to the protagonists. If they ever need serious physical danger, they can always throw more monsters or curses into the plot from effectively nowhere. That's not a problem with the story, it's just a fact of the setting.
     
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    thesevenwielder said:
    It doesn't make Miles Luna look good, is what I'm saying. If he isn't homophobic, then he is having a hard time showing it.
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    Why do you always single out Miles when talking about the writers? Isn't Kerry the head writer?

    thesevenwielder said:
    Moving on, how exactly are we supposed to take the villains seriously?
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    While I disagree with your assessment of Adam's capabilities I think it's important to note that it's been established that in a one on one fight the villains have more raw power than the heroes. The heroes only win when the work as a team. I think that's a pretty typical narrative device. Harry Potter, DBZ, and Naruto (just to name a few) all use that concept, that the bad guys are dangerous one on one but since they're all pretty awful scum they are easy to outnumber because they don't have people who care about them. Look at Orochimaru. Every fight he had with the heroes ends in him either fleeing or dying and what victories he achieves all cost him basically everything and yet he's one of the most liked villains on the show.

    I don't know about you but personally I never expect the bad guys to win. That's just not how this sort of story plays out. All I look for is that the villains are colorful and interesting so that them fighting the heroes is entertaining.

    PS the term "fridging" only refers to a character being killed or depowered. Getting on the bus so the writers don't have to write for them anymore isn't "fridging".
     
    The issue with Neo is that she'd need someone to do the talking for her given the fact she's mute.
     
    General Amaya from The Dragon Prince was an extremely well received character, and she is deaf. The appeal for Neo is much the same, I imagine. Facial expressions and body language alone can tell a lot about a character.
     
    Gaz said:
    General Amaya from The Dragon Prince was an extremely well received character, and she is deaf. The appeal for Neo is much the same, I imagine. Facial expressions and body language alone can tell a lot about a character.
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    You aren't wrong, but I think an important difference between the two is Amaya had the chance to make choices, form opinions, and have more than one meaningful relationship.

    I wouldn't mind Neo getting that same chance.
     
    Emma said:
    You aren't wrong, but I think an important difference between the two is Amaya had the chance to make choices, form opinions, and have more than one meaningful relationship.

    I wouldn't mind Neo getting that same chance.
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    I fully agree. I want to know where she came from, what she is up to now, and what her goals are. Is she still working for Cinder? DOes she have her own agenda? Does she want revenge? Is she managing some of Roman's criminal assets? Is she reconsidering her choices? Was working for Cinder just a job for her, or does she have affection for her, Emerald and Mercury like she did for Roman?
     
    VolantRedX said:
    Why do you always single out Miles when talking about the writers? Isn't Kerry the head writer?

    While I disagree with your assessment of Adam's capabilities I think it's important to note that it's been established that in a one on one fight the villains have more raw power than the heroes. The heroes only win when the work as a team. I think that's a pretty typical narrative device. Harry Potter, DBZ, and Naruto (just to name a few) all use that concept, that the bad guys are dangerous one on one but since they're all pretty awful scum they are easy to outnumber because they don't have people who care about them. Look at Orochimaru. Every fight he had with the heroes ends in him either fleeing or dying and what victories he achieves all cost him basically everything and yet he's one of the most liked villains on the show.

    I don't know about you but personally I never expect the bad guys to win. That's just not how this sort of story plays out. All I look for is that the villains are colorful and interesting so that them fighting the heroes is entertaining.

    PS the term "fridging" only refers to a character being killed or depowered. Getting on the bus so the writers don't have to write for them anymore isn't "fridging".
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    1. Because Miles Luna has this sort of holier-than-thou attitude that pisses me off. That and he talks a hell of a lot more than Kerry Shawcross. He seems pretty mellow in contrast to Miles Luna who seems to rant a whole lot. He's also got the kind of face that's begging for a fist to be put into it.

    2. have you watched Naruto recently? Yes in Shippuden he was rendered irrelevant because of all the power boosts that Naruto and Sasuke got, but in the original series, where his popularity came from, he enters by effortlessly defeating Sasuke and Naruto and seals away the Nine Tails in the forest of death and cows the rest of the village into compliance by saying if they don't continue the exams then he will destroy the village. His second appearance has him summon the First and Second Hokage and sic them against Sarutobi. He is only forced to retreat because the Third used a technique to literally summon the god of death at the cost of his life, and even then was only able to remove the use of his hands, which as the Tsunade retrieval Arc shows could be fixed by regular chakra healing. When he fights Tsunade and Jiraiya, even without the use of his arms he is able to fight his two former teammates to a standstill.

    3. There is a difference between the villain losing but putting up a good fight and the villain being taken out like a chump. The good guys didn't accomplish much of anything.

    4. Two problems with that. One is that we practically never see the good guys achieving victory by working as a team. It makes Ruby speeching at Raven that "We've accomplished so much together" utterly laughable because only one of the protagonist's victories came from teamwork.

    5. I apologize. "Put on a bus" is the better term. Doesn't change that she was written out of the show.

    Nobody said:
    And then in the end he ended up achieving immortality and just hanging around.
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    Actually he had achieved immortality by the time the show began, he just wanted the Sharingan which led to his downfall. But he was already effectively immortal. He could easily steal the body of anyone he wanted and he somehow found a way to share his soul across all his curse seals so even after he was supposedly sealed away for eternity, Sasuke was able to bring him back via Anko's curse seal, where he revealed that he'd observed everything that she did and remembered his previous defeat first hand. But yeah, he basically achieved all his goals and was even given a nice little area to run his experiments in the Village itself.





    Back to the topic of Adam, imagine how his tantrums would sound if he was actually voiced by a decent VA.



    GET BACK HERE, BLAKE! BLAAAKE! YOU CAN'T ESCAPE MEEE! I'LL CHASE YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EAAARTHH!
     
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    VolantRedX said:
    The issue with Neo is that she'd need someone to do the talking for her given the fact she's mute.
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    She has illusion powers, she doesn't really need to talk to communicate. The literal Sign language she does in Chibi might be very looney toons but she can basically talk like that if she wants. All she needs to do is create illusions of signs with writing on them, or heck drop the signs and just make the words.


     
    Yeah, Kerry's just got that kinda face you wanna shove tacos into.

    Miles' grin belies a dirty, stinky boy just waiting below the surface, with unpleasant secrets hidden in the dark.
     
    I'm still holding out for more LBGT representation in the show, hopefully even among the main cast. Something tells me that I sadly shouldn't hold my breath, however.
     
    Yeah, M&K basically confirmed that they will continue to bait and tease the BB fans by making Sun stay behind for... reasons so now they can string along BB shippers. According to the recent AMA or whatever, the opening episode will even go so far as to have Blake kiss Sun on the cheek in farewell. It's pretty shady of the writers. Heaven forfend they actually commit to a pairing. It would make all the toxic BB shippers leave the show. Problem is, people can only take so much queer baiting before finally getting fed up, and the writers are toeing a fine line that could easily backfire and make things even worse than if they just confirmed a pairing.

    BTW, getting rid of Sun? Even worse than getting rid of Ilya. By now it's been explicitly established that he's there for Blake, and having him arbitrarily stay behind is shit writing. His team hasn't mattered in the slightest since he was introduced. He spent only a few scenes with Neptune, none with the rest of his team outside the single tournament fight, and ditched them even back as far as volume 1. Which isn't necessarily a mark against him; at most he's spent a few weeks with his team before deciding to leave for Vale early. Hard to develop much of an attachment in that time. But when he's loyal, he stays loyal. Which the writers are just tossing to tease the Bees some more.
     
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