• I kept telling people Cinder wasn't dead, and yet a surprising number were totally convinced otherwise. Like, you seriously thought she was going to be taken out by one of the characters with the least personal involvement with Cinder's actions?
• And so, this time we get to see Cinder beaten and kicked to the curb, unlike in Volume 3. The girl who wanted nothing more than to be powerful and feared, beaten by her own cockiness and petty sadism and forced to drag herself out onto the road.
• Then she kills some random Good Samaritan who stops to help her, just in case your schadenfreude was about to start turning into sympathy.
• I know, Weiss, I know. Also, we've confirmed that Yang hasn't told anyone that Raven is the Spring Maiden, despite being the one who's consistently been the maddest whenever Ozpin or Qrow have withheld anything.
• Bit of worldbuilding, explaining that Argus is the main trade port between Atlas and Mistral and home to the largest Atlas military base outside the kingdom itself. Nice.
• Excellent plan, Yang, turn Weiss in for the reward money and then break her out and take her and the loot when something inevitably goes wrong and everyone has to flee Atlas.
• If Ozpin is giving a pained expression while walking around, poor Oscar's going to be hurting like a bitch.
• To quote Nora, Ozpin, "I sense hesitation."
• The Relic of Knowledge can answer any question, but it can't see the future and it allows only 3 questions every hundred years.
• Nora immediately starts treating it like a genie and wants to ask for more questions. It's okay, Nora, I forgot that they're questions and not wishes, too.
• Ozpin says he asked all three questions before he sealed it, meaning there should be another 20 years until it can answer any more questions.
• I guess the caboose was carrying luggage, because Yang has her bike… as soon as she pulls it out of the snow.
• Calavera? Like those candy skulls you eat on Día de los Muertos?
• I was right, I am going to love Maria.
• Well of course you've been attracting Grimm since you left Haven, Blake. I'm pretty sure you didn't form a daisy chain with Ren using his Semblance on you the entire trip over. Like, I get your actual point, you're pissed at Ozpin withholding information yet again until he deemed it relevant to you, but in fairness it really doesn't seem to be that strong an attraction anyway.
• I mean, the asshole answer would be that that wasn't a lie or a half-truth, Yang. Not saying something because you decide it isn't really relevant isn't the same thing as deliberately telling people falsehoods. Still a bit of a dick move, but very much not a lie.
• And he gives the asshole answer. It's okay, Ozpin, I'd be an asshole, too, in that situation. But I don't know why you think Yang's going to accept that as your answer.
• I like that Maria's just right there and shouldn't know any of this, but no one cares by this point.
• Confirmation that the attraction is faint. Ozpin also says that he has no idea why it's there and just assumes that it's because of their origin, and that he didn't tell them because he figured that telling them would just make them tense and anxious the whole time they were carrying it, which would probably attract more Grimm than the relic itself. Sound logic, but still a breach of trust, which is a recurring thing with Ozpin. When trust and choice and all that stuff he champions conflicts with what he believes to be practical, he's quick to jettison the former for the latter.
• Weiss sums it up perfectly. "I'm getting tired of everybody else choosing what's best for me." Ozpin has decided that he knows better than them what they should and shouldn't know at any given time, and Weiss has far too much experience to be anything less than sick of other people thinking they know what's best for her. Even when it's well-meaning, even if he's right, it's condescending and erodes trust, especially since they're in way too deep in this now. They joined up with this mission with the understanding that Ozpin would treat them like equals and trust them with the relevant information, but even though he probably believes that that's what he's doing, Ozpin just isn't used to treating anyone on equal terms anymore. And how could he? Ever since the Great War, his incarnations have been immediately taken in by his agents, trained back up to old standards and placed in charge of Beacon and the conspiracy as soon as possible. The LKoV did that to ensure he would never be out of commission for too long and give Salem opportunity to work while he was helpless, but it's also resulted in Ozpin, who just can't help but make decisions as to what's best for others without accounting for whether they'd rather know something even if it put them in danger.
• I mean, the more practical reason to hide Lionheart's crimes is that learning what the Headmaster of their school was doing to the kingdom to save his own skin would probably send everyone into a massive panic and further erode confidence in the situation, thus making the Grimm problem that Mistral already has even worse. I suspect that Ozpin is leaning on the "a person shouldn't be remembered solely for their mistakes" because he pretty much has to believe that as a man who has self-admittedly made more mistakes than anyone and still has to keep working for the betterment of the world.
• "You may have met Professor Lionheart, but you never met the man he was before Salem found him." I hope we get a flashback to see that so that his disgusting cowardice and pathetic death can make me sad at the tragedy of a good man being so thoroughly broken instead of just making jokes about what a bitch he is.
• Damn. Yeah, in addition to the mistakes, Ozpin's probably been betrayed by people he trusted more than anyone else, hasn't he? How could he be willing to trust people with any more than what they actually need to know after that? You can only keep extending a hand only to have it slapped away so many times before you just stop doing it. That Ozpin extends as much trust as he does and not devolving into Batman-levels of paranoia and planning to kill everyone around him "just in case" is a lot more than I think I'd be capable of after a couple centuries of that.
• Wow, the trepidation and creeping horror in Ozpin's voice when he realized he didn't have the relic on him was hilarious. Just imagine if it was buried in a snowbank and they had to spend the next week looking for it in the snow?
• Ruby simple souling it up, bringing back all the stuff Ozpin said about faith and trust in humanity and all that good stuff, asking if that only applies to everyone else. Ozpin doesn't really have a reply to that, you can tell.
• And Ozpin is hiding yet more sh*t about the relic, being way too insistent that Ruby hand it over even though it's supposedly nothing but a size-shifting paperweight that draws Grimm right now.
• Ozpin is getting weaker. Oscar can wrest control from Ozpin for at least a few seconds, now, and access information Ozpin doesn't want him to.
• ZA WARUDO!!! Sorry, couldn't resist. Someone needs to release a video where that sound and visual effect is edited in, so it looks like Ruby spontaneously gains a Stand.
• God, if Maria doesn't turn out to be the Winter Maiden or someone else already in on this, it is hilarious thinking about how confused she must be as to what the hell's going on.
• Aww, Qrow's shy.
• Well, I predict an explosion of r34 images of Jinn in the near future now that the episode is out for the public.
• Ruby, it's rude to stare, hasn't Qrow taught you that?
• Cinder Fall, killing people and taking their stuff like a true adventurer. Also, "Suss-tree?" what the hell kind of pronunciation is that for Sustrai?
• This is like the third time we've seen a street vendor just casually offering weapons for sale, I love this about Remnant. When you go to the corner store for 20 years like Raven, are the cigarettes right next to the flamethrowers?
• Oh, an insignia of some organization hidden in plain sight for those who know what it means. I love stuff like that, and it just somehow fits with Mistral for its criminal element to indulge in dramatic flourishes like that.
• So, in addition to China, Japan and Greece, Mistral is also Remnant's Texas.
• "Little Miss Malachite?" God, she's like a Texan Dolores Umbridge with a naming sense like that. Also, interesting that she has the same last name as the Malachite twins who worked for Junior, real name Hei Xiong. Junior, Little Miss? And his real name is one that would fit in well in Mistral? Just saying.
• "Looks like your life's savings," she says after looking Cinder up and down, clearly insulting her. "It was somebody's," Cinder replies. That's probably my favorite exchange this episode.
• It's interesting that Cinder seems so surprised when Little Miss basically says that she took what she feared and made it her own. Interesting, but not surprising. What was Salem's advice when Cinder felt fear and trepidation about that Grimm arm? She basically just told her to cut it out. Cinder thinks that power is the end of fear, and that taking power means destroying whatever you're afraid of.
• Ooh, clever miss.
• Well, at least Jinn answers the question of "Who/What are you?" for free. Otherwise, I imagine some rando stumbling in on her and accidentally wasting two of his questions for the century right there.
• Pft, Jinn ain't having any of Ozpin's sh*t.
• Yang's pissed, everyone else (including Qrow) is just utterly stunned at his desperation to keep them from asking questions.
• Wow. Weiss, Blake and Yang literally just pulled their weapons on Qrow the moment he tried to speak up. This is getting tense.
• And like in the previous episode, Qrow shows how much he trusts Ruby's judgment, this time by telling her to do whatever she thinks is right in this situation.
• I've seen people claim that Ozpin was trying to attack Ruby, but that doesn't seem accurate. It looks more like he just completely lost his cool in desperation and just thoughtlessly lunged out to try to stop her without really considering the how of that. His hand isn't in a fist, he's not striking out with his cane, he's just got his palm out like he's going to… push her? Put his hand over her mouth to keep her from speaking? If you asked Ozpin what he was going to do, he probably wouldn't have an answer, but it doesn't look like "attack" is the right word for what he was doing all the same.
• God the Bumblebee shippers are going to go nuts over the fact that Blake and Yang specifically call out for each other in this sequence.
• Hmm, so everyone gets sucked into storytime separately? Oh my God, what if Maria is in here, too, still with no idea what the f*ck is going on?
• … Hey, remember when Pyrrha name-dropped a fairy tale called "The Girl in the Tower?" Just saying.
• Why are there five of Ruby in this concept art?
