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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
    • thesevenwielder said:
    While I am glad Qrow's alcoholism is finally being addressed as something serious, I question why Ruby has never had an issue with it until now, and the show itself was trying to present it as charming or something. Like one big joke. It was constantly played for comedy. It's not a bad change by any means, but it creates an odd dissonance with the rest of the series. Another reason why I think M&K finally got a proofreader.
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    Well I think that context matters

    Should you deal with someone who gets blackout drunk on vacations and special events? Well... Yeah. That's as normal as they come

    Should you deal with someone who used hard liquor to medicate their crippling emotional issues? Uhh... Back away slowly

    So I feel like there's a huge difference between not caring about drunk Qrow hanging out at home versus drunk Qrow not being able to fight, not waking them up or being a leader/taking charge, etc.
     
    devilkingx2 said:
    Well I think that context matters

    Should you deal with someone who gets blackout drunk on vacations and special events? Well... Yeah. That's as normal as they come

    Should you deal with someone who used hard liquor to medicate their crippling emotional issues? Uhh... Back away slowly

    So I feel like there's a huge difference between not caring about drunk Qrow hanging out at home versus drunk Qrow not being able to fight, not waking them up or being a leader/taking charge, etc.
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    And there's also the question of how much of taking it too far (seriously, three bottles of probably hard liquor in a night and still semi functional!?) was caused by The Apathy.
     
    My only worry with the alcoholism is that they don't screw it up and get too serious (the wrong kind of serious, volume 3 was the good kind of serious) with it.

    Basically I don't wanna watch a preachy lifetime movie about ruby's family issues and home drama.

    A huge issue with volume 4 and 5 was that they seemed to be forgetting what sort of show they were making and that we wanted to be watching (how do we top fighting a elder dragon, monster invasion and an evil demi god? How about daddy issues, teen drama and depression recovery arcs!? *crickets*), however volume 6 is a proper return to form so far, and they've re-earned the benefit of the doubt.

    I once saw a show where a character caught a severe illness, and everyone was sad plus it had serious plot implications and it was a very memorable moment... But the key thing to remember is that it was probably a space illness that was cured by a time traveler bringing future medicine so that the character could help avert the killer robot/insectoid Frankenstein apocalypse.
     
    devilkingx2 said:
    I once saw a show where a character caught a severe illness, and everyone was sad plus it had serious plot implications and it was a very memorable moment... But the key thing to remember is that it was probably a space illness that was cured by a time traveler bringing future medicine so that the character could help avert the killer robot/insectoid Frankenstein apocalypse.
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    New teaser for chapter 7.



    Going by this clip it seems we're getting a Maria flashback, possibly as part of her telling her story to Team RWBY and probably with this being the incident where she lost her eyes. The clip is short but the fight scene is awesome, and young Maria's design is somehow even more badass than old Maria. I freaking love the use of Gravity/Magnet Dust with linked weapons. :cool:

    Also at this point I can only laugh at the people who said she was just a cheap knockoff of Katara. Yup, that skull mask, pointy hood and those sickles sure is giving me Water Tribe flashbacks. :V
     
    Merely using voodoo imagery doesn't disprove you as being derivative of something that doesn't, Mook.
     
    Delphisage said:
    Merely using voodoo imagery doesn't disprove you as being derivative of something that doesn't, Mook.
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    Leaving aside that as of yet we haven't seen anything in terms of characterization or motif to tie her to Katara; I'd point out that pretty much no fictional character is 100% new, original and/or incomparable.
    Everything has been done before in some way or fashion.
     
    Sworl said:
    Leaving aside that as of yet we haven't seen anything in terms of characterization or motif to tie her to Katara; I'd point out that pretty much no fictional character is 100% new, original and/or incomparable.
    Everything has been done before in some way or fashion.
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    Thank you, Captain Obvious. But honestly, my issue's not with characterization or motif, it's with how blatantly they wear their influences on their sleeve and yet fail to actually understand how those worked or didn't work.
    Also, it keeps telling me that I really should just watch Avatar one of these days instead of being here and guessing at random that it's Avatar they're adhering so close to after my only experience with that show comes from Korval.
     
    Delphisage said:
    Merely using voodoo imagery doesn't disprove you as being derivative of something that doesn't, Mook.
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    I'm noticing a trend here where people who make extremely shallow criticism of the show just to have something to criticize are also the sort who proudly display their complete ignorance* just to avoid having to admit that they were wrong. Like, you are aware that Vodun is not the only non-white religion or culture that uses skull imagery, right Delphisage?

    They literally spell out what Maria Calavera is themed after in her freaking name:
    Calavera is the Spanish word for "skull" and is the name for the decorative skulls made of clay or sugar which are used as part of Día de los Muertos celebrations, which the skull on Maria's walking stick is modeled after.
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    How you still managed to be that far off base is beyond me.


    Now leaving aside lumping together every skull themed non-white culture under "voodoo" there is also the fact that skull imagery is hardly the only thing about this clip that made a further divide between those two. Maria's robes and hood having absolutely no resemblance to anything the Inuit based Water Benders have ever been shown to wear. Her sickles, gravity/attraction based fighting style also has absolutely no resemblance to the elemental unarmed Water Bending style that Katara uses.


    Sworl said:
    Leaving aside that as of yet we haven't seen anything in terms of characterization or motif to tie her to Katara; I'd point out that pretty much no fictional character is 100% new, original and/or incomparable.
    Everything has been done before in some way or fashion.
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    Gaz said:
    She wears blue and is old, clearly she's Katara. /s
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    Also this. Aside from being lightly dark skinned, wearing blue clothes and being old there is nothing that makes Katara and Maria similar, and a shitload of things that makes them different. If having three extremely broad points like that in common is enough to make one character a ripoff of another then literally every character in fiction is a cheap knockoff off at least 1000 other characters that came before them.

    I mean my god, the amount of young or old white men wearing suits alone. :o


    Edit:
    Delphisage said:
    Thank you, Captain Obvious. But honestly, my issue's not with characterization or motif, it's with how blatantly they wear their influences on their sleeve and yet fail to actually understand how those worked or didn't work.
    Also, it keeps telling me that I really should just watch Avatar one of these days instead of being here and guessing at random that it's Avatar they're adhering so close to after my only experience with that show comes from Korval.
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    * So in addition to not being able to spot a blatantly obvious reference to The Day of the Dead and just lumping everything skull related under voodoo let's add "claims something rips of Avatar even though he has never even seen Avatar" to the list of stunning ignorance.
     
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    Sworl said:
    To be honest, I'm not so sure you understand what you are critiquing - or even what your own critique is.
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    Also just....
    Delphisage said:
    it's with how blatantly they wear their influences on their sleeve
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    Really? This is something unique to RWBY apparently? How naive can you possibly get? :eyebrow:


    Like, ok. Who here has watched One Piece? Wait, scratch that, the One Piece anime is trash. Who here has read One Piece? Its the most successful and popular manga in the entire world, I'm sure people have at least heard of it. Now in that manga we have these three dudes:



    The ultimate fighting force of the Marines, the Three Admirals. They don't show up often but they are extremely important to the story simply from how powerful they are and how much influence they're able to exert on the world.

    Now let's look at how Oda designed these characters that would play a highly important role in his story at several different points. Starting from left to right:
    Borsalino the Yellow Monkey said:
    The model of Kizaru's face is the Japanese actor, Kunie Tanaka. Along with that, Kizaru's clothes, real name, Borsalino, and birthday, are apparently based on a movie character that Kunie Tanaka played in his youth. The character Borsalino from the old Japanese film Truck Yarō (トラック野郎), wore a suit and sunglasses similar to Kizaru's design
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    Kizaru's lazy and easy-going demeanor is something of a reference to the main characters' approach to crime from the 1970s French film Borsalino.
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    His epithet, along with the other admirals' (Aokiji, Akainu, and Kizaru), are taken from Momotaro legends (Momotaro met Pheasant, Dog, and Monkey as friends to accompany him on his journey).
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    Kizaru's techniques, Yata no Kagami (八咫鏡), Ama no Murakumo (天叢雲劍) and Yasakani no Magatama (八尺瓊曲玉) are taken from the Three Sacred Treasures of Japan.
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    Sakazuki the Red Dog said:
    The way Sakazuki's character design is drawn resembles the famous late Japanese actor, Bunta Sugawara. Akainu's real name, Sakazuki, is apparently based on the three movies of Bunta Sugawara with "Sakazuki" in the title. Even Sakazuki's birthday is based on Sugawara's.
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    His nickname, along with the other admirals' (Aokiji, Akainu, and Kizaru), are taken from Momotaro legends (Momotaro met Pheasant, Dog, and Monkey as friends to accompany him in his journey).
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    Kuzan the Blue Pheasant said:
    The design for Kuzan's face is based on the late actor Yusaku Matsuda. The character that the actor played in the TV series and movie "Detective Story" (Tantei Monogatari) even had a similar hairstyle, clothing and wore the same sleep mask design. Kuzan's birthday is even based upon Matsuda's.
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    His alias and other admiral aliases (Aokiji, Akainu, and Kizaru), are taken from Momotaro legends (Momotaro met Pheasant, Dog, and Monkey as friends to accompany him in his journey).
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    Literally every single Admiral has their appearance copied directly from a famous actor and their aliases are directly referencing a tale* that is as famous in Japan as Hercules is in the west. In the case of Borsalino even his name and personality are taken straight from the movie that he's referencing, and his techniques are named after famous mythological objects that are the Japanese equivalent of Excalibur and the Holy Grail. And this is from a author who is so famed for his creativity that fans often call him Goda in joking celebration.

    Or to take a more mainstream western example:

    "I am Groot...... By which I mean I'm basically an Ent with a speech impediment and the serial numbers filed off."




    This is literally just Thor from mythology with a few tweaks here and there to make him fit into the Marvel universe. Many decades ago Marvel writers asked themselves how they could top DC's superman and the answer they came up with was to just grab a existing mythology that no one was using and make some changes to fit it to the comic format, and the result was one of their most iconic characters.



    *Its this one btw:
     
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    Badass old master?

    Person who is seemingly a bumbling fool that turns out to be pretty strong?

    Those are not unique or rare concepts. Might as well call all such characters clones of Master Roshi

    Characrer archetypes are too vague and common for the only two you recognize to be clones of each other.

    Reminds me of the people who think that anthem having one refuge for humans on a hostile world is a direct clone of destiny... Even though the matrix did that 20 years ago.
     
    Yay! Maria is no longer called Maz Katara because she was quite the looker! It doesn't matter what she looks like currently, what matters is that at one point, she didn't look like Maz Katara and that means she is free from no longer being called Maz Katara.

    Now all we gotta do is have a flash back where Paimon doesn't look like Paimon and while we're at it, Gen:lock to have flashbacks of Sombra and Ragdoll not looking like Sombra and Ragdoll and we can begin gloating about how everyone was wrong for calling them xeroxes. :p

    ... Okay, seriously though, I think everyone stopped calling Maria "Maz Katara" after the third episode or so.
     
    devilkingx2 said:
    Badass old master?

    Person who is seemingly a bumbling fool that turns out to be pretty strong?

    Those are not unique or rare concepts. Might as well call all such characters clones of Master Roshi

    Characrer archetypes are too vague and common for the only two you recognize to be clones of each other.

    Reminds me of the people who think that anthem having one refuge for humans on a hostile world is a direct clone of destiny... Even though the matrix did that 20 years ago.
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    The one city on a hostile world I think it was were it was first done in the The Night Land written by William Hope Hodgson in 1912 though that entire story's setting almost make lovecraft's works and world hammer 40k seem cheerful and hopeful in comparison.
     
    You know what? Let's all put our money where our mouth is and look at this critically. Let's put these characters side by side and see just how justified the claims are that one character is an obvious copy of the other.



    Well, they're both old women with darker skin. They both wear blue clothes, though Maria's are more Mexican Indian than Inuit in design, just altered a bit to look warmer so that they'll make more sense in this environment. They both tie their hair back, but Maria has a braided ponytail where Katara has a bun. They wear necklaces, but those necklaces are so different in design that it's hard to say that's a real point of commonality. You could argue, I suppose, that Maria's hoop earrings are a point of similarity to Katara's iconic "hair loopies," as Sokka called them, though I'd say that's getting into iffy territory there. I'll be totally honest in saying that I really did look at Maria that first time and go, "Oh hey, she reminds me of Old Katara." So the resemblance is there, and it's one that comes to mind quite easily on a first glance. People who make this comparison aren't just coming from nowhere with it.

    But as has been pointed out, if all it took to call one character a "clone" of another was the ability to see a resemblance, then there'd be millions of "clones" in fiction who aren't called that by most people with any sense.

    At first glance, yeah, the fact that they're both older women in blue clothing who are encountered in a winter environment makes them seem similar. But Katara looks much more like an actual old person, while Maria is going more for the Yoda Mentor thing where she's almost comically small and a bit bent over; if Katara suddenly whipped out some of her old moves, it wouldn't be as surprising given this design, which is what the Yoda look is generally meant to evoke (although it's been done so much that it kind of just becomes expected these days, so that effect tends to be lost). In fact, the more rounded face is definitely meant to evoke Yoda on top of that. Then there's the very obvious differences in the actual design of their clothes, Maria's obvious Day of the Dead motif (complete with a hint of an accent, though it's only really apparent when she says her name) and her techno-goggles, and it becomes pretty clear that these are two different characters, just that one of them lifted some basic design features from the other as a starting point to jump off from - which pretty much everyone does, and it would be problematic to call that stealing or ripping off. If "wears a long red coat and is a badass, nearly-immortal gunslinger with a tragic past" were enough, for example, then Brandon Heat from Gungrave and Dante from Devil May Cry are both rip-offs of Vash the Stampede from Trigun, even though all three of these are emphatically different characters in pretty much every other respect.

    More to the point, though, Katara and Maria are almost completely different in their actual personalities, powers/fighting styles, and their actual role in the story. Sure, Katara was a mentor to Korra, but that was before the series even started, and she's largely ancillary to the rest of the series outside of the opening. She's nothing but a bridge between the series' past and where it starts in Legend of Korra, she isn't an active presence with stuff to contribute here and now. Anything Katara taught Korra is just part of Korra's character already, and the only times she comes up after this is the family drama with Aang's kids grappling with their various daddy issues regarding Aang spending more time with Tenzin than his other kids. Maria actually has things to teach Ruby here and now, and on top of that she interacts with other characters as well and provides a unique perspective on what's going on in the plot at this moment as someone who is seemingly even less in on the whole story than our heroes.

    Also of relevance is the fact that fans of Avatar don't think of Katara as the old woman who taught Korra to Waterbend; they remember the motherly young woman who was one of the main characters of the original series. And even though so far we've got nothing on young Maria but a character design and a quick fight scene, the differences between their younger incarnations only pile on even higher when you try to compare them.
     
    Leingod said:
    If "wears a long red coat and is a badass, nearly-immortal gunslinger with a tragic past" were enough, for example, then Brandon Heat from Gungrave and Dante from Devil May Cry are both rip-offs of Vash the Stampede from Trigun, even though all three of these are emphatically different characters in pretty much every other respect.
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    You forgot alucard from hellsing :p
     
    All this arguing of her looking like Katara and all I can think of is goddamn she shrunk a lot. Shouldn't Aura have helped with that or something?
     
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