RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

kokuenDG · May 1, 2022

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.

VolantRedX · Jul 29, 2020

Squirtodyle said:
What?

No, seriously, what?

When I said "Ilia", I wasn't saying "hurr durr bad character".

I was saying "Ilia was the first LGBT+ character in the show and she was introduced as a villain who's motivation is that she's in love with her friend who didn't love her back, this is why she's a villain for 90% of the season, and that's really fucking bad".

That's the kind of criticism that I've seen, and that's the kind of criticism that I give.

Okay, it'd be nice if you mentioned those claims.

Also, Salem is the main plot right now, sure, but a significant part of that plot involved Salem taking advantage of the racial tensions that exist between humans and faunus to exacerbate things. We're currently in Atlas, where one of the main villains who worked with Salem is Jacques Schnee, who is responsible for the literal fucking branding of faunus workers in his dust mines. The faunus stuff doesn't disappear because it's not front and center, and the fact that it's not the main plot doesn't mean that it's not a constant thing or that it's not a problem when you accidentally make it clear that the White Fang are completely justified in violent revolution, because holy shit, they're literally being enslaved and branded by humans.

Nami's boobs getting bigger for fanservice is not even fucking remotely on the same level as RWBY teasing LGBT+ rep and not having delivered outside of Ilia and Jaune's sister, not is it remotely on the same level as trying to do a thinly veiled metaphor for racism using predominantly white people with animal features and then handling it in as clumsily "white person describing racism" away as possible, while also portraying the Faunus rising up against unjust oppression as literal faceless goons that the protagonists can beat up by the dozens without worry.

This is an AfterBuzz interview with Monty from 2014 where his response to being asked if there will be queer rep in RWBY is to suggest that they're already there in the show, and that it'll be revealed as it goes on.

Here's a video where various VAs from the show promise that there'll be more queer rep going forward, 2016.

Here's a post that quotes Barbara advertising that there'll be more queer rep in Season 6, 2018.

It's 2020. The earliest of those videos is from 2014.

We have Ilia, and we have Jaune's sister.

That's it.

Tell me again I'm lying about them promising queer rep and not delivering?

@Gears for the record, up top is the stuff I was talking about when I mentioned selling itself on having queer rep.

Are you forgetting that 2 of the characters in the title team are in a romantic relationship right now?

ZQFMGB · Jul 29, 2020

Zam said:
Oh also aside on the Faunus stuff:

None of this disproves the criticism that was made regarding the White Fang being radical centrist garbage and the worldbuilding on the Faunus being mediocre at best.

Zam said:
Ah yes, opening it with insults about the writers in the first thirty seconds, very amicable, so chill and polite (rolls eyes)

A title does not the product make.

Yes, he is snarky towards the writers, not the fans. And the title represents an effort on his part to be more gentle in his criticism than he would usually be.

Zam said:
And he's blatantly wrong given fighting atop trains is a popular and exciting thing in action and he failed to in anyway show how it diminished the quality of the trailer. Just saying that isn't enough you actually need an argument to back it up, otherwise is pseudo intellectual jargon, a thesis statement without an essay or sources.

He just said his fucking opinion. I'm also pretty sure that he was talking about the restricted space inside the train. Then again, it's just a minor point anyway.

Zam said:
The link I provided notes he "Apologized" after being loudly and publicly called out and that it was an extremely shit apology.

I don't know enough about this so I won't try to defend him. It's still a whataboutism and doesn't excuse the problematic things regarding RWBY though.
Also :

Zam said:
Also bringing this back cos it seemed to get ignored, but if yall are gonna cancel Miles and Kerry for a joke then this is way worse:

Complaining about two cis men getting "canceled over a joke" is, uh not great, especially in 2020.

Zam said:
You can believe whatever you want, just as I can believe those who have watched his video and say its mostly either done to death topics and badly researched jabs. Again, he's just as biased, why am I being dismissed for bias, but his review isn't?

You mean besides saying he doesn't think anyone has ever thought critically about the show, thinks everyone involved is wasting their time thinks those watching are foolishly clinging onto it hoping it gets good, ETC. The act he knew it would be used as such and still made it is kind of the problem in itself, he was wholly aware alt right jackasses would jump on it so they can use it to justify harassing vulnerable and marginalized fans, but apparently him getting to rant about a show he doesn't like is more important than the real harm people will use his content to do.

That's not how it works. The reason I can doubt your claims about being wrongfully banned isn't because I can "believe what i want", it's because you brought no proof. Similarly, I can doubt the validity of your criticism of points that aren't in the first 20 minutes of the video due to you not actually knowing what those points are in detail and untouched by another person's biased pov. And I can criticize hbomb's biases, like how he seems to not criticize Monty enough on some points due to the fact that he admires him.

Oh yeah, alt-right jerks are well known for using hbomberguy's videos to make points.
Also, as I pointed out, literally any kind of negative media critique can theorically be used by assholes to serve their arguments, but that doesn't mean people have to stop criticizing media. Like, should we stop criticizing Gone with the wind because some people probably used criticism of it to harass its fans ?

Zam said:
Yeah, so again, he's using the first three volumes to judge the entire series.
They're not secondhand if the sources come directly from the video.

I said he does state his opinion on the show as a whole, but that the video itself isn't meant to be a demonstration of why he thinks the entire show is bad. Basically it's like saying "I don't like Star Wars" at the beginning of the video that only reviews the original trilogy : sure, it's not the most complete analysis possible, but it's not meant to be.
Those sources don't come directly from the video, they come from other people's criticism. The only part where you can claim to have prime sources is on points that are in the first 20 minutes of the video, which isn't the case for the Faunus for example.

Greener223224 · Jul 29, 2020

ZQFMGB said:
Basically it's like saying "I don't like Star Wars" at the beginning of the video that only reviews the original trilogy

That's not actually a good comparison. Star Wars is a whole bunch of things, with three movie trilogies, several TV shows, and a GIANT expanded universe of books and videogames not even encompassing the whole of the franchise. RWBY is mostly just a webseries with seven seasons. And there's not actually much difference between these seasons to really say any of them should stand out for introspect or scrutiny apart from the rest.

Also, Leila Hann stopped her RWBY stuff at Season 3, too, and nobody minded. Hbomb still admits he's seen at least up to Season 6, just that he doesn't think it's worth it to keep talking.

Zam · Jul 29, 2020

FBH said:
The video is already 2.5 hours long and took like, 2 weeks to assemble because of Roster Teeth's abusive use of Youtube's copyright algorithm system.

... You do know RT don't have direct and total control the youtube copyright system right? Though they have been leaning on it harder lately that was explicitly because someone was making RWBY theme and RT branded soft core porn of their characters and posting it in the children's section. The rest is likely either the algorithm at work cos the video is long and used a lot of clips so it assumes he is uploading whole episodes, or its cos he wants advertiser revenue for a video heavily dominated with others people's content which again, the algorithm is gonna be iffy on.

Gargulec said:
I have literally no skin in this game - I don't care about RWBY either way. It may, for what I know, the best show on the planet. But this claim? The claim that coding is equivalent to show don't tell?

This strikes me as, at best, uniformed.

The reason for that is blatantly simple. Queer coding exists for reasons that are other than just attempting to subtly indicate something about a character. The very fact that this term functions the way it does in pop media criticism is a legacy of the fact that for the longest time - and to a significant degree, even know - queer relationships, identities, thoughts and experiences could not be depicted in media directly. This meant that if they were to be shown at all, they had to be coded. Ciphered in. And the reason for why it is an issue is blatantly obvious: if something is coded, you need to know the code to recognise it.

Queer coding existed, in no small part, to contain queer lives within a ciphered, shadow-world of plausible deniability in representation.

And since you can't really take fiction out of the historical and social context of both its creation and its reception, the frustration with queer coding isn't an issue of some transcendental standard of good or bad writing, it is an issue of whether a certain set of experiences and people is allowed to exist openly, or forced to survive encoded. The demand to make queerness explicit in media - to make gays and lesbians and bisexuals and trans people exist openly under those names, without being veiled by implication and obscured by narrative smoke and mirrors, is therefore nothing short of a demand to be allowed the same privilege of visibility and recognition that is implicitly granted to heterosexuality, cis-gender identities and other examples of the normative. Because for quite a lot of queer people, being tolerated as a shadowy, easily disavowed presence is not enough: under conditions of underrepresentation and a lingering threat of erasure, nothing short of explicit visibility will do.

I am well aware of this fact, my point however was that Yang & Blake's relationship/sexuality have been very much developed at a low-key level throughout the series, because as a series RWBY has a lot of show don't tell in its characterization and relationship dynamics. There's entire meta's about how hugs at none romantic coded but hand holding is; the fact that Blake & Yang's seeming romantic development followed that same pattern is not inherently coding, or using it for advertising purposes.

Blake & Yang got compared to Ren & Nora which is fair as both are basically the shows main flagships insofar as the narrative has been laid out so far. However that ignores that Ren & Nora grew up together & only recently have had any real "Bumps in the road" so to speak, whie Blake & Yang only met at Beacon, got traumatically (though in a romantically coded context) separated, and recently re-united. Demanding they be kissing off the bat when it took seven volumes for Renora & involved Nora frankly being rather insensitive to Ren for them to get that far shows a total disregard for the characters, story and surrounding context I feel.

all fictions said:
Ah yes, do we add "tone policing" to the list of spurious fig leaves why you won't watch the video you're criticizing? Listening to you, it's like the video should have been a dry recounting in a polite and deferential tone with absolutely zero jokes.

"Amicable" does not mean overly polite. The joke of going "two…" and not saying "writers" barely amount to light hearted ribbing. It does not mean he does not respect them either because he talks about the good job they did on Red vs. Blue and later explore in details the problems with RWBY's writing instead of going "writers bad". If you want to a video where he is "mean" to a show's writer, the Sherlock video is a better example (and even then).

And for all of that, HB made this joke, but he didn't insult the writers by calling them "unhinged", "pathetic", or "hateful". Now, who did that, I wonder?

You said it was amicable I pointed out it wasn't, nothing more.

Even ignoring that, that was just the start of it his baseless accusations on their character regarding self inserts while ignoring Lie Ren spring to mind.

Nice mis-representation there, when I said the claims were unhinged from reality, which is just an alternative phrasing for "Have no basis in reality" As in "are baseless" as to the rest, I and others have already gone over his various other insults levied at cast and crew so don't expect me to feel guilt for being snippy when he bases so much of his work on disparaging people.

all fictions said:
I can't dismiss an argument I haven't read, lol.

But you know, there's this formidable and revolutionary forum function. It's called "Quote", and, good news, you can even use it for yourself if you don't want to repeat something you've already said! Isn't that marvelous?

So you're admitting to engaging in a debate you know nothing about and now expect me to do your homework for you, pass.

all fictions said:
Wow, I didn't have to repeat an argument I've already made! The internet is so handy.

Sarcasm aside, it all comes back to this: if you haven't watched it and don't plan to, why should you have any worth as a critic of it and why should people listen to you?

I don't know, why do you keep responding to me sharing other people who have watched the video's insights if what I say shouldn't matter?

ZQFMGB said:
None of this disproves the criticism that was made regarding the White Fang being radical centrist garbage and the worldbuilding on the Faunus being mediocre at best.

You saying that isn't an argument in of itself, and it does actually put some stuff into a new context regardless of whether you want it to or not. Though as noted, no one has actually said it was great, though the world building hadn't come up yet so not sure where you are getting that from.

ZQFMGB said:
Yes, he is snarky towards the writers, not the fans. And the title represents an effort on his part to be more gentle in his criticism than he would usually be.

Claiming he think he's the first one to analyze it properly and claiming all fans are just clinging to it hoping its gets better, not to be blunt, but I don't like people speaking for me so presumptuously or insisting a thing I like is provably bad just cos he didn't like it.

ZQFMGB said:
He just said his fucking opinion. I'm also pretty sure that he was talking about the restricted space inside the train. Then again, it's just a minor point anyway.

He framed it as a fact. And he was still wrong. It seems like all there is are "Minor points" when people want to dismiss critique against his video.

ZQFMGB said:
I don't know enough about this so I won't try to defend him. It's still a whataboutism and doesn't excuse the problematic things regarding RWBY though.
Also :
Complaining about two cis men getting "canceled over a joke" is, uh not great, especially in 2020.

I think given people were trying to judge them as people for jokes but ignore those aspects of Hbomerguy that highlighting the hypocrisy is relent.

What joke? People were saying how gross and awful they were while removing their actions from any kind of context to make them look as bad as possible, I thought the jokes were shitty too, but the level people here were taking it to were pretty aggressively unseemly.

ZQFMGB said:
That's not how it works. The reason I can doubt your claims about being wrongfully banned isn't because I can "believe what i want", it's because you brought no proof. Similarly, I can doubt the validity of your criticism of points that aren't in the first 20 minutes of the video due to you not actually knowing what those points are in detail and untouched another person's biased pov. And I can criticize hbomb's biases, like how he seems to not criticize Monty enough on some points due to the fact that he admires him.

Oh yeah, alt-right jerks are well known for using hbomberguy's videos to make points.
Also, as I pointed out, literally any kind of negative media critique can theorically be used by assholes to serve their arguments, but that doesn't mean people have to stop criticizing media. Like, should we stop criticizing Gone with the wind because some people probably used criticism of it to harass its fans ?

I don't think you get to decide how reality works just cos you don't like that I'm not going to waste hours of my life when I have access to the information I need.

The Alt Right RWBY sphere would happily co-opt his nominal approval of their bile, if you think otherwise I don't know what to tell you.
There's a major difference between RWBY and most other media as has been discussed thanks to its aggressively toxic "base members" like the one's who brigaded the Grimm contest specifically to be offensive.

ZQFMGB said:
I said he does state his opinion on the show as a whole, but that the video itself isn't meant to be a demonstration of why he thinks the entire show is bad. Basically it's like saying "I don't like Star Wars" at the beginning of the video that only reviews the original trilogy : sure, it's not the most complete analysis possible, but it's not meant to be.
Those sources don't come directly from the video, they come from other people's criticism. The only part where you can claim to have prime sources is on points that are in the first 20 minutes of the video, which isn't the case for the Faunus for example.

... I think you contradicted yourself there.
There's as second hand as the people's here, why should I trust people who liked his video more than people who disliked it, especially when so many openly tout not having watched or like the show for years.

_______
Anyway so many people and so late at night is making my response come off as far less eloquent than they otherwise would so I'm off to bed.

Squirtodyle · Jul 29, 2020

VolantRedX said:
Are you forgetting that 2 of the characters in the title team are in a romantic relationship right now?

They've been teased. They haven't kissed, haven't exchanged "I love you"s, haven't been confirmed to be in a relationship...

I thought I made it very very clear earlier, I'm absolutely sick of """rep""" that's easily deniable and consists mostly of teasing. In the space between RWBY beginning and now, we've had shows like Steven Universe and She-Ra. I'm absolutely sick and tired of rep that isn't, and RWBY is horrible for it.

EDIT: To be clear, I'd love if they did. If they kiss in Volume 8, I'll be super fucking happy. I think it's a neat development that they're clearly working towards. But I want it concrete and visible and up front and center.

Greener223224 · Jul 29, 2020

Squirtodyle said:
They've been teased. They haven't kissed, haven't exchanged "I love you"s, haven't been confirmed to be in a relationship...

I thought I made it very very clear earlier, I'm absolutely sick of """rep""" that's easily deniable and consists mostly of teasing. In the space between RWBY beginning and now, we've had shows like Steven Universe and She-Ra. I'm absolutely sick and tired of rep that isn't, and RWBY is horrible for it.

EDIT: To be clear, I'd love if they did. If they kiss in Volume 8, I'll be super fucking happy. I think it's a neat development that they're clearly working towards. But I want it concrete and visible and up front and center.

"No, but they don't NEED to kiss, because it's obvious to everybody that they're already a couple, and the only ones who can't see it are jerks!"

"Anyways, enjoy this scene of Ren and Nora kissing in the middle of a season where it feels like their relationship is about to fall apart at any moment."

VolantRedX · Jul 29, 2020

Squirtodyle said:
They've been teased. They haven't kissed, haven't exchanged "I love you"s, haven't been confirmed to be in a relationship...

I thought I made it very very clear earlier, I'm absolutely sick of """rep""" that's easily deniable and consists mostly of teasing. In the space between RWBY beginning and now, we've had shows like Steven Universe and She-Ra. I'm absolutely sick and tired of rep that isn't, and RWBY is horrible for it.

She-Ra spent 4 seasons "teasing Catradora" to the point most people wrote it off as impossible. Prior to that they had 2 gay couples who were at best minor characters, a minor side character who is seen briefly giving glances at another woman, and a NB shapeshifter whose nonbinary status is never explored brought up or explained. I think you're giving She-Ra too much credit and RWBY not enough.

all fictions · Jul 29, 2020

Zam said:
Even ignoring that, that was just the start of it his baseless accusations on their character regarding self inserts while ignoring Lie Ren spring to mind.

all fictions said:
If only people could actually watch what the vid actually say about Jaune and Neptune, and how there are multiple caveats to the claims, they would see "Jaune/Neptune are SIs" isn't even the main thrust of the argument, it's that the screentime could have been better used to set up other stuff like the Volume 2 finale.

But overly focusing on minor details over the larger points seem to be the style for some, so...

Wow! Quoting yourself back is so nice and easy!

Zam said:
Nice mis-representation there

I love how you skirted around the fact that you called him pathetic.

Zam said:
So you're admitting to engaging in a debate you know nothing about and now expect me to do your homework for you, pass.

I was suspicious, but now I'm almost certain you can't read.

One more time, with easier words: I am saying I didn't notice anything about low quality in previous posts, so if you think I should be made aware of it or don't want to repeat yourself, simply directs me towards when you made that point with a link or a quote. That's not asking to do the homework, that's just asking for clarification.

Zam said:
I don't know, why do you keep responding to me sharing other people who have watched the video's insights if what I say shouldn't matter?

That's not what you're doing. You keep making hyperbolic claims about the videos, say the equivalent of "Harris is a poopy poop that smells!", then share random people on the internet that nobody knows from Adam (heh) to validate your sentiments, all so you can tell people to not bother watching the video.

I'm not sure why you think acting like an authority based on second hand stuff is supposed to be acceptable when refuting criticism, but it ain't, chief.

Squirtodyle · Jul 29, 2020

VolantRedX said:
She-Ra spent 4 seasons "teasing Catradora" to the point most people wrote it off as impossible. Prior to that they had 2 gay couples who were at best minor characters, a minor side character who is seen briefly giving glances at another woman, and a NB shapeshifter whose nonbinary status is never explored brought up or explained. I think you're giving She-Ra too much credit and RWBY not enough.

I'm sorry, She-Ra...has a lesbian main character who ends the series in a relationship with another woman and the main villain is defeated by their love specifically, Bow's dads exist, Netossa and Spinerella exist, and characters that aren't cis exist.

In what universe does RWBY deserve more credit than what it has? Three cis lesbians outright confirmed in seven years of content?

Absolutely get out of here with that nonsense, RWBY's queer rep is bad and they've been promising better since 2014 and it's at the bare minimum. They gave Ren and Nora a kiss this season, why couldn't they do the same for Blake and Yang if they wanted us to know they were in a relationship?

This is absolute nonsense.

Psyga315 · Jul 29, 2020

Squirtodyle said:
I'm sorry, She-Ra...has a lesbian main character who ends the series in a relationship with another woman and the main villain is defeated by their love specifically, Bow's dads exist, Netossa and Spinerella exist, and characters that aren't cis exist.

In what universe does RWBY deserve more credit than what it has? Three cis lesbians outright confirmed in seven years of content?

Absolutely get out of here with that nonsense, RWBY's queer rep is bad and they've been promising better since 2014 and it's at the bare minimum. They gave Ren and Nora a kiss this season, why couldn't they do the same for Blake and Yang if they wanted us to know they were in a relationship?

This is absolute nonsense.

Don't forget about the two guys who were just good friends that people, RWBY twitter included, blew out of proportions and made them a couple before one of them got penetrated in the wrong way.

And that there were a few non-cis characters, but that you would only know that if you look at the Twitter accounts of the people who voiced or animated them.

VolantRedX · Jul 29, 2020

Squirtodyle said:
I'm sorry, She-Ra...has a lesbian main character who ends the series in a relationship with another woman and the main villain is defeated by their love specifically, Bow's dads exist, Netossa and Spinerella exist, and characters that aren't cis exist.

In what universe does RWBY deserve more credit than what it has? Three cis lesbians outright confirmed in seven years of content?

Absolutely get out of here with that nonsense, RWBY's queer rep is bad and they've been promising better since 2014 and it's at the bare minimum. They gave Ren and Nora a kiss this season, why couldn't they do the same for Blake and Yang if they wanted us to know they were in a relationship?

This is absolute nonsense.

By the standard you set in the earlier post Catradora doesn't count until literally the last episode because until then they never kissed or said I love you. Most people act like they knew Catradora was going to be endgame and that it was super obvious, but by the end of season 3 most people were calling for Catra's head, they were talking about how Adora should never forgive Catra and how Catradora is a toxic ship that supports abusive relationships. You're looking at the last season of She-Ra and saying that's representative of the whole show. It's not. Like yes Netossa and Spinerella exist, but they have barely any lines or screentime prior to season 5 and have about as much impact on the plot as Saphron and Terra do. Non-cis characters? They have one character who is non-binary and DT being non-binary is never mentioned outright or even stated meaning for all the show tells you it could just be a part of them being a shapeshifter. Really the only thing She-Ra had before the last season is Bow's dads, characters in one filler episode.

Now you could say "well in the final season"... which ok but that's not representative of the whole show nor is it relevant because RWBY is still on-going. Like obviously She-Ra has better queer representation, but don't act like it started out that way day one, or blow off what representation RWBY has because it doesn't meet your standards.

Squirtodyle · Jul 29, 2020

VolantRedX said:
By the standard you set in the earlier post Catradora doesn't count until literally the last episode because until then they never kissed or said I love you. Most people act like they knew Catradora was going to be endgame and that it was super obvious, but by the end of season 3 most people were calling for Catra's head, they were talking about how Adora should never forgive Catra and how Catradora is a toxic ship that supports abusive relationships. You're looking at the last season of She-Ra and saying that's representative of the whole show. It's not. Like yes Netossa and Spinerella exist, but they have barely any lines or screentime prior to season 5 and have about as much impact on the plot as Saphron and Terra do. Non-cis characters? They have one character who is non-binary and DT being non-binary is never mentioned outright or even stated meaning for all the show tells you it could just be a part of them being a shapeshifter. Really the only thing She-Ra had before the last season is Bow's dads, characters in one filler episode.

Now you could say "well in the final season"... which ok but that's not representative of the whole show nor is it relevant because RWBY is still on-going.

She-Ra had it's entire running in between them promising more LGBT+ characters in 2018 and now and it still managed far more rep and far better rep than RWBY has done.

You are actually, factually wrong to pretend there is an equivalence given how long RWBY has been going compared to She-Ra, how major the rep is in She-Ra, and how important the rep is to She-Ra.

I'm going to stop responding now because if you honestly think She-Ra and RWBY have remotely equal representation you're out of your mind.

Mook · Jul 29, 2020

Squirtodyle said:
I'm sorry, She-Ra...has a lesbian main character who ends the series in a relationship with another woman and the main villain is defeated by their love specifically, Bow's dads exist, Netossa and Spinerella exist, and characters that aren't cis exist.

In what universe does RWBY deserve more credit than what it has? Three cis lesbians outright confirmed in seven years of content?

Absolutely get out of here with that nonsense, RWBY's queer rep is bad and they've been promising better since 2014 and it's at the bare minimum. They gave Ren and Nora a kiss this season, why couldn't they do the same for Blake and Yang if they wanted us to know they were in a relationship?

This is absolute nonsense.

As a major She-Ra fanboy who absolutely loves how the Catradora relationship was handled I have to say: No, his point is not nonsense.

Prior to the very final moments of the very final episode of the very final season there was no outright confirmation that Adora actually was a lesbian. At no point prior to that final super fantastic mega ultra gay confession scene did we ever get any scenes that gave a stronger confirmation of Adora being gay and in love with Catra than what we've had so far with Yang and Blake. Even Catra wasn't really confirmed to be romantically in love with Adora until just an episode or two prior, and even then it wasn't explicit in the way you seem to demand RWBY should be.

Bow's dad exists. So does Jaune's sister and her wife who are both so super duper gay that they're named after the OG lesbian and her super duper gay writings.

Netossa and Spinnerella practically did not exist until the final season, before that they were complete background characters. Meanwhile in RWBY Coco, Ilia and Scarlet exists and RWBY ain't over yet so all of them still have chances to get explored more just like Spinerella and Nettossa did prior to season 5 (which is when they became actual characters with a major role in the story). This explicit gay background couple that didn't need to be there at all yet were added anyway exists.

Characters who aren't cis exists? Yeah. One non-binary shapeshifter whose gender status was never commented on in the show and two characters who were so entirely absent of canonical signs of their trans status that the creators don't feel comfortable claiming them as trans representation. In RWBY there is also a trans woman whose gender status also has no evidence for it in the show itself (but which is very explicit in WoG) but the thing is that RWBY isn't over yet. And the character in question is apparently going to get some focus in the next volume. So RWBY at least has the chance to make their trans character explicit in a way that She-Ra didn't.

Circling back to the gay main characters. I mean it was absolutely obvious that Adora was gay when we got scenes like this:

But by the same token RWBY was being equally unsubtle with scenes like this:

Where Yang turns into a big sputtering mess from looking at Blake's new hairstyle and specifically Yang's opinion on her looks makes Blake blush like mad. Especially notable since characters almost never blush in this series.

Even if Catra didn't explicitly state that she loved Adora in a very gay way there was no doubt in anyone's mind what she meant when she said "Adora doesn't want me, not in the same way I want her." But again by the same token you would have to be delusional too look at the jealous ex boyfriend of a main character saying stuff like "What does she even see in you!?" to her gal "pal" and not understand what the writers are going for there. Especially with all the Beauty and the Beast parallels surrounding this main character who explicetly references Beauty and the Beast:

To say nothing of how the show got even more explicit with Nora directly stating that she thinks there's more going on between Yang and Blake than just friendship while comparing them to her own romantic relationship with Ren, with Nora previously having been shown to be the only one to spot Pyrrha's romantic attraction to Jaune, and Yang and Blake going to dance together in the same episode, with Weiss acting like the third wheel friend who is sick of being near her lovebird friends.

As for why not give Yang and Blake a kiss like they did with Ren and Nora? Well why couldn't Noelle give us a kiss between Catra and Adora prior to the absolute last minute of the entire series? Because that's the place in the story that she felt it would have the biggest impact.

VolantRedX · Jul 29, 2020

Squirtodyle said:
I'm going to stop responding now because if you honestly think She-Ra and RWBY have remotely equal representation you're out of your mind.

I'm...not? Like that has never been my point. My point is that you've created an arbitrary distinction of what "counts as representation" then gave an example of a show that doesn't meet that standard for 95% of it's run. She-Ra blows RWBY out of the water when it comes to LBGT representation, I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm pointing out that you've chosen to ignore the LBGT representation RWBY does have using a standard that discounts much of the representation in She-Ra as well.

tankdrop24 · Jul 29, 2020

Frankly, She-Ra had queerness far more heavily encoded in the way the characters interact probably in the first few seasons than RWBY has in its entire run.

Marco · Jul 29, 2020

*sigh* Jesus Christ people. Leave for 12 hours and the thread just sinks into the muck.

Well, I watched it. I watched the video.

If I had to summarize for people on the fence about watching it in a single sentence, it's not terrible, especially compared to a lot of RWBY reviews, but you probably have better things to spend 2 ½ hours on.

My exact thoughts a spoiled below, but I believe this quote earlier in the thread is probably the best description that's not in my own words:

Chlof said:
Hbomb has two serious issue with his fiction reviews: mixing valid, serious literary critique in with utterly petty shit, and making the reviews impenetrably long. It's Mauler tier, but unlike Mauler there's actual good content in there that you need to dredge through two hours to get to and that frustrates me more than Mauler ever could.

As a heads up to anyone who reads, I'll probably be a little harsher than I would usually like to be – but this is a direct consequence of having to sit through 2 ½ hours of this, which as I've said before I have a strong dislike of. I had to take actual notes for this.

Essentially, my initial fear of this being bloated was well-founded. It is a bloated review that is ultimately not worth the time it takes. The author is very clearly capable of good points and good critique, but it's so often undermined by the incessant need to go off on a tangent, beat a dead horse or to chase a joke. There are multiple times where he can't just make a point and move on, he has to bring it up again and again as he does with the opening short about dust simultaneously focusing too much on a single aspect and not focusing enough on his overall argument.

And in some ways, it almost seems like he doesn't know what he wants this review to be sometimes. He spends some time, twenty or so minutes in, seemingly extending an olive branch to people who enjoy RWBY, though particularly those who like the later seasons, 4 and onward. He acknowledges how a lot of the criticism is shitty and bad faith, and tries to assure us that he will be acting in good faith. He then precedes to blow that almost immediately afterwards, including an anime intro song with the lyrics "he's going to tell us why RWBY is lame and why RWBY sucks" or something to that effect. He might have meant it as a joke, but it was poorly placed. If you're going to do something like that, immediately after trying to assure everyone you'll act in good faith isn't the place to do it. Some things you need to let stand, not undermine because you checked your watch and realised you went a whole 30 seconds without a joke.

This also connects to some other points he made about the animation about an hour in, where he says that talking about it would be a fairly useless distraction. The problem is, he had already been talking about the animation and continues to talk about the animation in a very "have your cake and eat it too" situation. You don't avoid your point being largely useless and distracting simply because you go a bit meta about it.

On his decision to focus on the first three seasons - I agree with that call. The reasoning for it is sound and there was clearly a shift for RWBY post volume 3. However, he doesn't go far enough with this separation, occasionally dipping into the later seasons if he thinks it supports his point and this occasionally leading to mistakes, such as Yang's semblance. He claims that they changed how it worked in the series and points to a few scenes post vol 3. These are taken out of context, they talk of Yang using her semblance because she gets angry, not because being angry is the source of it. He also has this habit of referencing later season through imagery, especially towards the end and you're left wondering if he is talking about the later seasons in such a way, contrary to his earlier claims, especially during the conclusion.

When he gets to more literary topics – the issues of semblances being introduced relatively late in episode 14 for example or characterisation – they're fair points for the most part. The show had a muddled means of production that didn't lend itself to creating the best story it could and he does seem to connect this to how RvB was made and how that might have impacted how the show was made. RvB established the story before the fights, rather than trying to craft a story around the fights as RWBY seemed to.

But this makes a lot of his video that much more of a chore to get through, because he comes off as the bright guy trying to dumb himself down to fit in with a crowd, telling jokes or focusing on petty things seemingly out of fear that if he doesn't do it people will lose interest and wander off – which they might still do anyway given the length of the video. When he talks about aspects RWBY drew inspiration from we have genuine connections mixed in with petty stretches of "this show had this, they must have copied it" (such as both Avatar and RWBY having that introduction. Even an hour later he's still stuck on that damn introduction). He's essentially taking reasonable connections, and then trying uplift less plausible ones as equally valid after this and then starts going on about the creators grasping wildly with a bit of a lack of self-awareness.

The racism sub-plot has been done to death, but trying to connect current protests to it as if they show was written as these were going on is, well, disingenuous.it was poorly done, yes, but they didn't do it in the current climate.

Goes on about the tournament, how he likes the last half of season three, none of these is new ground, arguments or insight and goes on to his conclusion.

Overall, you could probably find a tumbler post that covers all his points in, like, ten or twenty minutes of reading and have saved yourself a significant amount of time. The production value is high for a Youtube video in places, but it's mostly your standard "video essay" format with most of the higher stuff done in the first 30 minutes. As I've alluded to, structure and approach is a big issue and it tends to make points of genuine critique a slog to get too. Somewhat petty stuff undermines his points at times and he really needs to work on his timing and placement of jokes.

But he does have some genuine points, we're probably going to get a video about the later seasons which I think he'll be more positive towards. I won't watch it, and I do mean it this time

tankdrop24 · Jul 29, 2020

Having actual criticisms applied is sinking into the muck now?

Terpsichorë · Jul 29, 2020

Zam said:
Given he makes constant jabs at the voice acting, disparages the writers, claims the musicians stole music, along with perpetuates dozens of provably false statements I disagree, its garbage and a waste of time.

Zam, the only person here making provably false statements here is you.

HBomberguy did not accuse anybody of stealing music - in fact, he explicitly said he was not doing that:

Now, I'm not saying this is plagiarism or anything, these songs are just incredibly similar because they're both very generic.

For full context, refer to following video, should start at timestamp, but if not it's 1:12:00

But the fact you're perpetuating provably false statements isn't surprising - you yourself have admitted that you haven't actually watched his critique, and are just cribbing off of comments made by other people.

Zam said:
He's really got to sstop confusing his opinions with fact, keep in mind this is a guy who doesn't know what a ribbon is, thinks you can't do dynamic action scenes on a train, completely failed to understand the Yellow Trailer, finds the prospect of people as villains inherently bad because monsters exist and is clearly just pissy that the show wasn't what he imagined it'd be based on a tech demo. The fact he has to make shit up should show how clearly unhinged from reality his complaints are and how bereft of worth his video is. He's spent more time on RWBY than I do shows I like, its deeply pathetic.

Again, you keep making shit up.

"keep in mind this is a guy who doesn't know what a ribbon is"

What Hbomb actually said said:
Blake's weapon is a sword, whose holster is another, bigger, sword, and they're connected by a string, or something, also it can turn into a gun. It look neat, but I couldn't tell you exactly what it does. I like it though.

Timestamp 15:18

Truly, the fact that he called it a "string" rather than a "ribbon" clearly means he has no clue what he is talking about, and definitely isn't you making needlessly pedantic & pointless critique of a video you haven't even watched.

"thinks you can't do dynamic action scenes on a train"

What Hbomb actually said said:
The fight is cool though, I don't think it's as cool as the red trailer though, as it's set in or on a train, so the fight sequences are in a rectangular box - or basically just a straight line, it's hard to have creative movements and camera work in that set up - it's a bit of a limitation.

Again, we see the trend of you removing all context & nuance from an argument, and transforming it into a strawman. Something being a limitation or hard to do is not the same as "you can't do dynamic action scenes on a train".

"finds the prospect of people as villains inherently bad because monsters exist"

What Hbomb actually said said:
This is the beginning of a writing problem which starts here and continues to plague the show until, Uh, I think it hasn't stopped yet. When you have a character straight up say 'ah, i don't care about killing civilians' straight up to someone's face, what you're doing is having a character openly admit that they've been written to be the bad guy, and that's incredibly weird because they've written monsters into the setting that are just generically evil and want to destroy humanity because that's in their nature, so it's very weird that the actual characters that you wrote behave like that too.

Again, we see the trend of you removing all context & nuance from an argument. Hbomb's point is that if you already have a 100% evil force in your story - in this case the Grim - then taking up time and effort to set up a character who is also 100% evil is somewhat redundant - they're playing relatively similiar narrative roles, and it's a waste of screentime and character design if all you're going to do with them is make them generic unredeemable evil person.

Zam said:
Wow its even worse than I thought ><

Zam said:
Save I did watch some of his video, watched it being made, watched his conversations about it and also have the word of people who did watch it, which means I did more research than he evidently did given he thinks trains shouldn't exist in Mountain Glenn,.

Again, we see the trend of you removing all context & nuance from an argument:

What Hbomb actually said said:
So the dead destroyed civilisation that Ruby just fell into? Has a working rail network with a train in it!
<snip>
So instead of the plot leading organically into the train, the train is just there when it needs to be in the story.

The entire city of Mountain Glen is a crumbling ruin, with the houses and buildings reduced to skeletal structures - the fact that their is somehow an entire fully working train, complete with completley undamaged, unbent rail tracks that lead directly down a tunnel to Vale, with no blockages, is very contrived.

Literally everything about Mountain Glen is in ruins but the train.

To surmise Zam, I shall only return your own words to you:

The fact he Zam has to make shit up should show how clearly unhinged from reality ~~his~~ Zam's complaints are and how bereft of worth his ~~video~~ posting is.

Greener223224 · Jul 29, 2020

I just found this video on a Resetera thread talking about the video:

Why does this exist?

StellarSeeker · Jul 29, 2020

tankdrop24 said:
Having actual criticisms applied is sinking into the muck now?

yes clearly this thread is not toxic at all

it is filled with people calmly discussing things and not two sides screaming at each other over irreconcilable differences in opinion.

Marco · Jul 29, 2020

tankdrop24 said:
Having actual criticisms applied is sinking into the muck now?

That comment would be a lot more effective if you hadn't just tried to post a single quip implying I was only attacking one side rather than just showing disapproval to multiple fronts at the toxic nature of the conversation.

As is, even as I'm typing this I'm seeing comments of posters accusing each other of being unhinged from reality. People need to take a step back and calm down.

Greener223224 · Jul 29, 2020

tankdrop24 said:
Having actual criticisms applied is sinking into the muck now?

No, circling the wagons about what counts as lesbian representation or not is sinking into the muck.

Darmani · Jul 29, 2020

Squirtodyle said:
o be clear, I'd love if they did. If they kiss in Volume 8, I'll be super fucking happy. I think it's a neat development that they're clearly working towards. But I want it concrete and visible and up front and center.

We disagree here. It has the effect, to me, to make it about that kiss and all else naught. I just.. can't go back to She-Ra because Adora is ultimately just in denial about her lesbianism and Catra is a hurt woobie because of how it ended.
Yes an ending can ruin a show for me. just like it can save it (popular discourse on GoT versus Onward as an example)

to relate to RWBY. this means you lose the validity of it being "baiting, broken promises, and teasing" and any other complaint because all that you're dismissing NOW becomes buildup/validity/character development for THEN.
So all your complaints boil down to "make main characters gay" oh they are "BEST EVAR fuck the haters" which.. uhm fair. If an ending of development can sour an experience it can sweeten

But it means that ONE element raises or condemns show. bombguy, by contrast, emphasis on production and storytelling and conveyance and how later improvement with these core flaws REALLY undermining the show...well again not totally agree but more my thing but I don't think that's his whole opinion just an aspect of his essay I can agree with

Mook · Jul 29, 2020

tankdrop24 said:
Frankly, She-Ra had queerness far more heavily encoded in the way the characters interact probably in the first few seasons than RWBY has in its entire run.

That's certainly true but I don't really see how that's a mark against RWBY. Or at least a mark against RWBY specifically.

She-Ra is a show written by a gay woman explicitly setting out to burn down the status quo and fight for the gays. When the author of a work comes right out and says that all characters in their show should be considered gay until proven otherwise (in a deliberate decision to turn heteronormativity on it's head) then that is going to have a big effect on how the show is made and how it represents itself.

However I don't see why that means that we should go around tearing down other shows for their gay rep. If She-Ra got cancelled before it's final season or Noelle got some alien spaceflu that made her decide at the last minute to can the Catradora romance and have Adora hook up with Kyle and Catra hooked up with Rogelio then it would have had about as much explicit gay romance among the named cast as RWBY does currently.

I don't expect the Bumbleby kiss to have anywhere near the same impact as the Catradora kiss, because RWBY wasn't designed from the ground up to be entirely about Yang and Blake's romance the way She-Ra is built around Catra and Adora's relationship. But even something as built up as Catradora still had plenty of us wondering if it would even happen right up until that final season. And in a similar way to how that kiss retroactively made all the semi-ambiguous scenes leading up to it 100% gayer by confirming that those scenes were about romance and not platonic friendship the Bumbleby ship has been slowly and steadily been built up from day one.

Scenes that are not technically confirmed to be gay at the moment are going to make the show a hundred times gayer the moment all that build up receives it's payoff.

Havocfett · Jul 29, 2020

Mook said:
Scenes that are not technically confirmed to be gay at the moment are going to make the show a hundred times gayer the moment all that build up receives it's payoff.

So do you figure another six years for the payoff or something closer to eighteen?

RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

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