RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

[kokuenDG]

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]

And you've missed the forest as well.

He's a violent shithead because he lived a violent life. He routinely abused his girlfriend emotionally because he doesn't know how to form proper emotional bonds. He took power because he lived his whole life without power. He only cares for himself because that's what he had to do for most of his life.

He wasn't born evil like some sort of spawn of Satan. He was nurtured to know that violence was the only answer. Yes, his shitty life shouldn't excuse him from doing the bad things he did, but his shitty life explains why he's doing the bad things.

This isn't to mean that he was truly after equality. Yeah, the case can definitely be made that he's merely looking out for number one (which is himself), but his violent past (remember, his eye got fucking branded) is the reason for his violent behaviors.

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Fair enough, but like the point wasn't "Adam was born evil" the point was "Adam has long passed the point of being able to be anything but what he is". Notice how the show didn't paint his death as some great moment of success for Blake as she finally stood up to her oppressor, but as a tragic ending for a man so twisted by the world he isn't able to walk away. Yes Adam's death is a good thing, but the characters don't celebrate, they don't treat him like Cinder or Salem, Yang and Blake simply quietly walk away. I just feel that looking to Adam of all characters for representation and nuance talks about protests is looking in the wrong direction. There were way better characters for it.

Like I will admit the video did a good job at pointing out issues I missed, but once again I think it missed the reason the WF were portrayed as bad guys in the first few volumes. RWBY wasn't fighting them because they were radical protestors using violence to try and secure rights, but because they were criminals. They weren't doing a fucking thing for equal rights. All they did was help a human racist commit crimes. There was no ideology driving them to do these things. Hell it wasn't even in the name of protecting themselves or stopping racism. It was that they were ordered by their leader who did so out of fear for his own life.

Yes RWBY should have dealt with the racism a lot better. They fucked up there, but at this point, I think they're better off just leaving the White Fang behind. As the video points out they fucked up so badly that really trying to do so is so far past the point of meaningful discussions it will never work. Certainly, they shouldn't just pretend it doesn't exist, but given all the other balls in the air spending the time the show would need to untangle that web would be far more than they likely could reasonably devote to the topic.

Finally, the thing I find most puzzling is the idea that the show needs to recast the POC in order to be more inclusive. Like the reason, characters like Tai and Yang don't have accents when they talk is because they're not from places that develop accents. I mean there are tons of POC out there who have the local accent because that's where they grew up. No one "sounds black" and without their background being such that they'd have an accent it makes no sense they'd have one. Certainly, they could do with more diversity on the cast, but most of the main cast were literally just people Monty knew and who weren't doing anything at the time. They're not a professional voice cast. It's one thing when a show like the Simpsons has an Indian man voiced by a white dude doing an accent, but what would Tai sound like normally? What is a Patch accent, or an Atlas accent? These people aren't from real places and don't have real accents.

 

[Pugman]

And you've missed the forest as well.

He's a violent shithead because he lived a violent life. He routinely abused his girlfriend emotionally because he doesn't know how to form proper emotional bonds. He took power because he lived his whole life without power. He only cares for himself because that's what he had to do for most of his life.

He wasn't born evil like some sort of spawn of Satan. He was nurtured to know that violence was the only answer. Yes, his shitty life shouldn't excuse him from doing the bad things he did, but his shitty life explains why he's doing the bad things.

This isn't to mean that he was truly after equality. Yeah, the case can definitely be made that he's merely looking out for number one (which is himself), but his violent past (remember, his eye got fucking branded) is the reason for his violent behaviors.

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And he chose to continue that life of violence despite Blake telling him repeatedly to stop.
So in the end you can't completely blame his actions and behavior on his past.

for an example from another show, we have Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. She grew up in a horrible place and was treated like shit. For a majority of the show she chose to continue that cycle of violence and abuse, but after everything eventually fell apart and left her with nothing she took the advice of another to do "One Good Thing" and finally put others before herself. from there she begins to change, heal, and become a better person. Compare this to Adam who was given chances to stop, both before and after he lost everything he had built up, and yet he still chose to lash out, still chose to hurt. He made is choice, and he paid for it.
for examples actually in RWBY, we have Qrow Branwen. He and Raven were both raised on a bandit tribe, and by sounds of it Qrow had a bad time due to his semblance. and yet after joining Beacon, being given a new purpose and a found family he chose to stay with that while Raven eventually turned back and returned to the tribe. We also have the Schneeblings. One ran away to the military and does not seem to think her life matters. One fought for their freedom, twice, and has a scar on their face and good friends at their side as they strive to be better and restore the honor of the family name. And the last did not escape and instead does what they can to please their abuser. Three characters, 3 responses, 3 abuse victims still being effected by their past as they try and figure things out in the chaos that is their present, 3 people who in the end are responsible for their own actions and choices.

 

[Leingod]

Also, I don't think it's a coincidence that the racism is usually dealt with through the lens of Blake "passing" and struggling to find pride in her identity vs avoiding trouble given that much of her story was likely writing by Miles Luna, a Hispanic man who passes for white. That's likely the issues he's most comfortable dealing with because that's what he personally knows. That's the issue he cares about and wishes to deal with.

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Both Blake and Ilia, in fact; Ilia's backstory and her initial attitude toward faunus rights was defined by her ability to pass for human and how that turned out for her.

 

[Pugman]

They're not a professional voice cast. It's one thing when a show like the Simpsons has an Indian man voiced by a white dude doing an accent, but what would Tai sound like normally? What is a Patch accent, or an Atlas accent? These people aren't from real places and don't have real accents.

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a number of fanfics make the "Patch Accent" basically a "country accent".
basically what I see is kind of what you get with Ochaco Uraraka from My Hero (at least in the original Japanese) where most of the time she speaks "normal" but when really excited or relaxed she slips back into a "Kansai dialect".

 

[VolantRedX]

a number of fanfics make the "Patch Accent" basically a "country accent".
basically what I see is kind of what you get with Ochaco Uraraka from My Hero (at least in the original Japanese) where most of the time she speaks "normal" but when really excited or relaxed she slips back into a "Kansai dialect".

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I mean more in the sense that what we think of as a "Chinese accent" isn't an inborn trait common among all Chinese people regardless of origin. It's a byproduct of language and various regional dialects. Having a character like Tai voiced by an Asain actor with an accent in order to be inclusive would actually be sort of racist since no one else around him would likely have that accent. Thus it implies accents are not a byproduct of language but a racial trait common to people of one race or another. It's muddled because there is an issue, especially in adult comedy cartoons but in all American animation, where POC are voiced by white people putting on accents. That's a problem for many many reasons, not the least of which it's sort of like a cartoon version of blackface. The difference I think is that a white man doing an accent to play a Chinese character from China is vocal blackface while a white man using their normal voice to play a character from a fictional place whose name is Chinese in origin isn't because said character isn't actually Chinese.

Also related but slightly different the video talks about Sun and Neptune being "whitewashed" between seasons. It's actually more likely an issue with switching animation software and not having the same color pallet. Ruby gets darker around the same time and other colors shift slightly.

 

[Psyga315]

Well, Eddy seems interested in giving the Faunus subplot a proper closure at some point.

 

[VolantRedX]

Well, Eddy seems interested in giving the Faunus subplot a proper closure at some point.

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Honestly, while it's likely too late now given that Volume 8 drops in a few weeks, but if I was writing this story I'd have Oscar's fall be into "Faunus town" or something similar and have his and Ozpin's story be about racism and systemic oppression and have a friendly White Fang unit help him find RWBY. Yes that still means leaving Blake out of her own subplot yet again, but she's more directly involved in the action right now and I'd personally want most of her screentime being less about a personal fight for rights after the whole Salem thing is resolved and more about her relationship with the rest of the team while they fight for Mantle's survival.

 

[Psyga315]

Honestly, while it's likely too late now given that Volume 8 drops in a few weeks

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He's kinda aware that the damage is done:

 

[Sunder the Gold]

he is the guy who takes the noble cause of protests and whatnot, and tries to twist it to his personal goals.

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Notably, his people attacked a peaceful Faunus protest, or at least interfered with it.

he is the guy who hijacks the protests, while ghira is the peaceful but easily disrupted protest and sienna is the protest that can be calm but is likely to defend itself.

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Before Adam kills that guy in the Adam short, we see Ghira standing up straight and watching the fight. Ghira was hurt by the gunshot but not badly injured; he didn't faint or even fall. So he could have shouted for Adam to stop at basically any time.

Why didn't he? In fact, why did Ghira allow him to come in the first place? Why were the other masked members armed with guns?

When Ghira's home is attacked, and there's no opportunity to sue for peace, he bares his claws and fangs and he fights back. When Blake forgives Ilia, Ghira is proud of her and tells the captain of the guard that his daughter learned a lesson Ghira himself "took too long to learn".

Ghira isn't a warrior, but he's a fighter. He'll risk his own safety to try to defuse a standoff, but he'll try to organize an army and go to war to protect the world from his own people.


I don't think Sienna resorted to protests at all, given how she lead the White Fang into an open raid on SDC property. I pass no judgment on her for doing so, because we don't know what her objective was.

 

[VolantRedX]

I don't think Sienna resorted to protests at all, given how she lead the White Fang into an open raid on SDC property. I pass no judgment on her for doing so, because we don't know what her objective was.

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The thing with Sienna is that her tactics more closely mirrored the IRA or even various anti-colonial resistance. Her goal wasn't moral victories or even military ones, as she points out to Adam, her goal was to specifically target people and companies who are anti-Faunus in order to make racism so expensive and dangerous people no longer overtly engage in it. If we take Weiss at her word, and we have no reason not to, her White Fang assassinated, destroyed, and threatened people they saw as valid targets. The problem with this method that goes unaddressed is that such tactics make more sense as a way to drive out an occupying army rather than as a way to secure equal rights. At the end of the day, she did little to actually win over Humans who might support her cause while also having little tangible effect on how Faunus are treated by the major powers in the world. Sure a bar might take down the Humans Only sign to avoid attacks, but the SDC is clearly not even worried about its abuse of Faunus labor or use of prisoners as slaves.

Again it's an issue with the show not really aiming to have a debate about this subject with any depth, but it's pretty obvious for all her talk Sienna's tactics were as limited as Ghira's just in a different way.

 

[Sunder the Gold]

Sienna thought she could achieve peace and equality through fear.

Ghira knew that the only way to achieve peace and equality was through inspiring trust.

Trust is harder to inspire than fear.

RWBY doesn't explore this reality in the racial dimension for very long, but the theme of "fear is the enemy of trust" plays out over the entire show in multiple dimensions.

 

[AlertFiend]

Adam seems like the type of guy who would get some of his followers to pretend to be human and have them plant a bomb in the middle of a protest. Whether or not he lets it go off and claim humans did it, or he publicly disarms it to be a hero depends on his mood.

That's my view of him anyways.

 

[VolantRedX]

Adam seems like the type of guy who would get some of his followers to pretend to be human and have them plant a bomb in the middle of a protest. Whether or not he lets it go off and claim humans did it, or he publicly disarms it to be a hero depends on his mood.

That's my view of him anyways.

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Thing is I don't think he'd bother. In his mind war with Humans should be obvious to anyone and if you don't follow his lead he'll just kill you. He doesn't need to create a false flag since he's totally willing to just start a fight he can't win and refuses to back down.

 

[Xanah]

Adam seems like the type of guy who would get some of his followers to pretend to be human and have them plant a bomb in the middle of a protest. Whether or not he lets it go off and claim humans did it, or he publicly disarms it to be a hero depends on his mood.

That's my view of him anyways.

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Probably the former, I don't see canon Adam knowing how to disarm a bomb.

 

[Pugman]

Notably, his people attacked a peaceful Faunus protest, or at least interfered with it.



Before Adam kills that guy in the Adam short, we see Ghira standing up straight and watching the fight. Ghira was hurt by the gunshot but not badly injured; he didn't faint or even fall. So he could have shouted for Adam to stop at basically any time.

Why didn't he? In fact, why did Ghira allow him to come in the first place? Why were the other masked members armed with guns?

When Ghira's home is attacked, and there's no opportunity to sue for peace, he bares his claws and fangs and he fights back. When Blake forgives Ilia, Ghira is proud of her and tells the captain of the guard that his daughter learned a lesson Ghira himself "took too long to learn".

Ghira isn't a warrior, but he's a fighter. He'll risk his own safety to try to defuse a standoff, but he'll try to organize an army and go to war to protect the world from his own people.


I don't think Sienna resorted to protests at all, given how she lead the White Fang into an open raid on SDC property. I pass no judgment on her for doing so, because we don't know what her objective was.

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well for why they had masks and guns, probably because he could not convince them to NOT have them

as for not saying anything, I'd say it might be because Ghira could of trusted Sienna, Adam, and the others to stay their hands. Defend without killing. that kind of stuff. unfortunately he was proven wrong on that day.

 

[Sunder the Gold]

as for not saying anything, I'd say it might be because Ghira could of trusted Sienna, Adam, and the others to stay their hands. Defend without killing. that kind of stuff. unfortunately he was proven wrong on that day.

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Right.

Ghira doesn't say a cross word to Adam until after the battle is over and all of his people are safe. And then he doesn't criticize Adam for fighting, but for killing that one man when he clearly didn't need to.

Ghira doesn't forsake self-defense and violence. He just thinks it's a more limited tool than Sienna did.

 

[MonochromeXClown]

Why didn't he? In fact, why did Ghira allow him to come in the first place? Why were the other masked members armed with guns?

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I think I have an answer for why he was their along with Ilia. Before the caravan scene in the DC comic Adam along with Ilia are the two only survivors of a failed rogue raid on an SDC raid. With Sienna also glorifying their failure by calling them brave heroes. Which was in stark contrast to Ghira view on the whole thing.

So maybe Ghira brought those two kids along with him to keep them from doing something that stupid again and keep an eye on them?

As for the mask maybe it was reused assets? Since their is a lot of them in the Adam short so as to not use a lot of time making new model that won't be scene again.

As for the guns I think that's more to deal with the Grimm.

 

[Zam]

I recall a really good analysis on the nature of redemption and such and why someone thought Salem and Cinder had more chance at redemption than Adam which ties in well to his behaviour.

Basically, Cinder (presumably) Salem definitely, and Adam certainly all suffered abuse and horrors in their lives. The difference is, Adam uses his suffering to validate him hurting anyone he wants, while Cinder & Salem likely feel they "overcame" their abuse and believe it doesn't motivate their actions. Or in other words, for them it is a motive they don't even realize, for Adam his suffering is an excuse to hurt people.

At the end of the day, she did little to actually win over Humans who might support her cause while also having little tangible effect on how Faunus are treated by the major powers in the world.

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I feel its worth noting that if Sienna's methods weren't successful to some degree it would have been noted by say, Blake, who said they did meet with success and would have been reflected in the White Fang being unpopular, but their recruitment drives still got massive turn outs.

 

[Zam]

Also on the Irish/IRA stuff in the video, an actual Irish person who had family living through the Troubles has this to say:

Spoiler

 

[Pugman]

I recall a really good analysis on the nature of redemption and such and why someone thought Salem and Cinder had more chance at redemption than Adam which ties in well to his behaviour.

Basically, Cinder (presumably) Salem definitely, and Adam certainly all suffered abuse and horrors in their lives. The difference is, Adam uses his suffering to validate him hurting anyone he wants, while Cinder & Salem likely feel they "overcame" their abuse and believe it doesn't motivate their actions. Or in other words, for them it is a motive they don't even realize, for Adam his suffering is an excuse to hurt people.


I feel its worth noting that if Sienna's methods weren't successful to some degree it would have been noted by say, Blake, who said they did meet with success and would have been reflected in the White Fang being unpopular, but their recruitment drives still got massive turn outs.

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Another difference is that Salem and Cinder don't lie. They were hurt, so they will hurt back without trying to disguise it as anything else.
Meanwhile Adam wears both a physical mask and a mask of words to hide his real intentions.

 

[VolantRedX]

I feel its worth noting that if Sienna's methods weren't successful to some degree it would have been noted by say, Blake, who said they did meet with success and would have been reflected in the White Fang being unpopular, but their recruitment drives still got massive turn outs.

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As I said they were effective in the sense of getting people to do stuff like take down Human Only signs but the SDC seemed untouched, and there's little evidence that her actions were creating a society more accepting of Faunus. There's a reason people often resort to terror tactics and it's not because they're ineffective. My point is that her tactics were limited due to what the Faunus goals were. The sort of things we see her group do is based on anti-colonial armies or various guerrilla armies. That's effective at making occupation so expensive and dangerous that the cost far outweighs the benefits but there's little to suggest it'd be good at combating systemic oppression. Humanity isn't going to fuck off to nowhere, and without some form of outreach, there's little to suggest that people have become more accepting or open. SDC and others like them are able to still enjoy the fruits of their oppression and are able to paint her actions not as the oppressed fighting for their freedom but as dangerous radicals who must be stopped. You can't threaten people into accepting you, and you can't make someone more tolerant at gunpoint. Even just having outreach backed up with the White Fang muscle would have a more meaningful impact on solving the issues of systemic oppression while protecting themselves from reprisals. It's not that she's foolish or stupid or evil, just that she's using methods that limit her ability to reach her end goal.

 

[Zam]

As I said they were effective in the sense of getting people to do stuff like take down Human Only signs but the SDC seemed untouched, and there's little evidence that her actions were creating a society more accepting of Faunus. There's a reason people often resort to terror tactics and it's not because they're ineffective. My point is that her tactics were limited due to what the Faunus goals were. The sort of things we see her group do is based on anti-colonial armies or various guerrilla armies. That's effective at making occupation so expensive and dangerous that the cost far outweighs the benefits but there's little to suggest it'd be good at combating systemic oppression. Humanity isn't going to fuck off to nowhere, and without some form of outreach, there's little to suggest that people have become more accepting or open. SDC and others like them are able to still enjoy the fruits of their oppression and are able to paint her actions not as the oppressed fighting for their freedom but as dangerous radicals who must be stopped. You can't threaten people into accepting you, and you can't make someone more tolerant at gunpoint. Even just having outreach backed up with the White Fang muscle would have a more meaningful impact on solving the issues of systemic oppression while protecting themselves from reprisals. It's not that she's foolish or stupid or evil, just that she's using methods that limit her ability to reach her end goal.

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I feel we don't know enough about the SDC to say it was untouched, it still being functional isn't a sign it wasn't damaged and or couldn't have been defeated had things not been disrupted by Salem. I do grasp your argument and don't wholly disagree, I don't think Sienna's method is meant to be flawless anymore than Ghira's was both have problems. I am mostly noting that by all accounts the White Fang was still popular before Adam ran it into the ground and Blake did note they were having some success so I think there had to have been some degree of success for that to be the case. As to the methods, yeah I can see the problems there, though at the same time, its very easy to regard say over policing as a form of occupation and the labor camps in the SDC the comics establish them as fighting definitely required violence to counter so (waves hand) I think its a more nuanced issue than Sienna's strategy being the wrong tool for the job.

 

[Pugman]

I think the problem with trying to combat the SDC with violence is the fact that the SDC is a financial juggernaut.
As Qrow mentions in the WoR video you'd be hard pressed to find anything dust related that doesn't have the Schnee Emblem stamped on it, and this is on top of the fact Jac ran so many other business out of business, like Flynt's father. He has money, he has PR, he has a strangle hold on the most precious commodity in the world of Remnant. Everyone needs Dust, from simple everyday items and amenities, to the Huntsmen who travel the world protecting people. Violence against them is going to do more to annoy them which they then take out on others who don't/can't fight back (see Weiss' backstory). Jac's ire is turned on others and if they know it is because of faunus/white fang, then those are the ones the victims will blame more outright rather than Jac. So in the end it's just spinning the wheel of violence. Round-and-round we go.

 

[Sunder the Gold]

I think I have an answer for why he was their along with Ilia.

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Ilia was not present in the caravan.

Her only appearance in the Adam Short was the raid on the SDC facility, after Sienna took command.

 

[Zam]

I think the problem with trying to combat the SDC with violence is the fact that the SDC is a financial juggernaut.
As Qrow mentions in the WoR video you'd be hard pressed to find anything dust related that doesn't have the Schnee Emblem stamped on it, and this is on top of the fact Jac ran so many other business out of business, like Flynt's father. He has money, he has PR, he has a strangle hold on the most precious commodity in the world of Remnant. Everyone needs Dust, from simple everyday items and amenities, to the Huntsmen who travel the world protecting people. Violence against them is going to do more to annoy them which they then take out on others who don't/can't fight back (see Weiss' backstory). Jac's ire is turned on others and if they know it is because of faunus/white fang, then those are the ones the victims will blame more outright rather than Jac. So in the end it's just spinning the wheel of violence. Round-and-round we go.

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While there is truth to that peacefully campaigning wasn't getting people out of chains and cages so I don't exactly fault the WF for just going "Screw it, break in". Plus we know that Jac said he didn't love Willow and was generally a shitty father before the WF turned to violence, so that whole thing always felt more like Weiss seeking a scapegoat than anything else, but that's just my take.

Ilia was not present in the caravan.

Her only appearance in the Adam Short was the raid on the SDC facility, after Sienna took command.

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Nah she was there: