The Leila Hann Let's Watch Spoiler Thread: Seriously, Stop Spoiling Stuff

[LordYam]

Reality is not an excuse for fiction. Especially not when your excuse is "bad people exist in real life, therefore do not criticise the handling of bad people in fiction".

You sound like the guys who justify the killing of black people by cops with "Well, it's not like they were law-abiding citizens". As if people deserve to die for being incapable of surviving by towing the line of systemic oppression. Would you also say the people of Flevance deserved to die for taking up arms against the World Government?

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Had to look up the Flevance reference. And noticed that you also rather deliberately ignored the OTHER point (namely that there are other ways to portray the racism angle more effectively such as having Weiss face more direct challenges to her bigotry, fleshing out other rebel leaders earlier/dropping hints that Adam's disobeying orders for his own private agenda, showing more examples of racism). That your arguments boil down entirely to Adam being abusive and cruel implies you really are just upset that they show dares to have a revolutionary who's an unprincipled monster and don't actually give a rat's ass about nuance.

This spun out of Exosquad. Given that a.) we DO meet an actual principled revolutionary (Marsala) later on (and it's stated that the world would have been better off if HIS revolution had succeeded) and b.) That the Neosapiens are shown to have reasons to be angry and the criticisms of the show seem more like people going by first impressions/not bothering to dig deeper.

And again you WERE rather homophobic regarding the whole Blake/Yang thing.

She would probably try to find a way to strangle you through the internet if you tried, and I wouldn't blame her.

Or Leila has a habit of going off of whatever first impressions she gets mixed with spite when it's not good enough for her and she starts seeing everything as the opposite of what is said and done by the show as she digs deeper into the position she has taken no matter what evidence to the alternative shows up.

Besides, Exosquad sounds no more fascistic than the standard fare for centrist-aiming American media trying to avoid running over anyone's political toes over the past few decades.

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This pretty much sums up Leila perfectly. Even if other counterpoints are fairly raised in the show she basically sticks her hands in her ears going LALALALALALALALALALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING LALALALALALALALALALALALA.

 

[Greener223224]

there are other ways to portray the racism angle more effectively such as having Weiss face more direct challenges to her bigotry, fleshing out other rebel leaders earlier/dropping hints that Adam's disobeying orders for his own private agenda, showing more examples of racism

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You mean things that were never done by the show? Instead the show just used less privileged prople as evil henchmen because "If Korra did it, so should we", and then backtracked on all the edge by making a straw good leader for Adam to kill to show the WF as totally under his control, and then later have him kill what's left because they wanted to torch and burn everything besides "psycho ex-boyfriend that wants revenge".

That your arguments boil down entirely to Adam being abusive and cruel implies you really are just upset that they show dares to have a revolutionary who's an unprincipled monster and don't actually give a rat's ass about nuance.

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No, RWBY's the show that's flatfooted in nuance. They bring up all these loaded terms and details with all kinds of implications, and then decide to just handwave it away as bad guys lying to recruit minions. This is supposed to be a feel-good show, and nobody feels happy seeing minorities characterized as faceless henchmen - except for the assholes, of course, who will take this shit and feel validated in their efforts to dismiss BLM as terrorists.

And calling shippers narrow-minded is not homophobia, FFS.

 

[LordYam]

Again, the show should have handled nuance better. The problem is that you don't really suggest ways that they could have done so besides complaining about the revolutionary being an unprincipled abuser.

And you bring Korra into it because of course.

 

[Bernkastel]

Yam's responses are why I'm inclined to agree with the "shut up"sentiment or at least with the idea that Yam should leave. It's clear that nothing good is coming from this. We're going to be arguing forever and it's clear that both sides have contempt for each other. I have a side that I feel is in the right, but the key thing is that this is something where we disagree with Yam at a fundamental level, he does with us and that this discussion is, at least for me, making me hate Yam. So the options I see are either a shut down of this conversation and anything vaguely related to it or that something is done to get one party out of here. Naturally, I disagree with the idea of a bunch of us being ejected for the same of Yam, though I'm obviously biased.

Anyone know how to ask the the admin for action? It's something I've never done, plus I'll be going to sleep very soon. But I feel that it's best for someone to reach out to them, rather than keep this up.

 

[Greener223224]

Again, the show should have handled nuance better. The problem is that you don't really suggest ways that they could have done so besides complaining about the revolutionary being an unprincipled abuser.

And you bring Korra into it because of course.

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It should've, but it didn't. I would suggest ways if I could, but the bigger issue is how RWBY's failures to do it properly only compounded into a bigger and uglier wreckage as time went on. Especially when you're using "it could've" as a mental replacement for "it did".

Shoulda, coulda, DIDN'T.

And I bring Korra into this because it is so obviously what RWBY was emulating when they first made the White Fang. It's the original sin whose own mishandling led to RWBY taking the wrong precedent from it under the impression that it was doing the best job it could. You could even say THIS is me giving an example of how it could have alternatively been done.

 

[SadSack]

Korra actually had, if not perfectly written by any means, more going with it when it came to the non-bender plot compared to the WF plot. These arguments kind of swayed me: Avatar the Last Airbender/Legend of Korra story ideas thread

Not really, but it served as a rallying cry for the actual problems of Republic City, or at least some of them. The rampant Organised Crime, the complete lack of political representation, the growing trend of authoritarianism in the already unelected foreign appointed government, the nepotism that seems rife in both politics and the military. But until the Equalists start up there doesn't seem to be any institutional oppression of non-benders. However, I'm absolutely sure there was unconscious or systemic oppression. The Fire Nation, for example, would probably never have a non-bender general or fire lord during the hundred-year war, with the vast majority of non-home guard soldiers being benders (apart from the Yuyan Archers, an elite special operations unit). Benders are better fighters and therefore more likely to have become warlords, and then later on kings/queens/emperors.

The Equalists mainly pop up because of Amon's self-loathing and hatred, but there was enough resentment to fuel the movement.

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I'd argue this was actually sort of a plot point. There wasn't innate anti-bender laws and so on because, well, they were the majority of the population being, like, 90% of it. Heck, that we see more bender criminals than non-benders and that of all the wealthy business owners we see all four are non-benders suggests that if anything it's hard to be a bender in Republic City. But there are inevitably jobs that only a bender can do, and when the vast majority of the police force are, by default, metalbenders, whenever the government starts oppressing you that it's the metal of a metalbender cracking skulls is an image that burns into people's minds. The government of season 1 Republic City is incredibly unjust and tyrannical, with the unelected council of members selected by foreign nations existing to serve merely as a rubber stamp to whatever Tarrlok suggests is perhaps the cause of the anti-bender resentment, which Noatak uses for his own purposes.

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Now, could Korra have handled this with more grace? Undoubtedly. But with RWBY, there's not even this. The Faunus are blatantly, explicitly oppressed. Their struggle for rights is doubtless that. There is no room for any other interpretation.

 

[Greener223224]

Korra: "Here's a group of disenfranchised normies who are fighting for equal opportunity and power to wield! Let's make their leader an uber-prodigous bender who's using them to exert his daddy issues for incoherent rationalization!"

RWBY: "Here's a group of furries who are prejudiced for being furries! Let's make their leader a jilted boyfriend who's upset her girlfriend hates murder and who has an army for...why does he have an army again? Screw it, let's just kill them."

 

[LordYam]

Yam's responses are why I'm inclined to agree with the "shut up"sentiment or at least with the idea that Yam should leave. It's clear that nothing good is coming from this. We're going to be arguing forever and it's clear that both sides have contempt for each other. I have a side that I feel is in the right, but the key thing is that this is something where we disagree with Yam at a fundamental level, he does with us and that this discussion is, at least for me, making me hate Yam. So the options I see are either a shut down of this conversation and anything vaguely related to it or that something is done to get one party out of here. Naturally, I disagree with the idea of a bunch of us being ejected for the same of Yam, though I'm obviously biased.

Anyone know how to ask the the admin for action? It's something I've never done, plus I'll be going to sleep very soon. But I feel that it's best for someone to reach out to them, rather than keep this up.

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Hardly contempt. I made my stance clear. I DO sympathize with revolutionaries and fully agree that many of the criticisms made about problems/bad actors in those movements are bad faith/throwing stones from glass houses.

My problem is that you seem to think that since such criticisms have made in bad faith by racists than that means that such criticisms should NEVER be made PERIOD even if they are legitimate (again Alice Walker was dogpiled for pointing out misogyny in the Black Community; people who pointed out that Zionism is inherently racist are accused of being anti semites). And that is just bullshit of the highest caliber. It's what allowed people like requireshate to go on a rampage and hurt people (even sinking communities for fear of provoking her wrath.)

Essentially what I'm saying is "yes, there have been racists who argue about problems and bad actors in minority communities and movements to tar the entire movement or distract from their own community's crimes. At the same time, those problems DO exist and need to pointed out, and that those in the movement who try to ignore the problem/reject all criticism are just allowing the problem to fester."

You on the other hand seem to think that such criticism can't be made period and that even pointing out absolute monsters is somehow racist (again, the Mixon report was dogpiled by people who didn't want to admit that requireshate was a sadistic bully who got off on hurting people)

PS

There was actually a long discussion about RWBY in the main discussion thread. The main consensus was that Myles and Kerry were operating from a place that was a lot more naive and hopeful; they hadn't had Trump and the rise of the alt right to make them realize that no racists don't just stop being racist because you point it out to them, or that racism isn't just a minor issue that only a few bad people have. Weiss's whole thing in Season 1 is basically a very special episode right when those things stopped being taken seriously and started to be examined in more detail.

 

[Greener223224]

My problem is that you seem to think that since such criticisms have made in bad faith by racists than that means that such criticisms should NEVER be made PERIOD even if they are legitimate

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No, we're arguing that you should never bring points like this up if you're an incompetent writer with zero experience in these issues.

And if you do, then your follow-through to that should absolutely not be "write the questions out of the story and just reduce the bad guy to a creepy stalker".

 

[spiritualatheist]

Hardly contempt. I made my stance clear. I DO sympathize with revolutionaries and fully agree that many of the criticisms made about problems/bad actors in those movements are bad faith/throwing stones from glass houses.

My problem is that you seem to think that since such criticisms have made in bad faith by racists than that means that such criticisms should NEVER be made PERIOD even if they are legitimate (again Alice Walker was dogpiled for pointing out misogyny in the Black Community; people who pointed out that Zionism is inherently racist are accused of being anti semites). And that is just bullshit of the highest caliber. It's what allowed people like requireshate to go on a rampage and hurt people (even sinking communities for fear of provoking her wrath.)

Essentially what I'm saying is "yes, there have been racists who argue about problems and bad actors in minority communities and movements to tar the entire movement or distract from their own community's crimes. At the same time, those problems DO exist and need to pointed out, and that those in the movement who try to ignore the problem/reject all criticism are just allowing the problem to fester."

You on the other hand seem to think that such criticism can't be made period and that even pointing out absolute monsters is somehow racist (again, the Mixon report was dogpiled by people who didn't want to admit that requireshate was a sadistic bully who got off on hurting people)

PS

There was actually a long discussion about RWBY in the main discussion thread. The main consensus was that Myles and Kerry were operating from a place that was a lot more naive and hopeful; they hadn't had Trump and the rise of the alt right to make them realize that no racists don't just stop being racist because you point it out to them, or that racism isn't just a minor issue that only a few bad people have. Weiss's whole thing in Season 1 is basically a very special episode right when those things stopped being taken seriously and started to be examined in more detail.

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This is farcical. No one is saying that we can't have minority characters that are bad people, your repeated whataboutisms aside. And RWBY is very obviously not going "the movement is good overall but has a few bad actors in it."

What it is doing is taking a movement directly analogous to the Black Panthers and making them the bad guys/terrorist mooks trying to murder thousands. Which is deeply racist, because the Black Panthers were fundamentally the good guys and the FBI and cops were evil as fuck.

 

[Bernkastel]

Yam, to be blunt, I don't believe you. I also think that "more media that points out the existence of bad actors within rights and activists groups" is a desire that only come from someone who's unaware of the sheer volume of media content that does exactly that. We don't need more, especially media that makes those actors into the leaders and most important people for those causes to a level more like top civil rights figures. If you think there's a need for more focus on that, then we flat out exist in different realities.

You think we're ideologues who are dismissing you because of that. At least in my case, I'm angry because you're insensitively throwing the sort of arguments used to demonise my very existence at me. I don't care about RWBY. I care that you're constantly trying to make it look like I and others like it are intellectually close minded for being insulted by the use of legitimate problems in a way that hurts us, that has been used to hurt us. You're poking at emotional wounds that are part of why it's hard to deal with those bad actors you keeping bringing up and then telling us off for reacting to you.

In any case, do you see any chance of your words doing anything but make us dislike you more? Do you see any chance of our words convincing you to change your stance on Leila or our objections? I think the answer is probably no. If so, then this is pointless and it's better that you stop mixing with us or Leila's content. Unless you enjoy the idea of fighting an internet forever war, which I'll have the decency to assume you don't.

 

[Greener223224]

Wait a minute. "The idea that someone making the criticism in bad faith delegitimizes the argument"? Isn't that what Yam constantly does to dismiss anyone who criticizes RWBY?

"Oh no, MauLer says RWBY has too many characters. I guess that means we're not allowed to criticize RWBY for having too many characters, or it makes us look like bigot enablers!"

 

[LordYam]

This is farcical. No one is saying that we can't have minority characters that are bad people, your repeated whataboutisms aside. And RWBY is very obviously not going "the movement is good overall but has a few bad actors in it."

What it is doing is taking a movement directly analogous to the Black Panthers and making them the bad guys/terrorist mooks trying to murder thousands. Which is deeply racist, because the Black Panthers were fundamentally the good guys and the FBI and cops were evil as fuck.

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Leaving aside the corruption sexism and covering for serial rapists that the panthers engaged in. They weren't murderous terrorists but they were a lighter shade of grey compared to their opponents (it also doesn't change that the problems with the police were the problems of society). It also doesn't change that as a rule neighborhood watches are far more murderous and unhinged than police simply because they accept any idiot who volunteers

 

[LordYam]

Wait a minute. "The idea that someone making the criticism in bad faith delegitimizes the argument"? Isn't that what Yam constantly does to anyone who criticizes RWBY?

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Many of the critics make stupid arguments as well so not really.

 

[Greener223224]

Many of the critics make stupid arguments as well so not really.

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And yet you're constantly dismissing ALL criticism under that reasoning.

 

[Squirtodyle]

locked Thread locked while we sort out reports.

 

[Squirtodyle]

let's not have to do this again @LordYam has been infracted for 25 points under Rule 4: Don't Be Disruptive for continuous disruptive behavior in the thread, and has been threadbanned for three days.

Yam, I am sincerely asking you to please shut up.

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Yam's responses are why I'm inclined to agree with the "shut up"sentiment or at least with the idea that Yam should leave.

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@SadSack and @Bernkastel have both been infracted for 25 points under Rule 3: Be Civil for attempting to crowd out a user via public calls for them to shut up and leave the thread, and have been threadbanned for three days. The Report and Ignore functions are here for when users are being disruptive—we do not allow users to attempt to force others out by themselves.

Kay.

The point is pretty clear: "Don't make moustache-twirling caricatures your symbol of morally gray issues". The issue we keep running into is that nobody still watching RWBY actually cares about those issues. They just see individual characters and go "how can I use them to make what I want to see in my fanfics happen?".
Nobody cares about the White Fang aside from setting details for their Sienna x Kali slashfics. Any interest the fans have in Adam has clearly melted down to "guy you can bash to prove the power of lesbians", and there's no part of that which is compatible with "leader of a minority rights group".
But you don't want to outright say you have no interest in minority rights, especially when you put that right next to "I really like seeing these two girls making out because they make a cute couple in my fanfics!". So they tow RT's party line of plausible deniability - "We're not saying minorities are bad! We're just writing a story about bad guys who have minorities among their henchmen!" - and then go right back to painting characters in the brush of mutually agreed-upon fan interpretation.
Namely, Adam is evil jerkbad who die a million times for being straight and wanting lesbian woman, Blake is good victim self-insert who got hurt by straight man for being lesbian, Yang is manic pixie dream lesbian who save Blake from patriarchy and lets them ride off into sunset kissing and scissoring on a motorbike.

There's no reasoning with people so insistent on these views. They see you saying Adam was mishandled, and so they respond by calling you a rape apologist.

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@Greener223224 has been infracted for 25 points under Rule 2: Don't Be Hateful for this post in its entirety, and has been threadbanned for three days. Expressing frustration with a fandom is fine, doing so by claiming that everyone still in it cares solely about lesbian couples in fanfic at the expense of minorities and straight men whom they want to die for the crime of being straight, claiming that any disagreement with the fandom gets you called a rape apologist, and couching the entire post in crass rhetoric regarding any discussion of sexuality very much isn't.

As a reminder—this is the thread for discussing spoilers for Leila Hann's Let's Watch thread. It is not a thread for relitigating arguments about RWBY, or any other piece of fiction. Please keep that in mind when you are posting.

Everyone else, carry on.

 

[ZQFMGB]

... Right, so, ExoSquad. Having read Marsala's wiki page, the idea that he qualifies a good revolutionary counterbalance to Phaeton is very questionable at best. He remains utterly loyal to the Exofleet during the entire show, with his whole deal apparently being about winning the humans' respect through servitude. If he built up an alternate rebellion I could hear the argument, but unless the wiki page is incomplete or misleading he never seems to do such a thing, or even consider it.

Oh and he ends up working with the racist cop to, ugh, reconcile humans and Neosapiens. During the war the racist cop becomes a heroic resistance leader, and if he undergoes a redemption arc the wiki doesn't mention it, when it really should be his main plotline.

Also the Neosapien regime is named the Commonwealth which... well, I had a number of strongly worded thoughts about that, but in the interest of not immediately reigniting the thread I'll just say that I strongly object to that.

All in all, Leila's criticisms of that aspect of the show seem on point. One can argue about the intentionality of the message or lack thereof, but contrary to claims of the contrary she doesn't seem closed to those arguments.

I do empathize with the people who like this show though, because it's decently made overall and has some nice action scenes. It reminds me of a few mil sci-fi anime I've watched that were similarly pleasing to watch for the pew pew but ideologically problematic. I understand why it might feel frustrating for fans of those shows that other people can't get past those issues, but in that case we should blame the show for its poor message, not the people who point it out.

 

[Fourthspartan56]

... Right, so, ExoSquad. Having read Marsala's wiki page, the idea that he qualifies a good revolutionary counterbalance to Phaeton is very questionable at best. He remains utterly loyal to the Exofleet during the entire show, with his whole deal apparently being about winning the humans' respect through servitude. If he built up an alternate rebellion I could hear the argument, but unless the wiki page is incomplete or misleading he never seems to do such a thing, or even consider it.

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"The good minorities are those who work in the system and obey their betters"

I'm not entirely convinced that ExoSquad is intentionally fascist but holy shit I can't blame Leila in the slightest for thinking it is, this is exactly the kind of shit that an alt-righter would write about a "good" minority. The best you can say about it is that it's deeply racist but not intentionally fascistic.

 

[tankdrop24]

Also, the whole GI Joe esque visual design of the mechs look ugly as hell and are pretty unmemorable.

They're too cartoony to have any weight to them like something out of more modern battletech art, and just don't come together well enough for something like a Gundam or Zaku.

 

[ZQFMGB]

Yeah, the E-frames aren't too great. Their colour schemes, proportions and visual identities in general are all over the place and look more like something the pirates would design than mass-produced military tech, and despite being rather small exoskeletons they feel very clumsy. I honestly can't see those massives hulks of stuff dancing around the battlefield and decimating capital ships like a Mobile Suit does.

The ships are pretty good though. I like that they tried something different compared to the "WWII battleships in space" aesthetic a lot of anime uses, and unlike with the E-Frames it works quite well. They've got that "NASA but with gun rays" vibe which reminds me of old Lego Space sets. If I liked the show I could see myself buying a few models of those.

 

[Kuja]

I like the design of Marsh's eframe, with its twin engines and folding wings, and that big laser cannon on one arm. I like Bronski's as well which I think has a good visual design for a heavy use ground/artillery sort of piece with its stubby limbs and rounded frame that just bolts on as many missile launchers as it can fit. The black armor with the claws that Phaeton eventually uses was pretty sharp too. Past that though and they get more meh, with increasingly uglier color schemes...and looking back it's probably not coincidental that the ones I like the most are the ones that most resemble Battletech elementals or the like.

I agree that the ships are the stealth winners of the show's best design aesthetics though.

 

[Space Oddity]

"The good minorities are those who work in the system and obey their betters"

I'm not entirely convinced that ExoSquad is intentionally fascist but holy shit I can't blame Leila in the slightest for thinking it is, this is exactly the kind of shit that an alt-righter would write about a "good" minority. The best you can say about it is that it's deeply racist but not intentionally fascistic.

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I suspect they were thinking he'd be like Nelson Mandela, which....

Yeah, I'm thinking of the famous bad AH.COM TL that I like to call Queen Nixon In... especially the first part, Queen Nixon in Nelson Mandela 4 Apartheid, or Die, Hanoi Jane, Die. Where Mandela is perfectly willing to work with the South African government to stop communism.

As I keep noting the early 90s were a terrible time for race relations. It was peak-Cosby Show.

Oh and he ends up working with the racist cop to, ugh, reconcile humans and Neosapiens. During the war the racist cop becomes a heroic resistance leader, and if he undergoes a redemption arc the wiki doesn't mention it, when it really should be his main plotline.

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I'm pretty sure that something like this does happen, just in that awful early 90s way where they manage to avoid actually dealing with the issue.

I like the design of Marsh's eframe, with its twin engines and folding wings, and that big laser cannon on one arm. I like Bronski's as well which I think has a good visual design for a heavy use ground/artillery sort of piece with its stubby limbs and rounded frame that just bolts on as many missile launchers as it can fit. The black armor with the claws that Phaeton eventually uses was pretty sharp too. Past that though and they get more meh, with increasingly uglier color schemes...and looking back it's probably not coincidental that the ones I like the most are the ones that most resemble Battletech elementals or the like.

I agree that the ships are the stealth winners of the show's best design aesthetics though.

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The E-frames had actual toys, and so production design was probably limited by having to follow what actually existed. The ships though, I believe they had free rein on.

 

[tankdrop24]

The E-frames had actual toys, and so production design was probably limited by having to follow what actually existed. The ships though, I believe they had free rein on.

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Which I find hilarious considering how merchandise driven Gundam and the like were. Get better toy designers, I guess.

 

[Crimson Flight]

Which I find hilarious considering how merchandise driven Gundam and the like were. Get better toy designers, I guess.

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Production History: Mobile Suit Gundam

Gundam production history is neat.

In August 1978, the project underwent an abrupt change of direction. Its main sponsor, the toy company Clover, felt that the Freedom Fortress had poor sales potential. (The company president reportedly called the ship a "wooden horse," giving the future White Base its nickname.) Clover requested that Sunrise add robots to its new series for merchandising purposes.

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