History FridgeBrilliance / RWBY

** Of course Salem, as the show's main antagonist, embodies all this more than anyone. She, an actual being of infinite life, could do literally anything, learn anything, create anything humanly possible, bring world peace, who could save countless lives and prevent countless tragedies like her own. Instead, she managed to ''waste'' said infinite life on pursuing petty revenge against the Gods, spending the overwhelming majority of it alone and miserable, and bringing nothing but grief to herself and humanity (both versions), just because she couldn't move on from a loved one's death and kept making the wrong choices. Highlighted best by her end goal: She wants to find peace by dying and she would rather drag Remnant and it’s people down with her by destroying the whole world instead of simply admitting her faults and accepting the cycle of life and death.
** Even the Brother Gods, Light and Dark, fall into the same cycle of being trapped by the past and not truly moving forward. As revealed in Volume 9, the brothers were originally beings from the Ever After who [[UsedToBeASweetKid happily helped the Tree create a land for all of it's creations and clear away the wilderness]]. But when they discovered that they could create beings to do their job for them (the Curious Cat and the Jabberwalker), they slowly became corrupted by laziness, greed, and pride; losing sight of their purposes and falling into a FalseDichotomy where they would blame the other for their mistakes. They chose to abandon their creations and the Ever After to go make new worlds, leaving the denizens of their home with constant fear of dying to the Jabberwalker and the Cat eventually being driven insane because the Gods did not give it a way to ascend if it broke. They then proceed to repeat their mistakes with Salem, serving the "antagonist" role in her backstory, which ultimately lead to humanity rising against them. Instead of trying to resolve the issue, they decide to invoke a FinalSolution, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere abandoned Remnant]] just like the Ever After, then shouldered Ozma with the responsibility of fixing all of the long term issues ''they'' caused for the world since the beginning, and all of the new ones that would follow with the introduction of the four Relics. The Brothers ultimately started the war between Ozpin and Salem that is dooming Remnant because the duo refused to learn that balance must be achieved naturally, that they were responsible for fixing their mistakes and that they needed to patiently take care of their creations.

** Cinder was made a household slave by her cruel adoptive "family", to the point she's driven over the edge and kills her abusers out of revenge. She then takes out her desires for power and freedom on the innocents of Remnant, leading to mass murders and destruction just to flaunt her power and get back at a world she feels owes her. After Ruby's Silver Eyes knock her down a peg, she slowly loses her sanity and continuously ignores orders/logic just to get any shot at revenge on those who've wronged her or another set of Maiden Powers. It reaches a head when Watts brutally dissects her attitude and constant string of failures. While it seemed like she finally learned her lesson, Cinder then throws away two extremely useful allies for Salem the first chance she gets just to cover her own tracks. It's also heavily implied she did this moreso because she wanted to get back at them for threatening and insulting her. Cinder traps herself in a cycle dictated by revenge, her need for power and using everyone like tools to satisfy her ego and belief that she should have everything she wants while putting everyone she hates down.

** Like Ironwood, Raven deals with a similar pattern of past fears. She cannot move past her bitterness towards Ozpin revealing the earth-shattering truth about Salem and the Grimm, and is constantly afraid of getting dragged into the war between the two sides. Her strategy for surviving the conflict between Ozpin and Salem is to essentially hide in the middle of nowhere, flying beneath either side's attention, and subsist off of raiding isolated communities weaker than her clan. Instead of accepting that past fear and fighting on like her daughter does, she clings to it to justify her warped ideology of "survival of the fittest" as an excuse to keep running away from a fight she privately thinks that she could never win. Even after she attains more power than most on Remnant would ever have, her fear holds her back from utilizing it and causes her to flee from both the fight and her clan.

** Little is very concerned about seeing the Blacksmith, nervously telling Ruby that should not be there. All denizens of the Ever After are aware of the cycle of ascension, and that they meet with Blacksmith to choose their new paths in their next life. Little had not found their actual purpose at that point, and had not finished their self-appointed purpose of getting Ruby home. They were not ready to ascend, and were likely afraid that Ruby might leave to ascend before she was ready as well.

** Even the Brother Gods, Light and Dark, fall into the same cycle of being trapped by the past and not truly moving forward. As revealed in Volume 9, the brothers were originally beings from the Ever After who [[UsedToBeASweetKid happily helped the tree create a land for all of it's creations and clear away the wilderness]]. But when they discovered that they could create beings to do their job for them (the Curious Cat and the Jabberwalker), they slowly became corrupted by laziness, greed, and pride; losing sight of their purposes and falling into a FalseDichotomy where they would blame the other for their mistakes. They chose to abandon their creations and the Ever After to go make new worlds, leaving the denizens of their home with constant fear of dying to the Jabberwalker and the Cat eventually being driven insane because the Gods did not give it a way to ascend if it broke. They then proceed to repeat their mistakes with Salem, serving the "antagonist" role in her backstory, which ultimately lead to humanity rising against them. Instead of trying to resolve the issue, they decide to invoke a FinalSolution, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere abandoned Remnant]] just like the Ever After, then shouldered Ozma with the responsibility of fixing all of the long term issues ''they'' caused for the world since the beginning, and all of the new ones that would follow with the introduction of the four Relics. The Brothers ultimately started the war between Ozpin and Salem that is dooming Remnant because the duo refused to learn that balance must be achieved naturally, that they were responsible for fixing their mistakes and that they needed to patiently take care of their creations.

** Ruby revered her lost mother, viewing her as the perfect Huntsman and wanted to live up to her legacy. This inspired her to be a hero like the ones she’s heard about in stories, and this blind optimism helps her teammates and friends through the hardest times. But when she learns about her mother's confrontation with Salem, the losses from fighting in the ForeverWar and TheChainsOfCommanding drag Ruby down into a deep depression that culminates in her choosing [[DrivenToSuicide ascension]] in the Ever After because she sees herself as a failure who cannot live up to her ideals. However, she instead goes through a rebirth where she realizes she doesn’t need to be perfect or exactly like her mother. She overcomes her depression by accepting that she as Ruby Rose is enough.
** Weiss wants to redeem the SDC by bringing back the glory days of when her grandfather was in charge, to the point that she's even training to become a huntress like he was a huntsman. But when her father disowns her, she puts that all aside for the moment and decides to return to her FamilyOfChoice where she can do some immediate good. Her goal is still in her mind, but she decides that helping others is more important than getting revenge on her father. When she finally returns to Atlas, she takes down her father by exposing his crimes and later focuses on making amends for the damage Jacque has caused: Choosing to protect Mantle from the Grimm/Ironwood and healing the broken relationships with her brother and mother.

** Jaune clearly still feels the loss of Pyrrha, but he pushes past his brief DeathSeeker stage and stops obsessing over getting revenge on Cinder for what she did. Using Pyrrha's weapons and armor to upgrade his own is a very literal way of using the lessons of the past to move forward. When he is set back by being forced to MercyKill Penny, stranded back in time in the Ever After and betrayed by Alyx, the trauma reemerges and starts to chip away at his sanity. He can only keep it together by “protecting” the Paper Pleasers but is forced to accept that he did it to feel the rush of rescuing others. Admitting his faults helps him realize he doesn't need to be the "hero" and conversing with Alyx's spirit convinces him to focus on becoming the man he truly wants to be instead. These revelations allow him and Team RWBY to get out of the Ever After, and Jaune is rewarded with his youth restored thanks to Alyx's dying wish to fix what she had broken.

** And of course Salem, as the show's main antagonist, embodies all this more than anyone. She, an actual being of infinite life, could do literally anything, learn anything, create anything humanly possible, bring world peace, who could save countless lives and prevent countless tragedies like her own. Instead, she managed to ''waste'' said infinite life on pursuing petty revenge against the Gods, spending the overwhelming majority of it alone and miserable, and bringing nothing but grief to herself and humanity (both versions), just because she couldn't move on from a loved one's death and kept making the wrong choices. Highlighted best by her end goal: She wants to find peace by dying and she would rather drag Remnant and it’s people down with her by destroying the whole world instead of simply admitting her faults and accepting the cycle of life and death.

* WBY and Jaune finally getting to the Tree in Episode 9 is the perfect parallel/metaphor to Salem's curse. Salem was made immortal by a higher power in the hopes of understanding the importance of life and death. Once she did, she would be free to join Ozma in the afterlife. But she refused to accept the cycle or admit her mistakes, barring her from the afterlife for eternity. In the Ever After, Ascension or escaping to Remnant is only permitted to those who accept the cycle of renewal and moving onward though life and death. While this is a natural belief for all Afterans, those who don't find themselves stuck in an UnnaturallyLoopingLocation and denied access. The heroes making it shows they did the one thing that Salem can never do: accept that both life and death are precious gifts, and that change is nothing to be afraid of.

* The Grimm are supposed to represent humanity's greatest fears right? The bigger the fear, the bigger/more powerful the Grimm. Bears are feared, but very well known, so Ursa are numerous, but not that powerful. Scorpions are more feared because they're rarer in most parts of the world, and very dangerous, so Deathstalkers are rarer, but even more dangerous. Crows/ravens/flying black birds aren't actually that dangerous, but the fact that most of them are scavengers made early humans associate them with death, and thanks to [[Creator/EdgarAllanPoe somebody]] they're still associated with such death and bad luck. Thus, Nevermores are serious threats to Huntsmen. So, it makes sense that the single largest, most powerful, and most dangerous Grimm is a dragon, because they were one of humanity's original collective nightmares, created when we found gigantic bones of ancient lizards that were turned into [[DinosaursAreDragons stories of flying beasts who can breath fire]].
** Also, the dragon creates more Grimm in its path, symbolizing how myths like those about dragons can spawn similar stories that also generate fear.

** There's probably more symbolism in the fact that he has used his scythe-mode a grand total of once, and otherwise sticks to his sword, similar to how he rarely shows his full potential or his scarier side.

** Penny hadn't forgotten that Cinder wasresponsible for her first "death", but instead of just pressing on the attack against her murderer, she chooses to be by Fria's side when she passes. This earns her the power of the Winter Maiden. Unlike Winter or the Ace Ops, who all blindly followed Ironwood's orders, she decided to join Ruby and their friends in an effort to find another way to save Atlas. Later, when Cinder disrupts the Solitas evacuation plan to steal the Relic of Creation, Penny chose to stay behind and protect her friends and people, but at the cost of Cinder fatally stabbing her to try and steal the Winter Maiden powers. Instead of fixating on the latter and trying to stay alive in vain, she asked Jaune to MercyKill her in order to pass the Maiden power to someone she trusts and loves: Winter. Even though it meant she would be gone forever, Penny accepted that her time had come to an end and never stopped trying to fulfill her duty: being a protector of the innocents of Remnant. She knew that a part of her would live on in Winter as the succeeding Maiden, and that was enough for her.

** Penny hasn't forgotten that Cinder is responsible for her first "death", but instead of just pressing on the attack against her murderer, she chooses to be by Fria's side when she passes. This earns her the power of the Winter Maiden. And unlike Winter or the Ace Ops, who all blindly follow Ironwood's orders, she decides to join Ruby and their friends in an effort to find another way to save Atlas.

** Weiss wants to redeem the SDC by bringing back the glory days of when her grandfather was in charge, to the point that she's even training to become a huntress like he was a huntsman. But when her father disowns her, she puts that all aside for the moment and decides to return to her FamilyOfChoice where she can do some immediate good. Her goal is still in her mind, but she decides that helping others is more important than getting revenge on her father. When she finally returns to Atlas, she takes down her father by exposing his crimes and later focuses on making amends for the SDC's actions: Choosing to protect Mantle from the Grimm/Ironwood and healing the broken relationships with her brother and mother.
** Blake wanted to redeem the White Fang and find equality for Faunus, but was reluctant to let others in due to Faunus discrimination, her shame of being a criminal and Adam's emotional abuse. Her time with her friends, especially Yang and Sun, helped her accept people's companionship and slowly healed from past wounds. She knew killing Adam and taking over the White Fang wouldn't do any good, so she instead convinced the Faunus of Menagerie to stand up and fight to stop the terrorism from reaching Haven Academy. She is able to finally stop Adam tormenting her for good with Yang's help, and begins a new, healthier romantic relationship with Yang in the Ever After.

** Winter is a more depressive season, represented by cold, detachment, and death, but has a silver lining as the season of introspection and rebirth. Things took a turn for the worse when the truth of Ozpin is revealed, everyone's hope and trust is shaken, and Ironwood declares the heroes public enemies for refusing to obey him. The Atlas arc has some of the darkest moments of the RWBY series, with the truth behind the Hound, Ironwood's descent into villainy, the Kingdom of Solitas is ''destroyed'', Ruby is DrivenToSuicide through ascension when her trauma comes to a head, and Jaune experiences serious SanitySlippage when he is forced to MercyKill Penny then flung back in time in the Ever After. Despite the sorrow, hope is ''not'' lost: the heroes evolve into greater fighters with their semblances and training, while many resolve their inner conflicts with self-reflection. Ren and Nora, followed by Yang and Blake, confess their love for each other and the heroes reconcile with Ozpin after repeating his mistakes. They gain new allies, Penny is reborn as human for a short while, Ruby and Jaune are able to make peace their failings, and the heroes return from the Ever After with renewed hope and determination. Despite losing the Solitas cities, most of the people are safe, the heroes believe that the kingdom can be rebuilt again in the future, and the final shot shows that all the Kingdoms heard Ruby's message and have united in Vacuo to fight against Salem.

** Willow Schnee fell into despairing depression when her husband confirmed her long held fear that he used her to take over the company she was implicitly supposed to inherit. She used alcohol to cope, isolating herself from her children and neglecting them when they needed her. Despite this, she still had the drive to watch over them, secretly installing cameras to catch proof of Jacque abused them, which played a critical role in his arrest. Later when her family is in danger from the Hound, she gains the courage to stay sober in order to protect Weiss and Whitley, to the point she uses her Glyph summons to save Whitley from death. Afterwards, she stays by her son's side at all times and plays a supporting role in getting Team RWBY to the Winter Maiden Vault, focusing on caring for her children once again in their efforts to save the Kingdom's people.

** Weiss wants to redeem the SDC by bringing back the glory days of when her grandfather was in charge, to the point that she's even training to become a huntress like he was a huntsman. But when her father disowns her, she puts that all aside for the moment and decides to return to her FamilyOfChoice where she can do some immediate good. Her goal is still in her mind, but she decides that helping others is more important than getting revenge on her father. When she finally returns to Atlas, she focuses on protecting Mantle from the Grimm and later Ironwood, and mends her broken relationships with her brother and mother.

* WBY and Jaune finally getting to the Tree in Episode 9 is the perfect parallel/metaphor to Salem's curse. Salem was made immortal by a higher power in the hopes of understand the importance of life and death. But she refused to accept the cycle and admitting her mistakes, barring her from the afterlife for eternity and making it life's mission to destroy the world believing it to be her only escape. In the Ever After, Ascension is only permitted to those who accept the cycle of renewal and moving onward though life and death, a natural belief for all Afterans. If you don't, you find yourself stuck in an UnnaturallyLoopingLocation and denied access. The heroes making it shows they did the one thing that Salem can never do: accept that both life and death are precious gifts, and that change is nothing to be afraid of.

** The Curious Cat was driven to violence and insanity in their determination to discover why the Brother Gods left the Ever After. They try to achieve this by wearing Ruby down mentally to take over her body, and when that fails, possessing Neo to escape to Remnant. Their actions of hurting Ruby lead to ascension where she is able to make peace with her inner demons, and WBY and Jaune catch up to the Cat because they cannot leave the Ever After through Neo. The renewed and reborn Ruby helps her team take down the Cat in their OneWingedAngel form, and a freed Neo delivers the final blow with her Jabberwalker clones. The Curious Cat is doomed to never ascend, after they made it their life's mission to answer one question in the hopes being able to ascend.
** Neopolitan revolved her entire life around Roman Torchwick, and vowed to avenge him by killing who she believed was his assailant: Ruby Rose. She decides to force Ruby through Ascension to erase her completely. But after succeeding, she realizes she has nothing left to live for and gets possessed by the Curious Cat. Thanks to the efforts of Heroes, she is freed, able to make peace with Roman's death after inhaling the smoke from the Trees leaves, and delivers the final blow to the Cat via her Jabberwalker clones. She then chooses ascension for herself, in hopes of finding a new purpose. Like Hazel, Neo chose her own "death", and redeemed herself by helping the heroes stop a greater antagonist.

** Winter is a more depressive season, represented by cold, detachment, and death, but has a silver lining as the season of introspection and rebirth. Things took a turn for the worse when the truth of Ozpin is revealed, everyone's hope and trust is shaken, and Ironwood declares the heroes public enemies for refusing to obey him. The Atlas arc has some of the darkest moments of the RWBY series, with the truth behind the Hound, Ironwood's descent into villainy, the Kingdom of Solitas is ''destroyed'', Ruby is DrivenToSuicide through ascension when her trauma comes to a head, and Jaune is forced to MercyKill Penny when the latter is fatally stabbed by Cinder. Despite the sorrow, hope is ''not'' lost: the heroes evolve into greater fighters with their semblances and training, while many resolve their inner conflicts with self-reflection. Ren and Nora, followed by Yang and Blake, confess their love for each other and the heroes reconcile with Ozpin after repeating his mistakes. They gain new allies, Penny is reborn as human for a short while, Ruby and Jaune are able to make peace their failings, and the heroes return from the Ever After with renewed hope and determination. Despite losing the Solitas cities, most of the people are safe, the heroes believe that the kingdom can be rebuilt again in the future, and the final shot shows that all the Kingdoms heard Ruby's message and have united in Vacuo to fight against Salem.

** Winter is a more depressive season, represented by cold, detachment, and death, but has a silver lining as the season of introspection and rebirth. Things took a turn for the worse when the truth of Ozpin is revealed, everyone's hope and trust is shaken, and Ironwood declares the heroes public enemies for refusing to obey him. The Atlas arc has some of the darkest moments of the RWBY series, with the truth behind the Hound, Ironwood's descent into villainy, the Kingdom of Solitas is ''destroyed'', Ruby is DrivenToSuicide through ascension when her trauma comes to a head, and Jaune is forced to MercyKill Penny when the latter is fatally stabbed by Cinder. Despite the sorrow, hope is ''not'' lost: the heroes evolve into greater fighters with their semblances and training, many resolve their inner conflicts with self-reflection, Ren and Nora, followed by Yang and Blake, confess their love for each other and the heroes reconcile with Ozpin after repeating his mistakes. They gain new allies, Penny is reborn as human for a short while, Ruby and Jaune are able to make peace their failings, and the heroes return from the Ever After with renewed hope and determination. Despite losing the Solitas cities, most of the people are safe, the heroes believe that the kingdom can be rebuilt again in the future, and the final shot shows that all the Kingdoms heard Ruby's message and have united in Vacuo to fight against Salem.

** Yang was an adrenaline junkie thrill-seeker who didn't think before she acted, and spent her life looking for the mother who abandoned her. Her first flaw got her in serious trouble when it kickstarted the villain's plans, which lead to a massive TraumaCongaLine culminating in her loosing her arm when she tried protecting Blake from Adam. Yang is left with severe PTSD for months and reluctant to get back in the fight. But her learning about Ruby's departure to Haven made Yang realize she needs to be there for her little sister, leading to working out her combat flaws with Taiyang. En route to Haven, she finally finds Raven, but chooses to focus on finding Ruby instead to fixating on the latter, and cuts ties with her when she realizes her mother was self-serving coward. She confronts her PTSD by helping Blake take down Adam for good, and moves forward with a mature moderation of seeking thrills and thinking logically.

** Ren almost got the team killed due to his rage against the monster that killed his parents, but soon calms down and focuses on what's important; acting strategically to destroy a dangerous monster, not getting revenge. Later in Atlas, when he has an emotional breakdown from the Ozpin reveal and becoming fugitives, Harriet's ranting about replacing teammates snaps him out of his funk and makes him realize how unhealthy bottling up his feelings over the years has been. His semblance evolves and he gains a new emotional perspective on a life.

** Winter is a more depressive season, represented by cold, detachment, and death, but has a silver lining as the season of introspection and rebirth. Things took a turn for the worse when the truth of Ozpin is revealed, and everyone's hope and trust is shaken. Their reluctance to trust one another turns allies into enemies, and Ironwood declares the heroes public enemies for refusing to obey him. The Atlus arc has some of the darkest moments of the RWBY series, with the truth behind the Hound and Ironwood's descent into villainy. Death is also prevalent with the highest body count across two volumes alone, the deaths of past and present characters drives the heroes to taking dangerous risks, the Kingdom of Solitas "dies" when Atlus crashes into Mantle and is flooded by water, Ruby is DrivenToSuicide through ascension in the Ever After and Jaune faces more trauma when he is forced to MercyKill Penny because of Cinder. Despite the sorrow, hope is not lost: the young heroes evolve into greater fighters with their semblances and training, many mature and resolve their inner conflicts by taking a look at themselves, and the heroes reconcile with Ozpin after repeating his mistakes. Ren and Nora, followed by Yang and Blake, confess their love for each other, starting new relationships. They gain new allies in Robyn and Emerald, Penny is reborn as human and experiences her greatest wish, if only for a short time. Ruby and Jaune are able to make peace their failings and accept that they do not need to be perfect, and the heroes return from the Ever After with renewed hope and determination. Despite losing the Solitas cities, most of the people are safe, the heroes believe that the kingdom can be rebuilt again in the future, and the final shot shows that all the Kingdoms heard Ruby's message and have united in Vacuo to fight.

** Since his debut, Arthur Watts is a smug genius who belittles Cinder Fall every chance he could. His main reason for siding with Salem to destroy Atlas was to spite Ironwood because he was passed over and disgraced by the man. Out of revenge for his [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech earlier speech]] and to [[LeaveNoWitnesses hide her actions to Salem]], Cinder uses Watts to help her stop the heroes' efforts and retrieve the Staff of Creation, then uses it to set the command center on fire where Watts is working, killing the man the first chance she gets. The doctor who is (initially) not afraid of dying at Cinder's hands in "Worthy" is last seen desperately trying to get out alive as he dies with the kingdom he hated so much. Watts unintentionally gave Cinder the means and the motivation to finally take her tormentor out of the picture.

** Jaune clearly still feels the loss of Pyrrha, but he pushes past his brief DeathSeeker stage and stops obsessing over getting revenge on Cinder for what she did. Using Pyrrha's weapons and armor to upgrade his own is a very literal way of using the lessons of the past to move forward. When he is set back by being forced to MercyKill Penny, stranded back in time in the Ever After and betrayed by Alyx, the trauma reemerges and starts to chip away at his sanity. He can only keep it together by “protecting” the Paper Pleasers but is forced to accept that he did it to feel the rush of playing the hero. Admitting his faults allows him and the others to return home via the Tree, and his youth restored thanks to Alyx’s dying wish to atone being granted to him through the Blacksmith.

** Ruby revered her lost mother, viewing her as the perfect Huntsman and wanted to live up to her legacy. This inspires her to be a hero like the ones she’s heard about in stories, and this blind optimism helps her teammates and friends through the hardest times. But when she learns about her mother's confrontation with Salem, the losses from fighting in the ForeverWar and TheChainsOfCommanding drag Ruby down into a deep depression that culminates in her choosing [[DrivenToSuicide ascension]] in the Ever After because she sees herself as a failure who cannot live up to her ideals. However, she instead goes through a rebirth where she realizes she doesn’t need to be perfect or exactly like her mother. She overcomes her depression by accepting that she as Ruby Rose is enough.
** Weiss wants to redeem the SDC by bringing back the glory days of when her grandfather was in charge, to the point that she's even training to become a huntress like he was a huntsman. But when her father disowns her, she puts that all aside for the moment and decides to return to her FamilyOfChoice where she can do some immediate good. Her goal is still in her mind, but she decides that helping others is more important than getting revenge on her father.
** Blake wanted to redeem the White Fang and find equality for Faunus, but was reluctant to let others in due to Faunus discrimination, her shame of being a criminal and Adam's emotional abuse. Her time with her friends, especially Yang and Sun, helped her accept people's companionship and slowly healed from past wounds. She knew killing Adam and taking over the White Fang wouldn't do any good, so instead she convinced the Faunus of Menagerie to stand up and fight to stop the terrorism from reaching Haven Academy. She is able to finally stop Adam tormenting her for good with Yang's help, and begins a new, healthier romantic relationship with Yang in the Ever After.
** Yang spent her entire life searching for Raven, but when she had a choice between Raven and Ruby, she put Raven aside and focused on helping her sister.

** Blake wants to redeem the White Fang and find equality for Faunus. But she knows killing Adam and taking over the White Fang herself won't do any good, so instead she focuses on saving people and convincing other Faunus to do the same.

** Jaune clearly still feels the loss of Pyrrha, but he pushes past his brief DeathSeeker stage and stops obsessing over getting revenge on Cinder for what she did. Using Pyrrha's weapons and armor to upgrade his own, in particular, is a very literal way of using the lessons of the past to move forward.

** Qrow's UndyingLoyalty to Ozpin was based around Ozpin being the first person to treat him as something more than a curse. In the wake of his BrokenPedestal experience, he puts aside his flask after realising he's more beneficial to Ruby and the heroes without it; he constantly gets peps talks from Clover that he's got more worth to Ruby and the heroes than he thinks. When he realises that Clover is making the same UndyingLoyalty mistakes with James that he made with Ozpin, it threatens to sends him backwards. However, it's Robyn pointing out that he's a proper Huntsmen because he fights for what's right, that puts him back on track. His journey is about finding his own self-worth instead of seeking it through the eyes of others.

* One of the key issues of the chapter is learning to let go of your traumas and your mistakes and learning to do better. The villains of the series are, by and large, people who can't let go and move on.
** Salem and her crew are, by and large, being consumed by past failures and unable to let go and move on. Salem has ''centuries'' on an idiotic grudge match with her former lover, Cinder can't let go of the abuse she endured, Watts couldn't let go Atlas not appreciating his genius, and Mercury can't put his brutal childhood behind him. None of them have learned to build a bridge and get over their terrible pasts, pushing them further and further into evil and madness.
** Neo finds happiness because she finally learns to let go: she realizes getting revenge on Ruby won't make her happy, but letting Roman go and accepting what he can't be brought back brings her the closure she needs.

** Winter is a more depressive season, represented by cold, detachment, and death, but has a silver lining as the season of introspection and rebirth. Things took a turn for the worse when the truth of Ozpin is revealed, and everyone's hope and trust is shaken. Their reluctance to trust one another turns allies into enemies, and Ironwood declares the heroes public enemies for refusing to obey him. The Atlus arc has some of the darkest moments of the RWBY series, with the truth behind the Hound and Ironwood's descent into villainy. Death is also prevalent with the highest body count across two volumes alone, the deaths of past and present characters drives the heroes to taking dangerous risks, the Kingdom of Solitas "dies" when Atlus crashes into Mantle and is flooded by water, Ruby is DrivenToSuicide through ascension in the Ever After and Jaune faces more trauma when he is forced to MercyKill Penny because of Cinder. Despite the sorrow, hope is not lost: the young heroes evolve into greater fighters with their semblances and training, many mature and resolve their inner conflicts by taking a look at themselves, and the heroes reconcile with Ozpin after repeating his mistakes. Ren and Nora, followed Yang and Blake, confess their love for each other, starting new relationships. They gain new allies in Robyn and Emerald, Penny is reborn as human and experiences her greatest wish, if only for a short time. Ruby and Jaune are able to make peace their failings and accept that they do not need to be perfect, and the heroes return from the Ever After with renewed hope and determination. Despite losing the Solitas cities, most of the people are safe, the heroes believe that the kingdom can be rebuilt again in the future, and the final shot shows that all the Kingdoms heard Ruby's message and have united in Vacuo to fight.

** Little the mouse was a being with no purpose and content to live their life until they found their purpose. Moved by Ruby's kindness, they chose to leave their village to help her team get home, staying by Ruby's side even when it gets them killed. When they ascend, they use their admiration of Ruby to become the heroic Somewhat, having several new purposes and promising to look after Juniper when Jaune has to leave the Ever After. Little/Somewhat made their own purpose by joining the adventure, and used those experiences when they were reborn to continue doing good.