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*** But Jinn says that, after his breakup with Salem and lifetimes of trying to forget, he decided Salem needed to die for humannity to ever be unified, which strongly implies he still wants to complete his mission, and the stalemate is something forced on him, not a strategic choice. Calling his immortality a curse doesn't mean he changed his mind about his mission, since he could mean it's a curse for him but necessary for the greater good. Or even if it was something bad the Gods did, he may not see it as outweighing the benefits of having them back; after all, he continued with his mission even after learning about Salem's immortality and, presumably, how long that was her curse. And while he didn't see humannity's revolt and we may be supposed to assume that Salem never told him she lead it, there's no indication he was unaware of it, since he doesn't react to seeing Jinn's vision of it with surprise, and Salem could easily have told him that humannity rebelled against the Gods while downplaying her role in it.
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*** Ozma, in his life, almost certainly worshiped the Brothers, and almost certainly didn't have the full story. In that situation, he would probably take their side. By the modern day, though, he's obviously changed his mind, regarding his immortality as a curse and seeking to maintain a stalemate, not summon the Brothers.
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** Also, in ''After the Fall'', it's revealed that Fox knows an Aura technique that lets him "see" Auras. He also has an AI called [=ADA=] who guides him.
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** Judging by the ice spikes on their bodies, the Grimm in Atlas evolved to pursue humans into the cold. They can adapt to pretty much anything, given time.
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** Also, in ''After the Fall'', it's revealed that Fox knows an Aura technique that lets him "see" Auras. He also has an AI called [=ADA=] who guides him.
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** Salem had already spent months weakening the nation using Watts and Tyrian so that the defenses were already exhausted and Atlas was fighting itself as much as her. It wasn't just pure force that let her win, and indeed, the second she got involved personally, things started going utterly sideways. While Salem's invasion was treated as a serious threat, it was not one that was utterly insurmountable,
*** Also, Atlas is not the entire world. Literally the entire point of the show is that people have to work together, and Ironwood was trying to radio the other kingdoms for help against Salem before he went utterly psycho. Salem's tough, sure. But how do you think she would've fared against the Colossus of Argus, the trained fighters of Ghira's White Fang, the massive numbers raised by Mistral, Vale's Bullheads, and the hardened natives of Vacuo? Not to mention legions of Huntsmen, the Maidens, and perhaps even a couple Relics? As Ruby says, Salem can't fight the whole world at once. That's why she doesn't try to.
*** Also, Atlas is not the entire world. Literally the entire point of the show is that people have to work together, and Ironwood was trying to radio the other kingdoms for help against Salem before he went utterly psycho. Salem's tough, sure. But how do you think she would've fared against the Colossus of Argus, the trained fighters of Ghira's White Fang, the massive numbers raised by Mistral, Vale's Bullheads, and the hardened natives of Vacuo? Not to mention legions of Huntsmen, the Maidens, and perhaps even a couple Relics? As Ruby says, Salem can't fight the whole world at once. That's why she doesn't try to.
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* WordOfGod is that there's something about shapeshifting that makes people on Remnant either view it as a curse to have, or hate/fear people who have the ability, and the creators admit they failed to explain why.
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*** Only Ozpin does accept the task, without considering for a moment this means the Gods are malevolent, or that this inconsistency in their words and actions means succeeding in his mission won't satisfy them, not to mention how the characters are framed and how unity is thematically presented as an ideal humans should strive for, but often fail at. It's likely that the whole backstory was written from a few endpoints (Ozpin's task, humanity getting wiped out, Salem's immortality, etc) forwards, and thus humanity's "original sin" wasn't given as much thought as it needed to tie the points together.
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* The problem with all this, though, is that if she isn't doing the attacking herself and is fighting in secret, that means there's something she's afraid of (either being trapped somehow or knowledge of her uniting humanity), and so Ozpin would exploit that and reveal her existence to the world, or come up with a plan to trap her if he had any sense. And sure enough, in Volume 8, she does personally lead an army of Grimm to attack Atlas, and this is treated as a death sentence for the most technologically advanced city and army in history (and she does win the fight after a few setbacks,) with neither her nor Ozpin bringing up the possibility that this will unite humanity (yes, Atlas was largely cut off from the world, but they could send couriers, and there would be survivors from her attack no matter how handily she won). It's possible that the writer's came up with the general setting (including Salem and Ozpin's war being a secret) before they decided to make Salem an InvincibleVillain or came up with their backstories.
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* As of Volume 6, we have further explanation; The God of Darkness wiped out the original humans, but most if not all their infrastructure was left behind for the next round of humanity to pick up and use (save those that required magic,) meaning that humannity as we know them got a serious head start when it came to the walls and weapons that protect them from Grimm.
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** Also, just because Salem is powerful and immortal, it doesn't mean she's invincible. A united humanity throwing everything they have at her could overwhelm her, and while they can't ''kill'' her, they can easily ''contain'' her. She won't be doing much if they pull a Wiki/SCPFoundation and encase her in a ten-by-ten-by-ten block of concrete and seal her in a secured underground bunker.
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** Also, just because Salem is powerful and immortal, it doesn't mean she's invincible. A united humanity throwing everything they have at her could overwhelm her, and while they can't ''kill'' her, they can easily ''contain'' her. She won't be doing much if they pull a Wiki/SCPFoundation Website/SCPFoundation and encase her in a ten-by-ten-by-ten block of concrete and seal her in a secured underground bunker.
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** AbortedArc, combined with {{Handwave}}. The bombs on the train weren't shown as especially powerful compared to the weapons characters use constantly, and are thus commercially available, and seems unlikely that such a small group could steal enough dust to substantially drive up the prices of a resource common enough to be sold in stores with no security.
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*** Adding to the above, it's likely a mix of scheduled exhibition matches (each academy putting a selection of teams forward to fight each other), non-regulation fights (all-state mies battle royals, exhibition drills (target competitions, capture the flags, etc), and friendly off-card battles (say, FNKI and RWBY coming back to fight in the next tournament, as both teams have a friendly rapport)
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[[folder:Only Jaune?]]
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** If we remember "Heroes and Monsters", Pyrrha saw Ozpin and went toward him - Jaune followed after telling the others to clear out the Grimm. Therefore no one else was with Opzin/Pyrrha/Jaune when they met up, and thus no one else came with because they weren't nearby enough.
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** If we remember "Heroes and Monsters", Pyrrha saw Ozpin and went toward him - Jaune followed after telling the others to clear out the Grimm. Therefore no one else was with Opzin/Pyrrha/Jaune when they met up, and thus no one else came with because they weren't nearby nearly enough.
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[[folder:Lockers]]
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** Ruby using her locker as a method of transportation was obviously an act of improvised desperation because, shockingly, it's a really, really bad idea to normally grab onto an unguided missile and launch yourself into the sky without an effective means of guiding or landing yourself. As for Mountain Glenn, they had the combined problem of being out of range of communications with Vale, and also the relatively extreme distance. We've never seen lockers fly out that far, and presumably the only way to get that far is with an actual aircraft instead of a ''ridiculously'' unsafe ballistic projectile.
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** Ruby using her locker as a method of transportation was obviously an act of improvised desperation because, shockingly, it's a really, really bad idea to normally grab onto an unguided missile and launch yourself into the sky without an effective means of guiding or landing yourself. As for Mountain Glenn, they had the combined problem of being out of range of communications with Vale, and also the relatively extreme distance. We've never seen lockers fly out that far, and presumably presumably, the only way to get that far is with an actual aircraft instead of a ''ridiculously'' unsafe ballistic projectile.
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[[folder:Wire Cutting]]
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** Additionally, Penny's weapons are physically attached to her. It's possible that her aura covers them too, and thus offer her no protection against them.
** Since Penny's hands were damaged as part of her RoboticReveal in volume 2, it's possible that, by design, her aura isn't being used to protect her body, but instead is focused towards her weapons.
** Since Penny's hands were damaged as part of her RoboticReveal in volume 2, it's possible that, by design, her aura isn't being used to protect her body, but instead is focused towards her weapons.
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** Additionally, Penny's weapons are physically attached to her. It's possible that her aura covers them too, and thus offer offered her no protection against them.
** Since Penny's hands were damaged as part of her RoboticReveal in volume 2, it's possible that, by design, her aura isn't being used to protect her body, but instead is focusedtowards on her weapons.
** Since Penny's hands were damaged as part of her RoboticReveal in volume 2, it's possible that, by design, her aura isn't being used to protect her body, but instead is focused
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** This one's actually entirely consistent with Penny's past showings. In Volume 2, when she stops the truck, there is no flash or other indicator of any kind of Aura shield. More importantly, when she shows Ruby her hands, Penny's palms have clearly been damaged, at least superficially, by the impact. This wouldn't have happened to a person who uses Aura shields. Most likely, Penny either cannot or chooses not to use shields, and likely instead uses her Aura to either power her attacks or to strengthen her physical body against impacts or attacks. This would normally work fine... except that in this case, her opponent unintentionally used an extremely powerful magnetic pulse that caused Penny's ''own Aura-enhanced weapons'' to hit her, and said weapons had extremely narrow contact points and thus exerted enormous force on her body. The results... are predictable.
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** This one's actually entirely consistent with Penny's past showings. In Volume 2, when she stops the truck, there is no flash or other indicator of any kind of Aura shield. More importantly, when she shows Ruby her hands, Penny's palms have clearly been damaged, at least superficially, by the impact. This wouldn't have happened to a person who uses Aura shields. Most likely, Penny either cannot could not or chooses not to use shields, and likely instead uses her Aura to either power her attacks or to strengthen her physical body against impacts or attacks. This would normally work fine... except that in this case, her opponent unintentionally used an extremely powerful magnetic pulse that caused Penny's ''own Aura-enhanced weapons'' to hit her, and said weapons had extremely narrow contact points and thus exerted enormous force on her body. The results... are predictable.
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[[folder:The Black Queen virus]]
* Where exactly ''did'' Cindy McAwesomeface get the Black Queen virus? Based on the fact that it takes over pretty much all of the best technology in Remnant in ''seconds'', it logically has to be one hell of a virus, written by a crack team of all of the best programmers in the world. But there's never any indication that Cinder has any other allies beyong what we've seen: clearly operating on her own aside from having Salem's support and some Grimm (And I don't see Grimm being computer experts), she finds and recruits Emerald. Emerald is clearly on her own, with no contacts. Then they grab Merc. On his own, just killed his dad, no contacts. Then there's Roman and the White Fang. A crime lord and a terrorist group are going to have ''some'' resources, sure, but not a l33t team of supercoders from Atlas. So where did she get the virus? Is Cinder herself just a codewriting savant? Is Salem? I could be wrong here, but I don't ''think'' RT plan to explain this, as it would have made the most sense to do so in V3. Again, I could totally be wrong, and maybe that'll be a thing in V4, but I'm a bit doubtful.
* Where exactly ''did'' Cindy McAwesomeface get the Black Queen virus? Based on the fact that it takes over pretty much all of the best technology in Remnant in ''seconds'', it logically has to be one hell of a virus, written by a crack team of all of the best programmers in the world. But there's never any indication that Cinder has any other allies beyong what we've seen: clearly operating on her own aside from having Salem's support and some Grimm (And I don't see Grimm being computer experts), she finds and recruits Emerald. Emerald is clearly on her own, with no contacts. Then they grab Merc. On his own, just killed his dad, no contacts. Then there's Roman and the White Fang. A crime lord and a terrorist group are going to have ''some'' resources, sure, but not a l33t team of supercoders from Atlas. So where did she get the virus? Is Cinder herself just a codewriting savant? Is Salem? I could be wrong here, but I don't ''think'' RT plan to explain this, as it would have made the most sense to do so in V3. Again, I could totally be wrong, and maybe that'll be a thing in V4, but I'm a bit doubtful.
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* Where exactly ''did'' Cindy McAwesomeface get the Black Queen virus? Based on the fact that it takes over pretty much all of the best technology in Remnant in ''seconds'', it logically has to be one hell of a virus, written by a crack team of all of the best programmers in the world. But there's never any indication that Cinder has any other allies beyong what we've seen: clearly operating on her own aside from having Salem's support and some Grimm (And I don't see Grimm being computer experts), she finds and recruits Emerald. Emerald is clearly on her own, with no contacts. Then they grab Merc. On his own, just killed his dad, no contacts. Then there's Roman and the White Fang. A crime lord and a terrorist group are going to have ''some'' resources, sure, but not a l33t team of supercoders from Atlas. So where did she get the virus? Is Cinder herself just a
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** An idea that's been used before is that no one in Remnant history has tried what the villains are doing before and that, as a result, the good guys are unprepared for things that are pretty obvious to us. For example, Ruby used [[spoiler:Sun's scroll to summon her weapon]], which would be a huge concern to someone in IT security. In fact, everybody seems to use the exact same model of scroll, which can be connect to any sort of equipment. There could be a huge number of security gaps in this world's software that a professional in our world would spot right away.
** While it is very possible Remnant has relatively lax cybersecurity measures, that's probably a bad example. Beacon is a school, but a combat school; it's not inconceivable someone would be in a situation where they don't have their Scroll but need their weapons, and so they made it possible to call weapons from any Scroll. So this specific example could be explained as the equivalent of using somebody else's phone to logon to your Facebook account.
** While it is very possible Remnant has relatively lax cybersecurity measures, that's probably a bad example. Beacon is a school, but a combat school; it's not inconceivable someone would be in a situation where they don't have their Scroll but need their weapons, and so they made it possible to call weapons from any Scroll. So this specific example could be explained as the equivalent of using somebody else's phone to logon to your Facebook account.
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** An idea that's been used before is that no one in Remnant history has tried what the villains are doing before and that, as a result, the good guys are unprepared for things that are pretty obvious to us. For example, Ruby used [[spoiler:Sun's [[spoiler: Sun's scroll to summon her weapon]], which would be a huge concern to someone in IT security. In fact, everybody seems to use the exact same model of scroll, which can be connect connected to any sort of equipment. There could be a huge number of security gaps in this world's software that a professional in our world would spot right away.
** While it is very possible Remnant has relatively lax cybersecurity measures, that's probably a bad example. Beacon is a school, but a combat school; it's not inconceivable someone would be in a situation where they don't have their Scroll but need their weapons, and so they made it possible to call weapons from any Scroll. So this specific example could be explained as the equivalent of using somebody else's phone tologon log on to your Facebook account.
** While it is very possible Remnant has relatively lax cybersecurity measures, that's probably a bad example. Beacon is a school, but a combat school; it's not inconceivable someone would be in a situation where they don't have their Scroll but need their weapons, and so they made it possible to call weapons from any Scroll. So this specific example could be explained as the equivalent of using somebody else's phone to
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** Most likely, Cinder's group has someone, as yet unrevealed, on the inside of Atlas (who, remember, are the ones who designed the CCT), someone who knows the computers' back doors and security flaws. Someone with that kind of knowledge could very conceivably write a virus like what we see.
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** Most likely, Cinder's group has someone, as yet unrevealed, on the inside of Atlas (who, remember, are the ones who designed the CCT), someone who knows the computers' back doors and security flaws. Someone with that kind of knowledge could very conceivably write a virus virus, like what we see.
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** Volume 7 clarifies: Watts was one of the developers of Atlas' security system. So, he's a skilled hacker by himself, knows how this system works and left enough backdoors and expolits to be welcomed back by the computer when he sees fit, until until he's patched out.
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** Volume 7 clarifies: Watts was one of the developers of Atlas' security system. So, he's a skilled hacker by himself, knows how this system works and left enough backdoors and expolits exploits to be welcomed back by the computer when he sees fit, until until he's patched out.
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[[folder:Yang's mother in Volume 3]]
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[[folder:Speaking of Adam and his sword...]]
* How in hell does he cut through a person's aura the way he did to disarm (ahem) a practically-fresh Yang, and presumably to impale Blake through her stomach too? Is that his semblance at work, is there some special form of Dust being used to produce that effect, or is Wilt just that freaking sharp? Either way, it would appear to make him one of the strongest on-screen characters just because of how absurdly lethal an ability/weapon like that in a setting like Remnant has the potential to be, even if it is restricted to close range.
* How in hell does he cut through a person's aura the way he did to disarm (ahem) a practically-fresh Yang, and presumably to impale Blake through her stomach too? Is that his semblance at work, is there some special form of Dust being used to produce that effect, or is Wilt just that freaking sharp? Either way, it would appear to make him one of the strongest on-screen characters just because of how absurdly lethal an ability/weapon like that in a setting like Remnant has the potential to be, even if it is restricted to close range.
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* How in the hell does he cut through a person's aura the way he did to disarm (ahem) a practically-fresh Yang, and presumably to impale Blake through her stomach too? Is that his semblance at work, is there some special form of Dust being used to produce that effect, or is Wilt just that freaking sharp? Either way, it would appear to make him one of the strongest on-screen characters just because of how absurdly lethal an ability/weapon like that in a setting like Remnant has the potential to be, even if it is restricted to close range.
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** Problem is, he didn't use his sword's charge. In the Black trailer (the only other time we saw him fight) he needed time to focus, and then glowed when he attacked. With Yang, no glow. Also, her Aura wasn't depleted, and Aura seems to be able to stop any hit, even if you only have a little bit left: its pretty clearly something that was written up specifically to prevent fights from being short like this one was.
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** Problem is, he didn't use his sword's charge. In the Black trailer (the only other time we saw him fight) he needed time to focus, and then glowed when he attacked. With Yang, no glow. Also, her Aura wasn't depleted, and Aura seems to be able to stop any hit, even if you only have a little bit left: its it's pretty clearly something that was written up specifically to prevent fights from being short like this one was.
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** No. We saw what Cinder could do with the Maiden powers. Ozpin was moving at speeds so fast he was leaving afterimages. Pyrrha could barely touch Cinder. Cinder destroyed both of them. She would have casually flattened Adam if he went up against her. And Yang has ''not'' withstood the nastiest hits in the show. Neo was able to bring her down with only a couple of well-placed hits. And no, Aura does not stop every hit. Some force does bleed through, otherwise Weiss would not have been scarred by the Knight's punch, Yang wouldn't have been knocked out from a single hit by Neo throwing her into the roof of the train car, and characters wouldn't be grunting in pain when they get hit by other attacks. Adam's attack hits extremely hard, to the point that even the miniscule kinetic energy that gets through Aura can still chop off a limb.
** And Adam moved fast enough that we only saw where he was after he swung; plus, Cinder wasn't able to break anyone's Aura with one hit, let alone hurt them with their Aura still up. Neo hit Yang about a dozen times, and they seemed to be rather powerful hits, since Yan was sent reeling after each one even though she was fine after getting thrown through a 10 foot wide pillar. And Weiss was hit twice by the Knight, meaning the first could have dropped her Aura down to below 15% while the punch allowed for bleedthrough. Also, according to one of the livestreams, Aura doesn't let damage through, but it does let sensations like pain and heat in.
** And Adam moved fast enough that we only saw where he was after he swung; plus, Cinder wasn't able to break anyone's Aura with one hit, let alone hurt them with their Aura still up. Neo hit Yang about a dozen times, and they seemed to be rather powerful hits, since Yan was sent reeling after each one even though she was fine after getting thrown through a 10 foot wide pillar. And Weiss was hit twice by the Knight, meaning the first could have dropped her Aura down to below 15% while the punch allowed for bleedthrough. Also, according to one of the livestreams, Aura doesn't let damage through, but it does let sensations like pain and heat in.
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** No. We saw what Cinder could do with the Maiden powers. Ozpin was moving at speeds so fast he was leaving afterimages. Pyrrha could barely touch Cinder. Cinder destroyed both of them. She would have casually flattened Adam if he went up against her. And Yang has ''not'' withstood the nastiest hits in the show. Neo was able to bring her down with only a couple of well-placed hits. And no, Aura does not stop every hit. Some force does bleed through, otherwise Weiss would not have been scarred by the Knight's punch, Yang wouldn't have been knocked out from a single hit by Neo throwing her into the roof of the train car, and characters wouldn't be grunting in pain when they get hit by other attacks. Adam's attack hits extremely hard, to the point that even the miniscule minuscule kinetic energy that gets through Aura can still chop off a limb.
** And Adam moved fast enough that we only saw where he was after he swung; plus, Cinder wasn't able to break anyone's Aura with one hit, let alone hurt them with their Aura still up. Neo hit Yang about a dozen times, and they seemed to be rather powerful hits, since Yan was sent reeling after each one even though she was fine after getting thrown through a10 foot 10-foot wide pillar. And Weiss was hit twice by the Knight, meaning the first could have dropped her Aura down to below 15% while the punch allowed for bleedthrough. Also, according to one of the livestreams, Aura doesn't let damage through, but it does let sensations like pain and heat in.
** And Adam moved fast enough that we only saw where he was after he swung; plus, Cinder wasn't able to break anyone's Aura with one hit, let alone hurt them with their Aura still up. Neo hit Yang about a dozen times, and they seemed to be rather powerful hits, since Yan was sent reeling after each one even though she was fine after getting thrown through a
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The key thing to remember here is that the whole reason Yang is so tough is because she actively absorbs energy from every hit, and gets stronger the longer the fight goes on. Neo got around that by CherryTapping Yang so she couldn't power up, until hitting her with a single extremely strong blow that put her out of the fight. Adam simply takes that to the logical extreme: instead of tap-tap-tapping away at her, he just hits her with a single blow. Either that hit was strong enough to completely drain Yang's remaining Aura, and the leftover energy cut her arm off, or event he miniscule amount of energy that got through - what would be mere heat or pain for most impacts - was enough to chop off her arm.
** Adam can't pierce aura. That was a wrong impression they gave when wanting him to look as dangerous and badass as possible to mark him as a major threat for future volumes. Adam just hit Yang really hard, and her aura wasn't at 100 percent because of fighting Grimm on the way, and thanks to her aura being almost wiped out in her fight with Mercury the day prior, as they explained in a stream later on. Yang just showed up at the worst possible time in the worst condition when he had a moonslice ready to go, to make him look tougher than he really is. Adam's strong, but he can't instant pierce full auras or anything like that.
** Adam can't pierce aura. That was a wrong impression they gave when wanting him to look as dangerous and badass as possible to mark him as a major threat for future volumes. Adam just hit Yang really hard, and her aura wasn't at 100 percent because of fighting Grimm on the way, and thanks to her aura being almost wiped out in her fight with Mercury the day prior, as they explained in a stream later on. Yang just showed up at the worst possible time in the worst condition when he had a moonslice ready to go, to make him look tougher than he really is. Adam's strong, but he can't instant pierce full auras or anything like that.
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The key thing to remember here is that the whole reason Yang is so tough is because that she actively absorbs energy from every hit, and gets stronger the longer the fight goes on. Neo got around that by CherryTapping Yang so she couldn't power up, until hitting her with a single extremely strong blow that put her out of the fight. Adam simply takes that to the logical extreme: instead of tap-tap-tapping away at her, he just hits her with a single blow. Either that hit was strong enough to completely drain Yang's remaining Aura, and the leftover energy cut her arm off, or event he miniscule even the minuscule amount of energy that got through - what would be mere heat or pain for most impacts - was enough to chop off her arm.
** Adam can't pierce aura. That was a wrong impression they gave when wanting him to look as dangerous and badass as possible to mark him as a major threat for future volumes. Adam just hit Yang really hard, and her aura wasn't at 100 percent because of fighting Grimm on the way, and thanks to her aura being almost wiped out in her fight with Mercury the day prior, as they explained in a stream later on. Yang just showed up at the worst possible time in the worst condition when he had amoonslice Moonslice ready to go, to make him look tougher than he really is. Adam's strong, but he can't instant pierce full auras or anything like that.
** Adam can't pierce aura. That was a wrong impression they gave when wanting him to look as dangerous and badass as possible to mark him as a major threat for future volumes. Adam just hit Yang really hard, and her aura wasn't at 100 percent because of fighting Grimm on the way, and thanks to her aura being almost wiped out in her fight with Mercury the day prior, as they explained in a stream later on. Yang just showed up at the worst possible time in the worst condition when he had a
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[[folder:Silver Eyes, part 1]]
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** Because evidently the legend of the Silver Eyed Warriors wasn't one Cinder knew and therefore had no reason to plan for it. Given the way Qrow talks about it, it's possible only Ozpin's inner circle have any idea of what it means.
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** Because evidently evidently, the legend of the Silver Eyed Warriors wasn't one Cinder knew and therefore had no reason to plan for it. Given the way Qrow talks about it, it's possible only Ozpin's inner circle have any idea of what it means.
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[[folder:Silver Eyes, part 2]]
* Why did it take a year for anybody to tell Ruby; 'Hey, you may have rare kool powerz. Don't be scared if they manifest unexpectedly'? You'd think Ozpin would at least be concerned by powers of that magnitude, and he's called students into his office for much smaller reasons.
* Why did it take a year for anybody to tell Ruby; 'Hey, you may have rare kool powerz. Don't be scared if they manifest unexpectedly'? You'd think Ozpin would at least be concerned by powers of that magnitude, and he's called students into his office for much smaller reasons.
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* Why did it take a year for anybody to tell Ruby; 'Hey, you may have
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** They probably were afraid she'd react like Pyrha did when told she could be a maiden. Go through incredible stress, be alienated from everyone else because she suddenly feels she's has a special duty and rush off and get herself killed trying to be a hero for the same reason.
** I figure there's two major reasons. First is that telling Ruby right away would open up a massive floodgate of other stuff they'd have to tell her that would both complicate things and be stuff she's probably not mentally prepared for in order for her to believe them. That legends are real, about the Maidens, about her mother about Salem and about Ozpin's secret war. This is all top secret, that only a few people know and they'd have to tell it to a 15 year old who just started Beacon and hope she keeps her mouth shut and just mentally puts it on the backburner for 4 years until she's graduated and they can officially make her one of their agents, which would be unbelivably stressful (remember how Blake was freaking out about how they were just going about their school lives when she knew Roman was still out there doing something? Ruby would be like that all the time and she wouldn't be able to say anything to anyone.) The second is that if you notice Ruby despite starting out being fixated on normal knees and not wanting to be special and just a regular student ends up breaking out of this mold as the seasons go on, to the point that in Vol 2 she's deliberately going out of her way to get involved with Roman's criminal element and isn't really interested in doing much kid stuff like the dance, and even goes off on her own in the Battle of Beacon rather than stick with the other students, so that she's already developed the desire to go above and beyond and be special by the time she learns she's had special powers all along. It's possible that Ozpin wanted her to develop this mentality on purpose. Maybe so she'd end up seeing her eyes as just one of her tools to help her be a hero, instead of feeling obligated to be a hero entirely because of her eyes (which is basically the mentality Pyrrha had because of her advanced skills)
** I figure there's two major reasons. First is that telling Ruby right away would open up a massive floodgate of other stuff they'd have to tell her that would both complicate things and be stuff she's probably not mentally prepared for in order for her to believe them. That legends are real, about the Maidens, about her mother about Salem and about Ozpin's secret war. This is all top secret, that only a few people know and they'd have to tell it to a 15 year old who just started Beacon and hope she keeps her mouth shut and just mentally puts it on the backburner for 4 years until she's graduated and they can officially make her one of their agents, which would be unbelivably stressful (remember how Blake was freaking out about how they were just going about their school lives when she knew Roman was still out there doing something? Ruby would be like that all the time and she wouldn't be able to say anything to anyone.) The second is that if you notice Ruby despite starting out being fixated on normal knees and not wanting to be special and just a regular student ends up breaking out of this mold as the seasons go on, to the point that in Vol 2 she's deliberately going out of her way to get involved with Roman's criminal element and isn't really interested in doing much kid stuff like the dance, and even goes off on her own in the Battle of Beacon rather than stick with the other students, so that she's already developed the desire to go above and beyond and be special by the time she learns she's had special powers all along. It's possible that Ozpin wanted her to develop this mentality on purpose. Maybe so she'd end up seeing her eyes as just one of her tools to help her be a hero, instead of feeling obligated to be a hero entirely because of her eyes (which is basically the mentality Pyrrha had because of her advanced skills)
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** They probably were afraid she'd react like Pyrha Pyrrha did when told she could be a maiden. Go through incredible stress, be alienated from everyone else because she suddenly feels she's has a special duty and rush off and get herself killed trying to be a hero for the same reason.
** I figurethere's there are two major reasons. First is that telling Ruby right away would open up a massive floodgate of other stuff they'd have to tell her that would both complicate things and be stuff she's probably not mentally prepared for in order for her to believe them. That legends are real, about the Maidens, about her mother about Salem and about Ozpin's secret war. This is all top secret, that only a few people know and they'd have to tell it to a 15 year old who just started Beacon and hope she keeps her mouth shut and just mentally puts it on the backburner for 4 years until she's graduated and they can officially make her one of their agents, which would be unbelivably stressful (remember how Blake was freaking out about how they were just going about their school lives when she knew Roman was still out there doing something? Ruby would be like that all the time and she wouldn't be able to say anything to anyone.) The second is that if you notice Ruby despite starting out being fixated on normal knees and not wanting to be special and just a regular student ends up breaking out of this mold as the seasons go on, to the point that in Vol 2 she's deliberately going out of her way to get involved with Roman's criminal element and isn't really interested in doing much kid stuff like the dance, and even goes off on her own in the Battle of Beacon rather than stick with the other students, so that she's already developed the desire to go above and beyond and be special by the time she learns she's had special powers all along. It's possible that Ozpin wanted her to develop this mentality on purpose. Maybe so she'd end up seeing her eyes as just one of her tools to help her be a hero, instead of feeling obligated to be a hero entirely because of her eyes (which is basically the mentality Pyrrha had because of her advanced skills)
** I figure
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* Why the hell doesn't Ruby ask any questions about her silver eyes? She has a power that would be a massive game changer in their struggle against Salem, yet she seems completely uninterested in learning anything about it beyond what Qrow told her at the end of Volume 3. Doesn't she ever stop and realize that maybe things would go their way a little more if she asked people like Qrow and the reincarnated Ozpin about her abilities?
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* Why the hell doesn't Ruby ask any questions about her silver eyes? She has a power that would be a massive game changer game-changer in their struggle against Salem, yet she seems completely uninterested in learning anything about it beyond what Qrow told her at the end of Volume 3. Doesn't she ever stop and realize that maybe things would go their way a little more if she asked people like Qrow and the reincarnated Ozpin about her abilities?
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[[folder:Ruby's Semblance and Pyrrha]]
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** I don't think she actually used it to climb the tower, considering she was MUCH faster when she and Weiss used a similar trick on thta Nevermore back in Volume 1. Which is confusing on its own.
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** I don't think she actually used it to climb the tower, considering she was MUCH faster when she and Weiss used a similar trick on thta that Nevermore back in Volume 1. Which is confusing on its own.
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[[folder:Can Glynda be the Fall Maiden?]]
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[[folder: Illia's backstory]]
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[[folder: Illia's Ilia's backstory]]
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[[folder: The Albains]]
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[[folder: The Albains]]Albain Brothers]]
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[[folder: Grimm functioning in Atlas]]
* According to Qrow, Atlas is considered safe because Grimm don't do well in the cold. The Volume Seven trailer indicates there are plenty of Grimm there anyway. So how?
** Don't do well in the cold doesn't mean "are completely incapable of operating in the cold". The Grimm have greater difficulty working in cold temperatures, but if that was all it took to keep the Grimm away, there wouldn't be any Grimm on that continent at all.
* According to Qrow, Atlas is considered safe because Grimm don't do well in the cold. The Volume Seven trailer indicates there are plenty of Grimm there anyway. So how?
** Don't do well in the cold doesn't mean "are completely incapable of operating in the cold". The Grimm have greater difficulty working in cold temperatures, but if that was all it took to keep the Grimm away, there wouldn't be any Grimm on that continent at all.
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[[folder: Grimm functioning in Atlas]]
Solitas]]
* According to Qrow, Atlas is considered safe because Grimm don't do well in thecold.cold climate of Solitas. The Volume Seven trailer indicates there are plenty of Grimm there anyway. So how?
**Don't "Don't do well in the cold cold" doesn't mean "are completely incapable of operating in the cold". The Grimm have greater difficulty working in cold temperatures, but if that was all it took to keep the Grimm away, there wouldn't be any Grimm on that continent at all.
* According to Qrow, Atlas is considered safe because Grimm don't do well in the
**
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***As of Dark, it’s possible that she wants to use her to make another Hound.
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** WordOfGod is that the brand was never intended to be used on anyone. It was meant for industrial use. It was used by a group of human-supremacists on Adam when he was younger.
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* When Ren and Nora are arguing over their new team name in Volume 4 Episode 1, one of the reasons Ren is against Team JNRR is that the word “Junior” is not a color and all team names are supposed either be a color or evoke an image connected to a color. However if that’s the case than how is Team RNJR, which Ren is suggesting, a color? While the word “Ranger” [[PowerRangers does evoke a very colorful image]] from an out-of-universe perspective, what exactly is colorful about the word in the world of Remnant?
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* When Ren and Nora are arguing over their new team name in Volume 4 Episode 1, one of the reasons Ren is against Team JNRR is that the word “Junior” is not a color and all team names are supposed either be a color or evoke an image connected to a color. However if that’s the case than how is Team RNJR, which Ren is suggesting, a color? While the word “Ranger” [[PowerRangers [[Franchise/PowerRangers does evoke a very colorful image]] from an out-of-universe perspective, what exactly is colorful about the word in the world of Remnant?
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** There is some logic to Mercury being at the Colosseum. As was stated above, the plan was just about to pay off so it wouldn't matter if he was caught. Additionally, if Mercury didn't go to the Colosseum, he'd likely be in a city that was just about to be invaded with human-hating terrorists, grimm and robots, so any sane person would leave as soon as they could. It also means Mercury didn't end up separated from Emerald and Cinder, and meeting back up with them in the midst of an invasion and all electronic communication about to go down would be pretty difficult.
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An archive page for ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' headscratchers.
New entries go on [[Headscratchers/{{RWBY}} the main page]].
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Only Jaune?]]
* When Ozpin goes to get Pyrrha to undergo the transfer process, the only one he takes with him to guard her is Jaune. We know the elevator that goes down there can hold at least five people, so why didn't he bring more people to guard Pyrrha?
** I don't think he actually took anyone to guard them. Jaune just followed them and he didn't force him to leave.
** If we remember "Heroes and Monsters", Pyrrha saw Ozpin and went toward him - Jaune followed after telling the others to clear out the Grimm. Therefore no one else was with Opzin/Pyrrha/Jaune when they met up, and thus no one else came with because they weren't nearby enough.
** Fair enough. But even if he didn't call out for Jaune, that still begs the question as to why he didn't ask anyone on Team JNPR, who were all right by Pyrrha, to come and guard her. Even if he was strapped for time it couldn't have taken very long to call out for them.
** Thing also is, if the distances involved looked accurate, Pyrrha saw Ozpin on the steps from at least thirty (maybe fifty) feet away, and Ren + Nora didn't go with them at all. It would have been hard enough for Ozpin to call over those distances and be understood, but if Nora and Ren also moved away to engage Grimm, the sounds of combat would've made it worse.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Lockers]]
* Throughout the end of the third season, the lockers are used as weapons and modes of transport. Why don't the people using them use them more? Why doesn't RWBY call an entire army of people flying on lockers into the wastelands when they find the train? Why doesn't everyone evacuate immediately on their lockers whenever things get bad? Why didn't Jaune use his to just return to the clock tower in the season 3 finale?
** Limited fuel probably restricts how far the lockers can go and how many times. And that Nevermore was a huge target but was still alive after taking a dozen. Probably not too viable as reliable weapons. Jaune's locker looked pretty beat up too. Also, one locker per student. That doesn't cover every civilian, and civilians would probably get hurt riding those things without Aura to protect them.
** Ruby using her locker as a method of transportation was obviously an act of improvised desperation because, shockingly, it's a really, really bad idea to normally grab onto an unguided missile and launch yourself into the sky without an effective means of guiding or landing yourself. As for Mountain Glenn, they had the combined problem of being out of range of communications with Vale, and also the relatively extreme distance. We've never seen lockers fly out that far, and presumably the only way to get that far is with an actual aircraft instead of a ''ridiculously'' unsafe ballistic projectile.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Wire Cutting]]
* How come Penny is cut to pieces by Pyhrra? Shouldn't her Aura have protected her from that lethal of a blow? Sure, it may have been depleted somehow, but doesn't the Vytal tournament keep track of how much Aura is left in a person, and, if Penny really was in a state where she could have been killed, wouldn't the match have ended?
** Penny's reaction to being struck by Pyrrha's magnetic pulse seemed like she was in pain, even clutching her chest. Tech in Remnant may be based on Dust, but for all we know it could still be damaged by things such as magnetic fields or pulses. For all we know Pyrrha's pulse could have damaged whatever it is that allowed Penny to generate her Aura.
** Additionally, Penny's weapons are physically attached to her. It's possible that her aura covers them too, and thus offer her no protection against them.
** Since Penny's hands were damaged as part of her RoboticReveal in volume 2, it's possible that, by design, her aura isn't being used to protect her body, but instead is focused towards her weapons.
** In addition to potentially disrupting her Aura, the wire's wrapping around might not have initially been considered an injury. In the space of a (slow-mo) second, they're merely wires pressing against her structure at first, which gives no reaction- by the time it does register, it's already crushed part of her internal machinery... and the problem is, Aura protects against outward harm, ''not'' internal issues. Even if her Aura did react, the force was still strong and fast enough that it was too late by the time it went up... all it (might have) managed to do was absorb the force late enough to let the pieces fall straight to the ground, rather than flying in every direction.
** This one's actually entirely consistent with Penny's past showings. In Volume 2, when she stops the truck, there is no flash or other indicator of any kind of Aura shield. More importantly, when she shows Ruby her hands, Penny's palms have clearly been damaged, at least superficially, by the impact. This wouldn't have happened to a person who uses Aura shields. Most likely, Penny either cannot or chooses not to use shields, and likely instead uses her Aura to either power her attacks or to strengthen her physical body against impacts or attacks. This would normally work fine... except that in this case, her opponent unintentionally used an extremely powerful magnetic pulse that caused Penny's ''own Aura-enhanced weapons'' to hit her, and said weapons had extremely narrow contact points and thus exerted enormous force on her body. The results... are predictable.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Black Queen virus]]
* Where exactly ''did'' Cindy McAwesomeface get the Black Queen virus? Based on the fact that it takes over pretty much all of the best technology in Remnant in ''seconds'', it logically has to be one hell of a virus, written by a crack team of all of the best programmers in the world. But there's never any indication that Cinder has any other allies beyong what we've seen: clearly operating on her own aside from having Salem's support and some Grimm (And I don't see Grimm being computer experts), she finds and recruits Emerald. Emerald is clearly on her own, with no contacts. Then they grab Merc. On his own, just killed his dad, no contacts. Then there's Roman and the White Fang. A crime lord and a terrorist group are going to have ''some'' resources, sure, but not a l33t team of supercoders from Atlas. So where did she get the virus? Is Cinder herself just a codewriting savant? Is Salem? I could be wrong here, but I don't ''think'' RT plan to explain this, as it would have made the most sense to do so in V3. Again, I could totally be wrong, and maybe that'll be a thing in V4, but I'm a bit doubtful.
** [[VoodooShark Salem is a hacker]].
** It's not necessarily some amazing virus, because Cinder doesn't need some amazing super special virus when she has the Remnant equivalent of a USB port. A very common saying among computer security specialists is "Physical access is total access." If you can get to a system administrator's terminal, you effectively have total access to the entire system, with all of the sysadmin's permissions. From there it would be literally as easy as uploading a virus that spreads itself across the network and uses sysadmin permissions to delete logs, and remotely uploads information it acquires to Cinder's scroll. Even altering the Vytal Festival's randomization process is literally as simple as replacing a few lines of code that pick random numbers (that's literally all that a random number selector does) with a line of code that picks the integers she wants. Control of the CCT is as simple as using sysadmin and security access to lock out all other passcodes and routing all transmissions through Cinder's scroll. Even the virus that infects the Atlesian military robots would be relatively simple, as all it needs is access to the warship's computer, which Roman and Neo handle. Once that happens it just needs to rewrite friend-or-foe identification (or simply delete IFF code) and the robots turn hostile. None of this is impossible for a reasonably skilled programmer to come up with, and she could pay a morally dubious programmer to write the virus, especially when the hardest parts of bypassing enemy cyber-security are dealt with by ignoring all the cyber-security in the first place and physically using administrator terminals to upload the virus.
** An idea that's been used before is that no one in Remnant history has tried what the villains are doing before and that, as a result, the good guys are unprepared for things that are pretty obvious to us. For example, Ruby used [[spoiler:Sun's scroll to summon her weapon]], which would be a huge concern to someone in IT security. In fact, everybody seems to use the exact same model of scroll, which can be connect to any sort of equipment. There could be a huge number of security gaps in this world's software that a professional in our world would spot right away.
** While it is very possible Remnant has relatively lax cybersecurity measures, that's probably a bad example. Beacon is a school, but a combat school; it's not inconceivable someone would be in a situation where they don't have their Scroll but need their weapons, and so they made it possible to call weapons from any Scroll. So this specific example could be explained as the equivalent of using somebody else's phone to logon to your Facebook account.
** Not to mention that the very scene where Ruby asks Sun for his scroll shows a completely legitimate reason why allowing every student to summon their locker from another student's scroll is a good idea.
** Assuming they aren't idiots, the lockers are probably password coded, meaning you could access it from any scroll so long as you know your password, but nobody who isn't you (or told your password for people you trust) can steal your stuff.
** Most likely, Cinder's group has someone, as yet unrevealed, on the inside of Atlas (who, remember, are the ones who designed the CCT), someone who knows the computers' back doors and security flaws. Someone with that kind of knowledge could very conceivably write a virus like what we see.
** Volume 5 strongly implies that Watts was the one who designed the virus, considering the same stylized W appeared when he was talking with Leo that was also on Cinder's scroll in Volume 2 when she was using it.
** Volume 7 clarifies: Watts was one of the developers of Atlas' security system. So, he's a skilled hacker by himself, knows how this system works and left enough backdoors and expolits to be welcomed back by the computer when he sees fit, until until he's patched out.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Yang's mother in Volume 3]]
* So after the first appearance of Raven in the Season 2 stinger, why, beyond a passing mention from Qrow in Chapter 8 of Volume 3, do we see nothing more of her? Also, does Yang's meeting with Raven take place AFTER the events of Volume 3? Because otherwise it's immensely confusing that this actual dialogue is never acknowledged and Qrow says "Let me guess, she never said a word?", which Yang doesn't at any point contradict.
** Obviously she'll be important in the future and show up then, but why would she show up in Vol.3? She's doing her own thing, whatever it is and said she's not going out of her way to help Yang out anymore, so she didn't save her when she went up against Adam. The show is FAR from over. We'll see her again.
** She didn't show up in Volume Three because she had no reason to show up then. She herself said to Qrow that she's not going to save Yang again.
** As stated by Qrow, Raven's got an MO that he doesn't particularly agree with, and she doesn't intend to save Yang again - in fact, the first time was out of convenience. It doesn't help that her true personality and goals are completely unclear, even now... as for the meeting at the end of Vol. 2, that's still ambiguous, but it was subtly hinted to be dream-like and perhaps didn't even happen for real.
** Without going into the other controversial stuff mentioned, Shane Newville, Monty's assistant mentioned in his letter that the only reason Raven appeared at all outside of that one scene on the train is because Monty pushed for it despite nobody but him wanting that final stinger in Vol 2. Since Monty's gone now the other people heading the show choose not to follow up that scene, if not retcon it completely. Again this topic is controversial and just rumored stuff but it would explain why they're acting like that scene never happened. He also mentions Raven WAS supposed to appear in Vol 3, ambushing JNPR while they were at the fairgrounds and fighting them 4 on 1 before running off but it was cut either for time or because without Monty pushing for it they choose not to do it.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Adam's time off-screen]]
* Why is it that a crazed character like Adam took a year, in-universe, to find Blake? Vol 3's plot revolves around the fact that everything in the Kingdoms is all computerized and recorded, and Blake didn't even change her name when she entered Beacon. And if their wearing of masks is any indication, plenty of Fang members have civilian 'day jobs' inside the Kingdoms. Exactly how hard would it be for them to find out that a girl who looks exactly like Blake, has exactly the same name (and age, and weapon...), and no verifiable past to speak of is now attending one of the most selective, high-tech schools in the world? (Yeah, I know Adam is focused on leading the Fang, but if his extended gloating and going out of his way to find Blake during the invasion is any indication, they doesn't matter as much to him as much as getting revenge.)
** Blake was not hiding her presence at Beacon, and there's no indication that Adam was unaware of her presence. The thing is: Blake's at ''Beacon''. The place with literally dozens of Huntsmen, filled with heavily-armed students. He almost certainly wouldn't risk going in without the massive disruption like that caused by the Grimm invasion, and going by Ozpin's fight with Cinder, the old man would have stomped him flat single-handedly. Adam's a crazy ex-boyfriend, not an idiot, and he would know to bide his time and make his move when he has an opportune moment.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Speaking of Adam and his sword...]]
* How in hell does he cut through a person's aura the way he did to disarm (ahem) a practically-fresh Yang, and presumably to impale Blake through her stomach too? Is that his semblance at work, is there some special form of Dust being used to produce that effect, or is Wilt just that freaking sharp? Either way, it would appear to make him one of the strongest on-screen characters just because of how absurdly lethal an ability/weapon like that in a setting like Remnant has the potential to be, even if it is restricted to close range.
** For Yang, he just hit her ''really'' hard. nothing special beyond that he can just hit with that much force when his sword is charged up. As for Blake, there's an implied off-screen fight before Yang's arrival in which her Aura would have been drained enough that Adam can stab Blake.
** Problem is, he didn't use his sword's charge. In the Black trailer (the only other time we saw him fight) he needed time to focus, and then glowed when he attacked. With Yang, no glow. Also, her Aura wasn't depleted, and Aura seems to be able to stop any hit, even if you only have a little bit left: its pretty clearly something that was written up specifically to prevent fights from being short like this one was.
** We can actually see him charging up to a degree earlier in the fight, when he absorbs the energy from Blake's gunshots. Going by how he only lopped off Yang's arm, he needs more time to charge up something as devastating as an attack that annihilates an entire massive robot. If he'd had more time to power up and more energy to absorb, he likely would have ''vaporized'' Yang instead of just hitting her hard enough to remove the arm.
** Still doesn't explain the lack of glow when he uses his attack, or how he bypasses both Yang and Blake's Auras. Seems like it was done just to escalate things, but with no real thought to their own setting's rules.
** Not really an inconsistency. We've only seen him use the power-absorption twice: once after a very powerful attack and once to absorb Blake's gunshots. The former had him glowing after absorbing it. From that, we can conclude that the glowing lines on his jacket almost definitely correspond to how much power he's absorbed. As for defeating Blake and Yang's Auras, again, he just hit them ''really'' hard. Once more, we've only seen him use the attack twice. Both times, it devastated its target. Breaching Yang's Aura is consistent with that attack's previous performance, in light of how little energy he absorbed compared to the last time he used it. If we see him use it later and it doesn't have the same effect relative to the power he's absorbed, then we'll have an inconsistency. But as of right now there isn't one, because we have too few samples to build a working model on that attack's behavior.
** That brings up more issues though. If he's powerful enough to drop Yang in one hit after absorbing few enough hits to not 'max out' his power (assuming that he only glows when he's absorbed a lot of energy), that would make him significantly stronger than Cinder with all of her Maiden powers. Yang's been shown to take some of the nastiest hits in the show and just keep going. Also, Aura his been stated and demonstrated to stop ANY hit as long as you have 15% or more left when the hit lands. In order for either of the injuries to make sense, we would have needed to see two hits from Adam: one to break their Auras, and one to hurt them.
** No. We saw what Cinder could do with the Maiden powers. Ozpin was moving at speeds so fast he was leaving afterimages. Pyrrha could barely touch Cinder. Cinder destroyed both of them. She would have casually flattened Adam if he went up against her. And Yang has ''not'' withstood the nastiest hits in the show. Neo was able to bring her down with only a couple of well-placed hits. And no, Aura does not stop every hit. Some force does bleed through, otherwise Weiss would not have been scarred by the Knight's punch, Yang wouldn't have been knocked out from a single hit by Neo throwing her into the roof of the train car, and characters wouldn't be grunting in pain when they get hit by other attacks. Adam's attack hits extremely hard, to the point that even the miniscule kinetic energy that gets through Aura can still chop off a limb.
** And Adam moved fast enough that we only saw where he was after he swung; plus, Cinder wasn't able to break anyone's Aura with one hit, let alone hurt them with their Aura still up. Neo hit Yang about a dozen times, and they seemed to be rather powerful hits, since Yan was sent reeling after each one even though she was fine after getting thrown through a 10 foot wide pillar. And Weiss was hit twice by the Knight, meaning the first could have dropped her Aura down to below 15% while the punch allowed for bleedthrough. Also, according to one of the livestreams, Aura doesn't let damage through, but it does let sensations like pain and heat in.
** Of course Cinder never broke anyone's Aura with one hit, as she never used an attack that was singularly as powerful as the one Adam used. Neo's attacks were nowhere near as powerful as the Paladin's blows, as evidenced by the fact that none of them hit Yang hard enough to launch her back like the Paladin did. The worst hit prior to getting slammed into the ceiling was a kick that knocked her directly to the floor. The Paladin punched her a dozen feet through a pillar, and she was left reeling after that hit even more than any of the blows Neo landed before slamming her into the ceiling. And if Aura is allowing pain and heat in, then it's still allowing some form of energy to affect the individual, meaning that energy ''is'' bleeding through the barrier.\\
The key thing to remember here is that the whole reason Yang is so tough is because she actively absorbs energy from every hit, and gets stronger the longer the fight goes on. Neo got around that by CherryTapping Yang so she couldn't power up, until hitting her with a single extremely strong blow that put her out of the fight. Adam simply takes that to the logical extreme: instead of tap-tap-tapping away at her, he just hits her with a single blow. Either that hit was strong enough to completely drain Yang's remaining Aura, and the leftover energy cut her arm off, or event he miniscule amount of energy that got through - what would be mere heat or pain for most impacts - was enough to chop off her arm.
** Adam can't pierce aura. That was a wrong impression they gave when wanting him to look as dangerous and badass as possible to mark him as a major threat for future volumes. Adam just hit Yang really hard, and her aura wasn't at 100 percent because of fighting Grimm on the way, and thanks to her aura being almost wiped out in her fight with Mercury the day prior, as they explained in a stream later on. Yang just showed up at the worst possible time in the worst condition when he had a moonslice ready to go, to make him look tougher than he really is. Adam's strong, but he can't instant pierce full auras or anything like that.
** The argument that Aura "stops any hit" as long as 15% of it remains is nonsense, at least from a physics standpoint. If Yang's Aura currently can block ''x'' Nt of force and Adam hits her with ''y'' Nt, where ''y'' > ''x'', the remaining Nt of force (let's just call that variable ''x'') is not just going to vanish into the aether because her Aura was at an arbitrary level before getting hit. That would violate conservation of energy. ''x'' Nt are still going to be transferred to her through the blade, as the blade is still in contact with her flesh, and there's no longer an Aura to absorb the incoming energy.
** Adam's sword doesn't have to glow whenever it's absorbing energy, that would just be a really annoying detail after a while. For instance, we don't see Yang's body glow every time she's hit; it would just be an unnecessary detail. Not to mention that Yang and Adam didn't battle on full aura reserves, Yang was clearly battling WF members, and we saw that Adam had a defeated student next to him, and this isn't even taking in to account the Grimm they most likely had to fight. This means two things: Yang's aura wasn't full when she battled, and Adam's sword had more charge than we were led to believe. Also, Adam could easily strike with a huge amount of force (this is RWBY after all), and not to mention, even if he had fought no one else prior to Blake finding him (which is incredibly unlikely) he still could have absorbed both the bullets and slash from Blake and directed all of that force onto one point: Yang's arm. And lastly, there's a chance that he actually blocked Yang's punch before quickly retaliating with a strike of his own, it's just too fast for us to see.
** Also, as early as Volume 1 when Pyrrha explained Aura she specifically asked Jaune why he didn't ''activate'' his Aura. So presumably it's not active at all times and when someone is distracted by, let's say someone you're terrified of talking you down (Blake) or seeing someone you care about stabbed through the stomach (Yang) then activating Aura could slip your mind pretty easily.
** This troper has a similar theory. But first, remember that we have seen the affects of complete aura drain in Mercury vs Yang and Pyrrha vs Cinder. There's a distinct pattern that goes over their bodies when their aura breaks that we don't see when Adam attacks Yang: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/rwby/images/9/98/V3_06_Aura_Deplete.png/revision/latest?cb=20151219180533 Since aura can be used to increase physical strength as well as defense, Yang probably got so angry that she focused all her aura into attacking Adam, leaving none for her own protection. This would explain her defeat against Neo as well. Yang's aura was never broken because it was never up at all.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Silver Eyes, part 1]]
* Why didn't Cinder notice that Ruby has silver eyes? Seriously, they chatted one-on-one for several minutes in the second volume, and Cinder is specifically gathering intel on all the students, and Ruby is unusually young for a Beacon student. Yet during the finale, Cinder is totally shocked when Ruby displays her powers.
** Because evidently the legend of the Silver Eyed Warriors wasn't one Cinder knew and therefore had no reason to plan for it. Given the way Qrow talks about it, it's possible only Ozpin's inner circle have any idea of what it means.
** Is there any indication that Cinder knows about the significance of the silver-eyed warriors in the first place? All evidence is that she doesn't.
** Even if she did know, she had no reason to expect Ruby to be ''there'' (after all, Ruby only appeared at that moment because she pulled a ridiculous WallRun.) And even if she knew the general story of the silver-eyed warriors, she might not have expected them to be that strong, and wouldn't have expected Ruby (who hadn't previously shown anything like that) to be able to draw on that much of their power.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Silver Eyes, part 2]]
* Why did it take a year for anybody to tell Ruby; 'Hey, you may have rare kool powerz. Don't be scared if they manifest unexpectedly'? You'd think Ozpin would at least be concerned by powers of that magnitude, and he's called students into his office for much smaller reasons.
** Given that her powers were triggered by something extremely traumatic, telling her wouldn't really have helped much, and by the time they did manifest, it knocked her out for days and she barely remembered it. Besides, Ozpin had no way of guessing just how ''bad'' things would get, and given the implication that Summer may have died because of her powers, Qrow and Taiyang have reasons not to tell her until there's no other real choice in the matter (even if Tai would rather avoid it).
** It's clear that they intended to tell Ruby ''eventually'', but let's be honest here: she's a first-year student. She's a novice by Huntsman standards, and they've got no reason to spring that sort of thing on a student who, as Ozpin himself says, should worry about being a student instead of a warrior at the moment. He himself repeatedly stresses to Ruby that she can't live her entire life on the battlefield, and it's pretty clear he wants her to have a balanced life instead of that of an endless warrior. They could tell her when she's older and more mature.
** They probably were afraid she'd react like Pyrha did when told she could be a maiden. Go through incredible stress, be alienated from everyone else because she suddenly feels she's has a special duty and rush off and get herself killed trying to be a hero for the same reason.
** I figure there's two major reasons. First is that telling Ruby right away would open up a massive floodgate of other stuff they'd have to tell her that would both complicate things and be stuff she's probably not mentally prepared for in order for her to believe them. That legends are real, about the Maidens, about her mother about Salem and about Ozpin's secret war. This is all top secret, that only a few people know and they'd have to tell it to a 15 year old who just started Beacon and hope she keeps her mouth shut and just mentally puts it on the backburner for 4 years until she's graduated and they can officially make her one of their agents, which would be unbelivably stressful (remember how Blake was freaking out about how they were just going about their school lives when she knew Roman was still out there doing something? Ruby would be like that all the time and she wouldn't be able to say anything to anyone.) The second is that if you notice Ruby despite starting out being fixated on normal knees and not wanting to be special and just a regular student ends up breaking out of this mold as the seasons go on, to the point that in Vol 2 she's deliberately going out of her way to get involved with Roman's criminal element and isn't really interested in doing much kid stuff like the dance, and even goes off on her own in the Battle of Beacon rather than stick with the other students, so that she's already developed the desire to go above and beyond and be special by the time she learns she's had special powers all along. It's possible that Ozpin wanted her to develop this mentality on purpose. Maybe so she'd end up seeing her eyes as just one of her tools to help her be a hero, instead of feeling obligated to be a hero entirely because of her eyes (which is basically the mentality Pyrrha had because of her advanced skills)
** It's entirely possible that no one outside of Ozpin actually recognized the importance of the silver eyes. Considering that Ozpin was willing to tell STRQ about the Relics and the Maidens, and yet neither Tai nor Qrow understood exactly what Ruby did on top of the clock tower to the Dragon and Cinder, it's possible that literally all they knew about the silver eyes was that there was some distant, ancient legends about their power. Ozpin might not have known the full consequences of what the silver eyes meant, instead just considering them an ancient legend, which made him curious about Ruby when he first met her.
** Another reason why they might not have said anything is that Salem's associates may have specifically been targeting those with silver eyes. Hazel mentions that they've defeated them before, and dealing with them was so trivial that Watts actually mocked Cinder for losing to one of them. It's entirely possible that even if Ozpin knew about the legend of the silver-eyed warriors, he would keep quiet about it because if he drew attention to them, Salem would have them killed.
** Volume 6 confirms that not only are the powers not widely known about or understood, but that someone - likely Salem - is actively suppressing the knowledge of the Silver Eyes and killing anyone with those powers to suppress their use. So Ozpin and Qrow not remarking on their powers are mostly because its an ill-defined legend and that they don't know anything more about them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Silver Eyes, part 3]]
* Why the hell doesn't Ruby ask any questions about her silver eyes? She has a power that would be a massive game changer in their struggle against Salem, yet she seems completely uninterested in learning anything about it beyond what Qrow told her at the end of Volume 3. Doesn't she ever stop and realize that maybe things would go their way a little more if she asked people like Qrow and the reincarnated Ozpin about her abilities?
** Most likely because those same abilities are tightly associated with a series of painful, traumatizing memories and Ruby is trying to not think about them, let alone talking about them. Her first use of those powers was directly connected with Pyrrha's death, after all. Asking about those powers, or even thinking on them, is going to bring that to the forefront, and Ruby likely hasn't properly processed her grief and pain over that incident yet and doesn't want to even think about what happened.
** Also, Ruby may very well be actively avoiding talking about her powers because she doesn't want them or is afraid of them. Remember that in the very first episode of the series, Ruby outright says that she doesn't want people to think she's strange or special, and just wants to be a normal person - or as normal as they get on Remnant, anyway.
** Nobody knows anything about them, to the point that even other people with Silver Eyes know very little. Maria barely knows anything about them until she has the vision with Jinn that shows that the SEW powers match that of the God of Light when he destroyed Darkness' Grimm. One can fairly assume that Ruby asked about them offscreen but Qrow and Ozpin knew nothing about them.
*** That raises the question: why doesn't Ozpin know about Silver Eye powers? He's spoken to Jinn at least twice before, but he never thought to ask her about the SEW?
*** He only has three questions every century, and he doesn't use every question each reset. He probably never considered it, as it is a rare legend and he might not have considered it worthwhile to expend a question you'll literally only get once per lifetime on.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ruby's Semblance and Pyrrha]]
* Why couldn't Ruby use her Semblance to save Pyrrha from Cinder's attacks? Exhaustion aside, she used it just a second ago to run up the tower. Maybe ''[[SquishyWizard Weiss]]'' was too exhausted to contribute, but 'My entire fighting style centers around running' Ruby? Really? (And it's not like Ruby was too shocked by the battle to act- she specifically thought that terrible things might be happening on the tower, that's why she ran up there so fast in the first place.)
** Ruby's been on the go since Mercury showed up with no real chance for a break. Additionally, she literally just landed the instant Pyrrha was shot, there was no time for her to ''do'' anything.
** Ruby lands literally as Cinder fires the arrow. In the time it would take her to see Cinder with the bow in hand and respond, the arrow had already hit Pyrrha. All the physical speed in the world isn't going to help if you can't process what's happening fast enough to respond to it.
** I don't think she actually used it to climb the tower, considering she was MUCH faster when she and Weiss used a similar trick on thta Nevermore back in Volume 1. Which is confusing on its own.
** Ruby did use it to climb the tower, because she's physically ''shown'' using it to run up the side of the tower. The tower is much, ''much'' taller than the cliff, which is why it took her longer to get up there.
** The more we see of Ruby's Semblance, the more it seems that it's less about ''speed'' and more about ''propulsion''. She uses it more to launch herself and change direction in mid-air than she does to move faster. That wouldn't have helped her save Pyrrha, especially in the short timeframe that she had before Pyrrha was fatally wounded.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Moving in Midair]]
* How exactly do the characters move and change position in midair? In the first volume, we see Ren go flying through the air, spin around, backflip, and land on his feet without pushing off from anything. How does he do it? And it's not like it's unique to him, because many other characters do it in battles and other situations. Thing is, we were never told about a power that lets them do it. So how can they move in midair without pushing off from a foreign surface?
** Much like most of the other insane acrobatics and physics-defying movement, it's likely something to do with Aura manipulation.
** Except we were never told that Aura could do that. Most telling is the fact that such an ability is completely absent from Pyrrha's explanation of Aura to Jaune in Volume 1
** Why would we need to be told that? Pyrrha's explanation is very vague as to what Aura can really do. It's safe to assume that any weird physics-defying abilities are granted by either Aura or Dust.
** Considering the fact that the characters can expertly use recoil/momentum/etc for their attacks and this was created by [[Creator/MontyOum Monty Oum]], who's [[WebAnimation/DeadFantasy DF]] had characters fighting normally while vertically-sliding down a building, it's safe to say that physics work normally until anything abnormal happens- then you're just supposed to go with it really.
** RuleOfCool, of course.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Velvet Scarlantina's weapon]]
* While it is shown to be capable of some powerful and spectacular effects, it also raises a number of questions regarding its practicality. If the photographs are indeed one-shot use, as the show implies, how long can she use each individual photograph once they are activated? How does she keep track of which photos she has used and which ones she has left? How does she defend herself once her supply of photos is used up?
** The latter, at least, has been addressed by Volume 2; Velvet is quite capable of kicking Grimm around without using a weapon at all, and Yatsuhashi protects her. Coco's behavior in the fights also suggests that the team is well aware of her limitations and think carefully about the timing of her weapon usage, making Velvet their AwesomeButImpractical ace.
** Keeping track of which photos are remaining is pretty simple, it's a digital camera.
** As stated, Velvet handled herself against Grimm with kicks, so she does have some defense on herself. As for how long each weapon lasts, I think it's safe to assume they last anywhere between 5-10 seconds, assuming each one is used to the full potential before forcibly dissolving. Keeping track would be a matter of memory and her own camera, I imagine, the former being a sort-of muscle memory due to experience.
** Also, it's pretty easy for her to refill her supply of weapons using photos of her companions. I'd imagine that their general strategy with her is to have her hang back photographing them and their enemies until they get in trouble, when she unloads a huge burst of stored power to swing otherwise unwinnable fights.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Can Glynda be the Fall Maiden?]]
* The whole subplot with the Fall Maiden's powers doesn't really make sense, and a lot of that stems from the existence of Glynda. Why is Ozpin using Pyrrha as a vessel when there's a much more powerful person around, who was already vetted for loyalty and resolve? And if she is already one of the Maidens (which doesn't make sense since shes apparently part of the group meant to guard the Maidens, and her Maiden status hasn't been foreshadowed in any way), then why is she so close to another Maiden? Wouldn't that make stealing both of their powers far too easy?
** Because Glynda's too old. She explicitly states that the power transfers ''only'' to young women.
** Naturally, yes. But they're cheating the system here; if the rules of transfer were in play, Amber's powers would have transferred straight to Cinder as soon as they started the process. So unless the Maiden dies when she hits 30, Glynda would work just as well as Pyrrha.
** Why? The powers can ''only'' be transferred to a young woman, and presumably that applies even with an Aura transfer. Also keep in mind that they're running in uncharted territory here, and they have no actual idea what will happen when the Aura is transferred. They'll want to stack the deck as favorably as possible toward it going to their intended recipient.
** WordOfGod is that the cutoff age for becoming a Maiden is around 30. Glynda therefore couldn't become a Maiden as she's already too old. Of the peoplr who are in on the conspiracy, the only one even remotely close to the right age would have been Winter, and she obviously wasn't fully clued in and, by the time Ozpin moved to find a proper Maiden, had already left back to Atlas.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ruby's Cloak]]
* In the trailer for Volume 4, it seems like Ruby's cloak has gained a mind of its own. It moves against her own body movement and more blatantly extends and retracts itself like it was related to Spawn's cape. The cloak has never done this before, right? So how have these changes been made?
** Ruby's cloak extends and changes shape when she uses her Semblance, as well as after she's won a battle in a spectacular manner. In both the Red trailer and after defeating the Giant Nevermore, her cloak became noticeably longer, and whenever she uses her Semblance it lengthens and wraps around her. The cloak becoming longer and changing shape in the trailer is clearly an extension of her Semblance, as it either happens when she's using her speed/propulsion abilities, or it happens after she's won the battle. This trailer just places more emphasis on the cloak's behavior compared with earlier scenes, probably as a reflection of just how much more powerful Ruby has gotten.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Neptune climbing the mountain was stupid... why, exactly?]]
* At the beginning of the battle between Team SSSN and Team NDGO, Neptune, terrified of the water on his team's side of the battlefield, manages to get atop the mountain on the enemy's side of the field, and Sun immediately chews him out for this. But whatever his reasons were... what was so tactically foolish about it? It actually seems pretty advantageous. Team NDGO is now flanked on two sides by Team SSSN at the beginning of the match, and Neptune, who has a long range weapon, now has a high vantage point with which to snipe at Team NDGO. Team NDGO can't take care of Neptune without turning their backs on the rest of team SSSN, and they can't properly fight Sun Sage or Scarlet without becoming vulnerable to sniper fire. I don't see any reason why this decision was stupid.
** He did it immediately, without consulting his teammates, and as an instant reaction to the water behind him. He basically ran off and left his team behind all because of his own phobia rather than for any tactical advantage, which is never a good idea.
** Also, the downside of flanking the enemy team is that Neptune is on the other side of the arena from team. Meaning he's isolated from the rest of his teammates, and at a major disadvantage if NDGO decided to focus on knocking him out while he was alone to give them a four-to-three advantage. Indeed, with how fast Sage got taken out of that fight, it could have easily cost them the match if NDGO had ganged up on Neptune immediately while he was alone.
** Even if it is tactically advantageous for him to take the high ground (which is debatable when everyone is easily capable of {{bullet|Time}}-timing) it means that the actual fight is now 3v4. It also ruins any plans Team SSSN may have previously had.
** While having the high ground and flanking NDGO would be tactically advantageous, because Neptune did it out of fear of the water he wasn't thinking about such things and doesn't actually use his advantages to attack until Sun yells at him to do so after SSSN has already lost two members.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:But JNRR isn’t a color]]
* When Ren and Nora are arguing over their new team name in Volume 4 Episode 1, one of the reasons Ren is against Team JNRR is that the word “Junior” is not a color and all team names are supposed either be a color or evoke an image connected to a color. However if that’s the case than how is Team RNJR, which Ren is suggesting, a color? While the word “Ranger” [[PowerRangers does evoke a very colorful image]] from an out-of-universe perspective, what exactly is colorful about the word in the world of Remnant?
** Ranger is green. The color references tend to be oblique in many cases, like "Cardinal" being red, "Juniper" being blue, and "Coffee" being brown or black.
** To add to that, there IS a shade called "Ranger Green."
[[/folder]]
[[folder:How did humanity survive this long?]]
* The Grimm are attracted to negative emotions right? How did humanity survive this long then? We've been told that the Grimm were around as long as humanity can remember, in the beginning even a single Grimm attack should have caused enough negativity to severely drop the population. For that matter how did people even discover that the Grimm were attracted by negativity in the first place? And does it have to be a large number of people with negative emotions? Because if a child's tantrum could summon giant doom monsters it's a miracle humanity lasted this long on Remnant!
** They explicitly state how humanity survived in the very first episode: they were nearly driven extinct until they found and used Dust to develop powers and technology to fight off the Grimm. That, and the fact that explicit magical superpowers like the Maidens and the Silver-Eyed Warriors exist, the latter of which are pretty much tailor-made to slaughter Grimm.
** We also saw what it takes to bring a large force of Grimm down on a population center. You need much more than just a single angry child to draw in the Grimm. You need a serious disaster, like a massive number of people witnessing a sudden, horrific murder at the same time, or massive panic attack due to a tribe of raiders attacking, to draw in large numbers of Grimm.
** I think the real question here is why the hell Remnant society exists in the form it exists in. This does not look like what a society would look like if it really spent thousands of years sharing a world with negativity-smelling monsters. Why didn't the societies that failed to make peace with the Faunus die out long ago if getting along with them would obviously be heavily favored by natural selection? If getting pissed off at a sporting event could attract those monsters, why the hell would they broadcast these things live, or even broadcast them at all? Surely in a world where public outrage is such a safety hazard there would be more safety nets or regulation than in real life?
** We don't know what previous societies looked like; for all we know previous societies were perfectly fine with the faunus and the faunus racism was the result of recent developments since the last major war. Grimm are certainly not tearing down Vale and Atlas' walls over the faunus discrimination that currently exists in their society, so presumably it's not enough to push things to the point that a major Grimm incursion can happen.
** The Grimm didn't invade because people were "pissed off at a sporting event." It took an outright ''murder in the ring'' to trigger a major Grimm invasion, and this was after a lengthy process of preparation, involving an extended crime wave that deprived people of a vital resource and resulted in an extensive police presence on the streets, aggregated racial tensions, a major terrorist attack that ended with a large Grimm incursion into the heart of Vale, and a prolonged period where a foreign kingdom's army was patrolling the city, amplifying fear and tensions. All of that was needed before Cinder triggered the two back-to-back horrors in the arena that finally led to the Grimm actually invading, and ''even then'', the Atlesian military stood a reasonable chance of defeating the incoming Grimm invaders until Roman and Neo shot down the Atlesian navy's air cover and hacked their robots, crippling their army. And ''even then'', the Atlesian military and the Vale defense forces were still able to push the Grimm back out of most of Vale save for Beacon itself. The humans are much stronger than you're giving them credit for.
** I never said people being pissed off at a sporting event caused the Grimm ''invasion'', I said it ''attracted them'', and it ''did'', as you can clearly see at the end of that episode. My point is that before they managed to build huge walls and robots and things, major sources of needless grief like racism and over-reacting to things that didn't concern them should have been beaten out of society by brutal natural selection. As for the idea that society grew complacent and reverted to hatred once a sufficient catalyst came up and they had the technology to afford it, ''that'' I can ''maybe'' buy, but here's the thing: if there's a pseudo-logical ''catalyst'' behind the racism against Faunus, rather than it simply being a matter of humans being assholes like they can be sometimes, it's the writer's responsibility to explain that. Surely back when Weiss was a racist, that would have been the ''perfect'' time to reveal what happened and have her give that off as a pathetic rationalization (as racists often do) for why it's completely acceptable to look down on Faunus rather than have it only be the result of their extremists screwing up five years of her childhood. And as for "Grimm are certainly not tearing down Vale and Atlas's walls over the Faunus discrimination that currently exists in their society"... ''how''? It's so bad that normal people are feeling desperate enough to join a radical terrorist group just for a hope of fixing things! I refuse to believe that racism that's implied to include slave or borderline-slave labor for so long could possibly not be causing enough negative energy to at the very least cause the Schnee mines to be sufficient hotbeds of Grim activity to warrant ''mention'' at some point during the show's run.
** It's possible that Remnant's FantasticRacism isn't quite as bad as some people think. Most of the Faunus we see are treated just like anyone else; it's mostly a few random assholes who mistreat them. Sure, there are extremist groups, but there are always extremist groups; the whole point of extremists is that you can't trust their version of things entirely. As for the writers, it's not their responsibility to explain anything until they feel it's the right time to do so.
** You're making a lot of assumptions about what life is like for the faunus working for SDC, ''and'' for all we know, they've been attacked before if riots and rebellions occurred, they just haven't been mentioned because they're a fact of life. An important thing to also remember is that the Atlas/Mantle geography is ironically safer to have negative emotions in, because as World of Remnant: Atlas has shown, the Grimm have an even harder time surviving in the arctic conditions of the northern continent than humans do. Between that and advanced technology and abundant Dust resources, they're able to fend off the Grimm more easily. Also keep in mind that there have been numerous instances of wars and rebellions and such in Remnant's history, and those haven't ended the Kingdoms, likely because at the time they wer eon war footing and thus much better armed. Indeed, it's important to remember that as of the current point in time, the Kingdoms have experienced a period of unprecedented peace and likely are under a military draw-down, which allowed the Grimm to do as much damage as they did, and in older civilizations they likely would have had much stronger standing armies (as evidenced by World of Remnant: Vacuo and World of Remnant: Atlas). Aura and Dust both also negate some of the problems with low technology levels and limited infrastructure, since Dust can be easily used by anyone with Aura and a person with a strong Aura can destroy a tank with a stick. Coupled with other factors, like Silver-Eyed Warriors, Maidens, and the Wizard, and it makes sense that a younger, more primitive, and more brutal humanity would have survived until they hit their technological renaissance.
** Thanks to both [=V4C6=] and World of Remnant: SDC, we know that the faunus are ''not'' being treated as slaves of the SDC. They're still getting the short end of the stick, because they're not paid well (the same as human SDC miners) and the working conditions are dangerous, but we're not seeing teeming pits of despair and constant slave rebellions like you're implying. The SDC right now seems more like a target for the White Fang who are acting on centuries of long-standing racism against their kind and are lashing out at someone they feel is mistreating them.
** The situation with the White Fang and SDC is a situation where two groups are equally mistreated by a third, but the primary focus of each of the mistreated groups is toward their own members rather than everyone who is getting the short end of the stick. It wouldn't be surprising to discover that Jacques is intentionally fostering resentment between the faunus and human workers to make sure they don't get together to take on their true mutual opponent, namely him. This also makes SDC an obvious target for the White Fang.
** World of Remnant: The Great War also confirms that slavery was completely abolished following the Great War. More importantly, the kingdoms were strong enough that they could survive a devastating ten year war against one another even while Grimm were attacking towns and villages. With that in mind, simple sporadic racism and racial violence between humans and faunus wouldn't be enough to trigger massive Grimm invasions that threaten kingdoms (at least not anymore than other disasters, like war, famine, etc).
** One key factor to remember here is that the Kingdoms are quite tough, with strong defenses and natural barriers, and that the Grimm aren't an endless, ravening horde that jumps at any sign of negativity. In order for the Grimm to actually get into Vale, you needed to have a concerted effort by an entire faction of people who can influence and control the Grimm, who spent a very long period building upon already-existing tensions, exacerbating them with crime and robberies and mounting racial tensions and then putting a giant, threatening army on top of them, followed by multiple massive, publicized disasters, including a Grimm breach and a murder in the arena - and even then, they still needed to both actively sabotage existing military forces in the area ''and'' actively release Grimm into the city using transports in order to ensure enough Grimm got through to achieve their short-term objective... and even then, Vale managed to rally and hold them back. Simply put, something as honestly ''minor'' as racial conflict by itself is simply not going to be enough to threaten a Kingdom. The Grimm are a threat to isolated villages, small towns, migrant populations, and travelers, but even then it would take a significant disaster to bring a large-scale Grimm attack down on them: a sudden plague, a bandit raid, or a major Grimm like the Nuckelavee wandering in and attacking. Racial tension like that between humans and Faunus, even if it resulted in outright violence, probably isn't going to bring down a major Grimm attack unless you have something extreme happen, with very widespread violence. In other words, racial violence hasn't been "beaten out" of humanity because, quite simply... it just isn't ''enough'' to actually bring down the Grimm in large numbers. Even a small army of extremist terrorists who were just plain stewing in their hatred didn't invite a Grimm attack, they merely attracted a larger yet avoidable population of the things. If large-scale warfare between entire nations didn't wipe everyone out with Grimm... relatively minor spats of racial violence certainly aren't going to do the job.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Why use Mercury at all?]]
* One thing that makes absolutely no sense about Cinder's plan that I've never been able to understand is why she even used Mercury as the "victim" of Yang's attack. Why? Why not use Emerald to manipulate Yang into ''actually'' inflicting a severe injury on some random ''innocent'' defeated opponent she could have been fighting? There's literally no downside to this and at least three huge advantages: 1: Mercury needs no excuse whatsoever to be seen at the arena later. 2: Cinder would have created an ''actual'' severely injured victim who not only adds some more negative emotions of their own, but also wouldn't need to hide from the public, which will increase public outrage even further if it was something really serious and the ridiculous tabloid media interviewed them (and considering they're stupid enough to make a huge deal out of the story in the first place despite knowing what Grim are drawn by, let's face it, they totally would). 3: It would eliminate the entire convoluted escape plan that could have failed if Emerald hadn't been able to cast her illusion on two people at once. There's literally no reason to use Mercury and multiple reasons not to. So why did she do it?
** There is a major downside to not using Mercury: they can't really control what happens in the ring. Remember that Emerald can only manipulate what Yang sees, not everyone else. Without Mercury, they'd have no way to guarantee that Yang's target would ever get close enough for her to hit them. They needed to have Mercury in the ring so that they could be certain that he'd be standing close enough to Yang for her to hit him, and someone else in the arena would not be following their script. While it would have been a easier to escape and avoid detection if they used a cat's paw instead of Mercury, anyone else would have risked going off-script, and Cinder's all about minimizing risks. She needed Mercury in the ring to make ''sure'' an "innocent" got struck.
** Except that they didn't need anyone in on it for Pyrrha and Penny's battle, and Cinder seemed confident she'd have been able to orchestrate Penny's death even before she knew Penny was a metal robot. Mercury wasn't moving after he got defeated, so clearly they didn't need him properly positioned for the illusion to work, they an just manipulate her movements by altering her perception normally. Emerald would just have to rotate the stadium in her eyes so that she'd move towards the opponent instead of away after the battle, and then when she's close enough make it look like her opponent is attacking her. Or just make her think her opponent is still standing when in reality her opponent is getting beaten to a pulp. There's absolutely no reason to involve Mercury.
** Pyrrha and Penny were predictable. Cinder knew what Pyrrha could do and how Penny fought. There was no question how the former would react to an overwhelming attack by the latter and what the results would be. All Emerald would need to do in that case would be to wait for Penny to maneuver her swords in a predictable manner that she'd shown in earlier fights, and then freak Pyrrha out with an illusion. Cinder could count on Penny to play by a very predictable script. As for Mercury, the fact that he wasn't moving when Yang hit him means that he'd already gotten to be in position before she was confused and struck him. Emerald would have no way to make sure another person was moving into the exact position to be hit by Yang. Furthermore, we don't know if Emerald ''can'' alter someone's perception to the degree that you're suggesting, as every other illusion we see her generate was a relatively small, nearby object instead of the entire environment. We have no indication that Emerald has the ability to "rotate the stadium" from Yang's perspective. Without someone actually in the arena, they would have no way to be certain that Yang's opponent would have been close enough. They needed Mercury in the arena to guarantee that their "innocent" would get hit; anything else leaves too much to chance.
** "Cinder could count on Penny to play by a very predictable script"? Literally all Cinder knows about her is that she's a robot. We haven't seen her observe any of Penny's fights and in no way did we see any indication that she's been studying Penny's attack patterns. They've been observing Pyrrha, yes, though it's implied that she was always going to be the target of the accidental brutal murder even before they learned her semblance and that Penny was a robot. And furthermore, let me show you how easy it would be to make Yang look just as bad as Mercury did, or even worse: Scenario 1, Emerald waits until her opponent moves over to shake her hand and say "good game" and then make Yang think her opponent is attacking her. Or, if that never happens, scenario 2, Emerald creates an illusion to make Yang ''think'' her opponent is calling her over to shake hands, then make her think her opponent was using that for a sneak attack, and ''then'' have her attack in perceived self-defense. Both of these had a chance of failure depending on how Yang reacted, yes, but no greater a chance than was already present ''with'' Mercury there, as there's very little Mercury could have done to properly position himself for a second attempt if Yang had decided to dodge or block as opposed to a counter-attack.
** Cinder ''has access to Penny's schematics.'' She knows everything about Penny, not just that she's a robot. That, combined with observations from two arena matches plus Roman's report from the dock confrontation should be all Cinder needs to put together how she operates. As for your scenarios: Scenario 1 never happens during any of the fights we see in the tournament. Nearly every fight ends with one side or the other unconscious, and the only one that doesn't still ends with the two sides a fair distance apart. No guarantee that they would get close enough on their own. Scenario 2 runs into the problem of this sort of thing apparently not being common, as well as the other opponent walking away, not being aware of what Yang's seeing. It would be rather silly for Emerald to have Yang walking toward someone and acting like she's about to shake their hand, only for the other person to just walk away. Both scenarios still leave too much to chance and leave too many possibilities for random chance and human nature to expose the inconsistencies. With Mercury, they can control the script, as well as conveniently disappear the other side of the incident so no one can corroborate their stories. Yang's opponent could end up telling the police about any inconsistencies in her behavior that might point to foul play, and the cops and Ironwood would jump on any chance to calm the populace with a story of some miscreants using trickery to make a Vale student look bad. Not having Mercury in the arena leaves too many uncontrollable variables in play.
** To answer your concern about Mercury: The plan requires that the opponent provokes Yang into going berserker so she would obliterate them until their aura reaches zero. The minimal for a KO is 15%, it's entirely possible that the fight ends with the opponent still having enough aura to endure one more hit. That'd ruin the entire plan. Even if Emerald makes Yang strike again, there wouldn't be any injuries and it wouldn't cause the major panic Cinder needed. And that's assuming Yang will always win. What if she didn't? What if her opponent turned out to be stronger than Yang? That means Emerald would need to use her Semblance on said opponent but what if they're not hotheaded like Yang and therefore won't react the same way as her (by countering)? That's why she used Mercury. Because he's skilled enough to beat up Yang until she goes berserk ''without knocking her out''. Cinder is a very calculating villain so she'd naturally want to control every detail. Betting on some student is the opposite of that.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Yang's Ponytail]]
* Maybe it's just ignorance due to having short hair my whole life, but how does Yang get her hair in a ponytail with only one arm? She has a LOT of hair, so it doesn't seem easy.
** Taiyang probably helps her. Yet another reason for her to feel depressed.
** First you get a really stretched out hair band and put it halfway on your hand so that its stretched from thumb to pinky. Then, with that hand you (carefully) grab all your hair. It takes a lot of practice, but using a quick twisty motion with your wrist, you snap the hairband off of your hand and onto your hair. From there you use your hand and, if your hair's long enough (which Yang's is), your teeth to work the band all the way around your hair and to pull your hair through more to tighten it. If you want a high pony tail, you do this while your head is upside down.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Why is Blake wearing her ribbon in the Black trailer?]]
* The ribbon concealing her ears, that is. From a Doyalist perspective, of course, it's to avoid spoiling the reveal about her being a Faunus, but from a Watsonian one... what possible reason would she have to hide her ears while participating in a ''terrorist attack'' for a Faunus Rights group? Adam is wearing his highly-distinctive, easily-recognizable iconic Grimm mask, unambiguously identifying him as not just a Faunus but the group's leader, so they weren't being stealthy or hiding their affiliation.
** The simplest explanation is that Rooster Teeth just didn't want to reveal the cat ears, for the same reason they didn't show how Blake landed in the forest. A Watsonian explanation could be that she was already preparing to leave and was wearing the bow to acclimate herself to it to more easily blend into human society. Considering that the bow's edges are likely in direct contact with the ears, going by their positioning, and that the bow moves when her ears do, Blake would want to get used to it to reduce the risk of ear movements and other gestures that would give it away.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Salem's Ring?]]
* Salem has a ring on her right hand. I haven't managed to get a good look at it, but people are claiming that it looks like a rose, or that it could look like Cinder's emblem. Has anyone gotten a better angle? Personally I think it looks like a cockroach clenched to her hand.
** I haven't scene it at all angles, but I agree with you personally. It looks like another beetle Grimm of some kind.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Yang's arm augmentation]]
* When we see Yang asleep in Vol. 4 Ep. 4, she has a kind of metal plate around her stump. I assume this is some kind of necessary bit to allow Yang to attach and control her new robotic arm, but when and how did she get it? She was clearly surprised when Taiyang brought the present to her and even he was surprised when he found out Ironwood was already having it made, so why would she already have this plate thing to begin with?
** For the when: During the six month timeskip between the end of the last volume and the current one. As for the how: considering the advanced state of Remnant medical technology, cybernetic replacements are almost certainly a relatively common procedure in hospitals for people who've lost limbs. The surprise mostly seemed to have come not from the arm itself but getting it so quickly; Taiyang mentioned that he thought he would have to pull some strings to get it, which indicates that they were already planning to acquire a replacement, so the plate installed over Yang's arm was definitely preparation in place for a prosthetic.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Raven's personality]]
* Very odd question to ask I know but I'm sure I'm not the only person scratching their head over it so here goes: can anyone provide an explanation for how on ''earth'' a guy like Taiyang ever became attracted to someone like [[TheSocialDarwinist Raven]]? Has Raven always been that way? Given how Qrow interacts with her, it's likely the answer to that last one is "yes". In fact in a world where negative emotions draw Grimm like moths to a flame, how has someone like her even survived this long?
** For the first question, we don't know. We haven't seen what Raven was like when she was younger or how she and Taiyang got together. For the second question, one person's negative emotions don't "draw Grimm like moths to a flame." You need a large concentration of very strong negative emotions to bring in the Grimm. One person with a negative attitude isn't going to bring the Grimm down on them. Even a large number of very unpleasant people like the White Fang didn't actually bring down an army of Grimm on them, it just attracted a higher concentration than normal who wandered the nearby area instead of attacking.
** In addition to the second question, the negative emotions that draw Grimm are indicated to be fear, hatred, sadness, and despair. Now consider Raven's attitude: she's clearly such a badass that fear isn't something she normally has to deal with. Her SocialDarwinist outlook means she doesn't hate the victims of her tribe; she might at most might feel some pity toward them for not being strong enough, and she'd likely respect rather than hate the ones who are strong enough to fight back. Her attitude toward her own daughter shows she probably doesn't feel a lot of sadness when she loses people (they obviously weren't strong enough to survive), and again her confidence in herself is unlikely to lead to despair. She comes across as a sociopath; she doesn't ''care'' about most other people to provoke any emotional reaction to them one way or the other.
** [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys Taiyang had a thing for bad girls?]]
** It's not complicated. Volume 4, Chapter 9 shows that there were positives to Raven that Taiyang found attractive: she was strong, determined, and dedicated to whatever cause she felt was right. That seemed to have been enough, when coupled with two attractive, fit individuals who fought side-by-side in school, for the two of them to at least become somewhat romantically attached to one another, producing Yang, before Raven's other myriad issues pushed them apart.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Qrow's timing]]
* So Qrow was always making sure to stay close to Ruby and co., yet he is shown to be lagging behind Tyrian. Either Tyrian was faster than Qrow could anticipate or something prevents dQrow from advancing because based on how close he was to RNJR in Episode 4, he should have noticed Tyrian and stepped in at least during one of Tyrian's expositions.
** We don't know what Qrow is doing or how far out he ranges while protecting RNJR. We only have one instance of Qrow following them in the wild, so we don't have any consistent basis on how far away he normally follows them, only one situation where he was close enough to see them.
** Could be he was busy clearing out Grimm again, like we've seen before, and just didn't realise or expect someone that strong to suddenly swoop in and attempt to kidnap/kill his niece and her friends. When he did notice he came as quickly as possible.
** Volume Four Episode Eight also explains why Qrow keeps his distance from everyone, and why he was so far away from RNJR: his semblance is uncontrolled misfortune to everyone around him, and simply being around people causes bad luck to happen to them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Winter's Inheritance]]
* Is Winter already out of the inheritance? I mean, yeah, she left home to join the military and work under Ironwood, someone who seems to be almost a threat to Jacques' power, but is this reason enough for her to be kicked out of his will? I think Weiss might be the first one to leave the inheritance and Winter is still in it, even though she couldn't care less.
** Winter is almost certainly cut out. Between how she described herself as being removed, how Jacques talks about her dividing the family, and how Weiss said that Whitley is now in line for the inheritance, Winter is definitely no longer the heiress.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:How does Mercury fire his boots?]]
* His prosthetic feet don't have any digits, and a trigger you use with your toes or pressure plate under his soles would get hit all the time accidentally just from fighting anyway and there doesn't seem to be any specific leg motion he uses to active them either so how exactly could they work?
** There's almost certainly a direct neural interface. Since both Yang and Ironwood are able to move their prosthetic components in a manner that looks entirely human, the technology certainly exists to link the prosthetic limbs with the organic neural network. From there he can just trigger them with his thoughts.
** These and Yang's arm are myoelectric prosthetics - sensors are attached to now vacant muscles or neural endings in the stump, and the processor is programmed to utilise the same signals as a real limb to make use of already present muscle memory (and then add something new, by process of ordinary movement learning). Such a technology already exists in real life, just not so advanced.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Qrow's Semblance]]
* It's explained that Qrow has got a passive misfortune semblance. As Miles and Kerry have stated, semblances are "fueled" by Aura, and they certainly can't be used when Aura is fully depleted ... so how come Qrow's misfortune kept working, even though his Aura had been depleted during his fight with Tyrian?
** It's probable that the misfortune had already been inflicted on Ruby and the surrounding area by the time his Aura was depleted. Simply being near him earlier in the fight was enough so something bad would happen to her and Tyrian later on. Another possibility is that his Aura wasn't fully depleted, he'd just lost enough that his shields were no longer active, or during the lull in the fight, there was enough time that passed for his Aura to regenerate enough for his Semblance to kick in again, but it was still too weak for the shields to come back up. His Semblance doesn't seem to be flashy or overt, so I suspect it doesn't consume much of his Aura, unlike others'.
** To follow along with the above, his Semblance could be seen as a very subtle/low-powered Final Destination type of deal. Note that the big wooden board that would have come close to killing Ruby was standing there precariously, and only moved when Ruby got close enough. Misfortune of others could be an understatement if it's shown to be any worse.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Dinner at Salem's]]
* So, what do people eat at Salem's fortress? If she and the Grimm don't need to eat, what about Cinder's gang?
** Salem almost certainly has some form of food available for her people, considering that they have transportation and scroll services there. She likely has some kind of staff inside the fortress who tends to everyone's needs. Even if food doesn't grow there, she can have some delivered by other human servants.
** Or retrieved by those "seer" Grimm. After all, they do seem to have a lot of intelligence and follow orders.
** Or maybe people just don't eat at Salem's fortress. We don't know what Salem is, so we don't know if she needs to eat, but the Grimm probably don't need to. The humans probably don't live at the fortress themselves, and have some sort of dwelling in a kingdom or village where they could get food to eat the way normal people do. The room where they converge is just a place where they can meet up in person, which they would have to start doing since the CCTS is down and scrolls don't work.
** Cinder, and by extension Mercury and Emerald, is outright said to be staying there as part of Salem's "treatments." But that's not a serious problem, as feeding only a few people isn't that hard. If half a dozen humans and/or Faunus are able to easily enter and leave, they shouldn't have trouble getting food and drink in.
** They have at least one Bullhead there. Presumably, they take a few crates of food with them from time to time.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Catch a train]]
* So... why didn't RNJR take a train or bike to Haven?
** Easy public transportation to Mistral was down. This is stated in the news report when Yang was watching TV. Later on, once they were on Anima, RNJR are in sparsely-populated areas where the best infrastructure is dirt roads. There's no trains or bikes for them to take.
** While there is a train fairly close to Oscar's farm, if you look around the area Oscar lives in, it's clear that he's not living deep in the wilderness that RNJR are walking through. The woods around his farm are much thinner, there's no protective wall around the farm, and he doesn't seem exceptionally worried about Grimm attacks. Oscar is probably within the secured perimeter near Mistral or one of its other towns, in an area that would be safer and thus have better infrastructure. Also, the train lines likely service the agricultural area that Oscar lives in, transporting food and other products supplied by the farms when they aren't carrying passengers into town, which is another reason why Oscar's area has train access but the wilderness that RNJR is walking through doesn't.
** In addition, as shown in the Volume 4 finale, Mistral's air force doesn't patrol out in the area around Kuroyuri, let alone the further wilderness beyond that which RNJR was traveling through. If they're unwilling to commit even air patrols to such a dangerous and abandoned area, they're certainly unwilling to put in the time and resources to build a train line out there.
** We see in the final episode to Volume 4 that there were no trains on the quickest route to Mistral from the port that RNJR arrived at, because Yang is shown taking the exact same route using her motorcycle. With air traffic grounded between the kingdoms, there's no easy way to get anywhere between them, leaving everyone stuck driving or walking through trackless and sparsely-populated wilderness.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Emerald knows Ruby's outfit]]
* How does Emerald know enough about what Ruby looks like in Volume 4 to create an accurate illusion for Cinder to burninate?
** Tyrian saw her and could provide a description and possibly even pictures, given how long he was tracking her.
** It's easier for RT's animators to just use Ruby's Volume 4 design instead of recreating or reusing her original design.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Oscar's Neck]]
* Are those things on Oscar's neck a scarf or are those bandages? Are they just aesthetic or do they serve any purpose? I am thinking it might be just part of his design, but I wanted someone else's input.
** They're pretty much a neck equivalent of sweat bands, that go around the neck to absorb sweat. Farmers commonly wear them due to strenuous labor. And for technical animation reasons, they're probably there to hide neck seams on his model.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Sun's Phone or Illa's Phone?]]
* Wasn't the phone Sun and Blake going after was Sun's and not Illa's? Why would Sun's phone have secret plans for the White Fang?
** The scroll was Illia's, as evidenced by the White Fang data. There's no reason Sun would have that data on his scroll; his scroll just hit her by complete accident when Blake threw it.
** Volume 5 confirms it is Ilia's phone.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Lights of Menagerie]]
* Faunus are supposed to have perfect night vision, as we learned in Volume 1 and saw in the White Fang meeting in Volume 2. So why are all the houses in Menagerie lit up at night? There aren't any humans on the island, so it just seems like a waste of resources.
** First, it's never said that faunus have "perfect" night vision. We only know that they can see in the dark. Second, we don't know that there aren't humans living there. In fact, it would strain disbelief that no humans at all lived there, especially considering how much trade there is implied to be. Second, just because you can see in the dark doesn't mean it's optimal or even preferable. Night vision isn't full color, it's typically black and white, so it's likely better to have the place illuminated simply so you can see color. A faunus won't stub his toe in the dark, but that doesn't mean he'll want to spend all his time in complete pitch darkness. He'll have his areas lit, if only for comfort's sake.
** In Volume 5, Sun mentions that there's a "Nocturnal Section" of the city, indicating that some faunus do prefer to be out at night. We probably don't see or notice it because, well, the lights would be out over there. Also, the fact that Ilia can sneak around in darkness by going pitch black indicates that there's likely varying degrees of night vision among the faunus.
** Not all Faunus have night vision. Many of them do, but not all. When Faunus night vision is brought up in Volume 1, Chapter 12, Pyrrha says that "many" Faunus have low-light vision.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:It's My Turn]]
* So why the hell does Weiss make a big deal out of disobeying her father when she just goes back with him? Can't she just defy him again like she did when she went to Beacon? What the hell was the deal with Winter's conversation if it didn't even matter?
** Weiss' main goal involves redeeming the family name and the Schnee Dust Company. Weiss' character arc was about resolving to not be under her father's control. She was going to have to go back at some point anyway in order to take control of the SDC, and when she went home she was very much ''not'' playing by Jacques' playbook and eventually stood up to him directly. While at first she was submissive and obedient, that's practically inevitable considering that she'd spent sixteen years having to be a submissive daughter by necessity, and that's not going to get broken overnight. Weiss needed some time to build up to outright, in-your-face defiance of Jacques. It's actually quite realistic that someone who's spent a lot of their life being dominated by a strong personality and begins to be independent while away from that personality will quickly revert to submissiveness when encountering them again.
** Also, if the age of majority in Remnant is the same as it is in the United States, then Weiss is still technically a minor, and Jacques may well have had legal rights to bring her back. This is especially important if the place that she was supposed to stay at - Beacon - is too dangerous to live in. There may well be a legal requirement that if a combat school or academy cannot provide adequate or safe housing, then the parent can come and take back a minor who is attending the school until the school can rectify the problem. Coupled with the simple fact that it's her father pressuring her to come home, and that sort of thing cannot be shaken off easily due to her childhood and loyalty to the family name, and it's entirely plausible that Weiss would reluctantly agree to go home with her father.
** In addition, if you pay attention to the full version of "This Life Is Mine," there's lyrics which state that Jacques had a tendency to guilt Weiss into obedience and leveraged the family name - something she obviously holds as extremely important to her - as a means to keep her obedient. Family, even if it that included her shitbag of a father, is very important to her, and it wasn't until Whitley's apparent turn against her that Weiss finally decided enough was enough and broke away completely. The song's lyrics also make a clear distinction between Weiss' "heart" and her "mind": one part wants to stay loyal to her family, no matter what, while the other part wants to be free, and she has to struggle between which one she should follow... until she finally makes the call, breaks the figurative mirror separating the two, and escapes.
** Weiss wants to be head of the family, and is pretty dependent on her family's resources. Both would be much harder if her father disinherited her, so she's at least going to try to stay on his good side.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Mercury in Amity Colosseum]]
* I'm a bit confused by what Mercury is doing at the beginning of the third act of Volume 3; Cinder has just told him to lie low, he says he's going to do that. Makes sense, because they don't want anyone to know that he's up and about again. The next time we see him he's in the Colosseum, skulking around the corridors behind the stands and in a perfect position to stop Ruby. First questions is why he was apparently disobeying Cinder. The second is something that's been bothering me for a long time; he acts like she knows what's going to happen when Pyrrha and Penny fight, but as far as he or anyone else should know, she's completely ignorant of Penny's mechanical nature. What's going on here?
** This was discussed up above but I'll reiterate the responses here. Mercury isn't disobeying Cinder, as he ''is'' lying low by staying in the maintenance corridors. Mercury was clearly stationed there to intercept anyone who might interfere with the match. Since the plan is literally minutes away from reaching a point that it won't matter if anyone sees Mercury or not, it's an acceptable risk for him to intercept Ruby. As for him knowing about Ruby's awareness of Penny's mechanical nature, it's entirely plausible that he made the conclusion Ruby was aware of it, because it's obvious that Ruby and Penny are close friends and Ruby was distressed when she realized Penny and Pyrrha were fighting. And if Ruby wasn't aware and got confused by his cryptic statement about polarity and metal, well, that's not really Merc's concern.
** Ah, see, I got confused because I thought those corridors were like those in a baseball stadium; even when they're not in-between innings, there's usually a bunch of people going around in there; I'm actually still confused as to how Ruby was able to easily access those corridors, if they ''are'' for maintenance. As for the second part, well, that's an explanation but it still seems like an odd thing to say- maybe it's just because I never saw Mercury as being all that smart? (But that's personal bias; if nothing else, he's ''very'' observant)
** I believe that there's a wrench symbol on the doors, indicating that they are for maintenance and not as a crowd access. The public access corridors are visible in later episodes and lead directly to the airship docks. The maintenance doors were likely left unlocked, which is certainly true to real life; usually the only thing keeping people out of similar corridors in real life is just an "Authorized Personnel Only" sign and the warnings associated with that.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Where the heck are sloths?]]
* Nora mentioned them one or twice back in the first season, but it struck me that it's never actually said where sloths are in this world. In real life, they live in rainforests in Central or South America, but we've never actually seen or been shown any part of the four kingdoms that corresponds to this type of environment.
** Jungles presumably exist in the central latitudes of Remnant. We just haven't been to one yet in the show, though Menagerie shows evidence of a tropical environment, so jungles almost certainly exist.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Complacent Kingdom Security]]
* No less than 6 rogue bullheads under White Fang/Cinder Fall affiliation have appeared in the series, at no less than three separate intervals. How do they keep getting in or around so deeply into the kingdom completely unstopped or unnoticed until they get there? Not wanting to cause a panic is one thing, but it is mind boggling that they'd have no air traffic controllers to point out that the aircraft coming in are unauthorized and thus must be shot down, or at least send security forces to deal with them rather than team RWBY magically being in the area each and every time. And on a similar note, how does an entire Giant Nevermore make its way past all of Atlas' fancy airships to attack the colosseum without anyone noticing its approach? For that matter, how do all the Grimm that follow get so close to Beacon without the aforementioned military noticing or doing anything about it? James Ironwood, for all your talk of your army and military might and wiping threats out proactively, it doesn't look good when one of the most obvious targets in local airspace waltez past your security line without anyone or anything to stop it. It's just awfully bizarre that Grimm are so close that one immediately shows up at Amity Colosseum so soon after Cinder finishes her speech.
** Okay, splitting this down:
### Bullheads flying over the city: Who said that the Bullheads were unauthorized? They may very well have had authorization, especially considering that we already know that at least one Kingdom's academy Headmaster is under Salem's control, and Salem has obviously been planning these operations for a long time. Not to mention that if they fly in low enough, they would get underneath radar systems. Also keep in mind that Vale is currently in a "time of unprecedented peace" and that they wouldn't have the kind of strict air traffic control systems that we have in the modern era, since they haven't had anyone crashing planes into buildings in living memory. The last massive war was eighty years ago, remember, so they just won't have as tight a defense, and air defense networks would be configured to target Grimm, not civilian aircraft. Also, keep in mind that typically, air traffic controllers only track plane transponders, not the planes themselves, and only ''military'' radar actively track civilian planes; unless there's currently a reason for the military to be on alert and looking for certain planes, they won't be noticing aircraft that aren't flying with active transponders. Note, also, that the White Fang don't fly any Bullheads around once Atlas' ships are regularly flying overhead until the Grimm invasion starts, so they were obviously not willing to risk being spotted at that point. All of these together mean that it would be fairly plausible, in the early part of the series, that civilian aircraft with unauthorized flight plans would be flying around over the city without being shot down. Vale's air defenses aren't as trigger happy about civilian flights as most modern air defenses are.
### Team RWBY magically being in the area each time: They weren't magically in the area. The first instance was by sheer chance, while in the second one Blake and Sun had puzzled out where the next robbery was going to be, so they were ready when the Bullheads arrived. The third time involved RWBY directly confronting Torchwick and him having to call one in to extract him.
### Grimm entering Vale's airspace: This is directly addressed as soon as it shows up. Velvet asks how it got past the defenses, and Ren points out that it wasn't alone. Keep in mind that when we cut back to to the Atlas fleet, it is literally being swarmed by hundreds of Grimm to the point that Nevermores are on the hulls of the ships and hammering them. That Nevermore didn't simply fly past them, but it was the only one that managed to get through without being intercepted or at least diverting to attack the fleet. The Atlesian fleet was actually keeping most of the airborne Grimm out of Vale before Neo and Roman took down their ships.
### Giant Nevermore showing up when it did: If you pay attention during Cinder's speech, the Grimm are already attacking the Atlesian perimeter when she's talking. Airborne Grimm fly faster than ground-based Grimm run, so it makes sense that the airborne Grimm would have reached and begun overrunning the air defense perimeter fast enough that one of them might have gotten through to the Colosseum.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Why was Roman stealing Dust?]]
* Cinder has Roman steal incredible amounts of Dust, but this doesn't seem to play into her schemes at all. My best guess is that she just wanted the panic and confusion the unusual crime spree caused.
** That and Dust is useful for the White Fang and the bombs they were planting. It also drives up Dust prices, which as we can see in Volume 4, was exacerbating the tensions between Atlas and the other Kingdoms even before Ironwood shut down traffic. Disrupting Dust flows makes things worse all around for the Kingdoms, and it helps hide Cinder's true motives.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Why does Salem want Ruby captured alive?]]
* It's been bothering me because you'd think that a silver-eyed girl who curb-stomped a Grimm Dragon and absolutely wrecked Cinder would mean, "Hey, maybe we should kill her before she can master her powers." But, Salem wants her alive. Why?
** Based on what we've seen so far: So Cinder can kill her. It's obvious from the very beginning of Volume 4 that Cinder deeply wants revenge on Ruby for what she did to her, so Salem orders Ruby taken alive so that Cinder can get closure from her trauma by killing her, and later on Salem is shown smiling in approval that Cinder is working out her frustrations by killing mental projections of Ruby from Emerald. Volume 5 also shows that Cinder is obsessed with getting payback on Ruby for maiming her. Salem maintains control of her minions using carrots and sticks, and in this case, delivering a live Ruby for Cinder to get revenge on is Cinder's carrot.
** That makes no sense. Why would Salem want Ruby taken in alive only to be killed by Cinder? If Salem wanted her dead, she would've told Tyrion to do so in Vol. 4 rather than bring her in alive. Even Cinder is frustrated at Salem for leaving Ruby alive.
** The entry above pretty clearly lays out why Salem would want Ruby to be brought in alive for Cinder to kill her: so that Cinder can get closure from her trauma by personally exacting revenge on Ruby. And yes, Cinder is angry because Salem seems to be acting like she's being merciful, but Salem can't just outright say to Cinder that she's bringing the person she hates the most in the world to their doorstep just so Cinder can kill her and get over herself. It's all a massively-screwed up therapy session for the self-absorbed, power-hungry, and currently revenge-obsessed psychopath that Salem's trying to fix so she can be useful to her again. Just killing Ruby outright might resolve a lot of problems, but Cinder won't be able to work out her issues and get closure by just hearing that Ruby is dead; she'll only get that closure by personally incinerating her.
** Either that, or Salem has some as-yet-unknown reason for wanting Ruby alive that hasn't been revealed. Considering that thus far the series has been tight-lipped on its various secrets, it's entirely possible that there's some secret to Silver Eyes that hasn't been revealed yet that Salem may want to exploit by bringing Ruby in alive.
** Salem was smiling at Cinder burning a mental image of Ruby that only Cinder could see; it may have simply been "Emerald give Cinder an image of something she hates" without going into specifics. I seriously doubt Salem is going through the effort to capture Ruby alive simply to give Cinder target practice, especially given her characterization as a consummate pragmatist. I can only presume there's something about Ruby's powers that would be valuable to Salem, as opinioned above.
** The above theory isn't that Salem would bring in Ruby alive for "target practice," it's suggesting that Salem is bringing Ruby in alive to allow Cinder to exact revenge and gain closure and catharsis for what happened to her. Those are vastly different concepts.
** Salem wants her alive. It's not just so Cinder can personally murder her and get her jollies either because even Cinder said they needed Ruby taken alive in Vol 5 ep 12 and she passed up a perfect oppertunity to kill her in order to attack Weiss instead earlier on. Salem has a plan for her.
** Just a guess, but maybe she and her followers encountered only adult and trained silver-eyed warriors, which had to be killed, while inexperienced Ruby can be studied? Or alternatively, she has nothing to do with her silver eyes by themselves, but knows about her being "simple soul" Ozpin has faith in, and wants to torture him even more.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Yang's poison?]]
* Why hasn't Yang been seen drinking since her first appearance? With her very first line she orders a highball, and then... never again, except for a comment that Junior owes her a drink, which she never gets. The scene in the frontier bar almost seems to be going out of its way to suggest she doesn't drink. Granted, she's underage, but given her personality, it's hard to picture that stopping her, especially when around Qrow, or when backpacking through city-states where the difficulty of a 17-year-old getting a drink must vary wildly.
** There hasn't been any scene up until this point where Yang getting any alcohol would make sense. Especially at the fuel station, since she's driving. That and Yang doesn't seem to be a very strong drinker anyway; aside from one drink she ordered at Junior's club, we've never seen any other indications that she drinks with any regularity.
** Yang was clearly putting on an act when visiting Junior's the first time because she was there to get information. She's not needed to put such a front up since.
** A Strawberry Sunrises also don't have much alcohol in them to begin with.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Raven's logic]]
* So, Raven is constantly mocking Ozpin and refuses to work with him because of something that happened in the past. Fair enough. But thing is, the Ozpin-Salem conflict is not some personal vendetta, Raven outright admits that if Salem and the Grimm have their way, humanity will be wiped out to the man. So... what exactly is her proposed alternative? Just have everyone get eaten?
** Stay out of the way and let them fight their war themselves. This is an easy attitude to justify, especially because most of the world is ignorant of it and the world seems to be doing fine for the last few thousand years. I'm not saying she's right, but it's easy to justify. Raven doesn't present an alternative because she doesn't care about the conflict and thinks that the world will keep on spinning, and she's not unjustified with that attitude.
** Raven's logic seems to be less "Salem victory is inevitable and we're all doomed" and more "Salem's defeat is impossible. The stalemate will go on forever and the Grimm will never leave." But the Grimm are no real threat to the tribe and she could care less if some helpless normies keep getting eaten by Grimm, because only the strong survive. So she's not gonna risk herself getting killed for some perfect peaceful world. She's fine with the world as it is, and would rather life out her days pillaging and leaving people that can't fight off the Grimm to their fate. In fact if anything she'd be opposed to Salem's total defeat because that would mean the Grimm would be gone, villages could grow bigger and her tribe would have more trouble raiding and taking what they want, not to mention being the main target of peacekeepers now without the Grimm as a bigger threat. It's in Raven's interest for Ozpin and Salem's struggle to continue endlessly.
** Now that we know she's the Spring Maiden, Raven's logic and decision to stay out of the fight makes more sense. Not only is she keeping herself safe but she's also keeping the Relic out of Salem's hands by keeping her distance and severing contact with both sides. Vernal's commentary during the elevator ride indicates that Raven understands the importance of being the Maiden and that she'll do whatever it takes to keep that power out of Salem's hands, even if it means completely severing herself from the existing conflict between Ozpin and Salem.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Raven and Qrow's "curse"]]
* So Raven and even Yang treat Ozpin giving Raven and Qrow the ability to transform into birds as a bad thing. I'm willing to accept the idea that even if Raven did agree to it initially she might have come to regret it and to be fair to Yang she didn't know that Raven willingly accepted the power and believed it was forced on her. But all of this raises one question. What possible reason is there to be upset about gaining the ability to shapeshift? Raven and Qrow are able to switch between forms at will so they're not stuck as birds or anything and the transformation lets them travel quicker and keep an eye on things that they wouldn't normally be able to do to range and ability to stay hidden. If the show later reveals that there is some sort of negative side-effect or drawback to being given this ability I'll take back this question but as of now there is no downside so why complain?
** I don't think it was the power in and of itself that was bad, but everything else associated with it. Raven implies that it was forced on her when she reveals it to Yang, and from a certain perspective it could be considered to be forced, the same way one could argue that Pyrrha was forced into her role at the Fall Maiden. Ozpin shows up, inducts you into his BenevolentConspiracy, and offers you a choice to join up and fight to protect all of mankind or to not, and part of that is that you get a new power. Some would reasonably argue that you're being forced into it though expectation; after all, while you have the choice to join up with an organization to save the world, or turn your back on that. No one's going to say you're a coward or selfish for not signing on for that, but the implication and pressure are certainly there. For someone as focused as Raven is on just her one small part of the world, and how little she cares about anyone outside of her clan, it would definitely feel like she's being pressured into a fight she doesn't care about. The raven transformation is simply a symbol for her association with Ozpin, willing or not. At least that's how I interpret it, and everything we've seen so far regarding Raven implies that this is the case.
** We also now know that Raven doesn't just have the ability to turn into a raven, but she's actually the Spring Maiden, and, as of right now, unwillingly a part of this whole conflict between Ozpin and Salem. That's likely coloring her perception of the situation and Raven is using the polymorphic magic as an excuse; when she's talking about how Ozpin forced herself and Qrow into the situation, she's almost certainly referencing the Maiden powers and not just the transformation, but she can't outright say that.
** Her being the Spring Maiden should have no connection to her issues with Ozpin and she clearly wasn't referencing it. Ozpin didn't force Raven to become the Spring Maiden. We know the previous Spring Maiden ran away and joined the bandits more than a decade ago, which was after Raven had returned to leading the bandits (she left Taiyang shortly after Yang was born, so roughly 17 years ago). As we learned in episode 14, Raven killed the previous Spring Maiden and took the powers for herself because Raven found her to be too weak. Gaining the Spring Maiden powers was a choice Raven made on her own long after her feud with Ozpin began and even before then she willingly took the Spring Maiden into her camp for her power. For all her talk of wanting to stay out of the Ozpin vs. Salem fight, Raven chose to be involved by doing that and she can't blame that on Ozpin so the Maiden powers is a separate issue entirely.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Blake's lack of Dual Wielding]]
* How come Blake no longer wields Gambol Shroud’s sheathe as a second blade? Ever since volume 4 she seems to only wield the main katana part two-handed. She does try and take the sheathe out in the fight with Ilia in volume 5 episode 10 but that was only after she lost the katana and she immediately gets disarmed again and when she retrieves the katana she never attempts to get the sheathe. This raises the question of why she wasn’t using both in the first place. The katana looks too small to be a two-handed sword and it makes her fighting style less unique since Weiss, Qrow, Adam, Winter and Raven all wield single swords. This isn’t like Yang’s change in fighting style to use more kicks, which reflects CharacterDevelopment, it just feels like Blake isn’t using her full arsenal.
** Because none of the fights she's been in since Volume 3 have been situation where she needed to use both blades. She's always been engaging enemies where the precision of the single blade, the gun aspect, or the elastic ribbon and hook were needed, or she was swinging a single, heavy combined blade. The second blade is only really useful for close-quarters battle or parrying large amounts of gunfire, neither of which have been necessary, even against Ilia, who fights at a moderate distance. The animators aren't going to have Blake use a weapon or fighting style that doesn't have an application to the current fight.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Take back what was given]]
* If Ozpin was the one who gave the Maidens their powers, then why when Amber got injured, he did not just take her half back. Could have saved a lot of pain.
** Where in the story is it ever said that he can "just take her half back"? There's never even a suggestion that this is possible, indicating that Ozpin cannot simply recover the magic once he gave it away.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Grimm bypassing Aura?]]
* In Vault of the Spring Maiden, Cinder used her Grimm arm to steal the Spring Maiden powers from Vernal. Yet Vernal's aura hasn't been shown breaking. Is there something special about Cinder's Grimm that it can bypass aura or did Miles and Kerry forget about Aura in that situation?
** The same arm was able to bypass Raven's Aura as well to begin draining her powers. That and Vernal had been fighting Wess beforehand, so her Aura was likely weakened, the same way Yang's was when Adam cut off her arm. It may be a side effect of being fused with a human.
** There's no indication that someone's Aura needs to be broken to steal their powers. Aura protects you from bodily harm, not from something like this.
** OP, you are forgetting that this season disproved the generally believed idea that Aura works as TwentyFourHourArmor. People need to consciously focus their Aura in order to use it as a defense. Vernal was clearly caught off guard by Cinder's attack so she most likely didn't have enough time to protect herself. It's the same reason Weiss's Queen Lancer summon was able to stab Hazel when we hadn't seen his Aura be depleted. While the Grimm arm's ability to steal Maiden powers does clearly go through Aura (since Cinder uses it on Raven before we see her Aura run out), it was probably only able to stab Vernal in the chest because of her not activating her Aura in time.
** Honestly, Cinder's arm is likely special too. It definitely seems to be able to absorb aura, which would possibly mean that it's also quite effective at penetrating it.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Teleporting sword]]
* Did I miss something during Raven and Cinder's fight or did the hilt of Raven's sword go from Cinder to Raven after they switched swords in that one instance? It doesn't bother me, but other people are getting bothered by it.
** After the Dust blade shattered, Cinder dropped it and Raven probably caught it in the chaos afterward.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Retconning Relics]]
* I have been having an argument about this off and on with someone on youtube about the Relics. They say that the reveal that the Maidens being the only ones to open the Vaults to the Relics is a retcon. Is there any evidence that this revelation retcons anything?
** It isn't a retcon because nothing regarding accessing or opening the Vaults was ever made clear in the earlier parts of the show. You cannot retcon something that was never mentioned to begin with.
** Well actually although the relics and vaults were part of the original plans that Monty, Kerry and Miles made before they even wrote the trailers. The Maidens however didn't get put into the outline until after Vol. 2. Monty had come up with them and Kerry and Miles added them in because he had been so excited about it.
** Can you give me the source of where that came from? The person I'm arguing with, won't believe me if it came from Tv tropes.
** It was mentioned in the Vol. 3 commentary. As well as being brought up in the Last RWBY Rewind (for V5/E13) where Miles and Kerry were asked when did they know they would have Raven be the Spring Maiden and they answered since Vol. 3 when they added the Maidens to the story.
** I meant where did they mention that the Relics and Vaults were part of their original plan?
** I can't say for certain if they ever said that the Relics and Vaults were planned from the beginning, but considering that, at least, the relics are such an important part of the story, as well as part Salem's goal who was the ninth character to have their concept to be finished, it is highly likely that they are part of the original plan since M/M/K planned out the key points of the story ahead of time. The story for the Deity Brothers, from whom the relics came from, was actually Miles first major contribution to the planning of RWBY. So far the only known major change was the Maidens. If you want to find some good sources of info I suggest going to RWBY Wiki. The staff there can be helpful if you got questions as they are good at keeping track of info that comes from RT.
** Even if the Relics and Maidens weren't planned from the beginning, it's only a retcon if the new information contradicts something that was established in an earlier part of the show. If the person you're arguing with about this supposed retcon keeps up their argument, ask them what earlier information in the show is supposed to be retconned.
** While I agree that the Maidens opening the Vaults is not a retcon do to not contradicting anything established, I will admit that the way it is revealed smells suspiciously like writer's revisions. Namely the fact that it is introduced a volume after Qrow gave the explanation of the Maidens and Relics and the fact that Qrow just said he forgot to mention it since there was a lot to cover could potentially mean that it wasn't planned when he gave his explanation in Volume 4 episode 8. Now it is also entirely possible that they did have it planned but didn't feel the need to put it in Volume 4 since it wasn't relevant at the time and might have bogged down the episode with too much exposition or not have flowed properly (and again, it doesn't actually contradict anything previously stated) but the way it's revealed is still odd.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Why Ice?]]
* Of all elements why would Spring and Fall control ICE? That seems like it would be Winter's power instead.
** You seem to be suffering from the fanon idea of the Maidens being limited to a single "element." There's no indication of such anywhere within the setting's magic system. The Maidens all have access to heat, cold, electricity, and weather manipulation.
** At the very least, Fall can also control Fire, and Spring can control Wind. It's likely that they can all control multiple elements
** Miles and Kerry stated on RWBY Rewind that the Maidens can use any element they want as seen in Amber's fight. They can develop a preference to a particular element like Cinder always using fire, but she can still use the other elements if she wants to.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Oscar and Ozpin]]
* Some members of the FNDM think that Ozpin will one day overtake Oscar's personality. Is there any real indication of this besides the single time Oz forced a takeover?
** There's little evidence of this. Ozpin himself said that their personalities and memories will merge later on. Most likely Oscar will remain the dominant personality but he'll take on Ozpin's memories and experiences as his own, identifying himself as Oscar but taking up the same mantle as Ozpin and his predecessors. Note that while Ozpin seems to identify himself as the same entity who was passed down through the generations, he never refers to himself as the "wizard" or any other title that he held in the past; he was just "Professor Ozpin." There may be some bleedthrough to the memories; Oscar's already shown than he feels as though Ozpin's memories are his, after all. But the entity in control of his body will identify himself as Oscar.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: What's weak against Silver Eyes again?]]
* So when Qrow first described the power of the Silver Eyes to Ruby, he made it sound like the SE acted almost like Anti-Grimm. That they could vanquish Grimm with just a look or could freeze the more powerful ones like Glenn the Dragon. Then, Salem tells Cinder that the power she just recieved makes her weak to the power of the Silver Eyes, and the FNDM pretty much assumed she was talking about Cinder's new Maiden magic. But then, we see Cinder has a Grimm arm that clearly doesn't like Ruby's Silver Eyes. Basically, what I'm asking is that when Salem said 'Your new powers make you weak to the Silver Eyes' was she referring to Cinder's Grimm arm and the Maiden powers were just a red herring? Or are both the Maiden powers AND the Grimm arm weak against the Silver Eyes?
** Raven has no response to the silver eyes being activated. That alone proves that it's the Grimm arm that was what made Cinder vulnerable. Keep in mind also that before, Cinder did have another Grimm as a part of her in the form of the beetle that was draining Amber's powers, which almost certainly contributed to Cinder's defeat at Ruby's hands.
** Though given how we never saw Raven at all at that point, the question's still up in the air.
** Conservation of detail. There's no reason to put Raven in the shot if she wouldn't have had any reaction to it. in addition, Vernal showed no reaction, and if Maidens were affected by the Silver Eyes, and that's something known of by the characters present, she would have had to fake a response to continue the deception. It's supremely unlikely that the Maidens are impacted in any way by the Silver Eyes, unless we see any evidence to the contrary in the show.
** It's unlikely at this point, but keep in mind that Vernal not being the Maiden was the big twist of the season. They couldn't have shown Raven reacting to the blast like Cinder did because that would have ruined the surprise.
** Volume 6 confirms that the Eyes only work in response to the Grimm. Maria says that you literally cannot use the powers outside of being in the presence of Grimm. It's pretty clear that Cinder's weakness to the Eyes came from her Grimm arm, and probably the Grimm inside of her that let her absorb Amber's magic.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Sun's introduction]]
* Why did Sun apparently come to Vale ahead of his teammates? Let alone by stowing away on a ship? I hadn’t even realized he was a student, and not just some petty thief, until Volume Two.
** Because it was funny. Sun is very clearly based off [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Wukong Sun Wukong, the Monkey King]], a classic character who was distinct in that he was incredibly impulsive and often did things on a whim because they would be amusing.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Younger?]]
* Blake said at the end of Volume One that she hadn’t been involved with the White Fang since she was younger, but the Black Trailer couldn’t have been more than a few months before the series began. Short of her not considering Adam’s group part of it anymore (in which case why is that not brought up?) just speaking in the heat of the moment (understandable) or just a mistake, what does that mean?
** Blake was talking in general terms. Also, considering that Blake abandoned Adam before Cinder recruited him, and the length of her hair between that and the begining of the series, Blake may have abandoned him up to a year or more before the series began, which would definitely make her younger.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Weiss and Blake]]
* I think I can understand to some extent, but how was Weiss able to completely forgive Blake and accept her back into the team after one weekend? I can think of a few reasons, but I wanted to see what other people think.
** Forty-eight hours is a lot of time to process one's thoughts and feelings on a subject. Weiss thought on the subject of Blake while looking for her, and after considering her feelings on the matter outside of a heated argument, she just realized she didn't care what Blake once was.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Volume 5 Timeline]]
* This is a minor thing, but I am trying to wrap my head around the timeframe in Vol. 5. The events in Menagerie take place over a couple of days, but then they travel to Mistral. How long did that take? A week? A month? How long were RWY and JNR training while Lionheart stalled?
** They didn't immediately travel to Mistral. The Belladonnas took several weeks to a month or so to train and arm up their militia before sending them to Mistral. Ruby and the rest of her group took the same amount of time to train as well.
** It's established they only had two weeks before the Fall of Haven. Make that of what you will.
** That doesn't really mean much. Considering that inter-kingdom travel can be done in a matter of days with aircraft, and in real life a ship can cross an ocean in less than a week (and Remnant's ships are no doubt better than ours), they could easily load up their militia and make it to Mistral in that timeframe.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Qrow’s Job]]
* How exactly does Qrow balance his job at Signal and the work he does for Ozpin?
** Huntsmen going on missions seems to be worked into their teaching duties, considering that Taiyang was also a teacher but he was going on missions at the start of Volume 3. If it's anything like real-life specialist combat instruction, Qrow likely has a loose training schedule where he comes in to provide selective training during specific points in the school year while the rest of the time students are instructed by more regular instructors.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Destroying everything?]]
* According to World of Remnant the Grimm only attack humans. But when Qrow tells team RNJR the story of the Relics, Ruby immediately knows what he’s talking about when he says the God of Darkness created something that shared his desire to destroy EVERYTHING, before humanity even existed. So how did she know that?
** You're approaching this far too literally. Qrow is telling a story about divinely-created monsters that destroy things. Ruby has lived all her life in a setting where the Grimm actively destroy humanity and their creations. Se's not going to make a technical, semantic distinction between "destroy everything" and "destroy only things that humanity builds" when she's spent her whole life learning about and fighting against monsters that destroy humanity.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Blake at Beacon]]
* Two questions, really. First, why go to Beacon of all places after leaving the White Fang? Second, how was Blake able to attend Beacon with only a bow to disguise herself and USING HER REAL NAME and not be recognized as the daughter of the previous High Leader of the White Fang?
** For attending Beacon: It was close to where she defected from the White Fang while still being relatively safe from the White Fang, and is also Vale is the most progressive and friendly of the four Kingdoms.
** As for no one recognizing her... why would they? Ghira was the leader of what was, in his heyday, a civil rights group that wasn't particularly large or influential. The White Fang only became notable and effective when Sienna Khan took over, and by that time Ghira was just a local chief of a small city. Literally no one recognizes Blake outside of the White Fang itself or the population of Menagerie. The only non-faunus who seems to recognize who she is would be Ozpin, and he's an exception to the norm.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Jacques’ “plan”]]
* What exactly prompted Weiss to think Jacques was planning in advance to disinherit her?
** Weiss never hinted that she knew or even suspected that Jacques would disinherit her. Her reaction when he cuts her inheritance is complete shock. Later on, when she's talking with Whitley, she does mention that "He knew this would happen" but that doesn't mean much. It could mean that Jacques had been planning it or that Whitley just expected them to clash and that Jacques would pull the inheritance, but Weiss had no way of knowing it was going to happen at all before Jacques pulled her out of the will.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ozpin’s intel]]
* Ozpin mentioning “robots and rose petals in a nightclub” when musing about what Team RWBY’s been up to. Yang went to the club, but Ruby was probably in another district of the city and the robot only passed by the club. So how did anyone make that connection?
** It's just a general comment by Ozpin that shouldn't be taken literally, with him commenting on the distinct features of the team. Basically him saying "I know it was you who were involved in that fight."
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Tournament schedule]]
* Oobleck announces the battles are done for the day, and then Ozpin mentions after Qrow’s fight with Winter a few minutes later Ozpin mentions there’s still one going on. So which is it?
** Ozpin says it is a "sanctioned fight," not a tournament battle. There's almost certainly fights that aren't part of the tournament but are for entertainment purposes, considering the culture of Remnant and the Huntsman academies.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Raven and Vernal’s deception]]
* How exactly were Cinder, Watts, Qrow, and possibly Ozpin not suspicious? Vernal never has the flame-like effect around her eyes that are visible when a Maiden uses the powers. Hell, Raven was using her mask to hide it during the demonstration. Did Salem and Ozpin just both forget to tell their subordinates about one of the most distinctive features of the people they’re supposed to be protecting/hunting?
** Flame effects don't necessarily need to be visible around the eyes to use Maiden abilities. Remember that Cinder herself was using the Fall Maiden's fire powers throughout the first three volumes without the flame effects around her eyes. The flames around the eyes are just a sign that the Maiden is exerting a lot more power than normal.
** Actually In Volumes 1 and 2 Cinder wasn't using maiden powers much if at all. Since she had to stay under cover she was using dust sewn into her clothes.
** The fire-based powers are explicitly a Maiden ability. It's never outright said that she was using Fire Dust in her clothes; Ironwood only said that using Dust in clothing was an old technique and that two people using fire abilities doesn't mean it's the same person. She used her Maiden abilities to reshape her glass weapons while fighting the guards, and there was no accompanying light in her clothing to indicate Fire Dust being used, and when the melted and reshaped her clothes her body was surrounded by lights similar to a much smaller-scale version of the particle effects that would b visible when she and Raven fought. Most tellingly, the way she deflected Ruby's projectiles was exactly the same as how Amber did it with her powers, minus the eye flames.
** Vernal has her eyes closed when "demonstrating" her power preciously to avoid revealing she doesn't have those eye effects, and there was nothing to give Cinder and Watts a reason to suspect it wasn't her using the powers at that moment. I'm not sure why you think Qrow and Ozpin could be suspicious, Qrow has only pieced together that the Spring Maiden is with Raven's group and never seen it with his own eyes, and Raven rather conspicuously says at the start of the fight at Haven Academy that Vernal shouldn't use her maiden powers in there so anyone who would wonder why she's not busting out the elements would rationalise it as Vernal following her leader's orders.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Take your time, Ghira]]
* So after learning about Adam’s plan to take over the White Fang and attack Haven, Ghira waits to get the word out long enough for Sun’s injuries to heal, the chase scene in Blake’s character short to happen, and the entire group to talk with the Albain brothers (who on a related note they KNOW, or at least should know, are involved in this). So, altogether that can’t have been less than a couple of weeks. Shouldn’t getting the message to Haven and warning Sienna, at minimum, take priority here?
** He did send out a messenger, it was mentioned in Volume 5 that the White Fang loyal to Adam intercepted and killed him before he could send word out to Mistral.
** Keep in mind that Ghira is a popular leader, and he has to properly carry out investigations into the White Fang's intentions. This includes nabbing up known associates and gathering further information beyond general dates involving a plot. Remember that when Ghira first pushes his people to act, they respond with hesitation. He was no doubt trying to get more evidence that he could present to both his people and Mistral's government before he dispatched his messenger.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Sienna’s location]]
* Why was Sienna Khan apparently based out of Mistral instead of Menagerie?
** She's the leader of a terrorist organization. They tend not to stay in one place for too long.
** Also, Menagerie was far away from the main CCT towers even before the system went online. We e don't know exactly what that would mean for communication, but it would be wise for Sienna not to take any risks and remain close to where the Fang's oprations were taking place, as to command them without trouble.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Beacon and Vale]]
* Am I the only one confused about Beacon’s position relative to the rest of the city? I got the impression from the first couple episodes that Beacon was in a cliff overlooking Vale proper, but in Volume 3 it’s close enough to have the CCT there.
** Beacon is on the cliff overlooking the city. The CCT is Ozpin's tower and is in the middle of Beacon. It's nowhere near the city itself.
** Then how were Ruby and Penny able to run from there to Ironwood’s presentation in the middle of town? Or was that another building?
** They didn't. Penny and Ruby met at the CCT, then Penny told Ruby to meet her later at another location because she was being watched. They met a few hours later in the city.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Cinder’s Complexity Addiction]]
* Two questions: One, why did Cinder risk the secrecy of her operation by accompanying Roman during the initial heist? Two, given how easily she took out the guards, why did she need to approach the CCT by the rooftops?
** One: How was she risking secrecy? All they'd know is that Roman had a powerful accomplice, that's pretty much it. As for Two: so she could keep the element of surprise as long as possible. The more guards she takes down on the way there, the faster people notice something is wrong.
** One: Roman had personnel issues already, considering he was hiring Junior's men to help him, meaning that they needed everyone on deck. Cinder operating the getaway vehicle wasn't risking any secrecy anyway.
** Two: Walking down the street in that stealthy infiltration getup is asking for trouble. Staying on the rooftop minimizes who could see her and call it in. Ruby only noticed her by pure chance. If someone had spotted her before she got the CCT, Ironwood and a small army would have potentially been waiting for her.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Lack of campsite security]]
* Why didn’t Team RNJR seem to have anyone on guard during the night?
** Jaune was up and active, so clearly he was the one on guard duty.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Killing the Nuckalavee]]
* So apparently the Nuckalavee had been terrorizing the area around Kuroyuri for over a decade, but four relatively green hunters working together were able to take it down, suggesting that, while above average for a Grimm, it was weaker than, say, the Goliaths or the dragon Grimm. So how had a more experienced hunter or group already been sent after it and killed it? If it killed every other hunter it fought before, how were Team RNJR (who, again, are inexperienced) the ones to buck that trend? If it had never encountered actual hunters before (which seems to be what was implied in the show itself) then why didn’t, say, the Mistral council, or anyone else in a position to do so, send hunters after it, instead of just abandoning the area and leaving it completely unopposed?
** Villages getting wiped off the map is a fact of life on Remnant, so the Mistral Council isn't really going to waste much effort on it. Also the Nuckalavee was likely smart enough to recognize a trained Huntsman or Huntress and avoid them, and underestimated RNJR's capabilities.
** There's nothing out there that anyone cared enough about to send someone out to kill it. People don't go out and hunt and kill Grimm for the fun of it; Huntsmen get paid for their work and no one was willing to pay to deal with the creature. The region the Nuckelavee inhabited was too distant and remote for anyone from Mistral to bother with, and the only people who would live out there were people independent from the kingdom's control. The fact that anyone was even out there at all in such a distant and dangerous wilderness was strange enough that a passing patrol diverted to investigate.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Atlas Time]]
* So, volume four takes place at least a few months after the Fall of Beacon. But Jacques and Ironwood are just then responding to it (holding the fundraiser and closing the border/recalling his troops respectively) and Whitley sure doesn't act like Weiss has been back that long. So unless Weiss' arc occurs before the rest of Volume 4 (In which case her flight to Mistral would have to take months, which I doubt) how did everyone take this long to start reacting to what happened?
** The events of Volume 4 are not concurrent. RNJR's segment happens all at the same time, Blake's segment happens later on, and Weiss' plotline is spread over several months of different incidents, starting with the meetings in Jacques' office right after Weiss returns to the charity event a few months later.
** Then why wait that long to hold the event? And why did Ironwood wait that long to close the border?
** Because it takes time to set up charity events and to mobilize military forces, especially on the scale needed to completely shut down borders. Those things don't happen overnight.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Grimm Intelligence]]
* So, Oobleck implies that most smaller Grimm, such as Beowolves, are basically mindless, and backing that up they aren't usually shown to have much of a self-preservation instinct. So why did the ones Ruby and Weiss encountered run from the fire they started?
** Even creatures of basic animal intelligence instinctively recognize that fire is dangerous. Grimm don't have much self-preservation when they're given an opportunity to attack humans, but they can't fight fire. Oobleck's comment that they are "mindless" also is just that: a comment. Many other instances of the Grimm show them to have animal-level or higher intelligence and recognition of threats.
** They dont lack self-preservation in the sense that they are completely oblivious to danger, but in the sense that there goal is to kill people. They will happily die for the chance to harm humans, but even the dumbest grimm wont just throw itself on a fire without cause
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Pyrrha's introduction]]
* Given his apparent familiarity with Pumpkin Pete's, how did Jaune not recognize Pyrrha? Moreover, how was Weiss the only one who seemed to?
** Aside from Jaune being fairly ignorant at the start, it's entirely realistic that someone wouldn't recognize a face theyve only seen on a [=2D=] cereal box, especially when ads with famous athletes will come and go every month.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Mistral Police]]
* What reason did the Mistral PD have to believe the Beladonnas about Adam's plan? They're Faunus, so for all the police know they could be doing this as a distraction to let Adam do something else, and given what we know so far, a lot of people would by default assume that.
** The Belladonnas aren't just Faunus. They're the heads of ''an entire city-state.'' When the heads of a country show up with tangible evidence of an impending terror attack and an army to help fight that terror attack, you at least have to pay attention to what they're saying.
** The Belladonnas are also rather well known for not being fans of Adam's methods, they have no reason to believe they would ever be on his side.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ghira's publicity]]
* So, I kind of got the impression that Ghira isn't a publicly known figure outside Menagerie, hence his daughter being able to attend Beacon without being recognized. But in the volume five finale, the Mistral police apparently know who he is and trust him. So which is it? Was Blake's existence just a secret for most of her life?
** Quick, grab a globe. Point a finger at a random country. Now name the daughter of the head of state of that country. You probably aren't able to do that. The few people on Remnant who know off the top of their heads the entire family of each head of state likely are not going to be interacting much with RWBY during their stay at Beacon. That and we also ''know'' that the Mistral government is in communication with Menagerie, as evidenced by the fact that a messenger was dispatched from Ghira to Mistral with reasonable expectation they would be able to convey the message to the Mistral government. That and we don't know how long the Belladonnas were in Mistral first before they got the police moving, and there likely was some offscreen dealings with the government to explain why the Faunus army was showing up and their evidence regarding the plot.
** Sasha and Malia Obama could quite comfortably go incognito in most schools in the US, not to mention an entirely different country. And they've had ''merchandise'' made of them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Just what's the deal with Emerald?]]
* It is made clear that the only, or at least the main reason Emerald fights on the villains' side is because of her loyalty to Cinder. And it makes sense on the first glance, Cinder took her of the street and all, but was pledging loyalty to a murderous criminal the only way off that street? In her chronologically first appearance Emerald already had her semblance unlocked and was able to use it to some effect - which could make for a great asset in ''many'' different ways - and didn't appear to be disabled, addicted or impaired in any fundamental way. Even if her enviroment was so hopeless that getting a regular job or receiving some sort of welfare was not an option, Emerald still could had tried her luck in one of the hunstman academies, since she apparently is more than strong enough for the job, or she could had made a career out of fighting on the entertainment stage, since her semblance makes Pyrrha's polarity look fair by comparison, or she could had just keep trying out crimes that didn't involve mass murder. So why is she sticking with an abusive, manipulative pyromaniac instead?
** It's likely she spent most of her early life living alone on the streets, stealing and fighting to survive, well before her Semblance was discovered. By the time she figured out her Semblance, she was likely already a criminal and wanted by law enforcement, which would preclude becoming a Huntsman, or at the very least it would preclude it in her perception. Considering that she latched onto Cinder the moment she offered her any help, Emerald probably didn't believe that anyone would be willing to help or look out for her. This is a distressingly-common attitude in the real world when it comes to impoverished youth who turn to crime: they believe that they can't rely on the law or government or other social institutions to help them and can only rely on themselves and whatever criminal groups they fall into. By the time they realize there might be another option, it could be too late for them. Emerald's recruitment and loyalty to Cinder bears all the marks of real-life gang or organized crime recruitment and retention.
** Emerald's Semblance has very little use in a legitimate career, she has difficulty doing it with multiple people so it's not very useful on grimm who usually attack in packs (if it works on grimm to at all) and also makes government spy/secret agent work (pretty much the only legitimate career where decieving people is a positive) difficult since important shit rarely has only a handful of guards.
*** There's also the option of being a designer, since she could in theory give people previews with her illusions. It might only work for one person, but that's more than enough for, e.g., being part of a fashion design duo (since they could come up with the designs together, then have Emerald wear illusions of them for fine-tuning and working out any little flaws not visible on paper).
[[/folder]]
[[folder: High Leader, or High Council?]]
* So, in the Albain twin's first appearance one of them mentions a "high council" that's supposedly disappointed in Adam. But in Volume Five there's no mention of them and Sienna (And later Adam) seems to be the only real central authority the White Fang has. Was there a council in Ghira's time and they were lying by telling him there still was one?
** In any military organization, there's going to be a high-ranking group of advisors and officers advising the leader. That's most likely who they're referring to.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ultimate Bystander Syndrome]]
* When Tyrian was about to sting Ruby and when Cinder stabbed Weiss, why exactly did Jaune and everybody just watch?
** Dramatic convention. Brief reaction shots before a dramatic impact or attack are a staple of most flashy fight scenes.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Yang's suicide mission]]
* During the Battle of Haven Yang, urged by Ruby, breaks off the main fight and chases after Cinder, Raven and Vernal, getting past Mercury and Emerald who ineffectively try to stop her. What exactly was the plan there? Unless Yang foresaw the exact chain of events that took place later (Raven disposing of Cinder and deciding not to take the Relic after a short talk), it must have looked like a suicide attack that makes Pyrrha's assault on Cinder look reasonable by comparison. Yang went to fight ''two'' maidens with ''one'' working arm, and yet everybody in the hall acted as if she was somehow a threat to the women down there. Does Ruby just want to be the only child?
** Considering the heroes felt the ground shaking from Raven and Cinder's fight, they could be reasonably sure that the Maidens were not on the same side. As for the plan itself, it probably amounted to 'Get the Relic at all costs'. The details could be worked out once she found out what was going on down there.
** One person in the right place at the right time can be the difference between victory and defeat. Don't forget that not a couple of minutes before, Jaune - the least competent and skilled fighter on the entire roster - nearly killed Cinder. Fights in RWBY aren't some RPG videogame battle of hit points and levels and stats; if Yang gets down there and gets in a surprise hit on one or the other, she'll take them down. Ruby trusts Yang be smart enough to pick her moment, and Emerald and Mercury respect her enough to be afraid she'll do the same.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The news in Menagerie]]
* How exactly could Blake's parents know about the Fall of Beacon without knowing the White Fang was involved?
** With the CCT down they only can get rumors from travelers, since Menagerie is pretty much in a pre-telegraph level of communications without the CCT. Menagerie is very distant and the White Fang were a relatively small part of the attack. Blake was the first person who actually witnessed the attack and fought the White Fang who made the journey to Menagerie to report what happened.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Blake's relationship with her parents]]
* Furthermore, how did they know she was at Beacon? I got the impression she hadn't contacted them since she walked out on them, but Kali mentions they were worried about her that night.
** There is no indication at any point that Blake wasn't in contact with her family. She didn't bring her family up but that doesn't mean she wasn't sending messages back home.
** Considering what we know about the circumstances of her leaving (eg, her calling them cowards, and what that implies) I doubt she would have been in contact since then. I'd gotten the impression that she was somewhat estranged from them, and there's no mention of any contact with them or anything else to suggest it.
** There isn't any real contradiction in that and her parents knowing she's at Beacon. There's a pretty big range between "Not on good terms" and "completely cut off all contact."
** That or they watched the broadcast of the tournament and saw her in the full team round.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Behind the Black?]]
* I mean when during the fight with the Nuckalavee did they have time to set up the plan (Jaune giving Ren his shield, Nora getting to the top of the tower, etc.)?
** The fight was not necessarily contiguous. There have been several fights where the characters have come up with complex plans offscreen, most notably during the Nevermore fight in the very first volume.
** So in general, how do they keep doing that during combat?
** TalkingIsAFreeAction makes some ammount of sense when fighting Grimm. They don't have to worry about their enemy overhearing them planning and are not on any time limit, so they can just jump around and avoid attacks while talking with each other. It's a stretch, but I can't come up with anything better.
** It's the UnspokenPlanGuarantee. The plan has to be formed offscreen so that when the team executes it, it can be a pleasant surprise for the audience.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Yang's personality]]
* Why is the scene at the forest "temple" the only time the rest of the group's antics irritate Yang?
** Because that's the first time she's been around them and they're in a dangerous and stressful situation. Later on she's become accustomed to them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ages of the White Fang]]
* Adam and Illia look exactly the same in the volume 6 character short. Which begins when Ghira was still High Leader, so at least five years ago, probably longer. I had assumed Illia was around Blake's age, Adam probably a couple years older, but that would have to make them about 12-14 back then. So how old are they, and why don't they seem to have aged since then?
** Adam is currently in his "early to mid 20s" according to the creators, which means he could have been fully an adult at that point. As for Ilia, there is no real indication of what her age is, but she might plausibly be around Adam's age instead - she wouldn't be the first character with a slight case of OlderThanTheyLook in the show.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Salem versus the World]]
* If Salem is immortal and an immensely powerful mage, then what's stopping her from conquering the world on her own?
** Salem knows that the Gods will return if the relics are brought back together, and that they'll judge humanity when they return. If she goes on a one-woman rampage across the planet, all that will do is unite the rest of mankind against her, and Oz can then gather the Relics, summon the gods, and they'll judge the unified, harmonized humanity worthy and likely destroy her. Openly acting does nothing but help Oz achieve his goals, which is why she sticks to the shadows.
** But she's gathering the relics, which Ozpin wasn't using yet. Which means A. She wants to summon them to wipe out everyone, which she could do by herself easily. Or B. She wants to destroy them. Also she had access to the Fall Maiden. So she easily could have gone on her one woman/monster rampage and nothing could have stopped her.
** She is gathering the Relics ''now''. Before, however, she had no interest in restoring the gods to the planet, only in ruling over humanity. It's pretty clear that her objectives and motivations have changed over time, just like Ozpin's. We don't know what her goal is now, or even if she wants to gather the Relics to summon the gods or to use them for some other end.
** Also, just because Salem is powerful and immortal, it doesn't mean she's invincible. A united humanity throwing everything they have at her could overwhelm her, and while they can't ''kill'' her, they can easily ''contain'' her. She won't be doing much if they pull a Wiki/SCPFoundation and encase her in a ten-by-ten-by-ten block of concrete and seal her in a secured underground bunker.
** How do you contain something that can mentally control the Grimm and use a power that only 5 other people in the world possess with her being the strongest. As well as never getting tired?
** Salem has not been shown to be able to mentally control the Grimm, and only seems to be able to command them through the Seers. Further, the Maidens and other forms of magic have always been shown to have a form of somatic component. Lock her in a cube of concrete and she's not doing anything. Also, she clearly still has human biological functions: she drinks and eats and can bear children, indicating that at the biological level she's still functional, so that means that poisons and drugs would likely still work. They wouldn't kill her but she could presumably be sedated.
** Ozpin. Seems like she honestly tried, but failed anyway, and you cannot do anything with him. Unless you destroy all humans yet again, but it seems she failed that too. Yet.
** Anyway you are right. Ozpin sacrificed a large portion of his power to create the maidens and even more to make Qrow and Raven into birds, as well as his incarnations getting weaker every time he incarnates. She's truly immortal, controls the natural force of evil in this world, the Grimm, and unless Ozpin/Ozma has something there is no way to actually contain her due to her magic. She is quite literally able to 1veveryone in this setting. She doesn't have to eat, sleep, or drink which are all necessary for energy renewal but her immortality renders that mute. Honestly the only way the main cast has any chance to win is if she actively refuses to personally participate in any way for the entire series.
** Yes, Salem can defeat any single opponent, but she cannot defeat everyone if they band together against her. She doesn't directly control the Grimm, either. Furthermore, it is incredibly difficult to defeat and conquer entire populations as a single person; the moment you move away from the place you've conquered, they rise up against you again. Before the development of easy inter-continental travel there's no way Salem could enforce her will on anyone she conquers. Even at the peak of her power in the past, she had to rely on armies to do the fighting for her and enforce her will, and she only controlled a single kingdom. A single person, no matter how powerful they are personally, cannot rule an entire planet; the logistics alone make that utterly impossible without an army to support her, and Salem can't have an effective army if she's ruling through fear alone. The only "army" she'd have would be the Grimm, and they are not an effective occupying force.
** Salem has also repeatedly and explicitly commented on the threat that a united humanity poses to her. Her speech at the end of Volume 3 even says that humans are a danger when they're united, She doesn't want to do anything that would unite humanity, and she only stands to gain from a disunified human race, which is why she never acts openly if she can avoid it.
** Also, Salem going out and personally conquering things runs into another problem: it goes entirely against her personality and characterization. The only times Salem fights personally are when she either absolutely has to or when working alongside Ozma. The flashback shows that once she'd established her kingdom, Salem was perfectly content with simply sitting back and letting her army fight for her. Salem doesn't fight herself unless she absolutely needs to, and instead operates through minions and cat's paws, because she doesn't want to or care enough to go out and fight.
** Maybe she's just sick of living and wants to die; if the gods come back and destroy the whole planet for good this time, she may be off the hook for her immortality punishment. Also, she's been completely transformed into a vengeful monster hellbent on destruction; it's probably an irreparable part of her nature now, since she's effectively part Grimm.
** She's also never shown to particularly enjoy combat or killing people. Every time she's fought it's been with furious rage or cold dispassion. Given she's always been an extremely selfish person, she's going to want to delegate that stuff as much as possible.
** The fact that Salem hasn't claimed the Relics yet means she has her limits. She can't be killed, but the fact that she needs the maidens to open the doors to the Relics means she can't blast her way through everything, either. She's powerful, but not godlike. She can be trapped, waylaid, worn down.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Humanity from dust]]
* If the Remnant forsaken by gods now, where'd new humans, fauns and Dust came from? They were made by Salem herself or what?
** They were created by the gods again before they left the planet.
** Only humans were wiped out. Animals were left be. Humans and Faunus came in through natural evolution.
** I hope so, [[https://www.deviantart.com/leonardofrei/art/Mankind-2-0-772984352 the alternative of how the Faunus came to be]] is horrifying.
** Its kind of hinted at that the Dust humanity uses is the remnants of the "Thano Snapped" humans the Gods killed off, so thats where Dust originated in.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Great Destruction event]]
* I understand the dark brother blowing up the guys that tried to attack him, but why kill everyone else? And why did the light brother allow this to happen? I'm sure there were some kingdoms that didn't bother taking part in attacking the gods and even disagreed with it. Couldn't they just give everyone a memory wipe and take away their magic? Furthermore, why blow up the moon? Other than possibly affecting the tides, what would destroying the moon really do?
** It was explicitly said in Volume 4 that the God of Light cannot stop the God of Darkness from destroying things. He can't stop his brother from wiping out humanity if he chooses, it's just that Darkness generally chooses to not to because of his agreement with his brother.
** I guess that's understandable, but why did the dark brother decide to nuke both the entirety of humanity (bar Salem) and the moon itself, rather than take his destruction out on the puny humans in front of him?
** Qrow explained in volume 4 that the dark brother used to destroy his brother's creations using the Grimm just because he didn't like them, only stopping when his brother got tired of it and fought back. The dark one's a petty JerkAss.
** He didn't care about the moon accidentally getting in his way. As to destroying humans - Creator could only persuade Destroyer to behave himself earlier by swearing mutual agreement. Guess, it also contained clause like "while they behave themselves". Once they attack the gods, Destroyer thinks them pests (and pwns them) and Creator thinks them lost cause (attack the ones you held holy before?) and grows apathethic. God and Satan are both jerks, aren't they?
** Leaving aside the fact that Remnant is a dualist setting, not a monotheistic one (making the comparison to God and Satan incorrect), Salem herself provided the answer on why the god of Destruction decided to wipe out humanity: she would get another army and try again, so he decided to nip that idea in the bud. And I think it was explained that Salem went to all the nations on Remnant and convinced them all to make war against the Brothers. Does that make his decision justified? Of course not; even if the morality of the genocide was not called into question, one would figure that after a few failed attempts, humanity would learn it's a bad idea to attack immortal, nigh-omnipotent entities, but the god of Destruction did not have the patience to deal with humans attacking him more than once. As for the moon, I'm fairly certainly it was an petty act of anger on the god of Destruction's part; the equivalent of slamming the door on his way out.
** It's also not anything new, mythology wise, for God or The Gods to wipe out humanity for displeasing them. God flooded the world when mankind became wicked; Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl destroyed the people of the Second Sun, Pandora, while not wiping out mankind, was created by Zeus to cause suffering, etc. Gods going overboard in punishing mankind is sort of a thing in mythology. Not a GOOD thing, but the Dark Brother wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary for a pissed off god.
** Antagonising the God of Destruction was a REALLY bad idea, and Light honestly realised that his actions were excessive but fair. He wouldn't have exactly condoned genocide if asked, but found it hard to condemn his brother's decision. Not to mention that counteracting him would have only led to them fighting again, so he went with the softer option of seeding new humans a little later.
** The God of Light doesn't seem to care. Perhaps he sees humanity's extinction as an appropriate punishment for turning against their creators. It's pretty clear that the gods don't view humanity as worthy of equal consideration; referring to them as an "experiment" and portraying their divine grace as a reward.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Why Ozma?]]
* That's the only thing I don't get. Why did the God of Light specifically bring back Ozma? Why give the responsibility of Judgment Day to Ozma? I get he was a great warrior, but why him? Why not someone who wouldn't seek out Salem until ''after'' the Gods returned?
** Ozma may very well have been the only one who would agree to do it. Think about it: Ozma was happy in the afterlife and was initially going to turn down the God of Light until he learned that Salem wouldn't join him there. It's possible that everyone else from the original humanity felt similarly, and had no desire to be reborn. Sure, the God of Light could've forced someone else to do it, but that's not really in his nature to do so.
** Because Ozma was a kind and just man who fought explicitly to right wrongs and bring justice, which is a relatively rare thing.
** In addition to being a great hero, it's this troper's opinion that it was because of Ozma's relationship with Salem that the Brother of Light chose him. Remember that the reason the Brothers cursed Salem with immortality was to giver her time to learn how to respect life and death. It's likely that the Brother of Light saw that the best way to get Salem to see that was through the man she loved. Selecting Ozma was a decision to help redeem humanity as a whole and Salem specifically. Note that while the Brother of Light warns Ozma that the woman he loved is gone, he does not say she is beyond redemption.
** Honestly the Gods (especially Light) honestly realise Salem's better off dead at this point, but are either unwilling or unable to just take away her immortality. Since that is the case the only way to remove it is for either the world to stop turning or for her to realise her mistake, and Ozma is the best person to accomplish the latter.
** The gods are pretty big on irony. Salem's love for Ozma is what sent the events leading up to humanity's extinction into motion, so the gods decided it would be Salem's lost love's responsibility to redeem them. It's neither fair nor kind, but the gods aren't.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Cinder's screw-up]]
* How exactly did Cinder cost the villains their victory in the Battle of Haven? If they meant attacking Raven and Vernal and preventing them from getting the lamp, then how do Salem or Emerald know what happened in the cavern?
** It's because there shouldn't have been a battle at all. The whole plan was to get the Relic quietly and get out, without Ozpin being any the wiser. Cinder was the one who went for the idea of drawing RWBY, JNR and Qrow in to have a large battle, which was why the whole thing went south.
** It should be noted that Cinder is only responsible for failing to acquire the Relic. The failure to attain Salem's other goal at the Battle of Haven, the destruction of Mistral's CCT, is all on Adam. If he hadn't ordered the assassination on the Belladonnas, the faunus of Menagerie would not have been spurred into coming to Mistral's aid. However, since it's unclear if Salem and her council have any way of learning about what happened in Menagerie that led to Adam's defeat, they might not realize how much their White Fang ally was responsible for the failure to accomplish an objective.
** While the Faunus militia showing up at Haven was a factor, Cinder was indeed at fault for the whole thing. (1) She didn’t incapacitate Ruby for capture, (2) she didn't kill any of the other students when she certainly had the means to, (3) had she waited for Vernal to "open" the Vault, she would've noticed something was amiss when the door wouldn't open, (4) tried, and failed, to defeat Raven, who is the more experienced fighter and had a long time to master her Maiden powers. Because of her lust for the Maiden's power, Cinder deviated from the original plan and lost focus of what she was supposed to do. As Salem puts it, she put her own needs in front of Salem's needs.
** Cinder is also one of Salem's lieutenants. Note Salem doesn't blame Lionheart either, because honestly she expects her minor contractors to screw up somehow. But Cinder was one of the ones sitting at her table, and she both expects better and wishes to make an example.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Abandonment issues]]
* Why is Adam abandoning his men at Haven such a big deal? Ilia is absolutely certain Adam will lose all his followers because of this and it does indeed cause at least a few White Fang members to rebel against him. What do they wish Adam had done though? Surrendered and got himself arrested? Fought until his last breath and got killed? Running away was the most sensible thing to do in Adam's situation. It's not even that he left his men for dead, unless Mistral enforces an instant death penalty on terrorist that is. Now, if the defectors chastised Adam for ''trying to kill his own men'', it would be perfectly reasonable, but complaining that your leader didn't want to get himself pointlessly captured seems pretty childish.
** The White Fang troops at the headquarters weren't present at the battle and only have hearsay. For all they know, Adam turned tail and ran the instant the police showed up and Blake "sassed" him. In fact, that seems to be what they assume, going by their dialogue with Adam before he starts cutting them apart. Since they don't really know the specifics of what happened, and all they have to go on is Adam ran away and the rest of his force was captured, they would assume the worst.
** Turning tail and abandoning your troops in a war time scenario is a pretty big deal, especially if you have a cult of personality. The White Fang turned on their former leader for Adam, who then returned their faith by fleeing at the first sign of trouble.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Oscar fixing a tire]]
* How did Oscar fixed the tire in "Alone in the Woods"? If he was under the effect of the Apathy just like the others, shouldn't he just be laying in the snow not doing anything?
** The Apathy weren't pushing people to do nothing, they were pushing them to stop caring about the relic. Everyone else wanted to abandon it and leave, not to lay down and die. Note also that, according to Bartleby's journal, it took at least a couple of days before the Apathy reduced the village to complete stillness, since he was still able to go out and seal the water tunnels after the entire horde had arrived.
** Also, it's possible that Oscar is more resistant to the effects of the Apathy because of being the vessel of Oz
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Odd deal?]]
* So, Cinder needs to get to Atlas and find Ruby because she wants to kill Ruby, but she can't kill Ruby because Salem has directly ordered her not to. But she realizes that Neo can kill Ruby for her because Neo has no such orders. So she strikes a deal with Neo that if Neo helps her get to Atlas and find Ruby, then Neo can kill Ruby. And Neo agrees. Except that Neo now knows where Ruby is, can apparently get to Atlas, wants to kill her, and can kill her. So what does she need to Cinder for?
** Neo is just one person and Ruby has at least eight other people with her just as skilled as her. Neo needs backup.
** Also from Neo's view, whatever happens, she wins. She doesn't like Cinder any more than Ruby does because Cinder was (basically) responsible for Roman's death (since he pulled in all the Grimm and made Ruby go after them). She attacked Cinder on-sight. More than likely she's hoping Ruby will kill Cinder and then Neo can kill the weakened Ruby, or Ruby will die and then Neo can kill Cinder. Good deal for the ice cream either way.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Adam vs. Yang]]
* So we know Adam's semblance is EnergyAbsorbtion, but how does that equate into the Doppleganger attack he used on Yang in "The Lady in the Shoe"? That's a power we've never seen him use before, so it sticks out to me.
** The exact limitations or capabilities of Adam's Semblance haven't been explored or explained, beyond that he can absorb energy from his blade and use that. This is presumably another application of that Semblance, which already lets him project blows from his weapon.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Stealing From The Elderly]]
* I'm actually confused as to the need to steal the Atlesian aircraft. The whole point is a need to contact Ironwood. Does Ironwood not have a scroll? Does Qrow not have the man registered in ''his'' scroll? They aren't dealing with a hostile governmment takeover, so it isn't like Salem is paying attention to connection lines. Rather than steal a goddamn aircraft — which has to be a felony no matter the world it's in — why don't they just phone Ironwood and save themselves ''all'' of this trouble?
** ... Because the CCT is down and therefore, so is all intercontinental communication. That's why Qrow sent a letter at the start of the Volume, and it's been a pretty big plot point post Volume 3.
** Normal intercontinental communications have been down since the end of Volume 3. That's why Ghira sent a messenger to Mistral in Volume 5 to try to warn he Mistral government about the impending terrorist attack. The only way to pass on information with the CCT down is to physically travel from one network zone to the next. Hell, we can see this right there in the episode when Weiss is shown to be flying out of scroll range of the Argus tower.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:How the heck did Blake make her bow from those thin little ribbons?]]
* Whenever she takes it off, we see that it's made from a long, thin ribbon similar to the one on her wrist - how? Whenever it's on, it looks like it wrinkles in the way a thicker ribbon would, and if that's just an artifact of the art style, surely the characters would notice multiple rows of a thin ribbon mysteriously adhering together? And surely if it were made like that, at least after a long day, there'd be fur poking through between strips?
** Considering that Blake changed her entire outfit between Volumes 3 and 4, it's possible that the bow she had in Volume 4 was just a temporary one made using thinner ribbons until she could get out of Vale, while her bow in the first three volumes was a thicker and more solid one.
** But it's the same when she takes it off in "The Stray" and "Painting the Town...," though.
** It's not really clear in those episodes, though. The cloth could have been folded lengthwise when she was pulling the ribbon away, unlike later on when we can see the cloth waving around.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:It's magnetism! Say "magnetism"!]]
* Jaune is mocked for thinking Pyrrha's Semblance has to do with the poles of Remnant, but really, that makes as much sense as anything. She has control over magnetism, and no other sort of dipole - and yet everyone insists on calling it "polarity." This can't even be explained as CallARabbitASmeerp, since the word "magnetism" is used in the very episode her Semblance is first explained. There's no reason given, ever, not to call Pyrrha's semblance "magnetism" (except maybe that she can control cans that in our world would be made of a non-ferromagnetic metal, but calling it "polarity" doesn't help there), and yet no one ever does.
** It's called Polarity because that's what Pyrrha refers to it as, and the name stuck there when everyone else referred to it. I'm pretty sure she didn't care if it was 100% scientifically accurate when she named her Semblance. That and her Semblance isn't really magnetism, its telekinetic manipulation of metals. If it was magnetism it wouldn't affect non-ferrous metals like aluminum, and "Polarity" is a shorter and snappier name than "telekinetic metal manipulation."
** You mean [[https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Metal_Manipulation ferrokinesis]]?
** "Ferro"kinesis, that's just as accurate as Polarity
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Never work with a human]]
* Back in volume 1, Blake was thoroughly confused by Torchwick working with the White Fang, and insists they would never work with a human. I'm sorry, I just find that unlikely. Yes, the White Fang are mostly a group of genocidal terrorists now, but they started decades ago as a civil rights group. You expect me to believe that there've never been human sympathizers or allies who've worked for or with them? The various nations (which are all mostly run by humans) don't seem to openly embrace anti-faunus sentiment, which means that there's at least some sympathy for them. And even ignoring that, in real life there were white abolishtionists long before the American Civil War.
** I'm pretty sure Blake's talking in an immediate sense: the White Fang she knows and stayed with after her parents left would never work with a human.
** Blake is talking about the White Fang under Sienna Khan and Adam. They are far more radicalized compared with the earlier version of the White Fang that her family led - case in point, they drew weapons on Hazel the moment he stepped into Sienna's throne room and were going to kill him just because he was a human. The current White Fang hates and will not work with humans, which is what Blake is referring to.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Blake and Yang vs Adam]]
* How exactly did Yang track down Blake and Adam? And shouldn't she have arrived from the left instead of the right?
** Yang followed the sounds of the fighting. As for the direction of the approach, we don't know where the fighting was in relation to the route Yang took to get to them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ozpin and the Relics]]
* How did he find the Relic of Knowledge if their existence was a secret and he needed Jin to tell him about the locations of the other three? And if he didn't know what powers the others had, how did he know how to activate that one and how it worked? If the God of Light told him, why only mention that one?
** He had hundreds if not thousands of years to work on the subject. It may have taken him a long time, but he would eventually be able to recover them and figure out their secrets.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Is Pyrrha's Semblance a secret or not?]]
* For some reason it seems like the characters generally act like it is, and she has to explain it to Ruby and Weiss, so how does Emerald of all people know about it?
** It isn't exactly a secret, but she doesn't openly talk about it or advertise it, so if someone isn't a close friend they need to figure out what she's doing.
** Emerald knows because Mercury figured it out when he sparred with Pyrrha back in volume 2. Pyrrha subtly diverts enemy metal weapons, and Mercury has metal prosthetic legs.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Salem's Monolouges]]
* How and why are Ozpin and Salem communicating at the beginning of Volume One and the end of Volume Three?
** We don't know for sure when that conversation happened - it could've been centuries ago.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Neptune's flirting]]
* Rewatching previous volumes I've remembered Neptune hitting on multiple girls is portrayed negatively with Weiss being incredibly annoyed by it and Jaune angrily confronting him for it during the prom, but why is it such a bad thing? Harmless flirting is a thing after all and for someone like me who's known a few people to have done it with nothing bad ever coming of it its rather confusing.
** Weiss doesn't like it because she likes Neptune and doesn't like the idea of him getting with another girl. Jaune doesn't like it because he thinks it's a sign that Neptune doesn't really care about them. The whole reason he confronts Neptune at the prom isn't even because of the flirting but because he thinks Neptune doesn't really care about any of the girls he is flirting with.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Using negative emotion tactically]]
* Assuming that the Grimm aren't so sensitive to negative emotion that having a few people with negative emotion around is enough to threaten a wide area with them, could one tactically use negative emotion to divert and kite Grimm? Surely there are plenty of individuals interested in fighting off Grimm and are passionate with negative emotions while doing so, and one could serve to draw attention away from more emotionally positive but less defensively capable allies, or bait them into disadvantageous positions.
** The only time we see anyone specifically hunting for the Grimm its when the main characters do it, and they are all still fairly inexperienced and short on resources. For all we know, the adult huntsmen might utilize such tactics regurarly.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Yang and Mercury]]
* I may have missed something obvious, but what was the point of tricking the arena into thinking Yang had crippled Mercury? They never seem to capitalize on the incident, and there were a lot of ways Yang could have responded that wouldn't have given Cinder and co. the intended result. Seemed like a waste of time and focus.
** It, along with killing Penny, was part of the plan to make everyone experience enough fear and tension to attract all the Grimm. They knew how Yang would react because Yang is predictable, that was the whole point of setting her as the opponent and not anyone else. They knew that she would see him attack her, and retaliate.
** Actually, regardless of how Yang responded they would have gotten the intended result. The whole point was to have a fighter hurt another fighter in the ring, so that the anger and other negative emotions would draw in more Grimm so that when Penny was killed there would be enough Grimm on Vale's borders to flood the city. If Yang didn't take the bait, Mercury could have just attacked her in turn and have the same effect.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: White Fang vs Civilians]]
* Here's something that has been bothering me for a while: Why are the Belladonnas and Sun so eager to rally the people of Menagerie against the White Fang? They have many reasons to want White Fang stopped, of course, which is why they sent a messenger to Mistral with the data regarding the attack, but why do they think that Haven needs specifically their protection? Mistral is said to be the largest nation it Remnant, yet they are supposedly unable to protect one of their most important facilities from Adam and his six terrorist buddies, whereas a civilian militia from a smaller and poorer country will do just fine? I suppose it's possible that Blake just wants to create some faunus martyrs for PR purposes, but I really doubt that it was what the writers wanted to convey.
** From what we saw in Volume 2 and 3, it's apparently considered completely fine for the nations of Remnant to send troops to each others' aid. There's apparently a very strong mutual defense pact between these countries, which makes sense. As for Ghira sending Faunus troops to protect Haven instead of just relying on the Mistral police to do it, it's likely as much a symbolic gesture as it is one of practicality; having Faunus troops on-site to protect against Faunus terrorists sends a very strong message as to what side they're on, which can only help the relations between their peoples. In addition, World of Remnant has noted that while the Kingdoms do have defensive armies, these are militias who defend their borders against the Grimm and not any sort of internal military force for internal security, which makes sense, as this is still a time period of unprecedented peace, even with the fall of Beacon and the deactivation of the CCT system. They might have police, but any army the have will be dispersed along their borders, and being the largest Kingdom is a double-edged sword, since that means they'd have the largest area to defend. In light of that, sending a Faunus militia to protect Haven Academy would at the very least be a symbolic gesture of solidarity and, in the worst case scenario, protect Haven from the very real threat of the White Fang.
** The problem, as is a recurring issue after season 3, seems to be that communication between countries is impossible after the fall of Beacon. Most people in Mistral don't know that the White Fang is targeting the hunter academies in particular, and there's always a good chance they'd be suspicious of a messenger. Sending an army to head off a threat the invaded nation doesn't know about makes sense in that context. Beyond that, it's possible Blake believed that the attack on Mistral would play out similarly to the fall of Beacon, with grimm supplementing the White Fang. Mistral would benefit from additional troops in such a scenario.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ozpin's Task?]]
* The god of light charges Ozpin with finding the relics and uniting them when humanity is ready to be judged, on the basis of whether or not they're living in harmony. Okay. But the initial extinction event and the exodus of the gods had nothing to do with disharmony between humans; it's because humanity waged war against the gods, which they did out of resentment for the mortality. What does disharmony between humans have to do with any of that?
** Being willing to rise up and attack the gods due to their greed for power and fear of death seems rather unharmonious, at least from the perspective of the Gods.
** I'd say if anything it's the opposite. Mankind uniting under one banner against a perceived oppressor.
** I think it's pretty clear that the Brother Gods are full of crap. One of them saying something nonsensical and/or hypocritical isn't an inconsistency, it's a perfectly in-character action.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Salem's mental state]]
* Given the documented effects of things like solitary confinement, how did being the only person in Remnant for possibly thousands of years seem to cause less lingering psychological damage than jumping into the Grimm pool?
** Don't we have a trope for that? BoredWithInsanity?
** Who is to say she isn't completely batshit insane? Also, solitary confinement is bad due to the lack of stimuli and freedom of movement, neither of which is a problem for Salem.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Why's it called that?]]
* Why was an initially peaceful organization called the White Fang? I mean I could understand if it were renamed under Sienna’s leadership, but someone would probably have mentioned that.
** The White Fang were created to fight for Faunus rights. They ''were'' armed, but in a defensive capacity at the beginning.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Cinder's speech]]
* Considering that she basically admitted not being affiliated with any of the kingdoms, how exactly was that supposed to turn them against each other?
** First, Cinder isn't presenting herself to others as a treat, she's supposedly exposing the secrets of Atlas to the world and sowing fear and confusion to amplify the emotions drawing in the Grimm. Any discord beyond that is just a bonus. Second, she outright says that she's from Mistral.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Jaune's family]]
* It appears as though Jaune's family, his parents and Saphron at the very least, knows that we went to Beacon without having attended any sort of combat school beforehand. Are they not concerned about Jaune going to the school for monster hunters without the right kind of training, or an aura to protect himself? If not for having accidentally caught Pyrrha's attention before the initiaton, Jaune would be likely laying dead in Emerald Forest. And, on a lesser note, aren't they suspicious about how Jaune got accepted into Beacon in the first place?
** According to Jaune in volume 3, Pyrrha is the first person to believe in him. While that's just Jaune's POV, it's possible that he just didn't get much attention growing up, being the youngest of ''eight'' siblings.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: What's the difference?]]
* So what exactly separates Dust/Semblances/Aura/whatever from magic?
** Aura, Dust, and Semblances are familiar to the people on Remnant. They've lived with them their whole lives, and it's part of their worldview as something they understand. As far as they're concerned, Dust, Aura, and Semblances are just another science. Magic like the kind Salem, Ozpin, and the Maidens control is a different power that doesn't fit within that context, hence why is is called "magic."
** That doesn't address the actual question. What exactly separates this "science" from magic? Weiss reacts with disbelief to seeing Raven turn into a bird but she doesn't bat an eye at Flynt and his clones. What makes one stranger than the other?
** Semblances are a known and established ability. They are viewed as such in universe, and we've yet to see a full on transformation of a body as a Semblance. They're as much a science as chemistry of physics - a science unique to the individual, but still a science. Magic is something that, by definition, sits outside of normal scientific understanding. Weiss's disbelief implies that a full-body transformation into an animal is not something that Semblances are known to allow - hence it being magic.
** Aura, Semblances, and Dust all seem to follow a very "magic A is magic a" system. Aura allows for defensive barriers and powers Semblances. Each individual's Semblance does exactly one thing, tied to the person (Blake creates doppelgangers,Yang converts damage to power, Ruby augments her speed, etc). Magic breaks those rules, being able to do basically anything, effect outside parties, and not running on Aura.
*** Building on the above two, from what Weiss presumably knows about Raven (assuming Yang told the others, which I ''believe'' she did?), her semblance is ThinkingUpPortals. So, this meant that either Weiss instantly knew that the bird transformation ''wasn't'' Raven's Semblance, or she now has reason to believe that Raven's semblance is "teleport with portals, and also turn into a bird whenever". In the first case, the disbelief is because the Semblance "slot" is already taken, meaning the bird part doesn't fit with what normal people can do; in the latter, the disbelief is because it would mean that Raven has ''two'' Semblances.
** A good comparison when it comes to the nomenclature would be the ''Mistborn'' books. In that setting, Allomancy is a known ability used by Allomancers. It's not "magic," it's just something certain people can do. There's also another form of magic, Feruchemy, which is incredibly rare and almost unheard of... which ''is'' referred to as "magic" and those who use it as "mystics." Later on, new methods of using Allomancy are initially regarded as bizarre sorcery. By the same token, Aura and Semblances are just things people can do in ''RWBY'', while "magic" like we see done in the past is far more freeform and variable. There doesn't seem to be any Aura cost associated with using it, and you can do a wide range of things with that magic, with the closest comparable thing being Weiss and her glyphs.
** Magic was a gift from the Brother of Darkness. When he left, he took the magic with him.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Grimm attacks]]
* So, do Grimm attack EXCLUSIVELY when drawn to negative emotions? If so, why exactly are smaller settlements at the kind of risk Qrow implies they are, and what exactly happened to Mountain Glenn to cause a Grimm attack bad enough to force everyone underground?
** Because it's quite frankly impossible never to feel negative emotions. And any amount of negativity has the potential to draw the Grimm in.
** Grimm are drawn to negative emotions, but if they detect a human target they'll attack them regardless. One attack causes a bit of fear or anger, and that attracts more Grimm, and the process escalates from there.
** Then how did the initial Grimm get through Mountain Glenn's defenses? Under the circumstances it probably would've been one of the most fortified places in Remnant.
** The Grimm keep on coming, and Mountain Glenn didn't have natural defenses. This was explained pretty clearly right there in the episode. Without natural barriers like mountains or oceans or deserts or intense cold weather, the sheer size of the population meant that the Grimm kept coming and there was no way to fend them off. Mountain Glenn was in a bad location for defenses and that, coupled with the population, doomed it. It also doesn't help that Doctor Merlot is all but outright said to be partially responsible for the fall of Mountain Glenn.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Is being blind an issue or not?]]
* After losing her eyes in a battle, Maria has to rely on the mechanical replacement to see and outright admits she would be useless without her prosthetics. In the same volume, we see Adam fight Blake and fire high-precision shots while wearing a blindfold and Fox, who we earlier see casually disposing of multiple Grimm, has been since confirmed to be blind. All these people have their aura unlocked and operational and none has a semblance which would allow them to better perceive their surroundings without eyesight -- unless Fox's telepathy helps him with that somehow, but that's a big stretch to assume -- but only one of them fails to operate without that particular sense. Is there any explanation for this?
** It's explicitly said that Aura gives superhuman senses when Pyrrha explains it to Jaune. In addition, while Adam's blindfold looks opaque, there are various types of fine cloths that are opaque from a distance but when stretched over the eyes they give almost unimpeded view. There's a reason why in movies in the 80's and 90's it was a cliche for bank robbers to wear bags of thin cloth tightly pulled over their heads: it let them see just fine while obscuring their faces.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Kingdom Territory]]
* So Mistral has the largest territory out of all the Kingdoms, which implies the others have territory beyond one city. But Vale's capital, is only a few minutes by train from Mountain Glenn, which was established as being outside it, and Atlas looks pretty small and isolated from what's shown of it at the end of Volume Six. None of those cities are given an name other than the name of the kingdom, but Henry Marigold mentioned another Atlesian city in Volume Four. So are the Kingdoms countries or cities?
** They are countries. The World of Remnant series made this clear. Vale's main city is close to the mountain range bordering the wilderness but it has a number of smaller cities running down the coastline, protected by the mountain range and seas too shallow for oceanic Grimm. Vacuo is the smallest, being based around a massive Dust deposit.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Weiss and Klein]]
* Considering what we see of her relationship with Klein, why does Weiss basically treat her teammates as the first friends she's ever had?
** Klein isn't a friend, he's a family employee who she happens to think fondly of. There is a distinct difference, mostly because RWBY aren't employed by her family in some capacity.
** And who was willing to help her escape, and who she basically reffers to as family?
** Yes. ''Family.'' Not friend. Though they can overlap, there's a distinct difference between the two.
** And as I recall she still reffered to her teammates as more family than her biological family, so I'm still not clear on the difference.
** Klein is someone she very much likes and trusts, but prior to the events of the series, he was still an employee of the family. There's a significant difference between the kind of closeness that develops between a family subordinate and the kind of friendship that forms between peers. I wouldn't doubt that, during her childhood, Weiss had that niggling little doubt in the back of her mind as to whether Klein was really fond of her, or if that was just his job.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Raven's surveilance]]
* How exactly did Raven know Yang was in trouble from far enough away that she needed her Semblance to get there? More generally, how was she able to balance leading the tribe and implicitly watching her?
** She can turn into a raven and her Semblance directly connects her to her family. She was probably literally watching the fight from a distance in raven form, sensed something was wrong (since Aura does allow for a form of danger-sense) and teleported there.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Drinks at a gas station]]
* When Yang stops at the gas station at the beginning of Volume 5, she attends a bar where, apparently, they serve actual alcohol. At a gas station. Just who in Remnant thought it's a good idea to serve drinks in a location that exists specifically for drivers?
** Considering it's a wilderness environment outside of the Kingdoms, there probably aren't any regulations in that area preventing the owner from selling open drinks directly to a customer.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Faunus Labor]]
* There was a single mention of companies using Faunus labor in Volume 1, with an ongoing implication the SDC is one of those companies, but if both human and Faunus workers are paid the same, what exactly seperates their working conditions? Moreover, why the hell would they brand their workers?
** We only have Jacques' word that the faunus workers are being paid he same as human ones, or even that they are being paid at all. If he is lying and the faunus are basically slaves, then extreme punishments might be necessary to keep them obedient.
** What reason would he have to lie about that to somebody who in all likelihood doesn't care about it any more than he does?
** Who's to say the people around him don't care about SDC business practices? They must be at least somewhat interesed in the topic if they are discussing it and Jacques replying "Actually, we use faunus slaves to mine our dust" would be pretty bad for PR.
** You just need to look at real life companys discrimination to understand how they can be technically equal while still being discriminated against, its possible most of the Faunus workers are not official SDC employees but work under a subconctracted company giving SDC plausable deniability about any discrimination or injustice that goes on there since hey, all there employees are treated well, its also possible they are payed equally to a human with the same position, but the humans get promoted to a higher position far faster
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Illia's backstory]]
* How did her parents even afford to send her to that school?
** Considering the nature of Mantle and Atlas, there's likely a good chance that scholarships and/or free tuition were options, especially if she had strong academics in the Remnant elementary and high school equivalents.
** Then how was there little enough record of her to keep her identity as a Faunus secret? And why was she allowed into those schools?
** There's no indication that Faunus were barred from the schools. Ilia was hiding her Faunus nature from other students due to racism, but there's nothing in her description of the school that says that Faunus were barred from the schools themselves. Considering that Neon is in the same age bracket and she openly attended the Atlas Academy, it's highly unlikely there's any legal limitations on Faunus in schools in Atlas.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: CCT importance]]
* How were the White Fang, and seemingly ONLY the White Fang, able to communicate over intercontinental distances with the CCT down?
** The same way everyone else did: couriers carrying recordings and letters.
** I mean how was Adam able to use a hologram and Illia's scroll to communicate with people in Menagerie from Mistral?
** Data was transferred via storage devices, like a USB drive. Adam recorded the messages and plans to a device and a courier delivered them.
** Vale still has kingdom wide communication. It's possible the other kingdoms have similar systems, so Adam could send a message to the borders and then a courier takes over. Let's not forget that so far we've only seen Ruby and Qrow using letters; after what happened in Vale, they can't take chances of some other networks being compromised.
** Given they're a terrorist organisation, with the legitimate communications network down they might well be better off than most. I doubt they relayed their messages across a system run by the people they were fighting.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Pyrrha VS CRDL]]
* Why was she fighting all four at once? Why did anyone agree to that, and why aren't there rules against something like that?
** Self-imposed challenge. Phyrra probably challenged them, and they, seeing it as an easy 4v1, accepted. If a student wants to take on four other students at once, especially since it's only training, then there's no real reason to make a rule against it.
** Why would there be rules against a student opting for a handicapped match? It's pretty clear that when you've got such a massive difference in skill, then there would be accommodations for an exceptionally-skilled student to get the challenge they need.
** [[ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend It was her way of telling them to leave Jaune alone.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Albains]]
* Why exactly did the Beladonnas need to talk to Corsic and Fennic offscreen, particularly if they already knew they were guilty? How DID they know they were guilty? And how did the unnamed agent in Blake's character short figure into any of this?
** There was suspicion of their involvement, since they were White Fang, but not airtight proof. The scroll detailed plans but didn't name the Albains specifically. The Belladonnas questioned the Albains but couldn't find any way to incriminate them. The unnamed agent was one of the contacts detailed in the plans, which is why Blake and Sun went after him.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Best damn PR team in the world]]
* Simply put, what does Jacques' PR team accomplish? He clearly isn't popular outside the Atlesian upper class, and doesn't seem to care. Either that, or the team is failing. In the latter case why, and in the former why have a PR team at all, considering what's been shown of the company he keeps?
** What evidence is there that he's "clearly unpopular"? The fact that he has operations across the globe alone means that his company has successful PR.
** Blake's mention of the company being "infamous" for what it does and Weiss wanting to restore the family's good name suggest that, although it admittedly isn't the only explanation for the latter.
** While they have something of a bad rep, the fact that the SDC is still running global Dust mining operations indicates that their PR is good enough to keep them from being kicked out of the Kingdoms and having their facilities nationalized.
** He doesn't need the common people on his side, just the ''important'' people.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Grimm functioning in Atlas]]
* According to Qrow, Atlas is considered safe because Grimm don't do well in the cold. The Volume Seven trailer indicates there are plenty of Grimm there anyway. So how?
** Don't do well in the cold doesn't mean "are completely incapable of operating in the cold". The Grimm have greater difficulty working in cold temperatures, but if that was all it took to keep the Grimm away, there wouldn't be any Grimm on that continent at all.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Qrow's intel]]
* How did Qrow know the infiltrators at Beacon were responsible for what happened to Amber without knowing who they were? Likewise, how did he know Torchwick and the White Fang were working with them?
** He's a spy. It's his job to collect information for Ozpin. How exactly he does it isn't elaborated upon, but that's not really necessary when the show's already established that he is a spy.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ozpin's reincarnation]]
* Where exactly was it established that Ozpin will eventually overwrite Oscar?
** It's still not confirmed that this is ''exactly'' what will happen. Ozpin originally made it sound like Oscar would absorb Ozpin, leaving behind a person who still thought of himself as Oscar Pine but had all the memories and goals that Ozma accumulated over the centuries and still considers those memories his own. However, "the Lost Fable" definitely confirmed that it's ''possible'' for Ozpin to overwrite Oscar completely; in Ozma's first reincarnation, he never even learned the name of the body he was inhabiting. Merging rather than overwriting is a deliberate choice. But when Oscar asked "I'm just going to end up another of his lives, aren't I?" he was depressed, and Qrow was even more depressed when he confirmed it. Neither of them know for sure.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: How does Cinder know anything about what happened to Roman?]]
* Considering that she wasn't even there when he died?
** She never says anything specific relating to how he died, just that he died. Considering that she said that Ruby killed him, she probably got that he'd died from a news report mentioning Ruby.
** It's also likely that neither Cinder or Neo care about what ''exactly'' happened, since it was just a Grimm attracted to his negativity. Neo blamed Cinder because the whole attack was her doing, Cinder thought it wasn't her fault because she didn't personally kill him. A reasonable person wouldn't blame Ruby for defending herself during a terrorist attack (hell, even Roman probably wouldn't blame her if he could be asked), but Neo was just looking for someone to blame and Cinder managed to deflect her to Ruby.
[[/folder]]
New entries go on [[Headscratchers/{{RWBY}} the main page]].
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Only Jaune?]]
* When Ozpin goes to get Pyrrha to undergo the transfer process, the only one he takes with him to guard her is Jaune. We know the elevator that goes down there can hold at least five people, so why didn't he bring more people to guard Pyrrha?
** I don't think he actually took anyone to guard them. Jaune just followed them and he didn't force him to leave.
** If we remember "Heroes and Monsters", Pyrrha saw Ozpin and went toward him - Jaune followed after telling the others to clear out the Grimm. Therefore no one else was with Opzin/Pyrrha/Jaune when they met up, and thus no one else came with because they weren't nearby enough.
** Fair enough. But even if he didn't call out for Jaune, that still begs the question as to why he didn't ask anyone on Team JNPR, who were all right by Pyrrha, to come and guard her. Even if he was strapped for time it couldn't have taken very long to call out for them.
** Thing also is, if the distances involved looked accurate, Pyrrha saw Ozpin on the steps from at least thirty (maybe fifty) feet away, and Ren + Nora didn't go with them at all. It would have been hard enough for Ozpin to call over those distances and be understood, but if Nora and Ren also moved away to engage Grimm, the sounds of combat would've made it worse.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Lockers]]
* Throughout the end of the third season, the lockers are used as weapons and modes of transport. Why don't the people using them use them more? Why doesn't RWBY call an entire army of people flying on lockers into the wastelands when they find the train? Why doesn't everyone evacuate immediately on their lockers whenever things get bad? Why didn't Jaune use his to just return to the clock tower in the season 3 finale?
** Limited fuel probably restricts how far the lockers can go and how many times. And that Nevermore was a huge target but was still alive after taking a dozen. Probably not too viable as reliable weapons. Jaune's locker looked pretty beat up too. Also, one locker per student. That doesn't cover every civilian, and civilians would probably get hurt riding those things without Aura to protect them.
** Ruby using her locker as a method of transportation was obviously an act of improvised desperation because, shockingly, it's a really, really bad idea to normally grab onto an unguided missile and launch yourself into the sky without an effective means of guiding or landing yourself. As for Mountain Glenn, they had the combined problem of being out of range of communications with Vale, and also the relatively extreme distance. We've never seen lockers fly out that far, and presumably the only way to get that far is with an actual aircraft instead of a ''ridiculously'' unsafe ballistic projectile.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Wire Cutting]]
* How come Penny is cut to pieces by Pyhrra? Shouldn't her Aura have protected her from that lethal of a blow? Sure, it may have been depleted somehow, but doesn't the Vytal tournament keep track of how much Aura is left in a person, and, if Penny really was in a state where she could have been killed, wouldn't the match have ended?
** Penny's reaction to being struck by Pyrrha's magnetic pulse seemed like she was in pain, even clutching her chest. Tech in Remnant may be based on Dust, but for all we know it could still be damaged by things such as magnetic fields or pulses. For all we know Pyrrha's pulse could have damaged whatever it is that allowed Penny to generate her Aura.
** Additionally, Penny's weapons are physically attached to her. It's possible that her aura covers them too, and thus offer her no protection against them.
** Since Penny's hands were damaged as part of her RoboticReveal in volume 2, it's possible that, by design, her aura isn't being used to protect her body, but instead is focused towards her weapons.
** In addition to potentially disrupting her Aura, the wire's wrapping around might not have initially been considered an injury. In the space of a (slow-mo) second, they're merely wires pressing against her structure at first, which gives no reaction- by the time it does register, it's already crushed part of her internal machinery... and the problem is, Aura protects against outward harm, ''not'' internal issues. Even if her Aura did react, the force was still strong and fast enough that it was too late by the time it went up... all it (might have) managed to do was absorb the force late enough to let the pieces fall straight to the ground, rather than flying in every direction.
** This one's actually entirely consistent with Penny's past showings. In Volume 2, when she stops the truck, there is no flash or other indicator of any kind of Aura shield. More importantly, when she shows Ruby her hands, Penny's palms have clearly been damaged, at least superficially, by the impact. This wouldn't have happened to a person who uses Aura shields. Most likely, Penny either cannot or chooses not to use shields, and likely instead uses her Aura to either power her attacks or to strengthen her physical body against impacts or attacks. This would normally work fine... except that in this case, her opponent unintentionally used an extremely powerful magnetic pulse that caused Penny's ''own Aura-enhanced weapons'' to hit her, and said weapons had extremely narrow contact points and thus exerted enormous force on her body. The results... are predictable.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Black Queen virus]]
* Where exactly ''did'' Cindy McAwesomeface get the Black Queen virus? Based on the fact that it takes over pretty much all of the best technology in Remnant in ''seconds'', it logically has to be one hell of a virus, written by a crack team of all of the best programmers in the world. But there's never any indication that Cinder has any other allies beyong what we've seen: clearly operating on her own aside from having Salem's support and some Grimm (And I don't see Grimm being computer experts), she finds and recruits Emerald. Emerald is clearly on her own, with no contacts. Then they grab Merc. On his own, just killed his dad, no contacts. Then there's Roman and the White Fang. A crime lord and a terrorist group are going to have ''some'' resources, sure, but not a l33t team of supercoders from Atlas. So where did she get the virus? Is Cinder herself just a codewriting savant? Is Salem? I could be wrong here, but I don't ''think'' RT plan to explain this, as it would have made the most sense to do so in V3. Again, I could totally be wrong, and maybe that'll be a thing in V4, but I'm a bit doubtful.
** [[VoodooShark Salem is a hacker]].
** It's not necessarily some amazing virus, because Cinder doesn't need some amazing super special virus when she has the Remnant equivalent of a USB port. A very common saying among computer security specialists is "Physical access is total access." If you can get to a system administrator's terminal, you effectively have total access to the entire system, with all of the sysadmin's permissions. From there it would be literally as easy as uploading a virus that spreads itself across the network and uses sysadmin permissions to delete logs, and remotely uploads information it acquires to Cinder's scroll. Even altering the Vytal Festival's randomization process is literally as simple as replacing a few lines of code that pick random numbers (that's literally all that a random number selector does) with a line of code that picks the integers she wants. Control of the CCT is as simple as using sysadmin and security access to lock out all other passcodes and routing all transmissions through Cinder's scroll. Even the virus that infects the Atlesian military robots would be relatively simple, as all it needs is access to the warship's computer, which Roman and Neo handle. Once that happens it just needs to rewrite friend-or-foe identification (or simply delete IFF code) and the robots turn hostile. None of this is impossible for a reasonably skilled programmer to come up with, and she could pay a morally dubious programmer to write the virus, especially when the hardest parts of bypassing enemy cyber-security are dealt with by ignoring all the cyber-security in the first place and physically using administrator terminals to upload the virus.
** An idea that's been used before is that no one in Remnant history has tried what the villains are doing before and that, as a result, the good guys are unprepared for things that are pretty obvious to us. For example, Ruby used [[spoiler:Sun's scroll to summon her weapon]], which would be a huge concern to someone in IT security. In fact, everybody seems to use the exact same model of scroll, which can be connect to any sort of equipment. There could be a huge number of security gaps in this world's software that a professional in our world would spot right away.
** While it is very possible Remnant has relatively lax cybersecurity measures, that's probably a bad example. Beacon is a school, but a combat school; it's not inconceivable someone would be in a situation where they don't have their Scroll but need their weapons, and so they made it possible to call weapons from any Scroll. So this specific example could be explained as the equivalent of using somebody else's phone to logon to your Facebook account.
** Not to mention that the very scene where Ruby asks Sun for his scroll shows a completely legitimate reason why allowing every student to summon their locker from another student's scroll is a good idea.
** Assuming they aren't idiots, the lockers are probably password coded, meaning you could access it from any scroll so long as you know your password, but nobody who isn't you (or told your password for people you trust) can steal your stuff.
** Most likely, Cinder's group has someone, as yet unrevealed, on the inside of Atlas (who, remember, are the ones who designed the CCT), someone who knows the computers' back doors and security flaws. Someone with that kind of knowledge could very conceivably write a virus like what we see.
** Volume 5 strongly implies that Watts was the one who designed the virus, considering the same stylized W appeared when he was talking with Leo that was also on Cinder's scroll in Volume 2 when she was using it.
** Volume 7 clarifies: Watts was one of the developers of Atlas' security system. So, he's a skilled hacker by himself, knows how this system works and left enough backdoors and expolits to be welcomed back by the computer when he sees fit, until until he's patched out.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Yang's mother in Volume 3]]
* So after the first appearance of Raven in the Season 2 stinger, why, beyond a passing mention from Qrow in Chapter 8 of Volume 3, do we see nothing more of her? Also, does Yang's meeting with Raven take place AFTER the events of Volume 3? Because otherwise it's immensely confusing that this actual dialogue is never acknowledged and Qrow says "Let me guess, she never said a word?", which Yang doesn't at any point contradict.
** Obviously she'll be important in the future and show up then, but why would she show up in Vol.3? She's doing her own thing, whatever it is and said she's not going out of her way to help Yang out anymore, so she didn't save her when she went up against Adam. The show is FAR from over. We'll see her again.
** She didn't show up in Volume Three because she had no reason to show up then. She herself said to Qrow that she's not going to save Yang again.
** As stated by Qrow, Raven's got an MO that he doesn't particularly agree with, and she doesn't intend to save Yang again - in fact, the first time was out of convenience. It doesn't help that her true personality and goals are completely unclear, even now... as for the meeting at the end of Vol. 2, that's still ambiguous, but it was subtly hinted to be dream-like and perhaps didn't even happen for real.
** Without going into the other controversial stuff mentioned, Shane Newville, Monty's assistant mentioned in his letter that the only reason Raven appeared at all outside of that one scene on the train is because Monty pushed for it despite nobody but him wanting that final stinger in Vol 2. Since Monty's gone now the other people heading the show choose not to follow up that scene, if not retcon it completely. Again this topic is controversial and just rumored stuff but it would explain why they're acting like that scene never happened. He also mentions Raven WAS supposed to appear in Vol 3, ambushing JNPR while they were at the fairgrounds and fighting them 4 on 1 before running off but it was cut either for time or because without Monty pushing for it they choose not to do it.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Adam's time off-screen]]
* Why is it that a crazed character like Adam took a year, in-universe, to find Blake? Vol 3's plot revolves around the fact that everything in the Kingdoms is all computerized and recorded, and Blake didn't even change her name when she entered Beacon. And if their wearing of masks is any indication, plenty of Fang members have civilian 'day jobs' inside the Kingdoms. Exactly how hard would it be for them to find out that a girl who looks exactly like Blake, has exactly the same name (and age, and weapon...), and no verifiable past to speak of is now attending one of the most selective, high-tech schools in the world? (Yeah, I know Adam is focused on leading the Fang, but if his extended gloating and going out of his way to find Blake during the invasion is any indication, they doesn't matter as much to him as much as getting revenge.)
** Blake was not hiding her presence at Beacon, and there's no indication that Adam was unaware of her presence. The thing is: Blake's at ''Beacon''. The place with literally dozens of Huntsmen, filled with heavily-armed students. He almost certainly wouldn't risk going in without the massive disruption like that caused by the Grimm invasion, and going by Ozpin's fight with Cinder, the old man would have stomped him flat single-handedly. Adam's a crazy ex-boyfriend, not an idiot, and he would know to bide his time and make his move when he has an opportune moment.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Speaking of Adam and his sword...]]
* How in hell does he cut through a person's aura the way he did to disarm (ahem) a practically-fresh Yang, and presumably to impale Blake through her stomach too? Is that his semblance at work, is there some special form of Dust being used to produce that effect, or is Wilt just that freaking sharp? Either way, it would appear to make him one of the strongest on-screen characters just because of how absurdly lethal an ability/weapon like that in a setting like Remnant has the potential to be, even if it is restricted to close range.
** For Yang, he just hit her ''really'' hard. nothing special beyond that he can just hit with that much force when his sword is charged up. As for Blake, there's an implied off-screen fight before Yang's arrival in which her Aura would have been drained enough that Adam can stab Blake.
** Problem is, he didn't use his sword's charge. In the Black trailer (the only other time we saw him fight) he needed time to focus, and then glowed when he attacked. With Yang, no glow. Also, her Aura wasn't depleted, and Aura seems to be able to stop any hit, even if you only have a little bit left: its pretty clearly something that was written up specifically to prevent fights from being short like this one was.
** We can actually see him charging up to a degree earlier in the fight, when he absorbs the energy from Blake's gunshots. Going by how he only lopped off Yang's arm, he needs more time to charge up something as devastating as an attack that annihilates an entire massive robot. If he'd had more time to power up and more energy to absorb, he likely would have ''vaporized'' Yang instead of just hitting her hard enough to remove the arm.
** Still doesn't explain the lack of glow when he uses his attack, or how he bypasses both Yang and Blake's Auras. Seems like it was done just to escalate things, but with no real thought to their own setting's rules.
** Not really an inconsistency. We've only seen him use the power-absorption twice: once after a very powerful attack and once to absorb Blake's gunshots. The former had him glowing after absorbing it. From that, we can conclude that the glowing lines on his jacket almost definitely correspond to how much power he's absorbed. As for defeating Blake and Yang's Auras, again, he just hit them ''really'' hard. Once more, we've only seen him use the attack twice. Both times, it devastated its target. Breaching Yang's Aura is consistent with that attack's previous performance, in light of how little energy he absorbed compared to the last time he used it. If we see him use it later and it doesn't have the same effect relative to the power he's absorbed, then we'll have an inconsistency. But as of right now there isn't one, because we have too few samples to build a working model on that attack's behavior.
** That brings up more issues though. If he's powerful enough to drop Yang in one hit after absorbing few enough hits to not 'max out' his power (assuming that he only glows when he's absorbed a lot of energy), that would make him significantly stronger than Cinder with all of her Maiden powers. Yang's been shown to take some of the nastiest hits in the show and just keep going. Also, Aura his been stated and demonstrated to stop ANY hit as long as you have 15% or more left when the hit lands. In order for either of the injuries to make sense, we would have needed to see two hits from Adam: one to break their Auras, and one to hurt them.
** No. We saw what Cinder could do with the Maiden powers. Ozpin was moving at speeds so fast he was leaving afterimages. Pyrrha could barely touch Cinder. Cinder destroyed both of them. She would have casually flattened Adam if he went up against her. And Yang has ''not'' withstood the nastiest hits in the show. Neo was able to bring her down with only a couple of well-placed hits. And no, Aura does not stop every hit. Some force does bleed through, otherwise Weiss would not have been scarred by the Knight's punch, Yang wouldn't have been knocked out from a single hit by Neo throwing her into the roof of the train car, and characters wouldn't be grunting in pain when they get hit by other attacks. Adam's attack hits extremely hard, to the point that even the miniscule kinetic energy that gets through Aura can still chop off a limb.
** And Adam moved fast enough that we only saw where he was after he swung; plus, Cinder wasn't able to break anyone's Aura with one hit, let alone hurt them with their Aura still up. Neo hit Yang about a dozen times, and they seemed to be rather powerful hits, since Yan was sent reeling after each one even though she was fine after getting thrown through a 10 foot wide pillar. And Weiss was hit twice by the Knight, meaning the first could have dropped her Aura down to below 15% while the punch allowed for bleedthrough. Also, according to one of the livestreams, Aura doesn't let damage through, but it does let sensations like pain and heat in.
** Of course Cinder never broke anyone's Aura with one hit, as she never used an attack that was singularly as powerful as the one Adam used. Neo's attacks were nowhere near as powerful as the Paladin's blows, as evidenced by the fact that none of them hit Yang hard enough to launch her back like the Paladin did. The worst hit prior to getting slammed into the ceiling was a kick that knocked her directly to the floor. The Paladin punched her a dozen feet through a pillar, and she was left reeling after that hit even more than any of the blows Neo landed before slamming her into the ceiling. And if Aura is allowing pain and heat in, then it's still allowing some form of energy to affect the individual, meaning that energy ''is'' bleeding through the barrier.\\
The key thing to remember here is that the whole reason Yang is so tough is because she actively absorbs energy from every hit, and gets stronger the longer the fight goes on. Neo got around that by CherryTapping Yang so she couldn't power up, until hitting her with a single extremely strong blow that put her out of the fight. Adam simply takes that to the logical extreme: instead of tap-tap-tapping away at her, he just hits her with a single blow. Either that hit was strong enough to completely drain Yang's remaining Aura, and the leftover energy cut her arm off, or event he miniscule amount of energy that got through - what would be mere heat or pain for most impacts - was enough to chop off her arm.
** Adam can't pierce aura. That was a wrong impression they gave when wanting him to look as dangerous and badass as possible to mark him as a major threat for future volumes. Adam just hit Yang really hard, and her aura wasn't at 100 percent because of fighting Grimm on the way, and thanks to her aura being almost wiped out in her fight with Mercury the day prior, as they explained in a stream later on. Yang just showed up at the worst possible time in the worst condition when he had a moonslice ready to go, to make him look tougher than he really is. Adam's strong, but he can't instant pierce full auras or anything like that.
** The argument that Aura "stops any hit" as long as 15% of it remains is nonsense, at least from a physics standpoint. If Yang's Aura currently can block ''x'' Nt of force and Adam hits her with ''y'' Nt, where ''y'' > ''x'', the remaining Nt of force (let's just call that variable ''x'') is not just going to vanish into the aether because her Aura was at an arbitrary level before getting hit. That would violate conservation of energy. ''x'' Nt are still going to be transferred to her through the blade, as the blade is still in contact with her flesh, and there's no longer an Aura to absorb the incoming energy.
** Adam's sword doesn't have to glow whenever it's absorbing energy, that would just be a really annoying detail after a while. For instance, we don't see Yang's body glow every time she's hit; it would just be an unnecessary detail. Not to mention that Yang and Adam didn't battle on full aura reserves, Yang was clearly battling WF members, and we saw that Adam had a defeated student next to him, and this isn't even taking in to account the Grimm they most likely had to fight. This means two things: Yang's aura wasn't full when she battled, and Adam's sword had more charge than we were led to believe. Also, Adam could easily strike with a huge amount of force (this is RWBY after all), and not to mention, even if he had fought no one else prior to Blake finding him (which is incredibly unlikely) he still could have absorbed both the bullets and slash from Blake and directed all of that force onto one point: Yang's arm. And lastly, there's a chance that he actually blocked Yang's punch before quickly retaliating with a strike of his own, it's just too fast for us to see.
** Also, as early as Volume 1 when Pyrrha explained Aura she specifically asked Jaune why he didn't ''activate'' his Aura. So presumably it's not active at all times and when someone is distracted by, let's say someone you're terrified of talking you down (Blake) or seeing someone you care about stabbed through the stomach (Yang) then activating Aura could slip your mind pretty easily.
** This troper has a similar theory. But first, remember that we have seen the affects of complete aura drain in Mercury vs Yang and Pyrrha vs Cinder. There's a distinct pattern that goes over their bodies when their aura breaks that we don't see when Adam attacks Yang: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/rwby/images/9/98/V3_06_Aura_Deplete.png/revision/latest?cb=20151219180533 Since aura can be used to increase physical strength as well as defense, Yang probably got so angry that she focused all her aura into attacking Adam, leaving none for her own protection. This would explain her defeat against Neo as well. Yang's aura was never broken because it was never up at all.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Silver Eyes, part 1]]
* Why didn't Cinder notice that Ruby has silver eyes? Seriously, they chatted one-on-one for several minutes in the second volume, and Cinder is specifically gathering intel on all the students, and Ruby is unusually young for a Beacon student. Yet during the finale, Cinder is totally shocked when Ruby displays her powers.
** Because evidently the legend of the Silver Eyed Warriors wasn't one Cinder knew and therefore had no reason to plan for it. Given the way Qrow talks about it, it's possible only Ozpin's inner circle have any idea of what it means.
** Is there any indication that Cinder knows about the significance of the silver-eyed warriors in the first place? All evidence is that she doesn't.
** Even if she did know, she had no reason to expect Ruby to be ''there'' (after all, Ruby only appeared at that moment because she pulled a ridiculous WallRun.) And even if she knew the general story of the silver-eyed warriors, she might not have expected them to be that strong, and wouldn't have expected Ruby (who hadn't previously shown anything like that) to be able to draw on that much of their power.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Silver Eyes, part 2]]
* Why did it take a year for anybody to tell Ruby; 'Hey, you may have rare kool powerz. Don't be scared if they manifest unexpectedly'? You'd think Ozpin would at least be concerned by powers of that magnitude, and he's called students into his office for much smaller reasons.
** Given that her powers were triggered by something extremely traumatic, telling her wouldn't really have helped much, and by the time they did manifest, it knocked her out for days and she barely remembered it. Besides, Ozpin had no way of guessing just how ''bad'' things would get, and given the implication that Summer may have died because of her powers, Qrow and Taiyang have reasons not to tell her until there's no other real choice in the matter (even if Tai would rather avoid it).
** It's clear that they intended to tell Ruby ''eventually'', but let's be honest here: she's a first-year student. She's a novice by Huntsman standards, and they've got no reason to spring that sort of thing on a student who, as Ozpin himself says, should worry about being a student instead of a warrior at the moment. He himself repeatedly stresses to Ruby that she can't live her entire life on the battlefield, and it's pretty clear he wants her to have a balanced life instead of that of an endless warrior. They could tell her when she's older and more mature.
** They probably were afraid she'd react like Pyrha did when told she could be a maiden. Go through incredible stress, be alienated from everyone else because she suddenly feels she's has a special duty and rush off and get herself killed trying to be a hero for the same reason.
** I figure there's two major reasons. First is that telling Ruby right away would open up a massive floodgate of other stuff they'd have to tell her that would both complicate things and be stuff she's probably not mentally prepared for in order for her to believe them. That legends are real, about the Maidens, about her mother about Salem and about Ozpin's secret war. This is all top secret, that only a few people know and they'd have to tell it to a 15 year old who just started Beacon and hope she keeps her mouth shut and just mentally puts it on the backburner for 4 years until she's graduated and they can officially make her one of their agents, which would be unbelivably stressful (remember how Blake was freaking out about how they were just going about their school lives when she knew Roman was still out there doing something? Ruby would be like that all the time and she wouldn't be able to say anything to anyone.) The second is that if you notice Ruby despite starting out being fixated on normal knees and not wanting to be special and just a regular student ends up breaking out of this mold as the seasons go on, to the point that in Vol 2 she's deliberately going out of her way to get involved with Roman's criminal element and isn't really interested in doing much kid stuff like the dance, and even goes off on her own in the Battle of Beacon rather than stick with the other students, so that she's already developed the desire to go above and beyond and be special by the time she learns she's had special powers all along. It's possible that Ozpin wanted her to develop this mentality on purpose. Maybe so she'd end up seeing her eyes as just one of her tools to help her be a hero, instead of feeling obligated to be a hero entirely because of her eyes (which is basically the mentality Pyrrha had because of her advanced skills)
** It's entirely possible that no one outside of Ozpin actually recognized the importance of the silver eyes. Considering that Ozpin was willing to tell STRQ about the Relics and the Maidens, and yet neither Tai nor Qrow understood exactly what Ruby did on top of the clock tower to the Dragon and Cinder, it's possible that literally all they knew about the silver eyes was that there was some distant, ancient legends about their power. Ozpin might not have known the full consequences of what the silver eyes meant, instead just considering them an ancient legend, which made him curious about Ruby when he first met her.
** Another reason why they might not have said anything is that Salem's associates may have specifically been targeting those with silver eyes. Hazel mentions that they've defeated them before, and dealing with them was so trivial that Watts actually mocked Cinder for losing to one of them. It's entirely possible that even if Ozpin knew about the legend of the silver-eyed warriors, he would keep quiet about it because if he drew attention to them, Salem would have them killed.
** Volume 6 confirms that not only are the powers not widely known about or understood, but that someone - likely Salem - is actively suppressing the knowledge of the Silver Eyes and killing anyone with those powers to suppress their use. So Ozpin and Qrow not remarking on their powers are mostly because its an ill-defined legend and that they don't know anything more about them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Silver Eyes, part 3]]
* Why the hell doesn't Ruby ask any questions about her silver eyes? She has a power that would be a massive game changer in their struggle against Salem, yet she seems completely uninterested in learning anything about it beyond what Qrow told her at the end of Volume 3. Doesn't she ever stop and realize that maybe things would go their way a little more if she asked people like Qrow and the reincarnated Ozpin about her abilities?
** Most likely because those same abilities are tightly associated with a series of painful, traumatizing memories and Ruby is trying to not think about them, let alone talking about them. Her first use of those powers was directly connected with Pyrrha's death, after all. Asking about those powers, or even thinking on them, is going to bring that to the forefront, and Ruby likely hasn't properly processed her grief and pain over that incident yet and doesn't want to even think about what happened.
** Also, Ruby may very well be actively avoiding talking about her powers because she doesn't want them or is afraid of them. Remember that in the very first episode of the series, Ruby outright says that she doesn't want people to think she's strange or special, and just wants to be a normal person - or as normal as they get on Remnant, anyway.
** Nobody knows anything about them, to the point that even other people with Silver Eyes know very little. Maria barely knows anything about them until she has the vision with Jinn that shows that the SEW powers match that of the God of Light when he destroyed Darkness' Grimm. One can fairly assume that Ruby asked about them offscreen but Qrow and Ozpin knew nothing about them.
*** That raises the question: why doesn't Ozpin know about Silver Eye powers? He's spoken to Jinn at least twice before, but he never thought to ask her about the SEW?
*** He only has three questions every century, and he doesn't use every question each reset. He probably never considered it, as it is a rare legend and he might not have considered it worthwhile to expend a question you'll literally only get once per lifetime on.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ruby's Semblance and Pyrrha]]
* Why couldn't Ruby use her Semblance to save Pyrrha from Cinder's attacks? Exhaustion aside, she used it just a second ago to run up the tower. Maybe ''[[SquishyWizard Weiss]]'' was too exhausted to contribute, but 'My entire fighting style centers around running' Ruby? Really? (And it's not like Ruby was too shocked by the battle to act- she specifically thought that terrible things might be happening on the tower, that's why she ran up there so fast in the first place.)
** Ruby's been on the go since Mercury showed up with no real chance for a break. Additionally, she literally just landed the instant Pyrrha was shot, there was no time for her to ''do'' anything.
** Ruby lands literally as Cinder fires the arrow. In the time it would take her to see Cinder with the bow in hand and respond, the arrow had already hit Pyrrha. All the physical speed in the world isn't going to help if you can't process what's happening fast enough to respond to it.
** I don't think she actually used it to climb the tower, considering she was MUCH faster when she and Weiss used a similar trick on thta Nevermore back in Volume 1. Which is confusing on its own.
** Ruby did use it to climb the tower, because she's physically ''shown'' using it to run up the side of the tower. The tower is much, ''much'' taller than the cliff, which is why it took her longer to get up there.
** The more we see of Ruby's Semblance, the more it seems that it's less about ''speed'' and more about ''propulsion''. She uses it more to launch herself and change direction in mid-air than she does to move faster. That wouldn't have helped her save Pyrrha, especially in the short timeframe that she had before Pyrrha was fatally wounded.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Moving in Midair]]
* How exactly do the characters move and change position in midair? In the first volume, we see Ren go flying through the air, spin around, backflip, and land on his feet without pushing off from anything. How does he do it? And it's not like it's unique to him, because many other characters do it in battles and other situations. Thing is, we were never told about a power that lets them do it. So how can they move in midair without pushing off from a foreign surface?
** Much like most of the other insane acrobatics and physics-defying movement, it's likely something to do with Aura manipulation.
** Except we were never told that Aura could do that. Most telling is the fact that such an ability is completely absent from Pyrrha's explanation of Aura to Jaune in Volume 1
** Why would we need to be told that? Pyrrha's explanation is very vague as to what Aura can really do. It's safe to assume that any weird physics-defying abilities are granted by either Aura or Dust.
** Considering the fact that the characters can expertly use recoil/momentum/etc for their attacks and this was created by [[Creator/MontyOum Monty Oum]], who's [[WebAnimation/DeadFantasy DF]] had characters fighting normally while vertically-sliding down a building, it's safe to say that physics work normally until anything abnormal happens- then you're just supposed to go with it really.
** RuleOfCool, of course.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Velvet Scarlantina's weapon]]
* While it is shown to be capable of some powerful and spectacular effects, it also raises a number of questions regarding its practicality. If the photographs are indeed one-shot use, as the show implies, how long can she use each individual photograph once they are activated? How does she keep track of which photos she has used and which ones she has left? How does she defend herself once her supply of photos is used up?
** The latter, at least, has been addressed by Volume 2; Velvet is quite capable of kicking Grimm around without using a weapon at all, and Yatsuhashi protects her. Coco's behavior in the fights also suggests that the team is well aware of her limitations and think carefully about the timing of her weapon usage, making Velvet their AwesomeButImpractical ace.
** Keeping track of which photos are remaining is pretty simple, it's a digital camera.
** As stated, Velvet handled herself against Grimm with kicks, so she does have some defense on herself. As for how long each weapon lasts, I think it's safe to assume they last anywhere between 5-10 seconds, assuming each one is used to the full potential before forcibly dissolving. Keeping track would be a matter of memory and her own camera, I imagine, the former being a sort-of muscle memory due to experience.
** Also, it's pretty easy for her to refill her supply of weapons using photos of her companions. I'd imagine that their general strategy with her is to have her hang back photographing them and their enemies until they get in trouble, when she unloads a huge burst of stored power to swing otherwise unwinnable fights.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Can Glynda be the Fall Maiden?]]
* The whole subplot with the Fall Maiden's powers doesn't really make sense, and a lot of that stems from the existence of Glynda. Why is Ozpin using Pyrrha as a vessel when there's a much more powerful person around, who was already vetted for loyalty and resolve? And if she is already one of the Maidens (which doesn't make sense since shes apparently part of the group meant to guard the Maidens, and her Maiden status hasn't been foreshadowed in any way), then why is she so close to another Maiden? Wouldn't that make stealing both of their powers far too easy?
** Because Glynda's too old. She explicitly states that the power transfers ''only'' to young women.
** Naturally, yes. But they're cheating the system here; if the rules of transfer were in play, Amber's powers would have transferred straight to Cinder as soon as they started the process. So unless the Maiden dies when she hits 30, Glynda would work just as well as Pyrrha.
** Why? The powers can ''only'' be transferred to a young woman, and presumably that applies even with an Aura transfer. Also keep in mind that they're running in uncharted territory here, and they have no actual idea what will happen when the Aura is transferred. They'll want to stack the deck as favorably as possible toward it going to their intended recipient.
** WordOfGod is that the cutoff age for becoming a Maiden is around 30. Glynda therefore couldn't become a Maiden as she's already too old. Of the peoplr who are in on the conspiracy, the only one even remotely close to the right age would have been Winter, and she obviously wasn't fully clued in and, by the time Ozpin moved to find a proper Maiden, had already left back to Atlas.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ruby's Cloak]]
* In the trailer for Volume 4, it seems like Ruby's cloak has gained a mind of its own. It moves against her own body movement and more blatantly extends and retracts itself like it was related to Spawn's cape. The cloak has never done this before, right? So how have these changes been made?
** Ruby's cloak extends and changes shape when she uses her Semblance, as well as after she's won a battle in a spectacular manner. In both the Red trailer and after defeating the Giant Nevermore, her cloak became noticeably longer, and whenever she uses her Semblance it lengthens and wraps around her. The cloak becoming longer and changing shape in the trailer is clearly an extension of her Semblance, as it either happens when she's using her speed/propulsion abilities, or it happens after she's won the battle. This trailer just places more emphasis on the cloak's behavior compared with earlier scenes, probably as a reflection of just how much more powerful Ruby has gotten.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Neptune climbing the mountain was stupid... why, exactly?]]
* At the beginning of the battle between Team SSSN and Team NDGO, Neptune, terrified of the water on his team's side of the battlefield, manages to get atop the mountain on the enemy's side of the field, and Sun immediately chews him out for this. But whatever his reasons were... what was so tactically foolish about it? It actually seems pretty advantageous. Team NDGO is now flanked on two sides by Team SSSN at the beginning of the match, and Neptune, who has a long range weapon, now has a high vantage point with which to snipe at Team NDGO. Team NDGO can't take care of Neptune without turning their backs on the rest of team SSSN, and they can't properly fight Sun Sage or Scarlet without becoming vulnerable to sniper fire. I don't see any reason why this decision was stupid.
** He did it immediately, without consulting his teammates, and as an instant reaction to the water behind him. He basically ran off and left his team behind all because of his own phobia rather than for any tactical advantage, which is never a good idea.
** Also, the downside of flanking the enemy team is that Neptune is on the other side of the arena from team. Meaning he's isolated from the rest of his teammates, and at a major disadvantage if NDGO decided to focus on knocking him out while he was alone to give them a four-to-three advantage. Indeed, with how fast Sage got taken out of that fight, it could have easily cost them the match if NDGO had ganged up on Neptune immediately while he was alone.
** Even if it is tactically advantageous for him to take the high ground (which is debatable when everyone is easily capable of {{bullet|Time}}-timing) it means that the actual fight is now 3v4. It also ruins any plans Team SSSN may have previously had.
** While having the high ground and flanking NDGO would be tactically advantageous, because Neptune did it out of fear of the water he wasn't thinking about such things and doesn't actually use his advantages to attack until Sun yells at him to do so after SSSN has already lost two members.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:But JNRR isn’t a color]]
* When Ren and Nora are arguing over their new team name in Volume 4 Episode 1, one of the reasons Ren is against Team JNRR is that the word “Junior” is not a color and all team names are supposed either be a color or evoke an image connected to a color. However if that’s the case than how is Team RNJR, which Ren is suggesting, a color? While the word “Ranger” [[PowerRangers does evoke a very colorful image]] from an out-of-universe perspective, what exactly is colorful about the word in the world of Remnant?
** Ranger is green. The color references tend to be oblique in many cases, like "Cardinal" being red, "Juniper" being blue, and "Coffee" being brown or black.
** To add to that, there IS a shade called "Ranger Green."
[[/folder]]
[[folder:How did humanity survive this long?]]
* The Grimm are attracted to negative emotions right? How did humanity survive this long then? We've been told that the Grimm were around as long as humanity can remember, in the beginning even a single Grimm attack should have caused enough negativity to severely drop the population. For that matter how did people even discover that the Grimm were attracted by negativity in the first place? And does it have to be a large number of people with negative emotions? Because if a child's tantrum could summon giant doom monsters it's a miracle humanity lasted this long on Remnant!
** They explicitly state how humanity survived in the very first episode: they were nearly driven extinct until they found and used Dust to develop powers and technology to fight off the Grimm. That, and the fact that explicit magical superpowers like the Maidens and the Silver-Eyed Warriors exist, the latter of which are pretty much tailor-made to slaughter Grimm.
** We also saw what it takes to bring a large force of Grimm down on a population center. You need much more than just a single angry child to draw in the Grimm. You need a serious disaster, like a massive number of people witnessing a sudden, horrific murder at the same time, or massive panic attack due to a tribe of raiders attacking, to draw in large numbers of Grimm.
** I think the real question here is why the hell Remnant society exists in the form it exists in. This does not look like what a society would look like if it really spent thousands of years sharing a world with negativity-smelling monsters. Why didn't the societies that failed to make peace with the Faunus die out long ago if getting along with them would obviously be heavily favored by natural selection? If getting pissed off at a sporting event could attract those monsters, why the hell would they broadcast these things live, or even broadcast them at all? Surely in a world where public outrage is such a safety hazard there would be more safety nets or regulation than in real life?
** We don't know what previous societies looked like; for all we know previous societies were perfectly fine with the faunus and the faunus racism was the result of recent developments since the last major war. Grimm are certainly not tearing down Vale and Atlas' walls over the faunus discrimination that currently exists in their society, so presumably it's not enough to push things to the point that a major Grimm incursion can happen.
** The Grimm didn't invade because people were "pissed off at a sporting event." It took an outright ''murder in the ring'' to trigger a major Grimm invasion, and this was after a lengthy process of preparation, involving an extended crime wave that deprived people of a vital resource and resulted in an extensive police presence on the streets, aggregated racial tensions, a major terrorist attack that ended with a large Grimm incursion into the heart of Vale, and a prolonged period where a foreign kingdom's army was patrolling the city, amplifying fear and tensions. All of that was needed before Cinder triggered the two back-to-back horrors in the arena that finally led to the Grimm actually invading, and ''even then'', the Atlesian military stood a reasonable chance of defeating the incoming Grimm invaders until Roman and Neo shot down the Atlesian navy's air cover and hacked their robots, crippling their army. And ''even then'', the Atlesian military and the Vale defense forces were still able to push the Grimm back out of most of Vale save for Beacon itself. The humans are much stronger than you're giving them credit for.
** I never said people being pissed off at a sporting event caused the Grimm ''invasion'', I said it ''attracted them'', and it ''did'', as you can clearly see at the end of that episode. My point is that before they managed to build huge walls and robots and things, major sources of needless grief like racism and over-reacting to things that didn't concern them should have been beaten out of society by brutal natural selection. As for the idea that society grew complacent and reverted to hatred once a sufficient catalyst came up and they had the technology to afford it, ''that'' I can ''maybe'' buy, but here's the thing: if there's a pseudo-logical ''catalyst'' behind the racism against Faunus, rather than it simply being a matter of humans being assholes like they can be sometimes, it's the writer's responsibility to explain that. Surely back when Weiss was a racist, that would have been the ''perfect'' time to reveal what happened and have her give that off as a pathetic rationalization (as racists often do) for why it's completely acceptable to look down on Faunus rather than have it only be the result of their extremists screwing up five years of her childhood. And as for "Grimm are certainly not tearing down Vale and Atlas's walls over the Faunus discrimination that currently exists in their society"... ''how''? It's so bad that normal people are feeling desperate enough to join a radical terrorist group just for a hope of fixing things! I refuse to believe that racism that's implied to include slave or borderline-slave labor for so long could possibly not be causing enough negative energy to at the very least cause the Schnee mines to be sufficient hotbeds of Grim activity to warrant ''mention'' at some point during the show's run.
** It's possible that Remnant's FantasticRacism isn't quite as bad as some people think. Most of the Faunus we see are treated just like anyone else; it's mostly a few random assholes who mistreat them. Sure, there are extremist groups, but there are always extremist groups; the whole point of extremists is that you can't trust their version of things entirely. As for the writers, it's not their responsibility to explain anything until they feel it's the right time to do so.
** You're making a lot of assumptions about what life is like for the faunus working for SDC, ''and'' for all we know, they've been attacked before if riots and rebellions occurred, they just haven't been mentioned because they're a fact of life. An important thing to also remember is that the Atlas/Mantle geography is ironically safer to have negative emotions in, because as World of Remnant: Atlas has shown, the Grimm have an even harder time surviving in the arctic conditions of the northern continent than humans do. Between that and advanced technology and abundant Dust resources, they're able to fend off the Grimm more easily. Also keep in mind that there have been numerous instances of wars and rebellions and such in Remnant's history, and those haven't ended the Kingdoms, likely because at the time they wer eon war footing and thus much better armed. Indeed, it's important to remember that as of the current point in time, the Kingdoms have experienced a period of unprecedented peace and likely are under a military draw-down, which allowed the Grimm to do as much damage as they did, and in older civilizations they likely would have had much stronger standing armies (as evidenced by World of Remnant: Vacuo and World of Remnant: Atlas). Aura and Dust both also negate some of the problems with low technology levels and limited infrastructure, since Dust can be easily used by anyone with Aura and a person with a strong Aura can destroy a tank with a stick. Coupled with other factors, like Silver-Eyed Warriors, Maidens, and the Wizard, and it makes sense that a younger, more primitive, and more brutal humanity would have survived until they hit their technological renaissance.
** Thanks to both [=V4C6=] and World of Remnant: SDC, we know that the faunus are ''not'' being treated as slaves of the SDC. They're still getting the short end of the stick, because they're not paid well (the same as human SDC miners) and the working conditions are dangerous, but we're not seeing teeming pits of despair and constant slave rebellions like you're implying. The SDC right now seems more like a target for the White Fang who are acting on centuries of long-standing racism against their kind and are lashing out at someone they feel is mistreating them.
** The situation with the White Fang and SDC is a situation where two groups are equally mistreated by a third, but the primary focus of each of the mistreated groups is toward their own members rather than everyone who is getting the short end of the stick. It wouldn't be surprising to discover that Jacques is intentionally fostering resentment between the faunus and human workers to make sure they don't get together to take on their true mutual opponent, namely him. This also makes SDC an obvious target for the White Fang.
** World of Remnant: The Great War also confirms that slavery was completely abolished following the Great War. More importantly, the kingdoms were strong enough that they could survive a devastating ten year war against one another even while Grimm were attacking towns and villages. With that in mind, simple sporadic racism and racial violence between humans and faunus wouldn't be enough to trigger massive Grimm invasions that threaten kingdoms (at least not anymore than other disasters, like war, famine, etc).
** One key factor to remember here is that the Kingdoms are quite tough, with strong defenses and natural barriers, and that the Grimm aren't an endless, ravening horde that jumps at any sign of negativity. In order for the Grimm to actually get into Vale, you needed to have a concerted effort by an entire faction of people who can influence and control the Grimm, who spent a very long period building upon already-existing tensions, exacerbating them with crime and robberies and mounting racial tensions and then putting a giant, threatening army on top of them, followed by multiple massive, publicized disasters, including a Grimm breach and a murder in the arena - and even then, they still needed to both actively sabotage existing military forces in the area ''and'' actively release Grimm into the city using transports in order to ensure enough Grimm got through to achieve their short-term objective... and even then, Vale managed to rally and hold them back. Simply put, something as honestly ''minor'' as racial conflict by itself is simply not going to be enough to threaten a Kingdom. The Grimm are a threat to isolated villages, small towns, migrant populations, and travelers, but even then it would take a significant disaster to bring a large-scale Grimm attack down on them: a sudden plague, a bandit raid, or a major Grimm like the Nuckelavee wandering in and attacking. Racial tension like that between humans and Faunus, even if it resulted in outright violence, probably isn't going to bring down a major Grimm attack unless you have something extreme happen, with very widespread violence. In other words, racial violence hasn't been "beaten out" of humanity because, quite simply... it just isn't ''enough'' to actually bring down the Grimm in large numbers. Even a small army of extremist terrorists who were just plain stewing in their hatred didn't invite a Grimm attack, they merely attracted a larger yet avoidable population of the things. If large-scale warfare between entire nations didn't wipe everyone out with Grimm... relatively minor spats of racial violence certainly aren't going to do the job.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Why use Mercury at all?]]
* One thing that makes absolutely no sense about Cinder's plan that I've never been able to understand is why she even used Mercury as the "victim" of Yang's attack. Why? Why not use Emerald to manipulate Yang into ''actually'' inflicting a severe injury on some random ''innocent'' defeated opponent she could have been fighting? There's literally no downside to this and at least three huge advantages: 1: Mercury needs no excuse whatsoever to be seen at the arena later. 2: Cinder would have created an ''actual'' severely injured victim who not only adds some more negative emotions of their own, but also wouldn't need to hide from the public, which will increase public outrage even further if it was something really serious and the ridiculous tabloid media interviewed them (and considering they're stupid enough to make a huge deal out of the story in the first place despite knowing what Grim are drawn by, let's face it, they totally would). 3: It would eliminate the entire convoluted escape plan that could have failed if Emerald hadn't been able to cast her illusion on two people at once. There's literally no reason to use Mercury and multiple reasons not to. So why did she do it?
** There is a major downside to not using Mercury: they can't really control what happens in the ring. Remember that Emerald can only manipulate what Yang sees, not everyone else. Without Mercury, they'd have no way to guarantee that Yang's target would ever get close enough for her to hit them. They needed to have Mercury in the ring so that they could be certain that he'd be standing close enough to Yang for her to hit him, and someone else in the arena would not be following their script. While it would have been a easier to escape and avoid detection if they used a cat's paw instead of Mercury, anyone else would have risked going off-script, and Cinder's all about minimizing risks. She needed Mercury in the ring to make ''sure'' an "innocent" got struck.
** Except that they didn't need anyone in on it for Pyrrha and Penny's battle, and Cinder seemed confident she'd have been able to orchestrate Penny's death even before she knew Penny was a metal robot. Mercury wasn't moving after he got defeated, so clearly they didn't need him properly positioned for the illusion to work, they an just manipulate her movements by altering her perception normally. Emerald would just have to rotate the stadium in her eyes so that she'd move towards the opponent instead of away after the battle, and then when she's close enough make it look like her opponent is attacking her. Or just make her think her opponent is still standing when in reality her opponent is getting beaten to a pulp. There's absolutely no reason to involve Mercury.
** Pyrrha and Penny were predictable. Cinder knew what Pyrrha could do and how Penny fought. There was no question how the former would react to an overwhelming attack by the latter and what the results would be. All Emerald would need to do in that case would be to wait for Penny to maneuver her swords in a predictable manner that she'd shown in earlier fights, and then freak Pyrrha out with an illusion. Cinder could count on Penny to play by a very predictable script. As for Mercury, the fact that he wasn't moving when Yang hit him means that he'd already gotten to be in position before she was confused and struck him. Emerald would have no way to make sure another person was moving into the exact position to be hit by Yang. Furthermore, we don't know if Emerald ''can'' alter someone's perception to the degree that you're suggesting, as every other illusion we see her generate was a relatively small, nearby object instead of the entire environment. We have no indication that Emerald has the ability to "rotate the stadium" from Yang's perspective. Without someone actually in the arena, they would have no way to be certain that Yang's opponent would have been close enough. They needed Mercury in the arena to guarantee that their "innocent" would get hit; anything else leaves too much to chance.
** "Cinder could count on Penny to play by a very predictable script"? Literally all Cinder knows about her is that she's a robot. We haven't seen her observe any of Penny's fights and in no way did we see any indication that she's been studying Penny's attack patterns. They've been observing Pyrrha, yes, though it's implied that she was always going to be the target of the accidental brutal murder even before they learned her semblance and that Penny was a robot. And furthermore, let me show you how easy it would be to make Yang look just as bad as Mercury did, or even worse: Scenario 1, Emerald waits until her opponent moves over to shake her hand and say "good game" and then make Yang think her opponent is attacking her. Or, if that never happens, scenario 2, Emerald creates an illusion to make Yang ''think'' her opponent is calling her over to shake hands, then make her think her opponent was using that for a sneak attack, and ''then'' have her attack in perceived self-defense. Both of these had a chance of failure depending on how Yang reacted, yes, but no greater a chance than was already present ''with'' Mercury there, as there's very little Mercury could have done to properly position himself for a second attempt if Yang had decided to dodge or block as opposed to a counter-attack.
** Cinder ''has access to Penny's schematics.'' She knows everything about Penny, not just that she's a robot. That, combined with observations from two arena matches plus Roman's report from the dock confrontation should be all Cinder needs to put together how she operates. As for your scenarios: Scenario 1 never happens during any of the fights we see in the tournament. Nearly every fight ends with one side or the other unconscious, and the only one that doesn't still ends with the two sides a fair distance apart. No guarantee that they would get close enough on their own. Scenario 2 runs into the problem of this sort of thing apparently not being common, as well as the other opponent walking away, not being aware of what Yang's seeing. It would be rather silly for Emerald to have Yang walking toward someone and acting like she's about to shake their hand, only for the other person to just walk away. Both scenarios still leave too much to chance and leave too many possibilities for random chance and human nature to expose the inconsistencies. With Mercury, they can control the script, as well as conveniently disappear the other side of the incident so no one can corroborate their stories. Yang's opponent could end up telling the police about any inconsistencies in her behavior that might point to foul play, and the cops and Ironwood would jump on any chance to calm the populace with a story of some miscreants using trickery to make a Vale student look bad. Not having Mercury in the arena leaves too many uncontrollable variables in play.
** To answer your concern about Mercury: The plan requires that the opponent provokes Yang into going berserker so she would obliterate them until their aura reaches zero. The minimal for a KO is 15%, it's entirely possible that the fight ends with the opponent still having enough aura to endure one more hit. That'd ruin the entire plan. Even if Emerald makes Yang strike again, there wouldn't be any injuries and it wouldn't cause the major panic Cinder needed. And that's assuming Yang will always win. What if she didn't? What if her opponent turned out to be stronger than Yang? That means Emerald would need to use her Semblance on said opponent but what if they're not hotheaded like Yang and therefore won't react the same way as her (by countering)? That's why she used Mercury. Because he's skilled enough to beat up Yang until she goes berserk ''without knocking her out''. Cinder is a very calculating villain so she'd naturally want to control every detail. Betting on some student is the opposite of that.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Yang's Ponytail]]
* Maybe it's just ignorance due to having short hair my whole life, but how does Yang get her hair in a ponytail with only one arm? She has a LOT of hair, so it doesn't seem easy.
** Taiyang probably helps her. Yet another reason for her to feel depressed.
** First you get a really stretched out hair band and put it halfway on your hand so that its stretched from thumb to pinky. Then, with that hand you (carefully) grab all your hair. It takes a lot of practice, but using a quick twisty motion with your wrist, you snap the hairband off of your hand and onto your hair. From there you use your hand and, if your hair's long enough (which Yang's is), your teeth to work the band all the way around your hair and to pull your hair through more to tighten it. If you want a high pony tail, you do this while your head is upside down.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Why is Blake wearing her ribbon in the Black trailer?]]
* The ribbon concealing her ears, that is. From a Doyalist perspective, of course, it's to avoid spoiling the reveal about her being a Faunus, but from a Watsonian one... what possible reason would she have to hide her ears while participating in a ''terrorist attack'' for a Faunus Rights group? Adam is wearing his highly-distinctive, easily-recognizable iconic Grimm mask, unambiguously identifying him as not just a Faunus but the group's leader, so they weren't being stealthy or hiding their affiliation.
** The simplest explanation is that Rooster Teeth just didn't want to reveal the cat ears, for the same reason they didn't show how Blake landed in the forest. A Watsonian explanation could be that she was already preparing to leave and was wearing the bow to acclimate herself to it to more easily blend into human society. Considering that the bow's edges are likely in direct contact with the ears, going by their positioning, and that the bow moves when her ears do, Blake would want to get used to it to reduce the risk of ear movements and other gestures that would give it away.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Salem's Ring?]]
* Salem has a ring on her right hand. I haven't managed to get a good look at it, but people are claiming that it looks like a rose, or that it could look like Cinder's emblem. Has anyone gotten a better angle? Personally I think it looks like a cockroach clenched to her hand.
** I haven't scene it at all angles, but I agree with you personally. It looks like another beetle Grimm of some kind.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Yang's arm augmentation]]
* When we see Yang asleep in Vol. 4 Ep. 4, she has a kind of metal plate around her stump. I assume this is some kind of necessary bit to allow Yang to attach and control her new robotic arm, but when and how did she get it? She was clearly surprised when Taiyang brought the present to her and even he was surprised when he found out Ironwood was already having it made, so why would she already have this plate thing to begin with?
** For the when: During the six month timeskip between the end of the last volume and the current one. As for the how: considering the advanced state of Remnant medical technology, cybernetic replacements are almost certainly a relatively common procedure in hospitals for people who've lost limbs. The surprise mostly seemed to have come not from the arm itself but getting it so quickly; Taiyang mentioned that he thought he would have to pull some strings to get it, which indicates that they were already planning to acquire a replacement, so the plate installed over Yang's arm was definitely preparation in place for a prosthetic.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Raven's personality]]
* Very odd question to ask I know but I'm sure I'm not the only person scratching their head over it so here goes: can anyone provide an explanation for how on ''earth'' a guy like Taiyang ever became attracted to someone like [[TheSocialDarwinist Raven]]? Has Raven always been that way? Given how Qrow interacts with her, it's likely the answer to that last one is "yes". In fact in a world where negative emotions draw Grimm like moths to a flame, how has someone like her even survived this long?
** For the first question, we don't know. We haven't seen what Raven was like when she was younger or how she and Taiyang got together. For the second question, one person's negative emotions don't "draw Grimm like moths to a flame." You need a large concentration of very strong negative emotions to bring in the Grimm. One person with a negative attitude isn't going to bring the Grimm down on them. Even a large number of very unpleasant people like the White Fang didn't actually bring down an army of Grimm on them, it just attracted a higher concentration than normal who wandered the nearby area instead of attacking.
** In addition to the second question, the negative emotions that draw Grimm are indicated to be fear, hatred, sadness, and despair. Now consider Raven's attitude: she's clearly such a badass that fear isn't something she normally has to deal with. Her SocialDarwinist outlook means she doesn't hate the victims of her tribe; she might at most might feel some pity toward them for not being strong enough, and she'd likely respect rather than hate the ones who are strong enough to fight back. Her attitude toward her own daughter shows she probably doesn't feel a lot of sadness when she loses people (they obviously weren't strong enough to survive), and again her confidence in herself is unlikely to lead to despair. She comes across as a sociopath; she doesn't ''care'' about most other people to provoke any emotional reaction to them one way or the other.
** [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys Taiyang had a thing for bad girls?]]
** It's not complicated. Volume 4, Chapter 9 shows that there were positives to Raven that Taiyang found attractive: she was strong, determined, and dedicated to whatever cause she felt was right. That seemed to have been enough, when coupled with two attractive, fit individuals who fought side-by-side in school, for the two of them to at least become somewhat romantically attached to one another, producing Yang, before Raven's other myriad issues pushed them apart.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Qrow's timing]]
* So Qrow was always making sure to stay close to Ruby and co., yet he is shown to be lagging behind Tyrian. Either Tyrian was faster than Qrow could anticipate or something prevents dQrow from advancing because based on how close he was to RNJR in Episode 4, he should have noticed Tyrian and stepped in at least during one of Tyrian's expositions.
** We don't know what Qrow is doing or how far out he ranges while protecting RNJR. We only have one instance of Qrow following them in the wild, so we don't have any consistent basis on how far away he normally follows them, only one situation where he was close enough to see them.
** Could be he was busy clearing out Grimm again, like we've seen before, and just didn't realise or expect someone that strong to suddenly swoop in and attempt to kidnap/kill his niece and her friends. When he did notice he came as quickly as possible.
** Volume Four Episode Eight also explains why Qrow keeps his distance from everyone, and why he was so far away from RNJR: his semblance is uncontrolled misfortune to everyone around him, and simply being around people causes bad luck to happen to them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Winter's Inheritance]]
* Is Winter already out of the inheritance? I mean, yeah, she left home to join the military and work under Ironwood, someone who seems to be almost a threat to Jacques' power, but is this reason enough for her to be kicked out of his will? I think Weiss might be the first one to leave the inheritance and Winter is still in it, even though she couldn't care less.
** Winter is almost certainly cut out. Between how she described herself as being removed, how Jacques talks about her dividing the family, and how Weiss said that Whitley is now in line for the inheritance, Winter is definitely no longer the heiress.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:How does Mercury fire his boots?]]
* His prosthetic feet don't have any digits, and a trigger you use with your toes or pressure plate under his soles would get hit all the time accidentally just from fighting anyway and there doesn't seem to be any specific leg motion he uses to active them either so how exactly could they work?
** There's almost certainly a direct neural interface. Since both Yang and Ironwood are able to move their prosthetic components in a manner that looks entirely human, the technology certainly exists to link the prosthetic limbs with the organic neural network. From there he can just trigger them with his thoughts.
** These and Yang's arm are myoelectric prosthetics - sensors are attached to now vacant muscles or neural endings in the stump, and the processor is programmed to utilise the same signals as a real limb to make use of already present muscle memory (and then add something new, by process of ordinary movement learning). Such a technology already exists in real life, just not so advanced.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Qrow's Semblance]]
* It's explained that Qrow has got a passive misfortune semblance. As Miles and Kerry have stated, semblances are "fueled" by Aura, and they certainly can't be used when Aura is fully depleted ... so how come Qrow's misfortune kept working, even though his Aura had been depleted during his fight with Tyrian?
** It's probable that the misfortune had already been inflicted on Ruby and the surrounding area by the time his Aura was depleted. Simply being near him earlier in the fight was enough so something bad would happen to her and Tyrian later on. Another possibility is that his Aura wasn't fully depleted, he'd just lost enough that his shields were no longer active, or during the lull in the fight, there was enough time that passed for his Aura to regenerate enough for his Semblance to kick in again, but it was still too weak for the shields to come back up. His Semblance doesn't seem to be flashy or overt, so I suspect it doesn't consume much of his Aura, unlike others'.
** To follow along with the above, his Semblance could be seen as a very subtle/low-powered Final Destination type of deal. Note that the big wooden board that would have come close to killing Ruby was standing there precariously, and only moved when Ruby got close enough. Misfortune of others could be an understatement if it's shown to be any worse.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Dinner at Salem's]]
* So, what do people eat at Salem's fortress? If she and the Grimm don't need to eat, what about Cinder's gang?
** Salem almost certainly has some form of food available for her people, considering that they have transportation and scroll services there. She likely has some kind of staff inside the fortress who tends to everyone's needs. Even if food doesn't grow there, she can have some delivered by other human servants.
** Or retrieved by those "seer" Grimm. After all, they do seem to have a lot of intelligence and follow orders.
** Or maybe people just don't eat at Salem's fortress. We don't know what Salem is, so we don't know if she needs to eat, but the Grimm probably don't need to. The humans probably don't live at the fortress themselves, and have some sort of dwelling in a kingdom or village where they could get food to eat the way normal people do. The room where they converge is just a place where they can meet up in person, which they would have to start doing since the CCTS is down and scrolls don't work.
** Cinder, and by extension Mercury and Emerald, is outright said to be staying there as part of Salem's "treatments." But that's not a serious problem, as feeding only a few people isn't that hard. If half a dozen humans and/or Faunus are able to easily enter and leave, they shouldn't have trouble getting food and drink in.
** They have at least one Bullhead there. Presumably, they take a few crates of food with them from time to time.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Catch a train]]
* So... why didn't RNJR take a train or bike to Haven?
** Easy public transportation to Mistral was down. This is stated in the news report when Yang was watching TV. Later on, once they were on Anima, RNJR are in sparsely-populated areas where the best infrastructure is dirt roads. There's no trains or bikes for them to take.
** While there is a train fairly close to Oscar's farm, if you look around the area Oscar lives in, it's clear that he's not living deep in the wilderness that RNJR are walking through. The woods around his farm are much thinner, there's no protective wall around the farm, and he doesn't seem exceptionally worried about Grimm attacks. Oscar is probably within the secured perimeter near Mistral or one of its other towns, in an area that would be safer and thus have better infrastructure. Also, the train lines likely service the agricultural area that Oscar lives in, transporting food and other products supplied by the farms when they aren't carrying passengers into town, which is another reason why Oscar's area has train access but the wilderness that RNJR is walking through doesn't.
** In addition, as shown in the Volume 4 finale, Mistral's air force doesn't patrol out in the area around Kuroyuri, let alone the further wilderness beyond that which RNJR was traveling through. If they're unwilling to commit even air patrols to such a dangerous and abandoned area, they're certainly unwilling to put in the time and resources to build a train line out there.
** We see in the final episode to Volume 4 that there were no trains on the quickest route to Mistral from the port that RNJR arrived at, because Yang is shown taking the exact same route using her motorcycle. With air traffic grounded between the kingdoms, there's no easy way to get anywhere between them, leaving everyone stuck driving or walking through trackless and sparsely-populated wilderness.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Emerald knows Ruby's outfit]]
* How does Emerald know enough about what Ruby looks like in Volume 4 to create an accurate illusion for Cinder to burninate?
** Tyrian saw her and could provide a description and possibly even pictures, given how long he was tracking her.
** It's easier for RT's animators to just use Ruby's Volume 4 design instead of recreating or reusing her original design.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Oscar's Neck]]
* Are those things on Oscar's neck a scarf or are those bandages? Are they just aesthetic or do they serve any purpose? I am thinking it might be just part of his design, but I wanted someone else's input.
** They're pretty much a neck equivalent of sweat bands, that go around the neck to absorb sweat. Farmers commonly wear them due to strenuous labor. And for technical animation reasons, they're probably there to hide neck seams on his model.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Sun's Phone or Illa's Phone?]]
* Wasn't the phone Sun and Blake going after was Sun's and not Illa's? Why would Sun's phone have secret plans for the White Fang?
** The scroll was Illia's, as evidenced by the White Fang data. There's no reason Sun would have that data on his scroll; his scroll just hit her by complete accident when Blake threw it.
** Volume 5 confirms it is Ilia's phone.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Lights of Menagerie]]
* Faunus are supposed to have perfect night vision, as we learned in Volume 1 and saw in the White Fang meeting in Volume 2. So why are all the houses in Menagerie lit up at night? There aren't any humans on the island, so it just seems like a waste of resources.
** First, it's never said that faunus have "perfect" night vision. We only know that they can see in the dark. Second, we don't know that there aren't humans living there. In fact, it would strain disbelief that no humans at all lived there, especially considering how much trade there is implied to be. Second, just because you can see in the dark doesn't mean it's optimal or even preferable. Night vision isn't full color, it's typically black and white, so it's likely better to have the place illuminated simply so you can see color. A faunus won't stub his toe in the dark, but that doesn't mean he'll want to spend all his time in complete pitch darkness. He'll have his areas lit, if only for comfort's sake.
** In Volume 5, Sun mentions that there's a "Nocturnal Section" of the city, indicating that some faunus do prefer to be out at night. We probably don't see or notice it because, well, the lights would be out over there. Also, the fact that Ilia can sneak around in darkness by going pitch black indicates that there's likely varying degrees of night vision among the faunus.
** Not all Faunus have night vision. Many of them do, but not all. When Faunus night vision is brought up in Volume 1, Chapter 12, Pyrrha says that "many" Faunus have low-light vision.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:It's My Turn]]
* So why the hell does Weiss make a big deal out of disobeying her father when she just goes back with him? Can't she just defy him again like she did when she went to Beacon? What the hell was the deal with Winter's conversation if it didn't even matter?
** Weiss' main goal involves redeeming the family name and the Schnee Dust Company. Weiss' character arc was about resolving to not be under her father's control. She was going to have to go back at some point anyway in order to take control of the SDC, and when she went home she was very much ''not'' playing by Jacques' playbook and eventually stood up to him directly. While at first she was submissive and obedient, that's practically inevitable considering that she'd spent sixteen years having to be a submissive daughter by necessity, and that's not going to get broken overnight. Weiss needed some time to build up to outright, in-your-face defiance of Jacques. It's actually quite realistic that someone who's spent a lot of their life being dominated by a strong personality and begins to be independent while away from that personality will quickly revert to submissiveness when encountering them again.
** Also, if the age of majority in Remnant is the same as it is in the United States, then Weiss is still technically a minor, and Jacques may well have had legal rights to bring her back. This is especially important if the place that she was supposed to stay at - Beacon - is too dangerous to live in. There may well be a legal requirement that if a combat school or academy cannot provide adequate or safe housing, then the parent can come and take back a minor who is attending the school until the school can rectify the problem. Coupled with the simple fact that it's her father pressuring her to come home, and that sort of thing cannot be shaken off easily due to her childhood and loyalty to the family name, and it's entirely plausible that Weiss would reluctantly agree to go home with her father.
** In addition, if you pay attention to the full version of "This Life Is Mine," there's lyrics which state that Jacques had a tendency to guilt Weiss into obedience and leveraged the family name - something she obviously holds as extremely important to her - as a means to keep her obedient. Family, even if it that included her shitbag of a father, is very important to her, and it wasn't until Whitley's apparent turn against her that Weiss finally decided enough was enough and broke away completely. The song's lyrics also make a clear distinction between Weiss' "heart" and her "mind": one part wants to stay loyal to her family, no matter what, while the other part wants to be free, and she has to struggle between which one she should follow... until she finally makes the call, breaks the figurative mirror separating the two, and escapes.
** Weiss wants to be head of the family, and is pretty dependent on her family's resources. Both would be much harder if her father disinherited her, so she's at least going to try to stay on his good side.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Mercury in Amity Colosseum]]
* I'm a bit confused by what Mercury is doing at the beginning of the third act of Volume 3; Cinder has just told him to lie low, he says he's going to do that. Makes sense, because they don't want anyone to know that he's up and about again. The next time we see him he's in the Colosseum, skulking around the corridors behind the stands and in a perfect position to stop Ruby. First questions is why he was apparently disobeying Cinder. The second is something that's been bothering me for a long time; he acts like she knows what's going to happen when Pyrrha and Penny fight, but as far as he or anyone else should know, she's completely ignorant of Penny's mechanical nature. What's going on here?
** This was discussed up above but I'll reiterate the responses here. Mercury isn't disobeying Cinder, as he ''is'' lying low by staying in the maintenance corridors. Mercury was clearly stationed there to intercept anyone who might interfere with the match. Since the plan is literally minutes away from reaching a point that it won't matter if anyone sees Mercury or not, it's an acceptable risk for him to intercept Ruby. As for him knowing about Ruby's awareness of Penny's mechanical nature, it's entirely plausible that he made the conclusion Ruby was aware of it, because it's obvious that Ruby and Penny are close friends and Ruby was distressed when she realized Penny and Pyrrha were fighting. And if Ruby wasn't aware and got confused by his cryptic statement about polarity and metal, well, that's not really Merc's concern.
** Ah, see, I got confused because I thought those corridors were like those in a baseball stadium; even when they're not in-between innings, there's usually a bunch of people going around in there; I'm actually still confused as to how Ruby was able to easily access those corridors, if they ''are'' for maintenance. As for the second part, well, that's an explanation but it still seems like an odd thing to say- maybe it's just because I never saw Mercury as being all that smart? (But that's personal bias; if nothing else, he's ''very'' observant)
** I believe that there's a wrench symbol on the doors, indicating that they are for maintenance and not as a crowd access. The public access corridors are visible in later episodes and lead directly to the airship docks. The maintenance doors were likely left unlocked, which is certainly true to real life; usually the only thing keeping people out of similar corridors in real life is just an "Authorized Personnel Only" sign and the warnings associated with that.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Where the heck are sloths?]]
* Nora mentioned them one or twice back in the first season, but it struck me that it's never actually said where sloths are in this world. In real life, they live in rainforests in Central or South America, but we've never actually seen or been shown any part of the four kingdoms that corresponds to this type of environment.
** Jungles presumably exist in the central latitudes of Remnant. We just haven't been to one yet in the show, though Menagerie shows evidence of a tropical environment, so jungles almost certainly exist.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Complacent Kingdom Security]]
* No less than 6 rogue bullheads under White Fang/Cinder Fall affiliation have appeared in the series, at no less than three separate intervals. How do they keep getting in or around so deeply into the kingdom completely unstopped or unnoticed until they get there? Not wanting to cause a panic is one thing, but it is mind boggling that they'd have no air traffic controllers to point out that the aircraft coming in are unauthorized and thus must be shot down, or at least send security forces to deal with them rather than team RWBY magically being in the area each and every time. And on a similar note, how does an entire Giant Nevermore make its way past all of Atlas' fancy airships to attack the colosseum without anyone noticing its approach? For that matter, how do all the Grimm that follow get so close to Beacon without the aforementioned military noticing or doing anything about it? James Ironwood, for all your talk of your army and military might and wiping threats out proactively, it doesn't look good when one of the most obvious targets in local airspace waltez past your security line without anyone or anything to stop it. It's just awfully bizarre that Grimm are so close that one immediately shows up at Amity Colosseum so soon after Cinder finishes her speech.
** Okay, splitting this down:
### Bullheads flying over the city: Who said that the Bullheads were unauthorized? They may very well have had authorization, especially considering that we already know that at least one Kingdom's academy Headmaster is under Salem's control, and Salem has obviously been planning these operations for a long time. Not to mention that if they fly in low enough, they would get underneath radar systems. Also keep in mind that Vale is currently in a "time of unprecedented peace" and that they wouldn't have the kind of strict air traffic control systems that we have in the modern era, since they haven't had anyone crashing planes into buildings in living memory. The last massive war was eighty years ago, remember, so they just won't have as tight a defense, and air defense networks would be configured to target Grimm, not civilian aircraft. Also, keep in mind that typically, air traffic controllers only track plane transponders, not the planes themselves, and only ''military'' radar actively track civilian planes; unless there's currently a reason for the military to be on alert and looking for certain planes, they won't be noticing aircraft that aren't flying with active transponders. Note, also, that the White Fang don't fly any Bullheads around once Atlas' ships are regularly flying overhead until the Grimm invasion starts, so they were obviously not willing to risk being spotted at that point. All of these together mean that it would be fairly plausible, in the early part of the series, that civilian aircraft with unauthorized flight plans would be flying around over the city without being shot down. Vale's air defenses aren't as trigger happy about civilian flights as most modern air defenses are.
### Team RWBY magically being in the area each time: They weren't magically in the area. The first instance was by sheer chance, while in the second one Blake and Sun had puzzled out where the next robbery was going to be, so they were ready when the Bullheads arrived. The third time involved RWBY directly confronting Torchwick and him having to call one in to extract him.
### Grimm entering Vale's airspace: This is directly addressed as soon as it shows up. Velvet asks how it got past the defenses, and Ren points out that it wasn't alone. Keep in mind that when we cut back to to the Atlas fleet, it is literally being swarmed by hundreds of Grimm to the point that Nevermores are on the hulls of the ships and hammering them. That Nevermore didn't simply fly past them, but it was the only one that managed to get through without being intercepted or at least diverting to attack the fleet. The Atlesian fleet was actually keeping most of the airborne Grimm out of Vale before Neo and Roman took down their ships.
### Giant Nevermore showing up when it did: If you pay attention during Cinder's speech, the Grimm are already attacking the Atlesian perimeter when she's talking. Airborne Grimm fly faster than ground-based Grimm run, so it makes sense that the airborne Grimm would have reached and begun overrunning the air defense perimeter fast enough that one of them might have gotten through to the Colosseum.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Why was Roman stealing Dust?]]
* Cinder has Roman steal incredible amounts of Dust, but this doesn't seem to play into her schemes at all. My best guess is that she just wanted the panic and confusion the unusual crime spree caused.
** That and Dust is useful for the White Fang and the bombs they were planting. It also drives up Dust prices, which as we can see in Volume 4, was exacerbating the tensions between Atlas and the other Kingdoms even before Ironwood shut down traffic. Disrupting Dust flows makes things worse all around for the Kingdoms, and it helps hide Cinder's true motives.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Why does Salem want Ruby captured alive?]]
* It's been bothering me because you'd think that a silver-eyed girl who curb-stomped a Grimm Dragon and absolutely wrecked Cinder would mean, "Hey, maybe we should kill her before she can master her powers." But, Salem wants her alive. Why?
** Based on what we've seen so far: So Cinder can kill her. It's obvious from the very beginning of Volume 4 that Cinder deeply wants revenge on Ruby for what she did to her, so Salem orders Ruby taken alive so that Cinder can get closure from her trauma by killing her, and later on Salem is shown smiling in approval that Cinder is working out her frustrations by killing mental projections of Ruby from Emerald. Volume 5 also shows that Cinder is obsessed with getting payback on Ruby for maiming her. Salem maintains control of her minions using carrots and sticks, and in this case, delivering a live Ruby for Cinder to get revenge on is Cinder's carrot.
** That makes no sense. Why would Salem want Ruby taken in alive only to be killed by Cinder? If Salem wanted her dead, she would've told Tyrion to do so in Vol. 4 rather than bring her in alive. Even Cinder is frustrated at Salem for leaving Ruby alive.
** The entry above pretty clearly lays out why Salem would want Ruby to be brought in alive for Cinder to kill her: so that Cinder can get closure from her trauma by personally exacting revenge on Ruby. And yes, Cinder is angry because Salem seems to be acting like she's being merciful, but Salem can't just outright say to Cinder that she's bringing the person she hates the most in the world to their doorstep just so Cinder can kill her and get over herself. It's all a massively-screwed up therapy session for the self-absorbed, power-hungry, and currently revenge-obsessed psychopath that Salem's trying to fix so she can be useful to her again. Just killing Ruby outright might resolve a lot of problems, but Cinder won't be able to work out her issues and get closure by just hearing that Ruby is dead; she'll only get that closure by personally incinerating her.
** Either that, or Salem has some as-yet-unknown reason for wanting Ruby alive that hasn't been revealed. Considering that thus far the series has been tight-lipped on its various secrets, it's entirely possible that there's some secret to Silver Eyes that hasn't been revealed yet that Salem may want to exploit by bringing Ruby in alive.
** Salem was smiling at Cinder burning a mental image of Ruby that only Cinder could see; it may have simply been "Emerald give Cinder an image of something she hates" without going into specifics. I seriously doubt Salem is going through the effort to capture Ruby alive simply to give Cinder target practice, especially given her characterization as a consummate pragmatist. I can only presume there's something about Ruby's powers that would be valuable to Salem, as opinioned above.
** The above theory isn't that Salem would bring in Ruby alive for "target practice," it's suggesting that Salem is bringing Ruby in alive to allow Cinder to exact revenge and gain closure and catharsis for what happened to her. Those are vastly different concepts.
** Salem wants her alive. It's not just so Cinder can personally murder her and get her jollies either because even Cinder said they needed Ruby taken alive in Vol 5 ep 12 and she passed up a perfect oppertunity to kill her in order to attack Weiss instead earlier on. Salem has a plan for her.
** Just a guess, but maybe she and her followers encountered only adult and trained silver-eyed warriors, which had to be killed, while inexperienced Ruby can be studied? Or alternatively, she has nothing to do with her silver eyes by themselves, but knows about her being "simple soul" Ozpin has faith in, and wants to torture him even more.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Yang's poison?]]
* Why hasn't Yang been seen drinking since her first appearance? With her very first line she orders a highball, and then... never again, except for a comment that Junior owes her a drink, which she never gets. The scene in the frontier bar almost seems to be going out of its way to suggest she doesn't drink. Granted, she's underage, but given her personality, it's hard to picture that stopping her, especially when around Qrow, or when backpacking through city-states where the difficulty of a 17-year-old getting a drink must vary wildly.
** There hasn't been any scene up until this point where Yang getting any alcohol would make sense. Especially at the fuel station, since she's driving. That and Yang doesn't seem to be a very strong drinker anyway; aside from one drink she ordered at Junior's club, we've never seen any other indications that she drinks with any regularity.
** Yang was clearly putting on an act when visiting Junior's the first time because she was there to get information. She's not needed to put such a front up since.
** A Strawberry Sunrises also don't have much alcohol in them to begin with.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Raven's logic]]
* So, Raven is constantly mocking Ozpin and refuses to work with him because of something that happened in the past. Fair enough. But thing is, the Ozpin-Salem conflict is not some personal vendetta, Raven outright admits that if Salem and the Grimm have their way, humanity will be wiped out to the man. So... what exactly is her proposed alternative? Just have everyone get eaten?
** Stay out of the way and let them fight their war themselves. This is an easy attitude to justify, especially because most of the world is ignorant of it and the world seems to be doing fine for the last few thousand years. I'm not saying she's right, but it's easy to justify. Raven doesn't present an alternative because she doesn't care about the conflict and thinks that the world will keep on spinning, and she's not unjustified with that attitude.
** Raven's logic seems to be less "Salem victory is inevitable and we're all doomed" and more "Salem's defeat is impossible. The stalemate will go on forever and the Grimm will never leave." But the Grimm are no real threat to the tribe and she could care less if some helpless normies keep getting eaten by Grimm, because only the strong survive. So she's not gonna risk herself getting killed for some perfect peaceful world. She's fine with the world as it is, and would rather life out her days pillaging and leaving people that can't fight off the Grimm to their fate. In fact if anything she'd be opposed to Salem's total defeat because that would mean the Grimm would be gone, villages could grow bigger and her tribe would have more trouble raiding and taking what they want, not to mention being the main target of peacekeepers now without the Grimm as a bigger threat. It's in Raven's interest for Ozpin and Salem's struggle to continue endlessly.
** Now that we know she's the Spring Maiden, Raven's logic and decision to stay out of the fight makes more sense. Not only is she keeping herself safe but she's also keeping the Relic out of Salem's hands by keeping her distance and severing contact with both sides. Vernal's commentary during the elevator ride indicates that Raven understands the importance of being the Maiden and that she'll do whatever it takes to keep that power out of Salem's hands, even if it means completely severing herself from the existing conflict between Ozpin and Salem.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Raven and Qrow's "curse"]]
* So Raven and even Yang treat Ozpin giving Raven and Qrow the ability to transform into birds as a bad thing. I'm willing to accept the idea that even if Raven did agree to it initially she might have come to regret it and to be fair to Yang she didn't know that Raven willingly accepted the power and believed it was forced on her. But all of this raises one question. What possible reason is there to be upset about gaining the ability to shapeshift? Raven and Qrow are able to switch between forms at will so they're not stuck as birds or anything and the transformation lets them travel quicker and keep an eye on things that they wouldn't normally be able to do to range and ability to stay hidden. If the show later reveals that there is some sort of negative side-effect or drawback to being given this ability I'll take back this question but as of now there is no downside so why complain?
** I don't think it was the power in and of itself that was bad, but everything else associated with it. Raven implies that it was forced on her when she reveals it to Yang, and from a certain perspective it could be considered to be forced, the same way one could argue that Pyrrha was forced into her role at the Fall Maiden. Ozpin shows up, inducts you into his BenevolentConspiracy, and offers you a choice to join up and fight to protect all of mankind or to not, and part of that is that you get a new power. Some would reasonably argue that you're being forced into it though expectation; after all, while you have the choice to join up with an organization to save the world, or turn your back on that. No one's going to say you're a coward or selfish for not signing on for that, but the implication and pressure are certainly there. For someone as focused as Raven is on just her one small part of the world, and how little she cares about anyone outside of her clan, it would definitely feel like she's being pressured into a fight she doesn't care about. The raven transformation is simply a symbol for her association with Ozpin, willing or not. At least that's how I interpret it, and everything we've seen so far regarding Raven implies that this is the case.
** We also now know that Raven doesn't just have the ability to turn into a raven, but she's actually the Spring Maiden, and, as of right now, unwillingly a part of this whole conflict between Ozpin and Salem. That's likely coloring her perception of the situation and Raven is using the polymorphic magic as an excuse; when she's talking about how Ozpin forced herself and Qrow into the situation, she's almost certainly referencing the Maiden powers and not just the transformation, but she can't outright say that.
** Her being the Spring Maiden should have no connection to her issues with Ozpin and she clearly wasn't referencing it. Ozpin didn't force Raven to become the Spring Maiden. We know the previous Spring Maiden ran away and joined the bandits more than a decade ago, which was after Raven had returned to leading the bandits (she left Taiyang shortly after Yang was born, so roughly 17 years ago). As we learned in episode 14, Raven killed the previous Spring Maiden and took the powers for herself because Raven found her to be too weak. Gaining the Spring Maiden powers was a choice Raven made on her own long after her feud with Ozpin began and even before then she willingly took the Spring Maiden into her camp for her power. For all her talk of wanting to stay out of the Ozpin vs. Salem fight, Raven chose to be involved by doing that and she can't blame that on Ozpin so the Maiden powers is a separate issue entirely.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Blake's lack of Dual Wielding]]
* How come Blake no longer wields Gambol Shroud’s sheathe as a second blade? Ever since volume 4 she seems to only wield the main katana part two-handed. She does try and take the sheathe out in the fight with Ilia in volume 5 episode 10 but that was only after she lost the katana and she immediately gets disarmed again and when she retrieves the katana she never attempts to get the sheathe. This raises the question of why she wasn’t using both in the first place. The katana looks too small to be a two-handed sword and it makes her fighting style less unique since Weiss, Qrow, Adam, Winter and Raven all wield single swords. This isn’t like Yang’s change in fighting style to use more kicks, which reflects CharacterDevelopment, it just feels like Blake isn’t using her full arsenal.
** Because none of the fights she's been in since Volume 3 have been situation where she needed to use both blades. She's always been engaging enemies where the precision of the single blade, the gun aspect, or the elastic ribbon and hook were needed, or she was swinging a single, heavy combined blade. The second blade is only really useful for close-quarters battle or parrying large amounts of gunfire, neither of which have been necessary, even against Ilia, who fights at a moderate distance. The animators aren't going to have Blake use a weapon or fighting style that doesn't have an application to the current fight.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Take back what was given]]
* If Ozpin was the one who gave the Maidens their powers, then why when Amber got injured, he did not just take her half back. Could have saved a lot of pain.
** Where in the story is it ever said that he can "just take her half back"? There's never even a suggestion that this is possible, indicating that Ozpin cannot simply recover the magic once he gave it away.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Grimm bypassing Aura?]]
* In Vault of the Spring Maiden, Cinder used her Grimm arm to steal the Spring Maiden powers from Vernal. Yet Vernal's aura hasn't been shown breaking. Is there something special about Cinder's Grimm that it can bypass aura or did Miles and Kerry forget about Aura in that situation?
** The same arm was able to bypass Raven's Aura as well to begin draining her powers. That and Vernal had been fighting Wess beforehand, so her Aura was likely weakened, the same way Yang's was when Adam cut off her arm. It may be a side effect of being fused with a human.
** There's no indication that someone's Aura needs to be broken to steal their powers. Aura protects you from bodily harm, not from something like this.
** OP, you are forgetting that this season disproved the generally believed idea that Aura works as TwentyFourHourArmor. People need to consciously focus their Aura in order to use it as a defense. Vernal was clearly caught off guard by Cinder's attack so she most likely didn't have enough time to protect herself. It's the same reason Weiss's Queen Lancer summon was able to stab Hazel when we hadn't seen his Aura be depleted. While the Grimm arm's ability to steal Maiden powers does clearly go through Aura (since Cinder uses it on Raven before we see her Aura run out), it was probably only able to stab Vernal in the chest because of her not activating her Aura in time.
** Honestly, Cinder's arm is likely special too. It definitely seems to be able to absorb aura, which would possibly mean that it's also quite effective at penetrating it.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Teleporting sword]]
* Did I miss something during Raven and Cinder's fight or did the hilt of Raven's sword go from Cinder to Raven after they switched swords in that one instance? It doesn't bother me, but other people are getting bothered by it.
** After the Dust blade shattered, Cinder dropped it and Raven probably caught it in the chaos afterward.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Retconning Relics]]
* I have been having an argument about this off and on with someone on youtube about the Relics. They say that the reveal that the Maidens being the only ones to open the Vaults to the Relics is a retcon. Is there any evidence that this revelation retcons anything?
** It isn't a retcon because nothing regarding accessing or opening the Vaults was ever made clear in the earlier parts of the show. You cannot retcon something that was never mentioned to begin with.
** Well actually although the relics and vaults were part of the original plans that Monty, Kerry and Miles made before they even wrote the trailers. The Maidens however didn't get put into the outline until after Vol. 2. Monty had come up with them and Kerry and Miles added them in because he had been so excited about it.
** Can you give me the source of where that came from? The person I'm arguing with, won't believe me if it came from Tv tropes.
** It was mentioned in the Vol. 3 commentary. As well as being brought up in the Last RWBY Rewind (for V5/E13) where Miles and Kerry were asked when did they know they would have Raven be the Spring Maiden and they answered since Vol. 3 when they added the Maidens to the story.
** I meant where did they mention that the Relics and Vaults were part of their original plan?
** I can't say for certain if they ever said that the Relics and Vaults were planned from the beginning, but considering that, at least, the relics are such an important part of the story, as well as part Salem's goal who was the ninth character to have their concept to be finished, it is highly likely that they are part of the original plan since M/M/K planned out the key points of the story ahead of time. The story for the Deity Brothers, from whom the relics came from, was actually Miles first major contribution to the planning of RWBY. So far the only known major change was the Maidens. If you want to find some good sources of info I suggest going to RWBY Wiki. The staff there can be helpful if you got questions as they are good at keeping track of info that comes from RT.
** Even if the Relics and Maidens weren't planned from the beginning, it's only a retcon if the new information contradicts something that was established in an earlier part of the show. If the person you're arguing with about this supposed retcon keeps up their argument, ask them what earlier information in the show is supposed to be retconned.
** While I agree that the Maidens opening the Vaults is not a retcon do to not contradicting anything established, I will admit that the way it is revealed smells suspiciously like writer's revisions. Namely the fact that it is introduced a volume after Qrow gave the explanation of the Maidens and Relics and the fact that Qrow just said he forgot to mention it since there was a lot to cover could potentially mean that it wasn't planned when he gave his explanation in Volume 4 episode 8. Now it is also entirely possible that they did have it planned but didn't feel the need to put it in Volume 4 since it wasn't relevant at the time and might have bogged down the episode with too much exposition or not have flowed properly (and again, it doesn't actually contradict anything previously stated) but the way it's revealed is still odd.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Why Ice?]]
* Of all elements why would Spring and Fall control ICE? That seems like it would be Winter's power instead.
** You seem to be suffering from the fanon idea of the Maidens being limited to a single "element." There's no indication of such anywhere within the setting's magic system. The Maidens all have access to heat, cold, electricity, and weather manipulation.
** At the very least, Fall can also control Fire, and Spring can control Wind. It's likely that they can all control multiple elements
** Miles and Kerry stated on RWBY Rewind that the Maidens can use any element they want as seen in Amber's fight. They can develop a preference to a particular element like Cinder always using fire, but she can still use the other elements if she wants to.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Oscar and Ozpin]]
* Some members of the FNDM think that Ozpin will one day overtake Oscar's personality. Is there any real indication of this besides the single time Oz forced a takeover?
** There's little evidence of this. Ozpin himself said that their personalities and memories will merge later on. Most likely Oscar will remain the dominant personality but he'll take on Ozpin's memories and experiences as his own, identifying himself as Oscar but taking up the same mantle as Ozpin and his predecessors. Note that while Ozpin seems to identify himself as the same entity who was passed down through the generations, he never refers to himself as the "wizard" or any other title that he held in the past; he was just "Professor Ozpin." There may be some bleedthrough to the memories; Oscar's already shown than he feels as though Ozpin's memories are his, after all. But the entity in control of his body will identify himself as Oscar.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: What's weak against Silver Eyes again?]]
* So when Qrow first described the power of the Silver Eyes to Ruby, he made it sound like the SE acted almost like Anti-Grimm. That they could vanquish Grimm with just a look or could freeze the more powerful ones like Glenn the Dragon. Then, Salem tells Cinder that the power she just recieved makes her weak to the power of the Silver Eyes, and the FNDM pretty much assumed she was talking about Cinder's new Maiden magic. But then, we see Cinder has a Grimm arm that clearly doesn't like Ruby's Silver Eyes. Basically, what I'm asking is that when Salem said 'Your new powers make you weak to the Silver Eyes' was she referring to Cinder's Grimm arm and the Maiden powers were just a red herring? Or are both the Maiden powers AND the Grimm arm weak against the Silver Eyes?
** Raven has no response to the silver eyes being activated. That alone proves that it's the Grimm arm that was what made Cinder vulnerable. Keep in mind also that before, Cinder did have another Grimm as a part of her in the form of the beetle that was draining Amber's powers, which almost certainly contributed to Cinder's defeat at Ruby's hands.
** Though given how we never saw Raven at all at that point, the question's still up in the air.
** Conservation of detail. There's no reason to put Raven in the shot if she wouldn't have had any reaction to it. in addition, Vernal showed no reaction, and if Maidens were affected by the Silver Eyes, and that's something known of by the characters present, she would have had to fake a response to continue the deception. It's supremely unlikely that the Maidens are impacted in any way by the Silver Eyes, unless we see any evidence to the contrary in the show.
** It's unlikely at this point, but keep in mind that Vernal not being the Maiden was the big twist of the season. They couldn't have shown Raven reacting to the blast like Cinder did because that would have ruined the surprise.
** Volume 6 confirms that the Eyes only work in response to the Grimm. Maria says that you literally cannot use the powers outside of being in the presence of Grimm. It's pretty clear that Cinder's weakness to the Eyes came from her Grimm arm, and probably the Grimm inside of her that let her absorb Amber's magic.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Sun's introduction]]
* Why did Sun apparently come to Vale ahead of his teammates? Let alone by stowing away on a ship? I hadn’t even realized he was a student, and not just some petty thief, until Volume Two.
** Because it was funny. Sun is very clearly based off [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Wukong Sun Wukong, the Monkey King]], a classic character who was distinct in that he was incredibly impulsive and often did things on a whim because they would be amusing.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Younger?]]
* Blake said at the end of Volume One that she hadn’t been involved with the White Fang since she was younger, but the Black Trailer couldn’t have been more than a few months before the series began. Short of her not considering Adam’s group part of it anymore (in which case why is that not brought up?) just speaking in the heat of the moment (understandable) or just a mistake, what does that mean?
** Blake was talking in general terms. Also, considering that Blake abandoned Adam before Cinder recruited him, and the length of her hair between that and the begining of the series, Blake may have abandoned him up to a year or more before the series began, which would definitely make her younger.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Weiss and Blake]]
* I think I can understand to some extent, but how was Weiss able to completely forgive Blake and accept her back into the team after one weekend? I can think of a few reasons, but I wanted to see what other people think.
** Forty-eight hours is a lot of time to process one's thoughts and feelings on a subject. Weiss thought on the subject of Blake while looking for her, and after considering her feelings on the matter outside of a heated argument, she just realized she didn't care what Blake once was.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Volume 5 Timeline]]
* This is a minor thing, but I am trying to wrap my head around the timeframe in Vol. 5. The events in Menagerie take place over a couple of days, but then they travel to Mistral. How long did that take? A week? A month? How long were RWY and JNR training while Lionheart stalled?
** They didn't immediately travel to Mistral. The Belladonnas took several weeks to a month or so to train and arm up their militia before sending them to Mistral. Ruby and the rest of her group took the same amount of time to train as well.
** It's established they only had two weeks before the Fall of Haven. Make that of what you will.
** That doesn't really mean much. Considering that inter-kingdom travel can be done in a matter of days with aircraft, and in real life a ship can cross an ocean in less than a week (and Remnant's ships are no doubt better than ours), they could easily load up their militia and make it to Mistral in that timeframe.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Qrow’s Job]]
* How exactly does Qrow balance his job at Signal and the work he does for Ozpin?
** Huntsmen going on missions seems to be worked into their teaching duties, considering that Taiyang was also a teacher but he was going on missions at the start of Volume 3. If it's anything like real-life specialist combat instruction, Qrow likely has a loose training schedule where he comes in to provide selective training during specific points in the school year while the rest of the time students are instructed by more regular instructors.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Destroying everything?]]
* According to World of Remnant the Grimm only attack humans. But when Qrow tells team RNJR the story of the Relics, Ruby immediately knows what he’s talking about when he says the God of Darkness created something that shared his desire to destroy EVERYTHING, before humanity even existed. So how did she know that?
** You're approaching this far too literally. Qrow is telling a story about divinely-created monsters that destroy things. Ruby has lived all her life in a setting where the Grimm actively destroy humanity and their creations. Se's not going to make a technical, semantic distinction between "destroy everything" and "destroy only things that humanity builds" when she's spent her whole life learning about and fighting against monsters that destroy humanity.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Blake at Beacon]]
* Two questions, really. First, why go to Beacon of all places after leaving the White Fang? Second, how was Blake able to attend Beacon with only a bow to disguise herself and USING HER REAL NAME and not be recognized as the daughter of the previous High Leader of the White Fang?
** For attending Beacon: It was close to where she defected from the White Fang while still being relatively safe from the White Fang, and is also Vale is the most progressive and friendly of the four Kingdoms.
** As for no one recognizing her... why would they? Ghira was the leader of what was, in his heyday, a civil rights group that wasn't particularly large or influential. The White Fang only became notable and effective when Sienna Khan took over, and by that time Ghira was just a local chief of a small city. Literally no one recognizes Blake outside of the White Fang itself or the population of Menagerie. The only non-faunus who seems to recognize who she is would be Ozpin, and he's an exception to the norm.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Jacques’ “plan”]]
* What exactly prompted Weiss to think Jacques was planning in advance to disinherit her?
** Weiss never hinted that she knew or even suspected that Jacques would disinherit her. Her reaction when he cuts her inheritance is complete shock. Later on, when she's talking with Whitley, she does mention that "He knew this would happen" but that doesn't mean much. It could mean that Jacques had been planning it or that Whitley just expected them to clash and that Jacques would pull the inheritance, but Weiss had no way of knowing it was going to happen at all before Jacques pulled her out of the will.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ozpin’s intel]]
* Ozpin mentioning “robots and rose petals in a nightclub” when musing about what Team RWBY’s been up to. Yang went to the club, but Ruby was probably in another district of the city and the robot only passed by the club. So how did anyone make that connection?
** It's just a general comment by Ozpin that shouldn't be taken literally, with him commenting on the distinct features of the team. Basically him saying "I know it was you who were involved in that fight."
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Tournament schedule]]
* Oobleck announces the battles are done for the day, and then Ozpin mentions after Qrow’s fight with Winter a few minutes later Ozpin mentions there’s still one going on. So which is it?
** Ozpin says it is a "sanctioned fight," not a tournament battle. There's almost certainly fights that aren't part of the tournament but are for entertainment purposes, considering the culture of Remnant and the Huntsman academies.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Raven and Vernal’s deception]]
* How exactly were Cinder, Watts, Qrow, and possibly Ozpin not suspicious? Vernal never has the flame-like effect around her eyes that are visible when a Maiden uses the powers. Hell, Raven was using her mask to hide it during the demonstration. Did Salem and Ozpin just both forget to tell their subordinates about one of the most distinctive features of the people they’re supposed to be protecting/hunting?
** Flame effects don't necessarily need to be visible around the eyes to use Maiden abilities. Remember that Cinder herself was using the Fall Maiden's fire powers throughout the first three volumes without the flame effects around her eyes. The flames around the eyes are just a sign that the Maiden is exerting a lot more power than normal.
** Actually In Volumes 1 and 2 Cinder wasn't using maiden powers much if at all. Since she had to stay under cover she was using dust sewn into her clothes.
** The fire-based powers are explicitly a Maiden ability. It's never outright said that she was using Fire Dust in her clothes; Ironwood only said that using Dust in clothing was an old technique and that two people using fire abilities doesn't mean it's the same person. She used her Maiden abilities to reshape her glass weapons while fighting the guards, and there was no accompanying light in her clothing to indicate Fire Dust being used, and when the melted and reshaped her clothes her body was surrounded by lights similar to a much smaller-scale version of the particle effects that would b visible when she and Raven fought. Most tellingly, the way she deflected Ruby's projectiles was exactly the same as how Amber did it with her powers, minus the eye flames.
** Vernal has her eyes closed when "demonstrating" her power preciously to avoid revealing she doesn't have those eye effects, and there was nothing to give Cinder and Watts a reason to suspect it wasn't her using the powers at that moment. I'm not sure why you think Qrow and Ozpin could be suspicious, Qrow has only pieced together that the Spring Maiden is with Raven's group and never seen it with his own eyes, and Raven rather conspicuously says at the start of the fight at Haven Academy that Vernal shouldn't use her maiden powers in there so anyone who would wonder why she's not busting out the elements would rationalise it as Vernal following her leader's orders.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Take your time, Ghira]]
* So after learning about Adam’s plan to take over the White Fang and attack Haven, Ghira waits to get the word out long enough for Sun’s injuries to heal, the chase scene in Blake’s character short to happen, and the entire group to talk with the Albain brothers (who on a related note they KNOW, or at least should know, are involved in this). So, altogether that can’t have been less than a couple of weeks. Shouldn’t getting the message to Haven and warning Sienna, at minimum, take priority here?
** He did send out a messenger, it was mentioned in Volume 5 that the White Fang loyal to Adam intercepted and killed him before he could send word out to Mistral.
** Keep in mind that Ghira is a popular leader, and he has to properly carry out investigations into the White Fang's intentions. This includes nabbing up known associates and gathering further information beyond general dates involving a plot. Remember that when Ghira first pushes his people to act, they respond with hesitation. He was no doubt trying to get more evidence that he could present to both his people and Mistral's government before he dispatched his messenger.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Sienna’s location]]
* Why was Sienna Khan apparently based out of Mistral instead of Menagerie?
** She's the leader of a terrorist organization. They tend not to stay in one place for too long.
** Also, Menagerie was far away from the main CCT towers even before the system went online. We e don't know exactly what that would mean for communication, but it would be wise for Sienna not to take any risks and remain close to where the Fang's oprations were taking place, as to command them without trouble.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Beacon and Vale]]
* Am I the only one confused about Beacon’s position relative to the rest of the city? I got the impression from the first couple episodes that Beacon was in a cliff overlooking Vale proper, but in Volume 3 it’s close enough to have the CCT there.
** Beacon is on the cliff overlooking the city. The CCT is Ozpin's tower and is in the middle of Beacon. It's nowhere near the city itself.
** Then how were Ruby and Penny able to run from there to Ironwood’s presentation in the middle of town? Or was that another building?
** They didn't. Penny and Ruby met at the CCT, then Penny told Ruby to meet her later at another location because she was being watched. They met a few hours later in the city.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Cinder’s Complexity Addiction]]
* Two questions: One, why did Cinder risk the secrecy of her operation by accompanying Roman during the initial heist? Two, given how easily she took out the guards, why did she need to approach the CCT by the rooftops?
** One: How was she risking secrecy? All they'd know is that Roman had a powerful accomplice, that's pretty much it. As for Two: so she could keep the element of surprise as long as possible. The more guards she takes down on the way there, the faster people notice something is wrong.
** One: Roman had personnel issues already, considering he was hiring Junior's men to help him, meaning that they needed everyone on deck. Cinder operating the getaway vehicle wasn't risking any secrecy anyway.
** Two: Walking down the street in that stealthy infiltration getup is asking for trouble. Staying on the rooftop minimizes who could see her and call it in. Ruby only noticed her by pure chance. If someone had spotted her before she got the CCT, Ironwood and a small army would have potentially been waiting for her.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Lack of campsite security]]
* Why didn’t Team RNJR seem to have anyone on guard during the night?
** Jaune was up and active, so clearly he was the one on guard duty.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Killing the Nuckalavee]]
* So apparently the Nuckalavee had been terrorizing the area around Kuroyuri for over a decade, but four relatively green hunters working together were able to take it down, suggesting that, while above average for a Grimm, it was weaker than, say, the Goliaths or the dragon Grimm. So how had a more experienced hunter or group already been sent after it and killed it? If it killed every other hunter it fought before, how were Team RNJR (who, again, are inexperienced) the ones to buck that trend? If it had never encountered actual hunters before (which seems to be what was implied in the show itself) then why didn’t, say, the Mistral council, or anyone else in a position to do so, send hunters after it, instead of just abandoning the area and leaving it completely unopposed?
** Villages getting wiped off the map is a fact of life on Remnant, so the Mistral Council isn't really going to waste much effort on it. Also the Nuckalavee was likely smart enough to recognize a trained Huntsman or Huntress and avoid them, and underestimated RNJR's capabilities.
** There's nothing out there that anyone cared enough about to send someone out to kill it. People don't go out and hunt and kill Grimm for the fun of it; Huntsmen get paid for their work and no one was willing to pay to deal with the creature. The region the Nuckelavee inhabited was too distant and remote for anyone from Mistral to bother with, and the only people who would live out there were people independent from the kingdom's control. The fact that anyone was even out there at all in such a distant and dangerous wilderness was strange enough that a passing patrol diverted to investigate.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Atlas Time]]
* So, volume four takes place at least a few months after the Fall of Beacon. But Jacques and Ironwood are just then responding to it (holding the fundraiser and closing the border/recalling his troops respectively) and Whitley sure doesn't act like Weiss has been back that long. So unless Weiss' arc occurs before the rest of Volume 4 (In which case her flight to Mistral would have to take months, which I doubt) how did everyone take this long to start reacting to what happened?
** The events of Volume 4 are not concurrent. RNJR's segment happens all at the same time, Blake's segment happens later on, and Weiss' plotline is spread over several months of different incidents, starting with the meetings in Jacques' office right after Weiss returns to the charity event a few months later.
** Then why wait that long to hold the event? And why did Ironwood wait that long to close the border?
** Because it takes time to set up charity events and to mobilize military forces, especially on the scale needed to completely shut down borders. Those things don't happen overnight.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Grimm Intelligence]]
* So, Oobleck implies that most smaller Grimm, such as Beowolves, are basically mindless, and backing that up they aren't usually shown to have much of a self-preservation instinct. So why did the ones Ruby and Weiss encountered run from the fire they started?
** Even creatures of basic animal intelligence instinctively recognize that fire is dangerous. Grimm don't have much self-preservation when they're given an opportunity to attack humans, but they can't fight fire. Oobleck's comment that they are "mindless" also is just that: a comment. Many other instances of the Grimm show them to have animal-level or higher intelligence and recognition of threats.
** They dont lack self-preservation in the sense that they are completely oblivious to danger, but in the sense that there goal is to kill people. They will happily die for the chance to harm humans, but even the dumbest grimm wont just throw itself on a fire without cause
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Pyrrha's introduction]]
* Given his apparent familiarity with Pumpkin Pete's, how did Jaune not recognize Pyrrha? Moreover, how was Weiss the only one who seemed to?
** Aside from Jaune being fairly ignorant at the start, it's entirely realistic that someone wouldn't recognize a face theyve only seen on a [=2D=] cereal box, especially when ads with famous athletes will come and go every month.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Mistral Police]]
* What reason did the Mistral PD have to believe the Beladonnas about Adam's plan? They're Faunus, so for all the police know they could be doing this as a distraction to let Adam do something else, and given what we know so far, a lot of people would by default assume that.
** The Belladonnas aren't just Faunus. They're the heads of ''an entire city-state.'' When the heads of a country show up with tangible evidence of an impending terror attack and an army to help fight that terror attack, you at least have to pay attention to what they're saying.
** The Belladonnas are also rather well known for not being fans of Adam's methods, they have no reason to believe they would ever be on his side.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ghira's publicity]]
* So, I kind of got the impression that Ghira isn't a publicly known figure outside Menagerie, hence his daughter being able to attend Beacon without being recognized. But in the volume five finale, the Mistral police apparently know who he is and trust him. So which is it? Was Blake's existence just a secret for most of her life?
** Quick, grab a globe. Point a finger at a random country. Now name the daughter of the head of state of that country. You probably aren't able to do that. The few people on Remnant who know off the top of their heads the entire family of each head of state likely are not going to be interacting much with RWBY during their stay at Beacon. That and we also ''know'' that the Mistral government is in communication with Menagerie, as evidenced by the fact that a messenger was dispatched from Ghira to Mistral with reasonable expectation they would be able to convey the message to the Mistral government. That and we don't know how long the Belladonnas were in Mistral first before they got the police moving, and there likely was some offscreen dealings with the government to explain why the Faunus army was showing up and their evidence regarding the plot.
** Sasha and Malia Obama could quite comfortably go incognito in most schools in the US, not to mention an entirely different country. And they've had ''merchandise'' made of them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Just what's the deal with Emerald?]]
* It is made clear that the only, or at least the main reason Emerald fights on the villains' side is because of her loyalty to Cinder. And it makes sense on the first glance, Cinder took her of the street and all, but was pledging loyalty to a murderous criminal the only way off that street? In her chronologically first appearance Emerald already had her semblance unlocked and was able to use it to some effect - which could make for a great asset in ''many'' different ways - and didn't appear to be disabled, addicted or impaired in any fundamental way. Even if her enviroment was so hopeless that getting a regular job or receiving some sort of welfare was not an option, Emerald still could had tried her luck in one of the hunstman academies, since she apparently is more than strong enough for the job, or she could had made a career out of fighting on the entertainment stage, since her semblance makes Pyrrha's polarity look fair by comparison, or she could had just keep trying out crimes that didn't involve mass murder. So why is she sticking with an abusive, manipulative pyromaniac instead?
** It's likely she spent most of her early life living alone on the streets, stealing and fighting to survive, well before her Semblance was discovered. By the time she figured out her Semblance, she was likely already a criminal and wanted by law enforcement, which would preclude becoming a Huntsman, or at the very least it would preclude it in her perception. Considering that she latched onto Cinder the moment she offered her any help, Emerald probably didn't believe that anyone would be willing to help or look out for her. This is a distressingly-common attitude in the real world when it comes to impoverished youth who turn to crime: they believe that they can't rely on the law or government or other social institutions to help them and can only rely on themselves and whatever criminal groups they fall into. By the time they realize there might be another option, it could be too late for them. Emerald's recruitment and loyalty to Cinder bears all the marks of real-life gang or organized crime recruitment and retention.
** Emerald's Semblance has very little use in a legitimate career, she has difficulty doing it with multiple people so it's not very useful on grimm who usually attack in packs (if it works on grimm to at all) and also makes government spy/secret agent work (pretty much the only legitimate career where decieving people is a positive) difficult since important shit rarely has only a handful of guards.
*** There's also the option of being a designer, since she could in theory give people previews with her illusions. It might only work for one person, but that's more than enough for, e.g., being part of a fashion design duo (since they could come up with the designs together, then have Emerald wear illusions of them for fine-tuning and working out any little flaws not visible on paper).
[[/folder]]
[[folder: High Leader, or High Council?]]
* So, in the Albain twin's first appearance one of them mentions a "high council" that's supposedly disappointed in Adam. But in Volume Five there's no mention of them and Sienna (And later Adam) seems to be the only real central authority the White Fang has. Was there a council in Ghira's time and they were lying by telling him there still was one?
** In any military organization, there's going to be a high-ranking group of advisors and officers advising the leader. That's most likely who they're referring to.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ultimate Bystander Syndrome]]
* When Tyrian was about to sting Ruby and when Cinder stabbed Weiss, why exactly did Jaune and everybody just watch?
** Dramatic convention. Brief reaction shots before a dramatic impact or attack are a staple of most flashy fight scenes.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Yang's suicide mission]]
* During the Battle of Haven Yang, urged by Ruby, breaks off the main fight and chases after Cinder, Raven and Vernal, getting past Mercury and Emerald who ineffectively try to stop her. What exactly was the plan there? Unless Yang foresaw the exact chain of events that took place later (Raven disposing of Cinder and deciding not to take the Relic after a short talk), it must have looked like a suicide attack that makes Pyrrha's assault on Cinder look reasonable by comparison. Yang went to fight ''two'' maidens with ''one'' working arm, and yet everybody in the hall acted as if she was somehow a threat to the women down there. Does Ruby just want to be the only child?
** Considering the heroes felt the ground shaking from Raven and Cinder's fight, they could be reasonably sure that the Maidens were not on the same side. As for the plan itself, it probably amounted to 'Get the Relic at all costs'. The details could be worked out once she found out what was going on down there.
** One person in the right place at the right time can be the difference between victory and defeat. Don't forget that not a couple of minutes before, Jaune - the least competent and skilled fighter on the entire roster - nearly killed Cinder. Fights in RWBY aren't some RPG videogame battle of hit points and levels and stats; if Yang gets down there and gets in a surprise hit on one or the other, she'll take them down. Ruby trusts Yang be smart enough to pick her moment, and Emerald and Mercury respect her enough to be afraid she'll do the same.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The news in Menagerie]]
* How exactly could Blake's parents know about the Fall of Beacon without knowing the White Fang was involved?
** With the CCT down they only can get rumors from travelers, since Menagerie is pretty much in a pre-telegraph level of communications without the CCT. Menagerie is very distant and the White Fang were a relatively small part of the attack. Blake was the first person who actually witnessed the attack and fought the White Fang who made the journey to Menagerie to report what happened.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Blake's relationship with her parents]]
* Furthermore, how did they know she was at Beacon? I got the impression she hadn't contacted them since she walked out on them, but Kali mentions they were worried about her that night.
** There is no indication at any point that Blake wasn't in contact with her family. She didn't bring her family up but that doesn't mean she wasn't sending messages back home.
** Considering what we know about the circumstances of her leaving (eg, her calling them cowards, and what that implies) I doubt she would have been in contact since then. I'd gotten the impression that she was somewhat estranged from them, and there's no mention of any contact with them or anything else to suggest it.
** There isn't any real contradiction in that and her parents knowing she's at Beacon. There's a pretty big range between "Not on good terms" and "completely cut off all contact."
** That or they watched the broadcast of the tournament and saw her in the full team round.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Behind the Black?]]
* I mean when during the fight with the Nuckalavee did they have time to set up the plan (Jaune giving Ren his shield, Nora getting to the top of the tower, etc.)?
** The fight was not necessarily contiguous. There have been several fights where the characters have come up with complex plans offscreen, most notably during the Nevermore fight in the very first volume.
** So in general, how do they keep doing that during combat?
** TalkingIsAFreeAction makes some ammount of sense when fighting Grimm. They don't have to worry about their enemy overhearing them planning and are not on any time limit, so they can just jump around and avoid attacks while talking with each other. It's a stretch, but I can't come up with anything better.
** It's the UnspokenPlanGuarantee. The plan has to be formed offscreen so that when the team executes it, it can be a pleasant surprise for the audience.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Yang's personality]]
* Why is the scene at the forest "temple" the only time the rest of the group's antics irritate Yang?
** Because that's the first time she's been around them and they're in a dangerous and stressful situation. Later on she's become accustomed to them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ages of the White Fang]]
* Adam and Illia look exactly the same in the volume 6 character short. Which begins when Ghira was still High Leader, so at least five years ago, probably longer. I had assumed Illia was around Blake's age, Adam probably a couple years older, but that would have to make them about 12-14 back then. So how old are they, and why don't they seem to have aged since then?
** Adam is currently in his "early to mid 20s" according to the creators, which means he could have been fully an adult at that point. As for Ilia, there is no real indication of what her age is, but she might plausibly be around Adam's age instead - she wouldn't be the first character with a slight case of OlderThanTheyLook in the show.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Salem versus the World]]
* If Salem is immortal and an immensely powerful mage, then what's stopping her from conquering the world on her own?
** Salem knows that the Gods will return if the relics are brought back together, and that they'll judge humanity when they return. If she goes on a one-woman rampage across the planet, all that will do is unite the rest of mankind against her, and Oz can then gather the Relics, summon the gods, and they'll judge the unified, harmonized humanity worthy and likely destroy her. Openly acting does nothing but help Oz achieve his goals, which is why she sticks to the shadows.
** But she's gathering the relics, which Ozpin wasn't using yet. Which means A. She wants to summon them to wipe out everyone, which she could do by herself easily. Or B. She wants to destroy them. Also she had access to the Fall Maiden. So she easily could have gone on her one woman/monster rampage and nothing could have stopped her.
** She is gathering the Relics ''now''. Before, however, she had no interest in restoring the gods to the planet, only in ruling over humanity. It's pretty clear that her objectives and motivations have changed over time, just like Ozpin's. We don't know what her goal is now, or even if she wants to gather the Relics to summon the gods or to use them for some other end.
** Also, just because Salem is powerful and immortal, it doesn't mean she's invincible. A united humanity throwing everything they have at her could overwhelm her, and while they can't ''kill'' her, they can easily ''contain'' her. She won't be doing much if they pull a Wiki/SCPFoundation and encase her in a ten-by-ten-by-ten block of concrete and seal her in a secured underground bunker.
** How do you contain something that can mentally control the Grimm and use a power that only 5 other people in the world possess with her being the strongest. As well as never getting tired?
** Salem has not been shown to be able to mentally control the Grimm, and only seems to be able to command them through the Seers. Further, the Maidens and other forms of magic have always been shown to have a form of somatic component. Lock her in a cube of concrete and she's not doing anything. Also, she clearly still has human biological functions: she drinks and eats and can bear children, indicating that at the biological level she's still functional, so that means that poisons and drugs would likely still work. They wouldn't kill her but she could presumably be sedated.
** Ozpin. Seems like she honestly tried, but failed anyway, and you cannot do anything with him. Unless you destroy all humans yet again, but it seems she failed that too. Yet.
** Anyway you are right. Ozpin sacrificed a large portion of his power to create the maidens and even more to make Qrow and Raven into birds, as well as his incarnations getting weaker every time he incarnates. She's truly immortal, controls the natural force of evil in this world, the Grimm, and unless Ozpin/Ozma has something there is no way to actually contain her due to her magic. She is quite literally able to 1veveryone in this setting. She doesn't have to eat, sleep, or drink which are all necessary for energy renewal but her immortality renders that mute. Honestly the only way the main cast has any chance to win is if she actively refuses to personally participate in any way for the entire series.
** Yes, Salem can defeat any single opponent, but she cannot defeat everyone if they band together against her. She doesn't directly control the Grimm, either. Furthermore, it is incredibly difficult to defeat and conquer entire populations as a single person; the moment you move away from the place you've conquered, they rise up against you again. Before the development of easy inter-continental travel there's no way Salem could enforce her will on anyone she conquers. Even at the peak of her power in the past, she had to rely on armies to do the fighting for her and enforce her will, and she only controlled a single kingdom. A single person, no matter how powerful they are personally, cannot rule an entire planet; the logistics alone make that utterly impossible without an army to support her, and Salem can't have an effective army if she's ruling through fear alone. The only "army" she'd have would be the Grimm, and they are not an effective occupying force.
** Salem has also repeatedly and explicitly commented on the threat that a united humanity poses to her. Her speech at the end of Volume 3 even says that humans are a danger when they're united, She doesn't want to do anything that would unite humanity, and she only stands to gain from a disunified human race, which is why she never acts openly if she can avoid it.
** Also, Salem going out and personally conquering things runs into another problem: it goes entirely against her personality and characterization. The only times Salem fights personally are when she either absolutely has to or when working alongside Ozma. The flashback shows that once she'd established her kingdom, Salem was perfectly content with simply sitting back and letting her army fight for her. Salem doesn't fight herself unless she absolutely needs to, and instead operates through minions and cat's paws, because she doesn't want to or care enough to go out and fight.
** Maybe she's just sick of living and wants to die; if the gods come back and destroy the whole planet for good this time, she may be off the hook for her immortality punishment. Also, she's been completely transformed into a vengeful monster hellbent on destruction; it's probably an irreparable part of her nature now, since she's effectively part Grimm.
** She's also never shown to particularly enjoy combat or killing people. Every time she's fought it's been with furious rage or cold dispassion. Given she's always been an extremely selfish person, she's going to want to delegate that stuff as much as possible.
** The fact that Salem hasn't claimed the Relics yet means she has her limits. She can't be killed, but the fact that she needs the maidens to open the doors to the Relics means she can't blast her way through everything, either. She's powerful, but not godlike. She can be trapped, waylaid, worn down.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Humanity from dust]]
* If the Remnant forsaken by gods now, where'd new humans, fauns and Dust came from? They were made by Salem herself or what?
** They were created by the gods again before they left the planet.
** Only humans were wiped out. Animals were left be. Humans and Faunus came in through natural evolution.
** I hope so, [[https://www.deviantart.com/leonardofrei/art/Mankind-2-0-772984352 the alternative of how the Faunus came to be]] is horrifying.
** Its kind of hinted at that the Dust humanity uses is the remnants of the "Thano Snapped" humans the Gods killed off, so thats where Dust originated in.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Great Destruction event]]
* I understand the dark brother blowing up the guys that tried to attack him, but why kill everyone else? And why did the light brother allow this to happen? I'm sure there were some kingdoms that didn't bother taking part in attacking the gods and even disagreed with it. Couldn't they just give everyone a memory wipe and take away their magic? Furthermore, why blow up the moon? Other than possibly affecting the tides, what would destroying the moon really do?
** It was explicitly said in Volume 4 that the God of Light cannot stop the God of Darkness from destroying things. He can't stop his brother from wiping out humanity if he chooses, it's just that Darkness generally chooses to not to because of his agreement with his brother.
** I guess that's understandable, but why did the dark brother decide to nuke both the entirety of humanity (bar Salem) and the moon itself, rather than take his destruction out on the puny humans in front of him?
** Qrow explained in volume 4 that the dark brother used to destroy his brother's creations using the Grimm just because he didn't like them, only stopping when his brother got tired of it and fought back. The dark one's a petty JerkAss.
** He didn't care about the moon accidentally getting in his way. As to destroying humans - Creator could only persuade Destroyer to behave himself earlier by swearing mutual agreement. Guess, it also contained clause like "while they behave themselves". Once they attack the gods, Destroyer thinks them pests (and pwns them) and Creator thinks them lost cause (attack the ones you held holy before?) and grows apathethic. God and Satan are both jerks, aren't they?
** Leaving aside the fact that Remnant is a dualist setting, not a monotheistic one (making the comparison to God and Satan incorrect), Salem herself provided the answer on why the god of Destruction decided to wipe out humanity: she would get another army and try again, so he decided to nip that idea in the bud. And I think it was explained that Salem went to all the nations on Remnant and convinced them all to make war against the Brothers. Does that make his decision justified? Of course not; even if the morality of the genocide was not called into question, one would figure that after a few failed attempts, humanity would learn it's a bad idea to attack immortal, nigh-omnipotent entities, but the god of Destruction did not have the patience to deal with humans attacking him more than once. As for the moon, I'm fairly certainly it was an petty act of anger on the god of Destruction's part; the equivalent of slamming the door on his way out.
** It's also not anything new, mythology wise, for God or The Gods to wipe out humanity for displeasing them. God flooded the world when mankind became wicked; Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl destroyed the people of the Second Sun, Pandora, while not wiping out mankind, was created by Zeus to cause suffering, etc. Gods going overboard in punishing mankind is sort of a thing in mythology. Not a GOOD thing, but the Dark Brother wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary for a pissed off god.
** Antagonising the God of Destruction was a REALLY bad idea, and Light honestly realised that his actions were excessive but fair. He wouldn't have exactly condoned genocide if asked, but found it hard to condemn his brother's decision. Not to mention that counteracting him would have only led to them fighting again, so he went with the softer option of seeding new humans a little later.
** The God of Light doesn't seem to care. Perhaps he sees humanity's extinction as an appropriate punishment for turning against their creators. It's pretty clear that the gods don't view humanity as worthy of equal consideration; referring to them as an "experiment" and portraying their divine grace as a reward.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Why Ozma?]]
* That's the only thing I don't get. Why did the God of Light specifically bring back Ozma? Why give the responsibility of Judgment Day to Ozma? I get he was a great warrior, but why him? Why not someone who wouldn't seek out Salem until ''after'' the Gods returned?
** Ozma may very well have been the only one who would agree to do it. Think about it: Ozma was happy in the afterlife and was initially going to turn down the God of Light until he learned that Salem wouldn't join him there. It's possible that everyone else from the original humanity felt similarly, and had no desire to be reborn. Sure, the God of Light could've forced someone else to do it, but that's not really in his nature to do so.
** Because Ozma was a kind and just man who fought explicitly to right wrongs and bring justice, which is a relatively rare thing.
** In addition to being a great hero, it's this troper's opinion that it was because of Ozma's relationship with Salem that the Brother of Light chose him. Remember that the reason the Brothers cursed Salem with immortality was to giver her time to learn how to respect life and death. It's likely that the Brother of Light saw that the best way to get Salem to see that was through the man she loved. Selecting Ozma was a decision to help redeem humanity as a whole and Salem specifically. Note that while the Brother of Light warns Ozma that the woman he loved is gone, he does not say she is beyond redemption.
** Honestly the Gods (especially Light) honestly realise Salem's better off dead at this point, but are either unwilling or unable to just take away her immortality. Since that is the case the only way to remove it is for either the world to stop turning or for her to realise her mistake, and Ozma is the best person to accomplish the latter.
** The gods are pretty big on irony. Salem's love for Ozma is what sent the events leading up to humanity's extinction into motion, so the gods decided it would be Salem's lost love's responsibility to redeem them. It's neither fair nor kind, but the gods aren't.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Cinder's screw-up]]
* How exactly did Cinder cost the villains their victory in the Battle of Haven? If they meant attacking Raven and Vernal and preventing them from getting the lamp, then how do Salem or Emerald know what happened in the cavern?
** It's because there shouldn't have been a battle at all. The whole plan was to get the Relic quietly and get out, without Ozpin being any the wiser. Cinder was the one who went for the idea of drawing RWBY, JNR and Qrow in to have a large battle, which was why the whole thing went south.
** It should be noted that Cinder is only responsible for failing to acquire the Relic. The failure to attain Salem's other goal at the Battle of Haven, the destruction of Mistral's CCT, is all on Adam. If he hadn't ordered the assassination on the Belladonnas, the faunus of Menagerie would not have been spurred into coming to Mistral's aid. However, since it's unclear if Salem and her council have any way of learning about what happened in Menagerie that led to Adam's defeat, they might not realize how much their White Fang ally was responsible for the failure to accomplish an objective.
** While the Faunus militia showing up at Haven was a factor, Cinder was indeed at fault for the whole thing. (1) She didn’t incapacitate Ruby for capture, (2) she didn't kill any of the other students when she certainly had the means to, (3) had she waited for Vernal to "open" the Vault, she would've noticed something was amiss when the door wouldn't open, (4) tried, and failed, to defeat Raven, who is the more experienced fighter and had a long time to master her Maiden powers. Because of her lust for the Maiden's power, Cinder deviated from the original plan and lost focus of what she was supposed to do. As Salem puts it, she put her own needs in front of Salem's needs.
** Cinder is also one of Salem's lieutenants. Note Salem doesn't blame Lionheart either, because honestly she expects her minor contractors to screw up somehow. But Cinder was one of the ones sitting at her table, and she both expects better and wishes to make an example.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Abandonment issues]]
* Why is Adam abandoning his men at Haven such a big deal? Ilia is absolutely certain Adam will lose all his followers because of this and it does indeed cause at least a few White Fang members to rebel against him. What do they wish Adam had done though? Surrendered and got himself arrested? Fought until his last breath and got killed? Running away was the most sensible thing to do in Adam's situation. It's not even that he left his men for dead, unless Mistral enforces an instant death penalty on terrorist that is. Now, if the defectors chastised Adam for ''trying to kill his own men'', it would be perfectly reasonable, but complaining that your leader didn't want to get himself pointlessly captured seems pretty childish.
** The White Fang troops at the headquarters weren't present at the battle and only have hearsay. For all they know, Adam turned tail and ran the instant the police showed up and Blake "sassed" him. In fact, that seems to be what they assume, going by their dialogue with Adam before he starts cutting them apart. Since they don't really know the specifics of what happened, and all they have to go on is Adam ran away and the rest of his force was captured, they would assume the worst.
** Turning tail and abandoning your troops in a war time scenario is a pretty big deal, especially if you have a cult of personality. The White Fang turned on their former leader for Adam, who then returned their faith by fleeing at the first sign of trouble.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Oscar fixing a tire]]
* How did Oscar fixed the tire in "Alone in the Woods"? If he was under the effect of the Apathy just like the others, shouldn't he just be laying in the snow not doing anything?
** The Apathy weren't pushing people to do nothing, they were pushing them to stop caring about the relic. Everyone else wanted to abandon it and leave, not to lay down and die. Note also that, according to Bartleby's journal, it took at least a couple of days before the Apathy reduced the village to complete stillness, since he was still able to go out and seal the water tunnels after the entire horde had arrived.
** Also, it's possible that Oscar is more resistant to the effects of the Apathy because of being the vessel of Oz
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Odd deal?]]
* So, Cinder needs to get to Atlas and find Ruby because she wants to kill Ruby, but she can't kill Ruby because Salem has directly ordered her not to. But she realizes that Neo can kill Ruby for her because Neo has no such orders. So she strikes a deal with Neo that if Neo helps her get to Atlas and find Ruby, then Neo can kill Ruby. And Neo agrees. Except that Neo now knows where Ruby is, can apparently get to Atlas, wants to kill her, and can kill her. So what does she need to Cinder for?
** Neo is just one person and Ruby has at least eight other people with her just as skilled as her. Neo needs backup.
** Also from Neo's view, whatever happens, she wins. She doesn't like Cinder any more than Ruby does because Cinder was (basically) responsible for Roman's death (since he pulled in all the Grimm and made Ruby go after them). She attacked Cinder on-sight. More than likely she's hoping Ruby will kill Cinder and then Neo can kill the weakened Ruby, or Ruby will die and then Neo can kill Cinder. Good deal for the ice cream either way.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Adam vs. Yang]]
* So we know Adam's semblance is EnergyAbsorbtion, but how does that equate into the Doppleganger attack he used on Yang in "The Lady in the Shoe"? That's a power we've never seen him use before, so it sticks out to me.
** The exact limitations or capabilities of Adam's Semblance haven't been explored or explained, beyond that he can absorb energy from his blade and use that. This is presumably another application of that Semblance, which already lets him project blows from his weapon.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Stealing From The Elderly]]
* I'm actually confused as to the need to steal the Atlesian aircraft. The whole point is a need to contact Ironwood. Does Ironwood not have a scroll? Does Qrow not have the man registered in ''his'' scroll? They aren't dealing with a hostile governmment takeover, so it isn't like Salem is paying attention to connection lines. Rather than steal a goddamn aircraft — which has to be a felony no matter the world it's in — why don't they just phone Ironwood and save themselves ''all'' of this trouble?
** ... Because the CCT is down and therefore, so is all intercontinental communication. That's why Qrow sent a letter at the start of the Volume, and it's been a pretty big plot point post Volume 3.
** Normal intercontinental communications have been down since the end of Volume 3. That's why Ghira sent a messenger to Mistral in Volume 5 to try to warn he Mistral government about the impending terrorist attack. The only way to pass on information with the CCT down is to physically travel from one network zone to the next. Hell, we can see this right there in the episode when Weiss is shown to be flying out of scroll range of the Argus tower.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:How the heck did Blake make her bow from those thin little ribbons?]]
* Whenever she takes it off, we see that it's made from a long, thin ribbon similar to the one on her wrist - how? Whenever it's on, it looks like it wrinkles in the way a thicker ribbon would, and if that's just an artifact of the art style, surely the characters would notice multiple rows of a thin ribbon mysteriously adhering together? And surely if it were made like that, at least after a long day, there'd be fur poking through between strips?
** Considering that Blake changed her entire outfit between Volumes 3 and 4, it's possible that the bow she had in Volume 4 was just a temporary one made using thinner ribbons until she could get out of Vale, while her bow in the first three volumes was a thicker and more solid one.
** But it's the same when she takes it off in "The Stray" and "Painting the Town...," though.
** It's not really clear in those episodes, though. The cloth could have been folded lengthwise when she was pulling the ribbon away, unlike later on when we can see the cloth waving around.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:It's magnetism! Say "magnetism"!]]
* Jaune is mocked for thinking Pyrrha's Semblance has to do with the poles of Remnant, but really, that makes as much sense as anything. She has control over magnetism, and no other sort of dipole - and yet everyone insists on calling it "polarity." This can't even be explained as CallARabbitASmeerp, since the word "magnetism" is used in the very episode her Semblance is first explained. There's no reason given, ever, not to call Pyrrha's semblance "magnetism" (except maybe that she can control cans that in our world would be made of a non-ferromagnetic metal, but calling it "polarity" doesn't help there), and yet no one ever does.
** It's called Polarity because that's what Pyrrha refers to it as, and the name stuck there when everyone else referred to it. I'm pretty sure she didn't care if it was 100% scientifically accurate when she named her Semblance. That and her Semblance isn't really magnetism, its telekinetic manipulation of metals. If it was magnetism it wouldn't affect non-ferrous metals like aluminum, and "Polarity" is a shorter and snappier name than "telekinetic metal manipulation."
** You mean [[https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Metal_Manipulation ferrokinesis]]?
** "Ferro"kinesis, that's just as accurate as Polarity
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Never work with a human]]
* Back in volume 1, Blake was thoroughly confused by Torchwick working with the White Fang, and insists they would never work with a human. I'm sorry, I just find that unlikely. Yes, the White Fang are mostly a group of genocidal terrorists now, but they started decades ago as a civil rights group. You expect me to believe that there've never been human sympathizers or allies who've worked for or with them? The various nations (which are all mostly run by humans) don't seem to openly embrace anti-faunus sentiment, which means that there's at least some sympathy for them. And even ignoring that, in real life there were white abolishtionists long before the American Civil War.
** I'm pretty sure Blake's talking in an immediate sense: the White Fang she knows and stayed with after her parents left would never work with a human.
** Blake is talking about the White Fang under Sienna Khan and Adam. They are far more radicalized compared with the earlier version of the White Fang that her family led - case in point, they drew weapons on Hazel the moment he stepped into Sienna's throne room and were going to kill him just because he was a human. The current White Fang hates and will not work with humans, which is what Blake is referring to.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Blake and Yang vs Adam]]
* How exactly did Yang track down Blake and Adam? And shouldn't she have arrived from the left instead of the right?
** Yang followed the sounds of the fighting. As for the direction of the approach, we don't know where the fighting was in relation to the route Yang took to get to them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ozpin and the Relics]]
* How did he find the Relic of Knowledge if their existence was a secret and he needed Jin to tell him about the locations of the other three? And if he didn't know what powers the others had, how did he know how to activate that one and how it worked? If the God of Light told him, why only mention that one?
** He had hundreds if not thousands of years to work on the subject. It may have taken him a long time, but he would eventually be able to recover them and figure out their secrets.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Is Pyrrha's Semblance a secret or not?]]
* For some reason it seems like the characters generally act like it is, and she has to explain it to Ruby and Weiss, so how does Emerald of all people know about it?
** It isn't exactly a secret, but she doesn't openly talk about it or advertise it, so if someone isn't a close friend they need to figure out what she's doing.
** Emerald knows because Mercury figured it out when he sparred with Pyrrha back in volume 2. Pyrrha subtly diverts enemy metal weapons, and Mercury has metal prosthetic legs.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Salem's Monolouges]]
* How and why are Ozpin and Salem communicating at the beginning of Volume One and the end of Volume Three?
** We don't know for sure when that conversation happened - it could've been centuries ago.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Neptune's flirting]]
* Rewatching previous volumes I've remembered Neptune hitting on multiple girls is portrayed negatively with Weiss being incredibly annoyed by it and Jaune angrily confronting him for it during the prom, but why is it such a bad thing? Harmless flirting is a thing after all and for someone like me who's known a few people to have done it with nothing bad ever coming of it its rather confusing.
** Weiss doesn't like it because she likes Neptune and doesn't like the idea of him getting with another girl. Jaune doesn't like it because he thinks it's a sign that Neptune doesn't really care about them. The whole reason he confronts Neptune at the prom isn't even because of the flirting but because he thinks Neptune doesn't really care about any of the girls he is flirting with.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Using negative emotion tactically]]
* Assuming that the Grimm aren't so sensitive to negative emotion that having a few people with negative emotion around is enough to threaten a wide area with them, could one tactically use negative emotion to divert and kite Grimm? Surely there are plenty of individuals interested in fighting off Grimm and are passionate with negative emotions while doing so, and one could serve to draw attention away from more emotionally positive but less defensively capable allies, or bait them into disadvantageous positions.
** The only time we see anyone specifically hunting for the Grimm its when the main characters do it, and they are all still fairly inexperienced and short on resources. For all we know, the adult huntsmen might utilize such tactics regurarly.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Yang and Mercury]]
* I may have missed something obvious, but what was the point of tricking the arena into thinking Yang had crippled Mercury? They never seem to capitalize on the incident, and there were a lot of ways Yang could have responded that wouldn't have given Cinder and co. the intended result. Seemed like a waste of time and focus.
** It, along with killing Penny, was part of the plan to make everyone experience enough fear and tension to attract all the Grimm. They knew how Yang would react because Yang is predictable, that was the whole point of setting her as the opponent and not anyone else. They knew that she would see him attack her, and retaliate.
** Actually, regardless of how Yang responded they would have gotten the intended result. The whole point was to have a fighter hurt another fighter in the ring, so that the anger and other negative emotions would draw in more Grimm so that when Penny was killed there would be enough Grimm on Vale's borders to flood the city. If Yang didn't take the bait, Mercury could have just attacked her in turn and have the same effect.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: White Fang vs Civilians]]
* Here's something that has been bothering me for a while: Why are the Belladonnas and Sun so eager to rally the people of Menagerie against the White Fang? They have many reasons to want White Fang stopped, of course, which is why they sent a messenger to Mistral with the data regarding the attack, but why do they think that Haven needs specifically their protection? Mistral is said to be the largest nation it Remnant, yet they are supposedly unable to protect one of their most important facilities from Adam and his six terrorist buddies, whereas a civilian militia from a smaller and poorer country will do just fine? I suppose it's possible that Blake just wants to create some faunus martyrs for PR purposes, but I really doubt that it was what the writers wanted to convey.
** From what we saw in Volume 2 and 3, it's apparently considered completely fine for the nations of Remnant to send troops to each others' aid. There's apparently a very strong mutual defense pact between these countries, which makes sense. As for Ghira sending Faunus troops to protect Haven instead of just relying on the Mistral police to do it, it's likely as much a symbolic gesture as it is one of practicality; having Faunus troops on-site to protect against Faunus terrorists sends a very strong message as to what side they're on, which can only help the relations between their peoples. In addition, World of Remnant has noted that while the Kingdoms do have defensive armies, these are militias who defend their borders against the Grimm and not any sort of internal military force for internal security, which makes sense, as this is still a time period of unprecedented peace, even with the fall of Beacon and the deactivation of the CCT system. They might have police, but any army the have will be dispersed along their borders, and being the largest Kingdom is a double-edged sword, since that means they'd have the largest area to defend. In light of that, sending a Faunus militia to protect Haven Academy would at the very least be a symbolic gesture of solidarity and, in the worst case scenario, protect Haven from the very real threat of the White Fang.
** The problem, as is a recurring issue after season 3, seems to be that communication between countries is impossible after the fall of Beacon. Most people in Mistral don't know that the White Fang is targeting the hunter academies in particular, and there's always a good chance they'd be suspicious of a messenger. Sending an army to head off a threat the invaded nation doesn't know about makes sense in that context. Beyond that, it's possible Blake believed that the attack on Mistral would play out similarly to the fall of Beacon, with grimm supplementing the White Fang. Mistral would benefit from additional troops in such a scenario.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ozpin's Task?]]
* The god of light charges Ozpin with finding the relics and uniting them when humanity is ready to be judged, on the basis of whether or not they're living in harmony. Okay. But the initial extinction event and the exodus of the gods had nothing to do with disharmony between humans; it's because humanity waged war against the gods, which they did out of resentment for the mortality. What does disharmony between humans have to do with any of that?
** Being willing to rise up and attack the gods due to their greed for power and fear of death seems rather unharmonious, at least from the perspective of the Gods.
** I'd say if anything it's the opposite. Mankind uniting under one banner against a perceived oppressor.
** I think it's pretty clear that the Brother Gods are full of crap. One of them saying something nonsensical and/or hypocritical isn't an inconsistency, it's a perfectly in-character action.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Salem's mental state]]
* Given the documented effects of things like solitary confinement, how did being the only person in Remnant for possibly thousands of years seem to cause less lingering psychological damage than jumping into the Grimm pool?
** Don't we have a trope for that? BoredWithInsanity?
** Who is to say she isn't completely batshit insane? Also, solitary confinement is bad due to the lack of stimuli and freedom of movement, neither of which is a problem for Salem.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Why's it called that?]]
* Why was an initially peaceful organization called the White Fang? I mean I could understand if it were renamed under Sienna’s leadership, but someone would probably have mentioned that.
** The White Fang were created to fight for Faunus rights. They ''were'' armed, but in a defensive capacity at the beginning.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Cinder's speech]]
* Considering that she basically admitted not being affiliated with any of the kingdoms, how exactly was that supposed to turn them against each other?
** First, Cinder isn't presenting herself to others as a treat, she's supposedly exposing the secrets of Atlas to the world and sowing fear and confusion to amplify the emotions drawing in the Grimm. Any discord beyond that is just a bonus. Second, she outright says that she's from Mistral.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Jaune's family]]
* It appears as though Jaune's family, his parents and Saphron at the very least, knows that we went to Beacon without having attended any sort of combat school beforehand. Are they not concerned about Jaune going to the school for monster hunters without the right kind of training, or an aura to protect himself? If not for having accidentally caught Pyrrha's attention before the initiaton, Jaune would be likely laying dead in Emerald Forest. And, on a lesser note, aren't they suspicious about how Jaune got accepted into Beacon in the first place?
** According to Jaune in volume 3, Pyrrha is the first person to believe in him. While that's just Jaune's POV, it's possible that he just didn't get much attention growing up, being the youngest of ''eight'' siblings.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: What's the difference?]]
* So what exactly separates Dust/Semblances/Aura/whatever from magic?
** Aura, Dust, and Semblances are familiar to the people on Remnant. They've lived with them their whole lives, and it's part of their worldview as something they understand. As far as they're concerned, Dust, Aura, and Semblances are just another science. Magic like the kind Salem, Ozpin, and the Maidens control is a different power that doesn't fit within that context, hence why is is called "magic."
** That doesn't address the actual question. What exactly separates this "science" from magic? Weiss reacts with disbelief to seeing Raven turn into a bird but she doesn't bat an eye at Flynt and his clones. What makes one stranger than the other?
** Semblances are a known and established ability. They are viewed as such in universe, and we've yet to see a full on transformation of a body as a Semblance. They're as much a science as chemistry of physics - a science unique to the individual, but still a science. Magic is something that, by definition, sits outside of normal scientific understanding. Weiss's disbelief implies that a full-body transformation into an animal is not something that Semblances are known to allow - hence it being magic.
** Aura, Semblances, and Dust all seem to follow a very "magic A is magic a" system. Aura allows for defensive barriers and powers Semblances. Each individual's Semblance does exactly one thing, tied to the person (Blake creates doppelgangers,Yang converts damage to power, Ruby augments her speed, etc). Magic breaks those rules, being able to do basically anything, effect outside parties, and not running on Aura.
*** Building on the above two, from what Weiss presumably knows about Raven (assuming Yang told the others, which I ''believe'' she did?), her semblance is ThinkingUpPortals. So, this meant that either Weiss instantly knew that the bird transformation ''wasn't'' Raven's Semblance, or she now has reason to believe that Raven's semblance is "teleport with portals, and also turn into a bird whenever". In the first case, the disbelief is because the Semblance "slot" is already taken, meaning the bird part doesn't fit with what normal people can do; in the latter, the disbelief is because it would mean that Raven has ''two'' Semblances.
** A good comparison when it comes to the nomenclature would be the ''Mistborn'' books. In that setting, Allomancy is a known ability used by Allomancers. It's not "magic," it's just something certain people can do. There's also another form of magic, Feruchemy, which is incredibly rare and almost unheard of... which ''is'' referred to as "magic" and those who use it as "mystics." Later on, new methods of using Allomancy are initially regarded as bizarre sorcery. By the same token, Aura and Semblances are just things people can do in ''RWBY'', while "magic" like we see done in the past is far more freeform and variable. There doesn't seem to be any Aura cost associated with using it, and you can do a wide range of things with that magic, with the closest comparable thing being Weiss and her glyphs.
** Magic was a gift from the Brother of Darkness. When he left, he took the magic with him.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Grimm attacks]]
* So, do Grimm attack EXCLUSIVELY when drawn to negative emotions? If so, why exactly are smaller settlements at the kind of risk Qrow implies they are, and what exactly happened to Mountain Glenn to cause a Grimm attack bad enough to force everyone underground?
** Because it's quite frankly impossible never to feel negative emotions. And any amount of negativity has the potential to draw the Grimm in.
** Grimm are drawn to negative emotions, but if they detect a human target they'll attack them regardless. One attack causes a bit of fear or anger, and that attracts more Grimm, and the process escalates from there.
** Then how did the initial Grimm get through Mountain Glenn's defenses? Under the circumstances it probably would've been one of the most fortified places in Remnant.
** The Grimm keep on coming, and Mountain Glenn didn't have natural defenses. This was explained pretty clearly right there in the episode. Without natural barriers like mountains or oceans or deserts or intense cold weather, the sheer size of the population meant that the Grimm kept coming and there was no way to fend them off. Mountain Glenn was in a bad location for defenses and that, coupled with the population, doomed it. It also doesn't help that Doctor Merlot is all but outright said to be partially responsible for the fall of Mountain Glenn.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Is being blind an issue or not?]]
* After losing her eyes in a battle, Maria has to rely on the mechanical replacement to see and outright admits she would be useless without her prosthetics. In the same volume, we see Adam fight Blake and fire high-precision shots while wearing a blindfold and Fox, who we earlier see casually disposing of multiple Grimm, has been since confirmed to be blind. All these people have their aura unlocked and operational and none has a semblance which would allow them to better perceive their surroundings without eyesight -- unless Fox's telepathy helps him with that somehow, but that's a big stretch to assume -- but only one of them fails to operate without that particular sense. Is there any explanation for this?
** It's explicitly said that Aura gives superhuman senses when Pyrrha explains it to Jaune. In addition, while Adam's blindfold looks opaque, there are various types of fine cloths that are opaque from a distance but when stretched over the eyes they give almost unimpeded view. There's a reason why in movies in the 80's and 90's it was a cliche for bank robbers to wear bags of thin cloth tightly pulled over their heads: it let them see just fine while obscuring their faces.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Kingdom Territory]]
* So Mistral has the largest territory out of all the Kingdoms, which implies the others have territory beyond one city. But Vale's capital, is only a few minutes by train from Mountain Glenn, which was established as being outside it, and Atlas looks pretty small and isolated from what's shown of it at the end of Volume Six. None of those cities are given an name other than the name of the kingdom, but Henry Marigold mentioned another Atlesian city in Volume Four. So are the Kingdoms countries or cities?
** They are countries. The World of Remnant series made this clear. Vale's main city is close to the mountain range bordering the wilderness but it has a number of smaller cities running down the coastline, protected by the mountain range and seas too shallow for oceanic Grimm. Vacuo is the smallest, being based around a massive Dust deposit.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Weiss and Klein]]
* Considering what we see of her relationship with Klein, why does Weiss basically treat her teammates as the first friends she's ever had?
** Klein isn't a friend, he's a family employee who she happens to think fondly of. There is a distinct difference, mostly because RWBY aren't employed by her family in some capacity.
** And who was willing to help her escape, and who she basically reffers to as family?
** Yes. ''Family.'' Not friend. Though they can overlap, there's a distinct difference between the two.
** And as I recall she still reffered to her teammates as more family than her biological family, so I'm still not clear on the difference.
** Klein is someone she very much likes and trusts, but prior to the events of the series, he was still an employee of the family. There's a significant difference between the kind of closeness that develops between a family subordinate and the kind of friendship that forms between peers. I wouldn't doubt that, during her childhood, Weiss had that niggling little doubt in the back of her mind as to whether Klein was really fond of her, or if that was just his job.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Raven's surveilance]]
* How exactly did Raven know Yang was in trouble from far enough away that she needed her Semblance to get there? More generally, how was she able to balance leading the tribe and implicitly watching her?
** She can turn into a raven and her Semblance directly connects her to her family. She was probably literally watching the fight from a distance in raven form, sensed something was wrong (since Aura does allow for a form of danger-sense) and teleported there.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Drinks at a gas station]]
* When Yang stops at the gas station at the beginning of Volume 5, she attends a bar where, apparently, they serve actual alcohol. At a gas station. Just who in Remnant thought it's a good idea to serve drinks in a location that exists specifically for drivers?
** Considering it's a wilderness environment outside of the Kingdoms, there probably aren't any regulations in that area preventing the owner from selling open drinks directly to a customer.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Faunus Labor]]
* There was a single mention of companies using Faunus labor in Volume 1, with an ongoing implication the SDC is one of those companies, but if both human and Faunus workers are paid the same, what exactly seperates their working conditions? Moreover, why the hell would they brand their workers?
** We only have Jacques' word that the faunus workers are being paid he same as human ones, or even that they are being paid at all. If he is lying and the faunus are basically slaves, then extreme punishments might be necessary to keep them obedient.
** What reason would he have to lie about that to somebody who in all likelihood doesn't care about it any more than he does?
** Who's to say the people around him don't care about SDC business practices? They must be at least somewhat interesed in the topic if they are discussing it and Jacques replying "Actually, we use faunus slaves to mine our dust" would be pretty bad for PR.
** You just need to look at real life companys discrimination to understand how they can be technically equal while still being discriminated against, its possible most of the Faunus workers are not official SDC employees but work under a subconctracted company giving SDC plausable deniability about any discrimination or injustice that goes on there since hey, all there employees are treated well, its also possible they are payed equally to a human with the same position, but the humans get promoted to a higher position far faster
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Illia's backstory]]
* How did her parents even afford to send her to that school?
** Considering the nature of Mantle and Atlas, there's likely a good chance that scholarships and/or free tuition were options, especially if she had strong academics in the Remnant elementary and high school equivalents.
** Then how was there little enough record of her to keep her identity as a Faunus secret? And why was she allowed into those schools?
** There's no indication that Faunus were barred from the schools. Ilia was hiding her Faunus nature from other students due to racism, but there's nothing in her description of the school that says that Faunus were barred from the schools themselves. Considering that Neon is in the same age bracket and she openly attended the Atlas Academy, it's highly unlikely there's any legal limitations on Faunus in schools in Atlas.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: CCT importance]]
* How were the White Fang, and seemingly ONLY the White Fang, able to communicate over intercontinental distances with the CCT down?
** The same way everyone else did: couriers carrying recordings and letters.
** I mean how was Adam able to use a hologram and Illia's scroll to communicate with people in Menagerie from Mistral?
** Data was transferred via storage devices, like a USB drive. Adam recorded the messages and plans to a device and a courier delivered them.
** Vale still has kingdom wide communication. It's possible the other kingdoms have similar systems, so Adam could send a message to the borders and then a courier takes over. Let's not forget that so far we've only seen Ruby and Qrow using letters; after what happened in Vale, they can't take chances of some other networks being compromised.
** Given they're a terrorist organisation, with the legitimate communications network down they might well be better off than most. I doubt they relayed their messages across a system run by the people they were fighting.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Pyrrha VS CRDL]]
* Why was she fighting all four at once? Why did anyone agree to that, and why aren't there rules against something like that?
** Self-imposed challenge. Phyrra probably challenged them, and they, seeing it as an easy 4v1, accepted. If a student wants to take on four other students at once, especially since it's only training, then there's no real reason to make a rule against it.
** Why would there be rules against a student opting for a handicapped match? It's pretty clear that when you've got such a massive difference in skill, then there would be accommodations for an exceptionally-skilled student to get the challenge they need.
** [[ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend It was her way of telling them to leave Jaune alone.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: The Albains]]
* Why exactly did the Beladonnas need to talk to Corsic and Fennic offscreen, particularly if they already knew they were guilty? How DID they know they were guilty? And how did the unnamed agent in Blake's character short figure into any of this?
** There was suspicion of their involvement, since they were White Fang, but not airtight proof. The scroll detailed plans but didn't name the Albains specifically. The Belladonnas questioned the Albains but couldn't find any way to incriminate them. The unnamed agent was one of the contacts detailed in the plans, which is why Blake and Sun went after him.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Best damn PR team in the world]]
* Simply put, what does Jacques' PR team accomplish? He clearly isn't popular outside the Atlesian upper class, and doesn't seem to care. Either that, or the team is failing. In the latter case why, and in the former why have a PR team at all, considering what's been shown of the company he keeps?
** What evidence is there that he's "clearly unpopular"? The fact that he has operations across the globe alone means that his company has successful PR.
** Blake's mention of the company being "infamous" for what it does and Weiss wanting to restore the family's good name suggest that, although it admittedly isn't the only explanation for the latter.
** While they have something of a bad rep, the fact that the SDC is still running global Dust mining operations indicates that their PR is good enough to keep them from being kicked out of the Kingdoms and having their facilities nationalized.
** He doesn't need the common people on his side, just the ''important'' people.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Grimm functioning in Atlas]]
* According to Qrow, Atlas is considered safe because Grimm don't do well in the cold. The Volume Seven trailer indicates there are plenty of Grimm there anyway. So how?
** Don't do well in the cold doesn't mean "are completely incapable of operating in the cold". The Grimm have greater difficulty working in cold temperatures, but if that was all it took to keep the Grimm away, there wouldn't be any Grimm on that continent at all.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Qrow's intel]]
* How did Qrow know the infiltrators at Beacon were responsible for what happened to Amber without knowing who they were? Likewise, how did he know Torchwick and the White Fang were working with them?
** He's a spy. It's his job to collect information for Ozpin. How exactly he does it isn't elaborated upon, but that's not really necessary when the show's already established that he is a spy.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Ozpin's reincarnation]]
* Where exactly was it established that Ozpin will eventually overwrite Oscar?
** It's still not confirmed that this is ''exactly'' what will happen. Ozpin originally made it sound like Oscar would absorb Ozpin, leaving behind a person who still thought of himself as Oscar Pine but had all the memories and goals that Ozma accumulated over the centuries and still considers those memories his own. However, "the Lost Fable" definitely confirmed that it's ''possible'' for Ozpin to overwrite Oscar completely; in Ozma's first reincarnation, he never even learned the name of the body he was inhabiting. Merging rather than overwriting is a deliberate choice. But when Oscar asked "I'm just going to end up another of his lives, aren't I?" he was depressed, and Qrow was even more depressed when he confirmed it. Neither of them know for sure.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: How does Cinder know anything about what happened to Roman?]]
* Considering that she wasn't even there when he died?
** She never says anything specific relating to how he died, just that he died. Considering that she said that Ruby killed him, she probably got that he'd died from a news report mentioning Ruby.
** It's also likely that neither Cinder or Neo care about what ''exactly'' happened, since it was just a Grimm attracted to his negativity. Neo blamed Cinder because the whole attack was her doing, Cinder thought it wasn't her fault because she didn't personally kill him. A reasonable person wouldn't blame Ruby for defending herself during a terrorist attack (hell, even Roman probably wouldn't blame her if he could be asked), but Neo was just looking for someone to blame and Cinder managed to deflect her to Ruby.
[[/folder]]
