Fridge Horror / RWBY

Warning: Spoilers Off applies to this page. Proceed at your own risk.

---

General

• Negative emotions:
  • Remnant is a very scary place to live in, not because of the Grimm, but because of what causes the Grimm to thrive. They're attracted by negative emotions. As we've seen in Volume 3, a mishap in a tournament (such as a person attacking their beaten opponent or even the dismemberment of a participant) causes enough negative emotion in the audience to attract a huge army of Grimm, from literally miles around the city in question. We've also seen that, despite years and years of racism against the Faunus, this isn't quite enough to generate that same army of Grimm, let alone the smaller army we see in Volume 2's finale. What does this all lead to? A familiar quote from The Dark Knight:
  Joker: Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan.' Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all 'part of the plan.' But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!"
  • This also brings up a disturbing possibility about the bigotry towards Faunus. One would think that social reform would be paramount since it could mean weakening the Grimm or at the very least reducing their attacks, allowing civilization to expand. But remember how often the notion "things could be worse" is used to rationalize and accept one's place in life. Faunus are getting thrown under the bus to give humans a reason to not question their society's flaws, and the White Fang unknowingly serves the same purpose for law-abiding Faunus.
• The Grimm aren't just drawn to any source of negative emotion. They are specifically drawn to those from humans. Grimm don't normally attack animals even though they can feel negative emotions as well. Why? Because they're emotion eaters. Rather than consume matter to survive, the Grimm might actually feed on negativity itself, like the fear that comes knowing your home is being invaded and that the creatures closing in on you are about to kill you. Their multiple forms could also be them drawing on the phobias of creatures like wolves, bears, snakes, scorpions, and ravens, as well as more supernatural fears like ghosts. Emotions and phobias that only humans seem to be capable of experiencing. The events during the tournament might've been like a giant dinner bell for them, drawing them all in for the opportunity to feed. In other words, Remnant is a terrible place for humans to be special.
• The Grimm are the perfect weapon of terror:
  • Easy Logistics: They spawn from pools of ichor in a region even the mighty Atlas military dares not go, so they have a space all to them teeming with monsters. They don't require any special resources to create, they don't even need food to keep them alive until they attack. Even if they wander off when Salem's not paying attention, they still serve her goals because they'll eventually find a target, just because they're hunting for negative emotions to consume.
  • No Ontological Inertia: When they die they disappear. No body to study means no deeper understanding of their weaknesses and nature, and the 'battlefield' is littered with dead Hunters and those who tried to stop them. The only way to study them is to capture them, which naturally carries the risk of them breaking out of their containment in a populated area.
  • By spreading terror, it's a vicious cycle - Grimm scare the populace. The people fight back and try to fight the Grimm. But that only brings more.
• On a more personal scale, let's imagine a romantic relationship between a huntsman/huntress and a regular person. This would be a recipe for disaster. You have someone who will be away from home on missions, potentially for months at time, who may someday come home in a coffin, or worse, go MIA. If the Huntsman/Huntress doesn't go KIA/MIA, their lifestyle will put a strain on the mundane half of the equation; look no further than real life couples with one half in the military to see the emotional messes it can cause. And huntsmen/huntresses may be superhuman thanks to Aura and their Semblance, but they still suffer from Survivor's Guilt like anyone else, going by Ren's actions in Volume 4 that just scream PTSD trigger.
  • Episode 6 of Volume 5 reinforces this. Qrow heads to the home (which is basically a shanty shack) of a Huntress he knows, but only finds her husband and daughter. The daughter asks if he knows where her mother is and the husband glares at him, and Qrow leaves, apologizing for taking up their time.
• Ozpin reincarnates into a new body every time he 'dies' in the current body. With his new host being Oscar, the two souls share the same body, but it's clear that Ozpin can take control of Oscar's body at will should the situation calls for it. It begs to question just how much control Ozpin has over his host's body. Ozpin revealed that he is cursed to be reborn in a new body of a like-minded individual every time he dies for centuries, and that Ozpin's previous form wasn't his first body as well. This implies that Ozpin's previous host: the young, friendly headmaster of Beacon Academy, might had been someone else entirely before Ozpin 'took over' and became known as the prodigy that would be one of the youngest Headmasters appointed a school. We're never shown Ozpin having a split personality in the first three volumes, not once, so whoever the original body's owner might've been before, he lost control of his own body to Ozpin entirely before the series even began proper, and even if he's still in there somewhere, he's definitely dead by the time Ozpin fought with Cinder during the Battle of Beacon where Cinder destroyed his body, which he might or might not even be aware of at the time. The thought that your own body could have been taken over by someone else over time (who could get yourself killed) while you could do nothing about it, even if he's benevolent, is a pretty chilling thought.
  • In modern times this one is a bit downgraded due to Ozpin explaining to Oscar that the eventual goal with each of his hosts is for a gradual Split-Personality Merge between them. But there's still plenty of fridge horror of this flavor, as the flashback in RWBY V6E3 "The Lost Fable" has Jinn explicitly say that Ozma/Ozpin learned to work with his hosts- implying that he was indeed full-on hijacking people's bodies at the start. And there's no indication of how many hosts he treated like this- perhaps a handful, perhaps hundreds.
• Yang discovered her Semblance during her first haircut. It's funny, but Yang must have been less than five at the time. Given the self control of small children, how easy it is for them to trip and get hurt, and the fact that Yang's Semblance gives her Super-Strength, she must have been a nightmare to take care of. Taiyang referring to her Semblance as a temper tantrum might stem from her actual childhood temper tantrums. What's more, Taiyang is a seasoned Huntsman by the time he had Yang. What would happen if a civilian had a child who discovered their Semblance at an early age, and was unable to restrain, discipline, or help them because their child is too strong to come near?
  • This is Ascended Fridge Horror as of RWBY: After the Fall: Semblances can manifest in young children without warning, sometimes with dissasterous results, such as Yatsuhashi accidently making his mother forget about her younger child.
• Adam's constant desire to have Blake alive (even though he decapitated an illusion of her back in Season 3) likely isn't just him being a yandere. In all likelihood, Adam has the complete intention to "make her his" in any way he can. Yeesh.
• There was once a war that was fought between Mantle and Mistral on one side and Vale and Vacuo on the other side in the name of the preservation of arts and self-expression. While it seems that the latter side won, many things in the series hint that a compromise between both sides is what most likely happened.
  • The color-based names. Names are not limited to colors. They could be based on professions, historical figures, celestial bodies, and many more. By naming their children after colors, the people of Remnant suppressed other ways of naming.
    • This does get zig-zagged; the last few volumes have seen characters which don't feature names that blatantly evoke a color (such as Jaune or Cardin). Atlas, for instance, has a habit of giving characters normal first names, but with surnames that evoke a color (e.g. Henry Marigold, Caroline Cordovin, Jacques Schnee, James Ironwood etc.) - which was likely due to them losing the Great War (which they helped instigate by banning artistic expression and compelling Mistral to follow suit) and still being rather bitter about it.
  • The characters come from various places (Ruby and Yang from Vale, Weiss from Atlas, Pyrrha from Mistral, etc.). Yet all of them speak the same language with the same pronunciation to boot. Forget the fact that countries with similar language still have differences (like between the US and the UK), there's nothing that indicates the existence of accent. If the people of Remnant ever have more than one language (which is likey since "Weiss Schnee" could only be related to "white" in German), then it's likely that only a few parts survive with the rest being extinct.
    • Again, the show's changing this. Atlesian characters, for example, have increasingly been given British-sounding accents (such as Klein, Cordovin and Dr. Watts) over the last few volumes; this was likely due to RT using professional voice actors instead of solely relying on their in-house talent.
  • The Same writing system. Every time a written language is shown in the series, it's the same no matter where it is. In Europe alone, writing systems varies. Most likely, any other system that ever exist has gone extinct like language as well.
• Ozpin, now a known Unreliable Expositor, claims that he reincarnates into "like-minded men". We know that he has reincarnated into Oscar, a fourteen-year-old child who sometimes actively resists him. Ozpin's detractors love to harp on the fact Ozpin sends teens into life-threatening situations. Ozpin refuses to think badly of Lionheart because, if he does, he'd have to apply that same judgement to himself and be consumed by guilt, or commit to a level of cognitive dissonance that Salem would be all too eager to exploit. Fourteen happens to be just about the perfect age, developmentally, to explain away any suspicion around a major personality shift.
  • What if Ozpin always reincarnates, not into an adult man already inclined towards his cause, but into a pliable young teenager he can mould/groom into taking his side? As of the end of Volume 6, all signs point to Ozpin not having a choice in who his next host will be or how old they are, but how else can he fend off the guilt of taking away a teenager's identity and future, unless he wholeheartedly convinces himself that fourteen is an age at which a child can "consent" to lay down their life For the Greater Good?
    Oscar: (falling to his knees in distress) I never agreed to anything.
    Ozpin:^note who has been pushy through this entire conversation ... No, you didn't. And neither did I, at first. ^note Volume 6 showed that he had indeed agreed to something: partaking the mission if only to reunite with Salem But you do have an opportunity.
    Oscar: For what?
    Ozpin: Greatness... hopefully. Greatness in knowing that when the world needed help, you were the one to reach out your hand. It won't come without hardship, without sacrifice, but I know you don't want to live the rest of your life working as a farmhand in Mistral.
    Oscar: (horrified) So you just decided to read my thoughts?
    Ozpin: (caught off-guard but reflexively self-justifying)... I... well... They're our thoughts, now.
• While we don’t know Salem’s endgame for sure, there are many reasons to believe she is an Omnicidal Maniac. If that is true, then she wants to collect all four relics, dividing humanity in the process, so she can summon the gods, who will then destroy humanity for being unworthy. The Fridge part is that She doesn’t need to do this! Wiping out humanity herself is at viable option for her. While we don’t know the extent to which she can control Grimm, she can lead them as an army, and Grimm are an army with infinite numbers in the long term that don’t need supplies, rest, morale, or to protect anything important. Sure, to a kingdom (or at least a city) with large walls, modern weapons and armies of both huntsmen and normal soldiers, (so, basically just Atlas), the small groups of Mook-level Grimm they encounter daily are no threat, but we’ve seen and can infer Salem can use humans to sabotage such systems and use Grimm to strategically target communication and supply lines and put a city under indefinite siege. Even in a head-on fight, she can use different types of Grimm tactically on different targets. And being immortal, she's in no rush she can siege one city until it's reduced to small groups of refugees, military units and huntsman, then move onto the next and the next until society collapses, then repeat this divide and conquer tactic on the small towns and divided tribes. Coordinating an effective counterattack would be extremely difficult without worldwide communication, and she just has to make sure to kill more humans than are born each generation (making groups with lots of civilians and children appealing targets) until she wipes them out wholesale or lack of genetic diversity causes even the strongest tribes to wither away.
• Qrow explains why he left the Branwen tribe, citing that they were a bunch of thieves and murderers. Little did he know at the time he said that, he would end up stealing from Atlas and help murder someone he almost considered his friend (and possibly directly murdering a guard). In the end, he still became what he wanted to avoid.

Volume One

• Recall how, in "Ruby Rose", Roman throws a single Dust crystal at Ruby and shoots it, causing an explosion that could've easily severely injured her, and in "Welcome to Beacon", Ruby sneezes on three bottles of Dust, creating a relatively large explosion left a crater in front of the school grounds. Now recall how almost everything in Remnant is powered using Dust.
• First exam:
  • The first actual exam for Beacon Academy involves catapulting a group of students several hundred feet in the air, into a forest infested with shadow-like beasts, and at least one cavern that is home to a gigantic scorpion. Most of the main cast is tough and well-trained, with the exception of Jaune, who had no knowledge of how to use his Aura, the same power that makes the other characters superhuman. What would have happened to Jaune if Pyrrha hadn't gone out of her way to land quickly and save him? Assuming he did survive the fall, he wouldn't have lasted long in that forest. It hasn't been mentioned yet if there have been any students like Jaune who may have been killed during this exam in the past. Beacon does perform some manner of background check on their entrants, but Jaune got in, despite being obviously unprepared, through a so-far vague screening process. This makes even more sense when you find out Jaune faked his papers to get into Beacon. Is the reason Ozpin still accepted him because he knew If he was lying, he would likely die in the first test, anyway? This makes Ozpin's "I'm proud of you" moment sound a lot more sinister.
  • Still horrifying from the opposite perspective: if Ozpin didn't know there was something fishy about Jaune's acceptance to Beacon, imagine how he and Glynda would have felt if Jaune had died in the forest... compare to a military commander having to tell a family their child died in training.
  • Also, it would be Fridge Horror that people can just fake transcripts to get into Beacon, but then again, not everyone is cut out to be a Huntsmen and most probably avoid the deadly murder school.
• The Lyrical Dissonance of "Red Like Roses Part II" causes a lot of this. It might just be referencing Ruby's life in some way... In fact, ALL of the songs have dark lyrics with the exception of "I Burn" and even that could be interpreted several ways. Makes you wonder if RWBY isn't a regular Dysfunction Junction. It got worse when the full version of "Red Like Roses Part II" was released. It turned out to be a duet...and the singers are mother and daughter in real life.
• In Vol.1 Episode 4, after rattling off a list of Pyrrha's achievements to an oblivious Jaune, Weiss asks whether he really believes he's worthy of talking to her, to which he reluctantly admits that he isn't. In Vol.2 Episode 7, Pyrrha tells Jaune that this is the exact problem she faces: because of her status as The Ace, everyone assumes she's completely out of their league and won't talk to her out of respect for her reputation. The one person who actually had the confidence to approach Pyrrha as a friend (if only because he didn't know who she was), and Weiss tried to turn him away from her.
• A bit more of a Fridge Tearjerker than Fridge Horror, but when Pyrrha takes Jaune up to the roof in Jaunedice, his first reply is to say he's "not that depressed." Pyrrha takes a second to catch the meaning behind that before frantically pushing him away from the edge. So, Jaune seems to have assumed his partner would cheerfully encourage him to commit suicide, which raises all sorts of questions about his past.
• Apparently, if it lives to be centuries old, a Grimm will become both enormous and smart. Smart, waiting behemoths that have centuries of experience to draw upon.
• How is it that Jaune has never heard of Semblance or Aura before coming to Beacon, when he comes from a long line of heroic hunters? Did no one in his family feel the need to tell him about these things, or were they deliberately hiding it from him under the misguided attempt to make him give up after showing no innate talent in fighting? Considering you need to know these things in order to survive in the hell world of Remnant, his ignorance is shocking and terrifyingly stupid.

Volume Two

• The opening song for Volume 2 has a rather somber moment where the singer laments on whether they're just heroes or cannon fodder dying for someone else's glory. If you think about some of the more famous fantasy stories, like Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, or even The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, you will find theories, interpretations and possibly confirmations that the Big Good was simply using the hero for their own scheme (i.e. Glinda using Dorothy to kill the Wicked Witch for her and the Wizard of Oz simply going along with it). Kind of unnerves you just thinking about if there's a similar hidden agenda, especially when RWBY's own Big Goods are named after those very same Wizard of Oz characters that put Dorothy up to killing the Witch. Even worse when you consider that Cinder is likely using the White Fang for such an agenda.
  • What makes this even more unnerving is that we actually have a case in RWBY where someone ends up invoking a Rage Against the Mentor: Jaune, over Qrow's, and by extension, Ozpin's decision to use Pyrrha as a vessel for the Fall Maiden, thereby stressing her out.
• In the first episode of Volume Two, Cinder caresses Roman's face when telling him just to do what she tells him to do... her eyes start to glow; and you can hear a faint sizzling. She's using her fire-dust woven clothing or even her half-Maiden powers as a threat; just enough that Roman can feel it. As in, she was telling him she could burn his face off if he gets too nosy.
• So what happened to the people in those cars that Roman knocked off the road in his Paladin Mech? While they'd have Aura, their Aura were likely still locked like Jaune's was.
• Going back to Vol.2 Episode 1, Roman lists off three effects of his robberies: people are panicking, the police are acting in force, and most importantly, the price of Dust is through the roof. The SDC is fully capable of taking full advantage of this situation, acting as the hero to Roman's villain. It's even likely Roman has them thinking that his thefts are false flag operations just to hide the fact he is also in cahoots with the real White Fang. Team RWBY is screwed.
• Yang is a GREAT sister to Ruby. There was even a song about what a great sister she was to Ruby! However, a little of that care and devotion to her younger sister could stem from the fact that Yang endangered Ruby's life and her own when she was a toddler, almost getting her killed by Beowolves because of Yang's own curiosity when she took her in a wagon to look for her own birth mother. If Qrow didn't just happen to find them, they'd be both dead in the woods.
• In "A Little Hiccup", we find out that Penny is a robot developed by Atlas and the first ever capable of generating aura. Because it's doubtful Atlas got this working in one go, we're left to wonder what became of the (likely many) failed prototypes and just how conscious were they once they were deemed failures. And of course we already know the Schnee Dust Company has a very close relationship with the Atlas military, especially in weapons and robot manufacturing.
  • Thankfully, we find out more about Penny's creation in Season 7, and it's made explicit that the method to create her sapience was all-or-nothing. Relatedly, the point below is Jossed as well, since mass-production would be deeply impractical.
• Above, it is listed as Fridge Heartwarming that Ironwood wants to develop android soldiers to protect living beings from being sacrificed in battle. However, this turns into Fridge Horror when you consider that he's involved with the project to create ensouled robot soldiers to die in their place. What's worse: Droids can be hacked, how long will it be until the government loses control of these droids to the criminal underworld? Or is that WHY he wants to create ensouled robots? Have Atlas combat droids been hacked in the past, and he has reason to think that giving them self-awareness and an aura will make them more resistant to hacking?
• Halfway through Volume 2, we see Blake forgoing sleep, food, and any basic self-care in favour of trying to determine the White Fang's motivations. Two volumes later, she cuts herself off from her friends, stating that she wants to be the only one who suffers as a result of her past. Her constant, insistent disregard for her well-being and safety may stem from the fact that she was a victim of abuse at Adam's hands, thereby having learned at a young age that she as a person doesn't matter. If even the people who are supposed to love her don't value her as a person, why should she? This may explain why she gets frustrated by her friends trying to help her and support her, as she doesn't consider herself worth the attention and regards it obvious that they shouldn't either.
• The Grimm Invasion of Vale, which was forced to be kicked off early by Torchwick - Emerald had this to say: "That's still days away!" What do a few days matter? Well, consider the concurrent events going on; teams are taking on missions outside the city, shadowed by experienced Huntsmen/Huntresses - Team RWBY left the day before Team JNPR, and no doubt it would have taken days for them all to be gone on their missions. Not to mention, a few more days, and the military would have likely left too after its business was concluded. In other words, the city would have been comparatively empty of fighters when the invasion started... and by the time anyone could get back, it would have much, much worse. Forcing it to kick off early is what saved the day (and the city) in the end, just barely. What's more, the visitors from other nations that survived would go back to their own countries full of panic and fear, making them vulnerable to Grimm in their very own nations just from an attack in a different one.

Volume Three

• In volume 3, Nora lists off what could happen if JNPR loses in the tournament and gets depressed in the process. While this scene is suppose to be comical, Nora mentions briefly that her and Ren have no parents and no home left to go to. Did something bad happen to Ren and Nora in the past?
• As amusing as drunk Qrow is, Glynda's admission that he is almost constantly drunk makes it both sad and horrifying. Qrow probably has very good reasons to stay plastered. He lost one of his team-mates and he doesn't even know if his own sister is even alive past their last conversation. His Big Damn Heroes when he saved little Yang and Ruby may seem heroic but he must have been absolutely terrified that he might lose some more people dear to him.
• Cinder and the tournament: There is a chance that Taiyang was watching, if not at the arena itself then on the TV. Keep in mind that guy has already lost way too much. His first love is missing, his second love is dead, and now he saw his daughter being arrested after apparently maiming a Huntsman student live on air. For something he saw her doing. He won't even have a comfort of hope that it was a mistake they'll soon realize and release her. For all he knows his daughter broke someone's leg for no reason and got rightfully arrested.
• During "Fall" it was revealed that Ironwood and Atlas scientists have found a way to capture Aura and put it into someone or something else. Remember how Penny is described as "the first synthetic person capable of generating an Aura" back in Volume 2? There's a strong possibility that Penny's Aura is not actually her own; it was taken from someone else, probably as an experiment to test the functionality of the Aura-Capture technology Atlas was creating to transfer the Fall Maiden's power.
• In the World of Remnant episode "Cross Continental Transmit", it is revealed that the CCT is Remnant's version of the internet, and happens to be the main method of communication within and between the kingdoms. One major flaw that the system has is that if one of the main comm towers goes down, the entire CCT system will fail. This is evidently quite common, as the narrator goes on to say that the towers are routinely taken offline for maintenance. Now, remember that Cinder had hacked into the CCT tower in Vale back in volume 2 and consider what she could do. Chances are good that part of Cinder's plan involves taking the CCT network down. If that happens, she could wreck havoc in Vale while the people there are helpless and unable to call for help. Meanwhile, people living elsewhere would just assume the CCT was down for repairs as usual, blissfully unaware that their loved ones visiting for the Vytal Festival could potentially be caught up in the chaos and slaughtered by the invading Grimm. Let's not forget that the virus infects anything that gets into contact with the Beacon network, like the other CCT towers. Let's also not forget that Beacon's CCT is one of only four towers that manage total global communication. All the plot relevant actions in one place, but she might already have seized the entire system without anyone realizing a thing.
• On the back of Cinder's glove is a symbol- a circle or wheel centered around a stylized eye. She uses it to summon a beetle-like Grimm to try and steal Amber's power. Who else do we know who has the power to summon creatures using the power of stylized symbols? A power that's been passed down through their bloodline? Did I mention the symbol on Cinder's glove is red?
• When Cinder begins the process of draining Amber's powers, a swirling black and red portal appears beneath them, a visual effect that is disturbingly similar to the portal Raven used to leave the train in No Brakes after she saved Yang from Neo, as well as the red-and-black orb seen in the show's openings that appears to present a threat.
• The Grimm introduced in the Beginning of the End is small enough to fit into a woman's palm, but put a person as terrifyingly powerful as Amber on life support by draining half her power. Logically, had it been able to fully drain her, it's possible it would've killed her outright. So far, this is the only specimen ever seen. How many other Huntsmen has this species taken down, without anyone knowing?
• What would have happened if there were witnesses to Pyrrha's outburst with Jaune? Especially since people are already critical of Beacon's students after what happened with Yang.
• Volume 3 Episode 9 will feature Penny vs. Pyrrha, with Emerald overseeing the fight. The obvious implications are bad enough, but there's one crucial flaw: people have already seen a Beacon student flip out on an opponent. Cinder clearly wants a Grimm invasion, so she might escalate the violence beyond a mere fight. Penny has the strongest ranged weapon seen in the show, and we still don't know how much control Cinder's virus gives her over Ironwood's robots or the tournament systems. If Cinder can drop the barrier around the arena, and control Penny's weapons, we're looking at a full on slaughter. Especially since Penny represents Atlas literally and metaphorically. Going to that example, Cinder could simply have Penny slaughter everyone and instead of feeling safe when they look up to the sky, they will feel fear, as it's littered with Atlas Ships.
• Jaune's reaction to Pyrrha seemingly killing Penny. After his talk with Pyrrha last episode, where he encouraged her to do whatever she must to fulfill her destiny, and Cinder's speech, where she suggested that this action was deliberate, one can only imagine what he's thinking.
• That moment when you realize that on top of all the shit hitting the fan at the end of Episode 9, the train attack from the end of Volume 2 could've also been a part of this had the girls not derailed that.
• In Lessons Learned, Winter gets a lot of points for encouraging Weiss to choose her own path, especially given that judging from the private ship, Winter herself probably gave in and begged her father for her money back when she was cut off. However, she also gets points for suggesting that Weiss "stop avoiding him and call home". Papa Schnee's attitude towards his daughters is almost certainly as harsh or harsher than Winter's, but it's sad to think that maybe he really is desperate to talk to Weiss, especially given she's almost died at that point, be it by Grimm or worse, a chainsaw. Weiss herself admits that seeing people die and go missing was basically a part of her growing up. And now, she's caught in the middle of what's basically an apocalypse Cinder's started, and her father's a continent away able to do nothing about it. He must be terrified for his daughter. Unlike Winter, if Weiss were to die, he'd have had no chance to speak to her again.
• There's a chance that Penny isn't really dead, but in some kind of safe mode. It makes perfect sense for a machine designed for combat, especially since she has a soul of her own. Except, in the midst of the Grimm attack, will anyone be able to get to her? Or worse, after so much time has passed, what if her remaining power's already depleted?
• Amber woke up during the aura transfer process. She was stuck in a coma since she was attacked and the only thing that could wake her was having her soul ripped out. As painful as the process was for Pyrrha, imagine what she was feeling.
• Right when Yang discovers Adam, pay attention: she does demand Adam get away from Blake, and she is very ready to act... but she doesn't move. Yang isn't just charging in. She's learned from her experiences that that isn't always the best way to do things, and she gives Adam the chance to do as she says or suffer. But unfortunately, Adam and suffering are synonymous, and he sheathes his sword in a combative stance and grins at her, and when she loses it, she loses her arm. For the first time ever, maybe giving her opponent the chance to move wasn't the right thing to do.
• It's closer to Fridge Tearjerker, but in the finale, the room Ruby wakes up in has two beds in it. The bed she's in has a red pillow and throw, Ruby's color; while the other bed has a yellow pillow and throw, Yang's color. However, the room Yang is in is sparsely decorated and small, with white pillows. Yang didn't even want to see Ruby or anyone, that's how badly the events of the past few episodes have affected her.
  • When Ruby wakes, Taiyang, their dad, is asleep while in a seat, clearly having fallen asleep watching and waiting for her to wake. It's not outside the realm of possibility that he hasn't slept in his own bed since Ruby was brought home, and willingly gave up his own bed for Yang, though its also a possibility that it was just a spare room, and if both of these are in play, furthers the Fridge Tearjerker - Yang doesn't even want her dad's comfort.
• The Volume 3 Finale was released to non-sponsors on Valentine's Day, a day usually associated with the heart-pierced-with-an-arrow logo. Taken a bit too literally with Pyrrha. Not to mention that Jaune/Pyrrha was the One True Pairing of some of the fandom and they were rooting for them to be together...
• Adam makes it clear to Blake that he intends to destroy everything she holds dear. This, of course, includes her team... which effectively disbands in the days following him crippling Yang. Ruby's traveling with three skilled Huntsmen-in-training at her side (not including Qrow), and Blake breaking off on her own would make her harder to track, but Yang is INCREDIBLY vulnerable right now: Yang's so deep in depression that she's been bedridden for months, and her mental and physical state would make her an easy target if she was tracked down especially considering how easily Adam dispatched her when she was at full strength.
• You know that logo on Cinder's Grimm-summoning glove? The one which also looks like the portals Raven uses to get around? The same logo that appears on Salem's back.
• At the end of "Heroes and Monsters", when Pyrrha, Ozpin, and an utterly confused Jaune head to the vault to transfer the Fall Maiden powers to Pyrrha, Ozpin tells Jaune he can help by standing guard. However, when the transfer causes enough physical pain to Pyrrha to cause her to scream in agony, Jaune turns from the entrance to see what's going on, and that's when Cinder strikes. Amber and Pyrrha are dead because Jaune had one job and he screwed it up. Can't be good for his less-than-stellar self-esteem.
• If Jaune had stayed focused on the entrance, then when Cinder arrived, he would most likely have engaged her in combat, and seeing that Cinder's far more powerful than Jaune, she would have effortlessly killed him. Jaune being distracted by Pyrrha's screams, while ultimately resulting in Amber and Pyrrha's deaths, saves his life from Cinder, who's too focused on getting the Fall Maiden powers to deal with him.
• During the last few episodes of season 3, Cinder's plan extends FAR beyond merely stealing Amber's powers. Her speech paints the world leaders as untrustworthy, describes the Atlas presence in Vale as a military invasion, presents Pyrrha and Penny's fight as a Beacon student brutally murdering an Atlas one, and ensures the entire world see the Atlas forces attacking innocent Vale civilians. Her very last act is to destroy the CCT tower, which cuts off all global communications between the kingdoms. Cinder's plan seems to be to divide humanity by starting another world war.
• Imagine what Jaune must've gone through in the months before he met back up with Ruby. Getting the news that Beacon has fallen and Pyrrha didn't make it, with plenty of time for him to reflect on it all that's happened up to now, including the realization that Pyrrha was interested in him from the beginning and he never noticed. Maybe thinking that if he had, then things would've turned out differently. Hopefully he had Ren and Nora around for support.
• Back in Vol 2 Ozpin approved of sending RWBY on that mission despite it being far above their skill level. Even though he appears to be the wise mentor believing in his students they're badly outmatched and only luck and Raven showing up to save Yang keeps them all getting out alive. Except Ozpin clearly knew about Ruby's eyes which required a Traumatic Superpower Awakening (typically the death of a friend) to finally activate. And he sent them into a situation where they would clearly be in serious danger (more so than usual). Was he hoping one of them would die or her own life would be pushed to activate them early? Furthermore what would have happened if Raven didn't show up? Neo would have killed Yang, and Ruby would have ended up clutching her beloved sister's corpse once the train derailed; which definitely would have turned on her eyes. Did Raven really show up to save Yang or was she just trying to prevent the latter from happening? And if it was to prevent Ruby's power boost, why? Calls into question both Ozpin and Raven's actions as not nearly being as noble as they seemed.
• The Grimm Dragon's ability to spawn lesser Grimm, as seen at the end of Volume 3, was a sneak peek for the origins of the Grimm. If that's true, then all the known types of Grimm found in the areas around Vale originally came from that thing. And if so, then what could've spawned it?!
• Right before Roman is Swallowed Whole, he's just finished his rant. Most likely, had that little thing not happened, he would have killed Ruby and been on his merry way, unscathed and escaping. Even worse, knowing Roman, there was about an 80% chance he would have caught the damn thing, even if he's yelling at a thorn in his side. Two seconds later, and he would be fine, his Arch-Enemy dead, and living peacefully while everything's going to hell.
• Roman's rant gets worse when you think about what Cinder did to the White Fang. While Roman's certainly no saint, he has a few redeeming qualities. Cinder, however, does not. He does just seem to be looking out for himself most of the time, but a death threat won't make him work with people he hates, he needs some show of force. What the hell did Cinder do to him to make him so willing to go along with the plan? And worse, he spent his time becoming the best criminal in Vale, possibly all of Remnant. She considers him useless anyways. How powerful does Salem have to be do make it so that Roman is completely expendable?
• In "End of the Beginning", Cinder is standing in Ozpin's office. She speaks to the Grimm Dragon in a gentle soothing tone, and the monster responds to it. This raises so many unnerving implications for Cinder's connection to the Grimm in general to be able to converse with one of the mightiest of their kind.
• Taking into account their history, Team STRQ is one giant case of Fridge Tearjerker:
  • First up is Summer Rose, a person described as an amazing mother to both Ruby and Yang and probably a caring person. However, Raven completely disappears without a trace one day, scarring both Qrow and Taiyang, two people she probably grew close to. She tries to comfort the latter, enough for him to open his heart up to her and have a second daughter only for her to mysteriously vanish in turn and/or die, leaving behind a girl who already lost a mom, an even younger girl who has lost her mom before she can understand what has happened and her two partners already scarred by another loss. For someone who seems to want to comfort people, she has caused a lot of strife and misery. Sadly, she's the least depressing member.
  • Raven is a different kind of depressing. From what little we know of her, she doesn't seem to really care at all about her own daughter, calling saving her a "kindness" she won't repeat. Her only interaction with Yang was through her brother to basically say she doesn't care about her. Speaking, it appears she doesn't even stay in constant contact with Qrow, her brother, who is probably worried sick that she could die and he'd never know. And judging from her words, she hasn't even contacted Taiyang, a man who shut down partially because of her. At best, she's a very harsh Sink or Swim Mentor towards her daughter and has No Social Skills. At worst, she simply doesn't care about anyone but her brother, and only a little at that.
  • Qrow lost, at best, his team leader whom he probably grew close to, has the constant worry of his sister dying in some far off land and he won't know it and his friend broke down in front of him. He also nearly lost his nieces, who he saved by sheer luck, and has seen them for through hell. No wonder he's drowning his sorrows. And if Volume 4 is any indication, he maybe blaming himself for most of the problems caused...
  • Last and saddest, Taiyang. First off, Raven, one of the two women he loved, abandoned him without a single word and leaving him a dad without anyone to share his burden, not to mention if he blamed himself for her disappearance. After this, he does get a break when Summer comforts him, enough for him to open his heart to her. They get married and he even gets another child and all seems right. Then she vanishes too and probably dies, leaving him with TWO children and probably some serious mental problems. He proceeds to break down from the stress and sorrow, only for his kids, the only people he has left, to be nearly killed. Then, while his kids are participating and doing good in the Vytal tournament when his eldest daughter suddenly attacks her opponent for no reason, then she gets incarcerated then the CCT goes down as a Grimm invasion happens. He only gets any comfort when his brother in law shows up with his kids, except one is comatose and the other has lost an arm and is depressed. Then his younger daughter leaves with only a note. He's got the worst of Ruby, Yang AND some of Qrow's troubles.
• Winter explains that the family semblance lets them summon the forms of fallen opponents. Given the Volume 2 finale, Weiss may have a few White Fang summons.

Volume Four

• Before the volume even began, the◊ girls' redesigned outfits revealed at RTX gave an idea of what the characters' situation would be when we saw them again. Ruby's cape has been torn up, Weiss's hair has moved from her rebellious side-ponytail to being pulled all the way back, Blake has been compared to "a mercenary or criminal", and Yang is in civilian clothes, continuing her Heroic BSoD from last season. The Time Skip has not been kind to our girls.
• The official art of the girls came with Flower Motifs for three of them, none of which bode well;
  • Weiss has a white lily, a symbol of humility and devotion which can't be a good sign since she's under an abusive father who wants to control her.
  • Blake has a belladonna, better known as deadly nightshade, a symbol of death and lies, which goes toe-to-toe on how she tries to hide her past.
  • Yang has chrysanthemums, normally a flower of optimism and joy, but with yellow petals that instead signify sorrow and neglected love, the sorrow she has when she felt her friends betrayed her, especially Blake.
• In Volume Four, Hazel, one of Salem's associates, makes an offhand comment about them having dealt with 'Silver-Eyed warriors' before, and Dr. Watts then adds that it should be no trouble if they have to deal with another one. This means two things: Ruby's silver-eyes powers might've been useful against someone with a Maiden's power like Cinder, but might not be that much effective against Salem's other underlings who've been specifically trained to handle it, so the one Story-Breaker Power that Ruby has is not so breaker anymore, assuming she can even make use of it again without having something bad happened in front of her first. Also, if Salem and her associates have dealt with silver-eyed warriors before, then it's highly possible that they are responsible for killing Ruby's mother, Summer.
• In Volume 4 episode 2, we see Xione Village in ruins after bandits and Grimm rampaged through the town. With the CCT out of commission, no-one was able to get word out when the bandits attacked. With no way to call for help, the panic attracted the Grimm, who proceeded to go on a killing spree and finish off the survivors. Bear in mind that the CCT has been down for MONTHS at this point. It's almost certain that Xione Village is just one of many places to suffer this sort of fate. As of Family we know who's responsible for the entire tragedy. Raven Branwen and her bandit tribe. Considering it was heavily implied Ren and Nora knew the tribe that did this, it stands to reason that the mother of a close friend also participated in the deaths of their own family.
  • It gets worse; we learn in "Kuroyuri" that it wasn't Raven's bandit tribe that destroyed Ren and Nora's hometown; click on the Nightmare Fuel page if you wish to see what did.
• Winter's bitterness towards Qrow, a known alcoholic, takes a new darker light when Whitley implied their mother is an alcoholic herself. While there are many other possible unknown factors towards their antagonistic relationship, it's entirely reasonable she finds Qrow's alcoholic demeanor infuriating because it serves as an uncomfortable reminder of a home she desperately (and justifiably) wanted to escape.
  • Not only that, but he's the uncle of her sister's team leader and partner. Just what kind of person is Ruby if she's Qrow Branwen's niece? Plus, from everything we've seen Weiss is the only Schnee Winter might possibly consider "family."
• Whitley's nature and name. Sure, it makes you think of white like the rest of the family but guess what else? Break it apart and you get "whit ley," in other words "white lie."
• In episode 3, we see an aquatic Grimm. Remember when we mocked Neptune for being afraid of water?
• Qrow's alcoholism itself takes on a potentially darker light if that's possible. While many fans speculate that his alcoholism started at some point during STRQ's collapse, it's been revealed that he and Raven were raised by a Bandit tribe - which Qrow scorns as killers and thieves. The same tribe which was all but stated to have attacked Shion village under Raven's leadership. Wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think he's been using it to escape the memory of where he came from, now wouldn't it?
• The final fate of old Nick Schnee seems like a good parallel to the conditions old Coal Miners would face as they aged, as the coal dust they would inhale would build up and give them Black Lung. Nick wasn't just inhaling coal dust though, he was breathing what was basically magical gunpowder.
• Ozpin apologizing to Pyrrha while he merged her aura with Amber's takes on a much darker light when we learn he's a reincarnation who goes from person to person by merging with their Aura. While the process is very different from the mechanical transfer done to Amber and Pyrrha, he had reason to believe it would be similar to his own experience. What would have happened to her mind had the transfer been complete, and what will happen to Oscar if he continues to resist it?
• Winter's reasons for leaving the path her father wanted are more fleshed out, but her choice to join Atlas military structure is highlighted as an example of their indoctrinating ways. Neither route she could have followed are viewed as favorable by the series. Poor girl was damned if she did, damned if she didn't.
  • It can also explain why Winter isn't the heiress despite being older. Her dad fucked her over.
• Whitley:
  • He's starting to get fleshed out as a character now too, and it ain't pretty. Given how he feigned warming up to Weiss, his own sister, just to manipulate her into pissing off Papa Schnee enough to strip her of her rights as heir to the SDC, we can see he is just as cruel and manipulative as his father. The question is, did Whitley inherit Jacques' sociopathy? Or did he grow to become like his father over time, observing and learning by example, as is often the case in real life?
    • Alternatively, Whitley could be lashing out at his sister for, in his mind, abandoning him to go to Beacon, leaving him trapped with an alcoholic mother and manipulative father.
    • Episode 9 gives a possible Freudian Excuse: Weiss thinks that Whitley's jealous that his sisters inherited the family Semblance, to which he gives a Suspiciously Specific Denial. Grandpa's a legend, mom's an alcoholic, and his sisters make him look like an invalid by the standards of Remnant. Whitley takes after his dad because that's the only role model he can actually emulate.
  • We know that Whitley doesn't like either of his sisters. He might've had a role in Winter's departure as well.
  • Given Whitley's actions so far, not even Jacques might be safe. As long as dear old dad's alive, there's a chance that he might reconsider who inherits the family fortune.
• In Punished, Tyrian recognizes Qrow by name when the latter turns to face him. However, Qrow doesn't do the same; he only manages to ascertain the attacker's name and affiliation before having to fight him. This means that, despite knowing about Salem and Cinder's faction, Qrow (and likely Glynda and Ironwood) didn't know about Salem's other operatives (with Ozpin having known Hazel years before and Professor Lionheart knowing Dr. Watts personally) ... and therefore had zero idea as to how powerful Tyrian really was before encountering him.
• With the reveal in A Much Needed Talk that Qrow's Semblance supposedly causes bad luck, a thought occurs: Just how much of the misery that has happened around him (Summer's death. Raven's leaving. Taiyang's depression, his nieces' near death experiences and Ozpin's fall) does he blame himself for?
  • A far more disturbing question: How much of it legitimately is because of him?
    • This puts his failure to save Amber in a new light, as he arrived halfway through the power drain, any sooner would leave Amber with most of the power, any later would be Cinder. Instead he showed up at the exact point to cause the worst luck.
  • With Qrow's "bad luck" and his attitude in following team RNJR around, it's entirely possible Qrow doesn't visit his family very often in fear of infecting what little family he has left with his bad luck.
    • All this goes a long way to explain his alcoholism.
  • It also makes one wonder how he managed to get through training at Beacon Academy with such a semblance; and how many things that may have befallen his team during their tutelage was his fault, indirectly or otherwise.
• Qrow says that the Grimm predate humanity. But Salem is clearly a humanoid Grimm, and the Nuckelavee Grimm is patterned on a horse and its rider. Clearly whatever made the Grimm is capable of inventing new species, and given how dangerous the Nuckelavee is, they've been improving.
• "If it looks the same coming up as it does going down, then there's something wrong!" When Nora said it back in season three, it seemed to be a joke. But with the reveal that she was a dumpster-diving street urchin, she may actually have known what she was talking about.
• If you think about it, it's fridge horror on why Pyrrha was chosen. Nora is too chaotic and attached to the hip to Ren. Ruby would be young and naive. Weiss is the heir of the SDC, so in spite of her overall suitability as a candidate, recruiting her would be a political can of worms and she's likely to listen to her family and Atlas. Yang has an incredibly short temper, just got arrested for what appears to be poor impulse control, and all the extra power would inevitably lead to chaos. Finally, Blake is too stubborn and rebellious to human authority figures to be given that power and would probably abuse it in pursuit of whatever cause someone can convince her of; if someone can sell her that their guidance can help the Faunus, she would probably obey. Pyrrha is chosen because she was strong, skilled, polite, and subservient to authority.
• Imagine if the Nuckelavee Grimm hadn't left its den just before Ren and Nora discovered it. They would have been completely outmatched, and if it had managed to kill them and moved on to Kuroyuri to deal with Ruby, Jaune and Qrow, there would have been absolutely no hope for their survival.
• Qrow's Semblance is that he is basically a bad luck charm. While it's easy to point out the scenes where his Semblance acts up whenever he's on screen, it's something else when you realize, with the knowledge of Qrow following the kids and all the unfortunate events they come across (Shion, fighting Tyrian and later the Nuckelavee, and even the situation at Haven), that perhaps Qrow's Semblance had something to do with that.

Volume Five

• The moment at the end of Weiss's sparring session with Winter (during her character short). A Beowolf has her pinned down and others are closing in for the kill. Sure she yells for Winter to stop it, but you can see her fear and desperation before she does. Now just imagine how many time this has played out in Remnant, except it's not training, the Grimm are real and that unfortunate soul becomes another fatality in the seemingly endless war.
• The Path to Isolation, song which plays during the Weiss character short, alludes to the girl's lonely childhood and inner struggles. It manages to be even more depressing than her other songs and has multiple lines which hint that her upbringing was even worse than we were led to believe. Special mention goes to the line from the full version: "Scars that cover wounds can't hide the self-inflicted pain". Has Weiss actually tried Self-Harm at some point?
• Isn't it the least bit disturbing that Ilia mentions that as a human-passing Faunus, she gleefully hurled racial slurs at her more obvious brethren just because she fit in with a clique of human girls? It's hard to imagine how her parents would feel after sacrificing everything, from food, money, and Dust, struggling to survive in the cold to send their child to school in the hopes of a better future, only to have her act like she's so far removed from being a Faunus and their own daughter - essentially just disgracing her family and making every sacrifice all for naught by mocking her own people, no less?
  • It also paints how hard it is for human-passing Faunus to fit in without losing their identities - either they accidentally blow their cover and get mocked for it, or it works all too well, and they become no different from the human bigots that they spend so much effort trying to avoid. Or both, if Ilia's story is anything to go by.
    • Then again, neither is dying from a Dust explosion due to terrible safety training, equipment, or standards, leading to careless work practices by the employees.
    • And then she proceeded to break the human girls' teeth, even after they were scared of her and were at her mercy once they found out she was a Faunus? Imagine being defenseless and shocked after finding out the one person you hung out with was a Faunus whose race you mocked, right before she goes to beat you up, leave all kinds of traumatic wounds on you, and forces you to have dental surgery, if possible. Sure, bigotry is indefensible, but still, the reaction is a little too much!
    • It especially hurts because before Ilia is outed as a Faunus, she is considered a member and friend in everything else but race when she fit in with the clique, and lost all of it the second she was found out. This "betrayal" really ran deep for both of them!
• After Lionheart meets with Qrow and team RNJR, we discover that Watts bugged the office and heard the whole thing. One can only wonder just how much sensitive information's been leaked from Lionheart's office due to that, along with how many other places in Mistral have compromised privacy.
  • Also, the defense of Mistral after the CCT went down was likely coordinated in the same office. If Salem or Watts was listening in, then Lionheart (wittingly or otherwise) sent his own staff and huntsmen to their deaths. And the worst part is? No one's none the wiser about it thanks to Ozpin insisting he goes down a good man.
• With how Shay D. Mann was about to touch Yang before she punched him and the way he dragged her into an ambush, coupled with how Raven's tribe kept the tradition of raiding villages and leaving the Grimm to slaughter the survivors, does he do the first part of Rape, Pillage, and Burn?
• In the second episode, we discover just how hard Lionheart's nadgers are being gripped by Salem, and that it's not a case of him inadvertently leaking information. Watts has placed an honest-to-gods Seer Grimm inside a chamber next to Lionheart's office, for communication purposes. When Lionheart suggests to Salem that time is of the essence when retrieving the Spring Maiden, she responds by nearly choking the headmaster to death while threatening him - even though she congratulated him warmly for reporting the Spring Maiden's whereabouts not a minute beforehand. One can only imagine what she did to secure Lionheart's services.
• Raven's speech at first seems like a moment of heartwarming as a mother welcoming back her long-lost child, but closer inspection along with a few contradictions in her words brings another possibility to light; the entire speech and dialogue with Yang was her trying to get Yang, a Huntress (student) that survived the Fall of Beacon and just beat up some of Raven's men, to join her bandit tribe by emotionally manipulating her.
• The last scene in Chapter 5 shows the Albains revealing Sienna's death to Ilia and revealing their next move; Ilia is to lead Blake away from her house while other White Fang members swan in and murder her parents. Once that's done, Blake is to be brought alive to Adam. As a reluctant Ilia walks out, another member enters and confirms that he murdered Ghira's messenger at sea. Clearly, shit is set to hit the fan in Menagerie.
• In Chapter 6, Qrow's search for Huntsmen and Huntresses in Mistral ends in total failure. At first it seems that they were all just hired by the Mistral Council, but then we (and Qrow) get to see the mission boards. Some of the Huntsmen he was looking for are on them, with a vast majority saying that the missions are either on hold, still incomplete after 6-8 weeks, or were terminated a few weeks ago. Qrow later notes that at least a few of them should still be home, not none of them. As noted in the Tear Jerker page, something is happening to Mistral's Huntsmen.
• Chapter 7 has the group talking about Weiss' summoning of a Boarbatusk. It's pretty obvious that the incident is the one where Weiss nearly killed the trophy wife and how it led to her losing her inheritance. Thus it's unnerving to hear Yang ask Weiss if she had let the wife "have it."
• Chapter 8 ends with Ghira extending his claws, narrowing his eyes and roaring at the Albains, who've come to attack him. The Nightmare Face he sports is jarring enough as it is, but watching his personality change from calm and controlled to animalistic and predatory gives a valid reason why Ghira was so committed to peaceful protest when he led the White Fang. It's very likely that he feared what he would become if he gave in to violence like Sienna and Adam did.
  • Ghira is likely not the only Faunus to have a feral side to them. This combined with their other abilities, to say nothing of what Aura training can provide, would explain humanity's prejudice against Faunus.
• Chapter 10 ends with the Albain's assassination thwarted, with Fennec himself killed in the attack. That's good, but the White Fang lost a safeguard against Adam's instability. Hazel knows from earlier so Salem might know as well, and there might be others in the White Fang, but now the WF's bound to become even more violent.
  • As awesome as it is that Ilia made a Heel–Face Turn, one must remember that in doing so she's planted herself firmly in Adam's crosshairs, and there's no real evidence that Team RWBY, even after the Time Skip would be able to match him. Couple that with her crush on Blake, and Adam's got every reason to give her special treatment for the sake of hurting Blake.
• Vernal's weapon has lasers included. Actual lasers that can do a lot of damage and deplete Aura in moments. And a mere bandit has possession of them. It's terrifying enough that weaponry like that actually exists but someone that is clearly lacking in morals has possession of them. Whether they were self built or stolen from elsewhere, that is an unsettling thought to say the least.
• The spear Weiss was impaled with apparently pierced her stomach but no major blood vessels. As evidenced in next two chapters, Cinder still has near-perfect aim even with only one eye and extreme strength and agility, so she didn't miss Weiss's heart. In reality, she didn't want to simply kill Weiss to hurt Jaune - she wanted her to slowly and agonizingly die in his arms... and again, she threw a spear, Pyrrha's trademark weapon and one of her signature moves. She deliberately tried to kill one of Jaunne's friends with what amounts to the symbol of his murdered mentor/love.
  • Also, in the next chapters, when Weiss is already back on her feet and fighting, we sometimes get a view on a bloody spot where the entry wound was. It's right in the center of Weiss' back - she was impaled through the spine. Without Jaune's help with his unique Semblance, even if Weiss survived by some miracle with another medic stabilizing her, she would probably be rendered paraplegic and, at best, would have required a complicated surgery, possibly cybernetics, and months of rehabilitation to be able to walk again.
• Chapter 12:
  • Consider this, Raven has won the Superpower Lottery; her semblance allows her to get around the entire planet with ease, she has magic that allows her to turn into a raven, useful for getting around and for spying, and she's a borderline Physical God as the Spring Maiden. And she's still so scared of Salem that she thinks that there is no winning against her. Just what the hell is Salem?
  • The fate of Hazel's sister is sad, and it's likely that she wasn't the only student who died during a Training Mission. Just how many families were torn apart because of the war between Salem and Ozpin? Worse still, we have seen families torn apart because of their war: the main characters, and most especially Yang.
    • Hazel is Yang's counterpart on Team WTCH - elder sibling, bare-handed fighting style, generally calm until sufficiently provoked, etc. Until Gretchen's death pushed him over the edge and left him with issues. What's worse is that Yang was dangerously close to that same edge when Ruby almost died during the mission in Volume 2 (during another training mission, no less), and especially when Beacon fell in Volume 3 from the Trauma Conga Line put upon her.
    • Ozpin taking control of Oscar's body in order to fight Hazel (meaning he lied about needing permission), but knocks him unconscious in order to do so (suggesting he has a disturbing amount of control over Oscar's body even when he's not in the driver's seat)
  • We see that Salem gave Cinder a Grimm-like arm to replace the one she lost to Ruby. This itself is horrifying enough, but it makes one think: Is Cinder the only one with a Grimm body part?
    • Then there's the implications that, for all we know, this or something similar was how Salem was created: An unlucky soul who became one with a Grimm.
    • It's likely that Cinder isn't the first of Salem's minions to have such a graft. Since we saw Salem coaching Cinder to control the new arm in V4, telling Cinder to make the graft fear her in order to control it, there was some fatal trial and error in the past. Oh, and Grimm grafts are sapient too.
      Salem: Tyrian needs a new tail.
      Watts: -exasperated- What happened to his old one??
    • As disturbing as Cinder's Grimm graft is, this is a world with readily available cybernetics, and Salem has an expert on staff. While magic seems to need a normal arm to flow through, Cinder's been favoring her right arm lately, Cinder would've recovered quicker as a Cyborg than as a hybrid. The arm is Salem's way to control Cinder - and given it's implied to have the same capability as the Parasite she used to drain Amber's power, it's possible this isn't something that's been added to Cinder since her injury, but something coaxed out from what's already in her body (and why she, in particular, is affected by Ruby's Silver Eyes, as only that arm was affected in Ruby's recent brief outburst, and Raven wasn't affected by it at all, suggesting the weakness to Silver Eyes is due to how Cinder acquired the power).
    • Even more horrifying: Cinder's arm stretches in the same way that the Nuckelavee's did. One of the strongest Grimm we've ever seen, and Cinder shares one of its defining abilities. The Nuckelavee was already a horrific hybrid abomination, and now we know that Salem can basically mix and match whatever she wants to any being she can imagine. The horrors she can create in such a way don't bear thinking about.
• Chapter 13
  • We learn that Hazel's Semblance is immunity to feeling pain. This is terrifying; pain is the the brain's way of providing self-preservation. If something hurts, stay away from it. Not only Hazel is burly enough to shrug off most attacks, but he feels nothing from it; that's scary. But his preferred way of fighting is injecting himself with dust crystals and powering himself up. He has a lot of scars on his arms and adds more crystals when he's losing; this might be addictive for him. He even puts the crystals very close to one of the usual addict injection sites.
  • After learning that Raven is the Spring Maiden, Cinder suggests that the previous Spring Maiden must've trusted her before she died, and that was likely a mistake. Raven, tellingly, reacts with anger and begins the fight.
    • We then find out in chapter 14 that Raven found Spring, tried to train her to use her powers, but saw weakness within her and killed her in a hare-brained attempt to hide the Maiden power from Salem. Raven knows Cinder has a point, but refuses to take responsibility.
• Chapter 14
  • When Emerald uses her Semblance, she is in the middle of a breakdown and at her weakest. The resultant illusion becomes a gigantic and monstrous Salem. Perhaps this is what her subconscious sees Salem as? A monster beyond comprehension, beyond scope, something that she truly fears deep inside. How else would this 'Salem' look and behave so frightening?
  • Emerald has a look of pure despair when she realizes that Cinder might be dead, and the resulting illusion of Salem is horrifying enough to terrify everyone present while also knocking herself out in the process. The whole situation is very similar to how Ruby activating her silver eyes powers when she saw Pyrrha got killed, which also resulted in her being passing out afterward. For Emerald, losing Cinder is akin to Ruby losing Pyrrha. Cinder, in her eyes, is someone she looked up to and cared very much about, even saying that she owned Cinder everything, even if in reality Cinder only uses Emerald as a tool and does not really care about her. Cinder has effectively conditioned Emerald into seeing her as a parent figure despite the abusive relationship between the two, and losing her causes Emerald to have a Traumatic Superpower Awakening not unlike Ruby did. A very twisted take on Even Evil Has Loved Ones trope.
  • After Emerald's illusion of Salem vanishes, Blake asks what they just saw. Ozpin says that it was "an illusion, but an accurate one". This implies Salem might be able to turn herself into that kind of monster.
  • With the state of Haven's Academy effectively being up in smoke (it's spared, but the Headmaster's gone) and the status of the local Huntsmen (i.e. dead or missing in action), Mistral's forces against the Grimm have been more crippled than it was after the Fall of Beacon. And remember what Lionheart said about how Mistral was in chaos?

Volume Six

• The Traintop Battle in "Argus Limited" serves as another reminder of the dangers of transportation within Remnant, and how neither aerial nor terrestrial travel is safe from monsters, just like aquatic travel isn't either. One can only imagine how difficult building the rail-lines got with Grimm crawling everywhere, or even how people survived traveling on foot before that.
• After chapters 2 and 3, we suddenly know why Ozpin's so determined to keep his people on a strictly need-to-know basis. Not only was Leo's defection the latest betrayal he's suffered at the hands of his lieutenants, but we discover that (a): Salem was human once; (b): she and Oz were lovers (and started a family, kingdom and religion too); and (c): that she can't be destroyed. Ozpin's never looked as desperate to avoid scrutiny before now, and one can only wonder just how deep his deception runs or the lengths he'd go to silence people, considering he tried to tackle Ruby to stop her.
  • In addition his rant about how Leo shouldn't be demonized for one mistake after a lifetime of good, while somewhat noble, also carries the tone that he doesn't want to hold people to the standard of one mistake or betrayal marking someone as scum forever because if he did he'd either have be an admitted hypocrite, or hold himself to such standards which would mean Ozpin himself is a fiend because he admits he's made countless mistakes and judgment lapses over the years. Basically hating on Leo invites people and Ozpin to hate on himself.
• Ozpin mentions that Grimm are attracted to Relics, hence why they're guarded by an army of warriors, and locked behind magic doors that only a specific Maiden can unlock. First, this makes Raven's plan to hold the Lantern hostage even worse than Yang thought - akin to lighting a flare in the dark instead of merely painting a target. Second, he ran Beacon under his real name, essentially putting a target onto the school. Going back to Yang, her anger in this volume is understandable since this revelation means her mother betrayed her, and all the ensuing pain and death that ensued, was for almost nothing, save Jaune unlocking his semblance.
• When Cinder approaches Miss Malachite, she mentions that the money she uses was "someone's" life savings, implied to be that of the woman she killed and whose clothes she stole. However, it's unlikely that she was carrying all that money on her, which implies that Cinder didn't just kill her, but likely forced her to give up all of her bank account information before killing her.
• The Lost Fable puts Volume 3 as both fridge horror and a Tear Jerker as well: when the series started, the world had 80 years without a global war (thanks to Ozma when he was the King of Vale), and several decades had passed since the Faunus Revolution. All Professor Ozpin would've needed is to figure out a way to suppress criminals, bandits, and maintain race relations with the Faunus populace to prevent the White Fang's radicalism from reaching critical mass. That's right - Ozpin was this close to uniting all of mankind, fulfilling his mission, and preventing the Brothers' judgment from wiping out the human and Faunus races forever. Then lo and behold, Cinder, Adam and Salem waltz in, instigate the Fall of Beacon, and divide the entire planet in a single night by sowing chaos and misery all over. All that hard work undone, replaced by increased tensions and anxiety over how the Brothers would likely purge all of man off the face of the earth. Could you really blame his anxiety issues when not only when he has to deal with the Fang and Salem undoing the painstaking work he did and risking the extinction of mankind from the Gods themselves?
• On the flipside, it's kinda scary that the mostly teenage-to-young-adult group have no qualms about Qrow punching what is clearly a 13-15 year old in the face, nor do they have any problems yelling at him, pushing him around, or outright stressing him out.
• When Hazel tells Salem that Ozpin reincarnated, and she appears visibly enraged, Mercury is the first one out the door. Growing up with an abusive father taught him how to recognize when someone was about to blow up.
• When the team is split, Jaune becomes incredibly concerned for Ruby specifically, even though she is with multiple friends who are trained fighters and can take care of her. Ship Tease aside, this isn't the first time a red-headed girl from his team sent him away from battle, and he can't help but relive that fateful moment.
• Maria being forced to go through extra screenings in Argus because she brought hidden cashews onto a flight seems like Disproportionate Retribution... until you realize it's possible someone on the flight may have had nut allergies. Which is why Real Life airlines have strict rules about food you're allowed to eat or bring on board.
  • It also explains why Maria was taking a train to the city instead of a flight.
• Cordovin's apparent Atlas fanaticism is Played for Laughs due to how over the top she is about it, but it's also a very worrying reminder of the state of Remnant post-Fall Of Beacon: the way this woman talks makes it sound like she's already convinced that another war is inevitable, and paranoid that the other kingdoms are already getting ready to gang up on Atlas; exactly the kind of atmosphere Salem wants. One can only hope that attitude isn't widespread among the Atlesians, but given the blockade, it seems Ironwood at least agrees with her...
• Lost reveals that Marcus Black, Mercury's father, had a Semblance that allowed him to steal other Semblances, even taking away Mercury's. Putting aside what kind of man that gets a Semblance (a reflection of a person's soul) that can rip parts of people's souls out of their bodies, it makes you wonder how many Semblances he stole in his assassination career... to make matters worse, it's implied that Marcus would've needed to give them back manually, as when Mercury killed him prior to Cinder's recruitment, he didn't regain it. Effectively, those parts of people's souls are lost forever.
• The fact that Adam has an SDC brand over his left eye raises very disturbing implications. Since Adam is currently in his early twenties and that he lost his eye before joining the White Fang several years prior to the events of the series, that would mean he was branded and maimed as a child. The violent actions that the White Fang has taken against the Schnee Dust Company suddenly look a lot more understandable.
  • Doubling as Fridge Brilliance - Adam had understandably gotten PTSD (and little support since then) from the incident, which explains why he is Not So Similar to Yang and Ilia - fueled by rage, he can do nothing but lash out at everyone.
• With the fact that Adam was more or less confirmed to be on the train when he was stalking Blake, considering how he was on the rest of the train when Ren and Jaune did their thing, who's to say he didn't decide to take out a couple of passengers?
• From the aftermath of Yang losing an arm to Adam all the way up through the fight by the waterfall, Yang's PTSD has been depicted across multiple seasons, reflecting the long term effects PTSD has in real life. Now go back and watch everything from Episode 1, Volume 1. Most of Blake's "quirks" of personality match symptoms associated with c-PTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder). Suddenly a lot of Blake's actions can be seen in a new light.
• Food for thought: Blake is lucky that Adam focuses his Semblance in his sword. Just imagine how strong he would be if he used other objects, including his clothes, as a medium for storing damage as energy for his attacks. Because absorbing damage through his sword allows him to not take damage through his Aura, the best case scenario is that he becomes just as strong as Yang while still being heavily wounded, while the worst case scenario is that he becomes like Sebastian Shaw from X-Men: First Class: a Nigh Invulnerable and insanely powerful energy absorbing killing machine before he can even take damage to his Aura!
• Watching Salem create the "Flying Monkeys" Grimm was disturbing enough, but whose to say that is the limit of her ability to create Grimm Could she have created the Apathy, the Leviathan, the Wyvern? Is The Nuckelavee's unusual appearance and abilities the result of her creativity?
  • If the Nuckelavee was a kind of prototype for hybrid Grimm, that would explain a lot about it. The jerky, twitching motions the "rider" makes, the maladjusted proportions of the limbs, even the fact that it's monstrous looking even for the Grimm. Which only adds to the horror in a way: Salem unleashed it knowing it was imperfect, and let it run rampant to see what would happen.
  • There's also a degree of Fridge Brilliance here: in flashback to the Time of the Gods, the only Grimm shown are Beowolves, Ursai, and Nevermores. This was before Salem got her Grimm powers, meaning they were made by the God Of Darkness. Of course the brother who represents destruction would have a limited range of creatures: the ability to make new things is his older brother's domain alone, meaning Darkness probably suffers from Creative Sterility. It would take a human, with gifts of both Creation and Destruction to make new species of Grimm.
• Ruby's flashbacks in the final episode are all before Volume 4. This includes hanging out with her friends and family. While the Doyalist approach is to say that Ruby didn't have any specific moments with the others (not helped that RWBY was fully reunited after Volume 5), the Watsonian approach is sadder: Ruby barely had time to rekindle her friendships with the others because she was too busy being the hero. As such, the relationships between her and every other person will never be the same as it was at Beacon.
• Marcus Black stole Mercury's Semblance and told him once he got strong he could get it back. While talking about this, Mercury says that he "got strong" but that his Semblance was never returned, meaning he likely saw killing his father as proof that he was strong. This makes his recruitment scene back in Beginning of the End even more horrifying. It took place directly after he killed his father, so it was almost certainly during the exact moment he realized his Semblance was gone for good and his legs were in bandages, hinting that the fight cost him his limbs as well. All in all, calling it a bad day for Mercury would be an understatement.

Volume Seven

• While the young mothers swooning over Jaune in "Sparks" was Played for Laughs, it raises the question why so many mothers of young children would show interest in the first place. Though it isn't further explored, this is probably because many of them are single. And what could cause young parents to become single in Mantle? Mining accidents; alcohol abuse due to incessant economic malaise; recurring Grimm attacks... Life for kids in Mantle is harsh.
• In "A Night Off", Nora makes out with Ren in what could be moments before Tyrian struck and killed dozens. Considering how Ren was able to detect his presence in Volume 4, one couldn't help but wonder if Nora ended up contributing to the massacre.
  • Possibly not; he can seemingly detect incoming presences from a small-to-large distance, but it's implied Tyrian was inside the building from the moment they entered, simply standing in place and not doing anything that would distinguish him, and Ren (though he had stuff on his mind) didn't seem to notice anything was amiss well before Nora kissed him.
  • More to the point, Tyrian's hiding in a large, tightly-packed crowd whose emotions are running high due to the important election that's counting down before all their eyes. Ren's prior success in detecting those approaching him was in abandoned places where one distinct presence approaching him was cause for concern... and now he was guarding a warehouse where people had been streaming in for hours.
• Tyrian's proven himself to be very dangerous in Volume 4, but in "A Night Off", he only needs the lights turned off to effortlessly massacre at least ten people. And let's not forget, he's in a warehouse with eight trained Huntsmen (two of which are Faunus and have night vision) and Penny, and the only time he's seen is when he wants to be seen. Robyn doesn't even notice him when he's crouching right next to her. As if having a master hacker in a "city with a thousand eyes" isn't enough, but a serial killer with that skill in stealth is scary.
• The armor that Nicholas Schnee is wearing for his portraits bears a distinct resemblance to that of the Arma Gigas. Jacques' "test" for his daughter boiled down to sticking an abomination into a replica of her grandfather's armor and having it fight her with live steel. One can only imagine the emotional impact that might have had on her, and on Willow. It also adds another layer to Jacques' emotional abuse, in a sense twisting Nicholas Schnee's image for his own selfish purposes.
• At the start of his appearances in the show, Ironwood is shown as a father-figure of sorts to the heroes, reining in Winter like an errant child and mentoring Penny and Ruby. Him turning on the heroes and shooting Oscar/Ozpin mirrors Jacques' behavior towards Weiss, the younger sister of the girl he himself mentors.
• The fact that anyone up in Atlas had the authority to shut off the heat in Mantle and potentially condemn everyone in it to die is a disturbing one. Especially since Jacques of all people was that "Anyone."
  • In some manner, this makes a certain kind of sense. As a military man, Ironwood knows that if the people rise up against him, shutting off the heat and freezing his enemies until they surrender or die is a simplistic way of quelling rebellion. And in the case that Grimm rise up, shutting off the heat denies them shelter...assuming Grimm can't simply adapt to the environment around them.
  • More mundanely, any system that needs to be adjusted up or down (perhaps in summer) needs to be controlled somehow. At the very least, it might need to be shut down for maintenance. Watts might even have triggered a failsafe by tricking the system into believing it was overheating. Automatic shutdown in the event of an overheat is a real-life security system in just about every modern heating units, since the alternative is the possibility of a fire.
• The new look of Cinder's Grimm arm. Back in volume 5, it ended at the middle of her left bicep. Now the arm has advanced all the way up her shoulder, exposing all muscles that would normally be covered by skin. The arm can regenerate when cut, but the audience has to witness Cinder writhing and screaming in agony while it grows. The replacement arm has therefore evolved into Body Horror at its finest. And since it advanced up her arm since volume 5 does that mean she'll eventually become full Grimm?
• Back in episode 3 Ironwood gave Team RWBY new scrolls as part of his "Gifts", and we see in "Gravity" that this was because they were chipped so he could cut them off if they went against him. Meaning he never "fully" trusted them either and tricked them so he could have a failsafe which further hints that even before things went south later in volume 7 with Cinder leaving a chess piece in his office clueing Ironwood into Salem being on her way and learning that Team RWBY lied to him, that Ironwood was stuck in paranoia and has been since the Fall of Beacon, the trauma of which enabled him to feel like he was not able to completely trust anyone.
• In the final scene, Salem is seen riding atop a humongous Grimm whale. Given that it is essentially a living battleship, exactly how can it, and any others like it, be taken down?

Volume Eight

• Had Ironwood's plan to lift Atlas into the sky succeeded, they'd be in, minimum, low orbit. What would've happened to people with asthma? The elderly? Others who need assistance to breathe? In all likelihood, they would have suffocated in the thin atmosphere. And Ironwood probably would've been cool with this, so long as "the greater good" were safe.
• In episode 4, "Fault," Team RWBN and May retreat to the safety of the Schnee manor in order to tend to Nora's wounds and are greeted at the door by Whitely, who appears to be alone in the house save for Willow, who has locked herself away in her room. There are no butlers, no maids, even the guards seem to have fled the Schnee manor, leaving Whitley and Willow to fend for themselves. Imagine how tempting a target the mansion of the wealthiest family in Remnant would be to robbers and looters, especially when its only defenders are a helpless child and a broken shell of a woman who is likely too drunk to even get out of bed?
• In episode 6, "Midnight", we see that Cinder was trafficked as a child, being adopted by an Atlesian lady from a disreputable orphanage in Mistral to be used as free labor at her hotel, and was routinely tortured with a Shock Collar. What's especially disturbing is that not only is the collar disguised as a necklace (with a remote that can pass for a Scroll), but the Madame already has it before she gets Cinder, suggesting there's a market for it. Just how extensive is the human trafficking problem in Atlas?
  • Even in just the hotel; were there any child slaves before Cinder? Cinder was with them for years with no indication they ever hired new staff or expanded, so would they have just gotten another one once Cinder was too old?
  • Rhodes says that Cinder will be free once she's eighteen and a legal adult, which could well be true. But considering how Cinder's family went out of their way to torture their child slave for years, can we put it past them to opt to simply kill her right before her eighteenth birthday, or before that point to avoid their legal family member spreading rumors about their business, or because an older teenager would be far harder to control or keep quiet?
  • Even if they didn't originally intend to kill her, Cinder's family found her wielding swords i.e. their slave has access to deadly weapons and kept it secret. And judging by what happened next, they weren't considering disowning her in response (Cinder would see that as a blessing). Did Cinder kill them because they threatened to kill or cripple her so as to not have to live with that threat under their roof?
• In episode 8, "Dark", the true nature of the Hound is revealed to be a man. The sight of a person having been turned into a Grimm and what he must have gone through is terrifying enough. However, there is more; the man had silver eyes. Ruby, already horrified at the sight of a person-turned-Grimm, would have every reason to be scared out of her mind. The fact that Salem wants her alive begs the question if this is what is in store for Ruby. Then there is the knowledge that Summer had confronted Salem. Could she have met a similar fate? One can only imagine the thoughts racing through Ruby's mind.
  • It might be even worse than that. Salem describes the Hound as an "experiment". Just how many people did she experiment on before getting the results she desired?
• Harriet throwing Winter under the bus by informing Ironwood that Winter let Jaune, Ren and Yang leave her custody to board Monstra and rescue Oscar, implicitly because of Winter pulling rank on Harriet when the latter objected, is scummy enough. It's even worse because Harriet knows that the general now has a tendency to kill anyone who even dares to disagree with him and his orders, meaning she was okay with that potentially happening to Winter.
  • When most of the Ace Ops believe Ironwood's ultimatum isn't going to happen, Marrow asks if he's seriously just bluffing with the lives of an entire city; Harriet responds with an almost-offhand "Who cares?". Even if she believes it's a bluff, and that she isn't seriously considering the possibility (at least until Ironwood shows that he is serious about bombing Mantle, if it comes down to it), it shows a serious, almost sociopathic Lack of Empathy on her part about peoples' lives.
• Knowing how literal minded Ambrosius is, it's likely that had Ironwood succeeded in gaining the Staff in vol 7 Ambrosius would have lifted Atlas too high for people to survive.
  • And then there's the fact that Ironwood became Ax-Crazy during this pursuit for the Staff, with his answer to anything not obeying his direct command being to shoot them. Given how Ambrosius admitted that lifting Atlas the first time was beneath him, it would be easy for him to refuse and be threatened in the exact same manner (barring the fact that he's a powerful genie), or maybe even Ironwood coming up with something worse in his insanity.
• The fact that Ambrosius can make weapons that can destroy (like how Cinder requested fire) makes his powers disturbing, especially since they're in the hands of Salem.
• Not only was Atlas destroyed, but so was the Dust Ironwood was stockpiling with his embargo (as well as the Dust Robyn was stockpiling with her thefts). It's only a matter of time before shortages and dwindling supplies affect peoples' ability to fight off the Grimm.
• With how frequently everyone throughout Volumes 7 & 8 valued loyalty and trust like toilet paper, one of the only characters who has never backstabbed anyone is Tyrian. And he was someone who literally backstabbed someone.
• Ultimately, Ironwood's philosophy of prioritizing the mission above friends and family, no matter cost is proven right. Jaune made the hard choice and killed Penny, which ultimately worked out in the end by giving Winter the much needed power boost. However, because Winter prioritized saving Weiss over grabbing the Staff, it resulted in Cinder grabbing it and ultimately scoring one for Salem.
• Winter ultimately left Jacques to die.

Volume Nine

• In Episode 6, "Confessions Within Cumulonimbus Clouds", Jaune, with fear and trembling, asks Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang (whom he had saved as the Rusted Knight in the previous episode) if they really were there in front of him. Meaning that the decades of loneliness he's spent in the Ever After, his experiences as the Rusted Knight and subsequent betrayal by Alyx has inflicted wounds on his psyche, to the point of starting to have hallucinations of Team RWBY being there with him before the latter (and the younger him) fell into that world.
• After breathing in the smoke of the Tree's leaves, the Curious Cat begins to feel Neo's feelings of regret and sorrow, leading them to escape Neo's body. This implies that Neo was at least somewhat conscious during her possession by the Curious Cat, aware of what was going on but having absolutely no control of her own body. The fact that she immediately runs out of the smoke and collapses to the ground doesn't exactly help.
• While they present Neo's ascension positively, it's also worth noting that her status is that she is put in a wooden statue while her soul is put into a pseudo-afterlife where she will be put through the same anguish that she put Ruby through and, unlike Ruby, she won't have someone to remind her to Be Yourself. Meaning she'll either come out as a completely different person at best or trapped inside a state of limbo unable to move on at worst. What was essentially Neo being written out of the show turned out to be more laser guided than anyone had thought.
  • Volume 9 DVD Commentary confirms that Neo was irredeemable as the person she was. She needs to be punished and will have to become a different person if she ever wants a shot at redemption, which in of itself gives off some fridge horror, especially when you remember Jaune asking "what do we do with her".

---