Kuroyuri
"We have to be brave now."
Written by Miles Luna & Kerry Shawcross
Directed by Kerry Shawcross, Gray G. Haddock & Miles Luna
Directed by Kerry Shawcross, Gray G. Haddock & Miles Luna
Li: An, what are you doing?! We need to hurry!
An: We can go to the safehouse!
Li: No. I saw the beast. We need a Huntsman. And you two need to leave.
An: We can go to the safehouse!
Li: No. I saw the beast. We need a Huntsman. And you two need to leave.
Oscar finally takes Ozpin's advice to travel to Haven but encounters Hazel on the way.
Ruby and Jaune find no medicine in the devastated Kuroyuri to heal Qrow. While this happens, a series of flashbacks reveal the town's thriving past, how Ren and Nora met, and how the town was destroyed. In the present, Ren and Nora realize that they are very close to the creature that destroyed Kuroyuri all those years ago.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Childhood Friends: The flashbacks take place during a time when Ren is a young child and Kuroyuri is a thriving town. Ren and Nora meet because Nora has come to the town as a street urchin looking for food. The destruction of the town causes Ren to save Nora's life and, now as orphaned and homeless as she, they decide to protect each other from that point on.
- Cliffhanger: Ren and Nora realise that the Grimm that destroyed their village years ago is travelling back to Kuroyuri, which is where Jaune and Ruby have taken the injured Qrow. As the camera focusses on the distant village, Ren and Nora's hands come together in a tight clasp in the foreground. The scene fades to black amid the sound of a terrible, unearthly scream.
- Creepy Souvenir: Ren and Nora accidentally locates a cave that appears to be the lair of the creature that attacked Shion, Oniyuri and Kuroyuri. It's scattered with black blood and a range of objects, including a ruined banner containing the Shion village crest and an arrow that once belonged to Ren's father.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: An is a gentle mother who thinks Ren has inherited her sass; when she tells him no, she takes the time to explain why, she trusts him with money to buy presents for his father, and seeks to reassure him during the attack even though she is herself quite frightened. Li teaches his son to always take action when it's necessary, and is willing to put his life on the line to protect his son.
- Doomed Hometown: Kuroyuri was once a thriving town and the home of Ren and his family until it was destroyed by a strange Grimm. Ren's father tells Ren and his mother that only a Huntsman can fight this "Beast". Nora, who is a street urchin, is hidden by Ren when his Semblance protects them from being found by the Grimm. With Ren now as orphaned and homeless as Nora, they vow to always protect each other and eventually attend Beacon Academy to become Huntsmen in their own right. Team JNPR's Volume 2 mission to go to villages outside the kingdom is interrupted by the city breach and Jaune pauses to personally apologise to Ren for their inability to go to those villages. The flashbacks to the fall of Kuroyuri reveal why being a Huntsman who protects villages is so important to Ren.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Ren's father attempts to flee their collapsed house and carry him to safety, but he's too injured to run far before falling to the ground. This gives the Nuckelavee a chance to catch up. He gives Ren a knife and tells him to run while he distracts the Nuckelavee long enough to buy Ren time to escape.
- Holding Hands: When Ren and Nora encounter the lair of the creature that destroyed Shion and Kuroyuri, they realise that the Nuckelavee has just left. From their vantage point in the mountain, they get to watch as the Nuckelavee heads straight to a thriving village to destroy. The episode ends with them clasping hands in horror as the Nuckelavee begins to scream.
- Irony: Ren wanted to avoid Kuroyuri, so he wouldn't have to be reminded of what happened to him. Instead, the path he takes ends up at the lair of the very creature that destroyed his home and family. The high vantage point gives him a clear view of the direction in which the Grimm is travelling: back to Kuroyuri, which is where Jaune and Ruby have taken the badly injured Qrow.
- Kids Are Cruel: When Ren is trying to find a present for his father, he hears a commotion down a side street. When he looks, he sees three older boys surrounding a frightened street urchin. They mock her for having strange clothes for the locale and for having stolen mouldy bread. When the boys realise Ren is there, Ren panics and turns to flee. The street urchin is later confirmed to be Nora.
- Killed Offscreen: When the 'Beast' attacks Kuroyuri, Ren is frightened so his mother crouches down in front of him to soothe him, the scene being shown from Ren's perspective. The roof suddenly comes down and the screen goes black. Ren comes around in his father's arms as he races through streets filled with chaos and panic. When he falls, too injured to keep running, he gives Ren a knife and tells him to flee. He then confronts the Nuckelavee to distract it long enough to give Ren a chance to escape. It's absolutely clear that both of Ren's parents are killed, but their deaths never quite make it onto the screen.
- Mysterious Past: We see how Nora met Ren, but nothing of her past prior to that is revealed. One of the bullies suggests Parental Abandonment, and it's noted that her clothes are different than the Asian-themed clothes common in Mistral, but she's too scared to confirm or deny anything.
- Nuckelavee: The "Beast" that destroys Kuroyuri looks like the Nuckelavee of Orcadian mythology. It looks like a rider on a horse, but it is a single, fused being. Both heads have eyes that glow red. The humanoid arms are so long that the knuckles drag along the ground and the fingers seem longer than the length of the hooves. The forelegs of the equine body end in claws instead of hooves. The humanoid body is skeletal and has things sticking out of it like it's permanently impaled. The primary difference from the mythological figure is that its territory is nowhere near the sea.
- Parental Abandonment: Nora is living on the streets as a ragged, dirty orphan, too terrified to communicate with people and surviving by stealing mouldy bread. One of the bullies mocks her as being abandoned by her parents and at the beginning of Volume 3 she does make a passing reference to having no family.
- Percussive Maintenance: Oscar doesn't have enough money to buy a train ticket to Mistral. Hazel spots his trouble and comes over. He bashes the top of the machine which spits out a ticket. He then tells Oscar not to let such minor things stand in his way.
- Resigned to the Call: Oscar leaves home, finally accepting that he needs to pay attention to what Ozpin is telling him. He tells Ozpin that the scariest thing now is that it seems so right to be doing something that appears to be so crazy.
- Street Urchin: When Ren first encounters Nora, she's a ragged orphan living on the streets in a state of pure terror. Her clothes are different from the local fashion and she survives by scrounging for mouldy bread in bins.
- Weapon Jr.: When Ren is trying to buy a present for his father, all the vendor is willing to sell him is a toy sword and a wooden hammer. When the town is destroyed, leaving him as orphaned and homeless as Nora already is, Ren spots the wooden hammer on the floor and grabs it. Giving it to her, he announces that they have to protect each other from now on. It appears to be the origin of choice of weapon as a trainee Huntress.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Ruby tries to apologize for dragging Team JNPR into this, Jaune tells Ruby that they wanted to come. He tells her that despite losing Pyrrha, Penny, her team, and to a certain extent Yang, Ruby still presses onward, and that is what gave them the courage to go with her.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Ren's home is destroyed by the Grimm. He and Nora only survive because his Semblance protects them both from detection. Years later, as Ruby, Jaune, Ren and Nora try to reach Haven Academy, they encounter sign posts to Kuroyuri. Ren refuses to go there and takes a different path, leaving Ruby and Jaune to travel there alone. The town is an abandoned ruin, with objects lying where they fell that day, as if time hasn't touched the town from that day to the current.
Ren: This is the symbol for Shion Village.
Nora: Shion? But that's... that's the village where we found the Huntsman. It's weeks away from here!
Nora: Shion? But that's... that's the village where we found the Huntsman. It's weeks away from here!
