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Downfall
"Had enough yet?"
Written by Miles Luna & Kerry Shawcross
Directed by Kerry Shawcross, Gray G. Haddock & Miles Luna
Directed by Kerry Shawcross, Gray G. Haddock & Miles Luna
Raven: You turned yourself into a monster just for power.
Cinder: Look who's talking...
Cinder: Look who's talking...
The fight for Haven continues, but now it's time for our heroes to turn the tides, especially now that a long lost ally has returned with an army at her back.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Attack Backfire: Hazel tries to fry Nora's brain out with Lightning Dust. Unfortunately for him, he picked the wrong target for this attack because Nora can absorb electricity and transfer it into physical strength. She promptly sends him flying through the wall out of the building with a single hammer blow.
- Bad Boss: Adam is perfectly willing to trigger the bombs while he and his goons are still in the blast range. When one of them calls him out, Adam gets in his face and screams that he's "making humanity pay for what they've done". It's a weak justification that nobody believes; Adam is spiteful enough to doom even his men now that he's in danger of losing the battle.
- BFS: During their fight, Cinder and Raven both create massive swords about twice as long as they are tall. The clash of these swords creates a shockwave that causes parts of the cavern ceiling to start collapsing.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: With his back against the wall, Adam attempts to set off bombs to kill everyone there, including himself and his followers, rather than let Blake win. Unfortunately for him, Ilia disarmed the explosives ahead of time. One of his men even calls him out when he realizes what Adam just tried to do.
- Big "NO!": Emerald shouts "NO!" as she attempts to stop Yang from going down to the vault.
- Bullfight Boss: True to his Animal Motif, Blake takes down Adam this way: waiting for him to charge, Shadow-stepping at the last moment, and then hammering him in the back.
- Call-Back: Adam justified his killing Sienna Khan and not giving Hazel a heads-up by saying, "This was my business." When Blake's army and the Mistral Police show up and Adam demands Hazel's help, the older man just says, "This is your business."
- Cliffhanger: Raven has defeated Cinder and opened the vault door. Just as she is about to step forward there is a noise behind her. Upon turning, it's revealed Yang has caught up to her. The two women glare at each other as the episode ends.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: Hazel dominates his fight against Ren, Qrow, and even Ozpin thanks to his dust powerup. Ozpin gets in a lot of hits that are less effective since he's in a younger and weaker body. The tables only turn once Hazel accidentally powers up Nora's Semblance when he tries to electrocute her, allowing her to convert his electricity into physical strength that outmatches his.
- Dies Wide Open: Vernal's final act is to fire her weapon long enough to distract Cinder and allow Raven to win. She expires from her wounds before her eyes can close. Raven thanks her and gently closes them.
- Divided We Fall: The White Fang and Cinder's Faction are nominally allies, but there are major tensions and division between them. During the course of the battle, neither side ever even considers coming to help or reinforce the other as they carry out separate missions, despite being quite close to each other. Both wind up going being defeated while their "allies" ignore them.
- Due to the Dead: Raven takes a moment to close Vernal's eyes and thank her for using her dying act to ensure Cinder's defeat.
- Elemental Powers: Raven and Cinder have access to any elements they wish as Maiden, but tend to favor certain ones over others. Raven used ice, wind, and electricity while Cinder prefers fire and earth.
- Entitled Bastard: Adam finds himself surrounded by enemies, and demands Hazel's assistance in fighting them off. Hazel bluntly refuses, because Adam previously justified his unplanned murder of Sienna Khan as "White Fang business" that Hazel had no say in. Hazel throws Adam's previous words in his face for good measure, saying that this is "your business, not mine. Fix it."
- Even Evil Has Standards: Raven is no saint by any means, being a bandit who cares naught for the damage she causes, but she is disgusted by Cinder and how far she's willing to go for power, up to and including replacing her arm with that of a Grimm; she even flat-out calls Cinder a monster.
- Facepalm Of Doom: Raven defeats Cinder by hitting her straight on the face with an electricity-infused palm. This also destroys the faceplate covering Cinder's left eye.
- Feel No Pain: Hazel's Semblance makes him immune to pain. This is what allows him to directly inject Dust crystals into his arms without ill effect.
- Healing Factor: Jaune's Semblance uses his own Aura to recharge the Aura of another, allowing them to use their Aura to heal their own injury. Weiss also seems to take advantage of the Aura boost to summon her Queen Lancer construct.
- Hypocrite: Hazel's sister was accepted into Beacon Academy over his objection that she was a child who wasn't ready for the academy. When she died on a training mission, Hazel blamed Ozpin for her death. While he rages that Ozpin is an evil monster for placing the children in life-threatening situations, he refuses to take responsibility for his willingness to kill the innocent Oscar solely for being Ozpin's new host, and he has no problem attacking any child who is fighting him or trying to kill Nora by electrocuting her for as long as he can.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Hazel gets stabbed through the abdomen by the tail of Weiss's summoned Queen Lancer, and proceeds to get pulled back into the building he was thrown out of.
- Interesting Situation Duel: Cinder and Raven throw everything they possess at each other when they fight in Haven Academy's underground vault. They spend part of the fight battling on the floor of the vault until the scale of their battle forces them to move locations. As they are both Maidens, much of their battle involves the use of enormous magical power which includes the ability to fly. It shakes the very ground above their heads, loosening massive stalactites that hang from the roof of the cave they're in. As the stalactites begin to fall, they jump from rock to rock. Cinder slices through stone in her attempt to reach Raven, who kicks her through several large boulders. The fight ends as the stalactite they're on slams into the vault floor, depleting both of their Auras in the process.
- Ironic Echo: In "Dread in the Air", Adam justified not telling Hazel about his plan to murder Sienna Khan and take over the White Fang on the grounds that White Fang matters are his business, not Hazel's. When Adam demands that Hazel help him fight off the Menagerie Faunus and Mistral police force, Hazel refuses, throwing Adam's words back in his face.Hazel: This is your business, not mine. Fix it.
- Last Breath Bullet: Just before she dies of her impalement, Vernal shoots at Cinder's back. It's not enough to actually kill her, but it distracts her and gives Raven an opportunity to land a final blow.
- Make Sure He's Dead: The fight between Raven and Cinder is so intense that it eventually shatters both of their Auras, removing their ability to supernaturally absorb damage. When Raven defeats Cinder, she knocks Cinder off a ledge into a deep, dark chasm, and while Cinder is falling Raven freezes her body to solid ice for good measure.
- Meaningful Echo:
- Hazel's comment about how the resistance Adam and the White Fang is facing is their business seems to be an echo of Adam's line to Hazel after Sienna's assassination.
- Near the end of their duel, Raven throws back Cinder's earlier comment on how Raven's reputation for being strong and clever were wrong by saying that if Cinder was "Stronger or more clever, then maybe you'd remember to watch your back!"
- Midfight Weapon Exchange: When their battle first takes to the air, Raven and Cinder end up letting go of their swords. They each grab the other's weapon without missing a beat to continue fighting.
- Mundane Solution: Blake takes a Menagerie force of Faunus to Haven to stand against the White Fang assault on Haven, led by Adam. Although being confronted by a small army of Faunus angry with the violent tactics he claims to use on their behalf, that isn't what kills his plans: it's Blake's mother arriving with the Mistral Police Force to arrest Adam that makes him and his followers realise there's no sensible way out of the situation they're in.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: Hazel makes it clear that his faction and the White Fang's goals are separate from one another. He tells Adam not to worry over the battle inside and leaves him to fend for himself when the Faunus of Menagerie show up.
- "Not So Different" Remark: While fighting with Cinder over the Relic of Knowledge, Raven references Cinder's Grimm arm and states her pursuit of power has made her a monster. Cinder responds "Looks who's talking!"
- Oh, Crap!: Cinder has a horrified and shocked look as Raven freezes her solid and throws her into the abyss below.
- Orbiting Particle Shield: When their duel takes into the air, Raven and Cinder's clashing causes excess power to surround in the form of particles. Cinder's are red from fire while Raven's are blue from ice. They go out after their swords clash and break.
- Out-Gambitted: When the Faunus of Menagerie show up to Haven Adam decides to pull a Taking You with Me by blowing up the school. Blake thwarts him by having Ilia disarm the bombs beforehand.
- Pun-Based Title: Cinder Fall ends up falling down into a pit.
- Punched Across the Room: A supercharged Nora hits Hazel with her hammer so hard, he's sent flying out of Haven Academy's entrance, right in front of Adam and the White Fang.
- Required Secondary Powers:
- Jaune's Semblance allows him to use his Aura to amplify the Auras of other people. This worries Nora who thinks he'll run out of Aura by doing this. When Pyrrha first unlocked his Aura, she commented that he had a lot of it and Jaune speculates that this must be because of the nature of his Semblance; with so much Aura, he won't run out when empowering others.
- Ozpin says the only reason Hazel is able to inject so much Dust into his body without ill-effect is because his Semblance allows him to feel no pain.
- Stealth Pun: The title, "Downfall", refers to Cinder's defeat. More subtly, it also refers to the fact that she, a character with the surname Fall, literally falls down into a pit.
- Taking You with Me: Adam spitefully tries to detonate the explosives covering the CCT so that the bomb damage will take out Blake, the Menagerie Faunus and the Mistral police for surrounding him. It would also take out himself and his men in the process, just to make sure "everyone loses".
- Talking Is a Free Action: During the scene where all four members of Team RWBY are finally reunited, the remaining combatants of Cinder's group, Emerald and Mercury, are seen just watching the event unfold without interrupting, despite both Ruby and Yang having their backs turned at them. Emerald and Mercury seem to be at a loss with the extra commotion outside from the arrival of forces to defend Haven and only shake themselves out of their stupor when Yang races past them to go after Raven and Cinder.
- Where's the Kaboom?: When Adam tries to detonate the bombs on the CCT prematurely, he clicks the trigger a few more times in confusion when the explosion doesn't come.
- X-Ray Sparks: When the Lightning Dust-powered Hazel has his grip on Nora, her skeleton becomes briefly visible. This can be seen other times throughout the last few episodes of Volume 5, as well, most notably when Hazel takes Qrow out of the fight as Qrow takes a hit meant for Oscar/Ozpin and when Hazel sends Ren flying into the wall.
- You Monster!: Raven outright calls Cinder this for being willing to graft a Grimm arm onto her body.
