Volume 6 Character Short: Adam
A tyrant's rise to power did not come without manipulation. Without battle. Without bloodshed.
Written by Miles Luna & Kerry Shawcross
Directed by Kerry Shawcross & Connor Pickens
Directed by Kerry Shawcross & Connor Pickens
"We may not want them to know who we are, but we should make sure they never forget what we looked like. Now - it's time we got what we deserved."
— Adam Taurus
An exploration of Adam's rise through the ranks of the White Fang, and how he strayed from the path of being a Faunus rights activist.
Tropes in this character short include:
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The short opens during a time period where Ghira Belladonna is still in charge of the White Fang. Despite that, he's barely in the short because it's either Adam or Sienna who lead the raids and engage in most of the fighting. The only scene that Ghira is in, he doesn't fight because he's trying to calm the conflict down. It's left to Adam to save the Faunus single-handedly. After a time skip to when Sienna has replaced Ghira as leader, she compliments Adam's performance on missions, gives him control of the Vale branch, and tells him that if he keeps going like this, he'll wind up at the right-hand of her throne in no time.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: In one of the flashbacks, Ghira is travelling with other Faunus, but is assaulted en route by armed humans who tried to kill them. While Ghira unsuccessfully attempts to calm the situation down peacefully, he is struck by bullets fired from human guns. In response, Sienna gives Adam permission to strike back at the humans. Adam takes them on single-handedly and defeats the majority of them. However, one of the humans goes for Ghira directly and is killed by Adam's strike. Ghira chastises him for what he sees as unnecessary bloodshed but Sienna chastises Ghira in return, stating Ghira is being ungrateful because Adam just acted heroically. The other Faunus present side with Sienna and cheer Adam's actions leaving Ghira isolated in his beliefs.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Adam absolutely decimates the armed humans attacking the White Fang convoy, killing one of them in the process, without receiving even a single hit on his Aura. He doesn't even bother dodging most of the humans' bullets, despite being fast enough to, opting instead to block them.
- A Day in the Limelight: Sienna Khan has a very minor role in the main show. However, she has a starring role in the character short as a leader. Initially, she is Ghira's lieutenant, leading missions in his stead, which allows her fighting abilities to be revealed, and standing up to him in defence of Adam's actions. She acts as a mentor-figure for Adam's development through the White Fang ranks, being responsible for him gaining leadership of the Vale branch and having high hopes for his future.
- Domestic Abuse: When Blake tries to confront Adam about the humans that keep dying in his raid, he accuses her of wanting him to abandon the cause just like her parents did. Upon seeing how upset she is, he apologizes for bringing up the subject of her parents. Instead of addressing her original concerns about his killing, he tells her that he fears that Blake no longer believes in him. This guilt-trips her into apologising for having been upset with him. While her apology appeases him, she remains tense, her face and ears scrunched up miserably... but, this time, she keeps her mouth shut.
- Doomed by Canon: Sienna acts as Adam's mentor. She believes in his ability and his drive throughout the short, even when others don't. She defends him against Ghira's criticism of him using lethal force to protect Faunus lives and is the first person to describe him as a hero. After she becomes leader of the White Fang, she expresses high hopes for Adam's future; she gives him control of the Vale branch of the White Fang and tells him that, if he keeps continuing down this road, he'll end up as her right-hand man in the leadership of the entire organisation. As the end of the short reveals, Sienna's hopes in Adam and the path he was walking are completely misplaced and the previous volume's storyline (Volume 5) reveals just how much of a disaster Adam's path proves to be for the White Fang as a whole, but for Adam and Sienna in particular.
- Dramatic Irony: The character short takes place after the Volume 5 finale's assault on Haven Academy so the fate of Adam and his abandonment of his men is already known by the audience. The character short opens with the start of an assault on a human facility by Faunus. Adam is introduced, placing his mask on for the very first time and reassuring the Faunus that "we'll get what we deserve". The assault is a success and begins Adam's ascendency through the ranks due to his growing popularity among the Faunus. The finale of the short starts the day before the assault on Haven, where Adam announces to the Faunus that "I'll get what I deserve"; the scene then cuts to the aftermath of the failed assault on Haven — Adam drops his mask to the ground and staggers through the night-time forest, broken and alone.
- Series Continuity Error: In Volume 1, Blake tells Sun that the original White Fang leader stepped down five years before the series begins. In Volume 4, the former leader is confirmed to be Blake's father, Ghira. Blake begins the series as a seventeen-year-old, making her twelve years old when her father steps down. Ilia is introduced in Volume 4 as a close friend of Blake's and is implied to be around the same age as her. The Volume 6 character short depicts the last days of Ghira's leadership of the White Fang, and shows that Ilia is serving under him at that time. However, Ilia's character model is no different to her Volume 4 appearance, meaning that she looks much older than twelve. The short therefore uses either the incorrect character model or a timeline that is different to Blake's Volume 1 statement.
- Slowly Slipping Into Evil: The short chronicles in a compressed format the emergence and descent of Adam's inner darkness. His first known kill is during a human attack on a White Fang convoy where he single-handedly saves Ghira's life against multiple opponents, but kills a man in the process. His reaction indicates he's surprised by the death and startled when the Faunus start cheering him as a hero. The next scene takes place after a time-skip where Ghira has now left the White Fang; Blake raises the subject of Adam's increasing kill-counts on his missions while Adam rationalises it away. The next time-skip reveals him on an SDC raid where he and Sienna take out all the human guards; Adam stands over a fallen and now helpless human, raising his sword to deal an unnecessary killing blow. While Sienna telling him to get a move on aborts the act, it's clear that Adam is now taking pleasure in killing humans.
- Start of Darkness: While Adam's bloody tendencies were there from the beginning, this details how he went from merely violent to a full-on villain. To a lesser extent, it's also one for Sienna, who goes from Ghira's lieutenant to usurping him.
- Time Skip: The short consists of snapshots in time. Different sequences are shown in chronological order to given an indication of how Adam's rise and fall as part of the White Fang happened. Each time skip is marked in the clothing that Adam wears, as his signature symbol and the quality and appearance of his mask both become more developed, artistic and complex over time. This helps establish each time skip and show how they fit together across time.
- The Unreveal: Adam is sometimes shown not wearing his mask. One scene consists of the camera focusing low down his body on the hand that's holding the mask. As he lifts his hand to put on his mask, the camera follows his hand up his body and looks as though it's going to reach his exposed face and reveal for the first time what his eyes look like behind the mask. However, he manages to slip the mask on just before the camera reaches his face.
- Villain Episode: All previous trailers and shorts have focused on the heroines of Team RWBY. As a result, this is the first short to focus on a villain. The premise of the short is to detail, in a series of snapshots through time, how Adam developed into an abusive Faunus supremacist who takes pleasure committing acts of murder and terrorism against humans. It not only sets up where he is at the start of the show and end of Volume 5, but it also gives insight into the comments Blake has made to her team mates about how Adam didn't start evil, he descended into evil slowly over a period of time.
