YMMV / Null

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Ruby may have given the order for Penny to shoot down the bullhead at the docks, killing Jaune's mother in the process, but Jaune's torture of her is downright cruel, especially because he only does it to get back at Yang. The fact that she calls out for "mommy" afterwards is absolutely horrific, and for many it serves as his Moral Event Horizon.
• Ass Pull:
  • The entire distinction Emerald makes between Jaune and Cinder - the fact that Cinder only kills those she needs to while Jaune kills "everyone" - requires Emerald to either be so Locked Out of the Loop that she doesn't even know what Cinder's plan is or just conveniently forget that her entire plan for Beacon is to cause two different events designed to let Grimm into the city and kill as many people as possible. Even knowing how much Coeur uses the Unreliable Narrator device, this one is a stretch.
  • Amber Arc and her power are terribly inconsistent. It starts out seeming to just be dust negation, but it ends up being downright broken, given that it can negate not just Dust, but the Maidens power and magic, and apparently the Relics, the four objects gifted to humanity by the Gods, as well. It comes out of nowhere and there's no real foreshadowing to it. By Chapter 42, it then goes from negating to destroying magic^note Though it may be that it simply nullified the Fall Maiden's power's ability to jump hosts, causing it to die with Amber Autumn.
    • When first introduced, her Semblance covered the entire floor when Ozpin revealed her powers to his former allies. During the fight with Jaune, its range decreased. The author also wrote James having his prosthetics run on Dust, yet they still worked in Amber's presence. Amber waking during the battle between Jaune and Ozpin is also without any forewarning, as she is able to harm Ozpin despite having been drugged unconscious for weeks.
• Complete Monster: Matthew Fields is the CEO of Chivalric Arms, as well as the leader of the conspiracy Jaune finds himself victim of. A ruthless Bad Boss, Fields orders the death of everyone connected to the conspiracy as soon as they're discovered, ensuring he will never be caught or punished for his many, many crimes. After Fields orders Jaune's capture, his forces murder Nicholas Arc and kidnap the rest of the family for experimentation and torture, hoping to replicate Jaune's Semblance by any means necessary. He also plans to sterilize the entire Faunus population simply to wipe out the White Fang, showing himself to be a racist of genocidal proportions. Upon learning of the power of Ruby's silver eyes, he orders her captured as well, and kidnaps Neopolitan and tortures her to the point of muteness for her own Semblance. Despite his friendly persona and attempts to claim he's doing what's best for Remnant, Fields proves himself to be a genocidal psychopath who couldn't care less about the hundreds of deaths he has caused.
• Fourth Wall Myopia: Readers have the benefit of knowing things that Team RW_Y don't during the encounter at the docks, such as the fact that Juniper was on the Bullhead that Penny shot down. From their perspective, they had encountered a dangerous criminal working alongside a terrorist group in the middle of a theft, and attempted to apprehend him and stop said terrorists from escaping. They had no knowledge of Jaune's circumstances, or that the heist was also the last stage of a rescue mission. Additionally Team RW_Y were willing to temporarily retreat until Penny was hacked by the conspiracy causing her to instigate the battle that led to Juniper's death. It should be noted however, that Yang openly did not care who was on the bullhead until Jaune reveals his mom was there. Similarly, Ruby and Weiss do not show any sign of regret over the bullhead's destruction and death of everyone aboard.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The concept of Penny being stripped of her free will and forced to do harm to her friends by a corrupt and antagonistic high-ranking Atlesian power messing with her software becomes a lot harsher after Volume 8, where the same happens to her at the hands of General Ironwood and Arthur Watts. In both instances, this indirectly leads Penny to a second and permanent death at Jaune's hand.
• I Knew It!: By virtue of being an original character, not many people were surprised when General Sol was revealed to have been a part of the conspiracy.
• Jerkass Woobie: Blake. She's a huge moral hypocrite throughout the fic, and she's committed a cowardly, cruel and completely vile betrayal of Jaune's trust when she abandons him in Vale to be arrested, killed or recaptured by Chivalric Arms, making Jaune's subsequent fury and grudge against her completely justified. That being said, she's not portrayed as unsympathetic when karma does catch up to her — she's distraught when her past actions have gotten her Beacon teammates horribly maimed and almost gotten Ruby killed by a vengeful Jaune (which in turn leaves both Weiss and Yang justifiably angry at her), and she's quite upset and regretful to see that the hurting boy who she betrayed has since turned into a ruthless killer partly because of her cowardice.
• Magnificent Bastard: General James Ironwood may have originally been too idealistic for his post, but once he makes his deal with Jaune Arc, he proves just how much of a strategic genius he really is. After learning that Ozpin has Amber Arc hostage, he responds by informing Blake Belladonna of the situation, causing her to ally with Jaune and kill Matthew Fields, just as he intended for her to do. Meanwhile, predicting a betrayal from his own forces, he has Clover empty out his own airship's weaponry, preventing the Council from framing him for mass murder and allowing him to blackmail them for his investigative powers back. To deal with Ozpin, he strikes a deal with Qrow and Glynda to lead Jaune straight to him and his sister; the resulting battle kills Ozpin and Cinder, ridding Ironwood of his two biggest enemies, and following the battle, he helps Jaune fake his death so that he, Jaune, and Neopolitan can continue killing anyone who tries to resurrect the conspiracy, as well as giving him a permanent method of balancing his idealistic self with his ruthless Semblance.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • With the exceptions of some hired guns and pilots who didn't know what their employers were using them for, and some scientists who (reportedly) had no idea what they were signing up for until it was too late for them to back out and/or genuinely tried to treat the Arcs like human beings as much as they could; anyone who's in on Chivalric Arms' horrific human experimentation is immediately over the MEH.
    • If CEO Matthew Fields didn't cross it at the very beginning of the story by creating the entire conspiracy , he definitely crossed it when he revealed that he is intending to make a compound that only affects Faunus and is perfectly willing to test it on innocent people.
    • Pietro Polendina has definitely crossed it, the only question is where. For some, it was sending Penny to Vale even though he knew about the massive security breach she posed thanks to Chivalric Arms, for others it was responding to Penny's murder of at least twenty innocent people by seeking protection from the Atlas council and refusing to take responsibility for what she did, and just in case there was any doubt, he lies to Penny when she wakes up and says that she did nothing wrong with. The lie is so horrible that even she can see through it, and she begins to mentally spiral downwards even though what happened wasn't technically her fault.
  • The Atlas Council crosses it in Chapter 40. While putting a Kill on Sight order on Jaune was ruthless, there was at least enough logic behind it to not qualify. However, after Jaune and Team RWBY work together to take down Chivalric Arms and kill Matthew Fields for good, the Council deliberately hides Jaune's involvement and give Team RWBY full credit for uncovering the conspiracy, further slandering him as a mass murderer just so they can keep their story intact even though they actually know for a fact that it's not true.
  • If the Post-Final Boss, Ozpin, didn't cross it by quietly doing nothing while Chivalric Arms captured Ruby for a lifetime of torturous experimentation because he now considered her an obsolete asset, then he certainly crosses it when he announces his intention to murder Jaune, then lie to Amber Arc about who did the deed and mold her grief to turn her into a weapon that he can throw at Salem. However noble his end-goals were, it's very hard to shed any tears for him after this.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Penny Polendina. After she killed Juniper Arc at the docks, a large majority of readers came to despise her and call for her death at Jaune's hands. A combination of the fact that they got their wish in the very next chapter, that she was hijacked by Chivalric Arms instead of fighting on her own accord, the fact that Pietro knew about the massive security risk involved in her creation yet chose to send her out anyway, and that he lies to her about what she did after she's rebuilt means that she has regained a large amount of her lost sympathy from the readers.
• The Scrappy:
  • Due to her actions after the train heist, which include abandoning Jaune in a city where he is a wanted man and stealing his scroll, Blake has become very unpopular with readers. Her later actions only cement this status due to her massive hypocrisy and Never My Fault attitude, alongside treating Jaune like a monster even though his actions in Vale are largely her fault.
  • As of Ch 26, all of Team RWBY - mostly Yang - along with Penny are swiftly joining her in the ranks of the very unpopular for causing the death of Juniper Arc. Many reviewers are calling for their deaths or want Jaune to stop holding back and brutally beat them at the very least. A subset of readers specifically want Jaune to be the one to cut off Yang's arm as revenge for her part in the tragedy. Though they did receive some sympathy when they express horror after learning about Jaune's mother being onboard, and after Yang is mutilated and Ruby is shot in retaliation, they lose that sympathy again in Chapter 29 when it's shown none of them feel guilty over Juniper Arc's death, with Yang thinking that Jaune deserved to lose her.
    • Penny and Weiss are the only ones that get any sympathy; for Weiss, it's because she's the only one of her team not responsible for Juniper Arc's death (Yang held Jaune down, Ruby ordered it, and Penny executed it) as well as the fact that she actually takes responsibility for her role in the incident, and Penny has been rescued since she was rebuilt.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Every time Jaune manages to rescue one of his sisters, there's tears of both joy and sadness - joy because the family is one step closer to reuniting, but sadness because each and every one of them has been tortured relentlessly the entire time they've been captured. Hazel and Jade were both starved to the point of near death, and Coral mentions that the scientists openly discussed the possibility of raping her and her mother to see if Null could pass through genetics. Amber's failed rescue, however, is far and away the worst, with Jaune only being seconds away from saving her only to have her whisked away while she desperately cries his name.
  • The entire docks heist culminates in Yang holding Jaune down as Penny shoots down the Fang's retreating bullheads. Unknown to the "heroes", however, is that Jaune's mother was on that bullhead, meaning that they are all directly responsible for the murder of an innocent woman. Jaune himself, meanwhile, screams to the skies, slumps over, and decides to throw Juniper's kindness out the window in favor of brutally beating everyone in sight instead.
  • Yang can only watch as Ruby is repeatedly shot and tortured by Jaune. A sobbing Ruby then calls out for Yang, her dad, and her mommy and begs them to help her as she's bleeding out. Even Roman goes to make a move for her before stopping himself. It's later confirmed that one of these shots hit her in the spine, and may have ended her career as a huntress before it truly began.
  • After the incident at the docks, Pietro manages to rebuild Penny and turn her back on. As she slowly regains her functions, she asks if she did anything wrong; Pietro, desperate to pretend that neither of them did anything wrong, swears that she didn't. The lie is so bad that she sees through it immediately, realizes that her father is lying to her for the first time in her life, and begins to mentally lose control as she wonders what exactly she did wrong - for the first time in her life, she has a question that her father won't truthfully answer, and her desperation and confusion as she rapidly tries to recover her lost memory is absolutely heartbreaking to see.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: While the epilogue goes into a lot of detail about where most of the characters are by story's end, Adam, Emerald, Mercury, Roman, and Winter go unmentioned. While Mercury was Demoted to Extra anyway, this means that we don't see how Roman is faring without Neo by his side (and without Jaune ordering him around), if Adam and Jaune are still in contact, how Emerald reacted to Cinder's death, or how Winter is recovering from Jaune holding her hostage, all of which had interesting and unique potential.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In Chapter 34, after Ironwood's confrontation with Ozpin, we cut from Ironwood leaving Glynda alone to Blake explaining what's happening to Yang and Weiss, with Blake saying that she got this information from Ironwood. Considering that this conversation would have involved Ironwood going behind both Ozpin and the Council's backs to give Blake the information she wants, it seems important enough to include in detail, but it occurs off-page, so we don't know when it happened, what was said, or what either of them were thinking.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Between Jaune’s increasingly ruthless actions and most of his detractors going beyond the pale in their condemnation of him, it becomes hard to care about the setting when most major characters are awful people (with the noted exceptions being Ironwood and Qrow). RWBY not caring that they killed Jaune’s mother, Yang in particular showing spite because of Jaune’s Pay Evil unto Evil response to it (rather than acknowledging that irrespective of whether he deserved the pain of losing her, Juniper herself didn’t deserve to die as collateral for either side’s actions) especially highlighting this problem for audience investment in the setting.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Jaune is clearly meant to be portrayed as a remorseless monster (especially after he shoots Ruby and potentially paralyzes her), but a combination of Chivalric Arms' downright cartoonish levels of villainy, the fact that everyone he "horrifies" is actually just as bad if not worse (Cinder, Roman, Emerald), and the sheer amount of shit the man has gone through over the course of the story (particularly Blake betraying him and leaving him to die) means it's hard to judge him too harshly. Even his shooting Ruby is hard to completely blame him for, given how he had just been Forced to Watch his own mother be shot out of the sky on her orders, and while Jaune does come to realize that his response was the wrong one later on, Yang's response to the entire affair is to blame literally everyone but herself and say that she's glad Penny and Juniper are dead.
• The Woobie:
  • Jaune and his entire family, as described under Woobie Family.
  • Definitely Penny. Used and manipulated by her own father, she gets hijacked by Chivalric Arms who force her to murder several people including an innocent casualty, leading Jaune to brutally beat her to scrap. After getting rebuilt, she's forced to continue going along with Chivalric Arms' vile schemes. Until she rebels against CA and her father to do the right thing, saving her friend Ruby from CA's clutches... only to be shot dead by a vengeful Jaune in cold blood, with Ironwood later confirming that Penny is permanently dead due to circumstances.
• Woobie Family: The entire Arc family suffer awfully for no other reason than because one of them had the misfortune of unlocking a Semblance that a powerful and utterly-evil Government Conspiracy wanted to harvest. Armed men murdered the Arc family patriarch in the night, then kidnapped the matriarch and all but one of their teenaged and young adult children from their home, and shipped them off to separate facilities to be stripped of their human rights, brutally experimented on, and used like cattle and labrats without any regard for ethics. In the fic's beginning, Chivalric Arms attempt to kill the second-youngest Arc child in front of her brother because she's outlived her usefulness, and one can only imagine what Saphron Arc (the only one of the Arc siblings not kidnapped) was feeling when General Ironwood came to inform her that her father had been murdered and her mother and all her younger siblings had been kidnapped by an unknown-to-them party. At the end of the fic, all seven Arc sisters are living on Menagerie under the Belladonnas' and White Fang's protection, but; their mother Juniper was tragically killed just when most of the siblings were preparing to be reunited with her on Menagerie, Amber (the youngest child) took a life to save her brother's, and the sisters believe their brother Jaune has also died because he faked his death and he knows he can never see them again.

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