Right, but is that enough for him to be the Scrappy? Or is the focus solely because he's the titular character? That's what I can't really work out.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
To be honest, I don't think he really counts as a Scrappy since... I don't think anyone is really liked. He's just a key source of narm and lousy writing so in a way it seems like he's more a microcosm of Zero as a whole... fitting for the title character, now that I think about it.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Barb / Temporary Kylo
I think dislike of Zero is just a symptom of the reception his season got as a whole.
Edited by Snoketrope on Dec 6th 2022 at 11:36:58 AM
The First man
That guy with the face
Final season announced, to premiere later this year, titled "Restoration".
Burnie's writing, Matt's directing, Gus and Geoff are back too.
Edited by Rytex on Jul 7th 2023 at 3:12:41 AM
Qui odoratus est qui fecit.
I feel like the past several seasons showed that the series could not viably continue, whether with the original cast or with a new one. And while I personally feel this should have come sooner, I'm glad to see it come now. Hopefully this landing sticks.
Mmmm.
This makes me genuinely sad.
Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).
Predator Loyal to the Zerg Swarm
Sad, but every journey must come to an end.
Here's to hoping they can end this season both with a bang, and on a good note. Red Vs Blue has been part of my life for almost a decade now, and to see it ending is definitely sad, but considering the shitshow RT has been for some time now, so long as we can end on a pleasant note, I'll be content.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
the Quantum Mechanic
A long time coming, but sad nonetheless. I feel like Zero aside, the show's never been outright bad, and I hope this'll stick as well.
"No will to break."
-pouring one out for Red vs Blue-
SO. Theory-time.
The Alpha is being brought back in some capacity?
Epsilon made a last-ditch plan that some corrupted form of Texas is aware of?
Alison or the Director are somehow involved.
Did Church somehow predict or visualize what happened with Chronos? This is taking place during Volume 12 yet he has video files from Seasons 14 through 16.
Edited by FOFD on Jul 9th 2023 at 7:46:04 AM
Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).Okay, here's my own thoughts on it, and for point of reference, I will be looking to Episode 11 of Season 12: "Long Time No See".
- The shadowy figure is obviously hinted to be Epsilon!Sigma, hence the comments about a "new voice" since they couldn't get Elijah Wood again, and the flames reflecting in Epsilon's visor.
- His "restore what once was great" and opposition of Epsilon's simulations leads me to believe he still has a goal of reaching Metastability, albeit in a different manner than the original Sigma. Whereas the original Sigma wanted to become "The Meta" by merging with the other AI, Epsilon!Sigma is focused more on the lengths Epsilon is going trying to save the Blood Gulch Crew, and how he ultimately can't make it work without the same end result: his deconstruction. And he's trying to make Epsilon realize something he's long denied, after all, the Epsilon versions of the AI aren't their own individuals like the Fragments, they're just different aspects of Epsilon's own mind manifesting through his memory of them. Like Epsilon!Delta told him:
Epsilon!Delta: Technically only you are thinking it. I am just a memory of "Delta".Epsilon: Well, I like having someone to talk to. I get lonely sometimes.
- They also tend to manifest whenever his corresponding emotion was triggered, much like Omega came out when Epsilon was frustrated. Sigma specifically represents the "Ambition" and "Creativity" of Church, meaning his appearing now after Epsilon went so far to repress him suggests this is because Epsilon is at his wits end. He's running out of ideas on how to get the BGC out alive, and Sigma is acting as the devil on his shoulder, suggesting he stop running himself ragged for their sake when they can't be saved. The same reasoning applies for why the video of Allison keeps popping up, saying she "has to go", it's his subconscious trying to make him acknowledge he can't save them. The same reason why Gamma, his "Deceit" pops up and claims he's "sorry" for showing it, it's Epsilon lying to himself, continuing to think he can save them if he keeps trying. It's why when Sigma says "make it great again", a shot of Carolina finding the Director a broken mess is shown: Epsilon has fallen into the same trap as the original Dr. Leonard Church, thinking that if he keeps trying, he can save the people he loves.
- So in all, Epsilon!Sigma is, in his own way, trying to help Epsilon. Trying to make him see he can't save the Blood Gulch Crew, and rather than destroy himself while having "faith" that they'll make it out alive, he should let them go. He can't save them, and instead of breaking himself down by becoming just like the man he was based on, he needs to "restore" himself to who he was, to how he achieved what the original Sigma failed by becoming Metastable, and go back to Carolina and Wash. As he told the Director himself:
Epsilon: I don't know what I am. But I do know this: I'm more than just a copy of you. I'm better than you.
- His "restore what once was great" and opposition of Epsilon's simulations leads me to believe he still has a goal of reaching Metastability, albeit in a different manner than the original Sigma. Whereas the original Sigma wanted to become "The Meta" by merging with the other AI, Epsilon!Sigma is focused more on the lengths Epsilon is going trying to save the Blood Gulch Crew, and how he ultimately can't make it work without the same end result: his deconstruction. And he's trying to make Epsilon realize something he's long denied, after all, the Epsilon versions of the AI aren't their own individuals like the Fragments, they're just different aspects of Epsilon's own mind manifesting through his memory of them. Like Epsilon!Delta told him:
- The comment about the fight between Viper and Shatter Squad being "just cool" when Sigma asks him if he actually thinks that could happen feels like they're way of invoking Canon Discontinuity, that it never actually happened but was just a simulation of Epsilons, since they already said they weren't following it up. Though, that in turn leads into one of the two ideas as to where this final season will go.
- So, where exactly are we thinking this will go? I can see two options:
- Option 1: The final season will retcon the events of Seasons 14-Zero into only being simulations Epsilon was running, and pick up at the Bolivian Army Ending of Season 13, this time either with Epsilon having divided himself into the "Fragments" as he mentioned, and the BGC needing to restore him at the end, or Epsilon not going through with dividing himself and seeing if the BGC can make it out of there on their own.
- This of course undoes the positive elements of the Shisno Trilogy and removes the character development Sarge, Grif, Donut, Kai, and Wash got from those seasons.
- Option 2: The final season will take place after the events of Singularity, but will retcon the detail Tucker mentioned in Season 15 about the Meta's Armor becoming useless. Instead of Epsilon just dying in between Seasons 13 and 15, his fragments will still be in the suit, with Epsilon currently trapped in a sort of limbo running these simulations as he's slowly dying, unaware the others have long survived and experienced real versions of the simulations, as the memories of the others, namely Sigma, work to try and put him back together, or get him to finally let go and pass away.
- This ends up invalidating the original idea of the BGC needing to let go of Church after Epsilon's death so they can move on.
- Option 1: The final season will retcon the events of Seasons 14-Zero into only being simulations Epsilon was running, and pick up at the Bolivian Army Ending of Season 13, this time either with Epsilon having divided himself into the "Fragments" as he mentioned, and the BGC needing to restore him at the end, or Epsilon not going through with dividing himself and seeing if the BGC can make it out of there on their own.
Edited by RebelFalcon on Jul 9th 2023 at 8:33:45 AM
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
I don’t think they’re bringing back Church. Epsilon-Sigma will certainly try though.
As for continuity: they may keep 15-17, but I don’t think Zero will be kept. That season kinda doesn’t make sense in canon as is.
But then again, it might not even take place after those seasons. It could be an interquel between 13 and 15, detailing what happened to the Meta’s suit after the events of the battle on Hargrove’s ship.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Making the Grand Finale final season an interquel of all things seems unlikely.
I was writing a long post. Then I got interrupted, which scattered my train of thought and then I lost the post. Then I read Rebel's post and realised he's covered most of what I planned to say, right down to the observations about Gamma representing Epsilon lying to himself about repeating the Allison loops and appearing to be making the same mistake as the Director. So, I'm just going to save myself the rewrite and say I agree with Rebel's post.
A few things I would add:
Edit: this ended up being long in its own right, so I put it in a folder to spare everyone's scroll-buttons.
It definitely looks like Seasons 14-Zero are all represented in the simulation loops that are playing, and the fact that Phase's abilities are singled out and scoffed at suggests that elements of these loops that seem fanciful or lost by a potential reboot may turn out to be important... but not necessarily in the manner they appeared in the seasons themselves. At the same time, the end of the trailer implies that even this coming season might represent the final simulation. Or it could be that we see it playing out in real time and have to learn over the course of the season what that final simulation actually was. That would be a similar concept to Season 13, where the trailer gives away that Epsilon "dies", so you watch Season 13 to find out how and why it happens. This trailer feels like it'll have another "how and why" relationship with the upcoming season.
Epsilon-Sigma's suit is frustrating me. It's Meta, but not quite Meta. There are differences. A few in the helmet and the upper right arm. There's Washington colour-coding on the suit. I went digging through all the iterations of Meta/Maine's appearances that I could find, and I can only find that yellow pattern on Washington's suit, not Meta's (note: it's not identical to Washington's trim either, just reminiscent). Memory was the key for the Washington-Epsilon-Alpha relationship, too.
It was also important for Caboose.
The way the fragments appear and disappear in formation either side of Epsilon is interesting.
- Eto (fear) — Gamma (deceit) — Omega (rage) — Epsilon (memory) — Delta (logic) — Theta (trust) — Iota (happiness).
That means they're actually paired, and they appear and disappear as pairs in the same order (from closest to Epsilon to furthest from him):
- Negative emotions on Epsilon's right-hand side and positive emotions on his left-hand side
- Omega and Delta (Rage and Logic) — first to arrive, and first to leave, closest to Epsilon
- Gamma and Theta (Deceit and Trust) — second
- Eto and Iota (Fear and Happiness) — last, and furthest away from Epsilon
The trailer is about him being driven by his negativity because he so desperately wants to achieve the positives. Look who is missing from the line-up, however: Beta (failure) and Sigma (ambition/creativity). Now, at first glance, that looks like two negatives, but if the following falls into the above pattern, one has to be a positive the the negative pair: for instance:
- Eto (fear) — Gamma (deceit) — Omega (rage) — Beta (failure) — Epsilon (memory) — Sigma (ambition/creativity) — Delta (logic) — Theta (trust) — Iota (happiness).
- Beta and Sigma (Failure and Ambition) — the actual first to arrive, and the ones who are really the closest to Epsilon
- Omega and Delta (Rage and Logic)
- Gamma and Theta (Deceit and Trust)
- Eto and Iota (Fear and Happiness)
But, I think Epsilon-Sigma is trying to turn this on its head...
Time means something different to Epsilon now. I don't think that's just a reference to his concept of time at the end of Season 13, I think that's a reference to the simulations he's been running — which is akin to the constant loops that Gamma was running from the BGC; tht's another connection between the Director, his AI and the AI fragments — this falling back to constantly repeating in the hope of getting it right next time. Plus, the location in which Epsilon is running his simulations is akin to the bunker the Director ended his life in, which is yet another link. The Shisno Paradox was all about time, and I think that's going to be important to what Epsilon is musing about here. The cracks in his room are very similar to the timeline branching pattern that was displayed during the Shisno Paradox. Plus, it was in that arc that Caboose understood better than anyone the concept of "fixing" time because of his instant conclusion tha "time moves in circles", which led to Washington asking if Caboose has been a secret genius all this time. Coming back to comedy moments like this and putting a new spin on it has defined this show for over a decade, and if these seasons are a simulation, then that Caboose-Washington moment is actually Epsilon himself realising something important.
I can think of another Delta comment that's important here. The actual Delta, responding to Tex's comment that he's kind to stay with the dying York: "That’s just what makes us human." Season 13 was very much about Epsilon learning to accept friendship and needing to embrace faith in people; it's also what he repeats in this trailer here — he needs to have faith. Now, we know he's already let go of Tex, but he hasn't let go of what Tex represented to the Director, which is failure. Like the Director, he's producing the "shadow". Like the Director, he's struggling to accept failure. When Delta talked to Tex, it was about kindness being human. What Epsilon (and the Director) needs to learn is that failure is human, too. Only by accepting failure as having a valid role in life, is he going to be able to truly let go.
Epsilon-Sigma seems to be pointing all of this out to him.... in his own way. So I don't think Epsilon-Sigma represents the "villain" so much as he represents that Epsilon's greatest enemy is himself... which is a bit of a thread that was running through Season 13, with the references to Epsilon not being enough, facing failure as an AI... but his conclusion is that he can achieve the seemingly impossible if he fragments himself. That's the opposite of what the Reds and Blues have learned over the years (which is that they can achieve the seemingly impossible by uniting). But he didn't just say he needed to fragment, he also said he needed to wipe his memory; that is also the opposite of the show's message: it's still a form of "memory is the key", but that's always been a message about remembering something important in a new way, so Epsilon's decision was again counter to a core message of the show (it was more like "abandoning memory is the key").
This trailer seems to be targeting two things in that final speech that go against the show's established messaging: the characters always achieve their best through both unity and remembering what's most important. So, I think the existence of the wiped fragments, the idea of embracing these last few flaws of humanity and being able to let go, will ultimately lead to metastability... not of Epsilon, who is gone, or even of the Alpha we knew, who is also gone, but of a metastable Alpha.
So, to revisit the above fragment pairing above, I think Epsilon-Sigma will force the flip to ensure the true goal is achieved, making Beta the positive and Sigma the negative... because what appears to be two negatives (ambition and failure) can be transformed into two positives... with enough creativity (which Sigma also represents).
Anyway, it's been a while since I've felt this buzzed for RvB. I'm looking forward to seeing how they handle this season.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 9th 2023 at 7:37:04 PM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Barb / Temporary Kylo
Honestly my only problem with this so far is it being a season rather then a final story arc. The problem with season 15 was that the show did best with multi-season arcs and this one shoved the whole plot line into a single season.
The First man
Season 15 was trying to be a story in its own right and set up the next two seasons. We already know that this new season won't be setting up future ones. It only has one purpose — to tie up the show for good.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.Enough people have been proclaiming Seasons 14-Zero being non-canon now as actual fact despite not being confirmed that I figured it warranted a Common Knowledge entry.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
That's more a case of Fanon Discontinuity though, isn't it? Common Knowledge is about everyone believing something is true when it's not, but fans writing off certain seasons they dislike is Fanon Discontinuity. I think everyone knew those seasons were a thing, they just wished that wasn't the case.
And, lo!, their wish was granted.... which mightn turn out to be Author's Saving Throw if it works (and is confirmed).
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Yes, no Common Knowledge here, just plain Fanon Discontinuity. And as someone who liked seasons 14-16, seeing them get discarded along with the truly disliked one is not where I would go with, but the guy who created the show is the one who can certainly think of the best ending.
On the other hand, already got something to worry about seeing RT not accepting some low demands to bring back the guys who made the music for 15\18 seasons
. And the season was supposed to restore the show's old spirit?
I'm a tad skeptical
This condition didn’t work for RT.
That's a vague end statement that feels a little incendiary without fully explaining what happened.
Does it make financial sense? Is this the deal they had previously?
Does a music artist get to make such demands?
RVB 19 can't have any other music than Levy and Hagan? RWBY had that one dude sing Ironwood's theme song. I don't know, that sounds like a huge ask from a company no matter what the talent is. I don't know if I'd agree with that either.
Saying "artists emotionally invested in the show" sounds like a plea to me, like they're hoping to coax RT into renegotiating a deal they were dissatisfied with moreso than making a reasonable request.
On the other hand Contact and Half Life are songs I come back to often. Given RT's recent controversies it'd be easy to assume they were in the wrong and RVB 19 is going to suffer for it.
Considering how RVB was their baby I would want to be firing on all cylinders.
Edited by FOFD on Oct 2nd 2023 at 10:24:21 AM
Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).
Yeah him, and what I mean by that is - he's not someone part of the RT family far as I know, he was an outsider, and he did one of the better songs. I don't think it would be to RVB's benefit if they were contractually barred from including any other musicians.
Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).
Jeff Williams did season's 9 and 10 as well, and while he's retired his daughter is still involved with RWBY.
So if RT wanted to have Jeff or his daughter do work for RVB 19 or re-use work from 9-10 then that would go against Trocadero's demand.
The wording makes clear Nico would accept people who already worked on the show. Plus, Jeff used to be in Trocadero, and Casey sang in both the scores her father wrote and the one Nico and Jeff recorded for The Strangerhood. (whether he'd be as welcoming to the Death Battle composer that made Zero, we'll never know)
The issue seems to be stock music, which already is in the S19 trailer.
Edited by igordebraga on Oct 2nd 2023 at 3:34:24 PM
Thing I see most about Zero is people complaining how inconsistent he is. Only other characters I see talked about are Axel, East/Phase, and Ray, the first because of being an Ensemble Dark Horse who got wasted, the second because she's the "knife wife" and only one with something resembling an arc, and the latter because he's the comic relief and wondering if he brings anything to the table. One, West, Tiny, and Diesel don't get much in the way of conversation amidst the fans outside of the last one's connection to the Ryan debacle.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!