RWBY General Discussion

Well yes, it does when you're talking something the size of a building with a skull that's probably as thick as you are tall. Even IRL small arms generally don't work all that well against large animals like elephants, hence the existence of things like Elephant Guns.

edited 22nd Jan '17 4:15:53 PM by CaptainCapsase

I mean, probably. I still think there has to be more to that than killing Grimm.

Edit: This post in reference to Ruby's Silver Eyes kicking in.

edited 22nd Jan '17 4:23:57 PM by LSBK

I'm expecting RNJR will be unable to really do anything to the Nuckelavee and even Ruby's Silver Eyes will fail stopping it because it's simply so incredibly powerful and she isn't ready yet to use them for real. Then a thunderstorm rolls in and Nora gets hit repeatedly by lightning and kills it. Followed by it respawning from the black goo in its lair and the implication that it's now stalking RNJR.

Yes. You ever tried to kill a whale with an anti-personnel weapon?

I doubt this thing is stronger than the Grimm Dragon. And, yeah, she didn't kill it, but she certainly stopped it.

I wonder; Nuckelavees' sole weakness is stated to be running water in the myths, all you need to do is to cross the stream to be rid of it (unless there's a way around). Even splashing it with water from a river is said to distract it briefly.

I wonder if this will be of any importance here.

How do lizards fly?

Also, no mention of the hint about Ren's Semblance? It seemed like he was cloaking himself and Nora there.

Also, I usually hate to read things like this into scenes, but did that moment between Jaune and Ruby seem a bit...shippy, to anyone else?

It looks like emotion stifling. Grimm are drawn in with negative emotions, but both Nevermore and Nuckelavee - who might have been looking for Nora specifically - just went past Renora's place of hiding.

As for Lancaster... eh. I don't think so, unless by "shippy" these days we mean any vaguely positive interaction between two characters. >.>

Oh yeah, that too. I do hope, for the record, that Lancaster remains purely platonic (even if I could get behind said ship).

edited 22nd Jan '17 4:31:03 PM by FergardStratoavis

How do lizards fly?

It's more or less a mirror of the scene which took place in volume 1 (I think) between Ruby and Jaune when Ruby is the one giving the pep talk to Jaune. As far as shipping goes, it's possible but then again Shipping Goggles.

edited 22nd Jan '17 4:30:36 PM by CaptainCapsase

It was a nice moment. I dont know if it hints a romance but Shippers gonna ship regardless

edited 22nd Jan '17 4:32:35 PM by DeanCole

But there was like a flickering of his aura that enveloped both of them.

Plus, yeah, Grimm are attracted by negative emotions but that doesn't mean they don't notice other cues and such.

edited 22nd Jan '17 4:38:51 PM by LSBK

If it is the first hint at Lancaster becoming a thing, then the pacing seems about right to me; this is something that will feel kinda dumb if it isn't gradually built up to.

@Fergard: Any reason why, might I ask? Ruby and Jaune's personalities compliment each other nicely, especially given Jaune's drift towards becoming a Knight in Sour Armor; whereas Ruby is a talented fighter whose lead a very sheltered life, Jaune is far more worldly, but relatively green in terms of fighting. I certainly hope they end up training together, because that would be a great way of developing their respective shortcomings.

edited 22nd Jan '17 4:42:52 PM by CaptainCapsase

Well, that episode was a whole lot of nothing. Seriously, what the hell is the point if introducing the larger maiden/relic/Salem plotline if we're just going to go straight back to treating random grimm as boss-level encounters? Even if they are legitimately powerful grimm, the fact that they have nothing to do with the ongoing plot just makes them seem like a distraction at this point.

About the only actually interesting thing in this episode was Ren's semblance(?), which wasn't very well executed because it went from "normal young child understandably freaking out" to "mature and independent young child taking charge in a chaotic situation" nigh-instantly. It just came off oddly.

RWBY's never been a super fast-moving story, but volume 4 is the first time it's actually felt like it's dragging. The main difference is that the first three seasons had smaller, more immediate goals and worked toward them steadily. Season one was Everyone Meets Everyone and then academy stuff. Season two was driven by the White Fang/Roman subplot. Season three was about the tournament and Cinder's shenanigans. Season four should be about Salem's scheme and the various things she ordered her minions to do, since that's the first thing we saw in the opening of the season, but instead we've gotten more White Fang stuff from Blake, family drama from Weiss, Yang doing not much, and Ruby wandering in the wilderness, spending one episode on Tyrian, and now we're back to wandering in the wilderness only now the team is split up and Crow is hurt and there's a grimm after them or something, I guess?

The only advancement we've gotten on the main plot so far is 1) Salem dispatching her minions, 2) Tyrian vs Crow/RNJR, 3) a few scenes of Oscar arguing with Ozpin, plus a brief cameo by Hazel.

That's pretty crap pacing, even compared to the other seasons. RWBY has fallen straight into the Four Lines, All Waiting trap.

I'm assuming 12, like every season except the first. Which means we have enough time to wrap up one, maybe two of the various subplots they're juggling. The rest are going to be either left hanging or abruptly cut off.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Like a lot of things in this show.It depends on what you prefer.The previous Volumes as Native said was spit up into subplots so that the characters would still feel like they're doing still even if they weren't advancing the plot much.This was a problem as well though.

There were complaints of the story not flowing well due to the main plot stopping to a halt to deal with themid volume subplots in V2. Not to mention the Jaune Arc fatigue problem in V1. There's also the problem of characters of main team RWBY being out of focus.

This Volume on the other hand gives each RWBY member there own over aching story.(Yang getting back on her feet,Ruby heading to Mistral,Wesis breaking out of the SDC,Blake sorting herself out).Fixing the character focus/development problem but they cant really hide the slowness of the story anymore.

BTW.This volume is supposed to be about the cast dealing with the aftermath of the fall of Beacon.I do recall Miles saying as such.

edited 22nd Jan '17 8:32:28 PM by DeanCole

The issue some of us have here is that the cast could, or even should, have done this during the timeskip, but Season 4 doesn't get started on that until after. Result? The actual plots each (active) character is in doesn't get to progress until 60% of the season is over.

So yeah, this all comes down to preference.

Pretty much,

The problem I have with timeskipping over this is the at the end of the day they still would have to spent time filling us in. RWBY isnt long enough show to use flashback scenes without it coming across as a rushed cheap way to give the current scene depth.

Hell just look at how much time it took with Rens backstory.Now imagine a entire volume of that times 4.Not counting Oscar.

edited 22nd Jan '17 8:48:18 PM by DeanCole

Ren didn't need a flashback that long. Most of it was extraneous detail. You could have gotten all the information across in a few minutes. Or for that matter in a ten-second conversation.

As for Oscar we don't need to see the scenes with him. We don't need any scenes with him. It's entirely meaningless. He contributes nothing to the plot while separated from the rest of the cast.

Having Oscar just bump into the party and going "Hey I got Ozpin in my head" would be lame, but most of his scenes could be at least half as long.

we don't need him to monologue about how he is reluctant about leaving home, just have him turn around for a second before he leaves, Show, Don't Tell .

edited 23rd Jan '17 12:54:16 AM by Kiefen

Edit: Just ignore

edited 23rd Jan '17 1:10:39 AM by Ssj3Gojira

Let's see if you can get past my Beelzemon. Mephiles, WARP SHINKA!

I thought it had the opposite problem.

Like Blake telling us that people are racist towards Faunus....which we didn't see much of until "Menagerie".

You know, I have to wonder why Pit is obsessed with this site. It’s gonna ruin his life!

CRWBY literally can't win here. If they did things like cut out Ren's flashback or cut it to the bare bones they'd get criticised for not world building and relying too much on telling rather than showing. When they show things rather than skip over it or have it told via exposition they get criticised for not moving the main plot along.

I'm alright with the pacing, this is a volume looking at how it's characters are doing, not what the next big world changing event is. RWBY is a show that would definitely improve if they had the resources to consistently have 25-30 minute episodes so they could have enough time for character development and more plot development.

edited 23rd Jan '17 1:12:01 AM by Shaoken

I didn't mind Ren's flashback. The fandom expected a Ren/Nora Flashback and that is what we got and it didn't even take the entire episode for itself, we still got Oscar and that talk between Jaune and Ruby.

x6 We could have gotten that information through a quick flashback or a short conversation but that doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. Just cutting out all build up for

The pacing has been an issue but I don't think the flashback in particular should have been cut back on. And Ozpin-Oscar REALLY needs build up so he's not showing up already used to the voice or whatever.

I honestly think a good way they could have fixed the pacing was to make Ruby's goal to simply get her team back together. Because that's a relatable goal for her, and one with a solid premise. Get the gang back together. Maybe even have Crow explain Salem proper, and so with the knowledge of the Silver Eyes, she knows she can make a difference. Instead of a vague, barely defined goal that needs to be reiterated just so the audience properly understands what they're doing (Yet not explaining why it's so important...). It also helps the budget, because think of it in this structure.

Ruby first goes to Atlas to get Weiss back. You now have her plot intertwined with Weiss, so you can cut out the forest, which means the animators don't have to render a whole new area. It also means less jarring cuts between the plots. Keep the Blake and Yang scenes to a minimum for the sake of focus, just have them establish key moments for their characters. Ruby and JPR being a part of Weiss' issues helps give an outsider perspective on the Atlas politics, which is something that would say more about Ruby and the others as characters.

You spend half the Volume on Weiss breaking away from her family, and the other half on getting Blake back. You then have Yang discover Blake is in danger, and her having to face her fears of potentially running into Adam again, and if she really wants to forgive Blake. You have the plotlines converging, so there's even more focus. You can still have stuff like Tyran attacking, but now it's just in a different local, and needs at least a bit of tweeking, but nothing too major.

This is not gospel, and I don't expect this to be followed to the letter, but at the same time, getting the gang back together is such a simple, easy to convey idea that can actually cut back on animation time and pacing issues. Yet they wanted to go with every main character having their own plotline, which means you have unrelated stories using more backgrounds and characters, and them moving at a glacial pace, with only 12 episodes a year. Which are on average, shorter than standard anime episodes.

A corpse should be left well enough alone...

Depends on how's it's done.Wesis's plotline doesn't seem to be well liked around here.I doubt adding Ruby and co in it would make it better mostly because they've have her siding with Wesis.

Not to mention you'll still have to ask the question of why is she getting the team back together. She still doesn't have a clear understanding of what's going on so that's harder to justify.Especially since she ignoring whatever leads she would find in Mistral to do it

edited 23rd Jan '17 5:07:57 AM by DeanCole