RWBY General Discussion

Well... I understand, and hey, if you like those things, that's great. More power to you.

But honestly most of what you just said is exactly what I disliked about this volume. A few of those things I enjoyed, but most of them I saw negatively, as symptoms of something worse. This is a good example. And even the ones I liked weren't really that positive to me, since I also saw negative things in them that sapped my enjoyment of them a bit, such as the Raven/Cinder fight.

But fair enough. If you enjoyed this volume, I've no right to tell you not to.

The scenery, yeah. However, I will agree that having them spend more time in Haven so we got to know it better would have been better. Maybe by getting their faster in vol 4 too.

Thanks. I understand. I understand people not liking stuff, but I get irritated when they start implying that people who enjoy it are objectively wrong, which is how it can feel here recently. Different strokes and all.It's also why I dislike most of the suggestions on plot changes. Because they'd remove things I like.

I found Volume 4 to be weaker than 5, if just for how the pacing seems to slow down after Tyrian's attack and constant shift to the Menagerie arc.

I hardly find any glaring issues with this Volume unlike most in this thread, though I understand how they're upset with the resolution of Haven's battle, and am of the opinion that Volume 3 still set a rather high bar for it.

If anything, it's Raven's characterization that puzzles me the most. The show seems to go out of its way to make it painfully obvious that her actions amount to nothing against Salem and that she seems blissfully oblivious to it, yet does it anyway; while this goes to explain that she Did Not Think This Through thoroughly, it's hardly what you'd call climactic.

The thing is, if Raven's plan had just been to open the relic door and fuck off from the beginning that would make actual sense, leave the rest of them to fight over it. Salem only wants the relics, as far as we are aware, and the maidens are only the key to unlock said relics.

Also, Volume 3 doesn't so much set a high bar as it is the only Volume without major severe glaring issues.

edited 21st Feb '18 8:18:48 AM by Sigilbreaker26

It dosent really matter because as Yang point out, Salem will move heaven and earth to find the relic, and we are taking about the same women who manage to cripple Beacon acadamy, Raven plan was stupid from the start.

And I think Volume 3 did have a number of issues like to many stupid fights but the tornament format lessen somewhat.

Good god. Imagine if we had disagreements like this all of the time.

edited 21st Feb '18 11:48:09 AM by Soble

Volume 3 has a lot of problems in hindsight.

Like you have a bunch of crappy fights with stupid characters standing around doing nothing (sound familiar?), the tournament is a huge failure for a Tournament Arc (we don't even know stuff like the prize for winning), the way exposition is delivered is godawful in places (shout-outs to Port and Oobleck explaining how the tournament works to the in-universe audience who should know this shit), and other stuff like Sun being mad at Neptune for doing something smart (flanking their opponents and securing higher ground).

edited 21st Feb '18 1:18:51 PM by Karxrida

I didn't think it sucked. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it was great and I wouldn't even call it good, but I don't think it sucked either.

If it's Grimm regeneration, that won't be a retcon because it's not retconning anything. If it's done via something we've seen before, that's not a weak plot device; if anything what we've seen before is strong enough for us to raise a red flag if that actually did kill Cinder. You're talking about a scenario you don't to see happen (off-screen escape from ice without being shown how she does it), but that's execution of the plot device, not whether the plot device is weak or strong.

Don't get me wrong, that's fair enough. I've seen the cliff-fall fake-out so many times in so many genres that I'm never a fan when someone falls over a cliff because I always expect them to survive and am very rarely proven wrong. I am always happy to be proven wrong as a result.

I'm more interested in seeing characters walk away also not believing their opponent fell to their deaths. Raven did seem indicate with her behaviour that she didn't believe the fall alone would stop Cinder, which explains why she suddenly decided to ice Cinder after the fall had already begun. However, her sigh of relief and gratitude towards Vernal indicates she believed the ice was enough.... and that's the sort of thing I hate about cliff-fall scenarios because it's so incredibly rare for the falling character to actually die that I struggle with any surviving character who is shown to believe it.

Roman had no plot role. The plot had already been rearranged just to keep him in as long as he was. Cinder, on the other hand, has been a part of the plot design from the beginning, has a clear relationship developing with some of the protagonists, and there's been an indication that the Big Bad still has plans for her that haven't been fully revealed. Narratively speaking, it makes no sense at all for Raven to kill her and much more sense for her to survive.

Then again, I liked how Roman died, so there's that.

Personally, while I'm expecting Cinder to break free of the ice and be able to levitate to the ground (if there is a bottom) or fly to a rocky outcrop part way down the abyss, I'm expecting her to be in poor shape.

If there is a Grimm connection to what happens to her, I don't really expect it to be regeneration. I'm expecting some kind of recall by Salem. Apparently, her subordinates are able to travel between her domain and wherever they need to be very quickly. The parasite Grimm used to steal Amber's power appeared as if through a portal and Seer Grimm allow Salem to take direct action at great distances, so I won't be surprised if there's some kind of portal function possible between Salem and the parasite Grimm inside Cinder.

But then, I also find it suspicious that the one portal user we definitely know of (Raven) has a colour scheme that's the same as Salem's — and I'm not talking about clothing: the portal-esque use by the white glove, and again by the Petra Gigas, uses the same glyph design that adorns Salem's robes and always tales the black and red colour scheme when active — and Raven's portal is almost identical in both colouration and shape. It merely lacks the glyph patterns that Salem and the Grimm use.

To be fair to Kubo, he knew the start and end of his manga from the very beginning. He was already plotting the TYBW arc while the Soul Society arc was unfolding. It was the middle bit he had more trouble with and that, in part, was due to Executive Meddling.

But the TYBW arc is the problem. Ichigo is not self motivated, he only fights to protect his friends, therefore his story has no logical end-point. Thus for a lot of people Aizen getting his ass kicked was the main goal, and it's after that the story doesn't really have legs.

edited 21st Feb '18 1:23:52 PM by Sigilbreaker26

The tournament was just a show of arms, I think that's the phrase, with the Huntsman academies showing off the trainees. Which was part of why Yang shooting Mercury was supposed to be a big deal, a representative of one kingdom unnecessarily attacking another.

And Neptune wasn't doing the "smart thing", he was acting like an idiot the moment water came up reinforced by Sun needing to tell him to get involved. But yeah, I more or less agree.

edited 21st Feb '18 1:27:47 PM by Cross

...That doesn't really follow. Not all stories need a "goal" and if that's not the point, then anything can be a proper ending if well, executed well. Which Bleach's ending wasn't. But that had a lot of extenuating circumstances.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a character, even a main character, not really having an "end goal".

edited 21st Feb '18 1:27:20 PM by LSBK

To me it was less that Ichigo wasn't self motivated and more than he had virtually no agency of his own, regardless of motivation. He was talked up as the only hope but the only fights he ever actually won either had him fighting people he massively outclassed or gave him no real role except striking the final blow.

EDIT: On topic, it occurs to me that sounds similar to a few complaints leveled at Ruby.

edited 21st Feb '18 1:31:35 PM by sgamer82

Also, I'm going to go out and say that I broadly enjoyed the Season 3 tourney fights. Not loved, but I found them a lot better than the Grimm and WF fights from the first two seasons.

The only tournament fights that I really disliked were JNPR vs. BRNZ and SSSN vs. NDGO, mainly for the forced humor. Scarlet's portion was the only thing I liked out of the two, which is adds to my dislike of the coconut bit.

edited 21st Feb '18 1:40:51 PM by Cross

I didn't dislike the tournament fights either, but then again I've only seen them once.

Cinder has personality strengths and weaknesses. She makes a mixture of good and bad decisions. Working for Salem is probably the worst decision she ever made; she just doesn't know it yet.

Whatever Cinder's goal is, and whatever drives it, it isn't Ruby. Ruby is a newer side goal of hers, but it's clearly not (currently) her primary one. Yes, she has a grudge. Yes, it has been known to side-track her. No, it's not her raison d'être.

Well, given the context of what happened, it seems to me that she decided not to kill Jaune immediately because she realised she could make him suffer first.

During their confrontation, she openly noted Jaune's reaction to Weiss's Aura breaking and mocked him for it. We therefore knew she was aware that Weiss had no Aura and that Weiss being injured made Jaune very upset. Weiss was both an easy target and a relevant one for making Jaune suffer.

Ruby had no relevance to this task.

Ruby's relevance is to Cinder alone, and we know that Cinder likes toying with her victims. It was entirely in keeping with her character to toy with Jaune and to target Weiss to maximise it.

Meanwhile, I can't imagine an unconscious Ruby would hold much interest for Cinder, given what I've seen of her personality to date. I don't believe Cinder wants a quick kill where Ruby is concerned. She will want Ruby conscious so that she can toy with Ruby and make her suffer. Death will be eventual, not immediate. Besides, Salem wants Ruby alive, which means Cinder can't kill her — all she can do is beat her and torment her, and she can't do either of those things if Ruby is unconscious.

Fairly in keeping with what Taiyang said. It was a funny scene, especially with him using Zwei as the insurmountable obstacle, but he basically was saying that Raven's big problem is that she doesn't think things through. If she sees a problem she wants to make herself stronger than it and then bulldoze right through it. Taiyang's criticism essentially amounted to the fact that she never wants to actually think her way through a problem instead.

That's basically what she did with the Salem threat. She decided the way to deal with it was to become stronger than the threat. The problem there was two-fold: the nature of the outcome and the nature of the threat. If you want to be left alone, you don't go out of your way to make yourself a target. And if you think you're dealing with a person who cannot be defeated, you don't decide your solution is to become strong enough to repel it.

She was so busy focussing on the strength of the problem, she never once stopped to think about the nature of it. In fact her criticism of Qrow essentially boils down to the reverse: Qrow is so busy focussing on the nature of the threat that (as far as she's concerned) he doesn't stop to think about the strength of it.

By the time he started writing the TYBW, the problem was his health. He'd been thinking about quitting for a couple of years before he even finished the Arrancar Arc because of his health. One fan kept him going, but the final arc got rushed and wrapped because he couldn't go on. He got to write the epilogue chapter exactly as he'd wanted to from the very beginning, but the arc itself got chopped and rushed to do it.

edited 21st Feb '18 2:26:53 PM by Wyldchyld

I'm not saying how the TYBW arc turned out was the problem, I'm saying conceptually having the story continue past Aizen's defeat was the problem. He is the trunk around which the plot took place and when he was defeated all that it could do was throw more villains at Ichigo.

Or to put it another way; does it matter if the author actually knew the direction they were taking the story if they give the impression through what they've written that they do not?

Since that depends on the individual to think otherwise, yes it does still matter.

Neptune only acted like his actions were tactical plays, but his initial reaction to the water which was not really deep makes it more likely he was acting on his fear. Especially when sun is fighting three opponents while Neptune is clear on the other side of the arena.

He was definitely acting out of fear, but he also did something really smart (even if on accident). He had a ranged weapon and was sitting on higher ground within enemy territory, which provided flanking on top of denying NDGO their home-field advantage since Neptune could have taken potshots the entire time to force them out. (He didn't really take advantage of it because the fights are terribly done, but still.)

Also, friendly reminder that the earlier JNPR fight made a big deal out of a sniper who had a much smaller vertical advantage, wasn't providing flanking, and was facing 3 people who had ranged weapons. Then again, everybody in that fight was acting like a huge moron...

edited 21st Feb '18 3:32:59 PM by Karxrida

That is kind of the problem if Neptune had actually taken advantage of his position through the entire fight and not only when Sun had to ask for help there would be no issue with what he was doing .

The sniper in that fight did more considering JNPR was on the defense before Nora was sent to the top of the mountain get the sniper out of her position.

Why did Neptune's actions need to be an issue? For a joke? The joke could have still worked by having the punchline be that it actually ended up benefiting the team. Or just not make the joke at all.

My point was that Neptune was acting on his fears alone and never took advantage of his spot which in turn means Sun was correctly yelling at him.

That if sun was using the position well then yes there would be no issue with him running to the other side of the field since it would at least mean that despite his fear he did not just do nothing for periods of time in the match.

For me, yes it does. Let me explain why, although it occurs to me I should do this on the Bleach thread. I've therefore lifted my answer from here and placed it onto the Bleach thread to avoid derailing this one.

edited 23rd Feb '18 6:38:50 AM by Wyldchyld

I had the impression the fights were supposed to be flawed given that multiple adult Huntsmen ended up criticising the performances, such as Qrow, Winter and Taiyang. I also remember the creators saying they wanted the Qrow/Winter fight to basically show up the kids and show the difference between real Huntsmen and students. I don't know if our reactions to the fights were worse than the creators hoped for or were what the creators hoped for, but they did want at least some element of that in the tournament fights.

I'm not a huge fan of the tournament fights. Certain points had me cringing outright. I'm also not a huge fan of how it was storyboarded and V3 had the same problem as V5: slow first half, over-clocked second half creating an unbalanced volume. I also wish the tournament could have paraded some 'famous' Huntsmen from around the world — perhaps teachers from the four Academies — showing off their talents in staged fights. It could have introduced us to the existence of teachers we'd see later on in other volumes when the storyline got to that Kingdom, or built up Remnant lore by referencing celebrity Huntsmen and a brief summary of the core deed(s) that made them so famous; it could have given a a more complete example of the difference in quality between the students and qualified, fully-trained Huntsmen.

I think they missed a trick there.

edited 23rd Feb '18 7:04:04 AM by Wyldchyld