History NightmareFuel / RWBY

[[AC:A Cat Most Curious]]

The Herbalist blows smoke at Team RWBY, made from leaves from the Tree. It immediately fills the screen and the CGI looks... off compared to the rest of the animation. They are then confronted with doppelgangers of their past selves, who confront them about their failures. Everyone resists the hallucinations' taunts... except Ruby. She is left kneeling before her past self, who verbally tears Ruby apart with her standard perk and enthusiasm. Past-Ruby points out that everyone depends on Ruby for everything and she is now forced to battle an invincible foe that took Summer, and Ruby barely raises any objection. When Past-Ruby offers her the chance to become something else, Ruby almost accepts the vague deal until the Cat intervenes. Ruby's perky optimism was once portrayed as endearing and positive, but seeing it alongside the despondent person she's now become instead portrays it in a sinister, subversive and threatening light, making it clear that the deal she's offering is nothing good.

* The episode opens by pulling in the audience to a first-person view of Ruby fleeing alone through a creepy landscape, displaying anxiety, depression and driving away even Little because she's convinced she gets people killed. Preying on her depression and isolation, Neo lures her into a macabre mockery of the [[Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland Hatter's tea party]], where clones of everyone she's lost mock her failure to protect them before using violence to drive her to suicide. Paralysed by the belief she's accidentally killed "Oscar" to defend herself, she's helpless when the Curious Cat tries possessing her; when Neo crushes Little to death for trying to save Ruby, it's clear the last of Ruby's hope dies, too. Her friends arrive just in time to see her drink Neo's poisoned tea and be absorbed by the Tree's roots. Ruby's depression, anxiety, flashbacks, paralysis and loss of all hope are all so raw that fans reported being too triggered to finish watching the episode, amplifying content warnings to alert the fanbase to one of the show's most difficult episodes to watch.

* Watching Ozpin, an adult man, beating up Ruby, a young girl, is especially difficult, and the show pulls no punches, giving a frightening view of him brutally hitting her with his walking stick while she's too broken to retaliate, merely lying there and taking it.

''WebAnimation/RWBYChibi'' has [[NightmareFuel/RWBYChibi has its own page]].

![[AC:Please use [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=15046601260A53602600 this thread]] to discuss modifications; the "add post" button is on the last page]]

* The episode's very first scene's is a retelling of the chaos that unfolded in the VoidBetweenTheWorlds from the previous volume's finale, this time seen from Ruby's eyes. This includes being assaulted by Neo in freefall, up to her trying to strangle Ruby from behind.
* The Jabberwalker. While [[TheWonderland the Ever After]] is a strange, but benign ecosystem, this dark masked creature stands out by being openly hostile and ObviouslyEvil. Its entire body is erratically twitching (even leaving slight afterimages), and it constantly voices its thoughts with sinister single-word sentences.
-->Seeking. Searching. Staggering. Stalking. Detecting. Listening. DANGER! DEATH!

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[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/20rqkk6.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"[[AdultFear There we were: A toddler sleeping in the back of a wagon and a stupid girl too exhausted to even cry for help. We might as well have been served on a silver platter.]]"'']]

* The story Yang tells Blake is full of AdultFear. When she and Ruby were only small children, they ventured out into the woods in search of Yang's biological mother, only to find themselves surrounded by ferocious Grimm. The two children came very close to dying that day, with only a fortuitous intervention by Qrow saving Taiyang from having to mourn his two daughters shortly after having lost his second wife.

* Remember Yang's story back in volume 2? Some more context is given in this episode, not only revealing that Yang was left alone with Ruby regularly (which would be disturbing enough) to pick up the pieces after Summer's death, but at the time, Ruby hadn't even learned how to talk yet. As that part of early development happens at around the age of 1-2 years old, this means that Yang couldn't have been more than four years old at the time. AdultFear doesn't even begin to cover that.

[[folder: Volume 8]]

[[AC: Divide]]
* When Camilla and Sleet confront Ironwood about martial law, Ironwood responds by ''murdering Sleet''. The scene is a GoryDiscretionShot, what makes it worse is he uses his gun [[HandCannon Due Process]] to kill him, which can kill a large Grimm in a single shot, meaning Sleet's head was likely blown off completely.

[[AC: Refuge]]
* In this episode we meet the[[EldritchAbomination The Hound]], and unlike other Grimm, ItCanThink. No other Grimm has been more than a mindless monster, but the Hound has shown that it can not only think for itself but also grow new limbs at will, including '''''vocal cords'''''.
--> Ren: Give him back!
--> The Hound: No...

[[AC: War]]
* Tyrian once again proves to be the most disturbed character in the show. When Emerald and Mercury are arguing, he comes out of nowhere and reveals that, unlike every other follower of Salem, he is ''entirely'' aware that she plans to destroy the world. When there's a character that's more thrilled about destroying the world than the person who was corrupted by the Pools of Annihilation, it's easy to see why Emerald and Mercury were so freaked out by his attitude. The scene is made even more unsettling by him [[NoSenseOfPersonalSpace wrapping his tail]] around Mercury, which makes him visibly uncomfortable.
--> Mercury: ''[talking to Emerald]'' Salem isn't ending the world.
--> Tyrian: ''[appearing suddenly]'' Of course she is! You're surprised? Salem is destruction incarnate! Our mistress wishes to see the end of it all! [[OmnicidalManiac There is no ideal more beautiful!]] If you couldn't see that from the start... '''you must be out of your mind.'''

[[AC: Dark]]
* The Hound returns and is just as terrifying as before. It attacks the Schnee manor and curb-stomps everything in its path. But the worst comes at the end of the episode after Ruby uses her Silver Eye powers on it, which causes its head to be blown off and reveal that inside it was actually a '''''Faunus that Salem experimented on'''''. And after this happens the Hound starts slowly walking towards them [[MadnessMantra while saying the words "take the girl" on repeat]].
--> The Hound: ''[right before its demise]'' Take... the girl. Take the girl. Take the girl. Take the girl! '''TAKE THE GIRL!''' '''''TAKE! THE! GIRL!!!'''''

[[AC: Ultimatum]]
* After an entire volume of the audience watching mantle suffer, Ironwood's SanitySlippage goes completely off the deep end and he decides the only way to make Ruby's group cooperate is to nuke Mantle. In "Risk" he reveals that he is not bluffing and that he fully intends to bomb the city if they do not give him what he wants.

[[AC: The Final Word]]
* Penny's death is a sudden, visceral, assisted suicide— that we see from her own eyes. Jaune's arrival is a HopeSpot, reinforced by a dramatically-scored lineup shot of the three facing Cinder, before the scene takes a violent swerve. The battle music is shortly replaced with Penny's agonized screams as Cinder's Grimm arm punctures several holes in her chest, the gravity of her wounds visible on her WhiteShirtOfDeath. We get a POV shot as she collapses from her wounds, turns down healing, and pleads for death. Her request is indirect and forces us to follow her reasoning, framing the choice to die as autonomy. Cue Jaune's cries of anguish, a GoryDiscretionShot and FadeToWhite. Penny dies in spite of the Volume's struggle to keep her alive, and the elaborate plot to save her from Watt's virus becomes AllForNothing.
* After Cinder's victory over Team RWBY, she reveals that she locked Watts in the Atlas control room and used the staff of creation to [[MurderByCremation set it on fire.]] The last the audience sees of Watts is him desperately trying to break the windows with a chair while screaming in terror. To be fair, [[GoryDiscretionShot the audience doesn't actually see]] him burn to death, but ''still''.

* In "Divide" when Camilla and Sleet confront Ironwood about martial law, Ironwood responds by ''murdering Sleet''. The scene is a GoryDiscretionShot, what makes it worse is he uses his gun [[HandCannon Due Process]] to kill him, which can kill a large Grimm in a single shot, meaning Sleet's head was likely blown off completely.
* In "Refuge" we meet [[EldritchAbomination The Hound]], and unlike other Grimm, ItCanThink. No other Grimm has been more than a mindless monster, but the Hound has shown that it can not only think for itself but also grow new limbs at will, including '''''vocal cords'''''.

* In "War" Tyrian once again proves to be the most disturbed character in the show. When Emerald and Mercury are arguing, he comes out of nowhere and reveals that, unlike every other follower of Salem, he is ''entirely'' aware that she plans to destroy the world. When there's a character that's more thrilled about destroying the world than the person who was corrupted by the Pools of Annihilation, it's easy to see why Emerald and Mercury were so freaked out by his attitude. The scene is made even more unsettling by him [[NoSenseOfPersonalSpace wrapping his tail]] around Mercury, which makes him visibly uncomfortable.

* In "Dark" the Hound returns and is just as terrifying as before. It attacks the Schnee manor curb-stomps everything in its path. But the worst comes at the end of the episode after Ruby uses her Silver Eye powers on it, which causes its head to be blown off and reveal that inside it was actually a '''''Faunus that Salem experimented on'''''. And after this happens the Hound starts slowly walking towards them [[MadnessMantra while saying the words "take the girl" on repeat]].

* In "Ultimatum" After an entire volume of the audience watching mantle suffer, Ironwood's SanitySlippage goes completely off the deep end and he decides the only way to make Ruby's group cooperate is to nuke Mantle. In "Risk" he reveals that he is not bluffing and that he fully intends to bomb the city if they do not give him what he wants.
* In "The Final Word" After Cinder's victory over Team RWBY, she reveals that she locked Watts in the Atlas control room and used the staff of creation to [[MurderByCremation set it on fire.]] The last the audience sees of Watts is him desperately trying to break the windows with a chair while screaming in terror. To be fair, [[GoryDiscretionShot the audience doesn't actually see]] him burn to death, but ''still''.

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* Tyrian's gleeful massacre of the citizens at Robyn's political rally. After Watts cuts off the lights, Tyrian begins the slaughter and the audience is treated to a frightening view of Tyrian making his way through a helpless crowd that is too slow, weak or blind in the darkness to react in time to save themselves. When the lights turn back on, the audience is immediately confronted by the sight of a room that is littered with blood-splattered corpses. It's the first time a massacre has been shown on-screen in the entire show, which increases the dramatic impact of
the scene.

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[[folder:Manga]]
* Chapter 11: A new possession-type Grimm is introduced in Chapter 10 that looks like a giant six-eyed skull with tentacles coming out of it. In Chapter 11, this Grimm ambushes a group of King Taijitus and forcefully fuses them together to create a giant hydra-like Grimm. It's unlike other possession-type Grimm such as the Petras Gigas or the Armor Gigas; they only possess inanimate objects -- this creature can possess multiple Grimm at the same time to create entirely new types of Grimm via fusion.
[[/folder]]

[[AC:Uncovered]]
* It's brief, but Ozpin losing it after Ruby asks the Knowledge Relic about what he's hiding from his allies counts as a serious OOCIsSeriousBusiness moment. He runs towards Ruby with the intent of stopping the Relic revealing his biggest secrets ... and fails. The episode ends as we learn that [[DemonOfHumanOrigin Salem was a human being]].

[[AC:Our Way]]
* The Leviathan is referred to as a Leviathan-''class'' Grimm, implying that there are ''enough Grimm like it to consider it a category'', despite the Sea Feilong that Blake and Sun fought back in Volume 4 having been implied to have been at the extreme high end of known Grimm sightings by the Captain.