History Recap / RWBYV8E9Witch

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[[Recap/{{RWBY}} Index]] | [[Recap/RWBYV8E1Divide 1]] | [[Recap/RWBYV8E2Refuge 2]] | [[Recap/RWBYV8E3Strings 3]] | [[Recap/RWBYV8E4Fault 4]] | [[Recap/RWBYV8E5Amity 5]] | [[Recap/RWBYV8E6Midnight 6]] | [[Recap/RWBYV8E7War 7]] | [[Recap/RWBYV8E8Dark 8]] | '''9''' -]]]]]

* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: The squad chosen to hold the bomb's landing zone consists of helmeted soldiers led by unarmoured military Huntsmen. Team FNKI are trainee Huntsmen; they wear armour like soldiers, but are unhelmeted like Huntsmen. It helps distinguish the heroes from the generic {{Red Shirt}}s while emphasising they're still only student Huntsmen.

* FiveSecondForeshadowing: When Hazel and Emerald run into Salem, Hazel's body language is off and he seems more frightened and unsure than he should be. When they run into Yang's rescue party a short time later, he's revealed to be an illusion that's protecting Oscar from discovery.

** Oscar appears to now have full control of Ozma's magic. He strikes Salem with streams of green magic, is able to summon the full barrier that Ozpin produced in Volume 3, and can also summon an ability to releases gold lightning and whites out the screen, something else that Ozpin was strongly implied to have activated during his fight with Cinder.

* YouKilledMyMother: While Yang rants about Salem causing endless death because something bad once happened to her, she briefly points out that Salem killed her stepmother Summer. Unfortunately for Yang, the mere mention of Summer's name makes Salem smug and amused.

* AttackAttackAttack: Salem's fighting strategy in a nutshell. Due to her immortality and regeneration she doesn't even bother trying to avoid or block attacks from Yang or Hazel. What makes it even more devastating is that she can attack even while she is regenerating making her virtually unstoppable.

* AttackAttackAttack: Salems fighting strategy in a nutshell. Due to her immortality and regeneration she doesn't even bother trying to avoid or block attacks from Yang or Hazel. What makes it even more devastating is that she can attack even while she is regenerating making her virtually unstoppable.

* FullContactMagic: While Salem prefers to fight from a distance with her magic, she is more than willing to get physical with her opponent if needs be. Hazel finds this out the hard way when she repeatedly slams his face into the ground.

* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: During the scene right before the big battle with the Grimm outside the whale, Team FNKI are nearly the only Atlas soldiers not wearing helmets, visually distinguishing them from the generic {{Red Shirt}}s.

* LightningBruiser:
** Despite her delicate frame and the fact she rarely engages in fighting, Salem is more dangerous than she appears. She can use both Grimm and magical abilities to give herself inhuman speed, make herself [[SuperStrength physically stronger]] than expected and her immortality allows her to keep fighting or come back from any attack.
** As usual, this applies to Hazel as well.

* ShoutOut: Hazel's last act is to bite down on a fire dust crystal and burn himself and Salem alive. In the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale the siblings kill the witch by pushing her into an oven.

* LovecraftianSuperpower: Salem is able to use Grimm-like abilities to augment her magical abilities. She can stretch her arms, summong Grimm hands from portals to restrain others, fire webs of black liquid to drag Yang towards her. When she moves at inhuman speeds, it's not by moving her body, she leans at a strange angle before zooming across the ground on a pillow of black smoke. Her regeneration also seems to have become linked to this as injuries reveal her body contains a mass of black ooze that reforms her body when regenerating.

* AlienBlood: Salem fights in a very alien way, being able to contort and stretch her limbs in a similar way to the Grimm and completely unlike the human she used to be. To emphasise this inhumanity, every time she's damaged enough to bleed or be torn apart, her body instead exudes the same reddish-black ooze of the Grimm. The ooze also reforms as she regenerates back to full health as if she's now made from the same substance as the Grimm instead of having a normal human body.

** When Jinn is summoned and realises no-one wants to ask her any questions, she's a little indignant, but mostly amused by the realisation they don't actually want her for anything at all. In Volume 6, Jinn warned Ruby she'd never permit anyone to use her without a question again, but did enjoy the cleverness of Ruby's time-freeze plan.

** Yang knows she's doomed when Salem has them all pinned, and decides to tell Salem exactly what she thinks of her, dismissing Salem's backstory as "something bad happened to you once" and essentially calling her feud with Ozma childish and petty.

* HeelFaceTurn: When the Relic of Knowledge works exactly as Oscar said it would, Emerald and Hazel realise that Ozpin has been telling the truth about Salem. Now understanding just how bad the situation is, they turn on Salem and rescue Oscar.

* HeroicRROD: Although Yang's team charge into the Monstra to rescue Oscar, they've been on the move almost non-stop for at a few days. They're at their limits, so as they travel through the whale, they begin to struggle to maintain their Auras and keep their Semblances active. Ren's Aura eventually shatters and Jaune's is placed repeatedly under stress, which is a single its close to collapse.
* HeroicSacrifice: Hazel fights Salem to buy time for the others to escape. However, Oscar realises he'll have to do something magical or even Hazel won't be able to hold her off long enough for them to be free of her. When Hazel captures Salem in a body hug, he immolates both of them so that Oscar has the time he needs to activate his magic.

** To get Oscar out of the whale, Emerald walks him through corridors disguised as Hazel. When confronted by Salem, Oscar's nervous body language makes Salem suspicious, but she never sees through the illusion. She's disgusted with Emerald once she realises the Semblance fooled even her.

* LightningBruiser: Despite her delicate frame and the fact she rarely engages in fighting, Salem is more dangerous than she appears. She can use both Grimm and magical abilities to give herself inhuman speed, make herself [[SuperStrength physically stronger]] than expected and her immortality allows her to keep fighting or come back from any attack.

* ShoutOut: Hazel's last act is to bite down on a fire dust crystal and burn himself and Salem alive, In the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale the siblings kill the witch by pushing her into an oven.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Yang angrily calls out Salem for not being able to handle one bad thing happening in her life as a comparison to how much Salem has taken away from her. Salem simply asks her to elaborate on who she took from Yang in a near-bored tone, indicating she has no interest in the people she's killed or the pain of their surviving relatives. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when Yang reveals that it was her mother, Summer Rose; Salem's demeanour changes to delight at the mention of that particular name.

* Attack! Attack! Attack!: Salems fighting strategy in a nutshell. Due to her immortality and regeneration she doesn't even bother trying to avoid or block attacks from Yang or Hazel. What makes it even more devastating is that she can attack even while she is regenerating making her virtually unstoppable.

* Attack!Attack!Attack!: Salems fighting strategy in a nutshell. Due to her immortality and regeneration she doesn't even bother trying to avoid or block attacks from Yang or Hazel. What makes it even more devastating is that she can attack even while she is regenerating making her virtually unstoppable.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Yang angrily calls out Salem for not being able to handle one bad thing happening in her life as a comparison to how much Salem has taken away from her. Salem simply asks her to elaborate on who she took from Yang in a near-bored tone. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when Yang answers that it was her mother, ''Summer Rose''; Salem absolutely recognized ''that'' name.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Yang angrily calls out Salem for not being able to handle one bad thing happening in her life as a comparison to how much Salem has taken away from her. Salem simply asks her to elaborate on who she took from Yang in a near-bored tone.

** The final scene closes with Oscar creating a green orb around his body which crackles with green and gold lightning, while unleashing a stream of gold-tinged white light that whites-out the scene. Ozpin did the same thing in his Volume 3 fight with Cinder: he created the green orb, launched himself at Cinder and then summed the gold-tinged lightning and white light as he charged her, whiting out the scene to end it.

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: Yang tells Salem to her face that she believes all the endless death that Salem has caused cannot be justified by something going bad in her life that stops her from having the fairy tale ending she'd longed for.

* YouKilledMyMother: While Yang rants about Salem causing endless death because something bad once happened to her, she mentions how Salem took her stepmother Summer from her. Unfortunately for Yang, the mere mention of Summer's name makes Salem smug and amused.

* BloodyHorror: During their fight, Hazel destroys her face completely, and the camera zooms in for close-ups as her face regenerates through all the gore back to full health. When he whales into her torso, he flattens her, splaying her Grimm-like insides all over the ground next to her. It doesn't even slow her down; she continues fighting even while regenerating.

* HeroicSacrifice: Hazel fights Salem to buy time for the others to escape. However, Oscar realises he'll have to do something magical or even Hazel won't be able to hold her off long enough for them to be free of her. When Hazel captures Salem in a body hug, he immolates both of them so that Oscar as the time he needs to activate his magic.