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A Song of Ice and Fire Cut Short by Dust

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A Song of Ice and Fire Cut Short by Dust (Fanfic)
Cover by (Eru-Shi)
"It had been a simple mission for Team RWBY: Check some ancient ruins for danger. Then they found themselves in the middle of a frozen wasteland fighting strange ice monsters. That wasn't actually that hard. But finding a way back home? That's much harder. Especially without turning into monsters themselves."
Official fanfic summary on spacebattles.com

A Song Of Ice And Fire Cut Short By Dust is a RWBY and A Song of Ice and Fire Crossover written by Starfox5. Taking place during Volume 2 of RWBY and of A Game of Thrones before the start of Book 1, the story follows team RWBY ending up in Westeros after being tasked to explore some ancient ruins for potential dangers and being magically transported in the middle of a frozen wasteland. From there, the girls will have to search for a way back to Remnant, all while navigating the deeply dangerous political scene of Westeros, where new allies and enemies await them.

This fic can be found in SpaceBattles.com (here), FanFiction.Net (here), and Archive of Our Own (here).


This work of fanfiction contains the following tropes

  • A God I Am Not: Ruby doesn't like that Red Keep servants treat her like a deity blessed by the gods. She prefers to be herself and only herself.
    Ruby: Too many servants bowed far too deeply when they met her. She wasn't some messenger from the gods or the avatar of the Maiden or whatever - she was just Ruby, Huntress-in-training and the leader of Team RWBY! She was here by accident, not because of the gods! And she wanted to go home, not… do whatever these people expected her to do!
  • Abled in the Adaptation: Due to Blake being the one to discover Jaime and Cersei's incestuous affair instead, Bran is not crippled from being pushed off the tower.
  • Absurd Phobia: Due to being a cat Faunus, Blake is afraid of the Stark Direwolves and makes sure to be as far away from them as possible at all times, regarding them as deadly creatures who could easily tear her in half if she let them. This despite the fact that she has Aura that the wolves couldn't possibly get through.
  • Accidental Murder: The Riverlander knight that tried to sexually assault Yang (and, after being spurned, kill her as well) ends up dying in pain a couple of days later due to Yang subjecting him to a Groin Attack that shattered his pelvis. While the general consensus of the Westerosi characters is that he was the one at fault and had what happened to him coming, she nevertheless feels incredibly guilty due to subjecting someone who wasn't a real threat to her to a slow and painful death.
  • Accidental Misnaming: Due to not knowing the naming convention of Remnant's Huntsman and Huntress teams, the Westerosi continually refer to Team RWBY as Team Ruby.
  • Accidental Truth:
    • When Team RWBY first encounters the Others, Ruby says they are ice zombies, which Weiss berates her for - not knowing that they are zombies created by creatures that control ice.
    • Melisandre tells Weiss that surely there was magic on Remnant, which must have disappeared over the centuries fading into myths and folk tales. Being exactly what Ozma did to ensure the Maidens' existence was hidden from the Remnant population.
  • Achievements in Ignorance:
    • The first chapter has Team RWBY arrive in Westeros and immediately encounter the Others and their White Walkers, quickly cutting down the force that tries to attack them with little effort. When the scene cuts to members of the Night's Watch meeting Team RWBY later on, they casually reveal that they ended up killing the Night King since the White Walkers wouldn't stop attacking them and thus wiping out all the Others offscreen, with both the Watch and Team RWBY completely unaware of how the latter just halted the prophesized apocalyptic threat to Westeros as a result.
    • Jon and Ghost accidentally discover the latter can detect Faceless Men when they find and subdue one of them trying to infiltrate the Red Keep using the face of one of House Stark's servants.
  • Actually Pretty Funny: Yang can't help but laugh when Jaime makes a pun regarding her being hard-headed prior to their duel.
  • Adaptation Amalgamation: The A Song of Ice and Fire side of the crossover is rooted specifically in the books. However, for the Others, it takes from a combination of both the books and the show, given that they're led by the Night King, a lore only character in the books but the main Big Bad of the show, and all of them die once he's killed by Team RWBY.
  • Adaptational Name Change: In canon, Bran's direwolf is named Summer. In this story however, Bran names him Hunter after Team RWBY, who are Huntresses (or rather, Huntresses-in-training).
  • All for Nothing:
    • Melisandre and Bloodraven had both been independently preparing for the arrival of the Others in their own individual way, effectively dedicating their entire lives to that goal with far-reaching plans and schemes already in progress, only for Team RWBY's arrival to Westeros and subsequent destruction of the White Walkers to render all their preparations completely useless. To their credit, both seers take this fact rather well and instead switch the focus of their plans on what to do with the four girls instead.
    • An example on both sides of the spectrum following the Trial by Combat between Ruby and Jaime.
      • On Jaime and Cersei's side, invoking it was a desperate, last ditch effort to save themselves from punishment, but as pointed out, neither of them were slated for execution. They were going to get away with their lives anyway, and the choice they made just guarantees death, with their only salvation being banking on their opponent's mercy. In the end Jaime's killed and Cersei's punished anyway, only now she doesn't even have the comfort of her twin still being alive when she would have had that beforehand.
      • On Ruby's end, she and her teammates worked extensively to try and ensure removing Cersei from power was as bloodless and peaceful as possible, both to do everything they could to prevent a potential war, and especially because those that wanted the Lannisters removed were aiming for execution of both the Queen and her children (with the exception of Ned). Team RWBY was able to succeed and ensure that no one got hurt in what was essentially a coup... until the Trial by Combat was invoked, forcing Ruby into a situation where she had zero choice but to kill Jaime, not only rendering the effort to spare everyone moot, but also guaranteeing that war with House Lannister is now inevitable.
    • Varys went to great lengths to order a poison from Essos, one so lethal it can liquify one's internal organs, manipulating several individuals and killing off several of his more important contacts to ensure that it couldn't be traced back to him, only for Yang to survive his attempt to kill her with little more than stomach cramps and an uncomfortable night's sleep.
    • Littlefinger spends considerable effort trying to hide his dirty dealings and trying to get into Team RWBY's good graces (not that he had a chance of doing so, in spite of what he believed) so he could use them for his own gain, only to die before he can attempt to get anything useful out of them.
    • All of Varys's plotting and manipulations, including the build up of a massive army and fleet in Essos and working as Master of Whispers for King Robert just so he could weaken his rule and pave the way for (the possibly fake) Aegon Targaryen to take the throne, crash and burn when his attempts to get rid of Team RWBY ensures it all goes to waste.
  • Altar Diplomacy: What most of Westeros considers attempting with Team RWBY, trying to gain some sort of favor with them. Suffice to say, the girls themselves are not particularly receptive to the idea but also aren't willing to reject it outright lest they anger their hosts. By later chapters, they are much more open about their reluctance to marry due to both their power being well known and the fact that Remnant's culture isn't beholden to family oriented betrothals.
  • And There Was Much Rejoicing: Tywin's death is greeted with this response across King's Landing. While there aren't necessarily any open celebrations in the street, practically all the taverns and social buildings have smallfolk cheering to the death of the Old Lion. Even some nobles get in on it, with Oberyn in particular toasting to Tywin's demise.
  • Angry Cheek Puff: Ruby has one in Chapter 17 when Weiss starts harping on her about getting up on time.
  • Armor-Piercing Question:
    • When discussing protecting Gendry, Ruby states that they should protect people while they can, Weiss asks these questions that give Ruby pause.
      Weiss: "But what if we are the reason someone needs our protection?"
      Ruby: "What do you mean?"
      Weiss: "If they're in danger because they know us, for example. Do you want to return home if that means leaving someone who depends on us?"
    • When discussing how best to rule, Tywin scoffs at Weiss' suggestion that being nice is a valid way to rule. She responds by asking if Tywin would have remained loyal to Aerys if the Mad King had been kinder to him, and mentally notes how Tywin changes the subject rather than answer the question.
  • Asshole Victim:
    • Though his death was extremely quick, Gregor Clegane's death was very well deserved.
    • Despite dying slowly and painfully, the Riverlands knight attempted to abuse Yang and then tried to kill her, making his death an example of this trope.
    • While Jaime may have had some sympathetic qualities, during his Trial by Combat he still tries to strong-arm the kind-hearted Ruby into withdrawing the charges against him and Cersei (which they are fully guilty of) by forcing her to choose between killing him or withdrawing the accusations. All while freely admitting to being perfectly willing to do anything to keep him and Cersei together, including holding hostages to use against Team RWBY. As such, his death was well deserved.
    • After commisioning a thief from Fleabottom to steal some of Weiss's Dust vials, Joffrey ends up triggering an explosion that destroys his room and tears his body apart, with only his face remaining intact enough to identify his corpse. While he didn't get up to the same deplorable actions he pulled in canon, it's shown numerous times that Joffrey hiding his more depraved qualities from team RWBY and the Starks does not mean he had any change of heart, but is still the same sadistic bully from canon who only bothered to play nice in the hope of replicating the girls' power for himself. As such, while his death was definitely gruesome and will inevitably bring its fair share of problems, he very much had it coming.
    • While Littlefinger ponders on how to convince team RWBY to let him escape from King's Landing, he drinks a glass of Arbor Gold that was spiked with the Strangler, which ends up choking him to death. Given he wanted to manipulate the girls to do his bidding, as well as burn down one of his brothels and kill the people inside so the ownership couldn't be traced back to him, he very much got what he deserved. Even Yang and Weiss aren't particularly torn up about his death, and the only thing bothering Ruby about it is that it's another example of how they're failing to catch the assassin.
    • Varys has been arranging multiple murders, poisonings, slavery, and other assorted chaos, to undermine the current regime with the goal of a nebulous "greater good" that's mostly getting Aegon to cross the sea and take over. As such, his death comes off as very well-deserved, even if it prevents Team RWBY from learning what he was actually up to.
    • Tywin deliberately went after Team RWBY because one of them killed his son (in a Trial by Combat said son demanded) and because he believes they're working to undermine him and his house, and even as they proved stronger than anything Tywin could come up with, he was still insisting on trying to kill them, even when warned that doing so could put all of House Lannister at risk. As such, Tyrion poisoning him comes off as the fastest way for him to go, before he could destroy his own House out of petty pride and paranoia.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: During Team RWBY's demonstration match against one another for the King and his royal party, Ser Barristan takes notices of a few important details about the girls by simply observing them: he rightly deduces that for all their physical prowess and skill at arms, they don't have the same amount of fighting experience that the rest of the Kingsguard do (something that Weiss herself admits) and, most importantly, that they're holding back from using their full strength during their spar. In particular, he takes notice of how Blake and Weiss are somehow struggling against their own opponents, and comes to the realization that both girls are used to fight differently, as if they're missing something; he's correct once again, since both Weiss and Blake tend to incorporate their own Semblances in their fighting styles, but since the Team is trying to hide their full abilities from the rest of the Westerosi, they can't fight as effectively as they usually do. Even Robert can see Weiss and Blake are somehow sandbagging, and to entice them into showing their full might, decides to put up a reward of twenty thousand gold dragons for the winner of a proper fight between the four of them at the Hand of the King's Tourney.
  • Bad Boss: In his first scene, Gregor Clegane kills one of his men for simply reminding him of how dangerous Blake was. When Blake calls him out on it, Gregor's response?
    Gregor: He disobeyed me.
  • Batman Gambit: Cersei and Jaime's plan to avoid punishment revolved around invoking a Trial by Combat against Ruby, banking on her compassion and mercy to force her into a duel to the death that would require her to either kill Jaime or retract the accusations, believing she's too soft-hearted to go through with it. However, Ruby quickly realizes that if she were to step down from killing Jaime, it would only embolden others to strike at her and her team by taking hostages and effectively put innocent people in danger. As such, despite her reluctance, she ends up slicing Jaime in two with her scythe.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Jaime states during his Trial by Combat that being alive but separated from Cersei would be a Fate Worse than Death. Ruby grants him death.
  • Beautiful Singing Voice: As in canon, Weiss has this, which she ends up being compelled to show off to the King and their entourage at an inn on the way back to King's Landing. Most of the audience in question are absolutely dazzled by her performance, with Cersei unsurprisingly being the main exception.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: A big reason as to why Jon Snow decides to reveal the truth about his real parents (Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen) to Yang, despite Ned warning him not to. He notes that her and the rest of team RWBY have always treated him with kindness and respect, as well as never once having looked down on him due to his bastard status, something he remarks has never happened to him before.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Ruby is the nicest member of her team and incredibly averse to all the politics, cruelty, and skullduggery that goes on in Westeros. When Jaime tries to exploit this to weasel his way out of punishment for adultery and incest, though, Ruby bisects him without a word, despite her reservations against killing.
  • Beware the Quiet Ones: Tyrion's thoughts word for word regarding Blake, acknowledging in the aftermath of the Battle of the Maidens that she is the most dangerous member of Team RWBY given her victory over the other three.
  • Beyond the Impossible: In theory, it should be flat out impossible to kill the Others and the Night King without the aid of Dragonglass and/or Valyrian Steel. Team RWBY is so ludicrously overpowered compared to anything and everything in the world of ice and fire that they completely bypass the Walkers' conventional weaknesses.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: Most of the Westerosi nobles who try to antagonize Team RWBY end up being this, if not because they keep underestimating them due to the fact that they're young girls, then because they have literally nothing that can even remotely threaten them.
    • The Others, shockingly enough. Despite being an apocalyptic threat hellbent on getting through the wall and razing the Seven Kingdoms (and beyond) to frost and death, they're all easily wiped out by Team RWBY off page.
    • Cersei would love nothing more than to be the biggest thorn in Team RWBY's side, but it's repeatedly shown that she lacks the cunning or the power to oppose them in any meaningful way. Once the plan to remove the Lannisters from power starts up, she's unable to do anything other than froth and scream at them, and that's before Chapter 23, where her and Jaime's attempt at a Batman Gambit ends in Jaime's death and her being sent to the Silent Sisters, powerless to do anything.
    • Tywin ends up following his daughter's footsteps in this. While politically he's unquestioningly a bigger threat and is able set up greater obstacles to Team RWBY like hiring the Faceless Men, said threats still go down rather easily since Team RWBY is basically invincible. In addition, his dwindling sanity in response to their refusal to die, coupled with his escalating tactics, ends up causing him to do more damage to his own house than his enemies. It all culminates in him being poisoned by his own son to maintain House Lannister, all without ever confronting Team RWBY or any of them learning how he was gunning for them to begin with.
  • Big Damn Heroes: When wildfire starts racing through a section of King's Landing, Team RWBY rush into action to contain and smother the fire, leading to a number of these moments.
    • Yang personally breaks through the burning walls of a house to rescue two children and get them to safety.
    • Ruby and Weiss split off towards the river, and work together to make a funnel to siphon sand towards the fire, smothering the flames.
  • Big Fish in a Bigger Ocean: Ser Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane is without question the most powerful warrior in the Seven Kingdoms. Being an eight-foot-tall giant among men with enough strength to crush people with his bare hands, further honed by decades of fighting and training, all wrapped up in an Ax-Crazy sadist who delights in wanton cruelty, makes it suicidal to face him for anyone in Westeros. But Team RWBY, who come from a much more superhuman world and have Super-Strength far exceeding his own, tears apart his status as the World's Strongest Man, as even the weakest among them could easily reduce him to paste. Sure enough, come Chapter 13, he gets into a fight with Blake, leading to his easy defeat despite the fact that she was holding back against him. Then later he gets just as easily decapitated by her when he demands a Trial by Combat.
  • Blind Obedience: A tragic case with Varys's "little birds". They've been enslaved, abused, and conditioned by the Master of Whispers for so long that they cannot fathom the idea that he's wrong and refuse to accept anything else. When Team RWBY tries talking to one of them, she shuts out all their arguments and sees them as the liars. Unfortunately, despite their desire to save and protect them, it's made clear to Team RWBY that it's far too late for them to be saved, nor will they accept anyone trying to help them.
  • "Both Sides Have a Point" Remark:
    • Team RWBY and the Small Council clash in regards to Varys' "little birds"' fate.
      • The nobles are right in that they are dangerous and have Blind Obedience to Varys, to the point that they are willing to burn down the Red Keep to free him after his arrest. And, in the process, killed at least one person and caused grave injuries to another, and plenty of them are old enough to know better. Plus, if they aren't punished, it might lead others to start using children as tools, or children might just start taking advantage.
      • Team RWBY are right in that they have been brainwashed into said Blind Obedience and really don't know any other life. Plus, they are young enough to rehabilitate and be taught that what they went through was wrong.
    • When Team RWBY decides to form their own knight order, they stumble when it comes to funding it, since even the money they got from the Battle of the Maidens will run out sooner or later. On one side, accepting donations from the nobility or the Faith would lead to said sponsors to attempt to use it as leverage, while running their own businesses would instead risk the future Order to look to their own interests above their mission to protect the innocent.
  • Break the Haughty:
    • Happens to Jaime Lannister during his sparring match with Yang, to the amusement of the Winterfell Knights and his own brother, Tyrion. Despite boasting how strength always yields to superior skill, he simply cannot overcome Yang's physical advantages, with the latter not even breaking a sweat once she's finished knocking him around like a red-headed stepchild. To add insult to injury, Jaime was not holding back at all per Yang's own request, while she herself very much was, lest she obliterate him with a single blow if she fought anywhere near her full strength. Suffice to say, this not only irritates him, but Cersei as well, given she views her brother as an extension of herself via their "same soul in two different bodies" mindset, so Jaime's humiliation is hers by proxy.
    • Happens to Cersei as well: Over the course of the story, she goes from being the Queen of Westeros who is incredibly jealous of team RWBY (being fully convinced they're planning to usurp her) so much that she tries to frame them for the death of the King, only to end up getting arrested and shamed alongside Jaime for incest and infidelity, having to see her brother being killed by Ruby during their Trial by Combat, losing all of her titles and being sent off to the Silent Sisters, and finally, hearing that her precious firstborn son died gruesomely. The last we see of her is through one of Bloodraven's crows, and she's been reduced to a hysterical and pathetic mess who's terrified that the girls will kill her too, sooner or later.
    • Varys ends up dying in his prison cell, suffering from heavy metal poisoning and tied up and gagged, and has to deal with Grand Maester Pycelle (who was the one that poisoned him) ostensibly checks up on his health while subtly mocking him for being foolish enough to mess with Team RWBY.
  • Broken Pedestal:
    • Team RWBY loses quite a bit of regard they had for Ned in Chapter 20 when they find him participating in the torturing of prisoners after Robert's been poisoned without even batting an eye. When Ned asks for them to meet him later on, they're much more hesitant to agree than they would have been previously.
    • Downplayed with Tyrion. While none of the girls really considered him to be a friend, they were at least willing to seek his advice regarding important matters for the kingdom. His murder of his own father and his turning of their standards against them when they confront him about it completely destroys any goodwill RWBY might have still had for him, and his own saddened response when they leave indicates he knows he just burnt his bridge with them.
  • Bullying a Dragon:
    • Cersei is well aware that all four members of Team RWBY are more than capable of tearing her apart with their bare hands, yet she constantly insults and belittles them while retaining only the barest decorum. It's especially notable because none of the other amoral members of Westeros's nobility prove dumb enough to deride them. Even Joffrey of all people makes it a point to refrain from his usual sadism to play nice towards Team RWBY.
    • In Chapter 13, Gregor Clegane was warned of the four members of Team RWBY and how their strength matched his, but despite that, he still proceeds to murder one of his servants right in front of Blake and proceed to attack her when she calls for the guards. Suffice to say, it ends with Blake effortlessly beating the crap out of him.
    • It's noted repeatedly by several characters how unbelievably merciful team RWBY are, despite how each member is powerful enough to wipe out whole armies and tear down any castle by themselves; yet Jaime still tried to bluntly manipulate and strongarm Ruby into acquitting him and Cersei in a Trial by Combat even though team RWBY made sure he and Cersei would be spared when they otherwise wouldn't have been; it ends with Ruby chopping Jaime in half.
    • Tywin comes off as Cersei writ large, using his larger resources to strike against what he considers an insult against his pride, even though he knows that all of Team RWBY is essentially invincible against pretty much anything that exists in all of Planetos and being warned that he's greatly risking the future of his entire House by gambling on finding something that might not even exist. Tyrion ends up killing him before he can ruin House Lannister.
  • But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Besides their initial explanations regarding their arrival, none of Team RWBY give their defeat of the Others much thought, regarding them as just a bunch of weird monsters. Considering their day job as Huntresses would involve killing Grimm on the regular, ice zombies are certainly a change of pace, but nothing particularly memorable, especially given how easily they went down when compared to the Grimm.
  • Call-Forward: Blake and Yang have several Ship Tease moments, referencing how they'll eventually get together after they get home, even if it will take them getting flung into another new world first.
  • Cassandra Truth:
    • Nearly everyone who learns of Team RWBY dismisses their claims of being from another world or their powers until they see for themselves. Tywin Lannister downplays this, as the multiple reports from his spies on Team RWBY has him acknowledge that their abilities are clearly not a mummer's farce, even if he wanted to believe that. He's still skeptical that they could defeat an army, but the reports are enough to make him put his war plans on hold until he goes to King's Landing and gets their measure personally, whereupon he acknowledges their strength and restructures his plans around it.
    • Similarly, despite Team RWBY being completely upfront with their intentions of just wanting to go home and having no desire for power, almost none of the Westeros nobles believe them in the slightest. Because grabs for power are such a massive norm for them, the idea that anyone, especially someone so strong like Team RWBY, could want nothing to do with power is utterly unthinkable. Even those that can accept their word only do so after a lot of contemplation, and even then, they have to put a lot of effort into believing it due to how foreign a concept it is for them.
  • The Charmer: As always, this is Robert's natural trait, given how easily he made friends with Team RWBY. Stannis lampshades this.
    Stannis: Robert (Stannis's brother) had a way with making friends which was a boon to the realm.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Ruby's ability to run fast enough to create twisters, first shown during the Battle of the Maidens, becomes very useful in Chapter 33, to suck in a lot of sand Weiss can redirect to smother the wildfire burning in King's Landing.
  • Cliffhanger: Chapter 30 ends with Team RWBY chasing down a thief, only to find the Hound has killed her, before an explosion near the royal quarters goes off.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: The castle's kitchen staff are subjected to this in order to find out who killed Robert. No one on Team RWBY is pleased with that.
  • Comically Small Bribe: Played With, as what the nobility of Westeros can and is willing to offer Team RWBY could hardly be considered small by either of their standards. With that said, considering Planetos is millennia behind Remnant on both a technological and societal level, what qualifies as the highest form of luxury to the people of Westeros is rather shoddy compared to the basic amenities one could get on Remnant. As such, there is absolutely nothing they have to offer that would ever make the four girls want to stay in Westeros permanently.
  • Commonality Connection: Part of the basis for Yang's friendship with Jon Snow is the fact that neither of them knows much about their real mothers, Jon on the basis of being born a bastard, and Yang due to Raven running off.
  • Complexity Addiction: Weiss comes up with a set of regulations and checks for the RWBY Order. However, she made it with Atlas businesses in mind, not realizing that a medieval organization formed by a very small number of people isn't large enough to run everything she wants, and people with the required skills would be very few in number - in fact, Weiss might be the only person in the world with the economic skills to run her plan.
  • "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: In chapter 29, Varys laments that if Cersei had used the poison he had manipulated her into buying on RWBY instead of Robert, he would have saved a fortune on his own poisoning attempt because it would have revealed that RWBY could survive the kind of poisons he could acquire earlier. Instead Varys paid off quite a bit of money and killed quite a few of his best contacts on his own effort that ended up amounting to nothing.
  • Could Say It, But...: When speaking to RWBY in the aftermath of Tywin's death, Tyrion explains his motives for doing while he takes care to speak in a way that ensures he doesn't even imply he was responsible for it. They all know he did it, but without any actual evidence or a confession, RWBY can't prove it was him, which Tyrion is counting on.
  • Covers Always Lie: The official cover art by Eru-Shi depicts the TV version of the Iron Throne outside the Red Keep with Ruby in her V4 attire walking up its steps. The story itself is rooted primarily in the books, including the gargantuan, twisted amalgamation that is its Iron Throne, and Team RWBY are dressed in their V2 attire. Word of God confirms that these were stylistic choices Eru-Shi decided to go with.
  • Crossover Power Acquisition: Discussed and defied. As confirmed by the author and hinted at in the future excerpts, none of the people of Westeros will be gaining Aura from Team RWBY. In the story itself, the four of them discuss the possibility, pointing out that given the kind of world Planetos is, if Aura did naturally exist here, it would have become widespread long before their arrival due to being possible to trigger it in stressful situations. They also agree not to try and unlock Aura in others themselves, with it either giving people false hope if it doesn't work or seriously upsetting the balance of power if it does. Not that this stops others from trying, as Joffrey's making the effort to gain such power for himself. Chapter 19 confirms In-Universe that people from Planetos can't get Aura when Robert is poisoned. Yang tries to activate his Aura in a desperate attempt to save his life but despite knowing the technique and performing it properly, it doesn't work and Robert dies.
  • Culture Clash: To say this is a major conflict between RWBY and the royalty of Westeros is a massive understatement, as Planetos is a vastly different world than Remnant.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • Any member of Team RWBY vs anyone else in Westeros. The sheer gap in power between them and the people of Westeros means that even in practice fights, they can effortlessly defeat the most skilled warriors of the Kingsguard without breaking a sweat. Not even the White Walkers proved to be a challenge for them.
    • Highlighted in Chapter 13 when Gregor Clegane ends up fighting against Blake. The Faunus ends up beating the Mountain that Rides with ease despite holding back. It gets even worse when the Mountain demands a trial by combat against Blake, as she decapitates him in seconds after the fight begins.
    • In Chapter 23 Jaime and Ruby's Trial by Combat doesn't end immediately only because Ruby wants to understand why Jaime would enter a fight to death he knows he can't win. Once she gets her answer and makes up her mind, she immediately bisects him from shoulder to hip, with Jaime not even having time to react to her attack.
  • Cuteness Proximity: Amusingly enough, this is Ruby and Weiss attitudes towards the Starks' direwolves, with Weiss in particular taking every opportunity she can to pet and play with them.
  • Damned by Faint Praise:
    • While Yang acknowledges Jaime's skill in her sparring match with him, her inner monologue points out that since he lacks Aura, he wouldn't last five seconds against her if she was fighting seriously, let alone if he faced anyone else on Remnant. To the point that she thinks that only Jaune might struggle against Jaime, and even then, that would rely on Jaime not getting hit by Jaune once, something Yang considers to be a very tall order.
    • Robert notes that the only good thing about Cersei (besides House Lannister's gold) is that she doesn't bother to hide her disdain for him.
    • When Tyrion tells Weiss that Lord Eddard is known to be a particularly kind man compared to most lords, Weiss inwardly laments how low a bar that is by Remnant's standards, given how Ned was perfectly fine with torturing people in the aftermath of Robert's death, never mind what it says about the other Westerosi lords.
  • Death by Adaptation:
    • Jaime Lannister is killed in a Trial by Combat against Ruby.
    • Littlefinger gets poisoned with the Strangler.
    • Varys dies of heavy metal poisoning.
  • Death by Irony: Littlefinger got involved in the poisoning of at least two people for his own gain - Jon Arryn and (in the books) Joffrey, the latter of whom was killed with the Strangler - the poison that ends up killing him in this story.
  • Declaration of Protection: In order to protect Gendry from the danger of being publicly known as Robert's illegitimate son, Ruby declares that she and her team will protect him as long as needed. It's somewhat deconstructed as Weiss points out to Ruby that their team can't protect people forever, much less everyone who needs them as it's physically impossible to do so and they have to return home eventually. To her credit, Ruby does acknowledge Weiss's points but still insists that they ensure Gendry's safety beforehand.
  • Deconstruction Fic: The story deconstructs quite a few typical elements of ASOIAF as well as crossovers with the series in question.
    • For starters, the Game of Thrones and all the political machinations, assassinations and threats of war, are a keystone of all the conflicts in the series, as various factions plot and scheme for control of the Iron Throne, with some recognized as being dangerous players of the game for how well they can do such things. However, once Team RWBY enters the board, being a complete Outside-Context Problem that are effectively invincible to everyone, the various players of the Game of Thrones start to look far more pathetic as their usual methods of dealing with obstacles fall completely flat, as the four girls don't have to abide by any of their rules. Thus, schemers like Varys, Baelish, and Tywin are left floundering as none of their usual means of removing threats to their power work on Team RWBY, and that for all their intelligence, they can't truly adapt when confronted with something beyond their power.
    • Another common plot is having characters from outside of Planetos being forced to adapt and conform to the world they find themselves in, regardless of all the depravity that comes with it and what kind of society they came from previously. While Team RWBY is willing to do this to a point, being from a society with more modern values, they can only tolerate so much of the medieval and backwards behaviors, and given the power they possess, they can and will push back against such views when it starts to clash against their own.
    • Finally, a common convention of the genre is the characters who arrive on Planetos being willing to settle down there permanently, ignoring the fact that they would want to go home. By contrast, RWBY absolutely refuses to lose sight of the fact that getting back to Remnant is their main priority, and while they are willing to help where they can, none of them have any intention of settling down in Westeros or beyond.
  • Deliberate Values Dissonance: One of the biggest conflicts in the story, as Team RWBY comes from a world more in line with the values of modern day, and as a result, they frequently clash in ways big and small against the antiquated, medieval values of Westeros.
    • A major example that causes friction with Team RWBY and the Baratheons is handling the Lannister children's illegitimacy. In the world of Westeros, the evidence that the Baratheons present (ie. showing how their family line had their features as the dominant ones) would be sufficient enough reason to launch a coup that prevented the Lannisters from consolidating power. For Team RWBY, however, such evidence is flimsy, as they come from a world where telling such things requires DNA testing to make absolutely certain. In addition, illegitimacy is enough to warrant death to the accused and the bastard offspring, which clashes against Team RWBY's values, as Remnant couldn't care less for things like being born out of wedlock, and any reason used to kill children is seen as the height of amorality.
    • The approach to using Cold-Blooded Torture. For the noble lords of Westeros, even the most heroic such as Eddard Stark, torture is a go-to method and no one bats an eye about it. Like most modern-day people, Team RWBY naturally abhors such methods and carry the knowledge that it's ineffective at best, as anyone under that kind of duress will say anything to escape punishment. This conflict also causes Team RWBY to lose a great amount of trust in Eddard Stark, seeing him as little better than the arrogant Southerners.
    • The perception on parenting also causes them to clash with the likes of Ned and Tywin.
      • In Ned's case, he certainly loves his children, but he's still a patriarch of medieval culture and wants them to follow customs and traditions of being married off for the sake of alliances. As a result, he struggles to fathom Team RWBY's more egalitarian suggestions to let them have full say in the matter and not marry if they don't want to. He also struggles with the idea of letting them grow up to be whatever they want rather than what the family wants, especially in Arya's casenote .
      • In Tywin's case, this comes up when he physically abuses his grandson, Tommen, when he claims he doesn't want to be heir to the throne and Team RWBY takes him to task for it. While a major part of this is Tywin's pride and arrogance at being called out, such methods for disciplining children are rather common across the Seven Kingdoms, as patriarchs are the ones in charge and physically accosting them is the go-to for getting them back in line. By the modern standards of Team RWBY, it's straight-up child abuse that would get Child Protective Services called on you and is wrong both morally and legally.
    • Team RWBY is an Amazon Brigade, and as a result, one of the bigger clashes initially is the rampant sexism and misogyny they have to deal with from those of Westeros, where almost everyone, men and women alike, view a woman's place as either the bedroom or dutifully serving her husband's wishes. Because of this, they frequently get underestimated and at times need to show off their abilities to ward it away, such as in the Battle of the Maidens. While most nobles wisely learn to shut up about such views when around them, it's clear they hate having to cater to it since doing so encourages others to follow in Team RWBY's footsteps, and by extension, threatens their power.
    • Westeros has a punitive view on justice (emphasizing punishing a criminal), while Team RWBY has a rehabilitative view on justice (treat the issues that caused the person to become a criminal in the first place). This, in addition to Wouldn't Hurt a Child, is why the team absolutely refuses to harm Varys' Little Birds.
    • Westeros does not see any problem punishing children as if they were adults. For Team RWBY, harming a child in any way, for any reason constitutes an In-Universe invokedMoral Event Horizon and is something they will not do.
    • Defied in regard to kinslaying, as this is one of the few areas where the morals of Westeros and Remnant overlap. Even though Tywin Lannister was their enemy, Team RWBY is just as disgusted over Tyrion killing his father as anyone else from Westeros would be.
  • Didn't See That Coming:
    • Chapter 15 confirms that Team RWBY's arrival into Westeros wasn't expected, as seers like Melisandre and Bloodraven had been planning and preparing for quite a different outcome regarding the Others before their visions abruptly changed after the arrival of the four girls to reflect the fact that the Others had already been dealt with.
    • In Chapter 23, no one actually expected Jaime to demand a Trial by Combat against Ruby, given that he surrendered without a fight, was well aware that he had no actual chance of winning, and knew that he and Cersei wouldn't be executed for their crimes. In addition, because of Cersei's complete refusal to believe that her brother could be bested by Team RWBY (despite Jaime himself making it clear that he stood no chance against them), him losing the fight and getting killed by Ruby not only catches her off-guard, it completely shatters her.
    • In Chapter 36, Littlefinger is in such panic that he picks up a bottle of wine he keeps in his office and drinks from it, only for it to be poisoned, killing him instantly.
    • In Chapter 37, Varys didn't expect that Blake would not only be able to traverse the secret passageways in the Red Keep, but also track him in them.
    • In Chapter 47, Tywin Lannister didn't expect Tyrion would poison him.
  • Didn't Think This Through:
    • Petyr tipped off Ned and Stannis to the possibility of Cersei's children being bastards, aiming to discredit the heir to the throne and cause a war that would allow his influence to grow. He apparently didn't anticipate that Tywin might, instead of disowning his children or calling his banners, simply call in the loans that the kingdom owes him to cripple the realm, which would destroy Petyr's reputation when he failed to procure more gold and could potentially lead to Westeros being weakened enough for Tywin to actually defeat.
    • Even though he knows that his office in the Red Keep isn't secure enough against Varys and his spies, Littlefinger thinks nothing of keeping a bottle of wine there and drinking some of it without considering that it might be poisoned.
    • Ruby and Weiss attempt to interrogate Varys' "little birds" to get some info out of them... before realizing too late that it's quite hard to interrogate someone that can't talk. They then provide a chalk and chalkboard, since they know the children can read and write, but they refuse to reveal anything.
  • Dies Differently in the Adaptation:
    • Gregor Clegane loses his head in his Trial by Combat against Blake.
    • Robert survives the boar that kills him in canon, with him and his hunting party scaring it off, but he ends up dying of poison at the resulting feast instead.
    • In canon, Joffrey dies at his own wedding feast, after drinking poisoned wine. In this story, he gets himself blown up after getting his hands on some of Weiss's stolen Dust cartridges, by mishandling the powder inside them and triggering an explosion that destroys his chamber and completely tears his body apart.
    • Rather than being hit with multiple crossbow bolts, Tywin Lannister dies poisoned. It's still Tyrion that does the deed.
  • Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Team RWBY gets sent to Planetos after Ruby touches a strange artifact she found in the archeological ruins they were investigating - just as Weiss warned her not to do so.
  • Dramatic Irony:
    • Team RWBY are eventually referred to as Maidens (especially after the "Battle of the Maidens" at the end of the Hand's Tourney) by the people of Planetos, a title that persists long after they leave as shown by the future excerpts. Unbeknownst to the Westerosi or RWBY themselves at this point, the title of Maidens also exists on Remnant, rather fittingly, as four incredibly powerful women with unmatched power unlike anything the world is used to, whose very existence can change the balance of power on the planet.
    • Due to his childhood trauma with magic, Varys believes that Team RWBY are all vile witches who sacrificed thousands of lives to gain the abilities that they possessed, and that they are manipulative liars who are making up stories for their own ends. Meanwhile, actual experts on magic in Westeros, including the Maesters, Melisandre, and Bloodraven, all know for a fact that they are nothing of the sort, as besides their powers being nothing any of them are familiar with, no amount of blood sacrifices could provide the level of control and ease of use that the four girls displayed with their Semblances. It's also this fact that convinces said experts that RWBY are telling the truth about being from another world, as their powers are literally otherworldly to everything Planetos knows about magic. This is highlighted in Chapter 31 when Varys tries to manipulate Melisandre into turning against RWBY by comparing their powers to hers, with the Red Priestess simply being confused that he thinks RWBY is using magic of any kind Planetos is familiar with when she knows that's not the case.
    • Both Tyrion and Jaime come to the conclusions that Team RWBY are not even remotely like anyone else in Westeros given how merciful they are, but arrive at different conclusions for that. Tyrion correctly realizes that RWBY's mercy and kindness, while vast, are not infinite, which contrasts Jaime, who thinks he can exploit it in a Trial by Combat to get Ruby to drop all accusations against him and Cersei. It gets him killed.
    • In Chapter 25, when Melisandre tells Ruby that the workings of Gods are not for mortals to understand, she says that they aren't likely to tell mortals their destiny, and that they are unable to be comprehended even when they do contact mortals. Back on Remnant, Ozma and Salem would probably disagree with both claims, given their entire purpose and tasks of both immortals were explained by the Brother Gods, and that the Gods could previously be talked to directly by their subjects without any issues in communication or comprehension.
    • With Chapter 31 confirming that the rise in raven appearances after the Battle of the Maidens was Bloodraven's handiwork, we get to see some more of his perspective. In particular, due to one of his ravens getting cut down while trying to get a closer look at their weapons and Ruby talking to another one, he thinks that the four girls are aware that he's watching them, causing him to have his ravens keep an eye on them from a further distance. Meanwhile, the chapters themselves show that the girls have no idea they're being watched. The raven who got cut down was a genuine accident during one of their training matches, and Ruby was just joking around when she spoke to one directly.
    • The last thing Littlefinger was thinking about before dying of poisoning was how to use Team RWBY to escape King's Landing, never knowing that the girls were actually gathering evidence of his corruption to get him arrested.
  • The Dreaded: Team RWBY's status as this in Westeros is cemented in Chapter 20. When Cersei demands that they be arrested due to her belief that they're responsible for poisoning the King, not a single person in the room follows her order. Nor does anyone move to help her when a grieving and angered Yang is more than prepared to punch Cersei's head off in response, with even Jaime admitting that he's terrified of them.
  • Dude, Not Funny!: When Blake notes that accusing the Queen of adultery would make enemies out of her and her family, Yang jokes that it might not be for long depending on how the King reacts. None of the others find it funny, with Ruby telling her off.
  • Effortless Amazonian Lift: To prove her powers to Robert Baratheon and his court, Ruby lifts Robert and his chair.
  • Entertainingly Wrong:
    • The excerpts of Maester Kennet Bracken at the beginning of each chapter are framed from the far future where he dismisses the idea that Team RWBY were capable of great feats of strength or that they dressed in ways that would be considered indecent to the people of Westeros. Meanwhile, the present scenes show how blatantly wrong he is.
    • Initially, the Starks come to the conclusion that Yang is a bastard due to her and Ruby sharing completely different last names. This misunderstanding is eventually cleared up when Arya mentions the possibility of Yang marrying Jon since both are bastards, leading to Yang explaining that she took her father's last name while Ruby took her mother's.
    • Chapter 15 has quite a few of these:
      • Varys comes to the conclusion that Team RWBY are witches who sacrificed thousands of people for their power and have some hidden agenda to seize power over the realm for themselves. Furthermore, he believes that they can be easily turned against each other, mistaking their trash talking during their exhibition match as a sign of genuine antagonism rather than the good-natured ribbing and taunting that it is.
      • Baelish believes that Team RWBY's morals and kind-hearted nature are a result of Ned Stark filling their heads with his beliefs on honor, rather than the girls just being naturally kind-hearted. He also believes that they are simply naïve and gullible, and thus easy prey to his manipulations. While RWBY certainly doesn't know how Westeros works very well, they are far from naïve, with Weiss and Blake in particular having experience with the kind of manipulations he likes to pull and having already pegged him as trouble.
      • Joffrey comes to the conclusion that the secret to gaining Aura and Semblances is because of Dust, making this conclusion from how Team RWBY refused to use their remaining reserves in their exhibition match. Suffice to say, that's not even remotely accurate, as Aura and Semblances are a product of the soul, not Dust. When he attempts to make good on his brainwave by having a thief steal some Dust from Weiss, his mishandling ends up killing him.
      • Cersei believes that all of Team RWBY's actions are simply plans to take the throne away from her, assuming that they are sleeping their way into power first with Ned, then with Robert, all as a grand plan to spite her specifically. Needless to say, all of that is false, as the four girls are not sleeping with any of the royalty, and they don't care about Cersei beyond how much she tries to make life difficult for them.
    • Ellaria believes Ruby is the heiress to a lord, while Blake, Weiss, and Yang are her entourage and protectors.
    • After the founding of the Ruby Order, Tyrion thinks that sooner or later it'll fall under control of one or two families vying for power. As Maester Bracken's excerpts prove, not only does the Order remain independent in the centuries to come, but also go on to fight noble houses for moral reasons.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: When Gregor Clegane kills one of his guards simply for reminding him of Lord Tyrion's orders, he does it without a second thought. An appalled Blake notes that even her former partner Adam Taurus wouldn't go that far with his own subordinates.
  • Everyone Has Standards: The High Septon is genuinely shocked and appalled to hear about children having their tongues cut out by the dozens when RWBY tells him about it, to the point that he gladly offers what aid he can give in order to confirm the source.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The many nobles of Westeros suffer from this when it comes to Team RWBY. Given that the latter are modern-day, egalitarian heroes who just want to protect the innocent and find a way home, most nobility can't wrap their head around such thinking and constantly try to filter Team RWBY's actions through their selfish perspective. This often bites them in the ass when what they expect fails to ever materialize.
    • Part of why Cersei is so dismissive of Team RWBY. She believes that if she had the power to smash entire armies and shatter castles, she would have conquered all of Westeros already, so the fact that RWBY hasn't done that means that she doesn't believe they can. The idea that the four girls simply have no interest in conquest (something Ned and Robert quickly figure out) doesn't even occur to her.
    • Littlefinger similarly believes that Team RWBY's kindhearted nature is a result of them first meeting Ned Stark, who subsequently filled their heads with his notion of honor. He doesn't grasp that the four girls are simply kindhearted by their own nature and were like that long before they arrived in Westeros.
    • In addition to Deliberate Values Dissonance, this is why Joffrey can't understand Yang's distress over accidentally killing a man via Groin Attack - beyond Westeros being very skewed towards solving problems with violence, Joffrey would wish humiliation at best on someone who slighted him in an incredibly minor way, so Yang feeling guilt over killing someone who called her a whore and then tried to assault her baffles him.
    • Tywin has serious issues with understanding Team RWBY, as he's unable (or unwilling) to understand that they're playing with a different rulebook, mostly stemming from his gargantuan sense of pride, his Lack of Empathy, and the fact that he can't control nor threaten Team RWBY, who neither fear nor respect him. Both Tyrion and Lancel warn him that the girls have no personal vendetta against House Lannister - but if Tywin keeps pressing the issue, then he'll end up with one.
      • He shares Cersei's belief that the girls' true goal is to take control of the Seven Kingdoms, interpreting almost everything they've done since they arrived to King's Landing as part of their plot, particularly since House Lannister becomes weaker: Blake arresting and then killing the Mountain, Jaime and Cersei's incest being exposed, Ruby killing Jaime in the Trial by Combat he demanded while Cersei's sent off to the Silent Sisters, and their attempts to teach Tommen that being kind is a viable way to rule.
      • When Tywin is accosted by Team RWBY for hitting his grandson, he's left baffled that they'd have a problem with him doing so as, in his eyes, he's doing what must be done to ensure his family's prosperity.
      • When he interrogates Lancel about the RWBY Order, he doesn't believe Lancel when the latter says there are no hidden goals nor intentions to turn it into the new Faith Militant, because he's so used to everyone around him plotting and scheming that the idea someone with power might just not do the same is completely alien to him.
    • Varys is so certain about his beliefs on Team RWBY (that they are witches who have sacrificed thousands of people to acquire their powers, and that everything they're doing is part of some intricate plan to take over the Seven Kingdoms) that he simply cannot fathom that they are genuine in their attempts to help people and return home.
  • Evil-Detecting Dog: Jon survives his first encounter with a Faceless Man thanks to Ghost sniffing out the assassin's disguise. This also alerts everyone that the Faceless Men have arrived in King's Landing, with the Stark Direwolves being considered as one of the key ways of figuring out who is one in disguise.
  • Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Team RWBY finds out Varys' older "little birds" are missing, they discuss why they would disappear, and what they might plan. They conclude that Varys likely left orders on what to do if he was arrested, such as fleeing to avoid falling into enemy hands... or freeing him from the Black Cells. Cue all of them running to alert Lord Stark.
  • The Face: While Ruby is the leader of the team, Weiss is the one who takes the role of the lead speaker in most of the social settings, due to her upbringing in Atlas high society giving her a rough idea of how to act amongst the nobility and royalty of Westeros.
  • Failed a Spot Check: Blake inwardly lampshades this in chapter 14, when she discovers that Varys is the one who's been employing children as spies. That his official role in the kingdom is the Master of Whispers meant that he should have been an obvious suspect, and Blake is aware that her teammates are going to tease her for not figuring that out sooner.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Aside from Suicidal Overconfidence, this is another reason why Jaime is so eager to demand Trial by Combat against Ruby. As he puts it, yes, he'd be sent to the Wall still alive, but he'd forever be separated from Cersei, which he cannot and will never accept. In his eyes, a life without his sister is not worth living in the slightest.
  • Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: This is Cersei's problem with Team RWBY in a nutshell. They pretty much embody everything she isn't yet desperately wants to be, and every waking moment she's around them reminds her of this fact. She takes out her anger by launching petty insults, subtle and not so subtle, at them, despite the fact that doing so is a monumentally moronic idea.
  • Foregone Conclusion:
    • Team RWBY will return back home to Remnant, as shown by the future writings that lead each chapter.
    • The original members of the Ruby Order (Brienne of Tarth, Gendry, Jon Snow, and Lancel Lannister) will still be around in the year 342 (44 years after when the story takes place).
  • Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Ellaria lampshades how this applies to Team RWBY at the start of Chapter 17 as she thinks how their outfits "seemed glued to the girls' curves".
  • Frame-Up:
    • Cersei attempts to do this by blaming Team RWBY of killing Robert. The ham-fisted attempt, combined with the obvious fact that they had no reason to do so, only causes people to suspect her.
    • Varys states that the spiked beer that was given to the men working on transporting the wildfire stashes came from one particular brothel - one he knows is owned by Littlefinger.
  • Fun with Acronyms: When RWBY starts training Jon Snow, Arya, and Bran, Ruby calls them Team JAB.
  • Future Imperfect: As displayed by the writings of Maester Kennet Bracken in the future of Westeros, quite a few of RWBY's feats are believed to be embellished after they leave.
  • Gambit Pileup: Hoo boy, it wouldn't be A Song of Ice and Fire if there weren't plenty of machinations, with Chapter 15 in particular showing the various plans everyone has regarding Team RWBY after the battle of the Maidens. They can easily be divided into four categories: Those who want to manipulate Team RWBY to their advantage, those who want to remove them from the board entirely, those who want to try and gain their powers for themselves, and those who realize that the best solution is to help the girls go home as soon as possible.
  • Genre Refugee: A threefold example with Team RWBY, with the benefits and downsides explored.
    • Firstly, Team RWBY are a quartet of High Fantasy/Science Fiction characters placed in a Low Fantasy/Dark Fantasy world. The positives of this mean that they're effectively Invincible Heroes, as there's absolutely nothing on Westeros or Essos that exists capable of so much as scratching them. On a more negative side, it means that many of the powers that be in Westeros see them as living weapons to try and coerce to their causes, making them as much targets as they are deterrents.
    • Secondly, Team RWBY are rather squeaky-clean heroes from a world of Black-and-White Morality who have more modern values that find themselves in a medieval environment of Grey-and-Gray Morality, where even the most heroic characters would be anti heroes at best where they're from. This is a major source of friction, the sheer Culture Clash they have to deal with being very frustrating, as to make it far enough in this new world to get back to Remnant means catering to worldviews that are incredibly antiquated.
    • Thirdly, Team RWBY comes from a very action-oriented series where, while "There will be no victory through strength" is a major theme, most conflicts are solved through direct combat. They now find themselves in a world where social and political acumen reign supreme, the greatest battles fought in council chambers rather than in open warfare. One of their biggest struggles in getting home is adapting to an environment where they can't just punch/slash/fight their way through everything.
  • God Guise: Several people worship Team RWBY as Maidens sent by the gods and get into conflict with people who think they are demons or witches.
  • A God I Am Not: Team RWBY makes it clear that they're uncomfortable with being seen as gods and don't like the idea of being worshipped as such either. Unfortunately for them, few Smallfolk or followers of The Seven listen and continue to view them as gods. Not helping matters is that because they need all the help they can get in returning home, Team RWBY is pretty much forced to rely on their God Guise to make any meaningful progress on that front.
  • Good Cop/Bad Cop: Ruby and Weiss try this routine with Varys' "little birds". Unfortunately, Varys has told them that Team RWBY are evil witches and they don't reveal anything.
  • Good Is Not Dumb: Team RWBY repeatedly display that despite what many nobles may think, they are far from unintelligent, and that their general idealism and kind nature does not mean they can't tell when people are playing games with them. Lord Baelish is a prominent victim of this, as he believes that he can manipulate the four girls like a puppet on strings without them ever catching a whiff of his true nature. Yet, Weiss pegs him as corrupt almost immediately and a quick investigation by Blake catches on to the fact that he's running various brothels in the city. Come chapter 17, Weiss even wonders if Baelish actually thinks they're idiots when she sees how he's transparently trying to turn them against the Lannisters.
  • Good Is Not Soft: Ruby Rose is an All-Loving Hero who hates needless death and wants to see the best in people, and has repeatedly proven to be far more merciful than Westeros could have expected. She also won't hesitate to kill someone in an instant if the situation warrants it, which she does when Jaime demands a Trial by Combat and attempts to exploit her idealism and mercy by effectively holding himself hostage. Knowing that if she were to back down, this would only embolden others to try and manipulate her and her Team by taking hostages to force their compliance, Ruby immediately slices Jaime in two.
  • Graceful Loser: All three of the losing members of Team RWBY take their defeat in the exhibition Battle of the Maidens match well, with Ruby and Yang in particular complimenting Weiss and Blake respectively for the ploys they used to take them out.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: The reason Cersei hates Team RWBY is because they're everything she wishes to be: young, skilled warriors, individually powerful, and free to live their lives however they please. Add the fact that all of the girls are considered great beauties by those around them, and she becomes determined to insult or belittle them at every opportunity.
  • Gruesome Grandparent: When Tywin confronts Tommen, the latter is crying and begging to not be allowed to become king, as Robert and Joffrey died, and he doesn't want to die either. Rather than even attempt to provide a token of emotional comfort for his grieving grandson, Tywin slaps him in the face and yells at him that he will fulfill his duty and become king whether he likes it or not.
  • Head-Turning Beauty: What all members of Team RWBY are considered by the Westerosi, with their beauty being the first thing many characters take notice of.
  • Hero Worship:
    • An interesting example with the excerpts of Maester Kennet Bracken in the far future after this story takes place, as it becomes clear with his writing that he genuinely respects Team RWBY, or as he calls them, the Ruby Order, and how much they've done to change Westeros for the better. And it's because of this that he dismisses the accounts of their supernatural feats and the way they dress as mere embellishments meant to demean them, rather than being genuine displays of what they were capable of and how they dressed.
    • Out of the Stark children, both Bran and Arya quickly come to admire Team RWBY for their skills in combat, with Arya even stating her wish to become an Huntress once she grows up. That the girls eventually agree to secretly train both of them alongside Jon only further their admiration of them. This only increases further after the Battle of the Maidens, with Bran and Arya coming up with various new titles for the four girls.
      • Arya is hit with a particular case of this: she greatly idolizes team RWBY, seeing the group of Huntresses as the realization of her dream to become a warrior and not being held back by Westeros's social expectations for noble ladies to enter political marriages and birth children to continue their family legacy, and is dead set on becoming like them. Jon even reveals to Yang that Arya wants to follow team RWBY back to Remnant, despite Ned's objections to it.
    • Like canon, Joffrey idolizes his "father", Robert Baratheon. One of the major reasons why he tones down his usual personality traits when around Team RWBY is because Robert is very accommodating to them, so he emulates him in the hopes of gaining his approval.
    • Brienne of Tarth quickly comes to admire Team RWBY, especially Yang, and joins Jon, Bran, and Arya in training with them.
    • It overlaps with God Guise, but after the Battle of the Maidens, many members of the Faith start to see team RWBY as emissaries of the Seven, showing them levels of reverence that border on fanatical. While the girls are not entirely comfortable about being worshipped as divine beings, their influence over the Faith is what allowed them to start investigating Varys's little birds without having to leave King's Landing, by asking the High Septon to send some believers to the Free Cities to discover who is behind the mutilated children being shipped to the city.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • Despite being a flirt and biased by his own views, Robert is the only character who accurately understands how much Team RWBY wants to go back home, noting that they will scour all of Planetos for a way back to Remnant before they ever consider settling down in Westeros, something Joffrey and Ned, who have spent more time with the girls than Robert, hadn't truly considered. It's implied that this is why he agreed to the betrothal between Joffrey and Sansa rather than pushing for a betrothal with a member of Team RWBY, knowing that they wouldn't accept. He also recognizes the close bond the four girls share and notes that they are not going to abandon each other.
    • He may only be paying attention in hopes of becoming as powerful as the girls, but Joffrey of all people has worked out their abilities are not linked to Human Sacrifice, given how horrified they were at the concept.
    • Ruby has a tendency to be a bit naïve at times, especially when it comes to matters of flirting and politics. That said, she sees right through the reason Blake volunteered to kill the Mountain, to spare Ruby having to make that choice herself.
  • Hoist by Their Own Petard:
    • Varys attempted to subtly fan the flames of the Faith against RWBY in the hope of turning the smallfolk against them. This not only ended up having the opposite effect as the vast majority of King's Landing began to see them as emissaries of the Seven instead, it also gave them an avenue to investigate Varys' little birds by asking the High Septon for help.
    • It's revealed in Chapter 29 that Cersei was the one who poisoned Robert, with Varys assuming that her plan was to seize power for herself and erode RWBY's support with the rest of the King's court by framing them for it. This not only failed on both counts, but also kicked off the series of events that led to Cersei being stripped of any power she might have still had.
    • Blake telling the nobles about the secret passages in the Red Keep as a way to prevent Varys' little birds from reaching them has the side effect of making it far more difficult to conduct her own spying, as guards are now stationed inside the entrances of the passages in a way that she can't sneak around nearly as easily as she did before.
    • After being behind several poisonings (Yang's, the beer spike, and Littlefinger's), Varys becomes poisoned himself by Pycelle through heavy metal poisoning.
    • Tyrion turns Tywin's "House above all" policy against him, poisoning him so he won't ruin House Lannister in his futile attempts to kill Team RWBY.
    • Tyrion is able to turn Team RWBY's evidence-based justice against them to keep them from accusing him of killing his father, especially since he made the point of destroying any possible proof that might have remained, while the girls only have circumstantial evidence that he did anything wrong.
  • Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Due to not having a lot of Dust on hand, Team RWBY is forced to conserve the power of their Scrolls for emergencies, as well as keeping what little Dust they have left in case they need it.
  • Hopeless Suitor: Basically, anyone who hopes to win the affection of any of the four members of Team RWBY. Besides being focused on getting home, thus rendering any long-term romance prospects doomed from the start, the cultural differences between Remnant and Planetos ensures that RWBY aren't even remotely willing to entertain the idea of allowing themselves to be trapped in a Westerosi marriage where the women are treated as little better than objects and servants.
  • Horrible Judge of Character:
    • Downplayed and justified. Team RWBY only sees Joffrey as a harmless, if bratty, prince rather than the psychopath he really is. However, this is in large part because he's going the extra mile to keep his sadistic tendencies hidden from them in the hopes of both learning how to use Aura and Semblance, as well as gain Robert's approval. Additionally, nothing in Westeros can harm Team RWBY, so he's genuinely harmless to them. It also isn't an inaccurate reading of him at first blush, since a number of other characters thought the same until further experience with him proved otherwise. The mask does occasionally slip, and the girls do clue in on there being something seriously wrong with him, even if they can't quite tell what that something is just yet. Furthermore, Weiss at least is aware that Joffrey is trying to gather information from the four of them, inwardly calling out his attempts as being blatantly transparent, even if she thinks his reasons for doing so are more innocent than they are. Come Chapter 17, they've begun cottoning on to the sadistic little shit he really is.
    • Cersei fully believes that team RWBY is trying to take the Iron Throne away from her, having convinced herself that the girls are sleeping with Robert to gain his favour and undermine her position as the Queen. Furthermore, she thinks that they're manipulating her children (Joffrey especially) to their advantages, and that they will kill them once they're no longer useful. Sufficient to say, none of these things are true, as the girls are not sleeping with Robert (nor anyone else, for the matter) as their relationship (prior to his death) was one of mutual friendship, that Joffrey is interested in the girls only for their powers, and, most importantly, that they have absolutely no interest in seizing power in Westeros. Cersei's views are deeply influenced by her strong sense of jealousy over the team, and well as her own paranoia.
    • Due to his childhood trauma and his role as spymaster, Varys believes the four members of Team RWBY are secretly vile witches who sacrificed thousands of souls to gain their power and are plotting some unknown scheme to seize power. Suffice to say, nothing could be further from the truth.
    • Jaime chooses to gamble his own life in a Trial of Combat out of a belief that Ruby is too softhearted to kill him, even though team RWBY has repeatedly stated and explained that they are huntresses; warriors trained to fight against literal soulless monsters of Grimm and human threats, with Blake already demonstrating that the team are fully willing to kill when she effortlessly killed the Mountain, the most feared and strongest fighter in all of Westeros, in his own Trial by Combat. Something which Jaime himself was present to witness.
    • Littlefinger thinks that Team RWBY has been orchestrating the fall of the kingdom for personal gain, that they kept the secret of Cersei and Jaime's incest so that they could exploit it at the best possible time, and that once he finds an angle to exploit, they'll bend to his whims. The truth is that Team RWBY are doing everything in their power to not cause problems, they kept the incestuous affair secret to protect Cersei's children from retribution for their mother's actions, and that the girls are much, much smarter than he thinks they are.
    • Like Cersei before him, Tywin is convinced that Team RWBY's real goal is to take over the Seven Kingdoms and become the true power behind the Iron Throne, interpreting almost every major action they've taken ever since arriving in King's Landing as their way to weaken House Lannister. Moreover, he sees their genuine efforts to positively influence Tommen's views on how a King should act, as well as trying to keep him as away as possible from Tywin's toxic influence, as their attempt to mold his grandson into their own puppet. He goes as far as saying that they intentionally set part of the city on fire with wildfire, so they could play the heroes and maximize the adoration that the Smallfolk feels for them and intimidate the nobles from moving against them.
  • Hypocrite:
    • One of Tywin's reasons for despising Team RWBY is because he believes they're trying to isolate and manipulate his grandson, Tommen, into being a Puppet King under their control so that they can rule through him... the exact same thing Tywin himself is trying to do.
    • Varys hates his past as a mutilated slave child, but has no problem in inflicting the same fate on other children for his own purposes. He fears and hates Team RWBY out of his belief that they are evil beings that have manipulated and caused the death of thousands of people for their own power, but he sees no issue with himself doing the exact same thing. And he calls out the Small Council for focusing on their vices and flaws at the expense of the Realm, but he was also planning to cause plenty of death and destruction out of a nebulous "greater good of the Realm".
  • I Am Not Left-Handed: Weiss, Blake, and Yang to a lesser extent, keep their Semblances hidden from the Westerosi at large just in case things go wrong. Ned and Ser Barristan both have recognized the oddity of such when watching Team RWBY spar, realizing that Weiss and Blake are clearly missing something, as they hesitate and make mistakes at odd moments that warriors as well trained as they are should not be making. They stop hiding their Semblances in the exhibition match at end of the Hand's Tourney, showing them off to both the nobility and smallfolk present, thanks to Robert offering them twenty thousand gold dragons for a fight where they don't hold back.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Team RWBY's general stance on killing people. While they are certainly willing to do it if the situation requires, it's made clear that it's not something any of them actually enjoy doing. Most thoroughly demonstrated when Blake kills the Mountain in Trial by Combat. She makes a point of cutting him down quickly, without prolonging his suffering, and yet it's clear afterwards that despite the fact that he was a monster, she wasn't happy about doing that.
  • I Take Offense to That Last One: When Yang calls Ruby and Weiss' attempts to get Varys' little birds to "talk" a "good cop/bad cop routine", Weiss is offended by the idea that she'd be the "bad cop".
  • In Spite of a Nail: Despite Team RWBY's actions butterflying the War of the Five Kings out of existence, Lancel still begins to show signs of aligning toward the Faith as he did in canon following the Battle of the Blackwater. In fact, he ends up developing this mindset earlier than in canon because of the team, as he's among the many people who start seeing them as divinely chosen heroes.
  • I Reject Your Reality: Cersei refuses to believe that Team RWBY is from another world, instead insinuating that they're merely from some other location on Planetos and simply beyond the shores of Westeros. Robert later notes how foolish this idea is, pointing out that if four Kingdoms of people like RWBY truly existed on their world, Westeros would have been conquered by them long before any of them were ever born, with the sea being unable to stop them or the Grimm they fought from going wherever they pleased.
  • If I Wanted You Dead...: Discussed: While no one in RWBY says it themselves, this trope is the reason that no one takes Cersei's attempt to blame (read: frame) the girls for Robert's poisoning seriously. If they had wanted Robert dead at any point, they wouldn't need to bother with poison, they could have killed him any time they liked and no one would have been able to stop them.
  • Insult Backfire: Cersei insists on a betrothal between Sansa Stark and Joffrey simply to ensure Team RWBY can't marry into the royal family, something she snidely insinuates in her next tea party with Weiss. Far from being insulted, Weiss outright laughs at the very notion that she or her team would ever want to marry into Westeros royalty, something Cersei quickly picks up on.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Cersei insists that Team RWBY is sleeping with both Ned and Robert and that the only reason she hasn't found any proof is because they are using their "magic" to hide it.
  • Internal Reveal: Weiss learns in Chapter 30 that Blake is the daughter of Ghira Belladonna.
  • Intimidation Demonstration: Team RWBY leave an open letter for the Faceless Men in King's Landing to watch them demolish a manse by themselves as a demonstration to what they'll do to their temple if the assassins don't stop coming after them. This is capped off with a display of them walking through wildfire without even getting a hair out of place. The results are more mixed than they would like, as some of the Faceless Men are willing to stop, while others are still willing to try and kill them anyway.
  • Invincible Hero: Team RWBY serve as this for the story. Given that they're from a world where Everyone Is a Super, where even those without the benefits of Aura and Semblance show strength greater than what the average human could accomplish, and find themselves in Westeros, nothing exists capable of surmounting them. As they can win any challenge of martial might, the conflicts they face are political, social, and cultural rather than physical.
  • Irony: Tywin desperately tries to threaten and cow Team RWBY into submission, but none of his efforts work at all and they never acknowledge him as anything more than an annoyance. Tyrion, the son he despises and refuses to acknowledge, ends up causing them a lot of trouble by using their own rules and morals against them. In the end, Team RWBY ends up viewing Tyrion as the serious threat they never once considered Tywin to be.
  • It Never Gets Any Easier: Blake and Yang discuss this after the former kills the Mountain, along with It Gets Easier.
    Blake: Some of the older members of the White Fang said it got easier over time.
    Yang slowly nodded again. Blake rarely told anything about her time in the organization.
    Blake: But… some who claimed that were… drinking more than others.
    Yang: I know the type.
    Blake: And those for whom it did get easier… I don't want to be like them.
    Yang: You won't be.
    Blake: How can you be sure? We probably have killed people in the North and didn't even notice.
    Yang: We feel bad about it. If we stop feeling bad about it, then we can worry.
  • It's All My Fault: Yang blames herself for being unable to awaken Robert's Aura and thus prevent him from dying of poison. This despite Weiss and Blake pointing out that the people of Planetos as a whole are unable to awaken Aura, something they had already suspected fairly early on.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Olenna Tyrell is practically the Westeros poster woman for Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!, but during her talk with Team RWBY in Chapter 35, she brings up that fear and awe of their power, and the knowledge that they can easily win any war, is the main thing keeping the various factions from coming to blows, as fighting is a losing battle with them around. The minute they leave for home, they'll just get right back to it. Ruby even acknowledges that for as much as she disagrees, she can't say Olenna's wrong about it either.
  • The Juggernaut: Thanks to their Aura and speed, there is absolutely nothing on Westeros that is capable of stopping Team RWBY if they don't want to be stopped.
  • Just Toying with Them: Defied. When Blake is called upon to fight the Mountain in a Trial by Combat, she refuses to make a spectacle out of the event by drawing out his suffering and simply cuts off his head seconds after the battle begins, to the disappointment of quite a few members of the audience.
  • Kansas City Shuffle: How Blake wins the Battle of the Maidens. Since she knows Yang will expect her to use shadow clones, she uses a cloud of dust as cover to create one clone - and then poses as her own clone. When Yang gets distracted attacking the clone, Blake strikes her from the back.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em:
    • After the Battle of the Maidens, all the guards and soldiers in the Kingdom know better than to try and arrest the girls, so when Cersei demands that they be arrested in the aftermath of Robert's death, not a single person answers her order. Nor does anyone lift a finger to try and protect her from Yang's wrath, with Ruby being the one to keep her sister from punching Cersei's head off.
    • Similarly, the Lannister guards all fold in Chapter 21 when Ned comes to arrest Cersei and Jaime. While it's pointed out that they outnumber the rest of the Red Keep's guards by a ratio of three to one, the fact that RWBY are backing Ned, Stannis, and Renly is enough for most to realize that they have no hope of winning, and the few who are too slow or hesitant to get out of the way are simply picked up and moved aside by the four girls. Even Jaime realizes how hopeless the situation is for him when he's confronted by Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang and surrenders without a fight.
    • Tyrion and Oberyn flirt sometimes, but acknowledge that trying to seduce Team RWBY is all but impossible. Similarly, by Chapter 31, Jon accepts that nothing is ever going to happen between him and Yang and is working to get over his crush on her.
    • In Chapter 37, Varys immediately surrenders when Blake catches him in the secret tunnels around King's Landing, knowing that any attempt to try and fight or flee is just going to be a futile endeavor at that point.
    • When Team RWBY demonstrates that they can demolish a building and shrug off weapons and wildfire, a Faceless Man decides that killing them is impossible and meets them to call a truce and say he will send the House of Black and White a letter asking them to call off the hit. Unfortunately, other Faceless Men refuse to give up and still want to kill them.
  • Lesser of Two Evils: In the end, those amongst Varys' little birds who tried to set the Red Keep on fire to free their master are sent to either the Wall or the Silent Sisters, while all the others are split between different septons and septas that have worked with troubled children before. Team RWBY (particularly Blake) dislike that any of the kids are being sent to what is essentially a life sentence, but they admit they can't provide the means to rehabilitate them as they'd want.
  • Love Makes You Dumb: The reason Jaime challenges Ruby to a Trial by Combat despite having absolutely no chances of winning and the girls ensuring that he and Cersei wouldn't be executed for their crimes. Jaime says that he'll do anything for love, even gamble on a fight to the death that he knows he can't win. It gets him killed.
  • Machiavelli Was Wrong: The crux of the conflict the Lannisters have with Team RWBY. Thanks to Tywin's influence, the Lannisters have made a lot of enemies, with quite a few people desiring their downfall, and it's only through their cultivated aura of fear and power that keeps their enemies from openly retaliating against them. Team RWBY, on the other hand, are so innately powerful that they have no reason to fear the Lannisters while striking fear in them and every other power-hungry noble, yet wield that power with genuine kindness, gaining respect and adoration from the smallfolk and more levelheaded nobles. As a result, the Lannisters are faced with a foe they cannot intimidate or threaten with their normal means, as shown by Cersei trying and failing to call for their arrest after Robert's poisoning, as the guards are more afraid of RWBY than they are of her. Which in turn creates a ripple effect where everyone else slowly loses their fear of the Lannisters, as demonstrated by Tywin's arrival in King's Landing where the smallfolk openly show disdain at his presence, something he notes they were too cowed to do the last time he was there.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: In Chapter 29, Yang's reaction to Varys's attempt to murder her via poison is to compare the effects to bad period cramps, as well as having to spend the following night in moderate pain while waiting for the symptoms to pass. All of this despite Varys's POV revealing that he went out of his way to procure a particular strong poison that once ingested, would have turned so acidic as to being able to melt metal. It's a justified reaction however, since Yang's Aura both protected her insides from being dissolved and flushed the toxins out of her system in around half a day, leaving her no worse for wear.
  • Mask of Sanity: Joffrey puts on a surprisingly decent one, as thanks to wanting his father's approval, he tones down his usual sadism and acts very accommodating towards Team RWBY when such pleasantries would be unthinkable for his character in the books. But it can't be considered a case of Adaptational Heroism since his POVs show that he's still the same sadistic, moronic little monster he was in canon. He's just given a better reason to hide it, and even then, it still slips through every now and again.
  • Mass "Oh, Crap!":
    • This is basically the aftermath of the Battle of the Maidens in a nutshell, as the various important players react to Team RWBY's full power with either awe, terror, or some combination of the two.
    • In Chapter 33, Team RWBY and all the septons present at the Great Sept have this reaction when they discover a large cache of wildfire hidden underneath the building, left there by the Mad King. It gets worse when Blake realizes that he left the cache both there and in the Dragonpit with the intention of burning the entire city down, meaning there's bound to be more caches of wildfire hidden throughout the city. The High Septon and several others outright start praying when she says that.
  • Meaningful Background Event: In chapters taking place after the Battle of the Maidens, there's been a noticeable increase in ravens appearing in the background of scenes, seemingly watching Team RWBY. Given his scene in Chapter 15, it's all but outright said (and confirmed in Chapter 31) that Bloodraven is spying on the four girls through those ravens. This leads to a humorous moment where Ruby actually speaks to one of the ravens when she's alone, talking to it in a joking manner. The raven has a pronounced "WTF" reaction in response to Ruby acknowledging its presence, with later chapters confirming that this incident plus an earlier one of a raven getting sliced in half prompted Bloodraven to believe that RWBY is onto him when they actually don't even know he exists.
  • Mistaken for Flirting: Robb and Jon mistake the friendliness of Ruby and Yang to be romantic interest in them respectively.
  • Mistaken for Servant: Ellaria Sand and others think Weiss, Blake, and Yang are Ruby's servants.
  • Mistaken Nationality: Cersei mistakes Weiss for a Valyrian due to her hair color.
  • Mole in Charge: Team RWBY visits the High Septon to request the Faith's help with discovering the origin of the mysterious tongueless orphans they have been tracking, as well as checking what happens to them. The High Septon is a bit disquieted at the request, asking if the Master of Whispers wouldn't be better for that... and is informed that he's the main suspect.
  • Morton's Fork:
    • The head of the Lannister guard faces this when faced with the Hand, Ned Stark, the Master of Laws, Renly Baratheon and Team RWBY, demanding passage to Maegor's Holdfast, where the Royal Quarters are located. He could either let them in, but he would violate his duty to House Lannister. If he tried to stop them, he would be labelled a traitor. Team RWBY recognizes this exact situation and place the leaders aside, causing the others to stand aside.
    • Varys' machinations and plotting have started to become this, especially after RWBY uncovered the Wildfire plot left by the Mad King. Such a glaring oversight over something that dangerous to King's Landing leaves him on thin ice amongst the Kingdom's Small Council, especially combined with his inability to find the ones involved with poisoning Robert and Yang (the former being Cersei - which he knew but never revealed - and the latter being himself). This is highlighted when he attempts to frame Baelish for said poisoning, as while it successfully draws suspicion away from him for the time being and eliminates his rival, uncovering the extent of Baelish's corruption erodes Varys' reputation even further as the Small Council questions his competence for not uncovering something so damaging to the Realm earlier.
  • Mugging the Monster: The Others and the Night King learned this the hard way when they attacked four teenagers who found themselves in their territory, thinking that they would be easy prey. Unfortunately for them, Team RWBY ends up wiping them all out with ease.
  • Mundane Luxury: Suffice to say, most of Team RWBY misses a number of things they can find in Remnant, good hygiene being a big one, but also various foods that Westeros has yet to develop. Ruby in particular has noted how much she misses chocolate chip cookies.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Yang's reaction to realizing that the knight she kicked in the balls prior to the Hand's Tourney ended up dying in a horribly painful way.
  • My God, You Are Serious!: When Varys comments that Blake must have used "dark magic" to track him down, she snorts - only to learn later that he legitimately believes her and her teammates are witches who can use dark magic, which leaves her flabbergasted.
  • Mythology Gag: Weiss tells Sansa, Arya, Bran, Myrcella and Tommen about her old bike Stardust.
  • Nerves of Steel: Downplayed with Cersei as she foolishly provokes a grieving Yang just moments after Robert dies. A furious Yang activates her Semblance was moments from killing her. Cersei is clearly afraid at the moment, but she does not move or try to run while everyone else in the vicinity did.
    The crowd nearby fell back, panic visible on many faces, leaving the Queen standing alone in the face of this advance. Even her ladies-in-waiting had fallen back. But the Queen stood her ground. She was afraid - Pycelle caught how she clenched her fists so tightly, the knuckles of her hands were turning white, and how her facial muscles twitched as she clenched her teeth. But she didn't move a single step back. Too proud. Too damn proud. Or too stupid.
  • Never Learned to Read: Variation - Blake would love to read the books in Winterfell's library, except she's not allowed to touch the books and even if she did, they're written in a different script. She does try to learn the local alphabet but it's vexingly complex and there's no standard to learn from. As explained by Maester Luwin, people write as they speak, and with linguistic drift, and many local dialects, just knowing the alphabet wasn't enough; you also had to know the author's preferred pronunciation. And that is just for the Common Tongue alone, as many books detailing ancient civilizations are written in foreign languages, some of them dead. Word of God has said that the linguistically drift is also a factor, as is the lack of a central grammar and spelling authority. Like trying to read a book written in the dialect of an old English variant written in fractal without knowing the phonetics. Then add in cultural and technical references one do not know, words that fell out of use or changed meanings etc.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • When Weiss says she thinks Ruby could fit in a gala in Atlas with some lessons, Yang mentions the birthday party of one of Ruby's friends in Signal.
    • Apparently at one point offscreen during Robert's visit to Winterfell, Yang shattered stone with a headbutt on a dare.
  • Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: On Remnant, Team RWBY are certainly exceptional, but they are ultimately still Huntresses in training, who are easily outclassed by quite a few characters. On Westeros, they are the four most powerful people on the planet, bar none, to the point that some smallfolk consider them to be literal deities by comparison. This is one of the reasons Team RWBY are afraid that someone else from their world might end up in Westeros as well - they are decent people, but if someone from the White Fang or a criminal like Torchwick showed up?
  • No-Sell: Thanks to their Aura, every member of Team RWBY is capable of effortlessly taking blows that would kill any man on Westeros. Yang demonstrates this to the Kingsguard when she has one of the Winterfell knights swing his sword right at her head and it simply does nothing. Oberyn also notes this applies to one of his own favored tactics, as a poisoned blade is completely ineffective if he can't draw blood, which Aura ensures can't be accomplished by anyone on Westeros. Not even wildfire can do anything to seriously harm them.
  • Not His Sled:
    • Bran Stark's canon plotline has been thoroughly derailed by Team RWBY's presence, as Blake is the one to discover the incest of Jaime and Cersei in his place, meaning he's not crippled from being pushed off the tower. Furthermore, his destiny to become the Three-Eyed Raven has become completely defunct since Team RWBY wiped out the Others upon their arrival in Westeros, with the author confirming that Bloodraven is currently too busy trying to figure out what happened to the White Walkers and what to do with Team RWBY to bother with trying to mold Bran as his successor.
    • The War of Five Kings is similarly averted by Team RWBY's presence. While there is a crisis of succession after Robert's death, it doesn't involve outright warfare due to the fact that everyone is well aware that RWBY makes such a prospect into a hopeless endeavor. Furthermore, several of the key events that kicked off the war in canon like Ned's betrayal and death never take place because he goes to the four girls for help first, meaning that he's able to arrest Cersei and Jaime for crimes of incest without them being able to stop it.
  • Not So Invincible After All:
    • Cersei cites Weiss' scar and Yang fainting after failing to awaken Robert's Aura as proof that Team RWBY can be beaten. Somewhat subverted, as while even the girls themselves acknowledge that they're far from invincible, in practice, Westeros still lacks any feasible means of hurting them physically compared to the dangers on Remnant, with Word of God indicating not even curses are able to get through Aura. Yang in particular was only left weakened due to intentionally draining her own Aura in her attempt to awaken Robert's, a circumstance that's unlikely to repeat itself now that RWBY confirmed awakening Aura on Planetos won't work.
    • Zig-Zagged in regards to poison. When Yang is poisoned, she's unable to shrug it off and is forced to sleep through the worst of the effects as her Aura flushes the poison out of her system. That said, considering the poison was explicitly designed with killing RWBY in mind, and is made to be so acidic upon contact with stomach acid that it can melt metal, the fact that Yang was back in fighting shape in just half a day means that poison might as well be useless at its intended role in killing them.
    • Played straight with the Lannisters. Their wealth, closeness to the throne, and Cult of Personality under Tywin has led to many in the Seven Kingdoms, lord and smallfolk alike, seeing them as untouchable. Once Team RWBY enters the scene, they start shattering that belief by being so strong that not even the Lannisters can cow into submission. This causes everyone else to realize that the Lannisters are naught but flesh and blood like anyone else. Combined with Team RWBY's active defiance of them, it leads to even the smallfolk openly sneering down the likes of Tywin when no one would ever think of such a thing beforehand. Even Tywin's been made aware that the aura of invincibility he's worked so long to cultivate has been thoroughly shattered by Team RWBY's actions, and he's just as much motivated by desperation to maintain what little he has left.
  • Not So Stoic: Chapter 15 gives us a few after the Battle of the Maidens, as a number of usually controlled nobles like Varys and Baelish are barely able to hold themselves together and lose their stoic composure once they're alone. Sandor Clegane is hit worse with this, as the Hound, who had previously been willing to antagonize Team RWBY if needed, is shown to be outright shaking in fear after seeing the full scale of their powers and strength - particularly Yang and her fire.
  • Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Despite Varys's proclamations that he serves the realm and is trying to put a stop to those he sees as evil witches, his actions constantly run counter to his stated goals and highlight that he's little more than a self-righteous jerk who wants the world to work the way he desires it to. Upon his capture, Team RWBY even point out that with all his knowledge and resources, he could've done as he claimed and made the Seven Kingdoms a better place to live, yet never did because it didn't truly matter to him.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: We don't actually see Team RWBY's full defeat over the Others, we simply see them fight a group of Wights and the Other commanding those zombies, beating them with ease, before the prologue ends with them hearing the sound of more White Walkers coming for them. The next scene has several members of the Night Watch coming across the four girls at a campfire, where Ruby explains in rapid fire fashion that they simply kept killing the Others and their Wights as they kept coming until the Night King himself got involved, at which point they killed him too, which wiped out all of Others as a result.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Ned and Catelyn's response when Arya and Jon tell them that they discovered that Yang isn't a bastard like the Starks had assumed. Justified, given that this is the sort of mistake that can cause blood feuds in Westeros, never mind that the members of Team RWBY are capable of tearing apart Winterfell with their bare hands. Ned actually prays to the gods in relief after confirming that Yang isn't offended by the misunderstanding.
    • While he's able to hide it well, this is Tywin's reaction once he gets to King's Landing and sees the abilities of Team RWBY for himself, including the fact that they are indeed as capable as the stories have claimed.
    • This is RWBY's reaction when they see one of the wildfire caches has gone off, threatening to burn down all of King's Landing.
    • Baelish hides it well, but he's clearly discomfited in Chapter 35 when Varys claims the beer that poisoned Yang came from a brothel he owns, knowing that he'll be in trouble if the building's ownership is connected to him. He's also barely able to hide his alarm when his attempt to cover his tracks by burning down the building is foiled by Team RWBY before it can even start.
    • Varys is terrified when he turns on a lantern during his attempt to flee King's Landing through the secret tunnels, only to find Blake standing right there waiting for him.
  • One-Man Army: Due to Planetos lacking Aura, Team RWBY's own powers and abilities turn them into this both individually and collectively. Everyone who sees them in action quickly realizes that they could easily defeat any army that could be mustered against just one of them, all four working together would easily take on multiple armies and win. The White Walkers learned this fact the hard way, as not even the army of the dead they had already started to gather was enough to even slightly hinder them.
  • Only Sane Man:
    • From Chapter 15, of all the nobles and players in the Game of Thrones who begin plotting and scheming to either manipulate Team RWBY or remove them from the board, Grand Maester Pycellenote  is the only one to realize that the simplest and safest solution to the threat Team RWBY poses is to simply help them get back home. Once they're back on Remnant, their influence on the political landscape of Planetos will vanish and in the meantime, anyone who does help RWBY in their search to go home will gain the favor of the four warrior women who can tear apart armies.
    • Similarly in Chapter 15, Tyrion considers himself to be the only one among his family with a working survival instinct after watching the Battle of the Maidens, with Cersei clearly learning nothing about why constantly antagonizing Team RWBY is a suicidally stupid idea, as he realizes that while the four girls have been impossibly kind given their strength and power, they've also displayed that their patience and limits are not infinite. Furthermore, he considers what will happen when his father Tywin inevitably tries to meet Team RWBY directly, and how his own actions and attitudes will inevitably clash with the four girls in a way that cannot possibly end well for the Lannisters. Tyrion's left considering all the possible options to keep his family from destroying themselves in their own prideful stupidity.
      • Jaime Lannister adds himself to the list in chapter 20, with him growing increasingly exasperated at his sister's delusional beliefs that Team RWBY poisoned the King and plan to destroy the Lannister dynasty. He points out that they wouldn't need to poison the King or rely on any sort of convoluted schemes to ruin the Lannisters when they have the power to wipe them out directly. Unfortunately, he loses this condition three chapters later along with his life, when he demands a Trial by Combat against Ruby in a hare-brained scheme that amounts to taking himself hostage to force Ruby to recant her accusations - which ends with him being literally bisected.
    • Cersei's own ladies-in-waiting get a moment of this. While they publicly followed their Queen's lead in social interactions, Chapter 22 has them privately lament how foolish her constant antagonism of Team RWBY is, with one wishing she had taken the chance to try and befriend the four most powerful girls on the planet as opposed to insulting them at every opportunity.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
    • In Chapter 27, once he sees what RWBY is capable of, Tywin's demeanor becomes much less confrontational with them, in contrast to how he normally acts with everyone else. It's even shown directly in his official meeting with the four girls, where he openly berates Tyrion for insulting Cersei, but is much calmer when talking to the girls, even though they're the ones responsible for Cersei's fate in the first place. Weiss even states in the aftermath that the meeting went much better than she had expected, given his reputation.
    • In Chapter 34, quite a few members of the Small Council show uncharacteristic behavior in the aftermath of wildfire nearly burning down King's Landing. Ned is more openly angry and accusatory, Renly similarly loses his smug demeanor in favor of anger as well, and Baelish is slightly more open with snark than his usual false attempts at politeness. While Varys retains the same air of calmness, the events also prompt him to attempt to more openly spy on Team RWBY than he had previously been willing to. All of this displays just how rattled they are by the Wildfire situation.
  • Out-Gambitted:
    • In Chapter 35, when one of his brothels is pegged by Varys as being where the beer that poisoned Yang came from, Baelish immediately takes steps to ensure that the brothel's ownership can't be traced back to him. Unfortunately for him, RWBY is already aware that he owns the brothel in question and immediately take action to ensure he can't cover his connections up. Blake shadows Littlefinger and then his thugs that he hired to burn down the brothel and kill everyone who would know anything, with the Faunus immediately capturing them before they can even begin their plan. Meanwhile, the other three members of Team RWBY rush ahead of the rest of the royal raiding party to ensure the brothel staff can't be tipped off, with Weiss using her Glyphs to block off all the entrances while Yang and Ruby ensure that no one has a chance to burn any documents or escape through a hidden passage.
    • In Chapter 37, Varys' attempts to flee from King's Landing are brought to a screeching halt since Team RWBY anticipated he would do this. Thus, Blake is already in the tunnels when he tries to run, and she quickly catches him before he can escape.
    • In Chapter 47, Tyrion is able to turn Team RWBY's own morals and standards against them, as he all but admits that he poisoned his father Tywin but also destroyed all proof of his actual crime, meaning that the girls only have circumstantial evidence of his guilt that they can't use to trial him if they don't want to act like hypocrites.
  • Outside-Context Problem: Team RWBY are this for the entirety of Westeros, highlighted most prominently in the prologue when they easily wipe out the Others and the White Walkers when they wouldn't leave them alone. The rest of Westeros quickly realizes how much of a game-changer the four girls truly are, noting that they could take down entire armies by themselves, with various nobles plotting ways to get the four of them on their side.
  • Outside-Genre Foe: Team RWBY comes from a high fantasy world with advanced technology compared to the more realistic low fantasy world of Westeros, which is in a medieval stasis.
  • Paper Tiger: Cersei is cemented as this in chapter 20, as when she orders Team RWBY to be arrested in the aftermath of Robert's death, not a single person moves to follow her order, nor defend her when a grieving and angered Yang advances on her. It's highlighted further when Weiss demands that the Queen be removed from the chambers under the pretense of being 'mad with grief', Cersei's remaining ladies-in-waiting follow Weiss' orders without a second of hesitation, showing that the Westerosi are much more willing to suffer the wrath of their Queen than daring to suffer RWBY's own wrath.
    • Tywin as well. None of his usual methods with dealing with people he hates will work on Team RWBY. They cannot be bribed, Tywin does not remotely intimidate them, and he has no way of killing them.
  • Powerful and Helpless: Team RWBY are all Invincible Heroes in Westeros. They are also appalled by the realm's social conditions and have no direct way of changing any of it short of comparatively limited shows of force, being tolerated by the King for their power and beauty rather than being directly backed by the system. That said, Maester Kennet's snippets reveal that their actions do influence the Seven Kingdoms' future in a more positive way.
  • Pragmatic Hero: This and Pragmatic Villainy are on full display in the story.
    • On the heroic side, Team RWBY quickly get frustrated with Westeros' cultural values, which are far behind what they're used to back on Remnant. However, they understand that lashing out at the medieval environment would just make trying to get back home even harder than it already is, so they try their best to tolerate and navigate it in order to gain help from the people of Westeros in their plight.
    • On the villain side, the amoral nobles find it grating how Team RWBY defies all social and political norms that they both live by and enforce. At the same time, they also understand that pissing off the four warrior women who can effortlessly demolish armies is the height of stupidity. They make it a point to cater to the four while still trying to manipulate them, knowing how valuable having even just one of Team RWBY on their side would be.
    • In order to keep him from continuing to find a way to kill someone in Team RWBY and ruin their house, Tyrion poisons his father.
  • Precocious Crush: Downplayed since their age gaps aren't that wide, but both Robb and Jon end up developing crushes on the slightly older Ruby and Yang. Unfortunately for them, neither of the sisters reciprocate their feelings, seeing the two boys as friends and nothing more.
  • Pretender Diss: In Chapter 34, when Varys steps up his attempts to actively spy on her, Blake simply finds his effort to be pitiful. Compared to what she's had to deal with on Remnant, including dealing with Atlas security measures like drones and cameras, she considers spotting and evading his little birds to be child's play by comparison.
  • Properly Paranoid:
    • The four members of Team RWBY make sure to store their weapons in the ceiling rafters of their quarters with chains and booby trap their other possessions when they're not in their room, with Ruby setting a paint bomb that would mark a thief in paint. This pays off when a thief breaks into their room and tries to steal their weapons, later fleeing with only their Scrolls once he can't get them down but is easily tracked as a result of being covered in paint.
    • Knowing that he would be a prime suspect in the event of a poisoning due to his own knowledge and frequent usage of poisons, Oberyn made a point to eat from the exact same food and drink as King Robert. Thus, when the King is poisoned, Oberyn's allowed to help investigate the cause instead of being considered as a prime suspect.
    • Upon hearing Blake's testimony of how she saw Cersei and Jaime in bed together, Baelish starts posting guards on the rooftops of his brothels and closing the drapes of his office windows to prevent her from spying on him. It's downplayed however, in that this only serves as a minor inconvenience, as Blake is easily able to evade his sentries due to her skills and natural night vision, and can still listen in to his conversations with her enhanced hearing.
    • A two-for-one example in Chapter 37. When one of the guards calls for Varys because the Regent wants to talk to him, Varys correctly deduces that he's likely going to be arrested. Thus he makes an excuse to put something in his office to safety before fleeing into the hidden tunnels around King's Landing. On the flip side, Team RWBY expected he would do exactly that, so when Varys predictably flees, Blake is already in the tunnels waiting for him and ensures he can't get away.
  • Psychological Projection:
    • The main issues that most of the nobility and royalty have when dealing with Team RWBY, as they assume that the way they think is how the four girls would also think, and are repeatedly confounded when that's not the case. In particular, quite a few don't grasp that RWBY are completely honest about their intentions, that all they want is to go back home and that they have no interest in any political power on Westeros, because being completely forthright like that is anathema in the Game of Thrones. Cersei is one of the most obvious victims of this fallacy, but more level-headed nobles like Margaery Tyrell also question why RWBY would turn down political marriages without grasping why they have no interest in them.
      • Baelish sees them as easily manipulable due to being received by and learned about Westeros from Ned Stark and thus basing their behavior on his own views on honor. In fact, their personalities and sense of justice were already perfectly defined before ever meeting Ned, and Baelish's view is a consequence of his own history and sexism.
      • Surprisingly, it's Varys who has the worst case of this, as between his childhood trauma dealing with magic and his long years as Westeros' premier spymaster, he comes to all the wrong conclusions regarding Team RWBY. Besides believing that they're witches who sacrificed thousands to gain their power, he refuses to consider the possibility that their goals are what they say they are, believing they must have some sort of secret agenda and plot to conquer the realm, because it's the exact kind of thing he would do, and being completely flummoxed by the fact that they haven't just taken control of the kingdom and seized power for themselves, unable to comprehend that seizing power in Westeros is the last thing Team RWBY wants.
    • One of the reasons for Blake's defense of Varys' "little birds" after they're captured during their attempt to free Varys is that she's comparing their situation with the one she was in back when she was in the White Fang with Adam.
  • The Quiet One: As in canon, Blake is the quietest member of Team RWBY, only interacting with a few members of the nobility of Westeros on a regular basis in contrast to the others. This works to her advantage, as compared to the boisterous Yang, the hyperactive Ruby, and the graceful Weiss, she doesn't draw nearly as much attention from the Westerosi compared to the other three, which when combined with her Faunus attributes (which she keeps hidden) like her heightened sense of hearing, allows her to spy on the various nobles and royals without them ever realizing it.
  • Rage Breaking Point: Very nearly averted. A grieving Yang activates her semblance after Cersei accuses her of killing the King, to which Yang nearly kills her for it, only calming down by Ruby.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Ser Barristan is well-respected by everyone due to his kind but firm nature, his portraying the ideal of the Knight in Shining Armor (as much as a Kingsguard can, anyway), his skill with weapons, and his willingness to provide wise counsel if asked. He is also willing to knight the first members of the RWBY Order when they ask him for support.
  • Red Baron:
    • The girls eventually gain the moniker of "The Four Maidens", especially from those who follow The Faith of the Seven.
    • Jon Snow earns the moniker of "The Wolf Knight" after he and Ghost unmask and defeat a Faceless Man.
  • Reluctant Ruler: Whether they want to admit it or not, Team RWBY is accruing immense amounts of soft power over Lord Stark and his household, the tattered remains of the Royal Family, and the Faith.
  • The Resenter: Many nobles have taken this trait as RWBY gets more involved in the politics of the Realm, meaning that they have to compromise with the four girls in order to actually do anything. Even nobles nominally on their side like Renly have become frustrated the more they have to cater to the wishes of Team RWBY in regards to punishing criminals, rather than just act as they normally would.
  • Revealing Cover-Up: When Varys points at a brothel owned by Littlefinger as the source of the spiked beer served to the men moving wildfire to a safe place, Littlefinger quickly sends a number of thugs to burn down the place before it can be linked to him. When Team RWBY foils the attempt and captures Littlefinger's people, he knows the gig's up. Not that he has much time to reflect on it.
  • Revenge Before Reason: Tywin wants revenge on Team RWBY for Jaime's death and Cersei's disgrace despite the fact that it has been made abundantly clear that they cannot be beaten by any means he or anyone else in Westeros has at their disposal and that picking a fight with them, as Tyrion notes, will end in utter disaster for the Lannisters. In addition, Team RWBY went out of their way to ensure that Jaime and Cersei's lives would be spared, and it was Cersei's pride and arrogance that got Jaime killed.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons: Those of the Faith who believe that RWBY's powers are divinely blessed (Chapter 41 reveals this includes Ser Barristan, who also knows that the girls come from another world and thus implicitly includes Huntsmen and Huntresses in general for that category) aren't technically wrong in that belief. However, the Aura and Semblances of RWBY (and Remnant humanity in general) are actually the result of Remnant's own Brother Gods granting their creations that latent power, not distinct blessings from the Seven Who Are One as Westeros believes.
  • Ruder and Cruder: Team RWBY uses noticeably fouler language compared to their home series.
  • Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: After the Battle of the Maidens, several of Cersei's ladies-in-waiting have outright abandoned her, implicitly terrified of Team RWBY's abilities and the fact that Cersei has been doing nothing but insulting and demeaning them since they met.
  • Secret Secret-Keeper: All of Team RWBY learn about Cersei and Jaime's incestuous affair thanks to Blake catching them sleeping together in the old tower. After some reasoning, they agree to keep the secret to themselves for a couple of important reasons: the biggest one is that they absolutely have no concrete proof of the incest taking place, and if they did speak up about it, It would be the words of four foreign girls against the queen of Westeros herself, which would give Cersei an excuse to openly condemn and persecute them. The second reason is that they're worried about the potential consequences Cersei and the royal children could face if the truth came to light (with the possibility of them getting executed being very high) and how such actions could make the girls enemies for life with all the members of the Queen's family, since House Lannister is noted to be one of the wealthiest and most influential house in all of Westeros. They also knew that Cersei would take drastic measures to ensure that RWBY can't reveal the affair if she knew that the girls had found out about it.
  • Selective Obliviousness:
    • Cersei's entire attitude towards Team RWBY in a nutshell. Despite the fact that they have zero interest in Westerosi politics or power, she refuses to believe it and insists that they want to get close to the Iron Throne. In fact, because they are everything she isn't (which she's highly aware of), she actively interprets everything they do as an insult or threat against her person. As far as she sees and cares, their very existence is a massive insult to her that she refuses to abide, and she tunes out any evidence to the contrary no matter how blatant it is. It only gets worse after the Battle of the Maidens, with Cersei getting increasingly delusional by seeing everything RWBY has done as a plot to seize power and spite her specifically. Furthermore, despite witnessing the Battle of the Maidens, Cersei is still under the belief that the four girls can actually be beaten in a physical fight, with Word of God confirming that she genuinely thought Jaime would be able to beat Ruby in a Trial by Combat, a notion even Jaime himself knew was completely delusional and why his plan was to exploit Ruby's idealism in order to get the accusations against them withdrawn, not that it saves him.
    • Varys's attitude towards Team RWBY fits the bill as well. After seeing the full extent of their powers during the Battle of the Maidens, a combination of his own traumatic experience with magic as a child and years as the Master of Whispers has led him to believe that the girls are all dark witches from lands beyond Essos who must have sacrificed thousands of lives to gain the abilities they have, and he completely tunes out all evidence that say otherwise, no matter what. Even after he's been poisoned and on his deathbed, he still holds onto his convictions, much to Team RWBY's exasperation.
    • Tywin, being a noble who keeps scheming and plotting to deal with any threats to his power, either real or imaginary, chooses to ignore any evidence that Team RWBY is exactly what they claim to be and holds tight to the idea that they must be plotting to take power, interpreting everything they do through the lens of his paranoia.
  • Self-Disposing Villain: Joffrey ends up killing himself in Chapter 30 by trying to use Weiss's Dust to give himself Aura and a Semblance, with the state of his corpse heavily implying he swallowed the stuff and it exploded inside him.
  • Self-Made Orphan: Tyrion kills his father via poison to keep him from destroying House Lannister by trying to kill Team RWBY.
  • Shipper on Deck: Early on, Arya encourages Jon to pursue Yang, partially in the hope that a marriage between them will keep the former from joining the Night Watch, but also because she sees how Jon is clearly infatuated with Yang and wrongly believes that Yang herself feels the same about him.
  • Shipper with an Agenda: Aside from wanting to keep Jon from joining the Night's Watch so he doesn't leave home for good, it's implied that another reason for Arya shipping him and Yang is because she wants to have the latter as her sister-in-law. As Yang's an Action Girl who encourages Arya's own love for fighting, all while being a Cool Big Sis, she's everything the youngest Stark daughter wanted in an older sister, and everything she never got with Sansa.
  • Ship Sinking: While it's made clear early on that Robb quickly falls for Ruby and Jon falls for Yang, both hoping to potentially marry the two, if at all possible, scenes from the perspective of the two sisters make it clear that the feelings are not reciprocated, with Ruby outright freaking out at the mere idea of Robb proposing to her. While Yang is more composed about it and doesn't mind flirting a bit, her viewpoints make it clear that she only sees Jon as a friend and has no romantic interest in him, with her making it clear in Chapter 26 that if Jon asked her to marry him, she would say no. The fact that the four girls intend to find their way back home to Remnant (and as shown by the future documents, they do eventually succeed) means that any long-term romance prospects between them and anyone on Westeros is doomed to fail from the start.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Varys starts decrying all his fellow nobles for being either fools or otherwise far viler than they pretend to be, Ruby immediately counters that he's no better, pointing out that if he knew all of their sins, he could have actually done something about it as opposed to using it for his own plotting and scheming.
  • Simple Solution Won't Work: After learning the Faceless Men are targeting them, Team RWBY considers the possibility of going to Braavos and tell them to stop attacking them, but they have the problem that they can't all go there since the peace in King's Landing currently relies on their presence, and splitting up isn't a good idea either since it would mean losing whoever's going there for several weeks at best.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: Averted hard with Team RWBY, who firmly insist do not blame people for the sins of others. This is in contrast to Westeros, whom widely holds to this trope.
  • Skeptic No Longer: Discussed in Chapter 39. During a conversation with Melisandre, Weiss says that magic on Remnant was believed to be nothing more than fairy tales, with everything else being a product of Aura, Semblances or Dust. When the Red Priestess points out that she doesn't sound so confident about that belief any more, Weiss admits that she isn't. As between Westeros proving that magic is real and whatever artifact that sent RWBY there in the first place clearly being beyond any Semblance they know of, she's open to the possibility that Remnant may not be as lacking in magic as they had previously believed.
  • Skewed Priorities: In Chapter 34, to RWBY's frustration, several members of the Small Council prioritize playing political games over making sure the danger of King's Landing being burned to the ground by Wildfire is dealt with. The girls have to interject more than once to remind everyone that they all need to cooperate and work together to ensure the threat is dealt with.
  • Smug Super: Team RWBY goes to an effort to avert this trope, sparring amongst themselves regularly to keep their skills sharp, hiding some of their Semblances in case they need an ace in the hole, and keeping on the lookout for other methods of attack like poisoning, all to remind themselves that they're not invincible. With that said, they do indulge in this behavior on occasion, which is justified given how misogynistic Westerosi society is, as it's the most effective way to ensure that people take them seriously.
    The Hound: Coulda cut you, crazy girl.
    Blake: No, you couldn't.
  • Spanner in the Works: Team RWBY's mere existence upends a great many plans from various players across Westeros, from Melisandre and Bloodraven having their life-long preparations for the Others being rendered completely defunct by the team's unexpected arrival and subsequent killing of the White Walkers, to Varys realizing that his own web of machinations and preparations are in danger of being utterly undone by the fact that none of his prepared armies have a chance in Hell at winning against the four girls in open combat.
  • Spared by the Adaptation:
    • Will, Gared, and Ser Waymar Royce of the Night's Watch are the ones who discover Team RWBY after they wiped out the Others. As a result, Will and Waymar aren't killed by the Wights, and Gared doesn't flee and get executed by Ned as a deserter.
    • Because the altercation between Arya and Joffrey never takes place, Mycah and Lady both live.
    • Oberyn isn't killed by the Mountain That Rides due to Blake killing Clegane in a Trial by Combat instead.
    • Since Ned has Team RWBY, Stannis, and Renly on his side, his arrest of Cersei goes smoothly instead of him getting betrayed and executed.
    • Since Cersei has been unable to take control of King's Landing, Robert's bastard children in the city are still alive.
  • Spotting the Thread:
    • After hearing the stories of the Great War and how it was fought over freedom of expression, Tyrion deduces that it means that Team RWBY are free to choose their own marriages and aren't beholden to family-oriented betrothals like Westeros is.
    • By Chapter 17, Team RWBY are starting to catch on to the fact that Joffrey is not nearly as innocent as he makes himself out to be, with Blake acknowledging that his glee regarding Yang killing the knight she kicked in the balls was extremely sadistic, as was his glee in seeing the Mountain get beaten. She acknowledges that Sandor Clegane and Prince Oberyn have genuine reasons to want the Mountain to suffer, but by contrast, Joffrey just seems interested in his suffering for its own sake.
    • In Chapter 47 Weiss and Blake quickly spot the holes in Tyrion's story regarding Tywin's death. The former by realizing how convenient it was that Tyrion had the right antidote for the poison on hand, let alone correctly guessing which poison was being used in time to take it. The latter notes how Tywin's body is in a position that doesn't match the idea that Tyrion openly took the antidote in front of him, reasoning that he would likely have tried to grab for it if events had played out like Tyrion said. As a result, both conclude that Tyrion was actually the one to poison Tywin and took the antidote ahead of time to protect himself.
  • Stalker Without a Crush: Joffrey keeps showing up whenever Team RWBY fights - because he wants to learn how to get the same powers as them.
  • Start My Own: Team RWBY starts its own knight order, the RWBY (or Ruby) Order, so that there will be someone willing to act on their ideals of justice and equality once they're gone.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: The common attitude regarding women among Westeros. While there are examples of women warriors in Westeros' history, most men and even some women consider their true place in society to be this. Quite a bit of tension with Team RWBY is the fact that they defy this attitude as Huntresses and no one is capable of stopping them thanks to the sheer gap in strength and power they possess compared to everyone else.
  • Straw Misogynist: Lord Baelish doesn't have the highest opinion of women, much less younger ones like Team RWBY. When exploring his thoughts after the Battle of the Maidens, he thinks Ned Stark instilled in them his version of honor, and that they would be easily manipulable and bent to his purposes with minimal persuasion after some time in King's Landing, though a good part of this is purely Psychological Projection to allay his own fears after seeing the kind of power the girls can exert.
  • Stepford Smiler: Justified. Yang is attempting to act like her usual cheery, joking self to cope with having inadvertently killed someone. Ruby notes this.
    Yang was trying to act normal, but Ruby could tell that she was still worked up. The smirk was just a bit off, and she sounded a bit forced - a shade too loud.
  • Suicidal Overconfidence: A variant. When Jaime demands a Trial by Combat against Ruby, he is under no delusions that he actually has a chance of beating her in a straight fight. Instead, he intends to exploit how merciful the four girls have been by effectively holding himself hostage, giving her the choice of either killing him, or withdrawing the accusations against him and Cersei. It qualifies as this trope because Jaime genuinely thought Ruby would actually back down, despite knowing that Blake had already killed the Mountain in similar circumstances that he was a witness to, showing that while RWBY may not enjoy killing, that won't stop them from doing it if the situation requires it. This proves to be a fatal miscalculation.
  • Super-Senses: Like every other Faunus from Remnant, Blake's senses are much sharper compared to those of humans, granting her advantages like natural night vision and an acute sense of smell. In particular, the set of cat ears she keeps hidden under her bow greatly enhance her sense of hearing, allowing her to eavesdrop on other characters without being noticed. Needless to say, Blake makes ample usage of them during the stay in Westeros, by spying on various nobles and gather vital information for herself and her own team.
  • Sure, Let's Go with That: When Gendry guesses that Ruby's hesitation during Jaime's Trial by Combat was to allow him to confess his sins before cutting him down, Yang decides to roll with the idea despite knowing Ruby's hesitation was because she genuinely didn't want to kill him until he forced her hand, to keep anyone else from thinking they can exploit Ruby's idealism by using hostages against them.
  • Tampering with Food and Drink:
    • Cersei does this with Robert's cup, killing him. Her attempt to frame Team RWBY utterly fails, though.
    • Varys does this several times.
      • He poisons the alcohol sent to Maester Mott with something that, on contact with stomach acid, turns into something strong enough to melt through metal. Yang is the only one affected, but her Aura is strong enough that the worst she gets is pain similar to cramps as her body fights off the acid.
      • He then spikes the weak beer given to the people working on finding and taking the wildfire away for disposal with hard liquor. Yang just barely avoids a disaster when some of the workers are too tipsy to do the work properly, and when she finds out the cause she gets ready to find the responsible person and have a few blunt words with them.
      • Going for the treble, he adds Strangler poison to a bottle of wine in Littlefinger's office, poisoning him when he takes a glass as he tries to deal with the fact that his plans are blowing up in his hands.
    • Varys ends up becoming the victim of this after Pycelle poisons his prison food with heavy metal, banking on the guards that would taste his food taking turns, as well as eating only a little of it, not suffering issues while Varys ends up taking most of the poison.
  • Technology Uplift: Downplayed, as the gap between Westeros and Remnant is so vast, combined with the fact that Westeros lacks materials like Dust that Remnant possesses in abundance, means that Team RWBY couldn't jumpstart a technological revolution on Planetos even if they wanted to. That said, they are willing to give what little knowledge they do possess that the Maesters could use, specifically when it comes to making their own weapons, something the blacksmiths in particular are noted to be interested in. They also end up introducing the bicycle to Planetos after Weiss tells the royal children stories of her grandmother's bike Stardust, with the future excerpt of Chapter 33 implicitly confirming that they ended up revolutionizing transportation as a result.
  • Theory Tunnel Vision: Varys becomes utterly convinced that Team RWBY are all witches who have sacrificed thousands of people to acquire their powers and seek to take power in Westeros, and filters everything he sees or hears about them through that lens, no matter what proof that contradicts this he receives. Even when he lays dying from being poisoned, he keeps telling Team RWBY they don't need to keep pretending, still unwilling to accept that they are honest about their intentions.
  • These Hands Have Killed: Yang is horrified that she unintentionally killed the Riverlander knight that insulted and tried to assault her.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Tyrion upon realizing that not only has Cersei learned nothing about antagonizing Team RWBY in the aftermath of the Battle of the Maidens, but also that when Tywin inevitably shows up to meet Team RWBY, his attitude is very quickly going to clash with the four girls in a way that won't end well for the Lannisters. Tyrion quickly finds himself needing more wine with the realization that he'll have his hands full trying to keep his family from making enemies of the four girls who can tear apart armies.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Mostly averted, as even those who dislike and plot against Team RWBY are smart enough to realize that directly antagonizing four girls capable of taking swords to the face without a scratch and shattering stone with their bare hands is a suicidally stupid idea. However, there are a few that play this straight.
    • Cersei snidely insults any of the four girls within her vicinity in pretty much every single scene they share, with Weiss and Ruby in particular being her usual targets. Then after Robert is poisoned, she immediately accuses Yang of killing him, even though she was trying to save his life in full view of everyone. The only reason she even lives after a grief stricken and angry Yang nearly goes for her is because Ruby calmed her down.
    • The drunken Riverlander Knight that accosts Yang in the lead up to the Tourney also qualifies, as he not only calls her a whore, but despite being tossed around like a ragdoll and warned what would happen if he called her that again, he proceeds to do just that while also trying to attack her. Yang responds by kicking him in the balls so hard that he goes flying. He later dies a slow and painful death, much to Yang's horror.
    • Despite managing to avert this for so long, Joffrey eventually plays this trope straight when he has a cut-purse steal a vial of Dust from Weiss and attempts to use it to give himself Aura and a Semblance. This despite being warned repeatedly that Dust is extremely volatile if you don't know how to use it properly. It's left unclear what exactly he did (the implication is that he swallowed it), but the end result destroys his quarters and leaves Joffrey himself in pieces, with only his face being intact enough to identify his corpse.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Subverted. Joffrey refrains from a number of his more reprehensible behaviors in canon, but it's mainly because he's aware that he has no leverage against Team RWBY and realizes that they wouldn't take his actions kindly if he were to indulge in them.
  • Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: After spending multiple scenes in previous chapters shamelessly flirting with various characters, leaving most of the Westerosi in question feeling incredibly flustered, Yang quickly realizes she bit off more than she can chew upon trying to match Oberyn and Ellaria in that regard, only to find they can take her flirting and dish it out even better than she can.
  • Torture Always Works: Discussed in chapter 20. The nobility of Westeros certainly thinks that torturing the kitchen staff will allow them to figure out how Robert was poisoned, but besides opposing it for moral reasons, Blake also points out the unreliability of torture, that people will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say in order to get the pain to stop.
  • Tranquil Fury: When Cersei attempts to accuse Team RWBY of poisoning the king right after Yang tried to save him, Yang activates her Semblance and marches up to her in a restrained fashion, never raising her voice even when she's able to punch Cersei's head off.
  • Trapped in Another World: The basic premise of the story: Team RWBY circa Volume 2 was called upon to clear out some Grimm around a number of archeological ruins, but when Ruby touched an artifact she found there, it transported her and her team to Westeros, with none of them having any clue on how to get back home to Remnant.
  • True Companions: As in canon, Team RWBY are this to each other. It proves to be one of their biggest advantages when dealing with the politics of the Game of Thrones as the various scheming nobles have no way to turn the four girls against each other. Most quickly realize this fact and don't bother to try, and the one who believes otherwise (Varys) quickly finds his attempts falling flat and just leaving them confused at his attempted manipulation tactics.
  • Übermensch: Per the story summary, this is more or less the main struggle Team RWBY faces while in Westeros, as nothing is capable of physically threatening them. While they actively try to defy this trope, with how frustrating the antiquated feudal system of Westeros is, how the individual players of said system actively wants them to either conform to their standards or serve their own ends, coupled with the sheer power gap, they're often presented with the temptation to just bulldoze their way through any and all opposition while forcing their morals on any stuck-up nobles that try to oppose them. But, as Team RWBY understand, it would be the wrong thing to do while also being actively detrimental to their own chances of finding a way back home, since for all of their power, they're still stranded on a completely different world they know almost nothing about, and as result, have to rely on help of the locals to find traces of a way back to Remnant.
  • Underestimating Badassery:
    • A common reaction most people in Westeros have to meeting the four members of Team RWBY, which is usually disabused very quickly once they display what they can do.
    • Cersei is the worst case of this throughout the fic, and unlike other nobles, she never learns her lesson. Even after witnessing what Team RWBY can do, she deludes herself into thinking it's all tricks and that she can do something against them, as to accept otherwise would mean admitting that she'll never win. She even genuinly thinks her brother can take them in a fight despite the fact that, arrogant as Jaime is, even he knows fighting them is a doomed endeavor regardless of skill.
    • Even after Team RWBY proves that they're not to be taken lightly as physical threats, the nobles of Westeros still often dismiss them as childish and naive, thinking that they can be easily outsmarted. Unfortunately for them, Team RWBY frequently proves to be far smarter and savvier than they realize, leading to the downfall of many players in the Game of Thrones.
  • Unequal Rites: It is theorized that for a Planetos wizard to match the power the aura provides to the inhabitants of Remnant, they would need to sacrifice the souls of at least thousands of living beings compared to the inhabitants of Remnant where any living being is able to unlock the aura through training, stress or by another aura user.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: Team RWBY all go to great lengths to minimize the punishment Cersei and Jaime would've received for their treasonous affair, even managing to make it so that neither of them would be executed, with Jaime sent for the Wall and Cersei to the Silent Sisters. Their response? Start up a Trial by Combat in an effort to not only escape punishment altogether, but force one of Team RWBY into a position where they have to kill someone (which they know they're averse to) in order to end it. Cersei being so ungrateful is more or less her whole shtick, but Jaime's lack of gratitude for the reduced punishment catches them off-guard.
  • Unskilled, but Strong: Heavily downplayed. While the four members of Team RWBY are more than capable of taking on the Kingsguard mainly due to the sheer power gap between them, they are still well trained in their own right. That said, Ser Barristan notes that they lack the sheer decades of technical experience the Kingsguard have when it comes to swordfighting, something Weiss herself acknowledges, sparring with Ser Barristan to get some pointers for her own fighting style.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The Battle of the Maidens ends up setting off a riot starting in the Great Sept, because the septons disagreed on whether Team RWBY are blessed by the Seven or evil witches.
  • Vengeance Denied: After Blake kills the Mountain, Oberyn Martell and Sandor get slightly upset that they didn't get to kill him themselves. Oberyn at least takes solace in the fact that the Mountain is dead, only mildly disappointed that he didn't get to do the deed himself.
  • Villain Has a Point:
    • Tywin is certainly far from the most altruistic lord in Westeros, but his observation about more unscrupulous elements of Remnant potentially posing a danger to the Seven Kingdoms if RWBY returns home is a legitimate concern. The girls have discussed such possibilities themselves, knowing that groups like bandits, the White Fang, or the SDC would be more than willing to exploit and terrorize the people of Planetos if they found their way there, never mind how helpless the Kingdoms of Planetos would be if any amount of Grimm managed to make it to their world.
    • While he's obviously just covering his own ass, when the Small Council takes him to task over missing the Mad King's Wildfire plot to burn down King's Landing, Varys counters that so did everyone else. Furthermore, it took the presence of the superpowered members of Team RWBY to actually find the hidden Wildfire caches, something that no one can really argue. It is downplayed in that this does put him on thin ice, as the Council and RWBY aren't particularly impressed by his excuses when this is the kind of thing that is supposed to be his job to uncover.
  • Villainous Breakdown:
    • In Chapter 21, Cersei... doesn't come quietly once she's arrested for incest and adultery. She spends the entire time ranting and raving that RWBY intends to kill her in between demanding that someone set her free. Blake finds her hearing pained upon having to be in the vicinity of her constant shrieking.
    • Happens again with Cersei in Chapter 23, where hers and Jaime's planned Trial by Combat between him and Ruby ends with the former's death. All she can do is keep screaming and wailing his name after he's hacked apart in an instant.
  • Villain Takes an Interest:
    • Prince Joffrey quickly becomes curious about Team RWBY and their abilities once he sees them in action, observing their training and asking pointed questions about how their abilities and Dust actually work, clearly with the implicit hope of being able to gain their power for himself.
    • While not quite as villainous a character as some of the other characters, Melisandre comes to King's Landing to meet Team RWBY upon getting a vision of their arrival having destroyed the Others.
  • Virtue Is Weakness: A common viewpoint from the Westerosi upon meeting RWBY and seeing how kindhearted and merciful they are, thinking that their respect for life and dislike of killing is a weakness to be exploited. Others quickly cotton to the fact that their mercy is not infinite, and that just because they dislike killing, doesn't mean they're unwilling to. This is discussed when Weiss and Tywin are giving advice for Tommen on how to rule, with Tywin encouraging Tommen to be ruthless while Weiss encourages him to be kinder. Tywin pointedly rebukes every attempt Weiss makes to encourage Tommen to be gentle, even dodging the question when she asks if Tywin would have betrayed Aerys if Aerys had treated him better.
  • Wham Episode: Chapter 19 ends with Robert dying of poison, with Yang trying and failing to unlock his Aura in an effort to save his life.
  • Wham Shot: In-Universe example. In the prologue, the four members of Team RWBY look up at the night sky to try and get their bearings after their sudden displacement... only to find a completely intact moon as opposed to Remnant's broken one. It's this sight that prompts the realization that they're on an entirely different world.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Sandor Clegane is afraid of fire, so he avoids Yang after she demonstrates her fire powers. Joffrey mocks him for this.
  • Wicked Stepmother: Cersei, as to be expected, is this to her husband's bastard children. When Team RWBY come to Robert and explain both his bastard son, Gendry, and how he might be in danger, he immediately assumes it to be the work of Cersei. He even relays to them the time she threatened to harm his daughter in the Vale, Mya Stone, should he ever bring her to King's Landing.
  • Willfully Weak: Team RWBY are constantly holding back in their sparring matches with members of the Kingsguard and other Westerosi characters, lest they kill them by accident. When Blake agrees to a Trial by Combat with the Mountain, plenty of them are shown to be surprised by how easily she's able to kill the strongest man in Westeros in a matter of seconds.
  • Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: After the Trial of the Mountain, Oberyn quickly realizes this is the winning strategy for himself and Dorne when it comes to Team RWBY. In particular, upon realizing how powerful and kind they are, he concludes that if he wants to get vengeance for the death of his kin all those years ago, the easiest solution is to sit back, do nothing, and let the Lannisters make enemies of Team RWBY, something that's inevitable with Tywin and Cersei being themselves.
  • World's Most Beautiful Woman: Downplayed, but the beauty of Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang is repeatedly commented on by the Westerosi almost as much as their physical abilities. They've drawn quite a lot of male attention and female jealousy as a result.
  • World's Strongest Woman: Members of Team RWBY are said and shown to be the four most powerful people on Planetos, with several even speculating that they're individually more powerful than any dragon.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: This is one of Team RWBY's major traits that sets them apart from the Westerosi nobles. While they're willing to kill should it be necessary, they absolutely refuse to allow any harm to come to children regardless of who they are and what they've done. It's strongly implied that, even if they were aware of just how Ax-Crazy and depraved Joffrey truly was, that still wouldn't stop them from preventing harm from coming to him due to his young age. When arguing with the nobles in regard to Varys's child spies, Team RWBY actively fights against their potential execution, citing that they can still undo his influence over them.
  • Wowing Cthulhu: The Faceless Men are complete fanatics who view killing and dying in service of their god to be all they live for, so it says something when RWBY's demonstration about how powerful they are has the potential to cause a schism amongst them, with some wanting to call off the hit on them, seeing the four girls as their God's Chosen, while others see them as little more than pretenders and still want to kill them anyway.
  • Wrong Context Magic: For the people of Westeros, everything that Team RWBY can do could only be the product of magic, but from their own perspective, there's nothing magical at all about Aura, Semblances, and Dust, it's just common stuff they can do on Remnant. This is highlighted by their meeting with Archmaester Marwyn, who insists that they must be using magic and dismisses their own direct claims to the contrary (claims backed by their own world's scholars) as an argument of semantics.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Jaime's plan in his Trial by Combat against Ruby is based on the idea that since the four girls have been incredibly merciful by Westeros standards, that means that she won't kill anyone no matter what, hence Jaime essentially taking himself hostage to force Ruby to withdraw the accusations against him lest she have to kill him. Unfortunately, while Ruby is indeed an All-Loving Hero who doesn't like killing, that doesn't mean she won't kill if the situation requires it. As Jaime finds out the hard way.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Ser Barristan gives this speech to Jon Snow in chapter 41, telling him that he's certainly worthy of becoming a Knight for the RWBY Order. In particular, he highlights how Jon's character has earned him the complete trust of the four members of Team RWBY, something very few others in the Seven Kingdoms, including Jon's own father, have managed to accomplish.
  • You Are What You Hate: For all his hatred of the people that enslaved and castrated him, Varys has no issue with his group grabbing children, mutilating them, and then brainwashing them into having slavish loyalty towards him.
  • You Have Failed Me: Implied with what happens to the thief that snuck into team RWBY quarters at Winterfell and tried to rob them of their belongings. The morning after being captured, a guard who was tasked to bring food to the prisoner finds him dead in his cell near a empty wineskin, and the captain of the guards (alongside Blake, who's eavesdropping on what happened) comes to the conclusion that he was killed by poison. It's all but stated that it was Cersei who sent the thief, and had him poisoned as a punishment for failing to steal from Team RWBY and getting caught in the process.
  • You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: This is Varys' reaction to Yang surviving his poisoning attempt in chapter 29. After commissioning a lethal poison that's designed to effectively liquify one's internal organs and is so acidic that it can melt metal, the fact that Yang not only survived, but simply complained that the worst effects felt like cramps from her period leaves the Master of Whispers utterly dumbfounded.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Heavily implied by the fact that no adult people without tongues have been found by the High Septon's agents.
  • You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Jaime is halfway through making a remark like this to Ruby during their duel before being proven dead wrong.
  • Your Magic's No Good Here: Combinated with Our Souls Are Different. The ability to unlock the aura of any living being in Remnant does not work on inhabitants of Westeros.

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