RWBY / Tropes H to K

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RWBY provides examples of the following tropes:

Tropes H

• Hailfire Peaks: The Amity Colosseum (the arena used for the Vytal Festival) randomizes the arena with two or more terrain modules, plus the neutral centre stage. RWBY's fight with ABRN, for example, got the namesake combination of Lethal Lava Land and Slippy-Slidey Ice World.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: The Grimm are often cut in half by Huntsmen. Ruby uses her scythes to cut Grimm in half, while Blake uses her blades. Coco can cut Grimm in half by using her minigun. Qrow later uses his scythe to cut a Gryphon in half, protecting Ironwood in the process.
• Heroes Love Dogs: All the girls on Team RWBY love Zwei the puppy. (Except Blake.)
• Hero of Another Story: Averted; JNPR was originally supposed to be the B-Team, but Word of God states that somewhere in production they 'became a second A-Team.'
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Losing his first love and then Summer, his second wife, caused Taiyang to suffer a bout of depression for an unknown period of time—long enough that Yang effectively had to take over in raising Ruby. Fortunately, he's recovered, and Yang doesn't resent him in the present day.
  • Yang ends up suffering one in Vol.3 Episode 8 as a result of having been made to look like she attacked Mercury Black after the match unprovoked a couple of episodes before, turning the crowd against her and getting RWBY disqualified from the tournament. She ends up resigning herself to the team dorm. Later, it becomes long-term after Adam cuts off her arm.
  • A much more extreme example is likely at the end of Ep. 9 in Vol. 3. Penny gets chopped in half and both Ruby and Pyrrha are in a state of shock.
  • Ruby herself got struck by this from Ep. 9 to the middle of Ep. 12 Vol. 3 where everything turned to chaos and a few of her friends got victimized. She has dreams in Remembrance suggesting that she is still suffering from the losses.
• Hero-Tracking Failure: In Vol.2 Episode 11, Roman and his goons are unable to hit Ruby while she's fleeing from them towards her friends.
• Heroism Motive Speech: Ruby Rose talks to her friend Blake about how she was inspired by stories and fairy tales of heroes and grew up wanting to become just like those heroes of legend.
  Ruby: I love books. Yang used to read to me every night before bed. Stories of heroes and monsters... They're one of the reasons I want to be a Huntress!
  Blake: And why is that? Hoping you'll live happily ever after?
  Ruby: Well, I'm hoping we all will. As a girl, I wanted to be just like those heroes in the books... Someone who fought for what was right, and protected people who couldn't protect themselves!
• He Was Right There All Along: In the Black Trailer, Blake and Adam carry out a train heist to steal a cargo of Dust. When they enter the relevant carriage, they have to fight an army of Atlesian Knights just to gain access to the cargo. Once they finally reach the cargo and confirm it's what they're after, they discover there's one more threat in the carriage they'd never noticed: an enormous Spider Droid drops from where it was silently positioned on the ceiling to confront them.
• High Heel Hurt: When Ruby leaves the school ball to investigation potential trouble, she finds herself at a disadvantage during a fight with Cinder because of the high heels she's wearing. She favors combat boots and spent the ball complaining that she couldn't even walk in the heels, never mind dance or fight. Her partner, Weiss, however, fights on a daily basis in very high-heeled wedges.
  Ruby: Can we have a serious discussion about how Weiss fights in these?
• Hired by the Oppressor: A faction of the White Fang, a group of Faunus activists-turned-terrorists, work with Cinder's faction because they agreed to aid the Fang with their goals, and because they were constantly discriminated by the humans of Remnant. This required rank and file members to take orders from the overtly racist Roman Torchwick up to his death at the end of Season 3, who calls them animals to their faces. Afterwards, they take orders directly from Cinder up to the climax of Season 5, after Blake manages to snatch the whole of them from Adam Taurus's leadership, with Adam himself dying at the hands of Blake and Yang roughly three quarters into Season 6.
• Hired Help as Family: Weiss was practically raised by her butler, Klein Sieben, because her parents were either neglectful or abusive. Weiss is clearly more affectionate to him than either of her parents, loosening up and laughing around him and giving him a hug before running away from home. After she returns to Atlas, she's devastated to learn that he'd been "let go" for his role in her escape.
• Hit Stop: In "Tipping Point", as Tyrian is violently curbstomping Ruby, everything slows down right as we see Tyrian launch a kick into Ruby's abdomen that finishes his depletion of her Aura.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard:
  • Nolan's shock weapon unwittingly buffed Nora through her Semblance, who then proceeded to take out all of Team BRNZ by herself.
  • Dew, Gwen, and Nebula try to take advantage of Neptune's fear of water by gathering knee-deep in it. Unbeknownst to them, Neptune's weapon can channel electricity, so he sticks it in the water to defeat them in a single strike.
  • During the Flynt and Neon tournament fight with Weiss and Yang, Neon constantly taunts Yang to make her angry. However, Yang's power-up is connected to her temper; when she finally explodes, she destroys the arena. Neon's speed-enhancing rollerblades trip over the rubble, leading to her defeat.
  • Adam's character short reveals Ghira was extremely critical of Adam's violent, lethal actions against antagonistic humans. Sienna defends him and supports the Faunus interpreting him as a hero. She takes him on missions, grooms his rise through the ranks, gives him command of the Vale branch, and hopes to see him one day stand beside her throne. He instead pursues his own agenda, pushes White Fang violence beyond Sienna's tolerance levels, murdering and replacing her when she confronts him in Volume 5.
• Holographic Terminal: The computers in Remnant have holographic interfaces. The desks in the offices of both Professors Ozpin and Lionheart can generate screens and keyboards for both computer use and monitoring the city; people can interface their scrolls with computers (including the aforementioned headmasters' desks) to create holographic interfaces for, especially for strategy planning; video games are played through holographic interfaces and the Atlesian Paladins are controlled via holographic projections of both screen and keyboard.
• How We Got Here:
  • The seventh episode of first volume ends with Ruby falling from the sky. The eighth starts by showing exactly where Ruby fell from. How she and Weiss got up there in first place, however, is never shown.
  • "Beginning of the End" is a flashback episode that shows Cinder's activities before the series, including the circumstances under which she attacked the Fall Maiden.
  • The Volume 6 premiere, "Argus Limited", opens with RWBY, JNR, Qrow, and Oscar fighting Grimm on top of a running passenger train which is interrupted by a tunnel, then it cuts to before they even boarded the train.
• Humongous Mecha: The Atlesian military is capable of building big robots that are piloted from a cockpit within by humans. The primary use of these creations is to fight the Grimm. Some of them are therefore towering behemoths that can fight extremely large Grimm. The small Atlesian military base just off the coast of Argus contains within its mountainous fortress a massive mecha that Jaune believes is designed to fight the very large Grimm that are capable of threatening the City of Argus from the deep ocean. It possesses the ability to protect itself with a shield made of Hard-Light Dust and fire a wide range of Dust cartridges from an Arm Cannon to kill the enemy.
• Hunter of Monsters: The role of Huntsmen and Huntresses is to protect the people of Remnant, which they do by hunting down and slaying the creatures of Grimm.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • From Episode 7:
    Weiss: I'm not bossy! Don't say things like that!
  • Followed by the beginning of Episode 8:
    Yang: [flares up, with her eyes turning red] I can't take it anymore! Can everyone just chill out for two seconds before something crazy happens again!?
  • Episode 4 of the second season has Yang disdain Weiss for making a pun, complaining it wasn't very good... after she said she always kicks her semesters off with a Yang in the first episode of the season.
  • Nora's response to Blake storming out of the library?
    Nora: [throws up her hands] Women.

Tropes I

• I Call It "Vera": Ruby's Crescent Rose — the only explicitly character-given weapon name so far. Every other main character's weapon has been named elsewhere, but Ruby is the only one who treats her weapon with quite that level of affection.
• I Can See My House from Here:
  • When Ruby and Yang leave home to attend the prestigious Beacon Academy, Ruby really isn't looking forward to being the youngest student in a strange boarding school, having been pushed two years ahead of her age-group. As the airship they're travelling on approaches Beacon Academy, giving the new student intake their first view of the school, Ruby spots the distant sight of her old school which was very near her home, a small island just off the coast. She concludes, with some comfort, that home isn't as far away from Beacon as she thought. Her older sister points out that Beacon is their home now.
    Ruby: Look! You can see Signal from up here! I guess home isn't so far, after all.
    Yang: Beacon is our home now.
  • When Blake and Sun travel to Menagerie, Sun - who has never been to the Faunus-only island before - is overwhelmed by how many Faunus are living in one place. Blake is underwhelmed, explaining to him that the Faunus are living on top of each other, as the habitable part of the island is overcrowded. When they reach the highest point of the region they're in, Sun pauses and asks Blake if she can see her house from this vantage point. She points out her house, which is visible... the huge stately mansion in the middle of the town.
• Idiot Ball:
  • While dueling with Vernal at Haven, Weiss sacrifices her highly flexible combat style and abilities in favour of repeatedly trying to summon her newly mastered Knight avatar. Each time, she leaves herself wide-open to direct strikes from Vernal, who makes it clear she won't let Weiss take the "easy way out". Thus, she quickly loses the fight. With her Aura broken, Cinder inflicts a fatal blow. Jaune's Semblance awakens in response, saving her life. As Team RWBY later battles the Ace-Ops, Weiss shows she's learned from the Vernal fight by using complex strategy to keep her opponent off-balance and blinded just long enough to allow her to safely summon the Knight.
  • In Volume 5, Raven plans to use the Relic of Knowledge to keep Salem away from her tribe. At the conclusion of the volume, Yang points out just how poorly thought out her plan is: if Salem is willing to pursue her for daring to harbour the Spring Maiden, she'll become even more determined to hunt Raven down to obtain a Relic. Yang successfully convinces the cowardly Raven to leave the Relic with her more courageous daughter.
  • Cinder successfully carries out Salem's plan for Beacon, adapting on the fly to unexpected events. However, she's obsessed with stealing power and killing Ruby, thus ignoring Watts' warning and sabotaging Salem's stealthy plan for Haven in favour of a noisy confrontation with the heroes so she can target Ruby and the Spring Maiden. As Watts predicts, the consequences are a "bloody mess"; the villains are defeated, the heroes gain the Relic, and Cinder is left for dead. Ostracised from Salem until she redeems herself, she keeps unsuccessfully sabotaging Salem's plans for personal gain until Watts furiously calls out her failings in the eighth volume. This time, she listens and returns to her Beacon form.
  • In Volume 7, Robyn protects Mantle aggressively and recklessly, while Clover's blind obedience to Ironwood reflects Qrow's Undying Loyalty to Ozpin prior to its breakdown. An all-nighter sees them transporting Tyrian when they learn some awful news that triggers a cascade of poor decisions caused by exhaustion, stress, established character flaws and Tyrian baiting Robyn and Qrow. In Volume 8, Qrow moodily dwells on the poor decisions that were made. After learning of Ironwood's betrayal of Mantle as well as his intentions to arrest the heroes, a frustrates Robyn recklessly fights Clover, who is trying to arrest Qrow, leading to Tyrian crashing the airship. With Robyn unconscious, a three-way battle ensues where Qrow prioritises Tyrian, Clover prioritises Qrow, and Tyrian baits Qrow into a truce against Clover. It ends with Tyrian down, Qrow disarmed and Clover without Aura. While Qrow and Clover argue about Undying Loyalty, Tyrian kills Clover with Qrow's weapon and flees.
  • In Volume 8, Rhodes realizes Cinder is going to kill her adoptive family who abuse and torture her with the sword she’s stolen from him. He decides to train her, thereby giving her an opportunity to pass the entrance exam for a Huntsman Academy and finally be free. Years later, when Cinder can finally apply for the exam, Rhodes gifts her a sword, and she ends up killing her family anyway.
• If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: Ren's health drink of a blend of herbs and vegetables that he offers to Pyrrha in "Destiny", which already looks unappetizing, with a sickly green color and cauldron-bubbling sound effects. Then Nora reluctantly drinks some of it and immediately throws up.
  "If it looks the same coming up as it did going down, then there's something wrong."
• Ignored Enemy:
  • During a battle in Volume 3, Jaune calls the rest of Team JNPR together for a team meeting so they can clarify some of the code names he came up with. Team BRNZ, their opponents, stand in confusion for a few moments before trying to get JNPR's attention and get the fight back on track. A frustrated Jaune just has Nora go over and hit them with her hammer, ending the fight.
  • In the finale of Volume 8, James Ironwood finally meets Salem face to face and angrily threatens her with his gun. Salem completely ignores and walks past him while discussing things with her subordinate Cinder Fall. This makes Ironwood completely lose his will to fight.
• Inconsistent Episode Lengths: Episodes generally only cover one event or plot, lasting from 4 minutes to 28 minutes as needed. Episodes became longer as the show went on, with Volumes 3 to 6 being roughly 15 to 20 minutes, and starting Volume 7, episode lengths were more tighter in the 17-20 minute range, with finales being a few minutes longer than usual.
• I Just Want to Be Normal:
  • When Ruby first joins Beacon Academy she's very worried about the fact she's been pushed ahead two years. She doesn't want to be considered special, she just wants to be treated normally. However, once she has settled into her new team, the problem stops being mentioned. DVD Commentary states that she worries less about it as the show advances so that by the time she learns she was born with a special power, she doesn't have a problem with it.
    "I don't want to be the bee's knees, okay? I don't want to be any kind of knees! I just want to be a normal girl with normal knees!"
  • Pyrrha is recognised only for her accomplishments and is forced to live a life that meets the high expectations placed on her. As a result of being placed on a pedestal by everyone, she has been unable to live a normal life, make proper friendships or date in a normal way. When she meets Jaune, he has no idea who she is and treats her like everyone else. This attracts her to him and helps her make friendships that will last a lifetime.
• I Lied: Said jokingly by Jaune when he was trying to serenade Weiss in "Extracurricular".
  Jaune: [knock knock knock] Aw, come on! [knock knock knock] Open the door. [sounding resigned] I promise not to sing...
  Weiss: [opens the door]
  Jaune: [singing] ♫ I LIED!!! ♫
  Weiss: [face palms]
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy:
  • Seen in Vol. 2 Chapter 11, where Torchwick and more than five or so mooks fail to shoot an escaping Ruby, with her somehow maneuvering through all of the rounds fired without a scratch and with her back turned. No wonder Torchwick got so upset.
  • Any Atlas troops, human or robot, will never, ever, hit their targets. In Volume 7, they chase after Team JNR and Oscar trying to arrest them, and despite shooting in an enclosed hallway from a relatively close range, each and every shot misses.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: A Great Offscreen War created a world where people celebrate their individuality, and Huntsman "combat outfits" are particularly colourful, dramatic, and sometimes even impractical, compared to ordinary people. Examples include: Blake and Neo wearing detached sleeves that stay in place; Yang's pale, frilly skirts or bows that never get damaged or dirty; never-compromised modesty, such as Pyrrha's pencil micro-skirt, Emerald's boob-tube, Ruby and Pyrrha's bodices or Weiss and Ruby's crinoline-packed skirts. Clothing always forms perfect lines, even during intense activity, and cloaks always billow regardless of their weight. Even the best cosplayers can't defy physics, but the characters always look good as a result.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: This urban fantasy-meets-sci-fi show focuses on the training of "Huntsmen" to protect civilisation from the monsters that go bump in the night. Almost all the combat-capable characters have complex weapons that can perform a variety of functions, including transformations into different types of weapons or weapon-combinations. Rooster Teeth lampshaded this with a t-shirt showing off many of the weapons framed around the phrase "It's also a gun", highlighting that most weapons in the show also double as guns. Examples include:
  • Weapons that masquerade as one weapon before transforming into something else: examples include Qrow's huge sword, which can tranform into a gun-sword and scythe; the Grimm Reaper's twin kama that can combine into a dual-bladed staff.
  • Weapons with multiple transformations that can sometimes be used in combination: examples include Ruby's customised scythe/sniper rife; Blake's sword, which can transform into a gun and a gun-sword-flail on the end of a ribbon; and Sun's staff, which becomes two nunchaku, which can simultaneously be used as four lever-action shotguns.
  • Weapons that don't look like weapons until used or transformed: examples include Blake's sword-sheath which can be used as a cleaver; Jaune's sword-sheath, which expands into a shield and can become a two-bladed weapon when the sword is sheathed; Coco's satchel, which transforms into a mini-gun; Neo's parasol, which is a cane-sword and shield; or Flynt's trumpet which uses Wind Dust when played.
  • Non-transforming weapons that have surprising functions: examples include Weiss's rapier that contains a Dust revolver for ranged elemental attacks; Roman's cane, which is secretly a gun; Raven's sword, which is a sheath containing multiple Dust blades, and her sword handle can select which blade to use.
• Improvised Catapult: How Nora gets Jaune to the far side of the broken bridge in Players and Pieces.
• Improvised Weapon: A bunch in the first episode of Volume 2. All food-based.
• Inconsistent Spelling
  • Death Stalkers are spelled "Deathstalkers" in Volume 1, Episode 8. However, from the ninth episode, they're spelled both in-universe and in subtitles as "Death Stalkers".
  • Almost all official material spells Neo's name as "Neopolitan", including Chibi, Combat Ready, Monty Oum's facebook page and the 2019 Companion book. However, both RWBY: Amity Arena and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle have it spelled "Neo Politan" based on the references files Amity received.
• Inconvenient Parachute Deployment: In Volume 3, Ruby opens Neo's parasol while they are on top of an airship, causing Neo to fly away and leave just Ruby and Torchwick.
• The Incorruptible: Discussed Trope. In the World of Remnant episode "Huntsmen", Professor Ozpin mentions that every Huntsman is expected to live up to the ideal of the noble warrior who is motivated solely to protect the people, and who never succumbs to any darkness that could sway them from this path. In Volume 8, Blake admits that Ruby is her symbol of purity who restored her faith in the world, which reiterates Ozpin's Volume 5 message to Oscar that Ruby possesses an "indefinable quality" that inspires others even in the darkest times. However, Ozpin's narration about Huntsmen ominously implies Huntsmen may struggle to uphold the ideal in practice; he reflects in Volume 7 on fear's power to corrupt even the best, something Maria previously acknowledged in Volume 6 when admitting that, while a Huntress should fight to the bitter end, she failed to do so when she went into hiding after an assassination attempt blinded her. Ozpin warns Oscar that being The Paragon is a terrible burden for Ruby to shoulder, and Salem's Volume 3 speech makes it clear that the path to her victory lies in tearing down Ruby to crush Ozpin's faith in humanity and will to keep fighting. The Atlas Arc (Volumes 7-9) puts the discussion into action by exploring the burden of being Huntsmen on the characters and the consequences for their lives and mental health when they fail.
• Incredibly Long Note: Near the end of "When it Falls", Casey holds one for ten seconds.
• Inevitable Mutual Betrayal: When Cinder forces Raven to help her get the Relic of Knowledge, it's clear from the start that only one can get the Relic, and both sides have knives ready for that moment.
• The Infiltration: Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald do this in Volume 2 when they infiltrate Beacon Academy.
• Injured Self-Drag:
  • Following her battle with Raven, Cinder regains consciousness underwater. She has just enough energy left to drag herself out of the water towards a crack in the cave she's in. She's spent and exhausted, but manages to walk out of the cave while clutching her ribs. After only making it a few steps, she collapses in front of a passerby, who starts to help her until she sees the Grimm arm. Cinder has just enough energy left to seize the moment and mug the passerby for the clothing and money she needs to survive.
  • Flashbacks reveal that Salem and Oz once fought a terrible battle that appeared to lead to both of their deaths. Oz drags himself from the battlefield, leaving a trail of blood behind him, clearly determined to reach a specific location. The fight is triggered when Oz realises their children are in danger from their own mother; Salem catches him sneaking the kids out and the pair end up fighting right there, resulting in the destruction of their kingdom, home and children. Oz tries to drag his dying body to the place where the children died, but Salem reforms in time to kill him before he can reach it.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Yang was designed after her voice actress, Barbara Dunkelman, and she uses her normal voice.
• Innate Night Vision: According to "Jaunedice (Part 1)", many Faunus possess this trait.
• Innocently Insensitive: Done twice in "Destiny", both times to Pyrrha, who is already troubled with the weighty decision of assuming the powers of the Fall Maiden with the potential risk of losing her identity.
  • Ren tells her that she'll be defending Beacon's honor.
  • Jaune advises her to let nothing stand in her way if it means fulfilling her destiny.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • By word of Weiss, that's not a dress she's wearing, it's a "combat skirt." Ruby agrees.
  • Neptune is not a nerd. He's an intellectual.
  • It's Doctor Oobleck. He didn't earn his PhD for fun, thank you very much!
• Interesting Situation Duel: Cinder and Raven throw everything they possess at each other when they fight in Haven Academy's underground vault. They spend part of the fight battling on the floor of the vault until the scale of their battle forces them to move locations. As they are both Maidens, much of their battle involves the use of enormous magical power, which includes the ability to fly. It shakes the very ground above their heads, loosening massive stalactites that hang from the roof of the cave they're in. As the stalactites begin to fall, they jump from rock to rock. Cinder slices through stone in her attempt to reach Raven, who kicks her through several large boulders. The fight ends as the stalactite they're on slams into the vault floor, depleting both of their Auras in the process.
• Instant Costume Change: In "Destiny", Nora changes from her regular clothes into a workout outfit between cuts.
• The Internet Is for Cats: In the manga adaptation, Ruby expresses her stage fright before a spar by wishing she were at home watching videos of puppies on the Internet instead.
• I Resemble That Remark!:
  • When Ruby and Weiss first team up, their personalities clash fiercely. Weiss keeps ordering Ruby around despite having no idea where they're going, and Ruby keeps having immature tantrums. Eventually, Ruby demands to know why Weiss is so bossy. Weiss immediately turns on her; by snapping back that she isn't bossy and ordering Ruby to not say things like that, she instantly confirms that she is indeed bossy.
  • During Port's class, Weiss fights a Boarbatusk. Although Ruby tries to shout useful advice from the side-lines, Weiss keeps telling her off for getting involved because she's still smarting over Ruby being made team leader instead of her. After class, she admits to Port that she thinks she should be team leader and that she proved that in his class with her fighting skills. Port agrees that she has exceptional fighting skills but that her big problem is that she has a very bad attitude. Weiss's immediate response to her own teacher's assessment is to tell him off for saying such a thing, thus proving his point.
  • When their train crashes, Yang complains about the situation and sums up how bad it is by concluded that they've ended up with a defenseless old lady. Maria objects to being called defenseless — but then acknowledges that she's hard of hearing and blind without her artificial eyes, which don't work properly. She concludes that she can see Yang's point, after all.
• Ironic Echo:
  • The Volume 6 character short consists of flashbacks charting Adam's rise in status within the White Fang, starting with him helping a bunch of Faunus break into a Dust processing facility, saying, "It's time we got what we deserved." By the end of the flashback sequence, Adam is High Leader of the White Fang; as he prepares his attack on Haven, he states "It's time I got what I deserved." The short then ends in the aftermath of the attack on Haven — he's on the run, the White Fang is in disarray, and he's left with nothing.
  • "Just following orders." When Elm apologizes after RWBY, Qrow, and JNR are cleared and briefed, Ruby waves it off as "just following orders." When Blake and Yang are facing Elm and Vine, Yang throws the line back in Elm's face, prompting her to split off:
    Blake: You're betraying the people you've sworn to protect!
    Yang: It's not worth it, Blake. They're just following orders now.
• Ironic Name: Neptune Vasilias means "King Neptune", as in the Roman god. However, despite the god's associations with water, Neptune is actually terrified of water and avoids it wherever possible. The novels reveal that his phobia stems from his water-control Semblance, which he cannot control. He has almost drowned himself and others as a result of his power; he views avoiding water as protecting people from himself.
• Irony:
  • Beacon Academy is a metaphorical beacon of hope where Huntsmen and Huntresses are trained to fight monsters. Ruby attends the school because she dreams of becoming the hero who keeps people safe from the monsters. At the end of Volume 3, the villains destroy the school. However, Ruby unlocks a secret superpower, thereby freezing a Giant Wyvern to the broken tower. This transforms the tower into a literal beacon that continually attracts Grimm to the school, preventing the Huntsmen from being able to reclaim it and ensuring an army of Grimm remains camped on the city's doorstep.
  • When Jaune first joined Beacon Academy, he was a Casanova Wannabe who attempted to flirt with every girl he met. They all rejected or ignored his advances, except for one whose feelings Jaune didn't recognise until it was too late. In Volume 7, his first job as a professional Huntsman is to protect young children as they travel to school; all the mothers find this incredibly attractive and constantly flirt with him, such as one blushing mother who keeps giving him home-cooked casseroles. Now that he finally has lots of female attention, he doesn't enjoy it, finding it awkward and embarrassing instead.
  • Watts has spent Volume 7 carefully manipulating technology to ensure he and Tyrian can't be captured on any security footage and refusing to allow Tyrian to have a single base of operations because it increases the chances of them getting caught. He is eventually captured on camera by going to the one place he never expected to be filmed. When he visits Schnee Manor to pull Jacques into his plotting, their entire discussion is captured on hidden cameras that Jacques' abused wife has secretly placed in every room of the house to collect evidence of his illicit activities.
  • When Oscar first tells Ironwood that it's okay to be afraid, Ironwood tells him he has no intention of ending up a coward like Leo; he wonders if the key to defeating Salem is to sacrifice his humanity so that he doesn't have to feel fear at all. Instead of caving in to Salem the way the terrified Leo did, Ironwood shuts down his humanity and begins making cold decisions, such as abandoning Mantle to save Atlas, sacrificing the Winter Maiden's life to put the powers under his control, and arresting the heroes for opposing his decisions. During his final confrontation with Oscar, Oscar tells him that he's become as dangerous as Salem. Ironwood rescinds his friendship with Oscar, and shoots him. In the end, Ironwood got his wish: he didn't become Leo, he became something much worse.
  • Ironwood initially vowed to help Oscar bring back the missing Ozpin, and most of his interactions with Oscar are designed to achieve that result. However, it's the one interaction where he didn't want this outcome that causes Ozpin to return. With Ozpin locked deep inside Oscar's head, Ironwood tries jogging him loose by engaging in combat training with Oscar, and taking him to significant places, such as the Vault of the Winter Maiden, which was created by Oz. However, it's the act of severing his friendship with Oscar by trying to kill him that brings Ozpin back.
• It Can Think: The creatures of Grimm are generally mindless, but grow more powerful and intelligent as they age. The most powerful Grimm are smart enough to avoid humans rather than attack outright and will employ simplistic tactics in battle. This increases their survivability and threat level with time. Subverted by one type of Grimm that is introduced in Volume 8. The Hound displays human-level intelligence, battle tactics, and the ability to talk. However, this intelligence is not connected to the aging process, it's because Salem has started transforming ''people'' into Grimm.
• It's All About Me:
  • It's perfectly clear that Salem only cares about herself. Her hatred of the gods isn't because of their capricious, egotistical nature, or the damage they've done to humanity. It's because of what they did to her. Even her hatred for Ozpin is solely because he won't take her side.
    Salem: The moment you put your desires before my own, they will be lost to you. This isn't a threat, this is simply the truth. The path to your desires is only found through me.
  • When Salem isn't around, Cinder Fall makes it very clear that she thinks she's the one calling the shots and that everyone has to go along with her lead whether they like it or not. During his fight with Team RNJR, Tyrian goes so far as to muse that Cinder's wildest dreams involve her being in Salem's place.
  • When it comes down to it, despite doing such things as charity events and fundraisers, Jacques Schnee is only concerned with maximizing profits and his own image, and doesn't give a damn about anyone who's not him unless he can use them to his own benefit.
  • Adam Taurus wants to wipe out humanity, not because he believes peace between them and the Faunus is impossible, but because he blames them for the personal injustices he's faced. He also makes it a priority to hunt Blake down and hurt everyone she cares about because she left his abusive butt in the dust when she deserted the White Fang, displaying a Why Did You Make Me Hit You? attitude towards doing so. In "Haven's Fate", the thing that seems to tick him off the most is Blake saying that she's "got bigger things to deal with". Even in his past, as shown during the Volume 6 Character Short, he starts off by telling the Faunus that they will claim "what we deserve"; by the time he's taken full control of the White Fang and is assaulting Haven Academy, he's instead talking about "what I deserve" and has no problem killing the Faunus who serve him to achieve his goals. His song "Lionize" reveals that he has a savior complex about his role in the White Fang, and suggests that at least partly, he was a glory-hound.
  • James Ironwood may want to save Remnant from Salem, but his efforts are hamstrung by his own Moral Myopia. He frequently double-crosses people for the flimsiest of reasons, and never takes responsibility for the negative repercussions of his actions. In his own mind, he's the hero and leader Remnant needs because he makes the hard choices no one else wants to, and anything that goes wrong is the fault of those who won't go along with his increasingly ruthless methods. He repeatedly refuses to acknowledge any method that requires being anything less that the most powerful man on the board, and never once considers that he was wrong about any of his choices. When recalling the Fall of Beacon, the one thing Ironwood obsesses over is how helpless Salem made him feel. During the climax of Volume 8, he rants about how everyone is an Ungrateful Bastard for not appreciating how much he sacrificed to protect Remnant, only for Winter to retort that he sacrificed nothing and forced everyone else to do so.
  • Jaune Arc in Volume 9, after being shunted into the past and healed after being betrayal by Alyx in the Ever After, decides to take up being The Caretaker for a village of Paper Pleasers. However, doing so prevents them from Ascending and moving on to a new purpose as Jaune turns them all into his Companion Cube friends. When Team RWBY learn of this, they realize he’s really not mentally there. When they finally die and Ascend, Jaune snaps at Ruby, accusing her of this trope due to the fact that she was the one whose plan failed and sent them here.
  • The Curious Cat is, by their own admission to the heroes, a self-serving being who only sees others as worthy of their time if they're sources of knowledge and entertainment for the Cat. Their egocentrism becomes a lot more horrifying when the Cat reveals that they're "cursed with curiosity" to constantly seek new knowledge, consequences to others be damned: they murdered Alyx in rage for having a Heel–Face Door-Slam seconds before she would've taken the Cat to Remnant to learn more, and they're perfectly willing to hollow Ruby and Neo out into hosts for the Cat's personality so that they can accomplish their goal.

• It's Personal:
  • Adam Taurus is psychotically obsessed with hunting down Blake for abandoning him during the Black Trailer. This vendetta eventually costs him everything he has, and he goes to his grave blaming Blake for his own flaws and mistakes.
  • Cinder at first sees Ruby and her team as nothing more than more of Ozpin's chess-pieces, but after she's badly maimed by Ruby, her mental stability takes a long-term hit. Killing Ruby becomes one of Cinder's top priorities, causing her to take excessive risks and jeopardise the villains' plans.
  • For most of the fourth and fifth volumes, Jaune has a very personal enmity with Cinder that goes above and beyond any of the other heroes' hatred of her, because Cinder murdered Pyrrha and this devastated Jaune.
  • Hazel is normally composed, but sees red whenever he knowingly comes face-to-face with Ozpin. This is because he holds Ozpin accountable for the death of his sister on a Beacon training mission after having failed to prevent her entry to the school in the first place. After being broken by Salem's Complete Immortality, Hazel came to view Ozpin as a child-murderer for sending an endless stream of adolescents to fight against a supposedly invincible villain.
  • In the Origins Episode for Ozpin and Salem, the God of Darkness makes it clear that he will take people using his gifts against him very personally. When Salem leads humanity in rebellion against the gods, The God of Darkness captures all the magic cast at him in one hand, declaring "my own gift to them used against me". This triggers him into wiping out the human race, leaving Salem alone in her immortality on an empty planet. He makes it clear to her that this was because she thought she couldn't be punished any more than the gods had already done. When she still tries issuing orders to them as they depart, he chastises her for making demands of her creators and smashes the moon as he departs to emphasise his point.
  • Tyrian has attracted lots of grudges among the heroes over the course of his murderous career. Although Qrow has a score to settle for having been poisoned by him, things become very personal in Volume 7 when Tyrian frames him for murder. By killing Clover with Qrow's blade, Tyrian kills a close friend and frames him.
  • Once Ironwood learns that Arthur Watts, whom he knew from the latter's days as one of Ironwood's elite scientists, faked his death and has joined Salem, he personally seeks out Watts himself to confront him. Watts in turn reveals that he has a grudge against Ironwood for elevating Pietro and his project over Watts' own and then being disgraced by him.
  • The Ace Ops initially spent most of Volume 7 on amicable or outright friendly terms with Team RWBY and JNR whilst they're defending Atlas and Mantle together. After the extent of Team RWBY's secret-keeping has been revealed and RWBY have turned on Ironwood, it's pretty clear that some of the Ace Ops, particularly Elm, are taking all this to heart as a betrayal when they subsequently come to blows with the team.
  • In Volume 9, Jaune Arc and the Curious Cat are not on friendly terms after a past incident between them which Jaune took personally. The pair were companions with Alyx and Lewis during the decades Jaune was marooned in the Ever After, but Jaune came to mistrust the Cat after Alyx put him in a poison-induced coma and Lewis disappeared at the realm's tree, believing that the Cat and Alyx fed Lewis to the tree for a Death of Personality. In the penultimate episode, Jaune fights the Cat in rage after he discovers that the Cat actually murdered Alyx just as the latter had had a crisis of conscience and intended to fix all the harm she'd done to Jaune and others. The Cat in turn reveals that they have a special contempt for Jaune; chiding his failures which the Cat has witnessed, snarling that they've found his "fairy tale nonsense" very tiring, and using illusions of the two people whose deaths traumatized Jaune the most against him amidst their fight while smiling sadistically through the Pyrrha illusion.

Tropes J-K

• Jiggle Physics:
  • In Yang's trailer, her breasts can be clearly seen bouncing around when she reloads her Shotgun-Gauntlets. So far, this continues in the series itself.
  • This is applied to Professor Port's belly when he's being bombastic and over-enthusiastic about being a Huntsman and hunting for Grimm.
  • The improved character rigging for Volume 2 suggests this will be more common when it makes sense given the character and the costume: Glynda demonstrates it when she barges in after the Food Fight.
  • Volume 3 has carried the torch. Winter has shown significant movement, both in battle and body language, and a younger Blake shows an unusual....bouyancy while walking behind Adam during a flashback.
• Jump Scare:
  • In "Field Trip", when Ruby opens the door to Team RWBY's room after talking with Ozpin, the rest of the team suddenly rush up to the camera so quickly that it can easily be startling.
  • The Volume 3 opening starts softly with piano as we see a petal falling onto a rose...only for the loud as all hell rock theme song to burst in out of nowhere as the rose gets trampled by a horde of Grimm.
  • In "Kuroyuri", as the namesake town is being destroyed, Ren's mom tries to calm him right as their house suddenly and abruptly collapses.
  • During the events of "Ace Operatives" when Blake is using her night vision to help look through the Dust mine, the Geist Grimm that they are tracking suddenly shows up our of nowhere and lunges towards Blake.
  • In "Refuge" when the heroes noticed how the Grimm coming towards them are suddenly running away after hearing a scream, Oscar is suddenly attacked by The Hound, the very same Grimm that made the scream, and is captured by it.
  • During the events of "Dark" after Ruby and Blake restore power to Schnee Manor using the backup generator, Blake notices in horror as she sees the hound through the window behind Ruby as it smashes through it to attack.
• Just Following Orders: A fatal example is shown as a result of Atlas's extremely mililtaristic culture. In "With Friends Like These", Ace Ops carry out the orders by Ironwood to arrest Team RWBY, JNR, Oscar and Qrow despite the fact that Ironwood is in the middle of a Sanity Slippage and the leader of Ace Ops, Clover, is helping Qrow and Robyn carry the defeated Tyrian to prison. No one in Ace Ops questions this and even those like Winter thinks that Team RWBY did something wrong. The episode ends with RWBY wiping the floor with Ace Ops, Robyn badly injured, Tyrian freed, Clover dead and Qrow framed for his death thanks to Tyrian. This continues into Volume 8 as the Ace-Ops focus on arresting Ren, Yang, and Jaune instead of dealing with the incoming Grimm and accepting what amounts to a Suicide Mission despite the hesitation. After Ironwood states his intention to bomb Mantle and later confirmed he fully intended to go through with it, most of them still go through with it except Marrow who starts realizing that they were just doing Salem's job for her at that point. Because of this, both he and Winter realized Ironwood was going too far and had to be stopped as a result.
• Karmic Death:
  • While fighting Roman and Neo on top of a flying battleship, Ruby's knocked down and hangs from the side of the ship helplessly. Neo leans on her unopened weaponised parasol to kick Ruby off the ship, allowing Ruby to grab the parasol's catch; it opens, catches the wind and blows Neo off the ship, while Ruby regains her footing. Roman beats the crap out of Ruby while denouncing her misguided idealism in a savage world where most huntsmen die young. Unfortunately for Roman, his heightened negativity attracts the negativity-sensing Creatures of Grimm, and one swallows him whole just as he's stating that the only thing that matters is survival skill.
  • From Volume 7, Ironwood's actions stem from his desire to protect Atlas, the two Relics and Winter Maiden from Salem, but he constantly shifts the goal posts on what that means. Believing himself to be their only hope, he loses his mind to stress and fear and descends into villainy, sacrificing everything else in the name of "protecting Atlas" and losing the trust of the heroes and kingdom's people. Abandoned by even the Ace Ops, he dies buried beneath the fallen ruins of the city he was so obsessed with saving after forcing the heroes to rescue the people instead of Atlas. Salem and Cinder successfully escape Atlas with two Relics and leave Ironwood to his fate.
• Kick the Morality Pet: Throughout Volume 7, Ironwood serves as Oscar's mentor. Their interactions have a positive impact on Ironwood, showing a warmer side to the stern General and visibly improving his condition. After Ironwood reaches his breaking point, however, Oscar's attempt to council him on fear triggers him into lashing out. In the episode "The Enemy of Trust", Oscar warns Ironwood he's becoming as dangerous as Salem, but Ironwood mercilessly shoots him.
• Ki Manipulation: All living things generate Aura. Huntsmen are trained to manipulate and amplify their Aura, giving them a Healing Factor and an invisible, defensive forcefield that prevents injury. With mastery, a Semblance can be unlocked, which gives each individual a single superpower such as Super-Senses, Super-Strength, area-effect barriers, telekinesis, and so on. Aura is finite and depletes with active use until it breaks, leaving a person vulnerable and unable to use Semblance. Certain Semblances are centred on Aura manipulation, such as the ability to steal other Semblances or amplify other Auras. In Volume 5, Jaune unlocks his Semblance, allowing him to amplify the critically-injured Weiss's Healing Factor to save her, and then further amplifying her Aura to super-charge her Semblance; this produces a visible wind of power around Weiss for a short period of time. The creators have confirmed he subconsciously used his Semblance in Volume 2 to amplify his own Aura when blocking Cardin's punch.
• Killer Gorilla: Beringels are gorilla-like Grimm, known for being more durable than their size would indicate. The ones Team RNJR faces are also rather intelligent, though that might have just been a sign that they were older than most Grimm fought previously. They also occasionally throw other Grimm at the enemy. At the end of volume 6, Salem begins crafting Beringels with Nevermore wings to create more mobile shock troops.
• "Kiss the Cook" Apron: When preparing a protein drink for Pyrrha Nikos, Lie Ren wears a bright pink apron that bluntly reads "Please Do Nothing to the Cook", befitting his more solemn nature.
• Kubrick Stare:
  • Ruby does a badass one at the end of "No Brakes" after she sees people being terrorized by Grimm.
  • Cinder does this often while grinning dubiously to add to her ominous persona. It helps that her hair covers one of her eyes.
  • In "Lessons Learned", as soon as Emerald and Mercury's Vytal doubles round with Coco and Yatsuhashi begins, they just back into the tall yellow grass, staring at them in this manner and smiling slyly.
  • In the above episode, a close-up shot of Qrow has him doing this as he tells Ruby and Yang of his last mission.
  • "Never Miss a Beat" ends with Pyrrha making an ominous smirk in this manner as the CCT elevator closes.

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