Altercation at the Auspicious Auction
"Bidding starts at... the price of being loved."
Written by Eddy Rivas
Directed by Paula Decanini
Directed by Paula Decanini
"What we've seen is improbable, but that doesn't mean we're in an actual fairy tale. Are we seriously entertaining this?!"
— Weiss Schnee
Team RWBY's trek through the Ever After sends them to a bazaar selling items at a price...
Tropes in this episode include:
- Alliterative Title: With the exception of the "the" in the middle, all words in this episode's title start with an "a".
- Almost Holding Hands: While Blake is teasing Yang about how she lost her arm, the two reach for each other's hands, then pull back. Their movements are slightly out of sync, so they never quite touch. Weiss, who is walking behind them, notices but Ruby doesn't.
- Alternative Character Interpretation: In-Universe: When Blake worries about them repeating Alyx's mistakes when they reach town and causing a war, Yang points out that Alyx was a mean person who lied and cheated her way through the story. Weiss, however, counters by saying that Alyx was just trying to survive and the morality in old tales is always too simplistic.
- Arbitrary Scepticism: Team RWBY have learned, and even witnessed, that a number of fairy tales are based on historical events and real people, such as "The Girl in the Tower", "The Two Brothers" and "The Story of the Seasons". However, when Blake suggests they've fallen into a fairy tale, Weiss and Ruby are reluctant to believe it. Ruby initially doubts that falling into a fairy tale is possible, even though a Talking Animal is sitting on her shoulder, while Weiss struggles to rationalise their situation and states the Ever After is a make-believe world from a children's book. Once Little confirms that this world is indeed the Ever After, and Blake summarises the story's plot to point out the similarities to their current experience, both Weiss and Ruby are convinced.
- Call-Back: In this episode, Blake tries warning the team not to make Alyx's mistakes, and becoming anxious when they do. At the end, Ruby insists on meeting the Red King, snappily telling them to just follow the story and stop pretending they know what they're doing. Back in Volume 1, Ruby makes a similar comment to Weiss, who's pretending she knows where they're going. The difference is attitude. During initiation, Ruby was frustrated with Weiss' bossy and perfectionist personality. Here, Ruby is despairing over how they ended up in the Ever After, her hope is waning, and she's losing her will to keep fighting in their corner.
- Distinction Without a Difference: Little is shocked at Yang's suggestion that Jinxy steals from the mice; according to Little, he just takes things they're not looking at, which Little considers fair game. Weiss sarcastically comments that Little's description makes Jinxy sound like a "legitimate businessman".
- Dramatic Irony: Since Weiss doesn't know what happened after she fell, she hopes that Jaune and Winter managed to keep the Relics away from Cinder. The viewers know only Winter made it to Vacuo, they failed to stop the villains obtaining both Relics, and Jaune has fallen into the Ever After, too.
- Dramatic Sit-Down: Blake, who loved and read so many stories, sits on a log distressed that she became a moral of a story after her team cause a riot in town like how Alyx started a war amongst the townsfolk as in the book The Girl Who Fell Through the World.
- Genre Savvy: Blake and Ruby both grew up loving stories, and Blake throws herself into the realization that they're in the middle of Alyx's story. She predicts future events on the basis of the story and tries warning her team to avoid making Alyx's mistakes. As a result, the events in town unfold as Blake anticipated, much to her frustration. Ruby eventually dismisses Blake's knowledge, tells the team to stop pretending they know what they're doing, and gives herself over to the whims of the storybook path they're following.
- Giving Up on Logic: Weiss desperately tries finding logic in what they're experiencing, such as initially dismissing Blake's conclusion they're in a fairy tale and the idea that she can't just walk straight to the tree. Every time the reality of their situation hits her attempts to rationalize what's happening, she ends up in the background muttering to herself.
- Glamour: Jinxy uses magic to disguise his items as treasures. Alyx had to try and guess which one was the dagger Jinxy had hidden, and the heroes have to do the same to identify Yang's arm. Unlike Alyx, who felt drawn to her dagger despite its appearance, Yang simply guesses the correct one because its approximately the same length as her arm. Ruby, however, is drawn to a little green puppet, which turns out to be one of Penny's swords in disguise.
- High-Five Left Hanging: After getting away from the town after getting back her prosthetic arm in midst of the riot, Yang tries to lighten the mood by trying to get the rest of her team to high-five her prosthesis while holding it in her organic other hand but is rebuffed.
- Intangible Price: Jinxy sells a diamond rabbit for a hug, the golden scepter (actually Yang's arm) for the feeling of being loved, and a jade marionette for enough hope to fill a jar. Blake also mentions that Alyx gave up her happiest and saddest memories to get her dagger back. Yang is shocked by the price of giving up the feeling of being loved; when Jinxy's glamour vanishes, she recovers her arm from the soldier that bought it. Ruby is unable to pay the price of filling a jar with hope because she doesn't have enough left, so Little steals the doll the way Jinxy stole from the mice. The heroes have to flee for both reasons.
- Medicine Show: Jinxy's wagon is a travelling performance stage where he presents what he claims to be great treasures but are actually more mundane items that have been glamoured. Little breaks the glamour and they run for it in the confusion, while Jinxy has to give back the hug he got.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Played for Laughs. When Little casually informs Team RWBY that they've taken them further away from their homeland than they've ever gone before and they can't make it back on their own, RWBY react with a line-up of four distinct freak-outs
◊. Blake and Ruby look especially horrified. - Not Helping Your Case: Disagreeing with Blake's assessment Team RWBY are in a fairy tale; Weiss tries figuring things out logically. After listing every improbable thing that's happened - Ruby befriending a talking mouse, Weiss and Blake being captured by living vines, Yang losing her arm to a talking raccoon - Weiss awkwardly admits Blake might be right.
- Off the Rails: In the original story, Alyx had to barter with Jinxy for her dagger. Yang initially just wants to hit Jinxy and grab her arm but is talked into attempting to barter. However, she's unwilling to pay the price for her arm and Ruby's unable to pay the prices for a green puppet that she's drawn to, so Yang and Little end up grabbing the items they want, forcing the team to make a run for it.
- Railroading: Blake tells her teammates they're walking through a storybook, and they should learn the lessons of the original story to avoid making the same mistakes Alyx made. Weiss initially tries rejecting Blake's fairy tale logic, such as not being able to walk straight to the tree, in favor of Remnant-style logic. She eventually gives in. Ruby, who's not in the mood to try and think their way through the fairy tale, eventually tells the team to let the story take them wherever it goes and stop pretending they know what they're doing.
- Shipper on Deck: When Weiss notices Blake teasing Yang’s hand and Yang briefly trying to do the same, Weiss declares "about time". Ruby is too lost in her own thoughts to notice and doesn't understand what Weiss is referring to.
- Stating the Simple Solution: After hearing Blake's explanation of how Alyx got her dagger back from Jinxy in the original story, Yang still wants to just beat him up and take her arm back. She retrieves her arm by force anyway once Jinxy's glamour is broken.
- Tragic Keepsake: Ruby discovers one of Penny's swords; unable to pay for it, Little steals it for her. She later offers it up to the soldiers to gain access to the Red King.
"We may not know exactly what's going on, but — for whatever reason — this place is putting us on a similar path as a book we all read when we were kids. I say we follow it, and stop pretending we know what we're doing."
— Ruby Rose
