RWBY General Discussion

Yeah. If there is to be any moral ambiguity, then Salem needs a goal that isn't 'murder erryone'.

If she HAS that, it would be really good for that to be hinted to the audience. Though really, even 'she might not want to kill errbody' is still not enough for moral ambiguity. You'd have to be very clear that's nor wgat she wants, which still leaves plenty of room for mystery around what she DOES want.

Well we have a huntsman historian, so maybe there isthat super secret class that teaches how to balance budgets while dueling deathstalkers.

Would any of our cast be able to pass that class? Pyrrha? Weiss?

Well, Weiss was raised to inherit her father's corporation, so I'm sure she was probably taught how to manage money at a young age.

Blake, meanwhile, was an avid member of a militant rebel group. She was also the daughter of the former leader of the militant rebel group. And had a romantic relationship with one of the highest ranking members of the militant rebel group. So I'm sure she probably has resource management somewhere in her experience.

Even if she didn't pick it up in the White Fang, she might have read books on the subject.

Ruby, Yang, and Team JNPR are probably screwed, though.

EDIT: On an unrelated note, I really hope Qrow and Oscar stick around now that the team's back together because I really want to start calling them Team QROWBY.

If we trade Yang for Ren, they can be Team QROWBR.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 13th 2018 at 6:45:24 AM

Ice Queen and Beast Princess. Figures the royalty know their way around money.

RE Ozpin's Ambiguity:

   BIRDS.   

That is all.

What about birds?

Being able to turn into a bird is pretty sweet. Raven plays it like "LOOK AT WHAT HE DID TO US" but. Like. He gave them a cool superpower that is totally optional to use and has no apparent negative side effects.

And then when Raven decided she wanted to walk away, she was allowed to do so. Oz was even polite enough to let her keep her cool superpower. He wasn't like "Turn in your bird powers before you go," or "The only way you leave is IN THE MORGUE" or some shit.

By all indications, pretty much everything Oz ever asks of anybody is 100% voluntary.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 13th 2018 at 8:15:46 AM

The joke is that both Raven and Yang make it out to be the most heinous shit ever, despite being entirely upside.

Yeah, I'm just having fun at the show's expense.

Perhaps it comes with a crippling weakness. Like they have lost the ability to recognise windows and are constantly waking into glass doors because they think it's just an open path.

I'd pay money to see Raven take a trip in a fun house mirror room.

Put some rakes around for her to step on and we've got comedy gold.

If that is the case, we've yet to see anything of the sort in the show.

The worst thing I can say about Raven and Qrow's powers is they aren't as impressive as the other powers we've seen in RWBY. From a combat standpoint anyway.

Edited by windleopard on Sep 14th 2018 at 1:54:08 AM

Well, there's still the "will override Oscar's personality and conscious given enough time" degree of ambiguity, if you want to peer into Ozpin some more.

As for Salem, we don't actually know her plan. "Murder all the humans" is a supposition because Grimm murder all the humans (and, if you remember from the Battle of Beacon, can be coaxed to work with humans, so even that doesn't necessarily hold water). Even then, more intelligent Grimm are content on doing their own thing (Goliaths biding their time, Nuckles just hanging around the Kuroyuri region and collecting weapons).

I think the reason people are suspicious of Ozpin is less "we have been given reason to be suspicious of Ozpin" and more "it would fit common narrative tropes for Ozpin to be secretly either evil or morally grey" (that and the possession thing).

Even the secrets he's keeping he has a good reason to keep. The powers he hands out have no obvious downside (otherwise Raven wouldn't have slipped from his grasp and become a serious enemy with him having no real way to get rid of her or even retrieve the power he gave her).

It was a joke. Because birds sometimes run into glass windows because they don't recognise that they are an obstacle until they hit them.

Also there was that RWBY Chibi skit where Qrow kept running into team RWBY's window as he was trying to make his dramatic entrance.

Brainwashing isn't the best word, but is it not manipulative to build an army upon the idea of "protecting humanity" without giving them the full scope of the threat they're dealing with, and only entrusting that knowledge to a select few? I don't think anyone who signs up to become a Hunter expects that they're joining Ozpin's private war against Salem, ^note a woman so dangerous that Raven has to use a Terminator reference just to describe her. That seems to be Raven's beef with Ozpin - she even points out the similarities in Ozpin's behavior toward Team RWBY and Raven's team.

We've not been given exact reasons why Ozpin is secretly evil/morally gray, but we have been given three different accounts from three very different characters that paint Ozpin negatively (Ironwood, Raven, and finally Hazel). And yes, common narrative tropes do imply that Ozpin's somehow in the wrong.

I don't think the show gives Ozpin the same airs as other Big Good characters like Agent Dale Cooper ^note You know he's not evil when he goes on about wanting to visit Tibet, Optimus Prime ^note The moment you hear Stan Bush's The Touch playing while Optimus charges into Decepticon forces you know he's a good guy even if you've never seen an episode of Transformers before or bought a single toy, or Gandalf ^note His friendship with Bilbo and his speech to Frodo about the nature of heroism indicate Gandalf's on the up and up, well that and him 1-v-1'ing the Balrogusually get either, and that makes me suspicious. The only thing in his corner is a lack of damning evidence like a red lightsaber, and the fact that he's fighting the Pale Murder Lady. But, like with Sasuke Uchiha, fighting the Pale Murder Lady doesn't necessarily make you a good person. Sasuke just has clearly established moments of villainy in a franchise that's been around much longer.

I will bet a Rice Krispie treat that at some point in either Volume 6 or 7, while Ozpin won't be announced as the evilest evil to have ever evil'd, the topic about his less than stellar track record against Salem and his methods in general will come up and form an even deeper rift between him and Team RWBY. Watts or Cinder will probably bring it up too, and while they're far from trustworthy it adds some depth to the conflict if they're not totally talking out of their butts to mess with the protagonists.

Not that there's anything wrong with clearly defined lines of good and evil but, in spite of what Jeff says, I think the song lyrics are a little too purposefully vague, and the lyrics to Sacrifice, Divide, and Time To Say At Goodbye hint at something more behind the scenes. ^{Of course though}  Song lyrics could mean absolutely nothing to the plot and it's all just me projecting, but then all life in the universe could be effectively meaningless and maybe this thing we call society is just us repeatedly attaching meaning to an existence that ultimately has none. Let's assume otherwise and speculate for fun:

• Time To Say Goodbye pretty blatantly questions if the heroes are being manipulated
• I think Sacrifice speaks for itself as a taunt from Salem to Ozpin, or at least to his allies. "Did the things you thought you should, all the things they said were good."
  • "What if all the plans you made were not worth the price they paid? Even with the lives you stole still no closer to your goal?"    Like what   
    • Though in hindsight this could just be referring to Ozpin's Semblance actually being a forced possession deal
• Then there's Divide - pretty big FU from Salem to Ozpin
  • "It was you who ended their lives. Made them to dig their own graves. With your dark, sick, cruel design. Convinced them their world could be saved."

But what really sticks the knife into Ozpin's heretofore unchallenged, so-called goodness? The man dresses in black. If the insidious nature of Ozpin's Bird Form-granting black magic wasn't already a red flag, then this is practically a neon sign.

Edited by Soble on Sep 14th 2018 at 6:04:09 AM

Also, I'm going to bank on the fact that when somebody else in this thread hated me because I kept saying Whitley was an evil, conniving son of a Schnee - there was allegedly no evidence of such and I was being a pest.

Because obviously this little turd had nothing sinister going on. I thought, maybe I'm being too harsh on him and not being harsh enough on Blake. Maybe I should go back to hating Blake. Whitley hadn't done anything outwardly evil so he didn't deserve my suspicion.

But LOOK WHO WAS WRONG.

No, it's not. That's literally how armies work.

Private Johnson does not get to read all of the most highly-classified CIA documents on his first day of training. He has to earn that trust.

And that's what colors all of the accounts of Ozpin's untrustworthiness. Whether it's the songs you mention or the characters whining about Ozpin, they always come back to that one thing: Oz is a bad person because he's training people to fight the war against Salem.

That is literally everyone's complaint. "How dare you train kids to become soldiers and battle Salem?" They've all said it, the soundtrack has said it, it's the complaint. And it's dumb.

Well, she also has a song on the soundtrack that's literally called "All Things Must Die". So there's that.

Also, consider the following.

We laugh at Hazel's Broly-esque wrath, but why is he angry in the first place? Because his sister died while under Ozpin's wings. Alright, fair enough. However... unless she was supremely incompetent, I cannot see her die to mere Grimm (unless some hugeass boss-level encounter dropped right on top of them, and then I cannot imagine Hazel would serve someone called "the Master of Grimm"). We've seen fledgling Huntsmen decimate rank-n-file Grimm by the dozens. A second-year leisurely solo's a Deathstalker (although in Coco's case, her gear is supremely geared for PVE rather than PVP).

While some of that can be attributed to Protag Powers, we have two decidely unimportant secondary characters that Ren and Nora are - and they're about on the same level as RWBY. Ren solo'ed a King Tajitu, barehanded (a feat no one else can boast about). Nora's an all-around powerhouse and homeruns people and Grimm off the ballpark on regular basis (her Semblance powerup notwithstanding).

If Hazel's sister was under Ozpin's supervision, that suggests that she might have been - perhaps with Hazel - the previous duo of troubleshooters that the Branwens (well, Qrow) are. Alternatively, Hazel's sister was Pyrrha's equivalent - supremely skilled student goaded into something way above her paycheck.

Well, it was either Raven or Cinder's song given that it played during their fight. Also, I believe we're still undecided on the whole "songs are true" thing.

Edited by FergardStratoavis on Sep 14th 2018 at 3:38:54 PM

Pretty sure the takeaway is that RWBY and NPR are outliers for their year, plus as mentioned (with of the exception of the King Taijitsu) those were rank and file Grimms. They needed to work to together to take on anything more difficult. Also remember Cardin got into Beacon and nearly got mauled by an Ursa.

Things is, and have not been in any way demonstrated in the show, which leads to this confusion. I kind of agree with the overall sentiment here. While it does seem like we're supposed to believe Ozpin is shady, there's been little to no onscreen proof of him actually being such.

Are you suggesting that Ozpin turned Hazel's sister into a    BIRD   ? That would justify Hazel's anger so much...

Hazel was said to have been on a training mission.

Remember that hugeass bird Grimm that mauled team RWBY back in the first episodes of season 1 and needed desperate teamwork to bring down? Yeah, I could totally believe that some cadets have died to things like that.

The thing that makes Hazel 100% full of shit is that he blames Ozpin for his sister being killed while training to become a Huntress. The nature of the conflict is that she would only have been killed by either Grimm or Salem's human forces such as Cinder. Who he works for, for the sake of getting revenge against Oz.

Hazel works for his sister's murderers under the promise of revenge against a man tangentially related to her death. Hazel is a moron with nothing even remotely resembling a coherent point. As is explicitly pointed out to him in the show proper, his sister chose to be there.

Qrow and Raven chose to be there. Until Raven chose not to be.

Pyrrha chose to be there.

The only people who don't choose to be there are the random villages being butchered by Grimm while people like Hazel and Raven wank off about how evil Oz is for trying to make that stop happening. Child Ren did not choose to be there.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 14th 2018 at 8:20:09 AM

Granted kids dying on training missions is a legit problem. Also, was it an official mission or one of Ozpin's secret assignments that no one was to know about?

"Because obviously this little turd had nothing sinister going on. I thought, maybe I'm being too harsh on him and not being harsh enough on Blake. Maybe I should go back to hating Blake. Whitley hadn't done anything outwardly evil so he didn't deserve my suspicion.

But LOOK WHO WAS WRONG."

You, apparently, since Whitley still hasn't done anything wrong yet. Wiess torpedoed her relationship with Jaques herself. Whitley did jack shit but keep his head down and wait for the bust-up. Heck, Wiess nearly committed voluntary manslaughter; all Whitley did was be a bit smarmy, so if we're to compare them he's actually less evil than one of the protagonists.

Like, I have no doubt in the next season he's going to have a robot army or something. But he hasn't done anything evil yet.

Edited by Sigilbreaker26 on Sep 14th 2018 at 2:43:52 PM