RWBY General Discussion

The reveal to Phyrra and the attempt to transfer the Fall Maiden's power to her, during which Ozpin stops and insists on getting unambiguous permission from Phyrra to continue, makes me think at some point in the past he was a lot more willy nilly with handing out responsibilities without informing the recipients what they were getting into.

Sending the kids out to fight Salem right off the bat was never what was supposed to happen. Whatever grand plan Ozpin had got thrown out the window when Cinder attacked Beacon. His main motive for not telling them right away, if the the conversation after the food fight is any indication, was that he wanted them to be children a little while longer. Sounds to me like the typical "tell you when your ready" scenario and then the villain was like, "Ha, you activated my trap card!"

Watching the scene again, Phyrra does ask why they want her now instead of after she's graduated, and Qrow basically says the bad guys have forced them to speed up their own schedule. Much of Vol. 3 was Ozpin and company reacting blindy as opposed to chessmastering.

Edited by Parable on Sep 15th 2018 at 8:25:31 AM

If Salem was trying to destroy positive emotion, then a weapon that is attracted to negative emotion, actively seeks out and slaughters people when attracted by negative emotion, and can be repelled by positive emotion would be a terrible means by which to pursue that goal.

As you pointed out: when Ruby was fighting Torchwick, the Grimm briefly changed sides to attack Torchwick over Ruby. That is not the behavior of a creature who exists to destroy Ruby's positivity.

A clandestine operation of which she was given all of the information ahead of time for the sake of making her decision and repeatedly asked for consent, with the implication that if she did decide this was over her head and walked away, Oz and the others would respect her decision.

The fact that Salem doesn't have absolute control over the Grimm changes nothing about the fact that they're her forces that she creates, sends out into the world, and uses to field her armies. We've seen them spawning in her domain and seen her create new types of Grimm; their connection to Salem is pretty undeniable.

Anyone killed by Grimm is being killed by Salem's forces, regardless of whether or not the Grimm were on an official Ozpin-fighting mission or just following their passive instruction to murder the world. This is very specifically why there's nothing shady about using Huntsman and Huntresses to oppose Salem: because she commands the same faction that the Grimm belong to.

If she was an unassociated third-party and the Grimm were just wild beasts, then it'd be shady for Oz to train people to fight Grimm and then go "BY THE WAY you're battling Salem's forces instead." But at this point, it's pretty hard to claim that "The Grimm serve Salem" is anything less than a 100% factually true statement.

And Hazel now serves alongside the Grimm.

Can Salem Be Fought?

Here's the thing about Oz's ambiguity: it's all predicated on one basic idea. We hear variations of this idea from pretty much everyone who defects: Salem cannot be stopped. Ever.

Some of the criticisms we hear of Ozpin are based on the idea that it's morally irresponsible of him to throw lives at trying to stop Salem when she absolutely 100% can never be stopped. Torchwick and the Cowardly Lionheart both explicitly gave fear of the inevitable as their motivations. Raven considers fighting Salem a foolish endeavor and is explicitly so afraid of her that she relinquished the Relic of Knowledge to Yang. Hazel somehow decided his sister's death is Oz's fault for recruiting her to fight Salem rather than Salem's fault for needing to be fought in the first place.

This is where a lot of the disconnect with accusations of moral ambiguity come from: the premise that defeating Salem is impossible, and therefore it's morally irresponsible for Oz to put even one life in harm's way trying to achieve that end. One wonders why so many people are utterly convinced of opposing her being a fool's endeavor - though the fact that one such person is based on someone with "Cowardly" in his name does certainly suggest a reason.

I've been wondering if Salem might "reincarnate" the same way that Oz does: dying and passing on to a new host body - a body like Cinder, perhaps. If groups like Team STRQ or Oz's Inner Circle have actually seen Salem die and watched her just sprout back up and go back to what she was doing, that could explain the disillusionment with the idea that she can even be defeated in the first place.

Indeed, the idea that Oz and Salem are basically just feeding bodies into an eternal conflict that can never end because neither side's leader will ever die or relinquish their goal would do wonders to give him that moral ambiguity that the writers are trying so hard to claim he has.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 16th 2018 at 6:06:27 AM

Well, we've been given the list of reasons why Ozpin chose Pyrrha.

"Maidens choose themselves. I simply believe I've found the right candidate. Ever since the day I met her, I've had a feeling she would be the one. She's strong, intelligent, caring. But, most importantly, she's ready."

Readiness for what? Well, that's left to us to interpret for ourselves. There's nothing wrong with you interpreting that as meaning 'she won't refuse when I ask', but that's definitely not the only possible interpretation.

Ozpin so far hasn't tried to make us believe anything about Salem's relationship with, or control over, the Grimm. Raven did tell Yang and Weiss that Salem is the 'master' of the Grimm, but even she didn't clarify how much control that actually translates into.

For now, Salem's level of control over the Grimm is a mystery — as is what Ozpin thinks of her control.

I think there's two things going on with Ozpin where Pyrrha's concerned: when she was taken to Amber and the situation first presented to her, there were times when Ozpin looked very sad, mostly where the subject of the consequences for Pyrrha if she agreed were concerned (after all, he knows exactly what it's like to live with that consequence).

When he started the transfer, his knowledge was different: previously, the group had indicated the consequences to Pyrrha were uncertain but here, he acts as if there's no doubt. Also, his insistence that she verbally confirm was almost pedantic, but at the same time quite sad — possibly because he knows what this is like to go through.

However, I think there was a reason for his pedantry. I interpret Maidens as being a skeleton key (Ozpin) split into four scattered keys to make it harder to obtain all four Relics (now four people have to be captured instead of one). Ozpin guards the Relic of Choice, for which the Fall Maiden acts as key. Ensuring the future Fall Maiden has choice enables her to act as the key to the Relic of Choice.

So far, the three headmasters we've seen have had aspects in common with the concept of the Relic they guard:

• Ozpin has been obsessed with Choice.
• Ironwood is very creative and innovative where technology is concerned.
• Leo's theme was based on knowledge — the knowledge he could pass to Salem, and the knowledge of Salem that made him believe opposing her was impossible (this trigger is still a mystery for now — but has been lampshaded in-universe so may be revisited at a later date even though Leo is dead).

By the same token, the two Maidens we're currently familiar with are also defined by the Relic they are the keys to:

• Raven, like Leo, seems to have knowledge of Salem that has led her to abandoning Ozpin and declaring Salem impossible to stop. Her entire Volume 5 storyline was based around the concept of knowledge - it's what she dangled in front of Yang, it's what she withheld from the villains, it's what she hoped to use to protect her tribe from Salem, and it seems to be at the heart of her rift with Qrow.
• This brings us to Cinder. Cinder obtained the power of the Fall Maiden by the destruction of Choice. Remember, Ozpin told Qrow that 'Maidens choose themselves' — but Cinder method of 'choosing herself' is a perversion of what Ozpin was trying to say. She didn't simply destroy the Fall Maiden's choices, she also destroyed Pyrrha's choices after Pyrrha had gone through the process of 'choosing' to accept the Fall Maiden's responsibility.

I am waiting to find out if Cinder has, without knowing it, made it very hard for herself to obtain access to the Relic of Choice. By obtaining the Fall Maiden's power through the destruction of Choice, she's triggered a hidden trap card — she's delegitimised herself as the 'key' to the Relic of Choice whereas Ozpin insisting on Pyrrha's verbal consent is what legitimised Pyrrha as a Fall Maiden candidate.

This is going to be a long-winded way of agreeing with you by stating how I see it.

From the beginning, Ozpin has been concerned with children being allowed to be children for as long as possible. It was made clear that they'd run out of time with Pyrrha and this is where my interpretation of Ozpin's 'she's ready' comment comes in — she can shoulder the responsibility now, instead of waiting until adulthood.

We now know that Maidens can't always cope with being Maidens. The Spring Maiden was lost this way, and she was a child. More importantly, Ozpin himself lost his own childhood to the weight of the world. That's just happened to Oscar, and it's probably been happening to Ozpin for thousands of years — how many childhoods has his reincarnation stolen? It does seem to be a sensitive subject for him.

You've misunderstood some of what I was saying. I'm not saying that Salem is trying to destroy positive emotions and I definitely didn't say that the Grimm exist to destroy Ruby's positivity. I said that Salem is trying to destroy Ozpin — but she can't do that by killing him, so she has to do it another way, which appears to be about destroying his positivity. In other words, sending him across the Despair Event Horizon so that he can do nothing more than exist in a state of permanent despair, with no future to hope for.

What I am saying is that the obvious counter to beings of negativity is positivity, and that might be what the Silver Eye power is. We've been told that the Silver Eyes are extremely rare, and it's been hinted that not every person with silver eyes will ever learn how to use their power.

My guess is that Salem's probably tried to wipe them out in the past, which is why they're so rare now. Either way, this concept of weaponised positivity isn't exactly your every day thing. I'm going to guess that the creation of the Vytal Festival was an attempt to 'weaponise' positivity and that was subverted into weaponising negativity — because that is exactly what we saw happen.

I've been thinking that Salem doesn't reincarnate. Whatever else her appearance means, one thing it means is that she's got this vastly extended lifespan without reincarnating, after all, individual Grimm can live for centuries and get more powerful and thoughtful with age. I'm thinking that either Salem can't be killed until the Grimm are first destroyed (when Grimm kill people, Salem effectively consumes their Aura/sould — consuming lifeforce keeps her own lifeforce going) or the Grimm can't be destroyed until Salem is (the Grimm dissolving away to leave no body means they're not dying — they just regenerate in the pools and start again).

Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 16th 2018 at 6:55:42 PM

So it sounds to me like Ozpin was just as much onboard the Pyrrha hype train as the rest of the world. She is the golden girl who can do anything and gets her face on cereal boxes, of course she'd make an excellent maiden. And it was only very late in the game that he stopped seeing the pedestal he and everyone had put her on and remembered this was a kid whose life he could very well be screwing up.

I think I disagree that Cinder is anti-choice, so much as Cinder is just a person who has made the wrong choice (which is the pitfall when you give freedom to people at all - they're not always going to pick the right thing to do).

Hehehe pitfall...

I never got to ask. What's your opinion on the FIRST members getting everything a week early instead of three days?

Doesn't matter to me.

Oh, they changed it?

Eh, never mattered to me.

Honestly, I always just figured they were being pretty nice by letting people see things free at all.

Whether it's three days or a week, both seem pretty generous to me.

I'm conflicted over it - my nostalgia for the Wild West days of the internet when small productions like Red vs Blue were Rooster Teeth's claim to fame makes me dislike the idea that their content is now released early for paying customers. Though, on the other hand, it's still technically free. Yet, discussing it here becomes a problem when FIRST members come here to talk about the latest episode.

And it's not exactly a solid argument that they should have to spoiler-tag all of their posts for an entire week because we're all watching it for free. I wouldn't have expected people who watch on RT's site to censor themselves for a week until the rest of us saw the YT version.

Pretty much my feelings on it. Having it on You Tube means they collect ad revenue from it. They get licensing revenue from licensing it out to Netflix and the like. But I'm not sure that there's any financial benefit to putting the show out for free on their site after a specific period.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 17th 2018 at 4:16:32 AM

Like I said if they remove the old episodes this could turn into a disaster for them in the long run.

No, I think Ozpin was looking for the 'fifth' sister. He was looking for someone like the four sisters had been — the original Maidens he gave the power to. That's not exactly the same criteria for being a good Huntress, but there would be overlap.

I don't think he forgot she was a kid whose life he might be screwing up. I think he did it despite that, not because he forgot that.

She may have made the wrong choices for herself but I'm not talking about her decision to become the Fall Maiden. I'm talking about what she's done to others.

• She took away Amber's right to choose the next Fall Maiden.
• She took away Pyrrha's right to choose to become the substitute when asked by the creator of the Maidens.
• She attempted to take away the Spring Maiden's right to be the Spring Maiden (or to choose the next Spring Maiden).

She is entirely anti-choice where the other Maidens are concerned.

Fully expected it to happen. They tried to do it a couple of years ago, but the First members protested, which is why they settled for Tuesday releases instead of a week later. Before that, it was a twenty-four hour delay.

The trope pages are going to be an utter mess, however. The FIRST members will be effectively circumventing the point of the restricted release by troping as soon as the episode is out. Then a week later, the general public will be troping that episode while the FIRST members are circumventing the restricted release of the second episode — at the same time.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 17th 2018 at 11:53:01 AM

I'm not particularly happy with the idea. While I do understand that not publishing on youtube and having a few days between the FIRST viewers and the free ones are all normal business decisions, I feel that increasing that time lapse to a full week serves little purpose other than trying to squeeze a few more FIRST members out of their viewers. I find it especially scummy-looking since they not only walked back on their statement that this wouldn't happen, but snuck that bit of news behind a video where they call youtube out for their practices, almost as if hoping people wouldn't notice. It doesn't look nice to me, and it doesn't really gel with the "small, friendly animation company" look they try so hard to maintain.

But hey, I'm not an executive, so what do I know?

One thing people have to remember that this week delay is a push to get people to buy a FIRST membership but they may have to do this because their are losing a part of their audience.

Some people won't go to Rooster Teeth know mater what RT does the website could give free Candy and a handjob (and the girl handjob equivalent) and some people will stay on You Tube or just to pirate it.

Dash it all. Now that it's at least one month before Volume 6 premieres on October 27 on RT First, is it necessary to have the main work page (including its separate trope pages) locked until a few days after the first episode's premiere in order to avoid early spoilers?

Also, how should we approach troping the Volume 6 episodes when RT First subscribers get it in advance? Wait until close to the following week when the episodes become public or so?

Edited by gjjones on Sep 17th 2018 at 1:41:12 PM

As a FIRST member I put forward that we don't trope them until it gets released to the public, however that would require all FIRST tropers to be in agreement which might be difficult to arrange.

and this is why they should stop putting the episodes out for free

That comes out in two years. Next year they force you to be a member to even view any episodes.

What? What part of what I said means they should stop putting out free episodes altogether?

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Sep 18th 2018 at 7:31:24 AM

I'm fine with waiting more, after all, I'm not even paying (i.e. supporting the show)

Calling them scummy for not offering the episodes for free soon enough for you? They should be trying to make it more appealing to be a FIRST member as that's one of their primary revenue streams.

"She may have made the wrong choices for herself but I'm not talking about her decision to become the Fall Maiden. I'm talking about what she's done to others.

• She took away Amber's right to choose the next Fall Maiden.
• She took away Pyrrha's right to choose to become the substitute when asked by the creator of the Maidens.
• She attempted to take away the Spring Maiden's right to be the Spring Maiden (or to choose the next Spring Maiden)."

...what?

None of this is anti-choice. This is just her being a dick. If I kill someone, I'm not anti-choice because I've taken away their choice to keep breathing, I'm just a murderer.

Otherwise literally any possible antagonistic force would be anti-choice; which prevents any clear thematic connection. Cinder isn't doing what she's doing because she hates freedom, it's a byproduct of her just trying to collect all the Maiden powers.

Otherwise you could argue that Pyrrha was taking away Cinder's choice because Pyrrha was going to become the Fall Maiden outright, preventing Cinder from becoming it. Does that make any sense whatsoever? Of course not, but it's the same logic as what you're saying.

Re: FIRST;

Honestly giving away the stuff free at all is a pretty generous business decision; and even if it wasn't, this change is far from their worst business decision compared to their massive expansion push in terms of new series.

Edited by Sigilbreaker26 on Sep 18th 2018 at 12:34:44 PM

7xI think that's a good idea but I think the recap page should be edit when the episode first comes out.