RWBY General Discussion

I understand. I've personally had to deal with quite a few of said individuals, and I admit my wording could have definitely used a lot of work.

My apologies I came across as such. I completely understand the reaction now, and shall work to try and avoid coming across as such in the future.

I cannot see her as Lawful Neutral when she's a bandit. That's like the exact opposite of lawful.

She's True Neutral at best, and you could still make a case for Neutral Evil because she's ultimately a self-serving scumbag who's willing to murder her family members.

Sorry about the insult. I didn't mean to make a personal attack, but rather just complaining about the mentality of certain fans. I didn't even know who made the entry, since I had no idea how new it was, and how far deep I would need to go in on the edit history to determine such.

Raven has also abandoned her family as well, though I question how someone like her ever decided to get married. That said, was she actually married to Taiyang? I can't remember any explicit confirmation, just that Raven was Yang's mother.

For all we know, Yang's a result of some drunken one-night stand, and the whole thing was one-sided on Taiyang's part.

She isn't even Really Neutral in the "not an Hero but not an Antagonist" sense. She Kidnaps Weiss for Ransom and ends up helping Cinders team in Volume 5, sure in the latter case she was planning to Backstab Cinder but even then it was for Selfish purposes. Keep in mind she does all this PLUS scorching villages for being Weak and killing a Child.

Raven has complexity yes, but she is at the very BEST an Anti-Villain and just barely clenching onto the Anti part.

Edited by Kylotrope on Mar 15th 2019 at 12:57:14 PM

In D&D "Lawful" doesn't have to mean "follows the law," following a code or tradition qualifies and as such being a bandit is not a disqualifier. A good example of Lawful Neutral is the Brotherhood of Steel from the Fallout series who at several points act like Raven's bandit tribe.

She helps Cinder's team because Cinder all but states "you're helping us or I'm burning everyone in your tribe until you agree", and whilst technically wanting to not die is a selfish reason I'm not going to fault anyone's character over it. She also doesn't scorch villages, the one village we saw raided was attacked by the Grimm afterwards with Raven putting the blame on them for what happened (granted not the most unbiased source, but Qrow doesn't call her out on that example) and the previous raided village we saw before that was scorched by the Grimm. We also don't know how old the Spring Maiden was when she died, so whether or not she's a child is speculation.

Except Raven's philosophy of life is a sham, torn down by Yang over a course of a single conversation. Her own survival is ultimately what she strives for the most, so I'd say she's more in line with TN, at best. (if we ignore that she murdered the Spring Maiden, conducted numerous bandit raids, originally joined Beacon to learn how to kill Huntsmen, and is just kind of a shitty person overall)

Thinking about it, my DM would probably label Raven as NE based on her past actions. She purposely left a decent and honest life to go back to banditing, which involves a lot of dead bodies and zero fucks. Killing the Spring Maiden alone would probably result in a forced alignment change if done by a player in a DnD setting.

Edited by Karxrida on Mar 15th 2019 at 5:02:31 AM

We don't know what her life was like when she left it. We don't really know much about team STRQ at all. We do know she grew up in the bandit tribe and we don't know the how and why she left her life with her team.

The Selfish Motive I was Reffering too was Getting the Relic, yes being threatened By Cinder was Certainly part of it, but Another part was Oppurtunism. And her Claims and Philosophy, as others have said are proven and called out as A Sham. Yes we don't know what age the Spring Maiden was, but we do know that at the time she was very young and Weak, as her being too weak to fight was the reason Raven killed her in the first place, And while she may not have been scorching Villages she says that "The strong lived, the weak died" was the Tribes way when attacking Villages.

We know Exactly why she left, She Thought fighting in the the war was Pointless, a Complex and interesting motive, but that as Yang called out Ultimately boils down to It's All About Me and dosent Excuse doing so much Evil Stuff and overall just being a Serious Jerk. She isn't the Devil or anything and she has redeeming qualities, but there DEEP down and that alone dosent mean your not evil. Even In-Universe Qrow calls her out for her Wants a Prize for Basic Decency attitude.

Edited by Kylotrope on Mar 15th 2019 at 5:41:47 AM

5xwe know the old Spring Maiden was a child because she is call one in the story when she ran a way.

Edited by Ryno_v on Mar 15th 2019 at 7:41:49 AM

If we think about this logically, it is safe to say that Raven leaving her family and Raven leaving the Ozluminati were two separate incidents. Raven left her family directly after Yang's birth. That means,before that, she was around nine months pregnant.

We also know that Raven left the Ozluminati because of what she saw during her missions. Remnant may be a Worldof Badass but I doubt that pregnant women are going on missions, especially missions involving the lord of the Grimm. This leaves two options. She learnt the truth either before or after the her pregnancy. If it is the former, it would mean that Raven waited nine months until she could escape, which sounds uncharacteristically. I think Raven would have simply escaped with Yang in womb right away, so that the two of them could be far away and save from Salem. We know that deep down, Raven cares for her daughter.

The most logical possibility would be, that Raven found out the truth about Salem at some point after Yang's birth. Personally, I think Summer's death was involved. Of course, this would beg the question, why she left her family in the first place. Ozpin may have been the reason. Even if he was innocent regarding Salem, he still became quite shady over the millennia. Would be funny, if he coerced Raven into living as part of some Crusader King-esque scheme so that Summer and Tai could get together and bring birth to Ruby - the ultimate huntsmen.

If Ozpin wanted to create the ultimate huntsman, he should had shipped Qrow and Summer together. Or, if he wanted the absolute best genes available, Ironwood and Summer.

There is the option that Raven left before Yang was born, found out she was pregnant and then nine months later dropped her off at Tai's.

Also pointing out that "The weak die, the strong survive" counts as a tradition or creed that would qualify for LN.

Raven Upholding the Bandits Traditions is Potrayed as just part of her BS philosophy. And her being raised in it is no Excuse as Qrow went through the same stuff and offers Raven no Sympathy.

That is both correct and irrelevant. That their traditions enables Raven's flaws doesn't make her any less LN, and that Qrow went to Neutral Good doesn't really have any bearing on Raven's alignment, especially since Qrow still kept working with her despite her being a bandit and asked her to join her again less than a minute after talking about how she led a raid on a town.

Edited by Shaoken on Mar 16th 2019 at 1:08:30 AM

Alright, that alone still isn't enough to make Her Lawful Neutral. As there's still all the stuff above.

See, this is why you don't usually write a character whose stated beliefs are all lies but then don't give them an actual set of beliefs to follow. It makes the discussion about them so much more confusing.

Anyhow. I stumbled onto this video talking about character designs in RWBY recently, and found it's given voice to quite a few things I'd been thinking about for a while in regards to the show. What do y'all think?

Embed for those who'd prefer it:

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Mar 15th 2019 at 11:13:09 AM

To use the Brotherhood of Steel example, they've wiped out an entire settlement of pacifists just because a former member wanted to join them, rob people with old-war tech, are overtly racist against sentient ghouls and synthetics, and are fully content to let innocent people to die rather than risk themselves. They are also classified firmly as Lawful Neutral since all of this is apart of their creed and laws.

Haven't Played the Game, but it sounds like That all sounds like There "Just" following There rules and Culture, instead of Using said Culture as an Excuse or Mask.

I think the Charachter Design thing just might be the ONE critisism Of RWBY where saying Its because of the Loss of Monty is okay.

Edited by Kylotrope on Mar 15th 2019 at 7:37:35 AM

Incredible.

-Improvement-

Caesar has Neutral Karma, and I don't see anyone decrying him as anything but a petulant petty manchild at the helm of a huge slaving group (beyond the few who view him as an enlightened warrior sage).

At the end of the day, D&D alignments are often too rigid to classify non-D&D characters with. Even if we consider "own survival first" as a law or rule that Raven follows, she's done too much evil stuff to classify her as LN.

She killed one person in a mercy killing, raided with no confirmed fatalities and betrayed her brother whilst being blackmailed. Her own brother whilst criticising her actions also asked her to come back to his side so clearly he didn't feel like she was that evil a person.

Edited by Shaoken on Mar 16th 2019 at 9:33:38 PM

If you mean the Spring Maiden with that first one, we only have Raven's word it was a Mercy Kill and, given her tendency towards self-justification, she's not the most reliable of narrators.

Edited by sgamer82 on Mar 16th 2019 at 8:35:40 AM

Yeah, I felt like that one was a "mercy kill" in the "maiden powers will make you a target, so let's cut out the middleman by murdering you outright". I have a very, very hard time seeing Raven as anything but a cowardly, self-serving, evil scumbag.

I just hope the story does't forget that Raven is kind of evil and treat her better then the other villains just because she push one of the protagonists out of her.