RWBY General Discussion

"It helps explain why characters such as Emerald or Adam have their aura up even though their backstory shouldn't allow for it otherwise."

Can you explain on this?.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

Emerald was a street urchin who had nobody to care for her and Adam was a child worker, if not a slave to a ruthless corporation. In canon setting it makes perfect sense for them to have their auras unlocked, since all they'd have to do would be to find some huntsman and bother them until they agree to take a minute off their time and perform that funny aura-unlocking ritual. Under my rules, however, you can only get your ara unlocked by someone if they are a good friend or close relative, or if you pay them some ridiculous sum of money. Thus, a caveat has to be made to explain why low-life characters have their aura up.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Jul 11th 2019 at 10:53:07 AM

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.

Kinda runs into Fan Wank territory in the process though doesn't it? Wouldn't a simpler explanation be that some can unlock their aura naturally provided they're trained too or are triggered, whereas others need to unlock it manually?

After all, Ren managed to gain his semblance as a pre-teen, and Semblance's require Aura. And since Ann and Lee weren't huntsmen, rather Lee was just a hunter and Ann was a stay at home mom, they'd have little reason to unlock it for him or even know how to, meaning Ren likely both unlocked his aura and Semblance the night Kuroyuri fell. And since he wouldn't know how to do it, Nora probably had the same happen to her when she got struck by Lightning that crazy Thursday.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Jul 11th 2019 at 5:26:02 AM

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

I mean, Ren and Nora unlocking their auras due to danger can happen under my rules as well. It would just mean that their aura levels are lower than they would be, had they been unlocked manually.

Also, I find the idea of Ren going "Hey Nora, I learned that weird chant that lets you give other people superpowers. Wanna try it out?" to be pretty believable.

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.

We still don't have official confirmation on what Cinder's semblance is right? Cause I found Zaptech added her using Dust Manipulation as her semblance a few months back, claiming RT said it was, but I've found no evidence that is the case, rather that the Dust Manipulation is just from her clothing.

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

Semblances feel like such a wasted concept now. :(

I feel like they were going to be really important early then the show fell into Miles and Kerry's hands and suddenly "Maidens! Magic relics! God-dragons!"

Like who gives a crap what your Semblance is anymore? We never even found out what Torchwick's was.

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

Because Torchwick didn't have one. And don't say "fell into Miles and Kerry's hands". Miles and Kerry have been on the show just as long as Monty was, and while Monty had the initial concept, all three where the ones who created the series. Monty mainly did animation since he was a bad writer in his own words. The gods, Oz and Salem were some of the first dang things written for the show too.

Besides, as someone on The Other Wiki put it, this isn't My Hero Academia where Quirks are a central theme to the story, Semblances were just a cool bonus that explained characters having superpowers, and aren't central to the story.

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

Well, what are central to RWBY? Because whatever it is, this series really need to get back to that seeing how it is lacking focus.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Nowadays, it's the Relics.

A cruel, sick joke is still a joke, and sometimes all you can do is laugh.

(Hah. Longer rant than I wanted, but that seems to be the theme of this thread so here you go. :) )

1) Unless RT said otherwise (and I'd be skeptical even if they did - ^note here's something we never showed or talked about but, uh, yeah, the reason he never showed a Semblance is because he never had a Semblance, yeah it's not something we forgot about totally) it feels less like Torchwick just didn't have one (I mean, he has Aura) and more like they didn't expect him to be around long enough to need one.

2) I can understand why it might come off insensitive, but, for a show that was created by three people I recall seeing "created by Monty Oum" multiple times , so I don't see "fell into Miles and Kerry's hands" as offensive nor do I truly care to change how I worded it.

3) Central to the story or not, seeing new Semblances and seeing them elaborated on was, in the absence of strong character writing in the first 2-3 volumes, probably one of the most exciting things about this show. Every character had some mythical connection despite not actually being that character (Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, Mulan, Thor) - so having "semblances" as superpowers made sense. Monty being the nerd that he seemed to be (Haloid, Dead Fantasy) it made RWBY feel like a video game where the most exciting thing was unlocking new weapons or powers/seeing what the new weapon or Semblance was - they made this show stand out and fun to watch - like alchemy in Fullmetal Alchemist or Nen in Hunter X Hunter.

MHA will go out of its way to break the fourth wall and explain what a Quirk does (which I find pretty annoying). RWBY did do that from time to time (Ruby explaining Yang's, Port explaining Nora's) but besides those few instances it was like a small guessing game figuring out how a power worked, or hoping to see more of it. I wanted every character to have one since since most of the main cast seemed to have meaningful design.

Like, I'm glad we get to see so much world-building and lore, but I still want to know what Cinder and Mercury's Semblances were - those questions have haunted me. ^note And, mind, from what I'm reading in this thread just over the last 5-10 pages it's not like they've been doing the other things particularly well either And if they don't have Semblances then why don't they have Semblances? This doesn't seem like a question for the "well it was never shown so I guess it wasn't important/didn't exist" pile, but questions that could have been answered easily and honestly.

Just the fact that Mercury mentions his dad stole his Semblance and we're expected to go "oh, ok" is weird to me. I was more interested in that offhand comment then I was in anything else going on at that moment. Like, apparently that's a thing his dad could do. Power-stealing can be ridiculously broken in just about any setting and the only person who had it... was killed by his own son? See I want to hear more about that story.

But, we're all about flash-freezing Grimm and being the Avatar now. If the show's trajectory was always that Semblances would be less focused on/were just a Hand Wave for superpowers then that's kind of disappointing. It seemed like they were more important than that.

Edited by FOFD on Jul 11th 2019 at 9:11:34 AM

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

When you see created by Monty Oum it was but both Miles and Kerry help him write it and it's like when a movie directed by Big Name Jim they told the story but someone else wrote the script.

When it comes to any media you be surprise by how many people work on it even when they tell you it was created by Big Name Jim.

I was more trying to validate my saying "the show fell into [someone's] hands" then trying to say that Monty was the sole creator. Of course there are other people behind a project, but the Big Name Jim's still get most of the flak if people dislike said project.

In this case I'm only saying that "this part of the show I liked seems to have changed significantly because of Big Name Jim and Big Name Fred."

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

So happy I know how to do textblocks now.

Morality, Hope, and Motivations. Quirks are central to MHA because they are a consistent part of the narrative regardless of the arc and have an underlying presence even when not.

That's on you then. Doesn't matter if you choose to believe it or not. Besides, just having Aura doesn't mean you automatically unlock your semblance. Jaune should be proof enough.

Initially, it was for the sake of marketing, since the action scenes were what got the show an audience initially. After Monty's unfortunate passing, it was put at the forefront for the sake of memorial.

Phrasing it that way implies the show became bad solely because it was left to Miles and Kerry as if they gained control once Monty died, which is incorrect. It was always in their hands, especially since Monty mainly did animation and they took care of writing, and had to limit him from going too far.

Debatable, considering most people I've seen could care less about the Semblances, and just as many wish that Semblances weren't a thing and that the characters were just badass weapon users. Especially when, in the grand scheme of things and before After the Fall, only 22 characters had semblances out of a cast of at least 92 characters, and of those 22 only 16 of them even remotely mattered.

Except few of those powers remotely tied into said connections. How does Red Riding Hood equal Super-Speed? Or Goldilocks equal Damage Sponge? Or Snow White equals Stand Power? Hell, the only ones remotely similar to the mythology are Nora's (God of Thunder has an Electricity Steroid), Sun's (Monkey King can make clones), Glynda's (Good Witch has magic like Telekinesis), and Tock's. (Tick Tock Croc has a minute of extra power)

Again, 92 characters, meaning we'd need 92 power sets. And they'd inevitably start repeating, which they already have considering we have two Faunus with Clone related powers, Carmine and Glynda both have Telekinesis, and the whole Schnee deal is hereditary Semblances.

That reads like Skewed Priorities, since the whole point of that scene was Mercury telling Emerald he doesn't give a crap about her Parental Issues by bringing up his own crappy childhood and Abusive Parent, which segued into Tyrian's Breaking Speech. The point wasn't that Marcus could just up and steal Semblances, it was that his dad was vile enough to violate his own son's very being for the excuse of "toughening him up".

Edited by RebelFalcon on Jul 11th 2019 at 12:59:52 PM

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

Urgh.

I hated Harry Potter when it became all about finding Horcruxes. No wonder I started to complain a lot post Volume 3.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Wait wasn’t that in the final book?

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Yeah, and I hated it. Then again, it wasn't the only problem that one had.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Having a Macguffin hunt is HARDLY Unique to either Harry potter or RWBY.

Things are really about to get Fun around here

And I haven't claimed that they were the only ones. What's your point, exactly?

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

There was potential that you "could have" claimed that...

And then that would be incorrect...

YO. Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie.

Its just that it's a pretty common trope, I read that as implying it was somehow unique and was Inherently bad even if it's one of the most common Tropes there is.

Apologies that I misinterpreted that.

Things are really about to get Fun around here

I specifically said that "I" personally hated it, rather than the work is flawed or bad, just so that I can avoid this kind of conversation but no, apparently it wasn't enough. I don't know how much more specific I need to get but I better figure it out.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

That's pretty concrete.

It'll always be on the other side.

YO. Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie.

Semblances tie into the strong theme of individualism that permeates Remnant. Ruby describes Yang's as something "that makes her special". We don't really know how Semblances came to be - they seem exclusive to Humanity 2.0, since Humanity 1.0's shtick seemed to be general elemental magic; presumably they are from the same source that gave us Dust and the Faunus. At the same time, the plot was never about them. Currently we're dealing with Maidens, Relics, Salem, Ozpin and the Gods - all of it things from the old world that threaten to impose on the new world beyond the reasonable manner.

It's probably why Semblances exist in their current form. As someone stated, it's not like MHA where Quirks are inherent to the narrative - Semblances are just cool stuff people can do.

How do lizards fly?

So Knights Chronicle and RWBY collab there not to much to it but very little plot in it and Cinder swords may be call Midnight.

Video for the plot.

Sorry for the commentary skip to 3:48 for the start of the plot.

Cinderella Midnight hmmmm...

Mileena Madness