RWBY General Discussion

...wait, hold on. How is the main conflict an Idiot Plot? (other than Ozpin trying to summon the Gods notwithstanding)

Tag team I can get behind, but Jaune is still way below everyone else's level. His most recent showing (Vol 7 teaser) shows that he can't simply keep up with everyone else's bullshit. They're doing pirouettes, sommersaults, cutting multiple Grimm apart at the same time etc. He just stabs one of the Sabres and then stabs another - which works too, but showcases an obvious difference in speed.

Jaune's strength is his enormous Aura supply and his Semblance, but in terms of pure combat he's just not up to par with any significant baddie. And yeah, like Darthwyn said, Maiden powers are a pretty big force multiplier.

...incidentally, one of the reasons that came to me why Cinder v. Ruby is unlikely to happen is... well, what stops Ruby from giving Cinder a silver-eyed look now that she can use them semi-at will? A brief flash was enough to stop Cinder dead in her tracks - a focused blast would probably just scorch her, unless Maiden powers can provide any protection (now that she's aware Ruby can pew-pew her).

Ren I'll give you. Even still, I feel like there's no real out-of-universe reason for them to stick around. They've always been a bit on the wayside, even way back in Vol 1. Ren got his backstory and Arch-Enemy (Nuckles), but that just makes him more vulnerable to sudden death syndrome. I'd like to be proven wrong, obviously, and that both parts of Renora make it out.

I expect Neo will doublecross her eventually, but I doubt Cinder'll be killed off so easily. She survived getting flash frozen by Raven, and as much of a smug lady she is, I expect Cinder isn't dumb enough to show her back to Neo without a major distraction in her way. Plus, as long as Maidens remain relevant characters (we still have two to be revealed, and the Relic of Choice wasn't unearthed from Vale), Cinder is likely to chase that train.

Plus, if Cinder is killed off, what becomes of Neo? Assuming she forgoes her revenge on Ruby, does she just go home after all this effort spent to even catch up with this circus? I doubt she'd just join Salem's forces.

The problem is, she's the only baddie of the inner circle to have any point of personal connection with the heroes. Plus, for such an important presence in the story, we still don't know anything about her six volumes in. It's not like the Albains who were a minor presence in the grand scheme of things.

I can certainly see Cinder going rogue, but much later in the story. I expect the Atlas arc will culminate with her getting back into Salem's good graces while still nursing her psychotic obsession with power (maybe, for example, by bringing her a live Ruby). If the Gods are going to be a part of the plot, I can see her being the one that summons them into the world in search of more power and, maybe, becoming their second-in-command.

Well, I think TLJ made him a full-on compelling presence unlike any other baddie we had in canon Star Wars. It's unfortunate that Rise of the Skywalker seems to act as if Movie 8 never happened and we'll be back to rehashing old formulas.

The tattoo on Cinder's back also symbolises the link. Her tattoo only appeared when the parasite and glove were absorbed into her hand.

I've mentioned before that I'm expecting the 'midnight moment' where Salem 'takes away' Cinder's power. I don't think the parasite Grimm will leave her, but will instead shut the door on Cinder's access to the power — a warning that Cinder is only a Maiden for as long as Salem permits it. (The question is whether Cinder will fall into line or not.)

When Cinder is no longer a Maiden, the tattoo should disappear.

We know that detached Grimm parts dissolve, so I don't think that Cinder was given an arm from somewhere else. I think it's manifestation of the Grimm inside her. It has transmutated an arm in the place of her lost arm. The more she loses of herself, the more manifest and powerful the parasite Grimm becomes... in short, it's parasitising her.

I'm still waiting for the day when her left eye opens, revealing a Grimm eye.

It's worth remembering that when Grimm body parts are detached, they dissolve into nothing. I therefore don't believe Cinder was given an arm from another Grim, grafted onto her body. I believe the parasite Grimm inside her is able to transmutate an arm in the place of her lost arm. The more she loses of herself, the more manifest and powerful the parasite Grimm becomes... in other words, it's parasitising her.

I'm also waiting to see if Salem knows Cinder is using Neo to circumvent her instruction. I am expecting the parasite Grimm to allow Salem that level of knowledge.

Regarding opponents:

• Team RWBY is the titular team. They're destined for the primary villain. That's not Cinder. They, and Ozpin, need to deal with Salem.
• Cinder's animosity towards Ruby has always been one-sided. Although Ruby has occasionally mentiond Cinder in a tone of anger, she's never displayed a personal interest in Cinder, especially not to the degree Team JNPR (and especially Jaune) have. Cinder can think she's Ruby's opponent all she wants, but she's not. She much more likely to be Jaune's.
• Hazel is Oscar's issue because of the Ozpin situation. Yes, that does effectively mean Oscar's stuck with both the Hazel and Salem situations, but he'll play second fiddle to Team RWBY where Salem is concerned anyway. By contrast, Hazel is all his.
• Tyrian, I can see becoming Qrow's issue.
• I still believe Neo regards Cinder as Roman's killer and that she's biding her time until she can turn on Cinder, given the issue of the Maiden powers. I can see her helping Cinder's eventual opponent (probably Jaune) to defeat her. Cinder's been making an awful lot of assumptions about Neo's beliefs and motives; I'm expecting that to bite her in arse.
• That leaves Watts, Emerald and Mercury. If Watts does turn out to be energy-based, expect him to become Nora and Ren's opponent.
• And that leaves Emerald and Mercury, whose situation is ambiguous anyway because they're in way over their heads and only just becoming aware of that fact.

Yes, but I'm talking about the trigger for his physical stalking. My post does point out that there's an ongoing narrative impact from his obsession that has excluded physical stalking, which is exactly why I'm pointing out a specific trigger was required beyond 'merely' being obsessed for the stalking to occur.

Adam had only three appearances and one or two extra mentions prior to the Battle of Beacon, so very little was going to be 'developing on-screen'. That said, we did have some bits and pieces along the way, that allowed some thoughts to arise. The real problem was the fandom itself: the fandom put together a lot of assumptions to create a fanon about him that was actually contradictory to what little we did know about Adam. The Battle of Beacon debunked the fanon about Adam.

Obsession does not have to be introduced the very first time a character appears and then developed on-screen for it to be valid. Character traits that have not been previously seen can be introduced later on down the road. It's not automatically bad writing. It's not even an automatic symptom of bad writing. How something is executed can lead to bad writing, but that's not the same thing.

That said, in this case, we did see some signs in advance of the Battle of Beacon that Adam may have obsessive traits. I never felt like it came out of the blue. I could give a run down of what I picked up about Adam and therefore what I was thinking about him prior to the Battle of Beacon, but I'd do that in a separate post.

Do I think they should have shown more of Adam before the Battle of Beacon? Yes. Am I happy with the portrayal of Adam throughout the six volumes? No. Do I think his obsessive personality came out of left-field? No.

Would you mind finding the specific post you're thinking of? Neither of those two sentences sound like points I'd be making because that's not how I think. If you know which posts they come from, I'll be happy to take a look at what I wrote and clarify anything that didn't make sense.

It looks like I need to clarify my point in mentioning an alternative narrative: it doesn't matter whether you think the writers or animators are worse than the other — the existence of separate narratives is a team failure, not an individual one. The consumer of the work is not telepathic; they cannot know what the creator's original intention is and can only go by the content they're given to consume. I've seen this site discuss this subject several times: people should trope what the work shows and not what the creator's intention was. That's because it's common for there to be a disconnect between creator intention and the outcome of the work itself. That's why certain tropes and Trivia items exist to cover this subject.

The Silver Eyes are supposed to work on Grimm. They're supposed to be for the purpose of protecting life from the Grimm. Now, Ruby has noticed that Cinder seems to be vulnerable to the Silver Eyes, but she doesn't know why. She doesn't even know why Cinder is scarred — she doesn't know she did that to Cinder. At the moment, she doesn't even know that Cinder has a grudge against her.

Even if she learns that Cinder has a Grimm inside her (and she doesn't even know about the arm yet), would Ruby be in the right frame of mind to use a power that's supposed to protect life to do harm to, or even kill, Cinder? Would she ever be able to reach that frame of mind?

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 15th 2019 at 10:10:54 AM

Cinder feels like the Darth Vader to Salem's Emperor Palpatine. Salem is the background force they ultimately need to defeat, while Cinder is the aspect of that force that the team has the most confrontations with and personal connection to. Maybe that'll change as Salem becomes more active, but for now I don't see Cinder being left to team second stringers.

She won't, if only because RT seems really invested in telling her pseudo-Azula story.

But she should. She should have been heading in that direction ever since she was crippled by Ruby and Salem was introduced.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Jul 15th 2019 at 9:04:17 AM

oh my god cinder IS summer

"It's more like comparing two genetically modified apples, except one was tailored to look good instead of being nutritious, if you get the metaphor. My point is, Adam was written as a Hate Sink because the writers decided to write him as a Hate Sink. If they are just terrible at writing Complete Monster characters — which seems probable, considering they did a far better job with Salem as opposed to Adam or Cinder — they should just stay away from writing this sort of characters."

I don't really get that Metaphor, though that's probably on me. My point is that the director and Adam are Fundamentally different characters, in what there narrative purpose is to there basic characterization, and a lot of the post seems to portray The directors death as better because it evoked Major sympathy. This isn't even really about how well written Adam was, its just that the comparison falls extremely flat for me.

"Another thing is that Felix was written miles better than Adam, pun intended. Even at the very end of his Villainous Breakdown, Felix managed to one-shot Tucker — not because Tucker is terrible fighter, but because he is still out of his league no matter how much balls he had grown. After that, it took the entire main cast working together and using underhanded tricks to beat the guy, and even then, they are all terrified of him. Even aside from all the other reasons Felix is better than Adam — and trust me, I can give a few — this is a significantly better way to handle a major antagonist. Had Adam casually disarmed Blake and/or Yang, but then got surrounded and outmaneuvered by RWBY and JNR working together to defeat him, I don't think I would have minded his character so much."

I actually think this would have been better, even if I disagree that the route the show did go with was bad.

Though what I do disagree with is the whole "Adam went out too easy" thing

One could always frame it as "this is a villain that threatens life". It's not like Ruby is some saintly thou-shalt-not-kill person. Even disregarding the countless White Fang mooks, she sent Neo flying off the ship without a second thought.

It might be that Cinder's hubris gets the better of her, again, and forces Ruby's hand (er, eyes) anyway.

Basically this. The moment Salem personally shows up to the battlefield, things will go downhill for the heroes fast. That, however, may not happen until much later in the story. So far Salem's most direct action was to make specialized Grimm, presumably for the purpose of an all-out assault against Atlas.

Cinder, while not in her good graces at the moment, is the most notable of her inner circle, with a personal connection to the heroes and the most invested in them. If Salem doesn't suddenly pull the plug on her powers (Grimm/Maiden/both), she will continue to be a threat that the heroes have yet to actually properly fight. What little we got from Vol 5 indicates that Cinder's just above the heroes in terms of power levels at the moment (her crippling weakness to Silver Eyes notwithstanding).

Edited by FergardStratoavis on Jul 16th 2019 at 12:00:48 PM

Honestly, if Salem can sense Cinder's state through the damn bug, it wouldn't surprise me if right as Cinder's about to attack Ruby, Salem pulls the plug on the power remotely to both punish Cinder for defying her, and to make sure Cinder is left handicapped so she can't kill Ruby, since Salem still wants her.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Jul 16th 2019 at 6:44:35 AM

Here is another shark Cinder comic but this time is by Jumpin Jammies [1]

I love that this is becoming a thing.

...I am okay with this comic.

I just love it when Cinder acts silly. Probably the reason why she is among my favorite character in Chibi.

I'm not really thinking of whether or not Ruby's capable of killing a person (after all, she consciously decided to get Neo tossed off an airship without a second thought). I'm thinking more about how the power itself has been described and triggered.

Even then, I'm not posting from the idea that it's never going to happen. I'm just mulling over the fact that Ruby as she currently is probably wouldn't be able to use the Silver Eyes on Cinder.

I am accommodating an unspoken 'yet' in that, however.

Yes, that's more or less what I'm thinking. Salem warned the rest of her group that if they put their desires before Salem's own, they will be lost to them. It therefore makes sense that, at the moment Cinder thinks she can finally move on Ruby, her powers will be denied her and she will find herself powerless and vulnerable.

Okay, regarding the Character Pages split. No-one else has responded either here or to my post on the Characters.RWBY discussion page (I did put Edit Reason links onto the history pages of all Character Pages and work trope pages — not sure what else to do to raise awareness for people who don't post on this forum).

That was on the 28th June.

Since then, I've only seen two tropers mention the subject, neither on the discussion page I put the message on. One troper made a comment on the Characters.RWBY Kingdoms discussion page that they were going to split the page, so I gave them a link to the current project and suggested they join in. They indicated they would, but I've seen nothing from them since. Another troper posted on the Kingdoms discussion page stating they wanted a kingdoms split, but worded it in such a way as to imply they'd already suggested it. I don't recognise the name, however (I've put their name in bold), so I don't know if they've posted under another name. I therefore don't know if I should add their name (stardust120) to the tally (under 'neither scenario').

So, as it stands, we have the following:

Okay, current tally on the Sandbox (previous was in this post). Excuse the use of names. I'm not seeking to call anyone out, it's to make sure I don't miss anyone or count people twice.

I've also listed the question on the RWBY Characters Discussion Page for anyone who doesn't/can't use this forum.

Scenario:

• One: Tharkun140, VeryMelon, Shaoken
• Two:
• Concerns: Fergard Stratoavis (About One)
• Neither scenario: Slater130, stardust120 (?)

Handling Sanus (if Scenario One is chosen):

• Split: Tharkun140, gjjones, Shaoken
• Combined:
• Neutral: Fergard Stratoavis

Should I put a deadline on this? There hasn't been much response all told — including on the Character pages. So I'm not sure we're going to get a huge consensus for any option (the main issue seems to be whether to split by continent or kingdom, with slightly more favouring continent). Is there anyone else who would like to vote?

gjjones — you commented on whether you preferred Sanus split or combined, but didn't comment on whether you preferred Scenario 1 or 2 or something else, which is why your name only appears once (I didn't want to assume you prefer Scenario 1 just because you answered the splits question).

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 16th 2019 at 11:59:58 AM

Split Sanus.

I'm surprised you missed my vote for it since I did leave one: On here https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13639868050A17401700&page=2390#comment-59736

Some more Cinder shark [1]

By the way here is a breakdown of after the fall in term of what lore it bring by eruptionfang.

Will someone summarize what he said, cause I have no intention of watching any of his crap again.

Seconded. Eruptionfang can eat it.

What’s the story there?

Who's eruptionfang and what happened?

Yeah I'd also like to know before I click any of his videos.

I dont know, he does have some opinions in RWBY(but again, who dosent?) like he is piss at Adam(but again, his opinions are not diferent from the lovecrafnian or tharkul or mine) and at least I can asured that aside of him prasing the book for allow the chararter to loose every now and them is fairly neutral.

EF is such a Adam fanboy that he legit thinks the only way to do him justice is if he fought the entire main cast at once. 9 vs 1 and gave them a struggle. (Yes his real words)

That type of fanboyism grinds on plenty.

But this After the Fall video isnt bad.

And the book is solid. Does a lot to lay down world building pieces for Vacuo. Gives the name of Shades Headmaster and some other Beacon teachers, backstory for Cfvy, specifically Yatsuhashi etc.

And Fox is a snarky asshole and its great

That in itself doesnt sound like fanboyism given how powerful he appeared to be in trailers and volume 3.

9 v 1... Is that RWBY, JNR and Oscar/Qrow? I think that's an overestimation of Adam's showing in volume 0-3 because of Qrow. But then again, Grow didn't really seem to stand out compared to the kids in volume 5 or 6's team fights which just now strikes me as pretty odd.

That does sound like a big Adam fanboyism but is that it? That doesn't seem too problematic unless s/he made an apologia for Adam's abuse and violence.

9 vs Adam is total overkill, yeah. It wouldn't be a battle at that point, it would be Adam's execution. Just him fighting entire Team RWBY would be more than enough of justice, and even that would lean towards a Curb-Stomp Battle.