RWBY General Discussion

RWBY is an anime, deliberately so.

Im surprised how much people reaaaaaally resist the idea for some reason.

Might be thanks to the tons of people saying that a show can only count as an Anime if it's made in Japan. Like with the Last Airbender fandom....

Anime, schmanime. It's all animation.

What I will say about this episode is that there's a lot going in the background that helps drop clues about the plot. Background chatter from crowds is now relevant and worth listening to. Information and news boards in the background are worth reading, even if you have to blow them up in Paint to read it.

There are a couple of reasons for why I was paying so much attention to the background. One of them was that the environment in this first episode does look really good and is worth taking the time to study. Mantle has its own colour scheme from what we saw of Atlas at the end of V6 and one thing I really did like in the environment are the street heaters — the long bars along the insides of the pavements that give off an orange light; if you look closely you can see the heat rising from them in almost every shot they're in.

There are lots of little things like that scattered around in the background, that makes most scenes worth studying for their own sake. I'm really happy to see the backgrounds generating the feeling of a living city now compared to earlier volumes.

And the episode got a big thumbs up from me for finally dressing crowds according to environment. Although there are still the odd individuals with short sleeves or shorts (which I can live with because, even in real life, there are always one or two people wandering around in short sleeves in the middle of winter), most of the crowds have heavy clothes — long sleeves, coats, hats, gloves, scarves, etc. That's a big improvement from Argus.

I do have a theory about Penny's core, but I'll leave it until the second episode is out. I should point out that there's absolutely nothing in the second episode that my theory would spoil, it's just to give people time to let the first episode bed in.

That said, Penny's bubbly personality despite everything's that happened doesn't bother me because my interpretation is that her personality is based at least partially on programming parameters. Also, to the best of our knowledge, she did not lose her Aura. The episode basically implies that the reason Penny can be rebuilt from the surviving core is because that's the important bit for the soul/Aura technology that makes her so unique.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Nov 10th 2019 at 12:45:51 PM

I still have in my headcanon that Ironwood was lying or he was fooled when saying that Penny would be a new robot because as C Inder said, the idea of a robot that look like human desing to combat grimm dosent make sense......

I feel Penny was made to contain the soul of pietro daughter or something like that, because I dont think you can replicate a soul

Well thinking about it, the idea most likely is that more human like robot acting as hunters would allow them to provide the same feeling of safety and peace of mind that regular hunters do since they, in theory, would mesh better with the public.

Edited by DeanCole on Nov 11th 2019 at 3:53:33 AM

Calling it now: Penny is the Winter Maiden.

Swole Ruby fanart.

I remember seeing some art of Ruby boxing that would fit really well with this, but I can't remember where it was...

Have RT not uploaded the opening for this volume anywhere? Generally they'd have it out by now.

They have.

RWBY Volume 7 Intro

And they made an live action one as well.

RWBY VOLUME 7 INTRO: LIVE ACTION

Oh! Wow, I managed to miss that, way to go me

Thanks for the links.

Are you still thankful after having seen the live-action version

What did you think of Yang PTDS about her arm? because waching two RWBY youtuber, eruption fang and unicorn of war they seen to pretty much diferent side of the spectrum here: He think it was a cheap way to write that off, specially in her fight with Adam while Unicorn seen on the opinion that she move in spite of ther trauma and that is why she was defined as strenght.

in on the opinion that RT cut themselves on a corner with that kind of storyline in a major action series but I could be wrong.

Since you ask...

There is such a thing as moving forwards in spite of your trauma, and there is just having trauma conveniently not bother you very much. Yang is the latter. Her PTSD is initially portrayed well, with how it haunts her even in the safety of her home at seemingly random times, but once she puts on her new arm her PTSD becomes a joke. I'm not sure if it can be called a disorder, since it doesn't actually impair her. She still wins every fight she gets herself into, only having her hand shake when it doesn't matter. Heck, she operates better than she had back when she didn't have any mental disorder to bother her. And it's not like she actually got any professional help or even went mountain climbing to cope better. She just stops giving a crap one day. This is a terrible way of portraying a character as strong and to me it seems like she just got a lite version of PTSD.

The thing about writing mental disorders, is that portraying them accurately and portraying them respectfully are often two different things. There are not classified as disorders for no reason. They can be difficult to deal with and can mess up your life in a multitude of subtle ways. And while we are getting a little abstract here, I don't think they can be treated as a measure of strength. You don't get a prize for coping with them, you do it because there is no other choice, and pretty much everyone does so with or without difficulty. I never felt strong for having to deal with my Asperger, it's just a thing that I have to deal with. Viewing your disorder as a contest of strength is usually a bad attitude and the reason why things like meditation or art are advised as ways of dealing with PTSD. If anything, a good piece of characterization would be to have Yang cope horribly bad with her trauma due to her reluctance to do things that traditionally help with coping. The way it was done doesn't paint her as strong, just unaffected.

From the storytelling perspective, Yang's PTSD is just bad. It doesn't organically mesh with her character, as she seeks out the very activity that led her to developing those issues and seems eager to reunite with, perhaps even date one of the people associated with the traumatic event. Neither of which is impossible as far as realism is concerned, especially since people respond wildly differently to PTSD alone, but it means that a character trait just gets ingnored when determining the character's actions.

There is one interpretation that makes Yang's trauma meaningful to the story, and that is her constant angry outbursts. Being irritative is one of the symptoms of PTSD and though I'm not sure how well Yang's behavior fits established models, but if we assume that her being judgemental and constantly angry ties in to her mental issues, that would be a rather clever way to incorporate them into the story. That said, it would also make her encounter with Adam absolutely meaningless to her PTSD arc, as it doesn't require her to get any less violent than usually and it seemingly does not resolve her anger issues if her kicking drones the next night is any indication.

In any case, I think Yang's PTSD was handled rather poorly as far as the story is concerned. I'm not sure if I can count it as a failure on RT's part, since many people did enjoy the arc and some probably felt reassured by it, which is generally a good thing. As for me, I did not like it, if you couldn't tell already. It only makes me feel even more grateful that Not this time, Fate exists so that I can see a RWBY character be actually impacted by their trauma.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Nov 12th 2019 at 11:36:52 AM

I've read posts by members of this fandom who do live with PTSD and most of them think the show has handled it well, including during the final Adam fight. Obviously, they don't necessarily think it's perfect but they have been saying it's one of the better portrayals of PTSD in a show that they've seen.

One of the most interesting analyses I've read about the final Adam fight was from a PTSD-sufferer and how they interpreted Yang's behaviour from the perspective of how PTSD can change someone's behaviour and what they perceive Yang's triggers in that fight to be and how she responds to them.

A number of PTSD-sufferers approved that interpretation of the fight. So, as far as I'm concerned, if PTSD-sufferers are generally approving of Yang's portrayal of PTSD, I have no problem and will be guided by the fans with far more experience with PTSD than I have.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Nov 12th 2019 at 10:56:25 AM

I completely ignored the live-action version. The thumbnail was bad enough by itself, I don't need to watch the rest of the video to figure that out.

Her anger issue is more related to her trust issues, specially with people disapearing and moving on her lie and then telling her is for her own good, Wyld have speculate time and time again that in a way, Yang is venting her frustration on Ozpin for many things, in part because Raven was doing jobs for him(and in a way, he is gulty of something) the fact he is closer paternal figure near and for last because Ozpin like and fail to do what he need to do and tell is them is for their own good, .

And in fact her anger issue is one reason im reserved about bumblee happen because while Yang and Blake have a conection, Yang constant trust and anger issue couple with Blake passiveness and story with an abuser give me bad vibes about the two.

A character makes a comeback in DumbRWBY!◊

@Tharkun: I'm hoping they don't completely forget about Yang's PTSD now that Adam's dead, because it's not that simple. It doesn't have to be huge, just a reference here or there where at a low point she starts shaking. Maybe some dialogue with/about Ruby (you know, her sister?) where Yang laments not being able to just shake things off and keep going like nothing happened.


The same goes from Qrow's alcoholism.* You don't just quit and never look back. I'm somewhat more confident about that one because all you need is, after something bad happens, a shot of Qrow staring at a bottle to show him struggling to avoid relapsing.

* I did like that what finally got him to go "holy shit I have a problem" wasn't the part where he nearly got everyone killed, but the part where he realizes how much respect for him Ruby has lost.

JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJA, Oh god that is so bad....I love it.

RWBY need more dark humor, really.

Volume 6, Ep 7

14:50 - right when Ruby starts noshing on those sandwiches. You watch them effing disintegrate. It's been five volumes since she last did this:

I swear this child is a demon.

Edited by Soble on Nov 12th 2019 at 7:08:49 AM

Also, it tickles me that Remnant has in-vitro fertilization, holograms, commercially available prosthetics with combat functions, and giant mothereffing robots on top of that but space travel is still beyond them.

That's hilariously f-cked. I know there's a lore reason (Dust can't go past orbit apparently) but still. That's never going to be stop being funny.

Edited by Soble on Nov 12th 2019 at 7:08:58 AM

It's not funny to me, its just dumb. They have artificial limbs more advanced and versatile than Automail, yet they somehow can't even figure out how to make international phone calls without a system that shuts down if even one tower breaks? It gets frustrating thinking they can't even figure that out.