RWBY General Discussion

Well, it would be interesting if Jinn didn't have to, or want to, help Salem, but Salem is technically a human, so Jinn may not discriminate.

As to Ozma, I already mentioned in my post that we don't know how he knew how to the Relic of Knowledge, especially when it's clear he didn't know how to use any of the others.

Hence my theory that they'll be trying to get Amity online. That would mostly be the only plot-significant role Pietro can play at this point.

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

I mean Jinn gave Ruby a free "answer" when she tried to abuse the relic's timestop, and told her she wouldn't let her do that again; it definitely seems like Jinn has some degree of agency over whether or not she answers a question, and remember Jinn is first and foremost a storyteller, and the whole point of the "Girl in the Tower" story, at least according to Oz was the agenda that a storyteller can have.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Sep 16th 2020 at 9:59:36 AM

There was no question, so there was no answer. That's why it was free knowledge — it was about the function of the Relic itself. It was a way of letting the audience know that they can't use Jinn as a time-freeze power just case anyone in the fandom decided to get clever and start demanding to know why the Relic's not being used as a time-freeze every time they get into a difficult situation.

I think the most interesting thing that came out of that exchange was the acknowledgement that Jinn can basically read hearts/minds/soul of a person. She knew Ruby's intention the moment Ruby called her name. That suggests she already knows a person's question before they ask it — they effectively reveal it the moment they speak her name. But she waits for them to voice it anyway.

The reason I think that's interesting (apart from the possibilities it allows for her to ask the 'intended' question rather than the question as it's been worded, meaning the seeker might not realise what question they're truly asking) is that it potentially allows someone who cannot talk (such as Neo) to be able to ask Jinn questions.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 16th 2020 at 3:01:14 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

How can Jinn enforce that though? Would she not show up if called without the intention to get an answer, and could she do that if she wanted to for any arbitrary reason?

Presumably she'd just count her next summoning as a question, regardless if anyone actually does, or just stay out until someone actually asks her something, forcing them to use them up.

While Salem has the Relic of Knowledge in the teaser trailer (which could be a potential scenario for the And Then What? trope, since she doesn't know how to use it), if we want to add tropes based on the RWBY teaser and official trailers before the chapters are released, we can use the Unreleased Work Page Cleanup (Speculation, Spoilers, Zero-Context, et al.) thread.

Speaking of which, since that trailer is set after Cinder gets the Relic of Knowledge for Salem, does the ending for Volume 7 count as The Bad Guy Wins?

Edited by gjjones on Sep 16th 2020 at 11:08:11 AM

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.

I'm pretty sure the general consensus was to not try trope trailers, since they can be purposfully misleading about what's happening. Also, that is definitely not And Then What?, since Salem very clearly knows what to do next, get someone who knows how to use the lamp

Hmm, I thought such matters were discussed on the "Unreleased Work Page Cleanup (Speculation, Spoilers, Zero-Context, et al.)" thread. For what it's worth, I've brought it up on that page for further input.

Edited by gjjones on Sep 17th 2020 at 5:34:15 AM

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.

Yeah I think we should wait on troping anything from the next volume.

And now I'm trying to think of a trope involving Ironwood's Semblance and my brain is going ???

(I think Mettle is going to end up creating a meme, people are already joking about it all over. The latest one I'm seeing involves wondering if Ironwood's semblance is basically like someone snorting a bunch of drugs and then launching into a task.)

So, just listened to the episode "Homecoming" of Welcome to Night Vale. To give a brief summary of the part I want to talk about, everyone in town is dejected because one of the players on the football team got dropped for not existing and it made them forfeit the titular game. Said game is the once-a-year-opportunity for Night Vale residents to talk to their dead loved ones, but the football coach calls a pep rally and people end up talking to each other about whoever they were going to talk to. "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer.

What I was wondering is if the show would have some kind of moment like this? Either the original possibility of the dead loved ones coming back (somehow, the rules on resurrection seem to be ironclad) or the one that gets explored, where everyone bonds over it. The ghosts don't even have to be literal, they can be metaphorical.

Dunno, but I thought it was a neat idea, and given the trauma most of the cast has been through they probably need to work through it at some point.

So, let's hang an anchor from the sun... also my Tumblr

Oh wow, so the birthdays came out - I didn't really expect them to reveal it.

So with their birthdays revealed, and if I analyzed the timeline right then, currently, Blake is 18 while Weiss and Yang are 19. Weiss is the oldest, then Yang, then Blake.

They were explicitly introduced as 17 when the 1st volume started so I plotted it out very generally like this.

(I also think Ruby turned 17 during vol 7 and not during vol 6 as I took Lindsay's words with a grain of salt while trying to analyze the timeline. It looks like she said Ruby was 17, during vol 6, not because she knew the timeline in-universe but because she was reasoning it on how Ruby's birthday had passed out of universe in our time when the volume started airing.)

Edited by heartshiningg on Sep 16th 2020 at 11:56:58 AM

This is an amazing signature

The timeskip wasn't 6-8 months. They deliberately recanted that statement and made it more vague specifically to avoid Plot Hole issues brought up by dates.

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

Double post mainly cause of gushing. We have a new card in Amity Arena, and if anything happens to her I'm gonna lose it. It's the adorable Sheep Huntress Fiona Thyme!

And her card bio honestly is just hilarious, since it's basically Atlas being salty she doesn't work for them.

Though when this Secret War is all over, provided she survive it (and she better!) she could probably work with Weiss and (hopefully) Whitley in aiding the rebuilt SDC with distribution.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Sep 17th 2020 at 5:51:34 AM

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

They initially made the statement, about the time-skip to vol 4 being somewhere between 6 to 8 months during one of the pre-vol 4 panels.

There was misconception that they recanted the 6-8 month timeskip, however, they never did as it was a different question that another fan asked in one of the post-vol 4 panels. It was unrelated to the first question, asked the year before, about the specific time-skip range to the start of volume 4.

This is an amazing signature

That makes no sense, since if they did keep the 6-8 month timeskip, they'd only add a month or two to it thanks to RNJR's timeline, since the timelines of all four members of RWBY aren't even in Sync in the first place. And the fact they've never used 6-8 months anymore supports the idea they recanted that part overall. And I've already seen that discussion you linked and it doesn't suggest its a misconception.

We discussed this all months ago. Namely because the novels tried claiming CFVY had been at Shade Academy for over a year, and Wyld and I were trying to figure out an actual timeline since that makes no goddamn sense. And the "6-8" timeframe still makes little sense, particularly for Weiss and Blake's sections if trying to suggest it was that long before we even see them again in Volume 4. Which we started discussing here.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Sep 17th 2020 at 6:46:17 AM

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

So in Volume 7 Ren takes Ironwood's side for most of it agreeing that using Amity to warn the world of Salem was important with Ruby arguing that Mantle can't be neglected

Now the volume 8 trailer Ruby sounds very serious about letting the world know about Salem is important with Ren bringing up how Mantle needs help NOW

Are these two just taking turns to say the opposite opinion?

I'm guess Ruby will seem less hypocritical when Volume 8 gives us context for those lines

Edited by mcc92 on Sep 17th 2020 at 1:15:57 PM

I think the thing with Ren is that his concern is what's the more immediate danger. Before, Mantle's biggest danger was simply being neglected, Salem was the bigger concern, hence his constant pushing of himself, saying they had no time to relax and needed to train, and how they weren't ready. He fell in line with Ironwood because he had a plan, the Amity Tower, and seemed to have his head on straight. Now however, Ironwood's lost it, Amity Tower isn't ready, and Salem is at their doorstep. He likely doesn't think they have the luxury of finishing Amity Tower since she's right there, and that their main concern should be evacuating the citizens, since, as he put it in the finale of Volume 7 "[They] weren't ready to become huntsmen. Then why aren't [they] holding the Relic? Now Salem has the Lamp, Ironwood has the Staff, and [they] have nothing!" so what hope would they have trying to fight off Salem long enough for help to arrive. He'd rather just evacuate the citizens and try to ferry them to Atlas while considering the city of Mantle a lost cause.

The issue ultimately seems to boil down to their conflicting outlooks. Ruby is an optimist, she thinks they have a chance and wants to stand and fight, but also knows getting Amity Tower working is in their best interest, since her entire suggestion to Ironwood was they call for help from the other kingdoms:

Ren meanwhile is a pessimist. After having to witness his home fall to the Grimm, and being forced to realize just how out of their depth they are, he isn't interested in gambling on hope, he would rather focus on the immediate threat, and that immediate threat is the people of Mantle dying to Salem's onslaught.

And while I can see both of their points... I have to agree with Ren more. The people of Mantle can't afford to wait while they work on finishing Amity Tower, especially when it's unclear how close it even is to being completed, if Pietro alone will be enough to complete it, and how they not only have to worry about Salem being here, but also Ironwood's forces being after them. The more pressing concern is the lives of the civilians, and rather than waste time working on something not even guaranteed to work, it's more prudent to protect the lives of the civilians and finish the actual evacuations.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Sep 17th 2020 at 11:32:41 AM

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

Her exact wording was 'I will not allow you to use me without a question again'. When Ruby said she was sorry and didn't want to ask a question, Jinn said 'I know'.

That's why I think she understands the intention the moment her name is spoken. My interpretation is that the lamp simply will not respond until someone speaks her name with the intention of asking a question.

Either way, the fact Jinn states she will not allow it indicates she does have at least some level of control here... at least to a limited degree and/or in specific situations.

No. We're in an unfolding situation. Not an ending. The end of V7 was just a cliffhanger. That's if 'cliffhanger' can be accurately applied to a throne-bearing giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and dragon wings for flippers.

I know the situation on the wiki is that trailers can be troped but only if it's made absolutely clear that the trope pertains to the trailer, but I honestly think it's crazy to do that for works known to favour Never Trust a Trailer. All it does is trigger a raft of premature troping that increases the amount of clean-up that has to be done at a later date.

It's how misuse happens. It seems eminently more sensible to just hold off troping until the work begins airing properly, and it creates far less work in the long run to do so.

Yes, I saw the YouTube video on their birthdays. They said the choice of birthdays is driven by astrological sign based on what they think is the most appropriate characterisation fit.

• They feel Weiss has a very Taurus energy, so they made her birthday 15th May.
• They feel the most appropriate sign for Blake is Capricorn, so her birthday is the 19th January.
• They decided Yang's would be the blindingly obvious one: Leo. So, her birthday is 28th July.
• Ruby, of course, is the 31st October (making her a Scorpio).

In Volume 7, the argument was 'Amity at the expense of Mantle' versus 'Amity with Mantle's support'. Everyone's priority was Amity. They were just arguing about how the knock-on effect to Mantle should be handled. Ren actually never got involved in the Mantle debate, his argument was that everyone who knows Salem is unkillable is completely ignoring that fact and not bothering to come up with a plan for handling it.

The 'Amity at Mantle's expense' versus 'Amity with Mantle's support' argument only ended when Ironwood went off the rails and decided to abandon both Amity and Mantle in favour of saving Atlas. Ren wasn't there for that, so wasn't involved, but that became Atlas versus Amity/Mantle, not Atlas versus Mantle. Ironwood was abandoning Amity, too.

So, in Volume 7, Ren was focussed on the urgent problem he was allowed to focus on (Amity) while stressing about the urgent problem he wasn't allowed to focus on (Salem's unkillability). Once the need to evacuate Mantle kicked in, he had no problem with that, just like all the other Huntresses and Huntsmen.

The Volume 8 trailer keeps that consistent: now Salem is on the doorstep, Ren is focussed on the urgent matter (the Mantle lives that are dying right now). The Mantle situation, however, should coincide with the issue he's really concerned about: dealing with Salem and her unkillable threat level. Those two things are now one and the same.

Meanwhile, Ruby and Nora have gone from arguing that Amity at the expense of Mantle is wrong to arguing in the teaser that it's now right.

Ren therefore appears consistent; it's Ruby and Nora who have switched position.

That's with the obvious disclaimer that RWBY trailers often ruin the context and therefore we may not be seeing what's really going on.

That's why I've been expecting the heroes to split into teams. It doesn't matter how much the rest of the world needs to hear about Salem, people in Mantle are dying right now. So, really, they've got to address both at the same time. The teaser makes it sound like Ruby and Nora are making the reverse mistake to Ironwood (sacrificing Atlas and Mantle to save the rest of Remnant). We'll see if that's really the case, or whether the trailer is deliberately twisting the context. Ironwood's voice-over implies that it's Ruby's team (Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Nora, Penny) because he's incredulous that whomever he's talking to is still banging on about saving Mantle. That suggests to me that the trailer is deliberately messing with context.

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Ehhhhh...People's peers are arguably the MOST important aspect of nurture in Nature Versus Nurture, eclipsing parenting by a LOT*, and tend to flatten the extremes of people's "innate" personality traits as they learn to conform to social norms, whether or not they succeed in fitting in and being successful. Depriving a child of that is arguably one of the most damaging things you can do to them.


In Salem's case I think being deprived of most human contact made it very easy to view relationships with other people in strictly intellectual, theoretical terms with little to no emotional component, the hallmark of someone with a high degree of [1], another common trait of which is a poor awareness of one own's emotions and those of others except a clinical pesudo-behaviorist sense of "if I do X, Y will do Z". Befitting this theory, Machiavellianism is the only one of the dark triad traits without a strong hereditary component, suggesting that being a Manipulative Bastard is a learned behavior rather than something In the Blood.


Oz was probably one of if not the only person Salem engaged with in on an emotional level, and so when he was gone he seemed irreplaceable.

If Ruby REALLY is suggesting they abandon Mantle and Atlas to go warn the rest of Remnant (as opposed to trailer shenanigans), along with her lie to general Ironwood that's a red flag that she's beginning to compromise her ideals in pursuit of victory...Which I'd guess is exactly what Salem was going for; she's broken Oz's smaller souls before (ie that girl in the Infinite Man story). With Ruby the goal is to show Oz that deep down she's just as ugly as the rest of humanity.

* In the sense of the specific relationship between a parent and a child, the environment they provide through their decisions absolutely matters.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Sep 17th 2020 at 3:43:14 PM

"Is it really a divorce. I didn't see any official documentation. Salem just barbecued her husband and kids and called it that.

She might legally still be married... well widowed. But not divorced.

And technically Ozpin has cheated on her for centuries. I don't know, does "till death do us part" if the deceased is spiritually immortal?

"

I mean, he did try to divorce but things get messy, like really messy, also I dont know if ozpin cheat on her seen hs another body, if your dick is not yours, you arent doing any cheating.

One can said salem have widow and remarry the same man over and over and over.

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

Yay, Fiona!! A-and the clueless entry about "why don't they like Mr. Schnee". Oh my god. 😅🤣

Speaking of Amity Arena, I recalled something and went back to check. Velvet's entry discusses her having what is classified as an "Intelligence type Semblance". So I'm guessing Ironwood's Semblance is probably considered one as well, since it's an enhanced mental capability.

I wonder how they classify the different Semblance types, then?

I will said ironwood is a self enchacing semblence like Jaune and Hazel, as it allow to buff is capabilities.

And yes we need to know diferent types of semblences, I will said if this was a japanise anime, we will probably have know all diferent types of semblence.

Probably in a lenghting exposition dump because damn animes love to do that.

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

Is this an example of Aborted Arc?

• Aborted Arc: Yang maiming Mercury while under the influence of Emerald's Semblance is treated as a borderline internatonal incident, with members of the other Kingdoms demanding Yang's arrest and Ironwood disqualifying her from the Vytal Festival on the spot. However, partly thanks to the Fall of Beacon overshadowing it, the matter is never brought up again outside of Mercury taunting Yang at Haven for "owing me a new leg," even as Yang openly walks the streets of other Kingdoms and meets up with General Ironwood in Volume 7.^Explanation While after Volume 5, Mercury and Emerald are known associates of Cinder and Yang's name could have been theoretically cleared, the matter is never settled onscreen.

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

I wouldn't say it was an arc to start with so it can't be aborted. Also literally one person in the world recognised team RWBY and he needed time to figure it out despite his daughter telling him all about them, knowing Winter and literally making Yang's arm.

It is a dropped plot point.