RWBY General Discussion

Yes. It was very straight-forward in how explicitly it pointed out that Light only began re-evaluating his attitude towards his toys when he realised he was experiencing their pain, due to having created them from his essence; since Dark's essence couldn't create living beings, Light had to think up something different to get Dark the experience he was having, which is why he suggested they pool their essence to create humanity.

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I'm going to put my observations in a spoiler folder. It's easier for me that way.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 21st 2021 at 2:19:48 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.

Google Translate says that Latin for sheath is involucre. Probably.

Thanks, Latin.

Edited by Altris on Aug 5th 2021 at 8:52:28 AM

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

Yeah, no.

Latin for “sheath” is vagina

PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/They

On the subject of the Gods, I was kinda wondering if the gods will be the Final opponent but in a different way then how some expect, that instead they'll be Beaten, so to speak, in an Intellectual battle rather then a full blown 'Kill God' situation. It was something I was wondering when rereading 'The man who stared at the sun' for the MB thread. How the Sun's dialogue felt like a metaphor of sorts for God, mentioning how Humans were only grateful when they succeeded at things, and blamed him, despite his gifts, for there own failures in life. And I felt like even for the show it felt similar to the God of Darkness, as a Deity figure of sorts who just wanted appreciation for the Gifts he gave humans. In a way, I sort of imagined things ending like in Fullmetal Alchemist, that story ends with Edward 'Outwitting' The Truth / God, giving up his Alchemy in a deal with him. And The Truth being Ecstatic that Edward "bested" him. It's actually Simmular to the story in a way, as it involves giving up something to outwit the Deity.(Edwards alchemy, and the Farmers eyes) And it makes sense for Ruby to do something like that, given that the Farmers eyes were what was emphasized. And it's arguably foreshadowed by Ruby's very first appearance had her in front of a poster with The Truth from FMA on it.

The First man

Yeah, I don't know all your allusions (because I don't know the works), but I agree with the core point.

If the 'final boss confrontation' (so to speak) is with the gods (and, like a lot of fans, I've been feeling that it will be for quite some time now), then I think the Volume 8 episode "Risk" is a big foreshadow of what the point of that confrontation will be: the gods need to take a risk on trusting humanity, and just let them be themselves and develop in their own way.

The single biggest theme of this show is 'keep moving forward'. As long as the world is trapped by Salem and Ozpin's war, then it can never move on from The Big Mistake. Looking at it from the audience perspective, the world stopped moving forward the day Ozma died. The first time. Because Salem couldn't move on, she stopped the entire world from moving on by engaging in a series of choices that led to The Big Mistake. While the God of Light claimed he and his brother would reflect on their mistakes, what we ended up with was Salem and Ozma being pitted against each other in a Forever War over the fate of humanity — which is only in question because of The Big Mistake. The gods are therefore as trapped by this as Salem, Ozma, and the rest of the world. That's why it's not just a mistake, or even the mistake. It's The Big Mistake.

If Salem and Ozma are allowed to rest in peace and the gods take a risk on trusting humanity, humanity may actually be able to move on for the first time in thousands of years.

The earliest foreshadowing is almost certainly going to be Salem's monologue at the beginning of the pilot episode. Maidens may not have been invented until after the second volume had finished, but we know they had Ozpin's back story and the Brother Gods all ready to go before the show ever began, and we can see hints of the story Jinn told in V6 in the things that Salem says during her pilot episode monologue. "But, take heed, there will be no victory in strength" is exactly how her monologue finishes — and which is then countered by Ozpin pointing out there are other kinds of strength, the kinds that she's forgotten. Her counter (at the end of Volume 3) is then all about her belief that Ozpin is referring to hope.

It's also why I think Ozpin's monologue at the end of Volume 7 is part of the same conversation that began in the pilot episode, which is why Oscar refers to it as a memory (he's not speaking those words as Oscar falls, Oscar is remembering Ozpin saying those words in the past). And Ozpin's monologue is also about a different kind of 'other' strength — fear.

Importantly, Volume 7 sets up fear as the enemy of trust, and Volume 8 is all about taking a risk to trust; if fear is the enemy of trust, then you overcome fear by making the choice to trust again — in other words, if fear is the enemy of trust, then trust is also the enemy of fear. And overcoming fear with trust is yet another kind of 'other' strength.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 6th 2021 at 2:33:52 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.

Yeah, at this point the solution of "kill the god(s)" is pretty much unworkable. Many pieces of "kill the god or godly being"-type media rely on the "brute force + ThePowerOfLove/ThePowerOfFriendship = god-killing" equation. I honestly do not think that RWBY hits this strength threshold.

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

And I can't see the Jerkass Gods being amenable enough to do anything other than Thanos Snap Remnant if they come back, which is why I hope they never come back to the story.

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

And then 0.01% of all of humanity shoot arrows at them and have them kill everyone all over again.

Yeah, is dificult not see "kill the gods" because.....well they genocide humanity for their own petty reason and them put the person guilty of that against each other, is very hard to care about their damn opinion.

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

I never said I wanted the gods to come into this story, and I'll be very happy if they don't. However, it feels like they will, and it's been feeling like that for quite some time — not from Jinn's vision, but even earlier.

It began in V4, when Qrow introduced the story of the Two Brothers, with the emphasis that these are the two gods that Ozpin claims are actually real, the Relics are real, and the Huntsmen Academies are their guardians. If it does nothing else, it openly raises the question of how the Big Good knows which gods are real, why he knows all about the Relics and what's really going on here — because, by the time Qrow is revealing this information, we've already had the episode where Ozpin told Oscar that he built the schools. So, we already the question of how these two gods, their Relics and Ozpin's decision to create the Academies fit together. That's before we get to the question of how the God of Darkness's creation and Salem fit together (the Grimm).

Then we get Ozpin telling Team RNJR at the beginning of Volume 5 that the gods cursed him with immortality for not stopping Salem in the past. So, now the show's given us questions like why do the gods care so much about Salem, why do they expect Ozpin to stop her, how closely are they monitoring him to have punished him in the past (as in, can they punish him again), and so on.

And that's before we get Jinn's information in Volume 6.

So, this feeling that the gods are somehow going to be relevant to this storyline has been there (for me, at least) since Volume 4.

That said, it is worth observing that both gods have indicated they are potentially open to learning from mistakes: the God of Darkness does that when Light makes it clear that Salem has manipulated him. The God of Light claims they'll be reflecting on their mistakes before he and Dark leave Remnant (and his choice of immortality for Ozma does feel partially like an acknowledgement that the type of immortality they've given Salem is a mistake).

I'm just... not looking forward to the idea that the show's resolution may rely on Ruby giving one of her speeches to the two gods to teach them the importance of Humans Are Flawed... and it working. I have enough problems with Ruby's speeches as it stands. So, if it does come down to the convincing the gods to change direction, I sincerely hope it doesn't happen like this.

Ah, but I'm not suggesting a happy ending for it to be overridden. I'm suggestion a hopeful ending instead: humanity hasn't got its happy ever after, what they've got is the chance to work towards it. If humanity goes in that direction, that's its choice; if humanity decides to destroy itself, that's its choice.

That is, after all, the point of the four Gifts in the first place: if you give your creations the ability to choose, you are accepting the risk that they will make choices you may not like; the ability to choose means the ability to choose badly as well as the ability to choose well.

And that's why I mentioned the Volume 8 episode "Risk".

I suppose the key lesson the two gods need to learn is that, given what flawed beings they are, how can they demand a lack of flaws from beings they decided to create from their flawed essences because of those flaws.

If the gods that created humanity are not perfect, then the humanity they create cannot be, either. The great flaw in the grand design is, after all, the gods themselves.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 6th 2021 at 6:30:43 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.

That feels less like them learning from mistakes and more just passing the buck. The God of Darkness had some very valid points when he lashed out at the God of Light.

And when you get down to it... Salem didn't really manipulate them. All she did was not tell the God of Darkness she went to see his brother first. That's a lie by omission at worst. It's not like she planned on pitting them against each other, it's just that the moment GOD brought Ozma back, GOL showed up out of nowhere and got into a tug of war with his brother with Ozma as the rope. And when GOD brought up those issues about how the "deal" and "rules" set up seemed to favor GOL... GOL instead decided to redirect GOD's anger towards Salem.

What GOL did was textbook manipulation. He acknowledged GOD's anger, then directed the blame towards someone else, and revealed a piece of information that would shift the anger overall, solidifying it by claiming it was against them both, casting himself as an unjust victim. And it worked, since GOD bought his claim, killed Ozma again, and the two then cursed Salem.

If anything, GOD falling for GOL demonstrates an inability to reflect from his mistakes. Since this is essentially what led to the "deal" in the first place. Once again GOL made it so that instead of continuing their conflict, the two would arrange an agreement that seems to benefit both, but in truth weighs heavily in favor of GOL. Originally, it was so that GOL would be the one who gained the most from the rules. Here, it's so that the rule GOL cared about was enforced, since it was clear GOD didn't care about the rule before Salem showed up, since he was all too willing to revive Ozma the moment it looked like he finally had a follower.

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

No, I'm saying it's too much of a risk to trust the trigger-happy Gods who decided to nuke humans (God of Light helped) over a few arrows fired at them and who have it as a stipulation that everyone must be like the Whos in Whoville on Christmas morning or else they get nuked again.

If RWBY felt it was too much of a risk to trust Ironwood, what makes you think they would want to trust someone with an even shorter hair trigger and an even greater weapon?

Edited by Psyga315 on Aug 6th 2021 at 10:59:17 AM

Not sure if it's right to ask here, but since the topic came up, should the Brother Gods also fall into a Broken Base of sorts? Again, I mainly frequent Spacebattles, but another of the cyclical arguments that I've seen there is whether Salem was in the right or whether the God of Light was in the right.

Again, I don't know if this is the place to ask, but since the current topic revolves around the gods here, I figured I'd bring it up.

Well, I'm not really talking about who is right and wrong between them, I'm just observing that they can learn from mistakes they have made. Whether or not they do so is another matter, and whether or not they do so a way that works for humanity is also another matter. My only point is that they have shown the capacity for it.

I've got no problem with you believing they won't because my point isn't that they will, only that they're capable of it if they want to.

That's not quite what Jinn said.

It wasn't as simple as a straight lie by omission. She deliberately chose her words to make him think that she'd never even entertained the idea of going to Light because she knew the only one who could help her was him. She did it without ever referring to Light directly. That's a combination of lying by omission and carefully choosing loaded language to paint the picture you want the other person to see, all while absolving you of 'blame' for what the target believes as a result of your words.

It's the very type of manipulation that politicians use, where they can say "Ah, but I never lied because I never used those words; it's not my fault you reached the conclusion you did from what I said."

It's one of many reasons why I've been wary of Jinn's vision from the outset, and why I was so glad to see in Fairy Tales that Ozpin does wonder how much of the story of her original imprisonment is really true. Jinn tells the heroes and audience that Salem learned how to manipulate people after the gods cursed her with immortality. Yet, she is the one who tells us that Salem manipulated Dark's understanding of the situation to get his cooperation, and she is the one who shows everyone that Light mentioned Salem's manipulation, too.

Salem clearly knew the power of manipulation before she was cursed. She went to Dark with the intention of manipulating him, meaning she was confident with the art of manipulation even before she went to Dark. She didn't appear to manipulate Light. She only decided to manipulate when she didn't get what she wanted.

So, at some point in life — while apparently locked in a tower alone — she learned both the art and power of manipulation. That, or she learned it right underneath Ozma's nose while they were together and before he died. Either way, it was nice to see the fairy tale actually lampshade this because it makes the question canon (and obviously adds to the tragedy, too).

Manipulation doesn't automatically mean pitting them against each other. She wasn't trying to turn them against each other. She was trying to get what she wanted — which was Ozma back.

Based on what we were shown, all he did was point out the truth. While it is ambiguous as to whether she ever manipulated Light, she definitely went to Dark with the aim of manipulating him, and Light was completely right in what he said about that. Jinn told us how Salem manipulated Dark, Light told Dark the same thing.

The problem we've got is that Jinn showed us one moment of what was clearly a very old and long-standing argument between them, and in the context of something we still don't know the answer to — why is it so important for the two gods to have agreed to a life/death balance between them that they've enforced it on humanity as well. So, we don't understand the ins and outs of their issues with each other to know who's to blame (and it's possible both are), but we do know that Salem definitely manipulated Dark and that Light called it exactly as Jinn showed it. So, unless Jinn was lying...

I don't believe Jinn lies, but she does get to choose how she answers the question, and that definitely left big holes in the information she gave the heroes in V6.

Ah, I misinterpreted your post there. Sorry about that.

Anyway, as I said, I'm talking about where I feel the show is going, not where I want it to go.

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.

Apologies for the double-post, but to respond to this one separately:

What exactly are you thinking of when you talk about Light versus Salem being right? As far as I know, there's widespread consensus in the fandom that the gods handled Salem badly and are clearly Jerkass Gods, but I don't think that's quite the same thing you're thinking about here?

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.

Not sure. I'm just going by the types of arguments I've seen on Spacebattles in the main RWBY threads.

Being fair to the Gods...

1:Its possible that Darkness point wasn't quite accurate, he was thinking that there deal was stacked in Lights favour and that's why no one worshiped or came to him, when from what we see there's no indicator of that. We never see any sort of condition that would keep from going to darkness, it seems people just didn't like him. So his speech is basically him just pinning his anger over not being appretiated on Light.

2:Salems rebellion was basically just the straw that broke the Camels back for Darkness. He helped create humanity and gave them amazing gifts like Magic, and still they ignored him in favour of light, then Salem manipulated him, and finally they tried to attack him with the very Gift he gave them.

Also Wyld, this was the Truth and Edwards final scene in FMA

https://youtu.be/iiDqtDUxahc

Edited by Snoketrope on Aug 6th 2021 at 1:40:01 AM

The First man

Honestly, I am hardpressed to trust Jinn's word as 100% truth. I know this topic has been brought up before, but we have no way of knowing whether or not Jinn is purely objective, and knowledge in and of itself is not necessarily objective. So it's entirely possible Jinn is biased in favor of her creators and against Salem.

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

This whole time I've been inclined to take her words as 100% truth, but not necessarily her meaning - those are two very different things. The characters are predisposed to hear her words a certain way, which I'm not inclined to take as narrative gospel compared to what she objectively says.

I kinda wonder if while the Maiden powers were a later creation the basics of what they were was already there, just with a different origin / concept.

Like, the original idea for the Proto-Maidens would be the 'They came from Ozma and Salems 4 daughters' idea.

The First man

That is the deal, god of light simply have better reputation because human like to create and think creations are inherely good, in a way he got the short end of stick because we think light is good and creation is good, nobody like destruction in general.

Light is seen as bleesing, darkness as grugdly necesary, is not hard to see dark anger that light knew that and arrenge the whole deal for him.

Also what salem did is manipulation even if salem didnt arrenge a story because she was leaving the fact she got to light and was told no, darkness was under the asumption Salem was good,honest soul that have come to him in the first place for something so banal as rise a soul, so salem kinda push a botton without knowing.

If anything, that happen with ozpin and RWBY and in a way with RWBY and Ironwood: Ozpin does kinda sorta manipulated people by not exactly offer the exact context of why he does things, meaning they play under diferent asumption: is wyld theory is right them RWBY though it was just a scout mission while Ozpin use as decoy, it means Phyrra though she was figting a war of darkness rather that fighting a conflict ozpin have defending without end and so own, sure ozpin have is very understandable reasons for it but is still manipulation, RWBY got rightfully piss for it but didnt try to get why he did it(understandable too, trying to understand is reasoning sound like apologia for is actions), and is no until they lie to james and kinda sorta manipulated(in the sense he belive they are on the same page while they are not) that trusting people is a risk.

Which it make me think exactly were oscar stand right now, he is clearly another simple honest soul, probably get where salem guilt start and were Ozma ends, considering how he risk everything and got rewarded, I feel he and ruby will be esencial for the endgame of the show.

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

Personally, I've no problems with the gods returning itself. My problem is more that I fear that it'll boil down to Ruby's speeches to convince them. And Ruby's track record with her speeches is abysmal. Or rather, her speeches are abysmal.

Ruby:I'm gonna Talk no Jutsu God

EDIT:Meh, I'll change to more 'Fun' Discussions actually

Seeing the new trailer for Venom 2 made me realize 2 things for this show.

https://youtu.be/-FmWuCgJmxo

1:I can't wait to see more of the Where-Grimm

2:Fuck Cinder, If Tyrian Ever gets grimmified, it'll be a living nightmare.

Edited by Snoketrope on Aug 7th 2021 at 2:33:59 AM

The First man

Meh I didn't mind most her speeches.

Anyway I imagine it will just be the Kamen Rider Agito ending, were they convince the Gods to fuck off and leave humanity alone.

Edited by Gaogaigar54 on Aug 7th 2021 at 12:08:17 PM

After they get beaten up.