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unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#78276: Mar 31st 2023 at 12:36:59 AM

"Admittedly, there's a big difference between sacrificing a single person in order to deprive the Big Bad of the last macguffin they need for their Evil Plan vs. abandoning an entire city of people to die. "

When rescuing the city give the big bad the opportunity to hold two of the macguffing it needed then yeah it become a thing to consider. And it become obvious in volume 8 how much Ruby goes down the more thing dosent work or the revelation that Summer probably lost too. Since their plan were: Amity(that mean reusing james plans that didnt work out surprisingly) nearly losing to hound and only getting a proper plan in the end.

And not surprising Ruby is now very close to the same mentality in fact, she isnt verbalizing but she is pretty much considering to quit already and leave everything.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#78277: Mar 31st 2023 at 12:40:21 AM

Another big difference is that Vision himself was willing to make the sacrifice if it meant keeping Thanos from getting the Mind Stone.

Nobody asked the people of Mantle if they were willing to be left to die.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Cross (Don’t ask)
#78278: Mar 31st 2023 at 5:33:18 AM

A choice that got undermined and drew more lives into it. We also get this in Age of Ultron since every second they held off blowing up Sovokia puts more lives at risks and in the end still resulted in deaths.

Ultimately this is a different beast in regards to Ironwood, especially when he goes from simply inflicting hardships (though it questionable how necessary it was) as result of his goal (since Amity was ultimately treated a good thing) to actively (and gleefully) endanger lives for no real reason.

fredhot16 Don't want to leave but cannot pretend from Baton Rogue, Louisiana. Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: Too sexy for my shirt
Don't want to leave but cannot pretend
#78279: Mar 31st 2023 at 9:43:02 AM

Typing this on my phone because my laptop got a soda spill (was lucky enough to rub it down with rubbing alcohol in relative quickness and hopefully will still be functional by next morning, pray for me please) but I’ve heard something interesting happened on RWBY recently.

I’ve noticed a curious number of fanart and even the clip from Volume on my Tumblr dashboard showing Yang and Blake sharing their Big Damn Kiss in a flowery meadow, even with a mutual “I love you”. I also remember something about it being “a Bumblebee moment” on one of those posts and another tiny note about a decade of shipping?

Now, I’m still on the beginning of Volume 2 so I haven’t caught up and this is pretty much a spoiler for me so far up, I can’t really say much about it. They have new costumes, Yang seems to have a prosthetic arm now, and there seems to be a new animation program being used. (Kinda like it at first glance, though I’ll be happy if I never see another shadow person from Volume One but that’s neither here nor there.) I’m bereft of context in this case.

From what I remember from Volume One, they seem alright. I remember Yang being my favorite main character (though being Volume One, that was more like “if I had to pick one”) and not disliking Blake. They seemed…fairly tight, at least for a beginning season? Seemed to care about each other, didn’t dislike each other, didn’t make a bad fighting combo from what I remember. Blake even helped Yang and Ruby remake their bedroom, I wasn’t expecting her to pitch in, too.

So, I guess I could I say I was surprised but can’t say it’s unthinkable. Going to have to watch the rest someday but that’s just what I could say with my personal experience with the show. I haven’t even watched it in a year or so, probably should get back to that someday…

And considering RWBY’s tone and aesthetic as “anime-style fighting students series with a basis on Western fairytales as seen in Ruby Rose being based on Red Riding Hood” and their status as the B and Y of RWBY and this seemingly being the final volume, the possibility is quite high that these two will get to live out the climax and have their own happy ending!

So, yay for that! (Possibly) No tragic endings for a cozy LGBT+ couple from a prominent animation series! I guess these two can take their place along with Catra/Adora and Luz/Amity!

Edited by fredhot16 on Mar 31st 2023 at 9:47:36 AM

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.
FOFD Since: Apr, 2013
#78280: Mar 31st 2023 at 11:16:29 AM

Can't wait to see when you've caught up.

unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#78281: Mar 31st 2023 at 4:25:26 PM

"Another big difference is that Vision himself was willing to make the sacrifice if it meant keeping Thanos from getting the Mind Stone. "

And they did not listen and sacrifice more life(those in wakanda) for it. the point still remein in a "did you sacrifice people to deny victory or you fight to the last moment"

"We also get this in Age of Ultron since every second they held off blowing up Sovokia puts more lives at risks and in the end still resulted in deaths."

And then nick fury come with a helicarrier out of his damn ass to save the day, kinda what ruby expected to a degree when she used amity.

And amity is weird, since is clearly james is betting everything on that so he panic when he see salem cant be killed and that she is here(meaning that in a direct confrontation, she won), but Ruby reused the same plan and was okay....except we see salem smilling and she complain cinder about interfiring with that so.....

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
ssjSega Since: Sep, 2017
#78282: Mar 31st 2023 at 5:51:11 PM

I have a question regarding the RWBY Ship Tease page.

Is it too early to replace the current image of Yang and Blake's Headbutt of Love with Yang and Blake's Big Damn Kiss?

Pokesamus Since: Aug, 2016
#78283: Mar 31st 2023 at 6:02:55 PM

More like the image would be wrong ship tease is just as the name implies, a tease.

Psyga315 Since: Jan, 2001
Wyldchyld (Old as dirt)
#78285: Mar 31st 2023 at 8:39:30 PM

Work's been kicking me in the teeth this month, so this post is late, too. I'll catch up on the thread tomorrow (you guys have been chatty).

Volume 9 Episode 6 Review

I came away from this episode with two things stuck in my head. The first was Percy Shelley's The Cloud, which is appropriately for this episode a poem about the cycle of life, death and rebirth as told through the metaphor of the different types of cloud that had been scientifically categorised during his era. The bit stuck in my head is this:

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder punder.
— Percy Shelley, "The Cloud" stanza about cumulonimbus clouds

At the same time, I had Time Seller stuck in my head thanks to this culprit verse:

People are shadows trapped in a golden well
And only children's eyes can break the spell.
They live in a land where the clocks grow on trees
And words sound just like a cool summer breeze.
— Spencer Davis Group, Time Seller, "With Their New Face On"

So... thanks, CRWBY?

    General 
  • Well, overall, I feel like I should have saved the Ozpin quotes for this episode rather than last week's episode. So, this volume really is what he warned about in the fairy tales' book. But I have new thoughts, thanks to this episode.
  • I was almost right about the Cat's "the tree comes to you" comment. I thought it was the leaves that were the key, but they're the clue: a tree's canopy spreads the same distance as its roots. If the tree's leaves touch every acre in the Ever After, then its roots do, too. The tree comes to people in two ways: via its leaves and via its roots. At the moment, the roots seem the most significant. Roots bring nutrients into the tree, so the roots recalling Afterans back to the tree makes sense from Jaune's interpretation of the tree. However, leaves do that, too. Until they become a liability, which is when they die and drop from the tree. Of course, thanks to Pyrrha's leaf, we've learned to associate this shaped leaf with love, death and — above all — memory, the very thing the Cat dismisses as important when discussing Ascension.
  • It's very interesting that Crescent Rose is falling alongside Jaune given that Blake, Ruby, Neo and Weiss all fell after Crescent Rose and before Jaune. Yet it lands after Jaune (and Alyx and Lewis) but before even Yang. So, there's still some strange time distortion going on, and I wonder if it's connected to the double-sun suddenly moving ant-clockwise from the "two o'clock" position to the "one o'clock" position when Ruby first woke up on the beach. Also, Crescent Rose is a fireball. None of the people who fell did that, and there's no indication that Gambol Shroud did either. But, here it is.
  • It's interesting that Jaune seems so exhausted when he wakes up. Ruby didn't.
  • While Jaune has a similar fall experience to Ruby (although we just hear echoes rather than seeing through his eyes). Whereas Neo made her way to Ruby, Jaune makes his way to Crescent Rose.
  • It looks like Jaune spent a very long time living on the beach in the hope that he'd run into Team RWBY. I wonder if people from Remnant age at the same rate in the Ever After... relative to the years that pass. For instance, if the Ever After moves at a faster speed, but a Remnant native ages at the Remnant speed, then they'd live for centuries from the perspective of the Afterans. But, if they do die, then that's still a "shorter" lifespan overall than beings who keep on reincarnating.
  • It's interesting to see that Alyx and Lewis fall from a different direction to Team RWBY, Jaune and Neo.
  • So, my question about Little got answered with the group hug. Little appears out of nowhere to hug Jaune's head. I think set-up and foreshadowing. Little was the one who said that hugs are extremely valuable, and is the one petting and hugging Ruby when she's now. Now they launch into a group hug with Jaune when he most needed a hug. I'm starting to think there are two possibilities going on with Little's purpose.
    • Little said to the Blacksmith that they wanted to help Ruby get home, even though they don't know how. With the idea that an Ascension sacrifice might be necessary to get them back home, the obvious conclusion is that Little will be that sacrifice: in other words, their purpose is to get them back home.
    • Little's purpose is to be a friend to the person most in need of one. That's not Ruby. The one who will be most in need of a Cooldown Hug out of all of them, the one most in need of a friend who gives unconditional support, is Neo. Ruby's just practice for the real challenge.
  • As I recall, in Volume 2, Yang patted Jaune on the head and said "One day" in response to Weiss rejecting him yet again. Looks like that day just got here. All he had to do was age 30 years, become a grizzled veteran, and develop a jaded, brooding personality. It turns out Weiss has a type... they say that girls fall for men who remind them of their fathers; Weiss seems to be the type who falls for men who remind them of their grandfathers. I'll concede that Jaune does indeed look better with a "warrior's wolf tail" than with his short hair. On a serious note, Yang seemed to appreciate his appearance this time (unlike her reaction to him in his onesie on the first night at Beacon). Jaune really is carrying King of Vale vibes now. He's sort of a cross between the King of Vale and Nicholas Schnee with a dose of brooding Ironwood tossed in for good measure.
  • Jaune sounds like he's been through a lot of punderstorms, and the way he rolls his eyes when Ruby asks where Blake and Yang are. He obviously knows what it is they need to work out, but he's just done with life in general at this point. Juniper, meanwhile, has been cringing ever since they entered the punderstorm, so either doesn't share Jaune's experience, or has had very bad experiences in the past.
  • Weiss' reaction to falling through s "pit" to crash land from a loop indicates she is starting to accept the "logic" of the realm they're in. However, it is worth pointing out the parallel with Volume 1 here: remember when Jaune rushed to catch Weiss when she fell, resulting in them both crash landing? Jaune looks upward, showing that he knows exactly where Weiss will reappear, but then just carries on walking as if nothing's happened. He's learned, too.
  • Ruby's reaction to seeing Yang and Blake hold hands in front of the fire is interesting. It's almost like resentment that others can be in a happy place when they're not. I don't say that to cast aspersions on Ruby, but it's a common thing to feel when everything's mounting on your shoulders, but the rest of the world is light and happy all around you. It's isolating, and it's part of the theme we've been seeing this volume of Ruby isolating herself from everyone around her.
  • Jaune doesn't seem particularly happy to be thanked for giving her weapon back. It's hard to know because of his general ennui whether he can see what WBY are currently missing — that there's something seriously wrong with Ruby right now — but because there's so much wrong with him, he's just not in the mood to do anything about it.
  • If a sacrifice is needed to get the characters back home, I think the main candidates are the Cat, Little, Jaune, Juniper and Crescent Rose. Top of the list is Jaune because he's wreathed in flames in the opening credits, which means he's going to end up in the Blacksmith's forge at some point, and it looks like he accepts the offer to be... changed. That'll probably bring him back to his teenage self. However, given the emphasis on how Afterans lose their memories, and the Cat's insistence that Remnant folk won't, Jaune might indeed be "fixed" without losing his memories. Then again, understanding what the point is of retaining memories through reincarnation may be the lesson that the Cat needs to learn. And Little, whose journey is about finding purpose, is either going to have the purpose of sacrificing themselves to get them home, or becoming Neo's friend. Depending on how dark this show goes, could we see Ruby trying to sacrifice Neo to the tree to get the rest of them home? I don't know if the show is willing to go there, but these kinds of sacrifice events usually need to involve choice — voluntary sacrifice. Afterans don't really have Choice, they have Purpose. That's why I think if one of the Remnant group makes the sacrifice, it'll be a Choice (Jaune or Ruby sacrificing Crescent Rose). If an Afteran does it, it'll be about Purpose — and the most likely candidate there is Little.

    Opening Credits 
  • So, let's discuss the opening credits on the basis of the information we get in this episode. I have an entire folder dedicated to it in my first episode review, but these are the elements I'm revisiting:
    • The fiery red streak that slams into the Tree isn't Ruby. It's Crescent Rose. When we later see Ruby's streak, it's like the others, more of a solid colour. But Jaune sees Crescent Rose looking a full-blown fireball. What crashes into the tree looks more like Crescent Rose's fireball than Ruby's red streak.
    • The explosion of light effects from the tree do still have a lot in common with my previous observations, but now we can add a new one to the list: the punderstorm teleportation effects (which are extremely similar to the Cat's teleportation effects a couple of episodes ago). So, Crescent Rose is the key to leaving this realm. Ruby may try to sacrifice it to leave the realm. However, her silver eyes are very much on the line in this volume, the Opening Credits foreshadow that everywhere. So, I'm wondering if everyone leaves with apparently no sacrifice needed... but it turns out the power of the silver eyes was sacrificed. Ruby reverting back to her "normal knees" desire back in Volume 1.
    • The two blue streaks are not the Relic spirits. The paler one is Alyx and the darker one is Lewis.
    • Since we've been seeing the story unfold in the order from the opening credits (which has been obvious for a while, but only worth commenting on now), the next sequence after the punderstorm is Ruby and Alyx in the same rope-bridge scene that Blake and Yang just had. So, I think we can guess what's coming there.
    • After that, we're dealing with Neo, who is clearly going to be connected to the tree in some way because of the leaf-coloured liquid in her tea-cup.
    • The final scene is the Jabberwalker and the pages of the fairy tale, and I think that's going to be the big reveal about Tree, Alyx and Lewis. And I don't think it's quite what either Jaune or the Cat thinks it is.
    • So, the fairy tale book going up in flames tells us three things:
      • The fairy tale definitely wasn't the truth, and the truth has ruined the story for several characters.
      • It's time to stop being dictated to by the past and the events that have become fairy tales and helped trapped the world into its current situation. It's time to start writing their own stories instead of following the stories of others. Or, to paraphrase Volume 6, it's time for them to do things their way.
      • The pages we see flipping in the book are a different colour to the pages in the rest of the book. The book's pages are nice and white, but these are the discoloured pages associated with field journals, people who write about their experiences when they have them. I noticed this before, but didn't really pay much attention to it. Once of the pages, just as the Jabberwalker leaves the camera shot (so you have to freeze frame to see it) has a pencil squiggle on it, like an arm got jostled and left an accidental mark. Now that we've seen this episode, this discrepancy makes sense. It's all about the book that Lewis is carrying, which looks like a journal.
      • The opening credits has changed, the same way the first season gen:LOCK opening credits changed after an identity reveal in the show. Now the Rusted Knight doesn't wear a helmet any more while he's burning in fire. He looks very unhappy. But, given the order in which things are happening, it does suggest he ends up with the Blacksmith accepting a reforge.
      • The reflection in Alyx's mirror. I thought it was a changed Alyx, but it's her brother.
      • I'm still suspicious Juniper's identity and role. Juniper wasn't with Jaune in the flashback, so must have come along later. In the opening credits the only characters looking directly at the audience are Juniper, Alyx and Neo.
      • There's also a split in that tapestry Ruby's falling past: The Blacksmith's fire forms a boundary, above which are Juniper, Jaune, the Red Prince, Little, Alyx (and Lewis), half the Cat, and Herb. Of these, we know that the Red Prince, Alyx/Lewis and Herb have all gone to the tree, and we know that Little must have been to the tree because they're "young" and haven't found their purpose yet. I think everyone above the Blacksmith's flame line has either been reforged... or will be. And, yes, I'm putting Jaune and Little into the "will be" category. Meanwhile, that leaves the Jabberwalker and the Cat's butt manifesting either from or into Neo's Semblance... The Blacksmith is different. She looks like she's standing behind the Semblance action. The Jabberwalker and Cat both have that extra bit of the Semblance that shows the movement of it. It's different to the Blacksmith. We know Neo's already cloning the Jabberwalker, but I think she'll clone the Cat at some point, too (if she hasn't already).
    • The footprints in the sand next to Alyx. I always thought they were Jaune's footprints, but now it's clear that they're Lewis'.
    • Crescent Rose washing up behind Alyx means that Jaune met Alyx and Lewis first and then found Crescent Rose later.

    Visuals 
  • Jaune's location looks different. The jungle is must closer to the water's edge, there's the brooding rock and, of course the time tree. Of course, for all we know, the reason the water's edge is closer to the jungle's edge could simply be high tide. He hacks his way through and there's a giant stone where the bird, shell and Little were.
  • There's no sign of the Tree on the horizon, which is also different to Ruby's scene. It's quite unusual because the tree dominants most of the skylines. Instead, we have something that looks a younger, smaller version of that huge tree, except for the fact that it's growing clocks. So, in other words, time does grow on trees in this place. We could also grab another pun: "the time is ripe"... for picking clockfruit... or perhaps an Outlandish Watch.
    • The term "clockfruit" does exist in real life. The Japanese term for the passionfruit is "clockfruit" because the flower looks like a clock. The flowers on this tree, however, look more like Angel's Trumpet than passionfruit.
    • Lewis Carroll wrote a story called Sylvie and Bruno. It's not as well-known or as well-liked as his Alice books, but has two plots — one set in the real world-based Outland, and one set in a fairy tale world called Fairyland (sometimes, Elfland). The narrator is given access to the Outlandish Watch, which is a Time Machine. The user can travel up to a month into the past, and can also experience the future — the next hour will be experienced backwards. The narrator tries to use the Watch to travel back in time and prevent an accident, but discovers that this isn't possible. No matter how he seems to change the events to prevent it, the accident and its consequences will happen.
    • In this episode, Alyx and Lewis are basically Sylvie and Bruno while Jaune is the Narrator... Alyx who has Uggug's personality, and, while they initially believe they can, and have, changed history, Jaune and the Narrator both conclude that they didn't — even couldn't — change the way things turned out.
    • On the subject of "outlandish" time pieces, they seemed to have gone for a Stranger Things vibe with that ominous, echoing tick. I wonder if the tree's appearance was because Jaune — above all others who fell — entered the world desperately wishing he could turn back time. Weiss may be the possible exception, but she wasn't the one who killed Penny, and she also didn't know the two Relics were lost to Salem.
  • When Jaune turns back time, we see the order in which Team RWBY and Neo landed, which is useful because we essentially visited Neo in the Dark Acre out of sequence. It also took me a moment to realise the blue streak was Weiss because... well, it's like her colour has been changed from White to Blue over time. Anyway, the order is: the yellow comet (Yang), the purple-tinted black (Blake; looking very God of Darkness with her comet colour), pink (Neo; which looks a bit black for most its descent, but turns pink right at the bottom), red (Ruby) just moments behind, and then blue-tinted cyan (Weiss).
  • Looking at the comets falling and how the sky turns from lit to night sky and back to lit again, I find myself wondering if the starry night sky is really a starry night sky. What if the Afteran "stars" are the glowing orbs that were surrounding Team RWBY, Neo and Jaune as they fell?
  • The sky is golden when Yang and Blake fall, but as Neo and Ruby fall, it so rapidly turns from golden sky to night sky that it's night while Ruby's streak is still disappearing off-screen. It's therefore night and turning to purple dawn when Weiss falls.
    • That's interesting because Ruby wakes up when the sky is golden, and that is interesting for two reasons:
      • As I mentioned in the first episode, we see the smaller sun suddenly move anticlockwise, as if from the 2 o'clock position to the 1 o'clock position, relative to the larger sun... as if time reversed slightly when she woke up.
      • Also, CRWBY released a draft transcript of Ruby waking up, and that transcript states it's night and has two unbroken moons in the sky.
    • So, what Jaune sees when time starts reversing is closer to the original script than what we actually ended up seeing in the first episode... but Ruby did wake up from unconsciousness, so she could easily have fallen while the sky was dark and woken up when the sky was light.
    • Based on what Jaune sees, Ruby wakes up after Weiss had landed, which does make sense for what we see because we see a flock of shoebills fly off from the jungle while Ruby is still on the beach gathering her wits... and that flock seems to the be the flock that Weiss and Blake disturb just before they get caught in the vines.
    • The light has an evening quality when Jaune finds the tree, and the clock's hands look set to 23:55, as a result (close to midnight, despite there still being light in the sky). In fact, they seen to be at 23:53. As Jaune reaches up towards it, we see it tick to 23:54. Then, just after he's picked it, it ticks to 23:55, and then begins spinning backwards.
    • There's something even more interesting going on about this time tree, however. It seems to be a sun dial. I didn't see this on my first watch. It was only on my second watch when I blew up the picture of the tree to look at the "fruit" on the top of the tree to see if they looked like oranges (they don't, they look more like fantasy Clusia fruit), that I noticed the sun dial. The tree is standing in the centre of a sandy ring, almost like a path running around the tree. There are flat yellow flowers encircling the tree which have a Roman numeral in the centre of the flower. Each flower is therefore situated in the right place to form a clock face. Jaune approaches the tree from the 6 o'clock position, and stands at the tree midway between 6 and 7 o'clock.
    • The shadow being cast by the tree looks like it was pointing to the 12 o'clock flower, but it's off-screen, so it's hard to tell. The ones that are on-screen are 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11. Jaune is standing opposite the 11 position, and the tree is between him and the 11. This may or may not be significant because, as I mentioned in my first episode post, the opening credits show him against clocks that have two twelves, but no eleven. When the tree's shadow crosses to the 6 o-clock position, that's when we see the Team RWBY streaks begin reversing across the sky.
    • So, that means a day, night and day have passed in which all six fell, but it was barely an hour of activity up in the Central Location. That suggests time is passing faster in the Ever After than on Remnant.
    • That's not the first hint we've seen that time is moving faster in the Ever After. When Jaune, Winter and Cinder hear the scream reverberate through the Central Location, it's only heard in the Ever After once Ruby, Weiss and Blake are travelling up the cliff path and are about to encounter the Jabberwalker.
    • So, by the time RWB encounter the Jabberwalker, Yang's already been down there for a day and a night, and Jaune comes across the time tree in the evening of the same day, sending himself back in time while Team RWBY continue on their way, oblivious.
  • Who knows their clouds?
    • They did do a passable youthful single cell cumulonimbus calvus. In short, a tall, puffy cloud with a flattening top that produces short-term heavy rain. There's lightning in this cloud formation, but they've drawn the wrong cumulonimbus for that. It is possible for that type to produce lightning, but it's not common.
    • Still, perhaps there is the hint of an anvil beginning to form on the top right, which is the next stage of cloud evolution and is where the hailstorms, thunder, lightning and tornadoes become more common... and, of course, puns that manifest the "inner storms" of the Afterans caught in its wake.
    • It is the wrong colour for the sun direction when looked at from the angle of the camera and Jaune, especially given the direction of the shadows. However, this is The Wonderland, so it doesn't have to conform to rules like that, especially if it's already conforming to the Rule of Punny.
    • This, kids, is why I went to university to study oceanography, meteorology and ecology... to one day over-analyse make-believe cloud formations in niche animation shows that are telling Alice Allusion stories. But, hey, if we can't be ridiculous, why bother watching an Alice Allusion storyline at all?
  • As always, Juniper's body language is fascinating to watch. They are extremely attuned to Jaune's behaviour and constantly watching him. I'm starting to get a Cochrane/Companion vibe from this, which I hope I'm wrong about. At the very least, like the Companion, I expect there to be more to them than meets the eye. They're downright shocked by Jaune's reaction to the Cat, which suggests they're not used to seeing Jaune lose his cool.
  • The artwork that is used for the transfer from meadow to Literal Metaphor is using the same artwork we've already seen... for Ruby's eyes activating against Cinder in Volume 3, for Oscar's Fantastic Nuke in Volume 8 (the power wave that vapourised Grimm the way silver eyes do), and for the Cat teleporting them from the Crimson Castle (which seemed to pass through the Void). So, it's interesting that they're using the technique for the punderstorm "teleport" that that already has a very specific association already. and, again, the punderstorm appears to move them into a Void location before returning them to the spot they were in, as if they never left it; it's repeated when the camera shifts from Jaune's location to Blake and Yang's, as if the camera is teleporting. I suspect there's a common thread running through all of these things that is linked to the Void — even the gods themselves are linked to the Void as it's all that the Old God knew, and he didn't know much else. The Old God didn't know how he came to be flying through an endless, empty Void, which suggests something lies even beyond the Old God that the gods themselves don't know about.
  • The crossroads for Ruby and Weiss are a choice between going with the Cat and going with Jaune. However, travelling with Jaune leads then to an area where magical water mirrors are showing them what loss is consuming them at the moment: for Ruby, it's Summer; for Weiss, it's Atlas; for Jaune, it's both Penny and the person he used to be before Penny's death, falling, Alyx and waiting decades for people he's supposed to be the same age as. So, the suggestion is that choosing to travel with Jaune is going to bring their ghosts to the surface
  • Summer's appearance doesn't quite fit what she looked like in Ruby's V6 and V7 flashbacks, but does fit the glimpse we saw in the Blacksmith's forge.
    • The version of Penny Jaune sees is from the Void when she passed the magic to Winter. I don't know if that's significant, or whether they CRWBY just wanted to use a smiling image of Penny to contrast Jaune's darker memory. At this point, it's worth considering the fact that Neo's effectively tainted Ruby's last memory of Penny (which was the fight with Cinder) because Neo tried to strangle Ruby while wearing Penny's form.
    • In the same vein, what Weiss sees is an image of Atlas as it's falling into Mantle. This isn't a moment she was ever in a position to witness. It's sight that Qrow, Robyn and the surviving Ace-Ops witnessed.
  • There are some nice visuals during the Blake and Yang moment. The sky behind Blake is purple, and behind Yang is golden, so it's essentially what we saw between the Dark and Jungle Acre with its curious, yin-yang bridge and the gold and purple skies meeting in a termination line (rather than blending together, which is what happens when Blake and Yang kiss). They've also gone quite anime with the lily-like theme, which is the yuri (lily) symbolism. The flower actually isn't a real-life lily. It both grows on a vine and sprouts from the grass, it's got five petals instead of six, and the spadix of a calla lily (the "petal" of a calla lily is a bract because the spadix is where the real (tiny) flowers are; it's similar with a peace lily, too, except instead of a bract, the "petal" is a spathe, a modified leaf). So, it's not drawn to fit a real-life lily, but it's very obviously evoking the anime yuri symbolism.
  • Jaune's reflection when the Cat questions his sanity is very odd. It starts off as a reflection of him, but the water bubbles start distorting his face in really Uncanny Valley ways. We do see the water distortion effect in the other reflection-visions, too, it's just that the close-up and side profile view of Jaune's reflection makes this stand out in a really creepy way. It transitions from his current appearance to his youthful one as he growls at the Cat's accusation. In visual terms, it does reinforce the Cat's claim that Jaune genuinely isn't in the best mental health.

    Likes 
  • I like the fact that time doesn't instantly stop when Jaune breaks the watch. It has to slow down to a stop. This is very common where time travel is involved, but it's still something enjoy.
  • I don't normally go for cute and adorable, but I have to admit that seeing Little pop out of nowhere to hug Jaune's head was a little heart-warming. But, also... foreshadowing, I'm certain of it.
  • I really like the way the lit the inside of the lotus. It had a modern, nature, and fae feel all rolled into one, which is quite a balance to pull off.
  • The Cat crossing the fourth wall when commenting on the "indeterminate amount of time" that's passed since they and Jaune last crossed paths. That's a straight nod to the writers not liking to pin down how much time has passed in the story, and pretty much telling us that they're not going to make it easy for us to figure it out.
  • I also like how the different scenes during the walk through the grassland shows the storm coming ever closer and overtaking the sky above them. It doesn't need to be said, but it does feel ominous just leaving it to visuals.
  • Speaking of which, we're back to straight colour inversion again: the grassland with its green grass and red flowers is the colour inversion of the Cat (magenta grass and cyan flowers to the Cat's red and green). And while we have the obvious sky juxtaposition (Jaune in the storm's darkness and the Cat in the clear light, the colour inversion also inverts this, with it being Jaune who's standing in the light and the Cat who is framed by darkness.
  • I'm really enjoying this jaded "been there, done that, got the t-shirt" attitude that Jaune is sporting. Yeah, it's trauma-driven, but I hope it's retained if he does get returned to his former age with memories intact. This "old soul" personality really suits the character, and Miles Luna's voice acting really seems to suit the part as well.

    Dislikes 
  • It's been a long time since I've seen an environment fail for me, but the meadow they were standing in to discuss Jaune's information looked more like plants sticking out of plant-themed wallpaper than an actual meadow. That may be the intention, given the Wonderland inspiration, but it doesn't work for me. I can see they were going for papercraft and origami flowers, but it wasn't my cup of tea.
  • Yang's "but how do we take the next step" when looking at the broken rope bridge they're on had such an obvious answer ("together") that I didn't really feel that specific moment. I just didn't feel like that wording fitted the moment. It felt more like it had been deliberately worded that way to sledgehammer the message home. I don't think the writers needed to be that blunt, what they wanted to convey was coming through loud and clear even without that line. It felt clunky as a result.
  • I'm also not a fan of the way Ruby says she doesn't understand how the story can be both real and not. If people think Weiss' struggle to accept the Ever After is weird after they've learned so many fairy tales are true, then Ruby should really be able to figure out this answer without having to ask the question. I know what the line means — Ruby's asking Jaune if he knows how the real story is so different to the fake story, I'm just not a fan of the way it comes across.
  • I've never been entirely on board with any Love Confession that occurs due to two people being forced into that confession. I tend to prefer the organic confessions that a scene or a storyline will naturally flow into because the characters are in the right mood and in the right safe space to confess. That said, this scene did downplay the forced element in the sense that they realised where this was heading and the hesitation was that of saying it out loud for the first time rather than having to go through the "Wait, is that how I feel?" epiphany first. So, that's a good thing to do and, as "forced" confessions go, this falls at the better end of the scale. I've definitely seen far worse.

    Jaune's Information 
Everyone's reactions to Jaune's update are interesting:
  • Jaune is increasingly impatient as Team RWBY talks. He presses his fingers to his sinuses in the same way Ironwood was doing in Volume 7, and for the same "stress build up" reason. You can see the moment he realises that the reason they're sitting around talking is because they don't have a clue about the dangers of Afteran weather. But, also, he's had decades for this information to sink in for him, whereas this has all just happened for Team RWBY.
  • Yang's comment about Cinder giving Salem the ability to obtain the Beacon Relic as soon as she finds it is, I think, the first time the heroes have really acknowledged that point. Aside from Ruby asking in V5 if Salem had the Beacon Relic, it hasn't been discussed at all by them, except for when Salem interrogated Oscar about it in V8. I still think Cinder actually cannot reach the Beacon Relic because of her anti-Choice method of obtaining Fall Maiden status (and the fact that Ozpin required Pyrrha to verbalise her consent — her choice — to receive the Fall Maiden power... which, of course, Cinder promptly stole... the choice, that is). But, that is very much just a theory of mine.
  • Ruby is starting to spout off Ironwood talking points, and I like that. There was originally a thin line of separation between the heroes and Ironwood to begin with, until he fully jumped off the deep end in Volume 8. I also mentioned several times in previous volumes that the difference between the heroes and the adults is that the adults only really had themselves to rely on for handling the truth, whereas the heroes have each other. They don't all fall into despair at the same time. So, some of them are always moving forward while others falter, and they are either lifted and supported or they're given a good sharp jolt to bring them back. We've still got that in Volume 9, where Ruby's spiralling hard, and Weiss is faltering somewhat, but Yang and Blake are in a good place in terms of emotional fortitude. So, Yang is reacting to Ruby in a continuation of their silver eyes conversation in V8, where Yang pointed out that they need both risk and hope as a way of trying to pull Ruby back. She wasn't really successful there, and the Penny issue interrupted anyway; Yang isn't really successful here, either, but it shows that their mentality is still in the same space it was then, which makes sense because that's all happened within the past day or so.
  • Like Ruby, Weiss is also lapsing into some of Ironwood's thinking — if you haven't protected the Relic, then everything else is irrelevant. Blake is anxious, but she's still pushing the heroes' position — they've saved a lot of lives, so that must count for something. The flaw here is what Ruby points out, and is the thing that ultimately sent Ironwood off the deep end — if Salem wants to destroy the world, then all they've done is delay the inevitable. In fact, we can roll back further to the Apathy storyline, where Ruby was the only one who wanted to keep going and Oscar pointed out they didn't sign up to just delay the inevitable. The thing is, Ozpin isn't really fighting to delay the inevitable, he's fighting to prevent it at all. He may have lost hope that he can ever truly save humanity, but what he has left is the idea that if he fights for just one more day, then that's one more day of life the world obtains. His "win" becomes the Forever War itself — as long as someone, somewhere is fighting Salem, the world won't be destroyed. The "inevitable" won't happen.
  • That is an utterly horrible existence to have; in fact, it's torture in its own right. But it's now all Ozpin has left, and it's why Salem says in V3 that her victory depends on getting Ozpin to give up fighting. If he gives up, she wins, and the "inevitable" finally happens. All these characters with finite lives won't be fighting forever. The only one who's doing that is Oz. It's discouraging enough to think you'll spend your entire lifetime fighting the Big Bad to a stand-still instead achieving a final victory, but it's still nowhere near as bad as the position Oz is in. And yet, each character who succumbs to the weight of this fight acts like it is, which might give them an insight into what Oz is going through... but we haven't seen characters quite make that connection yet. I do expect it to happen, but this is what they've got to go through first to get there.

    Jaune, Alyx and Ruby 
  • Here's where we see the differences between the real Alyx and Ruby, despite Alyx's mistakes haunting Team RWBY's journey. Jaune's memory of Alyx is of a girl who never accepted the Ever After, who never stopped thinking the place was make believe and who refused to accept that rules applied to her. While Team RWBY had their own adjustment period to the reality they were now in, they did come to accept the reality of the Ever After and its rules. However, there were moments where Yang had no interest in following the rules, such as the market at the Red Acre, and this attitude was worrying Blake a lot at the time. Now we see why, even if Blake didn't know Alyx's true personality... her instincts were in the right place. Meanwhile, the person closest to Alyx in terms of acceptance of the realm is Weiss, who this episode confirmed she was accepting the realm's quirks and rules, which is also very unlike the real Alyx. That leaves us with Neo, who is very heavily implied to be making exactly the same mistakes as the real Alyx, and has the attitude to match.
  • The Herbalist asked Team RWBY what they wanted to be, and argued that if they didn't know who they were right now, there was no way to help them become the people they wanted to be. He probably did the thing with Alyx. So, Alyx was probably in a similar situation to Ruby, where she struggled to come to terms with what her past self was and who she was in the face of it, but there no intervention before she gave the "wrong" answer the way there was with Ruby. Now, the Cat is shown to be present in Jaune's flashback. His intervention in Ruby's vision suggests he knows exactly what went wrong at the Herbalist's, and they were trying to prevent the same thing happening to Ruby. Did they succeed or simply "delay the inevitable"? We'll have to see. But Alyx telling Jaune she wasn't going to let anyone stop her leaving suggests that whatever the Herbalist told her, it's to do with the method of leaving the Ever After. Her willingness to "do whatever it takes" is a familiar one for the Atlas Arc. This was Ironwood's problem, too. His willingness to "do whatever it takes" sent him down a very bad road. It's also exactly what Oscar was warning against. Now I thought (as did a lot of fans) that Oscar was motivated by what the audience has also witnessed from Volume 6, he's already got experience of how bad this road can get through Oz. But I now think there's more to Oscar's wisdom. See the Lewis folder.
  • The artwork is very much in the style of the artwork used for the Fairy Tales episodes. I do not think this is a coincidence. See my Lewis folder.
  • I think Jaune's efforts to get the journey back on track with the story is the problem. Clearly something had changed about her understanding of what it meant to journey to the Tree, so Jaune's attempts to "keep things on track" would probably look to Alyx as part of the problem her vision identified. I suspect, once we know what happened with the Herbalist, Alyx's behaviour will make sense.
  • Jaune's comment about not being able to be the make-believe hero is very much a reference to him in Volume 1 telling Pyrrha that he always wanted to be the hero. But it also ties into the teaser and trailers for Volume 9, where the voice mentions "You were never the hero". I was already of the belief that this line is being said to Jaune, not Ruby. This makes my belief stronger because it's almost as if Jaune is responding to that line.
  • I can't hear what Jaune says about drinking the poison. Did he say "the Rusted Knight drank the poison in her stead"? If so, that suggests the original story states that Alyx drank poison. If so, it'll be interesting to see why the original story said that happened, given that it's Alyx who poisoned the Rusted Knight.
  • Jaune doesn't actually know what really happened. He's putting the jigsaw pieces together to fill in the gaps in his knowledge. I suspect he's wrong about his conclusions.
  • Ruby's reaction to Crescent Rose is even more interesting. She has the same distortion, fading, faint-triggering reaction to the news that Penny was dead. She doesn't faint this time, but she still zones out for a moment. So, she had a similar reaction to the gain of Crescent Rose that she had to the loss of Penny. It's like not having Crescent Rose gave her an excuse to stand back, whereas the return of Crescent Rose is like the return of the burden that's weighing her down. It's like she's running out of excuses to hide from how she's really feeling, as if Jaune giving her weapon back is forcing that on her. When she closes the case, she's angry and resentful. Since the opening credits suggest that she ends up on the same rope-bridge with Alyx that Blake and Yang were on, the Bumblebee confession seems like set up for Ruby saying things that she needs to say, and instead of ending in a good place, as Bumblebee did, she's going to end up in a bad place just in time for the confrontation with Neo to begin.

    The Cat 
  • That crack of thunder just as Blake mentions the Cat and Jaune comes to a dead stop could just be dramatic timing, but this is the Ever After and Jaune is rusty, so he's pretty much the only character who is in as bad a state as Ruby, given that Ruby's been the one causing the thunder until now. Put both of them together, and that's going to some unsettled weather.
  • Of course, the arrival of the Cat is always suspicious in its timing, but does raise the question of the fate of both Hawker (given what we last saw, we can probably guess) and the Jabberwalkers. No-one asks the Cat because Jaune's issues and the truth about Alyx's real story takes over.
  • On this note, the scenes with the Cat are parallels. This is the Volume 6 confrontation with Ozpin all over again, with the Cat playing Ozpin's role. But I've already said the Cat is feeling more like Ozpin the more we see and learn. The Cat is no eviler than Ozpin, but the roles they're playing are problematic and secretive, and that causes issues for other people, who feel used and manipulated. Like Ozpin, the Cat isn't as sure of themselves as they first appear, and wants to test the waters before revealing everything it knows (such as their implication that they wanted to test the truth of Jaune's story by seeing if the unsuspecting Team RWBY verifies it or not). They don't have all the answers and, in fact, have less than the others supposed. Like Ozpin, the Cat has questions they would also like answers for. And, like Ozpin, when confronted by the anger and hurt of the others, the Cat retreats to lick their own wounds. And, like Ozpin, the heroes don't notice the Cat is carrying pain of their own (the reveal that they want to leave Remnant raises more questions than it answers). The major difference is that it's Jaune playing the role to the Cat that Yang played to Ozpin (the major antagonist who keeps emotions running high because of how angry they are).
  • The Cat does raise an important observation: as I keep pointing out, Yang never did learn Raven's "question everything" lesson as much as she claimed to Raven. Her behaviour has always been that of questioning only the things she's already made up her mind to object to, and here again, the Cat lampshades the assumptions the heroes made and the lack of questions they asked. The heroes should have learned by now, but they haven't.
  • There could be one of two reasons why the Cat wants to leave Remnant: either it's not as fond of its role as appearances suggest, or it feels the next step in their role as information-gather and role-guardian is to collect as much information about Remnant as possible. It did previously say to Team RWBY that "you Remnant folk are such trouble-makers". Perhaps the Ever After wants to know more about Remnant because of how those people affect them while here.
  • The Cat doesn't just state that Jaune's sanity is questionable, it also implies that Jaune isn't the friend Team RWBY thinks he is. It'll be interesting to see if there's a genuine reason for why the Cat has the belief, but I'm of the opinion that the Alyx experience has scarred both the Cat and Jaune, and they're giving us their perspectives from their own place of hurt, and neither of them know the full truth about what really happened. It could be that the Cat has been helping Team RWBY both in the hope that it has another chance to go to Remnant and to learn what really happened to Alyx and Lewis. But this does bring me back to a question I've had for a few episodes... if the Cat's role is to course-correct or reset Afterans who have strayed from their roles, who course-corrects or resets the Cat if they stray from their own role?

    Lewis Theory 
Okay, crazy theory time, but I actually went back to the Fairy Tales episodes to double-check this before I wrote this down. We've seen Lewis before. In the Hunter's Children.

  • I don't think we need to think too hard about why Lewis is called Lewis. I'm suspicious about their family name, however. I do think the name "Lewis" is a plot clue. In real life, Lewis wrote the story Alice in Wonderland and its sequel for a girl he knew called Alice. I do not believe Lewis died or that Alyx wrote the story book the heroes are familiar with. I believe that Alyx sacrificed herself for Lewis, who made it back to Remnant, wrote the story to immortalise his sister, thereby writing himself out of it. He is running around in the flashback carrying a book, which looks like a journal, suggesting he was keeping notes about their experiences. There is much more to my Lewis theory than just this, however, which is why I've created a separate folder to discuss it.
  • It's never been outright stated that the Hunter is definitely an incarnation of Ozma. It's all but said, but never quite said. Given that CRWBY have made it so obvious when an incarnation is Ozma, being so coy and yet so nearly honest about the Hunter has always puzzled me. A few other things about the story — especially the episode visuals, which harostar and I went nuts discussing at the time because they seem far closer to the "real story" than the book is — always jumped out at me as being puzzling, too. Now, with this episode, they're starting to make sense, especially with the Jaune flashback being done in the same art style as the fairy tale episodes.
  • The Hunter's cloak has a tree. It's much more stylised than the tree on the front of the fairy tale book in the V9 opening credits, but it's the same tree and it's the same framing. We also see the same tree motif in the Infinite Man (who is definitely Ozma) and in Ozpin's hands at the end of his section of the fairy tale episodes. He still has the Hunter's book.
  • In the Hunter's Children, the Hunter has a journal. One of the daughters keeps it and uses its contents to help her observe the Grimm. In Ozpin's hands at the end of the fifth episode, we see the book contains sketches of Salem as she originally was and as the person she now is.
  • The Hunter's cloak has something else on it with the tree. A floating cat's head. I used to speculate that it was a Grimm mask, but that doesn't answer all my questions (why the mask, why is it floating, what's it got to do with the tree, etc.). It being a stylised Cat's head is a different story.
  • The Hunter has a very similar hair style to Lewis (not identical, but very similar) and his beard is similar to Jaune's (again, not identical, just very similar).
  • Lewis is the one who made it out of the Ever After. Alyx sacrificed herself for Lewis. He was keeping a journal of their experiences. He is the one who wrote the story, immortalising his sister — downplaying her flaws, playing up her heroism and removing the darker aspects of the tale.
  • This has the benefit of protecting the status of "The Girl in the Tower" as being unique among fairy tales for being written by the protagonist. If "The Girl Who Fell Through the World" was written by the protagonist, Salem's story wouldn't be so unique because it would share the stage with the Alyx story. However, if Lewis wrote the story and wrote himself out of the story, then Ozpin's claim holds true.
  • So, Lewis makes it out of the Ever After due to his sister's sacrifice. That, the experience, the kindness of the Rusted Knight, all inspire him and the choices he decides to make with his life. Starting with turning his sister into a fairy tale hero.
  • A few years down the road, he ends up as the next host of Ozma, and the transformation into a warrior who is inspired by the Rusted Knight is born (as is the mistake to hunt the Grimm alone... like the Rusted Knight worked alone). So, Ozma never himself experienced the Ever After but once the merge was complete, he may as well have been the person Jaune met. He therefore knows the truth about the Ever After because a past host of his was Lewis. Jaune described Lewis as kind and clever, which isn't much to go on, but are some of the traits we expect to see in an Oz host. We also don't know the family name of Alice and Lewis, so there's still the potential for Lewis' name to fit the Oz-theme (Ozpin is a surname; we don't know what Ozpin's given name is).
  • So, the Hunter's Children are inspired to work as a team because they realise their father's mistake was to work alone. The father, having been inspired by his Ever After experiences, Alyx's sacrifice and the lone wolf Rusted Knight, contributed to the reasons for that mistake and therefore the enlightenment of the children to work as a team.
  • Ozpin tells us that the King of Vale set up the Huntsman team system because of the Hunter's Children. So, the entire format of the Huntsman Academy is centred around the experiences of the Hunter and his Children.
  • Now we know why Ozpin let Jaune into Beacon, and why Jaune was the only one he congratulated after initiation. I've been saying for years that I think Ozpin probably had a hand in providing those transcripts to Jaune, and he definitely knew that Jaune's transcripts were faked. But we've never had a theory for why Ozpin would do this beyond "he sees potential in Jaune that others don't". That's certainly true for his type of character, but what if he already knew the person Jaune would one day become because he'd met Jaune in the distant past (or, more accurately, one of his hosts met Jaune in the distant past).
  • Stable Time Loop, baby: The Huntsmen Academies take the form they do because of the Children, who came to their enlightenment because their father, whose life took shape because of the Ever After, which was shaped by the Rusted Knight who is a product of the Huntsman Academies he'll eventually help to indirectly inspire.
  • Jaune isn't just part of one fairy tale, he's part of several (albeit indirectly). He may not feel like a hero himself, but he has helped to inspire the creation of something absolutely massive that has produced many Remnant heroes.
  • Oh, since we're in crack theory territory, how about the reason why Nicholas Schnee was a knight in shining armour for his people is because he, too, was inspired by the Rusted Knight he read about as a child. Take that, Weiss. Your Knight avatar isn't just your grandfather, it's also Jaune.
  • Sorry. I'll stop with the crazy now.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Mar 31st 2023 at 5:16:34 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.
Agentofchaos A God Am I from Somewhere in the Universe Since: Dec, 2021
#78286: Apr 1st 2023 at 8:26:42 AM

I had a feeling the Bees getting together last week was gonna be our last bit of pure happiness for a while. "The Perils of Paper Houses" random thoughts:

  • To start on a positive note I thought some of the fights in V8 were a bit lacking compared to the other volumes but my god are they making up that this volume, the fight against the Jabberwalkers because holy shit that kicked ass.

  • Ruby has PTSD she can't even try to fight without seeing images of Cinder dropping her into the void or seeing Penny's face and remembering when she asked her to kill her. When Jaune tries to hand her Crescent Rose after fight she doesn't take it and let's it drop on the ground, though she does take it with her when she flies off.

  • Ruby's breakdown is a lot angrier than I expected, I expected more breaking down crying rather than shouting at her teammates about how they never gave her time to work out her feelings and is jealous that Blake and Yang got a chance to and like how WBY seemed more concerned about how Jaune is doing than considering Ruby was doing well either and how everyone expected her to be endlessly positive and inspire everyone else when she needed some inspiration herself.

  • And as expected Jaune is not having a good time either like how it's clear he's haunted by killing Penny and the reason he's so devoted to protecting the village is because he's desperate to actually save someone, even if they don't want him to save them. And when he briefly lashes out at Ruby after she snaps, blaming her for them being stuck there, accusing her of being selfish, though once he finishes he seems to realize he crossed a line.

  • While the idea of Ascension seems like it's just a straightforward case of Death of Personality the Afterans don't see it that way, as the Paper Pleasers have fulfilled their purpose and want to ascend to do something new, but Jaune refuses to believe that, he just thinks that they're stupid, he's clashing with the Blue-and-Orange Morality of the Ever Afterans.

  • Little actually seems to be getting ready to do something after spending most of the volume just being there as they seem to be the only one who noticed that Ruby wasn't doing well before her breakdown and is still presumably riding her cloak and will probably be there help Ruby feel better.

  • Also you can tell Casey is the one in charge of the music instead of Jeff here since the song that played really sounds like an OK Goodnight song, hell it might've even been one but I couldn't tell. Found Casey on Twitter, it's called "Trapdoor", it's an original song. Fun fact the song it specifically reminds of is "Awake" the earlier parts of it. You might remember Awake as the song that played for Cinder during her fight with Rhodes. Interesting.

Edited by Agentofchaos on Apr 1st 2023 at 11:44:02 AM

"We'll meet again" | 🏳️‍⚧️
Snoketrope Barb / Temporary Kylo from California Since: Oct, 2020 Relationship Status: Waiting for Prince Charming
Barb / Temporary Kylo
#78287: Apr 1st 2023 at 10:34:16 AM

So last episode Jaune was indeed just making ascension sound scarier then it was. With words like 'feeding' and such when he is truthfully just wanting to 'protect' After-ins from things they don't actually mind.

Bow to the Prototype
Agentofchaos A God Am I from Somewhere in the Universe Since: Dec, 2021
#78288: Apr 1st 2023 at 10:35:56 AM

Saw someone on Twitter it's because of what happened with Penny, she said she was ready to die even if she didn't really want to and now all these paper people are ready to ascend he's doing everything he can to "save" them

"We'll meet again" | 🏳️‍⚧️
harostar Since: Feb, 2010
#78289: Apr 1st 2023 at 10:41:32 AM

Happy Rooster Teeth Birthday and day of paaaaain.

They really did warn us things were about to get ugly.

  • Jaune is completely bonkers, incorporating the White Rabbit with his obsession with schedules and time. And like Ironwood before him, he's obsessing over Control as a means to deal with his trauma. But while Ironwood became a tyrant, Jaune is basically a smothering parent that refuses to listen to the Papers about what they actually want. Because with them, he's managed to establish a controlled scenario were he can protect them in place of all the people he couldn't protect. He can protect them, to the extent that he's smothering and keeping them from what they want out of desperation and fear.

  • Ruby really does have major, major trauma god damn. Freezing up, afraid of her own weapon, having the same panic attack framing as on the bridge when Yang fell, and hallucinating all those things in the midst of battle. So she gets angry, like.....really angry and man that was an explosion. Cathartic in same ways, probably, but now comes the point of her dealing with the things now that she's finally said them.

  • I'm glad Yang voiced what we've all been suspecting, which is that NO ONE KNOWS what happened. That Jaune and the Cat are both making assumptions and guesses, since no one actually witnessed what happened at the Tree.

  • So I guess now that Ruby is alone, we're headed for Neo's mad tea party.

  • ALSO!!!!!! Just realized: Is this perhaps a glimpse of the true story, in some ways? Jaune admits that he worried about keeping the story on track, worried about changing the story, and tried to steer Alyx and Lewis along to follow the fairytale. And he admits the last thing Alyx said to him was that she wouldn't let him stop her from going home. Just like the Paper-Pleasers recognize that their "hero" has been preventing them from leaving, and doesn't listen to what they want. Did Jaune likewise smother and try to control the siblings, until Alyx did something drastic to escape him? Was that REALLY the malicious action Jaune presents it as? Or was Alyx in a situation like the Paper-Pleasers, realizing that Jaune wouldn't let them go and they would need to resort to something drastic to get away?

Edited by harostar on Apr 1st 2023 at 1:55:38 PM

Psyga315 Since: Jan, 2001
#78290: Apr 1st 2023 at 1:56:48 PM

Damn...

That was definitely They Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste with the Bees overshadowing the Ruby angst.

BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#78291: Apr 1st 2023 at 2:05:22 PM

I haven't watched a single episode of this volume, but I saw a clip of Ruby's breakdown and this meme under it.

Homophobic Ruby is now a thing

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Ryno_v Since: Dec, 2017
#78292: Apr 1st 2023 at 2:07:05 PM

RWBY Chibi: Season 4, Episode 5 - Cardin's Club

reppuzan Since: Dec, 2014
#78293: Apr 1st 2023 at 2:58:50 PM

So, random thought. Does anyone else find it weird how Yang has so few sisterly moments with Ruby?

In Yang's backstory, she was forced to be Ruby's parental figure when Taiyang became withdrawn with the loss of both of his wives over the previous years. She should, logically, be the most in-tune with Ruby out of anyone in the story due to looking after her and spending so much time with her.

And yet, she's arguably the most distant person to Ruby in the past few volumes of the show out of anyone on the team. She spends much of Volume 7 and 8 antagonizing Ruby and questioning her decisions. Yang never notices when Ruby is hurting and acts largely self-absorbed with her own personal issues. Then it comes to a head in this volume when Ruby tears into Blake and Yang for being so preoccupied with their romance that it once again falls to Ruby to lead and take initiative.

For someone who should be the most sympathetic and understanding of Ruby, Yang comes across as oddly cold. While Jeff Williams has gone on the record to say that nothing in the music he writes is intended to be interpreted as characterization for the show, Gold, the series' very first ending theme, doubles down on Yang's supposed role as protector and role model to Ruby.

Don't you worry about the dark,
I will light up the night with the love in my heart.
I will burn like the sun,
I will keep you safe and warm.
Like the smell of a rose on a summer's day,
I will be there to take all your fears away.
With a touch of my hand,
I will turn your life to gold.

I feel like this is a missed opportunity for a powerful source of drama. Yang could've been supportive of Ruby again and again while neglecting herself. Then Volume 3's ending breaks her and she begins focusing more and more on her personal issues. She tries to reconnect with Ruby in Volume 5 but is too consumed by her internal issues to be that motherly figure she was before. She then displays the more self-absorbed behavior she displays in Volume 7, 8, and 9, leading to Ruby finally blowing up at her and wondering where her sister went.

Psyga315 Since: Jan, 2001
#78294: Apr 1st 2023 at 3:12:02 PM

[up] Very, but again, I think this is definitely planned given the angst of Yang being Promoted to Parent thanks to her father having a Heroic BSoD.

Arryn Troche, someone who has heavy ties to RWBY's production (not sure if they were a former animator or is part of the production) has stated that part of that plan is that Ruby conveniently never has the time to actually voice her frustrations.

Do I expect RWBY to go the whole nine yards and properly dissect Ruby's mental stability and how her friends need to actively work together to actually repair her stability? No. More likely they'll just go "lel, blame Canada Ironwood." and get out of dodge or use some other ultimately toxic coping strategy that a mental health professional would love to do an hour long video doing an analysis of, but it is getting interesting in how they're cooking here.

BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#78295: Apr 1st 2023 at 3:23:03 PM

[up][up] This has in fact been one of the biggest criticisms towards Yang for the past couple of Volumes, that she's all but cut Ruby out of her life and spent more time with Blake and her problems.

Soooo, it looks like that was actually intended...or maybe the writers saw the complaints and just decided to make a plot point out of it, who knows.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
TheAirman Brightness from The vicinity of an area adjacent to a location Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Historians will say we were good friends.
Brightness
#78296: Apr 1st 2023 at 3:33:06 PM

Okay, hearing everything that was said at the end of this episode turned it way too close to what my actual job is, so I may or may not tune out until the season is over, I don’t need my work brain eating up my free time

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Saiga Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
#78297: Apr 1st 2023 at 4:02:53 PM

[up][up] I'm hoping it's intentional, but initially I just thought they were just prioritizing the romance over Yang's familial bonds.

That's a very common thing for fiction to do.

harostar Since: Feb, 2010
#78298: Apr 1st 2023 at 4:05:09 PM

I mean......that's kind of a NATURAL PROCESS of becoming an adult.

Honestly, it's a weird thing to criticize Yang for when it's...kinda an important milestone in becoming an adult. That even without the Promotion to Parent she suffered, Yang would naturally be establishing her own life and identity separate from her sister. Even though they ended up on a team together, they aren't partners and ultimately, Yang has to have her own journey that isn't focused on her sister's needs.

Yes, she's clearly missed some of the warning signs of Ruby approaching this level of breakdown. But we've been explicitly told that both sisters recognize the need to grow into their own people. Yang has needed to have her own emotional journey, finding herself and falling in love, and letting herself and Ruby be their own people.

A big part of this building crisis has been how every single one of them has been dealing with their own issues. And how Ruby has spent her entire life holding in things, pushing forward, and not letting it show. And like Jaune, she's internalized the broken message from Ozpin that a leader has to carry the burdens and focus on everyone but themselves.

Like, idk how many of you have siblings. But it feels very familiar, normal, and expected all around for me. I feel like the writers nail some of the nuances of siblings, how we take potshots at each other, how we argue or support each other, and the growing pains of figuring out our identities and lives separate from each other as adults.

Saiga Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
#78299: Apr 1st 2023 at 4:06:53 PM

It's not about Yang, it's about the narrative.

I feel like the narrative really doesn't consider Ruby and Yang's relationship important enough to focus on as they barely feel like siblings.

The fact that Blake had the strongest reaction to seeing Yang again felt really off to me - I know Ruby is in a bad headspace, but Yang didn't seem that moved to see her either.

FOFD Since: Apr, 2013
#78300: Apr 1st 2023 at 4:21:30 PM

That, and Yang had a moment in V'7 where she asked Jaune if "she" thought badly of her. Jaune thought she meant Ruby since it was Ruby her sister whose plan Yang vehemently disagreed with, but in actuality Yang was worried about how Blake perceived Yang's actions.


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