I'm going to put three characters through the Sorting Algorithm of Face-Heel Turning: Emerald, Neo, and Yang.
Emerald and Neo
- Species: Human, 3
- Gender: Female, 4
- Age: Young Adult, 4
- Role: Underlings, 4
- Aesthetics: Emerald, Evil Is Sexy, 4. Adorable little Neo, 5.
- Motivation: Emerald seems to be forced into working for Cinder, 5. Neo's motivations... Going by Roman's, 3.
- Characterization: I want to say Emerald is lost and confused, but she's also kinda cold-blooded, 4. Neo, cold-blooded, 3.
- Contentment: Punch-Clock Villain, 3
- Morality of RWBY: Black and Grey, 1
- Cynicism vs. Idealism: More to the Idealist side, 4
So, for Emerald, we have 37/10 or 3.7, so relatively likely to pull a Heel–Face Turn. As for Neo, 34/10 or 3.4, a little less likely than Emerald, but still likely to change sides, especially now that her boss is gone.
Now, for Yang turning evil...
- Species: Human, 3
- Gender: Female, 2
- Age: Still a teenager, 4
- Role: True companions...? 3
- Aesthetics: Attractive(ly scarred?), but also has red eyes when mad. 3
- Motivation: For fun. 5
- Characterization: Hotheaded, 4
- Contentness: Lost an arm, the team is broken up, and her sister left her. Life is hard. 4
- Morality: Black and Grey, 5
- Idealism vs. Cynicism, 2
35/10, or 3.5... No wonder everyone thinks Yang is going to turn evil...
You know, this might be crazy talk, but can we just, you know, keep Pyrrha dead? Like I want Penny to return, I wouldn't mind if they decide to make up for the trainwreck what was Roman's death, Pyrrha I think died decently so I would mind if they decided to revert it and nobody gives crap about Amber's death.
Only sometimes posts
With Amber, everyone, even in-universe knew and accepted that she was going to die; the big issue was the aftermath of her death, and on whose terms she died.
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I wouldn't call RWBY black and gray right now; while there's definitely a lot of foreshadowing for Ozpin and the Brotherhood to be a Broken Pedestal, and Atlas as a whole is just about as sinister of an ally as possible, we haven't seen how that works out. At this point, I'd say The Good, the Bad, and the Evil for the setting's morality, insofar as there's relatively mundane antagonists who are coerced into working for a far grander force of evil.
edited 22nd Feb '16 7:26:50 AM by CaptainCapsase
The deaths were handled in a way that makes the viewer question if they were done right.
Like for example, nobody believes Penny is dead for good and Pyrrha's death left a pretty sour taste on many fans (but it was decent). However, the real problem was Roman, whose death was so out of the blue that you either believe he is going to return or you think they handled his death poorly (i'm on the second camp)
For me, i'm fine if Pyrrha stays dead and i could tolerate Roman being dead too. However, Penny is likely to at least return in some form.
Uni catAnd then immediately negate any sort of "threat" it would have negated by having the said thing die by having a little girl kick them into a head and crash into a ship. And again, it didn't show Grimm as being threat: yes, they can actually kill people, but there is difference between stabbing someone in the back and taking a knife, charging head-first into a swordsman and stabbing them to death.
Only sometimes postsBesides Red Shirts, Roman is the only casualty by Grimm in the series and not a very good one.
Hell, even the supposedly most threatening Grimm only got an assist against Pyrrha
Uni catThe main reasons I want Pyrrha back are A. There was so much more potential for her growth and development than the crumbs we got, B. It involved her acting masssively out of character, completely negating and trivializing Ozpin's own sacrifice just so she could go play hero in a battle any sane person should have known was unwinnable, and C. It was a classic case of Stuffed into the Fridge: A death whose sole purpose was to give someone else (in this case, Ruby and Jaune) something to angst and brood over and will more than likely have absolutely no effect on the plot once they're over it, in which case you have to wonder why Monty even bothered creating her in the first place if her sole purpose was to be shafted in such an unsatisfying manner.
@faso: The only on-screen casualty, there's an obvious Inferred Holocaust in Vale given what happened; it took the better part of a day to contain the Grimm, and they were ALL over the city. I really wish they'd explicitly shown some of that however. At this point, all they can really do is tell us tens of thousands of people died, which Doesn't Have The Impact when that happens off screen.
edited 22nd Feb '16 7:47:55 AM by CaptainCapsase
And if you want to get technical, her role before V3 was very Jaune centric, even bordering Satellite Character status.
I know Grimm killed people otherwise the show wouldn't exist. Yet, they didn't even bother showing grimm slaughtering civilians. I'm sorry isn't the show getting darker then where is my violence?
I wonder if Grimm may qualify for Memetic Losers since many think they aren't a threat
edited 22nd Feb '16 7:49:24 AM by fasoman1996
Uni cat
If I had to guess, it probably has to do with the budget and time constraints the show is made under; showing the grimm attacking and killing civilians would require a fair bit of animation work compared to them just running away using premade animations.
Showing corpses would work, but given the Grimm supposedly eat the corpses of those they kill, that would probably be a bit more graphic than what they're going for.
edited 22nd Feb '16 7:57:40 AM by CaptainCapsase
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I don't think it was out of character since it's been established she had heroic ideals and so she believed stopping Cinder was the right choice. That's why i believe that if she comes back, her ideals would be really damaged and she would become even more cynical.
I do think she was kinda Stuffed in the Fridge, since her death triggered Ruby's secret power
edited 22nd Feb '16 8:23:38 AM by fasoman1996
Uni cat

Forcing a relationship for out-of-Universe reasons is automatically poor execution unless that's the entire point of the story.