That shit's annoying, no one should be doing it.
I mean, I think there's a difference between expressing dislike for the character and explicitly or implicitly bringing this up.
But, yeah, whenever this gets brought up "don't start the argument again/don't try to police discussion" does seem to be code for, "don't express opinions different than mine/question my opinion".
And that's not good.
edited 9th Jan '17 9:33:06 AM by LSBK
If your dislike of the character stems from how he's been handled this season, it becomes harder to avoid "implicitly bringing this up." That's certainly the case for me; as I've said before I had absolutely no problems with Sun before Episode 3 of Season 4.
That said, my original post that started this off, didn't go into detail about why I dislike the character. I said that I did not like the way he was used in the fight this episode, and that it harmed my enjoyment of the episode. I didn't post an essay on why (which I easily could) because I wasn't interested in talking about that—I was making a list of things I'd liked in the episode, and things I hadn't.
edited 9th Jan '17 9:39:17 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar
You know the arguments people use here to defend Sun? I would have loved to see Sun make those same arguments for himself, the exact same ones. It would have been actually interesting for me, because then there's actually compelling drama between Blake and Sun now. Hopefully this would also exclude the forced comic relief role he's shacked with.
edited 9th Jan '17 9:56:09 AM by VeryMelon
Blake: You have no respect for my privacy and you've made it more than clear, in front of my parents mind you, that you're just trying to get into my pants!
Sun: That's not true, I'm trying to be your friend Blake. I'm genuinely concerned about your wellbeing you, as a friend. And the reason I stalked you is because you wouldn't accept my help otherwise. You need somebody to watch your back Blake... and just because that so happens to align with my penultimate goal of getting into your pants doesn't mean-
Blake: Ugh, you are such a creep!
Sun: Oh come on! You wouldn't be complaining if Yang was trying to get into your pants!
Blake: Don't change the subject!
edited 9th Jan '17 12:01:20 PM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!I'm pretty much with Very Melon here on his presence beyond episode 3. While I don't have an explicit issue with what he did in episode 3, I can agree that he's been handled annoyingly, since rather than interact with Blake, he's mostly just being used for comic relief. His talk with her about Menagerie? Not amazing, but still decent, and provided some exposition and character stuff. Their discussion after the stupid "fall through the door" gag? Pretty much fine in my book, since it actually led to Blake bringing forward her issues, and to Sun doing something besides making jokes; he felt like he was actually being relevant to the plot and contributing while defending himself rather than just sorta being there for humor like he was a few episodes ago with the generic "meeting the girls parents" gags.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13239183440B34964700 Alfric's Fire Emblem Liveblog Encyclopedia!Perhaps I am just overthinking this, but I think part of the reason the Blake/Sun debate has gotten so heated has less to do with Blake and Sun, and more to do with a more fundamental philosophical moral questions.
It seems to me that the debate is more of a individual rights/ free will VS moral obligation debate.
One side of the argument seems to be that Blake has the right to make her own decisions even if they might be self-destructive, and that Sun had no right to stalk her against her will, even if he might have done it to protect her.
While the other side of the argument (for example, Sereg's post near the top of the previous page) suggests that Sun had a moral obligation to stalk Blake, and that Sun would be personally responsible for anything that happened to her if he didn't follow her.
So, It seems to me (and I could be mistaken) that part of the argument boils down to a question of whether someone has the right to violate another person's rights and free will in order to protect them from themselves, or if a person should have the right to make potentially reckless decisions of their own free will without interference.
If that's the case, I think the debate is more suited to the general
[[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13583934520A45200100&page=1
philosophy thread]] instead of here.
Of course, I could just be over-analyzing, but comments like "Sun would be a sociopath guilty of negligent homicide if he didn't stalk Blake" seem to point to a more fundamental philosophical question of morality than just being about Blake and Sun.
Comments like that are outliers in the discussion and have remained outliers for its duration (as a side note they also display no understanding of what actually qualifies one as a sociopath, be it colloquially or psychologically). However heated some of the other posters, myself included, have gotten in past discussions, none of us have ever taken the discussion there.
edited 9th Jan '17 10:29:23 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Well if I had to speculate:
- Sun will be out of the action for awhile. With this attack the White Fang has officially given away the element of surprise. Blake's dad will not stand for Sun's injury directly contrasting his earlier disapproval of Sun.
- We will hear a short testimony from Blake about Illia next episode, and if they weren't best friends then they're probably related somehow - adopted child, step-sister, one or the other.
- Blake will probably blame herself for Sun's injury and he'll give her some kind of motivating speech, which will convince her to sit down with her father and discuss the White Fang's operation by the end of the episode.
- Her dad will (probably two episodes from now) discuss getting her away from Menagerie while he settles things with the White Fang here. Blake will protest, but retreat and abandonment has kind of been a theme for her this Volume, so she'll reluctantly agree to leave. Plus this will push her closer to reuniting with Team RWBY - Blake has to leave because Ruby, Weiss, and Yang currently have no reason to head toward, or even assume that Blake is in Menagerie.
- The Volume will end with her dad getting executed - because the scene of him comforting Blake was meant to make us like him, so the most dramatically appropriate course of action is to rip him away from us, lengthening Blake's axe to grind with the White Fang.
- But, given that this is supposed to be the "recovery" arc - I'm not sure if he'll actually be killed or just imprisoned. Killing him now seems a little too cruel both to Blake, if she develops to the point where she stops running from her problems then it's just the narrative saying "you can't have everything you want, you can't grow as a person and keep your parents, deal," and to us, because her dad is a likable character.
I have a feeling we're going to learn more about Ruby/Weiss's situation than Blake's next episode. Next episode will probably just have some declaration of "Blake you need to get the hell out of here, trust no one."
edited 9th Jan '17 12:02:39 PM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!I brought it up, and I didn't say sociopath, but I said that Sun was following Blake, not because he wanted to get into her pants or because he didn't want her to leave him, but because he saw her leave, assumed she was going after Adam and the White Fang, but was going solo because she felt guilty about Yang, which would probably get her killed.
So he disregarded her personal space because he'd rather have her mad at him but still alive, then dead, but at least he respected her feelings on the matter. And it's probably partly fueled by the fact that the last time one of their group of friends charged off to confront the bad guys alone, she did get killed.
Now Sun's assumption was wrong, but he didn't know that till he was already on a one way trip to Menagrie with her.
Same with the scroll thing and interupting her with her father. He saw a masked Fang member in the market. It doesn't matter that Blake doesn't want to worry about the Fang now, because they're here and aren't going to wait because Blake's sorting her feelings out and doesn't want to be bothered, and better she be pissed at him then dead because he decided her feelings were more important than her safety.
Now the problem is that Sun was clingy and annoying before the world went to hell so that's probably coloring the opinion of most people (and Blake for that matter). If it was say, Ren that stalked Blake for 6 months because he worried for her safety people probably wouldn't have problems with that because it would be so OOC that it would be more obvious he was geniunely concerned for her life.
kerry being the buttmonkey did also bring me comfort
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Twitter@Eagal: Probably, but given how vague the show has been about her and given how shady Ozpin's past is made out to be, I suspect she'll end up somewhere in the spectrum of Fallen Hero, Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, Tragic Villain, or even Well-Intentioned Extremist.
edited 9th Jan '17 12:18:04 PM by CaptainCapsase
I was out of town all weekend, so just caught the new episode.
Am I the only one who feels like this is where Weiss and Yang should have started the season instead of finally getting to this point nine episodes in? The whole setup of the two of them moping around doing not much for half a season didn't add anything and could easily have been skipped over. Yang didn't even have a big epiphany or anything — she just moped until she was suddenly done moping. They could have done that during the timeskip, easily. Weiss is a bit better in that at least something happened to prompt the change, but they could have easily opened the season with "Weiss is confined to her room because her dad is pissed at her so she spends her time training" without the lengthy run-up to that point.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I like what happened with both of them in this episode, I just feel like it's long overdue.
Well, I will say that I don't like how they're handling Whitley. They seemed to be setting him up as someone who was something of a bridge between Weiss and her father, but lolnope turns out he's just a dick and is completely on board with Daddy and who knows why he was being nice-ish to her to begin with since apparently he actually thinks that she's just a useless idiot. He seems like a waste of a character. What does he add to the story by essentially being an extension of Jacques?
Sun getting hit was really poorly done. Early in the season he could spawn a half dozen clones long enough to set up an elaborate Fastball Special routine to fight the sea dragon without wiping himself out, but this time he has four active for about ten seconds and completely drains his aura to zero? They're straining suspension of disbelief to the breaking point in order to hit the plot beats they want. If you have "Sun is injured in a fight" as a plot point, then you need to set up a situation where that's a reasonable turn of events. A longer fight or a sudden unexpected attack from Ilia would have been fine, but it's like they realized they ran out of screentime and said "well, it's got 'Sun is injured by Ilia' in the script, so...."
edited 9th Jan '17 12:24:35 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Oh man, the last two pages. I'll take some responsibility here since I initiated it against Armbar to begin with.
The reason I made those jabs is because I felt like the criticisms of Sun was getting less coherent and more petty; " Oh I'm glad he got stabbed, because fuck him" "why did he have to save Blake again, ugh"
I don't mind criticism of a character, but this is on top of every comment like that since episode 3. That's over 2 months of having to read "fuck Sun" and I was kind of getting tired of it. Anybody has a right to call out something they don't like, and I have the same right to call out criticism I don't like.
Notice how it's not the criticism itself that I take issue with but the way it's presented; I never said anything to Very Melon despite him also being vocal on his opinion of Sun, because he was constructive and neutral about it. I'm not going to get on somebody who's criticisms are legit.
Now normally, I would ignore petty comments like that because generally I assume people are joking because I don't like to believe people are that petty with their dislike towards fictional characters. But this is in addition to all of the stalker and sex offender accusations and at that point, I feel it's making a mountain out of a molehill.
That's my problem, when genuine criticism leads to petty and mostly mean-spirited comments and I can't that because it reminds me of the worst parts of the internet. I could at least take it if you could at least acknowledge you're being petty instead of trying to justify it.
Anyway, I've never had an issue with the continuation of these debates because it hasn't actually led to anything mean-spirited despite the increased aggression. This subject won't ever end unless both parties come to a mutual agreement whether they agree to disagree or not.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.![]()
The problem is that if Yang and Weiss started the season where they are presently, I bet almost everyone would complain about Yang suddenly doing a 180 from the "emo depressed kid" at the end of Volume 3. Because, sorry news flash, a person losing a limb doesn't bounce back immediately. Hell, the fact that Yang only took between six to eight months to bounce back is kind of astounding.
Weiss.... Well, maybe? They could have condensed her plotline until this point, that would have been better.
edited 9th Jan '17 12:23:44 PM by BlackSunNocturne
I'm with you on Weiss for sure, but I think some would have complained about skipping Yang's adjustment to her one-armed life before she tried to get back into fighting.
Thank you.
Eh, I don't know if they could have started at this point. We at least know Yang has some issues rather than just "she was moping around the house before she put on the hand and now she's better." We would've missed out on the well of drama from a newly minted amputee. Like the deal with racism against Faunus, the story would just be telling us Yang was depressed about her missing arm rather than showing us.
As for Weiss we didn't know much about her father at the time, just that Weiss was anxious around him. We had a slow build-up to seeing what their relationship was like. If they'd just started with "Weiss got locked in her room because her dad is overprotective" it would've been kind of disappointing.
As for Whitley (and I keep calling him Wheatley by mistake) I always somewhat suspected there was something off about him and never thought he was a bridge between Weiss and her dad, so... for me it's like his true character's finally coming through. It was just his body posture and the way the camera was angled when he first appeared that said something awas off.
I do think he's being overplayed, but I think that was true back in Volume 2 - the criticism I remember about him and Neptune is that they were useless comic relief. That hasn't really changed. So I'm kind of neutral to him now.
edited 9th Jan '17 12:28:02 PM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

Except that's not what I said at all. I said that I don't like how the existence of the prior conversation seems to be getting used to muzzle those who dislike the character. We have reached a point where expressing any dislike of Sun, including something as mild as "I did not like how he was used in this episode" prompts not only an immediate defense of him from his fans, but also accusations of trying to reignite the argument.
Given how often I've used it as a comparison it should be pretty clear by now that I don't like the "Blake is lame" or "Blake can't fight" jokes. She's one of my favourite characters in the show. Yet when somebody makes one, I don't respond by posting a defense of her record, and then insisting that the person who made the joke is trying to start a fight. In fact, outside of using it as a point of comparison whenever this topic arises, I ignore it. Why is it that Sun's fans do not seem willing to do the same?
I made a one-off comment about not liking his role in Episode 9 in my list of that episode's cons. For whatever reason, that prompted a number of responses about how I need to get over it, which eventually led us here. Why? Why does a one-off crack about how I don't like Sun bring us here?
I don't want to have this discussion again. I hated it the first time. But I do genuinely resent the way that some people seem to want to have their cake and eat it too, posting defenses of the character whenever any dislike of him, however brief, is expressed, and then hiding behind "don't restart the argument", sometimes within the confines of the same post. I can't help but feel that the onus to avoid a flamewar is being entirely put upon those of us who don't like the character, when the reality is that his fans could just as easily contribute to keeping things quiet by not replying to one-off expressions of dislike (in the same way I don't reply to one-off jokes about Blake).