Eh, Sun following Blake was set up in Volume 1 as a result of her running away from her team-mates then randomly pouring out her heart to a complete stranger that she's only known for two days (instead of her team-mates that she's known for a couple of months) because he's a Faunus and her team-mates are not.
He tags along with her on her White Fang investigations (relevantly, because it's his idea that she acts on, but there is an indication he's the kind of person who butts into other people's business). Later on, Sun is Blake's partner for infiltrating the White Fang (which also confirms Sun as the kind of person who butts into everyone else's business). All that sets up him being her partner for the White Fang storyline in Volume 4.
I'm not going to comment on the hook used to get him to her side in Volume 4 (being the only person to see her go - something we knew in Volume 3 - to following her for a couple of months before she realises) because I do not view this as a RWBY writing problem. I view this as just one example of many of a much, much wider problem within storytelling (in many different formats) that has existed for a very, very long time. The RWBY writers made use of a very traditional and very popular plot device (character stalks another character to be in a position to help the person they're stalking).
Yes, Joss Whedon tried to lampshade the unfortunate implications of the tradition in Buffy, but even he ultimately screwed it up by giving in to the tradition's usual consequences (Buffy can get pissed off with the stalking all she likes, but she stills take the help and she still ends up dating the stalker.... both stalkers, which completely undermines Whedon's attempt to lampshade the unfortunate implications of the trope).
It's a storytelling problem that, in part, is probably connected to the fact that most writers are male and that many females who have learned how to write have learned within a majority-male environment and end up mimicking the storytelling traditions rather than breaking them. It's only in recent years that some storytellers have started breaking the mould (male and female creators both), but it's still a minority and there's still a very long way to go.
And that's before we discuss the subject of tropes not always having to be bad, so it's not always going to be an improperly used plot device.
RWBY uses the stalker point on multiple occasions, the fandom as a whole has crapped on the one example (Sun) while giving a free pass to all the others (insert whatever dismissal justification here for all non-Sun examples and simultaneous backlash against any attempt to discuss possible Sun examples; if that sounds like I think a sensible pro/con debate keeps being ruined by a fandom-wide shipping war, you'd be right — that's exactly what I think).
What I think is that the Volume 4 issue is not a RWBY-specific issue - or a Sun-specific issue - and I have no intention of looking at it through either of those two lenses as a result, especially as looking at it from the point-of-view of it being a wider storytelling-wide issue that crosses multiple genres and formats is a much more interesting and (I think) relevant discussion.
And that is frankly all I'm going to say about the subject, too.
edited 27th Feb '17 4:56:03 AM by Wyldchyld
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.![]()
Because Blake was making a deliberate choice to protect her friends by separating herself from them, given that Adam had specifically threatened to kill her loved ones. This is something that Sun rather dramatically missed when he made his speech about "you can't make your friends' decisions for them" — namely, that they can't made her decisions for her either, so her decision to run off without them is just as valid as Sun's decision to follow her anyway under that logic.
Eh, that loses weight if she's not really going to explain why she's doing that. Sun's reasoning was pretty clear and stated. She just ran off without telling them anything. None of them know about the "Destroy everything you love" bit, which still makes it weird she'd risk going to her parents if that's still her biggest concern.
More to the point, at this point they're not just her problems anymore.
edited 27th Feb '17 7:49:45 AM by LSBK
I think with regards to the "making people's decisions for them" thing, that that was Sun's point. She wanted to leave them behind so Adam couldn't hurt them without taking into consideration that they care about her regardless of the crazy edgelord. Thus, when Sun thought she was planning on settling things alone, he decided to help her, even knowing she might not want him there for that reason. Like, he joined her expecting danger, so saying it was written without that in mind seems off.
Also, I'm pretty sure Wyldchyld's point was less that this isn't a problem with RWBY and more that it's common enough that it is a problem that extends into the greater sphere of this sort of writing, and is unfortunately somewhat expected.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13239183440B34964700 Alfric's Fire Emblem Liveblog Encyclopedia!Sun's point was that you can't make other people's decisions for them. Blake's decision was to leave in order to avoid putting her friends at greater risk. Sun's decision was to follow Blake to help her regardless of her wishes. And yet it's treated as if Blake is in the wrong for deciding the exclude her friends, while Sun is justified in inviting himself along, even though they're both making decisions that involve other people.
Because Blake's plan relies entirely on Adam being unwilling to hurt her friends without her being present (and unwilling to take any action against her parents while she's there) as they're already involved. If she isn't worried about her parents being targeted either because she thinks Adam wouldn't dare attack them or because they're simply too badass to be threatened by him that's not something that having the team go there with her wouldn't invalidate. And if its just that they're strong enough that brings up the question of is Taiyang and the Beacon staff hanging around him occasionally not enough to kick his ass if he shows up at their home looking for Yang and Ruby? Vale's looking for Adam because of the attack on Beacon IIRC so that opens up thinking that they'd be unwilling to have people watching them to ambush Adam if she were to go to them and say he's after her and her friends.
Her staying away isn't doing anything to make them less of a target as team RWBY fighting in the tournament was broadcast across the world, he should already know she was involved with them. Even if we assume Adam wasn't watching and none of the White Fang were watching it and mentioned it to him after seeing her Adam has already seen he can hurt her through Yang. Adam already has reason to target Weiss just for being a Schnee independent of her so she's not protecting her. Ruby is the only one she should think he doesn't have a reason to go after (if simply being related to Yang isn't a reason for him to target her) without her being around since she doesn't know his bosses are targeting her.
edited 27th Feb '17 9:00:19 AM by doineedaname
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I didn't say it would be right in real-life or is necessarily right here. Just that fiction has away of making things a lot more justifiable than if they were in the real world, which might be what you were complaining about. Like, most people don't have to worry about friends going off alone to fight psychotic terrorists organizations or teenagers saving the world, but here we are.
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Well, context free, I would say that both positions are understandable and that's why discussion is for the best. In context, however, I'd say Blake's main points, that her friends are safer from Adam, and the White Fang are her problem alone don't stand.
As has been mentioned, Adam isn't just going let his vow go just because the people she cares about aren't around Blake, and if that is her top concern, with her paranoia you'd think she'd be too afraid to go home.
On the second point, her friends were already involved with the White Fang, she's already had and seemingly learned the "you can't do everything alone" lesson, and even without that, the White Fang stopped being just her probably when they attacked Beacon, if you can even buy that was the case in the first place.
That said, none of this means that I don't buy Blake feeling the way she does, or that Sun following her the way he did isn't iffy, I'm just saying if you're talking about the validities of their points, hers has its fair share of holes in it.
Or you can just say it that way.
edited 27th Feb '17 9:27:57 AM by LSBK
Yeah Blake have reasons to feel that way but a lot of that have to be with her main flaw: running away from problems, she is actually really dense about the idea the white fang will just sit there and do nothing which feel off because Adam himself told her he is going for her love ones and them procced to make is on "how force awaken should have ended" with Yang.
This is a superhero set up actually, the whole "I must run to protect you" but it dosen work here because the villian already know you are.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"The problem is her plan is just as flawed as Sun's plan was. Like everyone said her not being their does not protect them. She was to busy complaining about sun to realize that she was being watched. Her plan works on the flawed logic that Adam will leave them alone if she is not around despite the fact that one member is from a family the white fang are at war with and that the fact that the leader of her team has a tendency to get involved in things on her own. When you don't tell your friends about the threat they just end up being blindsided by it which is the worse thing you can do.
"Shall I use you, or make you mine... I'm not so sure what I'll do." - DorthyYeah, Sun's positioned as right during his last conversation with Blake regardless of the actual argument he made. For that same reason you can't even say Both Sides Have a Point in-universe.
The thing is the way Ozpin phrased it made me think of something beyond just Salem, or, at least, before Salem.
Also, I get the impression Watts is probably going to be around for at least a little bit and if Ozpin just knows who Salem's lackeys are that makes that a bit of a stretch.
I mean, the argument against that would probably be some choices shouldn't be respected when they're blatantly self-destructive, but they haven't said that, so it really doesn't matter for the discussion. And even if they did, there are some problems with that as well.
edited 27th Feb '17 10:37:14 AM by LSBK

Blake was set on her on story as it show in volume 3 that is clear but she need SOMEONE to kept her around, Weiss have Klein, Yang have is dad and so on, also from a writing perpective Sun make sense: he is funny to her who brood, he is a faunus but dosent have the same background making new to all that..
Problem dosent lie in the idea but the excecution that was cringe worthy at best and with potencial unfortune implication at worst and that is all im going to said about that.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"