RWBY Spoilers Thread

You're doing God's work, FOFD.

In terms of population, I think the majority of the kingdom's population lives in Mantle. My reasoning lies in how the population division between Atlas and Mantle is discussed in the series. Atlas is the "city of dreams" and "selfish people", we have the dinner party in Volume 4 where Jacques and his rich buddies are discussing how basically Ha ha we're such great people because we give people an opportunity to live in Atlas by working for us!

The framing suggests that Atlas is an ultra-exclusive place to live, unobtainable for most people unless they attend Atlas Academy and/or enlist in the military. (After the Fall indicates that Atlas Academy does not, in general, accept students from other kingdoms.)

Think of Atlas in terms of places like Beverly Hills and Staten Island, where you have a lot of mansions and massive estates taking up a large amount of space with a smaller population density than surrounding areas where poorer people live.

Mantle is a densely populated inner city, while Atlas consists of several significant locations that take up large amounts of space (The Academy, military base, Schnee Estate, other estates of the wealthy). Atlas is larger in physical size, but less densely populated.

I was thinking about that, too. Namely, it seems like most people in Atlas have absolutely no idea what is happening. Between the Atlas Eye scene and the soldiers chatting in the elevator, the indication is that the VAST MAJORITY of people don't know what is going on. They know the evacuation was halted, and that some kind of weird Grimm force is hanging around outside the city. But they don't know anything about Ironwood's plan, they don't know he intends to leave Mantle and the entire world to die.

It.....probably won't go well, if/when people learn what is actually going on.

Edited by harostar on Nov 23rd 2020 at 11:00:48 AM

There's also the third option that humans are generally rather "neutral" in moral terms. The large scale participation in the various atrocities of the early 20th century demonstrates that (most?) ordinary people can be persuaded to do things which we would regard as evil, yet at the same time society wouldn't function at all if virtually everyone was an amoral sociopath at heart.


The majority of people have the potential to be "good" or "bad" (I'd generally say prosocial or antisocial because those terms have objective meanings), and this will largely be dictated by social context.


@FOFD: I mean, my own strategic play in Ironwood's shoes would be to threaten to launch the relic into space under its own power; depending on that kind of acceleration it can pull, that would render it practically irretrievable rather quickly, and if the cosmology remotely resembles ours (specifically the finite speed of light and a positive cosmological constant) physically impossible to retrieve after enough time. Salem's forces might be able to kill them all, but they can make her goals impossible to achieve, which puts them at an advantage.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Nov 23rd 2020 at 11:10:13 AM

So, been thinking about how much of an improvement the Huntresses were, where they get more screen time and lines... Would this be considered an Author's Saving Throw?

No, because the two volumes were written closely together and the plan was always to shift focus.

The Happy Huntresses getting more focus in Volume 8 was always the plan, not addressing fan complaints or flaws in previous installment.

Edited by harostar on Nov 23rd 2020 at 11:15:41 AM

Like I said to Kylo/Snoke in regards to my thoughts on humanity: I think most humans are just that: humans. We are beings of chaos controlled by our emotions and more often than not the biggest actions we make are a result of stupidity. It's basically Hanlon's Razor but on a species wide basis. Sure, there are some genuinely evil people out there: Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Adolf Hitler, etc., but a lot of times people end up doing horrible things not cause they're evil, they're just complete and utter morons. I can even be frequently quoted as saying "The human condition is stupidity". And I openly admit I'm misanthropic because I've come to accept that that is simply the way humans are. It's just a fact of life to me, and if anything makes it easier for me to accept some of the shit that actually happens rather than be perpetually horrified.

The same argument can be applied to the conflict between Ironwood and the gang. No one in the conflict is actively malicious or "evil", rather they're all making a bunch of boneheaded decisions and doubling down on them while running on very little sleep and being stubborn as all possible. Yeah, Ironwood abandoning Mantle and Remnant to die would be in most cases evil... were it not for the fact it's not being done out of genuine malice, but just his head being so far up his ass he's able to bite his dying heart.

The only genuine evil individuals in this entire Secret War are/were Salem, Cinder, Tyrian, Watts, Adam, & the Albains. Everyone else is either ruled by their emotions leading them to blind themselves/do stupid things, or just idiots in general. And the few people actually able to keep their heads on straight required they too deal with their emotions but in a healthier manner so as to not let them dominate them.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Nov 23rd 2020 at 11:27:00 AM

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

......I don't really judge wether a charachter is evil that way

Plenty of Anti Villains do things not out of malice and instead cause they have geniune good intentions

And I just don't think any of RWBYJN Rs decisons are outright boneheaded.....Yet.

1. Make Good Decisions Ren

EDIT:I'm trying to make it a hashtag why does it keep coming out as 1

Edited by Snoketrope on Nov 23rd 2020 at 8:34:25 AM

The First man

The impression I'd had was the opposite, that Atlas was far more populated then Mantle. Mantle doesn't really look to have any large buildings for dense residential areas unlike Atlas and if it was intended to be the more heavily populated no one speaking when Iroonwood treats it as a few city blocks would feel incredibly strange. The slums taking up the largest portion of Mantle yet looking like it's entirely single story buildings dies t help with the impression either.

Then theres the concept art of Atlas that looks pretty much what we got having a section marked as "Old Mantle" making it seem like with the crater that they actually took a chunk of the city with them along with world of Remnant referring to the people of Mantle as left behind. And the art also making it look like the area beneath the ring the Academy is on is populated since there are rows of windows running around a section of the area so it isnt just the topside of Atlas peopke live in but inside it.

Atlas comes across as an actual city, while Mantle looks more like a mining town.

Edited by doineedaname on Nov 23rd 2020 at 11:52:28 AM

I don't mean in general, I meant specifically in this war. Cause really, would you consider Emerald evil? Or Marrow? Or Hazel? In this Secret War it's pretty much just a really shitty situation overall, and the only genuinely malicious people 3/4th's of Salem's Inner Circle, and A Nazi by Any Other Name.

Also, hoping they'll make good decisions? You should know by now that by the laws of narrative contrivance, that that is not gonna happen.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Nov 23rd 2020 at 11:47:53 AM

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

I tend to steer entirely clear of "good" or "evil"; they aren't particularly objective concepts, and casting conflict as a battle between good and evil creates precisely the kind of emotional engagement that causes all sorts of irrational behaviors outside of the sorts of situations we would have encountered in our evolutionary history where emotionally driven responses served as a reasonable heuristic for making snap decisions.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Nov 23rd 2020 at 12:02:24 PM

Emerald and Hazel.....yeah basically, Emerald was willing to murder a Man with Mercury for fleeing the white fang and against Cinders orders at that. And was willing to help out with a Terrorist attack. And Hazel helped Purge the Hunstman and Huntresses in Mistral.

There sympathetic yeah but they are still evil.

The First man

Don't forget killing Penny indirectly.

Not really.

• When you get down to it, Emerald cares little about morality in general, or at least she claims to. In her eyes, the only thing that matters is pleasing Cinder, the only family she has ever known. She doesn't take pleasure in what she does, hell she outright admits she found the Fall of Beacon sad despite Cinder reveling in it, and when Ruby tries appealing to her morality, she makes it painfully clear she will foresake morality for the sake of Cinder. It's part of the reason Mercury telling her Cinder doesn't care about her pisses her off so much, since not only is she afraid to admit he's telling the truth, but it suddenly means that all the actions she took, that she justified as for Cinder's sake, she can no longer rationalize to herself anymore. Cinder is/was Emerald's entire reason for living, so to think that she was ultimately deluding herself, she suddenly is left with no reason to have done what she did... and that scares her.

• Hazel meanwhile suffers from a case of grief induced Moral Myopia. In his eyes, Ozpin is the evil one, tricking people into signing up for their deaths much like he believes happened with Gretchen. He sees no issue with killing huntsman because he rationalizes it as their fates having been sealed the moment Ozpin tricked them. And it's made painfully clear that, when Ozpin isn't brought up, Hazel is the most moral person amidst the villains. He abhors unnecessary bloodshed hence his anger at Adam assassinating Sienna, he goes out of his way to help who he thought was just a random child and gives him life advice, tries to stop Nora and Ren from fighting him by saying they have no reason to, and tries to solely take the blame for the failure at Haven just so Salem doesn't go after Emerald or Mercury, even basically taking the two under his wing afterwards. It's only when Ozpin is brought up that he loses it and goes on a grief fueled rampage. Were it not for a case of Moral Myopia and a massive hatred of Ozpin, Hazel would pretty much be a good person.

Like I said, these two aren't evil, rather they are people who let their emotions cloud their minds and causes them to do things that they'd normally regret. Neither enjoy doing what they do, but they do it because their emotions drive them to do so. Compare that to genuinely evil characters like the psychotic Tyrian who relishes doing his job, the egocentric Cinder whose sole motivation is satisfying her fragile ego, and supremacist Adam whose hatred for the humans made into more of a monster than the humans ever were.

It helps that Emerald and Hazel are both anti villains, who, by the very definition of the trope, are often not evil characters, rather it's just their means would make them appear evil.

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

Doineedaname, I think you're mistaking a lot of the scenes/shots as being in Atlas when almost everything we see is in Mantle. The city we see them fly through in Volume 7's first episode is all Mantle, including skyscrapers and other large buildings.

https://rwby.fandom.com/wiki/Mantle

We know there's 41 voting districts in Mantle, and multiple sectors as well. I don't recall how many in told other than Fiona mentioning Sector 7 which is likely a nod to a certain popular rpg.

Ironwood calls it "a few city blocks", but he's being extremely dismissive. He's literally in highest room in the tallest building in Atlas, staring down at the smog that hides Mantle from view. It's meant to show how little he thinks of Mantle.

As I said, Mantle as an industrial city is probably more densely packed and has more people. Hence, Watts being able to give Jacques the election woth only access to Mantle's systems.

Edited by harostar on Nov 23rd 2020 at 1:13:56 PM

Well, I dont really think like that at all

I generally measure evil but how much evil stuff a charachter does as opposed to anything else, the fact Anti-Villain is a trope is part of my point there really, as that trope is someone evil yet also very sympathetic or fleshed out in a way.

Yes to all that. Mantle also has the Slums wich were built in Atlas crater. So irs technically 2 cities mixed into one.

Another thing is that the scene where Watts turns off the heat, shown at 2:15 of this video seems to demonstrate well that Mantle is freaking huge

https://youtu.be/isgUINsciXU

Edited by Snoketrope on Nov 23rd 2020 at 10:23:46 AM

The First man

@Rebel: If you want to go down that particular rabbit hole of looking for extenuating factors behind bad people, the business with the Grmim pools make the amount of moral agency Salem has questionable*, and something's also very clearly wrong with Tyrian mentally which raises similar questions.


Lots of monsters have sop stories. In most cases it doesn't particularly change what needs to be done.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Nov 23rd 2020 at 1:22:52 PM

I'm ready to go down that rabbit hole. But I feel I should make something abundantly clear. I am not willing to give passes to everyone. There is a point in which a person's circumstances cease being used as justification for their actions, as some actions are just unjustifiable period, and other actions go beyond the scope of what a backstory can justify. It's why I don't sympathize with Adam despite the hell that was his childhood and his Start of Darkness, since he became a monster worse than anything he suffered can excuse. The same applies for Cinder, Watts, & Tyrian.

• Cinder growing up in an abusive household ala her Fairy Tale Motif doesn't justify her becoming an egocentric mass-murderer.
• Watts being passed over by Ironwood doesn't justify him trying to commit a massacre via freezing Mantle to death.
• Tyrian seems to just be a psychopath, and some people are just born that way, and even then it doesn't justify him being a sadistic Serial Killer.

The biggest aspects for me in terms of what qualifies as redeemability/sympathy are:

• scope of actions
• severity of circumstances
• remorseful/reluctant behavior/the willingness to atone.

Characters like Emerald, Mercury, Neo, Hazel, Raven, and the Ace-Ops sans Harriet all haven't crossed the line in my eyes due to these factors. Salem meanwhile I'm tenuous with since her backstory is just that fucked up. And Ironwood at the moment is skirting the line in regards to whether I still sympathize with/pity him due to his more recent actions.

Maybe I'm just weird, but let me put it to you this way:

• I sympathize with the League of Villains with the exception of Dabi.
• I was fully on board for Locus' Heel–Face Turn.
• One of my favorite characters in the Nasuverse is the Knight of Treachery: Mordred.
• I fully sympathize with The Crypters with the exception of Beryl Gut.
• I consider Mercury, Emerald, and Neo having a Heel–Face Turn an inevitability rather than a possibility. And I was one of Ilia's most ardent defenders even when it seemed like she was gonna go through with the attack on the Belladonna's.

---

• Maybe because I'm aware its just fiction I'm okay with them being sympathetic and don't consider them evil whereas if this were real life I wouldn't hesitate to crush their heads with sledgehammer regardless of their backstory.
• Maybe it's because I have such a low opinion of humanity I'm more tolerant of the circumstances that gave birth to them since I could understand just how it could screw them up.
• Maybe I just have weird standards.

Bottom line is, I don't consider them evil, and if going by the literal definition of Anti-Villain, anyone with this trope is not necessarily evil despite being on the side of evil.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Nov 23rd 2020 at 2:41:11 PM

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

My view is just that none of that factors into if the charachter is 'Evil' to me, it can mean that one can Sympathize with them but, that dosent equate not evil

I can Sympathize and see the redeeming qualities with Erik Killmonger, Ozymandias, or Magneto. And all these charachters are still very evil. For one who got a redemption arc, Locus as mentioned above was willing to help participate in outright genocide beforehand, he's undeniably made super sympathetic but....before his Heel–Face Turn, still evil.

Not evil just on the side of Villainy would be the lighter side of Punch-Clock Villain, someone like say, Eric Finch from V For Vendetta who's basically a straightforward detective hero just on the side of a Genocidal regime. Or in the show itself someone like Marrow.

Edited by Snoketrope on Nov 24th 2020 at 12:13:39 PM

The First man

You can presumably automate at least some of the menial work. We've already seen that old Knight models are retrofitted for Dust shipping, so it's not impossible to assume Atlas has its fair share of drones that can do things the rich won't do.

@Grimm: Honestly, did the citizens of Atlas straight up not have the announcement from Ironwood and Robyn shown? I feel like it'd be easy to equate "there's an immortal grimm queen prowling about" and "there's a giant grimm army outside the city, complete with a flying whale", but judging by the confusion from the Atlas Eye reporter, it seems only Mantle knows what's coming.

grah

Someone bought up Ironwood's constant shrinking of his definition of "Us" and that's a pretty accurate assessment of what he's doing.

There is also another issue with were that rabbit hole will lead for Ironwood. When you keep doing that sooner or late "Us" will become "Me".

Yeah, that's a good point. Didn't touch on that in my original post yesterday. You saw that with his shooting Sleet - we already saw him do a lot of horrible stuff before, it's not surprising that way, but that is him signaling that he's excluding the council from "us". That's supposed to show how far he's gone - even while doing all of the other stuff, he still kinda sorta allowed the council to operate independently, showing that he at least cares about the facade of a fair process. Sleet questions him, but Ironwood desperately wants to be the "good guy", The Hero, and has built a narrative in his head to that effect - that's why he rationalizes incredibly bad things, as I explained yesterday. After all, anyone who questions The Hero must be The Villain or working with them trying to sow division, right? So he shoots Sleet. That will lead to distrust, and Ironwood will assume they're all Salem's spies, because anyone who distrusts him must be working with the villain! I mean, it's not like he's done anything bad. He's the hero, after all!

What I find interesting about all that is that Ironwood won't acknowledge it - not just Sleet, really anything he's done and his flimsy reasoning for doing so - because of that narrative. He's The Hero, he thinks, and sometimes heroes have to do things that "normal" people don't like, but they don't understand! They weren't under the same circumstances! He was only trying to prevent Salem from infiltrating Atlas! And so on. He won't question that, or have anyone else do so, because that would mean that he would have to step back and actually think whether he did the right thing. He doesn't want do that, because in his mind The Hero is always right and justified in everything they do because they're fighting The Villain, and questioning his decisions would have him realize that no, he's not a hero, and admitting you've been wrong is difficult enough when you did something small like accidentally offending someone. It's much harder when you've actively done terrible things, and Ironwood is too afraid to admit that he was quite wrong. He's too obsessed with his hero fantasy to admit that he might be a villain. Crucially, he still thinks that he's in the right.

I should also note that Ironwood's shrinking definition of "us" is him Moving the Goalposts to say that he's still being successful. Haven got attacked? Well, good thing they're not part of "us" - Atlas is still okay! Abandoning Mantle? Well, one of them might be a spy for Salem, so they're not part of "us" anymore! Atlas is still untouched! Shooting Sleet? Well, he questioned me, and must have tried to create division, so he couldn't be part of "us" anymore! It ties back to Ironwood's need to see himself as The Hero - after all, "heroes" never fail or do bad things, and anyone who insinuates that must be working with The Villain.

This whole debacle, incidentally, might be used as a justification against the heroes. When they meet Salem in-person, she might use Ironwood's example against them - see, Ironwood thought he was a hero, who's to say you're any different? Might expound on that later but this is long enough already.

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

I keep looking back to the imagery of Team RWBY falling beneath the ice in the opening.

Last time we saw an image like that it was Qrow slipping into alcoholism, and it alluded to Team RWBY encountering the Apathy. This time, we see the Staff floating out of reach...

The last few times we saw the heroes "plummet" it was always with Team JNPR included, back in Volume 2 when they do their superhero landings, and in Volume 3 when Pyrrha is the last one to fall away from the group.

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

Something I bought up earlier that feeds into what you said is Ironwood being incapable of seeing the situation in terms of other peoples sacrifices and only being able to perceive it in terms of his own sacrifices.

To him the suffering he bought on the people of Mantle wasn't "the people of Mantle having to suffer for the greater good", it was "him having to sacrifice his reputation for the greater good". He dosn't see their sacrifice or the sacrifice he's forcing on them, he only sees what he's personally sacrificing.

It's a trait that very much feeds into his actions, sending him down the rabbit hole that you described.

To bring it back to the original point, if he isn't stopped sooner or later his definition of "Us", will be him and him alone. He will throw everyone else under the bus until he's the sole survivor.

Edited by Gaogaigar54 on Nov 24th 2020 at 8:31:17 AM

He'd end up a Lionheart unable to comprehend he's become Lionheart.

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

New Dumb RWBY.

What a polite kidnapper.

Edited by jouXIII on Nov 24th 2020 at 7:38:46 PM

I assure you, I'm a completely trustworthy person.

@Rebel: Well I’m coming at this from a rather uncommon POV, that being that the conventional notion of good and evil presuppose the existence of a sort of free that simply isn’t real.


What RWBY, and in fact virtually all of fiction gets wrong are the reasons the can lead to ordinary people becoming “evil”, since they tend to be operating under a folk psychology understanding of human behavior.


Trauma/torture doesn’t make people evil, it just makes them traumatized, and it’s not enough to make someone a serial killer even if you do it to a child. Desperation or social pressure can lead people to do awful things, but remove them from that context and the won’t suddenly be a psychopath.


The most tried and true ways to make someone who wasn’t born a bad egg into something we’d regard as monstrous are tribalism and dogma, either of the secular (ie fascism, communism, or even liberalism, as was the case for the OG revolutionary terror) or nonsecular (Christian fundamentalism) variety, because they identify an out group and provide a justification for dehumanizing them.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Nov 24th 2020 at 4:08:24 AM