RWBY Spoilers Thread

Meanwhile in Ruby's Inside Story with Super Atlas Mecha.

Edited by Mizerous on Jan 12th 2019 at 9:00:43 AM

Eh, we frankly should have seen the blue eyes coming. They're the default eye colour for the Beast when in his human form, a tradition that started with Disney, thanks to Disney's obsession with the symbolism of the colour blue (which is why Disney heroines almost always end up wearing blue at some point).

I have to say that the first thing I thought of when I saw Adam's face was that, because of his Nazified clothing, my immediate thought was the tattoo branding that went on in the concentration camps. I suspect it's more about cattle branding, however, given Adam's bull themes and the fact it was quite literally a property label for SDC burned into his face.

What I can't decide is whether his eye is some kind of natural eye-change related to his mood and Semblance the same way Yang's eye-changes are (and it's trapped by the scarring), or whether this is set-up for the discovery that Atlas engages in Faunus experimentation (next stage after animal experimentation, sparing humans from having to become lab rats). For example, what if his eye is an indication that artificial eye technology has move on from Maria's days and into more cyborg territory? What if it's a hint of how Penny's technology was ultimately created?

That said, I'm not going into a full reaction post here. I've written my reaction to the episode, but I'll post it on the other thread next week when it's out for the public. I'm now going to go and forget I ever watched this episode. I thought last week's episode was bad. The Cordovin fight was quite possibly the worst fight I've ever seen in the whole six volumes of RWBY. It was right back to all the Volume 4 problems with the floaty running, bad timing, standing around like lemons and it was coupled with the bad linking of the Haven battle (which was apparently due to how it was storyboarded and then split between animation teams). It's like someone grabbed all the worst bits of Volumes 4-5 and slapped them together.

In fairness, there are some things in the episode that I like. For example, did anyone notice that, when Maria finally used the airship's missiles, the camera zooms in on the middle missile sliding forward before firing? She literally gave Cordovin the middle finger. And then Cordovin gave it right back. That was a genuinely good moment.

Anyway, Jaune's Aura has broken, paving the way for someone to be dangerously injured and he won't be able to help them. The damaged airship puts Oscar in prime position to unlock either his Semblance (probably Time and probably freezing everything in mid-air) or his magic (levitation — he could save the entire airship if they want to hint about the strength of his magic). And, if it's his Semblance that unlocks, then we've also got set-up for the dangerously injured person to be 'healed' by Oscar instead of Jaune (reversing time to take the body back to its pre-injured state or speeding time to make the injuries heal at super-speed). I still think the big contender is Qrow, given that Ruby's fall down the cliff seems to be linked to Qrow's Semblance hitting her — and the airship is probably careering straight for her location, which would put Oscar, Maria and Ruby's lives all in danger.

Oh, and I called it way back in Episode 1 that Oscar reading a magazine in the opening credits called 'Atlas Mechanics' was a set-up for something in the future, given the way he jumped straight into an analytical role in this episode and the fact that characters who are implied to be book-worms tend to be the characters who are regarded as the 'thinkers' and the 'strategists'. Another connection to both Jaune and Ozpin. The cover of the magazine even has something on it that looks either like a robot soldier or a mech-suit.

It is worth remembering, however: the show has been incredibly cagey about it, but Oscar doesn't just have a Semblance to unlock, he has magic to unlock as well. And, while Ozpin clearly didn't like using magic much (and it's my theory that Ozma hates magic now after what happened to his four daughters, which is one of the reasons he gave so much of it away to the four sisters), we know he could definitely turn people into birds and that he was levitating during the fight with Cinder. We have no idea what else he can do. That's now for Oscar to learn.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jan 12th 2019 at 3:36:14 PM

I actually quite liked the Adam vs Yang and Blake fight, and while the mech fight was eh, I did like Jaune actually coming up with a good, insightful strategy rather than "hit it harder."

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jan 12th 2019 at 10:38:01 AM

It was better than the Cordovin fight, but I was specifically talking about the Cordovin fight.

That said, there were things in the Adam fight that annoyed me, too. Just nowhere near as much as the Cordovin fight.

Honestly I don't think it was that bad; characters actually made use of their powers in situations where it made sense, and while there was one jarring instance of the characters standing around doing nothing at the beginning when the mech is charging its laser, everyone was participating otherwise or taking cover behind something.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jan 12th 2019 at 10:41:40 AM

I just realized, while I'm disappointed by this reveal (seriously, why would he want to hide that? Vanity?), this has made me want Adam to live through the volume, if only to give a better perspective on dear old Grandpa Schnee and his son-in-law.

For a second there I was wondering what the fuck you people are smoking talking about Bumblebee being sunk.

Then I remembered its the name of the bike.

So at this point I think its safe to say the theme of this season is "look at all this fucking quality." Seriously, this is just genuine good shit right here.

Edited by TheAirman on Jan 12th 2019 at 1:11:05 PM

So do you guys think Adam mooed in agony when he got branded? Just wondering.

It seems Bumblebee has been sun-What do you mean I'm late?

Man, apparently Atlas does good prosthetic work.

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.

For real though, the Yang v. Adam bit was furious awesomeness and I literally need more.

He's literally been branded by one of the biggest exploiters of the Fanus in the world, it's not really that odd that he'd want to hide it. Generally speaking when you brand or scar someone in such a way you're intending for them to be ashamed by it or other such negative emotions, it's a permanent reminder of a very traumatic incident.

Really, the question is why the edgelord covers his eyes entirely when he could get some kind of big eyepatch to cover the brand and still BE ABLE TO FUCKING SEE

Edited by VutherA on Jan 13th 2019 at 3:03:32 PM

Well, it looks like Bumblebee has gone out in style.

Edited by gjjones on Jan 13th 2019 at 3:19:39 PM

He probably has to rely less on his sight on account of being blind in one eye, so the blindfold is probably the RWBY equivalent of weighted clothes from Dragon Ball Z.

Several reasons. Look at his eye — red sclera, black/grey pupil and iris. And an SDC branding iron has been slapped right across the eye, announcing to the entire world that here is a being with a scarred, demonic eye that is the property of the SDC.

That's not vanity. That's shame, that's lack of self-esteem, that's a constant reminder that your life literally had no more worth or agency that that of farmed cattle or inanimate products stacked in a shipping crate. It's a genuine example of torture.

One thing I don't have a problem with in this episode is the realisation of why Adam hides his face. That very aspect of branding someone across the face as property for the entire world to see for the rest of that person's life is far more inhuman and awful than the fandom ever speculated — the worst the fandom came up with was 'eyes ripped out'. Comparing Maria and Adam, Adam's situation is definitely worse.

What it does do is make me more upset about the lack of exploration of Faunus discrimination, even among good people (not the token villainous references that we've had). Because if this concept is going to be a big part of the Atlesian storyline (and, frankly the timing of the Adam reveal does suggest that's exactly the case) then I think Adam's face (which I do think is a strong impact) would be very hard-hitting.

Think about this: in Jinn's vision, Ozma was reincarnated into a world where Faunus were caged like animals. But I can't see any signs of visible property branding on any of those caged Faunus.

The branding on Adam's face doesn't simply suggest 'property' it suggests he was branded like that for rebelling; this smacks of vindictive, dehumanising, punishment (we will never let you forget it). It smacks of torture. That's actually worse than the state of the Faunus in Jinn's vision. ^note In keeping with mediaeval crime and punishment, where certain criminals had their crime branded into their foreheads like animals, so the world would forever only see the crime instead of the person.

I just wished we'd seen some of this within the setting before now because Adam's face is actually a sign that Adam's genuinely had it worse than most Faunus will ever know — and that he's probably not the only one to have suffered like this. And this is in the modern day, where human/Faunus relations (as bad as they are) is apparently supposed to be nowhere near what it was in Jinn's vision — and yet Adam is proof that somewhere, it's actually even worse. It's now easy to see why Blake told Ozpin that humans haven't improved nearly enough — she knew some humans are still doing things like this.

I do agree that this reveal does make it feel like there's an entire SDC storyline behind Adam that we've never been given the chance to see, especially since it so clearly ties into what Weiss said at the end of Volume 1 about how SDC board members have been murdered in a personal war between the White Fang and the SDC, and with the Black Trailer, which was a raid on SDC merchandise. It seems that, while Adam is a monster, it's the SDC that help to create that monster. That actually gives Weiss a much more personal and long-standing connection to Adam's history than Yang will ever have (whose personal history only begins with the Battle of Beacon). What on earth would Adam do if he ever got his hands on Weiss? How much worse would he be treating Blake had he realised she was now friends with a Schnee? And how would Weiss feel if she saw that scar? Does she even know things are that bad in the company?

Yang has nothing on the potential of the Weiss connection, so it does feel like something's been missed here. And it's weird, because everything that's been happening in this episode is normally a set-up for an unambiguous removal of the villain from the story forever. However, the reveal has actually given us more storyline potential for Adam than we knew he had — but only if he had been set-up correctly for that storyline from the beginning of the show. He hasn't been, and so his situation (which should have been an unambiguous route to removal from the show) is now less cleanly handled because we now know there's a large storyline potential with him that has been left untapped.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jan 13th 2019 at 1:12:37 PM

I didn't think about it this way, but I suppose Adam's desire to be "Lionized" does make a hell lot of sense now.

If I have to guess, Adam will die at the end of this volume or the next episode, probably by falling into a cliff or some disney death that allow the girl to be clean(and Cap, you are misunderstanding me, is not about chararter stand in killing, if is the show let them do that), BUT his death is going to serve as chain to deal with faunus racism in the schenee corporation, after all it hae being mention a couple of time so I guess Weiss will have to deal with her family....deals.

"The branding on Adam's face doesn't simply suggest 'property' it suggests he was branded like that for rebelling; this smacks of vindictive, dehumanising, punishment (we will never let you forget it). It smacks of torture."

it smack you of SPITE.....remenber that? back in volume 4? it put much of Adam into sense: he from Atlas, which explain is focus on being militant and the styling of is cloth, hell you can even see is colors as counter of atlas(white and blue for atlas, black and red for him), and when they mark him, they show it the only thing that matter is strenght and unvaiving conviction, seeing everything in term of strenght.

If anything, from Adam point of view blake look like a weaking and shelter girl who think she can be friend with humans(after all in term of faunus, she is very priviliged) and when she left she start fighting for them.

....You see, this valided my concern at volume 3 of having him acting all Kylo ren, because it would muddle him as terrorist, is really hard to take seriously what he did because he pretty much act like incel edgelord with blake.

Edited by unknowing on Jan 13th 2019 at 9:38:11 AM

Yes, exactly. I was deliberately trying to avoid using the word 'spite', however.

The show didn't have a problem with Ruby maiming Tyrian or Cinder, and our heroes also killed a number of White Fang mooks in the volume 2 train battle by throwing them to their deaths. I don't think the show has a problem with the good guys killing people either, and the writers' stated intentions for the tone of the show was for things to get darker and more mature over time. (for example you have Qrow's alcoholism starting out as a gag and being treated increasingly serious) I think the trend there is that they start out with our heroes just KO'ing people and getting some implied kills here and there on mooks, then they graduate to inflicting serious bodily harm on named villains, then we finally get to the point where they're ready to show them killing a named villain.

Anyway, speaking of Kylo Ren, Cinder also kinda strikes me as a bit like Kylo, specifically in how they both idolize and try to imitate a much more formidable villain without really getting them beyond "powerful badass who remorselessly slaughters their enemies", only to start discovering firsthand just how tortured and lonely their role model's existence is.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jan 13th 2019 at 2:51:49 PM

I've got a feeling that Cordovin's probably going to be a Kent Mansley-type character, given that they work for the government and their Patriotic Fervor.

Maimed is another thing enterely, is dark but not so much and it was in a pretty awfull moment after all, death is one think but letting the hero is another, and those deaths you sepak us? I dont think the show recognize as such, just like how superhero run into a "DO WE SEE BLOOD? IF HE BREATHING? FINE!", if Yang or Blake kill adam it will be a symbolic moment.

Also I dont see Cinder as with kylo, maybe a little bit but Adam fit more him, is suprising how much considering that Volume 3(were he act like him) was up almost at the same time as TFA, they nail him perfectly.

But Cap if you know about Warhammer fantasy, Adam is pretty much Malus Darkblade "with hate, everything is posible, and my hate is strong!".

Wyld: so what do you think is going to happen?, is Adam going to live or die?.

Die, as much as I'd wish otherwise. Killing him off is simply the safest option for the writers, as giving him another role in the story would be too hard and having him just leave Blake alone would be hard to justify both from a narrative standpoint and to the audience, which is still thirsty for Adam's blood.

I also think he's going to suffer a Karmic Death for his own actions.

He could be incapacitated and imprisoned if they want to do more with his character at some point, but right now my money is on him dying at Yang/Blake's hands after having his aura broken and being knocked flat, being given one last warning to "stay down", and subsequently ignoring that warning and charging them with his sword when they turn to leave him; that's typically how you have a hero kill a villain in a way that's as morally unambiguous as possible.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jan 13th 2019 at 5:01:59 AM

PR Obably with him rantin about blake as her and yang reforce the whole "Living him behing".

I will said is a shame but he could be a intersting chararter(is my favorite chararter actually) I really wish they didnt make him abusive boyfriend.

They could always recruit the edgy rebel considering when faced with an immortal abomination you need all the help you can get and he would make the perfect scapegoat to eliminate a certain parental problem Weiss has.

Adam joining the team would make little sense given his characterization... though it would certainly be hilarious.

Adam: Hey guys, I know I led a terrorist attack that might have killed some of your friends and resulted in give or take 328134 deaths in Vale alone, personally dismembered one of you, ordered some of your family members assasinated, cut a deal with a being of ancient evil in order to enslave your entire species, tried to blow you all up back in Haven and I kind of ruined your mission just now... but we can still hang out, right?
Blake:...
Yang:...
Weiss:...
Jaune:...
Ruby: Well, everyone deserves a chance. Right guys?
Nora: ...I'm gonna break his legs.

Seriously though, it would be really interesting. Heel–Face Turn is so much more interesting when it is made by person previously thought irredeemable.

Edited by Tharkun140 on Jan 13th 2019 at 11:46:40 AM