Volume 7, Episode 5 reaction:
- You know, I noticed this the first time we saw the outside of Atlas Academy close-up, but those pillars and the taller spires around it like they've got an almost 'hinge' design to them. I wonder how many of these 'structural pillars' will double as guns to defend the school if it ever came under attack? Because, seriously, in a world where everything's a gun (and needs to be!), I'd damn well put guns in my pillars.
- Of course, if we're going to go full sci-fi, then we need to observe that Atlas Academy sits on its own mountain, and that means it might be able to take off. Let's face it, if I'm going to turn Atlas Academy into a gun, and the show has already gone partial-Stargate on us, we may as well speculate about whether the academy itself can take off from its mountain. Because, why not?
- Okay, so Team RWBY does share a dorm. Penny made it seem like everyone had one room each, but I guess she meant each team had one dorm each... exactly like Beacon.
- I notice they're bunk beds by default. Ruby and Weiss must be thrilled. The girls have resumed their Beacon patterns of sleep as well (Ruby on top, Weiss below; Yang on top, Blake below.
- Jaune, caffeine is really bad for dogs. They're far more sensitive to it than people are, and it's easier to poison them with smaller amounts.
- Looks like Clover's working our new Huntresses and Huntsmen to the bone.
- Um, Ruby? I think you're going to end up learning to catch sleep where you can as a Huntsman.
- So, bandits exist in Solitas, too. Aside from the Happy Huntresses, of course.
- Oh, look. Mantle construction resources are being diverted to the construction of Amity Tower. This isn't going to bite everyone in backside at all. It's probably going to make the heroes enemies of Robyn Hill to begin with. Eventually, they'll switch sides and Ace Ops will become the 'enemy' instead.
- Nora, when you're on mission, you shouldn't be playing with Ren's hair. At least he's paying attention. But that's a nice, silent scene that explains Ren's 'be professional' request when they were inside the mine.
- Team RWBY keeps splitting off into the pairs they were assigned at Beacon (Ruby and Weiss, Blake and Yang). Marrow's noticed and doesn't understand it because he's looking at it from a 'complementary skills' perspective. Even though their skills do work together (as Marrow discovers), Ozpin's method of pairing up people would blow Ace Ops' minds, wouldn't it?
- And Jaune becomes a chick-magnet and a mum-magnet by accident.
- And sure enough, the training room is indeed what we're seeing in the opening credits with Ironwood and Oscar. Everyone called that.
- It still looks like Ironwood is more interested in Oscar for Ozpin than for Oscar himself.
- Looks like Jaune is going to get some Aura training from Vine. But the kids are clearly training with Ace Ops wherever they can.
- Look at Jaune and Marrow bonding over coffee.
- And obviously there are plenty of little moments in the montage for Bumblebee shippers, so the
- I'm not surprised to see Team FNKI put in an appearance given the feedback from Volume 5. It was pretty much a guarantee, including the full team (which was a complaint from Volume 3).
- Oscar training with JNR is another sign that he's pretty much a 'member' of that team. It's just a question of what name they'll take, if that becomes official.
- Using training to set up the fact that Nora can actually fly on her war hammer.
- Yeah, Ironwood's way too interested in Oscar for this to be good for Oscar in the long run.
- I wonder if we'll actually see anyone who isn't in the loop recognise Ozpin's cane and wonder what Oscar is doing with it?
- When team Ironwood is watching Team JNPR (well, Oscar, really), the mission boards behind him say the same things as in the montage.
- Nora mentions the name Kobalt for one of Team FNKI's members. I'm not entirely the best person for memes, so I googled it. note All I can see is that Kobalt Tools is a brand of power equipment and that there are memes about the awesomeness of Kobalt Tools. The branding colour for the tools is the same shade of blue, but is this the right meme?
- We just hear the name Ivori used as Team FNKI departs. I have no idea what meme Ivori refers to.
- So... Amity Tower's components are so heavy a standard airship can't cope with it without wasting a lot of Dust. But Amity Tower is going to have to be launched so high into the atmosphere it can escape Grimm — despite the weight of the components and the fact that Dust starts losing power when it gets too high?
- Penny just casually drops the information that they're expecting a lot of Grimm to target Amity Tower when it's launched.
- Penguins? They're going to throw in polar bears at some point, aren't they? Just to anvil us with the 'don't have Earth expectations for Remnant', right?
- In fairness, we did actually have a pseudo-penguin species living in the Arctic with polar bears until humans drove it extinct (the Great Auk). What we now call penguins were actually named that because they resembled the great auk. So, they're not related species but penguins were named after auks, not the other way around. And, on that note, we should totally have a Miomancalla Grimm darting around the Solitas coastline. I'm not sure what threat it would be, but we should totally have one.
- Another sign that Ironwood's willing to sacrifice the things that really matter: Penny's not allowed to make friends.
- I've commented previously that Qrow gives the impression that he wallows in his misfortune. His 'shut up and deal' moment is an example of that. Especially since that deck of cards has a four-leaf clover on the back.
- Clover repeating something Maria said in Volume 6. She had regrets in not doing more to leave Remnant in better shape for the heroes' generation. Clover expressing the same sentiment suggests it's a common outlook for Huntsmen to have. But... how old is he? He doesn't look like he's the 'parent' generation (Qrow, Taiyang, Raven), but this is definitely the comment of an older man. I guess he's closer in age to Qrow than Winter, then.
- So... Qrow's given up alcohol? Good man. Now, let's see if he can keep that going when the stress starts piling up on him again because that seems to be his worst trigger. If he can keep it together, good for him.
- Clover's comment about Qrow deflecting compliments is another sign of how Qrow wallows.
- And the conflict with Robyn begins.
- Hah. I knew that sheep Faunus was one of Robyn's. I thought last week that she had gold eyes, but they're very green here.
- And now we know where the 'Show You Teeth' graffiti comes from in the first episode. It's pro-Robyn graffiti.
- That said, she just referred to 'ladies' in plural, as though more than one person is stood with her. Since I doubt that means they're hiding behind the rocks, that probably means some kind of invisibility technology (or one Huntress who has a Semblance that can cloak multiple people).
- Called it. As soon as the episode mentioned construction was being diverted away from Mantle, I knew that's how the heroes' would begin their relationship with Robyn.
- Hm. Judging by the way Clover closed his eyes when Robyn persisted in questioning, he and Robyn have history.
- There's a bit of a 'magic tinkle' sound when she holds out her hand. A Semblance that compels people to speak the truth, perhaps? I wouldn't expect it to work on Clover (his luck Semblance could be used to counter it).
- Penny calls it like it is.
- I knew there was some kind of 'invisibility' ability at work. Whatever it is, Penny clearly has some way of detecting it.
- Okay, so Joanna was the other one who was with the sheep Faunus last week. Joanna's probably Little John.
- Robyn seems somewhat mocking when she calls Penny the 'protector of Mantle'. I'm sure Robyn would like to ask Penny what she's doing out here instead of, you know, protecting Mantle. After all, this is now a situation where it's not just construction equipment being diverted away from Mantle, but also the Protector of Mantle. Which means, in Robyn's eyes, Penny is one more resource being taken away from Mantle.
- Letting them through, just like that? I guess Robyn realises she'll get more answers if she let's them go about their business and resumes spying on their activities.
- Well, at the very least, Robyn and Clover used to be friends. This is a warning to the heroes. They can like Clover all they want, but if they oppose Ironwood, they oppose Clover.
- Well, a little insight into how Weiss sees the Ozpin situation. She's think Ozpin keeping secrets was all about himself (I maintain that I think he thinks he needs to protect everyone from despair). It's not surprising that Weiss would jump to a 'selfish' conclusion regarding Ozpin's behaviour when her role model for exactly that kind of behaviour has been her father, who definitely does do things for selfish reasons. In the run up to the Ozpin reveal, Weiss did say she was getting fed up of people deciding what was best for her, so we know she was conflating Ozpin and her father when Jinn told them the story.
- Winter thinks Ironwood isn't keeping secrets from her (which is probably wrong) but she words herself in a way that all but confirms he's keeping secrets from everyone else.
- Oh look. More security cameras. That's just something else for Watts to hack — and, let's face it, he can probably hack the Atlas security to at least some extent, despite all the updated security measures.
- Is that the Winter Maiden?
- If Winter's the only one allowed to see her... yep. Weiss' got there, too.
- Winter's probably nearing the limit of what's considered 'eligible' for receiving Maiden powers. The creators have mentioned that Winter's probably early-mid twenties and that they think 'too old' kicks in for candidacy at around 30.
- Ironwood's actually gone further with Winter than Ozpin ever did with Pyrrha. Ozpin certainly put Pyrrha on the spot, but he was making the decision to use the tools he had at his disposal in the limited time he had available: Pyrrha had made the choice to come to Beacon, and that gave Ozpin something he could work with in the limited time he had available, but he no more dictated her path prior to that than any other Huntsman student. So, Pyrrha may have been put in a difficult position, with little time to make peace with it, but Winter's had her entire path shaped by Ironwood. That said, she's also had a lot more time to make peace with the situation than Pyrrha ever did. Either way, here we are: another hand-picked Maiden candidate having another discussion about destiny. At least Weiss has a more complete understanding of the context than Jaune did.
- So, Volume 3 implied that it was Ironwood who was behind the idea of transferring the Fall Maiden from Amber to Pyrrha (because it was Atlesian R&D technology they were using to do it). Now Ironwood is trying to control who the becomes the next Winter Maiden. We can even see Aura transfer chambers in the room with Fria.
- At least we now know for certain why Ironwood didn't rush to put the Relic of Knowledge into Creation's chamber — he can't afford to have the Winter Maiden die on him in uncontrolled circumstances because he's trying to control who the next Maiden will be.
- Jacques gives a press conference that has Watts's fingerprints all over it. He's doing what he wanted now (shutting down SDC operations to save money) but blaming Ironwood for it. Throw in the accusation that Ironwood is behaving illegally, and Remnant's got its very own fake news outbreak.
- Heh, I bet those miners are thinking that Jacques' is talking absolute bullshit if he thinks his family's in the same boat as any of them.
- Oh, hey. It's Drunk Purple Guy. I knew we'd see him again. But, on a serious note, this reminds us that Weiss is very recognisable in Mantle. If Jacques' starts the fire in Mantle, it won't be safe to be a Schnee down there.
- And Jacques gets cut off. Possibly Watts' doing, but something clearly captured his attention off to the side before the network went down.
- Blooper: Jacques' is still broadcasting to Winter's scroll. If it's not a blooper, then the signal was cut off to Mantle, but not to Atlas. Or it's a recording Ironwood sent to Winter.
- According to the World of Remnant episodes, no-one knows who threw the first attack between the Vale people and the encroaching Mistral people that set off the Great War, but at least we know who threw the first dustbin that triggered the Atlesian-Mantle civil war.
- End credits:
- We have a name for the sheep Faunus: Fiona Thyme. Fiona has two origins: Gaelic, meaning 'white'; or Irish, meaning 'vine'. Thyme is a plant with white flowers, but it does have a number of species and cultivars, but it does have a broad-leafed form called 'Archer's gold'. Sheep are generally symbolised as weak. However, thyme is a symbol of courage. I'm wondering if this character is playing the 'Much' role in the Happy Huntresses. Much was traditionally viewed as the youngest of the Merry Men, but in some versions he was also a cook.
- The concept art for Neon grosses me out. She's not wearing gloves, they're attached to her sleeves. That means, if she ever wants to wash her hands, she has to remove her entire jacket to do so. That's so gross.
- I just realised, from seeing the art of her hood, that her new hairstyle is designed to mimic cat ears.
- The mission boards all say 'Solitas Bounty Missions'
- The central boards says 'Solitas', Southern Shore. Someone called Ackley, Amber is on a Search and Destroy mission, which was in progress a week ago.
- Clearly, they're not afraid to reuse names: Amber was the name of the Fall Maiden. But it's easy to see how this name might be a common one, it's not that unusual a name in real life either.
- The mission boards behind Jaune as he gives the coffee to Marrow are just reusing names, I think. I can see the reuse of the name 'Ackley, Amber'.
- When Clover enters, the mission board behind him looks like it's entirely made up of CRWBY names for the missions that were all recorded as 'in progress' or 'terminated'. Is there a member of CRWBY called Amber Ackley? I'm thinking that might be a CRWBY name, too, because the scrolling names on Amber's central board include names like David Tilton, which is another CRWBY name.
- The marquee at the bottom of Winter's scroll during Jacques' press conference says:
- Missing Journalist Found Slain in her Midtown Apartment (this may or may not be a different journalist to the one mentioned in the first episode, but Ironwood did say Forest was the third murder).
- Perimeter Wall Damaged Last Month - Resources and Funding are Stalled (this was mentioned in the first episode, too, in the same background newsboard as the slain journalist; the stalling of the wall funding is almost certainly because of Amity Tower and what Robyn and Clover were arguing about).
- Surface Level Grimm Attacks Increasing - Mantle Protection Agency Advises Staying Indoors (and this is why families wanted Huntsmen to guard their children on the way to school).
- Weather Special — How to Keep You and Your Family Safe From Hypothermia and Frostbite - Tomorrow at 10
- Media outlets present for Jacques' press conference: Atlas Broadcast Network (ABN), Atlas Eye, Lance of Liberty (complete with Lancer logo), Mantle Daily.
- The outside of Atlas Academy is so pretty.
- Military bunkbeds in the dorms. It looks like the beds are recessed and platformed, which is very spaceship. The desks are siloed down one side of the wall. Another wall is taken up with a huge window. I'm guess the remaining wall is going to be recessed wardrobe space. It's a much smaller dorm room than Beacon Academy's dorms, but it makes much more efficient use of space while leaving a much more limited opportunity for personalisation.... which just makes me want to see Team FNKI's dorm room now. Because I'll bet those kids have personalised.
- The kids have been issued with Atlas pyjamas. There's even 'ATLAS' typed on the right leg at the colour boundary just above the knee. I wonder if Beacon had Beacon pyjamas for guests to use?
- There's so much going on Fria's room that tells us about her: paintings on the wall and an easel suggest she used to be an artist (the goddess Frigg was associated with artistic symbols). Medical equipment which give us some Remnant drug names. The Aura transfer machines in the corner which the audience will recognise the significance of, but Weiss won't. The only kid who will is Jaune. But it's a good sign that Ironwood is covering all his bases — if the Winter Maiden slips into a coma, he can still attempt to give Winter the magic.
- The paintings on the wall appear to be of Mistral, Mistral Central Station, the Shallow Sea in Menagerie (which is extremely interesting given that's Faunus territory) and a landscape painting that has a crow in it but probably isn't Solitas due to the complete lack of snow. I'm not sure what the remaining one is. It might be inside a cave.
- The soft pinkish light coming into the dorm room at the beginning of the episode is really nice. They've made good use of light in this volume so far.
- Marrow clearly can pull the puppy dog look to gain treats. Without going full Puss-in-Boots, that is.
- I like the 'office job' montage of how much work the heroes are doing and the range of work and training they're doing using Clover as the mission briefing narrator. Obviously, I hope it doesn't get overused, but the two times they've used this 'time passes' method, it's been done very effectively both times.
- The montage also does a lot with the Blake/Yang interactions. I'm not a shipper and I don't go looking for shipping, so that's not the reason why I like it. The reason I like this is that it creates a baseline of interaction that has frankly been missing until now, creating a good foundation from which to launch the ship if that's definitely the way they're going to go.
- Mildly amusing away to confirm the adaptive nature of the training rooms (somewhat akin to a Star Trek holosuite).
- I like the way the names of the remaining members of Team FNKI are introduced to us (Kobalt and Ivori), both casually used in conversation.
- Unlike Ruby, I love the arctic scenery. That said, I don't have to live there and travel through it day after day after day.
- The pathos in the scene of the Winter Maiden is nicely done, and I really like the sound-proofing of the observation glass. Fria's trembling is really well animated, too.
- There is no way in hell that Weiss can sleep with her hair tied back like that. Personal experience talking.
- Ruby's voice actress continues with the super-annoying sounds. I could have done without that supersonic 'Yahoo'. I'm already listing this as the worst volume for Ruby's voice and we're only five episodes in.
- When team Ironwood is watching Team JRON (well, Oscar, really), the mission boards behind him say the same things as in the montage. They could at least have been a bit more inventive there.
- Can't we see JNR using team tactics in training? The JNR + Oscar scene was just a group of one-on-one fights that ends with a throw-away nod to possible team tactics to take out Neon, and then Neon being very complimentary about the team's performance. We didn't see anything like that, however.
- All that tundra and no-one's wearing snow goggles? That much white must really wear on the eyes.
- Yeah, so. At least some of Atlas Academy's structural pillars are going to double as guns. There, it's officially a prediction.
- Obviously the work/training montage shows that the heroes are going to be bonding with Ace Ops and even coming to view them as friends and allies. However, Harriet's earlier warnings tell us this isn't likely to be reciprocal. They know how to separate work and friendship and apparently they don't mix the two.
- Robyn and Clover have personal history. I wonder if they were Academy team-mates. Ace Ops has made it clear that being in teams as friends is a childish, school-age thing. Which means they must have been in teams that forged friendships when in the academy. So, Robyn could have been one of Clover's former team-mates, or a friend from the same year group, or something else. But it's obvious their history is personal and that they don't want to be on opposite sides to each other.
- I'm getting the feeling that Ironwood needs Ozpin for something, which is why he's so determined to get Ozpin back.
- Fria... that's a Germanic name, if I'm not mistaken. It comes from a root word for 'beloved' that's used in the names of a lot of Norse goddesses. The most significant goddess is Frigg (also spelled Frija or Frea), the goddess of the sky, love, fertility, and mothers. She shares with her husband (Odin) the power of prophecy and fails to protect her son Baldur from his prophecised death (she also foresees Odin's death). Just as Thor is associated with Thursday, Frigg is the origin of Friday. There's also scholarly debate over whether Frigg and Freyja (goddess of love, war, death and fertility) are separate goddess or the same one. Freyja is the goddess Thor disguised himself as to reclaim his stolen war hammer, and the inspiration for Nora's design. The second episode had us all wondering if the Winter Maiden would be Nora's connection instead of Weiss's. Now we know: it's Nora.
- There's a flaw in Ironwood's plan that's obvious as soon as Winter says 'Good afternoon' and Fria replies with 'Good morning', and becomes even more obvious with her gentle ramblings. She's not only dying, she's got at least a small degree of dementia as well. She's reminiscing constantly. And if she's reminiscing, then the person in her final thoughts won't be the woman standing in the room with her, it'll be people from her past... and if she thinks Nora is dead (which I'm sure she will), then any lingering on her dead family will pass the power to Nora instead of Winter.
- I wonder if we're going to be wrong about the trigger for the heroes going rogue against Ironwood — if the wake-up call becomes Ironwood's attempt to control the Maiden powers. I'm thinking about a scenario where Nora becomes the Winter Maiden and Ironwood tries to take control of her.
- We may also have a bit of a blindsider for the villains, too. In Vale, it was easy for Cinder to estimate that Pyrrha would be the most likely candidate for receiving the Fall Maiden's powers and it probably makes sense to the villains to assume that Winter would be Ironwood's most likely candidate for the Winter Maiden's power. Nora might be a curve-ball for everyone.
- That said, if Winter does end up with the Winter Maiden's powers, we're probably going to see her get killed off and the powers pass to Weiss. I think I'm much more interested in seeing Nora get them now. That's just a much more interesting scenario — and Thor was associated with winter storms. Just imagine Nora's power if she can give herself a lightning boost every time she needs her Semblance. We can just see that lightning would be her go-to element of choice.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I see people theory that the other two members of team FNKI are that dress meme [1]
I'm conflicted on Nora being the new Winter Maiden in that case.
- On the one hand, it gives the protagonists a maiden of their own without making any of RWBY into one, and would give Nora the opportunity to finally get some focus on her own rather than solely be attached to Ren.
- On the other, it paints a massive target on her back, and possibly more death flags, since Cinder wants to claim all the Maiden powers for herself, meaning she'll start gunning for Nora. We've already lost Pyrrha, I'd prefer we don't lose Nora too. Especially with Ren's origins and backstory in mind, should Nora die, he'll lose it and throw his life away in the process.
Edited by RebelFalcon on Nov 30th 2019 at 10:22:06 AM
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
" and a landscape painting that has a crow in"
A crow you said?....that is....intersting.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Basically everyone besides Ruby has treated him like that. Jaune at least felt bad for it, and it seems like Oscar is now all but officially the Sixth Ranger to team JNPR. I'm not sure Ironwood wants Oscar for anything. The setup with Robyn Hills is interesting; she's interfering with Atlas military business and threatening military personnel, and it sounds like this isn't the first time, so Ironwood probably has more than enough pretext to have her thrown in prison, but presumably realizes that won't do his image problems any favor.
IMO the "heroes decide they can't work with Ironwood anymore" moment will likely come when he gets pushed too far (or when the council with either Jaques or Robyn refuses to go along with his agenda) and starts pulling some outright dictator shit, if Nora becomes the Winter maiden he'll be reasonable about it, insisting that if she's not willing to bear this burden then the only other choice (other than death) is for them to attempt some sort of risky procedure with the aura transference tech to separate it from her, since they can't just let her walk away and potentially be snatched up by Salem's forces.
Even if that option isn't taken it could set up for a possible (in principle) way for Oscar to get out of his fate of being Ozpin's newest body, which could bring his character conflicts back to the forefront; if there's even a chance, he would certainly be tempted to take it. I had a kind of off the cuff theory of sorts where he does go through with something like that, and it sort of works; Ozpin's soul is transferred to a robot body, the rub is that his magic stays with Oscar, effectively making him a fifth maiden, and leaving Ozpin utterly powerless besides his immortality. So uh, oops.
Well, on one hand killing off Ren and Nora makes the cast more manageable, and they're lacking a personal stake to be involved in the main story. I'd have done them in during the fall of beacon were I writing this, and axed the team Ruby split up aside from Blake running away; leaving us with RWY+J.
On the other hand, making Nora a Maiden actually addresses that problem and means Nora is no longer narrative dead-weight, but I think Weiss needs it more, since she and Blake also have that problem and title billing. For Blake's part there's a huge Faunus shaped hole in the backstory lore that needs filling, and a not so pleasant (or at least interesting) answer to the question of where the Faunus came from and how they fit into the Gods' plans immediately gives her a personal stake in things and ties her story arc to the central plot.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Dec 1st 2019 at 8:02:57 AM
Dunkies addict
"Fria" might have that double meaning, but I'm pretty sure it's just the Spanish word for "cold." I certainly don't think it's enough to read in anything about her being Nora's grandmother.
Okay what is with you and wanting Nora and Ren to die? The show may be called "RWBY" but JNPR have always been main characters. A series can have an Ensemble Cast for its main characters without all being title characters. Just look at Soul Eater.
And lacking a personal stake? How bout avenging Pyrrha like Jaune? Or being there for the only family they have left? Ya know, the exact motivation Yang has for being involved?
Edited by RebelFalcon on Dec 1st 2019 at 6:14:57 AM
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
Pretty simple, this show doesn't have a long enough runtime to juggle the cast size that it tries to work with, and it shows; the time the show has dedicated to them would be better served if it went to Jaune or Oscar or even better Weiss or Blake. Especially when you're working with a ~15 minute runtime, less is more when it comes to your cast, you really need to zero in on important characters and cut away as much of the chaffe as possible. I'd advise against even attempting an Ensemble Cast with an episode length of 15 minutes and instead have done a strict perspective where we stick with Ruby no matter what, but that bridge was already crossed.
I have nothing against either of them, but of the characters without title billing, Ren and Nora are the most weakly connected to the main plot. Yes they want to avenge Pyrrha's death, but Jaune's the one who has a One Sided rivalry with Cinder, unresolved resentment against Ozpin over Pyrrha's death, and continues to struggle to keep up with the others in a fight. Meanwhile, the whole "fighting for friends and family" angle is fine, but it's not really gotten the level of focus that Yang's familial loyalty to Ruby has*; Yang flat out tells Ozpin she's here for Ruby, not for him in volume 5, and she was the first one to suggest giving up when shit hit the fan in volume 6. Even if that's taken to be the case though, it has the problem of being somewhat redundant with Yang, which is an issue largely because of the short runtime.
* In fact as far as I know it's fanon.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Dec 1st 2019 at 11:19:50 AM
Barb(Its a thread joke you wouldn't get it)
I don't think it's a coincidence the best parts of volume 6 are when the group's Seperated from JNR
Things are really about to get Fun around here
Or how the quality dipped once Jaune re-entered the scene.
Ace Pilot
Though killing characters off isn't exactly the viable solution to having many characters. Especially when many characters is kind of needed for a vast world.
"When I offered to make Norea my third back-up girlfriend she just glared at me and started throwing things at me.." Renee Costa
You could just write them out instead of killing them.
Also, we've got a guy who can stretch his aura it seems. One more influence from Hunter × Hunter?
That's what recurring/oneshot characters are for, you don't have them travel with the main cast/keep their stories separate from what the main cast is doing. The main character bench needs to be kept slim if you don't have a lot of time to work with.
RWBY also has the problem of splitting its perspective between the heroes and villains from volume 4 onwards*, which doubles the numbers of characters competing for screen time, and to make matters worse that screen time was largely wasted; the only villain who has a backstory, motivation, and personality that takes more than two lines to explain is Salem**, and 80% of that came from her Start of Darkness episode, which incidentally is a great example of how less is more with character counts; there were 4 named (for a certain value of named) characters in 6-3 and it didn't feel at all lacking.
The perspective splitting seems to stem from the fact that Salem's operations are largely cloak and dagger intrigue happening in the shadows, which is a poor match with the action cartoon beats of the typical episode such that the heroes and villains rarely come into contact; we'd have no idea who any of these people even were without the interludes. Even worse that means that Villains Act, Heroes React is in full effect; volume 7 is actually the first one to date in which the heroes are doing something on their own initiative rather than as a reaction to something the villains did. If they'd made this show more about political intrigue or had Salem be the kind of villain who takes a more direct approach, that would
** Okay and Adam, but that's for all the wrong reasons because his characterization was a confusing mess.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Dec 1st 2019 at 11:13:37 AM
For the sake of avoiding another headache as well as the fact I've gone back and seen myself in this argument with a lot of the same people at least four times now, I'm just gonna say this: Even if you think its better, the show doesn't agree. They're main characters, have been since the show began, and will only die or leave if the writers want them to.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
I'm not disputing that they're main characters. But it's equally true that they probably shouldn't be given the runtime, especially at the start when it was 5 minute episodes there was no excuse for giving JNPR their own episodes.* I'd personally have stuck with RWBY+Jaune and Oscar; that gives us a nice Five-Man Band with a Sixth Ranger. Even with 15 minutes you really can't have more than one Cast Herd without problems unless your writing and storyboarding leads are absolute pros at pacing and timing.
* Pyrrha needed focus, but that would have been better served by having her interact with Ruby; set her up as a role model for Ruby and keep the stuff with Jaune in the background, and keep him as a secondary character until Pyrrha dies.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Dec 1st 2019 at 11:23:28 AM
Even in that scenario though that would require either writing around the fact Jaune and Pyrrha have to have two more team members since all teams have four members, or would require making them not care about Pyrrha suddenly dying and having just as much desire as Jaune to find out about her killer. And its not like they could just do the same thing they did with Sun, since Sun kept ditching his team to follow Blake, and that brought up complaints that as a result SSN was underdeveloped.
The thing you're suggesting would necessitate either making it seem like they didn't care one of the few people they consider family was killed, or would require the removal of the "Team" concept, which brings in an entire separate set of issues.
And yes it is canon they consider JNPR their family since they outright call Jaune their family during the scene at Pyrrha's statue in RWBY V6E9 "Lost".
To them, Jaune and Pyrrha were the only family they ever had after that. RWBY may be their friends, but those two were their family. So losing Pyrrha, Jaune is all they have left. So if they didn't try to help Jaune and Ruby find out what happened after Pyrrha died, it would go against their characters.
Edited by RebelFalcon on Dec 1st 2019 at 12:26:24 PM
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
As their characters stand, that’s the reason I’d have killed them off during the fall of Beacon, it sidesteps the issue of the being OOC for them not to stay with the main group, and makes Jaune’s brooding about more than just a girl he had a crush on. But they also didn’t need to exist in the first place; less is more when it comes to characters, they just as easily could have been some walk-one who neither got nor needed significant characterization beyond “Pyrrha’s other teammates.”
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Dec 2nd 2019 at 8:11:27 AM
Then there would just be complaints they were wasted like the remainder of SSN was in favor of only focusing on Sun. Killing the entire team outside of Jaune would also increase accusations of favoritism towards him from the writers and lead to more complaints about how Jaune is unneeded and should have been killed off alongside them, which would lead to a similar discussion we're having, and would keep looping back around till we eventually get to the point of people complaining every character they don't like should have died earlier on. The solution you're suggesting wouldn't have solved the problem, just exchanged it for a different, equally big problem.
And no, Less is not more with characters, especially with characters that are underdeveloped. Even if Pyrrha would have been given more screen time, the fact she was created just to die would instead be highlighted even more, making her look even more like a living plot device than she already was. The writing in this show wasn't that good in the initial volumes in regards to characters, so less is more would have just highlighted how bad that was back then. Compare to now however where they actually try to give some semblance of character to even secondary characters, and while it doesn't always work, you can still see them as more than just a walking trope.
All this talk is useless anyway. There's no changing the past and right now the show is sticking with keeping them around. So complaining about the show not killing them off is about as useful as me griping about what a waste Cinder is to the series. I.E. it does nothing, gets repetitive and annoying, and is a waste of time. Hence why I stopped complaining about her and am just looking forward to the direction the plot seems to be heading, namely Neo backstabbing her.
And since it seems like you and I will never agree on this since we've had this discussion four times prior and this is our fifth argument over them, lets just agree to disagree and try to not bring it up in front of each other anymore.
Edited by RebelFalcon on Dec 2nd 2019 at 12:01:51 PM
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
The problem is that Ren and Nora are literal background noise at this point. It took Ren 4 years before he got any sort of depth beyond "voiced by an Oum" and Nora allegedly took 7 for her character to get depth beyond "the funny one".
The most they have as a character is that they're rarely apart and constantly make nods to the fact that they're an item. That's why some people didn't like Bumblebee becoming a thing, because they think Blake and Yang are just gonna be reduced to background noise doing nothing but make nods to them being a thing.
Barb(Its a thread joke you wouldn't get it)
that last part is really, odd. The reason Ren and Nora just feel kinda there is that both of them only worked as "Main Charachters" rather then just Side Charachters In volume 4 and 5 when Ruby was Seperated from her team, and have just kind of dragged on from that point. Blake and Yang are both part of the title team.
The fact Ren and Nora have the romance thing is disconnected to them feeling flat. And saying that if 2 Charachters end up together they'll both become flat Charachters is...a bit silly, IMO.
Things are really about to get Fun around here
More than killing is a matter of prioritizing chararterization.
Because in the end chararterization and screen time are not the same thing, you can have plenty of screen time and not showing everything and chararterization is a resource and not a overbounding one, so you have to expended wisely.
A good example is digmon, it have 8 kids with is digimons and balancing all the cast is HARD as hell, and the show the show manage to pull it off, sure no all of them(izzy, my favorite child, never move one from being the smart one except from him being adopted), but most did and sure the secondary chararter never got to much but that is the thing; they are secondary, is okay.
Now with RWBY we found....not that much prioritization, show needed more time to build in order to make Phyrra sacrifice stick more and yet it did pretty well in that regard, on the other side we have Adam, who as cap said is characterization is a bloating mess in part by how spare he show up(a total of three times in volume 1 to 3 and one of them make him look he have standard before showing he have none), is hilarious how "Nevermore" the song were yang and blake said they over him said he is a soul lost to the darkness when in the show he look like a prick who become more of a prick.
The same can be said about Cinder, the show have stuck her chararterization so much to her chest that it make her look bland and silly, unlike Adam were he kind pinpoint to one place to another, Cinder is exactly the same.
so far volume 6 and 7 are fix that, cordovin was not a bad guy, so far they have move Ironwood transition pretty well(and in fact is refreshing to see how move into totalitarian mindset that dosent look like deranged caricature), and side of Adam reveling is brand to be killed off in the next episode(and BOY im going to shit them forever for that) is getting properly balance.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
On a different topic, would Marrow's insistence that Bumblebee work with other people be considered Strawman Has a Point since they are a team with two other people and had team combinations at one point.
Nora I won't deny is heavily Out of Focus and practically a Satellite Love Interest to Ren, but its why her getting focus this volume is important. You can argue the Renora relationship defines her now alongside being the Plucky Comic Relief, but it doesn't define Ren.
Plus, honestly. Ren and Nora I find to be better written and more enjoyable characters than Ruby and Yang.
Edited by RebelFalcon on Dec 2nd 2019 at 5:09:59 AM
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
No. Marrow didn't think that their styles could work together and was immediately proved wrong by the two of them.
It could be there as a precaution if something went wrong. Plus there isn't an indication she has relatives alive currently.
"When I offered to make Norea my third back-up girlfriend she just glared at me and started throwing things at me.." Renee Costa