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I remember this being addressed back when Volume 1 was still airing, and a consensus was reached back then as well. I can\\\'t remember where it was discussed, it might have been the forums.
I\\\'m going to respond to a couple of CaptainCapase\\\'s points. Please don\\\'t think me unsympathetic. I have a number of relatives who are on the spectrum, and manifest Autism and Aspergers in different ways. Ruby\\\'s behaviour is also very similar to my own. In fact, I struggle to socialise much more than Ruby does, and I definitely am not classified as being anywhere on the spectrum.
I appreciate the links, I think they\\\'re a good idea. Like CaptainCapase, I\\\'m hardly an expert in this area and wouldn\\\'t pretend to be. Obviously, I\\\'m addressing points individually because of the limitation of posting. I know you\\\'ll say that this is what the pattern adds up to, not isolated points. I appreciate that, and I\\\'m also looking at the pattern things add up to. I\\\'m just seeing a different pattern to you.
Please let me know if I use any terminology that makes anyone uncomfortable or upset. It\\\'s not my intention, but I\\\'m not expert and I might make mistakes. I will rewrite my post where necessary.
[[quoteblock]]Now as far as our protagonist is concerned, from list A, I would argue that items 2 and 5 are present. Item 2 insofar as there is no indications—for example phone calls to old friends—she had any close friends prior to attending Beacon, other than family members like Yang and Qrow. She mentions a “gang back at signal” at one point, but since then, there\\\'s been no other mentions of other signal students Ruby knew, and Yang had encouraged her to go out and make friends of her own, making me suspect they weren\\\'t particularly close, perhaps more like cordial acquaintances than friends.[[/quoteblock]]
Let\\\'s avoid guessing about what we don\\\'t know. What we do know is that Ruby states she has friends back at Signal. She doesn\\\'t like the fact she didn\\\'t get to bring her friends to Beacon with her. She\\\'s been pushed forward two years, and has had to leave her friends back home. So, she\\\'s writing to them. We don\\\'t hear anything about those friends ever again.
Yang did get to bring her friends from Signal with her. Aside from two mentions of them in the first few episodes of Volume 1, they\\\'re never mentioned again either.
No other character (Weiss, Jaune, Pyrrha, etc.) ever has any reference of friends back in previous schools mentioned - not even once.
I don\\\'t feel the writers have treated Ruby unusually here compared to any other character. On the contrary, Ruby and Yang have actually been given more back story here than any other character, even if it was just one or two references that are never mentioned ever again.
[[quoteblock]]Item 5 is less prominent, but still clearly present, particularly in Ruby\\\'s interactions with Weiss and more recently Winter. More specifically, I\\\'m referring to Running Gag of Ruby completely misinterpreting the intent behind something Weiss says—for example her haughty \\\"Can I?\\\" as a statement of doubt rather than confidence—or failing to recognize Weiss\\\'s unsubtle attempts to cue her to shut up, as was the case when Ruby was goofing off in class, and when she was embarrassing Weiss in front of Winter. Another example that comes to mind is Ruby randomly abandoning Jaune to go sit with Yang during Ozpin\\\'s welcoming speech to the Beacon freshmen[[/quoteblock]]
The \\\"Can I?\\\" moment was written for pure comedy - and the comedy was at Weiss\\\'s expense, not Ruby\\\'s. I don\\\'t know if you want to view that as some kind of UnfortunateImplications, but it\\\'s worth bearing in mind that this is the first team work exercise the girls have together and they\\\'re still basically strangers at this point.
Goofing off in class was a story point - not only did it emphasise that Ruby is two years younger than everyone else in the class (and fifteen year olds goofing around in boring classes is very normal behaviour), but, if you notice, Yang and Blake were sniggering right along with her. More importantly, this was a plot point to set up Ozpin\\\'s later lecture to her about taking the responsibilities of leadership seriously. She only needed that one lecture to change her behaviour, and was later able to pass that wisdom on to Jaune when he was also screwing up his leadership responsibilities.
Ruby abandoning someone she\\\'s only just met for the only person she knows well isn\\\'t unusual behaviour for a child or a teenager. It\\\'s pretty normal behaviour. In fact, I\\\'ve seen it happen quite regularly among adults, too. It\\\'s a comedic moment, but it\\\'s seems pretty \\\"human\\\" to me.
[[quoteblock]]From list B, I would argue 1, 4 and 5 are present. Ruby\\\'s intense interest in weapons—and the hunters who wield them—seems unusual even to Yang, and the first time she met Jaune, it was literally the first conversation topic, right after an exchange of names, that came to her mind.[[/quoteblock]]
The writers appear to be trying to portray her as a geek. To me, she just appears like the standard storyteller\\\'s attempt to convey a geek. In her case, she\\\'s a tech-head, which in this show translates to huntsman weapons.
Jaune isn\\\'t a good example of anything that\\\'s normal at this point as he doesn\\\'t have the combat background, so he has no idea what\\\'s going on as it\\\'s all completely new to him.
[[quoteblock]]Item 4 requires some explanation, because the wording does not really convey what\\\'s actually meant by “persistent preoccupation with parts of objects”. Essentially, this symptom is the tendency for individuals on the autism spectrum to “miss the forest for the trees”; oftentimes, when someone with ASD finds something interesting about what someone says to them, regardless of whether it was pertinent to the conversation, they will fixate on that part of the statement. (1) I can think of two specific examples of this: Ruby telling Yang she doesn\\\'t need help to grow up because she drinks milk, and “correcting” Qrow about there not being any medals for almost. Item 5 appears in the form of Ruby\\\'s idealistic and rather naïve view of the world, which is the lighter side of this sort of black and white mindset.[[/quoteblock]]
Ruby\\\'s \\\"I drink milk!\\\" exclaimation is an example of childishness. To me it was a sign that the writers were trying to convey in the early days that Ruby was two years younger than the rest of student cast, and therefore less mature. It was a key point of Weiss\\\'s concern over her leadership, that she was so immature compared to the rest of them.
I have noticed in interviews that the writers are viewing even the seventeen year old characters as \\\"children\\\" - and indeed have had various adults point out they\\\'re just children (Ironwood asking if Ozpin thinks his children can fight a war or Ozpin reminding Glynda after the food fight that they\\\'re just children, even Cinder\\\'s speech about Penny being a robot in Volume 3, Episode 9 was couched in terms of children).
Whether you think the writers are doing a good job of writing the character ages is a different matter entirely, but the story has been putting a great deal of constantly repeating emphasis on just how young all these characters are, that they are innocent children and that they aren\\\'t viewed as adults.
Her comment to Qrow was just a joke. Probably to ease tension. It\\\'s exactly the same joke I would have made - in fact, I was thinking exactly that as Qrow said it, so I did find Ruby\\\'s come back funny for that reason alone.
From what the writers have said, Ruby was designed to be the WideEyedIdealist whose youthful innocence has yet to be broken down by experience of the realities of life. Stories about children losing their innocence as their experience of life grows is very common, and fifteen is a very common age for protagonists to be when these \\\'coming of age\\\' stories begin. Especially in anime, which is what this show is inspired by. I don\\\'t see anything unusual here.
[[quoteblock]]C does not appear to be the case as of the present, but she was very clearly struggling adjusting to life away from home, particularly in terms of socializing.[[/quoteblock]]
I really don\\\'t think her socialising has been as much of an issue as some fans think it is - it was an early thing that was quickly resolved. She recognised her own past behaviour when she met Penny, and she was actually quite smooth when meeting Mercury, Emerald and Cinder for the first time (as Haven students).
This initial socialising didn\\\'t last long, just when she was new student at a new school. She and Jaune bonded extremely quickly, I thought, and once the team were together for the first time in a non-fight situation, Ruby, Yang and Blake seemed to be bonding quite quickly - it was Weiss who was struggling, mainly because she wanted to be the leader. The writers constantly referring to the theme of \\\"strangers are just friends you haven\\\'t met yet\\\" is something I\\\'ve heard a lot in stories aimed at children and teenagers, and a sentiment I\\\'ve heard parents and teachers express (in different words) when dealing with any children or teenagers who are facing a new environment (school or university, for example).
[[quoteblock]]From the first additional list, I see a case for items 1, 3, and 6. 1 and 3 were present in the first few episodes of the series, with Ruby initially expressing no desire to make friends of her own at Beacon...[[/quoteblock]]
Being put off at the idea of having to start from scratch and make new friends all over again isn\\\'t that unusual, especially in children and teenagers. There are plenty of teenagers who find the idea of going to university very daunting because they won\\\'t know anyone, their friends won\\\'t be there, and they don\\\'t want to have to struggle to make new friends.
Yes, it\\\'s great to be one of those people who can waltz in to new situations and make friends at the drop of a hat (Yang is implied to be that kind of person), but it\\\'s also very normal for people to not be like that and to not look forward to meeting new people. Yes, certain conditions can make this more difficult for people, but it\\\'s very common among people who don\\\'t have any conditions as well.
[[quoteblock]]The second of the additional lists is largely concerned with a person\\\'s childhood, and the vividness or lack of vividness of Ruby\\\'s imagination hasn\\\'t really been touched upon, so we can\\\'t really say whether or not any of these items apply, though Ruby\\\'s view of fairy tales as an ideal to be aspired to is suggestive of item 3.[[/quoteblock]]
We must not forget that this entire story is fairy-tale themed. Ruby herself is based on Little Red Riding-Hood. For the show\\\'s protagonist to make a shout out to this is to be expected, and her view on fairy tales isn\\\'t particularly unusual for a character who is starting the show as a WideEyedIdealist.
I\\\'m going to respond to a couple of CaptainCapase\\\'s points. Please don\\\'t think me unsympathetic. I have a number of relatives who are on the spectrum, and manifest Autism and Aspergers in different ways. Ruby\\\'s behaviour is also very similar to my own. In fact, I struggle to socialise much more than Ruby does, and I definitely am not classified as being anywhere on the spectrum.
I appreciate the links, I think they\\\'re a good idea. Like CaptainCapase, I\\\'m hardly an expert in this area and wouldn\\\'t pretend to be. Obviously, I\\\'m addressing points individually because of the limitation of posting. I know you\\\'ll say that this is what the pattern adds up to, not isolated points. I appreciate that, and I\\\'m also looking at the pattern things add up to. I\\\'m just seeing a different pattern to you.
Please let me know if I use any terminology that makes anyone uncomfortable or upset. It\\\'s not my intention, but I\\\'m not expert and I might make mistakes. I will rewrite my post where necessary.
[[quoteblock]]Now as far as our protagonist is concerned, from list A, I would argue that items 2 and 5 are present. Item 2 insofar as there is no indications—for example phone calls to old friends—she had any close friends prior to attending Beacon, other than family members like Yang and Qrow. She mentions a “gang back at signal” at one point, but since then, there\\\'s been no other mentions of other signal students Ruby knew, and Yang had encouraged her to go out and make friends of her own, making me suspect they weren\\\'t particularly close, perhaps more like cordial acquaintances than friends.[[/quoteblock]]
Let\\\'s avoid guessing about what we don\\\'t know. What we do know is that Ruby states she has friends back at Signal. She doesn\\\'t like the fact she didn\\\'t get to bring her friends to Beacon with her. She\\\'s been pushed forward two years, and has had to leave her friends back home. So, she\\\'s writing to them. We don\\\'t hear anything about those friends ever again.
Yang did get to bring her friends from Signal with her. Aside from two mentions of them in the first few episodes of Volume 1, they\\\'re never mentioned again either.
No other character (Weiss, Jaune, Pyrrha, etc.) ever has any reference of friends back in previous schools mentioned - not even once.
I don\\\'t feel the writers have treated Ruby unusually here compared to any other character. On the contrary, Ruby and Yang have actually been given more back story here than any other character, even if it was just one or two references that are never mentioned ever again.
[[quoteblock]]Item 5 is less prominent, but still clearly present, particularly in Ruby\\\'s interactions with Weiss and more recently Winter. More specifically, I\\\'m referring to Running Gag of Ruby completely misinterpreting the intent behind something Weiss says—for example her haughty \\\"Can I?\\\" as a statement of doubt rather than confidence—or failing to recognize Weiss\\\'s unsubtle attempts to cue her to shut up, as was the case when Ruby was goofing off in class, and when she was embarrassing Weiss in front of Winter. Another example that comes to mind is Ruby randomly abandoning Jaune to go sit with Yang during Ozpin\\\'s welcoming speech to the Beacon freshmen[[/quoteblock]]
The \\\"Can I?\\\" moment was written for pure comedy - and the comedy was at Weiss\\\'s expense, not Ruby\\\'s. I don\\\'t know if you want to view that as some kind of UnfortunateImplications, but it\\\'s worth bearing in mind that this is the first team work exercise the girls have together and they\\\'re still basically strangers at this point.
Goofing off in class was a story point - not only did it emphasise that Ruby is two years younger than everyone else in the class (and fifteen year olds goofing around in boring classes is very normal behaviour), but, if you notice, Yang and Blake were sniggering right along with her. More importantly, this was a plot point to set up Ozpin\\\'s later lecture to her about taking the responsibilities of leadership seriously. She only needed that one lecture to change her behaviour, and was later able to pass that wisdom on to Jaune when he was also screwing up his leadership responsibilities.
Ruby abandoning someone she\\\'s only just met for the only person she knows well isn\\\'t unusual behaviour for a child or a teenager. It\\\'s pretty normal behaviour. In fact, I\\\'ve seen it happen quite regularly among adults, too. It\\\'s a comedic moment, but it\\\'s seems pretty \\\"human\\\" to me.
[[quoteblock]]From list B, I would argue 1, 4 and 5 are present. Ruby\\\'s intense interest in weapons—and the hunters who wield them—seems unusual even to Yang, and the first time she met Jaune, it was literally the first conversation topic, right after an exchange of names, that came to her mind.[[/quoteblock]]
The writers appear to be trying to portray her as a geek. To me, she just appears like the standard storyteller\\\'s attempt to convey a geek. In her case, she\\\'s a tech-head, which in this show translates to huntsman weapons.
Jaune isn\\\'t a good example of anything that\\\'s normal at this point as he doesn\\\'t have the combat background, so he has no idea what\\\'s going on as it\\\'s all completely new to him.
[[quoteblock]]Item 4 requires some explanation, because the wording does not really convey what\\\'s actually meant by “persistent preoccupation with parts of objects”. Essentially, this symptom is the tendency for individuals on the autism spectrum to “miss the forest for the trees”; oftentimes, when someone with ASD finds something interesting about what someone says to them, regardless of whether it was pertinent to the conversation, they will fixate on that part of the statement. (1) I can think of two specific examples of this: Ruby telling Yang she doesn\\\'t need help to grow up because she drinks milk, and “correcting” Qrow about there not being any medals for almost. Item 5 appears in the form of Ruby\\\'s idealistic and rather naïve view of the world, which is the lighter side of this sort of black and white mindset.[[/quoteblock]]
Ruby\\\'s \\\"I drink milk!\\\" exclaimation is an example of childishness. To me it was a sign that the writers were trying to convey in the early days that Ruby was two years younger than the rest of student cast, and therefore less mature. It was a key point of Weiss\\\'s concern over her leadership, that she was so immature compared to the rest of them.
I have noticed in interviews that the writers are viewing even the seventeen year old characters as \\\"children\\\" - and indeed have had various adults point out they\\\'re just children (Ironwood asking if Ozpin thinks his children can fight a war or Ozpin reminding Glynda after the food fight that they\\\'re just children, even Cinder\\\'s speech about Penny being a robot in Volume 3, Episode 9 was couched in terms of children).
Whether you think the writers are doing a good job of writing the character ages is a different matter entirely, but the story has been putting a great deal of constantly repeating emphasis on just how young all these characters are, that they are innocent children and that they aren\\\'t viewed as adults.
Her comment to Qrow was just a joke. Probably to ease tension. It\\\'s exactly the same joke I would have made - in fact, I was thinking exactly that as Qrow said it, so I did find Ruby\\\'s come back funny for that reason alone.
From what the writers have said, Ruby was designed to be the WideEyedIdealist whose youthful innocence has yet to be broken down by experience of the realities of life. Stories about children losing their innocence as their experience of life grows is very common, and fifteen is a very common age for protagonists to be when these \\\'coming of age\\\' stories begin. Especially in anime, which is what this show is inspired by. I don\\\'t see anything unusual here.
[[quoteblock]]C does not appear to be the case as of the present, but she was very clearly struggling adjusting to life away from home, particularly in terms of socializing.[[/quoteblock]]
I really don\\\'t think her socialising has been as much of an issue as some fans think it is - it was an early thing that was quickly resolved. She recognised her own past behaviour when she met Penny, and she was actually quite smooth when meeting Mercury, Emerald and Cinder for the first time (as Haven students).
This initial socialising didn\\\'t last long, just when she was new student at a new school. She and Jaune bonded extremely quickly, I thought, and once the team were together for the first time in a non-fight situation, Ruby, Yang and Blake seemed to be bonding quite quickly - it was Weiss who was struggling, mainly because she wanted to be the leader. The writers constantly referring to the theme of \\\"strangers are just friends you haven\\\'t met yet\\\" is something I\\\'ve heard a lot in stories aimed at children and teenagers, and a sentiment I\\\'ve heard parents and teachers express (in different words) when dealing with any children or teenagers who are facing a new environment (school or university, for example).
[[quoteblock]]From the first additional list, I see a case for items 1, 3, and 6. 1 and 3 were present in the first few episodes of the series, with Ruby initially expressing no desire to make friends of her own at Beacon...[[/quoteblock]]
Being put off at the idea of having to start from scratch and make new friends all over again isn\\\'t that unusual, especially in children and teenagers. There are plenty of teenagers who find the idea of going to university very daunting because they won\\\'t know anyone, their friends won\\\'t be there, and they don\\\'t want to have to struggle to make new friends.
Yes, it\\\'s great to be one of those people who can waltz in to new situations and make friends at the drop of a hat (Yang is implied to be that kind of person), but it\\\'s also very normal for people to not be like that and to not look forward to meeting new people. Yes, certain conditions can make this more difficult for people, but it\\\'s very common among people who don\\\'t have any conditions as well.
[[quoteblock]]The second of the additional lists is largely concerned with a person\\\'s childhood, and the vividness or lack of vividness of Ruby\\\'s imagination hasn\\\'t really been touched upon, so we can\\\'t really say whether or not any of these items apply, though Ruby\\\'s view of fairy tales as an ideal to be aspired to is suggestive of item 3.[[/quoteblock]]
We must not forget that this entire story is fairy-tale themed. Ruby herself is based on Little Red Riding-Hood. For the show\\\'s protagonist to make a shout out to this is to be expected, and her view on fairy tales isn\\\'t particularly unusual for a character who is starting the show as a WideEyedIdealist.
