Discussion Characters / RWBYKingdoms

The RWBY Forum has been building a sandbox for a couple of months to rearrange all of the Character Pages, and is currently voting on which of the two scenarios to use. I put a link on the RWBY characters page a few days ago but have as yet no responses from people who edit the character pages but don't visit the forum.

See here for more information: Characters.RWBY (Discussion Page)

Thanks. I'll get on that.

I suggested the Kingdoms page should be separate into four kingdoms page. One is Vale page, second is Mistral page, third is Atlas page, and the last one is Vacuo page.

The discussion has mostly occurred (to date) on the RWBY forum. I've put a link to the scenarios that are being voted on in the Characters.RWBY Discussion Page so that people who don't use the forum can comment there. See my above post in response to buckyb for the link. It's the Characters main page, discussion page.

Statuesque Stunner isn't a butch trait. Just look at, for example, Jessica Rabbit.

Her "brutal combat style" / use of Gatling Good isn't necessarily a butch trait either. See Small Girl, Big Gun and Cute and Psycho.

Not specifically, but it often is a butch trait. The Butch Lesbian page directly states that one is "often be taller and bulkier than her femme counterpart", and Coco is/was the tallest female student at Beacon.

Additionally, Coco fits neither Small Girl, Big Gun or Cute and Psycho

X often being associated with Y doesn't mean that Y has the same level of association with X.

Okay, but what about the reverse? Would just giving Coco the Lipstick Lesbian designation fit considering she's a Statuesque Stunner who slaughters monsters with a BFG? I mean that as an honest question by the way, I'm just trying to pin down which moniker fits her the best.

Statuesque Stunner has no bearing on it either way. I don't think her choice of weapon/fighting style has a strong bearing either. Her mowing them down at a distance could be compared in effect to say, the destructive magic of a Lady of Black Magic.

Her spitting that one time might have a bearing, though.

If I had to pick, I'd go with Lipstick, but personally I would hold off trying to trope this until After the Fall is out and we have more info about her. And if it turns out she doesn't really fit any specific trope — well, then she simply doesn't fit. You don't have to list a trope for her.

Statuesque Stunner isn't an automatic qualifier for Lipstick Lesbian.

The trouble with Lipstick Lesbian is that the point of it is to be a certain (girly-girl) character type. If Lipstick Lesbian and Butch Lesbian were an equivalent pairing to the Tomboy and Girly Girl trope (and they're not really as the presence of the one in a work doesn't demand the other also be present as a foil) then Lipstick Lesbian would be the Girly Girl.

Just because she likes fashion, that doesn't mean she's a Lipstick Lesbian. There's far too much about her that doesn't fit the trope, including her fighting style. She's also not a Butch Lesbian either. She just isn't either trope.

Another problem is the addition of the Action Fashionista trope. It's been removed from Coco in the past precisely because she doesn't change her wardrobe. Not changing the wardrobe isn't 'downplaying' the trope, it's not the trope. The wardrobe is an integral part of what makes Action Fashionista a trope. It's precisely because the character is so fastidious about what they're wearing and how they present themselves, even in battle, that we have a trope.

I do have a question: Has After the Fall been released on any level? I assumed, from all the troping, that people had access to a published copy somewhere, but if that's not the case, what on earth are people troping from? The advertising summary? If that's the case, I'd definitely recommend waiting until the book has been published.

There's a preview at the link above.

Yeah, just found it, thanks. And read it.

You do have a point that Coco's character has yet to be fully fleshed out, so I agree that any Lipstick/Butch decision is better left until after the the book is out.

However, concerning Action Fashionista, in the After the Fall preview Coco is fastidious about what she and her team wears, with both her and Velvet noting on separate occasions how important it is to Coco that she and her team kick ass and look good doing it. If that's not the Action Fashionista trope, then what is it?

The preview doesn't mention them going through wardrobes of clothes for every occasion, however. It simply talks about them striking a balance between staying cool and being combat-ready, with a side observation that Coco would choose fashion over sensibility at the drop of a 'beret'. There is a reference to her sunglasses and beret catching on as fashion in Shade and being regarded as surprisingly practical in the desert. However, there is nothing about different fashion for different occasions.

Action Fashionista has three parts to the trope: 1) The person needs to be a fighter of some kind; 2) They need to be obsessed with fashion; 3) They need to have a vast wardrobe that they make constant use of. The trope's primary requirements are for 1) and 3), to the point where the trope acknowledges that even if it's a work where characters typically resort to a specific set of clothing for a lot of the time (such as a uniform, for example) so that the vast wardrobe only comes into play outside that time, that uniform will still manage to look different every time due to major tweaks and changes.

Now, in the preview of the novel, the reference to her beret and sunglasses catching on implies that she has a specific, signature look (rather than having many different ones). This is the same as in the show, where her fans during the tournament were all wearing matching berets and sunglasses (that match hers). It's her signature look and it's so far been portrayed in a static way — she doesn't make major tweaks or alterations to her combat 'uniform' every single time she wears it.

As a result, Coco meets requirements 1) and 2) but she fails to meet requirement 3). Unfortunately for Coco, 3) is the point of the trope. It therefore doesn't matter how fashionable her look is or how fashionable she likes to be, until she meets the trope's primary requirement she's not eligible.

Coco at least qualifies as a Badass Gay Character, after all Scarlet qualifies and his sexuality is not even a big part of his character.

That trope probably shouldn't be on Scarlet's character sheet. There's a Badass clean-up thread on the forums, and I think Badass Gay is one of the tropes that's going to be scrubbed (in favour of more specific tropes that explain the character's both a badass and gay). I could be wrong, so it might be worth double-checking on the Badass clean-up thread what the status of the trope is.

I've got no problem with that.

No objections from me.

I agree with the above concerns. She’s a morally conflicted character who has some flaws but is definitely not a villain. Just to add to it, me and Wyldchyld have also expressed some misgivings about the villain tropes for that character on the RWBY forums.

I agree with the concerns. I'd suggest sandboxing Raven's entry and flagging it with people when you've rewritten it to get some feedback. If people are happy with it, it can then replace her current entry.

There's been a discussion on the RWBY forum about revamping all of the character pages. That's been progressing slowly, however, so revamping one character's section would probably be done much faster. It sounds like it might be best to do that first before revamping the character pages anyway.

I can see the argument for calling her a villain. She murdered the previous spring maiden, and she's the leader of a bandit group which Qrow referred to as thieves and killers. People have died as a result of their attacks, since they attract Grim to hit the victims a second time. The tribe routinely kidnaps travelers for ransom, including Weiss who had just been the victim of a Grimm attack, and only lets her go because she turns out to be Yang's friend. Finally, although she was forced into participating in the attack on Haven, she didn't have to ask for her own brother to be murdered as her condition for joining. A conflicted and layered person, yes, but don't her actions make her villainous, or at least a bad person?

No, because a villain is defined by the role they play in the story. She's playing the wrong role. Characters can do terrible things in stories and still not be the story's villain. She's only playing the role of an antagonist in the story.

I don't think he is. The Lancer needs to be a foil to the hero and there's far too much overlap between Sun and Neptune's personalities.

Also do you think that his attitude regarding the dance in Volume 2 would be a downplayed example of Jerkass Façade since he's clearly acting like a jerk who's 'too cool' for the dance because he's covering up his own insecurities regarding his I Can't Dance fears (he calls the dance lame and it is implied that he didn't let Weiss down easy when he refused her invitation).

Well, he's not a jerkass and we never actually see how he turned down Weiss so I don't think we can claim he pulled a Jerkass Façade.

I'd like the go-ahead to make a seperate subpage for Mistral. Mistral atm has about 15 character sections, two of which being teams, eclipsing the already large Vale with 12 sections. With the cast moving to Atlas now, its all but certain we'll be getting more characters from there, meaning the page will get bigger, so as a premptive measure, I move to give Mistral a subpage, and if possible, Vale a subpage. I also request that Raven be relisted in the Vale section as she was last seen on Patch, and more than likely is still there rather than having returned to Mistral.

We were talking on the RWBY forum about splitting by Continent instead of by Kingdom, so that sections like the Mistral page can properly reflect what was inside the Kingdom of Mistral and what was outside, while accommodating the fact we have almost nothing on Vacuo for now (Vacuo and Vale can later be split into Western Sanus and Eastern Sanus if necessary), but we were into the volume already so it was halted.

We were almost a 'go' on doing that, so I did a sandbox at the time of the potential split here (Sandbox.Web Animation RWBY Characters). Now that the volume has finished, we can reopen that discussion (the sandbox is up-to-date for the Kingdom page as of this afternoon), it also includes Cordovin in the Atlas section rather than Mistral).

I wouldn't do a page split off your own back without getting consensus first. I don't think anyone will agree with relisting Raven to Vale, however. You're making assumptions about a Stinger that have never been clarified or explained versus the fact that her home base has been confirmed to be with her tribe on Anima. She would listed on the Anima page, but outside the Kingdom of Mistral.

At the moment the Other page is for franchise material like video games and the manga so Jinn shouldn't be there (at the moment anyway). She's currently in the Mistral section of the Kingdoms page because she is the symbol of Mistral. The Kingdom of Mistral's logo is the Relic of Knowledge, so Jinn does represent Mistral.

You've reminded me, however. I was going to ask on the RWBY forum where the best place to trope her would be and completely forgot. I'll go and make that post now.

For the second entry (i.e. the Even Evil Has Standards trope), I think we should change it back to Everyone Has Standards, given how she is a morally conflicted character.

I'm not a fan of using a supertrope without checking all the subtropes first.

What about Principles Zealot? She's got her code, and she'll stick to it no matter what trouble it causes the people in her life. And it is essentially what she and Qrow keep arguing about whenever they meet.

Kind of late to the discussion, but I'll throw in my two cents if nobody else will.

None of the tropes mentioned really fit Raven in my opinion. While she is certainly not a good person, calling her evil would be pushing it. She has only one confirmed kill under ambigous circumstances and she can hardly be blamed for the doings of her entire tribe, even if she is the one leading it. It's not like Raven leaving would cause all the other bandits to pick a new profession. I suggest going with Everyone Has Standards and leaving Even Evil Has Loved Ones altogether.

As for the Principles Zealot... no. Raven is primarily concerned with her own survival and well-being. She only uses her "principles" to justify her immoral and/or cowardly actions, something she is called out on In-Universe. She has no place under this trope.

I'm ok with both "Even-Evil" tropes, it's not like the real world is black-and-white morality and neither are most fics for people over the age of 5, so using the "Even Evil" tropes is ok in my opinion.

Sorry, I do not follow this line of thinking. There is no black-and-white morality in the real world, so that means that a fictional character who does something bad is evil?

Basicly is everyone we call "villain", "antagonist", or in otherwise in opposition to the protagonist/"hero" a Baby-Kicking, Kitten-killng Vile rapist? No they arn't each antagonist may lie, kill, cheat and steal, but maybe not for-the lols, a reason like survival is understandable, but Raven heads a Bandit Tribe. Why not settle at a village? It's not like Raven and Vernal couldn't guard it. No, the tribe Chooses to steal, and Raven Chooses to be with them rather than hide among the masses where Oz's faction would strugle to find her. So I've derailed (?re-railed?) onto "Is Raven Evil?" not my intention but She's definatly dark-grey, and I've run out out of steam, I hope this makes Black-White Morality clearer, in fact go read that page and Grey-Grey morality, theyll explain in plain English, rather than "mad rambling". Goodnight.

I've got no problem with the Everyone Has Standards option. If that's what people think is the best choice, then I'm happy to go with it.

You are misusing Put on a Bus and and you're misusing the need for proof. If you want to claim Glynda's been written out of the show, you are the one who needs to prove it.

None of your three points address whether or not she's actually been written out of the show.

• Length of absence is irrelevant — it's the reason for the absence that dictates whether or not this trope applies.
• Explicit statements have been required to justify non-appearance of characters (e.g., Sun's team-mates, Winter, etc.) and even to justify appearing at all post-V3 (Oobleck, Port, Sun).
• The creators have not revealed their intentions for Glynda's future so claiming it's a fact she won't return is false. The only thing we do know is that they've replaced actors for this show before — Ren's (actor death) and Mercury's (actor walked away from the company). That tells us nothing about Glynda's fate. It just tells us they have been known to replace voice actors rather than remove the character.

The stars of this show are the kid heroes, not the teachers. The teachers are bound to their schools, so they're only in the show whenever the kids are dealing with the schools. The focus of the story is on the kids, not the teachers.

At the very most, Glynda is Out of Focus.

In general, even some characters who are Out of Focus might get Demoted to Extra.

And note this: Even if the creators do end up announcing they have no intention of looking for a new voice actor for Glynda, that still doesn't mean the Put on a Bus trope applies. The trope will only come into effect when something happens in-universe to make it clear that Glynda will never come back.

For example, let's say the creators decide to not bother finding a new voice actor and announce that at an RTX. Six months later, an episode reveals that Glynda died in battle during an attempt to take back Beacon from the Grimm. The Put on a Bus trope would apply, but it wouldn't be "She was left behind at Beacon while the kids travelled to Haven" (which is effectively what the entry currently is). It would be something like: "While meeting Team CFVY at Shade Academy, Team RWBY have a chance to catch up on news from Vale since leaving and find out how Glynda is doing in the attempt to retrieve Beacon from the Grimm. They discover that Glynda has in fact died in the attempt and the Vale Huntsmen and students are now led by Oobleck."

^^ Demoted to Extra still isn't Put on a Bus, however. That said, Glynda has always been a minor character, even when the storyline was based in Vale. Entire episodes could happen without her appearing in it even once.

^^ But wouldn't that count for a Bus Crash?

Yes, you're right, my example is a Bus trope, but it is Bus Crash, which is Put on a Bus via off-screen death.

My point, really, is that there's a difference between having an announcement by creators and then having the actual show itself address the fact the character will never return. If the show never addresses it and the character is just never mentioned or seen again, it'll probably What Happened to the Mouse? or Chuck Cunningham Syndrome depending on how significant the character is to the work (Glynda would be a Chuck not a Mouse).

To be honest, I'm not even sure Out of Focus is appropriate to describe Glynda's current situation. Out of Focus is what happens when there are too many characters to focus on during a storyline where all the characters should really be involved in some way. When characters are only used when relevant and not used when not relevant, we've got a Rotating Arcs situation instead. In this show, the story follows the main characters. As they travel from region to region, the location-specific characters are subject to the Rotating Arcs trope — they're part of the story and get development when the main characters are in their location, but once the main characters move on, those characters are put away, and the next set of characters for the new location are dusted off and brought out to play instead.

Either way, we're not dealing with the Put on a Bus trope where Glynda is concerned.

Okay, since there's been no further input, I'm taking the Put on a Bus trope back off for being trope misuse.

Probably because someone's editing it at the moment. You might need to wait until it's finished. Then, when it's unlocked you can edit it.

Usually when someone is editing and I click edit it just tells me it is checked out, now I can't even click it.

Maybe it’s because of a bug in you’re browser. You can report it here.

You're misusing the Bus tropes and we don't trope real life drama.

• Put on a Bus is for when a character is written out of a show by the creators.
• The Bus Came Back is for a written-out character being written back in at a later date.
• Bus Crash is for when the show makes it clear in-universe that there's no way the written-out character will ever return to the show.

Glynda is none of these things because she hasn't been written out of the show to begin with. She's in exactly the same position as Oobleck, Port, Ironwood, Winter, Jacques, Whitley, Team CRDL, Team CFVY, etc: the story is simply taking place in different regions of the planet to where she's based; this is barely even the Out of Focus trope because there's an in-universe reason for why they're not currently involved in the story.

If Glynda gets a new voice actress, she will join Mercury and Ren on the Trivia page under The Other Darrin trope.

Gotcha. I just wanted to make sure that those particular tropes are not to be misused in an effort to avoid misunderstandings.

On another note, I'm thinking about doing an "In General" section for all of the kingdoms and merge in character folders into those particular sections, as well as adding opening summaries to them just like I did to the Kingdom of Vale. Any ideas?

Take it to the RWBY forum thread would be my advice. The set-up of the Kingdoms page exists after discussion on how the character pages should be split. If you want to reorganise a page, I'd get a consensus first. The RWBY forum is the best place for that.

That said, the Kingdoms are not characters. They don't need a General folder of tropes. Those would be setting tropes, which belong on the main RWBY trope pages.

Fair enough. Just to clarify, would the addition of "In General" folders for the individual kingdoms even be discussed in the main character sheet's discussion page in addition to the RWBY forum?

I'd start with the forum. Purely because, from my experience, more feedback is obtained and at a quicker pace.

Sounds reasonable enough to me.

She's not a walking spoiler. It should be possible to sensibly trope her to minimise spoilers, and the spoiler tags are removed after a volume ends; when Volume 6 kicks off, all her Volume 5 spoiler tags will be removed.

A Walking Spoiler is someone whose summary, even at the barest minimum description, is still enough to bring a string of spoilers.

For example, had Raven been someone who shows up at the end of the Volume, drops a Wham Line after the other and completely alters the show's nature through a lot of actions in the short span of her appearance, then yes, she could've qualified. But as Wyldchyld said, a lot of the entries under Raven can be written without spoileriffic material getting in the way most of the time.

Raven isn’t a villain. At her worst, she’s morally ambiguous. She tries her hardest to stay neutral in the main conflict. Even when she works with Salem, it’s only for the sake of self-preservation, and it ends with her and Cinder turning on each other and Raven letting Ozpin’s side take the relic.

I see. So when Yang calls her out to the point that the latter apologizes and leaves, should we consider Raven's departure a "Screw This, I'm Outta Here" then?

I'll have to agree with streakson22, she's not a villain, so can't really qualify for Villain: Exit, Stage Left.

I'm more keen on calling it Achilles in His Tent, but then there's the fact that Raven stubbornly refuses to come back, and Ozpin's allies have all but given up on her.

If anything, it's this:

• Betrayal by Inaction: Raven and Qrow originally enrolled into Beacon to train themselves and become powerful enough to fight Huntsmen and Huntresses that would impede the Branwen tribe's raids, but eventually formed team STRQ with Summer Rose and Taiyang Xiaolong, and ended up gaining Ozpin's trust, enough for the latter to let the twins in on his personal war against Salem. As time passed and Raven investigated on Ozpin's past and motives, she decided that fighting Salem was too unsurmountable of a task, and so abandoned her team, the family she founded with Taiyang, and went back to her bandit tribe. Even almost two decades later, she does her best to stay away from the conflict, but is ultimately dragged back in when team RWBY, which includes her daughter Yang, ventures into Mistral to prevent Salem's associates from getting their hands on the Relic of Knowledge. Raven responds by feigning alliance with either side, before attempting to scoop the Relic and turn it into leverage so as to preserve her neutrality.

I agree with Ano Baka Desu and streakson22. However, I don't think she's the Betrayal by Inaction trope either. She turned her back on her allies somewhere in her back story, and is neutral now. She's covered by Byronic Hero which I believe is already in her list. True Neutral might be an option as well.

Except True Neutral is a YMMV term. Frankly, I don't believe my Betrayal by Inaction accurately applies either, so we could remove it.

Edit: Now that I think of it, reading Screw This, I'm Outta Here does fit with Raven's backstory, so gjjones might be right.

I didn't even notice that suggestion. I agree that trope looks like the best option.

We don't actually know everything that's going on with Raven and what her final decision is truly based on, so I wouldn't word the entry from Raven's point-of-view. What happened was that Yang essentially told her to take a Screw This, I'm Outta Here option and Raven tearfully, but unhesitatingly, complied with it.

No. There's more to the trope than that. She's tough and demanding, but that's all.

Sounds reasonable to me. I just wanted to ask to make sure there's no misuse of any trope in general.

Well, that's just my opinion. It's always worth getting more than just one person's opinion. I could be in a minority for all we know. :)

Remember that Hate Sink is not just for villains. Raven hasn't shown any redeeming qualities and is mostly just out there for her bandit clan and running away from Salem. Every action she took so far in Volumes 5 causes a negative impact on Ruby's team and Ozpin's faction at large, and her attitude is not helping matters. I could make a case about how futile her plan to scoop the Relics for leverage is in the long run against Salem, but that's only assumptions at this stage. Overall, she comes across as petty and a hindrance to both sides.

Perhaps I worded wrongly, but Raven definitely gains no approval for anyone not in her clan in-universe.

I think she likely qualifies at the moment. She basically has no redeeming traits (or any redeeming traits that exist are offset by her flaws) and is just a selfish jerk.

I know Hate Sink isn't just for villains.

The problem with the trope is that it's an intentional aim by the story writers to make a character so awful that part of their role is clearly for the audience to hate them, and that intention succeeds: the audience does hate them.

That's certainly the case with Adam and Jacques. However, given the role the creators have put Raven into, I question whether it's their intention for Raven to be a Hate Sink.

They've gone out of their way to make it clear to us that she's not siding with Salem by choice, that she's trying to find a way out that avoids Salem getting her hands on the Relic. They've even made her feelings for Yang quite ambiguous and therefore puzzling, and made a big song and dance about whatever it is that she knows that made her turn her back on Ozpin, his followers and Yang.

That isn't what I would expect from a creator who is writing a Hate Sink character. They're trying too hard to make the audience aware that her worst actions are occurring under duress and that there's some kind of secret surrounding her historic actions that still needs to be revealed.

Now, as to how the fandom actually views and the extent to which the fandom dislikes her, we're looking for something that is exclusively an Audience Reaction trope that doesn't rely on creator intention. That isn't Hate Sink because creator intention matters here.

Regarding her other negative traits, we've already been troping those, so they're already covered.

Sound argument. For now we'll hold off on Hate Sink.

I think they should. It makes more sense to have them there, considering they’re the loving, supportive parents of a main character. I’d also like to move Ilia to that section (call it Blake’s Family and Friends instead of just Blake’s Family) if she stays on Blake’s side.

Regarding the maidens, is it possible to add that Vernel is heavily hinted to be the Spring Maiden under a spoiler tag, or is that jumping the gun a little?

We can't put spoilers in the Description text. I'm pretty confident she is the Spring Maiden. I think most people are. We're just waiting for the show to give us that I Knew It! moment.