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auspiciousinformant · 4 years ago

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Core Character Ranking - No Straight Roads

At this point with the game having been out for well over four and a half months, I figure that with having a small piece of fiction under my belt, and with the fandom having cooled down from the initial release but still hot enough for content to steadily be coming out from the fanbase, now is a good time for me to share my thoughts on No Straight Roads - rather, what I call the Core Characters of No Straight Roads.

I call them this because they are the collective protagonist main characters and antagonistic bosses - not filling up one bucket or another quite satisfactory. I might even make this into a series if anyone cares enough to hear my thoughts on other pieces of fiction. If you’re interested, continue below the line.

Oh, also, spoilers for No Straight Roads if you still care about that.

Disclaimer before continuing onwards - I’ve never actually played No Straight Roads! I’m not exactly a person with enough wealth to throw at my own interests and hobbies, but I feel I’ve absorbed enough through culture osmosis, 100% walkthroughs of the game, and other people’s interpretations of the game to be able to make my own informed opinions on the characters.

Also, this isn’t a “bosses” ranking list - this is a character ranking list. Meaning that individuals are going to be ranked rather than the whole. For example, Sayu will be divided into the four members behind Sayu (hereafter refered to as “Team Sayu”) as well as Sayu herself. This also means I won’t fully go on the gameplay mechanics as I don’t have enough experience with it to make a fully informed decision. I will talk about what I’ve seen though.

With that in mind, we’ll be starting as all of these lists usually do, from the bottom ranking to the top: ________________________________________________________________ 20. Eve

Now, this may come as a shock, but I absolutely despise divas. Eve was entertaining enough, but through her videos she was only relatable and likable to me before she and Zuke broke up. Mostly because I could relate with her self-loathing and her found happiness.

Still... setting someone’s hair on fire? And then being confused as to why that happened? Then completely blaming the victim and using that mistake as fuel to shut out any other potential kindred relationship for the future? I’ve seen people who do that; it’s pathetic at best and annoying to see at worst. Thankfully, due to Zuke, she does eventually come around.

Her music and boss fight are interesting enough I suppose. I like how the perspective changes and I adore when you have to switch over to Mayday and it becomes a fully chaotic mess of limbs, doubt, hatred, and rage. I live for that chaotic aesthetic.

Otherwise, she’s just... the weakest character to me in No Straight Roads.

Maybe she’ll Eve-ntually earn my respect in supplementary materials. ________________________________________________________________ 19. Sofa

The first member of Team Sayu I’m mentioning and he’s this low on the list. Ouch. Not to say that I hate him, the hate started and ended with Eve - he, along with the others don’t really have much of a personality canonically that I can see to judge him on. But in terms of his design, I’ve never been much of a fan of “overweight and silly” outside of Doctor Eggman/

Do not take this the wrong way. I am in NO way fatshaming ANYONE.

I just have never liked that design in fictional characters. See Hifumi Yamada from “Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc” for more on what I mean

Still, he’s a core member of Team Sayu and from the fanfiction I’ve read he’s one of the better characters to write with. Maybe if we got a spinoff or other related materials, he’d go up a few numbers in rank, but as it stands, he’s the weakest of the group.

Sofa-r so good, let’s move on before these puns go too far. ________________________________________________________________ 18. Mayday Yeah. I’m not a huge fan of Mayday herself. Hotheaded protagonists are fine here and there, but she’s so hot-headed I’m surprised that she didn’t have the fire aesthetic as well. I guess with it all being taken by Tatiana, they could only give her a warm color scheme so it wasn’t redundant.

Her gameplay seems fine, if a bit basic. The heavy hitter is also a hothead, who could guess. I kinda like how someone as scrawny and small as her also has the biggest heart and temper. Also the gags that come from her relating to the other bosses are hysterical and make for good protagonist material. Still, outside of her interaction with DK West, Zuke, and Team Sayu, as well as the very end of the game, there’s a lack of enough “heroic” traits that makes Mayday fall flat from just shy of ranking higher.

I don’t have a clever pun, joke, or one-liner for Mayday, so let’s go to the next person in my list. ________________________________________________________________ 17. DJ Subatomic Supernova I have never really liked disco or dance music at the best of times, but I love space. So what happens when you mix something I feel lukewarm to, something I absolutely adore, and combine it with a trait about a person I absolutely also despise?

You get space helmet man who likes fresh ice cream and goes on for minutes about how great he is and how everyone else around him are plebeians - not knowing how pretentious the stage name “Subatomic Supernova” is.

If I had made this list when I had first seen No Straight Roads, he’d be only just ahead of Eve just because I dislike her so much more than I hate egotism of DJ Subatomic Supernova. But he’s now gone higher on the list since he’s grown on me thanks to the fandom and me realizing the game is parodying the stereotypes and the industry of music. Also, Zuke’s drum solo is AMAZING with the EDM version of DJ SS’s theme. He’s even gone so far as to become half of my second favorite paring in the NSR fandom!

Shine on, you funky space man. ________________________________________________________________

16. DK West Ewah! Older of the two brothers by age, younger of the two by maturity. I absolutely love this goofball. His shadow powers are absolutely amazing to watch and while I normally don’t like rap outside of Eminem (and even then only select tracks), he grew on me a lot. He’s so unique and the culture he’s based on from what I understand was researched with a lot of respect and care.

I’ve heard (and seen) that the third fight ramps up the difficulty way too much, but considering that Mayday is attempting to repair a broken household, it makes sense it’d be such a heavy undertaking from a gameplay and story point.

Also DK West Encounter 1 is a smash hit, telling us everything we really need to know between DK West and Zuke while being an absolutely great song that reminds me of Epic Rap Battles of History for anyone that remembers that.

He overshadows his previous competition by a large margin, and I can’t wait to see more of him if that’s possible. ________________________________________________________________ 15. Yinu’s Mom As the real mastermind behind Yinu’s position in NSR, it suddenly makes so much sense as to why a literal child is in such a strict EDM hierarchy like NSR. What keeps her from going above and beyond this ranking isn’t anything more than just the pressure she puts on Yinu to perform. During the fight, and what I can only presume also happens outside of concerts in the universe of No Straight Roads, it seems like she entirely forgets the reason Yinu keeps playing the piano in the first place.

However, I am a huge sucker for family dynamics, and her stopping her assault due to the memories that Yinu was able to drag out of her through the broken piano by playing Heart of the Prodigy is enough to almost enough for me to reach the level of emotional catharsis as the ending of Pixar’s “Inside Out” did for me. And the way she shielded Yinu when they were falling, the gasp of fear that she might not survive the fall - just pure, amazing storytelling through “show, don’t tell”.

I will say, the more morbid part of me that enjoys things like Danganronpa, Your Turn To Die, and Nonary Games, had the thought of “if it weren’t for the fact that Mayday and Zuke also fell from that height and survived (and that this game is meant for younger audiences), Yinu would have became an orphan.”

Mother of the Year award goes to Yinu’s mom for being the most realistic, sympathetic, non-dead mom in fiction. ________________________________________________________________ 14. Yinu I love classical music, but I don’t really like children. Yinu is an exception to my general dislike of children. The promotion that was released before the game was a little eye-rolling, but it was also funny. Fortunately, in the game, Yinu is so much more mature and interesting than the promotional material lead us to believe. The way the piano plays plays in the base version of VS Yinu conveys just how talented she is at nine years old. It’s a shame that it slowly gets covered up by the EDM version as the battle goes on.

But her reasoning for playing the piano, through the photos you get from Yinu’s backstory is all the more reason to respect this literal child. She turned the loss of her music teacher and father into a shining passion for music. The piano being the very memento of her deceased dad - looking at the photos and then realizing what you did in shattering her piano creates a fantastic retroactive look at just how destructive Bunkbed Junction’s revolution really is to people.

We’re not even half-way down the list, and yet we already have great characters like this, so let’s keep looking. ________________________________________________________________ 13. Dodo There’s been a huge gap since the last Team Sayu member. So what makes Dodo so great compared to Sofa? Well, the deep voice that comes from the scrawny, blue man is funny to me. It caught me off-guard the first time I heard it and had me giggling for hours afterwards after I paused the video to regain my composure.

That, and mocap work is hard work. On top of that, though he’s mostly not the face everyone remembers when fans think of Sayu, it takes a lot of talent and self-confidence to dance like a cutesy mermaid despite being a male, at least in my opinion. So I see him as having high confidence, but also being like Zuke in the “chill and mostly quiet” department.

There’s not much else for me to say, since most of Team Sayu doesn’t have blatantly obvious character traits. So let’s move on. ________________________________________________________________ 12. Sayu Sayu herself is... well, not real. It’s like trying to judge any number of the Vocaloid/UTAU voice banks. Sure you can place any number of personalities and messages into it, but in reality she’s just been built as a “cutsie, wootsie, pink mermaid” idol.

Still, the personality that Team Sayu gives her is fantastic. Her fight is annoying, and lackluster even to watch, but her song is amazing in all of its forms, even if for me the vaporwave version is the least effective of all of them - and Analog Aquatics is the BEST lead-up song to it, even ahead of Heart of the Prodigy.

Hatsune Miku? Who’s that? I only see Sayu as the best Vocaloid. ________________________________________________________________ 11. Remi Technically the creator of Sayu in the first place and her designer, Remi seems to be the “all according to plan” type. To think that his passion for art would lead to a career such as NSR, and a close-knit friend group like Team Sayu. It’s something that I’m sure that every artist has had as their goal at one point or another.

I highly respect anyone with the ability to put their artwork out in public, both in real life and as a character. Even so, there are characters I like even beyond Remi, and once again, we don’t have much to go off of for him outside of the very few times we see him in Sayu’s battle.

Almost all of Team Sayu has been covered at this point - heck, even Sayu herself has already been covered. So where’s Tila you ask? Well, we’ll get to that, but not for a while. ________________________________________________________________ 10. Tatiana “Kul Fyra” Qwartz From the very moment we first hear her voice, we can tell she’s all business and order. When we watch all of NSR reject the rock music outright and listen to Tatiana’s speech afterwards? How she seems to disregard her artists own safety and prioritizing undermining Bunkbed Junction’s efforts just because she can’t bear to remember her old bandmates? Wonderfully selfish for a heartbroken character.

Also, for those who hate her time-oriented powers and how weakly linked they are to Tatiana herself? Consider this: She’s almost 50 years old by the time Bunkbed Junction starts their revolution. She’s lived long enough to be anyone in the cast’s mom - probably even old enough to be Team Sayu and Yinu’s grandma. She has only seen a progressive march of time erode at everything she ever loved and cared about.

The blazing passion within her is brought back to her through Bunkbed Junction’s actions, but through a reversal of time and a reflection of her memories. Bunkbed Junction literally shatters the world view that she constructed for herself to ignore the regret and pain that had been slowly eating her up inside without her ever even having fully realized it in the first phase. By the time Tatiana reverts back to using her Kul Fyra form, she’s trying so hard to list any number of reasons to ignore her past and focus on what little time she actually has left to work on the future.

This was a bit of a longer explanation and reasoning, but for a character as amazing and symbolically complex as Tatiana, she absolutely deserves it. And as you’ll see for the next character, this is only a fraction of my love for the characters of No Straight Roads. ________________________________________________________________9. Neon J And here we start with my absolutely favorite characters, the ones I not only enjoy reading and writing about, but that in canon I can wholeheartedly accept them for who they are, flaws and all.

My grandpa was in the navy, and to make a long story short there were some complicated things that happened that required me to live with both him and my grandma when I was really little. So already there’s something that I can latch onto and adore. Even with how cringy Neon J is at the end with him attempting to try to give an epic war hero speech, my grandpa can be the same way sometimes, and that’s okay. They kind of act similarly outside of that as well.

His design is so sleek and smooth, and sometimes I forget that he’s actually a cyborg, unlike his sons boyband creations. Normally I hate the military, war, and what it all represents at a cynical level, but when it’s portrayed in a way like No Straight Roads did for Neon J and 1010, it reminds me of the people who actually join to serve their country and the people in it, despite how few in their countries actually deserve their respect.

And yeah, I can already hear the “blah blah fiction is poorly portraying law enforcement/the military because ect ect”. I disagree. Think of it this way: Neon J is a fun example of what a leader in a military unit is. Not only that, he’s extremely loyal and willing to do what it takes to get the job done - including having a program inside 1010 that makes them explode when they fail to generate the requisite fan praise that’s likely required to keep 1010 merchandise flying off of the shelves and thus prove to the other NSR artists that even robot boybands can be used to help Vinyl City; AND use said robot boyband as weapons to fight off any threats - internal or external.

Also think about what he had to go through to become a cyborg. That means he likely had to replace everything that’s on the surface - imagine what he needed to replace underneath all of that metal. How much of his original body is left? How badly did the war he was involved in hurt him? How many comrades did he lose to try to recreate that feel in a boyband? Aren’t the implications of that so much more grand than the surface level “radar head man is bad representation of military people because he’s silly and ineffective at his job”. Furthermore, tell me of a person in the real world who lost so much of their body they literally had to become a cyborg that has a literal radar for a head.

On top of all of that he’s the second half of my second favorite pairing. Not that is has any major bearing on how great Neon J already is. Is it silly that Neon J tries to give a huge speech at the end when we know Bunkbed Junction is just trying to get to Tatiana? Yes. But it’s fun.

I salute the No Straight Roads team for creating such an amazing character . ________________________________________________________________8. Blue 1010 Robot | Purl-Hew Ah yes, now we start getting to what’s taking up most of the top 10 slots. Kind of funny that not all of the 1010 members are going into the top 5 slots with how much I ranted and raved about Neon J. But I have characters I like way more than most of the 1010 band members.

And yes, I’ll bring this up now since we’re actually talking about 1010, that will apply to all the members of 1010 so I don’t have to repeat myself: I already know that they’re meant to parody boy bands, pop bands, and how similar all of them are and ect ect ect. That doesn’t stop me from going “hee hoo pretty boys” at fictional characters. And, yes, I know they don’t canonically have names, but I’m going with what’s been accepted across the fandom. Also all of their body types are the same: I like them alot. They’re tall, in monochrome (hah, chrome), and the way they bob to the beat in their battle is fantastic and shows they are powered by music as much as any machine is in the universe of No Straight Roads.

Starting off with my least favorite of them, Purl-Hew just reminds me of Garnet from “Steven Universe”, which is not a bad thing. It’s just that outside of what we learn of Garnet, she’s a character I often forget exists. I think it’s honestly the shades and the blue, more square-like hair that makes me draw the comparison. Purl-Hew strikes me as the “cool” one. The one that recites his poetry in coffee shops and is the sensitive boy with a cold exterior. You know the kind of person I’m talking about.

Other than that, I like the 1010 branding on the side of his head. I normally don’t like hairstyles like that, but somehow with how it flows and how non-obnoxious it is, I actually find myself liking the hairstyle. Also coupled with the fact that I see him as the second eldest of all five of them, who likely cemented an identity for himself before the others, makes me like his entirety even more.

A cool dude deserves a cool transition, but since this isn’t a video, a line break will have to do. ________________________________________________________________7. Red 1010 Robot | Zimelu Zimelu is one of the ones that strikes me as the one that’s borderline trying to break free from the rest of the band and become his own artist. The mowhawk, the color red, even to what he’s likely supposed to represent in-universe. Many see him as having anger issues, and considering what 1010 is about coupled with, again the hair style and his color, yeah I can see why.

But I also see him having a somewhat tsundere side. Not overtly fully tusndere as “I-It’s not like I like you or anything!” but more of a “Hey, I got you [insert favorite food] to eat. Don’t read too much into it.” while looking off to the side to avoid seeing your reaction just because he’s not sure if he can handle the thought of him possibly being wrong and then seeing you be disappointed kind of tsundere.

I don’t see a lot of peices of work exploring this concept, and I’d love to see more of it - or heck, even other personality traits that could be lying under the rebellious design of him.

I see him as the middle child of the group, which could also add to the rebellious personality and anger issues. Not sure if anyone agrees with me on this though. ________________________________________________________________6. Yellow 1010 Robot | Haym Okay, so this is a bit weird. Haym is my second least favorite in terms of design, but third favorite because he’s supposed to be the sunny, shy, and sweet one. I see him as the second youngest of all of the 1010 members. Old enough to have experience and understand his purpose, but young enough to retain that childhood-like innocence and sweetness.

I think he’s content about his place in 1010. It’s not that he would slack off or anything, but he’d be the most comfortable with his identity out of all five of them, even years down the line. Where Purl-Hew has to upkeep his identity, Haym is fine just being who he is and happy that the crowd accepts him for who he is.

Also him saying “even your lips, which form that raaaaadiant smile~” made me smile like an idiot and my heart flutter when I first saw him - and don’t even get me started on his pose when he was saying that. So that probably has at least some bearing on his placement in this list. ________________________________________________________________5. Green 1010 Robot | Eloni Haym was weird for me to admit I still don’t fully like his design, but Eloni’s design is actually worse for me. I still don’t like the fact he looks like you could hang him on a Christmas tree or a keychain and not be out of place there. But as I learned more - especially the part where in-universe he’s the least-liked because he’s the prankster type, my heart melted for the guy.

While I myself am not a prankster or a fan of prankster types, sympathetic characters that are generally unliked in-universe for something minor or not their fault is something that will always get me to love a character. There’s also a lot of great fanfiction out there for Eloni, playing with the idea of jealousy, feelings of inadequacy, and the resulting love and support that inevitably follows from a strong supporting family.

Also, I see him as the youngest, and likely the one who thought it’d be a good idea to give everyone reindeer heads for the Christmas event instead of whatever was originally planned. The fans probably loved it anyways, even better than what was originally planned, but never knew it was Eloni’s messing around that gave them the toy-soldier-with-reindeer-heads 1010.

Second best 1010 boy deserves to be in the top 5 for all of this and more. ________________________________________________________________4. Tila Tila? You mean the one girl who only goes “pyun” a few times? The only one of Team Sayu that has any voice lines that are more than sobs, grunts, tremoring fear, and sounds of triumph?

Yes. That character. You want to know why?

First, lets start with her design. She wears an oversized hoodie and glasses - already two things I can relate to. The color contrast is just perfect between her hair, skin, and hoodie. Her design alone to me screams “high-functioning introvert”.

Her one line? Going “pyun” a few times? Absolutely adorable. I wanted to hear her say more lines, and the delivery of them being so uncertain filtered through a microphone to not come out that way as Sayu? She is definitely the shy one of the four of them. Also let’s not forget she’s Sayu’s voice actress in universe. Meaning that VS Sayu is something that Tila is singing.

Also, in the background material for Sayu, she’s the one that apologizes for using Remi’s art for one of her songs, and starts the collaboration with all four members of Team Sayu. It’s her story we follow. Not any of the other four members, though Remi does actually say something.

Though we don’t get much else of her, which prevents her from taking a spot in my top 3 picks, if we got just a little bit more from her, I’d definitely bump her to 3rd, maybe even let her take 1st. As it stands, compared to the rest of Team Sayu and Sayu herself, top 5 is nothing to sneeze at. ________________________________________________________________3. Kliff “No one like’s Kliff! He’s evil and bad!”

I mostly disagree with that statement, politely of course. Does no one like him? Seems that way in the fandom, but I like him. Is he evil? Yes, most certainly. Is he “bad”? Well, what’s the context of bad in this case? A bad plot-twist? A bad character? A bad guide? Not really. Well, except for the last part, possibly, but even then he’s still serviceable.

I mean take into context that Tatiana is Kul Fyra. On a first viewing, after having fought so many people after first meeting Kliff, most people would have forgotten that he, like Mayday, also likes Kul Fyra and was even there for her concerts. People who have insane memory would remember it, but for the rest of us, it probably came as a shock that Kliff would send a satellite into the NSR tower.

But he’s a fan that put Kul Fyra on a pillar, just like Mayday. He’d hoped that rock artists would get her back into rock music, to reignite the fire in her, so that he could enjoy her music again. He even says that he’s still her fan. He questions Tatiana “did my loyalty mean nothing to you?”.

And while yes, she didn’t technically owe him anything, the way that Tatiana shoots Kliff down so coldly after all of his attempts and his waiting - after she shut herself away from any potential future differing opinions and banning rock so she couldn’t remember the heartache - he snaps.

I’m not saying that Kliff was right, or that his reaction was fully justified. But imagine him saying he’ll be the strategic planner of NSR - after all, it was thanks to him that Mayday and Zuke got as far as they did. They knew what was coming ahead of time due to his advice. Mayday and Zuke would just be figureheads. It would be entirely realistic, and not make Kliff entirely evil.

Still, with all the hypotheticals out of the way, having an entirely selfish twist villain like Kliff was amazing. When you go through the entire story knowing how it will end on a second playthrough, suddenly his motives and what he says makes so much more sense.

I want to see (or maybe someday I’ll write) a redemption arc for Kliff. He’s not so fargone that I’d write him off as another villain for the sake of evil, but it would take actual work and effort. It’s something I look forwards to seeing in the far future.

Though he is also fun to see as an antagonist in all of these stories I read about him. ________________________________________________________________2. Zuke On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d rank Zuke an 11. From his design, to his animations, to his background, his voice, his lines - everything is an 11/10 for me.

Starting with design again, normally I’d dislike the major contrast such a saturated green against a saturated blue. But there’s other bits in Zuke’s design - his red eyes, the fact that his clothing is a good neutral base to draw away from the chaos of colors of his head - only to lead back into what looks like ultra-comfortable blue-and-green flannel with dark blue flats? It all screams the perfect chill dude to hang out with.

His personality matches too. He’s laid-back, wise, rational, humble, and kind. Almost the perfect man in every way. Though he has his limits, especially when it comes to DK West, and he’s not always the most intelligent at times. Sometimes he takes a minute to put two-and-two together, especially when he’s under pressure and nervous.

And his drumsticks being used as a walking cane when he’s not battling, admitting that it’s NSR property - recognizing that NSR itself is not bad, it just needs change. He doesn’t generally talk smack unless, again, it’s DK West. He probably says less than Mayday does out of the two, but I wasn’t counting. I was just thankful that he was talking at all, attempting to be the voice of reason in situations, telling Eve he was wrong for leaving so suddenly (even though he’s not at fault for his hair being set on fire), reconciling with DK West after Mayday gets them to talk about their feelings to each other - he experiences the most growth over the longest period of time.

In fact, it feels like we’re witnessing Zuke’s entire story through the eyes of Mayday. Sure, Mayday has a stake in the conflict, and a small bit of growth, but none nearly so much as the jolly green giant between them. Heck, he’s so good that he made DJ Subatomic Supernova’s music actually sound good.

If this wasn’t enough, he’s also one half of my favorite pairing. Where’s the other half? Where he belongs of course. ________________________________________________________________1. White 1010 Robot | Rin Look guys, my favorite character of No Straight Roads is finally here. Let me be the ideal fan and give him my utmost attention.

ATTENTION!

Hoo boy have I been waiting to talk about Rin! His design is the one that I love the most despite how simple and obviously pandering it is. I mean come on, he’s got the kind of hairstyle that just screams “typical emo/scene/goth/pop leader” without the sweeping bit of hair in front of the eye like Haym’s or other emo/scene/goth hair styles. He has no unique colors to himself (white and black are technically not colors). Heck, as a robot meant to parody pop/boybands, he technically should be the most bland and uninteresting part of 1010.

But that’s where you’d be wrong. Rin is the one who leads the flirting attempt against Mayday. Rin is the one who is focused on the most of all the 1010 members when the cutscenes play. Rin is the one who’s talking the most in the promotional video for 1010 and No Straight Roads. Even though Zimelu takes up most of the spot in the in-game photo op, Rin is the second most noticable. In the “wefies” the 1010 members make in the promotional video, Rin is front and center.

Rin is the poster child. Meaning he has the most mounting on him of all the members of 1010. And this can manifest in any number of interesting character traits. I’ve already written an (as of posting this review) three chapter fanfic on Rin and his dynamic with not only the other half of my favorite pairing, but also his dynamic with Neon J, and how both Zuke and Neon J view Rin - through what I perceive how Rin actually feels and acts when he’s not on stage.

I could probably do an entire 20 minute review on why Rin is the single-best character of No Straight Roads, both in and out of canon, but I don’t have the tools for it. And as a side note, the guitar solo that Mayday can play over the song is the single-best of all the guitar solos, the second being the one against Yinu - and that deep passion for 1010 is reflected well in the guitar solo.

Zuke may be an 11/10, but Rin is a perfect 10/10 - and I wouldn’t have it any other way . ________________________________________________________________Afterwords Finally, after an entire 4 hours of writing, I’d like to hear your thoughts on all of this, if you’ve made it this far.

What did you agree and disagree with? Feel free to comment if you want.

As for me, I think I’ll continue to browse the work of the fandom, keep an ear out for any future updates or sequels, and rock on with the amazing soundtrack of No Straight Roads jamming loudly in my ears.

Rock on fellow No Straight Roads fans! Or whatever genre you prefer to listen to.

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massive-mythopoetic-mashup · 7 years ago

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I hope you don't consider this too prying, but are you strain_of_thought? If so, I love what your doing with RWBY. I've always thought the strongest thing about RWBY were how the allusions played into the characters and story, but I always thought it didn't really use them as much as it should. All of your ideas paint the idea RWBY is using them far more effectively than I thought you could! One question, where do you look for allusions? You make some connections I would never think of.

I _am_ Strain of Thought! I also go by Karma Chimera in some places. This blog was supposed to be for posting concise, thorough, and well-formatted explanations of allusions I’ve found in RWBY, but unfortunately I’ve really had very little time to devote to it over the past two months due to crazy life events. Also, my thoughts on how the big theory should be organized and presented have been constantly evolving, largely as a result of having nice people who humor my attempts to explain it to them, and that’s somewhat held up producing finalized presentations. Most of the G.U.N. theory has been informally described in back-and-forth conversation over on my Discord server, but it’s very, very long and a mess to slog through.I want to be clear, before I get into this: the stuff I talk about on reddit and here and on the wiki and the RT forums and on Discord is not stuff I figured out overnight. I was a passionate but casual fan of RWBY who wasn’t into RT at all and didn’t even start watching the series until late summer of 2016. I was deeply haunted by Pyrrha’s death after finishing Volume 3 and dwelled on it for several months without finding any understanding of it; I wasn't even able to bring myself to watch Volume 4 until the last episode had been posted. Then, about five months ago, I had a sudden epiphany about one character- which in short order lead to another, much much _much_ bigger epiphany about another character that completely changed my perception of the show; since then I’ve been tearing the show apart piece by piece with an obsessiveness that still hasn’t really abated at all. At this point, I have spent many hundreds of hours researching the allusions in RWBY. So please don’t feel bad for not having immediately caught all of the things I point out. I had to _work_ to find them, and I didn’t begin to see them for a long time.That said, let’s talk about that first epiphany.The basic method I use for looking for allusions in RWBY is something you might call the “Cast of Characters” method. First, take a RWBY character who has an overt literary allusion that you're certain of- let's say Penny. Then list all the important supporting characters in the story of the inspirational character who the RWBY character alludes to. For Pinocchio that would be Geppetto, The Blue Fairy, Jiminy Cricket, The Puppet Show Master, The Fox and The Cat, The Coachman, Lampwick, and The Terrible Dogfish. Now, you can’t really tell the story of Pinocchio without having all of these characters also represented in some capacity. RWBY does have some characters who appear to overtly play some of these roles: Penny’s ‘Father’ is Geppetto, Ciel Soleil is The Blue Fairy, and Ironwood is the Puppet Show Master. But other important characters are conspicuously missing- Jiminy Cricket, for example. So go down the list and ask: “Who is playing this necessary role in order for this story to be told?”Doing this successfully often requires a lot of familiarity with the work in question, which means you often have to go back and actually _read_ something you’ve only picked up on through osmosis or adaptations. Sometimes you’re going to need to sit down with some 19th century children’s literature for a few hours before you’ll be able to pick up on the subtle cues that are hidden in RWBY. Reading material _about_ the work, such as Wikipedia articles on the individual characters, can also be hugely instructive.Getting back to Penny Polendina and the search for Jiminy Cricket- who is Penny's conscience? Who tries to answer her difficult questions and guide her morally and keep her out of trouble? Who is a Christ-like figure, especially in their purity of heart? (No, seriously. ‘Jiminy Cricket’ is literally a bowdlerization of ‘Jesus Christ’. Carlo Collodi never named him, simply calling him ‘The Talking Cricket’, so Disney named him after a clean expletive.) Who is repeatedly separated from Penny and ultimately fails to keep her out of trouble but nevertheless provides an example that inspires her and helps her become a much better person in the long run? _Who can jump really high?_Realizing that Ruby Rose is Jiminy Cricket, and that the writers had snuck that right past me in plain sight, was the first forehead slap that made me suspect there was much more to RWBY than what meets the eye. You can take the “Cast of Characters” method and systematically run every character in the show through it; if you do, some startling connections can jump out at you fairly quickly. Also, for RWBY characters with mythological, legendary, or historical origins, there’s often a wealth of supplemental information to be found about their supporting characters outside of their source stories themselves.For another example: Has it occurred to you that there might be important supporting characters in _Joan of Arc_’s story? Reading up on Joan of Arc, you’ll find that she consistently described her visions as always containing the same three saints: Saint Michael, Saint Margaret of Antioch, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria. We can read up on these three saints in turn, and in doing so we learn some interesting facts:Saint Michael is actually the Archangel Michael, revered by military orders as a soldier who is the leader of God’s armies and battles demons, but also paradoxically strongly associated with medicine and tranquil, healing waters. He’s an angel of mercy: he repeatedly prevents deaths, and is specifically named as the angel who provided the ram to prevent Abraham from killing his own son Isaac. Most remarkably, Michael is strongly associated with Christ, and many protestant traditions have held that Michael actually _is_ Christ in his heavenly, pre-incarnation form.Saint Margaret of Antioch was the daughter of a demon-worshipping pagan priest, who abandoned her as an infant when he had a vision that she would become a Christian. She was raised by a Christian nurse who took her in, and became a shepherdess as a teenager. As she grew up she developed a fanatical, virginal devotion to Christ that bordered on romantic fixation. She resisted worldly temptations by a pagan lord who saw her herding and was captivated by her beauty, and she kept her faith through being tortured by him after her rejection. Eventually, she faced and was swallowed by a demonic dragon, but was able to escape from its belly because the cross she wore irritated the dragon’s stomach so much that it vomited her up.Saint Catherine of Alexandria, lastly, is an absurd Mary-Sue even by biblical standards: she is not just a saint but also a martyr, a brilliant scholar, and a _princess_. She brought _herself_ to Christ through study and boldly appeared before the emperor of Rome to rebuke him for his cruelty. The emperor summoned _fifty_ pagan philosophers to argue against her, and she defeated them in debate one after another _and converted them to christianity_, prompting their immediate executions. She was whipped and imprisoned, but hundreds of people came to visit her in the dungeon and she converted all of _them_ as well, including the emperor’s _own wife_. The emperor attempted to use torture upon her, but every torture device used upon her magically broke, including a massive breaking wheel she was strapped to that was specially built to kill her. Even when she was finally beheaded, her body was carried away by angels and placed upon Mount Sinai where God spoke to Moses; there her body remained fresh without rotting, her beautiful hair never stopped growing, and she continuously issued a ‘stream of healing oils’.Are you seeing any patterns here? Can you think of three people in Jaune’s life who exhibit some of these traits? I hope you can! Now understand: I knew basically _nothing_ about Joan of Arc when I started this other than the basic “Hears voices, drives the English out of France, gets captured and burned at the stake.” bits that you can pick up through cultural osmosis as an American. I vaguely remembered her liberating Orleans entirely because of a campaign mission in Age of Empires 2. You ask where I look for allusions- my answer is, I pick a character and just start reading things about them until I feel like I’ve exhausted the resources I know to look at, and then I move on to the next one. Then later I end up coming back for additional passes with a fresh sense of what I’m looking for and what to read, and a better sense of how the show is written, and find even more connections. RWBY has given me ten times the education in western literature that college did, and even if I’m wrong about everything, I still want to thank the creators of the show for that. They couldn’t get me to read the _Iliad_ in school, but I cracked it open and tried my level best for Pyrrha.Not only does taking the thorough approach and investigating seemingly less promising character allusions like Joan of Arc allow you to find layers to the show you’d likely never pick up on otherwise, but finding who _else_ a RWBY character is drawn from besides their overt, top-level allusion often becomes very instructive in understanding them and the ways that they differ from that top-level character. I’ve repeatedly had my perception of a RWBY character completely changed by discovering some lower level allusion that recontextualizes them, and I’ve found paradigm-shifting revelations in sources as diverse as black-and-white 1950s American western films, the works of Dr. Seuss, and episodes of _Sesame Street_. I’ve generally found that the top level character allusion informs a RWBY character’s personality more (and obviously their appearance) but the immediately underlying character allusion has a much bigger impact on their story and character arc- and sometimes there are third and fourth and even _fifth_ level allusions with major impacts on a character. In one case, the layers of significant allusions go down to a _dozen_. What took me almost all of the past five months to realize is that RWBY characters are designed exactly like RWBY weapons: they’re crazy awesome mashup combinations of multiple completely different things that externally _appear_ to just be extra cool versions of one thing, but then at critical moments they perform dramatic, spectacular transformations to reveal other essential aspects of themselves that have existed within them all along.For all the reasons I’ve mentioned already, if you want to be able to perceive the allusions within RWBY, the most important thing is to just experience the world of literature it’s drawn from. In the interest of helping fans do that, I’ve started a regular weekly online film viewing group where RWBY fans can watch and discuss films together whose stories RWBY alludes to. The group is open to everyone and based from my Discord server. If you want to learn more, or maybe just watch some good films, come check it out:https://discord.gg/PMNSfhK

#answer #essay #RWBY #The G.U.N. Theory #RWBY Movie Matinee #Penny Polendina #Ruby Rose #Jaune Arc #Pinocchio #Jiminy Cricket #Joan of Arc #St. Michael #St. Margaret of Antioch #St. Catherine of Alexandria

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