#RWBY crit

[19-bellwether]

RWBY character tier list based on writing quality

Opinions on some individual characters:

Ozpin: great for V1-3, but meandering afterwards. Didn't need to be a main character.

Torchwick: great starter villain, appears just the right amount, leaves the story at the best possible time.

Ruby: generally good, just needs more moments to show off her personality and to challenge her as a leader.

Weiss: Generally alright, peaked in V4 and V6, had little to do from V7 onwards despite taking place in her home.

Penny: Near perfect from V1 to V8, dropped the ball starting with the hack, and monstrously destroyed her character arc by the end.

Cinder: She's a roller coaster of quality. Just needs to be refocused and kept on a clear path.

Neo: neat side character in V1-3, her return from V6-V9 was ultimately unnecessary.

Nora and Ren: comedic side characters that struggled to stay relevant after V3. Attempts at giving them arcs came too little, too late. Should be recurring side characters instead of main characters.

Blake: terrible racism allegory. Good personal story with fluctuating execution quality. Starts becoming aimless by V8.

Tyrian: good example of RWBY's struggle to introduce darkness without pushing the rating. Ends up being a saturday morning cartoon villain, though he has some high points in V7.

Big guy who stabs himself with rocks whose name I'm forgetting: "I will kill as many children as I have to in order to stop you from killing children."

Adam: nadir of the racism allegory. Good job as Blake's psycho ex though.

Salem and the gods: clearly meant to be endgame antagonists but just come off as tropey and unintimidating.

Maria: didn't need to exist after V6.

Hound: first time a grimm has ever felt like a genuine threat. Could have been a stellar recurring antagonist but killed off way too soon.

Summer: took too long to expand on her, to Ruby's detriment.

Oscar: Just not interesting, and most of his development happens off-screen. Should be a recurring side character, not a main character.

Ace Ops: a massive contributor to RWBY's cast bloat problem.

Sienna: the other nadir of the racism allegory.

Jaune: On four different occasions, women are maimed or killed for his development. On multiple occasions, moments that should have gone to Ruby are given to Jaune. On two occasions, his character development is reset so he can relearn the exact same lesson again. You treat a tumor by cutting it out.

Feel free to ask for details about anything.

[kitkatopinions]

I have this theory that rwby white knights and anti-rwdes are really into pushing the idea that Ironwood pre-shooting Oscar is some horrible clearly bad dictator with no good traits because they actually don't have any arguments against people saying his over-the-course-of-two-in-universe-days fall to villainy was rushed, unnecessary, and severely lacking in emotional depth. So the only way for them to try and make it not bad writing is to say that James was always a villain and therefore his villainy arc wasn't 'rushed' (though this ignores the fact that a villain with standards rapidly changing into a villain with zero standards with no real depth is still bad writing.)

But funnily enough, the whole thing with pushing the idea of 'Ironwood was always a bad guy, clearly a dictator, clearly everyone needs to have seen that or they're a pro-dictator bigot themselves' take... Really just makes both the team of RWBYJNROQ and the narrative that the RWBY writers painted seem worse if you ask me. Like, Team RWBY and co were actively and willingly working with IW for like two months, right? Like, they were down in the thick of it in Mantle sometimes, they saw the security camera that some people swear means that James kept the citizens of Mantle under constant surveillance, they saw the broadcasting of James and Winter that some people swear means that James was obviously feeding Mantle propaganda, they saw how he worked on a project that they actively believed in apparently instead of using the easily transferable resources of a communications tower to fix a broken wall. They saw James put things in place like curfews, which some people are swearing is proof of the ironclad hold Ironwood had on those poor defenseless citizens. They saw that he pulled his forces out of Mistral (on the advice of Winter,) which apparently is heartlessly hording protection, and they also saw him bring some of his forces into Vale which according to some people was a show of power. And despite the fact that there was every indication that IW was fully authorized to be in Vale and fully authorized in bringing over weapons, and despite the fact that he only brought them because he thought there would be an attack (which there was,) and despite the fact that he clearly didn't bring his whole fleet - No, he was invading Vale. And Team RWBY and co also saw his 'over-reliance on machinery' and his 'hatred of humanity' at play, and they saw him let teenagers do any fighting and saw that he was running a child recruitment school (ignore if this breaks the premise of the entire show by implying that Ruby shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a fight,) and they saw that he was supposedly grooming Winter. And they saw that he *gasp* was put in charge of security for an event after an attack that could've been really bad while Ironwood and the rest of Oz's inner circle was anticipating worse I MEAN he was completely unnecessarily put in charge of obviously completely unneeded security for your average everyday not in danger at all sporting event that can easily be compared to sporting events in our world where Salem and Grimm don't exist, and so that was clearly an act of aggression and exercising control.

So, if Ironwood is really a terrible dictator who has clearly been doing off the charts bad things that prove that he's a bad dictator since his very first appearances in volume two, then the options are A. Ruby and co are all so hopelessly naive that they completely ignored the clear and obvious signs of a dictator and then made shocked pikachu faces when he 'tried to leave all the poor people behind to die because of nothing but laziness, cowardice, and classism,' which makes them look really bad. B. Ruby and co are all so dumb that they just didn't realize that all the obviously bad stuff he did was obviously bad and should be a deal breaker because they're just that oblivious. Or C. Team RWBY and their friends can be slotted into the same category that the anti-rwdes put IW fans who say that the fall to villainy was rushed and that he wasn't always clearly bad, and written off as pro-dictator probably classist bigots. Ruby literally shared information on the war with him after a bunch of stuff in season seven because she and Oscar decided to trust him.

(Just to be clear, I don't believe any of that. I believe that Ironwood wasn't clearly super bad until he shot Oscar, and Team RWBY weren't in the wrong to work for and help Ironwood and believe in some of the things he was doing.)

But, using that 'James was always a dictator who was always clearly bad' logic, what does that say about the narrative RWBY the show was presenting us with. Because... Team RWBY and co weren't treated as in the wrong for working for and helping Ironwood and believing in some of the things he was doing. They doubted him a little, here and there, but for the most part just worked with him, and then nobody was like 'we were so stupid to trust him after everything he did' and nobody was like 'We need to be more careful because we were working with a dictator FUCK." In fact, Yang and Ren saying anything against Ruby was still treated as completely bad and something they needed to take back, even though she was the one who told the supposed clearly evil dictator important war secrets. Sooooo, if Ironwood really was a dictator, what was the 'Ruby did no wrong' stuff supposed to tell us as viewers? XD Like I honestly truly prefer thinking 'these writers just screwed up their fall to villainy arc pretty badly' rather than thinking 'these writers deliberately made the heroes willingly and happily work for an evil dictator for months and trust him with important war secrets.'

Once again I'm wondering how RWBY simps manage to make RWBY seem eight times worse than it is while they're trying to defend it.

[sentiniel]

ooh what did i tell you. you all wanna be me so bad.

[lionizehim]

throwaway thought on my rwby side blog, but i can't help and wonder if i'm reading too much into the paper pleasers and the fact that they're origami and that they believe in some version of reincarnation ala buddism. and then everyone calling them suicidal (negative connotation) afterwards

[aceironwood]

So what the hell happened with the looks for Bruce and Clark here

[thatsjustrwde]

soooo…i watched the first two episodes…

oh boy.

just… no

[matt0044]

On RWBY, The Amazing Digital Circus and Toxic Indie Fandoms...

Fans of cartoons, animated movies and animation in general have a... bit of a complex. Largely when it come to snubbing a new movie and/or show for not being just like what ever the standard bearer is at the time. A mentality that really hurts critical discussion than help. Like... getting mad at, say, Big City Greens of what Disney pulled with The Owl House is just not cool.

I find it happens a lot with Animation Twitter spaces being all about taking Disney down a peg be it because Spiderverse or Puss In Boots (take your pick at this point). Though in that case, it's a case of one-up-manship getting way too out of hand since there's at least a vocal push back.

With RWBY being pitted against every other indie animation, it's actually not too much of a unique case.

It has been a small scale project getting massive amounts of hype from the pilot (or Trailers as with RWBY's case) only for the show to come out and split its pre-established audience down the middle.

This split starts and widens when it comes to how a character may be initially presented only for more facets to them to be revealed. It should go without saying buuuuuuut the creative team are not mind-readers. Even the most popular of fanworks will inevitably NOT reflect what the show will develop into whether they come close or not.

However, that investment in fanon is liable to clash with what canon goes with. Some fans take it is stride and are willing to hear the showrunners on their direction. Others... take it personally.

Maybe a character that seemed mean but wronged turns out to be a very shitty person.

Maybe a character that seemed shitty has some hidden depths beyond how they initally came across.

Maybe the story is taking a turn that, well, had precedence but feels alienating to those who preferred the previous status quo.

Maybe the pacing feels off with certain reveals that may be a skill issue on the writer's part.

The issues may vary but a lot of this comes from a sort of "bigger they are" type of backlash with a lot of specific expectations formed of the story before there even was one.

Now this might sound like RWBY but... a lot of them were inspired by the polarized comments of Helluva Boss Season 2.

It happening to Vivziepop.

It's happening to RWBY.

And let me tell you, it WILL happen to The Amazing Digital Circus even if it has a limited run planned.

A character will become more than just some fan's blorbo for better or worse and said fans will loose their shit.

A ship will sail however much they wanted sunk.

No matter what, there will always be ONE FAN that will be pissed off.

[violentlyscreaming]

Art by jmnp7888

I can’t believe it’s webseries v webseries

[howlingday]

Ruby: It's... It's definitely more of a romantic setting than a family restaurant-

Weiss: IT'S A FUCKING POT OF CHEESE, RUBY!

[19-bellwether]

I've been pirating RWBY since a friend asked to watch it with me, but I've avoided speaking much about it since I don't want to get pulled deep into the fandom again. But I'm going to break the silence this once because this last episode annoyed me.

This is the fourth time a female character has been maimed or killed for Jaune's development.

While I can accept Pyrrha for being the first occurrence and being better written, the instances with Weiss, Penny, and now Ruby have become worse each time. This one especially grinds me because focusing on Jaune's pain is exactly what made Ruby run away in the first place. I absolutely did not want to watch five minutes of Jaune rehashing a lesson he's learned multiple times just so WBY can smile and hug as if Ruby didn't kill herself in front of them.

I still don't think Jaune should have been there in the first place. His arc was already complete, but the writers relapsed him using Penny's death just for the sake of prolonging his relevance. I hated when he fell at the end of the V8, and my fears that he'd usurp time and development again came true. Blake hasn't said anything about Ruby yelling at her. Weiss hasn't had a character arc at all.

Like we had two volumes with a massive scope that left little time to focus on the main characters. This volume should have let us revisit plot lines and relationships that were put on hold, but all we got were bumbleby and Ruby angst. Which are great! But where are the other team dynamics? Where are the echoes of their past character arcs? It's a shame the volume built for character study is not seizing the opportunity to its fullest.

I'm not going to beat around the bush. I don't like Jaune and it's ridiculous that the one chance to develop Team RWBY in a volume with a small, singular scope has gone unfulfilled. I want him out of the show, and for the show to actually focus on its title characters.

[littleblackqrow]

((I suppose I cant be completely shocked that people are willfully misinterpreting the epilogue but alas.

Firstly let's look at Winter. She's very clearly still in a bad place. You can't scream about Ironwood's PTSD and not acknowledge that Winter's thoughts clearly express Survivor's Guilt. Things that clue us into this are phrases such as "It should have been me" or "You would have known what to do, Sister."

Her monologue is her looking around at the state of things and blaming herself for it. If she had been better, and done things differently, maybe Weiss would still be here. The statements are not necessarily true; there's no way to know if Winter's actions would have changed how the Fall played out, especially considering that everyone was acting with the best information available to them at the time. But survivor's guilt doesn't care about that.

Contrast this with Qrow. This is a man who's spent most of his life in a constant state of guilt and shame. He has finally made the turn away from alcohol and is trying to improve himself. This is the culmination of the journey he started in volume 7 (remember his part in "Brand New Day" But now I think there's time for me to make corrections/ Turn this ship around/ Gotta look inside, a little introspection/ A better me might come around).

Things are bad, and he says so himself. He's just making a conscious effort to make the best out of a bad situation. He's taking things one step at a time like he told Willow. While its hard to know exactly how much time has passed, its enough that people are starting to heal from their grief. Life doesn't just stop, and there's still a lot of work to do.

Its what RWBY would have wanted, and Qrow will carry his nieces' burdens.

When he looks at Ruby's mural, he's clearly upset. Ruby still means the world to him, and she's definitely an inspirational figure. It means quite a bit to him. And then we see Qrow leave, taking a few minutes to process his feelings alone. That's when the RWBY+J show up with Raven.

And as for why anyone would care about RWBY+J? They weren't the only ones to think about contacting the world, but they were the ones who DID it! Ironwood could have done the same damn thing, but he chose to use his resources and time to run away rather than get out an SOS. If rwby and co had time to get off a message to the world while dodging Salem and Ironwood, he could have also done that! He could have gotten out a help message and evacuated Mantle properly all in the time it took him trying to kill or capture rwby for no reason.

[sentiniel]

no but like i'm also obsessed with neo's backstory. neo killed her parents to elope with torchwick and then killed ruby who killed torchwick. this girl is so bad bitch that she went full crazy, spawned a copy of her dead husband to egg herself on for murder, and then immediately had a mental breakdown afterwards. it wasn't animated well but this bitch was really just a paper thin character filled with hot air and i'm obsessed with the way they dug her out of her grave.

[konnoiseur]

saw a post saying that clearly yang was shifting into "mom mode" when ruby was raging and like. i need you people to understand that despite what the story wants you to believe, yang is only two years older than ruby. shes not rubys mom, shes barely her older sister.

the ever after can literally see into your soul and desires and mind and warps itself to show what you *need* to do, what is most important to you. and for yang, that was not her possibly suicidal younger sister thats grappling with the weight of their losses and their mistakes, let alone yangs own involvement in said tragedy, or the friends they left behind; it was hooking up with blake, who has spent the entire time in ever after giggling and gushing and having the time of her life, acting like they didnt wipe a fourth of the world off the map. yangs priority, according to the show, IS NOT RUBY, and thats the problem.

your headcanons are not fact. saying that yang probably knows that ruby gets like this sometimes is frankly ridiculous given that yang is barely older than ruby and was never exactly in control of her emotions and impulses; if youre just going to make shit up to try and do the writers job for them, stick to bumbleby, okay? leave the actual story and plot to people that can tell the difference between fact and headcanon

[invincibleweasel]

I think what annoys me most about the end of Chapter 5 isn’t the fact that RWBYJ retreated at all – there are times when a tactical retreat is necessary, especially when the odds are stacked against them, but it’s the fact that they did so without even trying first. They turn tail and run at the first sign of possible danger. They make no attempt to stay and fight or even hold back the Jabberwalkers so the Ever Afterans can escape. 

What happened to the Huntresses who didn't back down from the fight? Who fight the impossible fight to protect those who can’t protect themselves? 

They already took down a much larger Jabberwalker as a team. What’s stopping them from working as a team to take down the much smaller ones? They have plenty of tools to use at their disposal and it’s not like they were worn out or pushed to their limits against the big one.

Why doesn’t Weiss try and create an ice wall to hold them off, only for the Jabberwalkers to break through or scale it? Or maybe she tries to summon the Arma Gigas to cut them down to size and it gets overwhelmed? Time Dilation to thin out their numbers without retaliation? 

Weiss alone has more than enough to abilities to fend off the Jabberwalkers. With Blake, Yang and the Rusted Knight’s help. They should have no problem putting a dent in their numbers even if they ultimately fail and are forced to retreat. Which is okay. Failure is fine if they at least tried. But they didn’t even do that. They ran like spineless cowards and left the marketplace in ashes, while unnamed MINOR characters did their work for them. 

Do you want to know who else ran away like cowards from danger despite being Huntsman-in-training, all the way back in Volume 1?

Team.

FUCKING.

CRDL.

Team RWBY has regressed so much that they are no better than the one-dimensional bullies.

Good. Fucking. Job.

[kitkatopinions]

ALrighty!

Spoilers for RWBY ep.... 8 I think? Below the keep reading as well as criticism:

So I was wrong about the Cat. I wish it had turned out to be a morally dubious good guy, but whatever, guess the writers wanted yet another 'the person guiding you is actually not trustworthy' plot.

Here's what I'm gonna say - Neo got fucking taken over and possessed the moment that she actually started getting a spotlight as a villain? HATE that shit. I want Neo, not just some conglomerate taken over by the cat? And I don't like that she talked at all. It should've just been the cat's voice.

Idk if Little is dead or not, but I really don't care about or like Little, so if they are dead, okay??? Better than having to see them again tbh.

Seeing people 'resurrected' but all wrong was kind of dissatisfying? Torchwick was the only one of them who was actually used well (because rwby is going through plotpoints at the speed of light in fourteen to sixteen minute eps so of course we can't sit with things,) but his voice acting was off and so it messed with the immersion some. I don't blame them for not being able to get an exact copycat and I don't think they tried very hard since they didn't need Roman for long, but still, I wish his voice actor had done better. The animation of him was pretty good though.

Ruby ascended? Fuck that shit! I have hope that we're actually going to get 'Ruby down in the tree realizing what 'ascension' actually is, but first off, I wanted Ruby to have a breakdown and struggle, not to be full on suicidal and decide to basically kill herself. Second of all, if this means 'no more Ruby' I am going to be so pissed off. This is Ruby's show, right? Or it's supposed to be! Even if this means that we don't get much Ruby for the next two episodes, I'm still gonna be mad. The 'development' we've gotten so far is just Ruby being in pain, and then seemingly dying? I'm trying not to count my chickens before they hatch or whatever, but this could be worst case scenario, people.

The moment where Ruby was getting attacked by everyone who was dead was... Well, first off, it was weird. Because A. Why would Neo bring in Clover, Leo, and Ozpin? Was she just bringing in everyone she thinks that Ruby may have sort of known who died? Second off, why does Neo think Penny cared about Ruby most in the world? When did she have access to that information? How did she know to use Penny that way? Third off, I liked the 'Ruby strikes out at Ozpin, only for Neo to replace him with Oscar' thing in theory but I would be wrong if I didn't point out that once again the only member of Team RWBYJNOR with dark skin gets the most violent things happening, which is a bad pattern. I get that it may be because Oscar is actually more like Ruby's friend than the rest of her team atm (which is sad,) but I just think the writers should be aware that this is a thing they do that they maybe should correct. Maybe they could've had it be Weiss or Yang that Ruby 'accidentally killed' in these visions? Just a thought. Fourth off! I liked how Neo transformed people into Ruby's alive friends and family, judging her for the 'murder.' Fifth off, I just gotta say the combat was not good for me once again. Neo literally has several people there fighting for her, and they all shot like stormtroopers? Ruby's discombobulated and depressed, so her going down without much fight isn't the problem, the problem is that Neo alone by herself should have been able to easily bring her down, let alone with her clones there to help her. Maybe she only knew Roman well enough to really replicate his style, but Neo and Roman? Tag team of the century!

On to... Team WBYJ. I'm not even gonna get into the fact that Blake and Weiss were more sympathetic to Ruby's struggles than Yang was (I am really frustrated with Yang this season,) but they all just stand there and do nothing while Ruby drinks down poison? What the hell? That is not a freaking good look, guys.

Anyway... I don't know how to feel about this episode, but I'm mostly frustrated and disappointed. And on the other hand, I guess we got good pics of Roman and Neo? I'm gonna have to wait to form a concrete opinions on this ep until we can confirm what the frick actually happened next ep, but for now, it's looking like another 3/10. I got some enjoyment, but overall a bad experience once again.

[hyperfixation-hideout]

The fact that there was no post credit scene is kinda sad, why not have a quick little look at the reno team or see how qrows doing. We’ve spent the entire volume in the neverafter but we barley touched on the entire thing going on with sending the majority of a cities population into another part of the world. Hell the characters don’t even mention it

I felt the same way when the finale aired, especially since Oscar is my special interest, but also because ending v9 without the reunion felt wrong to me and unsatisfying.

HOWEVER, after seeing the clip of the storyboarded post-credits scene, I'm kinda glad they're gonna have more time to tweak it, as the reactions felt lukewarm and ooc at times (Qrow and his nieces just casually smiling at each other for a sec??? He thought they were DEAD!!!) Tbf it did seem a lot changed since they made that storyboard, though, considering it had them arrive in Vacuo via Raven's portal, which was not present in v9, so maybe they knew they were coming? Idk

I get they wanted a contained vol for this arc, but I can't help but feel it would've fit more cohesively at a different point in the story. Then again, having it right after Atlas' fall does put them in a heightened emotional state that was key to the volume. (As you can see, I have mixed feelings despite enjoying most of the volume :P) As you mentioned, they could've done a lot more with having them reflect on Atlas' fall. They make comments here and there, but don't really delve into it much or come away with new conclusions/viewpoints, at least that I've gleaned. Weiss especially I wish had more dedicated time to sort through her feelings about Atlas. Her monologue early in the vol was a great and promising start! It just didn't go anywhere (or at least, not far enough for me). Plus I wish it'd been clearer that Jaune killing Penny had been communicated to Ruby, or that she got to bring it up, even if the writers didn't wanna have her be mad at him or anything.

The finale in general was underwhelming (and frankly disappointing) for me considering how great the volume had been, though I understand they intended the vol to be longer and likely had to cut a lot. I do maintain that ending it without the reunion left it feeling open-ended, like a continuation of the arc -- not so much a cliffhanger as the last couple volumes (which were well done, to be clear!), but not as much a conclusion as, say, volume 5's finale -- ending on the reunion would've been a lovely bit of closure for the Atlas chapter of their journey.

All I can hope now is we don't brush past what OLVE went through during the timeskip, and that we still get to explore the effects of v8 on those characters & the furthering of the character arcs prominent in v8. I worry with SO many characters in one place, we won't be able to focus enough time for that (and it'll be hard to do without feeling like the audience is simply "catching up"), but given how central and/or pivotal the character arcs of those in OLVE were in Atlas, I imagine we won't be dropping those threads.