#Weiss' animus is Whitley

[onewomancitadel]

The reason why I also find this topic interesting is because I've seen or experienced Knightfall fans arguing for why Blake/Yang, Ruby/Oscar, Ren/Nora etc. etc. should not/weren't originally going to happen. I personally find this very funny because I think if you are trying to derive narrative legitimacy for Knightfall you simply cannot do so without appreciating what is canon and how the story is considered.

If you think them so bad storytellers that they pulled BB out of their arse in the eleventh hour to appease the audience/because they have an unfortunate yuri fetish/they personally hate Sun Wukong and victimise men without their shirts on/they don't really understand monomythic storytelling and Did It Wrong (lol 'Raven is Yang's anima/her yin, that is unfortunately very Oedipal in RWBY, my friend), then you really shouldn't be so optimistic as to think that they would write Knightfall. In any fashion whatsoever. Unless you are arguing from an untenable position to start with. I'm just not really sure how one could think so little of them yet expect so much - I would not expect Knightfall from storytellers unable to commit to their ideas (the most offensive sin in my book).

Of course, commitment to an idea is a little different from execution of an idea. I don't think there's any wrong with criticising the latter, even if some critics of RWBY can be overly miserly and miss the mark. But you can't really commit to a big-ideas ship like Knightfall without having a bit of respect for the storytellers and their ability to conceive of a thematic statement. I do genuinely think there is an element of playful meanness to Knightfall, in the sense that it's not a twist you're going to probably get until it's right in front of you no matter how well foreshadowed it is and yes, it's a bit controversial, and that's something storytellers do everywhere. Lol. But there is a bit of tragicomedy to it and I don't think they would ever do Knightfall because fans right now think it's a great idea. So you've already got to accept that major elements of the story are sensible and intelligible even if not exactly suited to your tastes. Unfortunately this is a point that has to be made.

I don't write this spitefully: this is actually very funny to me.

I am very aware that the 'tolerates or is interested in ship -> ships ship' pipeline is very real, but in this case it's more because I really really like R/WBY more than it necessarily is that RG is almost something I could ship, though if they do ever do that one big bad wolf storyline with Ruby I can see it becoming more interesting to me.

There's also that really fun component for me is that with an ensemble cast you don't have one romance, you don't have two, you don't have three... there are a lot worth thinking about even if beyond the purview of my own personal obsession, and imo one area that a lot of ship analysis in RWBY fails - this is a very common mistake and not me calling anyone out - is truthfully, holistic analysis (and tonal consistency). Which can obviously be less fun because if you have to think about a ship you don't really have an emotional attachment to that can be less attractive because of the reason you are here in fandom.

A tangential issue to that is the classic 'pairing the spares' - which is why I think arguing for Jaune/Weiss on this basis is overly simplistic and ignores their individual character arcs. It's like that post I made about Weiss and the Evil Queens, if you're only looking for Jaune/Weiss evidence (like so many do in pairing the spares) you miss that Weiss has had encounters with more Evil Queens and more Huntsmen than Cinder and Jaune. I try to be cognisant of this issue myself with Knightfall, but I like to think I am reasonable about the role other characters play in Jaune and Cinder's character development (e.g. you really cannot ignore Ruby for either of them) and I do try to justify why it seems like a romance makes sense as opposed to even something like platonic involvement (and why her relationship with Jaune would be romantic and not, say, Ruby).

For me, this stuff is fun, and the opportunity with R/WBY to analyse many different romances with the same thematic goal but different flavour and stakes is one I very much indulge in. The fact that romance is a big deal and clearly has something to say beyond a character being a trophy or a perfunctory matter is already a great starting position for arguing why a romance with these two other major characters makes sense to happen: it's thematically and narratively knitted in, and it's why Ozlem is a big deal (in whatever way it's resolved).

[howlingday]

Whitley: Are you Jaune?! Are you here to save me?!

Jaune: (Looks him up and down)

Whitley: Um...

Jaune: (Scowls)

Whitley: He... Hello? Are you-

Jaune: Sorry, I... thought I was coming to save... a tiny animu bat. I'm really disappointed.

Whitley: ...What the hell are you talking about-?

Jaune: I was rewatching episodes of RWBY: Ice Queendom, and there were all these cute scenes of you as a little batty-bat. And you're not a batty-bat, you're a BOY!

Whitley: W-Wait, let me see...

Whitley: Okay, I know I'm a public figure, and I get why Weiss would think I'm annoying, but this is really... weird.

Jaune: I don't want to save you anymore.

Whitley: NO, NO! I'LL DO ANYTHING! PLEASE!

Jaune: ...Eat this bug.

Whitley: Uh, okay? (Eats bug)

Jaune: Do you like it?

Whitley: It... It's okay.

Jaune: ...Get on my back and squeak.

Whitley: What?

Jaune: Like a bat, get on my back and squeak.

Whitley: (On his back) Um... Squee?

Jaune: (Smiles) Okay, I'm happy now.

Whitley: (Crying) Oh my god, I'm gonna die tonight, aren't I?

[dinodogs]

Everyone gets a redesign!!! great practice for drawing scale patterns and dragons too. Honestly SO happy with how all these guys turned out. Now we can get to some villains. As always, click for better quality cause Tumbles said fuck you. Or PM me for the highest quality. Size comparisons under the cut. They're mostly for my personal use but hey, why not upload em. (Spoiler: Weiss smol)

[onewomancitadel]

I also don't think either Qrow or Weiss are going to get an endgame romance, since their Jungian anima/animus are Raven and Whitley respectively. Given that Weiss is team R/WBY's analogue to team STRQ's Qrow, this pattern makes sense, and it's quite interesting that both of their personal arcs relate to their families (Ruby, Yang, Raven, the Schnees).

The other anima/animus pairs are all romantic, it seems like, so it makes sense that Qrow and Weiss would be the exceptions, particularly in Qrow's case since cosmic twins are a big deal.

Qrow's Shadow is Tyrian, btw, and that's why Qrow won't kill Tyrian (ultimately), and ofc Weiss' Shadow is Winter. Yay Shadow Maiden team.

I actually kind of have a controversial opinion which is that as challenging it was for Qrow, teaming up with Tyrian was technically the right thing and he would've died otherwise. He has to integrate and accept the Shadow, that's part of his path, in order to eventually resolve his relationship with sister and anima.

He views it as a 'deal with the darkness', but that's the darkness he has to reckon with. The irony is that Tyrian and Qrow are more alike, because they both question and interrogate their own positions, Tyrian just comes to very, very different conclusions. Clover is different to them in this case.

[onewomancitadel]

So far all of the anima/animus pairs I've identified or talked about my blog so far have been romantic:

Blake/Yang, Ruby/Oscar, Nora/Ren, and Cinder/Jaune.

Raven and Qrow are a familial anima/animus pair because they're twins. They also confront one another across V4/5 like the other anima/animus pairs. This should also flag Raven's return soon, along with all the other foreshadowing.

Weiss' Shadow is Winter, and I'm pretty sure her animus is Whitley, which would fit for all of the familial emphasis in her character arc. Given that Weiss is the Qrow analogue of team RWBY, this is also very fitting and consistent.

The confrontation/animosity with Whitley across V4 - and Weiss subsequently developing her Summoning further - does line up quite neatly, especially by the time we get to V7/V8 and reonciliation with her family is a big deal. The suppression of Weiss' animus is a pretty major symbolic crime on Jacques' part, which is also sort of related to that theme of him hurting the whole family, including Whitley, despite Whitley trying to appease him.

Then further from that, Whitley develops morally/spiritually in response to contact with Weiss and helps (try) to protect Mantle civilians.

So, not all anima/animus pairs are necessarily romantic, but the unrelated pairs are.

I am glad to have sorted that out, since it had been bugging me.

[onewomancitadel]

I sought to reblog this since it was topical to something I just posted about and I thought I would just add the following addition which is that Winter reflects Weiss' animus Whitley for reasons not only of familial relation but different ways they bowed and silently rebelled against the authority of their father and their stand-in father and began to embrace their feelings and doing the right thing.

So, I'm pleased this Shadow-anima/animus relation holds up, though one does need to be cautious because at a certain point some things are only true because other speculation is true. I do like being able to articulate the way RWBY develops character patterns though, because it seems like something everyone is aware of but not precisely why.

In this case, Shadows reflecting the anima/animus might also be doing thematic work, since at the heart of romance in RWBY is vulnerability and confronting the hardest parts of yourself, and the Shadow is closest to you whereas the anima/animus is external to your psyche. It seems that there is an inverse relationship between anima/animus and Shadow, in the instances of Blake's leaving allowing Yang to confront Raven, and Nora confronting Ren (and herself) allowing her to begin to accept Emerald (likely a development next volume). So, it's very natural that we get this relation. Which is why I expect Jaune to help Cinder, and Oscar to help Ruby, confont and accept each other.

Ok this is another 'I thought about this in bed and I don't want to forget it' post.

I was considering Ren, Nora, Emerald, and Mercury, and their respective mirrored characteristics which (most of) the fandom recognises. Anyway, I was mildly delighted that the Shadow patterning applies to JNR here as it does to team R/WBY. (Refresher: Ruby and Cinder, Weiss and Winter, Blake and Ilia, Yang and Raven, Oscar and Jaune, and, well, now Nora and Emerald, and Ren and Mercury).

But what particularly interested me - and something which I was mildly confused over at first - is that there are parallels between Nora and Mercury and Ren and Emerald. Namely with Nora and Mercury is the mother/father abandonment and also these respective Emerald/Mercury and Ren/Nora scenes I've written about before:

and then I also noticed that Emerald and Ren both have that repression deal going on, and afaik Emerald is an orphan and her exact background is unclear, which is more similar to Ren than Nora. Also, I think if Emerald/Mercury will be a thing, as I expressed in that post before, Emerald is the one denying or now realising how she feels. Also also, the whole green thing going on. Also also also, Emerald is the reserved one compared to Mercury, which does reflect the Ren/Nora dynamic.

Anyway, I realised that the Shadows in some way reflect characteristics of endgame love interests (or rather, most significant relationships?), which really shouldn't be a surprise since in other media I've encountered the Shadow and the anima or animus can actually just be conflated altogether.

I think that is doing work in the sense of setting up the romances and the obstacles to be overcome in order to realise the romance.

Yang has to deal with her abandoment by her mother, and by virtue of that comes to understand and heal with Blake better. Blake has to see that redemption is still possible even when it seems too late (Ilia) and she can actually help and protect someone as opposed to hurt them. Weiss can reform her family name and she can mend her family even after all of the hurt, even with her father (she shows mercy). So on and so forth.

So that Raven is a maverick/naughty like Blake (wearing a Grimm mask no less) etc., that Ilia is fiery and passionate and also deeply wounded, etc. does seem to suggest some relationship between the Shadows and animus/anima.

This goes for Cinder and Jaune, and Ruby and Oscar, which also articulates the relationship between those four a bit - since Cinder reflects Oscar (Ruby's future love interest) and Jaune reflects Ruby (Oscar's future love interest). To elaborate further, Cinder and Oscar are respective vessels for Salem and Ozma, and are both orphaned, also work on the inside of their opposite sides, allied with Emerald, so on and so forth. Jaune and Ruby might be less clear but they are respective leaders of their teams and I'm getting bored writing this post now so I'll expand on this later.

And then like you know Jaune/Cinder totally makes sense.

The one I'm still puzzling out is Winter, since she doesn't seem to line up with any of Weiss' love interests and potentially indicates there won't be one for Weiss (something I increasingly consider as a viability). In giving lip service to a ship I see presumed as being canon, this pattern obviously doesn't hold for Jaune/Weiss - I can't see anything relating Winter to Jaune. So, you can probably make the argument that if something everybody takes for granted such as Jaune/Weiss or Jaune/Ruby doesn't fit this patterning, then it's worth throwing out, I can appreciate that.

On the other hand, I don't think those ships have canon viability, and to be quite frank I'm less interested in being right and more interested in seeing how the story is being told and what language is being used to communicate that.

[onewomancitadel]

Actually though, my life is a shitload lot easier if I'm asked something specifically as opposed to being asked to read someone else's post or theory and whathaveyou and then critique it. In that case then I can potentially say something original and work up from something as opposed to against it, which may not even be that useful to start with because we're coming from different angles.

If someone were to ask me instead 'What do you think of Ruby being read as Prince Charming' I could answer that without a second thought and I can even exercise from the perspective of how I would go about trying to fit that reading in RWBY and why it does or doesn't work and what is the intertextuality doing here and does it perhaps add flavour or map onto the story (e.g. there is a lot of 'maiden and the knight both' going on with the main cast - Ruby is Red Riding Hood and Huntress, Weiss is Huntress and Snow White, Blake is Beast and Beauty, Yang is three bears and Goldilocks - what does this mean for the other stories played around with - is Cinder ultimately her own Prince Charming as well as Jaune? etc.)

On the odd occasion I do entertain alternate readings to the ones I propose just for the sake of understanding why I believe one thing or another. I have tried alternate Jungian readings; they don't work, and they're confused, but I do really try. In some cases I even figured things out: like Weiss' animus (Whitley) was pretty obviously staring me in the face, or the personae in the story all have a pattern of character death.

I'm sorry I'm ruminating over this, I ruminate, and I don't think it's obvious how awkward of a position I'm in. Also I like answering asks and I figure making this clearer can be helpful.

I'm really terrified of being mean and offending anybody and I'm also really not having a good time and yet I can't help myself lol.