#and ruby and oscar themes match wonderfully

[abysskeeper]

What is that draws you to Ruby x Oscar? (I mean it on a 'pls infodump me' vibe.)

I enjoy committing to the bit of less popular ships in RWBY and suffering the consequences

@flytehwire Ok, seriously, to answer this properly I need to explain something about myself. When I am looking for character pairings, I am looking for, in order of importance: 1. Harmonious themes and rhetoric, 2. Character interactions, and 3. Other, extenuating factors. While other factors can sometimes determine how I view a pairing (romantic/platonic/friend/familial/etc) and character interactions can override the thematic element, I am primarily looking for those sweet, sweet story beats.

So, when you give me two kids carrying the weight of massive legacies they feel they have to fulfill, stepping into leadership roles neither were prepared for, and throw in a smattering of identity issues to boot? Yeah, I'm hooked 100%. These two are important to each other on a base narrative level, before even considering we see they're important to each other in their interactions throughout the show. Their arcs mirror each other, but are different enough that they compliment each other and are not going through the exact same thing.

By which I mean, both are struggling with the very same things listed above, but slightly to the left of each other to make them different enough that it makes them both unique and interesting in their own rights. For sake of time and ease of answering, I'm not going to fully cite my sources, but it became increasingly apparent (especially through v9) that Ruby's whole issue is attempting to follow the legacies of those from before her, starting with the general, Hunter/Huntress ideal and the heroes of stories in the early volumes, and then moving over to the SEWs and her mother in the later volumes. A lot of untangling in this personal arc for her revolves around reconciling the fairy tales she believed in and what is being asked of her in reality, and then determining who she is and what she stands for when it becomes apparent those ideals are more lofty dreams and reality is much more complicated. In essence, Ruby's arc is finding who she was when stripped of everything she believed as a child, and we saw that exactly throughout v9 ("What are you?" // "What is a Huntress?" ultimately boil down to "Who is Ruby Rose?")

Oscar, conversely, I would argue, already had some sense of who he was at the start. Sure, he may have wanted more and was unable to voice exactly what "more" was, but he's young...who honestly knew what they wanted to do with their life when they were 14? Regardless, his arc is less about asking who he is and is more about the fear of losing himself entirely now that he's part of the Ozcarnation line--and thus, it's also more about proving who he is to the world around him as everyone else assumes he's just another copy/paste of Oz. Oscar had to have a strong handle of his own identity at the start simply in order to beat the "he's just Ozpin" allegations, which he eventually did do (with some help from Oz's disappearing act).

And that isn't to say that there aren't echoes of each other's themes as well. Ruby very much does lose herself and must reassert who she is at her core (most evident in v9, but definitely starting in v7). Oscar very much does have to figure out who he is in the Ozcarnation line and how he specifically wants to handle situations (most prominent in the "Her name...is Jinn" decision in v6 and his actions through v7, but also metatextually hinted at when he talks to Ironwood at the end of v7 holding himself and acting like Ozpin, and then getting shot, and then in v8 when he tries to act like Ozma and Salem directly calls him out. It's almost like fate is punishing him because he's supposed to think and act like Oscar, and not try to be those who came before him...). And I think ultimately that's what makes them fun for me, they revolve around this overarching theme of identity in the face of legacies and destinies and leadership and each take a piece to compliment the other.

Of course, that doesn't mean they have to be romantic. And that's correct, they don't! Full transparency, I honestly wasn't fully onboard with Rosegarden until the end of v7/start of v8. Oscar's blush at getting rescued was the first time I felt fully vindicated over a ship, but the ending of v7 is really the beginning for the end of me I think. It was at that point where it became apparent their themes were merging and then splitting off again into the projected trajectories they're on now. And, in terms of interaction, throughout v7 and v8, Ruby and Oscar are shown repeatedly to be in sync with each other and trusting each other (even when they don't necessarily agree with each other!) All of those moments for me boiled down to one single, striking fact: because of what they're going through and how similar each struggle was, Ruby and Oscar to me are the only two characters in the show who could understand each other on a deeper level.

(And as an aside, the release of 'Until the End' and 'Fear' being the last two songs of that volume, and clearly being a Ruby song and an Oscar song respectively, completely altered my brain chemistry. That's a separate 3k essay, but the call and response between 'Fear's' "Who will you see there in the darkness? // When no one is watching who will you be? When you're afraid and everything changes will you see a stranger? // Feel proud or betrayed?" vs 'Until the End's' "I promise I’ll be here until...Our story has been told // 'Til our bodies break down every door // 'Til we find what we’ve been looking for // And stare with pride into the face of fear // In our finest hour, I’ll be standing here // And should we fall to darkness // This power, I will harness // I promise I’ll be here until the end" just does things to me on a personal level).

Others come close. Jaune and Weiss both have similar arcs about breaking legacies as well (Weiss with her family and Jaune with...presumably his family, if not his personal views on what he should be and on his promises to Pyrrha), but they're both on a far more personal and less world-shaping level than Ruby and Oscar. Blake as well, with reclaiming her identity, but that as well is a little more personal and also more about regaining what was "stolen" by Adam, so to speak, than finding herself altogether. And Penny is more about learning everything altogether and learning about who she can and cannot trust more than about who she is at her core. And, as an aside, I am a multi-shipper. I do like several of these pairings with Ruby, and Oscar and Penny is an utterly fascinating concept to me.

The reason why Ruby and Oscar come out on top for me is because at the end of the day, they're still the only two who can understand and empathize with each other on the deepest level. They're the two that appear to be entirely in sync with each other. And they're also the two currently slated to be running the show in the next generation. And if there's one thing I love more than seeing my power couple ships completely in love, it's seeing those two characters entirely and implicitly understanding and trusting each other.

This is of course glossing over a lot too. Their scenes together are often pretty striking: the dojo scene in v5 (Oscar admitting he's scared, Ruby for the first time really opening up about Penny and Pyrrha at The Fall of Beacon), the cane scene in v6 (Ruby being the only one to comfort Oscar and reaffirm that he isn't Oz), Oscar's panic during the fight with Cordo, like...every scene they had in v7, Oscar's blush in v8 and the almost hug that wasn't, and of course, THE scene in v9 (and another 3k essay could be written on why that had to be Oscar, though most of the starting points on my opinion for that are above). They also have some other dichotomies going on in their rhetoric, with the silver/gold symbolism and the sun/moon symbolism; and the extra info in the show with the "Warrior in the Woods" fairy tale and Oscar's allusion to the Little Prince. But several other people have written far better analyses on those than I could ever do currently, and this is getting long enough as is.

But yeah, tl;dr thematically and rhetorically complimentary kids just trying to do their best, figure themselves out, and save the world? Yeah, I wanna see them cuddle and comfort and rely on each other in the way they only can with the other.