#but i'm too tired and simply don't have the energy to correct the flaws

[dancearoundallalone]

Sweet tea in the summer Cross your heart, won’t tell no other And though I can’t recall your face I still got love for you x

[itsclydebitches]

(1/?) I'm curious as to your thoughts: was there a good way to write Ironwood as CRWBY intended him, 'fundamentally good person shows signs of instability and a worrying commitment to the idea that everyone should be willing to make a sacrifice as long as he is, takes this to unacceptable extremes when a great sacrifice is called for'? I've been reading all these posts that actually make it seem like a coherent character arc, and I don't consider myself a 'bootlicker' or someone who

Always happy to explain my thoughts! Though Ironwood’s situation is incredibly complicated and I’m tired as hell right now, so apologies if this attempt at working through things is more than a little messy… 

You’re right that Salem herself fundamentally changes the heart of the��“well-meaning but ultimately misguided general” setup. Meaning, normally when we see a character like Ironwood, someone military-minded and driven by pragmatism, whoever it is they’re fighting against is us. It’s a war against other humans, or at least another intelligent (and sympathetic) form of life. Ironwood’s attempted archetype here relies heavily on the assumption that he’s taking things too far when there are better, more peaceful options open to him. No, general, don’t nuke all those people even though we’re at war with them because they’re still people. No, general, don’t blow up the alien ship even though you perceive them as a threat because they feel just like we do and I, the protagonist, believe that I can make peace with them. Though RWBY doesn’t have quite that same conflict—everyone agrees that Salem needs to go—it’s nevertheless worth acknowledging that his archetype is built on a history of unsympathetic characters… who are unsympathetic because they’re choosing to harm others for needless reasons. The hardened military general is an antagonist because he takes the violent route either due to greed or a lust for power. He makes sacrifices not because they are truly necessary, but because they’re easier or better for him. He believes that this violence/sacrifice is the only answer when the audience can clearly see another, better route. Think characters like Miles Quaritch from Avatar whose goal is, ultimately, to force a peaceful people out of their home/outright kill them in order to gain access to a natural resource on their world. Even if there is, broadly speaking, a “good” reason for doing this (humanity needs that resource to solve their energy crisis) there’s no confusion that his reasons are far from justified and that he’s taken things way too far. Not only because gaining resources is, you know, not a reason to kill people, but also because Jake Sully, our hero, provides him with alternative routes that he then rejects. These people are peaceful. We can negotiate with them… but Quaritch says no. 

So this is, broadly speaking, the archetype Ironwood and Team RWBY are thrust into. He’s the general supposedly taking things too far and they’re the heroes standing in his way. Problem is, RWBY’s enemy isn’t a sympathetic, potential victim. The grimm are literally mindless beasts and Salem is a classic Big Bad. She might have a tragic backstory now, but that hasn’t impacted how we read her as a threat. She isn’t another group of humans we should be making peace with. She’s not an alien race who we just have to extend a hand to. Defeating her—in a literal way—is thus far the only possible route and that undermines the archetype Rooster Teeth wants to chuck Ironwood into. He can’t be the cold-hearted military man choosing violence over peace when peace is simply not an option.

So we have a setup where every single one of Ironwood’s decisions is automatically both sane and justified because there is an immortal grimm queen trying to kill them. And she cannot be reasoned with. Extra security? No duh you want that. Suspicious of others? No shit Beacon fell precisely because it was infiltrated. Making sacrifices? What else is there to do except roll over and let Salem win? The options presented to him were “make sacrifice” or “everyone absolutely dies” so no, in this case the sacrifice is not deemed “unnecessary” and therefore something that we can criticize him for. Ironwood is not fighting a powerful but also potentially sympathetic enemy, inviting a perspective that his actions may be too severe in the face of that threat. Salem isn’t a Darth Vader who is going to turn back to the light when she sees her child. She isn’t a Sauron with a convenient Achille’s heel (as of yet anyway) thereby inviting an easy solution that doesn’t risk too many lives. The grimm are not the Klingons who, if you just take the time to know their culture, you can find common ground with. They and Salem are more akin to the Borg: a relentless, unreachable, immortal force that seeks only to destroy everything. She is RWBY’s devil and thus by default any question along the lines of, “But should Ironwood really have..?” is answered with an emphatic “Yes.” Because the only other option is total annihilation for the entire world, not just the one city you’re worried about. RWBY’s villain is such a massive, unarguable threat that the setup doesn’t allow debate in regards to what’s going “too far.” By having Team RWBY and Oscar parrot those views from other stories they just come off as sounding naive, foolish, and arrogant. Salem is not an enemy that you just need to try really hard to beat in battle. She is currently immortal. She is not someone you just need to talk down. She will annihilate you and laugh while doing it. “Unnecessary sacrifice” only exists in a world where you have a chance of taking another route with success. RWBY hasn’t provided that route yet. 

Thus, most military archetypes don’t have to face the level of threat that Ironwood does. In fact, their status as antagonists largely relies on the belief that the threat isn’t severe enough to warrant whatever horrific order they’re giving. Rooster Teeth has written a character based on tropes that do not work within the scenario they’ve set up… and a good chunk of the fandom aren’t critical enough viewers to see the disconnect. They just watch that collection of tropes and characteristics and fill in the blank based on what they know from the rest of popular culture. Like a really messed up Mad Lib. “Ah! I recognize this character! He’s a military man. He’s strict at times. He’s taking control of a situation and achieving that with an army. This is all a Bad Thing and I know that because I’ve seen it a thousand times before in a thousand different stories. The powerful military man is the antagonist and the heroes are the ones who fight for the marginalized!” And thus the viewer is encouraged to prioritize that assumed reading over the actual context of this particular story. Few are willing to admit that “Leaving marginalized people behind because otherwise we will all be slaughtered” is not the same situation as something like “Outright attacking a marginalized people because I want something from them. Or abandoning them because I just don’t care.” They see the basic, surface characteristics and think they know the answer to this story. Team RWBY = good and Ironwood = bad. 

That’s only the tip of the problem though. It’s a big problem, but literally every step of the way Rooster Teeth would need to change things if they actually wanted to give Ironwood this arc in a way that made any sense: 

They would need to change how they portray Mantle going all the way back to Volume 4 because we knew straight out of the Fall that Mantle has had a lot of problems for a very long time. That’s not all on Ironwood—it’s not possible for it all to be on Ironwood—and thus it’s neither correct nor fair to paint Mantle’s dystopian-like state as his doing, as we saw at the beginning of Volume 7. 

They would need to convince us that Ironwood is actually paranoid/being overly cautious, rather than what we actually have which is… completely logical safety measures against everything that has done them in up until now. Everything Ironwood implements is in direct response to something that killed people or felled a school. 

The story would need to give Ironwood better solutions that he then rejects. Obviously this is crucial for the leaving Mantle situation. As I’ve said numerous times before, you can’t paint Ironwood as a horrific person for following the only plan they had. “Stay to die” is not a plan. If they wanted him to read as in the wrong for leaving, Team RWBY needed to give him a good reason to stay, one that doesn’t automatically equal everyone dying, especially when Ironwood’s own solution is “save at least some.” However, this also needed to happen in regards to Amity. The fandom keeps pointing out that Ironwood took resources from Mantle, painting it as this cruel and awful thing… without acknowledging the necessity of that. Or that our heroes likewise demanded that he finish. Ruby is equally responsible for taking those resources. Again, if they want to paint Ironwood as unhinged and cruel in his decision, they need to provide him with alternatives: “Hey, general! Why don’t we just use these other resources instead?” “No. They must come from Mantle.” or “Hey, general! We’re just going to let you know that finishing Amity is fundamentally useless because you can’t defeat Salem with a giant army. Maybe stop taking resources now.” “No. I don’t believe you. I’m going to forge ahead with my own plans, ignoring this new information.” Neither of these things happened. We weren’t told that there was another way to build Amity and Ironwood wasn’t told that his plan was flawed… making his decision both necessary and justified, given what he knew. To my mind, Team RWBY is far more responsible for Mantle’s state since they encouraged that drain on the resources while knowing the use of those resources wouldn’t achieve what Ironwood assumed it would. Which, while failing to paint them as heroic, likewise undermines Ironwood’s supposed villainy. Why do we hate him for this again…. when Ruby is doing the exact same thing…? 

They would need to have established, all the way back in Volume 2 and onward, a personality that allows for him to go to certain extremes, such as shooting Oscar. I don’t have the energy to dive into this one in great detail right now, but suffice to say the fandom has decided to horrendously miss-characterize Ironwood in an effort to justify an illogical action based on what we know about him. I’ve seen the “He once said he would shoot Qrow!” so often I’m literally astounded by the reach there, but I’m also seeing a lot of “Ironwood has never shown any sympathy towards children!” Which… okay. The absence of interaction is not proof of hatred. Meaning, having watched seven volumes in which Ironwood doesn’t interact with kids only tells us we don’t know how he feels about kids, not that he obviously despises them. A lack of scenes wherein Ironwood expresses his adoration for everyone under the age of twenty is not evidence for dislike, nor more than making a claim like, “Well Ruby obviously hates pears” would be. Why would she hate pears? Because we’ve never once, ever, heard her say that she likes them. She’s never spoken positively about them. Never stood up for them! So clearly they’re her least favorite food. Sound ridiculous? Same situation here. To say nothing of the fact that we do see Ironwood interacting positively with kids, if we define “kids” as “characters significantly younger than him.” We watched him desperately protect large groups of students at Beacon. Stand up for Weiss at the party despite how much that threatened his political situation with Jacques (as seen in Volume 7). Send Yang an expensive new arm purely because he knows what it’s like to lose a limb. The narrative has gone out of its way to demonstrate how kind and compassionate Ironwood is, all of which would need to be changed—if not outright erased—to give us someone capable of shooting Oscar like that. 

The fact that the fandom chooses to ignore characterization doesn’t mean it’s not there and that characterization, at its core, fundamentally hinders the “military man goes off the deep end” archetype. Because Ironwood is nothing like his parallels in popular culture. His situation is not one that he can resolve peacefully. He was not given better options that he then rejected. He has never been a cold, manipulative, cruel person. Honestly, if they wanted to write this arc then they needed someone other than James Ironwood living in the world of RWBY. We’d need a different kind of war and a different character introduced all those volumes ago. Because as it is, the story Rooster Teeth wanted to tell simply isn’t a story fit for the Ironwood and the Remnant they created.