#emerald sustrai critical

[the-path-to-redemption]

Just read you answered post about Cinder treatment when compared with Salem's fraction.

And you mentioned about Emerald weird redemption. Do you think that redemption was necessary? If not how would you view it?

Speaking of Emerald we never understood what did she and Mercury saw back in vol 4. It could be Salem making grim but that feels like they would've already seen it by now. So my best bet is the transformation of people with silver eyes turning into Grimm

Just to preface, when I express displeasure over Emerald's redemption, I'm not saying that it shouldn't happen at all. I'm mad about how it was done.

I never saw her or Mercury as people who are irredeemable; they're orphans, abused by parental figures who should have been protecting them and all they were doing was to survive. They're meant to be the narrative foils to our protagonists, a mirror for them to see what their lives could have been had the circumstances been different. So I always expected them to have a redemption arc, or at least have them no longer be on Salem or Cinder's team.

However, I do not like that Emerald's redemption was done so hastily; the main casts just works with her and forgoes the atrocities that she had put them through (especially with Penny, who she assisted in murdering in Beacon), she didn't even consider Mercury yet before running off to join the good guys (something I really hope will be remedied someway somehow), and none of the complexity that comes with her confronting her life under Cinder leading to and post switching was portrayed. It was just, "whoops we're friends now I'm not even going to work towards your forgiveness or even try to show myself as trying to be better", and they just took her on. Like, huh??

And bro, I WISH that what they saw was Salem making SEWs into Grimm. That would've made so much sense to their hesitation to fully commit to her and leading up the them bolting out of there. But I doubt that it was what the writers were going for.

[invested-in-your-future]

If Emerald hadn't expressed doubt at the end of v3, would there be any reason to believe she's redeemable?

There's an element to her character that has always been there— one of misguided and misplaced trust.

The flashback frames Emerald as someone aimless and getting by—someone who was easily swayed by Cinder's power and charisma and whatever Cinder ended up revealing to her.

The key aspects of Emerald's character that the show brings up through the first three volumes are simple— focus on self-survival, attraction to power, and longing for Cinder's approval(and thus more equal footing of interactions).

It makes a lot of sense once one realizes that Emerald is an allusion to Aladdin— a character whose main theme is about learning that power, luxury, and wealth can't buy you empathy and love.

Throughout the story, Aladdin uses the lamp to alter himself and present himself as someone he isn't— all to "buy" himself the affection of a woman by creating an illusion of a "proper prince". Alas, all those attempts prove failures, teaching the audience a lesson. It's a story about a man learning to be himself rather than shrouding himself in illusions of power and wealth, burying his insecurities and issues.

Emerald's journey is all about that too— the first three volumes show us someone who uses her newfound knowledge and position to impress someone whose attention she wants. She's part of something powerful, something that will change the world— and that something in her mind consists of just her and Cinder. With every instance we see she tries to separate herself and Cinder from others ("We don't need him" bit, for example). She's no longer just a thief or street urchin fighting for scraps and using her powers to survive. Emerald's on a power trip feeling like she is on the side of this righteous secret rebellion and is willing to change herself to gain the approval of the one who pulled back the curtain and showed her the truth of this world.

And all it has led her to is a destroyed city— chaos and slaughter unfolding in front of her.

Honestly, that scene at the end of V3 feels like a logical point to reach in her characterization.

The issue is that the show doesn't really do anything with her afterward. Just like with many characters, there's missing characterization between where V3 leaves off and where the show eventually suddenly takes the character.

Exploring that dynamic and where her character could go after is such a meaty plot thread.

And the show, just, does nothing with it.

[northforwinter]

Emerald: I’m trying to be nice. This is as painful for me as it is for you. Just give me five seconds

[walpywalpy]

Of course it isn’t tragic. She’s a minority /s

They act like the story is over and that RWBY won’t give time to Mercury. Just be patient and a whole lot less racist/sexist

Just your friendly reminder that RWBY hatedom is heavily rooted in misogyny and racism, is genuinely incapable of viewing women as anything but objects, and sees the idea of anyone but white/light-skinned male characters given focus as a personal offense.

[neopoliitan]

Volume 3, Volume 8, and Stakes

So I’ve always been vocal about my criticisms of Volume 8, and I thought I’d hone in and focus specifically on the Fall of Beacon vs the Fall of Atlas, and why the former sticks the landing when the latter doesn’t.

By rights, the destruction of two cities and the displacement of their citizens should be the higher stakes finale of the two, but for some reason RT’s description of V8′s final episodes as “traumatic” don’t stick to me. I find that this is for multiple reasons.

Lack of Stakes

The primary reason Volume 8 seems to fall flat is its lack of stakes. Volume 3 was a truly ‘traumatic’ event in the series, whilst Volume 8′s finale mostly pays lip service to the concept but doesn’t fully commit. Let’s break down exactly what was lost from the protagonists’ angle in each climax:

Volume 3:

Pyrrha, a character who had been in the show from the start and was one of the immediate secondary cast.

Penny, another character who had been in the show, since late volume 1.

Yang’s Arm, temporarily robbing one of the primary characters of their health and/or ability to fight.

Team RWBY, with the team fully disbanded by the end of the Volume.

Ozpin, the headmaster and protector figure - with his loss there’s an increased vulnerability for the cast.

Beacon, the primary setting and safe place for the cast.

The Fall Maiden

Volume 8:

Penny, while a popular character, had already died once reducing the stakes and impact of her demise.

The Relics, which are important but ultimately MacGuffins and the villains already had one of them.

Vine Zeki, one of the Ace Ops, arguably the one with the least focus and a rival force to the heroes up until an episode before the finale.

Atlas and Mantle. Like Beacon they were the primary setting, but were constantly portrayed as a troubled society - leaving the question of whether they are worth saving in the back of the viewer’s mind. Robyn even refers to them as a ‘chunk of land’.

“Team RWBY & Jaune” - almost not even worth putting on the list as the viewer instantly knows these "deaths” are moot and won’t stick.

It’s clear that Volume 3 cut much deeper with its choice of character deaths & repercussions, while Volume 8 took a much lighter path, killing off a character who had already died once (Penny) and another who had barely any presence in the show to begin with (Vine). V8 also committed to things telegraphed from a mile away such as the relics. Let me stress that I believe in sticking to your guns even if fans predict it, but it does neuter the impact somewhat - and do fans really care about the relics most of the time?

Plus no one really predicted Beacon to fall so violently, while we all knew that Atlas would drop the minute we found out A) it was a floating city and B) the staff of creation was holding it up.

Antagonists

To start, let’s do the same thing as before, except with what the villains lost.

Volume 3:

Cinder - though there was a big, bold question mark over her fate.

Roman Torchwick - A popular but obvious arc villain who outright states how small-time he is.

Volume 8:

James Ironwood - Volume 8 makes the decision to triple down on making James an unlikable antagonist to the point he’s the primary threat despite Salem having made landfall. By the time his death arrives, I’m pretty sure a lot of viewers are sick of his rapid decline and him overall.

Arthur Watts - One of Salem’s top lieutenants, killed unceremoniously like Ironwood.

Hazel Rainart - Another of Salem’s top lieutenants, killed off after a wobbly ‘redemption’ arc.

Monstro - Salem’s secondary base of operations and the crux of her invasion.

Emerald Sustrai - Switches sides (to me her arc feels heavily truncated and a little unearned, likely due to how much v8 threw at the wall)

The Hound - Supposedly the biggest Grimm threat and slasher villain in the show so far, killed almost comedically by a statue.

Jacques Schnee - With ne’er an actual confrontation between him and Weiss.

Neopolitan - Betrayed by Cinder and cast into the void, though like RWBYJ her supposed “death” is transparent.

Volume 3 is almost a unanimous victory for the villains, and what losses they do have are nixed by the introduction of Salem at the end of the finale - her arrival implies that anything her side suffered is small-time now that the Big Bad is here.

Meanwhile, Volume 8 significantly trims down a bunch of long-standing major antagonists to the point Salem only has three lieutenants left. Where the losses are weighted on the heroes’ side in Volume 3, Volume 8 has a much more even balance. Compounded by the severity of Salem’s losses compared to the protagonists’, she basically came off worse.

Now let’s consider the lack of consistency on who’s supposed to be the villain of the volume. Here’s a sheet of who the main antagonist is of each episode in Volume 3 contrasted with 8:

While Volume 3 has Cinder as a consistent primary villain practically the entire time - Mercury, Emerald, Roman and Adam all working to fulfil her plan even when they’re focused upon - Volume 8 has no less than three antagonists battling for control of the narrative. Salem, who is supposed to be the main villain of the show, is killed nine episodes into the volume. She gets better, but taking her out for so long and posting Ironwood and Cinder back into the position of primary villain makes it feel like the series could just as easily function without her.

It’s clearly a method to A) Have Emerald switch sides, B) Kill Hazel instead of doing anything with him, C) Reveal the power of Ozpin’s cane, but I can’t help but find the concept of killing off the Main Villain of the Entire Show In Episode Nine So You Can Focus On The Secondary Villains For The Climax utterly ridiculous. There’s no world in which it shouldn’t have been the opposite way around.

And while Volume 3 kills off a villain like Roman whose role in the show was effectively complete and introduce a roster of more threatening ones in Volume 4, Volume 8 can’t wait to sweep Hazel and Watts under the rug - leaving them both feeling like characters the writers made, promptly decided they wanted to do nothing with for four years, then killed off callously when they had potential to make Salem’s team a true threat.

I’m running out of steam now, but that’s my general thoughts on why specifically the finale and ultimate outcome of Volume 8 fall flat in comparison to Volume 3′s, and why this synopsis for Volume 9 feels... unjustified at best:

[but-a-humble-goon]

Okay but for real do you actually want to hear my best pitch as to how to do a RWBY/Terminator story? Do it the way they did the first Justice League crossover comics, basically an AU. Robots and time travel are already things that exist in RWBY so just do a story wherein a terrifying basically indestructible killer android gets sent back in time from a dark potential future to assassinate someone and our intrepid heroes must protect said person and find a way to stop it somehow. Here's a pitch: a dark future timeline version of Pietro Polendina from a dead world where everybody lost the Salem war builds a murderbot that makes Penny look like ASIMO and uses the staff of creation to outfit it with time travel technology by showing Ambrosius the Stopwatch Fruit from the Ever After. He dispatches it back in time to kill the person he sees as most directly responsible for the events of his timeline; Emerald Sustrai, who in a critical moment of weakness stopped them from killing Cinder and because of it the whole world died. Naturally regardless of how they feel about her RWBY & co aren't about to just let a homicidal robot get its hands on Emerald so then a Terminator plot happens.

[ultraericthered]

I assumed the “after getting the lecture/criticism from Watts” we saw go down was further pointing towards Cinder not being redeemable. 

Excuse me Citadel. I was looking over the most recent "ask."

I noticed , and you may disagree in which case I value your input.

The bad guys getting redemption is only applied to the men.

Raven is stripped of her now biological daughter and her sexually harassing husband and her tribe. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that not only did Shay D. Man, an attempted sexual molester in both the show and the fanfic, not only was he "fixed" by making him a father and husband, but now also a tribe leader. I don't understand how a character that was portrayed as a coward worse than Raven was given so much importance and status.

Then we have Adam. They're trying to make him morally grey, or at least "Redeem" him.

Then we have Ilia, who was already redeemed in the show. Their idea of "Redeeming" her involves handcuffing to Sun Wukong, who was anti-rules in the show, now is basically a cop, and having Ilia express self-loathing repeatedly, as if we're supposed to be hating her.

If FRWBY does "redemption" what it basically seems to be , to me at least, is making women suffer at the hands of men and then making them say that they are bad people and deserve to suffer. Raven and Ilia both. And don't get me started on Nora. She and Pyrrha were great friends. They wrote Nora as having an extreme inferiority complex and Pyrrha as having a superiority complex, and then forced Nora to repeatedly hate herself over Pyrrha's death.

Their idea of "Redeeming women" involves making them suffer and then making them vocally hate themselves.

This was all done to the "heroic women side".... So no, I don't believe Cinder will actually get a "redemption" in this fanfic that seems so eager to make fictional women suffer for the sake of men.

I don't think that ask was about the *ugh* "fixing" fic.

I think it was about the show proper but yes, you make very valid points about said fic.

Their idea of redemption is all about uplifting shitty, reviled men at the expense of the ACTUAL heroes.

There's a word for that..it's right on the tip of my tongue...

[dragynkeep]

its always the same racist white weirdos who play up yang & blake's "thematic names" while being disparaging & straight up racist about sun's despite him being clearly more chinese coded lmao.

"omg yangs name is this in chinese & sun's is a pun so blacksun was never meant to be!!" the white cum crickets writing this literally butchered the hawaiian language, made up complete bullshit about emerald's last name & used a baby name website for ilia's that is also completely wrong, while using japan & china interchangeably for their sole main Asian™ character.

something tells me they actually don't care about marginalized / ethnic cultures & youse are just weird.

[i-dont-believe-in-mountains]

[kitkatopinions]

Emerald is one of my favourite characters in the series and I wanted her to get away from Cinder, but her joining the heroes and becoming another generic Ruby stan is some thing I HATE. Let her, Mercury and Neo fuck off to Mistral and live their best lives ( with Adam turning out to have survived so Team MEAN can become a reality).

Can we add survived!Roman to that group and make their name MEANR?

Tbh I don’t write Adam very much in my fanfictions and don’t like him much, so I personally prefer just Roman, Neo, Emerald, and Mercury, but that’s besides the point because guys... There are so many better ways to write a redemption arc for Emerald than what we were given.

I know that holding all redemption arcs up to Zuko is a very high bar to set, but Emerald’s arc didn’t have to be on par with Zuko to still be good. Let me go through a quick barebones explanation of what I needed from an Emerald redemption.

1. Recognizing her own mistreatment and Mercury’s mistreatment at the hands of Cinder and Salem 2. Recognizing and acknowledging that Salem and Cinder’s plans were not okay and hurt innocent people who didn’t deserve it. 3. Recognizing and growing to clearly regret her own role in those plans and enacting that hurt. With her change in morals made explicit. 4. Resolving to do what she can to make up for it and apologizing to the people she’s wronged the most. 5. The narrative validates the hesitance and hurt feelings of those she’s affected, while she earns her place eventually and proves herself and her good intentions over a period of time even if they’ve been working with her out of necessity before that.

You might have noticed, but... RWBY doesn’t manage any of these things. They get really close with the first one to be fair, but Emerald recognizing that Salem is trying to kill everyone including her is not fully recognizing that she’s been treated very badly, and - this is important - despite Emerald’s seasons long commitment to and belief in Cinder, we don’t see Emerald acknowledge Cinder’s mistreatment of herself, let alone recognizing Cinder’s mistreatment of others.

Her own role in harming others was brushed over (”Sure you’ve also been getting your asses kicked, some of that... By me,”) and never apologized for. Despite the fact that I had thought that Mercury should’ve been the one defecting and leaving with Oscar while Emerald stayed back to talk to Cinder, but clearly agreed with Mercury and wanted to leave herself (setting her up for defecting in Vacuo,) I actually don’t have a real problem with Emerald defecting this season after learning what she learned about Salem and joining the people fighting her. But this by all rights should be the start of her redemption arc, rather than the entirety of it, which is what I think the CRWBY writers are missing. Zuko didn’t rescue Aang as the Blue Spirit in volume one of Avatar and then join their group and immediately get the ‘everyone is joking and teasing him and happy to have him’ treatment right away. Even after going through several of the above steps of redemption (plus more such as ‘relapse’ that I think are great, but not required for a proper redemption,) Zuko still had to apologize, prove himself, and be forgiven organically and through his organic relationship growth with the gaang. Emerald leaving the whale and joining the group wasn’t the problem, that could’ve easily been part of the start of her arc in the same way that Zuko being made a fugitive and having to hide his identity was arguably the start of his arc.

But the way the narrative started insisting that she’s done the work already and ought to be accepted into the group is annoying because she hasn’t been redeemed! She’s barely even started.

I love a good villain/antagonist turned good, and I loved Emerald and wanted her to get redeemed. But the way that RWBY did it really just makes me wonder at their writing choices. We don’t need one more person who will sometimes be sassy, but follows along behind Ruby, that everyone is just going to pretend they have an established close relationship with. If RWBY was written better, I’d be wholly on board with Emerald’s redemption. But, with what it is, I do really wish she and Mercury and Neo would just ditch to Mistral, just like I really hope that we don’t see a lot of Sun and Neptune in Vacuo. I still love these characters and I don’t want them ruined or (in the case of Neo and Emerald) even more ruined than they already are.

[the-path-to-redemption]

Pyrrha x Emerald for the ship meme

ask meme

DON'T SHIP IT

Why don’t you ship it? - Usually, I'm all in for Enemies to Lovers ships, but unfortunately both Pyrrha and Emerald suffer too much from "writer's misogyny" for me to actually ship them with anyone, let alone with each other. Besides, I actually came to greatly dislike Emerald after V8, because her progression into redemption felt like a slap to the face and made me lose interest in any future progress of her character completely.

What would have made you like it? - Honestly, if both of them actually get to have character and are allowed to interact more before Pyrrha dies. Did Emerald envy Pyrrha like Cinder did? What about Pyrrha trying to be kind to her and having them have actual conflict because of their differences? Would Emerald slowly warm up to Pyrrha and question her abusive relationship with Cinder, now that she met someone who publicly shows her care without asking anything in return? Would Pyrrha feel betrayed during the Fall? Would Emerald feel guilty when Pyrrha dies? We will never have that outcome, sadly.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? - I do like their color palette together. Red and green contrasts are a classic, and I like the tall gf x smol gf dynamic. But sadly, I really do not have much to root for them.

[shitlinguistssay]

New emercury ship name proposal

Em & M

[northforwinter]

Yang: Would you agree that the previous leadership of this group has probably failed you on some level?

Emerald: Erm... Ya know... I would say so, yeah.

Weiss: Look where you are right now.

Emerald: I know, Cinder's turned to Ice!

Mercury: It was a bad decision!

Emerald: It was very bad *crying* she was a very bad person.

Yang: Perhaps you should rethink your line of work.

[lilithfairen]

The year is 20XX. RWBY is entering its eleventh volume, with a recently-announced anthology spin-off in its concluding episodes. Certain individuals still adamantly believe that the series is dead.

Critics continue to complain about characters who served their role in the plot several volumes prior and is no longer part of the story. Every single such character they complain about is female, queer, and/or PoC.

They continue to invent theories on how every light-skinned man they stan will come back from the dead, including Tyrian Callows, despite having been gradually reduced to sand (which he attempted to eat) on-screen.

The current antagonist is a light-skinned male who consistently refers to every woman around him with abusive, misogynistic language. The critics unquestioningly defend his every action and blame the women he victimizes for his victimization of them, to the effect of "maybe they shouldn't have worn that dress".

The Bumbleby kiss has happened. Critics believe it is part of an arc about portraying Yang as an abusive psycho lesbian and Blake will eventually realize she's being gaslighted into a sapphic relationship, later to be saved by Sun whom she will immediately make love to as his reward.

The main antagonists remain the main antagonists and don't inexplicably stop having storylines.

RT releases a Pride collection with all of the proceeds going to charity. The HTDM donates to Celtic Phoenix, whose rewrite has Roman Torchwick consistently misgendering May Marigold, out of spite.

The HTDM continues to insist that Mercury Black is going to get killed off and denied redemption, all while continuing to whine (with unbashed misogyny and racism) that Emerald Sustrai already got redeemed. This is despite the fact that Mercury has in fact already left Cinder's side and joined the heroes.

Jaune says a single line in one episode. The critics compare Jaune Arc having one line of dialogue in this episode to people dying durig the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eddy sneezes in one of the volume commentaries, prompting the HTDM to start a "Stop Breathing Eddy" challenge. They then act as if they are the victims for being called out on telling one of the show's writers to actually die.

Oscar's arc of struggling with his role as Ozpin's new host versus retaining his own self continues. He stubs his toe in one episode as a minor gag, and the HTDM spends three weeks harassing the female VAs of the show for the "blatant racism" of this.

RWBY's queer rep continues to expand. The HTDM continues to whine about how "unfairly" straight white men who abuse women are depicted in the show.

More spinoff shows and games are released. The critics insist every single one is a colossal failure, which explains why they keep making more of them, huh.

RWBY-Doo has been announced. The FNDM is in jovial debate on what to name the Zwei/Scoob ship. The HTDM is divided between spewing queerphobia about Velma or insisting she's more queer than any character in RWBY (ironically, she ends up hooking up with Ilia in the crossover).

The year is 20XX, and if one thing hasn't changed, it's that RWBY critics maintain their...vivid imagination? Persecution complex? Facade of vitriol and they are in fact deliberately playing a long con to fool historians into thinking that people on the internet really were this stupid?

[hinduthatrecallsallincarnations]

Emerald, Nott the Brave

Emerald: "I had a lovely rock collection. And a stick collection. But they were all taken from me at the last prison Merc and I were thrown into."

Jaune: leans in "Wait, wait, wait, I'm not sure you should be thrown into prison for having sticky fingers for, well, sticks."

Yang: nodding absentmindedly in mostly-approval

Blake: secretly agrees with the helplessness of burglary

Weiss: raises her brow

Ruby: confused but smiling encouragingly

Pyrrha: apprehensive but supportive

Ren: silent

Nora: chaotic agreement

Emerald: "Yeah, but...but they were, like, people's canes and stuff."

RBYJNP: laughing super hard

Weiss: holding in a few chuckles professionally "W-Wait. I need clarification. If...If sticks means valuable canes, then what are rocks?"

Emerald: "Oh, you mean the rocks people wear on their fingers and on their necks."

RBYJNP: laughing harder

Weiss: breathes in deeply and sucks lips in, exhales sharply "Thank you for the clarification, Emerald." shaking with internal laughter

Ren: an empathetic stone

[not-your-sacrifice]

Mercury: Has anyone ever stopped to wonder why we're still alive?

Neo, holds up sign: 'Oh, yeah.'

Emerald: All the time.

Adam: By all likelihood, we shouldn't be.