#oscar little prince pine

[rwbyrg]

Ruby Rose as in the flower, but also the verb to rise. To get up. Be restored to life. To rise like the moon. To ascend.

Oscar Pine as in the tree, but also the verb to pine. To long for someone who is lost. To miss them. To suffer, especially because of a broken heart.

[chaikachi]

Ruby and Oscar getting dressed up as The Little Prince and The Rose for a Halloween Dance! Normal teenager things!! Wow!!! I like to think Ruby sewed the costumes herself. (◡‿◡✿)

And some goofy alternative outfit designs just for fun:

[misstrashchan]

The Little Prince and the Ever After

So it was confirmed a while ago that Oscar's allusion is the Little Prince, which many Oscar fans and Rosegarden shippers in particular where theorising back in V6, with Oscar's crush on Ruby Rose being proof that she was the Rose that the Little Prince loved and cared for. Both @conehatcryptid and @chaikachi have written wonderful posts about Oscar's allusion to the Little Prince here and here.

However, after V9 I'm inclined to think both Ruby and Oscar interchangeably play the roles of the Little Prince and the Rose, in much a similar way that Blake and Yang both interchangeably are the Beauty and the Beast (Blake's surname means beautiful woman, and she likes to read like Belle, but she is also the Beast who wishes to redeem themselves, and is a literal Beast as a faunus "black the beast descends from shadows". Yang is introduced as the "yellow beauty burns gold" and wishes for a life of adventure like Belle, but she is also the Beast, being left by their Beauty and having a fiery temper).

This is in part theorising/speculation, as V9 obvious main allusion is Alice in Wonderland, and the similarities I see maybe coincidental, since both stories deal with similiar themes. Both stories have a child that travels to strange lands to meet characters that represent the misgivings and absurdity of adult society and the pressure to conform to these as you grow up, and the confusion as to who you are and should be that follows.

Alice's journey to adulthood is a path that takes her from a confused child changing size and unaware of her true identity to an assertive girl scolding the immaturity of the Mad Hatter and ends with Alice being brave and confident enough to confront the Queen of Hearts.

The Little Prince's story is about the importance of reconnecting with your inner child as an adult/someone growing up.

"No! I will grow up, but I'll never forget about being a child!"

In V9, Ruby must grow into an adult like Alice does, but also reconnect with her inner child as she does so like in the Little Prince.

RWBY is known for its multilayered literary allusions, and Oscar, the Little Prince, does introduce us to the story The Girl Who Fell Through the World in V8, which is Remnant's version of Alice in Wonderland. Not to mention Ruby and Oscar's arcs are intentionally foiled, so maybe it's not coincidence. It's entirely possible with how V9 also appears to be following the story of the Little Prince too. While Ruby is in the Ever After she travels through the different acres like the planets the Little Prince visits, meeting similar characters.

She is confronted with the question "what are you" on an existential level:

Little: What's wrong?

Ruby: Have you seen other people- humans- like me?

Little: Exactly like you?

Ruby: No, not exactly like me. We're similar, but different.

The Little Prince:

"Good morning" he said courteously.

"Good morning--Good morning--Good morning," answered the echo.

"Who are you?" said the little prince.

"Who are you-- Who are you-- Who are you?" answered the echo.

"Be my friends. I am all alone."

"I am all alone-- all alone--- all alone" answered the echo.

She meets Little (as in "Little Prince" as well as "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Alice Liddell") who is meant to symbolize Ruby's inner child, as the Little Prince reminds us of the inner child we have forgotten as we grow up. Both Ruby and Little "die" in a sense as the Little Prince does, but ascend and come back.

In fact the whole way ascension is described in the Ever After is on par with how the Little Prince and the Snake describe how they will leave their body as an empty shell behind to go back home, being "called back" home to the Tree.

"It'll look as if I'm dead and that won't be true, this body is simply an empty shell, I can't take it with me"

Purple Paper Pleaser: Then, the wisest of our village suggested breaking from our physical forms, so that the winds may carry us back to the Tree.

...Which leads me to how the Curious Cat and Neo are both the Snake who convince Ruby/the Little Prince to "die".

We get Cats and Snakes being linked together early on in the first episode of v9:

Mouse Leader: You have our sincerest apologies! Please understand that our kind is a bit skeptical of cats… and snakes… and cats.

This stuck out to me considering this is foreshadowing of the Curious Cat being the main antagonist of the volume, but we don't ever see any snakes in the Ever After.

The Curious Cat's first appearance is akin to the one of the snake in the Little Prince movie (2015) of two eyes peering out at the Prince

The Snake is a character who speaks in constant riddles and is confident they have all the answers to life's mysteries, similar to how the CC knows so much but is incredibly cryptic in how they speak. The snake is also meant to represent the inevitability of death, and part of the CC purpose is to help the inhabitants of Ever After to ascend, which is a process of death and rebirth.

Curious Cat: Mmmm, when we break or wear out or simply finish what we were made to do, we’re called back. But Herb… his heart was too weak to listen, so I gave him a little bit of mine.

Blake: Is he… dead?

Curious Cat: (chuckles) No, no! Well, maybe a little bit, but not at all.

When it comes to Neo being the Snake, she manifests her illusions of the Jabberwalker to terrorise RWBYJ after killing it, the one being capable of dealing permanent death to Ever Afterans.

She's also the one who offers their "poison" to the Little Prince, (the tea made from the leaves of the Tree) which they accept.

Additionally the way the Curious Cat enters Neo is like that of a snake slithering inside her. Once the snake bites someone, they are described as becoming an "empty shell", and the CC is looking for an empty human vessel to possess, while Neo wants to destroy Ruby and make her feel empty.

Curious Cat: You’ve lost something most important, haven’t you? And now you have nothing left. How delightful! An empty host, perfect for me to fill.

Neo-Torchwick: You don't deserve to die Red! You deserve to be broken down... torn apart... wiped from existence.

And when the Little Prince believes their Rose has perished (Penny) or will perish (Oscar), because of them, they give themselves over to the Snake completely.

But, Neo and the CC also play into the Fox allusion as well. The Curious Cat's ability to give his heart and understand others is similar to the Fox's sentiment in the book, who tells the Little Prince the importance of taming, and of looking with the heart:

"Now here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with one's heart that one can see rightly. What is essential, is invisible to the eye."

"Men have forgotten this basic truth. But you must not forget it. For what you have tamed, you become responsible forever. You are responsible for your rose..."

Curious Cat: I know, Your Majesty, it truly isn’t fair. You must play your game and win at any cost. It must hurt your heart. Let me help.

Curious Cat: But Herb... his heart was too weak to listen, so I gave him a little bit of mine.

He "tames" the Red Prince in managing to calm him down from executing RWBY to just exiling them.

He helps Herb to "see with the heart" when he becomes blind to how he has stagnated and forgotten his purpose in being overwhelmed by his work.

The Fox is meant to show us the importance of the patience and compassion that is needed to understand and connect with others, to reach out to them. This is part of the CC purpose in the Ever After in fixing those who are broken, but becomes the negative declination of this in becoming manipulative over time. (like him "taming" the Hawker to make him do his bidding)

Neo is like the Fox in that she dislikes hunters (huntsman and huntresses) and she has lost the person who has tamed her, who was "unique to her in all the world" with Torchwick. Part of what escalates Ruby's conflict with her is that she does not take the time to understand and empathize with her:

Ruby: Is that seriously what this is all about? You still blame me for what happened to Torchwick?!

Neo-Roman growls

Ruby: If you’re looking for an apology, you’ve wasted your time!

and much like the Fox points out here:

"One only understands the things that one tames... Men have no more time to understand anything"

And that it is only when Ruby takes the time to understand Neo towards the end that shows how she has started to grow, to understand the importance of looking with the heart, the very first step of "taming".

"You must be very patient. First you will sit down at a distance from me-like that- in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye and say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstanding"

(...I believe this will continue on in Remnant with Mercury and later Cinder)

The idea of intertwined allusions of the Fox and Snake with the CC and Neo in V9 interests me. Because it makes me wonder if my theory/prediction on Emerald/Mercury both being the Fox to Oscar's Little Prince may not be entirely right, but that they will both be the Snake also. If they are it will likely be an inversion, with the Prince (Oscar, and maybe Ruby) helping the Fox (Emerald) realise the importance of "taming" (taming Mercury, specifically) while the Snake may play a more positive role in saving instead of killing.

After all, the baobab tree roots in the book are meant to consume and threaten to kill the rose if she is neglected too long, and while Ruby is consumed by the Tree in the Ever After that very much resembles the baobab, and she does "die" in a sense, the tree is a positive force that helps her to be reborn and grow into her true self. So, Emerald/Mercury could have a similar duality in alluding to the Fox and the Snake, capable of killing and saving the Little Prince.

@aspoonofsugar I think has mentioned Emerald's design resembling a snake puts me in mind of this, plus Mercury's main allusion being, well, the god Mercury, whose symbol is this:

A staff with wings and two snakes entwined around it. His emblem also features wings, and like a snake he technically has no legs (in a symbolic sense too, his lack of semblance and agency, the freedom to be his own person) Alchemically I believe the mercurial character is meant to shift between life and death also? So there is something there in how the Snake simultaneously saves and kills the Little Prince. (also this is me really really stretching here with my red string but. The Curious Cat. Like Mer-curius. Mercury. Both the Snake for Ruby and Oscar.)

Depending on your interpretation of the stories ending, the Little Prince ends up dead because of the Snake's bite, or the Snake genuinely helped him return home and be reunited with his Rose. Mercury/Hermes is said to be able to travel anywhere, any plane of existence without limitations, which has lead to theories of Mercury's semblance being flight or teleportation, which, well, in relation to the Snake aiding the Little Prince:

"I can carry you farther than any ship could take you," said the snake. He twined himself around the little prince's ankle, like a golden bracelet. "Whomever I touch, I send back to the earth from whence he came," the snake spoke again. "But you are innocent and true, and you come from a star . . ."

This is of course just me going off on another theory for funsies, but it would be interesting if Mercury was placed in between a choice of killing or saving the Little Prince and helping reunite him with his Rose. How Emerald and Mercury would save Oscar/help him and Ruby is unknowable. They could be save their life, help delay the merge, or just helping assure him of his own personhood and agency (this could be explored through how both Mercury and Oscar lack semblances relating to the "curses" placed on them in relation to their father figures), or something else entirely, but either way I'm pretty confident they'll have a significant role to play in the Vacuo arc.

I am aware most Rosegarden fans are mainly theorizing Tyrian as the Snake, (I've even seen some say Ruby is the Snake as well as the Rose, with a similar sentiment of the Snake being capable of saving/freeing the Little Prince, not killing him) especially since the first scene Oscar is introduced is him waking up from a nightmare following Tyrian being sent to capture Ruby Rose, as well as like, him being a venomous scorpion faunus present in the desert right now. But even that only makes me more certain in a way since Tyrian is meant to be Mercury's dark foil (and the antagonistic mercurius for Emerald/Mercury) accompanying him into the desert. So like, it Could Be Both.

Ruby also meets a King/Narcissist like in the Little Prince (the Red Prince). The Narcissist demands to be complimented and coddled, much like the Red Prince. The King is drawn wearing a crown too big for him (in the 2015 movie adaptation it is constantly crooked and threatening to slip off his head), similar to the Red Prince.

The King claims absolute authority, that what he says will happen if he orders it so. However this is untrue, as he will only order what will already happen. The Red Prince claims he always wins his games, but the board game he plays with RWBY is already in his favour as the pieces on their side throw the battle so he can claim victory. Both cheat and find loopholes in order to maintain their superiority over others. The King symbolizes rulers who make a big deal about the power they have, but who in actuality are pretty ineffective as rulers and will cheat and find loopholes to justify their power. It also mocks their grandiosity and showiness, which is kind of funny because they think they are way more important than they actually are, all of which fit with the Red Prince (...and with two other characters that were significant during the Atlas Arc *points at Ironwood and Cinder* even moreso after episode 3 of RWBY Beyond)

The Lamplighter, whose job on his tiny planet is to continuously light and snuff out the single lamp, but because the night and day cycle is so short he essentially never rests and is caught in this loop, always stuck working and nothing ever changing. Jaune as the Rusted Knight is stuck doing the same jobs everyday in a Sysiphus task of preventing the Paper Pleasers from ascending, and rests very little. He is also the Geographer, who maps out other planets but can never travel himself (because he is too busy drawing maps) and suggests to the Little Prince to visit Earth (the acres that Jaune maps out but has yet to properly explore because he can't leave the Paper Pleasers, is trying to find a way back to Remnant, their "Earth").

Another interpretation is the Lamplighter as the Caterpillar, who similarly has a neverending and thankless task of helping the Afterans ascend, and has stagnated as a result.

The Stars are not a character in the book perse, but they do come up a lot both in RWBY and in the Little Prince, especially when it comes to the theme of death and rebirth, and grief. In V9 in the Ever After we meet the Paper Pleasers (origami stars) that Jaune is desperately trying to stop from ascending, essentially keeping them trapped as he monitors them. There is a character in the Little Prince that obsessively monitors the stars and keeps them trapped, the Businessman. It is pointed out by the Little Prince that while the stars make him rich, the Businessman is of no real use to the stars.

In much the same way the Paper Pleasers do not need Jaune as much as he needs them to prove his own worth.

The climax of the Little Prince movie (2015) adaptation is the stars being freed from their entrapment, ascending into the sky, free from control, by the protagonist who is a young girl trying to break free of the expectations placed on her by adults as she grows up, is like one of the stars herself, rising into the sky.

The paper pleasers ascending, while initially seen as tragic, in actual fact allows them to grow and be more, and the Genial Gem that appears to once have been the Paper Pleaser called Ruby is the one who explains this process to WBYJ as they are worried about Ruby and how the process of ascension will affect her.

The Pilot is likely WBY, as for them Ruby is like a younger sibling to all of them who helps them reconnect with their inner child early on in the story, much like the Little Prince does for the Pilot. For Weiss, Ruby helps her connect with her inner warmth and heart. For Blake, she helps reignite her lost idealism. For Yang, she is her inner child to nuture, the one who lost her mother. The author Antoine Saint-Expury based the character of the Little Prince on his own younger brother who died, and that the Pilot as the narrator of the story is himself as an older sibling remembering and grieving for them. When WBY all watch Ruby drink the tea, it mirrors the scene where the Pilot watches the Little Prince give himself to the Snake, and is too late to intervene, particularly for Yang.

Their body disappears, and it is uncertain whether the Little Prince has died or found their way back home to their planet, and to their Rose. For Ruby, it is both. She dies and was reborn, literally reclaiming Crescent Rose and regaining her Rose emblem, she reunites with her Rose, her own sense of self. And in her ascension is able to come back to defeat the Curious Cat, and return home to Remnant with everyone. (coincidentally I think this is how Oscar's story will go, he will sacrifice himself to the Merge fully and "die" in a sense, momentarily, but return fully to himself later on, reuniting with both his sense of self and his Rose, Ruby Rose).

Oscar is also Ruby's Rose in a sense, someone she has tried to protect and care for. Even the pattern on the back of his outfit can be seen as the stem and thorns of a rose, like Ruby's hood can be seen as the petals of a rose. The Little Prince believes that if the Rose is left alone, then it will be his fault if they die:

“If some one loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself, 'Somewhere, my flower is there...' But if the sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darkened... And you think that is not important!"

"He could not say anything more. His words were choked by sobbing."

When Ruby cuts down an illusion of Oscar, killing him, it is foreshadowing that Ruby is afraid she will not be able to save Oscar from his fate. This is the final breaking point for her (along with Little's death) that leads to her drinking the tea.

...But as much as I am a Rosegarden shipper, it's actually her mother Summer Rose and Ruby's identity that is the main "Rose" to her Little Prince in V9 that she becomes separated and united with, imo.

She learns that their Rose (Summer, and themselves) are not uniquely one of a kind, but "like any other common rose" the same as all the other hunters represented through their weapons in the Tree with the blacksmith. Like the Little Prince in the Rosegarden:

"Good morning" said the roses.

The little prince gazed at them. They all looked like his flower. "Who are you?" he demanded, thunderstruck.

"We are roses" the roses said.

And he was overcome with sadness. His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in the whole universe. And here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden! ... Then he went on with his reflections: "I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world, and all I had was a common rose."

Not in the sense of being a SEW who believes they are the only one of their kind, but that like her mother Summer Rose, or any other huntress or huntsman that has lived (represented through the weapons she looks at, and her saying they all have the same weight to them) she is not perfect, or unique in always knowing the right thing to do and being a flawless shining hero. Ruby thought the ideal of the hero Summer Rose she carried and tried to emulate was unique and special, what made her "rich" in the sense it defined her self worth, but she was a "common rose", a person, a human being, just like Ruby. Being like any other common rose means Summer is much like Ruby herself, just a person trying their best, with their own flaws and burdens to carry. Ruby leaves the Rose behind initially (gives up her Rose emblem that Summer left her, rejects Crescent Rose) and the pedestal she puts her on shatters, becoming disillusioned with Summer like the Little Prince does with his Rose, specifically after finding out that they lied.

Ruby: What? What was that? She… She lied. She left with Raven. Why would she…?

Blacksmith: Who knows why people keep the secrets they do. Maybe you’re not the only one who has felt the weight of other’s expectations. Like Alyx, like your mother.

What makes Summer unique to Ruby is not her being an ideal hero, but the love she had for her as a mother, and that in of itself is incredibly beautiful and powerful, because it helps her realise and affirm her self worth.

Summer: (voice) I love you…

Ruby turns to see the red glowing light behind her.

Summer: (voice) Just the way you are.

"Of course I love you," the rose said to him. "If you were not aware of it, it was my fault"

Much like the Little Prince learning and understanding that his Rose is unique to him, not because she is one of a kind, but because of their time shared together, loving and caring for one another. That it is our ties to people that makes us special and unique in the world, to the people we are connected to and choose to care for, more than any power or titles do. Which goes back to the source of Ruby's power as a Silver Eyed Warrior, her love and compassion of those around her. The true power of humanity.

[moth--mallow]

Jaune:Oscar..are you ......are you in love with...ruby

Oscar:let's not talk about that right now

[turimoalin]

What choice does he have?

Still image undercut

[st-whalefall]

When is the Long Memory going to explode into shrapnel and Oscar “God’s Spear” Pine going to make his own weapon hmmmm?

When is Oscar “Deer Kindred” Pine gonna start growing antlers huh?

[beetletricks]

Oscar Pine and The Little Prince

[wishingeel]

Oscar was fun to doodle so I'm going to do some more of him! Again just drawn with pen on a work notebook and then digitally colored. Inspiration outfit, original drawing, and original colored with pen are below the cut:

[greenteaandtattoos]

The Little Prince                             His Rose

[jessimiko]

I WANNA TALK MORE ABOUT OSCAR IN VOLUME 9.

Firstly I wanna talk about the significance of Oscar in volume 9. He himself was never present, obviously, but Neo using his image was. First in chapter 1, and then chapter 8. The order of both of these instances is important as well as the general implications.

In chapter 1, Oscar is the first image Neo uses to torment Ruby. And not just Oscar, a bloody and bruised Oscar. She knows what Oscar looks like normally. This was deliberate, just to pour salt in the wound.

But like I said, the order this happens in is also important. Oscar is the first illusion in this scene. The first person Neo thought to use to hurt Ruby was Oscar.

Not Penny, not even Yang. It was Oscar. That means something.

Ruby cares about him a lot, and it's obvious enough that Neo noticed in the brief time(s) she saw them interacting. And as we know, she was efficient in her cruelty. She wouldn't have done it unless she knew for certain it would hurt Ruby.

(In a similar fashion, Penny is the last illusion Neo uses in this scene because we, as the viewers, know that Penny is dead at this point, where Ruby does not. She's saved for last in this scene, but because it's more impactful on us. Makes it a real gut punch to the audience.)

And then, in chapter 8, it's in the opposite order. Oscar is the last illusion Neo uses.

Before this, she had fight left in her, and at least a vague sense of self preservation. The whole time she was either trying to fight or run, but she was outnumbered and didn't really stand a chance on her own. But she wasn't about to go down without a fight. She's within reach of Crescent Rose, and she sees her opening and attacks her assailant.

...But then it's Oscar. And he barely has the time to say her name before he's falling lifeless to the floor, dead before he even hits the ground.

And that's when the fight drains out of her, and she drops her weapon. Neo forced Ruby to watch a frighteningly realistic illusion of Oscar die, by her own hand no less.

That's what breaks her.

The first person Neo thinks to hurt Ruby with, the person Neo uses as the final nail in Ruby's coffin.

Oscar's appearances in volume 9, however brief, are undeniably significant. It doesn't matter what you think their relationship is or will be, either way the fact of the matter is that Ruby cares for him deeply. It simply can't be denied at this point.

[maripr]

[brokentrafficknight]

Dunno if this one has a name. Gonna make one up

[chaikachi]

Quick outfit swap for two wizard boys. I think they'd make good friends. 🥰

[misstrashchan]

"This must be really hard on her too"

That line... has been forever stuck on a loop in my head ever since I first heard it. That it's the last thing they say, that they take away about Ruby as a person in that scene. Especially while watching V9, and just how much everything has been weighing down on Ruby, and her tendency to repress her negative emotions and refuse to take time to let herself feel them and reflect is now being unpacked and examined much closer as the Ever After functions in such a way that she will literally get nowhere unless she looks inside herself, this scene has again been swimming to the surface of my mind, and it's just something I feel like revisiting.

(also it's rg white day today so, I'm legally allowed to be insufferable about Them, though this is in part relevant to V9 in regards to Ruby)

Most other people who have met and know Ruby just kind of accept that she is who she is, or very quickly come to. She's The Hero. The Leader. The Spark Of Hope Everyone is Inspired By. We rarely see her talk about her personal feelings and motivations, and it's never really called into question besides being touched upon briefly in her first meeting with Ozpin and Blake in the first volume about why she wants to be a huntress:

Ozpin: And what is an adorable girl such as yourself doing at a school designed to train warriors?

Ruby: Well... I want to be a Huntress.

Ozpin: You want to slay monsters?

Ruby: Yeah! I only have two more years of training left at Signal! And then I'm going to apply to Beacon! You see, my sister's starting there this year, and she's trying to become a Huntress, and I'm trying to become a Huntress 'cause I wanna help people. My parents always taught us to help others, so I thought, Hey, I might as well make a career out of it!

(1x01)

Ruby: I love books. Yang used to read to me every night before bed. Stories of heroes and monsters... They're one of the reasons I want to be a Huntress!

Blake: And why is that? Hoping you'll live happily ever after?

Ruby: Well, I'm hoping we all will. As a girl, I wanted to be just like those heroes in the books... Someone who fought for what was right, and protected people who couldn't protect themselves!

Blake: That's... very ambitious for a child. Unfortunately, the real world isn't the same as a fairy tale.

Ruby: Well, that's why we're here! To make it better.

(1x03)

...With further insight from Yang at times:

Yang: I'm not like Ruby, she's always wanted to be a Huntress. It's like she said, ever since she was a kid, she'd dreamt about being the heroes in the books. Helping people and saving the day, and never asking for anything else in return.

(2x10)

But rarely do we see Ruby open up about herself as an individual and her struggles, and even rarer still is the occasion someone prompts her too.

And so it's always stuck out to me that in 5x05 she gets asked the questions that... no one else has really asked her before.

"How do you handle all of this?"

"How can you be so confident?"

"How are you okay with any of this?"

In the Dojo scene (5x05) when we see Oscar pick up on Ruby trying to hide how sad she is (after being reminded of Penny's death) while trying to encourage Oscar, we see her recompose herself, interrupt Oscar when he starts to ask a question after noticing her sullen expression, and then she tries to leave, excusing herself awkwardly.

"Well, see you upstairs"

(very subtle Ruby) but before she can do so, Oscar finds he has to ask:

"How do you handle all of this?"

A question she initially doesn't... actually answer. She very deliberately avoids talking about herself, her own feelings, and how she's been handling all this. Instead she focuses on reassuring Oscar at first, saying what she thinks will make him feel better after hearing him elaborate, confiding in her about how afraid and overwhelmed he is by his current situation.

"I'm... scared. I'm more scared than I've ever been in my life, than I ever thought was possible. I always knew that I wanted to be more than a farmhand, but this?"

"...Who would ask for this?"

Oscar didn't really have a choice in being pulled into the war with Salem and becoming a huntsman, he was reluctantly pulled into it by Ozpin. WBY and JNR decide to join the fight because they're inspired by Ruby and following her as a leader.

...So why does Ruby willingly ask and choose to be a huntress? Why did she freely leave home? Why would she choose to risk her life in this fight against Salem and to take on the responsibility of saving the world? (It certainly doesn't feel like a coincidence that these questions are being revisited in one way or another in V9)

Ruby gives him a very generalised answer in response to his question at first that talks about everyone as a group, and leaves out talking about herself as an individual specifically:

"We all went to Beacon because we wanted to help people"

"None of us chose this either"

"We just have to press on"

And you can see Oscar's expression growing more frustrated as he's facing away from Ruby, because that's not an answer to the question he actually asked. Because he asked about how Ruby as an individual is handling all of this. Ruby genuinely wants to reassure Oscar, but to him it comes across as insincere, like she's putting up a facade, especially since he saw only a moment ago that she was on the verge of tears and clearly upset about something, so he knows she's not being honest about how she's feeling when Oscar asks her how she's handling all of this.

And so he snaps and pushes back:

"How can you be so confident? People have tried to kill you, the world's about to go to war all over again, how are you okay with any of this?!"

(*glances at the v8 finale and v9* boi howdy those words sure do have a different weight to them now huh)

And while realising he may have been too harsh or blunt and later apologizes, it actually does succeed in getting Ruby to reflect a little and confide in him what she'd been through at the FoB and her losing Pyrrha and Penny, her own doubts and fears about the fight with Salem, and how it had shaped her resolve moving forward.

"When Beacon fell, I lost two of my friends: Penny Polendina and Pyrrha Nikos. I didn't know them for very long, but that doesn't change the fact that they were two of the most kind-hearted people I have ever met. But that didn't save them. Pyrrha thought that if there was even the smallest chance of helping someone, then it was a chance worth taking. And because of that, she died fighting a battle she knew she couldn't win. And Penny... was killed... just to make a statement."

"I am scared! But not just for me. What happened at Beacon shows that Salem doesn't care if you're standing against her or not. She'll kill anybody. And that, scares me most of all. Pyrrha... Penny... I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt. That I didn't think about them everyday since I lost them. That I didn't wish I had spent more time with them. If it had been me instead, I know they would have kept fighting too. No matter how dangerous it was. So that's what I choose to do. To keep moving forward."

And again, what stands out to me is that the last thing Oscar takes away from his conversation with Ruby in the Dojo isn't... how inspiring she is or his admiration and respect for her (though he very clearly has that too, "she must've been one of the best huntresses at beacon!"). The last thing he says in this scene, the last thing he takes away is instead this:

"This must be really hard on her too."

The more time that passes through the series and seeing Ruby slowly put under more and more pressure, and stretching herself thinner over time, (like her semblance evolves so she can break herself down to carry others in V8, and in V9 her friends have been shrunk down and she is the one responsible for carrying her team on her shoulders) to help others and save everyone and yet still fail and lose those close to her, and having to just keep trying, keep moving forward no matter what, never stopping or slowing down even if there is no clear end she can see is heartbreaking and exhausting.

And it just makes rewatching the Dojo scene hit even harder. Because yes Oscar! It really is hard on her too! And it was so damn satisfying to have someone see and acknowledge that as well as admiring her and being inspired by her. Being moved by both her strength of character AND her vulnerability. And so it's noteworthy that Oscar is the one who does this, and who pushed her to open up, even just a little, about her grief over the FoB and fears about the fight with Salem.

Especially considering the visual framing of Ruby opening up to Oscar about what she's been through while standing in an open door frame exposed to the outside cementing that as the purpose of the scene: (she is literally opening up to him)

And the fact that Oscar has a kind of a different response from when we've usually seen Ruby comfort, reassure and inspire someone before. Usually it causes them to reflect on themselves and their own struggles, (like with Blake, Jaune, Penny and Qrow) not also on hers as well.

Even with those she has a mutual sense of understanding and solidarity with, like Blake (because of their ideals) and Jaune (because of both of them sharing the responsibility of being leaders) the way they comfort and uplift her in turn when they see her doubting herself is often a double edged sword.

Jaune: You didn't drag us out here. You gave us the courage to follow you.

(4x10)

Blake: I know you don't always know what to do, but that's never stopped you from doing something. I've always looked up to you Ruby.

(8x08)

Yang and Qrow also do this, and it comes with the additional punch of comparing Ruby to Summer as an ideal she strives to be:

Yang: Mom took a risk the day she left, and I don’t think. I don’t think it went the way she wanted it to. But she’s still my hero.

(8x11)

(Summer was Yang's hero, and now Ruby is too, so she has to try to live up to that)

Ruby: This says I'm a Huntress now. But I don't feel like I know much more than I did at Beacon.

Qrow: That feeling never goes away. Your mom, Summer, would be proud of you.

Ruby: What do you think she would've done if she learned the truth about Salem? That she can't be destroyed.

Qrow: Pressed on, I think. Like you. She was always the best of us.

(7x04)

(if Summer would've pressed on, then Ruby has to keep doing that too. If she was the best, then Ruby has to be the best.)

Because, and I want to make this clear, I think Ruby appreciates and is greatful for how much they believe in her and look up to her, and it absolutely does inspire her to keep moving forward, to stand up and fight even when she's doubting herself. But it also... unintentionally places more pressure on her to try and live up to those expectations, and it deprives her of an equal, of someone to relate to and help share her burden instead of upholding her on a pedestal and having unwavering faith in her as the smaller soul everyone looks to. To bottle up her negative feelings because well, everyone believes in her as this optimistic leader who is this endless source of hope and inspiration to everyone around her, and everyone needs her to Keep Being That, and that's more important, right? She can't let them down, right?

"It's up to you to make things better, isn't it? Everything all depends on you! Your sister needs you, your friends need you. The whole world needs you to keep fighting forever and ever against an invincible monster that took your mother!"

(9x04)

Ironically, this (in part) comes back to the person who reinforced this flawed mentality in Ruby in the first place. Ozpin.

"But if you aren't always performing at your best, what reason do you give others to follow you?"

(1x10)

This was genuinely good advice for Ruby's situation at the time in V1 after her conflict with Weiss, to take her role as leader more seriously, and well intentioned I'm sure. But in the long run? Ruby has been basing her self worth on how much she can give or do for others. On being that perfect leader.

Ruby feels like she constantly needs to be a pillar of strength and support for everyone around her as a the ever-cheerful and inspiring leader, that she has to prioritize them over herself, and if she lets herself admit how much she's hurting or how scared she is, she'd be afraid of those around her losing faith. What reason would they have to follow her if she failed them like that? Thus as a result, she struggles allowing herself to open up about her own feelings and to rely on others for emotional support. And as we've starting seeing recently, bottles it up until she reaches breaking point.

Another element to consider, and there might be an earlier or more obvious indication of this, but I started to notice it in V2 when she's visibly the most depressed and worried about Blake's behaviour as she's spiralling and overworking herself, saying the party is pointless if they can't get Blake to go.

"Date or no date, none of this will matter if we can't get Blake to go."

(2x05)

Yang and Weiss are also both concerned for Blake's wellbeing, but they're also excited about the dance for themselves, (Yang talking about what dress she's going to wear, Weiss about her date, what decorations they should have, etc.) which we see when they're planning the party. For Ruby, the only point of the dance is to cheer Blake up, to get her to relax.

"What's the point? Who cares about the dance if Blake isn't going?"

(2x06)

But then Yang convinces Blake she needs to take time for herself and relax, and when Blake shows up at the party, afterwards Ruby is... then completely stumped when she no longer has someone to worry over, and ironically struggles to relax or enjoy herself at the party like everyone else.

Blake neglected her physical needs to push herself, while Ruby appears to neglect her own emotional needs. She focuses on other people's problems and struggles, concerns herself with their wellbeing and happiness, and we don't really see her think about her own. It's admirable how much she's dedicated to being a huntress, but unlike the rest of her team, she doesn't really have anything outside of that that she wants for herself. Her entire sense of self completely revolves around being a huntress.

Ozpin: Well, you can't spend your whole life on the battlefield, even if you may want to.

Ruby: (crossing her arms, looking annoyed) Yeah, that lesson's been floating around a lot lately.

Ozpin: (staring out at the dancing couples) If you think about it, fighting and dancing aren't so different. Two partners interlocked, although one wrong move on the ballroom merely leads to a swollen foot.

(2x07)

This is said while looking out on the dancing couples and comparing dancing to fighting, aka, romantic foreshadowing, which I've talked about in more detail here

(also hey thanks Oz for giving Ruby some good advice to follow the piece you gave her about being a leader in the previous volume)

It's also interesting how this is in the same volume Oobleck questions Weiss, Blake and Yang's motives for being huntresses, and later on during the campfire scene we see them each open up about their own doubts and affirming their resolve to one another, but Ruby is completely excluded from this. Instead we are given insight about Ruby from Yang's perspective, but not from Ruby herself. Because everyone assumes, even her sister, that she is the simple soul, the pure hearted hero, and therefore has no doubts or deeper reason for what she does. When in actual fact, both are true, as we start to see in the Dojo scene.

And when she allows herself to confide in Oscar about her own experiences and losses, to admit that she is scared, it actually helps in this situation. Opening up is what allows her to relate to Oscar's own fears and let her words reach him. To reflect on what she'd been through and reaffirm her own resolve. And a mutual sense of understanding in each other and their fears is established. And this makes sense, after all, allowing yourself to be vulnerable and being more honest about your more negative emotions (being sad/afraid/frustrated) leads to empathising with others and understanding them better. And Oscar goes on to do this in future volumes in trying to empathize and be vulnerable and honest with others, which for better (in Emerald, Hazel and Ozpin's case) or worse (in Ironwood's case) is always worth trying to do, because if you don't then no one can understand and reach out to each other, and nothing will truly change. Which I firmly believe is something Ruby needs to learn more in regards to her Silver Eyes and how she uses them.

Ruby has pushed Oscar to be braver and more confident in himself, (like Ruby) while Oscar has pushed Ruby to be more introspective and honest about her own feelings (like Oscar). Which is the part of both character's struggles, Oscar in overcoming his fears and Ruby in dealing with her own feelings.

There's even a callback to this scene in the V7 finale when the song "Until the End" which is a Ruby song, is playing. As Yang is asking JNR where Oscar is, the exact lyrics that play when Oscar is mentioned are:

"The tears that you've shed,

May find a tree to water,

But only when you're stronger"

Literally the words "tree" and "Oscar" overlap here.

During the Dojo scene when Ruby opens up about the hardships and losses she's endured, and the fears she still has, but also her resolve to keep moving forward, we see her wiping away her tears and reassuring Oscar, whose surname is Pine, a type of tree, like the one being referred to in Ruby's song, a tree that she's watered and helped "grow" metaphorically speaking, as a person, who is moved by her both her strength and her vulnerability. (yes yes I know it's Extremely Corny but the symbolism is Still There)

This could also mean in context of V9 and the Ever After tree that once Ruby is able to properly break down and cry, to grieve and embrace her pain, to be a rose that blooms in the rain that opens up to her team and herself, that she will be able to move forward to the tree and find her way back home.

It's also playing into her allusion as the Rose from the Little Prince as well, as she tries to face away from Oscar and quickly wipes away her tears:

“She did not want him to see her crying. She was such a proud flower…”

And it doesn't just stop there either.

In V6, after telling JNR about Jinn, Oz and Salem, we see how angry and disheartened they all are:

Jaune: "Everything we did was for nothing!"

Blake: "That's not true..."

Nora: "Really? Cos' it sure does sound like it!"

Blake: "I... um..."

Ren: "If Salem can't be killed, then how are we supposed to win this?"

Jaune: "Wow... Great plan, everyone."

After Jaune's outburst, we see Oscar look up over to Ruby, as if he's expecting her to say something uplifting or encouraging, because that's usually what Ruby does at times like this, right? But then he sees her downcast expression, and all of a sudden you see Oscar look back down as he realises that Ruby isn't going to speak up, because she's taking Jaune's critiscism the hardest out of all of them. And it settles in for him how much this is weighing down on her, because she's the leader, because she's always the one expected to have a plan or to know what to say, because she feels like she has a responsibility to live up to that image for all of them.

That this must be really hard on her too.

And we know this to be true when we later hear her confide in Maria:

"What am I supposed to tell Jaune and his team when we don't even have a plan?"

"I feel like I'm letting everyone down"

Before, Oz was considered the "Leader" of their whole group. But Oscar's trust in Ruby outweighed Oz's fear, which was why he fought for control against Oz and told Ruby how to use Jinn, because he believed and trusted in her more as a leader. And by entrusting her with that knowledge, gave her the means to make her own choice of what was right, and ultimately challenge and remove Oz from a position of leadership. And in v6 as Ruby has that role instead, she feels more responsible for their group, for their mission, than ever before, and in turn, in this scene here, Oscar feels responsible for Ruby and the burden they share.

(it's almost like Ruby and Oscar both share Oz as a foil and they're supposed to be better than him and learn from his mistakes which in turn inspires him to be better.)

"There is a rose... and I believe she has tamed me..."

“But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose...”

(the Little Prince)

And that's the reason why Oscar chooses to try to speak up in this moment to try and direct the attention on to himself instead, trying to defuse the tension of the situation after seeing how Ruby is struggling. Interesting is how he isn't moved to action by seeking inspiration and strength from Ruby alone as others are, but also finds the courage in himself to overcome his own fear and hesitation in a need to support her, in an attempt to alleviate the burden he sees weighing down on her.

Because she shouldn't have to always be seen and believed as the one who bears it. Not alone. Because no one should.

Gosh, it's not like one of Oscar's allusions is the Little Prince who learnt that the Rose was his responsibility to go back and take care of right?

*gestures at how Oscar ran away after his confrontation with Jaune and just so happened to come back wearing combat gear that is a very obvious nod to the Little Prince, as well as taking inspiration from Ruby's Mistral outfit and incorporating her red as his secondary colour, focused on Ruby's reaction, and how Ruby is literally referred to as "the Rose" by Tyrian in v4 and has a semblance that has her burst into rose petals*

Or the boy from the Warrior in the Woods who felt that someone should take care of the Warrior for a change, the way she had for everyone else for so long?

“You’ve spent all these years looking after us. I thought maybe it would be nice if someone looked after you for a change. Because that’s what I can do. Because no one else will"

(The Warrior in the Wood, Fairytales of Remnant)

No no, of course not, that's totally crazy.

[moth--mallow]

I'm happy so happy we got some art of oscar

https://x.com/MZschiegnerVO/status/1766604501333471497?s=20

[saqui]

OSCAR CONFIRMED ALLUSION IS THE LITTLE PRINCE