#r*de if you got beef this is a kosher milk meal so you will not be welcome at the table

[thuskindlyshescatters]

Yo guys, I had an epiphany earlier today and thought I might share it.

RWBY feels palpably different after Volume Three. Like, we all felt it, right? The tone of the characters’ interactions are so different, not just because of character development, but because of something else, even greater, perhaps to do with the cast themselves; I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

Then a thought occurred to me:

How many scenes past Volume Three passed the Bechdel Test?

It got me thinking: perhaps what contributed to such a difference in feel was the fact that RWBY became a lot more masculine, a lot less shoujo. I decided to put my Bechdel Test theory to the test.

Before I reveal the results, let’s run over the rules of the Bechdel Test:

Named after cartoonist Alison Bechdel, the Bechdel Test is a measure of the representation of women in media. For a portion of media (say, an episode, a scene, a movie) to pass the test, three criteria must be met:

1) Two or more women must be having a conversation. They must both have names and dialogue in the conversation. No men can be participating. 2) The conversation must be substantial (so, “You ready?” “Let’s do this!” doesn’t count. Note that this is a rule I am manipulating a bit, since anime/action-type dialogue tends to have more throwaway interactions like that than average). 3) The conversation cannot be about a man.

This is not a way to test the quality or even the “female empowerment points” of a piece of media, but it is insightful. For our purposes, I wondered: which half of RWBY contains more Bechdel-passing conversations? I will not be counting trailers or Character Shorts.

CONVERSATIONS THAT PASS IN 1x01 THROUGH 1x08: - 1x01, Yang and Ruby about Ruby getting into Beacon - 1x02, Yang and Ruby about weapons - 1x02, Weiss and Ruby (and then Blake) about Dust - 1x03, Ruby and Yang (and then Weiss) about Weiss - 1x03, Yang and Ruby about making friends - 1x03, Blake and Ruby (with some Weiss and Yang) about being a Huntress - 1x04, Yang and Ruby about making friends - 1x04, Weiss and Pyrrha about teams - 1x05, Weiss and Ruby about being partners - 1x06, Weiss and Ruby about each other - 1x07, Weiss and Ruby about being lost - 1x08, Weiss and Ruby about the Nevermore

And that’s just the first half of Volume One! That’s 12 conversations in 8 episodes. Now, for the rest:

CONVERSATIONS THAT PASS IN VOLUMES 4 AND 5: - Literally fucking none in Volume Four, lmao, but some near misses like 4x08 (Blake and Kali about Ghira and Sun) or 4x03 (Salem and Cinder about Ozpin). - 5x01, Blake and Ilia about taking back the White Fang (but starts about the Albains!) - 5x02, Salem and Cinder about the usefulness of others - 5x03, Weiss and Vernal about Winter - 5x04, Yang and Raven (and then Weiss) about Ruby (but mentioning Ozpin!) - 5x08, Yang, Weiss and Ruby about Blake - 5x08, Yang and Weiss about Blake - 5x08, Blake and Ilia about Ilia (but mentions of Adam) - 5x10, Blake and Ilia about having a choice - 5x11, Emerald and Ruby about Cinder - 5x12, Cinder and Vernal (and Raven) about being a Maiden - 5x14, Yang and Raven about Raven - 5x14, Ruby and Blake (and then Yang) about reuniting

Volumes 4-6, so far, contain the same amount of qualifying conversations in 26 episodes (12) as Volume One accomplishes in 8. 

To keep this relatively brief, I belief that is enough evidence to at least legitimize and illustrate my point. So what conclusions can be drawn from this?

One that certainly can’t is that “RWBY is a bad show,” because that’s a) not what I’m arguing and b) certainly not what the Bechdel test is about. One conclusion that can, however, is that the relative lack of female/female interaction post Volume Three may contribute to the change in tone felt in this newer section.

Many things could have caused this. Number one, Monty designed the show to follow shoujo tropes and character dynamics, as he was trying to emulate a specific feel for the pseudo-anime genre in which it fits. While we have no doubt Miles and Kerry have carried the show according to how they had established it together, the lack of Monty influence may have nudged the writing away from a female-appealing shoujo style, thereby giving less importance to including female/female interaction.

Other factors include the events of Volume Three. Volumes 1-3 of RWBY were actually surprisingly desolate for male cosplayers, as the only prominent boys of the main cast’s age were Sun, Neptune, Jaune and Ren. However, Volume Three causes a bit of a shakeup, as main characters left the cast, and many more were added as a result. In Volume Three, a few major female roles like Pyrrha, Penny, and Glynda were removed from the show. The only major male speaking roles that were removed were Roman and Neptune, who already had very little participation in Volume Three. Thus, there is some imbalance in how many continued speaking roles were available to women in 4-6.

However, this was not remotely balanced out by introductions. In 4-6, the named and recurring (featuring prominently in one arc or more) female characters introduced are Salem, Kali, Ilia, Jinn, Maria, Cordovin, Vernal, and an argument could be made for Raven, making a total of 8. On the male side of things, however, we introduce (being named and recurring) Hazel, Tyrian, Watts, Jacques, Whitley, Klein, the Albains, Ghira, Lionheart, Oscar, and an argument could be made for Qrow, Taiyang, and Adam, as they, too, had limited or non-recurring roles pre-Volume 4. That makes 14 new men, generally of more substantial contribution than that of the women. In Volume Four, Yang and Weiss are isolated as the only women in their male-dominated settings, Blake never has a conversation with the only other woman in her setting (Kali), and Ruby and Nora scarcely interact. As a result, the number of opportunities for a) women to have lines and b) for them to be to each other and c) to not be about the other men in their environment decreases dramatically.

Now, am I saying RWBY is “worse” because of this? Absolutely not. The spotlight remains on the women, but they do become fewer and further in between. Furthermore, a larger main cast means less opportunities for one-on-one interactions that somehow don’t involve a man, so the outcome is somewhat inevitable from a writing perspective. However, I feel it is important to highlight the connection between a show’s cast and a show’s tone, making specific mention of the possible effects a large upset to the previous status quo can have on the feel of a show.

That’s all I got for now. I think it’s an interesting correlation, but does that necessarily mean it’s direct causation? Obviously not. But recognizing that gender matters to the tone of a show, and that contrasts such as these can greatly affect said tone, is a valuable informant of our perception of the show that does not deserve to be overlooked.