#resulting in amity not having proper development and leaving a lot of things unfinished or put aside too quickly

[antispopausandstuff]

this might be a hot take and i might not be remembering much, but i feel like amity and willow should've been the "we're cordial and get along for the sake of the people we mutually care about" or "friend of a friend" dynamic instead of what the canon gave us.

[itsclydebitches]

(Watts anon) Arthur's "stood a top it and called yourself a giant" is BS, James did nothing to him and in fact helped him. Amity Arena reveals that he was friends with Polendina, but the him getting his projects chosen lead to jealous rage. Watts was a minor villain who didn’t get his motives revealed until he actually took center stage as main baddie, which makes sense from a writing perspectives. Lame motive (which was the intention) and wrong theories doesn’t equal valid criticism. 1/2

Because unless Watts undergoes a significant change in the future (like turning to the good side) understanding who he is and how he came to be like this is his character development. That backstory is his motivation - including, potentially, why Raven refers to him as a “disgraced Atlesian scientist,” regardless of whether he brings that up in the two lines he says about his past. I say “potentially” because, again, this backstory still has a lot of holes in it. That matters because we’re seeing the crazy outcomes of that past: Watts fakes his own death, he teams up with an immortal witch, he sneaks back into Atlas to single-handedly take down Mantle and try to get revenge on Ironwood... so don’t you want to understand what drives a man to do all that? That’s the entirety of his character. And yes, RWBY gives us a little explanation, but as you yourself point out it, doesn’t make total sense. And as I’ve pointed out, we’re not clear on what parts of that past (or all of them) resulted in this crazed man who would go to such extremes. We’re given three different, broad backstories - Watts was disgraced, Watts’ defense plan wasn’t picked, Watts’ inventions have been used by Ironwood without proper appreciation - with no other information about what these events were (What plan did he come up with? Why does someone like Raven know about his career downfall?), or how the emotional impact behind them led Watts to make the choices he did. It’s like if the show went, “Weiss lost her inheritance” without telling us what that inheritance was, who her family is, why that matters to her, etc. Those details are what explain to the audience, “The character is doing these things for these reasons. This is who they are.” 

In contrast, Hazel and Tyrian’s earlier lives indeed don’t matter because they aren’t connected to their current motivations. Or rather, Tyrian’s is but the show actually explains how. He was a serial killer in his youth, Salem freed him, gave him the opportunity to kill all he wants. Makes sense. Hazel had a sister, Ozpin (from his perspective) got her killed, he teams up with the woman also focused on killing/defeating Ozpin. Makes sense. We can’t equal not getting their early lives with iffy info on Watts’ early life because his early life is his motivation. His time in Atlas, the tech he created, the way he was treated, how he perceives that treatment... all of that led to an entire Volume where he’s enacting revenge. Problem is, we’re not told enough about those four things to understand - or appreciate - this important moment in his life. At one point during the fight Ironwood shouts that he gave Watts everything he could have ever wanted. What does that mean?? Resources? Career opportunities? Emotional support? It sounds like these two knew each other rather well. It’s just too bad we’re given almost no insight into that relationship was before they were fighting one another. Imagine Yang fights Adam after six volumes of them never meeting while making vague references about how they have unfinished business. Does it technically work? I guess. But it’s 1000x better to understand that Adam cost Yang her arm, see her PTSD, etc. As a minor villain Watts obviously doesn’t need motivation to the same extent as a named protagonist does (and there isn’t time for that anyway), but a few extra lines of dialogue would do wonders for cuing the audience into these defining aspects without needing to take the time to show them. 

Leaving the audience to fill in some blanks is, indeed, totally fine. The problem is RWBY doesn’t understand which blanks are important and which aren’t. This is the show that has said, “You don’t need to see Oscar’s shopping trip. Just imagine why he decided to resign himself to death” and “You don’t need to understand why Ruby has no significant reaction to seeing her friend come back to life. Just imagine your own headcanons for why she’d shrug off that trauma” or “You don’t need to be told why Qrow would randomly team up the clear-cut enemy who almost killed him. Imagine any explanation you prefer.” RWBY is really bad at providing compelling motivations and consistent characterization. Is Watts the most egregious example of this? Not by a long shot. He’s not even in the Top 100 motivations we should fix. Give Cinder a backstory and a reason for pursuing power first, considering we’ve known her since episode 1. However, when discussing the larger problems in Volume 7 and theorizing about how they could be better, it’s worth acknowledging that our best written villain of the volume still has some pretty significant things that could be improved on... making RWBY’s best - when it comes to characterization - pretty lackluster. 

That and actually putting pertinent information into your story. “Amity Arena reveals that he was friends with Polendina.” That right there is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Actually tell us in the web-series that they were friends and show how that led Watts to where he is now. As I’ve said previously, viewers should not be going on a scavenger hunt for basic character information.