#so that voltron never had to grapple with their unethical treatment of him

[caithyra]

Aspirations and Aspersions

Y’know, writing that ramble about the Volume 8 OP made me realize that James Ironwood gave/offered RWBY everything they wanted out of life as huntresses as per Ruby talking to Ozpin about becoming a huntress in the interrogation/entrance room and the other three in Mountain Glenn’s camp.

Ruby: “My parents always taught us to help others, so I thought, Hey, I might as well make a career out of it! I mean the police are alright, but Huntsmen and Huntresses are just so much more romantic and exciting and cool and really, gosh, you know!” - Volume 1: Ruby Rose

Ironwood: “Ruby, I feel it's appropriate to let you know that I think what you did last night is exactly what being a Huntress is all about. You recognized a threat. You took action. And you did the very best you could.” - Volume 2: Field Trip

Weiss states that she wants to fix public perception of the Schnee Dust Company by being a heroic huntress, and that her father has been bad, and we know he’s been abusive towards her now and that she specifically went to an academy in another kingdom to get away.

Ironwood publicly defends her at the gala and assures her that if she cannot stand living with her father, she can join his academy and be safe there and a huntress to boot.

Blake’s entire character is about the (botched) racism arc against faunus, and more broadly, about prejudice (since she also fights against faunus she finds “prejudiced” against humans). She states that she became a huntress to fight the good fight as part of regular society, instead of the unlawful acts she committed before and her mentor (yes, she calls Adam a mentor and partner in this episode, never boyfriend or even “guy I liked”) still does.

Ironwood, in super-racist Atlas, as the headmaster of the academy has the entire kingdom represented by a flamboyantly perky faunus who is not ashamed to show what she is, and a man from impoverished circumstances, at the most important international event in the entire world, that symbolizes friendship and harmony (it is played out in the Amity Arena for goodness’ sake!). As the general he also has a faunus on his most famous top team in the military. In short, he’s using his institutional power for good as much as he can while staying within the boundaries of societal rules so that he wont lose those powers and abilities to help.

(Also, there’s that whole “running away” thing... I wonder how Blake would have liked it if she was trapped with Adam immediately following the Fall of Beacon instead of on her way to her tropical paradise palace family home...?)

Yang just want an adventurous life where she is free to do as she wishes. After she lost her arm and fell into depression, that was threatened. And society is not built for one-handed people, so even if she pulled out of her depression without a prosthetic, she would have to face the frustration of moving about in a world made for two-handed people and her diminished fighting ability, since she would need to learn an entirely new fighting style to compensate.

Ironwood, when global communications are down and people are panicking because a kingdom has fallen on the last international broadcast, manages to get a state-of-the-art, custom-made for Yang’s semblance (or it would break), prosthetic arm to the other side of the world for her, no strings attached and for free, which means that she has a choice whether or not to go through the physical frustrations of losing an arm (have to tie a ribbon? A zipper that wont close unless you hold the edges together with another hand? There are many, many little frustrations to remind Yang of her loss in everyday life), and to keep her usual fighting style.

And yet, once they all are reunited with Ironwood, they are not happy to see him as he is to see them, they are not his allies but present themselves as if they are, and so he gives them even more gifts; upgraded tools of their trade, training by masters of their trade, clothing, gear, a place to stay and food and a job (these are things, btw, we usually only expect parents to give children and even then, if the children are adults like RWBY, many would say that it shouldn’t be an expectation, but just a nice thing to do. RWBY aren’t even citizens of his beleaguered kingdom and he goes this far for them).

And RWBY’s conclusion is that he cannot be trusted.

Here’s the thing, I could see JNR argue it because they could blame Ironwood in part for Pyrrha’s death. Especially if Weiss describes the machinery around the Winter Maiden that Winter took her to see (sharing top secret info with RWBY just because they love and support them, and Winter is loyal to Ironwood and he clearly likes her, so Winter’s trust is also reflected in Ironwood’s trust), and Jaune recognizes it as the same type of thing around Amber and Pyrrha.

But RWBYOQ? If so, they should have mistrusted everyone else as well. No suddenly thinking Robyn’s cool (unless Robyn does something more than Ironwood to personally win over Yang and Blake), and no happy smiles when they train/work with other people because they would feel tense and mistrustful.

No Clover and Qrow bonding. No Marrow babysitting the kids. No happiness at Penny being rebuilt (which should have won Ruby over alone, since it was Ironwood who enabled it) without hesitation. Weiss should have started picking fights with Winter with snide comments as she did with Whitley, as that is common when trust issues suddenly manifest in a close relationship and there’s no fear of retaliation.

But we don’t get that. What we get is that Ironwood is specifically considered untrustworthy by RWBY without any of them dissenting or even raising the argument that “hey, he actually helped us out a lot in the past, and he seems happy to see us, maybe we shouldn’t outright lie to him? I’m not saying tell him everything, just the bits he needs to know right now before he wastes valuable resources and time on a fool’s errand.”.

That’s why it is so jarring, and why the villainization of Ironwood is so suspect to many of the audience; by the rules of the world before he shot Oscar, RWBY weren’t in the right to do what they did, but now when he shot Oscar and the councilman, it is supposed to show us how right they were.

Except that unless silver eyes gives Ruby the ability to look into the future, it doesn’t work that way.

And don’t get me started on how Ruby is treating Penny in Volume 8...