#the one she hasn't taken since cordially invited when this all began

[theseerasures]

watch Winter not even be in the elevator with Marrow watch her have covered her ass that he "escaped" from her god why is she LIKE THIS why are we seeing Winter at her absolute best right before we're going to see her at her absolute worst—

GOD okay look

there’s this common sensical thing that people say sometimes, that in moments of crisis you find out who people REALLY are, and i’ve always thought it was bullshit for the same reason i’ve always thought “being drunk reveals who you are” is bullshit, which is that “who you really are” encompasses all of you, and not just whatever uninhibited survival lizard brain emerges in specific situations

but i do think it’s a fabulous tool for fiction, because (most) fiction relies on consistent characterization, so moments of crisis CAN be a precise distillation of All That You Are, in a way that’s contiguous to who you were before. this season has been nothing but one crisis after another, and accordingly we’ve learned who these people are when pushed to their limit. Ironwood is a perfect example of this, but Ruby’s another great one, because what we’ve learned about her is what we’ve always suspected about her: that there comes a time when even her boundless compassion and idealism run dry, so that moments of Ruby at her best--vaporizing the Hound, saving Penny--are interspersed with moments of Ruby at her worst, which are basically...just an overwhelmed seventeen year old girl still grieving for her mother.

and what this season has shown about Winter, who has been in the (literal!) trenches of the crisis, is that Winter is remarkably consistent.

i don’t just mean consistent DURING crisis, the way that her boss has been consistently awful. i mean that you can draw a line for Winter that extends through the current war with Salem, through her outburst at the dinner table, through “you stole an Atlas airship,” all the way to when we first met her, and she almost immediately got into a fight with Qrow. what we’ve learned about Winter through all of this is that though she tries (poorly) to mask it, though she has learned to sometimes use it to her advantage, she is never not the precise distillation of All That She Is, at that exact volume.

Winter’s mind is always in crisis; she spends her entire life anticipating where the next blow will fall--whether on herself, or on someone else. i’ve already waxed poetic on this elsewhere, so i won’t belabor it too much, but. the point is this: i don’t think it’s so much an issue of “Winter’s at her absolute best, therefore she will be at her worst later,” as it is “Winter is always at the same extreme,” which means Winter’s absolute best is never not her absolute worst at the exact same time.

don’t get me wrong: there is a certain euphoria in seeing Winter act in the way she does in Risk. she IS the best of herself there. best in the way James Ironwood defined it when he first took her on as his protege and bodyguard, because she acts quickly and decisively, while even the AceOps are still frozen. but she’s also best in the radically compassionate way that perfectly aligns with the show’s moral thesis, which is why all of us still root for her, even now: Winter does not actually believe in leaving people behind. not absolutely, and not forever. (and we’ve always known this, because we only meet her through Weiss.) i joke about her compulsively imprinting on anyone younger than her, but i think that if it had been Elm, Vine, or even Harriet in Marrow’s position Winter would have done the exact same thing. that’s just what Winter does, and Winter is never not turning her entire identity into a verb.

Winter is at her best here because she achieved a good outcome, the one she was aiming for. but Winter is also at her worst here, in the same way that she has CONSISTENTLY been throughout the show, which is that Winter refuses to take responsibility for anything outside of the immediate instance, and when she does save people, it’s only in a way that does not disturb the status quo. it’s telling that she saved Marrow’s life by attacking Marrow--Marrow, when she could have attacked Ironwood instead--knocked the gun out of his hand, knocked him to the ground, tossed him to the brig, called off the bomb...

but she couldn’t have, really. not only because some part of her still loves James Ironwood, but also because while everyone was looking at Marrow, while no one was looking at her, Winter was triaging the way she always does. and the conclusion she reached is the one she always reaches, which is: she can’t rely on anyone else. certainly not in this situation, when Marrow is the one who NEEDS help, when Elm and Vine stood by and watched as Ironwood raged, when Harriet was the one who turned his ire on her in the first place, when they are all her subordinates, and so--she is alone. and, the part of her that’s still the child in the Manor says, she can’t win this. she can’t do anything.

Maria once told Ruby: you don’t give yourself enough credit, and: that wasn’t a compliment. the same, i think, holds true for Winter, but the difference is that Ruby still tries in big ways, even when she can’t acknowledge the fruits of her labor, while Winter...Winter had the trying beaten out of her a long time ago. that’s why she saved Marrow’s life in that way, and that’s why the coin of what Winter is gonna do after still feels like it’s flipping in the air. maybe she isn’t in the elevator because of what you said! maybe she is, but because she was GENUINELY going to put Marrow in the brig, because at least there he’d be safe. maybe they’re both there and ready to defect. maybe neither of them are on the elevator at all.

predicting what’s gonna happen next this season is as always a ludicrous venture, but (*puts on my jester’s hat in preparation for being wrong*): much as i’m loathe to ruin everyone’s excitement over team BRAS, i don’t think Winter is leaving Atlas Command. that’s the whole point of doing what she did; she’s evacuating the boat, not rocking it. that’s what she’s always done: we’ll drop you off as close as we can to the monster. i’m giving you a head start. a head start so no one will catch them, but also a head start so that she can remain behind, watch their backs. women and children first. everyone else first, including--even now--the man she wishes was her father. and only then herself.

and when it comes to Winter in the end, likely more alone than we’ve ever seen her...we are going to see the worst of her, but only because we always do. it’ll look less like a Final Choice, and more like the non-choices she’s been making coming home to roost. sooner or later Ironwood will realize that part of the reason he’s running out of pieces to play is because of her, and sooner or later Winter will realize that at some point you’re not leaving me has turned into i’m not leaving.

it turns out when you make enough non-choices, they slip into choices anyway. and Winter has only ever made one kind of non-choice, an infinitesimal sidestep to avoid disturbing the universe, so the outcome of these things depend entirely on the context. the outcomes so far have been favorable, so it’s possible (probable?) that, like with Ironwood last season, we’re due for a reversal. at the same time, though, Ultimatum introduces the obvious wrinkle: that an outcome good for the world isn’t necessarily good for Winter. it’s possible that that will hold true again for her in the end.

or it’s possible that the reverse will be true instead.