#the powerlevel stuff made me stop and think about it for a moment but the math checks out

[seafoamtor]

“Less “affection flipped into hatred” and more “backlash out of worry that she [Morgan] hates him.”

“As the chief of the Fang Clan, he hates to see how Barghest gets more attention than him.”

“He’s a kind and tolerant pupper in his interactions with other Fae.”

“All his actions are dictated by a desire to be loved. After deluding himself into thinking Morgan wouldn’t love him anymore, he was tricked by Aurora’s sham love.”

“What made it feel like he lost Morgan’s love was her lack of praise. He got a lot of praise during the period of constant war including the Moss campaigns and the caterpillar slaying, but there was no war in the past 100 years, meaning he got nothing. The Faerie Knights hogged all the spotlights.”

“He knows very well how much Morgan hates typical fae behaviour, and for that reason he defies his own nature and skillfully performs typical human behaviour. That’s why he’s so annoying over proper manners.”

“The fae’s main criticism of him is that the Faerie Knights are stronger and that he became all bark and no bite , but Morgan and Oberon know that Woodwose is actually the strongest individual in Britain.”

[points] Dog. What a Dog. What a Good Dog. Yeah...

[onewomancitadel]

Idealism in RWBY

One of my favourite scenes in the whole show that made me sob like a baby when it aired and still makes me cry even thinking about it is the scene where Jinn bends the rules for Ruby and gives her a moment to close her eyes and breathe. It is absolutely beautiful and from a pacing perspective one of my favourite scenes - the shot of wings slowly beating and then stopping - Ruby closing her eyes and feeling the thing between all things - and then the reveal of Summer whose eyes become hers. It is conceptually excellent. That what she construed of as being laserbeams from her eyeballs actually necessitates looking inside herself and asking what that power really means is my favourite, favourite stuff.

In case it's not obvious from my finale criticism of V9, I actually deeply value the emotional sincerity and idealism of RWBY. It's a rare thing to earnestly get a scene specifically like that without it being undercut with a stupid joke (I hate this) or even such a scene at all. The proliferation of powerlevelling and 'hard magic systems' have basically broken peoples' ability to intuit actual narrative and the point of fucking storytelling. I love when characters make very forward emotional statements which are earnest and heartfelt (one that comes to mind is Blake -> Nora -> Penny, 'it's only part of you' - when Nora is almost passed out in pain she manages to convey a deep lesson for Penny which manages to give her strength and effectively foreshadows her Aura transformation), what I particularly do not like is when it is platitudinous and/or doesn't feel earnest and earnt.

The fact that there were absolutely parts of this volume that felt like that to emphasise Ruby's disillusionment and then subsequently they doubled down on it with Jaune (and validated it) made me really confused, because even the scene of Ruby's return the dialogue does not feel earnt and I really don't know what I'm supposed to make of that relationship - fix? - with her team and Jaune. It wasn't developed properly because really what they were developing was her disillusionment with her mother as opposed to strictly her team, but to be totally fair there is still a door open there in the next volume. I don't think they'll go in that direction any further, unfortunately.

But it's not like they actually struggle with emotional sincerity. This is why I felt it to be such a prominent weakness. I also didn't like the joke undercutting Jaune's transformation that he makes just because - first of all it's very quick - but second of all, it has major implications for other characters afflicted with Curses, but like, come on! You are the emotionally earnest show! You don't need to feel embarrassed about a handsome prince transformation! This is fucking Sheik revealing Zelda, this is Midna's true form, this is the Beast healed type shit (I can think of so many Zelda examples probably because Zelda is the archetypal princess, in my mind). You can be totally forthcoming and earnest about it, it's okay. But this is why the sequence felt weird because presumably whoever is his love interest should have something meaningful to say about it. Jaune was deeply disillusioned and wounded this volume, they found him and called him crazy (I did like this realistic rendering of the Maidens finding the Old Man - 'dude's a weirdo' is funny) and now everything is normal? It's not right because I don't think they generally fumble this stuff. I want more earnesty, I want more sincerity, I want more fundamental idealism.

I value the pain in the story because you can't have joy without pain. You don't get the effect of redemption and characters being saved in the story without Penny or Pyrrha or I/ronwood. This is why I/ronwood's fall is so carefully paralleled with Cinder's (burgeoning, and foreshadowed) rise. What a lot of twee 'everything is okay' stories do is they ignore the actual definition of happiness in life sometimes to the point of just being thoughtless but equally on my entire blog I take umbrage with narrative cynicism, and cynicism, and easy, lazy pain - easy cynicism because it's protective. What is more hopeful to me is idealism which is validated in the face of tragedy. That with RWBY I have the hope of that tragedy being transformed into comedy is actually rare. A lot of my favourite heart-touching stories off the top of my head are basically 'hopeful tragedy', because the promise of comedy is actually really rare.

I guess what I'm also curious about (that there is some assumption I don't value the idealism of RWBY, lol, or its emotional forthcomingness) is that to believe in something like Cinder's redemption, not just on a textual basis, actually by virtue means you have to believe redemption is always possible. It's never too late. You can be forgiven. You might be lost and disillusioned for the whole story but you're forgiven. You can commit a deed in the story which everybody holds against you forever and you're forgiven. You can be mean and terrible and ruin everything and be forgiven. It can take a while to get home but you'll get there.

Salem's redemption and the redemption of Ozlem is realised through her character; it is a major thematic statement and precipitates the resolution of the story. That Cinder's redemption might involve a romance which is similarly Ozlem in reverse is hopeful. Even after everything you can work back. The tragedy is the promise of comedy, the breakage is the promise of wholeness.

I celebrate darkness and disillusionment in the story because that is the path to true knowledge. Yet cynicism is its own protective insulation and refusal to confront joy. Breaking through those falsehoods is a thematic interest of RWBY, and if I sense something emotionally, tonally discordant, I'm going to point it out.