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the-gordianknot117 · 2 years

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“Fubuki Delenda Est”: Part 2.

I was waiting for the Monster Association arc to end before finally examining a couple of topics related to Fubuki that I didn’t cover in my previous post (like how a connection between Fubuki and another character was handled in the remake and more), so I think now it’s the perfect time to delve into them. Additionally, I will include my conclusive thoughts about Fubuki’s involvement in the remake MA arc and the treatment the manga reserved in general for the character. For anyone interested, the previous post (Part 1) covers the rest. Webcomic spoilers, I guess.

Before starting, I want to clarify once again that with my posts, I don’t want to prevent anyone from enjoying the character or the series in general, nor change their opinion.

Obviously, future updates can always disprove what is written in this post.

EDIT (01/08/2023): added a title and an image.

EDIT (02/08/2024): I moved here the conclusions from Part 1.

First, let’s start with the elephant in the room, Psykos and her connection to Fubuki. The following are all the instances where their connection is brought up in the remake: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 - in reality, I’m counting basically any off-hand mention of Fubuki from Psykos (plus a Tatsumaki panel). The first four are inherited from the webcomic while the others are new: 5 and 6 are from the same Chapter (132) while the last resembles the similar Evil Eye scene from the beginning of the arc, when the psychic monster threatened Fubuki in front of Tatsumaki*. After that there is none and the ones above (unless I missed something) are the only allusions to it in more than 100 chapters of the manga [EDIT: 04/12/2023] Thinking about it, the only foreshadowing of Fubuki vs Psykos comes exclusively from scenes original to the webcomic: no new content was added in anticipation of that in the manga [End EDIT]. Obviously, not everything needs to be wrapped up/resolved within the same arc (the webcomic didn’t do it either) nor restarting every time from a blank slate with no ongoing, background sideplots would make for an engaging story. Still, the entire side plot between Fubuki and Psykos seems like a vestigial tail that doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the remake Monster Association story. Instead of a hanging sideplot meant to be picked up later it feels more like a plot-thread chopped out entirely from where it originally belonged. Reinforcing this feel it’s the fact that most of the hints mentioned above are concentrated around chapters 110/130, apparently building up to something only for the whole thing to never take off and disappear abruptly for the remaining time. This reveal exists almost in a vacuum and doesn’t affect in any shape or form anyone: Fubuki’s backstory with Psykos could be removed entirely from the latter characterization and nothing of value would change at the moment; Tatsumaki, outside of a single webcomic shared panel (linked above) placed at the very start of the fight (before the scuffle with “normal” Psykos), is utterly unfazed by it and her mind is firmly set on the kid and the other heroes without being distracted by what she just discovered; Fubuki, the connective tissue between these characters and the character that should be affected the most by this development, is the furthest removed from the whole thing, completely alien to this subplot for the entire arc. To make things worse, after the last mention of this subplot in Chapter 133, Psykos completely disregards Fubuki while the latter is helping (?) TankTop Master against the MA leader during the Jet sequence (Chapter 138): actually, both espers are “crossing paths” without that being acknowledged by anyone, not even by some kind of storytelling device, as if ONE/Murata didn’t think this might appear bizarre or as if it didn’t deserve to be highlighted at all. Maybe a redraw will fix it [EDIT 04/12/2023: they didn’t fix it in the volume], but it wouldn’t be the first time Fubuki’s storyline ended up being an afterthought (the “rematch” with Do-s is another example of this). Moreover, but this could be a translation-related issue (it probably is), Fubuki refers to JetPsykorochi as “she”, making the whole thing even more confusing. In the wc, after reaching the surface, Fubuki noticed right away Psykos’s presence (I always found hilarious how surprised Fubuki sounded when she recognized the weirdo kid from high school with the obsession with world domination amid that chaos in Chapter 72) and manga Fubuki herself has proven to be capable of sensing other espers (like Tatsumaki and Gear Spear), so this is a strange oversight. Like, let’s even pretend Fubuki was somehow unable to sense Psykos reenacting Top Gun, at the very least she should have caught a glimpse of Psykos (or her esper aura) leaving Orochi - but apparently nobody noticed (or sensed) the woman fleeing from the blob targetted by everyone. Neither the last appearance of Psykos resumed this side plot, being used instead for fanservice, Saitama vs Garou “hype” and as a reminder of the release of Volume 26, featuring Psykos on the cover. Schrödinger’s storyline is how I would describe this sideplot and how it relates to the overall story right now. For obvious reasons this wasn’t a problem in the wc, where the relation between the leader of the Monster Association to the B-Class Rank 1 had massive consequences for the setting, the story and the characters: after learning about it Tatsumaki went apeshit and lifted the MA’s headquarter (with catastrophic results, leading also to her defeat), sensing Psykos pushed Fubuki to step in and fight her old acquaintance (right when the MA leader and the Cadres were about to attack King), allowing the rest of the arc to happen and laying the foundations for the next one etc. Here? It’s a backdrop detail that has no relevance and importance at all on the ongoing events, as absurd as it may sound.

As a result of this and Psykorochi vs. Tatsumaki replacing their fight in the MA arc, Psykos and Fubuki were reduced to be, respectively, Tatsumaki’s personal punching bag and Tatsumaki’s number one cheerleader/nurse. In the manga, Psykos is, for all intents and purposes, a Tatsumaki-related character but, since there is barely any actual personal connection between the two outside of Fubuki (the irony!), most of Psykos dialogues are bog standard “evil speeches”, the always present threat to Fubuki and exposition dumps. And while Psykos receives a crazy amount of power-ups during her boss battle, that serves only as a way to hype up Tatsumaki and raise the scope of their battle even further: outside of that, Psykos keeps failing every single time before finally getting defeated by Tatsumaki and spending the rest of the arc off-screen (she doesn’t even lead the Cadres anymore!). This might be only me, but employing Psykos, the actual main villain of the first part of the arc, solely as a device for Tatsumaki to show off how powerful and heroic she is while at the same time the “characterization” of Psykos herself amounts to being a puppet for God (à la Cosmic Garou or worse) and tasteless fanservice is a little disappointing and a waste of what Psykos was supposed to be: a different kind of threat, as stated in the webcomic (1, 2); funnily enough, the manga also features this narrator box (1, 2, 3), before contradicting it by turning Psykos into the exact opposite of that, which is to say a giant naked fusion-kaiju spamming beams for shit and giggles, straight out seeking an open battle and wasting multiple opportunities to end her opponent. What originally made Psykos a serious thorn in the side for the heroes was less a matter of impressive feats and power levels (although Psykos was a powerful and formidable Dragon Level Esper and a dangerous adversary for the majority of the S-Class) and more her ability to organize and lead a group of Demons and Dragons Level Threats. Even the more remarkable is the fact the MA was not fully ready to fight the HA by the time its headquarters were raided by the heroes (contrary to the manga) and nonetheless wc Psykos was capable of turning the tides and almost winning the battle if wasn’t for the intervention of the Saitama Group. For this reason we can also justify in the webcomic her lack of an immediate counter strategy against the HA and the decisions she made during the Demon/Dragon match-ups - for example, the “sacrifice” of the Demon Level Threats in the initial stage of the hero raid makes sense here since she was caught almost off-guard, instead of being a waste of potentially useful assets she is sending to their death just because. I think these elements alone without mentioning her backstory, made Psykos stand out among the OPM villains, especially considering her accomplishments and her role as a leader of a group of powerful mysterious beings (Homeless Emperor aside) while being a human esper herself. Moreover, if it’s true that we spent more time with her in the remake (though this additional time is hardly character focused at all), Psykos’s past is still undisclosed. The manga has completely avoided bringing up the reason Psykos turned against humanity and trying to fill this saturday morning cartoon villain silhouette with the basic and fundamental beats of her character long after her moment of major spotlight is something I’m not particularly fond of, to be honest. About Fubuki, the aforementioned post expresses my opinions about her manga version in general, so here I won’t indulge myself on this topic beyond stating that turning her into Tatsumaki’s Tareo is a baffling and ludicrous choice that takes cues from the Garou-Tareo dynamic solely for the benefit of the older sister with no regard for Fubuki’s character itself, who now needs to be babysitted and rescued every time she leaves the healing corner.

Speaking of that: Fubuki went from being one of the majors contributors to the MA’s downfall and the one defeating the Dragon Level Esper Leader of the Monster Association to losing to someone like Do-s in a lighthearted and fanservice fight (more than once, actually). I know I already said this plenty of times in the past, but Fubuki distinguishing herself during this crisis was truly crucial for her journey leading to the Esper Sisters arc, and for the Monster Association arc itself, serving as a contrast to the powerful and mighty S-Class, sent by the HA who failed at dealing with the Cadres and required outside help in order to survive and win the battle - and that without portraying Fubuki herself (or any member of the Saitama’s Group or Amai Mask) as some sort of perfect or flawless being, quite the opposite actually (and thankfully). This isn’t a mere matter of win-to-defeat ratio but a massive shift to the narrative surrounding this character and her purpose within the story. To underline what critical importance Fubuki vs. Psykos held for the B-Class Rank 1 story, I want to remind one thing I never see mentioned anywhere: in the webcomic, Fubuki starts fighting Psykos (Chapter 74) 27 chapters after her first appearance (Chapter 47). The battle (and the subsequent encounter with Garou), far from being a mere clash of powers and a power-level contest, is a turning point for Fubuki and paves the way for the Esper Sisters arc. In the “Murata” version, Fubuki and Psykos have not exchanged a single word in the entirety of the manga (up until now, that is): to put it in perspective, Fubuki appeared for the first time in a numbered chapter back in Chapter 42, Psykos as Gyoro Gyoro in Chapter 68 and as herself (cameo not withstanding) in Chapter 123, and we are currently at Chapter 170 (which doesn’t take in account the multiple extra-long chapters). As we have seen, in this unholy amount of pages, the snippets to their connection have been nothing but throwaway lines and a tiny panel: this confined Fubuki into a limbo of stagnation, where her character couldn’t move forward simply because the manga kept delaying one pivotal plot point that happens rather early in the source material - and, as I already mentioned elsewhere, another important development that comes from that fight, the realization of what Saitama predicted to her, has been fulfilled by Do-s instead of Garou and the very serious “fear” moment has been reduced to the recurring gag of Fubuki looking like a pathetical shaking mess doing “funny” exaggerated expressions (abysmal comedy and downright awful writing). Tatsumaki’s flashback, Blast’s appearance, a fourth Centipede, Garou vs. Saitama, all occurred before Fubuki got to one of her storyline’s most important and defining moments. It’s as if, in 100+ chapters, Garou never met Tareo and his character was stalled at the time of the TankTop Master's brawl. Now, Psykos and Tareo aren’t strictly comparable characters, obviously, but they represent an important turning point for Fubuki and Garou’s characters, on top of being one of the main motivational factors for their development.

At least, does the new content offer anything comparable to what Fubuki vs. Psykos represented in the source material? What is Fubuki’s big moment in the remake Monster Association arc?

Well, if Chapter 142 (Fubuki stabilizing Genos's core) was supposed to be the replacement for Fubuki against Psykos, it’s a really poor substitute that doesn’t hold a candle to what it replaced**: the chapter doesn’t break any new grounds for Fubuki’s character but its the usual good leader + healing stuff (which apparently go hand to hand), fulfilling an almost identical purpose of the Rover battle of a few chapters before. Fubuki here doesn’t experience any growth nor showcases anything truly new, she is not confronted by some kind of circumstances shaking her status quo or representing a real turning point for her story, but it’s a “more of the same” kind of situation - in my previous post I wrote how contradictory the whole thing is, how the manga pays lip-service to this leader “predisposition” in a couple of scenes only to portray Fubuki as a pathetic, deluded and arrogant clown who falls on the ground every other panel, hindering her colleagues and being a deadweight the rest of the time (if she has the stuff of a leader than basically anyone else does)***. On the other hand, the confrontantion with Psykos truly opened new directions and expanded the horizons of Fubuki’s characterization by revealing substantial new information about her, showing us glimpses of her life back in high school, her connection to a new important and mysterious character, her views on human relationships as power structures, and presented an interesting application of psychic powers that displayed her abilities and skills as an esper as well as her wits and intelligence in battle, plus setupping the next arc and the conflict at the center of it. Furthermore, the concrete and tangible threat represented by Psykos made for an arc-changing confrontation with significant consequences for the following events. In contrast, Chapter 142 lacks any of that and Fubuki simply puts a stop to the Genos overheating core subplot that stayed on hold during the JetPsykorochi chapters up until Murata and ONE decided to throw a bone to Fubuki as a way to finally wrap it up and move on - she was the closest and most convenient plot device nearby for the authors to use in this circumstance after all. The whole thing is resolved in less than 15 pages, a misery considering the standard amount of pages devoted to battles/character-focused sequences, but that’s the number of pages reserved to Fubuki, and for this reason there is no time to breath or to underline the importance of this accomplishment because the chapter suddenly ends and the story moves forward - the same story that lingers obsessively even on the most trivial matter, like the Support Team, the Jet sequences or anything involving Tatsumaki (but there are so many other examples that could be listed here). There is also the fact Pri Pri Prisoner completely forgets to mention the whole thing to Child Emperor, despite that being the reason he was searching for the kid hero in the first place (Chapter 149)! [Edit 23/08/2023] This is such a pivotal moment that the characters themselves don’t pay any thought to its “urgency” or “consequences”, but forget about it as soon as the chapter ends, as if it never happened! Another sad example of the manga copy-pasting webcomic scenes onto manga original events without thinking about how the new, different context would affect them; the main takeaway from this change is that Pri-pri Prisoner is either forgetful or wants Genos dead, which are 100% unintended consequences of a poorly planned scene. The series is full issues and incosistencies like this. Oversight like the one above inevitably end up affecting the story and the characters for the worse - and Fubuki is, once again, one of the main victims of this, and that when the authors aren’t trying to shit on her on purpose [End of the Edit]. Lastly, Fubuki’s actions here are unrelated to the monsters themselves (she is dealing with Genos’s overheated core after all) and, thinking more carefully about it, Fubuki in the remake has barely done anything directly against them (the closest being letting Do-s fall into a pit), while wc Fubuki actually struck a heavy blow to the MA - she was one of the few to have defeated a Dragon Level Threat up to that point in the series and one of the fewer to have beaten a Cadre (none of the S-Class sent by the HA accomplished this). Moving on: one thing is Fubuki mastering Psychic Whirlwind, a telekinesis technique meant to counter other espers and reflective of Fubuki’s goals, story, personality and fighting style, another is a deus ex machina power outside of her “field” like being able to regenerate Genos’s organic parts and cool down his synthetic components (or the healing esper thing in general, introduced out of nowhere in the middle of this arc and becoming more bullshit as the chapters go). One is well within the area of expertise of the character and represents a demonstration of her achievements as an esper, providing the layout the actual content of the confrontation between Fubuki and Psykos, the drama and the clash of personalities, lies upon, the other is a solution thrown in for the sake of progressing the plot/put a patch over a narrative problem. The fact Fubuki’s usefulness is limited to healing and treating some injuries (and only with other characters’ support, at times) instead of taking part in the fights and being useful in them without turning into a background clown is straight out insulting to this character and an example of OPM falling into the battle shounen cliches pit. Additionally, this chapter mainly serves to resolve Genos’ issue after his uber-epic upgrade finally showed some kind of drawback for the abuse of its “full power” mode and bring back the cyborg into the action without that pesky problem affecting him anymore. And so, Genos gains a few other chapters to go while Fubuki soon expires her “relevancy” (aka, being a plot-device and Tatsumaki’s shiller number one), relegated once again to the sidelines. But having said that, I won’t pretend the whole thing was a pointless waste of time and I recognize that Fubuki, Genos and Fang (and Bomb, I guess?) being “closer” has narrative potential (though the execution could have been a lot better and the lead-up way more organic and natural). I would rather get more chapters involving the members of the main cast interacting and bouncing off each other instead of endless and drawn-out fights, but only as long these interactions don’t come at the expense of their specific storylines, replacing moments with overall greater purpose and significance. Like, a chapter devoted to progress the dynamics between the members of the Saitama’s Group would be more than welcomed by me if Fubuki had screentime to spare, but she barely does and the few time she shows up she has to share (be it with Fang, Genos or whoever else) the crumbles of it. [EDIT: 30/07/2023] I don’t think I have to spend more than a few words about the last page of this chapter and in particular the last panel, since its issues are self-explanatory: it reveals how the authors themselves don’t believe in what they are putting in the chapter and also how blatantly aware they are that no one will pay attention to Fubuki’s leadership skill or care about this predisposition the story has never highlighted (actually, only undermined); Murata and ONE clearly do not expect the readers to care at all about Fubuki or the scenes featuring her, but only to stare at the character’s sexualized body. It’s pathetic and sad, a textbook example of fanservice completely detracting from the scene and character, undermining her accomplishments with a misplaced gratuitous panel (quite tasteless, too) drawn solely for male gaze. This framing says nothing about what just happened nor highlights her supposed leadership skill, let alone Fubuki’s actual character; it doesn’t enhance the scene in any way, but its sole accomplishment is to reduce Fubuki to a sexual object. This is what I would have expected from a lesser series, not from One-Punch Man, but I have learned my lesson at this point. Also, this surely isn’t the only time the authors resorted to cheap tricks as a way to distract the audience from how bad and lazy Fubuki’s treatment has been in the manga, unfortunately. [End of the EDIT] So in the end, if this was meant to be the main dish of Fubuki’s participations in the Monster Association arc, it was an insipid and minuscule appetizer served to a starving customer.

(By the way, in the webcomic Fubuki saved Genos as well, Chapter 69)

If instead the convo with Tatsumaki was intended to be Fubuki’s big moment of spotlight, the same applies to it as well, plus being not only insipid and shared, but an undercooked dessert served ahead of its time (my thoughts about it here and here, among other things). Fubuki’s supposed “development”, coming to terms with Tatsumaki’s protective behavior and understanding her sister’s problems, never happened on screen. It’s the result of a (rushed) journey of personal maturation never shown to us, unlike, I don’t know, basically every moment of progression of webcomic Fubuki thus far. How Saitama influenced Fubuki and allowed her to change her perspective on Tatsumaki is also not supported by anything shown prior (zero, nada, nothing) and if Fubuki didn’t state it outright no one could have ever guessed this or could haved noticed at any point any change in her opinion of her sister, in fact no one (or at least, I didn’t find anything on this subject) in the fandom picked up this massive character progression occurring at all before it was stated in this chapter (to be fair, this is the same adaptation where the two sisters go shopping together, something that completely lessens the magnitude of the development in question, let alone how it butchers the source material and future scenes, but that is another can of worms); and in general, after encountering Saitama, Fubuki only got progressively more flanderized, incompetent and childish, which as much as I dislike, could provide an “interesting” character arc if it was within the intention of the authors, but it clearly isn’t the case considering how the handful of relevant scenes involving her (like this dialogue here) pretend the opposite (again, paying lip-service to the character); it is an unintended byproduct resulting from the real priorities the authors have, which involve other characters with Fubuki being an afterthought or an obstacle, hence why she gets the short hand of the stick (if she gets it at all). For this, "You have become stronger, Fubuki” is one of the most unearned, undeserved and unsatisfying exchanges I have ever read in fiction, lacking the tragic irony of the same line in the wc (I wrote a post about this). The conversation glosses over Fubuki’s childhood and how her sister affected and impacted her life but, to be fair, the whole point of the sequence is to portray Tatsumaki as a tragic hero suffering from a poorly worded advice given to her when she was still a child, before anything else. Fubuki’s fundamental wc flashback, whose point and actual significance is one of the pillars of the entire esper sisters arc, was reduced to less than an halfassed and offhand mention because the angle we are observing the scene is so outwardly sympathetic toward Tatsumaki that there is no time nor desire to “waste” panels on Fubuki’s character and story, especially if this doesn’t serve to highlight her sister and her suffering (poor Wobbie). Fubuki here is only the mouthpiece of the author who celebrates Tatsumaki’s tragedy and heroism while twisting and destroying the character he is employing for this purpose. What a horrendous moment this conversation was: another instance of Tatsumaki being put on a pedestal at the expense of her sister.

[EDIT: 01/08/2023] Prior to the sudden change in Fubuki’s attitude toward Tatsumaki and the sisters conversation, we only got two instances of Fubuki thinking about Tatsumaki, 1 and 2; in these two pages, Fubuki shows only frustration and resentment instead of a change of heart or whatever the manga later tries to suggest - by the way, Tatsumaki needlessly beating up the Fubuki group is conveniently forgotten and never brought up ever again, as is her decision to exclude Fubuki from the operation (“this is totally buildup for the Esper Sisters arc and the sisters’ conflict!” Yeah, sure, absolutely ahah). Admittedly, there is another scene where Fubuki senses Tatsumaki fighting Psykos, but that is slightly unrelated to the current topic and even if I included it, the page would still show Fubuki being afraid and wary of her sister like she was in the source material - after all, the scene is a 1:1 adaptation of the webcomic for the most part - so that doesn’t help much the manga’s cause either. Honestly, all these pages seem to setup a completely different storyline from the one we got in the end, as if someone changed their mind during the arc and clumsily tried to course-correct at the last minute. It’s like they wanted to reach the rooftop of a skyscraper but were blocked at the level of the sewers and realized that there was no way to get up there in time considering the path they previously chose, so they decided to skip all the steps in the way and instantly teleport to their destination. Who would notice, right? Well, the readers who actually pay attention to the story will, of course. Murata and ONE wanted so badly to reach the point where the sisters mend their relationship (which would avoid the “horrid scenario” of Tatsumaki being herself a very flawed human being), but they thought it was pointless and boring to actually make it fit in Fubuki and Tatsumaki’s character arcs at that point of the story. What makes this worse if possible is how Murata and ONE still had the occasion to insert a new “chapter” in manga Fubuki’s nonexistent character arc and legitimize this moment between the sisters with a missing “link” filling the gaps, but they decided to waste it on that radioactive dumpster fire that is the “rematch” between Fubuki and Do-s - how something like that made into the manga while Fubuki’s webcomic scenes, fundamental character beats, story and her original characterization didn’t will never cease to haunt my mind. Beside, at no point prior to the sisters conversation did Fubuki ever think of saving her sister by gathering strong people nor was meeting Saitama ever shown to have affected Fubuki’s opinion of Tatsumaki in the slightest (and surely not to the degree the manga is trying to paint!). Nothing in the story has ever suggested this, not Fubuki’s words, not her actions, not even the slightest subtext implied that “saving her sister” was Fubuki’s grand goal, something the manga suggests she has pondered (off-screen) and then fully embraced as her true desire at some point (when exactly, ONE?). In reality she was always shown being resentful of Tatsumaki: the few times Fubuki mentions Tatsumaki (the ones I linked above) reveal how this change of heart is entirely made up, basically a clumsy retcon. Also, I personally hate how Fubuki’s monologue boils down to a Tatsumaki-did-nothing-wrong by having Fubuki condone Tatsumaki’s misdeeds and role in her life, to the point of outright shilling Tatsumaki and even crying for her auto-desctructive heroism without Fubuki herself ever having the chance to reveal her past and what she suffered. Imagine wasting all the narrative potential that comes with this relationship (and Fubuki as a character) by resolving its conflict in a biased and rushed-out out of nowhere dialogue that takes place in an arc not even centered on their relationship (or, originally, Tatsumaki herself, since it was Fubuki who actually got quite the narrative focus in the wc MA arc out of the two) and without having addressed Fubuki’s side at all. Fubuki and Tatsumaki’s conversation is like a roof for a nonexistent building and for this reason, it miserably falls flat on the ground: because it has no support holding it in place and nothing the story has done before has built up to this. And yeah, I’m calling it wasting because now that I’ve got the full, godawful picture, there is no other way to put it; to be fair, it didn’t take a genius or a prophet to figure out where this manga original direction was leading to and how this conversation would have fundamentally compromised the next arc. With that being said, only someone gifted with prescience could have guessed what a colossal pile of fecal matter the next arc was going to be in the remake.

[EDIT: 03/12/2023] Sorry for the multiple edits, but the more I think about this conversation, the more I realize I only grazed the surface of its problems. In addition to all the nefarious consequences this chapter had on the younger esper, the conversation also implies another, fundamental detail that is in contrast with what has been established in the webcomic (at least so far): that Fubuki was aware of Blast and his role in her sister’s life all along. And nonetheless, Fubuki still resented Tatsumaki, despite knowing what she went through and Blast’s role in her life.

Keep in mind that while the manga initially (clumsily) portrayed her relationship with Tatsumaki as being similar to the webcomic, but, from a certain point on - a few chapters before this conversation, around Psykorochi’s fight - it ceased to be treated as such, and Tatsumaki’s mistreatments and oppressive role in Fubuki’s life, things that legitimized Fubuki’s attitude toward her sibling, never ended up getting addressed at all, to the point that we have to question if in the manga they actually happened.

As a result, Fubuki retroactively comes off as a ungrateful and petty sister who holds a grudge against someone she has no reason to dislike at all (or surely not to the extent the manga previously showed). This could be an angle to rewrite their story, I guess, with a petty and one-sided rivalry posoning the sisters’ relationship, but the story never framed this sideplot as such, and there is no canon evidence that could support this headcanon claim. Actually, I would argue that there was a halfassed attempt at portraying it in the same vein of the webcomic conflict, at least on a surface level, for example, in the Do-s fight and in particular its conclusion. But then again, only on the surface because, despite the author pretending to acknowledge Fubuki’s “suffering” in this chapter, she was just rescued by Tatsumaki and the older sister was proven 100% right about Fubuki and the group (for the second time too, see the Demonic Fan scene; and, again later, with that abomination of an arc); or in the chapter we are discussing here, where Fubuki reveals how she “feared Tatsumaki”, despite the manga having gone out of its way to contradict this statement, and said fear having only been hinted and implied in the manga but never to the point of gaining actual substance like the webcomic, because we never saw why Fubuki would fear Tatsumaki and what threat she represented to her (there is no further addo or elaboration on Fubuki’s statement, because while the manga can pretend this was a thing for the character in a throwaway line, it can’t ouright make Tatsumaki dislikable and frightening for us; it’s another case of wanting a cake and eating it too), etc.; so, overall, the whole thing is the result of the authors’ absolute lack of care and direction.

But let’s go back to the notion Fubuki knew that all along about Tatsumaki’s past: the series never provided a single hint of that before this scene. Now, I’m not saying that Fubuki should be randomly talking about Tatsumaki’s personal history, but that the authors could have indirectly alluded to that in multiple ways. For example, if this was always the plan (it wasn’t), then the ending Chapter 66 (the Do-s’ fight) could have provided the perfect occasion for this: Fubuki could have muttered some cryptic line that would have acquired sense only in the light of the chapter we are currently discussing. In general, any storytelling device of the sort would have definitely benefited the sisters conversation, providing the groundwork necessary for the resolution of what is allegedly an important sideplot; it would also have properly introduced, or, at least, underlined, the mystery of Tatsumaki’s past and her personal conflict, instead of dropping these on us at the last minute.

In regard to Fubuki, the manga could have at least outlined a character arc that, starting with her introduction, received in this chapter its pay-off. Her story could have been all centered on learning to understand and comprehend her sister - obviously, I’m not speaking out of my preferences here, but how the manga should have played its cards given its real priorities (=shilling Tatsumaki). Let’s say that Fubuki was aware of Tatsumaki’s past but still resented her. This could have been presented back then, when she first appeared, as a defining character trait, with Fubuki refusing to accept Tatsumaki’s attitude and not understanding why Tatsumaki behaves the way she does. Over the course of the following chapters, Fubuki could have been put in Tatsumaki’s shoes and started to understand her sister’s concerns, allowing her to comprehend Tatsumaki’s reasons; this would have led Fubuki to realize how Tasumaki’s past is affecting her in the present and in what ways Blast’s advice left a scar on her soul. And then this chapter would have been the culmination of that journey, as Fubuki finally steps in the direction of her sister and crosses the gaps separating them, telling her sister she understands her and, at the same time, expressing the desire to save her. A similar rewrite would have had a semblance of what a character arc should be, instead of the bunch of nothing and meandering mess Fubuki got in the manga. Obviously, I’m not a fan of this direction either since it would be a flatout terrible use of Fubuki’s character (especially compared to her webcomic counterpart), but at least I could see the “vision” and recognize the effort, despite not agreeing with it one bit.

The manga doesn’t even have that: Fubuki’s process of growth in regard to her sister and how she processed this information is nonexistent (once again, I discussed this previously), left entirely to the readers’ imagination. Consequently, the conversation holds no weight because it comes out of nowhere, and Fubuki has never been hinted at knowing anything about her sister’s past, and so Fubuki coming into terms with something that was not even a thing up to that point is the very definition of lazy writing. What the manga is suggesting here is beyond far-fetched and rushed, as I already covered in the previous paragraph. You can’t resolve a character arc or an interpersonal relationship if you haven’t bothered addressing it in the first place or without a proper narrative structure to back it up.

It’s similar to how the manga handled Tatsumaki’s unwillingness to receive help from others as a result of Blast’s life advice: all this heavy and personal stuff for the character is resolved basically over the course of a single fight (actually, even before the end of it, basically the moment Genos showed up). The “development” she is experienced is comparable to pressing a switch from on to off. The sequence focus isn’t even on Tatsumaki’s inability/unwillingness to overcome these flaws - after all she accepts Geno’s help right away (aside from an obligatory single, tsundere line), and then they become best friends forever. This is the first time the character has accepted outside help since Blast, which should make for a massive turning point for the character, and yet it’s barely treated as something unusual, because there is nothing in the writing remarking this (if anything, I would argue that the reader’s outside knowledge of the character, coming from the wc and fandom discourse, is what sells this scene, more than the actual scene itself, an absolute desert of character writing). The Blast flashback (now inserted in this arc), where the roots of Tatsumaki’s distrust for others and her self-reliancy are revealed, is shown only after the fact, when the character has already cooperated with Genos. Over the course of the battle, there is no attention paid to the psychological and personal consequences this lifechanging event should have resulted on the mindframe of the character, even though it should be the centerpiece of this section of the arc. As a result, Tatsumaki’s “development” comes off as completely underooked and impersonal, because we never get an idea of the degree to which her major flaws were affecting her; and said flaws weren’t properly defined at all.

This highlights another problem: how pampered Tatsumaki is in the remake. Tatsumaki never suffers as a result of her flaws. Instead of confronting her misdoings, the story always bends back ward to her and avoids the worst outcome for the character, who gets away with everything - if she suffers, it is to show off her rentless heroism, not as a punishment or a reality check. Case in point, the sisters conversation: instead of taking steps toward Fubuki, admitting her mistakes and earning her forgiveness for all her abuses, the manga goes the other way around, making Fubuki the one who has to bridge the void separating them because, obviously, Tatsumaki can’t be the one who should make the first move or try to make amends for her errors (after all, she never made one), but the poor victim who should be understood and apologized toward. The content of the conversation basically boils down to Fubuki essentially launching into a sentimental monologue about what a heroic and self-sacrificing hero Tatsumaki was all along, someone she didn’t understand and (undeservingly) loathed in the past. Fubuki’s 180-degree turn goes to the extent that now her life goal is to save Tatsumaki, her hero. Leaving aside how unearned, shoddy, and lame this is (the psychic sisters arc was shelved for this crap), Fubuki is implicitly blamed for their “conflict” (the manga can’t settle on whether or not this is a thing, for reasons I already stated previously).

It’s Fubuki who has to revitalize their relationship, because she is the one who damaged it in the first place with a misplaced resentiment, not recognizing what treasure of a sister she had and how lucky she was to be Tatsumaki’s little sister. It’s almost as if the issues in the relationship didn’t come from Tatsumaki’s absolutely toxic and oppressive personality but from Fubuki never praising her sister and refusing to show empathy towards her; if Fubuki did, she would have gotten acknowledged by Tatsumaki and the relationship would have been restored long before the start of the series.

After the insult to mankind represented by that manga arc, I’m now convinced that was what they aimed to, without having the courage to flatout express it while still portraying the whole thing as ambiguously “fair”: among the worst writing one could ever experience as a divine punishment for choosing to read that dogshit hentai shlock, there is a mind-breaking flashback where it’s shown that a toddler Fubuki attacked her poor Woobie sister, after the latter protected her. It’s frankly horrid. It reeks of amateur work, where the author has a bias he can’t hide no matter what and this ends up reducing his character pet into a shallow and unbearable snowflake. In the webcomic, Tatsumaki was constantly put in front of her less favorable traits, and she paid the consequences for all her mistakes, without the narrative making special rules specifically for her: Tatsumaki’s reckless and irresponsible actions in the MA arc gained her a humiliating defeat, resulting in an underwhelming performance during the MA arc; in the Esper Sisters arc, she endured a moral and factual defeat that forced her to leave her sister in peace, preventing Tatsumaki from further interfering in Fubuki’s life and molding her sister as she intended; Tatsumaki also saw her bias and mistrust for others crumble thanks to Saitama and the Fubuki’s group, which pushed her into meditating on these events; etc. Stuff like this is unthinkable for her manga character, basically the moral compass of the story, who never does anything wrong, and if she does, it’s hand-waved and never treated as such.

In regard to Fubuki’s having to bridge the gap in her relationship with her sister and how Tatsumaki’s “development” is written in the manga, I want to bring up something I already mentioned in Part 1. For all the claims that Tatsumaki grew and surface level attempt at giving her a character arc, when we look at it, nearly every scene where Tatsumaki “develops” actually featured another character actively maturing, overcoming a flaw or change in general instead of her. Regardless of the quality of writing and how this process is handled, Genos and Fubuki are the ones who actively experience growth and take a step forward, whereas Tatsumaki is disconcertingly passive in comparison. She is there to simply give her acknowledgment and recognition to them. Everything is handed to her without making her face hardship and personal struggle, which is the backbone of what a character arc is supposed to be. Tatsumaki only meets physical challenges, but nothing on a deeper spiritual/psychological level for reasons I explained in Part 1. Everything bends backward toward her and the narrative is shifted in a way that whitewashes or justifies the character, while Tatsumaki is never challenged or allowed to make a mistake. It’s the result of a biased author who didn’t realize that, by making her a perfect and flawless hero, she has little character and no room for real, substantial growth. But besides the author playing favorite with what effectively feels like his OC blatantly pushed at the expense of Fubuki, the way the relationship between the sisters was handled in the remake makes no sense, especially in hindsight.

I frankly can’t comprehend why there was a conflict to begin with and why the manga pretended the two sisters were estranged when any single addition to their story/characters completely undermined this idea. Why even put emphasis on this resolution and depict it as a big deal (though with no narrative support, as I already evidenced earlier), when you have effectively muddled this development with all stupid additions that lessen what this (horrible) moment should represent? In the manga we have seen: Fubuki and Tatsumaki shopping together just fine (meaning that Fubuki was okay spending time with her sister long before this supposed turning point), Tatsumaki rescuing Fubuki multiple times because the latter is apparently a failure and an incompetent (remember how wc Tatsumaki decided to entirely focus on re-taking total control over Fubuki’s life and kill/brutally beat up anyone close to her for way less?), Tatsumaki being correct about Fubuki and being proven right at protecting her (for the aforementioned reasons), Tatsumaki doing nothing against Fubuki’s freedom nor representing a threat to her sister (she is her savior, after all), Fubuki failing at every turn (because in the manga she is a joke and a weakling, “so funny”!) and needing to be constantly monitored like a baby, Fubuki assuring us her sister would never harm her, etc.. So, exactly, why was there any tension between the two?

The only answer is that the manga started out following the webcomic, but by introducing elements that directly contradicted it, be it the relationship in general or the characterization of the two, the whole reason they were still depicted as distant and cold to one another ended up ceasing to make any sort of sense. In hindsight, there was no reason for the sister feud to be a thing at all in the remake. No wonder Fubuki is now considered by the vast majority of the readers nothing but a worthless fanservice/comic relief with no redeeming qualities: after all, the manga obliterated her character, treating her as a punching box while erasing basically everything that defined the original character, replacing it with whatever the hell she is in the manga. Is this how the remake did justice to webcomic Fubuki? By degrading and humiliating her into what effectively is a disgusting representation of everything wrong with female characters in manga? What an improvement, then! Frankly, it’s baffling how this hansn’t been teared apart as much as it deserves. Godawful doesn’t even start to cover this biased, dumpster fire of an adaptation. [End of the EDIT]

[EDIT: 01/07/2023/Updated: 13/07/2023] The rest of Fubuki’s “active” role in the plot (a few panels, basically) has been covered in my previous post (like in the case of the Rover fight and the Tank Top Master stuff) and the remaining moments, not examined there, are so minor that I’m ashamed to have to take these into account: they aren’t even character-related beats or plot-changing achievements, but, at best, background duties where Fubuki is employed as a glorified plot device (and most of the time even that isn’t the case). It’s incredible hard to even discuss these scenes panels, especially because most of this stuff happen off-screen and aren’t even properly shown. But let’s try this.

First, many readers claim that Fubuki’s main contribution is to have healed the S-Class heroes: it’s not true. Fubuki only healed TankTop Master (with the help of Bomb and Pig God, by the way). Before that, TankTop Master somehow got better all by himself, going from being reduced to a minced meat corpse to looking slightly wounded (Zombieman who?). Fubuki “saved” (and with help too) someone who actually saved himself due to plot armor: incredible achievement.

Then there is the case of Nichirin (the fact I have to mention this ink-waster says plenty about the quality and quantity of Fubuki’s content): we only see Fubuki actually assisting him on a single page (a couple of panels at most that are even difficult to notice at all, such a good job Murata and ONE did at highlighting Fubuki’s actions!), the rest of the time he is basically by himself. Before Fubuki’s arrival, in fact, the samurai survived without assistence for an unholy amount of time, after being hit by a spray of corrosive acid that liquified his internal organs and half of his body, having the strength to talk to Atomic Samurai and give him his asspull sword. Later, when Fubuki is seen taking care (/doing nothing in reality, but I will get to it) of Tatsumaki, Nichirin is nowhere to be seen (Chapter 163): if Fubuki keeping Nichirin in life support was essential to his survival, he should have been there, otherwise he would have died the instant Fubuki stopped taking care of him; and yet he was nowhere to be seen and still survived. So, while the manga wants to imply that Fubuki kept him in life support and was the reason he managed to live despite his injuries, this is not true, considering how both before and after he kept going by himself. Nichirin lived out of sheer willpower and plot armor, not because Fubuki’s aid was decisive in any noticeable way.

Lastly, for what regards Tatsumaki, the injuries she sustained in the battles didn’t pose any danger to her life (seriously, not only because of the examples mentioned above, where way more gruesome and apparently fatal wounds were brushed off as easily as mere scratches, but also given how at no point the narrative treats Tatsumaki’s conditions as an urgent matter that her life depended on immediate assistence), and Fubuki’s whatever amounted to absolutely nothing in the end, not affecting either the overall plot, the two sisters or their relationship in any way.

This sad parade goes to show how meaningless and inconsequential Fubuki’s actions actually were: these characters all survived regardless of her and would have been fine if she wasn’t present - by the way, the page linked above in reference to Nichirin is set before the timeline split, so there is no mental gymnastics we can resort to. Fubuki didn’t accomplish anything narrative-wise here, zero at all. For any other character trivialities like these wouldn’t even be mentioned out of embarrassment of having to scratch the bottom of the barrel in order to come up with something to bring to the table, even if it turns out to be so pathetic and shallow. Their real moments of spotlight were so highlighted by the story and impactful for the overall plot that no one would dare bring up similar trifles in their cases (and in the case of these “epic Fubuki’s exploits”, it requires an unhealthy dose wishful thinking to even consider them something). The actual purpose of these moments is to push the plot forwad with the authors basically saying to the readers “Don’t worry about them, Esper Senzu Bean will take care of them offscreen. Now, watch another Centipede fight and your favorite hero, Spring Moustache, fight a Dragon Level Threat for dozens of pages!”.

The fact that “feats” and contributes like these have to be mentioned reveals how unremarkable and insignificant Fubuki’s role in the manga turned out to be, despite the fantastic precedent set by the webcomic, something that was already perfectly laid out for them - apparently by the same person who is writing both versions!

Furthermore, the presence of a support hero in the cast gets completely undermined when we have witnessed a bunch of heroes being beaten to death only for them to bounce back to life due to pure, unbashed plot armor. After the umpteenth example of this, the reader has stopped paying attention to the conditions of the heroes and the fake-out deaths because all of them will survive/return to the action soon, so there is no need to be worried about them; consequently, what value is left to a healer if the healing is unneeded and the rest of the cast recovers basically by themselves? Besides, how can we look forward to seeing Fubuki and find her story engaging if her moments occur mostly offscreen and consist solely of healing/support instead of fighting (which, in an action series, it is 95% of the content, especially in a fighting-heavy arc like the Moster Association), and the healing-support is rendered useless by the fact every other character survives solely thanks to plot armor and without help? And this without getting into the matter that Fubuki never needed these bullshit sterotypical powers in the first place - but this was addressed in the previous post.

Moreover, and this is the coup de grace to her relevancy and portrayal in the manga, Fubuki’s support is only and always brought up (save for one instance, the Genos chapter) as the punchline to a terrible gag - see the TankTop Master examples or the wc Garou reference - if it’s brought up at all. “Fubuki has been treated better in the manga than in the source material”, yeah, sure, totally. [END of the EDIT]

Miscellanea.

The Fubuki Group appeared in Chapter 131 among the heroes leaving the hospital and joining the fights/rescue operations, only for them to completely disappear from the manga. The B-Class only reappeared in Chapter 164 when they reunited with Fubuki, proceeded to get spooked by the world-shattering battle/sudden entrance of Garou (1, 2) and were last seen among the heroes who were kicking his ass after the Zero-Punch. They are the only heroes that never showed up during the surface battles out of all the ones leaving the hospital: the members of Tank Top Army, for example, who departed from the hospital at the same time, were helping civilians in more than one occasion, just like Sneck and Lightning Max where seen multiple times. Maybe the following chapters (or redraws) will pretend they had some sort of utility (from a storytelling perspective, I mean), but as of now, their scene in Chapter 131 was a waste of ink and the reunion with Fubuki happened in one panel as minusucle background scribbles. Sidenote, if there was any doubt left about the manga not allowing (most of) the S-Class to commit anything slightly questionable, take a look at Chapter 169 and how it portrays the S-Class: instead of them advocating for Garou’s execution, it’s a bunch of non-S-Class heroes led by Amai Mask who are willing to kill on the spot the Hero Hunter while the heroic and noble S-Class bring them back to their senses - in the original they agreed with Mask, Child Emperor included; I’m rather curious to see whether or not Murata and ONE will backtrack on this for the Esper Sisters arc.

[EDIT 26/03/2024] And since I mentioned the group, I want to talk about them as well; after all, they are an extension of Fubuki’s character.

Save for the bonus “the Struggles of the Blizzard Group”, which is an innocuous and silly chapter, and the Special “Numbers”, where they had a limited role, pretty much every single addition that featured the group has effectively turned them into the most pathetic bunch of heroes of the HA.

Even though they are presented as a gathering of elite B-Class heroes, this is made never apparent from their performances, considering how the group spend the vast majority of its screen time losing, trembling and fleeing away. In the webcomic it is mentioned that taking down a Demon Level Threat represents the upper limit of their strength; by the way, the group actually did, albeit offscreen, defeat multiple high Tiger Level Threats (perhaps even Demons, Chapter 134), and they accomplished this without feat without Fubuki’s aid. Nothing shown in the manga suggests any of that, however. In none of their battles, the members of the group ever show good teamwork, effective battle tactics and fighting prowess: they simply charge head-on at an enemy without any strategy at all, proceed to get beaten and lie powerless waiting for help. Discipline, experience and high morale? Nowhere to be found. I would say that their track record in the manga puts a big question mark on whether or not they can even handle a weak Tiger Level Threat, since they underperformed against a mere C-Class criminal. Actual monster are out of their weight class, and any time they fought one, the B-Class got destroyed. Furthermore, in the manga, their brightest hour consists in doing chores and side-jobs, instead of hero activities.

Keep in mind that this is the same manga that wastes pages and pages on very minor characters just because the authors think it would be cool for them to have a moment of spotlight or a fight, even though none of them will have much of an impact on the overall narrative and only contribute to bloat the story. Meanwhile, side characters like the Fubuki group, who are tied to a major member of the cast, are neglected and undermined. I know it’s subjective, but I would rather have more scenes dedicated to this faction, which would give us insight on Fubuki’s leadership style and organization skills, than add a new batch of barely characterized low-ranked heroes or spend time with the Tank Top Army, a collection of gimmick overreacting cardboard cutouts out of a battle shounen.

At first, I attributed this less than favourable portrayal to the authors' criticism for factions and their tendency to represent an easier (and opportunistic) path than solo work for individual heroes, but this was proven false. The Tank Top Group, which in the webcomic is shown in a way worse light than the Fubuki Group and has underperformed pretty much every single time they were shown on a chapter, have played a major role in the events of the MA arc despite being related to a character way less important than Fubuki and having no relevant role in future events. Even the Support Team, a manga original addition, demonstrated far better coordination against the monsters despite having no prior joint training, facing well against a Dragon Level Threat. Death Gatling Team was given much more space and more time to shine than the Fubuki group, as well: the rag tag team of heroes with different backgrounds demonstrated remarkable strategy and group work against Garou. The Fubuki Group never received even half of this amount of care or thought put in the pages dedicated to them.

Funny how the group said to have excellent teamwork, discipline and commitment to their leader shows worse coordination and morale than characters who have never fought together and never trained for joint combat.

Adding salt to the wound, manga original characters like Glasses and Needle Star, who are ex-members of the Fubuki Group, have only gotten better since they left the group, proving how Fubuki’s leadership in the manga is actually detrimental and harmful to her subordinates. They both received more screentime and focus than the all members of the group combined, and the authors are clearly using them as a counterpoint to Fubuki’s group, illustrating how better they have become since they stopped following Fubuki. As a proof of this, in a bonus chapter Eyelashes witnesses Glasses’ progress and envies his freedom and strength, lamenting his own afflilation to a group. The criticism for Fubuki couldn’t be more explicit than this. Fascinating how, out of the bunch, the only two depicted positively and sympathetically are the ones who left the group.

The manga pays lip service to Fubuki’s leader talent, but, as you can see, it’s actually disparaging her inclination on every occasion and celebrating those who choose to leave her and find their way. If Fubuki was actually a good leader or had the “makings” of one, tangible proof of this would have been shown in more than one scene and would have been substatinal, demonstrating how she has a talent to organize, inspire and lead people - instead of a coupe of generic acts of heroism drown and undermined by endless instances of Fubuki acting incompetently and being humiliated. By the way, the webcomc sells this idea and explains eloquently why people would gather under her banner; I will talk about this later.

The lack of camaraderie, unity or loyalty shouldn’t surprise, given that, in the manga, the majority of the group consists of low ranked heroes coerced into joining the faction. This doesn’t make for a motivated bunch, much less a competent fighting force. Going by Glasses experiences, new members don’t benefit from the group and their progress gets stalled, resulting in demotivated and unfulfilled new recruits. And those who don’t follow the group policy are kicked out, like Needle Star.

As for Fubuki, she doesn’t seem particularly concerned, given how her idea to improve the group is spending their funds on a new auto, and other triviliaties. The fundamental flaws of the organization are never acknowledged by her nor the repeated failures have led Fubuki to reconsider her strategies, but to seemingly persevere in her shortcomings.

In the webcomic, the picture is quite different.

First of all, the group is not held together by fear. The members follow Fubuki out of their own volition, willingly staying due to loyalty and gratitude toward their beloved leader. Their commitment and dedication to the cause is such that they would risk their lives for Fubuki without hesitation, as the Esper Sisters arc demonstrates. Against someone like Tatsumaki, the group decided to fight despite having no chance to win and with the likely outcome to die, all in the name of Fubuki; worth noting is that previously Fubuki disbanded the group and told them to leave, and so nothing prevented them to ditch her and go for their way. This wouldn’t make any sense if these people were forced into the group or stayed solely because they were afraid of personal repercussions. If anything, the occasion represented the perfect opportunity to show how frail and unstaible a group whose foundations lie on prevarications and violence ultimately is, but ONE went into the opposite direction and revealed how the group, instead of bullies and opportunists, is formed by loyal and devoted underlings who believe in Fubuki and fight for for her against all odds, tied to her by a real and profound bond.

Too bad the manga decided to ignore this, and so we get the Team Rocket.

So, considering all of the above, the narrative the manga presents to us is the following: Fubuki is a bad leader who puts at risk the lives of her underlings all the time and meets failures on daily basis; she seems be holding back her subordinates and preventing them to grow, as the examples of Glasses and Needle Star confirm; she is mismanaging the organization and has done nothing concreto to fix its issues, but keeps repeating them time and time again. Is this same character the manga later pretends to paint as a potentially great leader in her only moment of spotlight?

Thinking about it, Tank Top Master is leaps and bounds a better and more inspiring leader than Fubuki has ever been portrayed in the manga, and so are many other “non-leader” characters. [End of the EDIT]

Always in Chapter 169 Saitama states he is grateful to Garou for having saved both Genos and King: in the webcomic, it was Fubuki the one showing up there and basically saving anyone (Chapter 74).

Nitpick: In her last appearance in the webcomic MA arc, Fubuki rescued Fang from the boulders trapping him; manga Fubuki’s last appearance has her collapsing over her sister while King, who in the wc asked Fubuki to lend him a hand at helping Fang (because he couldn’t do it), heroically protects them both from the radioactive rain.

Conclusions (for now).

With all that being said, I don’t want to change anybody’s opinion on the character or “taint” their enjoyment of the series. With these posts, I simply hope to dispel some misconceptions regarding Fubuki and also reflect on the state of the character in the manga.

Now that the arc has concluded, I can safely say that Fubuki's treatment in the remake has been an all-around disappointment and that she is one of the characters that lost the most going from webcomic to manga.

Fubuki has been degraded from being a major player to a comic relief mostly ornamental to the scenes she takes part in. What makes this even more frustrating is Fubuki’s original involvement in the MA arc. She was one of the heroes who did the most during the battles, and she was intrinsically tied to the narrative of the arc and its themes. Now? Something that can’t be said anymore. Characters that barely did anything or that weren’t even present in the original got more screen time and flashy battle scenes/heroic moments than her (really anyone, from Tanktop Master to the Support Team, Spring Moustache, the Samurais, Metal Bat, Drive Knight, etc.), which is absurd in itself, even without taking into account how badly Fubuki has been written and used in the manga compared to the webcomic.

Her character clearly fulfills a completely different narrative purpose and, consequently, the manga reserves her a completely different treatment, from a member of the main cast with an active and important role to play (and one of the few developed characters with an ongoing character arc) to a background entity who shows up every now and then mostly for lighthearted moments - that, or on the front page of a chapter. The personality of the character, her personal storyline, her struggles were all erased because the authors clearly didn’t want her to get in the way of her sister’s popularity, reducing Fubuki to this husk of a character. It’s as if Murata and ONE went all “Carthago delenda est” on the character.

At this point, if somehow the manga started adapting the webcomic 1:1 again, following Fubuki’s original webcomic characterization and masterfully enhancing her original scenes to further heights (like a perfect adaptation of Fubuki vs. Psykos) or if it came up with new memorable and interesting developments, that wouldn’t still erase what came before, nor would it repair the damage already done. Now, even if Fubuki fights Psykos it will either be an unsatisfying adaptation that won’t do any justice to the original battle or an unbelievable and jarring confrontation with no build-up. The only way to effectively “fix” this mess would be to rewrite the vast majority of the scenes involving Fubuki and to remove entire portions of the remake, which obviously can’t be done. The problem isn’t that the remake is not following the original, but the fact that manga Fubuki has a nonsensical and contradictory character arc (if this unintelligible mess can even be qualified as a “character arc”) that occurs largely off-screen; it’s a mess regardless of whether or not you take into account the webcomic. Remake Fubuki is, at best, a collection of female battle shounen tropes badly put together and, at worst, something out of a fanfiction (written by someone with a clear bias and favorites) or a dōjinshi even before having anything to do with the original character.

Adding flaws to a character is not an issue per se; if anything, this is what often makes them tridimensional. In the case of Fubuki, though, the manga has retooled the character with an endless catalog of flaws, to the point of changing moments or elements to disparage her, whereas the rest of the cast, save a few, got their flaws erased for a more positive portrayal. If any other character virtues get conflated and overblown, bordering on absurd, Fubuki has any of her merits and redeeming qualities robbed from her or turned against her in the most humiliating and vilifying ways.

As for the chance of Fubuki vs. Psykos still happening: if somehow Psykos escapes and plays the role of the villain (again), Fubuki will have to deal with what actually is Tatsumaki’s defeated leftover and not the Dragon Level Esper at the top of her game, leader of an organization of powerful monsters capable of posing a threat to the HA and its heroes - if not, then it will be the Monster Association arc all over again sans Garou. And considering how much Psykos has contributed to drag the MA arc with a multitude of new forms and power-ups in her interminable battle against Tatsumaki, re-using Psykos in the future for another esper duel could be quite exhausting and repetitive at this point. Moreover, with Fubuki and Psykos disregarding each other for the entirety of the arc, any chance at a good build-up has been squandered. This sideplot is so far in the “blink and do you miss it” territory that by the time it gets reasumed, it will be quite past its hour, especially because the few allusions to it were suffocated and overshadowed by the myriad of other storylines the authors clearly gave priority to. How Murata and ONE intend to progress this sideplot and write Fubuki in the future, given the treatment she has received so far, only time will tell. I’m also quite perplexed at the choice of “moving” (?) the battle into the aftermath of the Monster Association arc, considering what follows it. Hopefully, this time they planned something better for Fubuki, though that will still have to stand over the extremely wonky and frail foundations of 100+ chapters of a poorly handled character (and that’s being generous).

Similarly, with Tatsumaki and Fubuki getting along and Tatsumaki being depicted as the perfect sister, the Esper Sisters arc lost its central conflict and its raison d’être. To be honest, this arc could have never worked in the manga after additions like Demonic Fan and Do-s, chapters where Fubuki had to be saved by Tatsumaki because she was totally overwhelmed by her opponents. But with the Monster Association arc, Tatsumaki getting whitewashed and the conversation between the sisters, any lingering chance for this arc was utterly shattered.

With the manga following a different route (both in relation to Fubuki and the series in general), I truly don’t know what ONE wants to do with the character and the prolonged absence of Fubuki in the wc (save three pages last year) doesn’t help either, making her future in the series unclear. And, obviously, there is always the possibility that manga original stuff could leak into the webcomic, as unfortunate as that may sound. With the manga having effectively destroyed anything that made Fubuki unique, compelling and interesting (even esthetic-wise, she is basically a moe-blob ecchi escapee nowadays), perhaps as a way to not take away the limelight from certain characters, I wonder if this is indicative of Fubuki’s future in the webcomic: maybe, despite all the seemingly hanging plotlines involving her and the importance and focus she got in the past, Fubuki will not play any role or won’t have an active part in ongoing and future arcs; if that’s true, it would be a shame and a total waste of this character. With that being said, if instead wc Fubuki gets a well-written and satisfying progression and conclusion to her story, that will be enough to make me forget the massive disappointment the manga turned out to be.

*I’m adding this page purely because Psykos is mentioning Fubuki, but to tell the truth, it’s generic threat to Fubuki #184 prompting a Tatsumaki cool sister moment down the line.

**I maintain that if the manga committed to the leadership thing for real and wanted to convince us of the believability of it, then Fubuki should have come up with a plan and organized the S-Class in order to protect her sister/defeat JetPsykorochi. That was the perfect “testing ground” for her “vocation”, I think.

***At the time, I liked that chapter for what it was, albeit with reserves, but if I knew that was basically it for Fubuki in the arc, then my opinion would have been entirely different.

#fubuki #jigoku no fubuki #wc fubuki #webcomic fubuki #fubuki opm #one punch man fubuki #hellish blizzard #blizzard of hell #opm #anyway #I still can't believe we are past the MA arc

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nexyra · 3 years

Note

What is your take on rwby chara's mbti types? I think

Weiss - xSTJ, thought that she was ESTJ at first but ISTJ makes a lot of sense too.

Winter - ESTJ

Pyrrha - ESFJ

Emerald - ISFJ (I've seen some ppl type her as INFJ but I don't see how she is a Ni dom?)

Whitley - ENTJ? I'm honestly not sure abt that..

Adam - fucked up xNFJ, probably INFJ (seen him typed as xNTJ but his delusional thinking process imo screams unhealthy Ti and I think his manipulation of Blake and the WF is more Fe than Te

Qrow - was thinking ISTP but with the more recent volumes I'm really not sure..

Penny - ENFP

Ozpin - Uuuuuh INTP maybe?? But I've seen some people type him as INFJ. INFJ 5w6 would make sense as to why he might appear as an INTP but idk..

Bartholomew- ENTP

Jaune - no fucking idea honestly

Ironwood - ENTJ

Sun - Seen ppl type him as ENFP but I don't see any Ne at all..,,ESFP?

Yang - ESxP, maybe ESTP

Cinder - INTJ

Mercury - ISTP

Oscar - ISFJ

Ren - ISTx?

Hello anon ! I see my love for typology hasn't gone unnoticed 😂 Thank you so much for the ask !

I prefer enneagram over MBTI because I find it easier to type; so fair warning that I'm not an authority on MBTI-typing. But I do have have an ongoing RWBY typing that includes MBTI sooo... here goes !

(I'm putting my ennea typings along with it, but not explaining them on this post)

➸ RWBYJNPR

Ruby • xNFP 6w7 9w1 2w3?

I just can't decide between the two fors Ruby because... it kind of goes both way ??? Like Ruby definitely feels as INFP for the first half of the series; she's got a clear Fi > Ne preference... But then when she develops her Tert in V6 it's just... Te ? And she really doesn't show much Si actually she fits more the Si inf vibe in the form of forgetting about bad memories and her mom until people dig it up and she's like "nooo !" ?? So it looks like Te > Si but also Fi > Ne; conclusion idfk

Weiss • ISTJ 1w2 6w5 3w4 sp/so

Clear Fi tert rearing its head along with the 1 so I'm going with ISTJ; I also never really saw any Ne. Her type isn't too disagreed upon so tell me if you want a lenghtier explanation.

Blake • ISFP 6w5 9w8 4w3 (in some order)

Wooh this might get the anger of some (i have experience with the INFJ typers) but Blake goddamn REEKS of Fi. Less so recently but for the first seasons oh my god. She straights up catch you by the shirt and tells you "I'm doing the right thing"; and said right thing is so heavily dependant on her own subjectives values, which is why Blake can't reconcile with the current White Fang; because she doesn't have a strong Je vision of "what objectively works in the end", she only sees actions in terms of immediate right and wrong, and this b&w dichotomy stems from herself. What the WF is doing is wrong and the circumstances don't matter for judging the morality of their actions (of course I'm not talking about murder here bc that's pretty wrong ALL THE TIME but for example the stealing occuring in V1 bc of the WF is a better example)

Yang • ESXP 7w8 8w7 2w3

I'm sorry about that but I can't help you on that aspect anon, I still can't make up my mind about whether Yang has Fi or Ti. I have seen arguments for both, and i'm not the best at picking up on Ti so it's hard for me to tell.

Jaune • ESFJ 6w7 3w2 9w1

No strong opinions on his MBTI, it's kinda just based on vibes

Nora • ENFP 6w7 9w8 3w2

Textbook ENFP, not much to say here x))

Pyrrha • XXFJ 2w1 1w2 6?

In my list Pyrrha is currently written down as ISFJ but that's mostly based on the general consensus and me wanting to get rid of the XX. I don't actually have any convincing arguments to decide on Ni or Si, so I could go either way if someone else makes their case well. I feel like she's Fe aux more than dom, but even about that I could change my mind. Pyrrha didn't have that much screentime in the end :((

Ren • ISTJ? 9w1 5w4 4w5

Ironically I'm not sure about his type, kind of like you. I've mentionned I'm not very good at picking up on Ti right ? And Ren was a background character before V4 really. I had him written down as ISTP for a while but I've seen some convincing arguments for ISTJ so I might lean toward that actually but who knows. The thing I'm very confident about is his 5 fix = )

➸ Faunus bonus

Sun • ESFP 7w6 2w3 9w1 so/sx

I don't see any Ne at all either so I don't understand the ENFP typings...?? Maybe the 7 stereotypes ? Imo Sun is just a very good boy; certified ESFP 7 himbo; triple positive sunshine !

Ilia • Ti-Fe axis ?

Again, not enough screentime for me to make an educated guess. My only certainty is : not high Fi. It's the source of their conflicts. Blake confidence in absolute right & wrong, tracing lines in the sand between acceptable & unacceptable. Whereas Ilia can only shake her head and say "Because it works", or cry out "I don't know what else to do !"

Adam • 3w4 8w7 6w5

I honestly don't really have much of an opinion about Adam's MBTI, i'm sorry anon ;; I don't know enough about how he thinks

➸ Oz-related things and his circle

Ozpin • INFJ 5w4 2w1 1w9

I would personally call him an INFJ. I... never really got INTP vibes from him ? I don't see the Fe inf work out with his interactions : he's always rather at ease, he knows how to navigate around people... His focus inherently lies on doing what's best for the "group", the people, humanity. Fx functions are both concerned with ethics, in different ways, and I think Oz reflects that well. He IS concerned with the moral weight of his actions, but it's a more adaptable and unpersonnal concern than Fi people. He regards Ironwood's soul machines as something wrong, but can still agree to use it if the situations demand it for example. So... if the INFJ + 5 makes sense to you, well that's what I'm typing him personally. I also feel like Ni fits him more than Ne. Ozpin has a very linear way of planning, he does use his fair share of symbolism in every day conversation... Even when taking decisions, he... kind of cares about the meaning of things a lot ? It's hard to explain but like; the way he highlights the difference between an army and a guardian, and the emotionnal response it brings. I don't know it feels like there's some Ni vibes in there x)

Oscar • ISFJ 9w8 6w7 3w2

Oscar's type honestly isn't the one I would have the easiest time explaining in lenght but yea. It's mostly vibes; also just like Ozpin he doesn't seem to have a particularly Fi reasonning. And he feels more grounded, I don't really remember any Ni so... yay ?

Ironwood • ENFJ 6w5 1w2 3w4 (pre-Vol8); ENTJ (post-Vol8)

Might be weird if you think he was a dictator from the start, but I kind of entertained the idea of Ironwood being Fe dom ? From his very first interaction it was very clear that he was a Je dom to me; he's all about objective results; he doesn't give off the "internal framework" or "personnal values" vibe AT ALL; so it was more a matter of picking Te or Fe. He LOOKS super Te don't get me wrong; but he also has an enneagram tritype that is very common amongst XXTJs (and TJs stereotypes thus derive from it). And just like Oz, his focus at all time seemed to be the greater good and doing what's best for the people still. So I was like... Eh, a "harsh" ENFJ I think that's interesting ? Plus Fe ethics actually derive from their environment, kinda like "everyone agrees that Y is wrong", and if you consider that James is from Atlas... Well his way of thinking and ethics align pretty well with the military.

His character took a turn for the worse in V8 (whether too quick or not depends on who you ask) and past that point he's a clear ENTJ; but I feel like it was more debatable before that. Idk though I might be overthinking this in the hope of making more interesting combinations xD

Qrow • ISTP 4w3 6w7? 1w9? sp/sx

I don't really see anything else than ISTP for Qrow... But he's not a character I would want to find Ti arguments for either.

Raven • ENTJ Cp6w5 8w9 3w4

Most villains get called ENTJ at the first occasions tbh zlqfznhqzkf but I think it fits Raven for the most part actually...

➸ Atlas

Winter • ESTJ 1w9 3w4 6w5

The whole Schnee family has the same enneagram tritype in different order/different wings, it's ridiculous I think she has a higher Te than Weiss, and Fi inf fits her more. She struggles more to reconcile with her emotions and the idea of a personal right/wrong than her little sis.

Penny • ENFP 4w3 6w7 9w1 sx/so

Perfect example of a healthy 4, she's a great friend a cutie pie. ... Sorry we were talking about MBTI x) Well again, textbook ENFP. Not much to debate here.

Whitley • 3w4 1w9 6w5?

Not enough material for me to guess a MBTI type correctly either, sorry... I could see some kind of xNTJ yea but it's really just vibes and not enough concrete.

➸ Antagonists and Extras

Cinder • 8w7 3w4 6w5

Never cared to guess her MBTI type. I hereby type her as insufferable qkfqskfq. More seriously, I don't really know sorry Anon :/

Emerald • 2w3 ?w? ?w?

I never got Fe vibes from her tbh, I just think she's a 2. And Fe as a function is very infused with 2 stereotypes. So yea. Like, she isn't even that worried about the morality of her actions or anything more than the other villains. She just cares more about her personal relationships and being loved, so she automatically looks much nicer, especially with 2 mechanisms of trying to make herself useful and needed. Also because she's surrounded by 8-ish people xD

Mercury • 8w9 7w8 ?w?

ISTP doesn't sound too farfeteched, but I never MBTI-typed him either, sorry.

Bartholomew Oobleck • xSxJ 5w4

The only vibe he gave me is Si somewhere because of all his talks about learning from the past and everything repeats itself and it's a mine of informations at Mountain Glen... That's really the only time I tried to put down anything for him, and it was Si + 5. He could be some kind of xNTP nerd too for sure, but that's more vibe and I couldn't make an actual argument for it.

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kob131 · 3 years

Note

So I saw MangaKamen's recent video on RWBY and two things spoke out to me personally; 1) Mangakamen is right about RWBY in the fact that they royally fucked over the situation in Atlas and 2) Robyn has no fucking right comparing her sembalance to Qrow's.

So we’re doing this again huh?

‘I am expressing my opinions and that may piss off someone of you- SO NO COMPLAINING!’

... Fun fact, in his video going after Cosmonaut Variety Hour’s video on Jojo, he directly criticizes him for apparently ‘trying to deflect criticism’ by labelling the video a rant. So know that when I saw that he’s just trying to deflect any backlash he gets here and he inevitably gets pissy about it.

Because this man cannot be consistent to save his life.

“I’m not unreasonable guys!”

No, you just consume and vomit up the points of people who are so deeply biased that they can’t be described as anything BUT unreasonable.

And I know this, because I remember watching his Volume 7 video and noticing he made a comparison between Jacques and Trump. Now as I’ve stated and shown- this doesn’t make sense. Many of Jacques’ policies and actions in the plot are counter indicative of the common liberal consensus of Trump (for example, Jacques is shown to mostly do this for his business while Trump acting for his business is the ONE thing he was never accused of). This is also not like Kamen’s style at all- he rarely if ever addresses politics in media.

.. And he didn’t. Because that point wasn’t his. I found out FMF said the exact same thing beforehand and Kamen is on record as watching his videos and following his Twitter. This combined with his blind acceptance of FloofArtist, someone who is even more biased than FMF due to personal feelings- I’m certain that a lot of what he says is just repeated from other people.

In all honesty, I have more respect for FMF. Because he at least isn’t as big a hypocrite nor is he copying other’s opinions even though it’s so far against his style it doesn’t make sense.

Okay so in his first section, he bitches about Cinder’s backstory.

First is that this should have happened in Volumes 4 and 5 because those had a focus on Cinder. Problem, Cinder has a focus in Volume 8 as well as Volume 7 and 6- She’s continually had focus ever since Volume 2. She wasn’t given any special treatment in Volumes 4 and 5, in fact she plays a similar role there as well. ... Except with Atlas, this place is were her abuse took place and her character arc here is learning from her mistakes, which are rooted in her abuse. It also shows how and why Salem got her to be loyal- by offering her a tiny bit of approval and support which she lacked. The same thing she did to Emerald, who is defecting in this Volume. It also gives the audience satisfaction when she does learn from her mistakes and succeeds. So for all he questions about why it is here- He doesn’t even consider a very blatant answer.

He also tries to say that we’ve had other villain backstories before Cinder’s so that...makes hers worse? ...Um, not only does this not pertain to the purpose of Cinder’s backstory, three of his four examples (Tyrian, Watts and Hazel?) are TOLD to us. Cinder, like Salem, is SHOWN to us. This is important since Kamen has bitched about RWBY not doing show don’t tell before so he should be praising this.

His third point is about how Cinder was treated like a slave and yet she feels nothing for the Fanaus, therefore her development from her backstory doesn’t make sense...which misunderstands how people operate so much I’m genuinely confused. Like...people don’t relate to others in similar situations all the time because their experiences scar them to the point of not empathizing with others in similar situations. Hell, that’s the basis of the cycle of abuse. Having similar experiences doesn’t mean Cinder would care, especially since she’s so focused on not repeating that life she ignores so much around her.

Next is-Oh fucking god, it’s the goddamn ‘RHODES AND ABUSE!’ point. Once again, look at the scenes were Cinder is abused. And I mean ‘unambiguous’ abuse. Her sisters tracking mud in, her mother having her work and glaring at her for breaking something is not abuse. I’m talking about the underfeeding and the shock collar. It’s all done AWAY from the public. AKA Away from RHODES. Fuck, take out every scene in which Cinder is abused and tell me if you could tell she was abused and not...I dunno...just a teen who doesn’t like her upbringing. Her collar looks like a normal collar for fuck’s sake!

‘But- Cinder could have mentioned it to him off-screen!’

And that would normally be a good point to make as it is logical given how close they are implied to be. ... But guess what Kamen says?

“If it’s not shown in the show, it doesn’t count.”

Issue is- that cuts both ways. Just as outside info can’t be used to justify the show, the lack of it can’t be interpreted against it. So Kamen fucked the only strong point he could have had.

Then we have him...bitching about show don’t tell with CInder’s song. ... While he completely ignores the showing of Cinder’s abuse being in private. Very blatantly in private.

... I said twelve times, I’ll say it a thirteenth: this is why things in RWBY are so blunt. If it isn’t just a step before the writers walking on screen and explaining the show- People go and misinterpret everything to a point well beyond my suspension of disbelief. This is especially true with Kamen since he bitched at Cvit for not considering what he called ‘basic’ details about Persona 5. So he above anyone else lacks an excuse.

This gets proven in the next part where he says that the purpose of the backstory is to show that Cinder isn’t in power...when in the same episode, we had a scene were Cinder’s Grimm thrashes about with cuts to her backstory where her collar shocked her as Salem gave her very blatant words of manipulative support. You cannot get anymore blatant and blunt than that aside from doing EXACTLY as I said and Kamen STILL misinterprets it.

He bitches about Cinder retreading the same ground and she sucks...but then consider everything I’ve showcased so far. With all this wildly off shit that he’s criticized in others- can you honestly say you think it’s the show’s fault? Or s it his and he’s not owning up to it?

Considering how he doesn’t make the obvious connection of ‘Cinder lacked power in her developmental years’ to ‘Cinder has an unnatural obsession with that thing she lacked in her developmental years’-

I can safely say it’s the latter.

And that’s it for now. I’ll revisit this later considering how tired I am. But to wrap things up-

Look at the length of this post. Look at all the problems I pointed out. Look at the hypocrisy and inexcusable stupidity.

Then consider that this is only 9 minutes...into a 51 minute video.

...Do you really think Kamen’s points are that good? Or even acceptable?

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honeyby · 3 years

Note

Which volume do you think isn’t the strongest in rwby? Personally I think it might be 5. I mean it’s great that everyone has a chance to breathe but rwby doesn’t reunite until the end of the volume and I feel like they could have had Blake do what she does here in V4 since she didn’t do much then.

That way they get to reunite sooner and the girls are back together and can hash things out. Plus we’d get angst with the bees that we didn’t get in the show which would flow into volume 6.

My unpopular opinion is that I really like volume 5! And I really don’t get the hate for it. Without a doubt I like it more than 1, 2, and 4. And like I enjoyed volume 7 and I think it’s a better executed volume BUT for me the highs of volume 5 were more enjoyable. RWBY fully reuniting at the end of the volume works for me and ends the volume on a really nice triumphant note, everything with Raven and Ilia is amazing, and TEAM RWBY REUNITES! Like the reunions alone make volume 5 worth it. There’s some pacing issues and the fight in Haven is a bit clunky but honestly neither of those is a dealbreaker for me. And those things certainly don’t outweigh the highs of everyone reuniting and the strong emotional beats the volume manages to hit. Yang meeting Raven and Yang confronting Raven in the vault are still two of my favorite scenes on the entire show.

I have to say, I love me some bees angst but like...with the way things were setup it was important that they didn’t have the type of angst some wanted (think screaming, a lot of anger from Yang, etc). There’s a reason Yang had that talk with Weiss and why Blake had her talk with Sun at the end of volume 4: to help them get in the right headspace for seeing each other again. Yang needed to work through her feelings to admit that they stemmed from hurt, not anger, and to talk to someone who wasn’t as close to the situation to help her see Blake’s perspective: that Blake felt guilty and was only trying to protect her. Blake needed to figure out that running away to protect people only hurt them more and to hear from Sun that Yang didn’t regret what she did. Those conversations don’t solve everything but they made it so both of them were in a good place when they reunited.

And we do get to see some angst in volume 6! Blake still feels some guilt for what happened and tries to go overboard in making up for leaving. Yang was able to accept her back but the fact that she left still hurt and she needs some time to be able to really trust her again. They just didn’t need the brand of angst that was popular pre-beeunion because they’d both grown in ways that meant that wasn’t how they would deal with it.

To answer your question though, my general ranking is 4<1<2<7=5<8<3<6, with 8’s ranking being very tentative (I’d like to rewatch the whole volume all together before I place it for sure but I don’t think it’ll change). Volume 4 has some great moments (Jaune practicing with Pyrrha! Yang vs Tai sparring match, which is still one of my favorite fights choreographically! Ren backstory!) but it was always going to be hard for a volume with a completely separated team RWBY to be one of my favorites and there’s other things that don’t work well for me (Cinder’s arc ends up not being very effective because she doesn’t really learn anything from it, not much happening in Menagerie, multiple episodes between some main characters showing up, some writing choices in general that come across worse than intended...).

#I genuinely love volume 5 #and I don’t get the hate #the highs are so good!#and the lows are really not bad?#especially watching it all together #let me 🐝 your bmblb

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lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby · 4 years

Text

You had me with your words but you lost me with your action

This section will relate to the main theme of Volume 7(Trust) and how it relates to Ironwood. Basically despite all of his talk about cooperation and trust he has always been the one that has both rejected and withheld the most of these 2 concepts. Now some of this can be related to his questionable upbringing and past violent experiences. But the core idea is that for all his talk and promises he has never once kept them or bothered to see the error of his ways. As stated before his actions have done more harm than good.

He demands that his subordinates follow his orders without question because he thinks he is right and will always be right. And he never once afforded Ozpin that same loyalty, trust, or authority. Since his debut in the show, he was constantly questioning Ozpin’s choices, even though HE was the subordinate to Ozpin. Kinda hypocritical given his demand for it. He thought differently from Ozpin and could never accept Ozpin’s ways, nor listen to them. He expected the council, Ozpin, his soldiers, and the main heroes to follow him without question and he truly, honestly believes he is right. This is scary, especially when you compare him to Ozpin, but I will get to that in a moment. The big point is that people who are so sure that they are right, even if they are dead wrong, are the scariest adversaries.

What we have here is a narcissist with a superiority complex who can not accept that he is wrong. He was unbalanced since he came into the picture, and Ozpin knew it. But here is where things get interesting.

Prior to the fall of beacon Ironwood condemns Ozpin’s choices for keeping things secret and not sharing with the world everything. And, yes, Ironwood does the EXACT same thing after the fall of Beacon. The difference here is in intention. Ozpin’s purpose was to protect the people and ensure that as few people died as possible. Ozpin’s choices were not based on control or the need to be RIGHT. They were based on experience, a bit of fear, and concern for the people he needed to protect. To Ozpin, sacrifice on a great scale was never an option. He tried his best to make sure that the causalities were as limited as possible. A difficult thing to do, given that hunters and huntresses were constantly fighting Grimm and such. But creating a mythos around the Maidens and eliminating Salem from history allowed him to save many many lives. And I can guarantee that he attempted what Ironwood planned to do, at least on some levels, and met with staggering deaths.

Ironwood, however, is keeping secrets to keep control and out of fear. He needs control, and he is frustrated that people do not agree with him automatically. After the fall of Beacon, these traits became enhanced to an unbelievable level. We see something else surface, though: Ironwood’s ability to manipulate people and be charismatic. Ironwood is looking to survive: for himself( or his legacy that is Atlas). He will manipulate others and sacrifice millions of people’s lives to protect himself (legacy), though he clings to his mantra of “it’s for the greater good.” It will become the sign on the wall of the slave labor he creates. “For the Greater Good”.

Another thing you can do to really get an idea for the type of person Ironwood is, is by looking back to the round table discussions orchestrated by Ozpin versus Ironwood. Ozpin was constant in listening to his people, sometimes taking ideas from them, and allowed them to question him–even yell at him. He was patient and understood what they were trying to say. He demonstrated this with Ironwood and Qrow the most.

You would never see that kind of discussion with Ironwood. RWBY and co are new to the scene and it does throw him off. You can tell he is trying not to pressure them too much because he knows they are not on his side yet. Hooking them up with the Ace-Corps and Winter was a move to help sway them more, a subtle kind of brainwashing tactic that never worked on them as he had hoped.

“You're a good person, James. You've always done what you think is best for the people, even against strong protest. It's admirable. But it's high time you stopped talking about trust and started showing it.”

—Glynda, to Ironwood in "Mountain Glenn"

“This is the right move, Ozpin. I promise, I will keep our people safe; you have to trust me.”

—Ironwood, to Ozpin

“Many have described these as uncertain times. And while that may be the case for the rest of the world, I can tell you what is certain: the Kingdom of Atlas will remain strong... and it will remain safe. That is my promise.”

—General Ironwood, reaffirming his promise to the people of Atlas over the Atlas Broadcast System

“I will sacrifice... whatever it takes... to stop her.”

—Ironwood, declaring his conviction to Watts

How many of these promises did he actually keep and how much trust did he give?

According to Jacques, Ironwood does not trust anybody but himself, something that Ironwood does not deny; instead, he believes that his methods are justified. This leads Ironwood to a more proactive yet headstrong approach to problems, attempting more preemptive measures, as opposed to Ozpin's more subtle, reactive and analytical methods.

Ironwood's heroism is because of his lack of trust - he has to do everything himself, no matter what, because he doesn't trust anyone else to do it.

He doesn't trust others because he thinks of himself as the hero, that only he can do things right, that everything that goes wrong is because people didn't listen to him.

Following Orders was also another theme of this volume, but it was hinted at back in V2 and other interactions between him and his subordinates. This is a huge red flag when RWBY and co come to him in Volume 7. Ironwood has surrounded himself with Yes men, people who only follow orders and never once question them. It is a dynamic theme throughout this volume, about controlling and crushing down your emotions to follow orders–or manage your semblance? Winter started alluding to this back in V3, which really set the stage for her and future Atlas soldiers.

Because of this Ironwood is often portrayed as the least worst character while in a company of other worst characters( or other Atlasians and antagonists to be specific)

For example Volume 4 chapter 2; Remembrance; we see Ironwood and Weiss after the fall with Jaques Schnee.

This is our first proper onscreen interaction with these characters that allows us to explore their new dynamic after beacon. From a visual standpoint we can sorta see Ironwood being somewhat humble after his failure at beacon but really he hasn’t changed from the arrogant warmonger that he is from his debut.(I’ll explain that later)

During his meeting with Jaques is where we get this misdirection of his character due to the exposition from their conversation. Ironwood talks about the dust(trade) embargo being necessary as to ease tensions with the other kingdoms due to Atlas being framed is an understandable and reasonable decision in comparison to Jaques argument being that it's costing him potential Millions of world currency to profit from. The meeting ends with Ironwood leaving before making a proposal to weiss which leads to this line of dialogue with her father;

“I suppose the council trusts him, for better or worse.”

—Jacques, in "Remembrance

“I trust him.”

—Weiss Schnee, responding to her father's bad faith

Just like that the fandom is being swayed to see Ironwood in a more positive light for 3 reasons

Because best girl Weiss trusts him

Because Jaques is a greedy a**hole(As well as other Atlaisans)

Because Ironwood sides with her against the rich(V4 ep.6)

But the question that must be asked here is why does Weiss trust Ironwood?

Prior to Volume 4 she has had little to no interaction with the General. Her only point of reference for his character is only whatever Winter has told her about him, the Military propaganda and her first scene with him when he chastised and disqualified Yang and her team in Volume 3(potentially her first real and true friends by the way)

If we were to add in the factor of Ironwood's incompetence and failure at beacon, Weiss should really have no real reason to trust Ironwood who she should see as the reason why beacon fell since it was his army that he brought only to be used by the villains to kill her and her friends and destroy beacon. As well as the man who’s failure had led her back into the custody of her father.(Remember she went to Beacon to get away from his abuse) She should at least harbour some sense of Scorn or resentment for him.

The Only reason why she apparently doesn’t is because her father was in that scene. Who prior to his debut was hinted to be a greedy abusive bastard. So just like winter she sides with Ironwood simply to defy her father. The difference between her and winter though is that she doesn’t see him as a potential father figure that he may have presented himself as when he first met winter. Instead she sees him as someone she would prefer to be around instead of her father.

This is further explored during Volumes 5 & 6 where Ironwood was absent leaving her free to continue throwing shade at Jaques, Whitelty, etc. To reiterate Weiss is not pro Ironwood because she thinks he might be a good guy. She is pro Ironwood to spite and defy her abusive father.

We possibly covered what was going on in the mind of the ice queen during volume 4 that had allowed her mind(as well as us) to be swayed to favor Ironwood. Now we will cover how she ( and the audience) was wrong by relooking at Ironwoods character by the end of Volume 4( his last on scene appearance before his return in V7)

Since Ironwood was largely absent from Volumes 5 & 6 and only mentioned during those volumes we were left with our opinion of him after V4 to hold us over till his return in V7. The problem however is that we only had 3 scenes and one mention of him during the whole of volume 4. So what are those 4 moments of Ironwood that you may ask? In order they are;

His first argument with Jaques where Weiss sides with him

Taiyang telling Yang that it was him who gifted her a new arm(For whatever reason?)

Ironwood siding and defending Weiss against the rich a##holes of Atlas

His second argument with Jaques while Weiss escapes, where he reaffirms his power to the greedy bastard

This is literally the entirety of Ironwood's impact on the story during volume 4. Not much if you were to think about it. But if you did you would come to realise that all of it was a major red hearing for his character. For you see at the start of this volume we were led to believe that Ironwood had changed for the better after his failure at beacon, but in truth he didn’t.

To further explain let's look at the narrative symmetry of his arc during the volume. It starts with him arguing with Jaques and ends with an argument with the same man with both arguments ending with Ironwood on top Winning the argument. The difference between the two is how Ironwood is portrayed. The first argument as stated before tricks us into believing that Ironwood has become humble and wiser after his failure. But the second shows us the truth. Ironwood hadn’t changed at all. Instead it shows us that he is still as blunt and arrogant as he was during Volumes 2 & 3. To best explain let's look at the transcripts of the argument;

Weiss is soon creeping outside her father's study door when she hears a glass crash followed by the rising voice of James Ironwood. She crouches behind a cushioned chair against the wall.

Ironwood: You need to control yourself!

Jacques: You're talking to me about control? Do you even hear what you're saying?

Ironwood: I am basing everything on my reports from your daughter.

Jacques: A daughter you stole!

Weiss moves closer to the door to listen.

Ironwood: Oh, we are not getting into that again.

Jacques: Oh, yes, we have far more pressing matters to discuss, starting with your apparent lunacy!

Ironwood: Jacques!

The scene changes to an overhead view inside Jacques' study. He is seated at his desk while Ironwood has both hands on it, leaning over him from the other side.

Ironwood: (sighing heavily) Winter is one of my best. If she's telling me there's a threat in Mistral then I am not going to take that news lightly. She's been there for weeks, people are mobilizing, sudden spikes in weapons and Dust trades. Someone is about to make a play and I do not trust Leo to stop them.

From this first half of the scene we are only shown the middle and near end of the argument and we are left to interpret what led to this escalation of opinions. Prior to this we are swayed to believe that Ironwood is in the right while Jaques is in the wrong. But before we are shown the cause of the argument via its resolution, we get this interesting bash from Jaques claiming that Ironwood stole her from him(or to be accurate her family).

I find this interesting because we don’t exactly know why Winter would be so loyal to Ironwood to the point of saying that her life doesn’t matter in V7 and why she would be so against her family to the point that she makes no effort to see Weiss, and Whitely included and only bothering to be apart of weiss’s life only because she seems to be following the same path of defiance against their father. In other words she only chooses to interact with her sister only if she is rebelling against their father. If she is not, then WInter wants nothing to do with her.

Now who or what exactly would cause Winter to have this unhealthy mindset in regards to her own personal existence and relationships?

The answer being Ironwood.

If we were to consider Jaques words being serious than it is more than likely the truth. Ironwood did steal Winter, not just from her father but from the rest of her family. I don’t know what exactly Ironwood said or did to turn winter away from her family but it wasn’t out of the kindness of his heart. He did this just to have a loyal subordinate with incredible power( her hereditary semblance) & status( her grandfather's legacy and accomplishments) just to give his power and status more legitimacy.

By doing so Ironwood had brainwashed Winter into believing that her family as well as herself is beyond redemption due to the actions of her father thus leading her to abandon them and only believing Ironwood can redeem her hence why she values her life so little and is willing to die for whatever Ironwoods says.

Now we move on to the next part of the first half where Ironwood doesn’t trust Leo to handle the situation in Mistral. He first starts this off by listing all of the things that obviously would be of concern in regards to potential riots and war. Understandable and reasonable to be ready for an attack. Especially for a paranoid military leader. But here’s the thing: this is a foreign affair that has to be resolved by the people over there. In other words, that is Leo's problem to resolve, not Ironwood’s. (Keep in mind this is Ironwood before he is told the truth about Leo.)

Lionheart who is also another member of Ozpin's inner circle like him is trusted with the safety of an entire kingdom. The difference between the 2 however is how leo seems to be a most trusted member of the group given how fondly Ozpin speaks of him to the point of giving him gifts as well as being trusted with full autonomy trust, and independence in comparison to the scorn and micromanagement Ironwood gets from Ozpin and the other members(Qrow Glynda, Theo, Etc).

In other words Ironwood should at least have some trust in Leo's abilities to handle the situation in Mistral before he learns of his betrayal. But instead he claims he doesn’t and says that he could handle the situation better. Remember this is before either we or Ironwood are shown that plot twist and betrayal. For all we know when Ironwood said that Leo may have been a decent guy. This is just simply another example of Ironwood’s ego and need for control being shown but in a subtle way that we don’t even notice

We covered the first half now we will continue with the rest of the scene.

Weiss is listening outside.

Jacques: You've never trusted anyone other than yourself!

Ironwood: (shouting) And for good reason!

Weiss covers her mouth with her hand as she gasps at the sound of Ironwood slamming his fist onto the desk.

Ironwood: If Oz had just listened to me from the start...

Jacques: You need to get a grip.

Ironwood: That's exactly what I'm doing. Our people need protection. By this time next week, the Kingdom of Atlas will be officially closing its borders. No one in; no one out. Without the council's permission.

Jacques: You mean, without your permission?

Ironwood: And if that becomes the case, I would think you'd want to be on my good side.

Ironwood walks away from the desk, leaving Jacques to sigh and fold his hands.

Those first 3 lines help better clarify that despite all of the apparent good Ironwood did during the volume it exposes the truth that hasn’t changed and he is still the same narcissist authoritarian from Volumes 2 & 3. As well as a potential foreshadow of his nihilism as he ignores and rejects the fact that it was his fault beacon fell and instead chooses to continue blaming Ozpin; who if he had it his way with dealing with the events of volume 3 wouldn’t have been as disastrous as when Ironwood had his way. Simply put had Ozpin had his way continued;

Beacon possibly wouldn’t have fallen

A droid army wouldn’t have been used to frame an entire kingdom

Global communications would probably still be a thing

Fewer people would have died

Trade would still be a thing as well

The threat of another world war could have been avoided

Instead Ironwood pulled a power move against Ozpin, and it backfired immensely. Instead of learning from his mistake he chooses to blame others for his mistake and fails to realize that he is doing more harm than good.

To continue with the rest of the scene where Ironwood tells Jaques that he will be closing the borders and that nobody can leave or enter without the council's approval leads to Jaques pointing out that he really means with his permission, only for Ironwood to taunt jaques in a smug gloat to tell the greedy bastard that he has already won. The final line of that scene is probably the highlight of Ironwood’s ego being stroked as he (in his mind) has crushed and won against the last of his local opposition. It also shows us that Ironwood had amassed too much power and that it has further validated his mind into believing his own hype regardless of what the sane and reasonable characters are saying.

Now it is pretty clear Ironwood has a very toxic mindset and very manipulative personality, but why is it that after volume 4 we consider him to be a good guy till the events of V7 even though his last scene in V4 clearly shows that he is still the same as V2 & V3 Ironwood?

The reason being that his last scene was confronting Jaques Schnee who earlier had slapped his daughter in the face, revoked her inheritance, and was only presented as a corporate d##chebag. Because of this we the viewer would rather side with anyone that isn’t Jaques Schnee. But in that schnee we are tricked to side with a Paranoid Warmonger who had only a few good moments to make us believe he had changed for the better against a man who was presented as one of the most awful characters of this volume. But in truth they were both terrible when it came to morality and eventually we had to pick a side and we the audience chosen wrong(Jaques is still a villain no argument there but I think we would have no problem beating his @$$ vs getting destroyed if we challenged Ironwood on his bull$#17)

“His heart is in the right place. He's just... misguided.”

—Ozpin, about Ironwood in "Never Miss a Beat"

“Sometimes, I'm not even sure he has a heart.”

—Qrow, about Ironwood in "Never Miss a Beat"

Back in V2 and V3, Ironwood showed his ability to be both charismatic and manipulative. His subtlety in his manipulation is a statement to his rise to power. He puts himself into the position of a Father Figure to lure in the people he wants. It worked with Winter and the Ace-Ops, which is why they are his right-hand yes men. During Dance Dance, he was praising Ruby and fueling her admiration for him. Even when team RWBY came to Atlas, all his actions were calculated to manipulate the team into trusting him. Unfortunately, his actions never really lined up with his words, which was why the team was on edge.

“people only did wrong when at the moment the perceived benefits seemed to outweigh the costs.”

This is exactly what ironwood did.

To Ironwood, the world cannot be saved without Atlas(or to be accurate him). He truly believes he and Atlas are the key to victory against Salem. But Victory is not in a single person, group or in strength of power. Victory is only achieved by cooperation, teamwork and in unity.

(real quick i want to give credit to @rwby-etc for they're post that I used to help better summerize this section)

I am power I am due process I will smite

#rwby #world of remnant #general ironwood #james ironwood #rwby ironwood #rwby analysis #rwby spoilers #rwby theory #jaques schnee #winter schnee #weiss schnee #qrow branwen #rwby ozpin #lie ren #rwby ruby rose #rwby atlas #rwby mantle #rwby ace ops #Ironwood analysis

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bobauthorman · 4 years

Text

There’ll Be No Hero To Rise Above...

In most anime shows, there comes a point where the method of plot-resolution boils down to, “Can the Hero defeat the Villain?” In short, the main character becomes the central pillar of the solution, the one who HAS to win, because he’s the only one who can. It doesn’t matter if the other members of the cast are fit or not, they’re not as POWERFUL as the Hero, as important, not the one destiny has chosen.

RWBY doesn’t do that. It TRIES, in-universe, but the concept of the Lone Hero is constantly deconstructed. Those that try to set themselves apart or charge in ahead usually end up in a worse state than usual, and more likely fail to accomplish what they set out to do. Here’s a look at some people that attempt that, on either side of the morality.

Ozpin: “The Great and Powerful”, chosen by the God of Light to unite humanity and redeem them in the eyes of the Two Brothers. Unfortunately, by the present storyline Ozpin’s method has been to hide the truth of Remnant’s dangers from the world, and the full truth of the matter from his champions. Because of his knee-jerk inclination to keep his secrets, he and his forces continually fail because they have to operate behind the scenes, and when the full weight of the problem is revealed, those once loyal to him desert him.

Qrow Branwen: Due to his Bad Luck Semblance, Qrow has built up in his head that he has to work alone, to keep them safe from it. He clearly has a chip on his shoulder from it, and his insistence on being

Pyrrha Nikos: Pyrrha, I believe, never WANTED to be the Lone Hero. Her first usage of her Polarity Semblance was supporting Jaune in his first solo battle against an Ursa. She confessed to Jaune that she didn’t like the isolation her pedestal brought her. Unfortunately, Ozpin taking her to a secluded location to name her the next Fall Maiden didn’t help matters. In fact, to start with, Qrow dismissed her claims to have needed Team JNPR’s help to reach the finals of the Vytal Festival, turning it around to claim THEY needed HER. (Something Pyrrha clearly didn’t like to hear). This put huge amounts of pressure on her, making Pyrrha vulnerable to Emerald’s Hallucination Semblance. However, she eventually succumbed to her “destiny”, and tried to face Cinder alone, ultimately getting killed.

James Ironwood: Yeesh. There are SO MANY things I could list, but ultimately, Ironwood tries to put himself central to everything involving protecting Remnant. “When the people look to the sky and see MY fleet, they feel safe.” “Do you trust me?” However, his numerous trust issues and controlling tendencies ruin pretty much every plan his tries. In Volume 7, his only victories came from being willing to work with Robyn Hill and trusting her. However, once Salem got under his skin, he rendered all of that pointless by attacking those he merely disagreed with him.

Cinder Fall: When Cinder was working with the White Fang and Torchwick, her plans went off like a charm. However, instead of going after the Beacon Vault, she instead went to the top of the tower to…talk to the Wyvern, I guess? Either way, she ended up being blindsided by Ruby’s Silver Eye Powers. In Volume 5, she pushed away Watt’s advice that trying to get Ruby AND the Relic of Knowledge in the same go was a bad idea, and ended up being beaten by Raven.

Adam Taurus: Adam’s insistence on pushing Hazel away led to his humilating defeat at Haven when the brute refused to help Adam against the Faunus militia. His later attempt to ambush Blake alone got him ultimately killed by Blake and Yang working together.

Let’s also look at how each Volume Finale pans out…

Volume 1, Black and White: Blake tries to go at Torchwick alone, but gets in trouble and needs Sun to help. And when Ruby shows up, her attempt to face Torchwick alone gets her knocked out and Penny is needed to save the day and chase him off.

Volume 2, Breach: Working on their own, Team RWBY fails to prevent Torchwick from causing a massive Grimm invasion in Vale. Luckily, numerous secondary characters manage to help out, repelling the monsters.

Volume 3, The End of the Beginning: Pyrrha, as mentioned before, goes after Cinder alone, and gets killed. However, Ruby going Silver Eyes provides the Silver lining. In short, it took TWO girls to achieve any sort of victory, not one.

Volume 4, No Safe Haven: Ren’s trauma with the Nuckulevee causes him to rush at it recklessly, nearly getting him killed. It’s only when he works with the rest of Team RNJR that the beast is slain.

Volume 5, Haven’s Fate: There is no real central battle, only little ones scattered here and there. However, the key factor to Haven’s salvation is the Faunus Militia Blake and Sun brought along, as well as Blake going in to help the rest of the Gang inside Haven with Salem’s fighters.

Volume 6, Our Way: Ruby tries to be the Lone Hero, much like Pyrrha did. But her Silver Eyes could only stun and weaken the Leviathan, not destroy it. Luckily, Cordo is able to help out at the last minute and use her GIANT ROBOT DRILL to finish the job.

Volume 7, The Enemy of Trust: Oscar goes to confront Ironwood alone. No back up. And he nearly dies, because he can’t reach him. Ironwood has deafened his ears to anyone’s opinions. Meanwhile, Cinder is foiled in her ploy to steal the Winter Maiden’s powers by the combined efforts of Penny, Winter, Fria, and Ruby.

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masterhandss · 4 years

Note

This is just my opinion on hamefura, but I wish the author just ended at v1 for the light novel. The ending there was perfect for me. Sometimes, author need to know the right time to end, and there's no need to drag further or the thing that attract the reader might become tiring. Reading that Katarina got hardly character development make me sad. Sometimes I just wish her to stop being oblivious and realized the dead flag are gone!

SPOILER FOR A BIT OF THE LIGHT NOVELS

You mean by V1, you mean Arc 1 (Volume 2) right? (aka where the Fortune Lover game ends) I can totally understand where you’re coming from. This is just my personal opinion though, since i’m a dumb little bean so I can’t really speak much for future volumes since all the spoilers I know are either from reddit or @spacupanda (and I can’t even remember them all because of my pea brain) but it does get annoying. Katarina kind of walks in this fine line where she seems to be or at least wants to mature, but has to revert back into an idiot when the plot needs it to. It’s not to say that she doesn’t grow at all by Volume 6 (the current volume that has an English translation) since she does have the desire to act and become an adult while slowly becoming more self aware of her surroundings (at least her brain can comprehend the concept of sexual advances now, in a way). I heard from spoilers for future volumes that she genuinely wants to understand the world of Sorcier and has a desire to help make it better, which is a lot coming from someone who saw the world as half a video game and half as her life. Katarina is also aware of Keith and Gerald’s feelings now, so that’s a plus.

Since you probably came from the Volume 4 post I reblogged, all I can say is that my brain turned off during half of the contents of that book, and it felt like the author prioritized establishing future events and testing the post-FL1 waters that the writing ended up suffering. It gets better in Volume 6, in my opinion (since both volumes involves the cast going on a trip to do something).

In the author’s defense, I’ve head that it really was supposed to end in Volume 2, but they were convinced to write more because the light novels was gaining popularity. I know that some might say that the author should have put his foot down and ended the series there, but I feel like there is still so much to tell about the story and world of HameFura. Granted, what we have so far isn’t too satisfying, and there’s a lot that could have been tweaked to make it better, but the characters and setting of the series is too good to just end so quickly so I can understand what the executives were thinking.

Again, spoilers for future volumes (aka Vol. 6) but Katarina’s flags aren’t gone yet. It’s kind of worse than before actually (since she either dies alongside Maria in every route or thrown in jail). This is kind of why I wanted to elaborate my feelings on extending the novels because depending on your stance on the matter, the existence of more doom flags can either be a blessing or a curse. I’m just assuming this but unlike Arc 1 Fortune Love 1, I think by Volume 10 (the next JP volumes), I think Fortune Lover 2 isn’t done yet? As long as some sort of doom flag exists, she can’t completely live in peace (as that’s just how she works) so I think the author is trying to find a balance between letting her learn about the world and maturing as a person while keeping the established mantra of her doom flags being a looming threat to her character (both literally and figuratively).

By Volume 7, Katarina would be 18 which most people would assume is the point to which she’ll start maturing and acting like an adult because it’s the point where Katarina is finally living a life beyond her escaped-death and her actual death. I haven’t heard too much about how her character has changed in those Volumes, but i’m assuming it’s mostly the same. I feel like if they could at least explain why Katarina’s character is sort of stagnant, I would be a little bit okay with it. Like say it’s an outcome of her friends and her parents being too lenient on her, preventing her form making decisions on her own or something like that.

That’s just my opinion though, sorry if this reply is all over the place haha my brain isnt working correctly today hahaha. Thanks for the ask!

#mh ask #my next life as a villainess #hamefura #hamehura #bakarina #destruction flag otome #katarina claes #hamefura spoilers #i dont even know what i'm talking about jhgjsfg i'm no good at reading between lines #hope this helps though #Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta #My Next Life as a Villainess! All Routes Lead to Doom!

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skgway · 3 years

Text

1823 July, Tues. 22

1/2 hour in in the stable talking to the plasterer, and afterwards in the cow-house – Letter from M– [Mariana] (Lawton) dated yesterday,

“last Tuesday in coming downstairs my foot slipped and I fell down and sprained my right shoulder, till Saturday I was unable to use my arm at all, and even today I feel writing painful. xxxx has been my amanuensis but I am fearful of her, acting that part to you, lest you should fancy me worse than I really am” –

She thinks I “have exaggerated” her “feelings” on the subject of my last letter, “more than” her “letter warranted” – She seems to keep to her old opinions, yet so modifies them, that as she observes “to enter more upon the subject could do no good, therefore we had better drop it” –

She adds ‘I have never doubted your faith tho I have your prudence’ Wishes me to be circumspect. ‘I have a feeling on the subject which no earthly power can remove, and great as the misery which it would entail upon myself might be, I would endure it all rather than the nature of our connection should be known to any human being’

She had before observed that when she complained of my attentions to Miss Maclean I had owned they were foolish. I really don't remember this – Both Isabella and Charlotte told her last summer I did Mrs. M[ilne] harm –

Letter also from Miss Henrietta C– [Crompton] (Esholt hall) Disappointed at my not going – The Gilbert C– [Crompton]s still there – To stay till tomorrow – 4 pages the ends, under the seal, and the top of page 1 crossed – Miss Fawkes of Farnley speedily to be married to Sir Edward Barnes, governor general of Ceylon – She is to go out with him almost immediately –

“young Kaye is soon to marry Miss Arbuthnot with £60,000 – Accomplished and pretty, but I should hope weak for accepting him” – “Pray read ‘Quintin Durward’ it is charmingly interesting, I think superior to Peveril”

The C– [Crompton]s are going to woodend – They are to be at Leeds as today to see the exhibition – “Dr. Camidge has had a serious dispute with Mr. Greatorex where or how he is to stand” at the approaching musical festival –

Wrote the above of today, and went down to breakfast at 9 1/2 – At 10 3/4 in spite the perpetual showers (very rainy all last night) set off to H–x [Halifax] – A heavy shower at the top of the cunnery lane lasted till I stopt at Mrs. Wilcock’s door – Went in for 2 or 3 minutes to ask Miss Pickford if she would allow me to drive her to Haughend – (George rode Percy) – The Priestleys and Astleys, 2 Miss Butlers staying in the house, and Mr. John Edwards of Pyenest, all assembled in the drawing room soon after our arrival –

Sir John gave me 3 franks, for Mrs. Norcliffe tomorrow and for Miss Henrietta C– [Crompton] and Mr. Marsh on Thursday – Gave Mrs. H[enry] P– [Priestley] Mr. Marsh’s letter to read, and she instantly and handsomely gave me her name as a subscriber to Miss King’s poems – Lady A[stley] would have done the same, but Sir John, on reading the letter thought there was a particular etiquette to be attended to in these sort of applications – That he, as member for the county of Wiltshire, ought to have been applied to at home (at Everley) –

The printed names of the subscribers he knew well – Knew many of the people mentioned intimately – If Mr. Marsh applied to him, he would be happy to put his name down – Would be happy to do anything to oblige him – I might hint this when I wrote – Sir John had said I might hint this, before I asked his permission (it was granted) to tell Mr. M– [Marsh] that, if the thing was named to Sir John) I knew he would be a subscriber – The recent but worthy baronet took some pains to assure me, there was a certain etiquette in these matters, as member for the county, necessary to be attended to – He knew I was aware of this etc. etc. –

At this moment (5 p.m.) I am quietly smiling at all this importance – It might be a subscription for raising a Wilshire corps of volunteers, or for some great concern of vital consequence to the interests of the county and its members; instead of a 5-shilling subscription to a small volume of poems, published for the benefit of a poor girl and her family, reduced to indigence by agricultural speculations! ‘Tis but a little trait, but yet how biograph of Sir John!

On coming away, it was more than I expected to hear lady A– [Astley] invite me to Everley with seeming cordiality – I might visit Mr. Marsh – Winterslow was only (16 or 20 miles I forgot which) distant from them (the A– [Astley]s) and they would be very happy to see me – They are not to have Haughend till the 11th of next month; of course, therefore, I expressed my hope of seeing them again –

The 2 Miss B– [Butlers] are vulgar looking girls – Miss A– [Astley] seemed much at home with them – Appearances made no very individual distinctions between them – I suppose his contested election cost Sir John £70,000; and he has 12 or 14 thousands a year – Lady A– [Astley] said to me when I dined there, “Sir John is of a very old family – They were barons in the time of tilts and tournaments” – Does not the present importance of the house of Everley restless upon the manners than the money of the family? Perhaps their county is yet but young – But they are very civil to me, and little ween this ink shed of my pen –

From Haughend drove to Mill-house – Gave Mrs. W[illiam] H[enry] R– [Rawson] the letter to read she said something about hoping I was not begging for a subscription – There were so many subscriptions – With their family . . . . . . . but, seeing it was only 5 /. [shillings] said she never thought of my asking for anything less than a guinea, and handsomely enough gave me her name – Wanted to give me the money but this, of course, must be paid when the book is received – Saw 8 of the children (there are 10), and drove off to Thorpe –

Gave Mrs. J[ohn] Priestley the letter to read – She hummed and ahed, asked what Miss King – If she was related to the Kings of Wakefield – It was a long way off – Many charities at home – Of course, I agreed – Said it was quite enough if she had taken the trouble to read the letter, and instantly turned the subject – Which must have been a relief to her, as she had turned red, and might have hammered and stammered a little longer but for my ready consideration –

I guessed their dinner was waiting – and after staying a few minutes drove off – Made no remark on the subject to Miss P– [Pickford] marvelling, however then, as now, that she never once named the thing, or made the least offer to subscribe – How can this be? They say, or I fancy Miss P– [Pickford] has seven-hundred a year – She must be poor – Perhaps all she can spare is given to her friend Miss Threlfall – Yet not 5 /. [shillings] for an occasion like this! Many people can do what I think I could not – I know the value of money as well as most; but ‘tis the dross of gold, and may it never draw its dirty line along my spirit! –

Talked a little of Miss Threlfall as connected with beauty, flirting sentimentality, etc. Real refinement of sentiment perhaps almost peculiar to the lettered mind – At all events I could not concede it to a flirt – Wondered Miss Threlfall had never married. ‘She must have had some good offers’. Miss P[ickford] made no answer. I did not like to look full in her face but soon after said, ‘Forgive me, it is a very odd thing to say, but you are the last person in the world I should ever have thought of marrying. Tho you are very agreeable and I like your society I cannot fancy you making anyone happy in married life.’ ‘I forgive you,’ said she.

‘Have you’, I asked, ‘any objection to my making such a speech?’ She answered ‘no’. ‘I thought so’, said I. Convinced by her manner it was the thing to suit her, and persuaded that the connection between her and Miss Threlfall is most probably what I have all along suspected. The persuasion struck me. I laughed and said, ‘I can outwit you. I have more worldly nous than you.’ Said she, ‘I often think so.’ We smiled and parted. She must guess to what I alluded –

She had told me Doctor Macbride was not happy he married because he was young and his wife coquetted. In fact, he is a lettered man of fine and warm feelings which his wife cannot emulate or return. His good principles make him try to be happy, but he cannot. His wife is odd like a gentlewoman but not stylish not talenty. Her oddity is not of the gentle feminine king [kind] –

Got home at 3 after setting down Miss P– [Pickford] at Mrs. Wilcock’s door – Talking to my uncle and aunt – With the latter in the stable for a little while – Came upstairs at 4 3/4 – Wrote all the last page and so far of this which took me till 6 –

Did nothing in the evening – Came upstairs at 9 at which hour Barometer 1 1/2 degree below changeable Fahrenheit 57 1/2º – Rainy day – Fair and tolerably fine in the evening (vide the last line of page 74) –

At 9 1/2 sat down to write – Filled 1/2 a sheet to Mrs. N– [Norcliffe] to ask if she would have 1/2 a bed to spare for me in her house in Petergate, during the festival, and told her the news I had this morning from Miss Henrietta C– [Crompton]. Then wrote 3/4 of a 1/2 sheet to Mr. Marsh – the following is what I have written about the subscription

“Shibden Thursday 24 July 1823

My dear Mr. Marsh – I received your letter on Sunday, and an only assure you, it is one of the most unlikely things in the world, that I should think any application you write can or will make, “impertinent” in any sense of the word. It will always give me real pleasure to do anything that can at all oblige you; more particularly when an obligation is, in fact, conferred on myself, thro’ the satisfaction that one always feels in doing the good, however small, which may be in our power –

As far as I am individually concerned, your simple request would have been enough; but I can say this much for myself alone, and am sorry to add, that my intercourse with my neighbors is too limited, – too infrequent, – to give me any claim upon them in behalf even of so meritorious a young person while she is so distant and unknown –

I had a letter from Miss Marsh the other day, in which she mentioned having got you 48 subscribers – The paltry addition I can make, might not be named even with the widow's mite – But will you put down my uncle’s name and my aunt’s for one copy each, and my own for two copies?” ––––

Unless my mind changes, I shall not trouble my neighbors much about subscriptions, however small – I shall explain the thing to Mrs. Henry Priestley – To Mrs. W[illiam] H[enry] Rawson, I shall probably never name it – It will be forgotten or if thought of at all, Mrs. R– [Rawson] with all her family may be well enough pleased to save her 5 /. [shillings] so easily –

#anne lister #anne lister code breaker #frances pickford #mariana lawton #shibden hall 1823

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theredneckoccultist · 4 years

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88 Important Truths I Have Learned About Life

Everyone gets drilled with certain lessons in life. Sometimes it takes repeated demonstrations of a given law of life to really get it into your skull, and other times one powerful experience drives the point home once forever. Here are 88 things I’ve discovered about life, the world, and its inhabitants by this point in my short time on earth.

1. You can’t change other people, and it’s rude to try.

2. It is a hundred times more difficult to burn calories than to refrain from consuming them in the first place.

3. If you’re talking to someone you don’t know well, you may be talking to someone who knows way more about whatever you’re talking about than you do.

4. The cheapest and most expensive models are usually both bad deals.

5. Everyone likes somebody who gets to the point quickly.

6. Bad moods will come and go your whole life, and trying to force them away makes them run deeper and last longer.

7. Children are remarkably honest creatures until we teach them not to be.

8. If everyone in the TV show you’re watching is good-looking, it’s not worth watching.

9. Yelling always makes things worse.

10. Whenever you’re worried about what others will think of you, you’re really just worried about what you’ll think of you.

11. Every problem you have is your responsibility, regardless of who caused it.

12. You never have to deal with more than one moment at a time.

13. If you never doubt your beliefs, then you’re wrong a lot.

14. Managing one’s wants is the most powerful skill a person can learn.

15. Nobody has it all figured out.

16. Cynicism is far too easy to be useful.

17. Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.

18. Whenever you hate something, it hates you back: people, situations and inanimate objects alike.

19. Ralph Waldo Emerson's works alone can teach you everything you need to know about living with grace and happiness.

20. People embellish everything, as a rule.

21. Anger reveals weakness of character, violence even moreso.

22. Humans cannot destroy the planet, but we can destroy its capacity to keep us alive. And we are.

23. When people are uncomfortable with the present moment, they fidget with their hands or their minds. Watch and see.

24. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least.

25. Putting something off makes it instantly harder and scarier.

26. Credit card debt devours souls.

27. Nobody knows more than a minuscule fraction of what's going on in the world. It’s just way too big for any one person to know it well.

28. Most of what we see is only what we think about what we see.

29. A person who is unafraid to present a candid version of herself to the world is as rare as diamonds.

30. The most common addiction in the world is the draw of comfort. It wrecks dreams and breaks people.

31. If what you’re doing feels perfectly safe, there is probably a better course of action.

32. The greatest innovation in the history of humankind is language.

33. Blame is the favorite pastime of those who dislike responsibility.

34. Everyone you meet is better than you at something.

35. Proof is nothing but a collection of opinions that match your own.

36. Knowledge is belief, nothing more.

37. Indulging your desires is not self-love.

38. What makes human beings different from animals is that animals can be themselves with ease.

39. Self-examination is the only path out of misery.

40. Whoever you are, you will die. To know and understand that means you are alive.

41. Revenge is for the petty and irresponsible.

42. Getting truly organized can vastly improve anyone’s life.

43. Almost every cliché contains a truth so profound that people have been compelled to repeat it until it makes you roll your eyes. But the wisdom is still in there.

44. People cause suffering when they are suffering themselves. Alleviating their suffering will help them not hurt others.

45. High quality is worth any quantity, in possessions, friends and experiences.

46. The world would be a better place if everyone read National Geographic.

47. If you aren’t happy single, you won’t be happy in a relationship.

48. Even if it costs no money, nothing is free if it takes time.

49. Emotions exist to make us strongly biased towards or against something. This hinders as often as it helps.

50. Addiction is a much greater problem in society than it’s made out to be. It’s present in every person in various forms, but usually we call it something else.

51. “Gut feeling” is not just a euphemism. Tension in the abdomen speaks volumes about how you truly feel about something, beyond all arguments and rationales.

52. Posture and dress change profoundly how you feel about yourself and how others feel about you, like it or not.

53. Everyone thinks they’re an above average driver.

54. The urge to punish others has much more to do with venting frustration than correcting behavior.

55. By default, people think far too much.

56. If anything is worth splurging on, it’s a high-quality mattress. You’ll spend a third of your life using it.

57. There is nothing worse than having no friends.

58. To write a person off as worthless is an act of great violence.

59. Try as we might to be otherwise, we are all hypocrites.

60. Justice is a human invention which is in reality rarely achievable, but many will not hesitate to destroy lives demanding it.

61. Kids will usually understand exactly what you mean if you keep it to one or two short sentences.

62. Stuff that’s on sale usually has an annoying downside.

63. Casual swearing makes people sound dumb.

64. Words are immensely powerful. One cruel remark can wound someone for life.

65. It’s easy to make someone’s day just by being uncommonly pleasant to them.

66. Most of what children learn from their parents isn't taught on purpose.

67. The secret ingredient is usually butter, in obscene amounts.

68. It is worth re-trying foods that you didn’t like at first.

69. Problems, when they arise, are rarely as painful as the experience of fearing them.

70. Nothing — ever — happens exactly like you pictured it.

71. North Americans are generally terrible at accepting compliments and offers of help.

72. There are not enough women in positions of power. The world has suffered from this deficit for a long time.

73. When you break promises to yourself, you feel terrible. When you make a habit of it, you begin to hate yourself.

74. A good nine out of ten bad things I’ve worried about never happened. A good nine out of ten bad things that did happen never occurred to me to worry about.

75. You can’t hide a bad mood from people who know you well, but you can always be polite.

76. Sometimes you have to remove certain people from your life, even if they’re family.

77. Anyone can be calmed in an instant by looking at the ocean or the stars.

78. There is no point finishing a book you aren’t enjoying. Life is too short for that. Swallow your pride and put it down for good, unfinished.

79. There is no correlation between the price of a brand of batteries and how long they last.

80. Breaking new ground only takes a small amount more effort than you’re used to giving.

81. Life is a solo trip, but you’ll have lots of visitors. Some of them are long-term, most aren’t.

82. One of the best things you can do for your kids is take them on road trips. I’m not a parent, but I was a kid once.

83. The fewer possessions you have, the more they do for you

84. Einstein was wiser than he was intelligent, and he was a genius.

85. When you’re sick of your own life, that’s a good time to pick up a book.

86. Wishing things were different is a great way to torture yourself.

87. The ability to be happy is nothing other than the ability to come to terms with how things change.

88. Killing time is an atrocity. It’s priceless, and it never grows back.

#lifelessons #advice #life advice #wise words #inspiration #inspirational

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calliecat93 · 4 years

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Top 5 Things I Liked About RWBY Volume 7

(Top Dislikes)

Gosh, we are so close to Volume 8 now, and it’s driving me crazy! But we’re not there yet. So let’s continue to remember what Volume 7 delivered upon us. Last time I did the Dislikes post, so now it’s time for the Top 5 Likes post! Which this was so, SO much easier to come up with than the Dislikes list! Like I said there, this volume is so well-written and jam-packed full-on content. It was a rollercoaster of a ride where even though I didn’t want to get back on for a while, that thrill was everlasting. Whether V8 will give the same result will be determined soon, but for now let’s go over the Top 5 Likes of RWBY Volume 7. As always, just my opinion, so take with a grain of salt~

Okay, let’s go!

#5. Oscar Development

By far one of the biggest criticisms against Volume 6 was how it handled Oscar. There was a LOT of good setup concerning his identity crisis as he struggled with keeping control, maintaining his own identity, and the potential burden of just being another of Oz’s wasted lives. While he DID reach a new confidence by the end which was nice, it... was more or less offscreen. To many, myself included, Oscar felt wasted and I specifically criticized how the execution made it feel like depite what Ruby said and what the narrative is trying to say, it DOES feel like Oscar’s viewed as just Oz’s vessel and that’s all his importance amounted to. I was hoping that Volume 7 was going to rectify this like they did with Ruby in Volume 6. Did they do so?

Absolutely yes.

While they still have a bad habit of setting up Oscar in trouble but it turning out to be a fake-out (his disappearance due to Neo), the volume did a LOT to improve his position. With Oz gone, Oscar has to be diplomatic on his own. He’s in a position where he can get close to Ironwood in a way that the others can’t and see him actually vulnerable. Unlike the others, who keep just pointing out to Ironwood how his actions are problematic to varying degrees, Oscar can see what’s really causing it: fear. Which is something that Oscar can relate to. After all, he was terrified when his quest began, but he always faced it and went forward everything to do what was right. Even when it meant leaving home, even when it meant facing unjust anger from others, he did so.

Oscar tries to reason with Ironwood. He tries to have him realize that it’s okay to be afraid. That it’s okay to be honest with those around him. That it’s okay to be vulnerable. Ironwood isn’t the only one either. In the beginning, he’s worried about Ruby’s lie because of how much it reminds him of what Oz did to them. You could argue that he’s developed into the conscious of the group, but he knows how to reason with these matters in a peaceful way. He’s becoming more of a diplomat similar to Ozpin, which even Ironwood points out in Chapter 9.

Then there’s the finale. Sadly, despite all of his pleas and how much he reached out to him, Ironwood ultimately rejected him and Oz. He rejected the route of trust and embraced fear, sealing the deal by shooting Oscar. But while he couldn’t help Ironwood, he did help someone else: Ozpin. His words convinced the former headmaster to at last return and face his own fears, saving them both. It also allowed Oscar to gain more of Oz’s power and memories. The boy has gone form a scared teenager entering a world he doesn’t truly understand, to becoming a courageous young man filled with compassion and hope for those around him. And this time, we got to actually see that growth unfold. He’s still got a long path ahead of him, but this greatly amended Oscar’s character and I am grateful for it.

#4. Penny Polendina

SHE CAME BACK! YAY!!! I MISSED HER SO MUCH!!!

Every since hr death in V3, I fully expected Penny to come back at some point. And indeed, she did! And with her memory intact, thank goodness! While I do wish we got some more exploration in how she felt about dying and such, her role int his volume was so well done I can forgive it. She has more screentime in this volume than Volumes 1-3 combined, and I love it! A cute new design, her struggling between duty and her own wants, trying to understand feelings and finding them to be a beautiful thing, there is SO MUCH going on with her here.

Penny is part of Ironwood’s inner circle, having been assigned as he Protector of Mantle. She takes her job seriously and does her best to protect the citizens. She’s elated to see Ruby and the others again and tries to assist them as much as she can. But as the volume goes, we see how much she struggles between her dedication to Mantle and Ironwood’s orders. It’s especially clear fter she is framed for the massacre during the elections. The poor girl is mortified, everyone viewing her as just another of Ironwood’s robots. Even Ironwood feels this way with his insensitive comment bout her being ‘under his control’ during the Council Meeting. The poor girl just needs a hug.

But this helps set Penny apart from Atlas. Unlike the others, who are following orders, Penny is trying to follow her heart. She tries to encourage Winter to do the same when she snapped at Jaques, even saying that all she did was speak form the heart and has no reason to feel ashamed of it. After Ironwood declares martial law, she is clearly upset and outright says that it’s wrong. She even asks Winter if this bothers her, and isn’t very convinced by her argument about the general taking on the burden. Penny chooses to embrace her feelings, not reject them as Winter, the Ace-Ops, and Ironwood have done.

It ends with Penny comforting Fria as her Maiden powers go out of control. How does she do this? She simply goes up to her and gently asks her if she’s okay. She shows the old woman more compassion and care than she’s probably had in quite a while. As a result, Fria ultimately transfers the Winter Maiden powers ot her. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that despite being a robot, Penny is a real girl. Hell, she is by far the most human of the Atlesian characters in this volume. She ultimately feels disheartened by Fria’s death, but still goes with Ruby and the others because that’s the right thing.

Penny’s character arc was a delight. There were so many expectations with her return, and I am so happy with the result! Penny feels so much more three-dimensional now. She still has the sweetness that made us love her before, but she also grew as a character. She embraced her feelings, she made choices for herself after having to abide by Ironwood’s rules for so long, she even managed to get some payback on Cinder for her death. Her good-heart and kindness was rewarded at the end. I do worry for her, especially since Salem’s Whale Grimm is absolutely a Montstro reference, but I’m still so happy with her in this volume~

3. The Atlas/Mantle Conflict

I am... not good at talking about this kind of thing, so I apologize if this seems rambly or all over the place. The big conflict pf the volume was the division between Atlas and Mantle. We knew going in how Atlas was seen as a bastion of civilization, but also full of snobs and an army leader who doesn’t exactly have his priorities straight. We knew that Mantle was the former capital and it was easy to assume that it probably wasn’t in the best state... and HO BOY were we right.

While Atlas looks futuristic and pristine, Mantle is run-down and out-of-date. The former capital and it’s people have not been treated well and worse, Atlas controls everything including their heating system. Ironwood has forced the city to be without essential provisions for Amity, and has therefore left them vulnerable to the Grimm. It’s easy to see why Mantle would resent Ironwood and Atlas as a whole, and why it was easy for Watts and Tyrian to widen the divide. It’s like the Chorus conflict in the Chorus Trilogy in RvB, only we’re there to see the division outright instead of coming in many years later. Our heroes are trying to mend the divide, but it’s so much easier said than done when neither side will budge.

There’s a lot of contrast with the two sides. Ironwood is a seemingly cold man with an authoritarian streak. Robyn is more laid-back, if a little cocky but her heart is very much set on helping Mantle. Both can be very brash and place trust above all else. But they both run their respective groups very differently. Robyn views the Happy Huntresses as her friends, while Ironwood trained the Ace-Ops to be his loyal attack dogs. Robyn is willing to give her trust until it gets broken, while Ironwood is wrapped by his own paranoia. We see how these two groups function. They have similarities, but are also very different especially when it comes to how their leaders treat their respective groups.

There is a HUGE class issue between Atlas and Mantle. It’s not helped by Ironwood’s plans causing further suffering, and of course in the end he chooses to leave it open to Salem in favor of saving Atlas. The fandom has fought back and forth for months over if this was right or not, which only proves the point of the division. You can see where each side is coming from, and we care for the people on each side. The conflict was presented throughout the volume with the heroes trying to help, but they sadly fail. The moment Tyrian’s slaughter happens in Chapter 6, you can break the tension with a butter knife and it doesn’t let up. We’ll probably only see more of it with Volume 8 now that Mantle has no protection. But as far as this volume goes, it was presented very well and very strongly.

#2. The Fall of James Ironwood

Love him or hate him, Ironwood is by far one of the strongest written characters in the show. Ever since his intro in Volume 2, we have been building up to this moment. The man has a LO of flaws. He’s arrogant, brash, favors military might over being discreet, and has a bad tendency to not learn form his missteps. These flaws contributed to the Fall of Beacon. But we also saw a man who was honest, righteous, respected Ozpin, and for all had flaws seemed to have good intentions. He was always willing to put himself on the front lines and took none of Jaques’ elitist shit. Sure he caused the Dust Embargo and closed Atlas down, but he also defended Weiss in Volume 4 and was clearly upset about the Fall fo Beacon. We saw a flawed, but still good man and if he could just embrace his flaws and open his heart, he could have been the great hero that he appeared to be.

Sadly thought, that wasn’t meant to be.

Ironwood is shown to be dishelved and plagued by paranoia, but he HAS created a plan to re-establish communications and expose Salem. But his police state with Mantle has the heroes concerned, so they lie to him about Oz and the lamp. The man continues to make questionable decisions, like I already said about his treatment of Mantle. But he still seems devoted tot he cause and like despite these calls, his intentions are still good and it will pay off even with the bad press. Heck, after Robyn tells him to trust her in Chapter 9 and with a push form Oscar, he seemed to FINALLY be doing the right thing. he revealed the truth about Salem to everyone, he worked alongside Mantle, and he faced Watts in the same place where his greatest failure had occurred. It seemed like all the begging and pleading had worked.

Sadly though, it all fell apart once Ironwood saw the glass chess piece.

Ironwood’s greatest enemy isn’t Salem. It’s not Robyn. It’s not he council. No, it’s himself. He has closed up his emotions and his hear to everyone around him. He has buried himself in his paranoia and his pursuit in defeating Salem. With every mistake, Ironwood failed to learn and move forward. He just became more and more consumed by his own fear. He wanted to be a strong leader. To be like Oz. But like Oz, he ended up losing himself and unlike Oz, he couldn’t acknowledge where he went wrong. In many ways you can sympathize with him because of the bleak situation and him trying to do what he can with what he has. But sadly, none of that can justify the path that he ended up taking.

Ironwood is angry at Team RWBYs lies. This and Salem’s approach pretty much causes him to snap. He’s going to let Fria die so that Winter had the Maiden powers. He's going to abandon Mantle to their demise in a futile plan to raise Atlas into orbit. When RWBY opposes this, he orders them to be arrested. He even coldly confirms that he’s leaving Mantle to die. However one feels about this choice, as a cruel but necessary choice to save what can be saved, or a needless sacrifice made by a fascist dictator, one can at least make an argument about either point that makes it hard to say who was right. Him snapping at Oscar and knowingly shooting the kid to his demise? No. That one cannot be justified at all, especially since he was as cold as steel when he did it.

This moment has been built-up since we met him all those years ago. We wanted Ironwood to do the right thing. We all hoped that he would. But he didn’t, and it isn’t shocking at all. We saw enough to like Ironwood, but to also be very much aware of his faults that he just never seemed able to conquer. His fall form grace is tragic, yet done in such a satisfying way as well. I felt for him, but there was no justifying his actions. I kept hoping that he’d pull through, but once Chapter 11 hit, I knew we were at the point of no return. The James Ironwood we once knew is no more, consumed by his fear. What will happen to him next? Will he manage to realize his wrongs? Or will he continue to fall until there’s nothing left to salvage? It’s hard to say. But for now, the tin man has lost his heart,. A very sad, but very well done, character arc for sure.

1. The Theme of Trust and Fear

When I first heart this volume’s opening, Trust Love, I liked it... but the more the volume went, the more the optimistic song felt out of place for the dark volume. Considering this IS an anime, that’s probably intentional. But the more I examined the lyrics, especially after the full version came out, the more I truly realized how it fits with this volume. The song speaks of one trying to live in their dream world, but they need to face reality and trust those around them. They need to stop waiting for a miracle, they need to take control of their life now and move forward. hey need to... well, trust in love. Then you have the finale song, Fear, which outright asks ‘who will you be when you are faced with fear? Will you see the person you hope to see? Or will you see a stranger?” Will you feel proud? Or will you feel betrayed?

This is the theme of the volume. The theme of trust and the right thing against fear. Ironwood claims to trust the heroes, yet he can’t trust anyone else and his own fear is slowly consuming him. The heroes are mistrustful of Ironwood, but they trust each other and want to help mend the divide between Ironwood and Mantle. But at every turn, fear gets ii n he way. Tyrian’s slaughter makes Mantle afraid and enraged. Ironwood’s fear keeps him from opening up and it leads to his downfall as I already described. The Ace-Ops don’t fight together as a team, which leads to Team RWBY who DO trust each other to defeat them. Clover is blinded by his loyalty to Ironwood to recognize that he’s doing the wrong thing, and it leads to his death. Not to mention the mistrust between him, Qrow, and Robyn lead tot he crash to begin with.

As Oz says in his monologue, fear is the greatest thing that everyone shares. We see everyone afraid. Ironwood is afraid. Ruby is afraid. Ozpin is afraid. Even Cinder is afraid. It’s all for different reasons. Ironwood is afraid of Salem. Ruby is afraid of the uncertainty ahead. Ren is afraid of failing Nora and the others. Cinder is afraid of failing to achieve her foals. Qrow is afraid of bonding with others, especially considering what happened to Clover. Ozpin...d o I even need to elaborate on him? The title to Chapter 13 is ‘The Enemy of Trust’. What is that enemy? Fear. Recently, I’ve been feeling that same fear of trust. Fear of being hurt. Fear of being betrayed. Fear of the unknown. It’s a VERY powerful force, and a tempting one at that.

The message of the volume ultimately si that it’s okay to be afraid. It’s perfectly human to feel that way. You don’t need to get over it. It doesn’t matter if you’re afraid, it’s what you do in the face of it that matters. Will you face it? Will you do what’s right? Will you find it in yourself to trust and love again? Or will you succumb to it? Will you end up repeating your mistakes because of your fear? Will you make the wrong choice? What will that say about the person you are? One way or another, we all will find out the answer to that question. We may not know the answers for a long time, but you ultimately need to try and do what’s right. You can’t let the fear control you. You need to decide who you will be when ti comes, and if in the end you will be happy with who you are left with.

Ironwood chose to repeat his mistakes, and is now a heartless tin soldier. Ozpin ultimately chose to return and face it and while only time will determine how that goes, it’s a step in the right direction. People like Ruby and Oscar still tried to do what thy knew was right. Weiss was afraid of her father, but faced him to gain her freedom. Blake feared Adam and the White Fang and chose to run, but eventually decided to fight back and ultimately won. Yang was afraid after losing her arm and of being abandoned, and while she struggled she ultimately faced it, proving herself stronger than her cowardly mother. Even after Ruby broke down when it became clear that Salem killed her mother, she still faced the wicked witch, told her off to her face, and pulled herself together enough to warn everyone about Ironwood and stand her ground. And there’s so any other examples that I could list.

I think considering the times right now, this message is incredibly important. It’s been a major part of the series since the start, but Volume 7 especially made it prominent. We need to trust in love. We need to be courageous enough to do the right thing. We need to be able to express our fear and doubts with others to become better. In a world where everything 9si uncertain and everyone is on edge, I think that the themes here are more relevant than ever, and was handled very well. Especially with that monologue in Chapter 13. As such, this is my favorite part of RWBY Volume 7 without a doubt.

Well, that’s it folks! It was nice to revisit Volume 7 again after so long~ But as we close the book, we’re about to open another for Volume Eight. What’s gonna happen? I don’t know. Am I scared? Oh big time. But I’ve come this far, I’m not backing out until the very end. So I hope that you all enjoy Volume 8, and as always I look forward to reviewing it all~ See you all on premiere day~!

#rwby #rwby reviews #rwby musings #callie reviews #top likes/dislikes

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