Tucker Ramseur
Growing up and acceptance is the plot twist, believe it or not.

Growing up, acceptance, and learning to deal with your own shit. That's what Neo never did, and she realized it when she got Ruby to 'kill' herself - in that instant she realized it fixed nothing, didn't make her feel better, didn't bring Torchwick back, none of it.

There is a series of books by Tanya Huff where criminals are put into therapy and they have to stay there until they resolve their own shit. It's a remarkably effective deterrent as the last thing most people want to do is face their own shit; to actually look at themselves and have to figure out what they are doing wrong, and to not blame everyone else for all their problems (I had a girlfriend who admitted she was afraid to look inside herself for fear of what she'd find). I think that is overstating the effectiveness of making people face themselves, but at the same time, she has a point.

Izanagi

That's an interesting concept. I've noticed two things:
1) I tried to meditate, but had to give up, because it gave me the blues. It hit me really hard, all the thoughts I had suppresed and didn't even remember that I had. It was horrible!
2) I managed to suppress bad emotions and keep working towards my goals for years, but eventually my health failed and doctors couldn't find the reason. They considered some sort of immune deficiency, but what it really was was a burn out. The only cure was to get out of my life situation, but that meant to endure it even longer and it became a battle against time. I felt like an old tree, hollow, and rotting from the inside. I couldn't enjoy even my favourite activities and when I got injured, everyone freaked out, except me. It was like treating someone I didn't know.
During that time, I talked to someone who you may consider a sociopath. He also had this ability to shrug off injuries. He made one interesting remark: he said that he used to feel more empathy. He also said that maybe, there was a time, where he could have returned to how he used to be, but it would have caused him too much pain, shame and embarassment.

Okey. RT just kinda skipping to the end of Ruby's character arc I can accept.
Them just throwing away the cat without doing anything more with such an interesting character I can accept.
The rushed ending to the volume, I can accept.
But seriously, HOW CAN THEY JUST DE-AGE Jon??? Seriously, it was such an interesting turn of events that left an ACTUAL PHYSICAL IMPACT ON A MAIN CHARACTER AND IT WAS JUST WISHED AWAY?? They never even did anything with the concept! THey just said "oh he is kinda silly now hihi" AND THEN DID NOTHING WITH HIM RIGHT UP UNTILL THEY REVERTED HIM BACK.
Can you imagen Old Jhon trying to find his way, back on remnant now that he had spent the majority of his life away from his home, family and friends? How everyone close to him would react to jhon literally being 30 years older then them, how his character could have grown and evolved from it?? BCS I CAN... But clearly RT could not.

I Have always defended RWBY even during some of the more questionable decision bcs the world and the characters usually remained pretty good and interesting. This however was a goof.A Major Goof.
Good job Roster Teeth. You done goofed.

I also disliked the reversing of DILF jaune, but I kinda expected it, especially having watched a certain disney show where the exact same thing happens.

I guess we can just hope that the changes are at least reflected in his personality and actions, maybe he grows out his hair again and get rid of that god awful banana cut(please I beg)

M a r c o . . ?

yeeee let's hope for the future

"angry nerd noises"

Was going well until this episode, which felt like a "alright we're out of budget let's just explain the rest of what we were going to animate" and ended it.

so, correct me if I'm wrong, but, did we just learn the origin of the god brothers? And that there's someone even more powerful than they are? The one who created them? The blacksmith?

kinda... but I don't think the blacksmith is stronger than them... it seems more like the god brothers became stronger than her and messed up her world with their experiments so she kicked them out and let them build their own world

i wouldn't say they were kicked out, the brothers did walk through the door by themselves(and the line "the door is open to the brothers and their creations. and the doors would remain open until the brothers return"). i do think the brothers did become stronger then Smith, so i don't think she could have nor force them to leave. i thought of it as the brothers had come into their own power and Smith give them a blank slate to work on, aka they moved out. cause clearly what they were trying to make didnt mesh too well with the world of Ever After.

I don't really mean "kicked out" like they can never come back home... it's more like "2 boys playing balls inside the house and broke almost every glasses in it, so the mom told them to play outside and only come back in after they have satisfied themselves playing outside"

Man, I love the choerography of Ruby's fight right after getting out of the tree, it's just full of callbacks to the red trailer.
She came so far, but still being who she always was T_T

Interesting. Casey wrote, performed and produced all the songs this volume. Guess Jeff has passed the torch. Expect great music in the future with Casey at the helm.

I get this entire volume established that Remnant and Ever After are linked in many ways we don't know. However, I have two questions now. Where did all those weapons come from? Why are there memories of the dead in Ever After? I can't tell any more if this is all held together by bubblegum or coherent ideas.

question 1, from remnant. ok so these werent real weapons but the soul of them. something akin to being spirited away(maybe by Smith), as they weren't needed anymore and needed new.......you know. as for the 2nd question, it can be the memories from the soul of the weapons. like the idea of tsukumogami, you put a bit of your life/soul into the things you use. just a thought.

if it leaves too many questions, then the former. the writing with Little was pretty good but the plot is sort of making less and less sense.

Despite its flaws, I feel like this volume was a lot better than the recent ones that we've had. Hopefully its quality carries over into episode 10. Also calling it now Neo's going to be turned into Torchwick by the tree.

Thank you Blacksmith lady very cool

I feel like a way to deal with the gods was just hinted at.

I'd say its a lot better than the last 2 volumes, but this ending doesn't really resolve Ruby's general incompetence despite acknowledging it.

if the writers know this, they will probably resolve that in the final volume.

I liked this more than the previous two or three volumes, but it still leaves much to be desired.
Yang and Blake's whole characters revolve about being lesbians for a few seasons already, it's like they have nothing more to do than that.
Ruby had not been up to the tasks after the series became a bit more serious, and after all this time, team RWBY has only been clapped left and right for most of the time but, instead of giving all the characters some sort of power up after developing as persons and confronting their own inner demons, they try to do that just with Ruby, but at the very end Ruby says "Hell nah, I'm good as I am, no matter how much I've messed up until now". That's extremely cheap and unworthy of being the lesson this show wants to tell.
And what about Jaune? The guy appears as an old man, yet he's still weak ass when compared to the other laser ninja girls. But hey, maybe his character was more about brain rather than brawn, right? So maybe he's matured so much... Hell nah. This whole volume message was acceptance of loss, letting go of burdens, etc. And we learn that this Jaune mf had spent decades commiting to keep things without changing and improving, feeding his own mistakes instead of fixing them, until team RWBY comes and teaches him the right lesson they learned in 1 minute of exposition.
All in all I'm seeing a lot of the problems that Marvel movies have; they don't know how to write characters that grow and mature. Still, no character was needlessly killed just to fill an empty plot ridden with holes, and the writers at least tried. So I ended up being happier about this ending than I expected I'd be. I hope they do something actually good for the latest Volume, tho, let it be not too much to ask.

I disagree with your take that Ruby being fine as is, is cheap. I think its actually a good realization. Ruby has always wanted to be an extraordinary huntress that saves the day and beats the bad guys, always been fundamentally pushing herself to beyond whats expected of her. She sacrificed her innocence, parts of her personality and even began to doubt the value of her attachments. She was breaking into pieces and the lesson she needed to hear most was that she was doing fine so long as she was true to herself. After all Ozpin says at the start of the series, that some things can be resolved with a simple soul. Pointing out that who Ruby is at the start of the journey is more than capable of reaching the end so long as she doesn't loose herself.

Thing is, I see an adventure as a journey of transformation. The characters shouldn't be the same by the end, because they grew, they became superior versions of themselves. Ruby's thing sounds more like what you'd read in a bad psychology book saying stuff like "you're perfect just the way you are". That is not only wrong, is also counterproductive. Ruby clearly hasn't been up to the task in the show, and that is more than reasonable, given the things that have happened, so she needs something else. And I don't mean "transforming into a different person". But structuring all this arc so that, when Ruby faces her own doubts, she comes out stronger by being able to overcome her own weaknessess, or receiving a sort of power from an inner realization, or something like that. A character that has failed and lost so often saying "I should keep being this way" is the opposite of what the show should be telling.

Not finding a great idea, a great power, or anything that makes you think that now she's more ready to face Salem's faction than before? Come on. I mean, I could take it if this show wasn't so much about the fighting. If Ruby was more like Frodo, and her only skill was being pure and having willpower, leaving the fights to others. But RWBY has always been very much about action and all that, so now the only way for the cast to win and defeat the villains would be either a super massive plot armor, or a very lame and out of the blue "hey, let's talk this out".

I do not see why she needs a powerup again you are sort of missing the point of her confrontation.

Its not denying what she was been through, nor is it denying her failures and shortcomings. Its pointing out that she did the best she could in those situations which is a good thing.

Sometimes we burden ourselves with the pursuit of being better, when being enough is all that it takes. And that's all Ruby needed to be, it wasn't just about accepting herself but showing that determination that she had was extraordinary on its own. It let her fight against opponents other huntresses wouldn't dream of doing and that's precisely why Ozpin let her join the school early.

Its not giving a message of don't change, because Ruby has changed a lot, she is no longer naïve, she has a greater weight on her than ever before and she literally has to overcome an opponent impossible to beat. Of course she would fall in spell of depressed nihilism because she thinks that she will never be enough for what is needed going forward, when all she really needed was a reminder for why she started this journey in the first place.

Being confronted with your doubts and growing past them is a common trope, being confronted with overwhelming doubts that make you question who you are is where you need a reminder. And thats precisely why she was able to accept her past and work towards her future.

Its an action series if they did that it would kill the show more badly than anything its been through before.

Thing is, the RWBY team has been clapped left and right all this time and always being saved in the nick of time by some outside element. They really can't keep up, so they aren't, and specifically Ruby, isn't enough.

I put emphasis on the power up thing because the main cast is heavily outclassed and it's a show about fights and whatnot, but what I meant I really wanted to see from this arc was an evolution for the characters. Something like what you'd see from a hero that needs to meditate to find his inner self in order to gain the strength to face unsurmountable odds. And I see that is what they tried to go with during this arc, but the execution was so poor in my opinion, that the message they seemed to try to convey was that: You're already good enough.

Comparing the RWBY quest to real life, there're highly competitive environments where you simply aren't good enough and can't progress in there without the right talent. And since cartoons like this one often use physical prowess and battle power as a heroic metaphor for "facing real life problems", so to speak, I think that the right choice with this arc would've been making the girls go through a journey of self search, confronting all of their inner demons, and come out stronger out that, which could even be perfectly reasonable with an excuse like the aura thing, or it being a reward from the tree for overcoming it's trials, or whatever of that sort.

However, most of the screen time was used up by showing us the Curious Cat, how Jaune is a poor, useless bastard with all his potential castrated by the writers, Yang and Blake limiting their whole characters to being lesbians, Weiss just being there, and Ruby having her emo phase.

There's a big difference to convey a message like "you're good enough" in a cartoon that has shown us how the character succeeded until a turning point where they started to change, which lead them to failure, and a cartoon that has shown us how the charcter simply isn't good enough, and needs to grow up in more ways than one to stop depending on plot crutches. I hope I made my point understood, I don't mean to sound condescending.

I fact, I don't discard that this was what the writers had in mind, but just executed it poorly.

I mean for the most part, I agree that they would need some sort of edge to try and keep up, but do keep in mind most of the times they have been beaten its because they have been separated or attacked at a vulnerable moment. Ruby still has her silver eyes and I am sure that will grant her victory over the Grim. But for Cinder she is currently on her last legs, Neo carried most of the fights beforehand so with her being out of the equation it seems a bit more fair. Its only Salem thats posing the real threat and by that point I am sure they can still inch out a victory for the most part unless Vacuo is as hostile as Atlas.

Again while this is a superpowered series I don't think they need more powerups. Maybe more skill, hoping the fight scenes start going up to an eleven to start showing their skill better. I am talking like, I wanna see the same things as beheading a Nevermore again as an example but on a more exciting scale.

I think you were watching a different show because the curious cat was not the most prominent character on screen. Jeanne is very competent for waiting for so long for them and for having the willpower to contend with a town of people who want nothing more than to end themselves. Practically this was the last part of his arc in that he charged into the hero profession after Pyra's death but never really learned that its okay to not be perfect all the time like she was. They just didn't try and make that comparison in the show to showcase that. He has become a very strong character but they should have left him aged to show his growth. Instead they reverted him and kinda just undid everything he had going for him at that point.

Weiss for the most part had her arc end the last season. So its alright for her to fall back into a supporting role, she didn't really need a whole crash course yet.

Honestly yes the ship between Blake and Yang was shoehorned in but again their Arcs also came to an end with Adams death. Which to be frank was a waste he should have been kept till this arc so he could be neutralized like Neo was and the reveal would have made the ship sail a lot better (Heck I was expecting Salem to bring him back as a twisted corpse). It was just something the writers did to keep the characters interesting tbh beyond that point.

Again you sort of missing the message I was talking about, but that determination that she had at the start to be a hunter is important for Ruby's character which is why it took her this long to break and go on an emo phase. Because its her strongest element and it has been the thing keeping her going all this time. In that respect all she needed was a reminder. She has always been enough to solve the issues in the current arc, its just the plot has to make the villains win every now and again or none of the arcs would feel as intense as the third. Its not the plot protecting Ruby but rather the antagonists. At the start of the series she was already capable of fighting on par with full fledged hunters and huntresses. So I believe she is more than capable now of handling things going forward so long as they don't try and pull another character development arc. But then again Qrow could use it, lets hope it doesn't last more than an episode.

I'm pretty sure they will use those silver eyes to clutch this last season, because a few seasons ago, not even the whole team was anything but a toy for the scorpion guy who was dueling Qrow. And regarding the Nevermore thing, I've too realized that the general level of feats for the characters has significantly gone down. In the first seasons we could see really superhuman stuff all the time like it was nothing, but now the characters fall on their butt and their aura breaks. It's like they dropped the general animey-power fantasy of the show just so they could have it easier with showcasing the fights, which is kinda lame.

But I disagree with you on how the characters have been treated. The curious cat was a new introduction that handled a good half of every dialogue in the season, became the final villain and while charismatic, the show decided to forget about so many characters that had been introduced until now (like the monkey guy and his team, the fourth grade team we saw during the Beacon war, or even Winter, who's just been a side thing for the most part and now has a Maiden power while being nothing more than the generic frigid, strict military character without much to say, unlike Penny, who was cut short just to give the viewer something to engage in order to compensate for a bad plot, but had so much charisma about herself)

Jaune wasn't strong for waiting, he was weak for letting himself get comfortable with a situation that satisfied him while ignoring the blatant truth, and he spent something like 30 years like that, while the RWBY team understood it right after arriving, so he was made both a fool and a weakling. I also think that reverting him to his youth was a little lame, but was made probably to ship him with Weiss, and I also see it as a second chance for how he's been all those decades of doing nothing useful.

And while it's true that Weiss, Yang and Blake's arcs are done by this point, that's a very videogame-like point of view, not a show where characters keep adding to the story and to themselves until they leave, die, or the show ends. Adam's death was a good one, in my opinion, and I think Cinder should have died a few seasons ago. She's never added anything other than that evil Cinderella flashback, which was cool and all, but could have been done with earlier and given the character a good final fight and good death. She's still there just because people like her and they've been stretching her for far too long.

Regarding Qrow, the guy was something like a mentor for the main cast and a protector in dealing with the hardest fights and that kind of stuff, and I think his arc was pretty cool with the other guy that had the good luck Semblance thing, and he could get a pretty nice reckoning by killing the scorpion guy (Tyrian, if I remember correctly). And mentors are designed to expose the main, younger characters to the harsh world, train them, and then step to the side, so I wouldn't give Qrow much more screentime, I agree with you on the one episode.

And in Ruby's case, it's true that this season was her full on emo thing, but she's been withered for quite a while, to be honest. And in story terms, characters go through what can be called a death and a resurrection: they hit their lowest, face a trial that represents their inner struggle and come out strengthened. That is usually depicted in the form of a new power or a new item that has a useful ability, or stuff like that. Ruby was handed the perfect oportunity to "reincarnate" in a more metaphorical than physical sense, yet she rejected it and stayed the same. The same Ruby thas has been falling short. You say it's because villains needed plot to win, and I say that, whether that's true or not, the fact that Ruby still loses time and time again when facing the big names (and by extension, the whole team RWBY in general, minus a few things, like the Adam fight). A Ruby that wasn't able to properly come up with a design for that cosmic bridge from the previous season to go from one place to another, which had the problem of being unable to go both ways, and also failed to defend her team, her friends or many innocents there who died or landed on Ever After never to be able to come out. Had Ruby been more confident on herself, the same problems would have happened, because the main cast lacks the skill, strength of power, however you wanna call it, to keep up.

In general, what I mean is that a show that puts so much weight on fights, should translate character development into power, because that's the language of the story. But the way this catabasis into anabasis thing was handled was so poor, that it feels like the opposite of what Jung or Joseph Campbell said about the logic behind stories and heroic archetypes. And on that subject, RWBY doesn't have the writing level to be able to be considered against the mold of classical stories. It's simply poorly done.

Yeah but that was back in season 4, where everyone was sort of still grieving for Pyhra and weren't cohesive as a team and had to improvise to overcome situations. Yeah that was the thing, it really felt like they couldn't elevate the stakes in a way that mattered without somehow nerfing the characters. I mean sure killing Grim is the easy part, but considering they did so in rather more dangerous situations than what they have thus far kind of just makes it seem the show really wanted to dial back the action and now they have no excuse but to bring it forward.

They didn't exactly forget characters, its just that they aren't the main characters. Sun was still present right until the end of Minstral, he probably will be featured with his team in the upcoming arc in Vacuo since that's his home. The 4th grade team were side characters from the start lets be real here and they aren't leaving beacon as its their home. As for Winter that is her whole thing being the smart and responsible one with a tight lipped attitude. She doesn't need development because the past two seasons show she is incredibly affectionate and a cool person, that doesn't mean all of a sudden her personality gets undermined as a result of it, kind of like how Qrow went from happy drunk to constant depression.

A comfortable situation that satisfied him? Blatant truth? There was nothing blatant or comfortable about his situation, he probably spent years despairing because of his mistake of being sent back in time, being separated from his friends, being denied his purpose and being unable to return home? Nothing is comfortable about that, he probably has so much repressed emotion from those years that him snapping at Ruby was completely justified. His doubts about things were all justified, he was not pathetic he was doing what he could. RWBY understanding things after arriving is sort of their thing, they are the protagonists the plot needs to bend for them to do things because otherwise they would be incompetent. But Jeanne took the reasonable measure to mature and struggle in this world thats foreign and just as dangerous to try and stand strong. Thats more that can be said for everyone else on RWBY.

I agree thats why for the most part Weiss, Blake and Yang have been a support cast for this season rather than a main cast, which is fine. It would be weird for them to go through another arc of self doubt and realization when they have already been there and done that. At most they did their roles this season fine.

As for Cinder, I think the problem with her character is that she got nerfed a bit too hard from the first three seasons, and it resulted in basically a humiliating defeat at Raven's hands. When she has been like an untouchable force in the plot to basically forcing her to crawl past the finish line as a Villain. Which is great development for her character but undercuts the threat she poses in the plot going forward, and the more flawed you show her to be, the more confident you are the heroes are going to no diff her. Where as in the first 3 seasons it seemed like nothing could touch her, not even a maiden or Ozpin which made her a serious threat and then you humiliate her, separate her from her friends and basically leave her out to dry. Of course she seems like a dead character still walking.

Again, I don't think Ruby has not been enough, its just the writing is just a bit all over the place and isn't giving her justice like it should. We have barely seen her pull the same speed feats as she did in the second season where she was almost breaking the sound barrier and creating wind storms with her speed, or Blake's exploding clones, or Yang just being a tank. I mean I understand the writers position on this is that they don't want to make the cast too strong or they can't drum up the threat properly. Her reincarnating would not make her Ruby anymore that's the thing you aren't getting here. She doesn't need a new weapon or a new power, she has always had the means to win in a lot of occasions, its just again the writing giving villains plot armor to make them "win" to drive up stakes. Cause if Ruby always won she would be a Mary sue and thats worse than what we have now which is someone who has no confidence in herself. But this arc restores that confidence without needing to change the character. And if Ruby has to get such an upgrade, the whole cast should, frick add a new power system on top of the existing system for everyone. Kinda like Oda in One Piece with Haki.

You are throwing around big literary terms without understanding the president of the show. If we just kept giving characters power ups without engaging with that power and what it means it could create issues in the plot in retrospective. I mean yes I would like more unique uses of power, maybe Ruby can use her speed to do other things like phase through objects or erase her presence, Weiss got her golems so she is fine, Blake could maybe get sentience to her clones so they can last longer, Yang could unleash shockwaves with her fists. But then if you do that you have to give your opponents more, now Cinder can go nuclear, Salem can turn into a titanic grim or something and then of course you escalate the plot to a point where there is no protecting anyone now and there is no cities left because they have been whipped out because of all the explosive power you are throwing around. Fact is they are hunters, there needs to be control and precedence to use all this fantastic stuff for longer than one scene.

It seems we're coming closer to a mutual understanding, because apparently we both agree that most of the problems here stem from writing not being good enough, but there are still points I'll answer to.

The characters that have stopped appearing in the show could be recycled to fulfill different roles in later seasons to make them less one note and more like actual beings. But that's more of a taste of mine. With secondary characters like Sun and his team, the fourth graders and the others, I just want them to appear more and expand more on them, instead of going with newer use and throw ones.

Jaune was in a comfortable situation as in the "comfort zone". That is: rejecting the obvious truth in order to hold onto something that made him feel good, in this case, stopping the paper people from commiting suicide and insisting that he's saving them regardless of how reasonable they were with their argument. It was a case of "since I can't fix stuff that matters, I'll take this one that I can actually control, and make it extremely important to give myself a sense of success". Which is more than a realistic behavior and he's not to blame for reacting like that; rather the writers are for making him grow an entire life of mistakes and failing to grasp the message of the entire world he lived in and the entire season he costarred. Which makes him, as a character, a failure, given his position and what was expected of him since he had been hyped up back in the first or second season. I mean, his name derives from Jean D'arc, yeah? A leader both in war and in faith. His attribute should be his wisdom, and thus, aging him up was a really cool choice, but fucking him up with such a development was a nail in the coffin. He could have helped RWBY with their conflicts by giving them half an episode of him recalling his story with the paper people in a flashback and how he eventually learned how to let them go and how that helped them X years ago. Acting with them a little like a father given his new age, or in a similar way to how Pyrrha acted with him when he was a kid.
You also say that the plot needs to bend to make RWBY always be right immediately because they're the main characters, but that is a way of being a Mary Sue. Not being invincible, but always having the moral high ground against someone else who, by all means, should have reached the right conclusion decades ago, is pretty cheap. That's why I think the whole Jaune thing was handled very poorly.

Raven's victory over Cinder was fine in my opinion. It was shown how she simply was more skilled and had far more experience using her Maiden powers, whereas Cinder was still wounded and somewhat crippled from Ruby's silver flashing, if I remember correctly. But, honestly, she should've come back one season later, maybe two, and attack the characters in a desperate way for regaining Salem's favor, ending dead, or being killed by another female that Salem recruited to gain her Maiden powers after Salem deemed her useless. Or something like that, you know? Not stretching her until the very end like they're doing.

Regarding the power thing, it's just a poor handling of the issue. It was established that characters could do this or that, and bad guys were still stronger. I mean, Ruby was sonic booming around and Cinder still gave you the impression that she was far stronger than her. Pyrrha could throw her spear to the horizon with perfect accuracy and her final bout against Maiden Cinder was very epic, but Cinder was still outclassing her by much. And if characters could pull off all of those stunts by then, why not now? And there's a huge margin before they start blowing up cities with their attacks, really. Salem could be overall like a Maiden in the same way Cinder displayed, but move faster and being immortal, and that's it. No need to teleport to a wasteland a la Dragon Ball to have a fight, because they still don't pack the firepower to blow up New York in an arm wrestling match. The same way that raising the stakes on what's to lose and what's to gain from the conflicts make them interesting, so does watching crazy fights.
And not only because it's cool, but because that's what Monty Oum was doing with the show, and what he did before with things like Dead Fantasy. It was part of the identity of RWBY; part of what made it so cool and popular back in the day. And diminishing the scale of power feats is simply pathetic. Wheter it's because it makes it easier to write things, or because that saves them budget.

Now, on the subject of Ruby, you're telling me that she had always been enough to deal with the plot, but the villains had plot armor. How does that make sense? Is Ruby now cool because villains no longer have plot armor? Does she have fourth wall breaking powers to force writers give her the W? Jokes aside, while "plot" is the simple answer here IRL, within the universe of RWBY it's been shown time and time again that Ruby was either weak, immature or both to deal with stuff. Had her cosmic trip been handled differently, they could have given Ruby a better control over her silver eyes and use that to be better, or have some kind of talk with some kind of spiritual guide like the Tree woman, but with her telling Ruby a secret about this or that that would tip the scales in RWBY's favor. Because as it is, happy Ruby has as many chances of winning the day as sady Ruby does.

And no new power system is needed, especially at this point of the story. But something like "after overcoming a metaphysical trial your aura has been strengthened/you have received the blessing of the Tree. And that will not make you as powerful as a Maiden, but will let you deal with the big names when it's throwing hands time". Maybe not defeating them, but being able to hold them back by fighting together until X McGuffin is retrieved or used or whatever. And I'm starting to think that the next season, if it's the final one, is either gonna pull off that kind of thing without properly justifying it, or going the speech 100 route with Jaune being mature, Ren seeing colors of emotions and Ruby being the Mary Sue of talking or whatever. I'm just pulling random threads there, sure, but I don't see how the good guys can save the the day now, without either betraying the action part of the show, or giving the main characters a cheap win button of sorts.

Your argument has actually become very concise at this point and I will submit to most of your viewpoints.

A mary sue isn't necessarily someone who always holds a moral high ground that's just a self-righteous bastard which Rwby does try to avoid a bit. The protagonist does need the plot to bend for them in a way to keep it fresh and dynamic to a degree, because a protagonist by definition is someone who "Advances the plot". Even people with Anti-plot armour like Guts from Berserk has the plot still bend for him when he needs it to.

As for Ruby I mean she was for the most part going evenly with Cinder to a degree just being a bit inexperienced like needing to be saved by Glenda in the first act and narrowly getting beat in the 2nd act due to her close range being a bit weak being saved by Ironwood. The difference was Cinder had actual power backing herself up where as Rwby was just being trained by one of the best hunters out there and was always came just a bit short but just a bit short has been somewhat made up for with time and experience.

I don't agree in Cinder dying early, what I would have preferred to see more of is her interactions with her companions and how she views them personally with the experiences she has been through. I kind of hate how they written her to be this Nihilistic girlboss that needs the world to burn for her. When she is supposed to be a tragic character who wants the world to fear her so she actually has control of her life rather than being forced to work on the whims of others. I was hoping that she would betray Salem and try and steal her immortality with one of the relics which would have made an interesting plot development and would eventually force Salem to let go of her grief at what she has lost. It would give a better conflict of ideals instead of what we have now which is big bad evil and destroy. And Cinder does have the capacity to fill that role if she was just written that way instead of being another disposable peon of Salem that somehow persists in the plot.

I also agree that such a plot twist with Cinder would be cool to see, and I also find her far more interesting as a villain than Salem; I mean, save for the fact that Salem has grimmified herself and grown evil mad from her resentment and the milennia and whatnot, which makes it somewhat reasonable to believe she wants to blow the planet, what are the others thinking? Scorpion guy is Joker cartoonishly mad, ok. The big buffed guy was an imbecile, ok. But the others still have some leftover sanity to actually cooperate in destroying the world. So if Cinder managed to pull one up on Salem, I'd be glad that happened, to be honest.

Ruby being just a bit short in the beginning and now being clapped is part of what I mean: She should have been able to overcome certain enemies that have far supassed their usefulness story-wise, and the writers have been stretching them because people like them and because it makes it more dramatic. Adam's death was cool, in my opinion. A character we know from the very beginning who ended up having a botched story but who had a good fight and a good end to his thing. Somewhat more of the same with Ironwood. But Neo and Cinder had far too much relevance for how many villains are in the show, and although I've always liked them both, they've been feeling more stagnant with every passing season.

And finally, I still think a character that is always in the right during moral dilemmas is a Mary Sue in a way. The conflict with Old Jaune here was a good example, but the conflict with Ironwood a while ago was more of the same; however, since his reasoning was more reasonable and nuanced than the people migh have expected, they amped his villainy by a 300% and then wrote that he had the lamest excuse for a Semblance to justify how absurd his behavior was. Or the argument with Ozpin about how to deal with the world problems: I mean, come on. The guy is millennia old and has the wisdom of a thousand enlightened men! He knows that it's either any morally ambiguous thing he makes, or total annihilation. Yet the story makes it look like he's a cold blooded manipulative bastard who cares little for the few sacrificed, which is childishly simplistic.

Also, do you really think Team RWBY advances the plot? Because to me, they've been sitting ducks going from point A to point B, waiting for the baddies to pull out a baddy thing for them to react (and fail). They seem to follow a more reactionary structure than a proactive one in my opinion.

Again I don't think holding a moral high ground in a conversation is being a Mary Sue, because being a Mary sue means that everything goes your way. Holding a moral highground is more like holding your own morals over the morals of your opponent and a lot of people do this who aren't Mary Sue's. That just makes you a self-righteous arse or the Paladin archetype as an example. Its what we call in ethics a Utilitarian mindset.

Thats the thing with Ironwood that always irked me, he is supposed to be the Tinman, heartless but not thoughtless. He made a lot of stupid decisions and decisions that came from a place of logic and reasoning. Worst of all is that he let his fear of Salem and defeat get beneath his skin when its more in his character to not be affected by that and instead just be cold to the plight of people because its statistically a detriment to care for Mantle as an example. He doesn't necessarily have to be villainous but inhuman wouldn't be a bad course of action.

Yeah the writers have been really downplaying Ruby a lot hence why I say she doesn't need a powerup she needs a plot convenience to open up to let her win. Which makes for worse world building but a bit more dynamic storytelling. It should mean that the stakes remain high no matter what. The problem is they achieve this by purposefully nerfing her which generates a new plate of problems.

Adam's death was fine, I just wish it happened later, it was a bit too soon especially with the previous arc setting him up as he kills the leader of the White Fang who are supposed to be this global network of Faunice terrorists and then he doesn't use them and goes to die at the hands of his ex. Plus he is supposed to be the beast in the Beauty and the Beast story, he is supposed to have his curse broken and instead he just gets killed off rather anti-climatically.

They do advance the plot but not directly as you can obviously imagine. Their actions genuinely have consequences to the outcomes of situations and they have impacted characters they have encountered. By definition they are protagonists even if they play as if they are just there for the ride.

I mostly agree with you. Maybe the Adam final fight was rushed because they needed to kill off a villain, and didn't want to touch any of the others, even though he had far more charisma than Hazel or Tyrian. Perhaps they just wanted the White Fang act closed, even to the detriment of the story in the end.

However, as much as main characters go, this ones a too passive. Think of JoJo part 4, where characters are pretty much waiting for something to happen before they move, as opposed to the previous parts where the main cast has a goal and enemies simply stand there as obstacles. The villain ins RWBY don't really care much for the main cast: They go to A, do X, have more or less success, and leave. And the protagonists act, quite sadly, as spectators rather than actors for much of the time, that's what I mean when I say they're just there as a pov for the public.

And while it might be true that giving Ruby a plot device rather than a power up might make a more dynamic story in exchange for a worse world building, it's already patching a hole that they created by making the protagonists this pushover status, so in the end, it's an arguably bad solution for a problem that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

And finally, about the Mary Sue argument, I'll leave a copy paste of a paragraph that explains pretty decently how Ruby pretty much is one, if not for how strong she is, by how 'right' she always is. Even if the public can argue against her judgement, the rest of the cast is mostly defeated, so to speak, by Ruby's, or the rest of the good guys' arguments:
The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish-Fulfillment. She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing.

I don't think so for the most part, Yang had an influence on her mother even if she is removed from the story somewhat which made her sure to not trust Cinder and to bring her down. Weiss had a profound impact on her family who did directly influence the story and caused the downfall of her father. Ruby's plans for the most part have been successful, she has managed to save many innocent people in her time and she only really failed people she couldn't help or couldn't factor loosing. While season 3 was a total loss for her, her loss in season 8 was a very narrow loss considering every move she has made thus far has allowed some degree of success. And Blake managed to influence the Faunice for the better. They have all had impact on the plot and aren't pitiless witnesses to it. Especially since the Villians have targeted them directly, so they are a threat to a degree.

I agree, that was a problem that needs to be resolved in the next season. Hopefully our characters are competent in this next arc.

Again you don't understand what a Mary sue is. Rwby is not winning her moral debates, she is just sticking to her viewpoints and not letting herself be defeated by opposing viewpoints or letting those viewpoints change her. Thats called being an optimist its a common character trait.

As for the copy paste, no that doesn't fit Ruby at all, Monty didn't create her character to be a wish forfullment character, he created a character that was made to fill the role of a simple soul, an optimist who was trying to fight a world and reality that doesn't sit with the fantasy she has been chasing. Her hair pretty archetypal even for its time, and her silver eyes are common as heck in any animated field. Implausibly talented? She was trained by one of the best hunters in the world and has parents who were both some of the most talented of their time while her mother is descended from a long line of people with unique powers. She has pedigree that doesn't make her a Mary Sue. Its like complaining sorcerers exist in D&D when their whole gimmic is having power, not working for it a day in their life. And she had real struggles in the plot to be an effective leader despite being younger than her contemporaries and far less mature. She even doubted her ability to lead even asking Weiss or Jeanne to lead in times of stress for herself. Also Ruby is not exotic, heck its borderline the name you give to a lady at a strip club making it borderline an unpleasant name rather than exotic. And she has plenty of flaws, a lack of maturity that initially comes off as endearing and becomes a hinderance as time goes on. Nothing about that statement matches her at all.

Ruby goes around being right where others aren't, even when she's had far less time or chances to ponder on the subjects. And the physical traits mentioned as exotic are just minor points that add to the caracterization of a Mary Sue, which we need to consider within the story itself; silver eyes are common in anime, as are pretty much every kind of eye and hair color, but in RWBY, silver eyes are very rare, and a source of great power. Not only that, but your comment on how talented she is, justifies what I mean about her being impossibly talented: descending from a long line of people with unique powers, daughter of some of the best hunters and trained by one of the best? Entering Beacon two years before the usual student AND being put in the position of leadership? Also, strippers 'try' to give themselves exotic scenario names, like Ruby, so it kinda fits what you said, lol.

Being an optimist doesn't necessarily mean being right, but Ruby has been consistently the voice of reason, even making the entire plot bend around her reasoning, instead of the opposite. While letting other viewpoints change you is actually good, since it let's you broad your understanding and thus letting you making a better decision, she is placed here as the source of what truly is right.

While it's true she has her flaws and limitations, simply tagging her as a Mary Sue doesn't do; I agree with you there. But it's undeniable she has certain traits that match that description. All in all, my point about Ruby was that she kinda works opposite to other famous characters like Harry Potter or Frodo. Those two listen to the really wise guys and make decisions that some times work, and some times don't, but usually work when they try to apply those lessons. Ruby, however, is more of a voice of reason and virtue than other characters who would fit such a description, like Ozpin, Ironwood or old Jaune, and she goes around lecturing one or the other. But when it's pretty clear that Ruby can't really counter their argument fully, the plot gives her a reason: Like Ozpin almost needlessly hiding from everyone parts of the truth about Salem, Ironwood upping his lunacy to the umpteenth power, or a random extra shattering old Jaune's reason in a 40s exposition dump.

Again she isn't being right, she is just sticking to her viewpoints, however naieve or optimistic they are. That doesn't make her a Mary Sue. Sure Silver eyes are rare but they aren't such an outrageous characteristic as what a Mary Sue would normally have on a physical level.

Again that's pedigree, most Mary Sue's tend to come from nothing and elevate themselves beyond preconceived projections, a real Mary Sue would be like Jeanne who is the underdog and could barely understand aura soloing Cinder at the end of volume 3. Ruby actually has a rich history which means she is expected to be strong and talented in the storyline. That doesn't make her a Mary Sue. Its called Pedigree, having a history that makes her strong does not devalue her achievements nor does it make her a Mary Sue. Otherwise again a lot of characters would be Mary Sue's by your description who are quite the opposite. Being a leader again has nothing to do with talent, its a skillset and Ozpin was right to make her a leader, as Yang is too impatient, Blake is too reserved and introverted, and Weiss is too self important at the time.

She has always been the voice of reason because its easy to see the flaws in a person's argument when standing on the side-lines of it. Her naivety contributes to that, while she doesn't understand people's most deep and inner feelings she can always give a pragmatic answer to a situation. Again the plot isn't bending around her when she is giving an obvious solution to a problem laid bare. By your metric you think that Ruby can talk no Jutsu Salem but this is obviously not the case at all.

I think mainly because the older mentor type character has been done to death that they needed to make that deconstruction to stand out a bit more. I mean think about it, going all the way back to Greek myths you have the mentor Chiron who advises heroes stretching all the way to modern stories. The thing with Ozpin, Ironwood and old Jeanne is that they can't come off as flawless. They need pushback from their contemporaries to humanize their reasoning instead of coming off as ala Merlin manipulating and destroying a person's life for the future of the world. The problem is, they basically make Ozpin seem incompetent, Ironwood seem villainous and Jeanne seem unchanging.

All they had to do with Ozpin is either make him have less sympathy for the cast by making it seem living so long has made him unsympathetic with their feelings and the only thing that mattered to him was the ultimate goal, or make him have more sympathy by portraying his agony over lying to the hunters and huntresses that follow him over the generations and how many people he had to watch die for him, instead of putting him in an awkward middle where he just seems disappointing and undeveloped.

With Ironwood I can see his reasoning happening if it wasn't outright villainous and he wasn't overtaken by fear but rather by the fact that he no longer has a human heart.

Jeanne's story actually worked because when he snapped at Ruby he put her in her place for a bit which did make her realize her critique of his position was bad and that who she is, is falling apart.

I agree with the secod part of your argument in regards to those characters, but it seems it's you the one who doesn't seem to catch what the Mary Sue is. "Pedigree isn't a Mary Sue", or "It's not talent, it's a skillset". How does that make any sense? A skill is a talent, especially coming from a kid who didn't exactly spend two years in Vietnam learning how to direct a platoon, yet runs laps around everyone else in terms of leadership; and maybe not because she's an actual genius, but because all the other candidates were significantly flawed. That's a common trait in poor writing: you want to make someone appear smart but, since you can't normally portray a smart conduct, either because you aren't smart or because you didn't have enough time to develop certain ideas, you lower everyone else's standard. And Mary Sues are common in mediocre media. The term is so infamous because it's pretty flexible, too; it's characteristics aren't set in stone, rather, you can perceive a character as a Mary Sue in varying degrees by observing all of it's traits and interactions with the world.

And "pedigree" isn't a Mary Sue trait? And Jaune came from nothing? Well, Jaune's family is the Arc, and it's explained how they have a long history of heroic badass Hunters, which made him ashamed of his own lack of prowess, that's why he cheated his way into Beacon. And since then it's not like he's improved much in his martial career, so I don't see that going anywhere. Now, how about the usual "half-demon" mofo who develops immense power because, somehow, being half demon (or any other exotic, supernatural species; you name it) makes you better than the whole pack? That's pedigree, and basic Mary Sue background, honestly. I do admit that Ruby's weakness plays favourably for her in this regard, since she's the one getting clapped most often than not, so she isn't exactly a powerhouse. That's why I say that she's more of a speech Mary Sue, or moral one, rather than the usual godslayer adolescent kid product of the most perfect eugenics experiment.

Also, what do you mean about weird eyes Mary Sues have, that Silver Eyes aren't? Because those things being rare af, plot relevant, and source of immense power seem to nail the definition.

Then, about her viewpoints; it's not like being naive or optimistic is a Mary Sue trait in and of itself, but she's been proven right in that mindset multiple times, and she isn't exactly a mountain sage or anything. She's portrayed as a, generally speaking, normal girl, whose logic is more sound than that of other people who're at the intellectual peak of society. It reminds me of that psychologist from Rick and Morty who was revealed to be a self insert of the writer of that episode; pouring into an apparently inferior character the real world knowledge to deconstruct a character or counter the arguments made by individuals who're supposed to be leagues above them in smarts is a classic Mary Sue thing that reeks of fanfic.

That sure does make damn perfect sense!

Although I admit the director behind Volume 9 wasn't able to end it on a good note, but he/she at least didn't rip characters out like the disaster of volume 8.

In fact, one could argue that the director gave some of the main cast a well needed refresher rather than a powerup that would still be nothing if the team are still not in their right mind, which is fair considering EVERYTHING they went through to get this far.

Messed up a lot this volume but at least somewhat nailed the landing I suppose
The music and (some of) the fight scenes are still carrying the show, dedication to completion is b*tch but here we are I guess
I have zero hope of next volumes being any better unless they completely stop trying to develop characters and it's just an all-out war and strategy games now
But we all know that's not what's gonna happen

great job as always Monty. Kinda disappointed the ruby didn't get a new scythe, maybe I need to learn to accept myself.

Monty is dead years ago...

Ooh I see, I first saw rwby in 2019, he is in the credits section so .... RIP

you know what this was SO much better than the last 2 seasons and i'm all for change! and i kinda dig the fact ruby was lowkey reborn and the show acknowledges that she's terrible leader.

but tbh that's on everyone for pushing the literal child into leading the group LOL

Not sure how Ruby came to that conclusion, sort of just felt random and cliche. Honestly with the change that was happening with her character, I would've liked them to go all in. Actually have her change, something you wouldn't expect

Not a bad ending, but I think we need to start kicking up the action a bit. Our teams arcs have mostly completed. The only thing left for them is to beat Cinder and Salem once and for all.

I vote for something better.

Let Salem discover what Cinder did behind her back and let her end be determined by Salem.