yup yup yup! A lovely way to wrap up the Atlas arc's chess symbolism. I mean, the whole show has the chess allegory, but it's been very pointed in Atlas, especially this volume!
@@HyperfixationStation There's an episode in Vol 5 where RWBY explains to Oscar that Pyrrha fought a battle she knew she couldn't win. Jaune figured that out a full volume later when he and the rest of his original team had the scene at the Pyrrha statue.
Characters left in Atlas: Robin, AceOps, Qrow. Characters in Vacuo: Happy Huntresses, Schnees (minus Weiss), Ren, Nora, Emerald, Oscar. Characters in Wonderland*: RWBY, Neo, Jaune, NPCs EDIT: Also Penny's body (Sorry for the morbidity.) *: The Void [tm], Wonderland, whatever else you want to call it (Until Vol 9 when someone names it).
which plotline are you most looking forward to? I know the Wonderland/afterlife/void/what-have-you is the most intriguing, but they did such a cool job setting up the characters in vacuo that I'm way more antsy to see them again :P Team OLVE, my beloveds
@@HyperfixationStation I hope CRWBY does a split volume; some time in Wonderland AND in Vacuo. At least get everyone out of the sand storm, hopefully to Shade Academy. Who are OLVE ?
Yet another great reaction video. Thanks :) BTW: I cry all the time when re-watching any Penny or Pyrrha related things with reactors like yourself... and I'm an "old" man who's seen some stuff IRL :D ... so don't worry about crying.
One question: Why did Vine have to die? Could he not have just wrapped the bomb ITSELF, maybe even extended it a ways off of the ship so it exploded mostly harmlessly?
yeah that was weird. I've also seen poc in the fandom say it was a bad decision to have the Asian-coded stereotype character die by bomb, and uh, yeah. Also, the bomb not doing anything was kind of a letdown? If it had fallen it'd have meant civilian casualties we can't ignore and leave the ace ops horrified of what they helped do. Idk how well that'd have worked, but everyone magically getting to safety was anticlimactic and made Atlas falling less impactful. Also, I'm sorry, but that bomb was gonna explode a CITY how the heck did Vine hold it in? XD
@@HyperfixationStation 1- Asian-code die by bomb- Yeah, not a good look. 2- Mantle was in a crater- not just the mining crater, as you saw the water fill it in. Drop a bomb in there? Everyone dies just because the area is enclosed- nowhere for the force to go. Was it a letdown? I'm not sure as we do not know what CRWBY has in mind. Maybe it is. 3- Atlas falling was pretty impactful to me. (Pun intended!- Sorry I let my Yang out...) 4- Vine held in the explosion because Magic/plotline! [This leads to- how strong is a semblance?]
@@dragonrune6800 Please NEVER feel like you have to apologize for puns around me! I make them all the time lol. And yeah, they were still evacuating so it was a big deal, but I missed that on my first watch since it was just a line of Elm's. I'd have maybe liked to see more of the chaos in Mantle firsthand but that might just be me! And sorry, I phrased that as thought atlas falling had NO impact, when it absolutely did! Maybe it's just how much they downplayed it earlier in the volume? "Just the chunk of land they live on" is still full of homes and businesses and infrastructure and culture that's gonna be lost, and that's devastating (and oof oh no the power scaling problem XD I don't typically mind it though)
@@kibert135 If vine extended the bomb out past the ship, the connecting "vines" are not hollow. There would be no where for the force to go, so it stays encased. This may explain why he had to enclose the entire ship, a smaller enclosure would have been too small. So he moves the bomb off ship, but in a large enclosure. I still do not see why Vine had to die.
Did I say that? I don't remember :o I do enjoy the main four! But it's true that the characters whose arcs I'm most interested in at the moment are mostly... not them. Cause they haven't really gotten to do that much lately insofar as character struggle? And I like me a character with internal struggle! And motivation! So yeah, I really hope volume 9 fixes that issue. Weiss used to be my favorite but the atlas arc kinda dropped her down the list a little for me. I love Blake though! And Ruby's more enjoyable to watch than she has been in the past at times for me. There's a lot of potential they could act on with RWBY in v9, and I hope they explore their characters more :)
@@HyperfixationStation My comment was just in response to your mentioning your favorite characters as Penny, Pyrrha, and Nora (and Oscar I imagine). I totally agree that these last two seasons the main 4 have not had much interesting going on from a character perspective. Ruby had some interesting things, and I'm such a big Bumbleby fan that I lived for all of their moments, but totally agree that I was disappointed in what they did with Weiss in Atlas. There were so many moments that could have been emotionally impactful that we just ignored for her: arresting her father, seeing her mom again, leaving Winter in 7.13. I am not psyched on the side quest for next volume, but if they finally get some time to have real character moments, I will definitely be happy. Thank you for responding!
@@allocat5867 yes yes yes agreed to all of this! (And yeah Oscar's a favorite, how could you tell? XD) Everything you said about weiss I 100% agree. Her plot with her father could've been such a powerful arc overcoming her abusive upbringing and such, and while the "Jacques Schnee, you're under arrest! Can I do that?" was funny, they kinda made Jacques so cartoonish that I didn't feel like Weiss had conquered anything. Here's hoping for character moments galore!
A lot of people seem to ignore that the four main girls all have their own arcs. Those arcs aren't short arcs that only become important for one Volume. The whole show is about them, about their arcs. If you pay attention, you can see that every Volume has moments for each main girl that come together to create great moments, like Blake's and Ruby's talk in Chapter 8, or like Yang's and Ruby's talk in Chapter 11. Those things were impactfull because of the build up. And this type of story telling is not for everyone, but it is story telling. And at least for me, my favorites are team RWBY even if their arcs take longer to develop. I care about their development regardless. So maybe it is less about the show and more about the preferences of the viewer. (it is a little about the show. RWBY is a show with A LOT of characters and world building but shorter episodes and Volumes. So while I do think RWBY is very good with focusing on the characters that need the development and giving everyone else enough moments so that it pays off when they get focus again, I do think this is a build in flaw of the show too. I happen to love how vast the world is and how many characters there are, so I am happy they are so good with shifting the focus.)
If they had not killed Penny in Volume 3 as well (which textually they did because they never hinted at her being able to come back until volume 7), I would agree with you about her arc being good. Her dying twice was really dumb in my opinion.
yeah I have... a lot of thoughts about Penny's arc. I don't like a lot of what they did. I made a whole hour long rant video about her being turned into a ""real girl,"" and I feel like her dying a second time was way less impactful and didn't need to happen. But her arc did have a conclusion of sorts, even if I wish the middle of it had been very different, so her being out of the story at this point makes sense. She didn't have to die for that to happen, though... Also I wish it hadn't been Jaune but that's another topic XD
@@HyperfixationStation I think the biggest problem with Penny being a "real girl" is how a lot of people talk about it. The show itself did spend a lot of time to say that Penny always was a real girl. That is why she got the Maiden powers. And Blake said it herself in the episode where she got her new body. Penny's robot body was used as a metaphor for her being controlled by other people. Since her introduction, her actions were always undercut by other people: She was collected at the end of Volume 1, her plans to stay at Beacon were an afterthought, and even her death was not because of anything she decided. She was just used as a statement. So this final episode is the first time she truely does something because she wants to and nobody stops her. She fights Cinder because she wants to protect her friends. And that is both her biggest positive trait and her biggest flaw. She brings herself in danger a lot. That doesn't matter much when she is a robot and the threats are small. But in this situation there had to be consequences. But she still got the chance to choose where the powers would go. And sure, Penny didn't need to die. But this was not only a conclusion of her character arc. This happened in the middle of the conflict in the portal realm. And for everything to play out in a way that makes sense for both the characters and the story, this played out perfectly. We can always talk about what could and couldn't have happened but in the end this was what they wanted for Penny's storyline (like what happened to Pyrrha). And no, Penny's arc was not about becoming a real girl. It was about being able to break away from the people who tried to control her and make her own decisions. But in a war those decisions have grave consequences.
@allocat5867 As I already said, Penny's first death was as much part of her arc as her second death. Arcs can consist of repetitions if there are key differences. Like Penny dying the first time because someone else wanted to make a statement in compairison to Penny dying because of a choice she made and to protect both her friends and the world.
Yeah, she was set up as a huge threat in the v7 finale, and chapter 4 did a GREAT job making her intimidating. I was okay with her getting exploded, but I feel it'd have been better if it had happened after she did something huge. I know I can't know what the writers have planned for the future, but honestly, I'd probably have had her kill Ren. It'd be a great catalyst for Nora to have a personal stake with Salem and find herself "without Ren," Oscar would have had to watch a friend die and killed Salem in retaliation, making the use of the nuke more impactful, etc. I would've had the Hound capture Ruby as well, because our main character REALLY should have encountered the big bad (I know they're building suspense but it's ineffective). And I would've had her silver eyes fail because of the mention of Summer Rose, which messed up her eyes in v7 and went nowhere, so this would be cool to see that they failed twice in Salem's presence, making her a much bigger threat and incentivizing Ruby to hone her eyes. I love Ren, but his arc felt like a natural conclusion, and this would HURT. Losing Penny hurt, but because we've lost her before it was a net 0 instead of a loss for the arc. Having Ren die and THEN Penny would've really solidified that the villains are competent and they need to prepare and get help.
@@planetbandit2198 thanks!! I just like when stakes are followed through on, ya feel? From a writing standpoint this needed to feel like a HUGE loss, and somehow, despite the destruction of an entire KINGDOM, Volume 3 still managed to hit us harder because of the impact it had on PEOPLE. We have no direct attachment to the physical land of Atlas. But we are attached to characters and civilian lives, etc.
![ILLSLICK - THE KING'S LANDING [Freestyle]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/feIJJnNkTfk/mqdefault.jpg)
The Final Word [in the episode]: Checkmate.
yup yup yup! A lovely way to wrap up the Atlas arc's chess symbolism. I mean, the whole show has the chess allegory, but it's been very pointed in Atlas, especially this volume!
The song "Friend" during the credits is a tear jerker
SERIOUSLY, I cried while editing every time. I learned the song cause it'd really fun to sing, too :P
@@HyperfixationStation There's an episode in Vol 5 where RWBY explains to Oscar that Pyrrha fought a battle she knew she couldn't win. Jaune figured that out a full volume later when he and the rest of his original team had the scene at the Pyrrha statue.
@@HyperfixationStation TOTALLY fun to sing in the shower with a JBL Clip
Characters left in Atlas: Robin, AceOps, Qrow.
Characters in Vacuo: Happy Huntresses, Schnees (minus Weiss), Ren, Nora, Emerald, Oscar.
Characters in Wonderland*: RWBY, Neo, Jaune, NPCs EDIT: Also Penny's body (Sorry for the morbidity.)
*: The Void [tm], Wonderland, whatever else you want to call it (Until Vol 9 when someone names it).
which plotline are you most looking forward to? I know the Wonderland/afterlife/void/what-have-you is the most intriguing, but they did such a cool job setting up the characters in vacuo that I'm way more antsy to see them again :P Team OLVE, my beloveds
@@HyperfixationStation I hope CRWBY does a split volume; some time in Wonderland AND in Vacuo. At least get everyone out of the sand storm, hopefully to Shade Academy.
Who are OLVE ?
Weapons left ---
@@dragonrune6800 hmmm. Oscar Lie Ren, Vine and uhhh. Elm?
oh wait vine is dead lmao
Yet another great reaction video. Thanks :)
BTW: I cry all the time when re-watching any Penny or Pyrrha related things with reactors like yourself... and I'm an "old" man who's seen some stuff IRL :D ... so don't worry about crying.
aw, thanks! And haha yeah, nothing wrong with crying; it's healthy!
22:13 THANK YOU!~ I also thought the music in that part was... amazing! like.... daaaamn!
the music this volume was STELLAR
Nora, Emerald, Ren, Oscar.
Team NERO (It means "black" in italian)
One question: Why did Vine have to die? Could he not have just wrapped the bomb ITSELF, maybe even extended it a ways off of the ship so it exploded mostly harmlessly?
yeah that was weird. I've also seen poc in the fandom say it was a bad decision to have the Asian-coded stereotype character die by bomb, and uh, yeah. Also, the bomb not doing anything was kind of a letdown? If it had fallen it'd have meant civilian casualties we can't ignore and leave the ace ops horrified of what they helped do. Idk how well that'd have worked, but everyone magically getting to safety was anticlimactic and made Atlas falling less impactful. Also, I'm sorry, but that bomb was gonna explode a CITY how the heck did Vine hold it in? XD
@@HyperfixationStation 1- Asian-code die by bomb- Yeah, not a good look. 2- Mantle was in a crater- not just the mining crater, as you saw the water fill it in. Drop a bomb in there? Everyone dies just because the area is enclosed- nowhere for the force to go. Was it a letdown? I'm not sure as we do not know what CRWBY has in mind. Maybe it is. 3- Atlas falling was pretty impactful to me. (Pun intended!- Sorry I let my Yang out...) 4- Vine held in the explosion because Magic/plotline! [This leads to- how strong is a semblance?]
@@dragonrune6800 Please NEVER feel like you have to apologize for puns around me! I make them all the time lol. And yeah, they were still evacuating so it was a big deal, but I missed that on my first watch since it was just a line of Elm's. I'd have maybe liked to see more of the chaos in Mantle firsthand but that might just be me! And sorry, I phrased that as thought atlas falling had NO impact, when it absolutely did! Maybe it's just how much they downplayed it earlier in the volume? "Just the chunk of land they live on" is still full of homes and businesses and infrastructure and culture that's gonna be lost, and that's devastating
(and oof oh no the power scaling problem XD I don't typically mind it though)
And how would that work when the vines are always attached to the vines he creates? He has no chance to get out of the blast radius either way.
@@kibert135 If vine extended the bomb out past the ship, the connecting "vines" are not hollow. There would be no where for the force to go, so it stays encased. This may explain why he had to enclose the entire ship, a smaller enclosure would have been too small. So he moves the bomb off ship, but in a large enclosure. I still do not see why Vine had to die.
Maidenbowl 2021: Fall vs. Winter! Only on Pay-Per-View....er.....RoosterTeeth First!
Another thing Jaune followed through with -- the dress!
I loved him in the dress! I wish it hadn't been framed like a joke "haha man in dress funny" but I like that he did it!
@@HyperfixationStation lmao I feel so bad for just noticing I called Jaune "John" -- edited.
I think it is a really bad sign for the series that none of the main four are among your favorites.
Did I say that? I don't remember :o I do enjoy the main four! But it's true that the characters whose arcs I'm most interested in at the moment are mostly... not them. Cause they haven't really gotten to do that much lately insofar as character struggle? And I like me a character with internal struggle! And motivation!
So yeah, I really hope volume 9 fixes that issue. Weiss used to be my favorite but the atlas arc kinda dropped her down the list a little for me. I love Blake though! And Ruby's more enjoyable to watch than she has been in the past at times for me. There's a lot of potential they could act on with RWBY in v9, and I hope they explore their characters more :)
@@HyperfixationStation My comment was just in response to your mentioning your favorite characters as Penny, Pyrrha, and Nora (and Oscar I imagine). I totally agree that these last two seasons the main 4 have not had much interesting going on from a character perspective. Ruby had some interesting things, and I'm such a big Bumbleby fan that I lived for all of their moments, but totally agree that I was disappointed in what they did with Weiss in Atlas. There were so many moments that could have been emotionally impactful that we just ignored for her: arresting her father, seeing her mom again, leaving Winter in 7.13. I am not psyched on the side quest for next volume, but if they finally get some time to have real character moments, I will definitely be happy. Thank you for responding!
@@allocat5867 yes yes yes agreed to all of this! (And yeah Oscar's a favorite, how could you tell? XD) Everything you said about weiss I 100% agree. Her plot with her father could've been such a powerful arc overcoming her abusive upbringing and such, and while the "Jacques Schnee, you're under arrest! Can I do that?" was funny, they kinda made Jacques so cartoonish that I didn't feel like Weiss had conquered anything. Here's hoping for character moments galore!
A lot of people seem to ignore that the four main girls all have their own arcs. Those arcs aren't short arcs that only become important for one Volume. The whole show is about them, about their arcs. If you pay attention, you can see that every Volume has moments for each main girl that come together to create great moments, like Blake's and Ruby's talk in Chapter 8, or like Yang's and Ruby's talk in Chapter 11. Those things were impactfull because of the build up. And this type of story telling is not for everyone, but it is story telling. And at least for me, my favorites are team RWBY even if their arcs take longer to develop. I care about their development regardless. So maybe it is less about the show and more about the preferences of the viewer.
(it is a little about the show. RWBY is a show with A LOT of characters and world building but shorter episodes and Volumes. So while I do think RWBY is very good with focusing on the characters that need the development and giving everyone else enough moments so that it pays off when they get focus again, I do think this is a build in flaw of the show too. I happen to love how vast the world is and how many characters there are, so I am happy they are so good with shifting the focus.)
If they had not killed Penny in Volume 3 as well (which textually they did because they never hinted at her being able to come back until volume 7), I would agree with you about her arc being good. Her dying twice was really dumb in my opinion.
yeah I have... a lot of thoughts about Penny's arc. I don't like a lot of what they did. I made a whole hour long rant video about her being turned into a ""real girl,"" and I feel like her dying a second time was way less impactful and didn't need to happen. But her arc did have a conclusion of sorts, even if I wish the middle of it had been very different, so her being out of the story at this point makes sense. She didn't have to die for that to happen, though... Also I wish it hadn't been Jaune but that's another topic XD
@@HyperfixationStation I'll check out your Penny 'rant' video. Thanks for the response! :)
@@HyperfixationStation I think the biggest problem with Penny being a "real girl" is how a lot of people talk about it. The show itself did spend a lot of time to say that Penny always was a real girl. That is why she got the Maiden powers. And Blake said it herself in the episode where she got her new body. Penny's robot body was used as a metaphor for her being controlled by other people. Since her introduction, her actions were always undercut by other people: She was collected at the end of Volume 1, her plans to stay at Beacon were an afterthought, and even her death was not because of anything she decided. She was just used as a statement. So this final episode is the first time she truely does something because she wants to and nobody stops her. She fights Cinder because she wants to protect her friends. And that is both her biggest positive trait and her biggest flaw. She brings herself in danger a lot. That doesn't matter much when she is a robot and the threats are small. But in this situation there had to be consequences. But she still got the chance to choose where the powers would go.
And sure, Penny didn't need to die. But this was not only a conclusion of her character arc. This happened in the middle of the conflict in the portal realm. And for everything to play out in a way that makes sense for both the characters and the story, this played out perfectly. We can always talk about what could and couldn't have happened but in the end this was what they wanted for Penny's storyline (like what happened to Pyrrha). And no, Penny's arc was not about becoming a real girl. It was about being able to break away from the people who tried to control her and make her own decisions. But in a war those decisions have grave consequences.
@allocat5867 As I already said, Penny's first death was as much part of her arc as her second death. Arcs can consist of repetitions if there are key differences. Like Penny dying the first time because someone else wanted to make a statement in compairison to Penny dying because of a choice she made and to protect both her friends and the world.
Any one else peeved Salem did pretty much nothing this volume
Yeah, she was set up as a huge threat in the v7 finale, and chapter 4 did a GREAT job making her intimidating. I was okay with her getting exploded, but I feel it'd have been better if it had happened after she did something huge. I know I can't know what the writers have planned for the future, but honestly, I'd probably have had her kill Ren. It'd be a great catalyst for Nora to have a personal stake with Salem and find herself "without Ren," Oscar would have had to watch a friend die and killed Salem in retaliation, making the use of the nuke more impactful, etc. I would've had the Hound capture Ruby as well, because our main character REALLY should have encountered the big bad (I know they're building suspense but it's ineffective). And I would've had her silver eyes fail because of the mention of Summer Rose, which messed up her eyes in v7 and went nowhere, so this would be cool to see that they failed twice in Salem's presence, making her a much bigger threat and incentivizing Ruby to hone her eyes. I love Ren, but his arc felt like a natural conclusion, and this would HURT. Losing Penny hurt, but because we've lost her before it was a net 0 instead of a loss for the arc. Having Ren die and THEN Penny would've really solidified that the villains are competent and they need to prepare and get help.
@@HyperfixationStation YEAH HOLY SH*T THAT'S GOOD
@@planetbandit2198 thanks!! I just like when stakes are followed through on, ya feel? From a writing standpoint this needed to feel like a HUGE loss, and somehow, despite the destruction of an entire KINGDOM, Volume 3 still managed to hit us harder because of the impact it had on PEOPLE. We have no direct attachment to the physical land of Atlas. But we are attached to characters and civilian lives, etc.