*COUGH* Blake could have doubled as the cheshire cat given her knowledge of the story and general nature, making her curious over the odd aspects of this world from her books and running off to investigaate them
Also her shadow clone semblance could be used to mimic how the Cheshire Cat would fade away and leave a smile behind. Just watched Judgemental Critter’s video on semblances and I feel that would’ve been a creative way to use her semblance and tie her to more than one fairy tale.
Remember what Yang's response was when Oobleck was grilling team RWBY on why they wanted to be huntresses? "I'm a thrill-seeker; I want to get wrapped up in crazy adventures." Here she is, in a crazy, thrilling adventure in a world no one else has ever seen. "Ugh, boring, annoying, whatever." Nice consistency in your characters.
if it was any other company i'd acuse them of hating yang on a fundamental level, like they wanted to erase the character and replace them with another one, but i am pretty sure crwby just can't write to save their lives.
Them not committing to old Jaun was my biggest disappointment this volume. He's still 40+ years old, but I guarantee you they'll act as if he's the same age as the others and excuse that somehow 20+ years of experience got zapped from his mind, further making all of this pointless.
I'm fully expecting that as well, since it's becoming clear that there is barely any continuity in this show Volume to Volume beyond the physical location of the characters.
I really hoped he stayed older as for one it would make it feel like at least something impactful happened in Volume 9. Plus it would mean they couldn't get away with Jaune acting like his old self again.
i'm calling it now, he's going to be reset in terms of appearance too, like they're going to maigcally restore him to how he was in volume 8 as well as erase the years of experience, I refuse to believe they'll commit to something that hard edit: lmao I guess I stopped paying attention near the end because they did reverse his appearance
To be fair, him acting closer to 20-ish than 40 is reasonable. A large part of one's perceived mental age is a reflection of and response to the changing ways society treats people as they age - if you're a teenager in highschool for 40 years, you'll be more 'teen' than 'middle-aged' because everyone will talk to you like a teen, you'll never be expected to get a job, you're expected to do 'teen stuff', etc. Changing environment, expectations and context do more to age you than the pure number of years. Time spent adulting is what makes you an adult. Also, what experience has he even had? He's been babysitting in a world with nonsense-rules for all those years. Very little of what he's gone through would make him wiser, more knowledgeable about anything that matters or any more socially experienced. It's like he's woken up from a ~20 year dream. How much it would have 'aged' him is very questionable. That said, keeping him looking older would have been more narratively interesting. Having him struggling to re-adapt to the world he left for ~20 years; having strangers treat him like the adult he's not qualified to be; his companions not knowing how to interact with him all while he mourns the youth he's missed out on and struggles with the fact that he'll grow old and die while his friends are still young. Hell, having him gradually age into his appearance because of how his interactions with people have changed would be a really interesting and unique character arc. There's good stuff here, but they took the most boring route possible.
I honestly lowkey expected them to reset him, but I was so hoping they wouldn’t 😭 I was FURIOUS when they made him young again Old Jaune would have been SO interesting we were ROBBED 💀
Tbf, Mori thought something similar way before this and it was by his hands that Arc System Works got in touch with Rooster Teeth, thus spawning their appearance in BBTag, and more recently, publishing the Japanese version of RWBY Arrowfell. On a related note, RWBY got a collab with Black Rock Shooter: Dawnfall, but that game isn't available on Google Play in America.
@@KritoSkywaker exactly but i feel like either narnia or lord of the rings worlds would've work better if they wanted to they wanted to do a fairy tale angle you get what I'm saying but team rwby in guilty gear is too perfect not do man so i can't wait to read it
For the smoke cloud part, it would’ve been interesting to see them confront someone they don’t want to see: so for Blake, Adam Yang, Raven Weiss, Jacques And Ruby would be herself. I just feel like it could’ve been interesting to see that play out. Also the fact that Ruby’s younger self said she didn’t have to be strong for everyone and could be herself..that confused me cuz when I feel like that might be something someone would like to hear rather than be something bad.
The fact that RT was OK with Ice Queendom implying that Blake was in the wrong for the violence in her tenure as a White Fang member in a not-so-subtle fashion without addressing "What if Adam wasn't a complete piece of shit?" while doing so tells you everything you need to know.
I think its fine that they were confronted by their past, better-designed selves The issue is how the three of them were confronted with such easy questions. Nothing hard-hitting like Weiss losing her home and status, Blake having done nothing to help her kind that doesn't amount to fighting her own kind, and Yang's hypocrisy and increasing abrasiveness
Maybe, then, that's why the Cat jumped through her younger self; they didn't want Ruby to hear any positivity from a time she wasn't (at least as) depressed.
If i had a nickel for every animated Rooster Teeth show had a poorly handled suicide allegory plotline I'd have two nickels. That isnt a lot but its weird that it happened twice
A *big* problem I have with this Volume is how Penny’s death *never* gets addressed or brought up. Especially during Jaune’s breakdown and argument with Ruby. Like dude, *tell* the girls what happened and we might get some conflict, but he never tells them and is just wallowing in his misery without addressing the root of the issue.
Her being dead is addressed a lot, Jaune just doesn’t want to talk about the specific details which makes sense. Only Weiss really knows what happened and maybe that can be a thing between them to talk about. It could have been an extra source of conflict for the volume, but I’m not sure they could have really fit another concept into the volume seeing as they barely did much with what was already in it.
@@CodeTetsu I think directly addressing and seeing Ruby fully processing and dealing with the major death of one of the series' most popular characters, which canonically happened not even 24 hours before this, is important enough to take screentime away from anything else in this quest that has little impact beyond Volume 9, like the Red Prince or the marketplace.
I prefer the scene from Gears 3 where Dom gives the COG tags to the statue of his dead wife, Maria, and the dialogue making it crystal clear that Dom isn't in the war for the sake of it, since practically the entire human race is at stake. And that seemed better juxtaposed than here, where they say "RIP Penny." and then say nothing about it at all.
@@SwitchbackCh Do you really think they could do all that in that space of time? They didn’t even meet Jaune until halfway through the volume for that sort of conflict to even begin? You would quite literally have to rewrite the entire volume to fit that concept in at all.
My issue is that it is never explicitly mentioned that Jaune was the one to end Penny. Weiss knew but she never mentioned it. Only that Penny "sacrificed herself" - not "Jaune killed Penny at her request". She didn't even know that Jaune fell as well. Another pet peeve of mine is that Penny's sword fell but not her body. Not the bodies of everyone else. It makes me wonder what the rules are of "falling" are.
i think that what makes yang the weakest character this volume is how she does jackshit to help ruby. she's supposed to be the overprotective loving sister, but not once did she do anything to help ruby all volume long
Her character assasination has begun long ago in V3, but we haven't noticed it until V6. And in V9, that assasination has completed. This breaks my heart all over it. 🥺💔 I loved the sisterhood Yang and Ruby had. 😭
Once Bumblebee actually became a thing, Yang and Blake have basically ceased to exist as their own individual entities with their own individual relationships and stories. Even as someone who has always liked the ship, I absolutely despise how they've actually handled the execution. Granted, considering the show's general lack of any kind of meaningful character development anyway (only the current volume of RWBY is ever canon after all), I'm not sure if them not getting together would have really made any difference.
@@VenathTehN3RD yeah thats my biggest issue with yang and blake, they're just one person now. they had ONE disagreement in V8, but it didn't even matter. yang even shields blake from ruby when she's lashing out at them, that part pissed me off so much. it feels like yang just doesn't care about anything that isn't blake anymore, which just makes her extremely unlikeable compared to how caring she was for everyone around her before
@@novakaiser7949 And what's a little alarming is that this honestly kind of reminds me of Blake and Adam's relationship. That codependency - to the point of neglecting everything else in your life in order to focus any and all attention on your partner - is a good way to hit a point where someone can develop a very controlling role in a relationship. It doesn't help that Yang shares a lot of personality traits with Adam in general. Both have very quick tempers, both tend to fall back on aggression when confronted (whether verbal or physical), both are exceedingly stubborn, and both have displayed a pretty significant deal of hypocrisy regarding how they tend to apply their moral/ethical standards. Sure, Yang definitely isn't anywhere even remotely as close to being as bad as Adam was, but Adam wasn't always the monster we see later in the series either. The short featuring him in earlier years (and several of Blake's admissions throughout the series) make it clear that at one point he genuinely was someone who, despite having a lot of anger, was still in control of himself and tried to do the right thing. Throw on the fact that Blake suddenly regressed into a more meek, submissive person once they got together when her entire arc up to that point was about her taking back control of her life and her cause, and to me it just paints an image of them very much taking up the same kind of relationship dynamic that ended up going very, very poorly with Adam. That Yang has actually been acting more and more like what we see in this volume over the course of the series doesn't help either, given that this gradual development into being a serious dick is pretty much exactly how Blake described Adam's change. I might just be reading too much into it, but I can't help but feel like the way they've executed the relationship (not the relationship in of itself, but their execution of it) is giving off some alarming vibes in how much it seems to resemble the way that her relationship with Adam prior to the series proper was described.
I hope they get an outfit change next volume cuz we’ve seen these outfits for three volumes now and im over them 💀 i really hate Weiss’s bulky dress and Blake’s lack of black in her outfit and her weird looking short hair. I want some new designs for them already , the characters are getting boring to look at on screen for me personally.
@@greyfaceofaxe nothing to do with the writing. im just uninterested in them in general and i never really liked Weiss’s dress or Blake’s haircut. they just need to actually change their outfits cuz they aren’t that great of designs for their characters anyway. they had way better outfits in the earlier volumes , what they are wearing now is just so oddly colored and heavy looking. only outfit that is okay is Ruby’s cuz it’s kinda hard to mess her up.
I agree. I think they missed the perfect opportunity to make their outfits more Wonderland-like. That could have been cute. Or they could have had them take their jackets off due to the warmer climate. And then just have their outfits change back when they get back to their world, like Jaune. Anything would have been better than nothing.
She just decides to be herself again. What was the point? She is perfect the way she always was and there was no change, just a confidence boost which while inspiring does not solve the issues they are facing back in Remnant.
Sadly RT cares more about that stupid DC crossover then their main series as the team had to cut 2 episodes to due to the heads wanting them to release the crossover movie at the same time
Neos "redemption" is especially odd compared to the Cat just straight up getting murdered. He had far more redeeming qualities than the umbrella toting psycho in that he felt abused and decieved by humans, which led him to return the favor later. He had a lot going for him until his end. Even his habit of wandering off tracks because he really is that curious about everything around himself. That part of him was always honest beyond any of his deceit of the protagonists
I think the redemption could have been saved is if we see Neo helping some of the creatures of the Everafter as well as Neo only being mean to Ruby. Think about it, it has been implied in Volume 3 that Neo was an orphan but was rescued by Roman. Which was why they took the Devil's Bargin with Cinder because she promised to protect them. If we had moments where we see Neo lift her cruelty for mercy when she sees people who are in the same boat she is. Maybe adopting her own family only to realize that her kids fear her as she slowly becomes Cinder over the course of the story. Of course this would require the Volume's main characters being just Neo and Ruby but I think that would be for the best as it would give more time for the rest of the cast before the final Volume.
@@HypercomboProduction Oh well that I have to do for you buddy Neo is not an orphan she actually used to be a rich girl and I think she's had personality disorder or something like that and she did not have a good relationship with her parents, anyway she met roman, her parents died and that was the end, if you want more context go find Roman holiday
RT: exposition is boring and tedious also RT: proceeds to shove roughly ten minutes of pointless exposition about the brother gods into the last episode of the volume I don't know RT, seems like your logic was pretty broken from the get-go
If Ice Queendom and BBTag are meant to be treated as canon team RWBY, it goes something like this: *All 4 are two different power couples drawn together to make Remnant a better place or something. *Exposition is limited to what the author/writer considers relevant, but failing to take the phrase "too much information" into account, which happens in a lot of shounen anime, I find. And even then, it's basically thrown at you seemingly on command. *Peace, Love and Kindness or some shit *The conflict ends with all 4 of them agreeing with each other.
It’s so weird that in volume 7, completely on accident, wrote one of their most nuanced and compelling character pieces on the atlas cast, then in v9, also completely on accident, they wrote a story praising the merits of suicide and self harm. It’s almost like their literally rolling dice in the writers room to decide plot points
My server has a joke that RWBY's script is just adapted from D&D game sessions the writers play, which would explain all the random-ass story changes and out-of-character moments, lol.
I'm not sure what's gotten into them either. But, no one cares about RT stateside, afaik. As for the Japanese side of the fanbase, a lot of them seem to come to Gen:Lock or RWBY for the action/fight scenes and the animation itself, leaving everything else at face value, as if they had a hand in it. For example, my homies Bacchi19661 and Talbain_3rd were more into the action scenes and didn't want to spoil anything else, thus keeping a lid on a lot of it or not keeping up with it. Even the IQ interview where Shaft praised the animation in Poser, seemingly due to less limitations than that of 2D animation. So, they may not be controlled by RT so much as they treat them like an ongoing film festival.
30:28 2 years or more to get animation this good is well worth it. I've never slammed the animators or art team in that regard. Now think about the WRITING team, who had TWO whole years to mull over whether the climax to the entire Volume involving Ruby killing herself out of despair to come out stronger would raise eyebrows or not. Two years and they never felt something was off, shipped it off and had it animated to finish. The art and animation team was NEVER the weakest link in all of RWBY's production or the source of its greatest community divisions. I think we all know which team largely shoulders that responsibility and the consequences of it.
Agreed. Don't get me wrong, the choreography and animation has certainly had some rough periods (I feel like V5 in particular had some serious issues, with the battle at Haven in specifically feeling REALLY clunky IMO), but even when it wasn't doing so great you'd get moments where they clearly show that they can do a great job when given the chance. I feel like a lot of the post-Monty animation issues were limited more by time crunch, production issues, and writing than by the talents of the animators themselves.
Very True. It could the BESTEST EVAR in the animation or art department and it wouldn't make a DAMN difference if the Writing is so bad... that isn't not funny or even so bad it's good.
My biggest problem with Ruby's development is how Penny's death started Ruby's depression and she is forgotten by the end. When Ruby realized I'm already perfect because my mom loves me. I was like bruh Penny and a bunch of other people died because of the half-baked plan. It would have been better if Jaune and Ruby talked about Penny directly.
I know, they made Penny's death feel like an afterthought despite it being a catalyst to Ruby's dilemma. I would've love it if after the Blacksmith show Ruby her mom's memories, she shows her Penny's memories show her what happened to Penny and Ruby compares it to her situation. Not only will Ruby get closure over Penny's death but it'll also further motivate Ruby to remain as herself because if she undergoes Ascension, she'll make the same mistake as Penny.
As a suicidal person, I absolutely despise what they did with Ruby. Beyond the awkward message of "suicide is good, actually!" and the fact they used suicide-ish for shock value and nothing else, I'm mad that it is so underwhelming how her mental health being this poor ended up being... so unimpactful. JWBY's reaction to it was so lukewarm, Ruby's motivation to be herself was so empty, and ultimately I feel like none of them has actually learned anything. I don't get the impression that Ruby has learned that she should open up to her friends more, or that her friends learned to be careful about everyone's mental health while they progress through this difficult journey. Having your mental health hit this low is such a big deal and they made it so superficial.
Keep in mind the phrase "anime homework" opening the door for BS resurrections at the drop of a hat just cuz the ensuing fight might look cool, and that's what happened here. If anything, I think Jaune should've been considered to be killed off, but Miles must've intervened to avoid getting pissed off about the idea. And it shows.
Well they had to have Ruby kill herself as she did the one sin that this show now deems inexcusable doubting the actions of team RWBY. Everyone else learned their lesson of not changing... or learning anything... or even reflecting on their actions. Heck Weiss's smoke bit was more concerned about her own name and fame rather than the death of her entire kingdom, home, family, and probably fortune. No money since the industry and bank accounts were in Atlas. Ruby had started to reflect on how they messed up in Atlas and lots of people DIED you know... stopped living. Yet she had to get her but kicked by people from her past and drink the magic death tea to just realize... she was an idiot for wanting to change and decided that her friends were right as she learned that being herself is great and self reflection is for idiots!
Reminder that Rooster Teeth has told this dumb message of "Suicide is good, actually!" not once, but twice through Gen:Lock Season 2 and RWBY Volume 9.
We could at least have had Roman and Weiss-disguised Neo snuggled up to each other like he does with regular Neo a couple of times. Come on RT, you claim to listen to the fans. This would have been an easy slam-dunk wink to the camera
It got shelved so we could make room for Weiss X Jaune. Of course we all know what Jaune was doing with the Paperpleasers, each night. Time takes it's toll on Jaune. He named them after everybody. Why do you think they wanted to die? We should be glad that _WBY returned to fullsize before Jaune found them. They had already collected the jars he would place them in.
Can you believe Jaune's character arc in this volume is resolved with "Maybe I was an asshole for trying to save people, I should just let them kill themselves because they'll be better that way" Because I can't
I was so disappointed that they barely did anything with Jaune's arc there was so much potental but with modern day rt im not suprised look what happend to red vs blue
That's also part of why I felt like Jaune snapping at Ruby was very much deserved. Bro suffered for 30 years, alone, in a foreign fantasy land, not being able to come to terms with the fact that he's to weak to protect his people and projecting onto the paper guys because he finally has some sort of purpose there. Meanwhile Ruby is just complaining about being the leader, even though it was never consistantly relevant in the show and every time the main characters had to call the shots, their decisions made me mad af
I didn't watch Vol 9. Just heard about it. But I just paused at Part 9. Critter, you asked and I got you. To play with Team RWBY spun into Alice in Wonderland? Easy. June and Neo are perfect, no change. Blake is their Cheshire. With her love for reading, it could easily shift to her constantly comparing her stories to the world. Have that slowly consume her until she sounds like she's spouting nonsense to her team but she's just getting more and more soaked into the world's culture. Add a wink by having Jinxy calling her "Curious" or just taken bake by her enthusiasm compared to the others by joking, "Well aren't you a curious cat" that she could be slightly embarrassed by. Boom. Ruby, if keeping to her arc, can be an inverted the Red Queen. Her slow drip of depression can be driven home by the citizens always asking about where they're from. At first, Ruby could be volunteering to talk about her friends and family back home. But the more stories she shares the more bad moments she talks about. She gets quieter and quieter. But the citizens love her raw emotions and keep asking for more. She gets praised as the Queen of Stories and by the halfway point, she no longer wants to do it. But people keep going to her. It'll stack her depression, guilt, and negative feelings until she pops. Now he stories being about her wanting to go home start to sound like stories of having no place to call home. The rest of the team can realize how much of a toll it's taken but them "suddenly caring now that they have something they love in arms reach" could be what makes her snap, leave, and be giving a throne by the citizens as their Queen of Stories who just has to meet the "fancy tea maker" they met recently. Boom. Weiss is a bit tough but I'd go for the March Hare or the Mock Turtle. Both being characters that frustrate Alice, could do that roll for Ruby. With Weiss bouncing between trying to be the positive reinforcement for Ruby, the look on the bright side person for Yang, the person trying to keep Blake from losing herself, and the bacon of hope for Jaun. But always falling short since she also tries to keep herself focused on finding a way home. Making Ruby feel like she's just playing a part and being insincere. Boom. Yang is a bit harder. She could be the Frog-footman from the books. Constantly in denial of where they are. Telling everyone either they are all dreaming or she's dreaming but refuses to believe this place exists or that she died not being to save her only sister/best friends. Or an inverse of the Caterpillar, where she's harping on what happened after she fell but never getting answers until near the end. Ruby won't tell her because she thinks Yang will blame and hate her just as Ruby is doing to herself. Weiss promising to tell her but constantly getting sidetracked trying to help someone else. Blake being too into the world and being very cryptic in her answers to not upset Yang. And Jaun straight just not ignoring her demands for the truth. Boom. All Wonderland themed, drives more drama and intensity, gives plenty of room to play with dynamics of characters interacting with other characters and the world itself. How's that sound?
@matijasostojic4288 Neo would be the Hatter, still. Being a symbol of nonsense pretending to be common sense. If I could change her, I would make her a bit more literal in being a Mad Hatter over being metaphorical like in the book or just surface like in the show. Neo's entrance could be the same with her changing forms and her evolution. What I would change would be how she presents herself. The citizens would find a strange shop that exchanges stories and information for the best teas in the land. Ran by a "fancy tea maker" that we'd hear about during our first meeting with Jinxy. Jinxy inviting others to join him at the hourly tea party. But we wouldn't see it or the tea maker until Ruby has her outburst. As she runs away and assumes the throne of the Queen of Stories, the citizens rave about her having the best tea. She agrees to have a personal tea party to celebrate. A citizen goes to the large pink mansion on the edge of the bridge leading into the darkness island. We see the citizen gleefully talking to someone. We see the skipping of a young girl to a table with the slightly visible portraits in the background. The girl, whom we only saw the feet of at this point, swings back and forth as if whispering to someone. The camera shows the bottom of a male face that stops drinking tea. He smiles. Cut to black, we hear Roman's voice "Red." Then we'd continue as the Volume did but under the impression of the Red Queen of Stories coming to have a private tea party. Only to be confronted by Roman and his army of the past version of Neo that turn into her dead friends and family around her. Everything can play out as it did in the Volume for that section. Only other change, we'll see her pretending to be sane through Roman throughout the story with hints of losing her mind but after the Cat is forced out she actually snaps. Losing her mind and dancing wildly into the Ever After. Either Jaun or Ruby could feel bad for her and gesture to want to help only to be stopped by everyone being Happy that Ruby has comeback with a new since of confidence. And possibly a small cosmetic challenge to show she's grown enough to show her new outlook without becoming a completely different person.
It feels like the writers just want Jaune to be the main character so fucking badly, so they forcefully cram him into every single story in the dumbest way possible, he might as well be the leading protagonist of this show given how much the show wants you to care about him over everyone else.
@@thomasraines1396 I would say more like secondary Main Character... he gets shoved in a lot of things and made to suffer before getting shoved off to the side. You are allowed to insult Jaune. You will be hunted down and turned into a villain so that team RWBY can murder you if you dare insult team RWBY. It is why Jaune seems to get more character development... he is allowed to be wrong. An entire season made to make them reflect... and they completely brush off having doomed an entire kingdom and failed to save anyone even mocking Ironwood by calling him genocidal because the man was foolish enough to not follow their every word. Yet they completely call out Jaune for having issues about being trapped in that realm for goodness knows how many years alone trapped with his own failures. Yet they do not get angry at Ruby or call anyone on their team out for any of their problems... oh yes Ruby did call them out, but she gets beaten down by Neo and murdered before coming back and realizing that doubting Team RWBY was stupid and she was just fine for never doubting herself or her actions! Jaune got rewarded by getting hit by a reset button so I will be surprised if he can even do the Aura sword or even remember how to fight as well as his rusted version instead of being downgraded back to his Season 8 version
I hate to be that guy, but does Weiss know that Ironwood merc'd Jacques? Team RWBY was on the bridge when that happened, and Winter was a bit too busy to tell her
That whole thing with Alex and her story, I just realized something. Couldn't that same exact thing apply to what Team RWBY and the others did to Atlas? They entered a new kingdom, knowing very little (except Weiss) about it's customs, started essentially a war, and ruined everything more or less. Another thing in regards to what you were saying in regards to Yang's attitude, is it just me or is she becoming more and more like Raven?
The same could be said about Atlas itself. Atlas believed to be above everyone else, and was willing to destroy thousands of innocent lives in Mantle to preserve themselves. Don't pretend like Atlas literally didn't create multiple villains in the series (Adam/Cinder/Watts/Jacques).
@@Ammy-q4w No the same can't be said about Atlas itself. Atlas didn't enter a new Kingdom knowing nothing of the culture and start a war. If they did then you would have said that beat for beat not describe a totally different scenario Atlas simply prioritised saving the majority which happened to be their own. That not the same thing. When did the commenter pretend like Atlas didn't create any villains?
It feels like Barb KNOWS Yang is being written terribly and is having trouble motivating herself to care about the terrible lines she's been given as a result.
Now that Bumblebee is canon, what's left for Blake and Yangs character development? Pretty much nothing, they could be written out of the show after this and nothing would change.
@@Jane-ow7sr Pretty much. The level of insanity is not easily predictable. Especially with the Wasps. And trust me...I met some of the worst...and one also told me to "Cry and cope harder", then called me a dumbass. I could fight back with those words, but I would stoop down to their level.
They could’ve had an actual scene where the Yang and Blake organically talk about their feelings…but having the WORLD ITSELF LOCK THEM INTO A ROOM AND ESSENTIALLY SAY “you’re not getting out until you kiss.” is ASININE. This is what the geniuses of rooster teeth could come up with? Unbelievable
I would applaud them if they had the characters take a step back and realize that getting together right now (with all that’s going on, how them being so enamored with each other is unhealthy) is a terrible idea. But no the stupid world fuckery nonsense is played 100% straight.
You know what's worst? That many of the shippers claimed, that Bumblebee was always meant to happen. That claim makes 0 sense and makes my head spin, thinking about how many people ate it all up. 🥺
i hate how bad that scene was... RT don't writes stories, they write plot points they want to achieve, and write any bullshit to achieve the plot points when then need some cliffhanger or climax to boost subscribers... they put yang and blake flirting on hold for whole seasons, and then do the whole "and they're a couple a now" with that cringe bullshit... everytime anything "huge" happens, look around and you probably see that a lot of characters gone way of their personalities, or that everything is totally shove down the throats of the viewers, because things happen for no reason
It’s weird how we are about to be 10 volumes in and we still aren’t sure how Salem could be defeated. I mean they had the chance to ask the blacksmith for a weapon to kill her.
I have a feeling that they are gonna find a way to contain Salem rather than kill her. After all, the best way to stop someone unkillable is put them somewhere they can’t do any damamge. (And often times this ends up being a very solitary and unreachable place, so that eternal loneliness could definitely be a fate worse than death)
Cause fanfic writers love the work even more than the creators. Hell some are actual writers and have years of experience compared to the writers of RT.
Given how the rooster environment seemed toxic ad stifling and not great, yeh fanfic come from passion and a toxic abusiv nvironment, is the best way to kill th passion.
If there's one thing that annoys me about this volume is that it did very little to advance the main plot. Seriously, pretty much all the important things that happened in this volume could have been done in Remnant it's just wasting valuable time.
if the cat is indeed CURSED with curiosity, him abandoning the team to chase butterflies and sniff flowers could be part of that curse exerting itself over him. He's powerless to his curse, and it lures him away from what he wants: that being team RWBY.
The Cat was actually a more tragic character then Neo could ever hope to be, which is why it sucks that she gets a little redemption while they just get mauled.
@@thomasraines1396 Iron Wood - Tormented about having to fight an immortal with no clear ways of killing her goes with a plan to keep the relic away from Salem with a floating city... get mocked and left for dead. Even has Team RWBY say he was a genocidal lunatic. Neo - Literally wants to murder Ruby because she didn't think that Cinder killed Torchwick, lied to her, or even tried killing her at the end... Gets to have Ruby off herself and even helped murder all of Atlas... but she is a girl so she gets magic tree ascension. Cat - Literally tormented, betrayed, and wants to get out of this realm! There was even theories about them having to bring the cat because Salem having a damaged heart (Immortal until issues are fixed) so they would be forced to use the cat to possess Salem... which is technically better than letting an immortal run free commanding Grim to kill all humanity so she can get her fancy relics. Nope he has to die to magic Semblance of monster that totally kills you instead of getting a magical revival due over like every other fairytale person there when they get murdered! Writers of RWBY are on point in making annoying decisions!
@@thomasraines1396If the cat was a woman, it would have had a redemption arc. Just like Ilia, who happens to be like Adam but a girl, Emerald, who's now part of the main cast even if Hazel redeemed himself too, but died. Neo, who survived in Vol 3 and Roman just died even when he was just like Neo, and now has a kind of redemption... heck, even the AceOps!! Clover and Vine died, they're men, the only one who survived was Marrow, and the girls survived too... Lionheart, Ironwood, Jacques and Watts? Dead. If you're a neutral or antagonistic character here, you die, but if you're a woman, you have redemption or live!!! The only exceptions are the shock value deaths like Sienna Khan (leader of the White Fang), Pyhrra and Penny.
@thomasraines1396 neo lost her boyfriend daddy (idk what the relationship is) who died teaming up with a pyromaniac psychopath. And the cat was abandoned by its creators, left in the world to act as a therapist for everyone and was left with no help, then when presented with a chance to learn more it was denied by Alyx driving the cat mad with the curiosity with what lies beyond the ever after But no, Neo can be redeemed after torturing Ruby physically and psychologically until she drank her tea and the Cat can be ripped apart limb from limb
@@kamiladiaz1465 Illia is worse if you take into account the Blake character short. Also it’s strange Harriet gets to walk away when she wanted to nuke Mantle… because reasons.
Watching this comment section makes me feel happy. A lot of people joined here. People, who liked this Volume, but had disagreements here. People, who addresses their own disappointments and reflecting on that. BB shippers, who are not attacking people for disagreeing with the ship. A lot of people with different opinions. Well done, Critter. 👏🏻
I couldn't agree more. I love this Volume and I have my gripes about its flaws, too. I perfectly understand why it turned out the way it did. I don't mind BB at all and if people don't like it or how it was handled that's perfectly understandable and I won't hold it against them. Sure, V9 ain't perfect but it's a step up from V8 by a long shot and I think the writers did and tackled the character arcs, world building and the serious topics (like pseudo-suicide) the best way they could considering production began a year after and when COVID-19 was still going on and had most of it had to be done from the safety of their homes. Delays, rewrites, time constraints and budget problems made V9 a production nightmare to the point it almost never happened.
I personally never figured Summer's weapon was *actually* in the ever after. Every time we see it Ruby is in an ethereal headspace, she saw it because it was symbolic for her. Maybe I'm wrong who knows. Otherwise very very good breakdown of the volume
Well, Penny's sword did change into Alyx's knife in her hands, so there is some headspace/ reality warping. Edit: I just remembered that we didn't see Summer's weapon when Ruby broke the case, so it is very likely it was just a reflection from Ruby's memories.
My personal theory is also where Summer disappeared to on her last mission; she went to the Ever After (however Alyx and Lewis got there), to find the Blacksmith, in order to craft a weapon that could kill Salem. She got the weapon, leaving hers behind in the process, and tried (but failed) to kill Salem (the how and where of the weapon being revealed in a later season)
The Blacksmith is essentially a god and her realm is like an afterlife where she helps individuals reincarnate. Summer might not have literally been in the Ever After, but she ended up appearing before the Blacksmith like everyone else when she died, hence her weapon being there. Keep in mind Penny's weapon was there too, even though she died in Remnant.
The writers are so narcissistic that they made it so that Ruby thinks she failed because she wasn't "good enough" rather than her being wrong and then ended the season with the reveal that everything went perfectly fine, no consequences whatsoever
So, you want a character to die? Because that's what I think you are saying. Atlas was destroyed, which was the consequence. They failed, so now they are have to use all they've got left to work with Remnant against Salem in Volume10.
@@Ammy-q4w 1- Your comment doesn't make any sense; 2- Why are you even posting here? It's obvious you're a RWBY/BLMB fanatic who 's still in denial about the show turning into trash, and this is clearly a post where The Judgmental Critter openly criticizes it. What did you expect to find here?
@@Ammy-q4wthe issue wasn't their failure. The issue was the choices they made that brought them to that failure. Ruby's main focus this volume is her failure but not the choices she made so when we come to the end of the volume and she decides she's good enough in regards to her failures, we can all agree that yeah she is, she doesn't need to be super strong or super smart, she doesn't always need to win or have the best attiude. she can be human. but since the issue of her actual choices are never once brought up, we are forced to assume the same things will keep happening. She will keep lying to people like she lied to ironwood because we have been given no indication she factors that into her failure at all. She and her team will continue with the hypocrisy because we haven't seen them aknowledge that at all. She never lamented her lack of action so we will inevitably see more time wasted sipping tea. That's the problem. That's why ascension was such a good and bad concept. Ruby Rose NEEDED to change. She needed to grow. She could not remain the person she was because the person she was was one of the primary causes of the destruction of 1 of the 4 human kingdoms. She was absolutely not just fine the way she was. Ascension offered a way to expedite that growth by simply taking ruby and spitting out someone new. While this was needed as again, ruby cannot stay as she is, she is also the main character and the show is named after her so she can't be taken out like this much less in a manner that so closely mirrors suicide. The chatacter needed to grow but they wrote themselves a method they couldn't actually use.
Ruby failed not because she wasn't good enough. She failed because she's stupidly delusional into thinking that she and her friends are the good guys, and that if you disagree YOU are the bad guy. They disagree with Ironwood's plan while Yang and Blake trusts Robyn who is less trustworthy and trusts her anyway
The thing with Neo for me is, I've never wanted Neo to be a good guy. I've never wanted her to be redeemed or switch sides or have a change of heart. I like Neo's design specifically because she's so small and presents herself as being so cute, only to then flip the switch reveal her real sadistic self. The contrast of how Neo looks and who she is was really cool to me. The fact that she's 100% down to torture Ruby over the death of the only person she actually cared about seemed like a something the little sadist would absolutely do. And I do agree that it's a copout to have her get her pseudo-redemption. She should have gone after Cinder. The idea of having Neo as this chaotic third party that simultaneously get in the way of both the "heroes' (and I use that term very loosely) and the villains, screwing over both sides, and eventually putting Cinder in a position to either *be* killed by team RWBY or kill her herself, could have been interesting. Hell they could have gone all the way and have her get killed flipping Cinder the biggest middle finger she could muster in the process as she gets Salem to kill her over another grand fuck-up.
I really admire you, you could write all my thoughts so cool! I would very like the return of Neo in the next volume, although I understand that it is almost impossible...
I thought that's how she was going to go, honestly. That she realized that she was never going to beat Cinder in a head on fight once she realized she was a Maiden, and so her alliance with her was always just a way for her to maneuver into the best position to stab Cinder in the back. And killing Ruby would be a bonus, but not her main goal. Like, if she honestly hated Ruby moreso than Cinder, why in the world did she try to go after Cinder first? But then I saw the shocked expression on her face when Cinder kicked her off, and I realized, once again, that CRWBY is hilariously incompetent when it comes to writing.
Well people do change. Look at Rudy from Invincible where he got stuck at the planet called Flaxan for thousands of years. Yes I know it’s off topic but hope you get my point. Sorry if it sounded harsh.
One of the biggest eyebrow raising moments for me in this season was Yang, of all people, criticizing Alyx as a bad person for lying and cheating *Yang,* the character that told no one about her mom being a new Maiden, complicit in Ruby lying towards Ironwood and leaked secrets to Robyn behind everyone's backs
As usual, Yang's opinion of lying depends entirely on whether or not it's her or someone else doing the lying. Which could actually make for an interesting character trait - and potential character arc - if the writers didn't somehow seem to be wholly oblivious to the fact that she's doing it.
I find it so weird that both RWBY and GenLock both have finales where suicide plays a pivotal role - in GL season 2, they view suicide as an objectively good thing that turns you into digital gods (they get eaten by nanites, so they are effectively immortal and can be wherever they want, like in the online game in season 1) - idk, I just find it so weird that both shows explore the same specific theme
Especially when said suicide amounts to nothing except appealing to bleeding hearts who don't know shit about the concept. Sure, Dom felt horrible shooting his wife Maria in Gears 2 cuz she didn't look pretty enough, but at least he tried NOT to make it about himself, hence crashing into the gas station with a fuel truck. Although for such a pivotal scene, the rest of the game doesn't really address it as much beyond a few lines here and there. "That's from Dom, and everyone else you killed, you bitch." Is the one that comes to mind, but I feel like Marcus' words can be confusing if you actually think "Wait, Myrrah killed Dom?", as opposed to Dom choosing to kill himself to keep everyone else safe. Words have meaning, and RWBY doesn't have a lot of that, unfortunately.
It’s creepy. Suicide is not a good thing and they are literally telling everyone that it’s okay. Someone at RT is suffering suicidal tendencies and wants to share with everyone else.
What happened to Cammie in Gen:Lock was a mercy compared to what could have happened to Ruby. If Ruby had undergone Ascension, she would've gotten a new body but with her memories and identity erased. What's the point of becoming something better, if I'm not myself to enjoy it? I'd rather be dead. At least Cammie was still herself when she did. WBY will recognize Ruby but she won't recognize them. If anything, Ascension is a lobotomy.
Before watching V9, I saw a comment of someone saying that the ever after was the vault for the beacon relic and I think that could’ve been a cool way to advance the actual plot
As someone who was struggling with my own mental health, ascension looked so much like suicide to me it made me feel sick, it was like a punch to the gut. Not only did the main character try to kill herself, but the paper people try killing themselves everyday in multiple ways & it was treated like a joke, then a good thing. RT needs to review their messaging & do what other studios do, talk to experts & people who experience these things to see how to properly show them. Not just with mental health, but the loss of an arm or family. I'm also a girl with a flat chest, I'm often mistaken for a boy because of it, I loved the fact that Weiss had a flat chest it felt like I was seen, only for it to suddenly be inflated & given the insulting excuse that it was a "sign of maturity" it was a slap to the face, WTF, don't lie it was because you think big tits are sexy.
I loved old Weiss' design because she looked like a petite woman. Slender, delicate limbs who made her look like a doll, the focus on legs because she's like a ballerina and the flat chest made her pop up compared to the other girls. It was so sad the boob filler they did to her...
thank you for stating this. i used to be suicidal in my teens, and everything about ascension said suicide. what pisses me off is the reaction of the rest of the cast in the tea drinking scene. I have had long conversations with someone who used to be a cop in a small county. he has some stories about deaths and suicides. TW: graphic descriptions after this. He has told me stories of going to the scene of a suicide where the man used a shotgun and he found the wife scooping brain matter back in to the remnants of the skull. Dad's who grab a single item and go to a secluded corner and mumble something to themselves as they cry over their favorite memory of them. every argument for "shock" being their lack of reaction pisses me off. shock doesn't mean everyone freezes in the moment. shock means they stop behaving rationally. yang should have had some external reaction other than "defending" blake from the scene. they should have reacted to seeing her pick up the tea, maybe have them blame themselves for what happened, maybe have yang run over and punch into the ground in a desperate attempt to pull Ruby back, maybe have yang go into a blind rage and shout things she doesn't mean or blame neo. theres so many things they could have done but instead yang goes wide eyed and just stares.
1:05:09 What are you TALKING about, Judgemental Critter?! OF course the Faunus have a culture! Don't you remember that EXPRESSLY impactful scene of them having SHOPS, but in KNEE HIGH WATER?! How can one even claim the Faunus as a people are underdeveloped or have no Faunus-specific cultural relevance? Shops in the pond! Putting a big fat sarcasm here just in case.
I would have been SO on board with the smoke scene if Blake, Yang and Weiss are talking to their past selves and all of them are like "dude, these are old issues, we literally already worked them out" and the smoke versions were actually dumbfounded because the doubts that the world thought they would be worried about aren't actually issues for them anymore, but then it turns to Ruby and she's ACTUALLY struggling and this is where everything really starts to focus in on her instead. Hell Blake and Yang could have even talked to their smoke selves about their relationship but realized that talking to themselves doesnt help and that pushes them to look to each other to figure out their relationship instead.
@@thejudgmentalcritter6584 critter after your rant about rwby v-9 you need a nice batch of weed because you definitely need some after what you went through watching that
As a Chinese-American, the way I interpreted Blake's Smoke Cloud Scene was alluding to identity struggles that we continually wrestle with. When the smoke Blake suggests becoming a cat or becoming a human to live a simpler life, that goes along with the thought that many Asian-Americans feel consistently. Instead of being completely Chinese or being completely American, we are caught in between. Although we may eat authentic food and speak our mother tongue, we still grow up in the West, being educated to view the world through a Western lens and speaking English. I think that when smoke Blake referenced "my culture," that's when it made it obvious to me. While not obvious at first, Asian-Americans have found a way to blend their ethnic heritage culture with American culture into something unique. While I like seeing media that addresses this "in-between" phenomenon, it has NEVER been a part of Blake's character arc. Just wanted to offer a different interpretation to the scene, even though I don't like the scene.
I'm so frustrated that the writers continue to not understand just how much they messed up Ironwood's character and continue to demonize him. This volume could've been the perfect opportunity for the characters to genuinely reflect on what happened in Atlas and how they could've actually dealt with him much better than they did, but no. All we got was them further crapping on him for no reason. And I can only imagine what they'll say about him in Volume 10.
@druidofscosglen2868 Exactly. Team RWBY’s “stay and fight” plan was a terrible idea because their priority should have been protecting as many people as possible as well as the relics. They should’ve known that letting her attack would only lead to more destruction and bloodshed. What they should’ve done is try to come up with a plan to deal with the remaining Mantle citizens instead of insisting they leave everyone at risk.
As someone who has been on both sides of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, the way they portrayed ascension in this volume genuinely made me feel sick. I've never attempted suicide, but I have gotten to the point where I was resting a knife against my wrist, and another when I had to call Samaritans to stop myself from attempting. I'm also nearly a year clean of my worst ever period of self-harm with the scars to bear from it. Plus, someone very close to me attempted suicide 22 times (I wish I was exaggerating) and a lot of those times I had to talk them down after they call me in the early hours of the morning, about to attempt it. I spent three years not being able to fall Unfortunately, I am very well versed in this topic. And I will admit I was honestly impressed with Rooster Teeth in regards to how real the "I don't want to be me" scene felt. Their writing in regards to mental health and disability has honestly been horrendous from Ironwood's PTSD, to Qrow's alcoholism going from haha funny joke to _you're a burden on us_ to recovering over night, to the stupid "Penny's a real girl now" thing, etc. While watching volume 9, I was very cautious as it geared up to the climax, but I was pleasantly surprised, and then they uh... _burnt all their good writing to the ground with a 13 Reasons Why themed Molotov Cocktail._ For one, they should have had a trigger warning on that episode; it's so irresponsible to not do that. If you're dealing with themes of suicide, put a goddamn trigger warning on your episode. And two, the "actually, ascension is a good thing" hit me like a truck. I knew logically they weren't trying to say that suicide is a good thing and the right choice to make, but when you have a character metaphorically attempt suicide and come out of it "better" and "stronger", that's what you've said. _And that's a very dangerous message to send to young viewers._ Ruby also gets to choose to live after the attempt which again, just a big no when you're portraying suicide on screen, even allegorically. Unless it was meant to be a failed suicide attempt which is not how it came across, you really should not play into the idea that after a suicide attempt, there's an after. 13RW made it out that Hannah got to get revenge after and RWBY went with the idea of a backspace. Three, even if they took out the suicide allegory, but kept stuff like the Paper Pleasers becoming Genial Gems, I'd still have problems with it. At times, ascension very much played into the "trauma makes you better" idea and that noble suffering trope. And as someone who has gone through quite a lot of trauma, I genuinely find that trope offensive. At no point was my trauma noble or my suffering needed. For a lot of it, I was a child who didn't need to learn resilience as young as I did. And the trauma itself did not make me stronger; it made me a broken person whose strength was not applicable to day-to-day life. Today, I would say that I'm a very strong person and I'm proud of that strength, but my strength came from having people there to put me back together again. I wouldn't be half as strong as I am if I didn't have an amazing mom who was always there to catch me if I stumbled, and I wouldn't feel pride in my strength if I didn't have a brother who told me I was the strongest person he knew and has my name tattooed across his heart. And Rooster Teeth could have easily portrayed the actual way that trauma can make you stronger, i.e. community support and recovery. There's so much nonsense in the earlier episodes that could be cut to make room for it, or they could just leave that theme alone. How they wrote ascension really hinders what could have been one of the better written volumes of RWBY, but imo, it was that which made the ending feel so hollow. Ruby's entire arc was about her cracking under the pressure of having to always be there for everyone else, and it ends with her attempting suicide, talking to some random lady and then choosing to live as Ruby Rose. And uh, as someone who has been suicidal, it's really not that easy, and this is a very cheap ending and I feel nothing. There should have been something to wrap up the whole thing around JWBY treating Ruby so awfully and not noticing her suffering, because it ends with them essentially saying "we'll always follow Ruby because she's always right" which is uh, it's a tad bit antithetical to the whole plot. It's just a disappointing ending that almost ruins the whole volume. Like basic improvements just off the top of my head: -JWBY realise what Ruby and finding a way to stop it somehow or get into the space where Ruby is with the blacksmith to see what the blacksmith showed Ruby -Playing with the idea of Summer's secret mission and how Team STRQ became fractured and stopped supporting each other -With the idea above, have both Ruby and Yang witness it and play with how they'd react -Have Blake retell the story Yang told her in V2 about Qrow having to save them when Yang took Ruby along to find Raven as a lead in to an apology for relying on Ruby and not supporting her -Have Alyx and her brother's ending be them working together to escape because you can't escape Everafter alone _Just anything that's actually related to Ruby's character arc._
Damn, i felt a bit of a cold reading that. So glad you were able to overcome your mental difficulties and that you have wonderful family members to help you with that. Thoughtfull analysis too, this Volume is the biggest missed potential in the whole series, it could have been so much more impactfull, heavy hitting, but inspiring too
Holy fridge... I felt the chills on my spine. I'm so sorry about this. I hope you doing better now. And on the writing, well... After BB became canon, I was still curious about, how the writers gonna try to fix or mess it all up. And HOLY MOLLY... I'm sure V9 Chapter 8 has opened a lot of scars and offended a huge amount of people... RT... This is not the way, how you write a show... 😔 But I guess from V6, the writers never have learned any lessons... Not even when the viewership were dropping after V5.
i also had suicidal thoughts (albeit largely from unmedicated/untreated anxiety) and if i saw this godforsaken show being like ACTUALLY SUICIDE IS GOOD FOR YOU it would not have helped me lmao. biggest fumble of discussing suicide since 13 reasons why imo
I agree with a lot of what you said. However, I don't think Ruby's depression arc should have been completely resolved at the end, at least not the way they did it. She's basically given another pep talk by a third-party with no input from her friends, and since her depression is now gone, it's unlikely they'll ever touch on what pushed her to ascend herself. I actually thought they were doing a good job with the arc, but they fumbled it at the last episode. It really bothers me how they basically made Ruby's friends stupid for the sake of plot, depicting them as too blind and inconsiderate to notice Ruby's suffering, especially Yang, who just the previous season, tried to cheer Ruby up after her plan for Amity Tower didn't work the way she'd hoped. You'd expect her to be even more attentive towards her sister's mental state after learning Penny died again, they lost the relics, and Atlas was destroyed. Instead, she continues to be more focused on her new girlfriend's well-being than her own sister, to the point where while Ruby has her outburst, Yang prioritizes Blake's safety, since Blake has basically been reduced to a damsel-in-distress who can't stand up for herself anymore, while she glares at Ruby with contempt. Sister-of-the-year, everyone. Even after that, Yang somehow still has no idea why Ruby was so upset, despite everything, and Weiss has to tell them how they've put Ruby on a pedestal, causing her to put pressure on herself, and Yang still tries to deflect blame saying she never asked her to be perfect, despite the fact that she straight-up questioned Ruby's leadership for at the beginning of Volume 8. Yet, the end of this volume acts like this conversation didn't happen, since once Ruby's back and they've defeated the Cat, they're back to saying how great Ruby is and putting her on a pedestal, indicating they've learned nothing about how their words affect her. They never even apologize to her about how they didn't notice her emotional turmoil sooner and try reaching out to her more. Overall, this season felt like a bunch of half-baked ideas they didn't put any real thought into, making any message they tried to give feel like a jumbled mess. You really get the idea the writers see the show completely different from how they actually make it. I will say my favorite episodes of the season were 7 and 8.
The ending had to quickly wrap everything up in order to let the blacksmith give exposition and set up the next volume rather than take the time to let the characters process or talk about the things that heppened or how it effected them. it was dissapointing to see that they just set all the characters back to the way before the season had begin. This is the kind of thing that leads people to wonder if the volume was just filler or not..
I think what happened with the mess of Acension and the moral lesson, paired with how Penny died in Volume 8 really gives the "suicide is good" impression, but I think I know what happened. The sudden shift after Ruby acends of positivity and suddenly NOW showing that its a good thing, probably came from people inside saying "Hey why is Ruby killing herself the answer?" So they were probably like "oh shit, we need to make this seem like a good thing!" Because the story they wrote was already way too deep into this, so they added that to make it seem good instead of changing the text to better convey the idea.
You know what's the only thing i think this volume did Well and it actually made the volume worse. I don't even know if it was fully intentional. Ever since i saw the opening. I had this creeping sense of... Fear or danger from Alex. Like the way they made the op made it seem like she was gonna steal away the team from ruby or be an actual threat. Like she was gonna be some big bad or maybe even existential threat to ruby but no. She was just selfish and mean in the past and then she wanted to be good. Then she died. And that was it.
I feel like the one good thing that could come out of Jaune being much older than he appears is that it could potentially help him better understand Ozpin on some level and even aid in him, and by extension others, begin to finally forgive the old wizard.
Exactly! His whole plot line with the Paper Pleasers is a direct mirror of Oz's struggles with humanity and Oz's struggle to control an unstable situation.
its so funny going to the rwby subreddit and seeing people inquire about plotholes, not even hating on the show, and people will either say they are a negative hater or say that it probably happened or was resolved off screen. The fact that they have to justify the terrible writing of their favorite show is by saying that something probably happened off screen or that some characters talked about things off screen is insane
I agree with most of your thoughts, especially with what you say about Yang. Yang is my favorite character, or used to be when she actually had character. I think its fine for characters to be serious sometimes, especially in dark times like these. But the contrast between season 1-3 yang and 4-9 yang is so drastically different, they feel like different characters. I miss the yang that likes having fun and also is ass kicking and super caring. This yang has just been kind of an annoying ass most of the time 😅
Same, I understand especially with all she’s gone through that she’s change as a person. The thing though is bits of the excitable caring Yang still exist but ONLY when it comes to Blake
With Neo as one of the primary antagonists, not dropping Emerald in the pit instead of Jaune was a huge missed opportunity, we could have gotten more of their dynamic as former evil teammates. You could have had Emerald reach out to Neo assuming her thing with torchwick was just as toxic as Emerald's was with Cinder, only to allow Neo to shake her head smugly and highlight that difference between the two of them.
When I first saw the ever after, i thought "oh, this is maybe the first try of the siblings to create a world, and they have abandoned it" with this you could expand to be something like: "maybe there are other worlds that the Twins leave behind" or "Some of the authors from some fairy tales are from a different world that was abandoned by the gods" that would expand it larger and so make ways to HOW they can defeat salem.
I liked how you talked about the bumblebee relationship part and how RT was trying to make yangs character more brute and scary. The thing that makes me mad about this ship is that they want to make Yang more masculine and like she brings out this brute aura. Wtf don’t change her character like that just keep Yang the way she was. Beautiful, feminine, short temperte, and burns bright like the sun!
Weirdly enough, I feel like they tend to write Blake """""girlier"""", in a degrading way if you get what I mean. To complement the masculinisation of Yang. I hate that too D:
Volume 9 is just a pointless filler arc where Ruby and friends never really learned their lessons and everything is fine. All is fine. Nothing bad ever happened. Ever.
I think it's more like Halo 3 ODST, in the sense that it's meant to be a standalone story separated from the established arc, only this runs the risk of being referred to as meandering/pointless for most of us.
Functionally, the only way for these characters to learn is to acknowledge their mistakes but that will never happen. When you have to scoot around Ironwood having a point and their plans to save everyone in Atlas & Mantle having clear holes, it is not a fair acknowledgement. In this Volume drank the tea, after having a fight with her friends. They never talked about the implications of that, post Ruby waking up again. It's an issue of them screwing up so bad that there can not be any redemption. It's fine for them to stumble around finding their way but when it has lead to the deaths of many people, they should at least acknowledge what they could have done differently rather than saying their plan was perfect and it was only brought down by Cinder's surprise attack.
I always thought that ODST was one of the most liked plots in the Halo games (Asides from the likes of Halo 2), at least from my perception and place in the Halo community. At a bare minimum, the game showed us a good perspective of what the war against the Covenant was from the eyes of a relatively normal soldier. V9 didn't really give us a unique perspective or whatever, just more self-assurance that RWBY and crew are totally not to blame for a LOT of deaths.
@@h34dhunt3rstudios8 At least ODST was covering a different perspective of the war, not Master Chief off doing something wacky in the corner for a week.
With the whole s*icide thing at the end, I love the "omg you just dont understand what they were trying to do" imagine fking up your story so bad, that you trying to portray something comes off as portraying the exact OPPOSITE, and imagine having such worthless fans that they'd still defend you for it afterwards
Not a nitpick. The bumblebee confession was a literal deus ex machina straight into *the suspension bridge effect* it's both on the nose and horribly lampshaded to the point where I cant stand it. They should have confirmed them ages ago, now it just feels like they're doing it cause they're afraid of not getting a v10.
@@KritoSkywaker it was a flop before it’s initial release cause the leaks that did come out before hand already had a bad reception from the jump, that tells me that the official release won’t even be a foot note, which does keep up with the trend of people just being sick and tired of superhero movies save for spider verse. Mixing two things that are falling out of favor fast with not help either grow
Wait wait wait, hold on a sec... Is that Jaune's symbol on Salem's Chair in the backstory?! (8:07) Sorry, I just now noticed that detail from the fairytale and wanted to point it out. A great review and can't wait to watch the rest. Update: (1:00:37) Yes! I wholeheartedly agree with the smoke cloud! Touch upon Yang's strength or motherly compassion for Ruby. Bring up Blake's track record of love interests or her actually MURDERING one of them. Weiss could go into more detail of her familial relations or the SDC, but that can stay firmly in the CANON-ADJACENT Ice Queendom. Finally, there's Ruby. I like the start of her downfall in the cloud, but old Ruby would find a way to cheer her on. Her old self could mention the tremendous weight she puts on herself, but can also comfort her by saying that her family and friends can help bare her burden. Then, at the prompt of "What are you?," each girl can have a unique response. If I could write, I would revamp this scene so hard. (1:11:48) Yeah, I knew that was coming. Rosegarden x 11, this time with no "Oh, they will only adopt the mannerisms of the Old Person inside them and not become them completely." (1:26:32) The thing is, Cinder was already on Neo's hit-list as we saw in Vol. 6 in the Spider Bar. She only teamed up with her because 1. Cinder's Maiden powers are too much and 2. Cinder promised to get her to Ruby, another name on the list. She had every reason to go after Cinder after messing Ruby up. I suspect that, once Neo ascends, she will go through the portal to "Where she is needed most," which will likely be the final fight between Cinder and Team RWBY. More fanservice and a satisfying conclusion. (2:10:01) I don't think that the Cat CAN'T Ascend, its just that there was nothing to make him consider Ascending. Like the Herbalist, he likely didn't see his flaw. Also, it seems the Brother Gods designed the Cat to find these broken Afterans and show them the route to Ascension. Alyx broke his trust, so he became broken and didn't realize it through his anger and curiosity. Here's my running commentary of Critter's Commentary. I agree with nearly everything in the review, just a couple points here and there. Different people, different ideas. Thank you Critter for the content and to any who sorted through this mess of a comment. Hope y'all have a great day.
The first bit about Jaune's symbol on Salem's chair made me think of this like short comic or picture where Ozpin/Oscar push Jaune infront of Salem and he says tha he is her descendant or something so she just gushes over him like a mom.
"I suspect that, once Neo ascends, she will go through the portal to "Where she is needed most," which will likely be the final fight between Cinder and Team RWBY. More fanservice and a satisfying conclusion." Dear god, that makes far too much sense as something RT would do. A volume or three later, the finale of the show, Cinder vs the Heroes and out of nowhere comes Neo with the metaphorical steel chair, after not being seen for several volumes.
About Blake in your cloud idea, it's kinda sad how we reduced her character as to be only a love interest for Adam, Sun, or Yang... not mentioning Ilia who had a crush on Blake... She was part of the White Fang for God's sake!! I can't believe RT never thought about it! Blake left the WF because it became too violent, but what tells us she didn't murder someone...? Imagine, in her anger towards humanity, she got blinded and killed several humans, only to realize by seeing Adam's cruelty that she was like him: a monster. That's when she looks for redemption, to make things right. That's why she left the WF and joined Beacon Academy, she wanted to be a real hero, not a terrorist. I feel that would work for her character, sorrow, shame in what she've done. But of course RT isn't that smart, that and CRWBY don't remember nor use ANYTHING about older volumes...
Fun little fact: Casey Lee Williams stated many times on her instagram profile (mostly on old stories) that she was genuinely struggling to make all of the v9 Soundtracks in time of the release of the volume. You likely hit the nail right on the head with the small critique of the lack of songs, but the overall quality of those songs drastically increasing. RWBY has been my favorite anime soundtrack since the Red trailer and I've followed Jeff / Casey Lee Williams as closely as possible since then, so it's always nice seeing another person's perspective on the soundtrack.
I hope not. I don't hate the ship it more of what about SUN? Sun freaking did a lot and Blake clearly shows she love him and the kiss. No misunderstand things. A part of me kinda want them in a throuple because Sun did a lot. If not I hope she turn him down gently and Sun says "It ok I like us to still be friends but I don't want to see you for awhile". To be fair she is maybe break his heart and need time for himself which is ironic since he thought she was gone a long time.@@erikroman1880
it could have been fun if team RWBY each did or were put in a situation referencing their fairytale inspirations. Like in Yang walked into a house and slept on the "just right" bed or something
Blakes cloud talk is deadass the same as the black parental figure, and the white parental figure coming up to their mixed child and going "you could just embrace MY side of the race, wouldnt it be easier to just go full black/white?"
To be fair... the writers of RWBY at this point would probably say that GOD ranks lower on values of importance and ability that Team RWBY and that it was GOD who was blessed to meet them. They could have asked for help, did something, or even take the magic tree branches that forces people to fix their own issues to use against Salem who is only immortal because her curse forces her to be immortal until the planet is vaporized or she works out her own issues! Yes they could have had something to defeat the big bad without divine intervention in a cannon way that made use of this season!
"Yo, God, your kids were kind of being assholes and created an immortal witch that wants to wipe out humanity again - btw they wiped out humanity because some of them were rebelling - because she wants to stop being immortal, and we're kind of trying to avoid that. Could you maybe just give her what she wants and take away the whole immortality thing so she can just die in peace, and humanity can actually have a chance to work out its issues without an immortal ancient magical demon sorceress constantly trying to stir up conflicts between them?" They literally know what Salem's history and motives are. They know about the Brothers. They know about the ancient society from when the Brothers were still around. Why would they NOT try to ask the being at the top of the existential food chain if she/he/they could maybe help out by giving the Brothers a quick spanking and give the mortals a hand fixing the mess they helped make? Or at the very least ask if he could maybe tweak Ozma's curse a little bit so that he didn't keep absorbing new souls, since apparently making someone immortal and constantly merging different people's souls together doesn't disrupt that oh-so-delicate balance the Brothers (or just Light, really) were apparently worried about.
Let's be honest, RT has no idea the consequence of introducing an all mighty creator god who not only has full control over one dimension but clearly has influences over another, the 'Erdtree' literally picked the specific time they should return to. Like seriously, does that mean all events have been at the whims of said god? Let me tell you, RT doesn't know either.
I think that the message for Ruby of "You're perfect as you are" sucks, because Ruby literally was one of the main responsible for the Atlas's fall, it happened cause she didn't have a plan. So, i consider that a message like "I failed, i was wrong, but it doesn't gonna stop me try to do the right things" would be better. For example, in the "Stomlight Archive" there is a character called "Dalinar". Dalinar, in summary, is a man that lived almost all his life being a asshol*, until he lose his wife, Evi, due to her own bad decisions. So, his plot was become an autentic honor man to led his Kingdom and, later, all his world in a war for their survival. There is an escene when he has to confront what he did, and he accept all his flaws and past mistakes because "he can't become a better man if he doesn't do it". I think that a message like this would fit with Ruby better, because, as i said a the begging, Ruby has a lot of flaws, but she carried a lot of guilty too. She isn't exactly a villan, but she isn't a flawless huntress. Clearly the Dalinar's context or background isn't the same for Ruby, but in this case Ruby would become a better person without acting as she never made any mistake, in place of, she would become a better person because she admit she was wrong and she is willing to change. PD: The Dalinar's escene if you want to watch it: th-cam.com/video/5y1_x7IuCC8/w-d-xo.html
They should have treated it more as Ruby choosing to be herself so that she could grow and become a better version of herself (as opposed to throwing her old life away and being a different person) instead of “oh, you’re perfect just the way you are”. As for it being a s*icide allegory, there’s no easy to have it be both an allegory for that and something that is celebrated in Ever After. Maybe make it clear that ascension is death for humans but not for beings from Ever After? And then treat Ruby’s ascension as her realizing that throwing her life away isn’t going to fix things and that she herself has to change (basically, have her choose to live) I’m still not really sure that would work but maybe that could have helped with the moral lesson? Honestly best way would have just not been to make it a s*icide allegory and have it also be celebrated in universe
The whole scene inside the smoke cloud makes me so mad cuz it’s the most mid scene but a lot of RWBY fans (who always talk shit about the show and say that after s3 everything sucks) we’re PRAISING it and saying they might watch the show again for it! Like what!???
The new Lord for the brothers just makes them even more incompetent than they already were. And it makes it seems like Ozpin and Salem were their replacements for remnant like The Cat In the JaboWalker are for the everafter
I feel like Jaune (the real main character) blowing up at and shouting "IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU" at Ruby (the theoretical main character) is just.....it is infuriating but like......on a meta level.
Honestly, the idea that Jaune has equated 'ascension' with DEATH for so long, and then didnt IMMEADIATELY have an actual breakdown-- the fact that NONE of them did, the moment Ruby Drank the tea and fell into the world... talk about failing to understand basic human psychology. Jaune has spent what, 40+ years, constantly being reminded of his failures? Of how he lost *everything*. And one of the only things that seemed to keep him going was the hope that he could save others. That he could fix things, somehow. And to once again be confronted with failure, after failure, after failure... the fact that he didnt break *further* is just... insane. But then again, maybe at this point he's just dead inside. He's so broken, that its just... stopped affecting him. I dunno. The fact that we didnt get a scene of Yang practically clawing at the ground, trying to get Ruby back, or ANYTHING. Is so infuriating. But, at this point, i suppose that is just par for the course, part of why i stopped seriously watching the show. Ah well.
Yang's "I think your cat ears are cute" always smacks me in the face because, like...if your cat ears and being a faunus is the equivalent of your race, would that just make her complimenting Blake's ears the same as like complimenting an asian person for their eye shape
Ruby's moment in the Cloud is one of my new favorite examples of how this show somehow manages to have good scenes as long as they're completely out of context. Much like with the scene in the previous volume when Yang and Ruby are talking about their mother, it's actually a pretty good scene in of itself...as long as you ignore the context that it's the first time in the series where they've ever had a discussion about Summer, and even individually we've only ever seen Ruby address the topic of her mother maybe once or twice while Yang has literally only mentioned her once prior to that moment (and even that was only as a segue into talking about Raven). It's a decently written scene on its own, but as soon as it's actually supposed to be viewed within the context of a wider narrative it completely falls apart because they barely build up to it and then don't really do anything substantial with it afterwards. The result is that it has about as much depth and impact as hearing Ren and Yang argue about what they should be doing during the invasion of Atlas - it seems good in the moment, but it doesn't take long to realize that this is classic "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" writing.
Tiny nitpick but in the first episode it’s is established that the team is low on amo and dust and in the chess match Blake actually runs out of bullets I thought it would be cool to see the characters try and work around this problem in each fight but they fight as if it’s not a issue any more Blake is still able the light the leaves on fire even though she has no bullets left. Also I laugh every time I hear wisse say “we have done everything we could” they did the bare minimum at best by asking two times if ruby was ok when she clearly wasn’t
The one thing that really irked me this volume was Ruby giving away her emblem saying “it contains a mother’s promise!” And I don’t think it gets brought back up again???and from a viewer stand point I had no idea those symbols were actually IMPORTANT besides character design. Just another weird kinda nitpick I guess that I noticed
For the first few episodes: I was legitimately convinced that time was screwy, and they were going to run into Alex. Alex would be from before magic was removed, and in bringing her back to Remnant: that would introduce a new piece to the board. Someone who could counter or even stalemate Salem, and at least open the door for a conventional victory against the forces which aren’t playing with magic.
I think the real problem with Ascension is that there are no inquisitives on team RWBY willing to, gosh of goshes, raise it as a topic of discussion. Nobody is excited or intrigued by the setting they find themselves in, nobody asks questions about how the world works, nobody puts forward the idea that "Maybe that's just how life works here," nobody is out here offering an alternative take on what Ascension is besides "character self-delete and hope you come out better on the next roll". Even though, you know, Blake the studyworm and Yang the wanderluster are on this team. But hey, exposition bad, so I guess discussing, investigating, and formulating hypotheses aren't allowed. We don't have time for a slow scene where the characters interact with each other and reaffirm their personalities, we have to move the plot forward! E: That's not even getting into how doing this would actively distance or prevent Ascension from being a suicide analogue. Which, uh... Yeah I'm sure if you're reading this, you saw plenty of why that's not great on your way to this comment.
Maybe it was just me, but I thought Ascension and everything surrounding it, was meant to represent "Ego Death" and that through this you either accepted your flaws like ruby did, or you couldn't handle it one way or another (due to actually dying, etc.) and you were reborn as something similar to your previous self, without the memories
The writing was really clumsy, but that was more the vibe I got from it. That or it being a metaphor for medication for mental illness. "Take this substance and you can become the person you want to be" seems very medication-y to me, but that's a nuanced topic that would need to be handled by a much more talented and careful writer. I can imagine a better version of the story being a positive influence to a younger me. For context, my dad is an entirely different person medicated vs. unmedicated (for the better) but that always put me off the idea of taking any sort of antidepressants. In my mind, any medication that could make me not miserable would also erase 'me' and be fundamentally no different to dying (except that someone else would then be walking around in my body, thinking that they were me). Having the main arc be the protagonist hitting such a low that they drink the drink to erase themselves, but then come out the other side as the same person just out of the funk that had dragged them into such misery could be a powerful message. Especially if the conclusion wasn't "she's all better now" but was instead closer to "she's still struggling, but she can see that there's a way out and can manage now".
General problems with the volume: - Ever After adds nothing to the setting aside from making shit more confusing. Like team RWBY and co. fell in there cuz of a magical creation staff. How did Alyx and her brother get in then? Is this a back-rooms type deal where you can just void through the walls - Why give the Gods an origin story? They are Gods. Why does every God in some fantasy world need to have a "Oh this is their creator by the way". They are literal all-powerful deities - RWBY's depression and s-word thoughts only appear in this volume because she's only now she questions if she's done the good things or not - Blake and Yang's confession was in lore forced - Jaune is now young again and he basically learnt nothing from being old - Neo is gone but like I mean... ok? Neo wasn't really important at all since she came back so her being gone does nothing for me - The mom stuff is also just, pointless to the story and I hate it - The moral of the season is "Be yourself cuz you're amazing" - This season was filler in the most bare bones sense. Nothing mattered because it's self-contained.
Fun fact: I've literally never watched an episode of RWBY in my life and I'm just binging video essays. Anyway, it would be really easy to fix ascension with just one tiny little change: Ascension is sacrificial. Rework ascension to be, instead of some wonderful 'I'm changed for the better!" deal, to be as kind of unsettling and deal-with-the-devil as the portrayal of the cat almost suggests it is. They're giving up their lives, their memories, everything about who they used to be, in exchange for... what? A new, more powerful form? Artificially becoming a better person? That's horrifying! It should be horrifying! Have the paper things, once reincarnated, still display the same flaws as they did as paper. Sure, they're tougher now, and so they don't face all the same challenges, but being sturdy doesn't prevent things from hurting you. Have them fall into dangers Jaune previously might have been teaching them to avoid, or at least he protected them from, to show that they actually haven't changed, and they're just superficially different. Maybe even make them have worse temperaments - they're not Paper Pleasers or whatever, and now they're a little bit more mean, snub Jaune or something, whatever, because their sturdier forms mean that they don't have the same level of empathy for the weak. The Herbalist goes from a caterpillar to a butterfly, sure, but why? Little becomes Somewhat, but why? They don't remember what they used to be like, and they don't remember the growth they had to go through to become who they are today. They forget why they wanted to change in the first place, and that renders that change almost meaningless to them. They take their new and wonderful forms for granted, and inevitably end up wanting to reform into something else 'better' because they won't ever be satisfied by growth when they can't even remember the journey they took in the first place. Little doesn't even remember the time they spent with RWBY, and this should HURT the cast, because their friend doesn't even know who they are anymore, because they're literally somebody else now. Like, I'm not saying it would be perfect - especially not with my literal-15-minutes-of-thought concepts - but it would literally fit better with Ruby's arc, which should be the core reason behind creating ascension and this entire season in the first place.
Eversfter should've been a hidden continent in Remenant that was never discovered, that was left behind by the old world. Since u know magic. IMO. Because then the fairytail aspect would've been better fitted with Alyx and Louise randomly appearing in the Everafter and the siblings not knowing where they are, thinking that they're in another world.
one thing that confused me throughout watching the volume was: Does Blake ever use her semblance? like, when she's reaching for Gambol Shroud in the first episode, i was like "why isn't she using her semblance to get since it would be easy?" and then for the rest of the volume i was somewhat paying attention to Blake in the action scenes wondering if she was using her semblance or not and I don't think she did. Did I miss her using it at any point or did she legitimately not use it for the whole volume?
@@Neo-op3iz i guess maybe so much was happening in the fights that I didn't see it i kinda feel like Weiss's and Yang's semblances were better focused on than Blake's idk
I loved the writers section, id honestly love that to become a regular section because it was really interesting to hear. I feel like miles is a good writer he just needs ideas, like my favorite red vs blue arc is his in the chorus trilogy, and his contributions to season 14 were generally my favourites. Kerry i can see the frustration with he seems to be completely out of fresh ideas, but i do feel a little bad as he did seemingly have to rush out writing and directing. The other writer's, i feel like idk, id love a video about them a bit more though
Achuly the red queen and the queen of hearts are different charters and the red queen is a lot more chill she's kinda strict but like a school maram not a tyrant
I hated the bridge confession. It felt like they were forcing it through. Bridge they have to share things on and the kiss in a flower field and near angelic music as the sun rose. It just felt cheap
the whole ""relationship"" was contrived and forced into the show as a desperate attempt to re-capture the worst parts of the audience with cheap pandering
@@Cywren they never interacted in any significant way, looking at each other all googly eyed in a shitty attempt to foreshadow a relationship isn't chemistry
@@Gofaw close but no cigar they did once which felt like their attempt to set it up and it was Yang telling Blake her story about how she almost got Ruby killed to get Blake to slow down. And as I said this wasn't well executed but attempted
The most brutal part of Ruby's torture for me was Ozpin absolutely _beating_ her with a cane; I think it's because it's something we can _actually_ imagine feeling, as Ozpin uses a weapon that is so common in real-life that _anyone_ can get their hands on it.
Maybe a unpopular opinion I think that RWBYs semblances should be upgraded yes even Weiss. It feels like every other character is getting stronger while team rwby just get skill but they need more power for instance how did neo get multiple clones but Blake can still only do one after 9 volumes
Evolution of powers can be cool and narratively engaging, if done correctly indeed, but the problem with RWBY is that the characters started the show way TOO OP! Plus, the writers never stopped to figure out powerscales between characters, so fights feel null and powers inconcistent because they just go "Character X fights character Z. Z loses. How does that happen? I'unno. Z's aura breaks in the middle or smt. Also, we don't actually know how to storyboard nor convey our ideas to our underpaid animators. Profit".
@@isabelaalves4511 tru tru but thsi leads me to my next argument fights need to be longer I’m tired of 1 or 2 mins scness and half of the time they just talking through the fight
Now that I think about it, since Nora was the one who was also having an identity crisis in the previous volume, I think her coming to a place like the Everafter is a great way for her to get some self discovery
OKAY I WANT TO SING PRAISE FOR THIS VIDEO! When i tried to discuss the confession scene and it's retcon-y writing in the RWBY subreddit I got flamed, called homophobic and that I don't know what character development is
Smoke yang saying that real Yang isn't whole because she lost her arm is framed as wrong though so they're not endorsing the idea. But yeah, I do agree the whole smoke scene is pretty bad
I love how balanced your review is! You had nitpicks for the Volume, and still praised it! I think the people who say you're negative haven't actually seen your vids? Cus you have positives along with negatives.
What happened to Cammie in Gen:Lock was a mercy compared to what would have happened to Ruby because at least Cammie was still retained her mind when she did it. If Ruby did it, she would've had her memories erased and her identity discarded. It's practically a lobotomy. What's the point of getting a body if I'm not myself to enjoy it? I'd rather be dead. Remember, Ascension isn't suicide nor is it necessarily obtained that way, it's reincarnation. Afterans are technically immortal. The practicalities of the memory and erasure is to prevent Afterans from developing psychosis from the constant "reformats". Plus, some Ascensions can turn out worse than before like the Red Prince for instance. Ruby might've turned out worse.
@@kidprime6863 idk, to me it's not really about which fate/choice is better or worse but about how it was handled. I mean, putting a number for a suicide prevention line at the end of the episode right after one of the characters turned into dust is weird if you take into account the future "oh no it's fine, she killed herself but she's totally alive" reveal. Also if I remember correctly Cammie was not aware that Ascension would result in reincarnation so at the time it was a death sentence. The same is with Ruby and the tea. It doesn't matter that all was "ok" in the end. They were at their lowest point and did something that reads as suicide and came out "better" afterwards, which feels like some highly questionable messaging. And it doesn't feel like a message about surviving an attempt and getting better, because they did basically die.
@@sensarna I get what you're saying. But to me, Ascension is neither good nor bad. It's more in-between and extremely risky all things considered. It's more like you're getting "recycled". Everything the characters and the audience were told about Ascension were misconceptions, contradictions and half-truths. Before Ascension, the Great Tree puts you under processing. It has to make sure who or what you want to become and what new purpose you want. Apparently, if you don't choose soon or if you really aren't sure what you want to become, it will choose for you. It was a miracle that the Tree allowed Ruby to be given a crossroad. If you want to remain as yourself, so be it, the Tree lets you go. Ruby never wanted to die, she just didn't want be herself. Thus, this is more of a mental suicide. Where your destroy your mind. Which is possible in real life.
Oh it takes place in the Ever After because it's an anime trope. Popular anime will sometimes have a filler arc that puts the main characters in Alice in Wonderland. It has nothing to do with the plot, it's never important. But RWBY wanted to be like anime, but also make it mean something... for some reason. I bet someone found an old sticky note that said "RWBY characters in Alice?" and went: "THAT'S A GREAT IDEA!!"
@@chubbyanimalenthusiast70 Gen:Lock. From what I understand a character offs herself, and in doing so ascends to a higher plane of existence where she can still interact with everyone but is basically happier and generally better than ever before.
weirdly enough, I’m pretty sure Miles used to date Arryn and he did say he liked seeing her kiss other girls. Correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t like spreading misinformation on accident
1:13:14 when Judgemental Talked about Jaune time jumping. It just reminded me of Horuma time traveling back to save Modaka. Not sure if she got the idea from that but it felt similar
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Just a heads up for commenters! Little and The curious Cat uses they/them pronouns! :D
neat!
They're was/were now.
@@thefactory7221 😂😂😂
Sounded like they were actual living beings. 😄Nice heads up, Critter. Thanks. 😁
Good to know, thanks for the clarification!
It's a bit weird that both nonbinary characters introduced get violently murdered
*COUGH* Blake could have doubled as the cheshire cat given her knowledge of the story and general nature, making her curious over the odd aspects of this world from her books and running off to investigaate them
Also her shadow clone semblance could be used to mimic how the Cheshire Cat would fade away and leave a smile behind. Just watched Judgemental Critter’s video on semblances and I feel that would’ve been a creative way to use her semblance and tie her to more than one fairy tale.
Remember what Yang's response was when Oobleck was grilling team RWBY on why they wanted to be huntresses? "I'm a thrill-seeker; I want to get wrapped up in crazy adventures."
Here she is, in a crazy, thrilling adventure in a world no one else has ever seen. "Ugh, boring, annoying, whatever."
Nice consistency in your characters.
if it was any other company i'd acuse them of hating yang on a fundamental level, like they wanted to erase the character and replace them with another one, but i am pretty sure crwby just can't write to save their lives.
@@comyuse9103without the wasp shippers breathing down their neck? XD
@@Samuel_Loegan
That sums up this Yang's character. 😁
@@KritoSkywaker true XD
@@Samuel_Loegan
But it also makes me feel terrible... Because these flipping idiots have destroyed the sisterhood I was enjoying. 😔
Them not committing to old Jaun was my biggest disappointment this volume. He's still 40+ years old, but I guarantee you they'll act as if he's the same age as the others and excuse that somehow 20+ years of experience got zapped from his mind, further making all of this pointless.
I'm fully expecting that as well, since it's becoming clear that there is barely any continuity in this show Volume to Volume beyond the physical location of the characters.
I really hoped he stayed older as for one it would make it feel like at least something impactful happened in Volume 9. Plus it would mean they couldn't get away with Jaune acting like his old self again.
i'm calling it now, he's going to be reset in terms of appearance too, like they're going to maigcally restore him to how he was in volume 8 as well as erase the years of experience, I refuse to believe they'll commit to something that hard
edit: lmao I guess I stopped paying attention near the end because they did reverse his appearance
To be fair, him acting closer to 20-ish than 40 is reasonable. A large part of one's perceived mental age is a reflection of and response to the changing ways society treats people as they age - if you're a teenager in highschool for 40 years, you'll be more 'teen' than 'middle-aged' because everyone will talk to you like a teen, you'll never be expected to get a job, you're expected to do 'teen stuff', etc.
Changing environment, expectations and context do more to age you than the pure number of years. Time spent adulting is what makes you an adult.
Also, what experience has he even had? He's been babysitting in a world with nonsense-rules for all those years. Very little of what he's gone through would make him wiser, more knowledgeable about anything that matters or any more socially experienced.
It's like he's woken up from a ~20 year dream. How much it would have 'aged' him is very questionable.
That said, keeping him looking older would have been more narratively interesting. Having him struggling to re-adapt to the world he left for ~20 years; having strangers treat him like the adult he's not qualified to be; his companions not knowing how to interact with him all while he mourns the youth he's missed out on and struggles with the fact that he'll grow old and die while his friends are still young. Hell, having him gradually age into his appearance because of how his interactions with people have changed would be a really interesting and unique character arc. There's good stuff here, but they took the most boring route possible.
I honestly lowkey expected them to reset him, but I was so hoping they wouldn’t 😭 I was FURIOUS when they made him young again
Old Jaune would have been SO interesting we were ROBBED 💀
Ruby and friends: *gets Isekai-ed to another world*
Crossover Fanfic Writers: "It's a free real estate."
Tbf, Mori thought something similar way before this and it was by his hands that Arc System Works got in touch with Rooster Teeth, thus spawning their appearance in BBTag, and more recently, publishing the Japanese version of RWBY Arrowfell.
On a related note, RWBY got a collab with Black Rock Shooter: Dawnfall, but that game isn't available on Google Play in America.
@@h34dhunt3rstudios8
Too bad I missed it out. That sounded neat. 🥺
I'm wondering if someone is gonna do team rwby going to the lord of the rings world fanfic
@@erikroman1880
That would be a awesome idea. I was even considering doing several. Like Guilty Gear, Mass Effect.
@@KritoSkywaker exactly but i feel like either narnia or lord of the rings worlds would've work better if they wanted to they wanted to do a fairy tale angle you get what I'm saying but team rwby in guilty gear is too perfect not do man so i can't wait to read it
For the smoke cloud part, it would’ve been interesting to see them confront someone they don’t want to see: so for Blake, Adam
Yang, Raven
Weiss, Jacques
And Ruby would be herself. I just feel like it could’ve been interesting to see that play out.
Also the fact that Ruby’s younger self said she didn’t have to be strong for everyone and could be herself..that confused me cuz when I feel like that might be something someone would like to hear rather than be something bad.
The fact that RT was OK with Ice Queendom implying that Blake was in the wrong for the violence in her tenure as a White Fang member in a not-so-subtle fashion without addressing "What if Adam wasn't a complete piece of shit?" while doing so tells you everything you need to know.
@@h34dhunt3rstudios8Did RT write the script, or was that the others studio?
holy shit I love this idea
I think its fine that they were confronted by their past, better-designed selves
The issue is how the three of them were confronted with such easy questions. Nothing hard-hitting like Weiss losing her home and status, Blake having done nothing to help her kind that doesn't amount to fighting her own kind, and Yang's hypocrisy and increasing abrasiveness
Maybe, then, that's why the Cat jumped through her younger self; they didn't want Ruby to hear any positivity from a time she wasn't (at least as) depressed.
If i had a nickel for every animated Rooster Teeth show had a poorly handled suicide allegory plotline I'd have two nickels. That isnt a lot but its weird that it happened twice
What was the first time?
@@skyslasher2297 gen:lock (the Michael b Jordan show that I assume he wants to just remove from his filmography)
How does that happen where you accidentally make 2 shows that glorify suicide?
Unlike with RWBY, Gen:Lock got a backlash for pulling that stunt.
@@KritoSkywaker wait for it wait for it it will come just wait
A *big* problem I have with this Volume is how Penny’s death *never* gets addressed or brought up. Especially during Jaune’s breakdown and argument with Ruby. Like dude, *tell* the girls what happened and we might get some conflict, but he never tells them and is just wallowing in his misery without addressing the root of the issue.
Her being dead is addressed a lot, Jaune just doesn’t want to talk about the specific details which makes sense. Only Weiss really knows what happened and maybe that can be a thing between them to talk about. It could have been an extra source of conflict for the volume, but I’m not sure they could have really fit another concept into the volume seeing as they barely did much with what was already in it.
@@CodeTetsu I think directly addressing and seeing Ruby fully processing and dealing with the major death of one of the series' most popular characters, which canonically happened not even 24 hours before this, is important enough to take screentime away from anything else in this quest that has little impact beyond Volume 9, like the Red Prince or the marketplace.
I prefer the scene from Gears 3 where Dom gives the COG tags to the statue of his dead wife, Maria, and the dialogue making it crystal clear that Dom isn't in the war for the sake of it, since practically the entire human race is at stake.
And that seemed better juxtaposed than here, where they say "RIP Penny." and then say nothing about it at all.
@@SwitchbackCh Do you really think they could do all that in that space of time? They didn’t even meet Jaune until halfway through the volume for that sort of conflict to even begin? You would quite literally have to rewrite the entire volume to fit that concept in at all.
My issue is that it is never explicitly mentioned that Jaune was the one to end Penny. Weiss knew but she never mentioned it. Only that Penny "sacrificed herself" - not "Jaune killed Penny at her request". She didn't even know that Jaune fell as well.
Another pet peeve of mine is that Penny's sword fell but not her body. Not the bodies of everyone else. It makes me wonder what the rules are of "falling" are.
i think that what makes yang the weakest character this volume is how she does jackshit to help ruby. she's supposed to be the overprotective loving sister, but not once did she do anything to help ruby all volume long
Her character assasination has begun long ago in V3, but we haven't noticed it until V6. And in V9, that assasination has completed. This breaks my heart all over it. 🥺💔 I loved the sisterhood Yang and Ruby had. 😭
Once Bumblebee actually became a thing, Yang and Blake have basically ceased to exist as their own individual entities with their own individual relationships and stories. Even as someone who has always liked the ship, I absolutely despise how they've actually handled the execution. Granted, considering the show's general lack of any kind of meaningful character development anyway (only the current volume of RWBY is ever canon after all), I'm not sure if them not getting together would have really made any difference.
@@VenathTehN3RD yeah thats my biggest issue with yang and blake, they're just one person now. they had ONE disagreement in V8, but it didn't even matter. yang even shields blake from ruby when she's lashing out at them, that part pissed me off so much. it feels like yang just doesn't care about anything that isn't blake anymore, which just makes her extremely unlikeable compared to how caring she was for everyone around her before
@@novakaiser7949 And what's a little alarming is that this honestly kind of reminds me of Blake and Adam's relationship. That codependency - to the point of neglecting everything else in your life in order to focus any and all attention on your partner - is a good way to hit a point where someone can develop a very controlling role in a relationship. It doesn't help that Yang shares a lot of personality traits with Adam in general. Both have very quick tempers, both tend to fall back on aggression when confronted (whether verbal or physical), both are exceedingly stubborn, and both have displayed a pretty significant deal of hypocrisy regarding how they tend to apply their moral/ethical standards.
Sure, Yang definitely isn't anywhere even remotely as close to being as bad as Adam was, but Adam wasn't always the monster we see later in the series either. The short featuring him in earlier years (and several of Blake's admissions throughout the series) make it clear that at one point he genuinely was someone who, despite having a lot of anger, was still in control of himself and tried to do the right thing. Throw on the fact that Blake suddenly regressed into a more meek, submissive person once they got together when her entire arc up to that point was about her taking back control of her life and her cause, and to me it just paints an image of them very much taking up the same kind of relationship dynamic that ended up going very, very poorly with Adam. That Yang has actually been acting more and more like what we see in this volume over the course of the series doesn't help either, given that this gradual development into being a serious dick is pretty much exactly how Blake described Adam's change.
I might just be reading too much into it, but I can't help but feel like the way they've executed the relationship (not the relationship in of itself, but their execution of it) is giving off some alarming vibes in how much it seems to resemble the way that her relationship with Adam prior to the series proper was described.
Fr, they write Yang like she can't be Blake's girlfriend AND Ruby's sister
I hope they get an outfit change next volume cuz we’ve seen these outfits for three volumes now and im over them 💀 i really hate Weiss’s bulky dress and Blake’s lack of black in her outfit and her weird looking short hair. I want some new designs for them already , the characters are getting boring to look at on screen for me personally.
Boring to look due bad writing.
If there was good story,their outfit would not matter to "boring-ness".
@@greyfaceofaxe nothing to do with the writing. im just uninterested in them in general and i never really liked Weiss’s dress or Blake’s haircut. they just need to actually change their outfits cuz they aren’t that great of designs for their characters anyway. they had way better outfits in the earlier volumes , what they are wearing now is just so oddly colored and heavy looking. only outfit that is okay is Ruby’s cuz it’s kinda hard to mess her up.
Also the fact that they will be in a desert and some of there clothes are not really meant for that so hopefully they will be changed
Don’t they typically change every three volumes anyway? (With some minor exceptions). I’m sure they’d get new ones in V10.
I agree. I think they missed the perfect opportunity to make their outfits more Wonderland-like. That could have been cute. Or they could have had them take their jackets off due to the warmer climate. And then just have their outfits change back when they get back to their world, like Jaune. Anything would have been better than nothing.
Ironically, they ended up giving Neo too much of a personality during V9 to have the “you have nothing to live for” thing to really work with her
Also Cinder is still alive, so she should definitely have a reason to return to Remnant.
Ironically, the scene where Ruby comes to terms with not being enough, doesn’t feel like enough
She just decides to be herself again. What was the point? She is perfect the way she always was and there was no change, just a confidence boost which while inspiring does not solve the issues they are facing back in Remnant.
@@pickyphysicsstudent201 Character development nah character being the same they've been for the past 9 years yea
They don't even clarify what "enough" is, or why Ruby would be it.
@@pickyphysicsstudent201
Sadly, this is the definition, of "Not even trying". 🤦🏻
Sadly RT cares more about that stupid DC crossover then their main series as the team had to cut 2 episodes to due to the heads wanting them to release the crossover movie at the same time
Neos "redemption" is especially odd compared to the Cat just straight up getting murdered. He had far more redeeming qualities than the umbrella toting psycho in that he felt abused and decieved by humans, which led him to return the favor later. He had a lot going for him until his end. Even his habit of wandering off tracks because he really is that curious about everything around himself. That part of him was always honest beyond any of his deceit of the protagonists
Friendly reminder that a chunck of the FNDM is at a permanent state of "thinking with their dicks".
This is rwby we’re talking about, no redemption unless you’re a cute anime girl
I think the redemption could have been saved is if we see Neo helping some of the creatures of the Everafter as well as Neo only being mean to Ruby.
Think about it, it has been implied in Volume 3 that Neo was an orphan but was rescued by Roman. Which was why they took the Devil's Bargin with Cinder because she promised to protect them. If we had moments where we see Neo lift her cruelty for mercy when she sees people who are in the same boat she is. Maybe adopting her own family only to realize that her kids fear her as she slowly becomes Cinder over the course of the story.
Of course this would require the Volume's main characters being just Neo and Ruby but I think that would be for the best as it would give more time for the rest of the cast before the final Volume.
I was honestly hoping Neo would be stuck there possessed by the cat forever. Cat can never get what it wants and Neo is just a husk.
@@HypercomboProduction
Oh well that I have to do for you buddy Neo is not an orphan she actually used to be a rich girl and I think she's had personality disorder or something like that and she did not have a good relationship with her parents, anyway she met roman, her parents died and that was the end, if you want more context go find Roman holiday
RT: exposition is boring and tedious
also RT: proceeds to shove roughly ten minutes of pointless exposition about the brother gods into the last episode of the volume
I don't know RT, seems like your logic was pretty broken from the get-go
If Ice Queendom and BBTag are meant to be treated as canon team RWBY, it goes something like this:
*All 4 are two different power couples drawn together to make Remnant a better place or something.
*Exposition is limited to what the author/writer considers relevant, but failing to take the phrase "too much information" into account, which happens in a lot of shounen anime, I find. And even then, it's basically thrown at you seemingly on command.
*Peace, Love and Kindness or some shit
*The conflict ends with all 4 of them agreeing with each other.
Yeah...
It’s so weird that in volume 7, completely on accident, wrote one of their most nuanced and compelling character pieces on the atlas cast, then in v9, also completely on accident, they wrote a story praising the merits of suicide and self harm. It’s almost like their literally rolling dice in the writers room to decide plot points
And seemingly always rolling on a critical 1.
Honestly, knowing what happened in another show (Genlock), it probably wasn’t on accident
My server has a joke that RWBY's script is just adapted from D&D game sessions the writers play, which would explain all the random-ass story changes and out-of-character moments, lol.
After Gen lock I'm starting to think RT is a cult or something.
I'm not sure what's gotten into them either. But, no one cares about RT stateside, afaik.
As for the Japanese side of the fanbase, a lot of them seem to come to Gen:Lock or RWBY for the action/fight scenes and the animation itself, leaving everything else at face value, as if they had a hand in it.
For example, my homies Bacchi19661 and Talbain_3rd were more into the action scenes and didn't want to spoil anything else, thus keeping a lid on a lot of it or not keeping up with it.
Even the IQ interview where Shaft praised the animation in Poser, seemingly due to less limitations than that of 2D animation. So, they may not be controlled by RT so much as they treat them like an ongoing film festival.
30:28 2 years or more to get animation this good is well worth it. I've never slammed the animators or art team in that regard. Now think about the WRITING team, who had TWO whole years to mull over whether the climax to the entire Volume involving Ruby killing herself out of despair to come out stronger would raise eyebrows or not. Two years and they never felt something was off, shipped it off and had it animated to finish. The art and animation team was NEVER the weakest link in all of RWBY's production or the source of its greatest community divisions. I think we all know which team largely shoulders that responsibility and the consequences of it.
Hello Switchback. I hope you doing okay there! 👋🏻👋🏻
Agreed. Don't get me wrong, the choreography and animation has certainly had some rough periods (I feel like V5 in particular had some serious issues, with the battle at Haven in specifically feeling REALLY clunky IMO), but even when it wasn't doing so great you'd get moments where they clearly show that they can do a great job when given the chance. I feel like a lot of the post-Monty animation issues were limited more by time crunch, production issues, and writing than by the talents of the animators themselves.
Very True. It could the BESTEST EVAR in the animation or art department and it wouldn't make a DAMN difference if the Writing is so bad... that isn't not funny or even so bad it's good.
My biggest problem with Ruby's development is how Penny's death started Ruby's depression and she is forgotten by the end.
When Ruby realized I'm already perfect because my mom loves me. I was like bruh Penny and a bunch of other people died because of the half-baked plan. It would have been better if Jaune and Ruby talked about Penny directly.
asking crwby to write actual character arcs is like asking rich ceos to not be dickheads.
I know, they made Penny's death feel like an afterthought despite it being a catalyst to Ruby's dilemma.
I would've love it if after the Blacksmith show Ruby her mom's memories, she shows her Penny's memories show her what happened to Penny and Ruby compares it to her situation. Not only will Ruby get closure over Penny's death but it'll also further motivate Ruby to remain as herself because if she undergoes Ascension, she'll make the same mistake as Penny.
As a suicidal person, I absolutely despise what they did with Ruby. Beyond the awkward message of "suicide is good, actually!" and the fact they used suicide-ish for shock value and nothing else, I'm mad that it is so underwhelming how her mental health being this poor ended up being... so unimpactful.
JWBY's reaction to it was so lukewarm, Ruby's motivation to be herself was so empty, and ultimately I feel like none of them has actually learned anything. I don't get the impression that Ruby has learned that she should open up to her friends more, or that her friends learned to be careful about everyone's mental health while they progress through this difficult journey.
Having your mental health hit this low is such a big deal and they made it so superficial.
Keep in mind the phrase "anime homework" opening the door for BS resurrections at the drop of a hat just cuz the ensuing fight might look cool, and that's what happened here. If anything, I think Jaune should've been considered to be killed off, but Miles must've intervened to avoid getting pissed off about the idea. And it shows.
Well they had to have Ruby kill herself as she did the one sin that this show now deems inexcusable doubting the actions of team RWBY.
Everyone else learned their lesson of not changing... or learning anything... or even reflecting on their actions. Heck Weiss's smoke bit was more concerned about her own name and fame rather than the death of her entire kingdom, home, family, and probably fortune. No money since the industry and bank accounts were in Atlas.
Ruby had started to reflect on how they messed up in Atlas and lots of people DIED you know... stopped living. Yet she had to get her but kicked by people from her past and drink the magic death tea to just realize... she was an idiot for wanting to change and decided that her friends were right as she learned that being herself is great and self reflection is for idiots!
Oh same the real world suicidal implications anger me sm (I'm struggling too lmao)
I deal with depression and tough mental state. So I can easily reflect on your feels. Be well soon. 🤗
Reminder that Rooster Teeth has told this dumb message of "Suicide is good, actually!" not once, but twice through Gen:Lock Season 2 and RWBY Volume 9.
The fact that we didn't get the romance between Weiss and Roman's ghost is a crime
Yeah like cmon we've been waiting forever
We could at least have had Roman and Weiss-disguised Neo snuggled up to each other like he does with regular Neo a couple of times. Come on RT, you claim to listen to the fans. This would have been an easy slam-dunk wink to the camera
I would at least be happy if Weiss at least paid Roman her respects, not outright shipping her with him.
It got shelved so we could make room for Weiss X Jaune. Of course we all know what Jaune was doing with the Paperpleasers, each night. Time takes it's toll on Jaune. He named them after everybody. Why do you think they wanted to die?
We should be glad that _WBY returned to fullsize before Jaune found them. They had already collected the jars he would place them in.
What
Can you believe Jaune's character arc in this volume is resolved with "Maybe I was an asshole for trying to save people, I should just let them kill themselves because they'll be better that way"
Because I can't
Simply baffling.
I mean I get it's "let people grow" or smth but I love Jaune for protecting those thingies and ill never not support it.
I was so disappointed that they barely did anything with Jaune's arc there was so much potental but with modern day rt im not suprised look what happend to red vs blue
That's also part of why I felt like Jaune snapping at Ruby was very much deserved. Bro suffered for 30 years, alone, in a foreign fantasy land, not being able to come to terms with the fact that he's to weak to protect his people and projecting onto the paper guys because he finally has some sort of purpose there. Meanwhile Ruby is just complaining about being the leader, even though it was never consistantly relevant in the show and every time the main characters had to call the shots, their decisions made me mad af
I hate that guy.
I didn't watch Vol 9. Just heard about it. But I just paused at Part 9. Critter, you asked and I got you. To play with Team RWBY spun into Alice in Wonderland? Easy.
June and Neo are perfect, no change.
Blake is their Cheshire. With her love for reading, it could easily shift to her constantly comparing her stories to the world. Have that slowly consume her until she sounds like she's spouting nonsense to her team but she's just getting more and more soaked into the world's culture. Add a wink by having Jinxy calling her "Curious" or just taken bake by her enthusiasm compared to the others by joking, "Well aren't you a curious cat" that she could be slightly embarrassed by. Boom.
Ruby, if keeping to her arc, can be an inverted the Red Queen. Her slow drip of depression can be driven home by the citizens always asking about where they're from. At first, Ruby could be volunteering to talk about her friends and family back home. But the more stories she shares the more bad moments she talks about. She gets quieter and quieter. But the citizens love her raw emotions and keep asking for more. She gets praised as the Queen of Stories and by the halfway point, she no longer wants to do it. But people keep going to her. It'll stack her depression, guilt, and negative feelings until she pops. Now he stories being about her wanting to go home start to sound like stories of having no place to call home. The rest of the team can realize how much of a toll it's taken but them "suddenly caring now that they have something they love in arms reach" could be what makes her snap, leave, and be giving a throne by the citizens as their Queen of Stories who just has to meet the "fancy tea maker" they met recently. Boom.
Weiss is a bit tough but I'd go for the March Hare or the Mock Turtle. Both being characters that frustrate Alice, could do that roll for Ruby. With Weiss bouncing between trying to be the positive reinforcement for Ruby, the look on the bright side person for Yang, the person trying to keep Blake from losing herself, and the bacon of hope for Jaun. But always falling short since she also tries to keep herself focused on finding a way home. Making Ruby feel like she's just playing a part and being insincere. Boom.
Yang is a bit harder. She could be the Frog-footman from the books. Constantly in denial of where they are. Telling everyone either they are all dreaming or she's dreaming but refuses to believe this place exists or that she died not being to save her only sister/best friends. Or an inverse of the Caterpillar, where she's harping on what happened after she fell but never getting answers until near the end. Ruby won't tell her because she thinks Yang will blame and hate her just as Ruby is doing to herself. Weiss promising to tell her but constantly getting sidetracked trying to help someone else. Blake being too into the world and being very cryptic in her answers to not upset Yang. And Jaun straight just not ignoring her demands for the truth. Boom.
All Wonderland themed, drives more drama and intensity, gives plenty of room to play with dynamics of characters interacting with other characters and the world itself.
How's that sound?
@Dragiare I'd love to read this
Wait. What part does Neo play in this? Im not familiar with Alice in wonderland so who is she supposed to mimic?
@matijasostojic4288 Neo would be the Hatter, still. Being a symbol of nonsense pretending to be common sense. If I could change her, I would make her a bit more literal in being a Mad Hatter over being metaphorical like in the book or just surface like in the show. Neo's entrance could be the same with her changing forms and her evolution. What I would change would be how she presents herself. The citizens would find a strange shop that exchanges stories and information for the best teas in the land. Ran by a "fancy tea maker" that we'd hear about during our first meeting with Jinxy. Jinxy inviting others to join him at the hourly tea party. But we wouldn't see it or the tea maker until Ruby has her outburst. As she runs away and assumes the throne of the Queen of Stories, the citizens rave about her having the best tea. She agrees to have a personal tea party to celebrate. A citizen goes to the large pink mansion on the edge of the bridge leading into the darkness island. We see the citizen gleefully talking to someone. We see the skipping of a young girl to a table with the slightly visible portraits in the background. The girl, whom we only saw the feet of at this point, swings back and forth as if whispering to someone. The camera shows the bottom of a male face that stops drinking tea. He smiles. Cut to black, we hear Roman's voice "Red."
Then we'd continue as the Volume did but under the impression of the Red Queen of Stories coming to have a private tea party. Only to be confronted by Roman and his army of the past version of Neo that turn into her dead friends and family around her. Everything can play out as it did in the Volume for that section. Only other change, we'll see her pretending to be sane through Roman throughout the story with hints of losing her mind but after the Cat is forced out she actually snaps. Losing her mind and dancing wildly into the Ever After. Either Jaun or Ruby could feel bad for her and gesture to want to help only to be stopped by everyone being Happy that Ruby has comeback with a new since of confidence. And possibly a small cosmetic challenge to show she's grown enough to show her new outlook without becoming a completely different person.
THIS IS AMAZNG
Ive been scrolling for awhile now looking for a comment like this since critter asked in the video and you definitely delivered!!
It feels like the writers just want Jaune to be the main character so fucking badly, so they forcefully cram him into every single story in the dumbest way possible, he might as well be the leading protagonist of this show given how much the show wants you to care about him over everyone else.
Exactly he feels like the main character for a different show.
@@thomasraines1396 I would say more like secondary Main Character... he gets shoved in a lot of things and made to suffer before getting shoved off to the side.
You are allowed to insult Jaune. You will be hunted down and turned into a villain so that team RWBY can murder you if you dare insult team RWBY. It is why Jaune seems to get more character development... he is allowed to be wrong.
An entire season made to make them reflect... and they completely brush off having doomed an entire kingdom and failed to save anyone even mocking Ironwood by calling him genocidal because the man was foolish enough to not follow their every word. Yet they completely call out Jaune for having issues about being trapped in that realm for goodness knows how many years alone trapped with his own failures.
Yet they do not get angry at Ruby or call anyone on their team out for any of their problems... oh yes Ruby did call them out, but she gets beaten down by Neo and murdered before coming back and realizing that doubting Team RWBY was stupid and she was just fine for never doubting herself or her actions!
Jaune got rewarded by getting hit by a reset button so I will be surprised if he can even do the Aura sword or even remember how to fight as well as his rusted version instead of being downgraded back to his Season 8 version
@@qwefg3 they also made out Jaune’s want to save people was him wanting to feel “the rush” I think. It was so stupid.
@@thomasraines1396 It's so contradictory when his previous actions have said otherwise. Honestly, he might as well truly be RWBY's punching bag.
@@jdsevz he’s the Yamcha of RWBY.
"And the daughter of a villain" BOO HOO HES DEAD NO ONE CARES! I lost it Critter 😂 thank you
I was dying too she had me snickering so hard I woke my mom up 😂😂😂
I hate to be that guy, but does Weiss know that Ironwood merc'd Jacques? Team RWBY was on the bridge when that happened, and Winter was a bit too busy to tell her
That whole thing with Alex and her story, I just realized something. Couldn't that same exact thing apply to what Team RWBY and the others did to Atlas? They entered a new kingdom, knowing very little (except Weiss) about it's customs, started essentially a war, and ruined everything more or less.
Another thing in regards to what you were saying in regards to Yang's attitude, is it just me or is she becoming more and more like Raven?
It could yeah.
The same could be said about Atlas itself. Atlas believed to be above everyone else, and was willing to destroy thousands of innocent lives in Mantle to preserve themselves. Don't pretend like Atlas literally didn't create multiple villains in the series (Adam/Cinder/Watts/Jacques).
@@Ammy-q4w No the same can't be said about Atlas itself. Atlas didn't enter a new Kingdom knowing nothing of the culture and start a war. If they did then you would have said that beat for beat not describe a totally different scenario Atlas simply prioritised saving the majority which happened to be their own. That not the same thing. When did the commenter pretend like Atlas didn't create any villains?
. . . Oh shit your right... You think the writers would of realized that...
Like Mother... like Daughter. If only Yang realized this...
@@georgemeyers7172 Self-awareness isn't her strong suit.
It feels like Barb KNOWS Yang is being written terribly and is having trouble motivating herself to care about the terrible lines she's been given as a result.
Now that Bumblebee is canon, what's left for Blake and Yangs character development? Pretty much nothing, they could be written out of the show after this and nothing would change.
@@StoogesFanthey could but they won’t.
@@StoogesFan
Agreed. But then the toxic bees wouldn't get to see them, and would cause a havoc on Twitter.
@@KritoSkywakerhonestly they should just be renamed Wasps because of how angry and toxic they are.
@@Jane-ow7sr
Pretty much. The level of insanity is not easily predictable. Especially with the Wasps. And trust me...I met some of the worst...and one also told me to "Cry and cope harder", then called me a dumbass. I could fight back with those words, but I would stoop down to their level.
They could’ve had an actual scene where the Yang and Blake organically talk about their feelings…but having the WORLD ITSELF LOCK THEM INTO A ROOM AND ESSENTIALLY SAY “you’re not getting out until you kiss.” is ASININE. This is what the geniuses of rooster teeth could come up with? Unbelievable
I would applaud them if they had the characters take a step back and realize that getting together right now (with all that’s going on, how them being so enamored with each other is unhealthy) is a terrible idea. But no the stupid world fuckery nonsense is played 100% straight.
You know what's worst? That many of the shippers claimed, that Bumblebee was always meant to happen. That claim makes 0 sense and makes my head spin, thinking about how many people ate it all up. 🥺
i hate how bad that scene was... RT don't writes stories, they write plot points they want to achieve, and write any bullshit to achieve the plot points when then need some cliffhanger or climax to boost subscribers... they put yang and blake flirting on hold for whole seasons, and then do the whole "and they're a couple a now" with that cringe bullshit... everytime anything "huge" happens, look around and you probably see that a lot of characters gone way of their personalities, or that everything is totally shove down the throats of the viewers, because things happen for no reason
Sounds hot
they unironically got banished to the “NOW KISS” dimension who okayed thissss 😭😭
It’s weird how we are about to be 10 volumes in and we still aren’t sure how Salem could be defeated.
I mean they had the chance to ask the blacksmith for a weapon to kill her.
There some commenter Offered idea that summer come to wonderland to get weapon that can kill salem.
@@greyfaceofaxethat would be pointless now considering the fact they already left the ever after
I think they're trying to copy Avatar, to some degree.
Mostly just the whole "No pressure, but the whole world's at stake." vibe.
I have a feeling that they are gonna find a way to contain Salem rather than kill her. After all, the best way to stop someone unkillable is put them somewhere they can’t do any damamge. (And often times this ends up being a very solitary and unreachable place, so that eternal loneliness could definitely be a fate worse than death)
Those people should probably actually watch the show then, we've known how to defeat Salem since volume 6.
It is ironic that fanfic writers are able to make better RWBY stories than Rooster Teeth who fumbled it up left and right.
Cause fanfic writers love the work even more than the creators.
Hell some are actual writers and have years of experience compared to the writers of RT.
The Death Korps of RWBY is a great example of a rwby fanfic that works really well while also bringing warhammer 40k into the mix
Its not that crazy, lots of great writers got into writing through fanfiction
Given how the rooster environment seemed toxic ad stifling and not great, yeh fanfic come from passion and a toxic abusiv nvironment, is the best way to kill th passion.
Ok but then you have to look at the ones where it’s (insert genre/character type) male reader X RWBY harem and they’re all complete dogshit
If there's one thing that annoys me about this volume is that it did very little to advance the main plot. Seriously, pretty much all the important things that happened in this volume could have been done in Remnant it's just wasting valuable time.
if the cat is indeed CURSED with curiosity, him abandoning the team to chase butterflies and sniff flowers could be part of that curse exerting itself over him. He's powerless to his curse, and it lures him away from what he wants: that being team RWBY.
The Cat was actually a more tragic character then Neo could ever hope to be, which is why it sucks that she gets a little redemption while they just get mauled.
@@thomasraines1396 Iron Wood - Tormented about having to fight an immortal with no clear ways of killing her goes with a plan to keep the relic away from Salem with a floating city... get mocked and left for dead. Even has Team RWBY say he was a genocidal lunatic.
Neo - Literally wants to murder Ruby because she didn't think that Cinder killed Torchwick, lied to her, or even tried killing her at the end... Gets to have Ruby off herself and even helped murder all of Atlas... but she is a girl so she gets magic tree ascension.
Cat - Literally tormented, betrayed, and wants to get out of this realm! There was even theories about them having to bring the cat because Salem having a damaged heart (Immortal until issues are fixed) so they would be forced to use the cat to possess Salem... which is technically better than letting an immortal run free commanding Grim to kill all humanity so she can get her fancy relics.
Nope he has to die to magic Semblance of monster that totally kills you instead of getting a magical revival due over like every other fairytale person there when they get murdered!
Writers of RWBY are on point in making annoying decisions!
@@thomasraines1396If the cat was a woman, it would have had a redemption arc.
Just like Ilia, who happens to be like Adam but a girl, Emerald, who's now part of the main cast even if Hazel redeemed himself too, but died. Neo, who survived in Vol 3 and Roman just died even when he was just like Neo, and now has a kind of redemption... heck, even the AceOps!! Clover and Vine died, they're men, the only one who survived was Marrow, and the girls survived too...
Lionheart, Ironwood, Jacques and Watts? Dead. If you're a neutral or antagonistic character here, you die, but if you're a woman, you have redemption or live!!! The only exceptions are the shock value deaths like Sienna Khan (leader of the White Fang), Pyhrra and Penny.
@thomasraines1396 neo lost her boyfriend daddy (idk what the relationship is) who died teaming up with a pyromaniac psychopath. And the cat was abandoned by its creators, left in the world to act as a therapist for everyone and was left with no help, then when presented with a chance to learn more it was denied by Alyx driving the cat mad with the curiosity with what lies beyond the ever after
But no, Neo can be redeemed after torturing Ruby physically and psychologically until she drank her tea and the Cat can be ripped apart limb from limb
@@kamiladiaz1465 Illia is worse if you take into account the Blake character short. Also it’s strange Harriet gets to walk away when she wanted to nuke Mantle… because reasons.
Watching this comment section makes me feel happy. A lot of people joined here. People, who liked this Volume, but had disagreements here. People, who addresses their own disappointments and reflecting on that. BB shippers, who are not attacking people for disagreeing with the ship. A lot of people with different opinions.
Well done, Critter. 👏🏻
I couldn't agree more. I love this Volume and I have my gripes about its flaws, too. I perfectly understand why it turned out the way it did. I don't mind BB at all and if people don't like it or how it was handled that's perfectly understandable and I won't hold it against them. Sure, V9 ain't perfect but it's a step up from V8 by a long shot and I think the writers did and tackled the character arcs, world building and the serious topics (like pseudo-suicide) the best way they could considering production began a year after and when COVID-19 was still going on and had most of it had to be done from the safety of their homes. Delays, rewrites, time constraints and budget problems made V9 a production nightmare to the point it almost never happened.
I personally never figured Summer's weapon was *actually* in the ever after. Every time we see it Ruby is in an ethereal headspace, she saw it because it was symbolic for her. Maybe I'm wrong who knows. Otherwise very very good breakdown of the volume
Well, Penny's sword did change into Alyx's knife in her hands, so there is some headspace/ reality warping.
Edit:
I just remembered that we didn't see Summer's weapon when Ruby broke the case, so it is very likely it was just a reflection from Ruby's memories.
My personal theory is also where Summer disappeared to on her last mission; she went to the Ever After (however Alyx and Lewis got there), to find the Blacksmith, in order to craft a weapon that could kill Salem.
She got the weapon, leaving hers behind in the process, and tried (but failed) to kill Salem (the how and where of the weapon being revealed in a later season)
@@antondevonlhgood writing.
I can bet that authors will forget about it or will make it dumber.
The Blacksmith is essentially a god and her realm is like an afterlife where she helps individuals reincarnate. Summer might not have literally been in the Ever After, but she ended up appearing before the Blacksmith like everyone else when she died, hence her weapon being there. Keep in mind Penny's weapon was there too, even though she died in Remnant.
The writers are so narcissistic that they made it so that Ruby thinks she failed because she wasn't "good enough" rather than her being wrong and then ended the season with the reveal that everything went perfectly fine, no consequences whatsoever
So, you want a character to die? Because that's what I think you are saying. Atlas was destroyed, which was the consequence. They failed, so now they are have to use all they've got left to work with Remnant against Salem in Volume10.
@@Ammy-q4w 1- Your comment doesn't make any sense; 2- Why are you even posting here? It's obvious you're a RWBY/BLMB fanatic who 's still in denial about the show turning into trash, and this is clearly a post where The Judgmental Critter openly criticizes it. What did you expect to find here?
@@Ammy-q4wthe issue wasn't their failure. The issue was the choices they made that brought them to that failure. Ruby's main focus this volume is her failure but not the choices she made so when we come to the end of the volume and she decides she's good enough in regards to her failures, we can all agree that yeah she is, she doesn't need to be super strong or super smart, she doesn't always need to win or have the best attiude. she can be human.
but since the issue of her actual choices are never once brought up, we are forced to assume the same things will keep happening. She will keep lying to people like she lied to ironwood because we have been given no indication she factors that into her failure at all.
She and her team will continue with the hypocrisy because we haven't seen them aknowledge that at all. She never lamented her lack of action so we will inevitably see more time wasted sipping tea.
That's the problem. That's why ascension was such a good and bad concept. Ruby Rose NEEDED to change. She needed to grow. She could not remain the person she was because the person she was was one of the primary causes of the destruction of 1 of the 4 human kingdoms. She was absolutely not just fine the way she was. Ascension offered a way to expedite that growth by simply taking ruby and spitting out someone new. While this was needed as again, ruby cannot stay as she is, she is also the main character and the show is named after her so she can't be taken out like this much less in a manner that so closely mirrors suicide.
The chatacter needed to grow but they wrote themselves a method they couldn't actually use.
Ruby failed not because she wasn't good enough. She failed because she's stupidly delusional into thinking that she and her friends are the good guys, and that if you disagree YOU are the bad guy. They disagree with Ironwood's plan while Yang and Blake trusts Robyn who is less trustworthy and trusts her anyway
I really wanted her to have moment like Captain Walker from “Spec Ops: The Line”.
The thing with Neo for me is, I've never wanted Neo to be a good guy. I've never wanted her to be redeemed or switch sides or have a change of heart. I like Neo's design specifically because she's so small and presents herself as being so cute, only to then flip the switch reveal her real sadistic self. The contrast of how Neo looks and who she is was really cool to me. The fact that she's 100% down to torture Ruby over the death of the only person she actually cared about seemed like a something the little sadist would absolutely do. And I do agree that it's a copout to have her get her pseudo-redemption. She should have gone after Cinder. The idea of having Neo as this chaotic third party that simultaneously get in the way of both the "heroes' (and I use that term very loosely) and the villains, screwing over both sides, and eventually putting Cinder in a position to either *be* killed by team RWBY or kill her herself, could have been interesting. Hell they could have gone all the way and have her get killed flipping Cinder the biggest middle finger she could muster in the process as she gets Salem to kill her over another grand fuck-up.
I really admire you, you could write all my thoughts so cool! I would very like the return of Neo in the next volume, although I understand that it is almost impossible...
I thought that's how she was going to go, honestly. That she realized that she was never going to beat Cinder in a head on fight once she realized she was a Maiden, and so her alliance with her was always just a way for her to maneuver into the best position to stab Cinder in the back. And killing Ruby would be a bonus, but not her main goal. Like, if she honestly hated Ruby moreso than Cinder, why in the world did she try to go after Cinder first?
But then I saw the shocked expression on her face when Cinder kicked her off, and I realized, once again, that CRWBY is hilariously incompetent when it comes to writing.
Well people do change. Look at Rudy from Invincible where he got stuck at the planet called Flaxan for thousands of years.
Yes I know it’s off topic but hope you get my point. Sorry if it sounded harsh.
One of the biggest eyebrow raising moments for me in this season was Yang, of all people, criticizing Alyx as a bad person for lying and cheating
*Yang,* the character that told no one about her mom being a new Maiden, complicit in Ruby lying towards Ironwood and leaked secrets to Robyn behind everyone's backs
I just go with the fact they’re all delusional, it makes things easier.
As usual, Yang's opinion of lying depends entirely on whether or not it's her or someone else doing the lying. Which could actually make for an interesting character trait - and potential character arc - if the writers didn't somehow seem to be wholly oblivious to the fact that she's doing it.
@@VenathTehN3RD that would be really nice.
Yang is the biggest hypocrite in this show and bugs me how her hypocrisy is never called out or acknowledged she lies about literally everything
Yang lacks self-awareness and that's because RT lack self-awareness.
I find it so weird that both RWBY and GenLock both have finales where suicide plays a pivotal role - in GL season 2, they view suicide as an objectively good thing that turns you into digital gods (they get eaten by nanites, so they are effectively immortal and can be wherever they want, like in the online game in season 1) - idk, I just find it so weird that both shows explore the same specific theme
Aren’t they called “ascension” in both as well?
Especially when said suicide amounts to nothing except appealing to bleeding hearts who don't know shit about the concept.
Sure, Dom felt horrible shooting his wife Maria in Gears 2 cuz she didn't look pretty enough, but at least he tried NOT to make it about himself, hence crashing into the gas station with a fuel truck. Although for such a pivotal scene, the rest of the game doesn't really address it as much beyond a few lines here and there.
"That's from Dom, and everyone else you killed, you bitch." Is the one that comes to mind, but I feel like Marcus' words can be confusing if you actually think "Wait, Myrrah killed Dom?", as opposed to Dom choosing to kill himself to keep everyone else safe.
Words have meaning, and RWBY doesn't have a lot of that, unfortunately.
given the nightmarish working issues of Rooster Teeth its definitely a cry for help
really is alarming and shows just a cynical outlook
It’s creepy. Suicide is not a good thing and they are literally telling everyone that it’s okay. Someone at RT is suffering suicidal tendencies and wants to share with everyone else.
What happened to Cammie in Gen:Lock was a mercy compared to what could have happened to Ruby.
If Ruby had undergone Ascension, she would've gotten a new body but with her memories and identity erased. What's the point of becoming something better, if I'm not myself to enjoy it? I'd rather be dead. At least Cammie was still herself when she did. WBY will recognize Ruby but she won't recognize them. If anything, Ascension is a lobotomy.
You know what could have helped? Finding some cool macguffin that would later be crucial in the defeat of Salem that can be only found in that realm
Before watching V9, I saw a comment of someone saying that the ever after was the vault for the beacon relic and I think that could’ve been a cool way to advance the actual plot
As someone who was struggling with my own mental health, ascension looked so much like suicide to me it made me feel sick, it was like a punch to the gut. Not only did the main character try to kill herself, but the paper people try killing themselves everyday in multiple ways & it was treated like a joke, then a good thing. RT needs to review their messaging & do what other studios do, talk to experts & people who experience these things to see how to properly show them. Not just with mental health, but the loss of an arm or family. I'm also a girl with a flat chest, I'm often mistaken for a boy because of it, I loved the fact that Weiss had a flat chest it felt like I was seen, only for it to suddenly be inflated & given the insulting excuse that it was a "sign of maturity" it was a slap to the face, WTF, don't lie it was because you think big tits are sexy.
I loved old Weiss' design because she looked like a petite woman. Slender, delicate limbs who made her look like a doll, the focus on legs because she's like a ballerina and the flat chest made her pop up compared to the other girls.
It was so sad the boob filler they did to her...
exactly, breast size is no sign of maturity??? i had double ds by the time i was 13 and i was in no way mature lmao
thank you for stating this. i used to be suicidal in my teens, and everything about ascension said suicide. what pisses me off is the reaction of the rest of the cast in the tea drinking scene. I have had long conversations with someone who used to be a cop in a small county. he has some stories about deaths and suicides. TW: graphic descriptions after this. He has told me stories of going to the scene of a suicide where the man used a shotgun and he found the wife scooping brain matter back in to the remnants of the skull. Dad's who grab a single item and go to a secluded corner and mumble something to themselves as they cry over their favorite memory of them. every argument for "shock" being their lack of reaction pisses me off. shock doesn't mean everyone freezes in the moment. shock means they stop behaving rationally. yang should have had some external reaction other than "defending" blake from the scene. they should have reacted to seeing her pick up the tea, maybe have them blame themselves for what happened, maybe have yang run over and punch into the ground in a desperate attempt to pull Ruby back, maybe have yang go into a blind rage and shout things she doesn't mean or blame neo. theres so many things they could have done but instead yang goes wide eyed and just stares.
1:05:09 What are you TALKING about, Judgemental Critter?! OF course the Faunus have a culture! Don't you remember that EXPRESSLY impactful scene of them having SHOPS, but in KNEE HIGH WATER?! How can one even claim the Faunus as a people are underdeveloped or have no Faunus-specific cultural relevance? Shops in the pond!
Putting a big fat sarcasm here just in case.
I would have been SO on board with the smoke scene if Blake, Yang and Weiss are talking to their past selves and all of them are like "dude, these are old issues, we literally already worked them out" and the smoke versions were actually dumbfounded because the doubts that the world thought they would be worried about aren't actually issues for them anymore, but then it turns to Ruby and she's ACTUALLY struggling and this is where everything really starts to focus in on her instead. Hell Blake and Yang could have even talked to their smoke selves about their relationship but realized that talking to themselves doesnt help and that pushes them to look to each other to figure out their relationship instead.
It's funny how Fanfic writers are capable of putting in more thought and planning into the plots better than the main show
I just need to say, you have no idea how much those songs you during the transition slides got me. A little chuckle escaped me each time lmao
My favorite was Weiss! :D
Thoughts on the intro and outro songs?
@@thejudgmentalcritter6584 critter after your rant about rwby v-9 you need a nice batch of weed because you definitely need some after what you went through watching that
@@thejudgmentalcritter6584the confrontation between Jaune and Ruby is the definition of "Hurt people hurt people"
As a Chinese-American, the way I interpreted Blake's Smoke Cloud Scene was alluding to identity struggles that we continually wrestle with. When the smoke Blake suggests becoming a cat or becoming a human to live a simpler life, that goes along with the thought that many Asian-Americans feel consistently. Instead of being completely Chinese or being completely American, we are caught in between. Although we may eat authentic food and speak our mother tongue, we still grow up in the West, being educated to view the world through a Western lens and speaking English. I think that when smoke Blake referenced "my culture," that's when it made it obvious to me. While not obvious at first, Asian-Americans have found a way to blend their ethnic heritage culture with American culture into something unique. While I like seeing media that addresses this "in-between" phenomenon, it has NEVER been a part of Blake's character arc. Just wanted to offer a different interpretation to the scene, even though I don't like the scene.
I'm so frustrated that the writers continue to not understand just how much they messed up Ironwood's character and continue to demonize him. This volume could've been the perfect opportunity for the characters to genuinely reflect on what happened in Atlas and how they could've actually dealt with him much better than they did, but no. All we got was them further crapping on him for no reason. And I can only imagine what they'll say about him in Volume 10.
@druidofscosglen2868 Exactly. Team RWBY’s “stay and fight” plan was a terrible idea because their priority should have been protecting as many people as possible as well as the relics. They should’ve known that letting her attack would only lead to more destruction and bloodshed. What they should’ve done is try to come up with a plan to deal with the remaining Mantle citizens instead of insisting they leave everyone at risk.
Rather strangely the show has the mindset of “death before dishonor” and if you leave a fight (for any reason) you’re a gutless pussy.
As someone who has been on both sides of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, the way they portrayed ascension in this volume genuinely made me feel sick.
I've never attempted suicide, but I have gotten to the point where I was resting a knife against my wrist, and another when I had to call Samaritans to stop myself from attempting. I'm also nearly a year clean of my worst ever period of self-harm with the scars to bear from it.
Plus, someone very close to me attempted suicide 22 times (I wish I was exaggerating) and a lot of those times I had to talk them down after they call me in the early hours of the morning, about to attempt it. I spent three years not being able to fall
Unfortunately, I am very well versed in this topic.
And I will admit I was honestly impressed with Rooster Teeth in regards to how real the "I don't want to be me" scene felt. Their writing in regards to mental health and disability has honestly been horrendous from Ironwood's PTSD, to Qrow's alcoholism going from haha funny joke to _you're a burden on us_ to recovering over night, to the stupid "Penny's a real girl now" thing, etc. While watching volume 9, I was very cautious as it geared up to the climax, but I was pleasantly surprised, and then they uh... _burnt all their good writing to the ground with a 13 Reasons Why themed Molotov Cocktail._
For one, they should have had a trigger warning on that episode; it's so irresponsible to not do that. If you're dealing with themes of suicide, put a goddamn trigger warning on your episode.
And two, the "actually, ascension is a good thing" hit me like a truck. I knew logically they weren't trying to say that suicide is a good thing and the right choice to make, but when you have a character metaphorically attempt suicide and come out of it "better" and "stronger", that's what you've said. _And that's a very dangerous message to send to young viewers._
Ruby also gets to choose to live after the attempt which again, just a big no when you're portraying suicide on screen, even allegorically. Unless it was meant to be a failed suicide attempt which is not how it came across, you really should not play into the idea that after a suicide attempt, there's an after. 13RW made it out that Hannah got to get revenge after and RWBY went with the idea of a backspace.
Three, even if they took out the suicide allegory, but kept stuff like the Paper Pleasers becoming Genial Gems, I'd still have problems with it. At times, ascension very much played into the "trauma makes you better" idea and that noble suffering trope. And as someone who has gone through quite a lot of trauma, I genuinely find that trope offensive.
At no point was my trauma noble or my suffering needed. For a lot of it, I was a child who didn't need to learn resilience as young as I did. And the trauma itself did not make me stronger; it made me a broken person whose strength was not applicable to day-to-day life.
Today, I would say that I'm a very strong person and I'm proud of that strength, but my strength came from having people there to put me back together again. I wouldn't be half as strong as I am if I didn't have an amazing mom who was always there to catch me if I stumbled, and I wouldn't feel pride in my strength if I didn't have a brother who told me I was the strongest person he knew and has my name tattooed across his heart.
And Rooster Teeth could have easily portrayed the actual way that trauma can make you stronger, i.e. community support and recovery. There's so much nonsense in the earlier episodes that could be cut to make room for it, or they could just leave that theme alone.
How they wrote ascension really hinders what could have been one of the better written volumes of RWBY, but imo, it was that which made the ending feel so hollow. Ruby's entire arc was about her cracking under the pressure of having to always be there for everyone else, and it ends with her attempting suicide, talking to some random lady and then choosing to live as Ruby Rose. And uh, as someone who has been suicidal, it's really not that easy, and this is a very cheap ending and I feel nothing.
There should have been something to wrap up the whole thing around JWBY treating Ruby so awfully and not noticing her suffering, because it ends with them essentially saying "we'll always follow Ruby because she's always right" which is uh, it's a tad bit antithetical to the whole plot.
It's just a disappointing ending that almost ruins the whole volume.
Like basic improvements just off the top of my head:
-JWBY realise what Ruby and finding a way to stop it somehow or get into the space where Ruby is with the blacksmith to see what the blacksmith showed Ruby
-Playing with the idea of Summer's secret mission and how Team STRQ became fractured and stopped supporting each other
-With the idea above, have both Ruby and Yang witness it and play with how they'd react
-Have Blake retell the story Yang told her in V2 about Qrow having to save them when Yang took Ruby along to find Raven as a lead in to an apology for relying on Ruby and not supporting her
-Have Alyx and her brother's ending be them working together to escape because you can't escape Everafter alone
_Just anything that's actually related to Ruby's character arc._
Damn, i felt a bit of a cold reading that. So glad you were able to overcome your mental difficulties and that you have wonderful family members to help you with that. Thoughtfull analysis too, this Volume is the biggest missed potential in the whole series, it could have been so much more impactfull, heavy hitting, but inspiring too
@@glibchubik4090 thank you
Holy fridge... I felt the chills on my spine. I'm so sorry about this. I hope you doing better now.
And on the writing, well... After BB became canon, I was still curious about, how the writers gonna try to fix or mess it all up. And HOLY MOLLY... I'm sure V9 Chapter 8 has opened a lot of scars and offended a huge amount of people... RT... This is not the way, how you write a show... 😔 But I guess from V6, the writers never have learned any lessons... Not even when the viewership were dropping after V5.
i also had suicidal thoughts (albeit largely from unmedicated/untreated anxiety) and if i saw this godforsaken show being like ACTUALLY SUICIDE IS GOOD FOR YOU it would not have helped me lmao. biggest fumble of discussing suicide since 13 reasons why imo
@@iwakeupandboomimarat
I'm sorry about that. I hope you will be okay. 🤗
I agree with a lot of what you said. However, I don't think Ruby's depression arc should have been completely resolved at the end, at least not the way they did it. She's basically given another pep talk by a third-party with no input from her friends, and since her depression is now gone, it's unlikely they'll ever touch on what pushed her to ascend herself. I actually thought they were doing a good job with the arc, but they fumbled it at the last episode.
It really bothers me how they basically made Ruby's friends stupid for the sake of plot, depicting them as too blind and inconsiderate to notice Ruby's suffering, especially Yang, who just the previous season, tried to cheer Ruby up after her plan for Amity Tower didn't work the way she'd hoped. You'd expect her to be even more attentive towards her sister's mental state after learning Penny died again, they lost the relics, and Atlas was destroyed. Instead, she continues to be more focused on her new girlfriend's well-being than her own sister, to the point where while Ruby has her outburst, Yang prioritizes Blake's safety, since Blake has basically been reduced to a damsel-in-distress who can't stand up for herself anymore, while she glares at Ruby with contempt. Sister-of-the-year, everyone.
Even after that, Yang somehow still has no idea why Ruby was so upset, despite everything, and Weiss has to tell them how they've put Ruby on a pedestal, causing her to put pressure on herself, and Yang still tries to deflect blame saying she never asked her to be perfect, despite the fact that she straight-up questioned Ruby's leadership for at the beginning of Volume 8. Yet, the end of this volume acts like this conversation didn't happen, since once Ruby's back and they've defeated the Cat, they're back to saying how great Ruby is and putting her on a pedestal, indicating they've learned nothing about how their words affect her. They never even apologize to her about how they didn't notice her emotional turmoil sooner and try reaching out to her more.
Overall, this season felt like a bunch of half-baked ideas they didn't put any real thought into, making any message they tried to give feel like a jumbled mess. You really get the idea the writers see the show completely different from how they actually make it.
I will say my favorite episodes of the season were 7 and 8.
The ending had to quickly wrap everything up in order to let the blacksmith give exposition and set up the next volume rather than take the time to let the characters process or talk about the things that heppened or how it effected them. it was dissapointing to see that they just set all the characters back to the way before the season had begin. This is the kind of thing that leads people to wonder if the volume was just filler or not..
The cat seems like the least likely character to hate exposition
I think what happened with the mess of Acension and the moral lesson, paired with how Penny died in Volume 8 really gives the "suicide is good" impression, but I think I know what happened. The sudden shift after Ruby acends of positivity and suddenly NOW showing that its a good thing, probably came from people inside saying "Hey why is Ruby killing herself the answer?"
So they were probably like "oh shit, we need to make this seem like a good thing!" Because the story they wrote was already way too deep into this, so they added that to make it seem good instead of changing the text to better convey the idea.
Basically, all I hear is "Cuz we're idiots?" In the writer's room, lmao.
How do they keep doing this I think someone everyone on the writing team needs therapy
one of the weirdest things to me was that the opening and other things makes it seems like we are going to meet alex at some point but we never do
Or try to follow Alyx's footsteps to get to the tree (that they never tell us about), which they quickly abandon half way through
@@Appletank8 bro I forgot about the tree completely lol
You know what's the only thing i think this volume did Well and it actually made the volume worse. I don't even know if it was fully intentional.
Ever since i saw the opening. I had this creeping sense of... Fear or danger from Alex. Like the way they made the op made it seem like she was gonna steal away the team from ruby or be an actual threat. Like she was gonna be some big bad or maybe even existential threat to ruby but no. She was just selfish and mean in the past and then she wanted to be good. Then she died. And that was it.
I feel like the one good thing that could come out of Jaune being much older than he appears is that it could potentially help him better understand Ozpin on some level and even aid in him, and by extension others, begin to finally forgive the old wizard.
Exactly! His whole plot line with the Paper Pleasers is a direct mirror of Oz's struggles with humanity and Oz's struggle to control an unstable situation.
I hate that guy
1:04:51 damn just straight up destroyed her instantly...who needs fudgemental bitter anyways
its so funny going to the rwby subreddit and seeing people inquire about plotholes, not even hating on the show, and people will either say they are a negative hater or say that it probably happened or was resolved off screen. The fact that they have to justify the terrible writing of their favorite show is by saying that something probably happened off screen or that some characters talked about things off screen is insane
It’s crazy.
I agree with most of your thoughts, especially with what you say about Yang. Yang is my favorite character, or used to be when she actually had character. I think its fine for characters to be serious sometimes, especially in dark times like these. But the contrast between season 1-3 yang and 4-9 yang is so drastically different, they feel like different characters. I miss the yang that likes having fun and also is ass kicking and super caring. This yang has just been kind of an annoying ass most of the time 😅
Same, I understand especially with all she’s gone through that she’s change as a person. The thing though is bits of the excitable caring Yang still exist but ONLY when it comes to Blake
With Neo as one of the primary antagonists, not dropping Emerald in the pit instead of Jaune was a huge missed opportunity, we could have gotten more of their dynamic as former evil teammates. You could have had Emerald reach out to Neo assuming her thing with torchwick was just as toxic as Emerald's was with Cinder, only to allow Neo to shake her head smugly and highlight that difference between the two of them.
When I first saw the ever after, i thought "oh, this is maybe the first try of the siblings to create a world, and they have abandoned it" with this you could expand to be something like:
"maybe there are other worlds that the Twins leave behind" or "Some of the authors from some fairy tales are from a different world that was abandoned by the gods" that would expand it larger and so make ways to HOW they can defeat salem.
I liked how you talked about the bumblebee relationship part and how RT was trying to make yangs character more brute and scary. The thing that makes me mad about this ship is that they want to make Yang more masculine and like she brings out this brute aura. Wtf don’t change her character like that just keep Yang the way she was. Beautiful, feminine, short temperte, and burns bright like the sun!
Weirdly enough, I feel like they tend to write Blake """""girlier"""", in a degrading way if you get what I mean. To complement the masculinisation of Yang. I hate that too D:
If RWBY gets canceled I won't shed a tear. If this is the sacrifice for Berserk to continue after Miura died, so be it
Lmao 😂
😂
Jokes on you, seems RWBY is on the plug at this point.
Can I also just say how kinda creepy the Jaune "I've been waiting forever for that." is?
I mean, after 40 years, why do you still care about your friends hooking up?
I just felt they were using him as an audience surrogate and I didnt like that 4th wall break because of ships
Dude spent 40 years gooning to the thought of his friends being lesbians
Volume 9 is just a pointless filler arc where Ruby and friends never really learned their lessons and everything is fine.
All is fine.
Nothing bad ever happened.
Ever.
I think it's more like Halo 3 ODST, in the sense that it's meant to be a standalone story separated from the established arc, only this runs the risk of being referred to as meandering/pointless for most of us.
Functionally, the only way for these characters to learn is to acknowledge their mistakes but that will never happen. When you have to scoot around Ironwood having a point and their plans to save everyone in Atlas & Mantle having clear holes, it is not a fair acknowledgement. In this Volume drank the tea, after having a fight with her friends. They never talked about the implications of that, post Ruby waking up again.
It's an issue of them screwing up so bad that there can not be any redemption. It's fine for them to stumble around finding their way but when it has lead to the deaths of many people, they should at least acknowledge what they could have done differently rather than saying their plan was perfect and it was only brought down by Cinder's surprise attack.
I always thought that ODST was one of the most liked plots in the Halo games (Asides from the likes of Halo 2), at least from my perception and place in the Halo community. At a bare minimum, the game showed us a good perspective of what the war against the Covenant was from the eyes of a relatively normal soldier.
V9 didn't really give us a unique perspective or whatever, just more self-assurance that RWBY and crew are totally not to blame for a LOT of deaths.
@@h34dhunt3rstudios8this how I feel about every volume after Vol 3.
@@h34dhunt3rstudios8 At least ODST was covering a different perspective of the war, not Master Chief off doing something wacky in the corner for a week.
With the whole s*icide thing at the end, I love the "omg you just dont understand what they were trying to do"
imagine fking up your story so bad, that you trying to portray something comes off as portraying the exact OPPOSITE, and imagine having such worthless fans that they'd still defend you for it afterwards
From what I’ve seen the fans really, really try to make up for the show’s shortcomings or outlandish choices.
Not a nitpick. The bumblebee confession was a literal deus ex machina straight into *the suspension bridge effect* it's both on the nose and horribly lampshaded to the point where I cant stand it. They should have confirmed them ages ago, now it just feels like they're doing it cause they're afraid of not getting a v10.
Same feels here. Which makes it more upsetting.
Honestly I highly doubt they will get a v10 just based off the poor reception the dc crossover already has
@@shadow78423
So the DC Crossover was a flop?
@@KritoSkywaker it was a flop before it’s initial release cause the leaks that did come out before hand already had a bad reception from the jump, that tells me that the official release won’t even be a foot note, which does keep up with the trend of people just being sick and tired of superhero movies save for spider verse. Mixing two things that are falling out of favor fast with not help either grow
@@shadow78423
Yeah... And not to mention, they planning a RWBY - Scooby Doo Crossover too. 🤦🏻
Wait wait wait, hold on a sec... Is that Jaune's symbol on Salem's Chair in the backstory?! (8:07)
Sorry, I just now noticed that detail from the fairytale and wanted to point it out.
A great review and can't wait to watch the rest.
Update:
(1:00:37) Yes! I wholeheartedly agree with the smoke cloud! Touch upon Yang's strength or motherly compassion for Ruby. Bring up Blake's track record of love interests or her actually MURDERING one of them. Weiss could go into more detail of her familial relations or the SDC, but that can stay firmly in the CANON-ADJACENT Ice Queendom. Finally, there's Ruby. I like the start of her downfall in the cloud, but old Ruby would find a way to cheer her on. Her old self could mention the tremendous weight she puts on herself, but can also comfort her by saying that her family and friends can help bare her burden. Then, at the prompt of "What are you?," each girl can have a unique response.
If I could write, I would revamp this scene so hard.
(1:11:48) Yeah, I knew that was coming. Rosegarden x 11, this time with no "Oh, they will only adopt the mannerisms of the Old Person inside them and not become them completely."
(1:26:32) The thing is, Cinder was already on Neo's hit-list as we saw in Vol. 6 in the Spider Bar. She only teamed up with her because 1. Cinder's Maiden powers are too much and 2. Cinder promised to get her to Ruby, another name on the list. She had every reason to go after Cinder after messing Ruby up.
I suspect that, once Neo ascends, she will go through the portal to "Where she is needed most," which will likely be the final fight between Cinder and Team RWBY. More fanservice and a satisfying conclusion.
(2:10:01) I don't think that the Cat CAN'T Ascend, its just that there was nothing to make him consider Ascending. Like the Herbalist, he likely didn't see his flaw. Also, it seems the Brother Gods designed the Cat to find these broken Afterans and show them the route to Ascension. Alyx broke his trust, so he became broken and didn't realize it through his anger and curiosity.
Here's my running commentary of Critter's Commentary. I agree with nearly everything in the review, just a couple points here and there. Different people, different ideas.
Thank you Critter for the content and to any who sorted through this mess of a comment. Hope y'all have a great day.
You cannot murder a terrorist.
@@somberflight you can murder anyone, but terrorists don’t elicit sympathy
The first bit about Jaune's symbol on Salem's chair made me think of this like short comic or picture where Ozpin/Oscar push Jaune infront of Salem and he says tha he is her descendant or something so she just gushes over him like a mom.
"I suspect that, once Neo ascends, she will go through the portal to "Where she is needed most," which will likely be the final fight between Cinder and Team RWBY. More fanservice and a satisfying conclusion."
Dear god, that makes far too much sense as something RT would do. A volume or three later, the finale of the show, Cinder vs the Heroes and out of nowhere comes Neo with the metaphorical steel chair, after not being seen for several volumes.
About Blake in your cloud idea, it's kinda sad how we reduced her character as to be only a love interest for Adam, Sun, or Yang... not mentioning Ilia who had a crush on Blake...
She was part of the White Fang for God's sake!! I can't believe RT never thought about it! Blake left the WF because it became too violent, but what tells us she didn't murder someone...? Imagine, in her anger towards humanity, she got blinded and killed several humans, only to realize by seeing Adam's cruelty that she was like him: a monster.
That's when she looks for redemption, to make things right. That's why she left the WF and joined Beacon Academy, she wanted to be a real hero, not a terrorist. I feel that would work for her character, sorrow, shame in what she've done.
But of course RT isn't that smart, that and CRWBY don't remember nor use ANYTHING about older volumes...
Fun little fact: Casey Lee Williams stated many times on her instagram profile (mostly on old stories) that she was genuinely struggling to make all of the v9 Soundtracks in time of the release of the volume. You likely hit the nail right on the head with the small critique of the lack of songs, but the overall quality of those songs drastically increasing. RWBY has been my favorite anime soundtrack since the Red trailer and I've followed Jeff / Casey Lee Williams as closely as possible since then, so it's always nice seeing another person's perspective on the soundtrack.
The Yang, Blake, Sun dynamic next volume is finna be nightmare fuel. I'm calling it right now yall.
Most likely their relationship is gonna be abusive
I hope not. I don't hate the ship it more of what about SUN? Sun freaking did a lot and Blake clearly shows she love him and the kiss. No misunderstand things. A part of me kinda want them in a throuple because Sun did a lot. If not I hope she turn him down gently and Sun says "It ok I like us to still be friends but I don't want to see you for awhile". To be fair she is maybe break his heart and need time for himself which is ironic since he thought she was gone a long time.@@erikroman1880
it could have been fun if team RWBY each did or were put in a situation referencing their fairytale inspirations. Like in Yang walked into a house and slept on the "just right" bed or something
Blakes cloud talk is deadass the same as the black parental figure, and the white parental figure coming up to their mixed child and going
"you could just embrace MY side of the race, wouldnt it be easier to just go full black/white?"
I think the one thing about this volume is that team RWBY and Jaune just met God and then they just blow it off like it's nothing 😂
To be fair... the writers of RWBY at this point would probably say that GOD ranks lower on values of importance and ability that Team RWBY and that it was GOD who was blessed to meet them.
They could have asked for help, did something, or even take the magic tree branches that forces people to fix their own issues to use against Salem who is only immortal because her curse forces her to be immortal until the planet is vaporized or she works out her own issues!
Yes they could have had something to defeat the big bad without divine intervention in a cannon way that made use of this season!
"Yo, God, your kids were kind of being assholes and created an immortal witch that wants to wipe out humanity again - btw they wiped out humanity because some of them were rebelling - because she wants to stop being immortal, and we're kind of trying to avoid that. Could you maybe just give her what she wants and take away the whole immortality thing so she can just die in peace, and humanity can actually have a chance to work out its issues without an immortal ancient magical demon sorceress constantly trying to stir up conflicts between them?"
They literally know what Salem's history and motives are. They know about the Brothers. They know about the ancient society from when the Brothers were still around. Why would they NOT try to ask the being at the top of the existential food chain if she/he/they could maybe help out by giving the Brothers a quick spanking and give the mortals a hand fixing the mess they helped make? Or at the very least ask if he could maybe tweak Ozma's curse a little bit so that he didn't keep absorbing new souls, since apparently making someone immortal and constantly merging different people's souls together doesn't disrupt that oh-so-delicate balance the Brothers (or just Light, really) were apparently worried about.
@@VenathTehN3RD Exactly 🤣. It's like, why not take the easy way out of this whole thing? But no, time travel... thats what we need
Let's be honest, RT has no idea the consequence of introducing an all mighty creator god who not only has full control over one dimension but clearly has influences over another, the 'Erdtree' literally picked the specific time they should return to.
Like seriously, does that mean all events have been at the whims of said god?
Let me tell you, RT doesn't know either.
@@justinrodriguez5957 bad storytelling am I right
I think that the message for Ruby of "You're perfect as you are" sucks, because Ruby literally was one of the main responsible for the Atlas's fall, it happened cause she didn't have a plan.
So, i consider that a message like "I failed, i was wrong, but it doesn't gonna stop me try to do the right things" would be better.
For example, in the "Stomlight Archive" there is a character called "Dalinar".
Dalinar, in summary, is a man that lived almost all his life being a asshol*, until he lose his wife, Evi, due to her own bad decisions.
So, his plot was become an autentic honor man to led his Kingdom and, later, all his world in a war for their survival.
There is an escene when he has to confront what he did, and he accept all his flaws and past mistakes because "he can't become a better man if he doesn't do it".
I think that a message like this would fit with Ruby better, because, as i said a the begging, Ruby has a lot of flaws, but she carried a lot of guilty too.
She isn't exactly a villan, but she isn't a flawless huntress.
Clearly the Dalinar's context or background isn't the same for Ruby, but in this case Ruby would become a better person without acting as she never made any mistake, in place of, she would become a better person because she admit she was wrong and she is willing to change.
PD: The Dalinar's escene if you want to watch it: th-cam.com/video/5y1_x7IuCC8/w-d-xo.html
This is so based I love Dalinar so much
They should have treated it more as Ruby choosing to be herself so that she could grow and become a better version of herself (as opposed to throwing her old life away and being a different person) instead of “oh, you’re perfect just the way you are”.
As for it being a s*icide allegory, there’s no easy to have it be both an allegory for that and something that is celebrated in Ever After. Maybe make it clear that ascension is death for humans but not for beings from Ever After? And then treat Ruby’s ascension as her realizing that throwing her life away isn’t going to fix things and that she herself has to change (basically, have her choose to live)
I’m still not really sure that would work but maybe that could have helped with the moral lesson? Honestly best way would have just not been to make it a s*icide allegory and have it also be celebrated in universe
@@CheesenMac123Yes, RT opened a can of worn and, then, they didn't exactly make it worked...
The whole scene inside the smoke cloud makes me so mad cuz it’s the most mid scene but a lot of RWBY fans (who always talk shit about the show and say that after s3 everything sucks) we’re PRAISING it and saying they might watch the show again for it! Like what!???
The new Lord for the brothers just makes them even more incompetent than they already were.
And it makes it seems like Ozpin and Salem were their replacements for remnant like The Cat In the JaboWalker are for the everafter
I feel like Jaune (the real main character) blowing up at and shouting "IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU" at Ruby (the theoretical main character) is just.....it is infuriating but like......on a meta level.
Honestly, the idea that Jaune has equated 'ascension' with DEATH for so long, and then didnt IMMEADIATELY have an actual breakdown-- the fact that NONE of them did, the moment Ruby Drank the tea and fell into the world... talk about failing to understand basic human psychology.
Jaune has spent what, 40+ years, constantly being reminded of his failures? Of how he lost *everything*. And one of the only things that seemed to keep him going was the hope that he could save others. That he could fix things, somehow.
And to once again be confronted with failure, after failure, after failure... the fact that he didnt break *further* is just... insane.
But then again, maybe at this point he's just dead inside. He's so broken, that its just... stopped affecting him. I dunno.
The fact that we didnt get a scene of Yang practically clawing at the ground, trying to get Ruby back, or ANYTHING. Is so infuriating. But, at this point, i suppose that is just par for the course, part of why i stopped seriously watching the show.
Ah well.
Yang's "I think your cat ears are cute" always smacks me in the face because, like...if your cat ears and being a faunus is the equivalent of your race, would that just make her complimenting Blake's ears the same as like complimenting an asian person for their eye shape
Not all Faunus have animal ears, nor do all Asians have the same eye shape or black people massive horse cocks.
yabe
but yeah it would be and that really highlights their own views on it
xenophilic kink
now im imagineing an au where blakes response is "yeah yang, i really like your skin. very white."
@@fourthmatchflame "I really like how you don't season your food"
@@aurtosebaelheim5942 "i greatly admire your dedication to putting FLM in all of your bios and doing littraly nothing about it."
Ruby's moment in the Cloud is one of my new favorite examples of how this show somehow manages to have good scenes as long as they're completely out of context. Much like with the scene in the previous volume when Yang and Ruby are talking about their mother, it's actually a pretty good scene in of itself...as long as you ignore the context that it's the first time in the series where they've ever had a discussion about Summer, and even individually we've only ever seen Ruby address the topic of her mother maybe once or twice while Yang has literally only mentioned her once prior to that moment (and even that was only as a segue into talking about Raven).
It's a decently written scene on its own, but as soon as it's actually supposed to be viewed within the context of a wider narrative it completely falls apart because they barely build up to it and then don't really do anything substantial with it afterwards. The result is that it has about as much depth and impact as hearing Ren and Yang argue about what they should be doing during the invasion of Atlas - it seems good in the moment, but it doesn't take long to realize that this is classic "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" writing.
It’s fine in a vacuum is what you’re saying.
Tiny nitpick but in the first episode it’s is established that the team is low on amo and dust and in the chess match Blake actually runs out of bullets I thought it would be cool to see the characters try and work around this problem in each fight but they fight as if it’s not a issue any more Blake is still able the light the leaves on fire even though she has no bullets left. Also I laugh every time I hear wisse say “we have done everything we could” they did the bare minimum at best by asking two times if ruby was ok when she clearly wasn’t
They spent all night at Jaune’s shack and did nothing.
The one thing that really irked me this volume was Ruby giving away her emblem saying “it contains a mother’s promise!” And I don’t think it gets brought back up again???and from a viewer stand point I had no idea those symbols were actually IMPORTANT besides character design. Just another weird kinda nitpick I guess that I noticed
It’s cheap emotional manipulation, the emblem has been nothing but a “thing” Ruby has worn throughout the show.
For the first few episodes: I was legitimately convinced that time was screwy, and they were going to run into Alex. Alex would be from before magic was removed, and in bringing her back to Remnant: that would introduce a new piece to the board. Someone who could counter or even stalemate Salem, and at least open the door for a conventional victory against the forces which aren’t playing with magic.
I think the real problem with Ascension is that there are no inquisitives on team RWBY willing to, gosh of goshes, raise it as a topic of discussion.
Nobody is excited or intrigued by the setting they find themselves in, nobody asks questions about how the world works, nobody puts forward the idea that "Maybe that's just how life works here," nobody is out here offering an alternative take on what Ascension is besides "character self-delete and hope you come out better on the next roll".
Even though, you know, Blake the studyworm and Yang the wanderluster are on this team.
But hey, exposition bad, so I guess discussing, investigating, and formulating hypotheses aren't allowed. We don't have time for a slow scene where the characters interact with each other and reaffirm their personalities, we have to move the plot forward!
E: That's not even getting into how doing this would actively distance or prevent Ascension from being a suicide analogue.
Which, uh...
Yeah I'm sure if you're reading this, you saw plenty of why that's not great on your way to this comment.
Maybe it was just me, but I thought Ascension and everything surrounding it, was meant to represent "Ego Death" and that through this you either accepted your flaws like ruby did, or you couldn't handle it one way or another (due to actually dying, etc.) and you were reborn as something similar to your previous self, without the memories
The writing was really clumsy, but that was more the vibe I got from it. That or it being a metaphor for medication for mental illness. "Take this substance and you can become the person you want to be" seems very medication-y to me, but that's a nuanced topic that would need to be handled by a much more talented and careful writer.
I can imagine a better version of the story being a positive influence to a younger me.
For context, my dad is an entirely different person medicated vs. unmedicated (for the better) but that always put me off the idea of taking any sort of antidepressants. In my mind, any medication that could make me not miserable would also erase 'me' and be fundamentally no different to dying (except that someone else would then be walking around in my body, thinking that they were me).
Having the main arc be the protagonist hitting such a low that they drink the drink to erase themselves, but then come out the other side as the same person just out of the funk that had dragged them into such misery could be a powerful message. Especially if the conclusion wasn't "she's all better now" but was instead closer to "she's still struggling, but she can see that there's a way out and can manage now".
Your ideas ( especially with making Jaune go back and forth in time while trying to figure out what's going on ) are phenomenal :D
General problems with the volume:
- Ever After adds nothing to the setting aside from making shit more confusing. Like team RWBY and co. fell in there cuz of a magical creation staff. How did Alyx and her brother get in then? Is this a back-rooms type deal where you can just void through the walls
- Why give the Gods an origin story? They are Gods. Why does every God in some fantasy world need to have a "Oh this is their creator by the way". They are literal all-powerful deities
- RWBY's depression and s-word thoughts only appear in this volume because she's only now she questions if she's done the good things or not
- Blake and Yang's confession was in lore forced
- Jaune is now young again and he basically learnt nothing from being old
- Neo is gone but like I mean... ok? Neo wasn't really important at all since she came back so her being gone does nothing for me
- The mom stuff is also just, pointless to the story and I hate it
- The moral of the season is "Be yourself cuz you're amazing"
- This season was filler in the most bare bones sense. Nothing mattered because it's self-contained.
Besides, didn't the Brother Gods already had an origin story in RWBY: Fairy Tales?
Fun fact: I've literally never watched an episode of RWBY in my life and I'm just binging video essays. Anyway, it would be really easy to fix ascension with just one tiny little change:
Ascension is sacrificial.
Rework ascension to be, instead of some wonderful 'I'm changed for the better!" deal, to be as kind of unsettling and deal-with-the-devil as the portrayal of the cat almost suggests it is. They're giving up their lives, their memories, everything about who they used to be, in exchange for... what? A new, more powerful form? Artificially becoming a better person? That's horrifying! It should be horrifying!
Have the paper things, once reincarnated, still display the same flaws as they did as paper. Sure, they're tougher now, and so they don't face all the same challenges, but being sturdy doesn't prevent things from hurting you. Have them fall into dangers Jaune previously might have been teaching them to avoid, or at least he protected them from, to show that they actually haven't changed, and they're just superficially different. Maybe even make them have worse temperaments - they're not Paper Pleasers or whatever, and now they're a little bit more mean, snub Jaune or something, whatever, because their sturdier forms mean that they don't have the same level of empathy for the weak.
The Herbalist goes from a caterpillar to a butterfly, sure, but why? Little becomes Somewhat, but why? They don't remember what they used to be like, and they don't remember the growth they had to go through to become who they are today. They forget why they wanted to change in the first place, and that renders that change almost meaningless to them. They take their new and wonderful forms for granted, and inevitably end up wanting to reform into something else 'better' because they won't ever be satisfied by growth when they can't even remember the journey they took in the first place. Little doesn't even remember the time they spent with RWBY, and this should HURT the cast, because their friend doesn't even know who they are anymore, because they're literally somebody else now.
Like, I'm not saying it would be perfect - especially not with my literal-15-minutes-of-thought concepts - but it would literally fit better with Ruby's arc, which should be the core reason behind creating ascension and this entire season in the first place.
Eversfter should've been a hidden continent in Remenant that was never discovered, that was left behind by the old world. Since u know magic. IMO.
Because then the fairytail aspect would've been better fitted with Alyx and Louise randomly appearing in the Everafter and the siblings not knowing where they are, thinking that they're in another world.
one thing that confused me throughout watching the volume was: Does Blake ever use her semblance?
like, when she's reaching for Gambol Shroud in the first episode, i was like "why isn't she using her semblance to get since it would be easy?" and then for the rest of the volume i was somewhat paying attention to Blake in the action scenes wondering if she was using her semblance or not and I don't think she did. Did I miss her using it at any point or did she legitimately not use it for the whole volume?
No she did.
she clearly uses it in all of her fights this volume? aside from maybe the first Jabberwalker encounter.
@@Neo-op3iz i guess maybe so much was happening in the fights that I didn't see it
i kinda feel like Weiss's and Yang's semblances were better focused on than Blake's idk
I loved the writers section, id honestly love that to become a regular section because it was really interesting to hear. I feel like miles is a good writer he just needs ideas, like my favorite red vs blue arc is his in the chorus trilogy, and his contributions to season 14 were generally my favourites. Kerry i can see the frustration with he seems to be completely out of fresh ideas, but i do feel a little bad as he did seemingly have to rush out writing and directing. The other writer's, i feel like idk, id love a video about them a bit more though
Achuly the red queen and the queen of hearts are different charters and the red queen is a lot more chill she's kinda strict but like a school maram not a tyrant
I hated the bridge confession. It felt like they were forcing it through. Bridge they have to share things on and the kiss in a flower field and near angelic music as the sun rose. It just felt cheap
It was so cheesy.
the whole ""relationship"" was contrived and forced into the show as a desperate attempt to re-capture the worst parts of the audience with cheap pandering
@@Gofaw it definitely got worse but the blake and yang were always designed in a way that had chemistry was it well written never once
@@Cywren they never interacted in any significant way, looking at each other all googly eyed in a shitty attempt to foreshadow a relationship isn't chemistry
@@Gofaw close but no cigar they did once which felt like their attempt to set it up and it was Yang telling Blake her story about how she almost got Ruby killed to get Blake to slow down. And as I said this wasn't well executed but attempted
The most brutal part of Ruby's torture for me was Ozpin absolutely _beating_ her with a cane; I think it's because it's something we can _actually_ imagine feeling, as Ozpin uses a weapon that is so common in real-life that _anyone_ can get their hands on it.
Maybe a unpopular opinion I think that RWBYs semblances should be upgraded yes even Weiss. It feels like every other character is getting stronger while team rwby just get skill but they need more power for instance how did neo get multiple clones but Blake can still only do one after 9 volumes
Oh damn that is true literally none of them have had their semblances grow.
Evolution of powers can be cool and narratively engaging, if done correctly indeed, but the problem with RWBY is that the characters started the show way TOO OP! Plus, the writers never stopped to figure out powerscales between characters, so fights feel null and powers inconcistent because they just go "Character X fights character Z. Z loses. How does that happen? I'unno. Z's aura breaks in the middle or smt. Also, we don't actually know how to storyboard nor convey our ideas to our underpaid animators. Profit".
@@isabelaalves4511 tru tru but thsi leads me to my next argument fights need to be longer I’m tired of 1 or 2 mins scness and half of the time they just talking through the fight
Now that I think about it, since Nora was the one who was also having an identity crisis in the previous volume, I think her coming to a place like the Everafter is a great way for her to get some self discovery
OKAY I WANT TO SING PRAISE FOR THIS VIDEO! When i tried to discuss the confession scene and it's retcon-y writing in the RWBY subreddit I got flamed, called homophobic and that I don't know what character development is
I know that feeling. I exactly know it.
Smoke yang saying that real Yang isn't whole because she lost her arm is framed as wrong though so they're not endorsing the idea. But yeah, I do agree the whole smoke scene is pretty bad
I love how balanced your review is! You had nitpicks for the Volume, and still praised it!
I think the people who say you're negative haven't actually seen your vids? Cus you have positives along with negatives.
When you started talking about Rooster Teeth handling suicide I've got a Gen Lock flashback and whispered to myself "oh no not again"
What happened to Cammie in Gen:Lock was a mercy compared to what would have happened to Ruby because at least Cammie was still retained her mind when she did it.
If Ruby did it, she would've had her memories erased and her identity discarded. It's practically a lobotomy. What's the point of getting a body if I'm not myself to enjoy it? I'd rather be dead.
Remember, Ascension isn't suicide nor is it necessarily obtained that way, it's reincarnation. Afterans are technically immortal. The practicalities of the memory and erasure is to prevent Afterans from developing psychosis from the constant "reformats". Plus, some Ascensions can turn out worse than before like the Red Prince for instance. Ruby might've turned out worse.
@@kidprime6863 idk, to me it's not really about which fate/choice is better or worse but about how it was handled. I mean, putting a number for a suicide prevention line at the end of the episode right after one of the characters turned into dust is weird if you take into account the future "oh no it's fine, she killed herself but she's totally alive" reveal.
Also if I remember correctly Cammie was not aware that Ascension would result in reincarnation so at the time it was a death sentence. The same is with Ruby and the tea. It doesn't matter that all was "ok" in the end. They were at their lowest point and did something that reads as suicide and came out "better" afterwards, which feels like some highly questionable messaging. And it doesn't feel like a message about surviving an attempt and getting better, because they did basically die.
@@sensarna I get what you're saying. But to me, Ascension is neither good nor bad. It's more in-between and extremely risky all things considered. It's more like you're getting "recycled".
Everything the characters and the audience were told about Ascension were misconceptions, contradictions and half-truths. Before Ascension, the Great Tree puts you under processing. It has to make sure who or what you want to become and what new purpose you want. Apparently, if you don't choose soon or if you really aren't sure what you want to become, it will choose for you. It was a miracle that the Tree allowed Ruby to be given a crossroad. If you want to remain as yourself, so be it, the Tree lets you go.
Ruby never wanted to die, she just didn't want be herself. Thus, this is more of a mental suicide. Where your destroy your mind. Which is possible in real life.
Oh it takes place in the Ever After because it's an anime trope. Popular anime will sometimes have a filler arc that puts the main characters in Alice in Wonderland. It has nothing to do with the plot, it's never important. But RWBY wanted to be like anime, but also make it mean something... for some reason. I bet someone found an old sticky note that said "RWBY characters in Alice?" and went: "THAT'S A GREAT IDEA!!"
RWBY tries way, way to hard to be anime.
49:24
The flowers blooming there are lilies. In Japanese, "yuri" can mean "lily"
RoosterTeeth and making shows that glorify suicide. Name a more iconic duo.
Have they done this before?
@@chubbyanimalenthusiast70 Gen:Lock. From what I understand a character offs herself, and in doing so ascends to a higher plane of existence where she can still interact with everyone but is basically happier and generally better than ever before.
53:41
Out of context, this just makes Jeane come off like a weird pervert who just wanted to watch two girls kiss.
This was more likely, their saying to the toxic shippers, that said "You got what you wanted. Leave us alone!"
weirdly enough, I’m pretty sure Miles used to date Arryn and he did say he liked seeing her kiss other girls. Correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t like spreading misinformation on accident
I think they want Yang to be a Tomboy but she was never like that
1:13:14 when Judgemental Talked about Jaune time jumping. It just reminded me of Horuma time traveling back to save Modaka. Not sure if she got the idea from that but it felt similar
I do love Madoka Magica! but I was actually thinking about the game "Blinx: the Timesweeper"! A neat little game for the xbox! :D
@@thejudgmentalcritter6584 interested!