Aura and Semblances Part 2

The introduction of magic in RWBY was flawed for several reasons. Most importantly, as other have pointed out, there were too many supernatural elements in RWBY that could already have been referred to as magic. Aura and Dust are only barely sold as something understood and quantifiable, but Semblances are a mess that can do far more varied and impressive things than we've seen "magic" do in the show.
To just name a few examples, semblances have been shown to: Turn people into rose petals, increase physical strength, generate telekinesis, manipulate magnetism, create clones, copy other peoples' weapons and fighting capabilities, create other types of clones, summon fallen foes, infect human minds with hallucinations, create illusions, and manipulate the laws of probability to change future outcomes in a way that a person might subjectively deem "bad luck".
There is no valid throughline or predictable nature to the capacities of semblances. We are told that many semblances, as a general rule of thumb, require aura to use, but the show intentionally leaves room for exceptions so that whenever a character uses a semblance when their aura is depleted it can be filed under "exceptions". Which means neither we nor the characters seem to know what those semblances are powered by when they're not powered by aura.
The in-universe confusion about semblances is perfectly summarized by this nothing-sandwich of a statement by Ren:
"A common philosophy is that a warrior’s Semblance is a part of who they are. Some say your personality and character can define your Semblance while some claim that it is the other way around. Of course, there are still many who don’t see a connection at all."
So, a Semblance either defines your personality or is defined by it. Or there is no connection between semblance and personality at all. How utterly informative and interesting /s.
So, how might one go about fixing this?
One very extreme change would have been: Never include Semblances in the story at all.
Just have the main characters be stronger than normal humans (as explained by aura) and then the early-volume action scenes would just feature them using martial arts, guns and martial-gun arts. We know Monty could still have made that stuff look cool and exciting.
If you did that, then it would be genuinely impactful the first time our characters come across a person who appears to be manipulating the elements, flying etc. Every character could call it magic and the response wouldn't seem out of place at all.
At that point, if the writers really wanted the characters to start developing unique superpowers you could explain that via magic as well. Have them get into contact with a relic/ozpin or something and have him magically gift each of them the ability that is their semblance.
A suggestion that would change the structure of the show less significantly: Every person in the world still has the potential to develop a semblance, like in the original, but just have it acknowledged that the phenomenon is magic.
As in, there is something inherently magic and inexplicable about the mortal soul. Any being with a soul can has the potential to develop their own unique magic power.
That way, nobody has to inexplicably claim that what Ozpin or the maidens are doing is categorically different from the multitude of magical phenomena that we see displayed by the main characters, just a variation of it. Maybe Ozpin just learned/was gifted the knowledge to utilize the magical power within his soul to a greater extent/in a greater variety of ways. An explanation like that could also serve to explain why most "semblances" only seem to have one use but Weiss' can be used in a variety of ways. You could just say that Weiss is prodigiously good at using her own magical potential, thus letting it have more than one effect.
If you weren't going to address the issues presented by semblances, you could at least do one simple thing to make the maiden powers seem slightly more impressive at least: Have someone, anyone, at any point in the show, run out of dust. It boggles my mind that this has never been done in the show. Pretty much all we are told about the maiden powers in V4C8 is that "they're powerful fighters who don't need dust to use magic." Which means people can already do magic using dust, as we've seen characters do several times before.
Because of this, the only way in which the maiden elemental powers could have come across as significantly more powerful or useful than dust would have been if dust was actually treated as a finite resource in the series. If we saw characters get into scenarios where they're like "I only have enough dust for one or two more ice blasts of that size, we better make them count." Have characters run out of bullets for their weapons. Maybe you could've had a character like Weiss trying to hold back a swarm of Grimm/others by shooting a continual wave of fire down an alley, but eventually she runs out of dust so the flame peters out. Then when the swarm overruns them you could've had a mysterious figure like Amber show up and start blasting off seemingly unlimited amounts of elemental power, to starkly contrast it with what the characters are capable of.
Those are just a few possible suggestions.
It's not a matter of explanation, it's a matter of utilization. Dust is a poorly utilized narrative tool, which due to only existing because it's quote-unquote cool becomes vapid and uninteresting. Dust is not utilized narratively in a way that makes the story better.
To use an example you provided, and why it is a superior boon to its story's worldbuilding compared to Dust (all of them are):
"Why do wands focus magic?"
The fact that most wizards need a wand to focus their magic is an essential and often-utilized plot point in Harry Potter, because it consistently means that the average wizard becomes far less powerful when separated from their wand. It's no coincidence that the protagonist's go-to spell is one specifically meant for disarming an opponent's wand.
See, the important thing isn't whether the wand-dependency is explained, it's that the author establishes an element into their world and then consistently uses that element.
Comparatively, no character in the entire runtime of RWBY has ever run out of dust. There has never been a single moment in the show when a character needed to shoot their gun but couldn't due to a lack of dust, or Weiss needed to freeze something but couldn't due to a lack of dust. All of their dust-based powers could just as easily have been attributed to aura, the high-tech weapons themselves or any of the already existing pieces of worldbuilding. Dust being elemental energy rocks hasn't mattered.
So... Making some of the characters' powers dependent on a limited resource has had no impact on them in a single situation ever, making Dust's presence in the show narratively meaningless. Whereas characters in Harry Potter suffer consequences and need to change their approach to things whenever they lack their wands, thus making that piece of worldbuilding actually matter. That's the difference.
That would have been cool to see in volume 4 when they were traveling. Them having to manage dust while fighting could have added more urgency of getting to the next town.

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Aura and Semblances Part 2

Someone in the Show Needs to Run Out of Dust. As the title says, I think RWBY is past due on executing a pretty basic and necessary narrative concept: Having somebody at some point in the series run out of/run low on dust.
I think this is necessary for a few reasons:

• Having to overcome a scenario with limited resources encourages characters to fight smarter rather than harder, which can make for interesting combat and reinvigorate action scenarios (like Grimm attacks) that might otherwise risk becoming formulaic.

• Pretty much all we've been told about Maidens is that they're "powerful warriors who don't need dust to use magic." Whether their magic is actually stronger than what a person could accomplish with dust, or how much dust it takes to rival the magic power of a maiden, remains unclear.

But non-maidens needing to use dust is not a tangible disadvantage in any way unless we get an in-story confirmation that dust is actually a limited resource. At no point in the story has Weiss been asked to freeze something etc and responded that she doesn't have enough dust left. At no point has a main character run out of ammo, not even when things were supposed to briefly seem dire for our heroes during the Volume 2 finale. Not even when we see towns or villages run over by Grimm have we gotten a scene where people are fighting off the oncoming horde and see their dust reserves depleted.
Dust has been talked about in the abstract for so damn long (the opening narration, the current dust embargo by Atlas, Torchwick claiming he stole "every speck of dust in the kingdom") but until the availability of dust gets shown having a tangible impact on the outcome of a situation it will remain a misused part of the narrative.
People will certainly respond to this thread by claiming that Atlas' dust embargo will clearly have a significant impact on the plot and that we'll surely see our characters affected by this new change in the global dust market. And I will agree with you that this is a possibility that could lead to interesting circumstances if followed up on. But it should also be remembered that people thought all of Torchwick's dust robberies would become relevant eventually, even though they were ultimately incredibly insignificant.
So I just don't consider it guaranteed that RWBY will ever follow up on the concept of dust availability actually mattering, which is why I'm making this thread to voice my hope that it does.
Do you agree that it'd benefit the show to show a circumstance where someone is actually affected by their limited dust supply?
If only Weiss, well... used dust in fights. Outside of freezing stuff she only used dust on a couple occasions. So, I would say she's pretty conservative with dust, and prefers to use other means of defeating the enemy. I think the most amounts of dust she uses when things were getting really badly, or in V3E1 where loads of ice dust were available on the arena. I will never consider "Never Miss a Beat" a good fight, especially for Weiss - in terms of actual fighting she literally did nothing but throwing dust at Flynt (I do really like the character moment of throwing herself into lava for Yang, though). The fight on the train, though - that's where real shit is. And not only she didn't use dust there, she also didn't use her glyphs for the most of the fight, and still looked awesome. I miss fights like that one.
Give me your most creative semblance uses. One of the minor things that irks me every time I watch RWBY is the, in my opinion, very uncreative usage of semblances.
For a series packed to the roof with fresh ideas and alien concept, the usage of semblances feels… bland. To me at least.
Certain characters can break space time and forgo Newtonian laws of motion for God’s sake and what do they do? Jump from glyph to glyph and charge very quickly.
Anyway, this is where my question comes in. In what way could the pre-existing semblances be used to spice up fights and make the outcome of battles more reliant on skill and experience, rather than pure strength of semblance and physical ability?
I feel this would also bridge the power gap between heroes and villains as the characters wouldn’t need a physical powerup, but rather work out ways to counter their opponents by building on each other’s strengths.
It would also make Ruby more important as the key stone keeping the group together and keeping up the morale, despite the countless obstacles in their way.
Only as a team they could beat the villains whose greatest weakness was their lack of unity and comradery all along, keeping in line due to fear and selfish desires.
Clichéd? Yes. Worse than team RWBY getting the maiden-juice power up? No.
I want Weiss to use her glyphs like Doctor Strange shields. Or maybe she can use them to stand upside down on the ceiling for stealth or for a cool fight scene.
As a longtime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fan, this has also irked me. I enjoy seeing powers used in ridiculous or previously unthought of ways in order to win a fight, though I acknowledge that Stands are an entirely different kettle of fish.
Anyhow, let me see...
Ruby: Short bursts of speed in a direction to just slightly change her movements enough to confuse an enemy, or using it to completely counteract her momentum in order to come to a sudden stop only to use it again to attack fast after confusing the enemy. Make her a living representation of feinting in battle. Also, if possible, using it entirely focused on her arm to punch a lot harder. (Would have made the whole 'learning H2H' plotline in V5 much more interesting at any rate).
Weiss: Can do almost anything, and has on several occasions. My only complaint here would be that she often uses techniques once then literally never again, or twice at best. Time dilation, disrupting gravity under enemies, etc. Maybe use the normal platform glyphs as a shield or shock absorber to take hits better.
Blake: Has a really boring semblance if i'm honest. It's a part of her character, which I understand, but really not all that interesting. It's just a slightly better dodge. I think she should be able to summon more of them and use them for disorientation. For example, they wouldn't be able to deal damage at all but having five Blakes swinging long ribbon-swords at you would be terrifying. Also elemental clones. She should totally use those more.
Yang: (Insert shrug here). I've got nothing.
Nora: She should start carrying around lightning dust. Or at least invest in a taser, stun baton, literally anything. Stop relying on outside sources to provide electricity, like BS arena rng in V3, or Ruby having to shoot her.
Ren: Should have done literally anything with his semblance outside of V4 like during the Breach or initiation or literally anywhere. But he didn't because it wasn't designed yet, obviously. The best I can do is have him turn it on and off in reasonably rapid succession to disorient Grimm opponents. It would have been interesting if he were put up against Cinder in V5, and could completely disappear from one of her eyes' vision.
Jaune: Fucked if I know. His semblance is a deus ex machina, through and through. He's a healbot now, and luckily he no longer needs to be a good fighter to be useful. Maybe if it were more of a Crazy Diamond-esque thing that could fix things, that could lead to interesting things.
Emerald: Make it look as though she's swinging one way, but she's actually swinging another. She's crazy broken in a 1v1 situation, and it's lucky that V5 made her braindead for the sake of plot or else I don't see a way the protagonists could have won. At least not without much heavier injuries.
To put it blunty, most of the semblances in RWBY are there to help the protagonists out in a specific situation, advance the plot, or are a fairly boring flat power up.
Ladybug 2.0- using Ruby's speed to move Blake around really fast while leaving behind a metric fuckton of afterimages
Ruby makes a lot of rose petals so I think it’d be nice to see her maybe use a speed burst to block an opponent’s vision by sending a crap ton rose petals everywhere.
Yang can take damage and deal it back x2 so what if while team mates are distracting he opponent she activated her semblance and has another teammate attack her down to low aura but now have a massive hit ready to use. Glass cannon, but a 1-hit KO
I’m not sure it Blake has the ability to make more than one clone but if she can, leave them everywhere like the Pokémon move Double Team. Which one is her? Who knows, there’s a sea of them

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