Everything Wrong with RWBY Part 1 (Volume 5, Character Songs and Core Focus)

So I Think I'm Going To Stop Watching RWBY. Once volume 6 ended I was honestly drained. I had lost my will and passion for this show. I didn't care about the characters anymore, the writing didn't improve, the world building has continued to lack any sort of weight, and I was bored out of my mind. I have no more patience or energy to continue on with the series. In hindsight RWBY was a waste of potential and a waste of time.
What I think the biggest problem with RWBY is is lack of direction. Not direction from Miles and Kerry, but direction on where to take the series:
Volume 1 - we're introduced to the huntsmen and grimm that threaten the safety of innocent people on this world Volume 2 - more information on the cabal of underworld types to take advantage of the crisis in the world Volume 3 - we're introduced to the maidens, that make the huntsmen obsolete, and at the end, silver-eyed warriors that, kind of make the maidens obsolete Volume 4 - introduced to Salem and her cadre of villains that show no real motivation as to why they do what they do Volume 5 - we're introduced to the relics that are all powerful mcguffins that pretty much make silver eyed warriors obsolete Volume 6 - oh right, there are gods powerful to shatter the moon just by leaving, which makes everything obsolete.
The problem here is a power stacking strategy that as soon as something is introduced to the world, something new is thrown in. Hell, every major change could have taken three volumes to explore before moving on to something even more powerful, but nope, before we even get the chance to digest the impact of this new power, two more even more significant forces are added. It wasn't until volume 6 before anyone explained silver eyes, but we've got relics, an evil witch, gods, and one evil and one morally questionable maiden out there. And given how short the episodes and volumes are, I think more time needs to be given to explore each of these elements, hell, I'd have gotten rid of half of them.
Here's where I think the series really screwed up. Penny. I think Penny was a fun character and I don't fault the show for destroying her, but why introduce the idea of a robotic being able to use aura? The moral ramifications are tremendous and could have brought the series to a really interesting philosophy of what defines humanity? If a robot, i.e. Penny, essentially has a.i. developmental technology to make her own decisions, why are Atlas mass-producing them? Is it because the loss of a machine is preferable to the loss of a human huntsman? Would the self-aware robots be okay with that? What if the self-aware robots revolted because they didn't want to be used as tools, but Atlas had control chips installed to prevent acting against their interest? There are so many questions that could have been raised about free will and the ideas of humanity and what defines life that would have made this amazing, but no, that whole narrative is dropped and we get Salem, a boring, run of the mill villain who has little impact on the story except being the boogieman puppet master who pulls the strings behind the scenes. What even is her motivation? To bring back the gods so they'll destroy humanity?
I was already tired of RWBY halfway through volume 4, I was bored in volume 5, didn't even watch volume 6, just watched the reviews and spoilers and honestly, don't even care to see volume 7 at this point. It's all about appeasing the fans at this point. Everyone wanted Neo back despite adding nothing to the narrative. She could have been replaced by any random, nameless thug and nothing would change. Everyone wanted Cinder back despite her aura breaking ,being frozen from the inside out and dropped down a very deep hole, oh yeah, and her story being completed. Everyone wanted Bumblebee despite an absence of any romantic or sexual tension existing between Blake and Yang (seriously, rewatch all the interactions between Yang and Weiss in volume 5, any one of them had more impact than all the Blake and Yang interactions combined). But nope, this is what the fans wanted, and its all turned into a dumpster fire, and I don't have the interest to watch it burn.
1. EXPOSITION
Exposition which does nothing but exposit. And too damn much of it. Whole scenes of monologues about lore and information dumping with only the barest of attempts at making it seem like a conversation between characters.
What do you mean?
The number of times people have said that line halfway through a monologue, only for the monologuer to continue the monologue is insufferable. Having someone else interrupt a monologue isn't enough to make it dialogue. And dialogue is what fiction is all about. And the worst part is the fact that the same thing is explained multiple times. For example: Ilia shouts to the crowd about her parents dying in a Dust mine. That's good exposition, because it serves two functions: 1) gives us a reason for her passionate support of the White Fang, and 2) riles up the crowd against the Belladonnas, furthering her goals. But then Blake needs to go and tell the story to Sun, and explain how it led to Ilia joining the White Fang, etc., etc. But we already know that. We don't need to hear it again. Especially not through a ham-fisted expositional monologue. Exposition should always serve at least 2 functions, if not more. Don't just dump it for the sake of dumping it. Give the character a reason to dump it, and a goal that they achieve by doing so. That way the exposition becomes part of the drama, rather than just lore. Speaking of drama...
2. LACK OF DRAMA
So many scenes with no goddamned drama. Drama, and dramatic tension, is the reason people consume fiction of any medium. And to have drama, you need a few things: a 'dramatic question', a character with goals, another character with goals. In an attempt to curtail my other biggest complaint so far: almost no fights, almost all of which are boring anyway, I shall use fight scenes as examples.
SCENE 1 - Weiss vs. Lancers Weiss fighting the Lancers is boring as shit. I'm sorry, but it is. It ticks all the boxes, though:

• Character A - Weiss

• Goal - Survive

• Character B - Lancers

• Goal - Kill Intruders

• Dramatic Question - "Will Weiss survive?"

What's the problem with this scene? Well, when you consume any sort of fiction, you do so in order to find the answer to the dramatic question of the story/scene/chapter/episode/show/etc. If you already know the answer, then you have no reason to continue. And what is the answer to the question "Will <insert main character here> survive?" Yes. So we already know Weiss is going to live, so why should we care about the fight? It might be cool, or well choreographed (I didn't think it was), but without a dramatic question worth answering, we don't have any other reason to be invested. How could we improve it? Simple: put mundane passengers on the airship with Weiss. Show her talking to them, hearing about their stories. Maybe they're refugees from Vale that were sent out of Atlas, since Atlas closed its borders, and our clearly shady pilot agreed to smuggle them into Mistral. Make Weiss care about them, and give us a reason to care about them. Maybe have a small girl who asks Weiss if she's a Huntress, and professes her dream to be one when she grows up, then have her say that her mum was a Huntress back in Vale, then start crying. Then throw the Lancers at the ship. Now we have:

• Character A - Weiss

• Goal - Protect the passengers OR Protect the little girl

• Character B - Lancers

• Goal - Kill Intruders

• Dramatic Question - "Will the passengers/little girl survive?"

Now this is a scene with dramatic tension. We genuinely don't know if the passengers will survive. Their survival is irrelevant to the story as a whole, so all it does is affect Weiss as a character in the here and now. And since we know she'll have to live with the guilt if she fails, we are invested in her success. Also we want the cute little girl to live cause she's adorable as hell.
SCENE 2 - Yang & Raven The conversation between Yang and Raven (with Weiss there) started good. We had:

• Character A - Yang

• Goal - Get information and a portal to Ruby

• Character B - Raven

• Goal - Convince Yang to join her

• Dramatic Question - "Will Yang join Raven, or go after Ruby?"

This is a good setup for a scene. I really enjoyed this scene for a minute or two. Then it became Raven monologuing about lore we already know from two seasons ago. Then Yang asked, "What do you mean?" (shudder), and Raven kept monologuing. And the worst problem with the monologue here is that it killed the dramatic tension. Without doing anything to earn the success, Yang got everything she wanted from Raven, and then some. Raven gave her all the information she had, and then opened a portal to Qrow. Wow. Much drama. Very tension. I would propose, instead, that we turn it into a fight scene. Raven is a character that takes pride in strength, in power. She told Yang (via Qrow) that Yang would need to become stronger to survive; Raven wouldn't protect her again. So Raven decides to test Yang, in front of her entire gang. Same characters, same goals, same dramatic question, just different execution. So Raven starts by kicking Yang's ass. And every time she knocks Yang down, she taunts her: "I could help you, Yang." "I could make you strong!" "Join us, and you'll get revenge on the one that took your arm!" And Yang falters. She stays down. She looks up at her mum, at the bandits around, and considers the offer. Then Weiss calls her name: "Yang, don't listen to her. You're stronger than anyone else I know. And Ruby needs you!" Yang stands up, eyes turn red, and she fights back. This time she pushes Raven back, and gets a solid punch in, knocking Raven sliding backwards. As a reward, Raven tells Yang a piece of information (say... About the Maidens). And gives Yang a piece whenever Yang lands a solid blow. The fight isn't entirely one-sided, there's some back and forth, and Raven still taunts her/asks her to stay, but now Yang is outright refusing, getting angrier and angrier at Raven's words. Soon, the fight begins to turn, Yang begins to dominate. The bandits watch, eyes open, as their leader gets closer to being beaten by her daughter. Raven realises the risk she's running by letting Yang potentially win, and goes overboard: she lashes out with her sword. Yang is hurt (not terribly, but enough to matter), and the fight ends as Weiss rushes to her aid. For a brief moment, we see a crack in Raven's stoic persona: she immediately regrets lashing out at her daughter, but she holds herself back from running to help, and puts her helmet on to build up the wall again. Yang lashes out at Raven verbally, asking why she left, why she was never there, why she never even bothered to contact her. Raven, under the helmet, sheds a tear of her own, but hides it to maintain her facade. Then the Grimm attack, drawn by Yang's despair. Now they work together to fight them off, and Yang proves herself to Raven. Resigned, Raven tells Yang the last of the info, and opens the portal to Qrow. She asks Yang to consider staying, but Yang and Weiss leave. And there you go. That turns that one scene into almost a whole damn episode, and its so much more dramatic. The question remains unanswered until the very end, but the characters' views on the likelihoods of their goals being met changes constantly. We see another dimension to Raven, humanising her for the audience, and we see Yang finally facing her demons. Plus the same things happen at the end: Yang gets info and goes through a portal. But it's a much more interesting way to get there. To paraphrase Stephen King: stories are about the journey, not the destination. Here we have two scenes that are totally different, but get to the same destination.
Volume 5, thus far, has been full of scenes with just lazy writing: exposition dumps, barely disguised monologues, and pointless repetitions. I've got more ideas on how to fix it, and am honestly considering writing a Volume 5.1 script edit once it's finished to cut out the unnecessary exposition and add more drama to the show as a whole. I think there have been four or five scenes this season that I've been happy with. Not even whole episodes, just scenes. They really need to step up their game.

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Everything Wrong with RWBY Part 1 (Volume 5, Character Songs and Core Focus)

A great analysis, friend, and more than worthy of me coming out of my "RWBY break" for. The creators have discussed a bit about how they use first impressions to tell RWBY's story in the past, that they want you to think characters in a certain light only to prove differently in the future, but in-between the present and future I think they often lack depth. Almost as though they were so focused on Blake's storyline in Volumes 4 and 5 that they forget to set everything up in her trailer and first volume. And to be honest I think the writers have overused this form of storytelling, but especially because it hasn't always come off well. Sometimes it comes across as "Well, since we don't really know what direction we're heading, let's just let future Miles and Kerry worry about it."
I think you have a strong point about the trailers, and I can't help but wonder sometimes what would've happened if RWBY was based around Jeff Williams' songs just like the trailers and character shorts. I don't wish to get in an argument, or really discuss it further, but I think there are some major differences between Yang's story in Volume 3/4 and "Armed and Ready". Sometimes I really wish I could see Jeff's interpretation of RWBY as RWBY. I think most would agree his music is one of the best parts of the show, but I think the stories in "Red Like Roses Part 2", "Mirror, Mirror", "Armed and Ready", and "Bad Luck Charm" are more interesting than what's on screen. Just my opinion.
Overall, I think fans practically have to use their imaginations and create headcanons at times that the characters have more depth than we're seeing on screen, otherwise we might see them as being shallow. Fans (and people in general) don't like seeing characters as lacking depth and being shallow due them losing their realism, which in turn loses the audience suspension of disbelief. For example, is Jacques a deep character, or is he a stereotypical/cliche businessman and poor father who has to have more depth in order to be realistic? If his depth is never explored on screen, or team RWBY's, or any other characters' for that matter, would they be considered deep? Honest question, and I'm not looking to argue. I simply find the characters' literary/real-life inspirations as having much more depth than their actual portrayals. I think most if not every character has a very strong foundation, but if you took away their inspirations and perhaps any room for headcanons, I think you're left with shallow characters in a bright and colorful world.
This series is like a puzzle with obvious missing pieces that from looking at it could be a good piece if finished properly. But m&k put puzzle pieces that belong to other puzzles in. In jokes they put in to each other the audience will never get. Retconning things in the series like ruby's semblance. Their whole racism subplot, Etc. With a better writer this puzzle could be given the work and attention it deserves.
The main problem with canon!RWBY is that it doesn’t have a core focus. It has way too many topics and so few little time focused on any of them. Following the coming-of-age story of some young warriors-in-training with a backdrop of discrimination and terrorism is already a lot, but now we have a super villain, the fate of the world, magical beings and artifacts and a reincarnating guardian of good or whatever Ozpin is supposed to be. If the writers actually focused in on one of these areas it could probably get interesting. The show would have benefitted from having a simple storyline that focused on the war with and struggle against the Grimm and fantasy elements. Quality over quantity and Depth over complexity. This show should have taken notes from Avatar and have contained stories that contributed towards an overarching plot. Alas, such is the nature of M&K’s writing ability. They either do: A.) Set-ups with no payoffs OR B.) Pay-offs with no set-up. No in-depth exploration of themes of racism or terrorism, no fantasy world-building, no satisfying character growth or good vs evil dynamics. I'm surprised the show is so bogged down with exposition when we still aren't told what's going on or why we should care.If story points, character motivations, beliefs and general world building could be all interconnected, I think that would make the show better.
I don't. The main reason why vol 5 was such a clustefuck is cause they are writing the story one volume at a time. They didn't set the goal when they started. My guess is that their writing process is the same as Rick and Morty's writing process, just throwing out ideas and picking the one that seems to be the best at that time. Which is fucking stupid. Here is how the writing works: you have an idea of what should happen, you set the goal, write down the major events, create a path from these events in the chronological order, write down the first version, check for plot-holes and contradictions, rewrite, check, repeat till it is as good as it gets, you are done. Sounds hard? Cuz it is. Cuz it aint a half assed "brainstorm". I don't have a degree as a writer, but even I know this, the basics. Why? Cuz I had to write when I studied in college. Im a singer and I just want to enjoy a show with teenagers fighting shit with kind of interesting OST that tells a story in a story, but I can't have it cuz the creator is dead and ppl who work on the show are incompetent.
Do you know why this "brainstorm" works for Rick and Morty? Cuz its a comedy show. RWBY is not, it is a character driven show, it works not cause of the major plot, but cuz of the characters. This is why volume 5 is a fucking joke.
I don't agree with everything he is saying, but he brings up a lot of valid points about the shows writing, like how the goals of the main characters don't align with them becoming huntresses. Do you think that he is wrong about that? Or about the fact that the show at this point had 3 retcons for the endings alone (vol 2, 4 and 5)? About how the intros are misleading? How characters are dumbed down just cuz plot demands it? How "It was her choice!"/ruined every shady action Ozpin ever did? I'm sure that when Summers death will come up, Qrow or Oz will use this phrase again. Or how fighting styles are dumbed down? Or how Pyrrha’s character was wasted just cuz it symbolized Monty's death? How Jaune is a self insert? How Oscar is a self insert? How shipping for the sake of shipping is ruining character development, story and the show as a whole? I can go on an on about this.
Not to like, return to the whole “Jeff Williams’ songs have something serious to say about the canon” business, but a song like “Red Like Roses Part II” simply doesn’t get made without some serious thought to the events of the story. They got Casey’s real freakin’ mother into the studio to record it as a duet with her daughter. Shit like that carries some weight. And it almost certainly doesn’t happen without authorial input. Red Like Roses Part II is an entire story in its own right, and I seriously doubt the lyrics were entirely generated from Jeff Williams’ brain at random while thinking of a song to have RWBY decapitate the Nevermore to. Monty almost definitely approached him with the topic, and I doubt it was a mere “hey can you make a song about Ruby and Summer”. I am like…200% convinced that there is, or was, a story behind Ruby and Summer that would roughly give credence to that song, and either A) MKG have carelessly retconned it to pursue Yang’s childhood drama or B) they think that they can still have this story and Ruby’s mom drama with the kid having lost her way too young to remember her. Who’s gonna be the one to tell them that Ruby shouldn’t have any damn attachment to Summer at all the way they’ve written things? I don’t feel like they’re following Monty’s plan. Because for some reason, I feel like Monty was not someone who would’ve made such a careless mistake. I don’t know why, I just don’t. The songs clearly used to matter. Before Volume 3 ended that is. And they went completely off-the-rails into their own shit. Like, we know that Monty would sit them all down(Jeff included) and talk about his future plans and stuff. And not only Red Like Roses Pt2 but things like:
1. Sacrifice(still convinced it was supposed to be Raven’s song before the “mad at being bird” thing, since the song specifically sings about someone changing their point of view about Ozpin for the worse due to something happening(Summer’s death?) and that’s pretty much only Raven),
2. Die(which specifically sings about the world after fall of Beacon, which implies that original plan was for the world to be far darker place than the weird inconsistent tone of volume 4 and 5 sets-up)
3. Divide(which seems to be from Salem’s POV and specifically references previous RWBY openings and hints at there being something horrible that Ozpin did in the past) 4. Gold (which very specifically is about Yang taking care of Ruby after summer died and Taiyang shut down into depression)
5. I May Fall - which specifically seems to be about the fall of beacon.
Like I don’t subscribe to idea that they somehow went off track in Volume 3 - I firmly believe that beyond minor changes it was still on track to what Monty would want. Sure stuff like Raven might have been removed and Jaune’s location changed and Maidens come out of nowhere and shit, but the overall direction and basic plot points still match everything set-up till then and what the music foreshadows.
But volume 4 and 5? Hell no. Which is why suddenly the music does not matter anymore. i am pretty sure its between Vol3 and 4 that they just dropped anything that’s left of Monty’s plans and decided to use their own “smart” ideas.
Die and Divide paints a setting filled with war and countries growing hostile towards each other not knowing who to trust(which is supported by the narration in volume 3 as Salem’s plan) - there’s none of that in Volume 4 and 5 and instead we are off to this weird relic hunt out of nowhere and the whole idea of Salem wanting to “turn them against each other” seems to be gone.
Sacrifice paints Raven as this mysterious figure who used to be more trusting but then due to something having happened, ends up turning against Ozpin and wants retribution against him. I really doubt that something was “oh he turned me into a bird and since I am a shitty person I am now with bandits and shit”… It feels like Original Plan was having Salem’s faction to upset the status quo , just like Die hints at, and have them set humans onto direction of destroying each other as a “take that” to Ozpin, just like Divide hints at. At the end of Volume 3 Ozpin seems to have been transported to wherever Salem is. Then we would have team RWBY split up as a way to experience how each of the remaining Kingdoms go towards war(we know that original plan involved not showing all members in same volume). Blake would most likely go after Adam, Yang after Raven, who would play some role in revealing shady things about Ozpin(most likely to Yang) and Ruby would learn about what happened to Summer(which most likely had something to do with Ozpin), essentially playing out the metaphorical conversation from Red Like Roses Pt2 as the path she wants to walk is clashing with what happened to Summer in the past.
Instead it feels like Miles and Kerry got cold feet after volume 3 ended and instead backpedaled into this weird RPG Collect MacGuffins quest while giving the most haphazard solutions to the plotlines set-up through previous volumes. Also notice how post Vol3 songs are far less foreshadow-y and far more blunt/direct kind of shit?

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