Everything Wrong With RWBY Part 2 (How Not to Write)

How not to write: RWBY and how it treats its women.
Welp, it’s that time again: we’re hitting controversy road after making a left down bad idea lane.
I’m not going to say the writers are sexist. Words like that should be saved for people who are definitively…those things. However, I want to make it perfectly clear that just because I believe these people aren’t sexist, doesn’t mean I can overlook the problematic elements that have been piling up.
I’ll get this out right now: older women are treated the absolute worst by this show; they’re treated worse than black people, worse than LGB characters, and worse than the younger women.
The ways in which women are treated can be divided into three categories: dead, evil/terrible person, or brushed aside. Dead obviously describes Summer, the one potentially kind mother in this show. The second group is what Willow and Raven fall into. The last category is for Glynda, and Kali.
In Glynda’s case, she is given one major action scene in the very first episode of the show before being relegated to Ozpin’s maid. Either she fixes the streets, she fixes the school, or she fixes Qrow’s or someone else’s mess. Then there’s Kali Belladona, who gets to lucky shot someone with one of her guard’s guns before dropping furniture on another guy; meanwhile, her husband gets to knock people around.
Then we have Willow Schnee, who isn’t so much a character as she is still just an abstract concept. We know more about her from lore and exposition than actually seeing her in action. We also have the other horrible mother Raven, who is the only woman -besides Glynda- who gets to do anything action oriented.
Being a bad parent or being passive isn’t objectively a bad thing, however I just listed every major older woman in this series to date. I could talk about Salem, but she would just fit into the evil category. By contrast, older men can be good (Ozpin?, Port, Oobleck, Qrow, Tai, etc.), fatherly (Tai, Klein), complicated (Ozpin, Qrow), Evil (Watts, Hazel), Assholes (Jacques While women can be categorized in 3 groups, men run the gambit, and that’s not okay.
Then we turn our attention to the main generation, rwby, nora, Pyrrha, and many others. Pyrrha has the obvious problem of her entire character revolving around Jaune, while Nora only -but still glaringly- has the problem of her backstory being 90% focused on Ren. Weiss has the whole dance arc in volume 2, which relegates her to a trophy for Jaune to fight Neptune over.
And then volume 4 hits: Ruby gets her character develop stolen by Jaune, Weiss has to be rescued by her butler from her evil dad, Blake runs to see her father and Sun, and Yang has to be talked down to by her dad. When one or two of these things occur, it’s not a problem (minus the Jaune bit when it becomes a pattern, you messed up. Where are the adult female role models? Oh right, the only one who isn’t evil/a bitch (Kali) gets to talk to Blake personally for one minute and it’s only to say that her father wants her.
Volume 5 at least has the decency to give the female leads agency again, but Raven is suddenly treated like an obstacle instead of Yang’s goal, while Weiss is nearly killed so that Jaune can unlock his semblance.
Volume 6 has, to date, given us a topless genie for no real reason other than sex appeal, and Salem’s backstory, where she only became active when a man entered her life and became evil because that man died.
And finally, the bit that has been said many times: when a female in this show acts out, does something compulsive and rash, they’re punished for it. Yang flying at Adam to protect Blake and Winter attacking Qrow for egging her on; both are reprimanded after. Jaune losing his temper and attacking Cinder? Obviously a hero, because despite Weiss nearly dying, he healed her and unlocked his semblance, so that makes it okay in the writer’s eyes.
For a show that wants to focus on four young women, it has an awfully tough time treating women as equally unique as the men. Older women in this show are either good because they’re passive and obedient (Glynda/Kali/Winter) or active and evil/rebellious (Raven/Salem/Cinder/etc.). Younger women must be taught by fathers or male friends on how to act. While that’s not what the writers intended, it’s what the show comes across as saying.
RWBY Final thoughts: Focus problems and shallowness
Focus. I ended my last rant on that for a reason. For my final rwde post, at least for a few years, I want to focus on RWBY’s main issue: its inability to focus.
(slight spoilers below)
This has been a long time coming, but I think with the recent episode, it’s painfully apparent just how shallow of a show RWBY truly is. The previous segment with Weiss and Yang had Raven promising to reveal some big secret, yet at the end of the current segment, Raven tells Yang to go ask Ozpin himself about it. The audience was baited with a carrot on a string. Again.
Why tease an audience like that? It’s because RWBY doesn’t actually have a complexed plot. For all of RT’s bluster about how big the show is, RWBY is a really simple premise stretched far beyond its breaking point. That would be fine if all of the extra bits didn’t disrupt the plot, pacing, etc.
Let me break it down: 4 girls find special key people to unlock the dragon balls so that the big bad can’t have them. So than why do we have the racism plot? JNPR as a whole? The silver eye warriors? Because Miles is unable to focus.
Everything I said about Ruby in my last rant is a result of the show failing to focus on adding depth to Ruby’s paper-thin character. Taking the SEW thing, we see it, then get one mention, and then nothing. Instead of focusing on an explanation about why it won’t come back up, it instead is tossed into the background until the show runs out of subplots to bide time. Similar is the hand to hand issue: it was shown to be a problem, but it wasn’t addressed until they needed something for Ruby to do. Instead of adding depth to Ruby’s character, they just give her busy work.
But let’s take this back to Volume 1, after players and pieces. Instead of having Ruby and Weiss actually sort out the problem presented in The Badge and The Burden, they simply get told how to solve the problem, taking away the satisfaction of the characters growing on their own. Then there’s Jaundice.
Then we get the finale, which starts by focusing the splitting of the team, only for the plot to disappear for most of the next episode, until it shows up briefly and then just stop completely. The plot that replaces it is RWY looking for Blake, while Blake seeks out Roman…because that was a plot point that they spent a minute on, and for some reason becomes Blake’s priority. Instead of having a finale that focuses on team rwby, we get a showcase for two characters that hardly matter, and team rwby’s reunion ends up a footnote.
These focus issues continue to be present throughout the rest of the show. Despite Blake saying her main reason for coming to Menagerie was to reconcile with her parents, that gets completely undermined in favor of her developing with Sun. Why? Is Blake just not allowed to exist anymore without her boy toy? Then there’s the 3 R’s: Romance, relationships (mainly Ruby with Pyrrha and Penny), and racism. Any of the three could be done well if Miles had decided to focus on one to develop; instead he tries to have his cake and eat it too, resulting in three under cooked cakes. Even in volume 5, many episodes cut to RNJR + Oscar doing random shit that isn’t at all necessary, yet it takes away time that could be used on actually important shit.
I could go on, but I want to end it here: RWBY comes across as a show that’s interested in having a whole bunch of plot threads, but is not particularly concerned about the quality of said threads. By not focusing on the important aspects of the show, RWBY ends up feeling frustratingly shallow.
And it’s because of this shallowness that I refuse to watch the show, at least until it ends; that way, I don’t have to expect disappointment, it will come in due time. Sorry for those who enjoy my rwde posts, but I think it’s time I move on to something fun~
How not to write: Pacing
A little over a year ago I wrote a conclusion on how RWBY was anchored down by focus problems. As a follow up, let’s talk about the consequence on not bunkering down on select plot points and characters.
I have spent a bit wondering why it had always bugged me that JNPR were so prominent in the story, but I think I’ve finally come to a consensus: they don’t benefit the main characters. Jaune doesn’t benefit Ruby or Weiss and doesn’t interact with the rest, and he is the only that communicates meaningfully to rwby.
This wouldn’t be a problem if several episodes from the early seasons weren’t dedicated to him having mundane to troubling arcs that didn’t benefit the story due to how self-contained they were. Then there’s Ren’s arc which is again self-contained thanks in no small part to Ren not impacting the plot or being a titular character or even interacting with them in a way that’d lend development. Even Pyrrha isn’t safe from this as the maiden plot has yet to actually contribute to the main plot (relics) other than giving Cinder a needless power boost.
In volume 1, Ruby, Weiss, and Blake barely get any development while Jaune gets an entire arc to himself; Yang ends up getting robbed of an arc, not that the little develop her teammates got was much more substantial. When Weiss and Blake have their falling out, instead of the episodes focusing on developing these characters and resolving the plot, Penny and Sun chew the scenery until the conflict just stops.
In volume 2, there is focus on the main characters as Blake and Yang share a moment that should not be as rare as it is; however, because the volume stops to have a needless dance arc, the conclusion ends up being rushed, with the introduction of -you guessed it- new characters that completely overshadow the four main characters and destroy the concept of grimm as a threat.
Volume 3 gives us a slew of characters who exist purely for fights. A tournament arc in most animes is the easiest way of developing your main characters as it lets them fight non-villain protagonists with philosophies that can cause the protagonists to develop in a myriad of ways. Because RWBY doesn’t have the main characters and their opponents interact, it blows its free development card for literally no reason.
And now after Volume 4 and 5 gave us the rest of Salem’s weak villain crew, Volume 6 decides to reintroduce Neo and introduce even more new villains. RWBY’s writers have an addiction to adding new characters but simultaneously don’t care about using them to make their core characters more dynamic.
No, the only time rwby ‘develop’ is during their micro arcs. Every volume Blake, Weiss, and Yang will go through an arc that would be contained in a single episode of a normal show. The finale of volume 1 could have cut Sun and Penny entirely, volume 2 could have cut the dance arc, and volume 3 could have made major cuts to the tournament arc, all of which would have allowed for more detail to go into the Weiss, Blake, Yang, and especially Ruby. Instead, Ruby is a husk after five volumes, Weiss feels just as empty when she’s not talking about her family, and Blake is a token minority because these characters don’t have multiple arcs, just a singular, repetitive arc spread-out through the entire show.
As of volume 6, it’s safe to say everything that has happened to the main four could have been told in 2 seasons. The fact that it has taken 6 years to accomplish what is typically done in 2 to 3 is a testament to how poor focus leads to terrible pacing and horrible time management.

Geography

How not to write: RWBY
This post isn’t a goodbye, just a means of capping off this series of posts. I made this series as a way to deconstruct the various elements of the show, look at what I felt was wrong, what could be improved upon, what bothered me as a writer; all of this was meant to keep my mind in the writing process until I could get back into writing my own material.
With the conclusion of this post, I want to thank everyone who has kept up, but know that I will continue my personal thoughts on the rest of volume 6 of this show. I may not be as articulate with my thoughts, but I will continue.
With that said, if you like reading…grab yourself a snack, get comfortable, this is going to be a long ride.
In order to understand how everything went wrong, we have to ask: what are the primary issues with the show? There are many answers to that question, but they can best be summarized into two categories: Focus and Time Management. These two categories go hand-and-hand, but we’ll be starting with focus.
I’ve already made a post about this topic and many more referring to this issue. When you write something you have to ask yourself, “what am I writing about?”
What is RWBY about? Well I would think Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang, the characters involved in the acronym; this idea is reinforced by the first four trailers for the show centering around each character. Yet, despite rwby being the supposed focus, the audience knows far more about Jaune Arc or Pyrrha Nikos than they do about Ruby Rose or even Yang Xiao Long.
Now if the show had more time per season, this may have been less of an issue. I say may, because future seasons did have more time allotted to them but still failed to give much develop to certain characters (Ruby in volume 4, for one). Still, if time is an issue, that only emphasizes the need to focus on your main characters. If RWBY doesn’t have much time to tell its story, in needs to cut excessive elements like team JNPR and even Sun and Penny.
Ruby and Weiss have an episode -cut in two parts- that is meant to flesh out some sort of relationship between the two, but while there is a setup and a conclusion, there is no development in the middle. Ruby annoys Weiss, causing a split between the two, but instead of the characters involved working toward the solution, two uninvolved parties just solve it for them. By having Ozpin and Port talk out the issue, it removes all agency from Ruby and Weiss.
That’s to say nothing of poor Yang, who could be replaced with a mop or a lamp or some other inanimate object for 90% of the volume and it wouldn’t make a difference. Maybe if Jaundice, a boring arc that established nothing of value were replaced with episodes focusing on Yang, this wouldn’t be an issue.
So far, I’ve only really cornered these criticisms to volume 1, because the subsequent seasons only exasperate these issues. Each volume continues to inflate the cast’s numbers while our main protagonists feel neglected during many points. Ruby and Penny have some sort of relationship that isn’t given time to flourish because show is fixated on a plot involving Weiss, Jaune, and yet another new character. We haven’t had time to properly flesh out Weiss and now she’s being put into a love triangle that doesn’t go anywhere or add anything of substance to her character or anyone else involved.
Near the end of this otherwise farcical “arc”, we are given a genuine moment between two main characters that contains actual development as Yang regales Blake with her past and attempt to relate it to Blake’s current situation. Afterwards we return to the farcical arc.
It’s not something that hit me until recently, but volume 2 also began the tradition of introducing episodes that solely setup future episodes. Episode 8 is purely a setup episode, meaning there’s no real meat to it. Does it develop the characters? Not really. Does it develop the plot? A little. Truthfully, the plot advancing elements make up roughly 1-2 minutes of the episode while the rest is foreshadowing. You can condense the majority of these scenes and begin episode 9 half way through episode 8, as an example.
It’s only once we get to the back-end of volume 2 that the audience learns anything more of the main cast: we learn more about Weiss, Blake, and Yang. Nothing about Ruby though, get used to that. And then a big train sequence which results in nothing but the end of Grimm being taken seriously as a threat. CFVY was mentioned to be returning during episode 8, but since the audience has literally no reason to care about them until now, this scene exists on its own.
And there is really too much stupid to analyze in 2 minutes, but I’ll do my best. First off: fox. He exists and does stuff. It’s cool but emphasizes how little these characters matter because we never see him in action ever again. Yatsu-whatever has generic ground explosion power. Velvet does a bunch of kicks and stuff. Finally, enjoy Coco cutting enemies in half with her minigun, because this will be the last time bullets will ever have an affect on grimm.
It all ends with our protagonists having gained no knowledge whatsoever. If it weren’t for the brief snippets of character development, this volume would be filler.
Finally volume 3. We begin with Ruby mourning her mother. Don’t worry, we’ll never hear about Summer again nor get anymore development on this aspect of Ruby’s life.
Fights fights fights involving colorful cardboard cutouts until the main plot kicks in about halfway through the volume. These fights could be used to develop our main characters (or do literally anything other than useless foreshadowing) but then we couldn’t have cheesy pop songs based on them. Thankfully once rwby gets disqualified, the plot proper kicks off. Wait what.
Volume 3 is where the show really unhinges and just lets loose on nonsensical garbage. Suddenly we have maidens, magic, a giant grim dragon, and silver eyes, and only one of these bullshit element involves even one of the main characters, and it doesn’t get any development until volume 6, 3 seasons after it’s introduced. Still, silver eyes at least have an explanation unlike maidens and magic which are just whatever.
I’ve been ignoring JNPR as much as possible up to this point and there’s good reason for it: I don’t care. They’re a separate team and only half of them get any development. Of the half that gets development, Pyrrha is just a plot device while Jaune eats up screen time to remain the exact same bland, heehawing jackass since the show began.
Why should I care that Pyrrha died? Was I supposed to be charmed by how she danced around a romance plot for 3 volumes? Was I supposed to enjoy her non-existent relationship with anyone but Jaune? If you want me to care about this character, you have to focus on her relationships with more than one person, or at least make the relationship with that one person compelling.
As if the show didn’t already have enough problems with focus and time management what with taking away time from the main team to not develop Jaune and Pyrrha’s relationship to the point the audience has a reason to care about Pyrrha’s death: the main cast is split apart!
Remember how I said Volume 2 episode 8 was just an episode to setup future episodes? Ruby and JNR’s entire arc is just that, explaining how they got from Vale to Haven. We get some backstory for Ren (and a tiny bit for Nora) and that’s it. There could be interesting development for Ruby if the Silver eyes weren’t swept under the rug at the beginning of the volume.
Weiss’ arc isn’t much better, as we finally see her home situation. From her room. The little we see outside of Weiss room is dedicated to the attitude of Atlas, but before that we have to waste one minute on this GuyWhoWasInVolume2 look-alike. Why? I don’t know, but despite being a scene that lasts less than a minute, it’s the perfect showcase of how the writers still hadn’t grasped time management skills. The exchange between this man and Weiss adds nothing that wouldn’t be established in another minute, yet the writers felt this scene was pertinent enough to keep in. It all ends with Weiss escaping her home, having learned nothing nor evolved in any visible way.
Blake’s arc is completely confused on what it wants to be and do. The focus issue is front and center here as the story would have benefited greatly from choosing between the relationship between Blake and her parents or Blake and Son Goku; instead, it tries to do both and fails at each.
Finally Yang’s Arc attempts to build Adam as a threat, insults Yang for being depressed, mocks her disability by comparing it to being scared of a mouse, before finally being a lesson about Yang keeping her cool. It’s all over the place, yet is also the shortest of the volume 4 arcs. Perhaps instead of adding the painfully stilted comedy bits from Blake’s story, that time could have went toward exploring Yang’s issues. Or Ruby’s. Or Weiss’.
Volume 5 finally converges all these plots by Having Weiss be damsel in distress for Yang to have to rescue, before the two have a foreshadowfest with Raven where she talks about magic and reveals nothing that separates it from semblances, and then she portals the pair to RNJR. No, nothing RNJR did before this point actually matters, so there’s no point talking about it.
Back at Blake’s plot, which refuses to get its ass in gear, her and Goku struggle for half the volume to add anything of value to the plot until 10 episodes in, where they take down Ilia and the mustache twirling faunus brothers. Blake then instant transmissions her and rest of the island to haven and proceeds punk Adam, diminishing literally all the threat he ever had and ever will have.
Back at the Haven fight, aka the last 1/3rd of the volume and only part which matters, a bunch of fighting happens because Jaune gets angry which causes Cinder to inexplicably take her grudge out on him, before Ruby activates her Silver eyes on Cinder for some reason, and Weiss nearly dies because of Jaune but it’s okay because he finally unlocked his semblance: Amplification. That makes up for the fact he acted out of line and also got Weiss nearly killed, right?
Anywho, Yang finally ends her whole “controlling your emotions” arc by running toward the vault instead of picking a fight with Mercury. After an intense battle between two characters that have had no real development, Yang convinces her dumbass Mom to give her the object fuck-off magical power which she wanted to be rid of in the first place.
It all ends with Adam and Salem’s crew running away, Cinder not dying because she has so much potential to not achieve, and our hero’s reuniting so that the plot might have some semblance of focus.
Volume 4 and 5 suffer from the same major issues: nothing happens until the last 1/3rd, focus is all over the place with Blake’s story line taking up well over an hour between the two volumes while having the poorest quality, Yang getting basically no focus at all, Ruby’s focus going toward JNR or dumb things like hand-to-hand combat, and Weiss is just there to be rescued.
And then we have Volume 6. While it’s not over yet, the problems are already evident. It very wisely chooses to start with Son Goku Kamehamehaing ThatGuyFromVolume2, Ilia, and himself out of the plot, and then shortly after cuts JNR out too. Unfortunately, though volume 6 seems to be addressing criticisms, it’s going about it the wrong way.
Yang is suddenly angry at everything, which would be great in terms of learning how to control her emotions…if that bridge wasn’t already completed back in volume 5. We already had a big revelation about her overcoming that “arc” that started in volume 3; there is a longer running theme involving her and Adam, but Blake so easily dealt with Adam in volume 5 that he is no longer a threat.
Likewise, we’re learning more about silver eyes, Salem, and magic, but we’re already halfway through the show. It feels a little late to be addressing these element, especially Ruby’s silver eyes, given she never once attempted to ask about them prior. Even worse is that, given they’re based on protecting the people she loved, it’s great they’ve never once shown or mentioned Penny since volume 3. Guess she was just a hunk of junk after all.
We only barely learn anything about Ozpin or Salem too, and we’re left asking more questions, like what was Salem’s life before Ozma or why is it not obvious that once Ozpin collects all the objects of fuck-off magical power, he can just summon the god of light and wish Salem into the deepest recesses of space?
What’s worse is that now that JNR has returned, there’s a good chance too much screen time will be dedicated to them. If the show had the time, having JNR around would be fine, but it’s clear that the writers cannot balance having RWBY, JNR, Salem’s crew, Ozcar, Qrow, and whoever else is character of the day.
In the end, RWBY is simply a victim of poorly balancing quantity and quality. There are too many characters and too little time to develop them all.

Fauna & Flora

How not to write: being vague
I don’t wish to alarm anyone, however I want to make this known ahead of time so it doesn’t come off as a huge shock or unnecessarily dramatic reveal: I’m finishing this series of posts in December. I plan on making two more posts during this month before a finale during the 2nd week of December.
Anywho…
RWBY is popular, there’s no real questioning that. I mean if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be discussing it, would we? But what draws people to this show? I mean I’ve written various posts discussing the show’s flaws, but if it’s so flawed, why even bother?
Well first off, anything and everything can be analyzed, both to see what works and what doesn’t. Second, what draws people into the show and what leads many to defend it so fervently are actually the same thing: the nebulousness.
Often a writer will leave a scene or situation vague to build suspense or intrigue into the matter. One of the best methods media has generated fan-based interactivity is by leaving details out that readers, listeners, or viewers can interpret in a number of ways. This is all fine and dandy when done in moderation, but you know the song and dance by now: RWBY abuses this tool.
Interactions and develops in this show are hinted at and implied, but never stated and even saying they’re implied is often interpretive itself. For instance, the audience is led to believe RWBY and JNPR are friends, but the details are nonexistent. How are they friends? How have they bonded? Most of these details are left for the viewer to answer.
The intricacies of dust, semblances, magic, silver eyes, grimm, maidens, and societies are given such little depth that fans can mold them in any which way they see fit. In that sense, RWBY is less of a show and more of a do-it-yourself kit.
A common issue I’ve seen is mentions of stans (obsessed fans) who will try to argue against criticisms of the show while using evidence of events that never occurred in official media. For instance, I’ve had someone tell me Sun helped Blake reunite with the rest of her team in volume one. This did not occur, Sun didn’t even bring her team up more than once.
Other instances may be caused by people reading fanfictions or theory posts which expand on characters who have needed any characterization for years now, as well as exploring the concepts mentioned above. What ends up happening is that people then meld together the details of various fanfictions and the events of RWBY, creating a seemingly fantastic experience while not being able to distinguish what they read in a fan work or non-canonical extension versus what occurs in the show. Thus, these fans or stans may be willing to defend the show against criticisms they fill are unjust but don’t realize their information is corrupted by fan works.
Initially when a show has concepts that begin as vague constructs that lets it capture an audience, that audience sees it as potential. When this potential is applied to various characters and important plot items, it must be tapped into or else that potential degredates until it becomes garbage.
That’s sadly what the majority of the show has become: garbage. What are silver eyes? Garbage. What is magic? Garbage. Adam? Garbage. And it all stinks. But you know what they say: one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Yeah the show is vague enough that it's easy to fill it in with your own ideas, one of the things that makes rewriting the show so easy but if you take the show as is (ESPECIALLY now) it's just a dumpster fire.
I was thinking the other day about how to fix RWBY from how it is now, and really it’s pretty much impossible since RWBY is such a complete mess now. My main rewrite picks up after Volume 2 and continues from there with entirely new story. I even have ideas that could pick up after Volume 3, which is not ideal since Volume 3 completely screws with any consistency in the story but I could fix things from there. I would have to spend a couple Volumes just fixing all the problems Volume 3 created but it’s doable.
But now? Anything short of a full reboot couldn’t fix it. I didn’t want to just do a full reboot and scrap everything, but then I had an idea( DC's Flashpoint and X-Men: Days of Future Past). Something that’s been done in comics several times are in universe reboots. Drastic events in the story that bring about changes on a meta level. So I came up with a way to fix RWBY doing that.
The idea here is that the story of RWBY is so contradictory, nonsensical, and inconsistent that it would have to be recognized in universe. You could do this at any time really, because at this point the story is such a hot mess that it doesn’t matter. So here’s how I’d do it.
A Volume would start with Ruby starting to notice…. strange things. Things that don’t make sense. Characters seem to start having wrong recollections of events, and the world around them seems to be changing in random ways. Everyone starts remembering the fall of Beacon differently, Yang doesn’t remember Zwei, Weiss has a radically different telling of what happened in the Vytal Tournament than Ruby, Qrow says he was never a teacher at Signal. No one aside from Ruby remembers Glynda at all. But what really caused Ruby to worry is when she asks Ozpin how he met her, and what he says is completely different than what happened back in episode 1. Ruby realizes that something is horridly wrong. It’s a moment like the Deja Vu scene from the Matrix where they all realize something bad is going on. Ozpin starts to speculate on what could have caused this. This would spark the story of the season.
This arc would involve them investigating and they’d discover that something wrong did happen. Sometime after the Vale Breach but before the start of the next semester Cinder used all the Dust she had Roman collect to fuel some powerful spell that altered reality. She did that to ensure her victory at Beacon but in the process completely changed the very fabric of reality, even making her forget what she did as she essentially created an entirely new timeline. People acted differently, people who didn’t exist before exist now, and even major events changed. So this explains literally every inconsistency since Volume 3 started. Every oddity. Every confusing plot point. It all goes back to Cinder. This is why Cinder is so OP in Volume 3 and why all the good guys made so many blatantly stupid decisions. It was all part of the plan. Though messing with reality like that comes with downsides. Cinder wasn’t supposed to win at Beacon, so reality snapped back at the very end by causing Ruby to almost kill her with her Silver Eyes. Think of it as almost a balancing patch to make up for Cinder’s Maiden powers. But since Cinder is the source of the change she can’t die. She’s effectively immortal, which explains how she keeps surviving these outright impossible scenarios. But karma is coming back at her hard which has caused her to repeatedly suffer.
The good guys figure out that if they get a hold of another Relic they can possibly fix things, and Ozpin puts together a plan to do it. Over the course of the season Ruby gets a scar across her face, and I think it would be a good idea to have Crescent Rose destroyed and have Ruby build a new scythe with Qrow. This is important for later on. They fight against the bad guys and Ruby finally gets her fight with Cinder and seemingly kills her.
So ultimately they get a Relic and return to Beacon to execute Ozpin’s plan. Ozpin figures they can use it to send someone back in time to stop Cinder. But only one person and it’s a one way trip. They returned to Beacon so that they could easily find Ozpin in the past and stop this from happening. Ozpin says that Ruby with her Semblance is the only person who’d be capable of making the trip successfully, and since she’s the one who was affected the least from the changes (due to her “honest soul”) she’d be best suited for it. And with things getting increasingly distorted Ozpin fears that things will only get worse and that Remnant may not even survive the distortions if things go on much longer. Ozpin prepares notes that Ruby can use for reference to explain things to themselves in the past. Because this action would mean effectively erasing everything and starting over with a new timeline Ruby gives sad goodbyes to everyone, and even hesitates knowing what she’s going to do. But with everything set up she goes back in time.
Ruby ends up back at Beacon not too long after Volume 2 ended. She’s a bit shocked seeing everything happy again and manages to find her past self and explain things. The scar she has on her face and the new scythe will help to make her distinct from past Ruby. After Ruby finds her past self they go to Ozpin and explain everything to him. He calls in Glynda and they organize everyone to find and stop Cinder, and that’s the end of the Volume. Future Ruby will be a permanent member of the cast and has to deal with the fact that her entire world was warped and destroyed but she makes sure to fight for the new timeline they created and ensure it’s safety.
This way you can do a soft reboot of the series, dump ALL the troublesome lore that’s dragging the series down, and start fresh. But it also doesn’t completely discount everything that happened after Vol 2 because Future Ruby remembers it all. She’ll make numerous references and note the differences between the timelines. She moves forward and fights with her past self, essentially becoming a Future Trunks/Lucina type character. Ruby also gets the chance to see Pyrrha and Penny again and help them avoid their fate from her old timeline.

Natural Resources

Technology in remnant is so fucking stupid like vale has high ways for some reason and mistral doesn't even have roads and maria just has prosthetic eyes and menagerie just doesn't have working TVs and also some people ride horses and others ride air ships but some have cars and also there's video games and some people just live in fucking tribes for seemingly no reason at all and people just die and there's no murder charges ever because i don't think murder is a crime and also they have robot girls with souls...but they don’t have therapists.
While writing lore and history for Remnant in RWBY re: I realized something about how I wrote it. The setting of RWBY is very futuristic with some mystical elements but as I moved farther and farther back in time it ended up being a lot like classical fantasy with swords and sorcery and the like. A lot of those elements are still retained in the modern time of RWBY with magic, Dust, and Semblances but there is advanced technology that takes prominence. It’s like if you took a world like Lord of the Rings and fast forwarded a thousand years and seeing how technology affected the world. It was just a neat observation I recently made.
I just had a horrifying realization.
As bad as Detroit: Become Human is with its writing and forced themes, it deals with racist themes better than RWBY. Because while it handles them in the dumbest and most hamfisted way possible it at least actually shows people hating androids. It’s not subtle at all in how it displays this (with forced “back of the bus” references and even Holocaust references) but you can at least see people hating what the story is saying they hate. RWBY barely even shows any Faunus discrimination outside of very small moments, which is ridiculous when a huge part of the story relies on Faunus discrimination being a massive systematic issue.
That’s it, I’m done with RWBY
I’m done with the story going fucking nowhere
I’m done with forced drama
I’m done with every character being so fucking useless
I’m done that Ruby basically has done nothing
I’m done with plot points either dropped or not explained enough
I’m done with introducing character after character that will not matter in seasons, or hell even episodes later
I’m done with the ships and ship teasing
I’m done with Miles complaining that people pay more attention to the ship teasing instead of the plot when he was the one who enable it
I’m done with the writers being so fucking insecure in their writing they have to resort to ship teasing
I’m done with the cast, specially Barbara and Arryn and Miles for not putting his foot down when it comes to interacting with the fanbase
I’m done with Bumblebee fans
I’m done that everyone (especially the fanbase) reduced Yang as the angry lesbian bimbo
I’m done that the only redeeming quality Blake has it’s the porn
And Weiss still is best girl. let’s see how much does that last
You know, something that I’ve noticed is that every season since Volume 3 has been where “The real story starts”. I remember seeing people say “Oh just skip Vol 1 and 2 they don’t matter. Just start with Vol 3 that’s where the real story starts”.
And then with Vol 4 I saw this happen again. I saw people saying things along the line of “Just skip the first three volumes. Vol 4 is where the real story starts”.
And then I saw it happen AGAIN with Vol 5. “Everything was just a prologue to this just skip to Vol 5 that’s where the real story starts”. And I really don’t get this?
The real problem is that the show keeps pulling things out of nowhere and disregarding a lot of what happened in previous seasons to keep things going, giving the impression that nothing before X season matters. But this insistence that people should just skip a bulk of the show and go right to the current season is absurd. You will have no context for who anyone is, and when things from previous seasons do get mentioned you’d be completely lost. And at what point does the “real story start”? Volume 6? 7? 10? Are we going to be saying “Oh yeah just skip the first 9 seasons Vol 10 is where the real story starts”? I just don’t understand this. It feels like people are so concerned with trying to justify why the show keeps dropping plotlines and being inconsistent that they have to just say that most of the show is pointless and can be skipped.
Really what RT should have done for Vol 4 is combine the stories of Volumes 4 and 5 into one. Have about half of the season as them getting to Haven, with each member of RWBY having their small arcs that lead to them heading to Haven to reunite, then deal with the fallout of the RWBY break up, then lead into the second half with everyone at Haven. Cut out things like the Nuckelavee and deal with Ren and Nora’s backstory in a much more concise way, put some good worldbuilding for Mistral in the season (which includes actually doing things in Haven), drop the Menagerie arc and just have Sun and Blake talk things out as they make their way to Haven, and work on the characters developing post Volume 3. It would cut out a lot of the fat from both seasons and streamline the story that’s there. It doesn’t even change the overall story, it just fixes a ton of the pacing issues the show has had the last couple volumes.

Alternative Name(s)

The New World

Related Historical Events

• 4
  The Great Calamity