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Volume 2, Third Arc | Table of Contents | Volume 2 Final Thoughts
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Page Count: 21; Gif Count: 41
Last we left off, Volume 2 was finally kicking into gear. So far, we had a food fight, and then a half-baked almost-plot pushed mostly to justify a huge fight with a robot, and then a prom, and then we went to the ruins of a city and had introspection. There is also a dog here.
Finally, Ruby fell right into the villains’ lair and got her ass whooped with pathetic ease by chumps she should’ve been able to take both disarmed and blindfolded. Let’s hope for better from the last two episodes of the volume.
We open up on Ruby being tossed to the ground in front of Torchwick, who is standing at a set of rail tracks and traincars. He has this to say:
T: [laughing] Wow, you are much more manageable without that oversized gardening tool of yours.
Don’t. Don’t turn to the audience and wink at them over b/s they weren’t happy about.
Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 1
Remember, this count is for lampshading things the audience noticed and didn’t like, not just any lampshade (which is why Glynda’s lampshade last post didn’t get one).
Ruby tries to attack Torchwick, but he just sweeps her aside with nothing more than a chuckle. That’s not, ya know, incredibly frustrating or anything.
He congratulates Perry, the background White Fang minion who first knocked her out, for bringing him something to improve his mood, then kneels next to Ruby and points the barrel of his gun-cane (which is called Melodic Cudgel, I think) at her throat, asking how she found them. Ruby, using her one brain cell for once zips away with her Semblance, leaving Torchwick shocked and staring at a few scattered rose petals. Will I give her a cookie?
Unfortunately, she only speeds away maybe ten feet past him, after which she resumes running at a fairly slow pace. So no, no cookie. Torchwick, with his two braincells (I still haven’t forgotten the Paladin fight) turns his cane around and presses a button to send the hook of it firing out on a cord, catching Ruby by the nape of her clothing and dragging her backward.
There’s a boom from somewhere nearby, though, and Torchwick spots the dust from some sort of commotion, then orders Perry to go take care of it while he deals with Ruby. Perry and his fellow unimportant mooks make to go see what’s up, only for another, much louder boom to shake dust down, and Torchwick demands to know what’s going on.
The answer, of course, turns out to WBY, Oobleck, and Zwei, invading the underground compound to rescue Ruby. Speaking of, she takes the opportunity to try and tackle him from behind, but he shakes her off, only for her to blitz it again.
Demanding someone kill her, he and accompanying mooks take aim at Ruby, only for her to, uh…
I’m sorry for so many gifs in such a short time, but there’s really no words-only way to express the heroine changing lanes like she’s playing a 1990s handheld from the toystore. In response to crashing headlong into the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy trope, Torchwick turns to a nearby mook and indicates the train.
T: Attach this car and spread the word. We’re starting the train.
The mook tries to protest that things aren’t finished, to which he rams the barrel of Melodic Cudgel against his neck so hard he’s pinned against the wall of the car, very clearly making the statement that this doesn’t matter. He then leaves.
Ruby, meanwhile, skids to a halt as she finds herself faced with a few White Fang goons aiming at her, only for them to be scattered with a single particularly bombastic shell from Ember Celica. Yang has arrived, and grabs Ruby in a hug. The others are right behind her.
Immediately after saying she’s fine when Yang asks, Ruby explains what she’s seen so far, while Blake hands her back her weapon: there’s a shitload of artillery, both manned and unmanned, loaded up on that train. Oobleck is skeptical, since after all, the tunnels are sealed and these train tracks just lead to a dead end, only for Torchwick to come over an intercom system reiterating his orders. Steam rises from the traincars, which begin to move.
Ruby wisely says that they need backup, and then tries to call Jaune, only to be reminded that there’s no signal out here. Oobleck responds that there is only one option left to them: board the train.
R: [turning to face the camera, armed with Crescent Rose] We’re stopping that train.
There’s a scene of the train picking up speed, with one car taken up with no less than nine prototype Paladin mechs.
*sound of a car brake and squealing wheels*
No. No! That doesn’t fucking work. These things are not like hand-held weapons, they are war machines. You cannot just make off with ten of them without an enormous scandal erupting. In fact, the first time one of these things went missing, there probably would’ve been a huge investigation!
Spoiler alert, we’re going to find out later that a scientist from Atlas is in league from Cinder. And this doesn’t make any more sense, because also spoiler alert, he’s a “disgraced Atlesian scientist”, not someone who would have the clearance to make this happen! Military weapons are not just black market guns you can lift from pawn shops, and there is only one notable military power producing them here, so there’s no room for a whole militarism network here to hide a smuggling operation in!
You can take time to make this make sense, you know! Why even introduce the Atlesian Paladins if they’re only going to be used by the non-Atlesian villains? Why not take some time out of that fucking prom arc to show us a particularly talented White Fang leader finding an abandoned scrapyard once used as a bunker by the military and getting busy creating new assault tech?! It’s easy! Hell, Mountain Glenn could’ve been the abandoned military outpost with scrapyards full of old war tech.
It Was Right There: 4
Grrrrr. We cut to an attaching bridge between cars, where a mook is stationed. He hears something, only to be knocked out by Oobleck’s thermos-turned-quarterstaff before he can finish an alert call. Enough got through, though, that up at the head of the train, Torchwick is getting alerted of the invaders boarding. Torchwick, with the air of someone annoyed at having to keep giving obvious instructions, tells him that they need to grab some cargo and get them off the train. Then he’s a racist.
T: Animals, every one of them. [Noticing a faunus steering the train with tusks jutting from under his mask] Not you though, you’re great.
This is getting a point because we’re supposed to laugh.
RSVP: 24
I can’t wait for a day when that’s not our highest count.
RWBY and Oobleck are atop the caboose. Oobleck says they need to hurry to the front and stop the train, and urgency is added to that directive when Weiss opens up a slot on the train’s roof, where they find what is clearly a hefty explosive charge. Far up ahead on the train, more White Fang mooks with an assortment of animal features are emerging onto the roofs to attack. Before they can decide what to do, the explosive charge starts to beep ominously.
Obviously thinking the bomb is there to deter hangers-on, Oobleck orders them to make for the next car and for Blake to detach this one. She obeys, even getting into the same pose she made as she did exactly this in the Black Trailer, except…
The car slides away of its own accord. It begins to trail behind, and then the bomb detonates some ways away. Confusion ensues, only for Ruby to discover that the roof of this car holds a bomb, too. In response, Oobleck moves a few cars ahead and discovers yes, all of them are loaded with bombs. The one in the next-to-last car starts beeping, too, so it’s time for them to scram.
Yang says that this doesn’t make sense, but the mooks are upon them. It’s go-time!
No Evisceration Evasion point, because these mooks presumably have some measure of Aura and we gave Aura a bloodless carnage point as a whole back in Volume One. Now, about what’s happening here:
To be clear, there is no way to not kill these faunus. Either RWBY defeats them here, in which case they’re left on a car about to detach with a large bomb on it, or they flee past them and are chased and harassed to an extent at which they likely cannot properly fulfill their mission. Outside of simply leaving, these guys are clearly expendable and have to go caput.
But it’s the principle of this thing. The faunus are an oppressed minority and a racial allegory and the White Fang is a stand-in for advocacy groups who turn to violence. And our heroes, which consist of four of the oppressor class and one of the minority class, are just carving into them with no more said—nay, enjoying themselves. These are the same people Blake gave a call out to from her heart back in the Volume 1 finale, bidding them to stand down. Well, that’s over with, I guess, so let the carnage continue! They’re just terrorists, right?
(And unfortunately, knocking them off the traincars isn’t an option either, as what’s about to be revealed makes it clear that even that one dude Blake sent flying off the train is dead meat).
Just as the team is finishing their little skirmish, the bomb from the second-to-last car detonates, revealing what’s going on: it collapses the ceiling of the tunnel, leading into open sky beyond...and an enormous amount of Grimm, including a King Taijitu about as big as the train itself, collapses down into the tunnel with it.
They promptly begin chasing the train. Torchwick and his crew are going to smash the train right into Vale and expose the city to countless bloodthirsty monsters.
Blake accurately measures this as an insane course of action. Oobleck orders WBY to head into the traincars below and do what they can to stop the bombs, presumably by disarming the bombs or taking out those who are driving the train. Ruby is ordered to stay above to back him up, as those nine Paladin prototypes *sounds of intense rage* are now moving towards them from the car rooftops. Oh, and the dog is with them.
In response to the approaching threat, Oobleck takes a sip from his thermos, transforms it into his quarterstaff, and ignites its tip, revealing it also functions as a blowtorch.
Then, Zwei jumps up, and Oobleck…Oobleck bats him like a baseball bat, and...and he smashes into the first Paladin…
*flailing* I… he… he made a dog into a softball.
I’m…pretty sure Zwei was introduced solely so we could have this kuh-razy moment.
*extremely long-suffering sigh*
Okay, look. Yes, it’s been established that all living things with souls, animals included, can use Aura. Zwei not instantly dying from this is excusable. But Oobleck set him on fire. And sent him hurtling towards a massive, heavy frame of metal at high speed! Aura doesn’t just stop you from taking damage outright, hits still land and blows still hurt! We don’t see anybody else, human or otherwise, just fucking immolate themselves and act like it’s no big deal! With the laws of this universe at hand, Oobleck should’ve just committed a heinous act of animal cruelty with the burn damage alone, nevermind how he should’ve just splattered that poor pup!
But, if we move past that, we also see other stuff that begs indignation: Oobleck apparently smacked that corgi into that manned robotic weapon so hard that it just sent the entire damn thing careening off the train tracks and rolling, smashing itself along the track, undoubtedly hideously injuring or killing the poor faunus inside, and I hope for his sake he died quick, because if he’s still alive, those Grimm are now bearing down on him and he gets to bleed out while trapped inside that mech suit until the beasts tear it apart to get to him.
Wonderful. Absolute heroics. Outstanding.
Zwei lands haplessly and unharmed—but not for long, because he landed right in front of the next Paladin in line, which wisely aims its gun arms right at that little hellhound. But it’s overtaken in a series of blasts of flame, taking it off-guard as Oobleck steps in to save his ammo—I mean asset—I mean dog.
We cut to the inside of the train, where Weiss, Blake, and Yang land in the darkened innards of the car. Yang makes a pun (Y: I guess this is what we trained for.) which, again, is an actual pun and not just shitty wordplay, so congrats to her. Weiss smiles and hands Blake a clip full of dust rounds, saying it should help her, and Blake loads it into her gun.
*clapping* See, that’s good. Supplying a teammate with help, augmenting one person’s skillset with another person’s resources? That’s good. I enjoy that.
But before the three can make it too far, someone lands in front of them to stop them:
Knowing how Neo flawlessly pulled Torchwick’s ass out of the fire last time we saw her, and how we otherwise don’t know much of her skillset, she could present a problem. Yang orders the other two to go ahead without her, saying that Neo is hers, with the kind of enmity that we…haven’t really established, kind of like we never built of a Ruby vs Torchwick thing, in that Neo actually hasn’t done anything to Yang at all besides prevent her one attack from landing. But whatever, I’ll roll with it this time.
Neo seems prepared to stop Blake and Weiss, but is forced to dodge a shotgun shell from Yang that prevents her from doing so. She stands back up again, and Yang, 5’8”, looks down at Neo, 4’9”. Then the fight starts.
For the record, one thing I was in full agreement with the fandom on is utter glee with Neo, whose design incorporates something silly (ice cream! Neapolitan ice cream, for God’s sake!), crosses it with a criminal thug’s outfit, and gets something classy and unique, and as we’re about to see, the excitement is rewarded with a good fight scene.
Yang tries to punch her, but some sort of flash sends her reeling back. Neo, pointing her parasol at Yang, simply opens it over her shoulder and smiles mischievously. Yang surges forward with a series of punches, none of them landing as Neo gracefully dodges her every straight and hook, until she finally gets close enough to block with her parasol. Yang tries to push through with a kick, only for Neo to artfully twist around her and kick her down onto the ground.
Neo twirls, flipping upward and trying to bring a leg down on the sprawled Yang, who gets up in time to leap away and comes back at her with a renewed vigor, only to have her arm grabbed by Neo and a heeled foot swinging up into her face and then plunged into her side, sending her on her ass again. Neo’s already sliding over as Yang is recovering, and this time she is on the offensive. She presses forward with her parasol, blocking Yang’s shots and making it hard to aim around her, and folding it up just to jab at Yang’s arms to send her aim off. Pressed up against the wall, Yang (who has more than one braincell) tries firing under the umbrella at the floor to send Neo off-balance, although this only sends her backflipping onto a crate with a leg crossed, in nothing but style.
Time to cut to the next fight. Blake and Weiss are running through a cabin some ways ahead, but there’s a hostile in this one, dragging a large weapon along the ground a la Pyramid Head. It turns out to be the White Fang Lieutenant, a nameless but obviously hostile minion in some degree of authority who we saw at the rally.
*flatly* I’d fuck that. I regret nothing. I should be allowed at least one character I am unashamedly horny for. I mean, look at that. Look at how big he is. Look at his arms. Look at his tattoo.
(By complete coincidence, the White Fang Lieutenant also bears an incredibly strong resemblance to Striker, the guy in my icon.)
(Striker is a dozen times more violent and creepy than this one-off character could ever be, but is nonetheless so hot it actually kind of breaks my brain. He debuted in chapter 22, released in Volume 4 of the Gangsta. manga, but I don’t think this is a case of plagiarism like with Jetstream Sam and Adam. While Volume 4 of Kohske's manga was released in 2013, a year before this episode, it wouldn’t be released in English until November of 2014, two weeks after this episode was released, with Gangsta. being an obscure enough product that I doubt anyone at Rooster Teeth was reading scans of it to copy from it.)
Anyway, whoever the hell this dude is, he can feel free to [CENSORED]. But for now, he’s menacing our heroes. Towering over the two girls with his giantass chainsaw, Weiss tells Blake to go on ahead, then launches an attack on the WFL to keep him from stopping Blake.
She deflects his chainsaw and sends him sprawling, clearing the way. Blake heads into the car ahead, but the WFL gets up, chuckling and brandishing his chainsaw again.
WFL: Finally, I get to kill a Schnee
Well. Uhh. Okay.
Weiss readies Myrtenaster, rotating the dust chambers in the handle as she prepares for a duel. Before we see that though, it’s time to see who will be Blake’s challenger.
A lot of people were expecting Adam. It would make sense; we know he’s still out there, and Blake has mentioned him in this arc, and the antagonist faction is the White Fang, of whom he is some sort of leader. This would’ve been appropriate.
Those people were wrong, as Torchwick is the one waiting for her.
T: Hello there, kitty cat. Ya miss me? You know, we really oughta stop meeting like this. People are gonna talk.
At this point they’re letting the character of Adam dangle to a rather annoying degree. We’ve been at this for two years, now, haven’t we? He’s starting to feel very Sage-and-Scarlet-ish, in that there’s just no reason for him not to be here and his absence is highly visible.
But whatever, Torchwick.
Blake wordlessly runs forward and Torchwick sighs, preparing to strike her with his cane and clearly expecting Blake to perform as badly against him as last time. But he’s wrong.
Blake ducks and rolls at the last minute, leaving a shadow clone behind—but this clone is fiery, infused with the dust Weiss gave her earlier. When Torchwick hits him, it explodes, sending him into the air, where Blake leaps and juggles him, swiping him several times with Gambol Shroud’s cleaver and sending him hurtling back into the floor. She lands, and divides her blades into two.
He gets up and tries to blow a firework at her, but she leaps back, leaving a shadow clone made of solid stone in her place to take the hit. The top half of it is blown off, but she’s left unharmed, and she leaps through the air, trying to bring her katana down on Torchwick. He swipes at her, but she bounces off of a vanilla shadow clone in the air, landing perfectly a couple feet from him, and they engage in a series of swipes, her trying to land a hit and him blocking each one perfectly. He thinks he’s got her, but then…she dodges again, leaving a clone of ice in her place that catches his cane and leaves him struggling to free it.
She re-sheathes her katana and, just like she did against the mech, sends out a huge wave of energy from the dust-infused blades. It slams right into Torchwick, sending him flat on his ass, depriving him of his cane, and leaving him solidly beaten.
He starts to get up, but Blake is on him immediately, kicking him back down with one high-heeled foot, and pointing her katana straight at his throat. Having read the Book of Villainy as thoroughly as he has, Torchwick decides that now is the time for stalling.
T: Why are we fighting? I saw you at the rally, we’re on the same side, and you know it.
Aside from having left the White Fang before the series began, I’m pretty sure she’s aware you’re a violent racist trying to lead a terrorist attack on innocent lives for what is, to her eye and so far ours, shits and giggles. Try again, dude.
Anyway, what an amazing fight! Don’t know if you guys were keeping track at this point, but by this time in the series, Blake had participated in five fights thus far, all of them with assisting partners and not defeating any given enemy one-on-one, with her only attempt leading to a solid loss. Now, she turns the tables. And I’m gonna say something that a lot of Torchwick fans would’ve loudly feigned deafness in response to: I think she could do it twice.
This was the fight needed to restore confidence in Blake. Last time she fought Torchwick, she was in emotional distress, and fighting hard and fast without thinking. Now, she’s clear-headed, resolute, and has experience with his fighting style. Even with the disadvantage of a lack of room to fight in when she typically relies a lot on leaping and dodging, she kicks his ass in record time without sustaining a single hit! The dust infusion was an excellent way to tilt things in her favor, but I think even without it, Blake probably could’ve taken him.
Go Blake!!!
Now we cut back to Weiss versus the White Fang Lieutenant.
He charges at her, and she conjures a glyph that his chainsaw revvs against, but doesn’t penetrate, and she smacks him with the handle of her rapier, knocking him back. He tries to bring it down on her, but she sidesteps and lets it slide off of Myrtenaster’s blade, smacking him with it as she turns. She leaps over him, swiping him in the head yet again, and he tries to swing on her as he recovers, only for her to backflip right under the blade as it passes. She swipes at him several times, landing her blade against his arm, face, arm, and face again, and finally laying him flat and flipping over his prone form just because.
He swings the chainsaw in a circle one-handed as he drags himself up, which she swivels under again, and pressures her. She dodges an overhead swing, braces Myrtenaster against the follow-up swing, and leaps skyward to evade the foot he sends out to kick her (which is like the size of her entire torso, seriously this dude is big). She springs off of the ceiling and tries to spear him from above, but he leaps back, and she flips over his blade as she lands more hits, sending him onto his back again. He recovers, and…
She conjures her time dilation gif—you know, the one that slows down motherfucking time that she powered up Blake with against the Paladin? That’s still kind of a broken ability, just so you know.
But she uses it on herself, and rushes forward, conjuring glyphs to ricochet off of, with him caught right in the middle. She careens from one to the other, striking him so fast he can’t react, juggling the dude, and when it wears off, she bounces off of one more glyph and tries to spear him.
But not so fast—he’s still in the game, and with her time dilation glyph worn off, he’s able to grab her and slam her into the ground. With a growl of “C’mere, princess”, he does exactly that, then tosses her into the air and swings on her with the chainsaw.
*slow clapping*
That, too, was an excellent fight, although with a nightmarish twist at the end. And contrasting Blake, we can see now what happens when someone gets overconfident. Weiss is not exactly known for durability, but we see here that while she’s in complete control of the fight throughout most of it, that she neglects to use any dust at all. Her pithy little rapier, while carrying enough weight to stumble and occasionally knock down the White Fang Lieutenant, just can’t put him down. Had she infused her blade with dust as she ordinarily would, she likely would’ve packed enough punch to down what is evidently a much tougher opponent than her. Because she doesn’t, the White Fang Lieutenant is able to tank her hits and recover quickly, and pounces on the first opportunity he sees, with disastrous consequences.
I like this fight a lot, because besides being super cool, it shows that even someone you presumed to be a background character can kick surprising amounts of ass—which naturally means this is pretty much the only time the White Fang Lieutenant is ever important and only the second last time we ever see him. I think he actually might die here, it’s never clarified.
Of course, who we should really be concerned about is Weiss, who along with Ren is not exactly known for durability. We cut away from this fight before the hit lands, but it’s pretty obvious she’s about to get chainsawed, and pitting her tiny little snowflake body against what is basically Guts with the Dragonslayer makes it pretty clear she’s only going to take one hit before going down. It’s obvious she won’t die, but…yeesh, she might get more than a little cut, goddamn.
We cut next to the fight that we started with, Yang vs. Neo. Yang, by now extraordinarily pissed, is walking towards Neo, who is still sat on her crate all elegant and cute, and takes a moment to stare up at her with only a mocking smile and eyelash-fluttering blink (one eye pink and one brown). Yang throws a punch, but Neo blocks it with a swing of her parasol, then moves with the swing to pull herself up on her hands, spinning upside down to block yet another punch with the parasol and sending Yang staggering back. Neo keeps moving with her own inertia, flipping downwart and cartwheeling with parasol extended, tripping up Yang as she presses forward.
Yang moves back, launching a shotgun shell that Neo hides from behind her parasol as per the norm. She and Yang get into another set of swipes, Neo letting the parasol absorb and re-direct Yang’s punches and bullets, and then trying to swing on her with a roundhouse kick. Frustrated beyond measure, Yang (who still possesses more than one braincell, albeit it isn’t seeming to help) grabs her by the leg and tries to throw her by it, but this too gets used against her.
Neo catches herself easily, rebalances, and surges forward, grabbing Yang around the arm and middle and swinging her own body upward and around. She leaps atop Yang’s head in a handstand, then tumbles downward, grabbing her arm on the way and using her momentum to swing Yang over her own body, sending her flying straight into the ceiling, then down on the ground, unconscious. The fight is over.
Whew.
Well, that was a disaster. Yang, who unlike Blake and Weiss usually seems to win her fights handily, just experienced her very first one-sided ass-kicking on the show, and it was definitely not her one side. Without even displaying much if anything in the way of her unclarified powers, Neo takes on everything Yang has and lays her ass flat.
Yang, quite apart from Blake or even Weiss, is getting frustrated and angry and not thinking clearly, but this is hardly the reason she loses the fight. Death Battle pointed out that she’d been fighting Grimm all day with very little sleep, and was likely not at her best (possibly explaining why she was knocked out cold by getting launched into the ceiling, which otherwise is not a convincingly decisive blow), but given that she otherwise performs extremely well during the underground excursion, I think Rooster Teeth forgot about this and we thus aren’t meant to consider it. Even with all of her anger, Yang manages remarkable heat-of-the-moment tactics, trying things to get around Neo that, were Neo a lesser fighter, might’ve worked to her advantage. Unfortunately, we see that Neo is capable of handily defeating Yang without taking so much as a glancing blow or breaking a sweat.
This fight broke RWBY barriers by handing us a mysterious, silent antagonist who takes Yang’s brutal and straightforward fighting style, and answers it with grace and elegance, moving and reacting too fast for poor Yang to counter effectively, without even the benefit of any offensive weapon, and making it clear it was little to no effort on her part to do so. I very much agree with some opinions echoing around later volumes that making Neo mute is a brilliant, if likely not intentional, choice. It forces the animators to rely on body language and doesn’t allow for them to take up time with characters speaking to one another. While you could debate around Torchwick or even the White Fang Lieutenant, it is abundantly clear Neo is a fighter far above Yang’s caliber.
And I love that.
For these three back-to-back fight scenes, all of them gloriously animated and brilliantly, cinematically shot, this has to be my favorite episode of them all. Make no mistake, Sun vs Torchwick still makes me cry and is the best work Monty Oum ever produced, but this…! This is beyond fine, this is excellent work, gratuitous fight scenes and storytelling all in one!
We cut back to Blake, with the point of her katana at Torchwick’s throat. Torchwick nonetheless feels like using said throat.
T: Rgh, still feisty? So, what are we gonna do now? Do you really think a little bow on top is gonna make people forget what you were? …What you’ve done?
I can’t imagine this being a very effective tactic to prolong his life, and in fact judging by the anger on Blake’s face, I’d say it’s actually doing more to shorten it. Nonetheless, his words buy him time enough that the door to the cabin is thrown open due to Weiss being flung inside, with an armed and bloodthirsty White Fang Lieutenant following her unconscious body in. Torchwick asks her what it’s gonna be, and in response she kicks him in the head, knocking him out, and goes to help Weiss, collecting her and running from the WFL as he gives chase.
We cut back to Neo, prowling closer to the downed Yang and removing a long, thin blade from inside her parasol. She looks down at Yang and raises the blade, ready to stab, with a truly evil grin on her face, and it looks like it’s over for Yang.
But then, somebody intervenes!
Some mysterious samurai has arrived to stop Neo and save Yang!
With the coloration, the mask, and the ninjato, the getup invokes a genderflipped Adam, and in fact if the figure weren’t so visibly feminine, it could be. But no, this is a new character, so far anonymous, and Neo reacts with noticeable shock and unease, deciding to make a break for it. Which is probably a wise decision, as I will remind you guys that this whole train is loaded with bombs and is headed for a sealed wall.
The mystery person seems to be thinking along the same lines, as after a look down at Yang, she swings her sword and conjures up a portal. Yang, who is coming to, gets up in time to get a single glimpse of the figure before she’s gone.
There’s still one fight we haven’t checked up on—Ruby, Zwei, and Oobleck versus the Paladins. We cut to the top of the train, where Oobleck is moving with amazing speed and leaving badly-animated fire everywhere, and he takes aim on either side of the Paladin from Ruby, who is doing the same. They fire their weapons at the same time, aiming between the mech’s feet, and his fireball ignites her bullet, creating an explosion under the Paladin that launches it right off the train.
Yet another unfortunate faunus crunched to half-death inside a now-broken mech waiting for either a bomb or hordes of Grimm to finally kill him.
Oobleck urges Ruby ahead as the remaining Paladins advance in the distance, and Zwei asks to stay with Oobleck with a whine. Ruby allows this. Then she moves towards the front of the train, meeting up with the others who are climbing up onto the roof of a nearby car.
Unfortunately, the fights have taken enough time that they can now see the sealed wall, and there really isn’t anything anyone can do. Ruby and Weiss look at each other with a grin, however. Weiss acts, casting a massive amount of ice to encase the four girls and protect them.
The train slams headlong into the wall, and with a mighty explosion, we cut to white silence.
When the scene fades back in, a siren is going off. We see from Ruby’s point of view as she wakes up from unconsciousness, finding herself in some unknown part of Vale, the other girls of RWBY hurt but alive. Citizens are visible in the distance, looking on the scene with confusion. Then, with a mighty roar, the ground rumbles underneath RWBY and the King Taijitu that followed them to Vale bursts from the rubble, as do the rest of the Grimm, creating chaos and panic in the streets.
Ruby looks on with confusion turning to determination, and the episode ends.
Well, there went my favorite episode of the Volume, not to mention the series as a whole. The fights were excellent, nobody acted unreasonably idiotic, there was no Jaune, and the plot to crash the train and the Grimm into Vale makes a decent enough amount of sense if you don’t think too hard about it. This was definitely the highlight of Volume 2.
So in typical fashion, it’s now time for us to be disappointed.
We open up on Jaune, asleep in bed, with his phone going off. We see that he’s answering Ruby’s call from Mountain Glenn’s underground, but unfortunately it cuts out and disconnects before he can hear what’s up. Later in the morning, he’s walking with Team JNPR towards an airship, and Pyrrha is assuring him that they’re probably fine. Nora is excited about being a ‘deputy’, and Ren isn’t too worried for RWBY. Jaune still has a bad feeling, which is on the money when they hear the emergency sirens in the distance.
Jaune says they’re changing their mission, and curiously stops Ren on the way to the airship, assuring him that they’ll make it to ‘that village’ another time. He orders the pilot to take them into the city.
[Early warning for any possible epileptics reading this: when you get to the JNPR arrival on-scene, Jaune’s fight with the Grimm is pretty hectic on the eyes.]
The airship takes off, and we see Cinder watching it fly away, shortly joined by Emerald and Mercury, who have taken notice of the sirens as well. Emerald notes that this part of the plan was still days away, and Mercury asks what they should do. Cinder only stares, brow furrowed.
We cut back to the chaos on the streets below. RWBY find themselves on...I think it’s the display pedestal the Paladin prototype was advertised on? Well, they’re cornered on it, surrounded by dozens of Grimm wolves and beasties, not to mention the massive Taijitu still menacing them. The monsters roar and rush them, and it’s Ruby who is the first to act.
What you are about to see is extremely bad fight choreography and animation, and I’m going to start handing out points for it—especially for a lack of visible carnage when everything dying here should produce some blood or other notable sign of death rather than just falling over.
For those reading without gifs, Ruby leaps into position and slams the tip of her scythe into the ground, then begins swinging around on it and running on the Beowolves’ faces as they run forward to encircle her, which…well, is about as stupid as it sounds.
First off, that spin? Which I tend to call the “stripper pole spin” because that’s what it generally looks like? You need, you know, a pole for that. A sword is not going to work, and a curved crescent blade damn sure isn’t going to work. Raiden does a variation of this in Metal Gear Rising if you buy Mistral’s L’Etranger weapon, which is, you know, a double-ended polearm. The center of gravity here would in no way support Ruby doing this, the scythe blade would just stay stuck in the concrete! And Jesus, they didn’t even bother to animate a little dust cloud around the embedded blade. That, and they really expect me to believe every Beowolf lined up just right for her to run on their faces like that so she could kick them all back. And none of them leapt at her or tried to claw her.
And if you think that’s bad, look at Yang there! She does something typical of her, which is to propel herself with a double shotgun blast to get some air, then rains down more shotgun shells on the beasts below, but just...damn, that looks bad. It sounds bad. This was very obviously not mocapped to the standard we’ve come to expect!
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 12
One apiece. And don’t think I forgot that all this is happening without any sign of bloodshed.
Evisceration Evasion: 5
But we’re not done. After a few Nevermores catch Yang in the air and smack her down into the concrete again, next are Blake and Weiss.
Blake dodges a swipe from a Beowolf and thrusts her katana up into its neck, then kneels and begins firing her gun at each approaching Creep, all of which drop dead instantly with no more said. We cut to Weiss, slashing and thrusting with her rapier, and eventually conjuring an ice sword that she sweeps across a group of wolves.
Yeah, I totally don’t believe this. It’s all gone. Every bit of fluid animation, of gorgeous cinematography, of convincing battle arrangement? Gone. This is just bad.
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 14
Evisceration Evasion: 7
Yang is then seen punching a car across a street in order to flatten some Grimm, and Ruby slashes some more Grimm, all without any blood or crunching—
Evisceration Evasion: 8
–and the King Taijitu finally remembers it’s in this scene and hisses at her. See what I mean? I totally forgot that thing was here. But then…there’s a boom in the distance. The camera pans up to show us Nora flying in, having propelled herself with a grenade from her hammer, and landing said hammer squarely on the skull of the King Taijitu, firing it and apparently (bloodlessly) killing it.
...are you serious? That’s bullshit! That was the biggest Grimm that the train detonations got ahold of, and it took Ren a lot of effort to kill one! It’s massive, way bigger than the last one seen or the Deathstalker that took so much effort to kill. And one little smack and kaboosh with the melon whacker, and it goes down dead?
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 15
Evisceration Evasion: 9
JNPR have arrived, and Pyrrha says ‘Let’s move!’ She, Ren, and Nora spring to action, leaving Jaune to sigh that he apparently didn’t get to do any leader-type stuff. Ren and Nora are smacking and swinging (nope, still no blood), and Jaune asks for takers, only to find a big Ursa standing right behind him. As he nervously backs away, Pyrrha, killing Creeps and Beowolves left and right, looks on, prepared to intervene.
Evisceration Evasion: 10
(For NPR all producing bloodless and immaculate kills).
But guitars are starting up. Is this Jaune’s moment to show what he’s learned from Pyrrha?
Well, he definitely won’t be showing us. That was appalling.
For those not accessing the gifs, let me tell you: Jaune swings wildly, yelling, back and forth, with interspersed cuts of the Ursa reeling back from each slice. There is no blood, the Ursa shots do not include Jaune’s blade or even any white “swing” streaks, and at the end, the Ursa, not visibly hurt, just drops dead.
To say nothing of how Jaune doesn’t seem to have learned anything about not just charging in and wildly swinging his sword, but somehow gets a different result anyway…oh, and how Weiss can be seen in the background killing the same Grimm twice but mirrored on the second cut…
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 17
…and the Ursa giving us no indication the sword was even fucking hitting it…
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 18
Evisceration Evasion: 11
That was just unbelievably bad. The fight with the Ursa Major from Volume One, while still utterly forgettable, is still choreography genius compared to this. There’s no effort here.
But don’t worry. You haven’t seen anything of ‘no effort’ yet. RWBY were involved from the start and are fighting Grimm. JNPR just arrived and are now fighting Grimm. Who’s missing from this scene?
S: Nobody move! Junior detectives!
N: We have badges, so you know it’s official!
It’s Sun and Neptune. Just Sun and Neptune.
Okay, that’s it. Time to start getting angry. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOUR TEAM MATES?! YOUR ASSIGNMENT WAS GIVEN TO TEAMS, NOT PAIRS OR INDIVIDUALS. WHERE THE HELL ARE SAGE AND SCARLET?!
Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 11
But I can hardly complain about that. They’re at least here, and going to fight, unlike last time, right?
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 19
Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 12
No. No they are not. They are only here to sit around and react to the Atlas military flying overhead and killing off the waves of Grimm for them.
What was the motherfucking point of including these characters in the scene at all if they aren't going to contribute?! Because they don't! They don't fight or add anything at all to this scene, or even this episode! There's no point in them being here, but they're here anyway seemingly just to be the only ones who don't do cool things, for no given reason!
And I can tell you they are, because after them dropping their badges in shock, we cut to a scene of Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury arriving. For some reason they’ve changed out of their Beacon guest wear, and Cinder is wearing her extremely identifiable dress that glows when she fights.
Threatening Enemies: 4
Advertise that you’re responsible for this a little harder, why don’t you.
The crew gets to work, and Cinder walks away while Mercury and Emerald get to killing Grimm.
Evisceration Evasion: 12
We knew Mercury’s weapons were in his greaves by now, but it’s nice to see Emerald let loose with some unfolding blades on chains attached to sawed-offs.
Then, we see a Paladin prototype’s arm coming out of the crater of rubble (just saying it again—there’s faunus inside those). The track “Caffeine” starts up as we see Zwei flying out from behind it. He headbutts a Beowolf, and then wags his tail. Thankfully, he’s not the important part of the scene. They are. Enter: sharp upswing in fight choreo!
Team “Coffee”, Coco, Fox, Velvet, and Yatsuhashi. We start with Yatsuhasi and Fox, the former of whom is visibly East Asian, absolutely massive, and uses only a massive broadsword as his weapon, and the latter of whom is dark-skinned, has milky white eyes and doesn’t speak, has scars up and down his arms, and has extremely impractical blade fins on his elbows that probably explain them.
Their work is glorious. Yatsuhashi, landing in a congregation of Grimm, simply slams his Big Fucking Sword down so hard the shockwave rips up concrete and sends the wolves flying away from him. Fox and Velvet beat up a few baddies, but Fox immediately sets his sights on a big one: an Ursa Major. He rushes in, swinging his places through its guts slash after slash, before launching it in the air, and meeting it with a double fist akin to Ren’s palm strike that appears to send his aura into the beast, causing it to explode—and sending the spikes lining its hide out to impale nearby Grimm like a nailbomb.
Said nail bomb finds CVY in its range, but Yatsuhashi shields Velvet with his armor-plated arm and Coco simply bats the spikes away with her handbag, continuing the slow walk she’s been strutting with since landing. Coco’s thing is obviously fashion, being glitzed out and named after Coco Chanel (which is bad but we’re not gonna go there), and she drives that point home by complimenting Fox with a pat on the ass and then stealing the show:
She talks down to a Beowolf before deflecting its claw with her handgun, kicking it in the groin, and then bringing said handbag down on its skull, looking it in the eye as she does. But she’s not done, no. There’s still plenty of Grimm flowing over the street, and she knocks away a few more wolves before dodging a Deathstalker’s stinger.
Velvet leaps forward, holding onto some sort of box, but Coco cautions her against using it.
C: You spent all semester building that up. Don’t waste it here.
That an unprecedented strike on Vale and an emergence of hundreds of hostile Grimm into local downtown is considered a “waste” to use the Secret Box on says volumes and sets up something big for Rooster Teeth to deliver. But that’s for later. For now, Coco’s handbag is transforming into a motherfucking gatling gun.
Hauling out her very own Ol’ Painless, Coco slaughters the remaining Grimm in a glorious display generally accurate to the sheer power of weaponry on that level, even carving up three Nevermores flying overhead in a self-reference to Penny doing the same to three airships last volume finale with her lasers.
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 20
Wait, what’s that for? Coco just committed a war crime against the Grimm. She turned a Deathstalker into bloody chunks, and the Nevermores even bled shed feathers as they were perforated! That was perfect, right?
Well, until you look too closely. Here, lemme slow that last gif down for you:
Yeah, the Deathstalker explodes. Into neat little chunks that fly everywhere. Almost like it was put through a shatter morph program. And only one of the Nevermores gets perforated—the other two just clip straight from one pose to another without jerking or recoiling or showing any signs of damage, frozen into stillness as they fall. Thought I wouldn’t notice in the chaos? I noticed.
And it’s unfortunate that I have to pull these points out. This was a first for RWBY fans, and you better believe they were monumentally upset about it. I edited a lot of the gifs in this post to speed them up, because there’s just so much standing around doing nothing, which I cut out more than once. Everything that made the last episode's fights great—indeed, every hallmark of Monty we’ve come to expect—is absent here. When pressed, Rooster Teeth admitted that this episode was very rushed and it affected the quality of the fights…
…which I will remind you is the exact reason they set up “World of Remnant”, so things like this wouldn’t happen. Methinks management has no idea how to work a goddamn schedule.
But that’s the end of the fight scenes. Mostly. Zwei woofs at Oobleck, and Port strolls up, who use their blowtorch and blunderbuss to shoot fireballs at some approaching Beowolves, and—
—and it sucks. Glynda strolls by, whacks a few Grimm behind her without looking at them with her telekinesis, and then uses said telekinesis to rebuild the section of road that was just destroyed when the train smashed into the barrier. She looks more frustrated at the inconvenience than anything.
The assembled combatants gather in the square, and Emerald and Mercury wordlessly escort Torchwick, having pretended to capture him and handing him over to the Atlesian robot guards, while he complains that they need to watch the hat. They sidle up to Ruby with their fakeass smiles, and Sun and Neptune pound fists again (that makes me rage. IT MAKES ME RAGE.) Peaceful music plays as we tilt up to the sky, which shifts to late evening before tilting back down onto RWBY overlooking the city’s port from a high vantage point and surveying their ‘success’.
Y: Well…we did it.
B: We did it.
W: If we don’t get extra credit for that, I’m going to be seriously disappointed.
Y: Weiss, a two-headed snake literally crushed a bakery. I wouldn’t count on it.
R: Plus, I mean, we didn’t solve everything. A lot of people were hurt, and a lot of people were hurt, and we still don’t know why they did this, or who that mystery girl was.
You guys didn’t solve anything. You are no wiser now than before, the villains’ plan went off without a hitch, and you had to have your bacons saved by timely intervention by others.
W: Well, not every story has a neat and tidy ending.
Oh, there’s a lampshade.
*furiously* Every story can, if you put in the effort. It is not profound to state that resolving a plot or conflict in a decent way is simply not always the Way Things Happen. I know full well that was you speaking to me through the screen, Rooster Teeth.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 11
If you want people to wait years for your plots to come around, you’d damn well better be resolving them neatly and tidily.
B: We might not have all the answers, but we do have a lot of dangerous people behind bars. And I think that’s something we can be proud of.
You have one dangerous lackey behind bars. Everyone else is either dead, or unmentioned.
Ruby says with some pride that if anyone tries anything like this again, they’ll be there to stop them, and Yang lays back and yawns her off. Weiss mentions the only thing left to do is to train for the tournament, but for now, everyone is agreed that they can just go to bed.
Now, we cut to Ozpin’s office. His desktop screen, which he is facing away from while drinking his coffee, has three silhouettes on it. Voices demand his attention, which he finally gives. Turns out that’s his superiors he’s rudely ignoring.
Councilman: You’ve left us with no choice. The Vytal Festival Tournament cannot be broadcast, let alone held, if we are unable to ensure the safety of the citizens!
Ozpin only sips his coffee again in response. The voice continues that, in light of this, Vale’s Council has reached out to Atlas’ Council and have together decided that General Ironwood will be appointed head of security over the festival. Ironwood himself pops up on another call window, assuring them that everything possible will be done to ensure safety and security. The Councilmen thank him, and Ozpin asks, with the air of an extremely aggravated individual, if that’ll be all.
As it happens, it’s not. After the festival, the Councilman says, they’re going to discuss Ozpin’s position as head of security. Ironwood’s reports in recent weeks have left them “concerned”. The Councilmen exit the call, leaving Ironwood and Ozpin to face each other.
I: [after a moment’s silence] …This is the right move, Ozpin. I promise, I will keep our people safe, you have to trust me.
Ozpin doesn’t answer. The call ends, and he turns his chair away from the screen again.
Alright, let’s talk. First, I want you guys to bite your own comments on this so I can lay out to you how the fandom reacted to it at the time.
Already unpopular and villainized by fans, this moment pretty much turned Ironwood into a scheming backstabber in the eyes of the fandom, and I just don’t know why. The report is that apparently, Ironwood “went behind Ozpin’s back” (a common phrasing, and not my own) and tattled to the Council about Ozpin, and thus this makes him a no-good untrustworthy hypocrite.
Let me just lay out the problems with that:
- 1) Ironwood does not report to Ozpin in any official or unofficial capacity. Even assuming this was accurate, that’s not going behind his back. The councilors are the only boss in this equation. Ironwood is well within his rights to tell them whatever he considers to be information they need.
- 2) Presumably, what he’s supposed to have “tattled” about is relating to Ozpin’s current approach to the Big Good Conspiracy, but there’s not a shred of evidence to suggest it, especially since the councilors don’t seem to be in on it. Ironwood’s reports may instead have had to do with the recent infiltration of the CCT. Or just how Ozpin’s tactics have made him uneasy. Or maybe Ironwood just gave standard reports due by the end of the week that everyone gives, and the councilors were the ones who drew the conclusions. There’s no way to tell.
- 3) Alternatively, perhaps Ironwood told the Councilmen that Ozpin’s habits towards secrecy are concerning, which, you know, they are. I already laid out how hiding things from others when they’re supposed to be the trusted few is a legitimate cause for concern.
- 4) This would’ve happened regardless of what Ironwood said or did, because in case no one noticed, a massive Grimm breach into the heart of Vale happened under his watch. And, in fact, can be directly traced to his own idiotic decision to send one teacher, four untrained students, and a dog in as scouts. The girls simply weren’t enough to stop the evil plan, the evildoers’ plan wasn’t interrupted and in fact was set off sooner thanks to their interference, and besides that legitimately being Ozpin’s fault, Ironwood is the one who pulled his ass out of the fire with the military support needed to prevent more casualties. No matter what Ironwood did or didn’t do, there was no way in hell any council would’ve let Ozpin keep oversight of the festival or its security.
I’m sorry, but painting Ironwood as the villain here is an exercise in reaching. Now, if you don’t mind, please take a look at how Ozpin is behaving in this scene.
- Ignoring his bosses.
- Giving his bosses the silent treatment.
- Treating his bosses with barely-restrained contempt.
- Giving Ironwood the silent treatment.
Ozpin is behaving like a child. If this is Rooster Teeth’s idea of ‘betrayed stoicism’ in the face of his authority and results being examined, they missed it by a mile. Am I really supposed to side with this?
“Waaah, you won’t let me have my way!”
“Yeah, because your way got us into this mess and made the situation worse.”
Untold amounts of people were injured or killed by the Grimm on his watch, and all Ozpin can muster is not horrified regret or dutiful acceptance of responsibility, but sullenness at the fact he got told off. For that, I award him this highly aggravated point:
Reliable Leaders: 8
Eat a dick, Ozpin.
Ozpin turns to look at the airship outside his tower window, and in his airship, Ironwood is looking toward him, too. He solemnly states that Ozpin brought this on himself, which so far seems to be an accurate assessment.
Then he turns to some sort of pod behind him, and orders the guards to leave him alone with the man inside it, which is of course Torchwick. Ironwood grills him to fess up about who’s really behind all of this, but Torchwick ain’t talkin’, only continuing to pretend to be the mastermind. Failing this, Ironwood stalks off, reminding Torchwick that he’ll have plenty of time stuck in that cell to think about squealing. Torchwick only gives an evil laugh as the camera zooms in on his face.
We cut to the rooftops of Beacon, where Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury are chatting. Cinder considers the day “a success”, while Mercury notes that a lot of faunus died in those tunnels. (Oh, thank god, someone remembered! It’s a villain, but at least someone did!) He asks if they still think the White Fang will listen to them after this. A face we haven’t seen in a while enters the scene to answer.
A: No. But they’ll listen to me.
Oh, hey there, Adam. Nice to see you again after all this time…right before another volume’s hiatus.
We flash to black, and “Sacrifice”, a song apparently from Cinder’s point of view from what I’m told, plays over the credits. But wait! This episode is nearly eighteen minutes long, and that wasn’t even fourteen minutes. There’s a post-credits stinger.
Yang walks up Beacon’s courtyard street at night while the wind blows. The figure that rescued her on the train stands before her.
Y: Who are you?
The woman removes her mask, revealing a face that’s very familiar as well.
R: Yang. We have a lot to talk about.
This woman’s name was revealed to be ‘Raven’ soon after this. Nothing else about this scene was revealed, because as far as Rooster Teeth is concerned, it doesn’t exist.
I’m serious. This scene will never be referenced again. It will not be forgotten by fans, but that doesn’t mean Rooster Teeth will not do everything in their power to try and make you do so. Wipe it from your mind. That scene, which was an obvious teaser as to big and interesting future scenes and reveals, didn’t just happen, by any account that matters. It's gone and will never be referred to again.
Road to Nowhere: 7
This post has spilled past 21 full pages, beating out my previous record. This has been exhausting, but this volume is finally over. The next post from this spork will be the Volume 2 Final Thoughts. Look forward to it.
Counts:
- Jaune: 16
- It Was Right There: 3
- Fauxminism: 6
- Hypocrisy: 8
- Ice Cream Queens: 0
- Reliable Leaders: 8 + 1
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 1
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 1
- Threatening Enemies: 4
- Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 12
- Your Fight Scene Sucks: 20 + 12
- Evisceration Evasion: 12
- Evisceration Evasion: 12
- Ill Logic: 28
- Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 11 + 2
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 1
- Band-Aid Brigade: 1
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 1
- RSVP: 24
- Road to Nowhere: 7
- Y.A.S. Queen: 3
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Volume 2, Third Arc | Table of Contents | Volume 2 Final Thoughts
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Date: 2024-02-07 08:40 pm (UTC)From: