surgeworks

18 – Volume 3 Episode 6 “Fall” | Table of Contents | 20 – Volume 3 Episodes 7 and 8

____________________

Huh. It’s been a while. RWBY is at nine whole volumes now, and it’s getting its own anime—no, seriously, an animesque show is getting its own anime adaptation. What the shit.

World of Remnant, the series of short infodumps that was introduced during Volume 2. Its purpose, as covered last time, was to fill out weeks while the crew were still working on animating the show proper while giving the audience some extra information about the setting. It didn’t accomplish either of those well.

However, World of Remnants were also released for Volume 3. We’ll see now if they improved on what last volume gave us.

The subjects for Volume 2 were “dust”, “kingdoms”, “Grimm” and “aura”. For Volume 3, they’ll be as such:

“Vytal Festival Tournament”

This first one is two minutes and forty seconds long. The introductory title cards play, and we fade onto a map of Remnant. Ozpin’s voice, rather than Jen Taylor’s, narrates this one.

Narrator: It all began, as most things do, with war.

*squint* That’s a very odd statement. I can name a great many things that don’t begin with war.

Narrator: The kingdoms of the world had been locked in a violent struggle for years. But eventually, the Great War of Remnant came to an end on the small island of Vytal.

We’re shown sword-wielding silhouettes denoting the warring forces of Vale, Mistral, Atlas, and Vacuo, and a radar-like blip focuses on a large island situated at the north end of Vale. Ozpin’s voice describes this being where the war ended, and “constructed the future of modern society”. This included, among new laws, the Huntsmen academies and the tradition of the Vytal Festival.

Narrator: The Vytal Festival was created to serve as a celebration of peace between the kingdoms. Every two years, a kingdom would be chosen to open its doors to the world, allowing citizens from every corner of Remnant to meet and indulge in one another’s cultures.

Every… two years? Why two? Why that specific number?

Ozpin’s voice describes the Vytal Festival Tournament, the most grand of the celebrations held at the Festival. In light of the newly-formed Huntsmen academies being a success, the tournament was set up to test the skills of these nations’ defenders in a “safe, and friendly competitive environment.” His voice also says that this ensured Huntsmen would strive for excellence instead of mediocrity.

I mean, there’s ways that can easily backfire. You could have Huntsmen training more to be a celebrity athlete than to actually defend people. But I digress.

The voice says that the strengths of the Huntsmen grew to the extent a proper and appropriately magnificent arena was constructed to hold their bouts, that being the Amity Colosseum. It’s described as a symbol of harmony that was constructed with the efforts of all four kingdoms and, with its technology, capable of traveling to any of them.

Narrator: It’s true that all of this began with war. But it is peace that has served to shepherd humanity on its ascension to greatness. …May we never stray from that path.

The final eighteen seconds are credits.

Alright, in the same vein as the first round of WoR videos, let’s boil this down to what new information we got.

“The Vytal Tournament celebrates the end of a war, is held every two years, and is named after the island where peace was made official. Amity Colosseum was constructed with all four kingdoms’ contributions.”

It is amazing how short these videos are yet how overly-long and unnecessary they are. I see no reason none of this couldn’t have been put in the show proper. For example, when Nora has her freak-out moment at the idea of not winning the Vytal Tournament (which I criticized for otherwise dropping plot-important information rather carelessly), you could have a nearby character point out that they’re all first-year students at Beacon, a four-year academy, and will have another chance in two years to compete if they don’t make it in this one.

“Huntsmen”

Ozpin is still narrating these and will continue for the next two.

Narrator: Huntsmen and huntresses. The best and brightest warriors of Remnant, ranking higher than kingdom police, and even military in terms of strength and skill. The occupation was established, alongside the Huntsmen academies, after the Great War, with the hope of creating elite warriors whose sole purpose would be to combat the creatures of Grimm.

Vale’s academy is Beacon, Mistral’s is Haven, Vacuo’s is Shade, and there’s something interesting: the fourth Academy is Atlas itself, previously described as a kingdom. So…it’s both? Do the kingdom and the academy just share a name, the way the city and nation of Vale do, or is literally every citizen of the nation also by default a student in its Huntsmen training centers?

Anyway, Atlas is told to be situated in the “now-defunct kingdom of Mantle”.

Narrator: These institutions accepted graduates of primary combat schools, who showed enough promise and tenacity to not only battle the world’s deadliest creatures, but also protect their fellow man.

We’re shown silhouettes of our four main characters as Ozpin describes how the team format is used to foster the appropriate attitude towards the job and one’s fellow citizens.

And then we get a tidbit that is absolutely devastating:

Narrator: As an additional precaution to maintaining peace, the founders of the academies believed that their graduates should be kept separate from kingdom allegiance. Once finished with their training, Huntsmen and Huntresses are free to choose who they work for, as well as what kind of work they will do through the use of mission boards. Allying with a particular kingdom or village is entirely up to the individual.

Jesus Christ.

Guys, bear with me. Obviously, the idea of a nation’s government having total control to dispense people with earth-shattering power far and away above the common individual at their own discretion is horrifying. But that said, there should at least be some regulation and some method of punishing those who present a threat to peace and safety. Having an entire class of elite warriors who could conceivably cause disaster on their own, let alone in groups, operate without any apparent obligation to not do so is nightmarish. Putting people in four-person teams is not going to magically eliminate any temptation that comes with power.

Power corrupts. You have told me that these warriors, nominally charged with protecting citizens and killing the Grimm, do so without any system in place to prevent them from just acting for their own gain and potentially fucking over anyone in their way. You said it up there—these people are far beyond the police or even a military force in what they can do. And you also said that these people, essentially, answer to no one but themselves.

In other works of fiction, this is where the drama comes in by introducing a separate faction that controls Huntsmen and ensures they can’t be used as weapons by one authoritarian government, but is subject to its own shady whims. Obviously a system like that won’t necessarily be more secure than direct government oversight unless you’ve written it that way, but some form of oversight would be smart!

What do you do if a Huntsman decides he doesn’t like how things are run and causes any number of problems? What do you do if a single Huntsman starts swaying others into joining his own cause and acting as a gang leader or warlord? Plots with potential, yes, but right now this is just a horror scenario. In the real world, a corrupt officer can potentially be stripped of his badge and gun and rendered a normal citizen. You can dishonorably discharge a soldier who breaks protocol. Normal people, even with the tools supplied to them by the powerful, can still be detained. But these Huntsmen aren’t normal, they’re walking anime fight scenes.

We were told that Ironwood’s military force was making the public nervous. You know what makes me nervous? Homelander from the Boys (gore warning...like, heavy gore warning), but subject to even less control over his actions.

Which is why the next thing the narrator states, and the tone of it, is going to raise my eyebrow.

Narrator: However, Atlas Academy has come under increasing amounts of scrutiny for the indoctrination of military lifestyle upon its students, pressuring them to enlist in the Atlas military’s special operatives unit.

Yeah, that would unsettle me too, exactly because of what I said up there. A government with the ability to send superhumans anywhere it wants and do whatever they need done is cause for worry as corruption would be damn near inevitable in such a system. But that’s not necessarily better or worse than what you just presented me!

Not to mention, per the phrasing you used, this is not full integration. You said they’re pressured to enlist. Presumably they have full freedom not to. At the very least, what you’re telling me is that an Atlas Hunstman has a lot of reason not to just go rogue and kill people, lest the officially-sanctioned Huntsmen get sent to take him out SEAL Team Six style.

Narrator: Every academy has its own methods of teaching. The end result is the same: Huntsmen and Huntresses, ready to make their own paths. Some will stay together as a team, some will move on to work alone. But all are expected to serve humanity…and never succumb to the darkness.

Well thank fucking god they’re expected to act like heroes, right?

Aye yae yae. I can say we finally got information that wouldn’t easily be presented in-show, but what a doozy that information is. This is just like the thing with Grimm being drawn to negative emotions—that’s so broad, it becomes a problem. A few modifiers to tighten up the setting a bit wouldn’t kill anyone. Did they even think about this system in-depth at all?

On to the next one.

“Cross Continental Transmit System”

We open up on the Vale CCT, which also doubles as Ozpin’s office at the center of Beacon.

Narrator: Prior to the invention of the CCTS, long-range communication was extremely limited. The discovery and development of radio technology allowed for communication within the boundaries of most kingdoms, but communication with other parts of the world was restricted to the physical delivery of messages. With every alternative form of communication that was proposed, there seemed to be the perfect obstacle.

We’re shown a canine Grimm attacking a mailman. Hehe. Anyway, this posed a problem for ground-based communication, presumably meaning things like land lines.

Ozpin mentions that orbiting satellites—i.e., what we use in real life—were an idea with potential, but getting to space isn’t working for Remnant yet because all known forms of dust lose their power once they leave Remnant’s atmosphere. That’s an interesting tidbit.

He also describes that the CCTS was eventually thought up by the world’s leaders on science and technology—that is, Atlas. The CCTS are essentially satellites but in the form of massive ground-based radio towers with enough resources to send and receive audio and video and other forms of data over an internet. Makes sense enough to me.

There’s four of these things, naturally, one for each kingdom. As the narration states, signal becomes a bit less reliable if you get too far out from the CCT towers, and while smaller land-based radio towers are a thing all over the place and will get you by well enough, they’re commonly at risk of destruction by the creatures of Grimm.

Things don’t really get interesting with this until Ozpin’s final commentary, which is that the CCT towers require unanimous function to work at all. Oh yes.

Narrator: However, if one of the four towers is taken offline, the entire network fails with it. A slight inconvenience during routine maintenance, but to be honest, I find the limitation somewhat pointed. No one voice is louder than the others, and no voice may be silenced without the rest. If the people of Remnant are to speak, they shall do so together…or not at all.

What?!

I—you—what?!

Okay. Okay. Stop. Settle down. I get the “pointed limitation” bit, delusionally optimistic as it is: the scenario here presumably stops a country from attacking another country’s CCT to cripple them, as doing so would also cripple themselves.

So, if two countries have tensions with one another, what exactly stops one from holding its CCT hostage? Shutting it down, and therefore all of them, and refusing to boot it back up until its government gets what it wants? It’s certainly not unimaginable that a corrupt world leader could just punish everyone on the planet in order to force his way, if he has that kind of power—real life has certainly presented dictators that demented and worse. I definitely think that if my entire country lost internet because Neighboring Country A pissed off Neighboring Country B, I’d be swiftly down to tell Country A to suck it up and give Country B whatever the hell they want.

Second, “a slight inconvenience”.

…No, bud. That time a year or two ago where Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all went offline at once because of a system error based in the foundation they all use was a “slight inconvenience”, or a blessing depending on how you look at it. What you are describing to me is that worldwide, all internet functions cease unless you’ve got a really, really good radio tower nearby, every time maintenance is done.

Imagine how many places of employment would go completely belly-up if that happened. Imagine how many hospitals would lose the ability to monitor their patients, et cetera. That’s goddamn insane.

What the fuck.

Ill Logic: 33

“The Four Maidens”

This one is seven minutes long. I won’t be transcribing it, because it’s the same story Pyrrha told last post in “Fall”, albeit more in-depth and with more personality given to the four maidens and the wizard. However, there is some more notable stuff involved:

Narrator: One by one the sisters left; before they did, they made one final promise. They promised to return each and every year to visit their dear friend.

This added detail, which Pyrrha didn’t include in her story, is part of the big implication that Ozpin is the wizard, which will be confirmed outright later.

Just like last time, this info barely managed to stretch to six pages, albeit I did a lot less description than I did then.

The info on Huntsmen and the CCTS was a nice addition, when it wasn’t telling me that the people behind RWBY’s writing have probably not familiarized themselves with much of what they were writing. For all that extra detail, we did get a point in this one.

I’ll see you next time with Episodes 7 and 8 of RWBY Volume 3.

Counts:

Jaune: 16
It Was Right There: 4
Fauxminism: 8
Hypocrisy: 15
Ice Cream Queens: 2
Reliable Leaders: 10 + 4
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 4
Threatening Enemies: 4
Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 22
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 34 + 13
- Evisceration Evasion: 13
Ill Logic: 33
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 11 + 2
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 1
- Band-Aid Brigade: 1
RSVP: 25
Road to Nowhere: 7
Y.A.S. Queen: 4
Rooster Tease: 5
LuLaRwe: 2
The Lovegood Fallacy: 1