RWBY 21 - Volume 3, Episodes 9 and 10

[surgeworks]

20 – Volume 3, Episodes 7 and 8 | Table of Contents | 22 – Volume 3 Episode 11
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The next four chapters as a whole contain violence. Like, significantly brutal violence, including death, dismemberment, etc. You’ve been warned.

Last time, we got some chopped-up villain backstories and the full details of how Amber came to be in a life support pod, and we got a close-up look at the stresses being felt by two Amazonian girls who have been thrust into very undesirable positions.

And ooh, boy, I put off doing this one. To be honest, this is where shit gets real, both in terms of the story and where the fandom explosion began. This is PvP.

 

V3E9, “PvP”

We open up on Ozpin in his office, approaching his desk where the holo-screen for the match is focused on a spinning set of images, and is pouring himself some coffee. Obviously, the selection is Penny Polendina of Atlas versus Pyrrha Nikos of Beacon. Ozpin’s eyes narrow when and he frowns when he sees this.

We cut to the arena, where both competitors stand opposite one another, Pyrrha looking apprehensive and Penny displaying her usual cheerful attitude:

P: “Sal-u-tations, Pyrrha Nikos! It’s an honor to finally meet you. This is going to be so much fun.”

Pyrrha can’t answer, only stoically looking at her own hands as if unsure of herself. We then cut to the maintenance hallways of the Colosseum, where Ruby stands opposite Mercury. Ruby is obviously shaken to find him present and standing on his own two feet, and like Pyrrha, he doesn’t answer when she speaks to him, a cold smile on his face. Fine, Ruby says.

She makes to move past him, but he moves in her way. The echoes from the arena indicate the match is about to begin. Out in the Arena, Ironwood watches in the stands with hands folded, gaze steely. JNR are in the stands too, Jaune looking concerned for Pyrrha while Ren and Nora obliviously cheer her on. Naturally, Emerald is also in the stands, staring intently.

Oo: “Three… Two… One… Begin!”

Thus the match begins. The soundtrack for this battle is horribly watered-down, but I’m afraid I couldn’t find a bass boosted version, so you’ll just have to deal with what we got: PvP.

I’ve heard that this was one of the animations Monty had worked on before he died, which explains why it’s generally very stellar. It’s lovely watching those blades fly through the air, re-direct themselves, and make all those lovely shing and whirr sounds.

Penny makes her move first, immediately summoning her array of levitating knives and sending them forward to attack Pyrrha. Pyrrha charges forward, rolling through the air to let the passing blades slide off of her shield and sword. As she continues forward, the knives re-orient themselves in the air and begin to fly back towards her again.



Over in the maintenance halls, Ruby has decided it’s time to move. She tries left, then right, then finally does something smart and uses her speed semblance to whirl past Mercury—oh wait hang on.



Dude’s got good reflexes to catch her like that, I’ll give him that. When she tries to get her scroll out of her pocket to call for help, he shoots it out of her hand. Is Ruby Rose about to get killed? Probably not.

Back in the arena, Penny and Pyrrha are going at it. For having only one sword, Pyrrha is doing well, but is obviously having to deal with a lot of pressure with multiple floating weapons that enable Penny to block and attack at the same time. I will note that the spinning discs are back in place when Pyrrha’s sword whirls in contrast to the very fluid animation of Penny, so this is probably where the rest of the animating team had to pick up where Monty left off. But, this time it’s okay, because not only do I understand why this is happening, but the action is moving fast enough that the spinning discs don’t create too much of a problem.



Penny’s attacks force Pyrrha back, and Pyrrha charges back in, leaping atop a blade sent her way to close the distance and try again, but she finds her attack blocked. She floats in midair for just a moment, probably using her semblance to keep herself there, before backflipping away. But Penny is fast, and is upon her with a series of swift and strong strikes that Pyrrha has to block. Keeping her cool, Pyrrha gets her shield out.

In the stands, Nora and Ren are still going wild, while Jaune’s face is tight and his eyes say he’s very worried. Pyrrha looks away from them to glance at her own weapons for a moment—which quickly bend and contort under the weight of her flexing semblance, before returning to their original shape.



Emerald can be seen in the stands watching this closely.

Back in the maintenance halls, Ruby is in trouble. Mercury puts his foot upside her head and kicks her around, and then he—oh, wait, hang on. Yeah she’s okay.



She ducks under his leg and blitzes past him with her semblance. Despite his name, Mercury won’t be keeping up with her.

Back in the arena, Pyrrha is fighting with all her strength. She manages to land some hits in on Penny, sweeps past her, and knocks her into the air much like she did with Cardin earlier in the Volume. Penny blocks Pyrrha’s follow-up strike, but Pyrrha knocks her to the ground. There, Penny recovers and re-aligns her knife blades.



They all fold up and begin firing lasers individually, forcing Pyrrha to dodge and dance her way around them. For a moment, Pyrrha has her hands full, but she fights with all her strength and, when she sees an opportunity, she pounces on it, landing a fierce blow on Penny that sends the latter flying back.

She relaxes for a moment, thinking she’s knocked her opponent out of the ring, but you know the rules—no bell, no knockout.

Penny comes flying back into the fray, using her blades’ lasers as thrusters, and leaps high, slamming her feet straight into Pyrrha and sending her sprawling. Pyrrha has scarcely recovered when the flying knives are coming at her, knocking her sword and shield out of her hand. She tries to recover them with her semblance, but Penny makes sure to knock them off-course again with another blade. Penny prepares to land a coup-de-grace, aligning her knives for a finishing blow.

Just then, Emerald makes her move.

Under the influences of Emerald’s semblance, Pyrrha sees the knives split into more knives, as they tend to do—a very, very large amount of knives. They keep splitting and multiplying, until a staggering Pyrrha is facing a terrifying wall of blades. Penny sends her blades forward, and Pyrrha, seeing only one way to defend herself, flexes her semblance to force them all back.

Only, there weren’t that many blades, and the ones that were really there were on strings, which…



Exactly how low was Penny’s aura, can I ask? Because aside from being the only opponent so far able to match Pyrrha, her body’s made of metal, which I would assume to be stronger than average flesh under an already-potent shield of aura.

Ill Logic: 42

Your Fight Scene Sucks: 36

The same points I gave when they forgot to account for aura when Tukson was killed.

But anyway, that’s fucking horrifying. Penny just…



Fucking died. Holy shit, she’s in pieces, dude.

You know the drill. I don’t like having to do it, but I have to hit the pause button on the action to talk about it. Yes, at this very worst possible moment.

Ice Cream Queens: 3

She dead, son.

*laughter from nowhere*

Huh…? What was that?

…Well, anyway, yeah. Penny just died, and she will never be coming back.

*louder laughter from the background*

Okay, I know I heard something that time. Is someone back there? Hello?

Urgh. So, anyway, that puts paid to rest that story bit about Penny going behind Ironwood’s back to stay at Beacon. Never amounted to anything, and was never going to.

Rooster Tease: 6

Road to Nowhere: 8

I mean, theoretically, she could be rebuilt since she’s a robot, but even if they were going to bring her back—

*snickering and hollering from the background*

—rrrgh. Even if they were going to do that, I’m not sure what they’d do about the aura bit. I mean, the body that the soul was attached to is gone, and theoretically the soul is gone, too. We even see her eyes mechanically dilate as her circuits fail.

Returning to the action, she unfortunately isn’t the only one. To have her circuits fail, so to speak, that is. Pyrrha is obviously horrified and in shock, and as the audience realizes what happens, they feel the same way. Ozpin, Oobleck, and Port are shown stunned and afraid as well.

There’s a shot of some guy with white hair, presumably Penny’s “father”, gripping his chair hard in distress. Outside Vale, the hordes of Grimm that were already agitated and energized with the negative energy brought about by the end results of Yang’s match with Mercury are now going wild. The horror experienced by every person watching this match causes them to go crazy and start heading straight for populated areas en masse.

This is really, really bad.



In the maintenance tunnels, having arrived just in time to see Penny butchered, Ruby breaks down in tears. Mercury, having finally caught up, just grins at her distress and leaves her be.

Ill Logic: 43

That is for the fact that this needn’t have been the results. We don’t actually see where Ruby ends up, but it’s obviously somewhere with either an in-person view of what happened, or a television screen showing it. But if she wanted to interfere, why didn’t she just…turn around?

Why didn’t she just back right out the door when Mercury confronted her? He was between her and help, not between her and the match. We see that she’s barely left the arena when Mercury gets in her way. Ruby might not have been able to get to help in time, but she could’ve directly intervened in the match if she wanted to. Sure, would piss a lot of people off, but she’d get to stop something bad from happening to her friends.

If you wanted to have Ruby too late to save Penny, the solution was easy: have Mercury walk in from behind her, out of a side tunnel or something, blocking the way back into the arena just as Ruby realizes something very bad is going to happen, and forcing her to take the long way around and thus arrive too late.

It Was Right There: 6

Returning to our episode.

The ring descends, showing us that Ruby did indeed arrive back in the arena, and Mercury leaves her to her sorrows rather than finish her off. Oobleck recovers enough to order the broadcast team to cut the cameras, but he hears back that they can’t seem to. Something’s stopping them.

Just then, the screens are taken over with the image of a black queen chess piece over a red background, and everyone hears Cinder’s voice. She’s outside on the grounds, calmly delivering her message:

C: This is not a tragedy. This was not an accident. This is what happens when you hand over your trust, your safety, your children, to men who claim to be our guardians…but are, in reality, nothing more than men.

Cinder’s next words cause Ironwood to stand up and storm off, realizing he’s been had.

C: Our academies’ headmasters wield more power than most armies, and one was audacious enough to control both. They cling to this power in the name of peace…and yet, what do we have here? One nation’s attempt at a synthetic army, mercilessly torn apart by another star pupil.

Cinder’s hopping from point to point, but she’s getting her way easily enough. Pyrrha, finally starting to lose control, lifts a hand to her mouth in horror at what she’s been tricked into doing.

C: What need would Atlas have for a soldier disguised as an innocent little girl? I don’t think the Grimm can tell the difference.

That’s what I’m saying! Why do we have all these robot-becomes-human cliches coincidentally happening to take the form of pretty young girls? Why is it never anything else? Oh, but, you were sowing discord by asking why this specific robot soldier needed to look so human to instill fear and distrust in the populace and kind of making a good point in the process. Carry on.

C: And what, I ask you, is Ozpin teaching his students? First a dismemberment, now this?

Also another good point. This is basically what I said last post about how Yang’s being hoodwinked into attacking Mercury would be linked back to her keepers, only Cinder is pinning it on Ozpin instead of Qrow.

Weiss and Blake are in a restaurant drinking, Weiss looking on in fear and Blake looking calculating and unsettled. Yang, looking out the window in her dorm, hangs her head in shame.

C: Huntsmen and Huntresses should carry themselves with honor and mercy, yet I have witnessed neither. Perhaps Ozpin thought felt as though defeating Atlas in the tournament would help people forget his colossal failure to protect Vale when the Grimm invaded its streets. Or perhaps, this was his message to the tyrannical dictator that has occupied an unsuspecting kingdom with armed forces.

Neither of these angles is honest, but let’s be real, the goal is just to get people hearing it and afraid.

C: Honestly? I haven’t the slightest clue as to who is right and who is wrong. But I know that the existence of peace is fragile, and the leaders of our kingdoms conduct their business with iron gloves.

You know, she is making yet another good point. Everything is so goddamn hush-hush with these people. It kind of means there’s no one else to blame when that inevitably blows up in your faces, guys. Ozpin, Ironwood, you each get one of these.

Reliable Leaders: 13

(mostly it’s for Ozpin, though).

Emerald leaves the stadium quietly, surveying the fear being sown among the people.

C: As someone who hails from Mistral, I can assure you, the situation there is…equally undesirable. Our kingdoms are at the brink of war. Yet we, the citizens, are left in the dark.

Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 5

For how she keeps pointing out that this all happened because some asshole was too afraid of causing panic to let the people know what kind of danger they were in.

She’s obviously lying and twisting the general truth, but it doesn’t matter. As she speaks, we see two Atlesian soldiers in the field, listening intently to the broadcast, only to realize that there’s a hoard of Grimm wolves surging up behind them. The fighting has officially begun.

C: So I ask you, when the first shots are fired, who do you think you can trust?

With a smile, Cinder ends the broadcast. And the feeds as a whole—there will be no calling for aid or giving instructions, as Oobleck realizes. In the distance, the emergency sirens begin wailing once more, signaling to everyone, as the music reaches a very tense stringendo.

Security System: Alert! Incoming Grimm attack! Threat Level: 9. Please seek shelter in a calm and orderly manner.

Obviously, no one is calm or orderly as they start fleeing the stadium in droves.

Now is about the time I have to deliver some praise. Although this represents where RWBY became “bad” for some people (me in particular), this particular episode, along with the previous one, is a standout for tone. We open the episode on an ominous note, with the precedent for the evil’s designs already set, and the fighting accompanied by a very good combo of camera, mocap work, and music to make the tension steadily rise so that viewers worry more and more as it goes on that something bad is going to happen.

And then it does, and all hell breaks loose, with no chance to recover from the impact of Penny’s death. I really, really like it.

Ironwood, strolling into the top box with Port and Oobleck, grabs the mic to try and calm the people in vain, saying there’s no need for panic—right as an utterly massive Giant Nevermore perches on the stadium, cawing for blood. It lands on the force field protecting the stadium, which can only be assured will eventually shatter.

In the stands, Sun and Coco (love y’all) stand up in alarm, realizing the kingdom’s defenses have been breached. Ren says it wasn’t alone. No shit, Sherlock.

In his office, Ozpin stoically watches the airships in the sky outside multiply in number as they try to fight off the utterly insane amounts of Grimm storming into Vale. Just a reminder guys—this is his fault, too. This all happened because Cinder got into his CCT and hacked it, thanks to his piss poor security and utter failure to check the cyber security, too. The villains would’ve been utterly toothless otherwise.

Reliable Leaders: 14

Threatening Enemies: 5

Glynda and Qrow come barreling into his office, but he orders them to get their asses down into the city, now. We see a panning shot of Mountain Glenn, the abandoned city infested with Grimm, showing us that every single Grimm there is heading for the kingdom, including those utterly massive Goliaths, each of which is about 200 feet tall.

Back in the stadium, the Giant Nevermore is still trying to break through the force field. Ironwood gets Ozpin over some network Cinder must not have shut down and tries to get in a word about Penny.

I: Ozpin—the girl, I can explain--

That could-have-been plot I mentioned in Episode 6 is making its absence known again. Dude, you know she died just now, right? But then, all we even got from the person we would expect to be emotionally attached to her was a harshly-gripped chair and nothing else. But in light of the fact that we’re apparently concerned about Cinder’s tale of suspicious robot soldiers made to look human: buddy, we would love to hear the ins and outs, but right now there are more pressing concerns, which Ozpin all but says: he brought his army to Vale, time for him to use it.

We cut to the sky, where the huge Atlesian airships are having a time of it just with the Giant Nevermores attacking the hulls. One commander, cursing, orders a defensive formation and for ships Blue Three and Blue Four to respond, and tries to get in contact with another ship—but there’s no answer. When we cut to the inside of the ship he’s trying to contact…



We see that the entire crew is dead, having been single-handedly slaughtered by that ice cream chick, Neo. She quickly makes her way to Torchwick’s cell, and he goes free to join the chaos.



Blue Four gets into position, alright. The ship turns in midair, aiming at the commanding officer’s ship, and fires its lasers, blasting it and sending it hurtling into a nearby ship. Torchwick is at the controls, taking advantage of the situation and letting loose on the Atlas ships defending Vale.

There’s one more factor here, the cherry on top of the doom sundae, you’d call it. Some smaller airships fly in, landing on a pad in some unknown location. Their docks open, revealing Adam and some White Fang goons.

A: Bring them to their knees.

Grimm start pouring out of the ships, flown in and ready to kill.

The episode fades to black and ends. After deciding that this was a very short post (at least for me), I went ahead and did Chapter 10 while we’re here.

V3E10, “The Battle of Beacon”

We open up on the fairgrounds of the Vytal Festival, the night in utter chaos as soldiers and robots try to stop the oncoming army of Grimm, citizens fleeing and screaming in terror. People are dying. Weiss and Blake run into the scene, looking around in horror. Blake calls Yang on her scroll, asking if she’s okay, and Yang, running out of the dorm with Zwei in tow, says she’s fine and asks if Ruby’s alright, as she isn’t answering her scroll. Blake can only tell her she’s not with them.

Yang is obviously afraid, and Blake tries to assure her that Ruby can watch out for herself and is probably fine. Yang, balling a hand into a fist, tries to keep this in mind as she runs for the fight. Weiss bleakly says that this can’t be happening, softly murmuring Penny’s name.

Yang says she’s headed for the courtyard, and has seen the White Fang releasing Grimm onto the school, to Blake’s shock. Yang begins to engage the Grimm, meaning she has to end the call with a bid for them to be careful. Weiss looks to Blake and asks what they’re going to do, and Blake says they’re going to the docks and going to do their job. With a couple of beeps to her scroll, she summons her rocket-propelled locker right to her location, retrieving Gambol Shroud. Weiss nods.

Back in the stadium, that stupidly huge Nevermore is still not giving up on getting past the force field. The automated security system voice warns anyone listening that the safety barriers are failing. Ruby is still sitting there broken after last episode, eyes wide and in shock, and Pyrrha is picking herself up off the ground, staring in the same broken shock at Penny’s remains, laying there forgotten on the ring floor.



Jaune calls for Pyrrha to move, as they don’t have much time before the Grimm get in. He desperately hops the stands and starts running for the ring, right as the Nevermore gives one huge assault that causes the force field to shatter.

It slams down onto the ring, sending both Pyrrha and Jaune (and the pieces of Penny, if you look closely) flying back.



Pyrrha is unarmed and taken off-guard, and can do nothing as the Nevermore tries to charge her. But something saves her at the last second: a streak of red, slamming into the huge creature so hard it’s stopped short. We see one of Penny’s knives embedded in its flesh, and Ruby Rose lands, brandishing another one. She yells at the monster to leave Pyrrha alone.



The Nevermore takes flight and tries to go in for a dive on Ruby, only to be assaulted by some mass of huge bullet-like objects that embed into its back, slamming it to the ground. These things happen to be more rocket lockers, bearing weapons.



Teams JNR, CFVY, and SSSN are on the move, present and ready to fight. Even that team that fought RWBY in the tournament, along with Flynt and Neon are here. Good thing, too, because the Nevermore isn’t quite dead, and starts to stir underneath the surprised students gathered on its back.



They all spring into action as one.



Ren and Nora run up its back, Ren slashing it in the eye and Nora slamming its head down with her hammer. With the help of Arslan, Yatsuhashi is sent skyward, and together with Sage (who just jumps to the same height), the two of them bring their massive blades down on the Nevermore’s neck and finish the job.

This is the only cool thing Sage will ever get to do. In fact, I am pretty sure this is the only thing he ever gets to do, period.

Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 23

Safe for the moment, Pyrrha finally recovers enough to use her voice, speaking to Ruby with tears falling down her face. She looks down at a scrap of Penny’s sleeve that has ended up in her hands.

P: “Ruby, I… I am so sorry…”

Me too, Ruby says. It wasn’t her fault, she assures her. She’s right, Jaune says, who strolls forward carrying Milo and Akouo. Pyrrha’s sword and shield. He says that whoever that was on the mic earlier is the one responsible for all this. They have to make sure that no one else falls by that hand, he tells her, and he offers her gear to her, and she takes it. Pyrrha steels herself, ready to take action at last.

Ruby looks towards the gathered comrades, a team of deuteragonists, two neglected teams of characters who were arguably supposed to be important, and a team of disposable background characters we literally don’t know—only one of them has had any spoken lines.



Real heroic image, there, guys.

Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 24

A roar sounds out, loud and hoarse. Large Griffin-like Grimm (Gryphons) have winged their way to the edge of the stadium. Taking aim, Neptune asks if anybody has a plan of attack.

The hell do you mean, does anyone have a plan of attack? A much larger, more aggressive, and more dangerous Grimm creature just died at the hands of five of you, and there’s seventeen of you. And you yourself are an exceptionally good marksman capable of hitting a target speeding through the air with strong accuracy. Get shooting.

We’re obviously supposed to get that this is a rare and dangerous breed of Grimm, but we have nothing to back that up. Besides being a little bit larger than an Ursa and able to fly, there’s not much to distinguish them.

In an oddly serious moment, Ruby calls to Sun, saying she needs his scroll. You’d think she was asking for a weapon. But Sun cheerfully pulls his scroll out of his pocket and uses his tail to toss it to Ruby. It’s cute. Ruby then calls her own locker, regaining Crescent Rose and ready to fight.

A Gryphon wings down to stop her from taking it, only to be repelled by gunfire from Port and Oobleck. They’ve got this, they say, and they bid the students to leave.

Ruby brandishes her scythe again, and the red spinny disc thing is totally getting the point this time because, and I repeat, if your team don’t have time to properly animate the motions so that they look good, just don’t script an unnecessary animation to begin with. Ruby could’ve just got the scythe out and unfolded it behind the edge of the camera. If you want to show me a badass brandish, I expect you to deliver.

Your Fight Scene Sucks: 37

The students take off. Velvet takes the opportunity to snap a picture of Ruby and her scythe, adding yet another little hint to the reveal of Velvet’s weapon that’s been teased so far. Port and Oobleck take aim.

P: Ahaha! One final match, Barty! Place your bets!

Rooster Tease: 7

Because the implication is that they might die or at least struggle, and they won’t. So I don’t know why Port says that.

Civilians are still fleeing in a panic, only to be stalled by the fact that there’s only so many airships, so things are less chaotic and more just tense at the Colosseum’s docking sites. Evacuations are taking place. We’re shown a crying woman in one of the airships being comforted by a friend. Who can say what happened to her?

But the evacuation ships aren’t the only ones arriving. The White Fang’s ships are stopping at the Colosseum, letting out rampaging Grimm who are ready to tear the civvies apart. The panic starts back up, and Ironwood oversees two robotic soldiers as they begin shooting down the Grimm. This lasts until a particularly large, tough Beowulf (referred to as an Alpha Beowulf) steps up. It locks eyes with Ironwood.


Threatening Enemies: 6

This one is for the fact that this is not a believable adversary for a headmaster to need to fight. We already played the “bigger, elite Grimm” card way back in Volume One, with Jaune versus the Ursa Major—which Jaune decapitated in one clean stroke.

You know…if you wanted a big, bad, threatening enemy to fight that is still disposable enough, you could’ve brought that nasty White Fang Lieutenant up here. I’m sure he’d be an opponent less laughable for Ironwood but still defeatable. Plus, Ironwood’s military works directly with the Schnees, someone the WFL is maniacally dedicated to killing.

It Was Right There: 7

…Look, I just want to see big biceps and cool characters being used for more than one or two scenes. Stop judging me.

But anyway, Ironwood charges forward, taking the Alpha Beowulf on personally and making short work of it. He does this through the use of monstrous strength and an utterly gargantuan handgun with what looks like an engraved muzzle. Size estimates when comparing the gun’s model to Ironwood himself put it at about a foot long or more. I will choose to believe it is a visual metaphor, to Ironwood what the Dragonslayer is to Guts.




Evisceration Evasion: 14

For how the bullets have been striking Grimm, creatures with no aura—including this one—in unarmored places and leaving no sign that they even existed. However, it’s only one point, because the “bullets entering the void” part lasts until Ironwood blows the Alpha’s brains out, at which point we finally, finally get some blood splatter. Like, proper blood splatter, too, not rose petals. So good job, there.

So Ironwood fought. It’s badass and hawt—not solely by my account, by the way, but the fandom’s. This is part 1 of what I like to call “the Ironwood 180” (part 2 is later).

Oh, yeah, and I was personally offended. Oh, oh! Oh, now we have braincells? Now Ironwood is a genuinely heroic character we’re all excited for instead of a villain secretly aligned with Cinder? Just when he gets a fight scene? Oh yeah, I was a tad miffed.

The students arrive just in time. Ironwood gives them the rundown: Grimm running rampant over the city, the White Fang aiding them, and some “vagabond” as he puts it (Torchwick) has taken control of a ship and is using it to hamstring the defense efforts. Ironwood, after lifting his gun to blow away a Grimm that still wants to attack, says he’s going to put a stop to it. Jaune asks what they should do.

Ironwood says they can either defend the kingdom and its citizens, or save their own skins. Obviously, nobody present is cowardly enough to pick Option B, I hope. He does mention though, that no one will fault them if they choose to run away. Ironwood then boards his ship and takes off.

Everyone steels themselves, while Sun cheerfully dismisses the idea of leaving. Jaune says they can start taking ships down to the city. Meanwhile, Ruby watches Ironwood’s own ship flying off.

Back in the hijacked ship, Torchwick is messing with the controls. One button press causes an explosion somewhere on board, while another jettisons the crew of robot soldiers. Just then, Neo presents a scroll to Torchwick, and he takes delight: this one seems to have a command code linked to Cinder’s hack of the network.

He plugs it in, and things go from “dire” to “hopeless” very fast, because this is the part where Cinder’s hack of Ironwood’s device comes back.

Again, that still traces back to her security breach in Volume Two. Thanks, Ozpin.

Reliable Leaders: 15



The robot soldiers defending the city, all at once, go slack. Overcome with the virus, they stop targeting the Grimm and begin targeting the humans and faunus. The defending forces, what remains of them, are now as screwed as screwed gets.

Blake tackles Weiss to the ground to keep the two of them from getting shot, and getting up, they quickly find themselves surrounded. Worse, Ironwood’s ship has a stock of these things, and he doesn’t notice them coming up behind him while he’s at the pilot’s seat.



Next thing we see, Ironwood’s ship is going down, and Ruby and Sun look on in alarm. As Sun asks what she’s doing, Ruby decides to make her move.

[

Launching herself out of the ship (and using her Semblance to essentially achieve flight to get the rest of the way), she lands back on the Colosseum, making her way towards a discarded rocket locker. Climbing onto it, she gets its jets started and blasts into the air on it. Once she’s in position, she jumps off and lands on the ship Torchwick hijacked. How she knew which one to land on, I don’t know. We’re not shown how.



Torchwick hears the landing and sends Neo to take care of whatever it is.

Down in the grounds of Beacon, Weiss and Blake are cleaving through the attacking forces. Weiss has the robot soldiers, Blake takes on the White Fang mooks, and together they make a duo who are symbolically matured and ready to take on the problems with their roots. Or something like that.



(Also, no EE point for that, because aside from the White Fang mooks presumably having aura, the robots Weiss takes on are actually shown flying apart).

They have some assistance from the human soldiers, but unfortunately, the ones present get barreled over by the worst of the bunch: Paladin mechs. Not the v.01 models seen in Volume Two—fully automatic ones with better armor. Worse still, the Grimm are still coming, seemingly without end. There’s only so much Weiss and Blake can do. Thus, Weiss bids for Blake to be safe as they split up.

But as Blake rounds the corner of a cafeteria and peers through a destroyed wall, what she finds is anything but safe:

B: “No… Adam?!”

A: “Hello, my darling.”

*bursts out laughing*

‘Hello, my darling’? Who wrote this script?!

*suddenly somber* But it’s not that funny. What’s about to happen to Adam (and Blake) is very not funny, for a variety of reasons.

Back in the courtyards, the sixteen students from before are having a surprising amount of trouble. Not because there’s an especially large amount of Grimm onscreen though, which I would forgive. Coco’s M134 is perfect for clearing out the majority of the smaller Grimm while the other characters work on the larger, more imposing enemies. We see her aiming it at a single Gryphon which is unaffected by the stream of bullets.

Your Fight Scene Sucks: 38



Ren’s guns, bless them, actually manage to take down another Grimm unaided. I feel like there’s a glitch in the Matrix here.

We zoom off until the camera can settle on Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald, standing on a rooftop to survey the carnage they’ve caused. Mercury is recording the events with his scroll, with Cinder ordering him to get good footage of the Atlesian robots gone rogue. This won’t look good. I have something to note, though.

E: …It’s almost sad.

See that? And that pained, uncomfortable expression on her face? Let me tell you what I have to say to that.

No, no, and more no. What the hell do you think you’re doing, Rooster Teeth?

I see what’s up. Three episodes ago, you set up a small ‘Emerald is dependent on and abused by Cinder’ angle. And now you want me to believe she looks on this slaughter she’s wrought, and feels pity? Disgust? Maybe even regret?

The problem with that abuse angle is that it’s not enough to cover for the fact that Emerald is a cold-blooded murderer.

That usually falls flat when it’s pulled elsewhere, too. It’s the ‘cool backstory, still murder’ problem. You have thus far written Emerald as feeling nothing, even laughing about, the people she kills. She taunted Tukson before she and Mercury killed him, was a mocking racist about him after his death, abused the kindness of a stranger in an effort to have that stranger horrifically slain, and just an episode ago had Penny ripped apart.

All of these people were no threat to her. One was a man trying to avoid killing and planning on leaving quietly—and he in particular wasn’t even in the way of Cinder’s plans. Another was a woman who just wanted to help a crying child. The latest was an innocent pawn competing in a friendly tournament. There is no substantial difference between these people and the people she’s seeing die now: they’re all helpless to stop what’s happening and wouldn’t have hurt her.

And I don’t get why you’d do this. You guys also wrote Mercury as having an abusive father, but we’re not casting him as put off by the carnage he’s caused. He’s a sociopath having a total blast.

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 12

This is why I say that simple, flat villains are better, or at least a safer option. You don’t run into fumbles like this.

Moving on.

The ground underneath them suddenly rumbles. The chaos has awoken something very, very big. Cinder gleefully bids Mercury pay attention to what happens next.

We then cut away to Ozpin, who is sitting in his office watching the destruction unfold on screens. Finally deciding to act, he takes his cane and steps towards his elevator—but he stops short when he feels the same rumbling Cinder’s faction felt. Everyone feels it. In the midst of the scenes showing us this much, we get this tidbit.



I am pretty sure that’s the last we see of Sage and Scarlet for several volumes. I am finally going to reach my breaking point if this keeps up.

Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 25

These are characters who should be the defense of the city right now. Seriously—this is a tense scene heralding the worst monster we’ve seen so far, and you’re stopping to try and make me laugh at those komedic ha-ha useless characters you never bothered to characterize or even give more than one speaking line apiece to. Cut that out.

Anyway, then Mountain Glenn explodes. As in, the mountain the abandoned town is named after. It literally explodes, a Grimm dragon bursting out and winging towards the city.



Sloughing off of it is black goop that falls to the earth and births Grimm creatures. It’s quickly upon the city, flying over Beacon and depositing more Grimm, denying the defenders any reprieve for the ones they already killed.

The next shot really pisses me off.



Oh, look, it’s some of the heroes. We’ve ditched the memes and the background characters and even CFVY for a shot that appears to be isolating the important cast. They’re all getting ready to fight!

SSSN are showing rushing off to do just that, and I’ll just spoil it since we’re at the end of the episode: we don’t see them get to do anything. They along with Ren and Nora just get to be merged right back into that “miscellaneous” crowd.

Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 26

Stop fucking teasing action scenes if you’re not going to deliver on them, damn it.

But Jaune and Pyrrha do get to do a thing. Pyrrha is about to join the fight when we see her looking off into the distance. What does she see?



Ozpin, waiting and looking right at her. Pyrrha knows it’s time, and goes to meet him. Jaune orders the other two to stay and fight while he follows Pyrrha.

In the distance, someone notices this happening. Cinder’s eyes glow orange as she watches Pyrrha meet up with Ozpin.

The episode ends.

Join me next time, when Volume 3 hits its zenith and everyone breaks.

Counts:

• Jaune: 16
  
• It Was Right There: 7
  
• Fauxminism: 8
  
• Hypocrisy: 16
  
• Ice Cream Queens: 3
  
• Reliable Leaders: 15 + 4
  
  • Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 5
    
• Threatening Enemies: 6
  
• Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 26
  
• Your Fight Scene Sucks: 38 + 14
  
  • Evisceration Evasion: 14
    
• Ill Logic: 43
  
• Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 12 + 2
  
  • Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 1
    
  • Band-Aid Brigade: 1
    
• RSVP: 25
  
• Road to Nowhere: 8
  
• Y.A.S. Queen: 4
  
• Rooster Tease: 7
  
• LuLaRwe: 2
  
• The Lovegood Fallacy: 1
  

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20 – Volume 3, Episodes 7 and 8 | Table of Contents | 22 – Volume 3 Episode 11

Comments

[rc88]

Mm, I could buy that Emerald sees a difference between homicide and genocide. Wiping out an entire city might come off as a bit much. Still.