surgeworks

Volume 5 Final Thoughts (Part II) | Table of Contents | Volume 6

____________________

Most people, when writing long critiques of RWBY, probably wouldn’t wait until Volume 5 to do a retrospective. Most would do it after Volume 3, which many feel was the last volume of “true” RWBY, and if nothing else was certainly the turning point of the show as a whole.

However, I wanted to write a retrospective that truly explores the quality of the show. Volume 3 may have been where RWBY changed forever, but Volume 5 is where it died.

Let’s take a look at the counts and how they’ve progressed through each volume, yeah?

Volume 1:

Jaune: 6
It Was Right There: 2
Fauxminism: 5
Hypocrisy: 1
Ice Cream Queens: 0
Reliable Leaders: 3
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 0
Threatening Enemies: 1
Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 1
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 4 + 2
- Evisceration Evasion: 2
Ill Logic: 7
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 3
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 0
- Band-Aid Brigade: 0
RSVP: 18
Road to Nowhere: 1
Y.A.S. Queen: 3

The entire first volume passed with four counts still at 0, and in fact, only one of them made it past 10. You’ll be able to tell as this look at our counts each volume progresses, but I did base plenty of these on what I remembered being recent problems, such as the Band-Aid Brigade count. My apologies for making you wait so long to see evidence that these counts were necessary. And in fact, only about half the counts are related to writing at all, with style driving the other half.

But as for what we do have, it’s not exactly bad. The only real counts of note are the Jaune count, which debuted with Jaune’s own four-episode arc in a 16-episode season, and the RSVP count, which started skyrocketing when things got very uncomfortable in the final two episodes, and much of Weiss’ racism did not come with a safety cap indicating the things she says were obviously wrong, much the opposite.

But for all of this, none of it really indicates that writing is a major weakness of the team, mostly because…they weren’t writing anything yet. Volume One is largely a series of tip-toe attempts at worldbuilding with a vignette here and there, obvious antics by writers who are doing this for the first time but do, at least, want to do it well. Volume 1’s memory in fandom remains as “cringey” largely because the team hadn’t figured out how to set up a story around the starting benefits they had, which were aesthetic and spectacle courtesy of Monty Oum.

What about Volume 2?

Jaune: 16
It Was Right There: 3
Fauxminism: 6
Hypocrisy: 8
Ice Cream Queens: 0
Reliable Leaders: 9 + 1
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 1
Threatening Enemies: 4
Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 18
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 20 + 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
RSVP: 24
Road to Nowhere: 7
Y.A.S. Queen: 3
Rooster Tease: 5

Not good.

We follow the same pattern as before, with most counts being slow to advance, signifying that RWBY has yet to hit any real lows, but the counts that were highest by the time of the previous volume see even more action. The RSVP count is half again what it was before, and the Jaune count more than doubled.

Most concerningly, the Ill Logic and Fight Scene counts started to shoot up like bean sprouts. This is in spite of me explicitly ruling out any points added for the physics in fight scenes not matching up to real world physics—I only gave Fight Scene points when a scene was shoddily animated, didn’t account for something obvious, disappointed expectations, or broke already-established rules.

Some of these come with explanations. Nearly all of the volume’s total Jaune points come packaged with the prom arc, in which he is at his most insufferable to other characters. The Fight Scene points almost entirely showed up during the last episode of the volume, which showcased a dramatic drop in quality due to it being severely rushed. However, this is not the case across the board.

RSVP and Ill Logic, for example, were counts that tended to advance a little bit every episode, yet accounted for the highest climbs overall. Much of this comes about as a result of Rooster Teeth and its writers just not thinking. RT were getting better at actually setting up the spectacles that RWBY so often relies on to draw an audience, but nobody was stopping to iron out the details.

Of course, this volume is also where we heard from Shane that Rooster Teeth started trying to exert more control over the direction of the show, often against Monty’s wishes. Fittingly, that bleeds through into the very obvious schism we see when it comes to SSSN, who I suspect were caught in the crossfire. This explains the rising of the Someday count.

And Volume 3 brings us…

Jaune: 17
It Was Right There: 8
Fauxminism: 13
Hypocrisy: 17
Reliable Leaders: 15 + 5
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 5
Threatening Enemies: 6
Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 29
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 42 + 18
Evisceration Evasion: 18
Ill Logic: 48
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 16 + 2
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 1
- Band-Aid Brigade: 1
RSVP: 25
Road to Nowhere: 8
Y.A.S. Queen: 6
Rooster Tease: 10
LuLaRwe: 2
The Lovegood Fallacy: 2

As RWBY becomes more ambitious, its flaws grow more glaring. The overall slowness of the counts is starting to peter out, as more of them “wake up” due to specific plot points or characters. The Hypocrisy count ruled the scene whenever Qrow was in one, and Reliable Leaders started to become more of an issue as Cinder’s plan moved into play and Ozpin still had nothing to stop her with.

On the other hand, and quite bizarrely for any series being sporked, certain counts actually slowed from strong momentum to a crawl. The RSVP count disappeared with Blake’s screentime and the focus on the racism subplot, while Jaune’s lack of focus also was reflected in his count stalling. But these issues were still present, they just waxed and waned with the subplots they were attached to. These matters, combined with the issues above, make the point that Rooster Teeth tend to think about an end result and struggle to fill in the interim a lot. It showed up in Volume 2—Torchwick having stolen a manned weapon with absolutely nothing said as to how he pulled it off—and it shows up in Volume 3, too, primarily with the maidens and the silver eyes.

The main thing it all points to? Needing an editor.

To my knowledge, no one on RWBY was staffed as an editor, at least early on, which is a major problem. An editor is an important part of the writing process. They will see things that the author themselves don’t, and if Rooster Teeth had employed one, they might’ve caught and fixed their “Qrow is cool and Ironwood is dumb” dynamic before it hit the screen looking like the complete reverse. Someone could’ve pointed out that “magic is real” simply wasn’t going to work for this kind of show. Miles throwing in the silver eyes at the last minute is something that would’ve gotten him eaten alive by any sensible editor.

Worse still, three counts in particular continued to grow faster than the rest: Someday, Fight Scenes, and Ill Logic. Fight Scenes can be explained by Monty’s passing and the struggle to pick up his slack, and the apparent hellfire that had consumed the servers in the process of a switch to a new system, as detailed by Shane. Someday is by far the most shameful of these, since it’s the one I suspect arose directly from discord with Monty’s vision versus Rooster Teeth’s.

There’s a moment that sticks out, near the end of the volume. It’s when everything is in chaos at Beacon, and we get a panning shot of our heroes lining up and readying for battle: from left to right, Scarlet, Sage, Sun, Neptune, Ren, Nora, Jaune, and then Pyrrha. This is the kind of scene that precedes a kickass takedown of enemies, and yet SSSN jump straight into the void, while JNPR’s big moment is averted by Pyrrha’s maiden subplot arriving. It’s another one of those things that screams “two sides, zero agreements”.

The most severe plot points of the volume were just dumb (maidens, silver eyes) or gross (Adam the abusive ex), but these often didn’t translate to actual points because being newly established meant the further fumblings were down the road. But in exchange, we see that effort lacking in other places—and rather than boosts to counts, we got new counts, with “Prowling Wolf Fallacy” and “The Lovegood Fallacy” both being relevant primarily when Ozpin chooses Pyrrha for maidenhood.

So where did we go after Volume 3? Did RWBY really take an immediate nosedive after the third season, the way some people say?

Jaune: 31
It Was Right There: 16
Fauxminism: 23
Hypocrisy: 18
Reliable Leaders: 19 + 8
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 8
Threatening Enemies: 11
Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 31
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 55 + 20
Evisceration Evasion: 20
Ill Logic: 58
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 19 + 7
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 3
- Band-Aid Brigade: 4
RSVP: 31
Road to Nowhere: 9
Y.A.S. Queen: 9
Rooster Tease: 12
LuLaRwe: 9
The Lovegood Fallacy: 4
How to Piss Off Gay People: 7
Invisembl: 2

And we see some interesting results.

The Ill Logic and Fight Scene counts do, again, go up steadily—though neither one as severely as last volume. Ill Logic goes up 10 points over the course of the season, which seems like a lot, but compared to the 20 it gained in Volume Three, it can be said to show that the split format actually benefited RWBY a lot. Dramatic plot shifts don’t come with nearly as much frequency, and having every subplot separated means they have to focus more on the little things, and so don’t lose out as much on the details.

What’s more, the Someday count actually stalled out. This can, again, be attributed to the split story format of Volume Four. Each main character’s story—Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang—came with side cast who actually got a fairly large amount of focus, development, or both: Ren and Nora for Ruby’s story, Klein, Ironwood, Jacques, and Whitley for Weiss’ story, Sun for Blake’s story, and Taiyang for Yang’s story. Yeah, Sun’s team vanish for good this time, but Sun himself doesn’t leave Blake’s side or attention span for the entire volume, forcing the crew to actually, you know, write him. That and surprising effort put into Ren’s backstory, along with newly-introduced cast like Klein and Whitley, means that everyone comes off well and very rarely does anyone feel shafted.

There’s still problems, of course. Jaune and Fauxminism re-enter the fray, while Y.A.S. Queen returns to the fore as we expend a significant effort trying to convince the viewer that Tyrian is scary to the point it’s far overplayed with little results to show for it.

But in the main, you could convince me that Volume 4 is where Rooster Teeth were trying the hardest, likely because they had to—slacking off here and now would’ve made fans assert that Monty’s passion project deserved better.

Cue Volume 5!

Jaune: 42
It Was Right There: 18
Fauxminism: 30
Hypocrisy: 24
Reliable Leaders: 28 + 8
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 8
Threatening Enemies: 23
Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 73
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 80 + 30
Evisceration Evasion: 30
Ill Logic: 80
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 28 + 23
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 12
- Band-Aid Brigade: 14
RSVP: 48
Road to Nowhere: 17
Y.A.S. Queen: 12
Rooster Tease: 19
LuLaRwe: 13
The Lovegood Fallacy: 10
How to Piss Off Gay People: 12
Invisembl: 5

That is a lot of red.

A lot of these counts had significant spikes this volume, with much ranting involved, as I’m sure you noticed. Our usual rising stars are Someday, Fight Scenes, and Ill Logic.

Fight Scenes and Ill Logic obviously come largely into play in the later parts of the volume, with some of the most drastic spikes we’ve yet seen. Someday requires more elaboration—28 of its total points earned this volume were from my addition of 2 points per episode for the very pointed absence of Winter and SSSN, side cast that ostensibly lived in the setting of Volume 5 or were working there at last check. But even if you remove those, that’s still 11 points for just what the volume was (or wasn’t) doing with its onscreen cast—about on part with Volume 3.

But if you were ask me to summarize the volume—while forbidding me from bringing up the absolutely garbage pacing and the total clusterfuck of the finale, I’d probably have to say it was the RWBY Era of Band-Aids and Bigotry. Some of the most blatant examples of careless writing cross with some of the most uncomfortable looks into an author’s biases that I’ve ever seen here, and if you add in the missteps with Jaune healing Weiss, it just looks gross. This is probably the RWBY volume that has been the most unkind overall to nonwhite characters, gay characters, and women.

Crossing over with that was a rather bizarre fixation on tacking on new material in order to mollify fans. The choice of a “Ruby learning hand-to-hand” subplot was an odd one, considering I think people made plenty more noise over other things than that (hint hint, Rooster Teeth). What’s unfortunate is that it’s a count that’s going to keep going up, because the colossal failure to give the volume an appropriately satisfying climax means the entire next volume is essentially a repair job aimed at quietly begging fans for forgiveness.

Many of these counts were not conceived with the idea of tallying consistent and recurring writing or style choices, and were not intended to rise above 10 points—but every count has by now, except our very newest one (and the Prowling Wolf, which is a subcount). That points to the idea that RWBY, for all that I miss its heyday, is honestly worse than I first took it for.

Our biggest point margins are starting to get majorly concerning, as well. Taking subcounts into consideration, our “Your Fight Scenes Suck” count has finally risen past 100, a rather bizarre happenstance since in general the first few volumes are known for good action sequences, and the Someday and Ill Logic counts are hot on its tails. Veil has reached 50 overall, and RSVP is just shy, which is majorly, ahem, yikes.

With a higher accumulation of points overall than any other volume, Volume 5 definitely represents a swan dive. But frankly, I don’t know why.

There was no reason for this. Volume 4, despite some grumblings, was effectively proof of what Rooster Teeth could do when they sat down and tried, and took things slow. I do not understand why anyone would approve of the way things got done this volume, and wouldn’t devote some extra time and money to it when it was, at the time, the flagship show of the company. RWBY had long since outpaced Red vs. Blue by the time this volume came around, so why set things on such a crash course from the outset?

It’s sad how much of this could’ve been avoided if we had just waited until we had a complete plot to start the show, or even if an editor had just been present. And also maybe if Rooster Teeth didn’t grind their employees into dust. And maybe if Gray didn’t embezzle money, but you didn’t hear that one from me.

Where does RWBY go from here? How much goodwill do they have left, and what will they do about an audience that was officially on the way out?

We’ll have to find out.

But, before that, let’s take a moment to remember that RWBY, for all its bad, started out as a passion project by an animation genius. Let’s remember that Rooster Teeth, while being a corporation and therefore evil (and staffed with the occasional jackass, creep, rapist, or wifebeater) does also have employees that wanted it to succeed, and much of their work did occasionally shine through. So, here: I’m going to tally my top 15 moments from the first five volumes—15 reasons to watch RWBY, if you will.

15. Something Special: Boy Meets Girl

I’ve always liked this moment, and I think it’s because of the inherent dynamic in it. Blake, this beautiful, haughty woman who is quiet but driven, passionate but logical, violent but graceful… I think I’m very tickled by the idea of her being so disarmed and so charmed by a cute guy with a nice smile walking by. Someone so complex being drawn to someone who is exceedingly straightforward and has no issue being a flirt, but means well. There’s so much you can get out of that one little first impression interaction: Blake seeing a guy so cute it dizzies her a little, and also stuns her seeing a faunus run around getting chased but still laughing and smiling.

There’s also the implication with the wink—directed at Blake and no one else—that Sun can tell at a glance she’s a faunus, seeing right through the bow on her head. This ties him back to his literary inspiration, as Sun Wukong was able to see through illusions. It also establishes him fairly early on as someone Blake can trust, which gets followed up on at the end of the episode.

14. Pure Fun: Food Fight

Probably the best example of what RWBY looked like when it was just fun. There wasn’t necessarily a reason to throw a huge food fight into the first episode, but it was funny as hell and balls-to-the-wall, so why not?

Perhaps more subtly, it also showcases ingenuity both on the part of the characters and the part of the animators. Monty and his team have to figure out how to replicate the weapons and fighting styles of eight characters involved in a fight, and the characters have to use what’s around them to get the job done. It’s, in Neon Katt’s words, super crazy awesome.

Now, if only Ruby had used this ingenuity and absolutely boss use of her semblance throughout Volume Two, right?

13. Simplicity Is Your Friend: Yang Strikes Back

Proceeding towards more dramatic displays of character and character development, we have this moment from Volume Five. Yang’s fight against the bandits is exactly what everyone was hoping to see from a Yang that had grown and taken to heart the lessons Taiyang had given her.

Yang could very easily just tank everything these pissy little bandits are throwing at her. Indeed, she sweeps them aside with very little difficulty, and stays calm throughout the entire ordeal, not engaging in her usual thrill in fighting, or blind berserker rage. Part of it is Yang having to deal with striking out on her own with her recently-applied metal arm, of course, but the part that makes a viewer truly proud is the last strike.

It would probably cost Yang absolutely nothing to just barrel right through Shay D. Mann’s knife swipe and rush him to oblivion, but instead, she exerts a tiny amount of effort and dodges around him before delivering the last blow. It’s so simple, but so at odds with what we’re used to Yang doing, that we can’t help but admire it, especially as it’s smart—Yang is heading to meet Raven Branwen, and needs her aura at 100% should things go wrong.

12. Tonal Excellence: Nuckelavee Confrontation

Okay, yes, the Nuckelavee is a goddamn hilarious joke of a boss because of the stretchy arms that are impossible to take seriously, but nonetheless, it deserves props for the intense amount of legwork being done by the tone set up around it.

I called the lead-up to the Nuckelavee confrontation excellent, and the direction when it came to engaging it was just as smart. The sound design is particularly nice, with lots of oomph in the crunches when the Nuck Pucks strike concrete and brickwork. The fight with this thing, which is apparently alarmingly fast and quick to react despite its twitchy and limp demeanor, was made all the better by having it take place in the abandoned ruins of Ren’s childhood home, a collapsing, rotting set of streets with the vegetation dead and the sky overcast.

The fight gets a suitable cherry on top, with Nora and Ren—both with broken auras, but still fighting—delivering the killing blows, Nora by falling from the top of a church to smash the horse’s head in, and Ren by calmly cutting the humanoid half apart.

11. Healing and Growth: The Sun Rises

When it comes to being a Sun Wukong fan, Volume Four was downright painful. I wouldn’t say I’d take Volume’s Three deliberately shoving him out of the spotlight over this, but it’s a very close call. Suffering through it all almost seems worth it, though, for the moment that the season’s story was seeming to build up, which is Sun finally confronting Blake’s evasive tactics and addressing her intense fear. This is the moment fans of this relationship were waiting for, when Sun’s gentle but earnest qualities crumbled Blake’s walls.

You can’t fight fear with anything but love and gentleness, and that’s what Sun is made of and why he’s the one Blake needed when it came to rebuilding herself.

10. Defiance as Art: Weiss’ Knight

Few things are as satisfying as seeing a character struggle and work hard and be rewarded for it with triumph. Weiss was a particularly entertaining character throughout Volume Four, a stranger and a prisoner in her own home. Her arc is the only one to not contain anything resembling a fight scene, yet hers is the one I feel most invested in after Ren’s.

So it’s amazing when we see her drive, her will for independence, shaking the very walls of her room, then manifesting before her very eyes, with the point sharpened with the breaking of the window, highlighting Weiss finding her freedom. Fittingly, this is the first time we see Weiss actually smile all season long.

9. Introduction to Badassery: Witch Fight

When it came to showing off the things RWBY would have for its waiting viewers, Monty Oum made the right decision to flex in the first episode. The fight between Glynda and Cinder Fall in “Ruby Rose” isn’t just visually impressive spectacle, although it definitely is that.

It’s a technically impressive marvel—the entire fight takes place with both sides of the combat on two different vertical levels. The pace is fast, and never lets up or assumes the viewer can’t keep up. It’s a creative fight and shows the combatants trying multiple tactics to counter each other, such as Glynda re-arranging the debris from Cinder’s attack into a missile, then trying to angle it for Torchwick after Cinder shoots it down. When that fails, she turns the debris into ropes in order to try to cage in the aircraft and stop it from leaving. Cinder is forced to put a lot of muscle into her counter-attacks to secure their escape.

And while all this is happening, the participants adjacent to the duel aren’t standing by idly looking on, the way they would in later fights. I’m not even referring to Ruby’s fruitless attempt to shoot Cinder down—when Cinder and Glynda are fighting, you can see Ruby ducking her head to avoid the flame from a nearby explosion, and see her eyes tracking the movement of the debris Glynda re-forms into a javelin.

Everything was accounted for, and this was why Monty Oum had a reputation as as an animation expert.

8. Mad, Brilliant Ideas: Red Like Roses

The highlight of the first half of Volume One is undoubtedly the dual fights between the heroes and the Grimm giants attacking them, the Deathstalker and the Nevermore. The thing that was understood in Volumes One and Two, but not Volume Three, was that the different weapons these characters use aren’t meant to all be mashed together into a single attack at any point: they’re meant to be used to strike the weaknesses best suited to them, with a finishing blow delivered by someone best suited. Only Nora’s war hammer and Ruby’s gigantic scythe have any real chance of killing the Deathstalker and the Nevermore—what the fight entails is figuring out how to set it up so that these finishing blows can be achieved.

The Deathstalker stays relatively still, since it can’t fit onto the bridge the heroes are holding out on, so when its stinger is detached and pierces its armor, the soon-to-be Team JNPR is in prime position to skyrocket Nora upwards and then watch her careen down and smash that thing’s ugly brains in to the sound of guitar rock.

Then the lyrics come in as the second half of the fight starts, and Ruby’s plan is laid into place: ground the creature, then pin it in place long enough to allow Ruby to cross the gap and use Weiss’ power over gravity to help her drag it up the cliff face by its neck—the crescendo of the fight syncing up with the chorus of the song “Red Like Roses Part II” to beautiful effect. Watching Ruby sprint her way directly up the cliff and finally sever that giant raven’s head is amazing. It shows off each character’s key contributions, primarily Weiss’ versatility (which his hilariously integral to the plan) and the sheer knack Ruby has for slaying evil.

It’s beautiful.

7. Pride in Animation: Paladin Mech Interception

Okay, yes, the lead-up to the Paladin mech fight was not thought through at all and they just kicked Sun and Neptune out of the scene in a display of rudeness I’m still not quite over.

But the actual fight with Torchwick in the mech does underscore how good Monty was with matching the right weapons to the right weaknesses. It’s an extensive fight, and each character gets a major moment to shine. There was coordination and planning, and total confidence. You can see there’s no uncertainty in the heroes, because they know Ruby (and Weiss) won’t let them down.

One of the ways you know this fight is above average is that there isn’t a single “killing moment” or highlight—the entire fight consists of such impressive moments, back-to-back. This was a staple of Monty-era RWBY: he knew how to chain together awesome moments back to back and have them flow together naturally. It was a fight that showed off something to be proud of.

6. Dramatic Irony: Do You Believe in Destiny?

Volume Three had a lot of dramatic moments, and this is one of the few times that a conversation sequence outpaced action sequences in how much drama there was. Jaune would be a character much better served if more of his screentime was spent the way it was here: supporting his friends and simply trying to be the heart that he was meant to be. The weight of the burden on Pyrrha is palpable, and the audience has to feel their cores struck when a simple, heartwarming moment turns heartbreaking, because the truth is that Jaune can’t help Pyrrha without all the facts, and Pyrrha can’t give them to him.

It was the first, last, and only time that we got to see Pyrrha and Jaune exactly the way the writers were envisioning them. It was the definitive Arkos moment, up until the fateful kiss, of course.

5. Fate vs. Fortune: PvP

Speaking of definitive moments, this was another one for Volume Three.

Much like Adam vs. Sun, Penny vs. Pyrrha was a moment the RWBY fandom had had on their minds since the latter was introduced. An obvious robotic opponent versus Pyrrha’s magnetic manipulation abilities? Sounds like an easy fight.

But it isn’t. Pyrrha is faced with an overwhelming enemy, not only the first one to truly challenge her, but the first one to keep up with and potentially overwhelm her. The drama is there, with Pyrrha having to put aside her stresses and focus on the fight, with the pride of her teammates and her school on the line, and adorable, utterly badass Penny with no idea of what’s going on in her enemy’s head—or the fate that awaits her.

Alongside the drama of the spectacle is the aesthetic. Pyrrha is based on Achilles, a hero from ancient history’s works of art, while Penny is a robot, a futuristic creation from the technologically pioneering Atlas. Pyrrha fights with exceedingly simple weapons, a sword and shield, and Penny fights with levitating knives and lasers. Pyrrha is dressed as a warrior, while Penny looks and behaves like a naive little girl. It’s very much the equal-and-opposite deal of Yang vs. Mercury.

The fight ends in a totally horrifying fashion and signals the incoming climax and the collision of shit with a very strong fan, the true tipping point of the volume.

4. The Last Stand: Pyrrha vs. Cinder

This was as much Shane’s last stand as Pyrrha’s, and it shows.

Yes, what this fight means for the show is a grand amount of bullshit. But the determination is there, and that’s ultimately the defining force of the fight: determination. Pyrrha is faced with overwhelming might, but this will not stop her from fighting, and even though she failed to gain the power of the fall maiden, Pyrrha does her best to stop the villain that stole it.

Dumb her death may be, but Pyrrha proves her worth as a hero here nonetheless. Every other fight she’s fought has been to prove something trivial—her initiation to a school, her value as a tournament opponent, a bid for the championship… This was a fight that mattered more than all of that, and Pyrrha gave it the same thing she always does: her all and more.

Cinder Fall, a smug, ruthless villainess with a cruel streak a mile wide, versus Pyrrha Nikos, someone who takes pride in wanting to protect others. Both characters dressed in red and themed around fire, both characters staking everything on this fight. It’s Cinder’s peak as a villainess, drunk off the full power of the fall maiden and fresh off the defeat of Ozpin, and it ends with her getting exactly what she deserves once she strikes Pyrrha down: a good serving of humble pie.

3. Climactic Perfection: Queen of the Air

I called Weiss’ aerial counter-strike against the Lancers and their queen a fight truly worthy of Monty Oum’s legacy, and it was.

You know, we joke about Jeff Williams not being able to write any songs but Weiss and Yang ones, but the benefit of his focus on Weiss is that ‘defiance’ as a theme is an easy source for lyrics and suits passionate instrumentals that he obviously likes. And compared to Yang’s, Weiss’ songs can actually be arranged to form something akin to a story arc on their own:

The Path to Isolation
Mirror Mirror
Mirror Mirror Part II
It’s My Turn
This Life Is Mine

Thus, the soundtrack that plays here is fittingly the one that represents Weiss triumphant, as she sneaks out of Atlas with a cargo of stolen dust and uses them to take down a menace that was threatening those weaker than herself.

It’s an impressive technical display in the same vein as previous vertical fights, with Weiss taking advantage of the ship she’s in and organizing her defense and counter-attacks appropriately. The fight has a wonderful climax—no joke, I get chills when I hear that a capella high note from Casey as the Knight summon free-falls with sword in hand.

There was not a single notable weakness in this action sequence, and every single part of it—technical aspects, camera angles, soundtrack, the actual logic behind the fight—was at 100%. This was a stunning display of true excellence from the RWBY team, with each key feature of the fight highlighting the climax of Weiss’ arc.

2. Triple Threat: Traincar Action Sequence Medley

Our runner-up for best moment in the series as a whole is of course an action sequence. Or rather, several action sequences stacked on top of each other.

Yang vs. Neo, Weiss vs. the White Fang Lieutenant, and Blake vs. Torchwick. These three fights showcased so much in so little time. It showcased the weaknesses of Yang’s fighting style, the precariousness of Weiss’ fighting style, and the artistry that makes up Blake’s style. Fittingly, from those three fights, we get a total defeat, a shocking upset, and a total victory. It was something we needed from each of them.

Each duel is set up appropriately. Yang, someone who usually fights bigger opponents, versus the tiny and graceful Neo. Weiss, whose duel against the very large Lieutenant with his chainsaw evokes her duel against the enormous Knight from her trailer—and thus delivers us an expectation that she’ll beat the odds. Blake, who last time lost her fight to Torchwick handily, and utilizes an edge she brought just in case.

It’s just action atop action, quality atop quality. The pace is fast, we don’t stray away from any one fight for too long, and the camera angles in particular deserve some praise for always staying properly aligned—protagonist on the left, enemy on the right, moving in sync with the fighters to keep this up as they change positions. The sound design, too, never lets up—every movement of Neo’s parasol and the fabric sounds of her grapples with Yang are always perfect, with none left oddly silent and always matched to a sound effect.

I could watch it over and over again all day.

1. Unparalleled Spectacle: Black and White

And the one you all knew was coming. Yes, the crown winner on my list of reasons to watch RWBY, no matter how painful it gets, is this absolutely balls-to-the-wall display of glorious chaos and badassery.

The climax of Volume One, “Black and White” presents an action sequence medley just as the runner-up did, with three combatants taking center stage at different points. First, Blake takes on Torchwick, but gets repelled—and Sun leaps into the fray and breaks his bo staff into shotguns chained together to form nunchucks, which is simply not a moment you can match with any other badass moment from any series. That’s the peak, that’s the epitome. It’s glorious.

But they don’t just leave it at that, no. They add in Penny, with her robotic reveal, letting loose with an array of floating knives that shoot lasers and oh my god, I can’t deal with this, I’m about to lose my whole dresser’s worth of pants again just recapping this madness.

One of the reasons the fight is so amazing is that it presents awesome material from three people who had previously been played up as non-combatants: Torchwick, Sun, and Penny. Torchwick’s retreat from Ruby and then Glynda in the pilot episode left many with the impression that, although he had a weapon, he was more the type to leave fighting to others and wouldn’t survive a direct confrontation with the heroes. Sun, likewise, was initially shown fleeing from police forces, much lesser than even junior huntsmen, and presented as too laid-back and collected to be a serious fighter, not to mention bearing no visible indication that he was a student of an academy. And, of course, Penny’s assertion of being “combat-ready” was met with doubt by team RWBY.

In this climax, all of these characters show they’re ready to throw down, and quite capable of doing so, with each one throwing out weapons and fighting styles that are completely unexpected but so very fitting to their characters, surprising the audiences in a fantastic way. All of the camera angle and sound design adulation I’ve mentioned before applies here, and it just does not showcase even a single flaw.

I will never, ever be over this. This action sequence left me a changed person. 12/10, honestly, and completely unparalleled.

________________________________________________________________________________

So yeah, those are my 15 best moments from the series thus far. We’re gonna have to see if another one of these can be done by the time once Volume 9 is sporked, which I imagine will be the rough ending point of the series with the way things are going. Or maybe I’m low-balling this cursed show’s longevity, who knows. But unfortunately, I have my doubts.

Volume 5 left this show a wreck, and although there might be occasional moments of improvement, I don’t believe RWBY will ever truly regain the promise and affection it once had.