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50 – Volume 8, Episodes 6, 7, and 8 | Table of Contents | 52 – Volume 8, Episodes 11 and 12
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Alternate Title: HE WHAT?!
Welcome back. *long sip of tea* Let’s get into it.
The battle between the Grimm and the Atlesian military continues.
The soldiers continue to fight, even past the bodies of their fallen comrades. Meanwhile, the Grimm continue to flow from the mothership. Meanwhile, Yang, Jaune, and Ren have found a way in. They’re running, but quickly stop for breath.
Y: Well… That was harrowing…
'Harrowing'? You’re a 19-year-old girl who throws punches for a living, what kind of word choice is that?
None of them knows exactly where they are (and I don’t either, since we don’t see how they got in), or where Oscar might be. Ren decides to flex the new powers that were pulled out of his ass last post.
R: I... I might be able to help. I can sense spikes of people's emotions, I think. It happened on Winter's ship. If I focus my aura, I can keep it up.
Y: Okay, that's new. Maybe one of them is Oscar.
Y: Okay, that's new. Maybe one of them is Oscar.
Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 33
Lampshading an ass pull doesn’t make it not an ass pull, Miles.
So, Ren senses the emotions and leads the way. We cut to Oscar’s torture chamber, where he’s lying on the ground. They are, for some reason, discussing fairy tales. I wish they’d stop.
Os: She brushed off her bumps and bruises, for nothing hurt worse than the loneliness in her chest.
Oz: I recognize that. ‘The Girl Who Fell Through The World’?
[...]
Os: I thought the idea of falling through Remnant into a new world was exciting. I never understood why she was so sad when she finally made it back home. But now it makes more sense.
Oz: I recognize that. ‘The Girl Who Fell Through The World’?
[...]
Os: I thought the idea of falling through Remnant into a new world was exciting. I never understood why she was so sad when she finally made it back home. But now it makes more sense.
That’s some SUBTLE FORESHADOWING, isn’t it? Christ almighty, this is getting to be a headache. Are you idiots about to pull some out-of-left field shit that we’re supposed to appreciate because of this very obvious lead-in? Don’t fuck with the plot. The plot is already fucked enough. Do NOT go introducing some alternate world or some shit--too late.
Ozpin wants to abandon the whole ‘divide and conquer’ strategy and try to escape, but Oscar denies him, as they would have to use magic. He says that he can feel the two of them merging faster when they do, and dislikes that. Ozpin accepts this.
Hazel enters the room, grabbing Oscar by the collar, and I’m sure we’re supposed to think that he’s getting another beatdown so we can be so surprised when Hazel helps him escape. *eyeroll* Then we cut back to the battlefield.
In a trench dug into the field, Winter is addressing soldiers—and also team FNKI, for some reason. Their orders are to hold the line until the bomb can be delivered, or the city falls. Neon and Flynt, who I imagine may or may not die soon, are nervous about this. The Ace Ops are also nearby, and Vine lets everyone know that another wave is headed their way, while Marrow experiences a fresh wave of doubt given that teenagers are now fighting.
We cut back to Hazel, and sure enough, Oscar is not getting beaten up.
He’s been brought to the storage chamber holding the Relic of Knowledge. He wants to test out the password before he takes it to Salem. Emerald walks in, asking what’s going on, so Hazel ropes her in, too.
Oscar says Jinn’s name, she pops out, and Hazel is assured he was telling the truth.
Os: What are you going to do?
H: What Gretchen would have done. And that starts with getting you away from here.
H: What Gretchen would have done. And that starts with getting you away from here.
See? I’ve got psychic po—
H: Both of you.
*livid*
Jinn is rather irritated at, again, being summoned with no questions to answer. Hazel remarks that if they move the lamp, Salem will know, so he elects to get Oscar and Emerald out, first. They leave the room, unaware that Neo, camouflaged into the background, was watching and listening.
Meanwhile, Jaune and Yang are following Ren. Jaune, who is aura-boosting Ren, falters for a moment, with Ren’s masking and tracking apparently using more juice than previously thought. In light of the strain, they opt to let Ren’s cloak on them down and let Jaune scout ahead. Once he leaves, Yang makes a crack about the situation, and Ren says it’s okay to be scared, figuring that she’s hiding her fear with a joke, and being right. Everyone is friends again.
Jaune comes running back and ushers them into a corner, ordering Ren to mask their presence again. It turns out there’s a Seer floating down the hall, but Ren’s low on aura and his cloak falters.
We cut back to Hazel and Emerald, sans Oscar, who appears to have gone off on his own for some reason. Their situation gets very bad when they find Salem walking down the hall to meet them. Salem speaks to Hazel, who immediately dons the guiltiest look in the goddamn world, and asks if the password has been retrieved yet. His stammering, trailing response is one Salem would have to be braindead not to see through, but no matter—she detects a Seer having found someone uninvited. She thus goes flying off to retrieve the lamp (doing the glide-y thing Weiss doesn’t do anymore) and orders Hazel and Emerald to stop the intruders.
Meanwhile, YJR are just finishing a wave of security-minded Grimm.
R: What now?
Y: Let's do what we do best, charge blindly into danger.
J: Would've gone with "keep moving forward," but sure. Ren?
R: Forward, no matter what.
Y: Let's do what we do best, charge blindly into danger.
J: Would've gone with "keep moving forward," but sure. Ren?
R: Forward, no matter what.
I’m gonna detonate if you keep doing that. Even if I were a RWBY fan, I’d have dropped the benefit of the doubt by now and just figured y’all to be milking that man’s memory. Stop it.
We cut back to the battlefield. The Grimm are still coming, with missiles from the Paladin mechs blowing away the mini-Goliaths. But the soldiers, still fighting, are getting weary, including Flynt and Neon. Marrow and Harriet are here, too, and the latter asks how much longer until the bomb is ready. Turns out it’s on the way now.
Back in the mothership, Yang, Jaune, and Ren finally bump into Hazel and Emerald—only for Hazel to vanish and reveal Oscar, explaining why the latter was about ten nanoseconds from getting found out by Salem.
E: I knew I sensed some weak minds nearby.
No, you didn’t, because so far your ability has been purely line-of-sight. Miles and Kerry are writing on the fly again.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 67
Yang understandably asks why they would trust Emerald, who murdered Penny and ensured the fall of Beacon. Miles and Kerry don’t care about that, because Emerald is a pretty girl whose crimes can surely be excused because of love or some crap like that, so Ren’s going to talk at us about how she really feels to assure us she’s trustworthy.
R: Because she's scared. Just like us.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 68
Emerald knows the way out and invites them along, so I guess we just don’t care about the first three volumes anymore.
Out on the battlefield, Winter is opening a hatch in an airship to reveal quite a large bomb. Everyone moves out to get ready for its delivery, and Marrow, being annoying, says that the kids are still inside the whale. Winter says she gave them their allotted time. Marrow tries for an armor-piercing question, asking if she’d do this if it were Weiss in there, and if she’s going to tell Weiss that she had her friends blown up. However, despite looking ready to cry, Winter says she would, because that’s her duty.
And unlike the business with Ironwood just abandoning Mantle (which is something that…has not been addressed or even felt all that important for quite a few episodes), which was quite obviously the wrong choice, Winter’s decision is definitely the right one here. Marrow is being dumb—he’s on the battlefield, he can see how many people are fighting and dying trying to hold back the Grimm. The battle will not end until the mothership is blown up, and he should know full well that his pleas for YJRO’s lives comes at the cost of many more.
On said mothership, the group as a whole sans Hazel has found the landing pads on its flanks, and is almost out—but then the beast starts to rumble. There’s a deafening din, and Salem bursts out of a nearby wall. Furious at Emerald’s trick, Salem restrains her first.
Everyone opens fire, and Salem responds by blasting Jaune and Ren back with her magic. Yang goes in with her glue bombs, rolling out of the way as she detonates them.
Salem is not entirely unaffected by this as you would expect, which does bother me somewhat as I would hope her aura or otherwise her magic might protect her somewhat. But Salem is harmed by the explosion, her chest blown into a huge cavity, only for her to regenerate in a matter of seconds.
Threatening Enemies: 37
Salem is going to get one of those points each time she demonstrates that you could conceivably defeat her with absurdly conventional means. I see no reason why this chick shouldn’t have been through down to the bottom of the sea attached to a huge anchor.
She grabs Yang with some silly string and starts dragging her over. Oscar demands she leave them alone, flexing his magic.
He blasts her, leaving no mark, but this apparently bothers Salem enough that she throws Yang at him. Salem quickly binds everyone with summoned Grimm arms, and threatens Emerald with an orb of dark magic in her hand, demanding to know what they did with the lamp. Getting nowhere with that, she instead strolls over to Oscar, speaking instead to Ozpin, asking if he’s really prepared to go to such lengths for children of a ruined world. When he doesn’t respond, she gets physical, demanding to know why he keeps coming back. Yang interrupts.
Y: Why do you?! All of this endless death, because something bad happened to you once upon a time?!
Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 34
M&K’s way of quietly admitting, perhaps, that their backstory for Salem was utter bullshit. Salem responds:
S: And who is it I've taken from you, girl?
Y: Summer Rose. My mom.
Y: Summer Rose. My mom.
Band-Aid Brigade: 49 (+6)
Hoo, boy, finally fixing that are we? After six straight years of Yang totally ignoring Summer’s role in her life as ‘Super-Mom’?
The scene is happened upon by Hazel, who Salem orders to return Oscar to his cell while she tortures Emerald for her betrayal. Hazel then picks him up, murmuring in his ear “No more Gretchens, boy”, which I guess means we’re just going to leave that bit about “our sister” totally un-capitalized-on. Hazel drops him, Oscar with his cane now in hand, and then punches out Salem.
His shirtlessness is diminished because of the man-bun, but he does remove his shirt, and charge himself up with dust, and orders the others to get moving, despite Emerald’s quiet pleas for him not to do this, that I don’t care about.
Salem taunts him about giving up vengeance for his sister, and he says he’s doing what Gretchen would’ve done, and I still don’t care.
First, this:
The Lovegood Fallacy: 14 (+2)
Because Hazel is using dust and Salem is using magic, and if I didn’t know they were (allegedly) separate things, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be able to tell who was using what. And it’s getting an extra point, because I literally don’t know what Salem’s magic attacks are. As in, I have no idea what they’re supposed to do to their target besides hurt them a lot in some vague way.
Threatening Enemies: 38
That, for not immediately flattening Hazel despite the latter’s open fear of her anger two volumes ago.
Hazel blasts her into the dirt with a big ball of dust stuff, and then descends on her to smash her ribcage into so much bloody pulp.
Threatening Enemies: 39
If nothing else, I suppose this is a far cry from our usual squeamish hesitation to show blood, although to get this much we had to turn Grimm deaths into instant gore-less disintegration. Anyway, Salem interrupts Hazel’s barrage, and the others flee, save Oscar, who readies his cane, saying that Salem would just come after them again.
The complete lack of difference, let alone power, between dust and magic is shortened again when Salem, after regenerating her head, has her attack blocked by Hazel’s formation of a hard light shield. She tosses him away and starts slamming his head into the ground, and the fact that Hazel’s head does not instantly explode from this tells me that Penny could probably 1v1 Salem just like she did Neo and Cinder.
Threatening Enemies: 40
Oscar gears up some magic in his cane, drawing Salem’s attention, and she switches targets to him, only to be grabbed by Hazel.
When she tries to bind him with tentacles again (instead of immediately hurling him away from her with magic or something)
Threatening Enemies: 41
he responds by biting a red crystal between his teeth and setting himself and her on fire. Salem shrieks as she burns.
Threatening Enemies: 42
Hazel tells Oscar or Ozpin or whoever the hell it is to just do the thing, and he readies a big glowing attack that fills the screen with white.
The white fades to black and the episode ends, leaving me sorely disappointed.
All of that building, for seven and a half years, for this? Apparently, Salem doesn’t even have the benefit of aura, nor any magic barriers to fill the same purpose. Grimm about the same size as her, such as the Apathy, have completely failed to respond to attacks greater than what she was subjected to here.
Yes, I realize that an enemy who just puts themselves back together when they’re killed is unstoppable on an immediate level. But it provides little reason for why a determined person couldn’t just think a little, get creative, maybe trap her in a hard light fence like Watts did to Ironwood… Any number of solutions are available with the level of tech this universe has.
Threatening Enemies: 42
If you wanted a better example of this, try the Walrider from Outlast. It’s just a bunch of nanomachines floating through the air—physical barriers and attacks will have no effect and will not slow it down at all. Yet it’s a massive threat, because when those nanomachines bind together, they’re horrendously strong—it can throw around and rip apart someone about eight feet tall and covered in fat and muscle with ease, and if it’s really pissed off, it can flow inside of you and then expand outward, making you explode. In the comics, an ambush set up specifically to destroy or dissolve the Walrider totally fails. And it’s very fast—running will only delay it and that if you’re light enough on your feet. And it can also fly.
The only thing shown capable of stalling it for any period of time is shown to be an airlock that filters out particles and ensures pure airflow, and this only forces it to catch up to you at some other area. Of course, even if you could destroy the Walrider’s nanomachines, enough of them to eliminate it as a problem, you wouldn’t be safe for very long. Because the nanomachines that make up the Walrider are generated in the cells of its host—because it needs a host to function.
You could have played Salem the same way, impervious to physical attacks by virtue of being intangible, and essentially invincible unless her real body, or perhaps some concentration of her power, was located and destroyed, all Koschei-like.
It Was Right There: 53
But of course, that would still not be very intimidating. Salem is out here hurling bolts of magic that miss and don’t really inflict any fatal damage.
Threatening Enemies: 43
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 137
And that’s really disappointing—why all the fear, then? Why do Hazel and Lionheart and Raven all seem so convinced that fighting her is so desperately futile that they’re not even willing to try? Lionheart’s meteor attack that broke Oscar’s aura would’ve blown Salem’s head off. Certainly she can be stalled long enough to render her a non-issue, right? With the way this chick was being built up and the level of terror she inspired, I expected her to casually blow away everyone on-site with utterly massive blasts of magic, Super Saiyan style. But no, we just had our expectations for Salem totally deflated.
Rooster Tease: 31 (+10)
So I guess we should expect disappointment from here on out, especially with Ruby’s silver eyes in the picture. She’ll probably get frozen into stone for eternity.
*sigh*
We have an epilepsy warning before this one. That goes for the following gifs, too. We open up on James Ironwood, staring out the window of his office at airships floating by. The audio is muffled, but someone is making a report.
???: Sir, we have confirmation that Dr. Watts has escaped military headquarters with the assistance of Cinder Fall. We do have Jacques Schnee in custody—
Ironwood doesn’t give a fuck about Jacques, though. When he asks, he’s told Qrow and Robyn escaped as well, but must still be inside the facility somewhere. This enrages Ironwood, who tells them not to come back to his office without Qrow in cuffs. I have zero idea why Qrow is this important to Ironwood all of a sudden.
He’s just trying to ask the status of the ‘blow up the mothership’ mission when he looks out the window and sees for himself.
(I'm making space so that epileptic readers have time to click away without seeing it.)
The flash of light reaches every corner of the city, and Weiss in her mansion drops the the tea set she’s holding. The scene itself is totally silent but for accompanying piano notes.
There was definitely a hell of an explosion, but it wasn’t Winter’s team and their bomb that made it. This of course means it was Ozpin who did it—which therefore begs the question of how the fuck Cinder Fall was able to kill him,
Threatening Enemies: 44
And furthermore makes Salem look like even more of a loser.
Threatening Enemies: 45
Anyway, the gigantic nuke that just went off, blowing up the mothership and Hazel and injuring who knows how many others... The light slowly fades, though everything is still very difficult to see due to smoke. Neo, unharmed, is skipping through the burned fields with the lamp in hand. Winter sees fit to raise her head, and asks for a headcount. Harriet can’t hear anything, but otherwise, no one is injured. Marrow promptly runs off to try and find the kids who were inside the mothership.
As he climbs the hill and looks on at the carnage, it appears the whale—and everything inside of it—has been totally destroyed. As Marrow hangs his head, Winter gets a call from Ironwood congratulating them on blowing up the monster, and orders them back to the academy to deal with the latest problem. Winter doesn’t get the chance to tell him they didn’t blow anything up, and so has them load the bomb back into the ship to just tell him in person.
The entirety of Atlas is covered in a persistent golden smoke, that hangs over the city despite the winds. On the rooftops, Cinder and Watts discuss what’s happened, with Salem’s survival guaranteed but no one else’s, and no one responding to Cinder’s calls. Cinder still wants to go ahead with the plan she had—stealing Penny Polendina’s maiden powers, now that Watts has her nicely hacked. Watts is not so amenable, not in the least because Cinder doesn’t know the details.
Penny is set on a crash course—she will make her way to the vault, open it, and then self-terminate, no detours allowed, as Watts explains, calling Cinder a dimwit in the course of it. She’s also resisting the hack, further complicating things.
C: What do you mean, she'll destroy herself? How am I supposed to take her power if she's dead?!
W: You know, it's impressive that you haven't realized this yet, but I don't work for you!
W: You know, it's impressive that you haven't realized this yet, but I don't work for you!
This pisses Cinder off, and she gets Watts by the neck and dangles him over the ledge of the rooftop.
Watts says she was sent by Salem to retrieve him, but Cinder just says that Salem isn’t here. She says she’s going to drop him to his death, then head off Penny at the vault and defeat her—a plan that surely cannot go wrong a third time, right? Seriously, this chick does not learn anything, ever. Watts actually points this out. In fact, he calls her bluff, laughing and letting go of her wrist as though daring her to drop him.
W: [cackling hysterically] Oh, of course you are! Because that's just what you do, isn't it? And how has that worked out for you? You stormed into Fria's room, thinking you could take on Ironwood's top fighter and war machine. But you couldn't. And that machine became the winter maiden. Oh, and let's not forget your deal with Raven Branwen. Get all your enemies in one place so you'd have a shot at revenge. If only someone could have warned you against such a miserable idea! Oh wait, I did! But you pushed ahead and you lost it, when all you had to do was your job!
It’s unusual to see a character call out another character’s idiocy so efficiently. I’m not left with much to say. Every battle Cinder has fought since Jaune Arc has ended with her utterly flattened, for a grand total of one maiden power for four attempts.
Cinder’s anger starts to manifest as a vortex of fire, but Watts continues.
W: You think you're entitled to everything just because you've suffered, but suffering isn't enough! You can't just be strong, you have to be smart! You can't just be deserving, you have to be worthy! But all you have ever been, is a bloody migrane!
Cinder drags him back onto the rooftop and sits down, crying at having been so thoroughly eviscerated. And then everyone clapped.
For his next trick, Miles Luna is going to redeem Cinder! Then all that’s left will be Salem, and there will be that many more titties on the side of good! *eyeroll*
Miles Luna actually responded to concerns of these, of course, as if the idea of him redeeming Cinder was just so silly considering what's going on with Emerald. But we'll address that later.
We cut back to the ruins of Salem’s mothership, where Jaune, Ren, Yang, and Oscar are actually fine, because why wouldn’t they be? Yang gets a call. Of course it’s fucking Blake calling—goddamn it, are you idiots going to recognize that Ruby is Yang’s sister and that they are each other’s first priorities at all this volume?
How To Piss Off Gay People: 78
Everyone tells of how okay they are, including Emerald, who is off in the distance, thunderstruck that Hazel is dead. Oh, yeah, we still need to talk about that.
The first thing we need to talk about is the double standard that has proven to be a trend here—redemption and living to do good, or at least not be pursued by heroes, is for women. Men don’t get to be redeemed, and if they do, they die.
Ilia was redeemed and saved, while Fennec got blown up. Adam was eventually killed, while Raven Branwen got a tongue-lashing from Yang and otherwise walked away unscathed. And now, Hazel has finally bitten the dust while Emerald gets to stick around.
Obviously all of these have more context to them than that, but after a certain amount of events become a trend, the context starts to matter less, especially held up with the tendency for women to get tragic backstories that are seemingly designed to make them too pitiable to hate. Despite its premise, RWBY can be a very misogynistic show—and I’ll be remarking on that in this season’s final thoughts—but one way that misogyny shows through is the increased coddling of female antagonists. They aren’t allowed to be totally, unflinchingly evil. Even Cinder, of all people, has a Tragic BackstoryTM now, because why on earth wouldn't she? That would imply women could make their own choices with consequences and could, of their own accord, choose a life of evil, and we can't have that. This in spite of the fact that Cinder and Emerald were honestly much more entertaining when they were cold-blooded killers.
Emerald is a particularly nasty case. I’m sure I don’t need to repeat why, so I’ll just say for now that this popping up in Volume Three, pretty much immediately after you-know-what happened, reeks of a deviation from the source material, so to speak. In my Volume Three final thoughts, I pointed out how Adam’s utterly neck-breaking swerve into wifebeating incel territory was one of the reasons people quietly (and correctly) began to suspect things had been altered from Monty’s original drafts of RWBY—but this is the other one. It may have taken a few volumes for us to really see it, but the whole Sympathetic Emerald angle? It started in Volume Three. And we just have to live with it now, I guess because Miles and Kerry thought she was too hot for unabashed evildoing.
But also, we’re not done. Because all of that implies that the double standard is why Hazel died, and to be honest, it isn’t—the double standard is a side effect, not the cause itself. Hazel died for the same reasons Adam died: he was unsalvageable. He’s not a victim of Volume Eight, no. He’s a victim of Volume Five.
You can scoff, but we all know it’s true. I know it especially—I was there. I said that the number one mistake Rooster Teeth made was nerfing Adam and turning him into a whiny coward. None of the fans appreciated that, and despite their attempts to salvage that and rebuild the hype, it didn’t work, and he ended up bowing out of the show. And Hazel? Hazel was number two. Unsurprisingly, seeing as how he got the most screentime aside from the Raven vs. Cinder conflict, and spent the entirety of it being insufferably stupid.
That’s why Hazel has been quiet for two volumes before seeing the light and then walking into it. And nobody really cares, because nobody had cared since Volume Five. And since fans didn’t care about him and mostly just mocked him ceaselessly, the writing team realized there was nothing left for him to really do—his attachment to Salem and grudge against Ozpin was too dumb and he was dead weight now. Rooster Teeth has to really be regretting how hard they dropped the ball in that volume.
And for all these reasons, I am awarding ten points.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 78 (+10)
With all of that said, we can move on. Weiss gets in on the call, and provides Yang’s scroll with a map pointing them towards their location, I guess. Or some location. And then everyone starts discussing Emerald and working with her, which is going to get more Behind the Veil points for how obvious it is that M&K are trying to put a lid on very obvious and correct complaints.
Y: You can't be serious. You want us to work with her?
Os: I'm just saying it makes the most sense. We're all enemies of Salem, including her.
Os: I'm just saying it makes the most sense. We're all enemies of Salem, including her.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 79
E: No, I'm with blondie. You don't like me, I don't like you. So how about we just part ways and you never have to see me again.
J: You're not going anywhere. Not after everything you've done.
J: You're not going anywhere. Not after everything you've done.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 80
R: We can't let all of our actions stem from fear. If she could help us, I think we should consider it.
We get some of Ren’s aura-vision to show us Emerald’s goodness at heart or whatever the hell.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 81
And you know what? That’s getting this, too.
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 13
Because even the villainess herself is pointing out that it makes little sense for them to work together and she doesn’t want to. Miles and Kerry don’t care about that, though—they’re gonna do what they want to do.
Y: She is part of the reason I have this. [Yang gestures to her metal arm] I'm not going to just forgive her. Everything that happened at Beacon... She lied to us, tricked us. She is dangerous.
She has also murdered multiple people. Just adding that in there. She laughed about one of them.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 82
Os: You don't have to forgive her. You have every reason to feel that way. Just maybe give her a second chance. We've already gotten quite a bit of help today from someone we don't exactly trust right now.
A SECOND CHANCE AFTER MULTIPLE MURDERS, ATTACKS, AND THE DESTRUCTION OF AN ENTIRE CITY-STATE?!
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 83
They bring up Ozpin, who is back from his YouTuber Hiatus. Oscar refers to the cane Ozpin uses and says that that nuke that went off was a huge amount of kinetic energy he’d been storing up over multiple lifetimes. So yeah, it’s finally time for that point, one of the most egregious ass pulls in the history of this show, and boy howdy is that no mean feat.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 93 (+10)
Reliable Leaders: 60 (+10)
He just had this. The whole time. As of right now, of course.
This ‘storing of energy’ had to have been done via magic means somehow, because if it were just a technological aspect of the cane, it would be everywhere—Ozpin has pretty much guided the world’s progress since ancient times, after all. And yet we get no reason why Ozpin didn’t release at least some of this ‘kinetic energy’ when it would have saved a lot of lives, such as at the attack on Beacon in his fight with Cinder, or when the Leviathan was menacing Argus, or when Ironwood was, you know, about to shoot Oscar. Or when Salem’s silver-eyed POW was kidnapping him, which led to Oscar getting tortured for who knows how long. Nor do we get a reason why he shouldn’t be able to release it in smaller amounts than the whole damn thing—another sign of the fact that magic, so far, has had almost no definitions applied to it whatsoever, but mostly a symptom of the fact that they pulled this out of their ass mid-season for a very awful reason.
The Lovegood Fallacy: 15
Ah ah, I see you say, wagging your finger—this isn’t an ass pull! This isn’t Miles and Kerry making shit up on the spot! Ozpin told us the cane was special back in Volume Five, remember?
And those of you in that camp should find your way to my recap of Volume Three, Episode 12, “End of the Beginning”, where I made clear that noting a girl’s eye color and then not mentioning it again for three years does not constitute foreshadowing when her eyes later throw out laser beams. This is the same thing—albeit slightly better, because the cane’s description does at least make clear it will do something unique later. But still, that does not excuse this.
Oscar then says:
Os: Not all [of the cane’s energy], but most. We have to be careful with how we use the rest. He trusted my judgment and it saved us. I want to reciprocate that trust. There's a lot to sort out, but... Oz really wants to help.
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 14
Because like Emerald, Ozpin’s redemption is happening, damn it, no matter how poorly his behavior has painted him in recent years. Miles and Kerry clearly never intended this guy to receive the amount of scrutiny that he did, scrutiny he received because their writing made him come off excessively shady and creepy, and now they’re railroading him back into the story and into a helpful role.The group finally make their way to the subway tunnels, where the citizens have taken shelter.
The walls are shaking from the rampaging Grimm up above.
Os: I've seen what you can do, Emerald. However this fight ends, we could really use someone like you.
Fuck you.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 94
We fade onto Ironwood’s office, where he’s messing with the computers on his round table. The Ace Ops arrive, and Winter swiftly corrects his assumption that the bomb went off. That done, he gives them the update on Cinder freeing the prisoners—where Harriet gets all agitated at the mention of Qrow escaping—and tells them Penny hasn’t gotten to the vault yet. Ironwood anticipates Salem’s return with more firepower, and he has determined that the relic’s power, and by extension the winter maiden’s, is the only way they can save Atlas. So he wants Winter to bring him Jaune, Ren, and Yang, and Winter asks why.
I: I had Qrow in my hands and I didn't do what needed to be done. I will not make that mistake again. I know. I'm ashamed I didn't think of it earlier. Leveraging the lives of her friends is the only way to make Penny listen to reason.
You didn’t think of it before now because you were an entirely different fucking character before now!!!
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 16 (+2)
We’re back in the realm of Ironwood the Evil Shithead, who’s now going to try and hold Penny’s friends hostage to force her cooperation. What about this has even the slightest relation to the Ironwood we saw in Volume Seven?!?!?
The extra point being because apparently he feels he should’ve either held Qrow hostage earlier, or just killed him.
Harriet says they don’t have those kids anymore, because Winter let them go. Ironwood reacts how you’d expect if you only watched this volume—rage.
I: They were our last chance... Now... Now I have nothing!!!
“I” have nothing??? Sorry, are we still pretending this is some paranoiac fear spiral and not just blatantly throwing a villain bag over Ironwood’s head? Do you guys think I’m that much of a fool?
Not to mention—look at how he reacts here.
Yeah, like hell. This is what you think a paranoic spiral of fear and distrust looks like? You’re just having him behave like a violent lunatic! He sounds more like Tyrian Callows than James Ironwood!
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 17
Then a call comes in. Ironwood listens as an agent tells him of a huge fleet of non-military ships being detected. They’re SDC ships, headed for Mantle.
I: Weiss... I see. They're trying to save Mantle. [sitting down in his chair, steepling his hands, and sounding like Cinder Fall] This has always been about Mantle, hasn't it? I need to make a call.
WHAT DO YOU CARE?! WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT MANTLE?!
The whole apparent reason behind your conflict with the heroes was that you were, ostensibly, willing to let Mantle die to save Atlas from Salem. Now Salem’s whole operation is fucked to hell and back, and the heroes have found a solution to help Mantle’s citizens that doesn’t rely on your exhausted and out-of-resources military—everyone literally wins right now. And yet you still feel the need to antagonize them. Why?!
That’s all this is. This is just Ironwood doing villainous things because Ironwood is a villain now and common sense, rationality, and logical flow from prior characterization can just go to hell.
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 18
We cut to the next scene, with Watts and Cinder. The latter has a text from Neo, who has again retrieved the lamp flawlessly. More to the point, Neo is withholding the name of the being within the lamp, refusing to give it up until Ruby Rose is dead. We then cut to Ruby herself, opening the doors of Schnee manor. Yang and Ruby hug, Yang says she missed her, and then Weiss gets a one-second hug, too. Naturally, however:
Yep. Cheek in hand, blushing, foreheads touching…everything but the one last little thing.
How To Piss Off Gay People: 83 (+5)
I don’t get you guys. You clearly knew you were courting the Bumbleby shippers—but you wouldn’t commit. Why will you not commit? How can you seriously not realize this is only making your case worse?! Two women kissing is not gross or dirty or explicit, Rooster Teeth. You had an Arkos kiss, you had a Renora kiss…and you had a Black Sun kiss. And we all saw this and knew why--you were holding off on Bumbleby for as long as humanly possible because you knew full well that this was your only remaining ticket to a guaranteed audience. You strung these folks along and are still doing it begging them to fund Volume 10. Shit like this is why even Bumbleby shippers started to get sick of it, and telling you to either nut up and deliver, or stop fucking baiting them.
Ren asks where Nora is—Nora is still on her bed where people rest when the story has decided it has no more use for them. Then this happens:
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 19
Nope, not even Ruby gets to protest Emerald joining their little group. Despite the fact that she caused her dear friend’s death and aided in the scenario that resulted in another friend’s death. Silver eyes, remember? They burst into action because of your friends dying?!
Speaking of friends dying, May calls Ruby from down in Mantle. The Schnee Dust Company ships are being attacked by Ironwood’s forces. Yes, Ironwood is literally just trying to kill everyone in Mantle for no fucking reason.
Ill Logic: 175 (+10)
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 20
An emergency broadcast reaches their scrolls, which is interrupted by Ironwood’s own intercepting broadcast.
I: I have always promised to defend this Kingdom. Its technology, its future, from those who would see it destroyed. Our enemy is crippled, but one individual still denies Atlas its salvation. The Protector of Mantle. Penny, wherever you and your friends are, I need you all to listen. I know how much Mantle means to you, so I'm going to give you a choice. You can bring yourself to Atlas Academy and do your duty, help me save as much of Atlas as I can, and Mantle will be left to fend for itself. Or... you can all watch as I destroy it.
I… I… WHAT?!
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 21
I: I have one bomb. That's all it will take.
B O M B ?!?!
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 22
I: If there is no Mantle then there is no reason for you not to work with me. Neither of us want it to come to that, but one of us is willing to do it. If anyone tries anything other than what I've ordered, Mantle... is gone. You have one hour to respond.
*stunned*
………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………I. I don’t know how to respond—what on God’s green earth…
*holding head* Thi…This is why they… Oh, my god. This is why they had Ozpin pull a ‘kinetic energy’ nuke out of his ass to blow up the monster… They had Ironwood blowing it up, someone stepped in and said no, and then they had Ozpin detonate his goddamn cane instead so they could use the bomb for an evil Ironwood plot.
*falling to knees* I…don’t…get it. I don’t get why we’re doing this. None of this makes any sense. Not a single damn thing from any story angle. None.
The pettiness of all this… It’s insane…
I’m leaving. I’m picking this back up next post. I’m not dealing with this anymore.
Counts:
- Jaune: 74
- It Was Right There: 53
- Fauxminism: 50
- Hypocrisy: 37Reliable Leaders: 60 + 17
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 17
- Threatening Enemies: 45
- Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 91
- Your Fight Scene Sucks: 137 + 33
- Evisceration Evasion: 34 (RETIRED)
- Ill Logic: 175
- Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 94 + 74
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 34
- Band-Aid Brigade: 49
- RSVP: 70 (RETIRED)
- Road to Nowhere: 24Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 22
- Y.A.S. Queen: 18
- Rooster Tease: 31
- LuLaRwe: 46
- The Lovegood Fallacy: 15
- How to Piss Off Gay People: 83
- Invisembl: 14
- Broke-Ass Clowns: 31
- Shut the Fuck Up: 18
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50 – Volume 8, Episodes 6, 7, and 8 | Table of Contents | 52 – Volume 8, Episodes 11 and 12
no subject
Date: 2023-10-31 09:55 pm (UTC)From:Also, is 9 the episodes where Ren stops to remark in awe at the fact that Jaune literally feels no fear?
no subject
Date: 2023-10-31 10:03 pm (UTC)From:Urgh.
As for the Ozpin cane thing, I'm actually impressed. Not at anything writing-related, moreso at the audacity. It is unbelievable that they pulled that out of their ass and repurposed the Ironwood bomb and what sucks is knowing that if I tried to point this out to a fan, they'd think I was just blindly hating.
no subject
Date: 2023-11-01 10:01 pm (UTC)From:A tumblr mutual of mine once made a post, which unfortunately I can't find any more, about how it's especially unfortunate that this is implicitly contrasted with Ironwood, who is frequently shown this volume being scared or alarmed by developments (such as his wide-eyed look of horror when the shield comes down) as though this makes him weak or unmanly.