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Volume 9 Final Thoughts | Table of Contents | RWBY 2023 Retrospective (Part 2)
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Back in June of ‘23, I posted a retrospective on RWBY, with the total point tallies and examinations of what they were saying about the show thus far. I also included a lit of my top 15 moments from the series up until that point, with a fond nostalgia for what I used to love about the show. I openly wondered whether such a list would be possible to make using material from Volumes 5-9.

So, with RWBY finally behind us, did I find more standout moments to applaud as I did when looking back over the first five volumes? Did I find anything worth returning to more than once for the sake of a spork?

Well, not many. I found ten in total and even then it was kind of a stretch. All eligible moments are sourced from any point later than the latest examples cited in the last post like this, since we already did one. The other twenty...well, let’s just call them the ultimate disappointments—twenty reasons not to watch RWBY at all. Those will be sourced from the whole show.

SURGEWORKS’ TOP 10 RWBY MOMENTS FROM VOLUMES 5-9

Unsurprisingly, most of these are from Volume 7.

10. The World Opens Up – The Grandeur of Atlas

One of the things that people often complain about with RWBY is worldbuilding, and in this respect, I’m unusual, because I typically don’t. The thing about worldbuilding is that it should be finished by relatively early in the timespan of a work. Worlds should be built by the time they’re getting explored and destroyed. So since RWBY’s world is relatively established early on and Volume 4’s World of Remnants finally started giving us info about the different nations of the world, I was satisfied.

The beginning of Volume 7, though, showed me that we had so much more to see. The beginning of Volume 5, with the paltry painted panel of Mistral’s cliffside buildings and a bunch of still lifes of vendors on the street in what’s obviously supposed to pass as all we need to see of the entire kingdom of Mistral, which we were told was the biggest by controlled territory,

versus the slow fly-by we get of Mantle in the beginning of Volume 7, showing us the dirty, gritty, cyberpunk setting of the city’s wet streets with its police presences, dejected employees, and massive screen panels bearing Ironwood’s messages to the populace?

The fly by we get of Atlas in the next episode, showing us its massive gleaming grandeur, a floating island on which is propped up all the wealth and well-financed technology you could want…

It’s a pretty serious flex for Volume 7 to embarrass Volume 5 in the first five minutes. For the first time, the world of RWBY actually felt big, and what we were told was a city actually felt like a city. It’s the kind of thing that would’ve been so welcome in prior volumes, but is nonetheless served well giving us the juxtaposition of Mantle’s struggle versus Atlas’ cold stainless law-abiding environment.

9. Skirmish With Death – Neo’s Excellence (Cinder, JNPR)

Neo has consistently been one of the most entertaining elements of RWBY whenever she’s onscreen. She looks utterly adorable and is dressed in this odd collision of classy elegance and pastel colors, and this is topped off with her shadowy nature and sheer excellence as a fighter.

The nature and parameters of Neo’s powers are never fully explained, but what is known is that she tends to be in complete control of whatever altercation she enters. Combine that with the fact that Neo can’t speak, and you have a character that is very difficult to screw up, because the writers have to try hard when she fights and can’t take away from the scenes with talking back and forth, which helps uphold the deadly seriousness of Neo as a fighter.

One of the redeeming traits of Volume 6 was Neo returning, not necessarily because she was a fascinating character, but purely because it was that fun to see her drag Cinder’s ugly mug across the bar floor and then some. Rooster Teeth were kind of trying to play an ace card here; Neo wasn’t exactly someone they could easily link to the larger plot, but they knew fans loved her and tried to reel them back in with her reappearance, efforts you can hear being taken when the guitar track starts up just as the camera pans to reveal her. Does Cinder fare somewhat better than Ruby and Yang? Sure. Is it enough to shake Neo, who looks completely unconcerned the whole time? No.

She’s just entertaining, man. Here we have someone whose whole character is ‘kicking ass and looking good doing it’ and utterly embarrassing the major heavy villainess of the plot on whom so much time and much of Salem’s planning is spent. Hell, I’ll even throw in Neo vs. JNPR as a bonus, squeeze two moments into one slot.

When taking on JNPR 1v1, Neo again is hilariously unbothered, yet when they team up against her, she feels enough pressure to cut and run, using deception and opportunistic strikes to steal the relic out from under them. It both shows how JNPR have grown as fighters and as a team, how Oscar has progressed, and how Neo isn’t as invincible as she looks—a good three-fold bounty for once sequence.

It’s very telling that Neo doesn’t actually start to feel overpowered until the climax of Volume 8, which was that much of a sheer ball drop, and the less said about Volume 9 the better.

8. Dues Recognized – RWBY Earn Their Badges

One thing that consistently bugged me about RWBY “growing up” every single volume was that it somehow seemed to cause the inverse when it came to the actual cast. Every time RWBY got “more mature”, it was always hammered in how the heroes are kids, and any real threats were only to be taken on by the older generation. The sheer lack of anyone in their 20s existing among the main cast was getting weird after a while.

Volume 7 finally made some improvements on that. Fresh from the defeat of the Leviathan thanks to Ruby Rose, and now allied with Ironwood, RWBY and JNR finally receive some recognition for being capable figures in their own right. It serves as a sign that we might actually see the tide shift in the heroes’ direction not because of Cinder being an idiot, but because the heroes can actually move the plot and win decisive victories on their own.

Coming after Ironwood’s major plan to broadcast Salem’s existence to the world, it functions both as the final subversion of the idea that Ozpin and his mistrustful ways were the go-to, and as the rightful means of moving past the old and tired framing of the heroes’ quest. Not to mention, it comes with some much overdue bonding on the part of Ruby and Qrow, wherein the latter reminisces about the former’s mother. Yes, it came much too late, but it was there and it was finally in place.

I can’t help but think that, had Miles and Kerry stayed tied up in that basement, that this would’ve been the real signal for a positive change in RWBY’s construction.

7. Weiss Rises – Confrontation at Schnee Manor

Volume 7 made for some of the best drama we’ve seen in RWBY because it took advantage of multiple different characters with specific backgrounds and motives and collided them together in the right ways. The dynamic between James Ironwood and Robyn Hill was some of the most well-written drama I’ve ever seen from RWBY. Of course, where Volume 7 truly shined was in its villains.

It’s a sign of how horrifying a reality we live in that Jacques Schnee was basically fantasy Donald Trump, but toned very, very far down on scale of people endangered or killed. Because of Jacques’ power-hungry nature and complete disregard for security, safety, or the lives of anyone besides himself, everyone in Mantle was eventually slid right into the jaws of a massive wave of Grimm and Atlas could’ve been next. Watching an entire city-state of vulnerable people be nearly wiped out because of the callousness and greed of one man makes it all the more satisfying when he finally gets his comeuppance.

Fittingly, it’s Weiss who gets to see Jacques to his prison cell. I don’t view this as the ultimate culmination of Weiss’ reclamation of her family’s name the way we deserved, and it doesn’t come about thanks to any particular action of hers (Willow happening to have cameras installed in her home on the off chance Jacques, uh, tried something is the reason this came to fruition), but it is still nice to see her put the bastard in a cell. Jacques has, all this time, failed to realize his children are stronger than he is and their ties to him have been withering with every greater attempt to control them. It’s juxtaposed, of course, with Winter having to once again be in a home she hates and toe a line even as she watches her snake of a father sell snake oil right in front of her. Winter still struggles with defiance and personal bonds, as much evidenced in that uncomfortable table talk as with her attempts to guide and befriend Penny, while Weiss has, for all her hardships, flourished in the outside world and come to understand what it is she can do and what it is she needs to do.

6. Insidious Horror – The Apathy

One of the things I’ve often said is that Rooster Teeth, for all that they repeatedly fail RWBY and the standard it originally set, seem to be very good at crafting horror. Granted, there are some doubts about that now with the way “horror” in Volume 9 essentially equated to the kind of nightmares one might have after straying onto one of any given furry kinkster site for too long, but in the main, RWBY has always excelled when they attempt to unsettle and unnerve the viewer.

The Nuckelavee’s buildup and eventual confrontation display this excellently, as does the all-too-short sequence of the Mutant Hound Grimm stalking the halls of the Schnee Manor. Where it really shined, however, was in the short pair of episodes that featured the cast stuck at Brunswick farms, with a village full of bodies in beds and an unknown presence that had to have caused it.

The Apathy are essentially a fusion of dementor and ReDead, the latter of which I believe was cited as the direct inspiration. Their presence draining willpower and emotion from the atmosphere around them, their visage inspiring fear, and their screams causing the sapping of energy, the Apathy manage to be a threat that even experienced huntsmen can’t easily shake off. There was an excellent blending of RWBY’s larger story with the eerie and dire atmosphere presented, in that this is the moment the silver eyes issue finally came to the fore and it looked like MK actually wanted to delve into it. I’ve noticed that’s a pattern—the short spurts of effort they put out quite often are accompanied by more horror leanings.

Throughout this short delve into insidious terror, there are no real plot holes that distract from anything, nor are there a lack of compelling emotional moments. The fear is very real—something managed to kill those people at Brunswick, but how? And who’s to say it’s not still around, and what will the cast do when it comes for them? These questions nag at the viewer as the unease in the air grows, with the characters unusually dour and morose. It all just works.

5. Compelling Villainy – Watts and Tyrian in Mantle

One of the biggest signs of how Volume 7 was a clear few levels above any previous volume is that it managed to turn Watts and Tyrian, my two least favorite villains, into the best villains the show had ever seen up to that point, and for pretty much the entire show afterward.

Ms. Burkhart just knows what works. Arthur Watts’ complete disregard for the safety of the citizenry, easily snatching up Jacques’ access to the security grid for the chance to change some very important numbers…

All of that, along with how Tyrian finally became the mad psycho killer that he’d always been hyped up as.

No maiden powers, no half-assed sympathetic backstory, no relics or old gods or bizarre attention on Jaune. Just two evil motherfuckers that, working together, are capable of fucking over an entire nation.

It can’t be overstated: they’re terrifying to watch in action. You could argue that RWBY cheated a little, tying their part of the Atlas arc into what is basically the 2016 American presidential election and thus wringing a huge amount of fear and anxiety out of me with very little effort, but even so, it’s still impressive. Just the way everything comes crashing down and only seems to get worse, as that ray of hope gets smaller and smaller while Watts continues to outmaneuver Ironwood’s forces.

So, naturally, Tyrian and Watts both leave the story by the end of Volume 8. Thanks, Miles.

4. Ascension – Penny Polendina Becomes the Winter Maiden

Although lategame Volume 7 really shits the bed and becomes Volume 8 pretty much within ten minutes, I believe one of the better twists came about in the last episode, which of course was Penny Polendina surprisingly becoming the Winter Maiden, when all evidence prior had pointed to Winter as the intended successor.

Of course, you and I know that Winter really was the intended successor and that this ticked off Miles and Kerry to such a degree they conspired to write Penny right the fuck out of the story and into a grave, but before all of that happens, it fits together surprisingly well. The dynamic between Winter and Penny fuels the twist: Winter is the experienced one with a grasp of the situation at hand and the strict self-discipline to be trusted with power, but also lacks the sense of self and drive that Penny has, with Penny always putting others before herself and openly detesting orders she considers unwise, ill-considered, or both. Winter’s loyalties are to Ironwood, and regardless of how Miles and Kerry tried to twist that to be a bad thing, Penny’s loyalties were always towards her sense of right and wrong. That’s why it was such a good curveball that she got the winter maiden’s powers. Not only did it validate her humanity and soul, it was a power we knew she could be trusted with.

How fitting it is then that Penny gains that power right in the face of the woman who originally killed her and wanted to steal it, with a look in her eyes that says she’s prepared to deliver unholy amounts of whoopass, save Winter, and secure Mantle and Atlas against Salem, whatever it takes. Between that and Ruby and Weiss showing up, Cinder was very smart to book it when she did.

3. Giant Naked Blue Bodybuilder

Yeah, fuck it. I said I’d be stretching a bit to fit ten moments in here, and I’m doing that now. Ambrosius is a gigantic, naked bodybuilder with a sexy voice and I love him. His very existence and how the showrunners used him to set up their climax was extraordinarily stupid and spiteful, but Ambrosius himself is a delight to look at if nothing else.

Here, I’ll throw some gifs your way.

Abs, pecs, shoulders, thighs, ass. He’s got it all. I could stare at him for hours. He is genuinely the one good thing to come out of Volume 8 and the rest can burn.

2. Dynamics – RWBY vs. The Ace Ops

RWBY versus the Ace Ops is not a perfect fight, not in the least because it definitely featured the real caving away for the idea that auras were going to be respected as actual parts of the show with how easily they broke. But nonetheless, it does a good job of showing that RWBY are indeed excellent huntresses and the best combatants of their generation that you’ll find, in contrast to every other season where it felt very much like it was constantly being hammered in how green and useless they were.

Ruby and Weiss perform the best; Ruby for being in control of the skirmish with Harriet and keeping her attention, without ever sustaining too bad of a hit, and Weiss for utterly embarrassing Marrow. Worth mentioning is that while Ruby never loses or lands a hit on Harriet, she doesn’t seem to be trying to, instead letting Harriet completely burn through her aura by over-using her semblance just trying to keep up. Weiss, of course, shines, with this being the first real time we’ve been assured that the Volume 5 uselessness she exhibited will not be repeated again, not only by having her keep the upper hand throughout the fight, but by providing the sort of fight where her summoning is indeed a useful advantage over other powers we know Weiss has. Marrow just can’t match her.

I suppose the Blake and Yang 2v2 with Elm and Vine also deserves some praise. Yeah, it’s just another way to shove Bumbleby down our throats, and I do still maintain that Blake and Yang don’t have good chemistry together, as a pairing or as a combat partnership, but this was the closest the show has ever come to showing me that they could actually work well together in battle. It’s really the vertical levels of the fight that sell it; nowadays RWBY won’t even touch the idea of having a fight move in three dimensions, despite that originally being one of its better drawing points as far as combat went. They manage to use Vine’s long reach and Elm’s reliance on stability against them, eventually overcoming the two.

In other words, they divided and overwhelmed a team specifically meant to complement each others’ abilities to become the perfect team.

1. Hope in the Darkest Hour – Ironwood and Robyn Speak

Without question, the most amazing moment we were provided after RWBY took its swan dive in quality, was this moment right here.

It stands as the ultimate proof that RWBY doesn’t have to be its worst traits. It was a grand middle finger to everyone that said Ironwood was a bad leader and secretly an evil dictator, and it was a major peak in his development. The divide between Ironwood and Robyn was a major driving force behind Volume 7, with both wanting what was best for their people but Ironwood’s caution and Robyn’s thoughtlessness causing problems. This moment where they finally worked together at a critical point was amazing.

Ironwood’s tactics are subject to a lot of scrutiny throughout the volume, but the one thing that can be agreed on is that there really aren’t better options. Throughout the show, Ironwood’s various suspicions have proven to be correct time and again, and he’s quite right in believing that exposing the Amity Project, the reason for all of the strain Mantle is going through, would be opening up the country to a deathblow by Salem’s forces. As sick as he is of secrecy and the weaknesses that come with it, it’s necessary until they can play a completed hand.

But with Salem’s Grimm descending on Mantle, there is no more time. Ironwood has a choice to make: make his project vulnerable, or watch the situation continue to spiral to a point it was no longer worth it. At exactly the right time, he makes the risky but ultimately right choice, the one that amounts to saving the people who are in danger now.

The sense of despair that comes about from watching Mantle start to go the way of Beacon, and feeling that shining sense of hope at watching world leaders address their people directly and actively move to ensure their safety, is a crowning moment for RWBY. It was one that Miles and Kerry couldn’t even undercut properly, as when the characters call Ironwood for lying about the status of Amity’s completion, they seem to have forgotten that he was holding Robyn’s hand at the time, proving that he couldn’t have lied.

It was an honestly grand moment and one that sensible writers would’ve been very proud of, preserved, and built on.

But now, with that out of the way, we come to the top 20 worst moments in RWBY, the 20 reasons this show is too fucked to bother watching and getting invested in. And we’ll do that...next post! Sorry, but this one’s a bit long. And why not have all the bad in its own little post anyway, given I’m probably going to talk about them a lot more and thus it probably won’t be very little.