THE LYRICS ARE BELOW!!!! Hey, all, it’s Kern here from The Demented Ferrets. As we all know, I’m a huge fan of the RWBY series. I’m working on a series of fan songs for the series. As always, since Kresh and I can’t sing for absolute shit, we use an AI voice to make the singing tolerable but all lyrics are written by me or Kresh… Since I’m the RWBY Fan around here, take a guess as to which one of us did this one, lol.
Anyway, I really do hope you enjoy this song, a lot of love and care went into it as I attempted to convey the concept of the team coming together at the end of Volume 1, and the surface level troubles that got them to end up that way… Over time, the characters will have their own fan songs made for them that gets more in-depth, but for now I really just wanted to work on that base-layer and surface level ideology that brings this team together… thank you for your time.
Lyrics:
(Verse 1: Ruby) Ruby woke up to the sound of a brand new day, A world unknown, but she’ll find her way. With her scythe in hand, and her heart so bright, She’ll fight for the light, and protect what’s right. She says “A huntress I’ll be, just like my mom, I’ve got the strength, the courage to carry on. At Beacon I’ve arrived, the battle’s just begun, I’ll rise above the chaos until it’s won.”
(Chorus) They’re Team RWBY, they’re here to stay, Fighting for the world, no matter what they say. Through shadows and strife, They’ll always stand tall, With our hearts united, They will answer the call!
(Verse 2: Weiss) In the halls of Beacon, Weiss took her place, A Schnee name, a legacy, to uphold with grace. But behind all the glamour, there’s something more, A frozen heart inside that’s burning to the core. She says “I might have my doubts, and my pride’s been tested, But I’m learning that together we’re best when we’re connected. I’ll put my trust in you, my team, my kin, With every fight, we’ll let the light begin!”
(Chorus) They’re Team RWBY, They’re here to stay, Fighting for the world, no matter what they say. Through shadows and strife, they’ll always stand tall, With thier hearts united, we will answer the call!
(Bridge) Blake ran from her past, from the pain she knew, But now she’s found a place where she can break through. No longer hiding in the darkness, she’s free, With her team by her side, together they’ll be. She says “The enemies come, but we’ll fight them all, In every battle, we’ll answer the call. I’m no longer running; I’m standing strong, This is my home, and with you, I belong.”
(Verse 3) The fire in Yang’s veins, it’s who she is, A fighter by nature, she’ll make her own stand. With a smile on her face and a fist to the sky, She’ll take on the world, no matter how high. She says: “From the moment we met, I knew what that meant, Together, we’ll rise and never relent. We’ve got each other, come what may, This is our fight, and we’ll seize the day!”
(Chorus) They’re Team RWBY, They’re here to stay, Fighting for the world, no matter what they say. Through shadows and strife, They’ll always stand tall, With their hearts united, they will answer the call!
(Outro:) They’re team RUBY, they’ve walked through the storm, now the dawn’s in sight. Together they’ll fight, and together they’ll always shine so bright. From the dust to the skies, they’ll always stand free, They say “This is our story, our legacy.” They’re Team RWBY, and they’ll carry on— Forever united, they will always stand strong!
Hey everyone, it’s Kernook here, finally ready to begin reviewing the RWBY Ice Queendom series properly. In all honesty, it was off to a shaky start when the first three episodes released as promotional hype.
You can read all about my RWBY Ice Queendom first impressions here. That’s just a broad look at the first three episodes, mind you. For now let’s dive into the actual and proper review, shall we?
To begin, I want to say that the first episode is as rushed as it could possibly be. I don’t think anyone should go into this anime as their first experience with RWBY. It isn’t exactly what I would call a strong start for those unfamiliar with the main series.
You see, we knew going into Ice Queendom that the first two episodes would rehash a lot of plot elements from Volume 1. My god, did it ever do that… but I’m going to be honest here. It is super fast, and it’s not for a non-fan to try to absorb.
No newbie can hope to truly understand the depth of what is actually going on without having seen Volume 1 of the original show first… so if you’re going to watch Ice Queendom, awesome!
Just… uh… watch Volume 1 first too, okay? I promise if you did feel a little lost, don’t be too concerned… even I felt a little lost, but we could have a diamond in the rough here, so let’s not be too hasty.
That said, we did get some pretty stellar moments, and we got some clunky ones. Spoilers ahead, be warned…
If they were going to re-hash volume one, they should have done it from scratch. Enough is changed in this iteration to argue a complete and total overhaul. Here’s the thing, the first volume of RWBY is only two hours long. That means they could have rehashed all of what they needed to do in six episodes (no I’m not joking). They should have done that.
Take for example the Weiss battle from the RWBY White Trailer and compare that fight to this one. The battle is cleaner in Ice Queendom for sure, but it lacks some of the emotional character development we get from the Weiss Trailer and her introduction song. Also, the battle feels just a little rushed and choppy. Thanks to the break-away scenes with Blake and Adam running around doing a separate fight entirely, the combat feels very segmented.
Winter’s inclusion so early in Ice Queendom is a welcome addition, but it is just a little jarring without context… Winter wasn’t in the RWBY White Trailer and didn’t make an appearance until a later volume. The same is true for all the Schnee family.
It is very nice that some of these plot points were touched on in the first episode, but why not slow down and really contextualize it? I don’t understand the need to rush, and that is a bit annoying.
I do like this fight, though, and I think Studio Shaft had the best of intentions. It was merely that those intentions fell a little flat. The same is effectively true for a great deal of the first episode during the re-hash scenes. They’re a bit cobbled together, demanding you have some concept of the show to start with, and not particularly caring to slow down if you don’t.
That said, there is a highlight moment every now and then when Ice Queendom extrapolates where the original RWBY series never does. For example, at least Taiyang isn’t strangely absentee this time around, which is something I’ve brought up in my character analysis of him. His lack of development in the original series really paints him in a really bad light.
It’s nice to see him as the father we knew he could be, and not the complete jerk-ass father that the original series implies him to be. Again, super nice gem here. Whoever had the mind to add this in and push it through should get a standing ovation.
Taiyang’s scenes with Yang, and later Ozpin, really help to flesh out what Volume 1 failed to really cover earnestly.
However, a few good narrative calls doesn’t help the show when the rest of it can be somewhat crammed together at such a break-neck pace. There’s little room to breathe.
This may sound harsh, but I’m not trying to rip on the show here.
I’m just pointing out that there are some really good choices when the creators choose to take the time to flesh things out. When they do, it’s amazing. When they choose not to take that time, it’s obvious. In some ways that’s very annoying to me as a fan.
Ice Queendom is “canon adjacent” or so they call it. That means some canon remains the same, and some become different… when you do this, you need to be clear about what changes and how it changes.
You can’t be vague about this. Many of us aren’t coming into the series with fresh eyes. We’re coming in as fans from the original show. We have preconceived notions and biases that needed to be challenged under these new ideologies.
In any case when the fights are this clean, they’re pretty good. If you just want action with no combat choreography or subtext, this will do you just fine. It feels fun and it’s entertaining, that’s for sure.
Once again though, welcome to my biases at play here. I’m a huge fan of the original show, there is a lot to live up to here in terms of combat. This show has big shoes to fill and I’m not entirely sure that it could have hoped to live up to the original fight scenes.
If you want actual choreography that sticks with you and hits home, this just won’t hold a candle to a lot of the battles in Volume 1. Sorry, but for me it holds true. If you don’t mind losing some of the charm of choreography and just want a good brawl, this will do just fine as it is though… it’s serviceable.
In losing some of the charm in the fights, we do lose a little something in the characters too. That is the main issue here.
All of the characters feel watered down and distilled in ways that just pull me out of the experience. Yang especially feels so watered down I don’t even recognize her as Yang anymore. We just don’t have the time with her to really get a sense of who she is, what she wants, or how she feels as an aspiring huntress.
There is no combat at the bar scene to really amp up her temperament, or showcase some of her poor decision making. To highlight my point look at these two comparison photos.
Let’s be real honest here guys, which one best represents the Yang that’s adventuresome, ready to throw down in a fight? Yang is a complicated, deep character. She spends all of volume one trying to get Ruby to go out and make friends, find her own way, get on her own team, and become a huntress. That’s not the Yang I see portrayed in Ice Queendom even slightly… she doesn’t get enough screen time to get that portrayal.
Now, that’s not to say I expect Yang to be the same… or any character for that matter. At this point in time, I just don’t know who she even is as a character. I’m a huge RWBY fan. I should have a very firm idea of who Yang is, but she’s not really anything at the moment.
I want to know who these girls are in this iteration of the show, and the show itself doesn’t seem to want us to know.
It’s like that with all of the characters to one degree or another, even Weiss… considering Weiss is supposed to be the focal point, that’s a problem here. I’m only using Yang as just the most notable problem with this in the first episode… and I know it will be a problem with JNPR in episodes two and three because I’ve already seen those episodes.
You can’t scream canon adjacent in one breath, and fail to really take the time to flesh out these characters in the earliest episodes. I just don’t think that’s the best way to endear fans to a series that we’re not coming in completely blind on.
So my final thoughts on RWBY Ice Queendom are simple. Let’s wait and see. It might be a trash fire, it might get really good. As of right now, there’s just no way to tell. There are enough tidbits to make me feel like we’re going to get something good, and enough red flags to have me concerned. Either way, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Another take on episode 1 can be found here, reviewed by DoubleSama. I’m not entirely sure that they have seen the original RWBY series, but I do think their take adequately describes some of the confusion a person might feel if they are going into RWBY Ice Queendom entirely blind, or rusty on the wider show. That’s why it might be worth it to give it a look.
This has been Kernook of The Demented Ferrets, where stupidity is at its finest and level grinds are par for the course. I’ll see you next time.
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This is not a review, as I don’t want to give spoilers for the first three episodes released today on Rooster Teeth and Crunchyroll for paying members. These episodes don’t release properly until July.
Therefore, the following statements are just very vague opinions, as I can’t dive into details right now. I don’t want to ruin the show for anyone… plus, this is a hot-take, obviously, as this series just went public today.
I want to start off by saying if you have never seen RWBY before, this IS NOT the place to start. RWBY Ice Queendom is canon adjacent. After viewing the first three episodes, I firmly believe you will be best served if you have some concept of the show and universe going into it. Failing that, and you will probably be lost…
These first few episodes condense down key aspects of RWBY‘s Volume 1, but without all of the context required to assess what’s actually going on here. I’ll be honest it is very interesting, but sometimes it’s just sloppily done as well.
While the show does diverge a fair bit from its other animated counterpart, and gives viewers new bones to chew, to me that’s not enough to go into this completely unaware of RWBY.
if you don’t know who these characters are… it’s a tough sell…
These early episodes do a very piss poor job of conveying key character traits and personal motivations to the viewer… but rehashing old content is not the draw of this show. I may be harsh in my above statements, but I do love what we have.
I just don’t believe this new series has a simple entry. I don’t believe it is made for someone who isn’t already a fan of the series. But, we already have RWBY as a series after all, we don’t need a carbon copy of the same show in a two-dimensional anime format.
RWBY Ice Queendom needed to do more than that, and do it quickly. Therefore, I’ll forgive the rush feel of the narrative, and the sloppiness of bouncing around doing scenes.
There’s a lot to like here, particularly with our favorite characters coming back to tell this story. That’s not to say that you should expect deeply beloved characters to be the same though. Even looking at Klein, you can tell he isn’t the same man we all know from the RWBY series. He’s much more stern in appearance and very much a “butler”. He’s not the jovial impressionist that will crack jokes while attempting to cheer her up.
All of the cast is this way. There are firm and clear differences between the RWBY characters as we know them, and the way they’re presented in Ice Queendom. We can’t hold these characters to the standards we’re used to. That’s the takeaway I’ve gained from the viewing experience thus far.
The animation is okay, but the Grimm monsters in the show look like complete and total crap. They feel like a bargain bin, rejected Pokemon to me… the fights are lackluster too. Again though, that’s because they feel rushed, poorly planned and have a lot to live up to.
RWBY Volume 1 did one thing astoundingly well and that was to offer the fans amazing fight choreography. You just can’t rehash or breathe life into thought old fights and expect them to objectively hold their ground. We’re all going to have our preferences… Ice Queendom fails in this regard for me. I don’t like the combat here.
What I do like are the themes being toyed with and the possibilities offered to us from the new show. So many changes were made, even to simple scenes we come to expect from the show. While old fans will remember the scenes fondly and get a boost of nostalgia, we’ll also get a new spin on the old formula we’ve come to expect.
There will come a time when old expected habits, patterns and routines will shift over to an entirely new story. This small taste certainly feels like that story is coming sooner rather than later. RWBY: Ice Queendom gives us a good peak at what we’re in for, and as I said, no spoilers…. but I’m excited to see it.
I’ll give a proper cohesive and reflective opinion on the series episode by episode, but for now, we’ll just have to see how it goes.
Here’s to hoping the story it has to tell is a good one, I believe it will be.
Hello everyone, it’s Kernook here, and it’s time for my RWBY White Trailer analysis. This is not to be confused with my review of the trailer. That is a separate video.
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Before I begin, I just want to make it clear that this is not the first video production of my analysis series, and there is other content available. There was a lull in making these videos as they take time to make, and I was super slow with them for a larger number of reasons. That being said, the RWBY Red Trailer Analysis and the RWBY Red Trailer Review were completed some time ago, and these two blog posts each come with video content as well.
At the time though, admittedly, I was still figuring out my personal style at the time. Due to that, you’ll notice a lack in the quality of those older videos compared to the video that I have for you today.
In any case, after those two posts were complete, I slowly moved onto Weiss Schnee and the RWBY White Trailer Review. From this point on, I’m going to assume you have some insight into the RWBY series, and that you’ve watched at least the first volume.
If you haven’t done that, go watch the series. It is free on the Rooster Teeth website. As always, please support the official release.
You can either read the blog post or watch the video. I hope you enjoy this trailer analysis.
RWBY White Trailer Analysis
The video production of this particular blog post.
Previously, in my RWBY Red Trailer analysis, which can be found on this blog here, I stated that the RWBY series has a lot of themes embedded deeply into the subtext of the narrative. That despite the many flaws within the show, there rests a much deeper and compelling story than you’d find on the surface. Fan theories take on a life of their own, and perspectives on the show are as vast and deep as you can imagine.
Therefore this is only my take on the series. I don’t expect you to agree with everything I say, and I don’t consider my viewpoint to be the end-all, be-all interpretation of the show. This is only how I’ve interpreted the series, so please bear that in mind.
With the mindset that hindsight in the RWBY series really is of utmost importance, let’s go back and study all that the RWBY White Trailer has to offer when it comes to understanding Weiss Schnee. Before we do that, though, we must reflect upon a few lyrics found in the RWBY Red Trailer. It is absolutely paramount to do so, because all of the trailers build upon one-another for the greater narrative.
I’ve stated before that Ruby’s trailer is a simple view of the world. A nutshell, if you will. The lyrics that reference Weiss in the song Red Like Roses state this:
This is the first real interpretation we have of Weiss. Furthermore, this is a very apt description of the RWBY White Trailer and the themes of the RWBY series in regards to Weiss Schnee. Moreover, it allows us a lens upon which to view the RWBY White Trailer. You couldn’t get more obvious about that unless the creators beat you over the head with with the concept using Nora’s hammer, but I digress.
So, here we are then, in the RWBY White Trailer, and one such royal test is playing out in plain view. Weiss is on stage, and she’s about to sing a song, all while facing up against a rather formidable opponent in her memories. Her introductory character song is named “Mirror Mirror” which is more than a little fitting.
In my RWBY WhiteTrailer review, I mentioned the fact that the song almost breaks the fourth wall. That Weiss seems to be speaking to us, the viewers as if we were the mirror in question. When I said this, I was using the lyrics as a basis for this assessment. At the time of this trailer, we have no voice acting. The song composition and battle mechanics were all that we had to go on.
Using the ethos that the trailers help to train the viewer to really enjoy the RWBY series to the fullest, subtext is the foremost tool that a viewer can use to dig into Weiss this early on.
So, let’s dive into the lyrics of Mirror Mirror, and how they apply to the greater narrative properly. The song begins with a soft and gentle melody along with these lyrics.
Mirror, tell me something, Tell me who’s the loneliest of all?
The question is melancholic and gentle. At first, we can assume from this that Weiss is talking down to her reflection that stands upon the stage, her mirrored image. However, the lyrics then repeat and extrapolate further.
Mirror, tell me something, Tell me who’s the loneliest of all? Fear of what’s inside of me; Tell me can a heart be turned to stone?
By this point, the song has reached a sense of urgency both in musical composition, and lyrical narrative. It is now almost bombastic compared to how the song started. At this point Weiss is reflecting on a battle she once had to face down, likely in recent memory.
It is at this point that we can begin to dig deeper into the content. We can begin to think outside of the box. I’ve always taken this to mean that perhaps Weiss isn’t speaking to her reflection at all, but rather the audience that she sings to. We viewers can be seen as part of that audience she performs for. These questions are abstract, but she’s asking for an answer.
This is a constant theme all through Volume 1 for Weiss Schnee. She is a teenage girl, standing in a place between her dreams and expectations. Aspirations melting under the weight of what she knows to be cold hard reality. The two cannot stand as equals. She often demands answers from others to find out what the truth really is.
A few key examples would be in Volume 1. Firstly, when she asks Professor Port why she shouldn’t be the leader of her team. Secondly, when Weiss and Blake fight in sections of the show such as “The Stray” or the “Black and White” finale in Volume 1. Weiss prefaces all of her moral questions with opinions, but really validation is a secondary goal in most of these cases. She’s looking to find a deeper truth hidden beneath what she finds to be mere conjecture.
Weiss isn’t always successful in her search for answers, but the context here gives us good reason for why she so easily comes to accept both Blake’s existence as a Faunus, and Professor Port’s rebuttal about leadership. People often say that having Weiss so readily accepting Blake at the end of Volume 1 was poorly handled, but as we can see, the subtext was here from the start.
If we look at this song from the viewpoint that Weiss is singing to us directly, and that we are the metaphorical mirror in question, then we are seeing the real person buried deep beneath the Schnee family mask. What we expect of her as a Schnee cannot live up to the reality, because she has no desire to act and think in such a way to begin with.
The next part of the song contains haunting operatic vocals, and while this is wonderful for atmosphere, it adds a context for Weiss as a person. We can see the true struggle that Weiss has within herself. The singing here is as delicate as it is strong. A tone that fights with its own duality. This could be seen as a window into the moral questions that Weiss wants answers for. She’s an inquiring mind, she demands these answers, they’ve just never been given in a way she can truly accept. There has always been something missing for her.
Continuing on, we have even further proof of her unanswered questions. The next set of lyrics give us insight to this, and once again there is an urgency here. The lyrics go like this:
Mirror, mirror, what’s behind you? Save me from the things I see! I can keep it from the world, Why won’t you let me hide from me?
This, once again certainly reflects the struggles Weiss will face in Volume 1 surrounding her teammates, her academics, and her goals as a huntress. Her teammates and Professor Port will challenge her birthright given authority. Blake’s heritage as a Faunus will challenge the conjecture of the victim-hood Weiss carries around like a shield.
She sees the world in a way that terrifies her, it isn’t a safe place. She can’t trust it. She wants to, desperately so, but in these lyrics we see a terrified little girl screaming out at the world. A little girl that likely grew into what she became when Weiss decided to become a huntress. In this way, Weiss and Ruby are very similar.
While Ruby’s lyrics in Red Like Roses seems to compare herself with the world on a surface level, Weiss seems to use the lyrics in “Mirrior Mirrior” to pull that world inward. A reflection of it within herself that she cannot break free of. She is a product of her upbringing and she knows this. With an incredibly high intellect at her disposal, she can see the true nature of her own cruelty. She isn’t blind to it, and she even hates it. To a point, you may even say she hates herself.
However, to get rid of the qualities she dislikes about herself, would put her at risk too. She is more at peace with the things she doesn’t like about herself, than she is with the idea of letting them go.
She asks can a heart to to stone, after all? Can she hide from the darkest parts of herself?
That is the larger question, but for her narrative, the answer is no. She cannot be an unfeeling person, and despite herself, she isn’t a hateful person either.
She isn’t a bigot, even if it would be easier to simply hate Faunus. She distrusts them, but she doesn’t hate them. For her past and her upbringing it would be easier to see herself as superior because she is a Schnee. She knows there is no joy in that for her. There is no solace for a person who cannot find the greater good beyond the darkness of the world.
Weiss knows that, and it scares her.
Finally, we go back to the core question that Weiss has in the next set of lyrics. The selfsame question that began the whole song to begin with. We get one last repeat of the lyrics:
Mirror, mirror, tell me something, Who’s the loneliest of all?
Weiss can only wonder this, because loneliness itself is a burden that cannot be understated. The trials and tribulations of Remnant are not things that characters should face alone. Be it the Faunus plight, grief, homelessness, the Grimm themselves, or so many other factors, it really doesn’t matter. Those struggles are not solitary fights, and in solitude they tend to end badly.
Even in the real world, the mindset Weiss keeps before the events of Volume 1 is impossible to uphold. You cannot discover yourself as a person without discovering the ideologies that best suit your personal ethos. To expect someone to forge their own path alone, with very little help at all, forges an echo chamber of negative thoughts. This cultivates dangerous biases that have to way to be challenged.
Weiss is isolated due to the way she sees the world, and those circumstances are not simple or easy to navigate. Doing so alone, as she feel she has, only complicates the issue. Letting go of her stringent upbringing and narrow views would bring Weiss validation, and a sense of belonging.
We know this to be true, and see the reality of this come to fruition in her later volumes and character songs. However, for now that fruition has yet to happen, and the song ends on these final lyrics:
I‘m the loneliest of all.
This is a statement, not a question, not this time. This means that she is telling us what she knows to be fact. She is lonely, she doesn’t like the person she is becoming. She doesn’t want to be this way, and if there were a way to change herself, she would. This is evidenced by all of her key character progression in Volume 1.
These are hard won battles for Weiss, no different than her hard won battle with the knight that leaves a scar on her face. It never comes easily for her. She had to relinquish blood, sweat, and tears to reach that victory, and in volume 1, she will go through that turmoil again.
In order to shape herself into a better person once more, she has to. That is the path Weiss really wants to take. In the depth of these questions, she knows continuing on as she is won’t make her happy.
We have one final clue to all of this insight, and it is found within the quote at the beginning of the trailer. It says this:
It is here that we find that direct line of sorrowful ideology. Weiss stands her ground in every emotional and physical fight she gets into during volume 1, but here we see how she really feels. In this quote, we see that she never thought Blake’s ideologies regarding Faunus to be something pointless. She never really though Ruby to be a lesser person. Instead, it comes down to one simple concept.
To Weiss those fights are worth having. Anything that matters at all, is a thing that matters enough to fight for, and to fight hard enough to win. This is why she continues pressing Blake about Faunus. To Weiss, fighting the matter out helps her to understand. That she eventually stands down in these arguments proves that she begins to understand the heart and soul beneath the battles.
To both Ruby’s leadership and Blake’s heritage, Weiss accepts these outcomes because they fought so hard for it. That they too, sought validation they way she does. That they too, while emotionally wounded, needed someone to listen.
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Weiss chose to listen, and in turn she finds a place to belong.
She finds her implied commonalities, because her teammates are not so different from herself. In the early volumes of the RWBY series, it all really comes down to the heart of the matter. For Weiss her strongest content and progression really comes down to teammates most of all. When it comes to fighting for ideologies in Volume 1, they are her strongest allies and adversaries. In later volumes, Yang plays a much larger role her progression particularly in volumes 2 and 3, when Weiss begins to act more carefree, and starts to take every day as it comes, an ideology that Yang seems to teach her. All of this is buried within everything the RWBY White Trailer has to offer.
This is why I say that Weiss’s choice at the end of Volume 1 didn’t come out of left field. It wasn’t abrupt. It wasn’t mishandled. It had no need to be extrapolated upon, because it was all here from the start. The subtext speaks loudly, nothing has gone to waste when it comes to outlining Weiss and her future among her team.
At the end of her trailer, she sees a glimpse of her mirrored image, and what she is capable of. For us, the image is blurry, but Weiss probably sees it clearly. She will ask the world her questions, she will demand answers. She will forge a new path because of them, that isn’t a spoiler, that’s simply her determination as a person at play.
It isn’t that Weiss wants the answers to her questions to be satisfying, it’s that she wants to know the truth. She can handle the truth, if it’s honest. We see this in all of the volumes. This is a character trait that never leaves Weiss, not even as late as Volume 8. Once she knows enough to get by, she leaves the inconsequential details by the wayside.
In volume 1, this culminates in her two largest arguments. Blake is no longer in the White Fang, and does not support their violence. Ruby is doing her best as a leader. Those facts are the ones that matter. When Weiss states that she doesn’t care to get into the finer details, that is honesty too. In truth, she doesn’t need to know them right then and there.
The fight was worth having, the insight she gained was enough.
Weiss is many unflattering things in Volume 1, but she is also honest. Even if it is sometimes to the point of cruelty. That she expects this same sort of honesty offered in return is something I will dive into when I dig into the meat of Volumes properly.
For now, this is where I leave the trailer. There is more to speak upon regarding Weiss. Her contradictions and flaws linger deep in the subtext, but I need to dive deep into the volumes to explain that, and those are other videos. In my next analysis, I’ll be covering Blake’s trailer analysis, so I hope to see you there.
This has been Kernook of The Demented Ferrets, where stupidity is at its finest and level grinds are par for the course. I’ll see you next time.
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Hey everyone, it’s Kernook here, back with another character spotlight. Today I’ll be talking about Taiyang Xiao Long. This analysis content was voted on by our small Patreon community.
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For the first two volumes Taiyang Xiao Long is a non-character. We don’t know anything about the man. Then volume three hits and we get our first glimpse of him through Ruby’s monologue. This monologue is as deprecating as it is full of love. Ruby stands over her mother’s grave, Taiyang has wandered off someplace. Ruby mentions Yang has learned a lot of her combat style from their father, and finally he returns. We get a glimpse of him in the distance.
This is the first and last time that Taiyang will be referenced heavily as a man that is both deeply loving and terribly flawed to the point of no return. The next time we see him, he will display these traits, and you’ll either have to take him or leave him.
Honestly, I’ve always been rather conflicted in my views of Taiyang. The series paints him in a very distinct, often unflattering view. Honestly, it’s all very intentional when taken into view with the wider contexts of the show. To be honest though, I find it difficult not to take a separate set of issues with him as a character. My personal problems with him aren’t the ones that the series likes to wag a finger at.
The man has problems that aren’t addressed, but damn-well should be. This isn’t bad writing, the characters pointedly ignore or avoid his failings, and this leads to even larger problems.
Frankly, his bad habits have passed onto his daughters. To get into why, we need to look at what Taiyang is to Yang and Ruby. Namely he’s their father. He’s not a huntsman in their eyes, he’s just their dad.
We can see that’s how he wants to be viewed, and really, that’s all he’s got going for him these days. He may be a teacher at Signal, but we never see him teach or even mention his own abilities as an instructor.
The RWBY series has a very odd way of dealing with parents and parenting styles. This holds doubly true for the wider ethos of the hunting profession. Among parents and parental figures who take up the trade themselves, it can be a mixed bag. There is no stranger character as a huntsman than Taiyang Xiao Long himself. He is an enigma at best, a contradiction to everything a huntsman is at worst.
When it comes to the themes showcased within the wider narrative, Taiyang is the one of the most inconsistent characters when it comes to word and deed. Honestly that’s a very hard thing to do considering that he’s also internally consistent as a character.
Yeah, you read that correctly…
It isn’t that he’s a poorly written character, but rather that he’s just a guy that’s a hypocrite. He isn’t cut out to be a father and he knows it. I’m hesitant to call him a bad father, because I do think he does try to be a good one. However, I do think he has a toxic parenting style that lends itself to doing more harm than good, more often than not.
The key takeaway is that he knows he’s failed he daughters, you can see it in the way he acts. So, who is Taiyang Xiao Long, really? What do we know indisputably?
We know he’s the father of both Yang Xiao Long and Ruby Rose. We also know he’s a teammate (or perhaps more aptly put former teammate of the now defunct team STRQ). We know he has a somewhat messy relationship past, and we know that he allows his daughters to find trouble more often than not. That’s about it with this guy, right?
Or is it?
I say it isn’t… I know it isn’t… and I can prove it.
Fandom Perspective
Generally there’s a few ways to look at Taiyang, and it largely depends on how you see him as a character. I’ve said this before in my blog post about how I handle RWBY analysis content, which can be found here, but to paraphrase, many things impact the way we view something within a given show. RWBY as a series is no different.
Before I begin, do keep in mind that Taiyang can be viewed differently based on your own personal moral values, and what you personally deem important. You may see Taiyang in a different light than I do, and that’s perfectly okay.
Due to this detail, in fandom some depictions of Taiyang are much more flattering than others.
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Some people think he’s entirely useless both as a man and a father. Others believe he’s done the best with what he’s been given, and they feel bad for him. Another demographic tends to blame the writing in RWBY for his lack of strong and positive paternal role. No matter how you view him though, there’s no question Taiyang is a troubled man, just like Qrow.
He’s just harder to point the finger at, because generally Taiyang can be pretty likable when compared to other fathers in the show. Then again, there’s not a lot of strong competition in the fatherly line-up. Jacques is an unquestionable asshole any way you slice it, and Ghira is hit-and-miss depending on what angle you’re using to analyze him.
However, given the way Yang and Ruby were put into danger as children and that none of their key memories seem to include him, the harsher views placed upon Taiyang might not be a completely unfair assessment.
More importantly though, unlike other characters, we can’t look at the world through Taiyang’s lens. The guy doesn’t have one, or rather what he does have just isn’t logical or even realistic. He’s a man trapped in his own bubble, and that’s probably why Ruby and Yang act the way they do in the early parts of the show.
Don’t believe me?
Well, we just don’t see him interacting with a world outside of his home. Where other characters can display a core ethos regarding the world around them, Taiyang can’t do that. He’s stuck at home, and the scenes in which he is talking with others have an uncomfortable feel to them. To be honest, it just shows just how out of touch he is with characters and the world in which he lives. In the context of the wider series, he’s a nonsensical hermit at best..
Sadly, that nonsense becomes his ethos.
This is the scene that truly showcases how much of a hypercritical jerk Taiyang really is capable of turning into. When it least suits the situation, he acts out of turn. Yang and Taiyang end up having a petty fight similar to what we see back in volume 1 content. If you watch this scene and it feels like the same sort of bickering you’d hear from Yang and Ruby in volume 1, it should… that’s exactly the sort of stupidity it really is.
Within the scene, Bartholomew Oobleck and Peter Port are visiting him. They’re laughing it up, having a good time, and then Yang comes down the stairs. They talk about the Branwen twins in a less than favorable light, but up until that point Taiyang was acting up just as much as the other two… then the scene takes a sharp turn.
Word for word, Oobleck says this: “The Branwen twins have always been interesting to say the least.”
Then Professor Peter Port says this: “That sure didn’t seem to stop young Tai.”
From there Taiyang scolds them for saying that in front of his daughter. Peter rebuttals by saying that if Yang can fight monsters and train to be a huntress, she can handle the conversation going on around her. The truth is she can. She was handling the conversation just fine. I wouldn’t take an issue with Taiyang scolding them, but then Taiyang’s next comments are so damn insensitive and flat out idiotic that I wondered if volume 1 Weiss just manifested into his body out of the ass end of nowhere.
Read these lines and you’ll see what I mean.
Word for word, Taiyang say this: “Adult or not, you’ve still got a long way to go before you’re ready for the real world.”
That’s what Taiyang says when Yang says that she can be directly spoken to, like… funny that, an adult. Yang is university age, she’s not a child. She’s lost an arm to combat, and nearly lost her life once before that. If Raven hadn’t saved her in Volume 2, Yang would be dead. She’s lost friends, she’s seen hell at this point, and Ruby has gone off with the surviving members of JNPR.
Yet, Taiyang thinks that Yang is unready to live in the real world? The real world cut off her arm. The real world and the ramifications of being a huntress has been in front of her, and it has been for her entire life. Qrow’s drinking, her mother leaving her, Summer Rose is no longer with them, and Yang has faced near death experiences left and right since childhood.
Let’s be honest here guys, if she’s not ready for the harsh lessons of the real world by the time she goes off to Beacon Academy, what were the last seventeen years of her life really for? Moreover, why let a child go to Beacon Academy to face those dangers if she’s not ready for the adult realities that will inevitably bring?
Yang rightfully calls him out saying this: “Oh my god, does every father figure have the same three condescending phrases?”
Then Taiyang makes a jackass of himself: “Yeah, but we only use them when we mean it! If you honestly think that you’re ready to go out there on your own… Ha, well I guess you lost some brain cells along with that arm.”
Seriously, if that doesn’t feel like the early insult laden fights from the first volume, I don’t know what else would. Let’s be honest, that’s not only the wrong reaction to have, it’s a childish one for an adult man. His words and actions are so far from “okay” that everyone else in the room is taken aback by that statement.
Now to be fair to him, Yang eventually laughs it off. Still the fact she even has to laugh it off after the look she gives him prior, it really speaks volumes. That was a bridge too far for Taiyang, and it’s not okay. You don’t talk to your kid like that, not when she’s suffering from PTSD.
The hypocrisy is so prominent here, it’s a little disgusting. Peter can’t make a small joke at Tai’s expense, but Taiyang can say something like that to his own kid?
Sorry, no… hard no from me… no dice on that one… let’s just assume Peter crossed a line for Taiyang emotionally for a second. Even if so, you just don’t take that out on your kid. That’s vitriolic at best, and it is just a little emotionally abusive to say that to someone who just lost an arm in a fight for her life and the lives of her friends.
All of the above illiterates one thing. Taiyang never learned how to grow up. When characters like Sun, Ren and Jaune can act more like grown men than the actual father in the series, you need to take a few steps back and understand that this is all very intentional.
Taiyang is a troubled soul, he’s lost a great deal, and unlike Jaune Arc’s loss of Pyrrha Nikos, Taiyang’s loss of Summer Rose didn’t forge him into a better man than he was….
It downright crippled him.
Again though, I’m not saying Taiyang is an inherently bad man. Far from it. He’s not awful, he’s just not aware of himself or the wider world. He’s out of touch with what it means to be a family man, a father, and a person respectful of his own daughter’s limitations. He doesn’t know how to be more than he is… a man that has anger management issues much like his daughter, and a man that doesn’t learn from his mistakes… unlike Yang and Ruby who continue to learn from their own.
This is also what I mean by Yang and Ruby also keep and showcase his failings. Where he hasn’t grown from his troubles and tribulations, they obviously do. In Volume 4, Yang’s come a long way from the Yellow Trailer version of herself that grabbed Junior’s crotch. She’s mellowing by the day at this point, due in large part to her teammates. Ruby’s not the sort of person that babbles inconsistent nonsense so much anymore, like she did when facing Weiss down in Volume 1.
This scene when viewed in the context of the wider show just proves his lack of responsibility, and the responsibility he hypocritically expects from his children. Particularly, since if he actually feels that Yang is still a child, he never should have allowed Yang to wander to a bandit camp on another continent all by herself. If he doesn’t actually feel that way, why say something not only entirely insensitive, but also factually untrue?
Based on the events of the series as they’ve been portrayed by everyone, including himself, the hypocrisy here shows in spades.
This is where we get into the core problem of Taiyang Xiao Long. He’s a loving father who just doesn’t know how to be a parent. Unlike the Schnee family patriarch, Jacques could have likely been a wonderful father if he just gave a rat’s ass to be one. Taiyang never really grew up and simply can’t be a wonderful father, because at the end of the day, he’s still immature himself.
That is the core takeaway of this man. Taiyang doesn’t know how to be a father, and he never really learned at all. He ended up muddling his way through life without important lessons being learned the first time… which is why so many mistakes repeat over and over for his daughters.
Taiyang Xiao Long and Questionable Parenting
While even troubled characters such as Qrow and Raven seem to keep tabs on Yang and Ruby, Taiyang simply doesn’t. At the very end of the fourth volume, he sends Yang on her way to go meet with her bandit of a mother, Raven. That is a questionable detail, given just how dangerous the world of Remnant truly is. While Qrow at least follows Ruby’s rebuilt team, Taiyang stays behind… and this is a large theme with Taiyang in general… emotionally, he’s never really there when he’s needed.
Raven at least saves Yang during the train incident in volume 2, and she doesn’t flat out lie to Yang or skirt the details in any scene with her daughter. She is always honest with Yang, though she is also sometimes cruel about that honesty. Meanwhile, Taiyang can be cruel as shown by the scene above, but his dishonesty puts Yang and Ruby in danger as small children. Lies of omission are dangerous ones in the RWBY series, and they always end with something bad happening.
Refusing to talk about Raven until he absolutely must is a key problem for Taiyang.
The central flashback scene in which Yang describes the danger, it’s Qrow that shows up to save them in the flashback. She was able to sneak out with Ruby after Taiyang left the house. She says Ruby was a toddler at the time. Qrow saved the day, thankfully, or else they’d both be dead. This sort of inaction from Taiyang continues even when Taiyang becomes a fully realized character in the show.
Taiyang doesn’t leave with Yang at the end of volume 4. In volume 8, Taiyang just stands there and looks at the television screen when it cuts off, standing there and hoping Ruby comes back online. Frankly, the series makes one firm and clear depiction of Taiyang throughout the series.
Taiyang is not an active father, he’s largely inactive until he’s forced to act at all. Raven is absentee physically, but it’s Taiyang who is absentee emotionally. He may have put a roof over their heads, but he didn’t raise his daughters…
Let me be clear: he tried to, perhaps, the glimpses are there. Yet, to be honest, his failings are also clear in the lack of regard characters keep for him in general.
Yang can blow up bars in her character trailer, Ruby can pick a fight with thugs in the first episode of volume 1, but Taiyang is nowhere to be found in those incidents. His daughters can pointedly find trouble and danger as little girls, but all we know from Taiyang is that he wouldn’t tell Yang anything about her past.
He won’t talk about Raven until volume 4, when he has no other choice. Truth be told, it’s not the conversation Yang really needs to hear. Even that falls onto Raven’s shoulders. Taiyang isn’t the one to impart crucial details about the dangers of working with Ozpin.
I *would* call it bad writing, if we didn’t have such a clear and pointed view of the other family figures being referenced in the early volumes. Ruby discusses how Qrow trained her. Yang makes mention that Summer Rose was a lot like a “Super Mom”, but where’s Taiyang in those references? While Raven and Qrow both get rescue moments to save Yang, and Summer Rose is praised for being an influential figure, Taiyang doesn’t get anything like that.
He has no clear and pointed memorable mention of which to speak of. He has no moment to really stand out as a good father to them. By the time we get one, it’s already clouded over by the way he hasn’t been mentioned, and the ass he makes of himself.
Meanwhile, a drunk Uncle Qrow is regarded in a better light than their own father. While smashing up the campus with Winter Schnee, Ruby cheers for his actions. We really do need to question why… and that’s not to say Qrow doesn’t get a wake-up call as Ruby grows up. He gets a hard one by Ruby Rose standards in volume 6, but Taiyang never faces any repercussions like that.
Like Qrow, he really should have gotten the firm wake-up call, but for him it never comes. I really cannot let Taiyang slide on that one point.
The continued danger his daughters face, aren’t things he has any firm or direct dealings with. The times he has the opportunity, he fails to live up to it. Even just seeing him make a mad dash for the door in volume 8 before the screen cuts off would have been better than the way he just sits there. At this point he continues to prove he’s entirely useless to anything and everything.
The Belladonna parents get their moment to redeem themselves along with the Faunus of Menagerie. We get mentions of Glynda Goodwitch putting the city back together. From Taiyang, we have nothing of value to the greater society or to his own family. He’s no help to Vale, and he’s no help to his children. He’s not even any help to the family dog.
As a father who already lost people he loves, he now risks once again to lose the family he cares about. This time, his own flesh and blood, his daughters. Once again, he doesn’t do anything. With all of this being said, the series gives us a very clear cut view of Taiyang.
He’s no true huntsman, and deep down, he’s not the father he wishes he could have been. All that’s left is a lonely man, in a lonely, empty house…
He doesn’t have anything to show for all of his efforts, and we have to wonder how hard he really tried in the first place. How you choose to see those efforts are in your hands, and the series intends it that way.
As for me, I find it hard to have any real empathy for Taiyang. I do think he tries his best, but even Qrow stands as a stronger paternal influence to these girls, and that holds true from the very start of volume 1.
Taiyang has been absentee in a way worse than Raven could ever be in my eyes. He’s basically the male version of Willow Schnee, but without any outside oppressor, only himself to blame. He has no gumption to even attempt to do anything when faced with the difficult realities in front of him…
I’m not saying Willow is much better, but at least she knows well enough to know where Weiss really belongs. It’s not in that damned mansion, and Willow knows it. While Taiyang clings so hard he risks to lose everything, Willow knows when to let go.
Taiyang’s daughters habitually wander off, early and often. They get into danger, also early and often. Much like Ozpin allows trouble to take place within the school, Taiyang allows it to happen within the home. Otherwise it wouldn’t keep happening every time his back is turned or his daughters win the argument.
I think that alone says a lot about Taiyang.
When the other absentee parents, either emotionally or physically get a moment of redemption, he doesn’t. Qrow learns to follow Ruby’s lead. Willow learns how to make amends. The Belladonna’s are said to be reforming the White Fang. Raven learns to put faith in her daughter, because Yang is stronger emotionally than Raven will ever be.
What does Taiyang get?
Nothing… he gets nothing except for his own solitude. A man sitting in a dark room, all by himself, with his head in his hands… little more than a showcase of his failings.
Time will tell if Taiyang will ever get a redemption arc as a father, but for now, he’s pretty bottom of the barrel as far as RWBY parents are concerned. It seems to me, that’s exactly how the series wants it.
In my opinion, Taiyang is the foil to Willow. Both of them are emotionally absent to their children. One has lost herself due to an oppressor that terrorized her home, while the other is oppressed due to the failings and misgivings he simply couldn’t find the courage to correct.
This has been Kernook of The Demented Ferrets, where stupidity is at its finest and level grinds are par for the course. I’ll see you next time.
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Hey guys, gals and others, it’s Kern here. I don’t know about you, but I’m eagerly awaiting the RWBY Ice Queendom series that’s said to be coming out in 2022. We don’t have an official release date yet, but I can honestly say that I’m excited to see how the anime compares with the core material of the RWBY show we’ve all come to know and love.
I’ve been waiting to make a blog post about this, even though I wanted to for a while now. I didn’t want to be seen as hype chasing though, as this blog is small and even though riding the hype wave is a good way to get readers, it’s also not my style to do that.
Besides that, at first, I had a lot of conflicted thoughts about the show and what it might turn out to be. Therefore, I just wanted to sit and collect my thoughts. It can be really easy to become over excited or overly critical of new content before it releases, and I wanted to be impartial in my thoughts of this new impending series.
First of all, if you haven’t seen the trailer for RWBY Ice Queendom, you should do that first so that you know what I’m talking about.
Watched it at least once? Okay cool, so by now you’ve likely figured out that this is a upcoming Japanese animated series (anime) that’s being co-created by Rooster Teeth Productions(who also serves as producers for the show) and Studio SHAFT. This new anime is set to be released in 2022. That being said, we have no firm release date yet.
I’m of two minds for this upcoming show. The first is that I’m excited. I love RWBY, and I particularly love the early volumes before the show got too big for its own narrative footing. Getting a chance to reexamine this series with a fresh coat of paint will be something spectacular, I’m sure. There’s a lot of moments that you’ll notice look very self-same, and I’m sure that they’ll want to cover some of those key plot points anew, just as many series tend to do.
This isn’t a reboot, mind you. It won’t be purely the same cannon, either. It is being called “canon adjacent”. To my understanding of what I can pick up via social media and chit-chat among the fandom, RWBY Ice Queendom will stand someplace in the middle of pure canon and an alternate universe. I think that suits the situation just fine.
I know a lot of people are a little edgy about it, I was too at first. However, in truth I think that theRWBY series is at its strongest when it isn’t crammed into tight fitting boxes, or perfectly fitting labels.
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Personally, I feel that allowing the RWBY universe to have some sort of fluidity, and being more open with what is and isn’t canon lends to this series and its strengths. It also mitigates some of its worst weaknesses as well.
For example, if the Faunus plight is handled with a better hand here, we gain quite a bit. If we have a chance to see it better addressed, and with more nuance offered when it comes to the opinions of Faunus have in general, then that’s a win across the entirety of all the series within RWBY as a material. There’s nothing to lose from that.
Literally, we only have the opportunity to gain here unless a garbage fire well and truly occurs, which I doubt it will. If the Faunus plight is done worse or just as sub-par in some places than the show we’ve already got, well, we’re still where we were before… the fandom will pick up the slack just as we always have.
However, if it is done better, then we have something better to contextualize the RWBY universe with. We may end up with more avenues to explore regarding this, paving the way for new fan fiction angles and fan art alike.
We’ve only go gain with this fluid mind set, and unlike written material, this show will be much more easy to access for viewers who may hate the idea of reading. Therefore the RWBY fan base who don’t read the books in the wider universe will have more material to enjoy as well. The same goes for the games. We’re not all gamers, so the canon material found there may be lost to some people. This show can serve as a deeper gateway into wider lore, and we should see that as a bonus, not a loss.
The end of the trailer though, that’s what interests me. When Weiss sees herself at the end, it brings to mind the callback of her original trailer we had from all the way back before Volume 1 aired. It really excites me to think we may have deeper extrapolations of characters and their metaphors on our hands here.
If there is little else though, this new series can and will breathe new life into the fandom. We desperately need that most of all. For those of us that have been around since the earliest days, enjoying the RWBY series for all that it has to offer, even the most die-hard fan can agree that not everything is perfect. There was always a little something lacking across the volumes here and there. At the end of the day, love it or hate it, RWBY Ice Queendom will provide fans of RWBY a new bone to chew. That alone is worth giving it a try in my opinion. As someone who likes to dive deep with the RWBY universe, this is what excites me the most.
All we have to do is wait for it to come out.
This has been Kernook of The Demented Ferrets, where stupidity is at its finest and level grinds are par for the course. I’ll see you next time.
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With your contributions, you make our efforts possible. Thank you for supporting our content. Patreon supporters receive access into our official Discord server, and a few other perks depending on the tier. If you don’t care for Patreon, and don’t care about perks, you can always support us through PayPal too… links below.
Those who join via Patreon get special perks, such as extra content, quicker updates, and more.
Hello, Kernook here. It’s time for another “romantic pairing” posts. As usual, first, I’ll talk about all the reasons why you should “ship” these characters for a romantic pairing. Then, I’ll talk about reasons why other pairings might fit better.
If you have different opinions than mine, that’s okay. Everyone is allowed to like different character pairings… I like many of them. I don’t believe in “one true pairing” particularly in the RWBY universe as there are so many vast ways to explore the characters. I think RWBY is a fluid universe when it comes to romance with plenty to explore, so let’s dive into that reguarding Ruby and Blake, shall we?
Pyrrha Nikos and Jaune Arc comprise the pairing affectionately named “arkos” by the fan community. For the first three volumes of RWBY, Jaune and Pyrrha are teammates that grow into being vague lovers. In…
I’ve already done one of these styles of posts regarding the “Arkos” pairing, which is between Jaune Arc and Pyrrha Nikos. If that pairing interests you, well then you may just want to check that one out. If not, no big deal, but i wanted to let you know it happens to be here if you cared.
In any case, the key thing to keep in mind when reading this particular post, or any others like it, is that I do ship a lot of characters. I think combinations offer interesting insights and ways to explore the series when you break out of the typical molds on canon ideology. Or at the very least, what passes for canon ideology.
“Canon” Verses “Fannon”
When I talk about “canon”, that means there is firm implication or proof in the series that something actually happens romantically between these characters. When I talk about “fannon”, I am speaking about things that the greater fan-base has concluded based on subtext, or clues in the series. Fannon is a very loose term, because it can almost mean anything depending on who you talk to.
Example: Saying that Blake and Ruby both read books for enjoyment is a canon fact in the series established all the way back in the first volume. However, saying that Blake and Ruby might enjoy curling up and reading together is fannon at best. We’ve never seen this happen in the show, and we can’t even assume they keep a preference for the same genre of books considering that Blake reads adult literature.
That said, the Blake/Ruby pairing, also known by fans as “ladybug”, is not a cannon pairing in the series. It is strictly “fannon” or commonly called “fan fiction fodder”. The pairing is made up by the fan-base. It has very little cannon ground to stand on. It will remain that way until the RWBY series proves otherwise.
Frankly, I doubt the animated series will go in that direction. It seems as though the creators of RWBY are headed towards the cannon pairing of Yang/Blake, also known as “bumblebee”.
I’ll cover the “bumblebee” pairing at a later date.
I tend to sail many ships, and “ladybug” just so happens to be one of them. I have written fan fiction on AO3 regarding this pairing, and I will continue to do so. That said, let’s get into the reasons why you should ship them.
Reasons to “Ship” Blake and Ruby (Ladybug)
Ladybug is a weak romance ship in the canon argument debate. However, their strongest argument, the best one in my opinion is their intended lifestyle and their future ambitions. From the start of the series Blake and Ruby are versatile and tactical fighters in the series and they’re both ruthless in combat against their target foe.
For Blake this is the White Fang, and for Ruby this is the Grimm. They both have goals to better the world, and even if they don’t know how to do that, they’re going to do their best to try.
This is explained during the mountain Glenn arc of the series. Neither of their teammates share that same ruthless tenacity early on.
Yang and Weiss just don’t have the same huntress oriented focus based upon bettering the world around them. We see this down to the core combat style of the characters too. Weiss is more defensive in combat, often acting as a support fighter. She has no clear enemy or direct focus upon which to aim her blade. For her being a huntress is a family focused center, and that will shift as the series progresses… more on this later.
Yang is more aggressive early on, but that’s because she loves to fight. Her semblance requires her to be in the heat of battle to really utilize it. That being said though, Yang’s goal to be a huntress has nothing to do with bettering the world either. She just wants to get out to see it, and being a huntress lines up with that.
Early on though, during the Beacon volumes of the show, Blake and Ruby are the most compatible when it comes down to their life and their future goals. This continues well into Volume eight, and no, I’m not kidding. It’s the one constant that they both have.
Secondly, they’re both outliers in their team. They have a difficult time forming bonds with others. This is another trait that is exclusive to the two characters early on. Ruby is the youngest, notably so. Blake is the only Faunus on the team. Both of them face adversity from these dynamics (Blake more so than Ruby).
Furthermore, arguably, Blake has the most life experience outside of the kingdom’s walls, but it’s to her disadvantage when it comes to forming meaningful bonds. Meanwhile, Ruby has the least life experience, and remains far less cynical as a result. As the series progresses Blake makes note of Ruby’s youthful optimism and tells her that she came to respect Ruby due to that seemingly “youthful” optimism that she once thought of as childish. She has come to admire Ruby deeply. This is a canon event in volume eight.
Opposite to this, their teammates just can’t relate to them. Weiss has spent her time in the spotlight. She’s famous, and she can be very narrow-minded. She’s standoffish by choice early on. Yang seems to fit in with everyone so long as her temper doesn’t get in the way.
This means that Blake and Ruby share an unspoken bond merely because of their nature. They’re outcasts to a point, and that perfectly explains why in the early parts of the series they have no decent character interaction together. Ruby’s too awkward, and Blake always had much more important things on her mind. This also makes for great fan fiction fodder, because writers can play with that topic in all sorts of ways.
Thirdly, and this heavily ties into the first point of a life’s goal, they both know exactly what they want out of being a huntress. The only question in their minds is how to attain it. They both want to be huntresses for the greater good of society. That’s a trait you can’t ignore. It’s so integral to Blake and Ruby as characters that Weiss and Yang just can’t measure up in the lifestyle awaiting them because of what huntresses truly are.
Ruby wants to be a huntress to help people. Blake wants to be a huntress to aid in the Faunus plight. This directly juxtaposes their other teammates. In later volumes, Yang struggles with taking the heat of that decision, such as in volumes seven and eight. As for Weiss, she’s more firmly grounded in the ideologies of a huntress by that point, but Blake and Ruby still have the firm upper hand on her there.
In the end for Weiss and for Yang, being a huntress offers freedom in some way shape or form from family related struggles. Being a huntress is about finding catharsis that comes down to the heart and core of these two characters and their personal family related demons. For Yang this is her mother, Raven, and for Weiss it comes down to her father Jacques.
When it comes to long term “work and life balance” capability the ladybug ship wins the war of ambition by a large and fast margin. This aspect of shared ambition and their emotional ethics is important. Blake and Ruby treat the act of being huntresses as an altruistic endeavor. It’s arguable that Blake and Ruby would grow up into a romance very well as adults. This becomes even more paramount in later volumes.
After a team disagreement, Yang actually leaves the core members of team RWBY for a while to work with their other friends. However the fact is, she leaves Ruby, Blake and Weiss based on that disagreement. Blake stays, she doesn’t choose to go with Yang, this is a core growth. Blake the runner, stays put. Yang, takes another step forward to understanding Raven’s reasons for lashing out and leaving for good. When the group reunites, they’re all stronger for these learned lessons… but what I said above holds true, when the chips are down, and you have to make the hard choices, Ruby and Blake will always choose what being a huntress truly is.
Even their weaponry reflects this. They both use equipment that is complex and dangerous to use. Crescent Rose and Gambol Shroud both have the ability to transform into scythes. Blake’s weapon is classified as a “Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe”. It’s important to note that Ruby is a weapon fanatic with a love of scythes that as she says “is also a gun”.
They both stand up firmly for what they believe, sometimes to their own detriment. Both of them prove to be strong leaders in their own way. Ruby is the leader of her teammates. Blake showcases her skill in leadership the Menagerie arc, learning to unite fellow Faunus together. Yang and Weiss just aren’t the same in this capacity. They’re happy to play “second fiddles” to wider narrative arcs.
They’re not leaders, and despite the complaints Weiss has in volume one, she quickly learns she’s not fit to be a leader at all, that’s not her strength.
Yang shows absolutely no skill in leadership at all. For Weiss the desire to lead the team is short-lived. She learns to be happy falling in line behind Ruby as the “best partner” that Ruby will ever have.
All-in-all as future huntresses, Blake and Ruby are very compatible. They have aligned skills and noble ambitions. They have a true desire to triumph over adversity, and they have the gumption to do so.
They would likely be happy traveling together helping the world after graduation. This is the strongest argument to make in favor of the “ladybug” pairing. Being a huntress isn’t just a job, it’s a lifestyle. Blake and Ruby wish to live as huntresses in similar ways. This could pave the way for a long term relationship. In “ladybug” fan fiction it often does.
There is an argument to be made about Ruby and Blake sharing a few interests and traits. In my personal opinion there isn’t much in this category, but I’ll go over some of them anyway.
Both of them have a fondness for reading. Ruby has her love of fairy tales. Blake has an appreciation for trashy romance novels. In the series, Ruby attempts to befriend Blake when she sees the Faunus reading in the corner.
Both of these characters share a deep empathy towards others, although Blake chooses not to make that obvious until volume eight. Ruby comments about Blake’s “cute kitty” ears early on in the show, showing at least a little interest in Blake as well.
As you can see, this is the weaker argument to make in favor of the pairing. Sadly, Ruby and Blake don’t get much screen time alone together. They don’t have time to bond. The few scenes they do share are mainly in the early volumes of the series when they’re at odd’s with each other. Sadly, most of those scenes aren’t even positive dialogue exchanges. Now later volumes, namely Volume eight, once again gives us a tiny bit of fodder to play with, but it’s weak at best without the wider view of the huntress lifestyle to back it up.
The subtext in the series is that Blake and Ruby interact by default as team members. We don’t actually see a deep bond form between them. Clearly there’s a deep friendship there in some capacity, but we can only speculate the extent of it.
Fans have often criticized the show for a lack of content regarding Blake and Ruby as friends, and that is often why shipping them can be difficult. Still, when you think about the perspective in this way, it actually makes a lot of sense. There’s a slowly growing chemistry here and one that’s pretty natural when you consider team dynamics, and how Yang and Weiss play stronger supporting roles for their team members.
Ruby and Blake don’t have strong moments together, because frankly, they’re both on equal footing and don’t need the emotional back-up from each other. They get that from their partners. Blake from Yang and Ruby from Weiss.
Until they’re separated and work as partners themselves, we don’t have to see it. Volume eight proves that their bond is just as strong, though… perhaps stronger in this way, even if only in this way. If you care to look for this subtext, there’s a whole wealth of it to find here.
Reasons to Sail a Different Ship
In all honesty, I will sail the “ladybug” ship until it sinks, just as I will sail the bees and our beloved roses. That said, ladybug does have a lot of downsides. Writing fan fiction for “ladybug” can be very difficult. It’s not that the pairing is impossible. Rather, it’s that you have to go looking for commonalities in somewhat strange places.
Blake is obviously more mature than Ruby when it comes to romantic relationships. At the start of the series Blake is reading adult media. The implication is that she’s engaged in at least some of those acts before entering Beacon. This can be a major issue for fan fiction that takes place during the Beacon/Vale arcs of the RWBY series. The two year age difference between these girls might as well be night and day. That’s fitting though, at fifteen you hit separate milestones than you do at seventeen and eighteen which is about the age of the other Beacon characters. Remember, Beacon is closer to a university than it is a high school.
On her team, Blake has more chemistry with Yang and Weiss from the get-go. You could even make an argument that she has a stronger chemistry with Sun and Ilia than she could ever hope to have with Ruby outside of the profession and lifestyle of what a huntress needs to be.
To contrast that, Ruby has her own strong chemistry line-up. Weiss is obviously the strongest. Little miss “shut up, don’t touch me” is still very willing to hug Ruby back, and that’s a mirrior of the hug between stand-offish Blake and a very physically driven character like Yang.
For someone like Ruby, Jaune sticks out fairly well as a strong contender too, but even Penny, Pyrrha and Oscar make the fan fiction rounds a fair bit. If you want to get really weird and do the sibling romance thing, Yang’s a strong contender too. No shame for those who do, but I’m on the fence about how I feel about that one.
Either way, frankly because there’s hardly any canon material for Blake and Ruby as a romantic pairing, other pairings just make more sense on a surface level. Blake gets more valuable screen time with Sun, Weiss, Ilia, and Yang than she does with Ruby. Those scenes are central plot elements for Blake and they can’t be easily ignored.
The same could be said for Ruby, though. Her key cannon material revolves around Weiss, Penny, Pyrrha, Jaune and in later volumes Oscar.
Now we come to the final nail in the “ladybug” coffin. For all of the arguments I made to support the pairing, most people can make a very valid counter rebuttal. I’m about to do that here…
Firstly, Blake is practically a ninja and she benefits more from fighting alongside Yang or Weiss. Both of them have semblances that compliment Blake’s fighting style in a way that Ruby’s just can’t. The same can be said for Ruby, she benefits more from fighting alongside supporting fighters like Weiss. As it is, both women are better off sticking with their cannon combat partners after graduation.
They have weaponry that is complex and dangerous to use. This is all the more reason notto be fighting side by side. Neither of their weapons are entirely predictable. Ruby’s odd fascination with weaponry doesn’t end with scythes, and wouldn’t end with Gambol Shroud anyway. She would be just as enamored with any weapon type that she hasn’t seen before.
Secondly, Ruby is the youngest and that is a huge problem in early volumes. She might be a prodigy, but early on she’s incredibly naive in all of the ways that Blake isn’t. Also, because Blake’s a Faunus she has the potential to have other interesting character pairings. Weiss can be narrow-minded because of her family and her upbringing. Overcoming those odds is a classic “odd couple” sort of romance. Honestly, that’s a driving force in most Weiss/Blake fan shipping, also known as “monochrome”.
A defiance of social norms and adversity makes interesting plot points both in the series and in fan fiction between these two characters. Monochrome has incredible strength by nature throughout the entire series because of this.
Thirdly, they both know exactly what they want out of being a huntress, and that’s a problem. Those desires are similar, but also very different down at the key crux of it all. Given Blake’s character and her motivations, it’s possible that one day she would cease to be a huntress. Chances are good that Blake will end up leading a re-established group like the White Fang. This would turn into a conflict of interest. All that Ruby ever wants to be is a huntress, that is her entire ambition. It’s arguable that both women would be better served by finding other relationships and living their lives elsewhere.
Where Yang and Weiss are intent to follow, Ruby and Blake are natural born leaders, and to heads in this case sometimes aren’t better than one. The emotional support, and team turned family unit relies on this family to maintain its equilibrium to a degree. Weiss is very keen to keep it that way, and her protectiveness of that unit is a good argument for why the romances would never shift. Weiss is particularly territorial over her friends and her teammates down in the subtext… she’s actually a mirror of Sun in that way. If you screw with them, you screw with her, and end up in a garbage can as a result.
Weiss has already made the promise to be the best partner that Ruby will ever have. She fully acknowledges and accepts Ruby as a leader. Weiss is a pragmatist at heart. She sees the value in following Ruby’s orders… and to a greater degree, following Ruby’s ideologies when her own fail to measure up to “be the better/less cynical person” that she wishes to be.
Yang shows no interest in leadership at all, and she willingly follows Blake’s lead at the drop of a hat. Yang has always been as supportive of Blake as possible. To be honest, cannon just slaughters the argument in favor of the “ladybug” pairing when it comes to this point.
Looking at everything from this angle, we can come up with a few different conclusions.
While its true that Blake and Ruby are very compatible as huntresses, they require other teammates to be truly remarkable in combat. They have aligned skills and noble ambitions, but that will lead them in vastly different directions in life. Chances are good they’d be even happier with their other teammates after graduation. Being a huntress isn’t just a job, it’s a lifestyle.
There’s a good chance that Blake will move on, and if Ruby wishes to live as a huntress she may end up alone. Weiss becomes embroiled in the trade after renouncing her family name, and it’s clear she views her team as her family, stating so to her asshole of a father in volume 7. while it’s unclear if they will be a canon ship or not, whiterose has and will always be a very powerful shipping contender… and the way she maintains and upholds the concept of this new family unit really can’t be understated. She truly becomes the mother hen to the wider group, a position that Yang used to fill.
As I said before, there is a very weak argument to be made about Ruby and Blake sharing a few interests and traits. This is a very pairing specific issue. The rebuttals I would make depend entirely on what “ship” I would be trying to sail instead. Listing everything would be impossible, I’ll just say that the rebuttals here are endless, because they literally are.
Final Thoughts
The ladybug pairing is a ship best explored in small fluff pieces, alternate universes, or fictions where ideology play a strong factor in the narrative. That’s because Ruby and Blake don’t have the same sort of natural progression that other characters do. Most of their important scenes together are in volumes 1, 2,3,7, and 8… volume 6 has some content, but it’s not particularly powerful. That honor goes to the roses and the bees, particularly the bees.
The “ladybug” pairing is ultimately unique. Unlike the other shipping combinations of team RWBY and beyond, there isn’t a lot to work with. In fact, “ladybug” shippers probably have the hardest time making a relationship between Ruby and Blake seem believable. However, that being said, the subtext is particularly strong depending on how you choose to view it.
A good deal of Ruby’s friendship or possible romance with Blake remains implied. It’s never shown in direct detail. They don’t have any interactions that turn into long-running direct core plot points, either. All of the other teammates do, but Ruby and Blake just don’t.
Trying to romanticize what little we do see, requires creativity. You can’t sail this ship if you’re following strictly cannon screen time. You need to step out of the box and be willing to suspend some of your disbelief to truly enjoy it.
That being said, “ladybug” is one of my top ten pairings in RWBY. No matter what your view is, I will avidly sail this ship until it sinks.
What are your thoughts on Blake/Ruby as a ship? Love it? Hate it? Tell me why down in the comments below.
This has been Kernook of The Demented Ferrets, where stupidity is at its finest and level grinds are par for the course. I’ll see you next time.
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Hey everyone, it’s Kernook here. Welcome to a segment called Character Spotlight, a series dedicated to why I enjoy particular characters from various series.
In this series, I’ll talk a bit about the fandom surrounding the character, and why I really appreciate their inclusion within their respected series. Today, I’m going to be talking about Kali Belladonna from the RWBY series, also coined as the real “super mom” by many fans of the show.
Really, there’s no question as to why that is. Many of the parents in the RWBY series are lackluster at best, and completely flawed beyond repair at worst. In the show absentee parents, alcoholism, and broken homes define a large section of the narrative backstory. Really, the number of halfway decent mothers in the series can be counted on one hand.
Most of those mothers are dead and gone, so frankly Kali just doesn’t have much in the way of competition. Even if she did though, she would probably stand above the rest, or at least equal to them in her parenting style and overall gentle nature.
Fandom Perspective
Kali is the mother of Blake Belladonna, and the spouse of Ghira Belladonna. This was a plot point that turned a lot of the ideologies of early fandom on its head. Prior to Volume 4, Blake’s parents were assumed to be out of the picture entirely. Either dead and gone, or still among the corrupted White Fang. Fan theories contained both of these ideas in spades, and fan fiction at the time reflected that, including my own written fan fiction.
In general, Kali is depicted among the fandom in two ways.
The first is the loving wife and mother that we all know and love. It’s not very common to see her removed from that mold, simply because it suits her so well.
However, when the mold is broken, Kali tends to turn into a shipper’s paradise. Honestly, when she’s contorted into that, fandom ends up with plenty of questionable adult content, particularly in the fan fiction side of the fandom. This is true for a lot of characters though, so it’s not a situation that’s exclusive to her… Glynda Goodwitch also tends to suffer much of the same fate.
Fandom gets weird sometimes, that’s just the way it is. For better and worse.
Thankfully, due to Kali’s nature, the vast majority of fan related content plays off of her genuine love and care for her family. Her characterization as we know it seems to be very well received among the greater fan base, so that is generally how she is depicted.
The Countless Merits of Kali Belladonna.
Often times it can be said that Kali has a lot of the characterization that Blake should have had. However, saying this disregards one of Kali’s key merits. Her age, and the perspective that comes with it.
Kali has time on her side. A lot of it. She has marched with the White Fang in her youth, fallen in love, and raised a daughter to the best of her abilities. Kali has her failings. That Blake ran away from home is proof of that, but Kali has always loved and supported her child. She has been waiting for Blake to return, and when she does, Kali embraces her without a moment’s hesitation.
This unquestionable devotion to her family is one of the key cornerstones to Blake’s own development, even if it is mostly just subtext. Kali has lived through many struggles that Blake just hasn’t yet, because Blake hasn’t had the time to do so.
Meanwhile, the struggles that Blake has faced are gritty, messy, and oftentimes don’t have a right answer. When at a loss for how to be helpful, Kali and Ghira offer unconditional love, because that meaningful acceptance is one thing the series often lacks when it comes to parenting. Kali takes her support a step further, welcoming Sun Wukong with open arms because that’s just the way she is.
Now, for this I’m just focusing on Kali. Ghira is worth talking about later, and he will get his own spotlight. However, that’s a different topic. His parenting methods are a bit different. He deserves his own analysis all about that directly.
On the topic of Ghira and Blake though, one thing I will say, is that the Belladonna family is fundamental to the series lore. The implications are absolutely staggering, given who the White Fang are, and what they hope to achieve. That being said, Kali is an interesting looking glass into in that history. One that we just don’t have the luxury to have with Blake or Ghira.
In the Belladonna family, Kali is the outlier to many questions that are never answered cleanly. In a show that has many conflicting themes, Kali is a breath of fresh air. She is bogged down by implication and metaphor, just most of the other characters. However, her implications doesn’t leave a foul sense of injustice behind.
Rather, Kali’s character offers themes of hope, acceptance, and unity, because Kali is not one to drown in sorrow. It is rare to find a parent, particularly a mother, like this in the series.
Like Ruby Rose, Kali is an absolute altruist at heart, but unlike Ruby, she understand where the line is. She believes in the concept, but she realizes that you can’t always use it. For Kali there are impossible ambitions that no one could ever achieve, and then there’s reality. The line is a grey area for Kali, but she believes in her personal moral code, and it shapes her in all ways.
For example, the subject of Menagerie becomes much less sinister when viewed through Kali’s lens instead of Blake’s. While her daughter sees Menagerie as a consolation prize for the Faunus plight, claiming it has done nothing to further the cause, Kali gives us a different way to look at the world of Remnant at large.
While Blake claims that Menagerie changes nothing, Kali stands as a reason for why Menagerie has changed everything in small ways. Kali showcases why it should exist, and why more communities like it should be built openly and willingly by the Faunus community, and arguably other communities at large, such as the mistreated workers found in Mantle’s slums.
Why? That’s simple, Kali is happy. She is not suffering. She is not in pain. She is at peace with life on the island, and she understands that one island does not diminish the greater plight than many Faunus rise up against.
In real life, people of like-minded world views gather together, and that’s just the way people are by nature.
Let’s face it, we don’t want to be friends or neighbors with people we don’t like. The Faunus of Menagerie don’t want to argue or deal with humanity anymore. They’ve rejected it, and found a safer harbor to build a life.
Kali doesn’t seem to feel that same distaste for humanity. In fact, she seems to have no issue with humanity at all, but she still lives in Menagerie because she understands that you can’t force your opinion upon others. Aiding and leading the peoples of Menagerie along side Ghira is simply the best way for them to help the movement at that moment. To still lead and guide, just in a different way.
Ghira stepped down from the White Fang, because they refused to follow his guidance anymore. You can’t make demands and expect everyone to comply. If he had done that, he would be no better than Adam, and brute force is not Ghira’s ethos, it’s not Kali’s either. They could have stayed with the White Fang, but at what real cost?
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Kali shows us that sometimes finding your own safe place is the better option for some people, and that’s what some Faunus chose to do. That doesn’t make the Faunus of Menagerie horrible people, and it doesn’t invalidate them. The plight can still make steps forward even with Menagerie’s existence, and arguably because of it.
Through Kali’s lens we see that the Faunus living on the island seem to live a fairly peaceful and happy life. Before the White Fang come to make havoc, the people living on the island are just happy to mind their own business. It isn’t the absolutely awful place that Blake wants to believe it is. Her personal convictions go beyond Menagerie, and well beyond the White Fang.
The same can be said for Kali, it’s just that Kali is older and wiser too. She understands and accepts that not every Faunus will feel the way her family does. Some will be perfectly happy on that island, and Kali’s incredible personality shows us the good side of that choice. It shows us what Faunus communities can truly become, and that there is no shame in the pursuit of personal happiness and fulfillment.
They harm no one by living this way, and Kali has that perspective because she lives among them. It’s only the White Fang that seeks to cause harm, not the rest of the Faunus in general.
Kali is both internally and externally consistent in her conflict of world views. She is very complex as a character, and she will occasionally contradict herself. However, it is never in a way that defies her moral codes and ethics. No matter what contradictions she showcases, she never looses the characterization that makes her uniquely Kali Belladonna as a person.
The Moral Ethos of Kali Belladonna
It is probably her morals and ethos that makes her so deeply loved by the fandom. Kali lives and loves with a free spirit, willing to allow herself to feel the full scope of emotions life has to offer.
She is by and large a pacifist more times than not, but she has a limit to just how much crap she’ll put up with. If she absolutely has to, she won’t hesitate to bring out a can of whoop-ass. It’s just that all other options need to be exhausted before she reaches that point. The fact is, fighting in any way, shape or form just isn’t her preferred method of handling conflict. She would much rather talk things out, but she’s not a pushover.
She’s willing to fight if she has to though, and that’s something we see showcased in Volume 5. Without a weapon and only a tray in her hands, self defense and the defense of others seems almost second nature. Given her obvious history among the White Fang, that makes complete sense.
In Volume 5, the Faunus of Menagerie stand together to face down the White Fang’s attack, we see that there is strength in numbers. This nuanced disposition shows us exactly what the old White Fang under Ghira’s command probably looked like, and how it ran. Appealing to a greater sense of community and unity, rather than forceful persuasion.
If we were to look at this situation completely through Blake’s eyes, we miss out on these tiny details. We lose the greater story. For Kali it is very clear that Menagerie was a victory, not a consolation prize, and not a loss for the Faunus plight. Rather it was a stepping stone, admittedly a small one. However, it was one that could have gone much further if Ghira had not stepped down as the High Leader. If the White Fang had been respected on their personal merits and not feared outright, more close ties between humans and Faunus could have been built.
Therefore, the loss was one not against humanity, but rather the Faunus themselves. Among their own factions, and the ideological divides that have separated them.
This is why I love Kali as a character. Yes, she is a “super mom”. Completely supportive and loving in the face of a world that has so much hate and neglect. She stands tall as a woman, both as a housewife and mother foremost, and secondly a leader upon which many Faunus can look up to in their own way. Seeing her peaceful path, and choosing that for themselves does not diminish their existence or hardships, nor should it.
Sometimes taking a few steps back is paramount to the greater goal. A breath, a break, and peace can offer respite in world that wouldn’t offer such a thing otherwise.
This is a fact Blake cannot accept early on, even when Kali does. Yet those two steps back pays off for all of the Faunus. It is only after those two steps back that the Faunus of Menagerie finally come to understand how monstrous the White Fang has become. Seeing the atrocities of the White Fang first hand, without their perspective on humanity to cloud their judgement, they can think more objectively.
They can come to terms with their own denial, and find the strength to move forward. To fight for a better world anew, and this time for the good of everyone. Human and Faunus alike.
All in all, this is a lens we can see manifest in Kali from the very start of her introduction. The echoes of a painful past linger here, and the healing process takes time. Kali is a validation for a plight that receives so little recognition. That so little is shown, is only further proof of just how much the greater society still needs to grow.
This is why the Belladonna family is important. They are proof that steps forward can and will be made, and that each step towards that goal, is one to hold aloft and in high esteem. While Blake sees fit to “fight the good fight” Ghira and Kali understand the strides in the movement, and just how far it has obviously come.
Adversity is not something you can change overnight. Sometimes, it is best to stop and take a breath. To live and love life for what it is, before gathering the strength to move forward once more. The difficult path itself is worth the journey, but to overcome adversity you must be emotionally prepared to stand against it. That’s not an easy thing to do, not in the real world, and not in the RWBY series.
Kali is the complete and total proof that the world is a better place than it once was. Even if it has a very long way to go, there is nothing wrong with savoring and appreciating that one step for what it is. Knowing it is only a step forward, but one that shouldn’t be disregarded. Progress is made on those small steps, and every movement in history had a least a few small steps like this.
For Kali, those steps are empowering. Sitting with Sun and Blake around the table while listening to stories about Beacon Academy, that is her reward. That is her personal accomplishment. Her joy is in knowing that her daughter could find a place to truly belong.
So long as Blake stands by her team, she will have no need for a place like Menagerie. It is clear that Kali still hopes that one day, no Faunus will. They are liberating because they mean that there were victories. That Blake and Weiss could even exist on the same team, proves what the next generation is capable of.
Through that lens, we see the Faunus plight anew. Through the eyes of a woman that speaks of love and peace, harmony is her core message that she can continue to have faith in, until that day finally comes. There is something deeply profound in that ideology. A comfort, a warmth and a promise that is so difficult to come by.
From a narrative standpoint, Kali is one of the best characters in the RWBY series, and one of my absolute favorites.
This has been Kernook of The Demented Ferrets, where stupidity is at its finest and level grinds are par for the course. I’ll see you next time.
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Hey everyone, it’s Kern here. I’ve written a few posts about “fan fiction” before, basically centered around the impact of fandom and how to combat writers block.
These posts are not for people that want to be best selling authors. If you want to do that, you shouldn’t be writing fan fiction. They’re also not for those looking to make a quick buck, as that’s not the heart and soul of what fan fiction is. .. not to mention, that’s a questionable act besides.
No, these posts are low stress, low expectation, built around discussions based on a hobby that I care for greatly. I know many other people do too. When it comes to fan fiction, I read it, I write it and I love it.
For all the snappy dialogue and punchy editing, most best selling books have me losing interest as soon as I turn the first few pages. It always seems so pristine to me,…
I am such a huge supporter of fan fiction that I even choose to to read it over many best selling books. I made a blog post regarding that already. However, my view stands strong and I’m not likely to change that opinion any time soon. You can check that one out if you care to, I’ve linked it for your convenience.
To be succinct though, my preference comes down to the way the medium is handled. It isn’t perfect, far from it.
Fan fiction often lacks the punchier written format we expect from professionals, and to me that’s the main appeal. It will always be a diamond in the rough. That’s usually a good thing, as it means fans are enjoying thier ability to explore thier own creativity.
With my views of fan fiction laid bare and transparent for all to see, let’s move on to the meat and potatoes of this post. First though, I have an important question for you…
What is the one thing a good story cannot do without?
Well, there’s only one thing really… characters. Well-written, compelling characters are the single strongest asset to the fan fiction medium.
Fan fiction will inevitably be separated from other writing styles simply because the concept has already been laid out in front of you. Whatever your fandom of choice, there are already fans of it. You’ve already been given a set of predetermined parameters in which to work with. When we talk about gaming, anime, movies and television, the characters within the series are by far the bread and butter of any piece of writing.
The reason for this is because established characters we know and love are ones that we want more of. When the main series ends or takes a break, the fandom remains. It’s fun to interpret major set pieces in your own way. The characters are typically the first touch-stone fans use to do that… now clearly they aren’t the only building block of importance, but they are the one I want to look at today.
Aside from a few key examples where settings, and their obligatory set pieces become particularly noteworthy, those things will never tower over the characters themselves in a fan written work. When you boil it all down, the reason why is simple…
A story is about what happens, and the characters are who it happens to...
If characters aren’t compelling, readers just won’t give a rat’s ass what happens to them. Impeccable action sequences and mindfully placed drama doesn’t add anything if we can’t be brought to care about who those things are happening to.
No amount of skillful writing can save a story that has poorly written characters. Thankfully in the world of fan fiction, you aspiring writers out there already have a perfect template. The characters you know and already love. You’ve got the whole tool chest right in front of you. You know how they should look, you how they sound, you know their dialogue and vocal patterns.
The characters in the fandom you’re writing for have already been made. Like a child playing pretend, it’s up to you to decide how you want to play around with your imagination. There’s all kinds of ways you can do this.
You can choose to subvert what you know. I highly suggest this. Add a little flair, amplify key character traits and lessen others to background static to suit your needs in your fan fiction. Do you want to take your favorite action hero and cram him in a coffee shop? You can do that. Actually, funnily enough coffee shop fan fiction tends to be pretty popular too.
What to mix and match your favorite characters across different series, you can do that too! I’ve done that myself usingFinal Fantasy XI and RWBY. Both series have a lot of the same thematic elements, personal character struggles and compelling undertones to explore. These two series play off of each other particularly well for combat too.
Don’t believe me? Find a magein a Final Fantasy game that casts “haste”, and then check out WeissSchnee when she battles with yellow dust during Roman’s fight Atleasian Paladin in the RWBY series.
The clock Weiss makes for Blake really is a neat thing. and the skill as a dust mage plays off logic found in the mages of Final Fantasy games.
Both of these skills do the same thing. Speed up character attacks. These are two universes I absolutely love, and combining aspects of both really appealed to me. Putting aspects of both into the same fan fiction was just par for the course for me.
For my fan fiction, I chose to take Curilla V Mecru from the video game Final Fantasy XI, and place her into the RWBY universe in my fandom related writing.
Why was I compelled to do this? Easy, it’s because Curilla’s homeland of San d’Oria reminds me heavily of the kingdom of Mistral in RWBY.
This mixed with the fact that she shares so many common personality traits with Weiss Schnee and Winter Schnee of RWBY makes me wonder what these characters would be like if they could be friends (and perhaps romantic interests).
I decided to explore that, and fan fiction was my gateway through that journey.
The takeaway; the key of good characterization is to focus upon what interests you the most.
We’re likely to notice the aspects of characters that mean the most to us. Perhaps it’s their fighting style, their personality, or maybe it’s just the way they chose to dress. There are always aspects we, as fans, cling onto. Traits we love and tidbits we’re drawn to. However, it’s not just what we love about the characters that matters. It’s typically a well placed character flaw that seems the most interesting to explore.
Ultimately we won’t be brought to love every single thing about our favorite character. To be sure, if there isn’t a flaw someplace… well, that’s a huge issue and it is bad writing. You can still love a flaw while respecting that it is a flaw, though. When writing, play with those flaws and your readers will thank you.
At the end of the day fan fiction thrives not on the story you craft, but the interesting dynamics of the characters and world you showcase through your own eyes.
This has been Kernook of the Demented Ferrets, where stupidity is at it’s finest and level grinds are par for the course. I’ll see you next time. Meanwhile, check out some of our other great content below. Be sure to join us over on Patreon to support more content like this. Also, we have a Twitch channel for gaming, come check us out!
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If you haven’t seen the RWBY White Trailer, yeah, you might want to go do that. It’s on the Rooster Teeth website, and it’s free. As always, please support the official release of the series.
Last week I kicked off my retrospective series with the RWBY Red Trailer. For a brief recap, I mentioned that the four character trailers that kicked off the series had three goals in mind. They were as follows:
To introduce the main four girls.
To teach the viewer how to enjoy the combat in the series.
And to give viewers a taste of the world through the eyes of these characters.
When the RWBY Red Trailer first released, I wasn’t exactly a huge fan of what I saw.
As I said last time, hindsight for the series is 20/20. Retrospection matters. My love of the RWBY series didn’t come until I saw the release of the RWBY White Trailer and the introduction of Weiss Schnee.
If Ruby’s trailer is all about sentimentality and holding the things you cherish the most close to your heart. Then, the trailer for Weiss is all about the rejection of emotional sentiment. Of leaving behind childish whimsy, and losing one’s own identity in the process.
Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look. The trailer opens slowly, a quote flashes across the screen. This quote reads like this:
Then a spotlight shows overhead, the garbled mutterings of an announcer calls her name. The audience cheers as a white haired woman takes the stage. Her face is elegant, but there’s a slender scar blemishing her skin over one eye.
She’s dressed in white, with a splash of red, and a hint of black. Her expression stays serious in front of the crowd. The soft fluttering of of a piano begins to play as the crowd cheers.
By this point in the trailer, less than 30 seconds into it, I had already found myself captivated by Weiss Schnee as a character. Where the RWBY Red Trailer failed to instantly grab my attention, the RWBY White Trailer had captured me from the very beginning.
Weiss looks out to the crowd, takes a breath and closes her eyes. Then the song begins in earnest. Unlike Ruby’s song that was merely playing as a music backdrop and only had a few lyrics, this time Weiss is performing her personal story for the world to see.
Her song, known as “Mirror Mirror” is a testament that Jeff Williams and Casey Lee Williams really know how to make a soundtrack shine.
This song is probably one of the saddest in the original soundtrack for the first RWBYVolume. As the song plays, Weiss is shown to be singing it, although, her actual voice actress didn’t do the vocals. The woman singing is Casey Lee Williams.
This trailer turns into a flashback as Weiss continues to sing, her eyes still closed. The camera pans lower and the stage fades to black. A reflection of Weiss glows from the dark abyss as she stands atop it, a perfect reflection.
If you haven’t noticed by now, this is a far deeper, far more introspective sort of trailer on it’s face. This make sense. Weiss is the most reserved of the main four girls. She’s cold, almost needlessly cruel in the first volume of the series. However, that’s well and truly a facade at best.
Without this trailer for character context, which I will get to in a moment, Weiss would be little more than a complete and total ass during Volume 1. Episodes like “The Stray” and notably the episode “Black and White” which is the Volume 1 finale, rely on this trailer. It explains everything about Weiss and her eventual blind acceptance of Blake.
The reason is because Weiss isn’t actually an ass, and she’s doesn’t really carry the hyperbolic thoughts and feelings that she’s expected to have. She spouts them, but they’re not real. This trailer is a looking glass into all of it, literally. It gives us all of her key struggles, and allows us to see this girl behind the Schnee family mask.
Anyway, at this point her eyes are closed. It is now implied that anything beyond this point is a flashback of a memory. When her eyes open, kneeling in front of her is a gigantic armored knight. It bows to her in reverence, as if she were its queen.
Then, it stands to its full height, grasping its sword as the tempo of the music changes.
No longer just a soft piano melody with gentle singing, string instruments and percussion are added into the mix. The soft classical music begins taking on new urgency as Weiss faces down her opponent. Swords clash as Weiss faces down this armored giant, deftly avoiding his blade.
Her combat is almost like a dancer’s grace as she continues flitting around the arena floor like a ballerina. She uses her sword with frontal swings and forward jabs just like a fencer. Weiss relies on a complicated mix of pure skill, dust, and her semblance to gain the upper hand.
As I said before, the trailers build upon each other. In Ruby’s trailer, combat was the thing breaking the fourth wall.
For Weiss it’s the lyrics of her song, breaking the forth wall instead. This is her personal story. She’s telling us who she really is as a person, and she’s not going to wait for us to figure it out.
Just like how she treats Ruby in Volume 1, she’s not going to dumb herself down for our sake. The lyrics are poetic and layered in symbolism. I will speak about that in the analysis of this trailer, which is a separate post. For now let’s just focus on the poetic storytelling at play.
Viewers need to stand on Weiss’s level emotionally, and understand what she’s telling us. We viewers, are the mirror she’s talking to. It’s not just that she’s talking to herself. She wants to be heard, she has asked us if we can hear her in the song directly. She’s asked us if she needs us, because we are that mirror.
She’s not sure if her own merits are good enough. She wants to be taken seriously. She feels that she isn’t. That she is somehow inferior.
Now, this is exactly what Ruby’s trailer referenced in regards to the color “white”.
While those lyrics were a factual assessment, Weiss attempts to explain those facts in poetic and lyrical way, using ambiguity.
Ruby’s trailer is self-assured and confidant. She knows she wants to be a huntress, and she’s ready to show off what she can accomplish.
Weiss is far less sure of herself. She wants the validation of others, but she’s afraid to ask for it. So, she’s asking us, the proverbial mirror.
Her faster and far more ruthless combat is an undertone to this as well. While Ruby shows us a fight that’s fun, Weiss shows us one that’s necessity. Weiss needs to fight this battle. It isn’t a choice. It’s an obligation, like so many other things in her life.
Unfortunately for Weiss, she’s still just a teenager trying to pretend she’s an adult. The adult world of Remnant will bring her down a few pegs, and so does the knight she’s fighting. She cannot stand on the world’s stage alone and hope to succeed that way. She needs others, she needs a place to belong.
In spite of her skill, this isn’t enough to stop the knight from countering every attack she lands on him. Finally he swats her aside like a paper doll.
She lands on the ground looking disheartened, defeated and bleeding…
Then the scene faces to black and Weiss is on stage again. Slowly she opens her eyes. Haunting operatic vocals fill the air as the moon overhead appears from behind dark clouds.
Weiss is still young, and just like Ruby, she’s a dreamer of bigger and better things. It’s just that those dreams don’t align with the world as she currently understands it. Her memories and expectations hold her down.
She’s asking us, the viewers, if she can really stand a chance to reach for her dreams. If she’s even worthy of those dreams at all.
Her eyes close again, and her memory continues. The flashback of how she got the scar in the first place is fresh in her mind.
The knight is still ready for more, and Weiss lifts herself up from the ground. There’s blood on her face, and determination in her eyes. Weiss won’t let herself be put down from a little thing like a head injury.
Instead she prepares herself for another clashing of blades. She’s smarter this time, going on the defensive and waiting for the right moment to take him down.
The song changes tempo again. This time, it’s not haunting, it’s empowering. She prepares her weapon, adjusting her stance, and strikes. A flurry of dust shimmers with every attack. A wave of ice spiking up from the ground as she returns the armored knight’s attack tenfold, effectively disarming him.
Then it’s time for her final attack. She readies her glyphs and the dust inside her sword. Trapping the the knight, she sends herself flying into the air, slicing a pinpoint attack into the knight. This turns him into a powder-like snow.
Sparkles of this now defeated knight fall onto the stage as she finishes her song. The blood on her face fades away. She opens her eyes and looks around as if trying to remember where she is. The crowd cheers for her.
When you saw this trailer for the first time, you probably cheered a little too, even if it was just to yourself quietly. I know that I did.
That’s because in the context of the series, Weiss is person worth cheering for. She’s worth her dreams and her ambitions. She wants to hear that cheering, she wants us, the mirror to tell her that she’s worth it. That’s what makes her so relatable even as early as the trailer itself.
Everyone wants to be told they’re worth something. That they’ve done a good job. Everyone wants just that one moment of satisfaction. That one thing that nobody can take away from them, because they earned that success themselves. That they are worthy of standing upon the worlds stage, accepted based on their own achievements.
In that way, Weiss resonates with that small part of humanity. We are the mirror she’s talking to, and we give her just that tiniest glimmer of hope.
Weiss looks out toward the audience and she offers her final bow. Her reflection is still there, a perfect mirror image upon the floor. Only she can see it truly clearly. The curtains close, and the trailer ends.
It’s as if through the eyes of the viewer, she’s finally seeing her true self. The person she really wants to be. The person she can become.
The RWBY White Trailer is a showcase of characterization at its finest. A lot of fans claim that Weiss is one of the most interesting characters in the series, at least, on her own merits. I wholeheartedly agree.
In this trailer we’re given far more depth to her character than we ever saw in the RWBY Red Trailer. This trailer built upon everything we were told previously, and extrapolated upon them.
The thing is, Ruby’s trailer focuses more on factual information. For Weiss, her trailer is almost entirely emotional. The fight was in her point of view, and the song lyrics reflect that as well.
The song stands in a league of it’s own, the animation is absolutely fitting, and the fight is captivating from start to finish.
All in all, this trailer is my absolute favorite one in the early volumes. I love this thing.
However objectively, I wouldn’t actually say it’s the best trailer we received. No, in my opinion, that credit goes to the RWBY Black Trailer, featuring Blake Belladonna. It is the textbook definition of what a trailer should be. Join me next time as I cover Blake’s trailer. You don’t want to miss it.
“Where stupidity is at its finest and level grinds are par for the course…”
The Demented Ferrets…
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