Pirate versus Ninja!!

This icon is the closest I have to a RWBY topic. I doubt I'll be ranting on this series long-term and thus requiring an icon anyway but who knows. So this is the post that was delayed twice due to unfortunate circumstances (more like laziness + stupid headache) but now perhaps the long paragraphs about "that webseries" as my tag calls it, can finally be here! And so it is! Like I said before there isn't all that much to RWBY so far and its fandom, though I called it huge, is still in its early stages. So what could a post about this even be about you ask? Why what else could it be about? This post is all about speculation on whatever might happen in the future and why characters are what they are.

It's pretty easy to just throw the main four girls into archetypes. Y'know, the idealistic hero, the cynical foil, the brooding loner, and the crazy awesome mentor... or as TVTropes would call it "The Hero, the Lancer, the Smart Guy, and the Big Guy" and due to Ruby's adorableneess she can be the heart too! Yes, it's quite easy to put them in such categories because as much as I could speculate at the moment we simply don't know all that much about them. They're all certainly likeable enough (except maybe Weiss if you have bad experiences/low tolerance with her attitude or something) and all have pretty decent first impressions. Then again one of my friends watched it and basically told me he disliked all of the characters which very much baffled me. I will never understand his opinions. But if we were to speculate and predict what may happen to our lovely main cast, there is no place else to look but the trailers themselves.

For Ruby though her trailer, as mentioned by the creator, was more like a video showing off her scythe-sniping abilities and less of any hints to Ruby herself. Fortunately there is one line in the song "Red like Roses" that gives us some idea plus general consensus is that the opening song is pretty much all about Ruby, so she is definitely not short on characterization. (And being the main character, we'll likely know the most about her first! Maybe.) What hints we do know from the trailer though is that there is someone in Ruby's life who probably has passed on. I want to go into a tangent that a lot of the more popular shows and such out there rarely bring in the more down-to-earth "real" issues into fantasy aspects, and mostly stuff like "someone close to me is dead" is the norm for these types of stories. Koishi's existence is a fine example of tragedy without death. So my first impression with Ruby knowing someone, probably her mother or something, is no longer around isn't especially interesting to me unless there's some interesting twist involved? And I don't mean attempting to revive her by sacrificing your arm and leg either.

On the other hand, there is a hint that a twist might be coming. The creator has said that Ruby does not fear death. She isn't some colossal badass ready to face death at any instant or anything, but instead is described as someone who hasn't grown up enough to realize how close to death her situation and goals will probably take her. I find this especially interesting because if she isn't afraid of death, yet has a loved one who was taken away far too early, what could that mean? At face value both these facts sort of contradict one another. If you've experienced death in some way you would probably acknowledge it in some way, yet Ruby does not? There's also the occasional speculation that Yang might bite the dust due to various lyrics in the songs. The opening, which most people have deduced is about Ruby, has a line that says "even brilliant lights will cease to burn" and Yang's image song "I Burn" is all about how she burns with passion and spirit and people shouldn't underestimate her and such. Even in "Red Like Roses" Yang's individual line points out that yellow beauty "burns" gold. But if Yang bites the dust to screw with Ruby's mental physique, what is the purpose of this other person in her life who already bit the dust? Would Yang dying remind her of that other person as well? Perhaps having Yang also die will reveal that instead of being naive to death, Ruby was denying it instead? That's pretty damn depressing.

Despite the foreboding lyrics, I highly doubt Yang will die. She is part of the title after all, and as Bob and George once said., title characters cannot die! Unless there is only one title character and they die at the end for a very bittersweet ending or something. The one problem that kind of gives more reason for Yang well, dying is that of the four characters she seems to have the least amount of foreshadowing. Initially I believed Blake was the most unknown character but then I actually paid attention to her trailer's lyrics and noticed the random newscast about fauna protesting in episode one, so Blake isn't all that mysterious as I had thought. Instead, Yang's lyrics are all about burning and being underestimated, but that doesn't really tell us about Yang before she was fighting or anything about her inner-self. Surely she is more than just her outer-appearance of being bombastic and generally awesome right? If all we're told are these things and all we learn are these things, then it kind of points to Yang becoming a sacrificial lion or something which would be pretty damn depressing.

Oh hey I ended two paragraphs in a row with the word depressing. But thinking closer with that one line in her song, "Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest" perhaps I am over-thinking it, but the trailer itself replaced blood with roses. In two other trailers blood is fairly non-existent because one had robots and the other, despite having human adversaries who were likely launched in the stomach with shotgun bullets, didn't have blood either. The only time we see real genuine blood is on a good character (so we think) Weiss, who gets injured symbolically and then has her scar for the rest of time. So it's pretty easy to assume that blood probably won't be present in the series except for really important, game-changing moments. Beowolves do bleed though and I would assume Ruby would be the only one causing rose!blood, so if anyone else attacked them would they bleed normal blood, or would they not bleed at all? I'm definitely looking forward to how episode six comes about. (assuming the action begins then and we don't get another episode of other people landing and meeting up)  So if we assume red like roses is blood and that it fills her dreams, perhaps this image of violence reminds her of how her presumed mother was killed? That's a pretty depressing line if that's the case.

I am assuming and presuming too much! In a way, all this speculation about both Ruby and Yang definitely makes it seem like it is these two, not the other less happy characters, who are the most mysterious. Ruby's past is kind of ambiguous, and we're not really told much of anything about Yang. They apparently shared a dad (we assume one or both are adopted) who seemed like a pretty normal, encouraging kind of father. He would frown upon boys and tell Ruby to make friends. Whoever he is he sounds like a good man anyway. There's also Ruby's uncle, but despite these relatives who we cannot be sure are blood-related there's still very little we know of these two siblings. So I guess the answer is to just keep watching the show and find out!

Meanwhile we have Blake...bows, yellow eyes, pointy ears, weird outfit er... I mean, cool and aloof Blake! Eyes are said to be very important in this series just like colour and Ozpin immediately noticed Ruby's grey eyes when he first met her. Other obvious eyes are Weiss' icy blue eyes and Yang's colour-changing eyes. (it seems pretty standard to adopt red eyes when one is angered anyway) But then there is Blake with her golden eyes contrasting her...black hair (I'm not very poetic today!) and her pointy ears if you've noticed on her model. These attributes remind me of a CERTAIN character from a CERTAIN series back in the good ol' nostalgic years of my mostly embarrassing youth. Blake also represents introverts worldwide by basically being Raven from Teen Titans, enjoying good ol' literature and not so much the company of others. She is the antithesis of Yang. In fact you could say one is the PIRATE and the other is the NINJA! And then we'll have massive wars between fans of one and the other! Yang's pretty brash after all, what with her action before diplomacy on her badass bike. Meanwhile Blake is first seen doing something probably not legal and so both of these characters likely do not care for the whole "rules" thing and both for very different reasons.

All the more entertaining when they're inevitably paired up...probably because Yang blew herself so far ahead and Blake, being the ninja she is, also went super far ahead with no one noticing. There's actually not much for me to say about what could possibly be Blake's motives and backstories and such. Her trailer was always my least favourite one. Not because of Blake or even the sudden voice acting ,or even Adam himself (spotlight-stealing bastard he is) but the song itself just bothers me. "From Shadows" sounds like a Simple Plan song in a fantasy setting. I'm sorry I just said that. No, I'm not sorry. It does sound like a Simple Plan song! It probably wouldn't have except a male singer started singing in this really high note that sounded a lot like the lead singer of Simple Plan, so uh... And the lyrics are basically "we're born into terrible life we're going to get revenge you all suck rargh" which is just overdone in so many of my favourite songs of my embarrassing youth. Goddamnit Linkin Park.

But besides the vocals the song was quite good. I liked how it began and ended in this piano I think. Unfortunately From Shadows takes up a huge chunk of "I Burn" so I also cannot love that song as much as I want to. But yeah now that I think about all these hints, foreshadowing, Blake's book, protesting fauna, lyrics in all the songs, the fact that she and Adam were going to blow up Schnee cargo... it's all pretty obvious actually. Blake isn't mysterious at all! How did I think that initially? I was like "BLAKE IS SO UNKNOWN I DUNNO WHAT TO THINK OF HER" and then just thinking a little harder made everything clear. The only part that might bring up questions is how Monty said Blake was a character everyone would realize they love twenty episodes in. At this point of the series that comment makes more sense for Weiss, unless he is foreshadowing that Blake is going to cause some controversial events in the near future that will make us hate her or something. And maybe she will due to her absence in the last two episodes. Who knows! We'll see how Blake turns out!

Speaking of Weiss...there are many people out there who make me sad when they say they dislike Weiss. Oh, the sadness it brings to my heart, the pain it brings to my chest, the utter dismay I have for...well okay, being a tad melodramatic. In fact if you don't like her it's pretty understandable. Even so, she is my favourite. I can't actually tell if she is the most popular RWBY character or most hated but because these two are so fuzzy she probably isn't one or the other and Yang or someone is probably most popular. I have no clue. There's no poll out there or anything. She does bring in quite a lot of discussion and for good reason! Just like Blake there are many mysteries abound with her character, but also like Blake we are given sufficient clues to speculate on-and-on-and-on. In fact at first glance Weiss is probably the most predictable and obvious character from here on out. She will learn the MAGIC OF FRIENDSHIP and become Ruby's reluctant BESTEST friend just like all those other stories with all those other foil characters. And since this is all so incredibly predictable and expected, it's not a subject I will touch on. Yes I already ship them shut up. 

What I do want to talk about is how refreshing Weiss as a character is. Yes, I just said that after noting how predictable her story arc will probably be. Even though she likely won't subvert some common story practices, there are parts of Weiss I've never seen before. This could probably be explained by the fact that I don't really watch much movies or care for much animes or read much novels, so whatever it is I may be pointing out might actually be done quite often in the media already and I'm just plain ignorant. Still, there are a few aspects of her design and how she's going to play out that I find very fascinating. The biggest is probably her scar. Scars aren't really that new or anything like that. Plenty of heroes and villains alike have scars. There are even characters named Scar with scars on them to further push the point. Scars are easy writing devices to give us a sense of mystery and melancholy for a character or perhaps tell us that this person is experienced in battle and is quite badass. What makes it different here is who Weiss is. I can't think of any character who acts quite as "bitchy" as pretty much every fan has called her as Weiss to have such a mark on her face. Someone who you would assume would be very touchy with their looks. A rich person with all the resources in the world to keep themselves looking nice and due to such an elegant and delicate fighting style, would be literally spotless. That's what the colour white means anyway. It's purity. It's perfection. It is the colour of cleanliness.

But here, we have a rebellious child raised in an environment where everything is likely given to her. And yet even if she is given anything she wants, she is burdened by massive expectations and pointed in a direction she never chose. There's already a design choice for this very aspect of Weiss and it's her ponytail, positioned on the side to make her appearance asymmetrical. But her scar gives her another mark and makes her even more asymmetrical...which is already fine enough and kind of standard in design already, but to slam the point even further, Weiss' scar is crooked. Her scar, already an imperfection on a supposedly perfect and pretty face, isn't even perfect in itself. Some people say there's actually two scars because our lovely over-analysing fans (myself included) noticed that some frames had her scar still there before the knight smashed her in the face, though most other frames there's nothing there. Maybe she had the bottom scar already and the top one was caused by the knight? Or maybe it was an animation error. Even though the latter is most likely it is also most boring. Even so, such subtle design choices (and I do mean subtle, half of Weiss fanart forget her scar, and 90% of Weiss fanart forget it's meant to be crooked!) do make a character more interesting than you would initially expect. 

And then there's the sadness of her image song. Weiss' knees buckle in her trailer. She's singing. She's reluctant. She never seems satisfied even when she kills her opponent. Episode 5 drives this point even further, when Weiss calls for Ruby's name after the beowolves appear. Maybe, just maybe, Weiss wasn't initially planning to team up with Pyrrha just for popularity and grades, but she knew of her expertise in fighting and due to her lack of confidence, thought she'd be the best to help her survive her own initiation? In fact, while I expected Weiss to get very angry and amusingly bitchy over being paired up with Ruby, she instead looked defeated as if life was always like that, and she'd never actually have her way despite everything seemingly looking like she would. Damn, that's already a lot of depth I see in a character with like ten minutes of screentime! Bravo writers, bravo. 

Or I'm too much of a fan of Weiss and am looking for things that aren't there. I WOULD say that, but considering all of Monty's other works...it doesn't seem all that farfetched. Like I said before, Weiss does seem the easiest to predict of the four and well, I wouldn't be surprised if I was right but there's definitely plenty of possibility to be wrong.

What will DEFINITELY be wrong is my pet theory that Blake was actually Weiss' pet cat that she thought ran away but her family actually lied to her and took Blake to be animal-tested along with Adam the goat or something and they, through their might, anger and as a side-effect of the tests became humanoid, escaped their torture and became terrorists while Weiss assumed since even her cat didn't want her she was the loneliest of all I mean NOPE I'M NOT THINKING TOO HARD ABOUT THIS SERIES AT ALL NOT AT ALL WHERE'S EPISODE SIX DAMN IT

Oh man. Maybe my prediction that I won't rant about this series long-term is wrong after all. LET'S GO FIND WEISS ICONS!!

dis ben spawtto

EDIT: There should probably be some context on why I think Blake's outfit is weird. It usually looks fine in artwork, but her model's outfit, mostly the crotch shadow seems very WEIRD to me. I am not sorry that anyone who just read this will now always notice that shadow. Hahahaha.