RWBY Tuesday #2: World Of RWBY (Volume 1-4)
Article by Sean Wilkinson,
I have been a fan of RWBY ever since I discovered feature-length season compilations of the first two Volumes on Netflix (back when they existed...), and I make a point of re-watching the series every time a new Volume releases because I like it so much and I always discover something new that I didn't notice before. Every time I watch RWBY, I think to myself (because thinking to other people is futile if you don't have psychic powers), I should do a post on these callbacks and my speculations! But I never did because laziness, hangovers, etc.
To begin, RWBY is a CGI magical girl/shonen/school web series created by the late Monty Oum. It was originally released exclusively on Rooster Teeth before seeing brief diversification onto Netflix, returning to Rooster Teeth exclusivity, getting a Japanese dub on CrunchyRoll, and recently gave Volume 9 a staggered release between CrunchyRoll and Rooster Teeth because of the Funi/Crunchy merger, everything is owned by either Disney or Warner Bros., and let's just say RWBY didn't get an Avengers crossover....
Volume Two is more of the same, just with the insanity turned to "a dog survives being mailed in a Pringles can and turned into a fireball" levels. School and heroism shenanigans continue, including the most amazing food fight I've ever seen, a school dance where Jaune and Pyrrha start to acknowledge their feelings and Ruby battles the mystery villainess from Volume One (named Cinder Fall, and that last name will be important in Volume Three), who broke into Vale's communications and data transmission center and left a backdoor virus that will also be important in the next Volume (probably inadvertently aided by the fact that Ruby had Weiss use her family's credentials to access classified documents on a public network earlier in Volume Two so they could use Big Data to catch Torchwick, but whatever). While it has some cooler moments than Volume One (a better White Fang infiltration, a cooler Torchwick fight because giant mech, a more memorable--albeit Avengers-coattailing--final fight, and great next-Volume setup on multiple fronts), Volume Two falls into the same trap that DanMachi II did: trying to do too much and feeling disjointed and simultaneously too slow and too fast, like it should have been split into multiple seasons. Granted, Volume One packed in a team-building arc, a Jaune Arc Gets Bullied arc, and a bookending narrative about stopping Torchwick from stealing Dust. But Volume Two has the dance, offscreen training for the upcoming Vytal Festival Tournament (Team RWBY discusses it, and the increased cast size that includes temporary transfer students from other academies hints that it's coming up, but there isn't a blatant, onscreen training arc like most shonen series have--though, with its color-coded female leads, it's more of a bishoujo senshi series, I guess), figuring out what General/Atlas Headmaster James Ironwood is doing in Vale, stopping Torchwick and the White Fang from stealing experimental Atlas mechs, a side focus on thief Emerald Sustrai and Tae Kwon Do assassin Mercury Black (Cinder's help from the Volume One post-credits scene) as they infiltrate Beacon as transfer students, the team shadowing an eccentric history doctor into the abandoned city expansion of Mountain Glenn to stop Torchwick and the White Fang from releasing a Grimm stampede into the Vale suburbs, Ruby learning that Penny is an Atlas-created battle robot, a four-on-four train fight where Yang is rescued from a mute illusionist named Neopolitan by a mysterious swordswoman in a Grimm-like helmet (similar to the masks the White Fang wear during operations), Weiss fences against a Faunus with a chainsaw, and Blake defeats Torchwick, but then the train (the one Blake and her male companion attacked in the Black Trailer?) crashes and explodes, and the entire cast (Cinder's group included, because fostering fake goodwill and their evil plans are timetabling too fast) does the "Avengers, Assemble" thing to save the Vale-burbs from the resulting Grimm attack. Oh, and Sun's too-cool-for-school best friend, Neptune (who has a thing for Weiss and a fear of water because irony has layers like an onion-ogre) is also there. See; I told you it was a lot.
As overly wacky and disjointed as I find Volume Two nowadays, it was fun enough that I absolutely hated Volume Three when I watched it the first time, and while that sentiment has faded over time, the reasons for that initial hatred still make it a tough Volume for me to get through because I now know what's coming and can spot more and more of the pieces falling into place from the first two Volumes (like that thing with Weiss and the sensitive documents allowing Cinder to hack into Beacon, or the slow build-up of Jaune and Pyrrha's relationship, or Mercury's sparring session with Pyrrha, or the narrator, but I'm giving too much away, so let's move on). The ending credits feature a dedication to series creator, Monty Oum, that I remember giving me a toxic fandom reaction, like, "no wonder this Volume felt so different! The creator is dead and they desecrated his vision! RWBY is gonna suck now!" But as it turns out, Volume Three was already partly finished when Oum passed away, so the dark tonal shift that I perceived as sudden the first time I watched it (even though Volume One spent a great deal of time addressing bullying and race issues and Volume Two dealt with terrorism and almost showed Mercury and Emerald killing a man in its first episode) was part of his vision, and production was delayed for various reasons (monitoring his health, mourning his death, restructuring production, and recasting and re-recording for Ren--who was voiced by Monty Oum until Volume Three, when his older brother, Neath, stepped in following his death--among other reasons).
Volume Four begins by not focusing on the main characters at all, which I thought was an annoying choice the first time I watched it. I was impatient to see how things would continue from Volume Three's finale, and instead, we get scenes of menial labor with some bland-looking farmboy and a full, Legion Of Doom board meeting sequence with Cinder (who now has similar facial scarring to Amber from the previous Volume, a raspy voice, and a new costume design so her voice actress, Jessica Nigri, has something to cosplay as at the next ComicCon), Emerald (who now serves as her interpreter and is visibly horrified at how evil the evil hideout looks, what with the constant streams of Grimm flowing from the surrounding, ink-black pools), Mercury, and three new characters (a bloodthirsty scorpion Faunus named Tyrian who is my favorite new character, a towering mass of muscle named Hazel, and pompous tech genius, Dr. Watts, who is voiced by Vegeta/Piccolo himself, Chris Sabat). They are soon joined by Salem, the series' big-bad, whose entrance should have had Terminator, Shredder, or Darth Vader music backing it. She sends Hazel to meet with Adam and the White Fang, Watts to meet with an unnamed ally in Mistral/Haven, and Tyrian to abduct Ruby.
a.k.a. Gatherer Of Moss.
I originally had very little of a plan of how I would structure the upcoming RWBY Tuesday post (on November 21st); I vacillated between starting with a reprint of the original RWBY Anime Spotlight, simply including a link to it before moving on to the V9 and movie content, doing V9 and the movies separately like I did for DanMachi (anime retrospective and Arrow Of the Orion! movie) and Dragon Ball Super (series and Broly movie, Super Hero movie), or revisiting the first eight Volumes in-depth and doing one, big post of everything.
So because I miss making regular content, I decided the answer was yes.
So because 2023 is the year of taking care of my SCWs (that's Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda, which I think is a Pokémon?) from previous years, today, I'm doing the in-depth thing for the first four Volumes of RWBY, with Volumes Five through Eight getting the treatment next week, Volume Nine being covered as scheduled, the two-part Justice League crossover getting its own post that Friday, and everything getting compiled together on the 28th.
And now, a compilation of call-to-action formalities: please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave some Semblance of a comment at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you Scroll, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and summon that rocket-powered gym locker full of the latest news on my content.
The series takes inspiration from steampunk and fairy tales. With its on-the-nose character names, deceptively simplistic animation style (which has caught a lot of criticism despite how fluid and epic it can be), short episode time, frenetic action scenes, slapstick comedy, and somewhat predictable plot mechanics, RWBY seems to be geared toward a younger audience, but is in reality, better, deeper, more complex, sometimes darker in tone, more socially aware, and more badass than it has any right to be.
But before it even started, we were treated to the Color Trailers: A short combat, personality, and talent showcase for each of the four eponymous leads.
The Red Trailer has peppy team leader Ruby Rose (though she has yet to even meet her team during the trailer's events) showing off her Rose Petal Semblance (an attack/teleport that turns her into a collection of rose petals to allow her to bypass enemies and obstacles, rescue allies, and sometimes defy gravity, at high speeds, and is existentially terrifying because she leaves rose petals behind every time she uses it, possibly losing part of herself in the process, though the ramifications of this are never addressed) and the Crescent Rose (a red scythe that transforms into a sniper rifle and can be fired downward to act as a Scrooge McDuck/Shovel Knight/Cranky Kong pogo stick or add cutting force to the scythe) against a horde of Grimm. Character dialogue in Volume One places this before the series.
The White Trailer shows proper ice princess Weiss Schnee (that’s Snow White in German--and yes, she has powers to match) singing a "Mirror, Mirror"-inspired ballad (vocals and songwriting provided by Casey Lee Williams and Jeff Williams, respectively) as accompaniment for her battle with a white knight the size of your average Dark Souls boss. This possibly takes place some time in Volume Four.
Unlike the Red and White Trailers, the Black Trailer features dialogue, and follows Blake and an as-yet-unknown red-headed swordsman as they rob a train. But it's not the Soul Train because gingers aren't allowed to ride the Soul Train.... The trailer mainly keeps the duo's identities and motives vague, but differentiates their perspectives on collateral violence quite well. Later information places this before Volume One.
The Yellow Trailer follows prideful powerhouse Yang Xiaolong, who is also Ruby’s stepsister, as she shakes down a nightclub owner named Junior (established here, and again in Volume Four, to be a stupid name) for information on someone's whereabouts (presumably her mother? or Ruby?), which escalates into an epic bar brawl with some of the best fight choreography and animation in the first Volume. This is also set prior to the series, and will be slightly important in Volume Two.
The series itself begins with a mysterious narrator giving a Cliff's Notes introduction to the world of Remnant (humans, Faunus--this series' take on demi-humans--the Creatures Of Grimm, Dust--RWBY's steampunk elemental energy source--and the four kingdoms: Vale--where most of the first three Volumes take place--Mistral, Atlas, and Vacuo), and those who are stumbling across the series for the first time, like I was, meet Ruby Rose at the From Dust 'Til Dawn shop (hinting that, if this were a more adult-oriented series, it wouldn't be out of place for one of the characters to be a vampire with a shotgun penis), where she nearly thwarts a robbery by the Clockwork Orange-inspired Roman Torchwick, who is in league with a mysterious pyrokinetic woman. Ruby's escapades draw the attention of Beacon Academy's headmaster, Ozpin (who draws attention to Ruby's silver eyes) and his assistant, Glynda Goodwitch (because Wizard Of Oz references, and her Semblance power lets her rewind the scenery's destruction animations). As such, Ruby gets enrolled at Beacon a year early, and is introduced to her future teammates, as well as comedy-relief Rule 63 Joan Of Arc (Jaune), beautiful celebrity and Volume Three foreshadowing incarnate (Pyrrha Nikos), Rule 63 Thor (Nora Valkyrie), and her childhood friend but definitely don't ship them, Asian Martial Arts Guy (Lie Ren). When they're not slaying Grimm, running afoul of Torchwick's Dust heist schemes, or rocketing around the forests of Vale on their transforming weapons, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren spend the first season dealing with typical high school social problems like boring classes, bullies (Jaune gets bullied and extorted for no less than four episodes), fitting in, making unlikely friends (Ruby, Weiss, and Blake have race and class issues to work through for most of the Volume), and struggling with budding romantic feelings (Jaune has a crush on Weiss--who constantly rejects him--all the while ignoring anime hair color tropes and the gorgeous cereal commercial celebrity and combat prodigy who wants nothing more than to help him be his best self to the extent that she gives Jaune some of her soul to help him activate his own soul energy, which makes Volume Three all the more painful to anticipate and watch). The final two episodes are an almost-out-of-nowhere revelation dump that introduce two new characters (the socially awkward and mysteriously overpowered Penny Polendina, whose weapon of choice is a backpack full of Doctor Octopus swords that she can fling at the opponent or combine to fire her Aura--that's the soul energy I mentioned above--like a railgun; and Sun Wukong, a monkey Faunus with a staff that splits into dual-wielded, semiautomatic flintlock pistols because that's how guns work but it looks cool, but also Journey To the West references). Blake and Weiss explode at each other and Blake runs off after letting slip that (even though I spoiled it last time by referring to her as a "goth, ninja cat-girl") she is secretly a Faunus, and used to be a member of a radical Faunus-rights group called the White Fang (who caused Weiss' family a lot of trouble in the past because her father's company runs a Dust monopoly that uses Faunus as slave labor). So the remains of Team RWBY, along with Penny and Team JNPR, go looking for Blake, who reluctantly teamed up with Sun to infiltrate a White Fang rally where Torchwick is the guest speaker. The group fight off Torchwick and his White Fang associates, but he escapes to meet up with the woman who helped him escape from Glynda and Ruby in the first episode. But now, she has help.
There wasn't much to this first Volume (I had to constantly double-check because my brain wished some of the fights in Volume Two were in Volume One instead), but the team's first big fight against a Nevermore (giant, raven-like Grimm) remains an early highlight of the series. In terms of "this will be important later," Ozpin frequently alludes to being much older than he looks and having "made more mistakes than any man, woman, or child on this planet," and Blake mentions that she is reading a book about a man with two souls, each fighting for control. These will be important in Volumes Four and Six. Also, make note of any time you see any normal-sized black birds.
There are also the "World Of Remnant" shorts that share the same art style and female narrator as the beginning of the series' pilot: one explaining "Dust" (and making allusions to Cinder and another character whom we will meet in Volume Four), one going into more detail about the four "Kingdoms" (and referencing the small towns and tribes of wandering bandits in between; another allusion to Volume Four that will be explored further in Volume Five), one explaining "Grimm" behavior and intelligence, and a DVD/Blu-ray exclusive one that parrots what Pyrrha told Jaune about how "Aura" works.
Other things that will be important later include Jaune telling Ren in the finale that they will visit "that village" some other time (Volume Four), the underground train tunnels (referenced again in Volume Seven), and the finale's ending (where the mystery man from the Black Trailer returns, revealing that he is in league with Cinder's group and intends to execute a hostile takeover of the White Fang on their behalf; he will return in Volume Three, and the White Fang takeover will be felt in Volume Four and explored in more depth in Volume Five) and post-credits scene (where Yang confronts her rescuer, who says, "we need to talk"). Dialogue in Volume Three seems to suggest that this scene does not take place between Volumes, but it could just be a rare case of the writers forgetting continuity. Whatever it may be, she will come up in conversation (and in a certain photo) in the next Volume, and play a big part in Volume Five.
As for the content of Volume Three, it is the obligatory Fighting Tournament Arc season, focusing on the matches and associated social dynamics of the previously hinted-at Vytal Festival Fighting Tournament.
The main Teams of note are RWBY (Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang), JNPR (Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren), and CMET (Cinder, Mercury, Emerald, and Neopolitan, but I'm going with Team Comet and what Wikipedia says is Neo's birth name--Trivia Vanille--because otherwise they'd be Team Semen😳), with Team CFVY (a Team name that gives me Trump Tweet flashbacks, but it's Coco--the one who fights with a minigun briefcase from the Volume Two finale--Fox, Velvet--a rabbit Faunus who was bullied in Volume One and was shown to have a photography hobby in the "Penny is a battle droid" episode of Volume Two, but her Semblance compels her to photograph people's weapons for reasons that were hinted at in Volume Two's finale and will be awesome in this Volume's big Avengers-type battle--and Yatsuhashi--the Team's Big Guy With Anime Sword) being important in the finale, Sun and Neptune's Team providing comedy relief, and Penny returning for some setup in the Tournament's second round. The Tournament begins with a four-on-four Team Round, followed by a Doubles Round, and finally, a Singles bracket. Participants of the Doubles Round are not required to represent their Teams in the Singles Round, but some do.
Notable moments during the Tournament include Sun and Neptune winning the Team Round despite being at a 2-4 disadvantage and having to deal with Neptune's fear of water, Weiss earning the respect of a young man whose father's shop was driven out of business by the Schnee Dust Monopoly--I mean Company--by eliminating herself to weaken his Aura in the Doubles Round, Yang's fight with Mercury, and Pyrrha's fight with Penny (until it goes horribly wrong).
Outside the arena, we get such incidents as Weiss' father freezing her credit card so she can't buy her team giant bowls of Ramen, a duel between Qrow (Ruby's mentor and "Uncle," and Yang's biological Uncle) and Winter (Weiss' older sister and General Ironwood's second-in-command), and a meeting between Ozpin, Ironwood, Winter, and Qrow, wherein Qrow mentions having seen "the things She's made," and identifies Cinder as the one who hacked into Beacon and as being "responsible for Autumn's condition." This meeting splinters off into Ozpin having a conversation with Pyrrha about her favorite fairy tales (among others, she name drops "The Two Brothers" and "The Girl In the Tower," both of which will be important in Volume Six, though we hear a shorter, more historically integrated version of "The Two Brothers" in Volume Four) as a lead-in to telling her that most fairy tales are based in historical fact (especially "The Four Maidens," this series' origin-type tale for explaining the four seasons, which is interesting because Cinder's last name is Fall and because of Qrow's earlier comment about "Autumn's condition," plus Weiss' sister is named Winter and we find out from this Volume's opening scene that Ruby's mother--presumed dead--is named Summer...but where's Spring?), Winter suggesting that Weiss train her Glyph Semblance (thus far used for gravity, time, and temperature manipulation) for Summoning avatars of fallen Grimm (also that she should call their father if she wants her money back), and Qrow catching up with Ruby and Yang (wherein he flashes a picture of his old Team, in which we see their father, Tai, Qrow himself, a woman who looks like an older version of Ruby--so, it's Summer Rose--and the woman who saved Yang on the train in Volume Two--unmasked as she was in the post-credits scene, but Qrow quickly puts his thumb over her face so dramatic irony and questionable continuity can work their magic on the audience when Yang barely has a reaction to it).
Meanwhile, Cinder begins to make the hacking incident from the school dance pay off by accessing Ironwood's Scroll (I haven't mentioned these yet, but they're basically the RWBY equivalent of a smartphone or mini-tablet) to learn that Penny is a robot (which, when combined with Mercury and Pyrrha's duel from Volume Two, causes a major revelation to be broadcast to all of Remnant because Volume Three constantly reminds us that the world is watching the Vytal Festival Tournament), and Emerald uses her Hallucination Semblance to make Yang shoot Mercury in the leg on camera after their match (but surprise! it's later revealed that Mercury's shotgun shoes are actually prosthetic legs, and he wasn't really injured!) and to make Pyrrha see Penny using hundreds of her marionette blades so that she overuses her Polarity Semblance to accidentally cut Penny to pieces and reveal her true nature to the world. Also, on top of learning that Penny is an Atlas combat droid, Cinder has been using her hacker Scroll to fix the "random" matchups in the Tournament and control the broadcast, framing Yang as a product of Beacon's "brutal" teaching style and Penny as Atlas' first attempt at some kind of Judgement Day scenario, which causes panic among the arena's spectators and draws hordes of Grimm to attack the city for the second Volume in a row.
Following Yang's match with (and "attack" on) Mercury, we get a flashback episode that shows how Cinder recruited Emerald and Mercury, as well as a pretty spectacular three-on-one with Amber (the aforementioned Autumn), wherein Cinder manages to wound her and steal half of her Maiden powers with a small, spider-like Grimm before Qrow intervenes. We also see how Cinder used her new powers to intimidate the White Fang into working with her group.
In the present, Yang is disqualified from the Tournament for her perceived conduct and has a conversation with Blake (wherein Blake expresses concerns that Yang is going down a dark path like her ex-lover--the red-headed swordsman from the Black Trailer and the Volume Two finale, later revealed to be named Adam Taurus and have bull horns under his White Fang mask, so [insert "evil, horned, soulless ginger" joke here]--but ultimately she believes Yang, possibly hinting at a future yuri relationship in the series?), Ruby talks to Velvet and starts putting together that something shady might be going on with Mercury and the rest of Team CMET, and Pyrrha struggles with her feelings about her match with Penny, her relationship with Jaune, and whether or not she should embrace the destiny Ozpin and Ironwood proposed to her (undergoing a procedure to transfer Amber's Aura and remaining Maiden powers into her, and possibly sacrificing her own soul and identity in the process).
With Grimm invading Vale, Cinder hacking into Ironwood's automated soldiers, and Neopolitan helping Torchwick commandeer Ironwood's flagship, Jaune and Pyrrha rendezvous with Ozpin to start the procedure (with an infuriating amount of stall dialogue along the way that allows Cinder time to arrive, kill Amber, and claim the rest of her powers for reasons that I will explore when I get to my speculations), Ruby uses her rocket-powered gym locker to board the commandeered airship and fight Torchwick (who gloats to an excessively, ironically poetic degree before being eaten by a Grimm--if you've seen the "World Of Remnant: Grimm" short, you'll remember that Grimm choose to eat, but do not need to) and Neo, Blake and Yang team up against Adam (who was there because he brought the White Fang and their wrangled collection of Grimm to the party, reveals himself to be the worst kind of possessive, psycho ex-boyfriend, and cuts off Yang's arm!), Velvet breaks out her awesome trump card (no, this is not a covfefe reference...this time) that Coco was keeping under wraps, and Ironwood (whom we learn here is half-cybernetic, almost like some kind of Tin Wood Man) and the rest of the Vytal contestants and Beacon instructors do an Avengers against the Grimm/robot/White Fang invasion (if you didn't think there was enough of an Avengers influence, the Final Boss is a dragon Grimm that drips other Grimm onto the battlefield like a Chitauri Whale).
But this doesn't mean we're done with the "no one is safe" stakes just yet. Beacon is in ruins, the ensuing carnage is being framed as some kind of globally institutional police brutality scandal mixed with child soldier indoctrination, Penny is dead, Torchwick is dead (not that I care), Amber is dead, Blake is critically injured, and Yang is a global pariah and down an arm.
Watt Ls kud possibliee gau rawng?
Well, Cinder could murder Ozpin (offscreen, so maybe it didn't happen?), make the dragon knock out the Beacon communications tower and leave the world in an informational void of paranoid speculation and panic, and then burn Pyrrha into a wafting of Snap dust while we and Ruby watch, thus triggering Ruby into a Super-Saiyan moment where her eyes glow white, presumably incinerating Cinder and the dragon.
But when the white fades, the finale cuts to Ruby waking up in a hospital, where Qrow tells her that the dragon is still at the destroyed Beacon tower, petrified and attracting more Grimm, that Cinder escaped, and that Ruby's Silver Eyes are a rare but genetic trait (interestingly, Weiss' Glyph Semblance is also genetic) that she inherited from Summer. Meanwhile, Yang is back home with Tai, dealing with PTSD from the loss of her arm against Adam, as well as resentment over Blake running off in the aftermath of the Fall Of Beacon. Time passes, and Ruby decides to set out on her own to track Cinder to Haven, only to find that Jaune, Nora, and Ren have come to join her.
I already spoiled this in the original RWBY Tuesday, but Volume Three's closing narration (the same voice as the Volume One intro and the Volume Two "World Of Remnant" shorts) is revealed to be the mastermind behind the Fall Of Beacon. In the post-credits scene, the newly formed Team RNJR (because JNRR is a stupid name, and also not a color) continue on their journey (JRRN is also not a color) with Qrow watching from a distance before he leaps off a cliff...and turns into--duh--a crow. Even when I had major hate on for Volume Three, these final reveals made me pop off so much!
Volume Three also has "World Of Remnant" episodes, which are narrated by Ozpin this time: one on the "Vytal Festival Tournament" (explaining how it was created after the Great War--which gets its own episode during the next Volume--as a sharing of cultures and a peaceful display of strength through combat exhibition, with Ozpin saying several times that he hopes this time of peace will continue, inspiring false hope in new viewers and driving a dagger of irony into the hearts of repeat audiences), one on "Huntsmen," Huntresses, and the four Academies (explaining their purpose in the world, their free-agent status in terms of kingdom allegiance and higher combat strength than civil servants and military officers--except for Atlas, who supposedly indoctrinate their students and draft their top scorers into military service--the four-member team mechanic, the existence of RPG-style mission boards, and once again, Ozpin's hopes that Huntsmen and Huntresses will put their skills and powers to philanthropic use, stated in thematic juxtaposition to what is about to happen in the coming episodes), one on the "Cross-Continental Transmit System" (which brings up interesting tidbits about Dust going inactive at great distances from Remnant's surface, thus making steampunk-powered space flight and orbital satellites an impossibility; instead, the CCT system was built as a series of wireless transmission towers--one in each kingdom because this series loves the number four and sticking everything of importance to a kingdom in one place--and intermediary relay dishes in surrounding towns, the latter of which are susceptible to Grimm and bandit attacks, as stated in multiple previous "WOR" installments. Ozpin also notes that if one tower falls, the entire network falls with it, mirroring the need for cooperation and agreement amongst the people themselves if Remnant is to be safe from Grimm and the larger threat that looms in the future), and finally, one on "The Four Maidens" (I like to assume that this is Ozpin telling the story to Pyrrha, and as I said earlier, it is an origin-type fable that anthropomorphizes the four seasons as four sisters, utilizing the old fairy tale mechanic of dialogue and plot repetition in fours as Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter arrive in turn at the home of an old, shut-in wizard--whom I think is Ozpin himself for reasons that become clear in later Volumes--and each teach him about the beauty and value of the outside world as they wait for their remaining sisters to join them. In the end, he grants each of them a portion of his magic so that they may better help those they will encounter later in their travels, and they promise to visit the wizard every year because the seasons have an annual cycle).
Though a darker, more involved entry than the previous one, Volume Three is more focused and its components feel like they belong to it, rather than feeling like better versions that should have been in a different Volume. Also, the animation, lighting, and character models look noticeably better than before, and the fights are the biggest we've seen up to this point.
I'd also like to shout out YouTube content creator I'm Strange for pointing out the similarities between the Fall Of Beacon and a board game that Team RWBY and Team JNPR were playing in Volume Two.
Now for the speculations. When explaining the transfer process to Pyrrha, Ironwood mentions that it is the result of experimentation. We'll find out later that Penny is also a product of Aura transfer research, but I suspect we'll see some of the failures rear their ugly heads in future Volumes. The writers rarely have specifically-worded dialogue that isn't referenced at a later point, no matter how obscure. Also, I think there are multiple bird-shifters besides Qrow and another character we've seen before and will show up in Volume Four, because there is one scene very early in the series where multiple blackbirds are flying in formation, and it's clear from context that they are not Nevermore. But the biggest speculation I have this Volume has to do with the way Maiden powers are typically transferred. The power usually goes to whoever was in the person's final thoughts, whether it be their killer or a loved one (unless it's a male; then the next Maiden is chosen at random). This is interesting, considering the rules established for team formation in the fourth episode of RWBY: whoever a student makes eye contact with first upon landing for their entrance exam will be their partner for the next four years, and those duos are combined based on which "relics" (just ordinary objects like chess pieces that have duplicates) they grab upon surviving the trek through the forest. So, ignoring meta reasons, the process is totally random, but the eye contact rule and the Team system pretty much ensures that, if a team is cohesive enough and one of them happens to be a Maiden, the academies can all but control and track who the next Maiden will be. Cool? Terrifying? Both? You decide.
I said in the last RWBY Tuesday that "after heavy losses in Volume Three, Volume Four shifts character dynamics and focuses heavily on recovery, coping, and journeys both physical and metaphorical, but otherwise doesn’t really resolve anything. It feels necessary, but ends too soon with too much unexplained, and is just there as a bridge from Volume Three to Volume Five." That still mostly holds true, but there is a lot going on here that unfolds in parallel narrative form.
Forced to return home to Atlas, Weiss has a solid self-discovery and empowerment arc as she deals with the selfish cluelessness of high society, the ruthless and controlling antics of her Schnee-in-name-only father, and training her Summoning ability when she is put on house arrest.
Blake (with Sun stowing away to join her) takes a ship home to Menagerie (essentially an island Faunus reservation that's shaped like a fish) to make amends with her family, ultimately deciding to help her father reclaim control of the White Fang and restore it to its former, pre-radicalized glory.
Yang (with the help of her father, the two eccentric Beacon instructors who also served as the Vytal Tournament's announcers last Volume, and a shiny, new prosthetic arm) learns to overcome--or go around, in her father's words--her Adam PTSD, accept her disability, not rely on her Ultra Ego-style Semblance, and find direction in her previously "go with the flow" life.
The bland farmboy I mentioned earlier is revealed through the course of Volume Four to be Oscar (a reference to the Wizard Of Oz's real name, Oscar Z. D.I.R.T.B.A.G.), who seems to share a body with Ozpin. So there's Blake's "Man With Two Souls" book from Volume One! He leaves home, eventually crossing paths with Hazel at a train station on his own journey to Haven, and runs into Qrow in Volume Four's season finale post-credits scene.
The meat of Volume Four rests with Team RNJR and Qrow. Ruby, Jaune, Nora, and Ren also have new character designs, as do Weiss, Blake, and Yang, with Jaune getting new armor and weapons trimmed with gold from Pyrrha's tiara (I'm not crying; you're crying!) and Nora and Ren getting more subtle costume changes, while the scattered members of Team RWBY get entirely new outfits.
On their journey to Haven, Team RNJR encounter a number of destroyed and abandoned villages, each marked by a massive hoof-print, and are attacked by Tyrian (who manages to sting Qrow in a personal but creatively choreographed and well-animated fight, but loses his tail and fails his mission in the process, to which Salem comments: "the last eye is blinded; you disappoint me." I thought this was weird, but again, specifically worded dialogue will almost always mean something later, so Stay Tuned for Volume Six?). After the fight, Qrow tells the Team about his bad luck Semblance, the Maidens, and the story of "The Two Brothers" (RWBY's take on "The Lord's Animals and The Devil's Animals," serving as an orgin-type fable for the concepts of juxtaposing forces and polar morality, as well as humanity--the only joint creation of the Good/Creative/Light brother and the Evil/Destructive/Dark brother, who was also the original creator of the Grimm), revealing that the concepts of Creation, Destruction, Knowledge, and Choice that make humanity what it is are also physical McGuffins, each stored at one of the four academies because something something eggs and baskets and the number four. We also see in an earlier scene that Qrow meets up with the mystery woman from his photo, who is revealed to be Raven, Yang's biological mother and Qrow's biological sister. Huh; Raven and Qrow...I wonder if she's one of the other bird-shifters? Anyway, this was after we saw Salem and before we knew her name was Salem, so now we know that when Raven asks Qrow, "Does She have It?" she means, "Does Salem have one of the Relics?" (and I don't mean the cheap, little chess pieces from the entrance exam).
With Qrow's condition getting so bad that he's coughing up blood the color of bad anime cooking, Team RNJR splits up to find help, with Nora and Ren making their way to a mountain cave while Ruby and Jaune carry Qrow through Kuroyuri ("that village" from Volume Two, which was attacked by Grimm when Nora and Ren were children, Ren first activated his Apathy Semblance, and where a particular Grimm--the owner of that massive hoofprint--killed their parents, so there's an air of highly convenient writing to proceedings, but the closure is nice). Ren and Nora regroup with their friends in Kuroyuri, where they work together to defeat the massive Nucklavee (a demonic-looking, centaur-like Grimm with drooping, extendable limbs, an unsettlingly jittery and double-jointed style of movement, and a spine-melting scream), whose destruction creates so much smoke that some conveniently passing Mistral airships see it and land to rescue them.
We also learn in the finale's last scene that Watts' contact in Mistral is Haven headmaster, Leo Lionheart.
The fights in Volume Four are a massive step down in scale from Volume Three, but they all feel more personal with regard to stakes and the choreography is as good as ever, if not better than before. Lots of foreshadowing payoff, strong character writing, and lore to delve into. This includes the final "season" of "World Of Remnant," now narrated by Qrow (whose voice actor, Vic Mignona, would later be fired for sexual misconduct). There are episodes on each of the four kingdoms that are not available on CrunchyRoll, as well as episodes on the land "Between Kingdoms" (reiterating the Grimm and bandits stuff and referencing failed settlements like Kuroyuri and Mountain Glenn), one on "Faunus" treatment, physiology, and genetics, one on the "Schnee Dust Company" that mentions how Weiss' father came to power, and one on "The Great War" between the Mistral/Mantle and Vale/Vacuo factions (which gave me the impression at one point that the king of Vale might have been one of Ozpin's previous bodies) that ended with the peace accord discussed in the "Vytal Festival Tournament" episode.
Time permitting, I will go back and add links to this text and fix a few inaccuracies, but I am already late for my spur-of-the-moment, self-imposed deadline, so until next week, Stay Tuned, and please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave some Semblance of a comment at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you Scroll, follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you make eye contact with, and summon that rocket-powered gym locker full of the latest relics of news on my content.
Ticketmaster,
Animeister,
Headmaster,
Out.
P.S. at 3:37 PM: I finished the link additions and information fixes.
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