Volume 7 Discussion

Off Topic RWBY
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Fights & more thoughts on Vol 7

I’ve had kind of mixed feelings about Vol 7, tbqh. It’s been a little hard to put my finger on WHY I feel that way, but I think it comes down to the fact that the focus on Team RWBY has been lost in this volume: there’s a lot going on in Atlas, and the writers have had to spend a lot of time setting the stage for the political conflicts as well as the good vs. evil (aka Salem) one that lies behind the whole series.

Also being honest, I enjoyed the fights in Vol 6 more, perhaps because they so clearly showed the girls’ growth in maturity and strength. I think that there isn’t as much teamwork in the fights in Vol 7, and often the girls look overmatched until the very end.

Last but not at all least, I am frustrated by the lack of character development of Team RWBY in this volume. There’s been a lot of stuff happening, but we see almost nothing of the emotional and intellectual growth that made previous volumes so interesting. Plus, other than Renora’s kiss and the implied affection between the Bees, there’s been no more exploration of the relationships between them. (And JNR is basically just window dressing in this volume, if we’re being honest. They could have been left out altogether, and the story wouldn’t have changed one bit. That’s … not ideal.)

So, hoping for a big finish with today’s episode, but I suspect I’ll have to wait till Vol 8 to see any of what I was expecting to see this season …

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EVERYONE needs an emotional support Zwei!

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Chapter 13 - The Enemy of Trust

Air date: 2020-02-01T16:00:00Z

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My thoughts on this season
  • It’s pretty obvious that the new writers were more concerned with adding their own ideas to the show than to continuing Miles’ and Kerry’s story. The end result was a loss of focus on RWBY – to paraphrase some wag on the RT forums, it’s disconcerting when your series is called “RWBY” but Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang are peripheral to the story. Quite honestly, they could have left Blake and Yang out of the volume altogether, and it wouldn’t have mattered: that’s how little a role they played this season.
  • The Ace Ops were pointless. The writers killed the only sympathetic character, and the rest of them were one-dimensional and didn’t even appear in the finale.
  • Unbelievably, after a promising start to the Schnee story line, the writers literally just threw Jacques in jail and forgot about the Schnees altogether. What even?
  • Winter was written very unevenly – and her betrayal of RWBY at the end seemed both contrived and at odds with her behavior in the rest of the volume.
  • Robyn started as a strong character, and then they lost the thread. Again, very uneven writing.
  • Maria and Pietro appearing out of nowhere to save everyone was the worst deus ex machina moment in all of RWBY. Ugh – such lazy storytelling.
  • The ONLY character and story line that I truly enjoyed was Penny’s – everything about her was well done, and I loved seeing her struggle with the decision of whether to accept the Winter Maiden’s powers.
  • I really hope that Miles & Kerry get a LOT of blowback regarding their handing off of writing duties to Kiersi and Eddy – otherwise, I fear for the series going forward.
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Post V7 Spoilers

I really enjoyed this volume honestly, but I think the writers might have tried to do waaay too much in so little time. There is no way we would be able truly see them flesh out RWBYJNRQ, Oscar, Ironwood and the whole host of new additions as well as villains to top it all off. I definitely see the loss of focus on the main four, Yang and Blake did not contribute much and Ruby and Weiss didn’t actually interact at all… come to think of it, the only member of RWBY who really interacted were Yang and Blake…

The first half of the volume had a lot of interesting set ups with the Schnees and Renora drama, but it seems like the payoff for that will not be seen anytime soon which is a bit sad if I do say so, Willow had like 80 seconds of screen time.

Winter’s behaviour was something that surprised me as well, but when I think about it Weiss and her military status are all she really has left to cling to, so I can understand her struggle to pick a side and commit to it. I wouldn’t say the Ace OPs were pointless, but there was a lot of wasted potential. Sure it was nice having them as obstacles that RWBY had to overcome, but it felt like they could have done a lot more with Marrow, Hare and Clover especially.

On Robyn, I do agree that she had a strong start but a weaker finish, which is a shame. I also wish we got to see more of the happy huntresses. Felt like Robyn had a lot of hype built up to her from early but got sidelined towards the end…

On Maria and Pietro, maybe thats why we saw them like twice after episode 1… rip

+1 on the Penny storyline, to me that was a rather satisfying one to see unfold, I like her contrast to Cinder. Penny is the inhuman girl who slowly starts to see herself become humanized and develop personal feelings, while Cinder actively dehumanizes herself in her pursuit of power. Im hoping we get more cinder backstory because I want Penny to avenge Pyrrha! My sole complaint on Penny’s story was that Ruby didn’t have more of a role in it, Ruby did not even seem that phased by Penny’s reappearance…

All in all, I love the show and I thought the volume itself was lovely. Aside from the story, everything else was lovely from the music to the fights to the animation quality. My hope is that they try to either do an appropriate amount of work given the limited screentime, or lengthen the screentime. RWBY has way too much in it to be running 14 minute episodes imo…

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Comments on your comments

Bingo. I think that’s exactly what the issue was. The end result was a very unfocused season, unfortunately.

Yes, the contrast between them is really stark – especially now that they’re both maidens! And +100 for more Cinder backstory!

Yah – Ruby seemed like an afterthought for most of this volume, sadly. That’s very hard to accept, as she’s the key to the entire series.

CRWBY continues to raise their standards each season – I thought Mantle was particularly amazing visually! And of course, Jeff and Casey knocked it out of the park once again with the songs and music.

Yep. They need to be doing 30 minute episodes at this point.

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were penny’s eyes leaking green fire only for the aesthetic… the old maiden had blue fire :^/ give me blue penny next season !!

i agree that they could of focused more on RWBY but maybe next season we won’t have to see as much as Ironwood and he can just give treacherous orders and we can say ‘sounds like him :man_shrugging:’ too much ironwood for this to be pleasant but i am glad i got to see neo and penny again yay