Review: RwBy “Heroes and Monsters”

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Progressively this keeps taking one dark plot-twist after another and I’m starting to think the RWBY writers are suffering from “Women in Refridgerators syndrome.”

Thinking back to the very first episode, it’s really cool to see how far Ruby’s come in terms of development and characterization. I think I can safely say that this is the volume we really see her come together as a fighter. It’s funny how I seem to love her the most when she’s in combat. I had this thought a lot in vol 2, and it’s stayed with me in vol 3. Of all the hunters and huntresses, she’s the most exciting to see fighting. Yang, of course is a close second, so it must be something in their blood. But this fight scene was just great. I could be That Guy and say ‘yeah, there’s still something missing from it that other volume’s fight scenes had,’ but I always feel that critique comes off as pretty insensitive. The fights that Monty choreographed were amazing. They also are pretty hard to imitate. I’d rather focus on how much the fights have improved since the start of the volume. Definitely getting there, I look forward to seeing how the animation further develops and finds a style of fight scene that may not mirror volume 2, but I think that should stop being seen as a bad thing.

The scene with Weiss finally using her Summon Power for the first time was great foreshadowing and a call-back to “Lessons Learned“.

I am so glad Ozpin still needed Pyhrra’s consent before putting on the soul switch. It confirms my hopes that he is at least somewhat ethical & considerate.

Ironwood is turning out to be much more complex than I thought.

Ren getting a one-shot confirms my fear that he, in his characterization, will always be written as a liability to Nora and subsequently team RWBY. It seems is that SSSN will also be stuck in this way as well. This trend will make it harder and harder for them to credibly use these characters as anything other than jokes.

Now, given that we don’t know a lot about Grimm digestive systems or what happens when one gets eaten by a Grimm, there might be a chance that Roman will, as he said, continue to survive. And I cling to that hope. Because as far as actual deaths go, that was a lackluster one for the character, and I will admit that part of that is bias.

I respect the need for character death, especially when it comes to villains. Sometimes they get so reprehensible that the only way anyone, audience or characters, is going to get closure or some sense of fulfillment is if they die (looking at you Felix). But if you’re going to do that, at least have it be a good one. I think it was the suddenness that got me, and was kind of hoping that should Roman have to make his grand exeunt from the series, it should have a little more fanfare. This is probably one of the few decisions the RWBY crew has made that I don’t necessarily agree with, and am not thrilled with, and it kind of threw off the rest of the episode for me. I’m sure with time I’ll be able to move forward though. And that’s what fan-fic is for.

Points for making it memorable at least. I’ll give them that.

These past couple of episodes were almost exactly what The Fans wanted but not the way they Imagined with random quotes I’ve read from Tumblr & Twitter like: “Stop trying to make RWBY a goofy kids show. You can still keep it light, but make it realistic. Make it dramatic.” And now They’ve expressed regret because either they did it in fan-response or this was carefully planned in Monty’s “Character Bible” that he wrote before he passed away, It’s like the writers are saying to them:”You wanted this and now we’re going to rub your nose in it!”

I’ve noticed that RWBY fans have a tendency to claim they’ve predicted exactly what will happen to the characters and call it cliche and dismiss certain characters because of it. On the RWBY episode discussion forum someone claimed that this episode is proof that Pyrrha’s character development was pointless in this season. Why? Just because she doesn’t become a maiden? She just failed in her duty, because she wasn’t able to give herself up fast enough. If you ask me, the events of this season will have a huge effect on everyone, especially Pyrrha. Pyrrha’s meant to save the world according to Ozpin’s “Inner-Circle”, and a ton of people died and one of her friends had an arm lopped off, AND she killed an innocent robot girl. Seriously people, wait a while before blindly dismissing this season for Pyrrha.

So many questions answered with still just as many unanswered plus more added on. Still contemplating who and what can be salvaged.

That particular moment when Torchwick said to Ruby, “You’re asking the wrong questions, Red!
It’s not what I have to gain—it’s that I can’t afford to lose!”

This right here really paints a clearer image. First it was Junior and his men that were roped into something far beyond their usual range of activities. They’re not necessarily on the evil spectrum, but definitely not on the good one either.

Then it was Adam, his Lieutenant, and the White Fang that were coerced into fighting alongside Cinder, essentially for her, after being threatened with total annihilation.

From Roman’s standpoint, He’s a liar, cheat, and thief, but never out to genuinely harm or injure anybody. But when confronted by the overwhelming chances of Cinder successfully “changing the world,” he feels powerless. As he states explicitly, the people that hired him can’t be stopped by anyone, not even himself. And that makes me think. By mentioning that he can’t stop them, that means that he can’t fathom the thought of actually trying to resist, thus meaning that deep down he truly wants to, but ultimately cannot.

There is definitely some bitterness behind Roman’s words as he effectively loses his shit and starts whaling on Ruby, and god damn do I ever want backstory because he seems thoroughly disillusioned with something. Also the fact that he, again, effectively loses his shit when Neo falls.

Strangely we never see Emerald & Mercury throughout this entire episode and Inconsistently Zwei is also missing in the scenes when Yang is running around.

It’s also interesting to point out that Rooster Teeth was re-using the weapon animations from team RWBY for Velvet’s fight. The only thing I wish is that they touched them up a little bit, because the animation’s improved so much since volume one and the old animations kinda stuck out.

Velvet can literally copy fighting styles all of her fighting animation was reused animation from previous fights she doesn’t even need to know how to use a weapon she’s copying like Taskmaster!

This episode’s greatest sin that I’ve noticed is it’s inconsistency and how things sometimes build-up to something big but don’t always lead anywhere.

For Instance All that drama of Phyrra getting the maiden’s power turned out to be fucking pointless! Adam gets the anime trope of someone being so overpowered that instead of the creators showing an entertaining fight, he just takes two of he main characters in one blow. Ruby can carry and juggle a huge ass weapon around like a pencil but is easily overpowered by kicks. Yet she takes down a monster ten times her size in one hit and is invulnerable to bullets. There’s a character whose power is to use everyone else’s weapon but is taken down because the writers realize how stupid that idea was and how overpowered she had become.

And this is an even bigger one:

When it comes to Sci-Fi books, shows, movies, anime, etc, I HATE when they establish the world’s rules, and then completely break them without an explanation or loop-holes of any kind.

Why would Rooster Teeth bother showing us how aura breaks, and what it looks like, if they’re just going to ignore it for the rest of the series?

We’ve been told on the WoR of Aura, that Aura prevents huntsmen and huntresses from taking any damage until it’s depleted. See for example Weiss after the fight with Neon and Flynt, Amber after being beaten by Cinder and Co, and Mercury after being beaten by Yang. There is the belief that Aura only works when the user has their guard up, but if that’s the case, how did Blake and Yang get hurt?

Now why is that every main character now isn’t being shown to have any aura? Example one is Penny. Pyrrha never dealt any real significant damage, nor did we see her Aura break before she died. The only “logical” excuse is that Penny’s a robot and that Pyrrha’s magnetic wave disrupted whatever Penny has to produce Aura. My one problem with his idea is the fact that as the wave flies through Penny, she doesn’t move an inch. If anything inside her was effected by the blast, she would’ve been knocked back, otherwise, it’s nothing different than trying to throw yourself with a magnet.

Example two is Amber. Now, being fair, it’s likely that the Aura transfer had left her vulnerable to attack (Dammit Jaune, you had one job).

Examples three and four are on the screen right now, Blake and Yang. All we see is Blake being stabbed by Adam, and then Yang getting her arm chopped off, um excuse me? What happened to their Aura?

Before I wrote this, I considered the possibility that it just broke off screen during the fights, BUT that is disproven by both Blake and Yang’s use of their semblances. We see Yang’s as she charges Adam, and we see Blake’s as she takes Yang to flee. Semblance power Aura, they are, in WoR’s words “tangible manifestations of Aura.” Now, I’m no scientist, but you can’t use a tangible form of something, if you have none of it in the first place. Why bother tell us that Semblances need Aura and that if one has Aura, they physically can’t be harmed if they’re just going to stop actually using that concept?

I think we all at some level, collectively, knew that Yang was always the member of team RWBY who would get the shit-end of the stick when it came to tragic characters. Seems like nearly every episode I’ve ever seen even way before this volume shat on Yang pretty hard.

The writing on this show is horribly inconsistent at this point. Just like any anime. But hey at least the fight scenes have been cool.

While researching everyone’s thoughts on this episode, Everyone on Tumblr is irrationally screaming about how Adam is more easy to hate than every Irritating Shrew from “Arrow” (Including Laurel Lance & Felicity), Dio Brando from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and that Martin Shkreli bastard put together, but we don’t really know the entire story?

We know that Blake and him were partners and The White Fang became this organization that was the opposite of what Blake wanted so she left. I feel like Adam and Blake might have had a relationship in the past but thinking about the time line I would guess that they haven’t seen each other in almost a year? I think with the betrayal any feelings of affection are gone with Adam. I don’t think he’s obsessed with Blake, but he knew their eventual encounter was inevitable so he is using his words against her when they finally meet. He wants to hurt her as much as she probably hurt him. According to the book Dante’s Inferno: “The worst sins are from those who betray”.  The love he arguably might have had for her was destroyed in that moment at the end of the black trailer so he wants to destroy any love she has towards others in a form of revenge.

Last season they ended on the line, “Not every story has a neat and tidy ending.” I think we’ll get another one of those endings next week. I’d be surprised if they wrapped up this whole mess in one episode. I’m not one to scream at the screen, but I was this week. Damn you, Kerry and Miles! On a better note, I was very happy to see Velvet kick some butt. I hope we see Ozpin next week take Cinder down. I know that probably won’t happen, but we can hope.

Next week is the season finale and I’m just as curious to see how it ends.