Review: RWBY “A Tale Involving a Tree”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Jaune, Weiss, Blake, and Yang try to think of ways to get to the tree and end up find the replacements for the Paper Pleasers, the Genial Gems, who are now able to survive all the things that the pleasers could not. This finally teaches them Jaune to accept change and leads them all to the tree, where they find Ruby, encased in wood and in the middle of her own transformation. Yang is scared of what Ruby might become, but Weiss says they have to welcome whatever they get. They also find the Curious Cat, still possessing Neo’s body and unable to leave the Ever After due to Neo’s lack of reason to ever return to Remnant. He also reveals that Alyx actually turned out to not be evil, but had a change of heart and wanted to stay in the Ever After while Lewis decided to leave, so the Cat supposedly killed Alice. Instead, the Cat decides to take over Ruby’s body. Meanwhile, as Ruby focuses on her change, she meets the Blacksmith, who tells her to think about who she could be if she could be anyone. Ruby picks up her mother’s scythe.

OUR TAKE

We’re at the penultimate episode of the season and it’s the shortest of the bunch so far. Given that the finales are often the longest episode, this will probably be the shortest overall, and it’s actually the shortest episode we’ve had since one in Volume 7, three years ago. As such, there isn’t as much going on, and aside from a few notable revelations, it definitely feels considerably less impactful than the last few episodes that were dropping bombshell after bombshell. I mean, don’t get me wrong, things definitely happened and we’re getting clear build up towards the finale where everyone will likely be able to make it back to Remnant, but it felt more like a reiteration of things already known. Which is perfectly fine! If any episode should feel like a cumulation of everything we’ve learned, it should be the episodes at the end. We finally have a clear idea of the tree’s purpose, we see how the evolution of the creatures here takes place and how it has played into everyone’s individual character arcs this season (aside from Weiss, who didn’t need to change very much I guess), and now everyone is nearly ready to head home older and wiser. I guess it’s just more of the windup this time.

First thing’s first, we’ve finally gotten a voice for Summer Rose, Ruby and Yang’s mother. Everyone is losing their minds about it and yes, it’s nice to finally have a voice to attach to this long built up character, but…it doesn’t really mean much to me. Summer has been one of the show’s bigger mysteries that’s kinda been in the background the whole time, and even now we don’t know what exactly happened to her on her last mission aside from likely being killed. I guess it’s neat to get a proper design for her too, but I’m not crazy about it, and mainly for the reasons I’m not crazy about a lot of the current character designs. I’m happy for everyone who got something out of this brief little nugget, but for me it’s just kind of a reminder of how undercooked this aspect of the show has been for ten years now.
Okay okay, now for some positives. Seeing the Paper Pleasers become the Genial Gems was a great way to wrap up Jaune’s section of the character development and illustrate that what may be happening to Ruby isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And in fact, it may not be bad at all, as change is an important aspect of life that we must all accept. The inclusion of Summer as a flashback was to show what Ruby has been striving towards this whole time and how she may need to reassess her goals, much like Jaune had to face his need to be a hero and save people and how that wasn’t necessarily healthy. Likewise, though it’s to a smaller extent, Blake and Yang finally making their relationship Facebook Official also plays into this theme of accepting change and becoming something better. Meanwhile, Neo seemed to stall out or simply be so overtaken by rage about her loss of Roman that she couldn’t find a way to change, though it didn’t seem like she was ever given the opportunity which would’ve been neat to see and then show her rejecting it. And as mentioned, Weiss seems to have been spared from needing to change in any significant way. I guess the tree decided she had been through enough after losing her whole country.

The Curious Cat revealing the last bits of hidden details about Alyx and Lewis’ journey seemingly redeems Alyx from the apparent demon child she was thought to be when she poisoned Jaune, but it also raises some more questions. The perception of Alyx’s story and its author seems to have been bouncing around quite a bit. First it was just a well known in-universe fairy tale written by Alyx, then it turned out to be semi-autobiographical, then it turned out she left out her brother’s involvement for some reason and may have actually been not a great person, and now I guess Lewis was the real author all along, hid his own existence somehow and for some reason, and Alyx actually decided to stay in the Ever After and may be dead. There’s speculation she may be the Blacksmith, but I guess my point is that trying to retroactively make this fairy tale super important to the background of this show has not exactly worked out for it. Frankly, there are a lot of loose threads about this whole season, even in the great parts, but I can pick all those apart later when the season is done. We’ve got one episode left, one last big push back to Remnant, probably about to get another big redesign for Ruby, and perhaps our first look at what has been happening to all the other characters since the end of last season. So, remember what the door mouse said and feed your head!