Comic Review: RWBY #9 Weiss: Part Two “The Hind”

 

During the events of Vol.4, Weiss encounters her alcoholic mother Willow while forcibly trapped at her home, Despite their uneasy relationship, Weiss is asked for help from her mother to capture a prize beast as a pet in the hopes of making her mother “proud” forgive her for choosing to be at the Beacon Academy over Atlas if she does this one simple task…

Our Take

Within the 2nd chapter of Weiss’s retconned story, I can see why they had to release it now after the recent introduction of her Mother Willow which recently on the show, but compared to the episode that she was introduced in, Willow seems a bit more carefree, confident and wearing a fur-coat while relaxing on a chair to later traveling on horse-back with Weiss showing a more active side of her compared to the subtle abuse-victim we saw in “Cordially Invited”. Also, her butler Klein makes an appearance which makes sense due to the assumption of him fired after Weiss escaped at the end of Vol.4.

Weiss makes the assumption that her mom wasn’t proud of her for choosing to be at Beacon instead of Atlas academy, but Willow assures her that even with all the 1-percenter drama and lack of support Weiss had in her decision, her mom still believed in her. I also think it’s strange to see wild animals established in the RWBY universe outside of Grimm since the show itself rarely showed any other animals such as Horses outside of Ruby & Yang’s family dog Zweii and the discriminated Animal People known as the Faunus, but I guess it makes sense to an extent otherwise we wouldn’t get cheap Cat-jokes about Blake eating Fish throughout the show.

As usual, The comic team involved with this ongoing series writer Marguerite Bennette, Colorist Arif Prianto And once again with artist Meghan Hetrick who still keep things consistent as this “in-between” story that takes after Vol.3 but somewhere in the middle of Vol.4, yet this retcon would’ve left a lasting impression if it was within the Vol.4 episodes and much like the last issue I covered its another bonding-time story between mother & daughter but on a more dysfunctional scale with Weiss and her screwed up alcoholic mom putting her daughter in a begrudging position to trap some helpless animal simply to flaunt and domesticate before the very judgmental 1-percenter friends within Atlas who never valued or respected Weiss’s individuality.

In the end, Weiss takes things into perspective regarding a past argument she had with Blake in her “Chapter 1” story, while also admonishing her Mother for her previous behavior and as icing on the cake, she gives her mom a big “fuck you” in her own unique way. But I think it gets the point across to Willow that she’s more than just her “mother’s daughter” and given the personal growth and development she gains leading up to her current stance in Vol.7, nobody will ever take that away from her.