Review: RwBy “Fall”

 

For those of you who are confused, It’s heavily implied that either Mercury or Emerald (or Possibly Neo) have a semblance power that’s ability to create visual and mental illusions which appear to be entirely real (such as when Coco thought she saw Yatsuhashi in the doubles round.) which caused Yang to believe she was being attacked and simply defend herself. However since it was an illusion and since no one else could see it, to everyone else it looks like she just attacked him for no reason. But regardless, It’s one hell of a way to keep us hooked since we have 6 more episodes left…

Overview.

Well I wasn’t expecting that. It looks like the drama was set up in part to cause an uproar to draw in the Grimm due all the negative emotions. It’s worth remembering that Cinder has control over all the electronics for a large part. She could have been manipulating the monitors showing the replay and what happened in some way if it isn’t all just an illusion of some sort. Also all of the Atlas robotic guards could likely be under her control.

I had a strong feeling that RWBY would be one of those shows that starts out kind of kiddish and gets more mature as it goes along. I’ve seen this happen with other shows and it’s really great to see character development for each of the characters and how they’ve grown since the beginning of the show so I feel like RWBY is going to be one of those shows that goes on for a really long time and the characters change drastically by the end of it. 🙂

Perhaps the greatest sin of this big storyline-reveal is how out of left-field this “Maidens” lore/plot is. There has been nothing from the previous seasons or even this season to even set it up so why do they play it off like its suppose to be this grand reveal almost?? Dammit RWBY writers, I just wish you could elaborate on the plot alot better. Like legitimately stop setting so many damn things up and then not finishing them and just adding even more things to make it complicated and then tell us that “oh don’t worry you’re gonna know what all of this means soon” I mean Literally its been nearly 3 Motherfucking years and we still have no idea what Cinders plan is we don’t have a full entire backstory or on every single character because you keep setting things up and then nothing ends up really happening to advance the plot! Give us something!

On another note, I’m a little confused by how Pyrrha (and I guess the rest of people in Remnant) seem so shocked by the existence of “Magic” when Semblances and Aura are practically already magic. So I guess since Semblances and Aura are something that can be manipulated through will and brought out by training they’re considered science in this world? And its so commonplace for them they don’t think of it as “Magic”?

I’m not entirely convinced that’s Pyrrha due to end scene smirk last episode, so they’ve possibly just spilled their plans to I’m guessing whoever has said illusion semblance powers, and then I get how the bad guys can change what’s played on the replay screen, but they can’t have changed what everyone saw with their own eyes…. right?

Many of the fans got a prediction that Cinder didn’t expect Yang to win. Remember that they never researched or targeted Yang before the festival, so it’d make sense that they had no idea that her semblance would turn damage into power. Henceforth, Mercury thought things were going according to plan, but got cocky, didn’t look at her aura meter, and ended up losing fair and square to Yang, signifying once again how strong she really is.

However, in case they lost, Neo or whoever has the illusion powers was their backup plan, manipulating Yang into doing something that’d look REALLY bad to get team RWBY removed from the tournament anyways. Regardless, team RWBY is still set up for failure, and it’s sad to see that really not be their fault.

As a side note, Yang is likely the best candidate for “tricking” due to her being the most prone to impulsively succumbing to anger.

 

If you pay attention at 15:55 you see Yang punch Mercury in the stomach and when she does there’s this gray color that covers his body.Maybe that has something to do with Yang hallucinating later on when she’s powered down. Maybe, that’s not the case because the announcers would know everybody’s semblance.

 

When Yang turned around and Mercury said “there wont be a next time”, you hear a faint sound effect before Mercury “attacked” that signals someone did something. The same sound was heard when Coco and Yatsuhashi were fighting Emerald and Mercury. When Coco thought Yatsuhashi was behind her, you hear the same sound effect. I honestly believe Neo fooled Coco too. Not Emerald. Or maybe that sound just signals an illusion power being activated in some manner. Guess we’ll find out…eventually.

There is no doubt Mercury lost that battle on purpose. I think he could have won that handily, and would never turn his back on an opponent he was sure was down for the count. The purpose of that fight was to generate the unease in the stadium. It wasn’t even to disgrace Yang, I don’t think they really needed anything other that Yang’s hot temper at the end of the fight for her to react with violence to an attack. Other candidates (Pyrrha for example) would have repelled the attack, or dodged it completely, whereas Yang reacts with a punch, that’s how she is. There will of course be negative light cast on Yang, and she will take her punishment, and maybe start to doubt herself for a while, but the great big goal of that attack was to really just get an entire stadium full of people afraid, worried, and to certain degree, panicked. We say that the Grimm are taking an interest in Vale/Beacon now, the stadium acting like a beacon (topical) to draw them in. This, along with Ironwood bringing the whole Atlesian army to Vale, and the tell-tale signs of conflict on the horizon, Qrow and Winter fighting in the courtyard, the whole town is going to be on edge, and this last fight, by breaking his leg, Mercury probably ensured the Grimm to come clawing at the walls of the Kingdom. Trust me my dudes, Yang will be fine, I think Ozpin is going to understand, Qrow and Ruby both know Yang wouldn’t get violent without a legit reason, I don’t think Yang is going to suffer too much externally from this. I think her confidence will be shaken, she might not be as strong of a fighter when the real battles are starting to get fought, but she’ll snap back. It’s not like the higher-ups at Beacon are completely unaware of the fact they’ve been infiltrated. Plus, seeing as Pyrrha is most likely to accept Amber’s aura, she will probably be able to pick out Cinder as the villain seeing as Cinder is (presumably) the one who attacked Amber and stole her power.

Though to be honest my theory is that Mercury’s leg isn’t broken at all given he has (possibly two) illusion-casting teammates and has proven a very good actor.

Poor Yang, I feel like the only people who are gonna believe her are her teammates, maybe JNPR and CFVY since Coco and Yatsuhashi faced them and they used that illusion thing on Coco. (I’m hoping they at least touch upon this in the next episode.)

There’s now a theory going around among the RWBY fan community on Tumblr and Reddit that Ruby is already one of the maidens. If the “Summer” they speak of was Ruby’s mother then when she died, thought of her daughter Ruby and gave her those powers, That’s why Ozpin mentioned her “silver eyes”. in episode 1 of Season 1. Like a lot of people, my first thought upon hearing that the last person in a maiden’s thoughts when they died is who gets the power was that if Summer was a maiden, she absolutely thought of Ruby and Yang in her dying moments. She’s a mom. It’s what moms do. (Besides dying in cliche Disney stories. :P)

That said, I’m not sure I really believe that all the season-named characters are maidens. I definitely don’t think Winter is one. The Autumn maiden’s name was Amber, not Autumn or Fall. The odds that Summer’s parents or the Schnee’s just happened to name their children after a season whose power the girls then inherited are minuscule, how could their parents know?

At last, I think I’m prepared to say that this is a season which, for the most part so far, has held up exceptionally. Plot on plot on plot. Character development when needed, for those who needed it. Strong, intriguing writing which makes us ask questions rather than trace the brick road to the obvious, irritating resolution. That, in addition to more tempered and less caffeinated action sequences, is the formula which has found this year’s RWBY moving and doing Monty Proud.

Of course, there are gripes still to be had. Some of them – splitting of screen-time, content focus – are sure to be addressed as the show continues to mature, and can be overlooked in favor of the current good points. Others, and by that I pretty much mean Chapter 2, as well as the personalities of the show’s male characters, continue to exhibit how easy it is for the writers’ room to fall back on familiarity rather than putting a more concerted focus into the writing of the females, who (as we find out in this latest episode) actually have a claim to main character billing, and now have a claim, limited though it may be, to superiority over their opposites in show’s universe.

Another big plot-hole in this episode is that we are six episodes into this season at the time of this review and Blake has had absolutely zero storyline! Adam (From the Black Trailer) is back after the Events of Season 2 and they have yet to touch upon what role he’ll play in this plot!

I Can’t believe that we now have to wait two weeks to see what happens next as this is the last episode of this year. Next week a new “World of Remnant” and on January 16th  They’ll be back with Episode 7.

If Rooster Teeth wanted us to be left hooked for a “Mid-Season Finale” they succeeded.