Review: RWBY Vol.7 “The Enemy of Trust”

With General Ironwood’s Ace-Op’s being defeated and their Commander Clover now dead at the hands of Tyrian, Team RWBY is now in a race against time to stop Ironwood, while Penny & Winter go up against Cinder to protect the Winter Maiden’s power from falling into the wrong hands and if that’s not suspenseful enough, Jaune’s team goes up against Neo who’s after both Oscar and the relic. Predictably, Neo is no pushover against Jaune’s team relying on ballet movements just to dodge their attacks but later manages to steal the Relic from his belt while also mentally fucking with Ren with her shape-shifting powers.

As they regroup, Jaune’s team continues to escape from Ironwood’s Troops while Oscar decides to stay in an effort to talk some sense to Ironwood which given how screwed up Ironwood’s mental state has become, What James Ironwood does in this scene could potentially forever define him for the rest of the series onward. During Cinder’s attempt to attain power, Fria the current Winter Maiden despite her failing memory manages to protect herself from Cinder’s clutches using her unstable winter powers but Winter Schnee who is actually supposed to be there for her is unable to calm Fria down and is left wounded and unable to get to Fria due to her barrier of icy wind but Penny does, leading to one of the best game-changers in the volume.

And finally, the ending… There’s a monologue that’s narrated to us about what fear does to people, but in tandem with it, we get an epilogue that shows what’s become of the other characters such as how Qrow & Robyn are arrested despite never committing any sort of crime, what’s become of Arthur Watts, Oscar’s current status right now, who the new Winter Maiden officially is, How Cinder is taking her bittersweet victory, and finally how Team RWBY manages to escape along with Penny away from the Atlas kingdom despite their desire to help the very people who want to arrest their asses. But for the grand finale, we see the villainess herself making her grand entrance by floating atop a flying Grimm Whale Monstrosity, the Grimm Bitch-Monster of death herself…Salem!

Our Take

In all fairness, Jaune and his team have never fought Neo before, so of course, they wouldn’t know what to do against a silent murderous cunt who has had years of combat experience and the power of misdirection given her criminal lifestyle. It’s also funny to see a grown woman like Cinder who with already more power than she knows to do with yet complains like a diva, and but in all the years she’s been on the show, we still don’t know anything about her other than she obnoxiously desires more power? Seriously, why does she want the maiden powers so badly? Why is she so fucking twisted in the head? Everyone within Salem’s evil council/inner-circle has a short backstory and valid motivations to side with Salem, but Cinder? Please give us something we should know about her in the next Volume.

To put it mildly, while avoiding some spoilers, Salem has amassed a great and terrible army, the old winter maiden went out like a boss, Ren actually emoted when he could’ve stopped Neo, Cinder achieves a bittersweet victory, and Ironwood has cemented himself with a decision that I’m sure will forever define him for possibly the rest of the series.

If I have any major complaints about this season, they gotta make volume eight’s episodes either get longer, or more of them to make it equally as epic as they just set it up to be.  Strangely enough, there was no traditional post-credits scene this season/volume which leaves things up in the air at this point, but according to a Tweet from one of the head-writers Kerry Shawcross, they opted not to add one in favor of “putting effort into the show with zero crunch times” however it has been previously confirmed that Vol.8 is currently in production so I doubt they’ll just end it here.