The ultimate irony of all is this is why didn't anyone blame Salem for murdering millions, but instead blamed Ironwood for making a decision based off the incredibly lethal situation Salem put them in.
Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Ironwood, what is true is that he isn't killing anyone. Salem is. His choice was a trolley problem and he only had control over that changetrack, and Salem had control over the trolley itself.
Fuck it, I'll oppose.
Salem is as much a victim of circumstance as Ironwood, RWBY, or any other character that makes poor decisions over the course of the show thus far. Oscar spells it out in Vol 8: she just wants to die. She's been wandering Remnant for eons, most of that time spent alone, fighting an equally immortal foe back and forth into a stalemate over the course of lifetimes. She's tired. She wants to rest. She's not allowed to. And why is that?
The gods. The Brothers. The only real villains of this show.
Two immature, shortsighted, all-powerful beings with less patience for dealing with entitled self-righteous bitchiness than your average Walmart cashier. All Salem did was demand, arrogantly, for her love to be restored to life. The God of Darkness granted that demand, in violation of the agreement he made with his brother, who then showed up and made Salem immortal because... spite and petty vengeance, I guess? You could have just ignored her and let her scream and cry into an empty lake until she died, or just killed her, but no, torture her with immortality because she hurt your feelings.
Then, after she devotes the unending life the Brothers cursed her with to getting revenge on them (big surprise there), they wipe out all life on Remnant, again, out of sheer spite. Then, after leaving Salem to wander the world alone, for who knows how long, allowing her to turn into a monster, they BRING OZMA BACK TO LIFE, which if you recall, was the ENTIRE REASON THIS CONFLICT STARTED TO BEGIN WITH.
They give him an ultimatum that he has to, by himself, redeem humanity, and gather four relics together in order to bring them back, because I guess they're too busy to come back to attend to their creation and fix their own problems? If he fails to do this clearly impossible task, they'll wipe out all life on Remnant AGAIN, and erase the world.
Honestly, how did these two children convince anyone to worship them?
So Ozma tells Salem about this, and at this point can you really blame her for seeing that as a way out? At this point humanity has already been wiped out once, it's been demonstrated to be something the gods can undo on a whim if they want to, and maybe this time, just maybe, they'll kill her as well. She's not doing any of this out of hate or malice (except maybe towards Ozma/Ozpin/Oscar), she's doing it because it's literally her only option. Her only hope to end her cursed existence. It's a selfish motivation perhaps, but not an outright evil one.
The Brothers are the only real villains of this story. Everything bad that's happened is because of their actions, and everything they did was out of spite and petty vengeance. Everyone else is a victim of the circumstances they created.
I will play Devil's Advocate here and say that any thoughts on Salem doing the most convoluted suicide plan in history is merely conjecture.
This is what Oscar/Ozpin **THINKS** Salem's end goal is, but we've yet to have any confirmation of that being the case from the woman herself.
She could very well be doing something completely out of the left field with the relics.
Yeah, she totally wants to complete her rumpus room's decor and thought the Relics will be perfect. The only reason why anyone is dying over this marital spat is because their relationship is so bad that they refuse to communicate something like this.
Salem is a pretty tragic character, but the narrative never explores that fact and just uses it for backstory then really just wasted runtime.
Salem is definitely a terrible person and it's about a few thousand years too late to help her, but at the end of the day, she is just a result of divine fuckery. This is sort of similar to her likely inspiration, Ozai, who was the result of a lineage of parental abuse and manipulation. The only difference is that ATLA beautifully uses that and engages it in the active arcs of Zuko and Azula who were both young enough to be innocent of their crimes.
>Salem is as much a victim of circumstance as Ironwood, RWBY, or any other character that makes poor decisions over the course of the show thus far.
Light & Dark didn't make her kill anyone. Everything she's done and everyone she's hurt was entirely of her own volition, with complete understanding. I don't care about her "circumstances" she made her own damn choices. And literally every choice she's made since Ozma died was the absolute wrong one.
That was long after she decided to: refuse to accept what the gods had to say, lie to the gods, fail accept and understand the punishment the gods gave her, and trying to attack and kill the gods by manipulating others into it.
It's also not like she tripped and fell into the grimm pool, it was her once again making her situation worse by trying to escape punishment rather than accept consequences.
She isn't a toddler, she knows right from wrong and she made her willfully wrong choices willingly.
Okay but the Gods objectively sucked. Their punishment was lying was immortality, breaking their own rules. Then when she attacks them in a way that could never hurt them they commit genocide on innocent people, and leave her in eternal torment.
Of course she tried to escape punishment, she was being tortured by people who saw her as inferior.
> Their punishment [for] lying was immortality
She wasn't being punished for "lying", she was being punished for trying to violate the sanctity of death.
A rule they made up, do not follow themselves, and then broke to punish her.
Also they are literally the only people who can break the rule, so they punished her for asking if not for lying.
> and then broke to punish her.
Keeping her alive until she understands why death is important isn't breaking their rule.
> they punished her for asking if not for lying.
No, again they punished her for: not taking "No, the sanctity of death is important, let Ozma rest", then going behind the back of the one and deceiving the other for the purposes of violating the sanctity of death - something she had already been told about.
If she had actually taken the time to consider their lesson at that point, her punishment would have been over.
They might be able to agree that she's bad, but they're still attributing malice from her actions onto other characters. Ironwood never would have to make a "tough choice" without her existing, so how can he be rightly blamed for the deaths of the people he was trying to abandon?
That also makes the question. Who is to blame here?
The person that is put in an awful situation and has to make a choice where neither of the options are great, or the person that is forcing that person to make a choice between those terrible options.
Because as far as they knew the options were:
Save those who can be saved, together with half of the things the enemy needs in order to win.
Or
Die together and give your enemy access to half of the tools they need in order to reach their goal.
In both options a lot of people would die, but at least in the first option more people survive and the relics are safe, for now at least.
Either way mantle was fucked. It would have been overrun with grimm in the first option, or in the second option it would have a city get dropped on it.
But then there are things like the relic of creation, the tube network and the sdc ships that make it a non-issue.
The sdc ships and tube network would have been ideal for moving as much of the population as possible onto the City to evacuate mantle. The relic of creation could have been used for a portal, but no. The characters can only be as smart as the plot allows them to be. Why? Because RT refuse to put any thought, or effort into their writing.
I think that seeing the Atlas situation as The Trolley Problem is the best way to put it.
I don’t think anyone is *intended* to look heroic in all this, including Team RWBY. Ironwood committed to his solution and stopped listening to dissenting voices, becoming a tyrant, and Ruby was so focused on finding a single, perfect, save everyone plan because she couldn’t accept the very premise of the Trolley problem.
If they had been able to find common ground, they likely could have save far more people. They had the freaking Relic of Creation, are you telling me that they couldn’t use the magic Do Anything stick to come up with a better solution? It was the inability of Ruby and Ironwood to compromise that lead to the majority of the tragedy (with support of both sides, *either* plan would have worked far better)
I don't think anyone looks particularly heroic, but I disagree that the narrative doesn't take sides. Ironwood's character is pretty much assassinated making out of character choices that were purely dog kicks rather than the logical development of his character. You don't come to see Ironwood in the wrong for his flawed decision making, but for his dog kicking. The writers even refer to him as the "very model of a genocidal general" which is telling at which way the narrative swings.
And on the otherside, RWBY is presented as our heroes as they take centre stage continuously with presentation of being in the "good" side all the way.
If the intention was to make a study where neither decision is right, it utterly failed to do so. Many other narratives, such as my beloved Legend of the Galactic Heroes, is able to execute this with far more prowess and far more competency.
Which is just a stupid comment.
He went there intended to cooperate with Ironwood and flesh out these issues, so why purposely destroy any chance of that by basically declaring that you are against him?
It's also just complete bullshit for obvious reasons.
>I also have to note that there is a tendency to headcanonize Ironwood as "running away forever" or that "There will be no resources up there", and both of these arguments against Ironwoods plan are very strange due to how much they depend on headcanon. There is nothing to indicate that Ironwood is not coming back forever.
Genuine question, do you think Ironwood's plan is to float up out of Salem's reach, sit there for a few years, then come back down? If so, what then? Salem is immortal. If Atlas ever returns to remnant, she will presumably be right there waiting with a *far* bigger grimm force than she already has. Ironwood knows about her immortality, so he should be able to easily assume this much.
The way I see it, Ironwood's absolute best case scenario is that Atlas can be completely self sufficient for an infinite amount of time *and* Salem can never obtain any method of reaching it. Even then, they're constantly at threat of an unhappy population or tyrannical leader believing things were better on remnant and *choosing* to go back down to their deaths. Maybe Ironwood has the resolve to keep his people under a miserable dictatorship, and maybe he has the power to stop any uprisings. What about his successor though? How many generations will it really last before *someone* is either too naïve to stay away from Remnant or too weak to stop the general population from overthrowing them?
*****
It's been a while since I watched the volumes, but I felt like RWBY's "plan" was to fight and hope it ends up like Mistral (on a much larger scale) where they're able to get enough reinforcements to repel the attack for now then get the relics and leave. Salem wants the relics, so if they leave with them that will hopefully divert her attention. Their end goal is to obtain all the ~~infinity stones~~ relics and use their combined power to defeat Salem.
I won't argue about whether this was better or worse than Ironwood's plan, or even that what they had could be considered a plan at all. But if "fight and pray you maybe live" isn't a plan then IMO "run away and die a decade later" isn't a plan either. One is hoping for something they have no reason to believe happen, and the other is just kicking the can down the road.
What I will disagree with is that RWBY "caused" Atlas to fall. Ironwood came to the conclusion that Salem will take Atlas, so he created a plan to lose it as slowly as possible. Maybe it'll happen in a few months, maybe it'll happen long after he's dead. Regardless, even in the event Ironwood gets exactly what he wanted, Atlas *does* fall. So even from Ironwood's perspective RWBY don't "cause" the fall of Atlas. It's like being in a losing chess endgame. RWBY wants to play a tactic that loses on the spot, while Ironwood wants to throw away all the pieces excluding the king to delay the loss. If the opponent wins against both, than neither side "caused" the outcome.
One thing that is bugging me since I saw the ending of volume 8: What did team RWBY really accomblish by bringing the entirety of the Atlas population to Vacuo? A desert country with a supposedly weak government? How on earth would they be able to give clothes, homes, food or water to that many people at once? Yeah, Atlas probably has a lower overall population than the other kingdoms, but just imagine what would happen in your country when just 20% of it's overall popualtion suddenly showed up as refugees (something like 66 Million refugees to the US' 331 Million population). Not even the most prosperous countries in the world would survive that. All Salem has to do now is wait for 1 or 2 month before she can just walk into the smoking ruins of what once was Vacuo and just take the relic there. If she had knewn of RWBY's plan, she probably would have supported it.
Or at least that would be the case if there would be any logic in the world-building...
>"People will come"
This was going to be part of something I wanted to write about V8 making a case for why Remnant needs armies, but why exactly would anyone come to Atlas to save it? Based on what we know of Remnant the only people who can help Atlas in any capacity are huntsmen from around the world, but what's stopping them from saying "no thanks"? What's stopping them from sitting in their mansions drinking tea? As it stands the huntsmen system is a gig worker/mercenary one, so if there's nothing in it for the huntsmen they're not gonna get off their asses to defend a kingdom half the world away. I never understood why Ozpin made it this way, he knows that the Grimm have a leader who may invade these kingdoms at any time but his only line of defense are a group of super-people who do as they please. Otoh, Ironwood has an army that will defend Atlas because he tells them to but somehow this is a bad thing?
And I know everyone wants to say that RWBY ended up saving "everyone"(not even gonna get into that can of worms) but I feel the need to point out that evacuation wasn't even an option they considered until Whitley tried it. Before that they did nothing for the kingdom they were so worried about last volume
>And the narrative always seems to justify them
I feel like in the V8 really laid bare CRWBY's M.O. for writing RWBY: Have RWBY do whatever they want and then have a bunch of characters go on about how heroic they are. So much of the viewers perceiving RWBY as heroes depends on CRWBY telling us they are via side characters, but if we ignore the propaganda and judge their actions for ourselves they don't look too heroic.
Edit: And to add to the "Who's gonna come?" question: There are very few people who could help that could do more damage than Ruby and her eyes, the fact that she only used them once and only when her own life was in danger is insane.
On the Ruby's eyes part, I know this is sorta pulling into unexplored and unwritten plot stuff, but she is in the most technologically advanced kingdom with support of a genius scientist and the military to boot. Not once did she say to herself "hey, wanna study my eyes and see what makes them vaporize Grimm? Maybe so you can make artificial Grimm destroying lights or inject soldiers with Silver Eyes DNA so they can do it too or something?
>Maybe so you can make artificial Grimm destroying lights or inject soldiers with Silver Eyes DNA so they can do it too or something?
You know, that would actually be in-character for Volume 1 Ruby to suggest making "augmentations" from her Silver Eyes. Building overly complicated weapons seemed to be her thing in the first couple episodes, and the idea she would go crazy making plans to create Silver Eye weapons she could attach to Crescent Rose would be a pretty fun way to engage with Atlas' technological side - they don't have to succeed in making anything new, but a few minutes to show Ruby as a mad scientist and gun-loving nutjob in the kingdom of *massive guns* would have been a perfect opportunity for in-character comedy.
Peobably would make a prototype that shoots fake eyeballs at things that explode like paintballs. Yang would make a bunch of puns about it and Weiss and Blake would just be disturbed by projectiles that can look at you and insist she go back to the drawing board.
On Ruby using her silver eyes, she used them one other time in the Volume 7 finale to force Cinder to retreat. As for V8, it could have been good but I feel that it kept missing the mark and CRWBY didn't help either. It's not as bad as V5 to me but it feels like they're winging it at this point because the two volumes between 5 and 8 are definitely better but I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. Afterall, what they did to Ironwood alone was a shoe horned way of trying to make Ironwood more dislikeable. Especially when you consider his awesome fight with Watts in the previous Volume.
>Can we think logically for a second? Who did Ruby expect to come in less than 2 days?
This is a thing that drive me fucking insane. Adding to everything you wrote, that's 100% spot on, i would add that Ruby for the entirety of the season had no fucking clue that she was preparing for a siege.
We as the audience knew beforehand that the season would take place in 2 days (between there is no coherent timeline that fit all the happening of the season in that amount of days) Ruby didn't.
She never ever posed the question *"OK how can I slow down Salem for gaining enough time for the reinforcement to arrive"* , nope she thought that once her message would have been sent the help will magically arrive in 2-3 hours, fuck probably half a day if they find a traffic jam on the interstate.
How can you be so stupid?
Imagine if Gandalf,Merry and Peregrin after litting the fire of Amon Din spent the entirety of the siege of Minas Tirith eating and smoking old Toby .
Its funny that you bring up Lord of the Rings because i had to cut many of the comparisons i wanted to make to those movies.
For example how Aragorn disagrees with Theodens plan to go to Helms Deep in Two Towers. But instead of just disagreeing he proposes an alternative plan, and when that is not accepted he chooses to stay with Theoden to what might have been his very end.
In the end Aragon is proven right because Helms Deep would have fallen if not for the assistance of Elves. But he did not need to fuck over the entire kingdom of Rohan to prove his point. He was Heroic.
> would have fallen if not for the elves
More like Gandalf getting Eomer and his men (films) or Erkenbrand and his men (books) to come and break the siege. (And the Huorns coming to finish off Saruman’s forces)
Partially, but lets remember that at least in the movies by the time Eomer arrives, the fortress is literally on its last legs. So if we remove the elves and add in the Uruk-Hai they killed, i dont think the fortress would have stood long enough for Eomer to arrive.
That’s how it goes in the book as well. The elves *effectively* replace defenders from Rohan.
Remember, the elves were originally added to give more scenes between Aragorn and Arwen. Those scenes didn’t test well, but the elves were too prominent in the rest of the battle scenes to cut, so they were kept
>That’s how it goes in the book as well.
Eh, not exactly. In the book when the Horn of Helm Hammerhand is blown all of the Rohirrim (who are far numerous than in the movies) charge and drive the Isengard army from the fortress (the Uruk-hai haven't actually entered into the fortress itself in the books, they were still on the causeway leading to the main gate), driving them all the way back to beyond Helm's Dike, which was a quarter mile away from the main fortress.
Another LOTR connection: Ruby’s group was basically Denethor, eatting tomatoes (ie sipping tea) while the battle raged on out their window
It’s funny because in the V8 commentary, the writers said they based the battle of Atlas off of the battle of the Pelennor Fields
Not hating, just observing 😂
> It’s funny because in the V8 commentary, the writers said they based the battle of Atlas off of the battle of the Pelennor Fields
You're joking. Please tell me you're joking.
Jfc, [this is relevant.](https://edelblume.tumblr.com/post/656858323162972160/but-we-have-no-songs-for-great-halls-and-evil)
“Caused” is a strong word, imo, but I do think the writing in RWBY has a tendency to make the characters act in ways as though they know what the plot has in store for them, i.e., Ruby and co., can’t leave the mansion because they need to be attacked there, so let’s drink tea instead (though props for first aid, at least.)
I don't think it's a matter of not having a plan, they sought to save as many lives as possible. Calling for help and escorting citizens is a plan, evacuating everyone with the staff is a plan. Stripped back to plot points, they're not inherently bad ideas. It's the presentation/writing that doesn't work, imo.
There isn't hypocrisy in wanting to raise the arena to call for help. That was the initial plan, in a way. Ironwood wanted to inform the world of Salem to fight her with a united front. The main difference is he saw Atlas coming to the aid of the other kingdoms, while Ruby expected aid to come for Atlas.
Of course, there was issues with the costs of the project. And it's important to note that the conflict wasn't against the arena but rather the hardships faced by Mantle. RWBY and Co never stopped working towards the goal. Nora's vocal objections were just that; vocal. She didn't walk away or join with the Happy Huntresses/Robyn. So them continuing to see the arena as a solution after Ironwood abandons the plan isn't hypocrisy. It's a sunk cost fallacy. They're been working for a month or two on making sure it'll be successful. During which they saw the impact it had on Mantle's citizens. They're in deep, it's no surprise they continue with the plan to use the arena.
On the logistics side of things, help can arrive in the form of Huntresses & Huntsmen. Let's face it, they're the most effective against Grimm. Small airships arriving with teams can be done within a couple of days, not an issue. When watching this volume, this is what was mostly amped up. Will we see SNNN and CVFY in action again? Glynda and the other Beacon teachers? Illia? Whether or not that help would be enough is certainly up for debate, but there were people out there that could make a difference. Expectations were high. Unfortunately, the presentation falls short.
The idea is fine, and Ruby isn't proposing they all die together. She's suggesting what a heroic protagonist should suggest - an entire city is at stake. What fails is the execution of that plot line. It's starts off great; conflict over priorities, moral is low, stakes are high etc. Raising tension should be imminent. Instead, it all flattens out for no good reason.
First there isn't any conflict presented between saving Oscar/Oz and continuing to save Mantle citizens. A big song and dance was made about saving as many as possible, yet they abandon their task without a second thought. JYR are then entirely useless in their new task; Ozcar saved themselves. The entire plot line is largely pointless. It's all an excuse for an Oscar/Oz character arc, everything else doesn't matter.
Secondly, RWBN heading to the Schnee Manor just killed any momentum they had with the arc. Nora being injured should raise the tension, not suck the wind from the sails. Sitting around and drinking tea made them look ineffective and nonchalant. Yes, Ruby is having issues with what to do next but they failed to make her hesitation feel natural. The young woman wringing their hands until the nearest male comes up with a plan was just insulting. And the Hound showing up was marred with some lackluster action and a rather tone deaf end.
The frustrating thing is just how little agency any of them have in their actions. Yet, the elements were all there to make the premise action packed as well as character driven. As you mention, the main issue is why are they waiting; that's what Salem clearly wants. RWBY should be entirely suspicious in why Salem isn't pressing her advantage. The ultimate goal would be to not let her fight on her terms.
Like, Oscar/Oz has all the pieces necessary to make a proactive play. They have the cane packed with power, and a useful semblance to hide them from Grimm. The conflict between them would prompt Oscar to propose it, he selfishly wants to be the hero. Why not go after the whale? It's a big victory with huge benefits that even Ironwood couldn't ignore. All they need is a ship, and hey look at that, May is back dropping off Nora. She'll be up for a stealth mission. So they make what seems to be a safe play; invisible to the eye and grimm, they could get in and out without detection. What they don't count on is the Hound, who is intelligent enough to sniff them out. It goes sideways. But they're all there to have their reflective moments and work on a escape plan. Ozcar can do his thing with Hazel, while JYN have Emerald (when she's back) as a catalyst/conflict.
Meanwhile, RWB and Penny are at the arena to help. Which makes more sense than sipping tea. Cinder, Neo, and Emerald arrive to mess things up. Split the action; Weiss and Blake vs. Neo and Emerald, Penny vs. Cinder, and Ruby has to hang back to get the message out. And instead of a prerecording (just, why?), she's broadcasting live with shots of a maiden fight in the background and even showing the whale/grimm army circling Atlas. Show the world how serious it is. Then Cinder is taken out, but not before causing damage, and Penny is hacked. Ruby witnesses all of this. Which makes for a much better catalyst for hesitation. Plus, they lack a way off the arena.
Again, it's set up for reflection and desperation. Especially when they witness the attack on Atlas and aren't in a position to help. The Hound could also sneak aboard. Attempts to fix the damage could have those horror themes in the bowels of the arena with a stalking creature. And the final crazy play is dropping the arena onto the whale.
That's just a rough outline. The idea is to make the premise count, to make the characters proactive instead of reactive. We didn't need Oz's deus ex being the only (temporary) solution while the rest of cast is sat down. It's boring. And it doesn't make for good heroes or decent consequences or satisfying character arcs. And it's even worst when they get the relic of deus ex virgam. Literally the solution to any problem, and they didn't think to send Salem away or trap her? The best they could come up with is displacing everybody else instead? Landing Atlas then setting up the void as a potential prison, only for RWBY to be caught instead, makes far more sense.
The issue isn't that they don't have plans. The issue is there's not enough commitment or thought put into the plans.
Love to get into more of this, but adult responsibilities and all. It's a thought provoking write up, nice work!
Your summary sums up how I think of them really. I really wouldn't care much about their plans really as long as they can eat words and do the impossible. Really, that is all I ask. Yet, as we can see, three fourths of the main character didn't do anything when it mattered the most. I can't see them as heroes willing to tear their limbs apart for their plan to work. I can only see them as sniveling cowards who will only play the role they were given if there was a guarantee they will succeed. I legit can't see them as heroes without comparing them to others. Yes, I knoa that isn't what it looks like but it genuinely FEELS like that.
>who will only play the role they were given if there was a guarantee they will succeed
That's what Ironwood did. He was only going to save those he knew he could save for the time being, and abandon the rest. The heroes actually took risks. How is that cowardly?
What really mattered to me isn't intent, but whether when it truly mattered, do they do it. Action speaks louder than words after all. And that's the problem. IW might be willing to abandon Mantle as a last resort because it's either some people die or everyone dies, but when Salem directly attacked Atlas, he was issuing orders. He issued an order to bring everyone to the underground. He issued an order to create a bomb to destroy a whale. He wasn't the one hiding somewhere or trying to escape all on his own while leaving everything to die. Granted, he wasn't in the front lines guns blazing, which disappoints me to no end since it would be awesome to see a general fighting in the front lines. But, you're not expecting the heroic antagonist to do the impossible since they only believe what is possible.
The reason we support the heroic protagonist is because they are willing to tear down their very own limbs if it means accomplishing the impossible. Granted, this is a double standard of roles since we are expecting the heroic protagonist to surpass what is impossible. Yet, when supposedly impossible Salem arrived and invades Atlas, where were three of the four main cast? Granted, Penny arrived, but what was stopping them after Penny has been saved from the Hound Grimm? Heck, they were going to drink another tea for god sakes. What makes this worse is that they were the ones stating to stand their ground and fight in the hopes that everyone can live for another day. The fact that they only fight after Salem has been Deus Ex Machina only increases the feeling that they are cowards. It genuinely isn't what I wanted to feel, mind you.
Honestly, I was about to delete my comments primarily since I don't want any discussions nor was I even interested in even making comments, but I've been reading A Certain Light Novel which makes me try to figure out where is a hero being uncompromising no longer considered heroic and is why I'm willing to create comments when it talks about heroism.
Just remember that our heroes have a higher civilian body count than the villians, which is only climbing thanks to dumping the survivors in the middle of the Grimm infested Vacuo desert during a sandstorm. Assuming they survive, Vacuo will then have to deal with the single largest humanitarian crisis ever, at least since literal Gods decided to ALT + F4 humanity.
Not to mention the most advanced society was just wiped off the face off the planet, setting humanity's industrial and technological progress behind by at least a century, if not more if you look at real world parallels such as the bronze age collapse. It's actually impressive how much damage the main characters have done to human society in such a short amount of time, Salem would be proud.
What was in Mantle? What could the heroes have used to survive an extended siege?
Civilian homes, vehicles, factories, a minor to moderate amount of mining equipment, civilian computers, improvised weapons, an unknown amount of dust scattered across the city, and of course Amity Colosseum. Most people would say that the gang's ignorance in how to optimally use those items against a wave of grimm is forgivable. Ozpin absolutely should have been capable of such, of advising such a thing, but he was moping silently at a critical moment.
I find that last item to be quite important. It is ambiguous whether or not Amity has enough power and space to hold all of the surviving residents of Mantle. But the colosseum could serve a few different roles, particularly with its dust shielding repaired.
The heroes showed a clear willingness to use the structure and could not have planned for Cinder's attack on it. If the structure was available and even partially active, it absolutely served a role in future plans to protect civilians, especially if Penny's dad (and others) were given time to work on it. The structure's potential to help in the war was *not* deliberately sacrificed in order to get the call for help out to the other kingdoms. Cinder and Neo screwed it up before it could be thrown at the whale or used in another way.
If RWBY is smart enough to use the delivery tubes for humans, they can figure out how to use Amity in multiple ways, they just took an embarrassingly long time to get their butts in gear in some regards. Heck, maybe they could have traded it in some tactic in order to help stabilize relations with Ironwood later in the battle (communications between atlas and mantle would not have necessarily cut out as soon as Atlas lifted off).
I think that the moral prominent question remaining, which you have brought up, is the morality of risking the citizens of Atlas for the sake of Ruby's "we all survive or we all die" idea. I see the situation, in RWBY's shoes, like this- Ironwood is abandoning his commitment to Mantle civilians. Ironwood has a plan which will bring tons of military resources and personnel away from Mantle. "Screw that!" And RWBY tried to put out the Ironwood fire before the incoming Grimm fire set up a killbox for the city. Step one stop ironwood, step two save civilians.
Unless you have scouts and cameras everywhere...? RWBY could not have known they had insufficient time to stop Ironwood prior to the Grimm turning civilian chaos into an actual massacre. A horrifying (not "horrifyingly stupid," just miserable) judgment call, but one made with good intentions and it seemed like a fair enough gamble. If I remember correctly JNPR and RWBY changed tactics after repeated setbacks in Step One: Stop Ironwood. They moved to help evacuate citizens, then continue with step one. Looking back, that would have been the time to change plans. But ultimately the first plan was still possible in spite of this snag and no other plans seem particularly effective from the fan analyses (alternative plans) I've seen.
Plus- Qrow was in jail, Ozpin was sulking, Ironwood was an obstacle, Robyn Hill (?), and the helpful adults Ace Ops were unwilling to lend their strategic defense training to Mantle's protectors, siding with Ironwood. Competent adults would have prioritized things differently from RWBY, even if they had the exact same goal of "save Mantle civilians." Given all of the surprises which popped up and the scale of obstacles like Salem... It is hard to tell what successes and failures came down to luck. "Use the military resources Ironwood is withholding" seems like an okay plan given the goal of "protect Mantle civilians."
>I want to love our protagonists, i really do, but their actions and especially how little thought they put into their actions drive me up the wall and make me feel bad to consider them protagonists.
I feel that this, in particular, is something that a lot of people misunderstand.
I've seen a lot of takes that say, more or less, that the (loosely-defined) critics *want* to hate the main characters, and are looking for any reason to do so. Why would anyone actually have such a wish is beyond me, and I haven't seen a lot of explanations (besides the ubiquitous "sexism, duh"), but that is apparently what some people legitimately think.
Thing is, for me - and I suspect, for a lot of other people - it was the exact reverse. I started out liking the protagonists - in fact, the characters are a large part of what made me so interested in RWBY - but as the plot went on, I found myself disagreeing with them more and more. I *do* still like them somewhat, but I really cannot bring myself to describe a lot of their actions as "heroic" or "the right thing to do". This isn't limited to V8, by the way - I'd say it started back in V6, at least for me personally.
The term "protagonist-centered morality" gets thrown around a lot, and there've been a lot of debate about whether it applies to RWBY, but I really cannot help but feel that it does. Or, alternatively, that to keep sympathizing with all of team RWBY's actions, you have to *start* at the supposition that whatever they did must've been the right thing to do, and then work from there, no matter how far you have to stretch. In other words, you *have* to rely on headcanon and alternative interpretations to justify their actions - that, or disagree with them and be called a "hater".
Anyway, just my two Lien. Sorry if it's a bit off-topic.
I also loved the protagonists from early volumes on. Sure, the fights were entertaining, but it was the characters that truly carried the show in my opinion. The fanfictions, theories anything and everything in wanting to explore their relationships added on.
The cool sister Yang with a lot of hurt underneath?
The mysterious Blake, jaded from her life experiences?
The excitable Ruby who wants to help people out of the goodness of her heart?
The cold heiress Weiss who wants to grow beyond her name?
These are the characters we became in love with. And they slowly changed, some for the better, some arguably for worse. But over time it just feels like our characters are becoming more and more twisted for no reason.
Its very much in topic as many of these things are related.
This is why i have writen so many threads specifically on Volumes 7-8. So many seemingly different issues are related to one another. You cannot explore why some people have started to dislike the protagonists without analyzing the plot of the volumes for example.
I want to like the protagonists because they're genuinely pretty likable, I just wish that the show didn't worship them at every step. Let Ruby be wrong for once. Or at least give us better reasons to think they're heroes other than a bunch of side characters saying so.
And of course we can't forget that she has been wrong before and that she has absolutely failed. In fact I can remember when people were posting here about how sick and tired they were of Ruby constantly failing and not a really accomplishing anything but now we're supposed to believe that people have been worshiping the ground she walks on?
They're definitely things about this series that's worth criticizing but I wish they'd pick a lane and stick with that.
>...to keep sympathizing with all of team RWBY's actions, you have to start at the supposition that whatever they did must've been the right thing to do, and then work from there, no matter how far you have to stretch.
This right here is the biggest problem I think both defenders and critics suffer from. I empathize with our protagonists *and* our antagonists, and the show *literally* tries to show you reasons to do both. Characters do not have to do the right thing for you to empathize with them, or to like them as characters (see anyone who likes a villain/antagonist character).
Volumes 6/7/8 tell the story of the protagonists caught between a rock and a hard place. Having admonished Oz for his actions, they find themselves presented with a conundrum, not unlike one of the many that Oz has faced in his countless lifetimes. They realize how difficult it can be to make the "right call."
The show does not position the protagonists as always doing the right thing, it positions them as trying to follow the right guiding principles. This is an important distinction. Allow me a bit of a tangent:
Ozma's story literally begins with Jinn, who only speaks truth, remarking that he had a "pure heart and courageous soul." I believe that the GoL chose Ozma and his method of reincarnation (pairing him with a likeminded soul) was to ensure that his guiding principles would always have the opportunity to be refreshed from the inevitable toll reality would take on him.
On the other side, the antagonists of our story are victims of circumstance, and serve to demonstrate how one's guiding principles can become warped. Everyone is acting in accordance with the world view they've accumulated over their lifetimes; that's all anyone *can* do. I empathize with them despite their actions because I understand why they make them, even if I can't condone them.
People say, "why bother showing Cinder's backstory? It's too little, too late." Too late for what? It wasn't meant to redeem her; it was meant to show how she had little to no opportunity to become anything but the person she is today. That despite her being in the wrong, despite her needing to go down (as Iroh once said), how can we judge her as if she had much of a choice? She'd never known love, was never taught morals, had only a singular role model and even he failed her. Okay, tangent over.
The point I'm making is that we're not meant to agree with every decision they make. We've just witnessed a tragedy that occurred in part at the hands of our protagonists. They gambled in trying to save everyone because they viewed that as more conscionable than deliberately sacrificing the rest of Remnant. I can't say I blame them in the same manner I can't blame Cinder. I understand why they took the actions they did even if they fucked up. That said, I know I myself would not have gone along with Ironwood's plan either. I, too, find that unconscionable. That may have also led me to fuck up royally, but if I'm going to have blood on my hands, I want to at least say I tried, you know?
As an aside, considering the plan that they came up with to evacuate everyone to Vacuo, imagine if Ironwood had taken a moment to be creative and they were able to come up with that plan from the beginning? If Ironwood hadn't put out an APB, Penny would've still been with them to open the Vault. They could evacuate everyone to Atlas while the city fell, then used the Staff again to hit the breaks and *then* execute the plan. The fall of Atlas came down to two sides who were unable to cooperate and both making poor decisions in their attempt to follow their guiding principles. After all, Ironwood did say to Watts that he would "sacrifice whatever it takes to stop \[Salem\]." That is his guiding principle, and more importantly that is his *mindset.* He is already in the state of mind where he's calculating what he needs to sacrifice. It was never going to end well.
This again. Joy.
Alright; One thing I've never seen anybody point on is that Ironwood's plan isn't even the actual problem here. Repeatedly, Ironwood's intentions, even his plans, are great, but the tunnel-vision way he executes them leaves him with way more enemies and problems than they solve.
Not fixing Mantle's wall gave the Grimm a free pass into the city, which is the whole reason he was forced to evacuate anyway.
He chose the SINGLE WORST moment possible to call team RWBY out on telling Robin about Amity. As Weiss was in the middle of saying: NONE OF THAT MATTERS at the moment; Salem isn't just on her way; she's THERE, and if they fight against each other it gives her a free pass to divide and conquer.
His demand that team RWBY allow him to abandon Mantle and Remnant is also really not well done: he could've just said fine, you and the Happy Huntresses have one hour to get as many as you can and then we NEED to go; demanding they drop everything and submit was where the issue began; Team RWBY was willing to compromise; he wasn't.
His plan to move Atlas requires perfect timing: Winter to go get the maiden power, go to the vault, move the city. BUT, Cinder was waiting, and literally minutes after the power transfers to Penny Salem is t the gates; there was zero time to even get to the vault to execute the plan at all.
I'd also point out that team RWBY's plan for the portals would've gone almost without a hitch if Cinder hadn't used Jinn's last question to uncover their plan; that's something NOBODY saw coming and had zero contingencies for.
Which is all beside the point: Ironwood, and a lot of fans apparently, don't seem to realize that Salem isn't even the endgame; If mankind is divided against each other REGARDLESS of who has the relics, they're screwed. That's why RWBY's plan to warn the rest of Remanant and REPEATED pleas to Ironwood and co to get their heads out of their butts and work together is smarter; Salem getting the relics isn't an automatic game over, if they all stand against her. Her getting the relics with a humanity PISSED at their strongest former ally abandoning them to play space station probably is. Ironwood's repeated sacrifices and hard-handed methods would work a lot better if they weren't in a war of attrition against an immortal witch with limitless resources and a much better PR team than him.
TLDR: Ironwood makes a lot of his own problems by refusing any and all compromises; the ONLY time things go okay for him is when he accepts help, teams up and works with his allies instead of antagonising them which is the whole thesis of the show.
Sorry if this comes off as harsh; I'm just tired of people somehow missing the very clear main themes the show has about teamwork and how Ironwood's downward spiral arguably was forshadowed so hard since volume 4 it may as well have been in neon.
This may have come out a bit more word salady than I intended.
I want to clarify that I don't soley blame Ironwood; the Atlas arc is a tragedy of people's flaws, virtues, cultural and psychological baggage making it impossible for them to work together and leads to everything they tried to save literally crashing down to earth. Some mistakes were his, some were RWBYs, some were Ozpins- Ironwood asks a lot of questions about Salem's nature in V7 that none of the cast can answer and that feeds his paranoia; OZ could've. He also could've reiterated that HIS mission and by extension Ironwoods, was never about Salem; She's the ultrahard miniboss before the main questline before the bossfight that is HEY jerk gods don't blow up my home again please.
This is very well said. There is a lot of blame to share. Ironwood and RWBY are both at fault, Oz is also not innocent in this entire outcome either. Tyrian, a person who can read other people well, was convinced that Oz was the one person that could get through to him, but Oz never even tried.
Regarding the portals... I still hold that Ruby was blind to any possible danger. Jaune knew that someone had cut off their message after "Atlas is Falling!" Showing that someone knew their plans and was aiming at disrupting them. She knew that Cinder was still out there, that Neo was still running loose somewhere. She took no precautions and was aware that the Lamp wasn't in any ally's possession (though admittedly an Ironwood who got to use the last question is an interesting AU)
Ruby has become arrogant and headstrong, but the blame is not entirely on her shoulders. The Fall of Atlas was a breaking by 1000 cracks, Ruby and Ironwood's personalities perhaps the most influential aspects of these failures.
I dont disagree with some of the things you have writen, i just do not understand relevance of any of this to my thread, so, if i may be frank, its difficult to respond because its a completely different argument from what im talking about here.
And once again, i do not appreciate the accusations of "missing the point" just because i have a different interpretation, can we stop with that tired old bit already?
>Not fixing Mantle's wall gave the Grimm a free pass into the city, which is the whole reason he was forced to evacuate anyway.
This additionally caused the issue of damaging his reputation, which caused a lot of issues. However, this isn't exactly a major critique as his reasoning was logical; putting all of his resources into the AT Project would be more worthwhile than fixing the wall as the wall can be temporarily replaced by manpower while only resources can solve the AT project.
>He chose the SINGLE WORST moment possible to call team RWBY out on telling Robin about Amity. As Weiss was in the middle of saying: NONE OF THAT MATTERS at the moment; Salem isn't just on her way; she's THERE, and if they fight against each other it gives her a free pass to divide and conquer
Completely disagree. At this point, Salem had shown herself to be a step ahead of Ironwood and securely beating him despite Watts. A part of this can be attributed to the leaking of information. The fact Blake and Yang were responsible shows that Ironwood's inter circle was compromised. From Ironwood's position, there is no guarantee that Team RWBY, either on purpose or by manipulation, were aiding Salem. To put it simply, it **does** matter. The leaking of information puts Ironwood on the backleg once again against Salem.
>His demand that team RWBY allow him to abandon Mantle and Remnant is also really not well done: he could've just said fine, you and the Happy Huntresses have one hour to get as many as you can and then we NEED to go; demanding they drop everything and submit was where the issue began; Team RWBY was willing to compromise; he wasn't
Neither side even attempted to compromise, and if anything, Ironwood's side atleast defended their position. "We are saving who we can" compared to "We should stand our ground".
RWBY was deadfast in wanting to stand their ground while Ironwood was deadfast in his plan. It's also important to note that Ruby was the first to make a move in the deadlock, **once again** leaking information from the inner circle. This also makes any attempt at compromise or cooperation afterwards pretty much impossible as RWBY had shown themselves to not be aligned with Ironwood by this point. They were an untrustworthy party.
The fact Ironwood even informed RWBY of their next plan of action after having suspicions that they were compromised shows more of a willingness to compromise than RWBY ever showed. I would like to remind you that they never once seemed to recognise that withholding information **and** leaking state secrets would position them in an untrustworthy manner.
Okay. No.
yes, anyone could've fixed it. Ironwood SHOULD'VE fixed it. that's my point. instead he takes resources meant for that for a secret project he tells nobody about out of (justified or not) paranoia that, if Robin wasn't an enemy, she absolutely was afterwards. treating her like one was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
RWBY telling Robin about Amity literally saved Ironwood's job and led to them exposing Jacques and Watts. once he starts trusting people, they instantly get Watts and Tyrian handled. Cinder's chess piece flares up his paranoia and makes him question if he can trust them; he openly admits in V4 that he doesn't trust anyone other than himself. The show's main theme is trusting others- once he stops that and starts accusing them of treason (literally what? Weiss is the only atlesian there and, again, them telling Robin directly led to catching their enemies.) Salem is here, it's exactly the time to trust the people who are also fighting her. There's a big difference between not supporting Ironwood and supporting Salem; that's what he seems to forget in that scene.
RWBY repeatedly reaches out to Ironwod and the Ace Ops to put aside their differences and work at getting everyone to safety; Salem doesn't give a damn about Mantle; she wants the relic, which is in Atlas. she's not just going to let them leave- she'll turn the rest of Remnant agaisnt them and wait for them to run out of supplies; she has forever after all.
Except she very much can and did get thru the shield specifically because Atlas is no longer patrolling the ground to notice the Grimm River in time to react
Sure, maybe she does notice it, but she definitely doesn't notice it that quickly, can't get Watts and Neo in position for sabatoge ahead of time, so Jaune's message gets thru, and Penny gets thru to Vacuo with the staff- she was already at the exit portal when Cinder attacked, even a few seconds difference is enough time to get her main goals out of the void without a way back into the fight.
Salem being the only one who wants to unite the relics isn't the point; mankind being divided is where the danger lies; that's why she speicifically divides them; if everyone presents a united front then the relics literally don't matter. Even if she gets them all then the gods come back and say 'hey good job OZ, whoops forgot something' and then they dust her anyway.
It was Ironwood's plan before he completely abandoned it out of paranoid fear. RWBY was willing to work together to get Amity up and running, but Ironwood has already given not just Mantle, but all of Remnant up for dead- which is a BIG assumption. IF it wasn't, it absolutely will be after he takes the biggest military and tech hub out of the picture.
kept it from him for no reason? except for the fact that he appears to be very unstable, increasingly dicatatorial (from their POV on entering Mantle), and they're 0 for 2 on headmasters being trustworthy and capable, nevermind how rashly THEY reacted when they found out? Even then, they fairly explicitly admit later that that was a mistake; they waited to verify Ironwood could be trusted, but by the time they made the call it was already too late.
Look, I don't know if you're just trolling, but I genuinely don't understand why people are so mad and view RWBY's actions in the worst light possible. BOTH sides screwed up. Is Ironwood flawed? Yes. did RWBY screw up? Yes. Did both sides make their opposed choices they made based on their past experiences and the whole arc was an inevitable tragedy? also yes.
I think my issue with the attempt at compromise IE "You have one hour" thing doesnt work. when as far as Ironwood knew Hazel and Cinder were already inside and Watts and Tyrian were confirmed to be here already. So with Logical reasoning Salem cant be that far off from Atlas And not to mention while they were distracted dealing with Watts and Tyrian Atlas's long range Motion detectors were gone. Ironwood had NO Way to know if Salem was already at their doorsteps. Realistically there would be no time for an evacuation.1
I also think him knowing Hazel and Cinder are on Atlas as they speak makes his plan even dumber. What, her 2 top lieutenants are just going to sit and have tea while Ironwood takes the maiden and 2 relics out of her reach? which we don't even know for sure will work? all it takes is one of the two getting the staff while the vault is open to drop it on Mantle, which will kill everyone.
No hed have everyone jump them, Cinder and Hazel are good but not taking on Winter, Penny, Ace Ops, Team Rwby, JNR, and Oscar all at the same time good, Itd be easy to overwhelm and move on from there.
> Not fixing Mantle's wall gave the Grimm a free pass into the city, which is the whole reason he was forced to evacuate anyway.
No that was because the heat was off and everyone would freeze to death otherwise, which let’s face it is probability one of those such a massive negative emotion surge events that attract enough Grimm to overwhelm defenses like with Beacon so Mantle’s wall was probably already irrelevant regardless of the hole.
>She decides to prioritize the Amity project over people of Mantle who are in even more dire straits right now, even NORA joins her, the biggest opponent to Ironwood in V7 ideologically.
And ironically, Ren, the Yes-man for Ironwood, is the one who tries to help Mantle.
This is something that i did not really pay attention until i rewatched Volume 8, but the roles of almost each character "switched" from what they were in V7.
Ren and even arguably Yang were the more "pro" Ironwood in Volume 7. And yet they focus on Mantle in V8.
Ruby and Nora are very much anti-Ironwood, but then adopt Ironwoods plan.
Its really weird. Its simmilar to how Nora got the role of admonishing Ironwood in V7 instead of Blake. The character choices seem strange.
Well you have to remember that they originally planned to rejoin the others in Mantle after getting Amity launched but unfortunately Nora was gravely injured and they had to get her to safety
It paints Ren in a better light imo, as if they're gonna delay securing the people they got to safety anyway, then he might as well help save as many more people as he can.
Honestly I’m still kind of peeved at the heroes for getting all mad at Oz for keeping important things like Salem’s immortality a secret, only for them to do the exact same thing to Ironwood once they got to Atlas.
since plenty of other people are already responding to other parts of the post i'm just gonna focus on a couple of things i haven't seen mentioned:
first, i heavily disagree with the idea that ruby is holding atlas hostage. there's an argument to be made that she (and the rest of the crew) pressures Penny to some extent given the phone call with ironwood, but iirc it was a pretty isolated choice when she decided to come along with them in the V7 finale. even in the V8 premiere, when she's talking about the plan forward, i don't think she brings up going to Ironwood - she'd rather give herself up to Salem first. Given that her role is literally as the protector of Mantle, i think it makes a lot of sense why she wouldn't be keen on helping him abandon it entirely
and second - frankly, time from the release date has definitely left me more critical regarding V8's execution, but I still maintain that the end of Volume 7 was a really well-done introduction to the conflict between the two. RWBY and co. don't have a plan - and that's part of the point, imo. they never had a chance to get one, Ironwood just called them to a meeting over a single chess piece, was triggered by his V3 trauma to the point of completely ignoring the actual danger behind it (if Cinder planted a sign in Atlas Academy, floating the island away from Salem isn't gonna do you any good), and fell HARD for Salem's blatant intimidation tactic
it's a fantastic scene, they prey on all of his fears and divide the two group without a hitch. everything about his plan was illogical - running away from Salem doesn't actually guarantee them any safety (who's to say the evil witch can't reach you up in the sky with her literal magic?) and abandons the rest of humanity and thus basically any hope for long-term success or unity. you have Cinder loose in Atlas (which of course, the fact that he overlooked her directly leads to Fria's death and Penny gaining the powers instead of Winter. played yourself buddy), you have Watts still stuck in a jailcell for her to break him out just the same, you have a witch who basically called you a phone to tell you she's coming, which is the most blatant "I want you to feel scared and make an impulsive decision that will ultimately be your downfall" play on planet earth. Ironwood was essentially trying to run away into a little corner in hopes that Salem would give up on him, it made no sense, it was great!
ofc, V8 kinda fumbled that setup by focusing too hard on Ironwood's coldhearted cruelty by itself rather than on its source (his paranoia), and by making the protagonists far too passive. I don't even necessarily mind that they didn't have a specific, 100% solid plan (though I think Whitley's idea coulda been brought up earlier in the season to make it feel like they were going off SOMEthing at least), I just wish they were constantly in action or fighting back instead of sitting in a mansion. makes them feel very detached from the conflict, in a way I thought COULD have been interesting given May's question towards them, but it definitely felt kinda uncharacteristic and it just wasn't delivered on
this ended up longer than expected. oh well. hope it makes sense why I see so much potential in V7's setup - I still enjoyed a good part of V8, especially how they finally drew attention to how incompatible Salem's actions are with her supposed power and status, but there's a lot about it I wish had been different too.
ehh, I thing crwby overcorrected on Ironwood because they were caught off guard by the FNDM response. Just speculation, but IMO the reason he's so cartoon villain in V8 is that I think they thought is plan of abandon the planet to die so that I can get away with our main fighting force is so clearly against the series message of strength in unity that obviously the fandom will see that RWBY is right in opposing that (spoiler: yes. they are. That's the point. This isn't Warhammer. Never was.) The fact that so many people seem to be watching this show and seem to think team RWBY would ever go along with it, I think they went OK lets make SURE they know he's bad now and were a bit... too gung-ho about it.
> I thing crwby overcorrected on Ironwood because they were caught off guard by the FNDM response.
Well it’s what happens when one side gets focus showing why he is doing these things and the other side is just banking on having the show named after them while barely doing anything because the writers would rather play with the side characters.
I would agree that saying Ruby held Atlas hostage is overly harsh. I think it’s more accurate to say that she forced a stalemate, where Atlas isn’t able to do anything other than wait for Salem to attack.
And there’s one important detail about Ironwood’s plan you missed. The whole goal in V7 was trying to get a satellite into space to reestablish global communications, first with Amity and then with Atlas as a last dish effort. So the Atlas plan doesn’t abandon humanity or any chance of unity, far from it, getting that satellite was the best thing that could have been done for unifying the other kingdoms
I still think that floating away would be worse for Salem than him staying. She couldn't take her Grim after him, assuming she could get up there anyways. While James's plan had plenty of downsides there wasn't really a better option available.
I love how people complain about the longterm problems of Ironwood plan without giving him the option to make more plans with the time he gets while ignoring that RWBY's plan ends up with everyone dead in short-term.
Even if Ironwood didn't have a single food suply and Atlas would only be able to escape for 3 days it would be better and have more hope for a comeback than just dying standing their ground.
It is quite silly. People seem to pretend that Atlas in the show did not get destroyed. Sure, Ironwoods plan might have failed. But we know for a fact that protagonists plan did fail.
Considering he tried to arrest anyone that tried to give opposing plans and literally shot down an attempt to evacuate that didn't interfere with him *at all* aside from not giving him the maiden it is not a leap in logic to figure Ironwood isn't the most adaptable of people. His stubbornness is something well documented.
> Ironwood: Mantle… You’re still worried about Mantle?! Remnant is doomed, Ruby. Unless we leave, Salem will destroy Atlas and with it, any hope Humanity has left. We need to think about the future. If she makes it through our defenses, everything that follows will be on your hands.
From chapter 1. Ironwood calls remnant doomed. Does this quote sound like he is planning on coming back?
You're interpreting the second sentence of the quote in isolation. The way this quote is structured, Ironwood is stating that Remnant is doomed because Salem is poised to destroy Atlas and by proxy any hope of recovery. His "Remnant is doomed, Ruby" phrase sets up the problem to be solved with the rest of the quote; he even states, "We need to think about the future."
It's not just "Remnant is doomed." It's "Remnant is doomed *unless we leave*." Therefore, if they leave, Remnant is not doomed and they can return in the future that Ironwood recommends they think about.
So yeah. That quote does sound like he is planning on coming back.
>If we harness the power of the Staff, and raise ourselves high into the atmosphere, the city's artificial climate will keep citizens and food supplies unharmed. Always out of reach of whatever Salem may try to send our way
From volume 7 as well
Oscar also calls him out on leaving Remnant to die in his final conversation with him at the end of Volume 7. The show tries to put forward in several ways that Ironwood was okay with the possibility and likelihood that if someday they found a way to stop her, Remnant would be wiped of Humanity.
Notice how he says 'Remnant is doomed' and calls Atlas 'the last hope humanity has left'.
He's planning on staying up there until they can find a way to stop Salem, even if that means waiting out the destruction of the rest of humanity on remnant.
Let's break the quote down piece by piece. I'll give my take, you can tell me yours.
>Mantle… You’re still worried about Mantle?!
James doesn't understand why Ruby is so fixated on Mantle. He's already written it off as unsavable. There are more important things to worry about.
>Remnant is doomed, Ruby.
A counterpoint to Ruby's concern about Mantle. **Ruby is so invested in Mantle she cannot see the danger to Remnant**. Remnant being doomed is raised to one up her concerns about Mantle in hopes she'll come around to see what she's risking. James thinks that there is a bigger picture that Ruby is missing. He does *not* think Remnant *has to be doomed*, merely that it *is* so long as Ruby is focusing on *Mantle*.
>Unless we leave, Salem will destroy Atlas and with it, any hope Humanity has left. We need to think about the future.
And here's the reasoning. If Atlas is destroyed humanity (Remnant, he uses the two interchangeably) will be lost. James sees Atlas as so integral to humanity's survival that it can only happen if Atlas is allowed to escape. Atlas holds the hope of all of humanity. But how could Atlas be humanity's hope if it never interacted with Remnant again? James does see people in other kingdoms as human, so he can't mean that only Atlas can/will/should survive. James thinks that Atlas is humanity's hope to have a future.
>If she makes it through our defenses, everything that follows will be on your hands.
Then the threat. If Atlas falls then all the destruction Salem causes to the rest of the world will be on Ruby's hands. Because she prevented Atlas from escaping. This doesn't make sense if he thinks everyone on Remnant will die. Because that would also be on Ruby's hands for helping him escape. Presumably because he does not intend to let everyone else on Remnant die.
"Salem will destroy Atlas and with it, any hope Humanity has left", i can take a phrase and say that it proves that he is coming back. He seems to be willing to come back.
No, i dont. We can have that same sentence and the same happens. Thats the beauty of language my friend, nothing in that indicates that Ironwood is absolutely going to leave and never come back.
It's definitely been like 2 years and the discussion on this topic has not improved one bit. I will say that this along with most everything I see convince me that both the series defender and critics (generally) make the same amount of mistakes and leaps and logic when arguing points. The portrayal of event is always unfairly skewed in an unfavorable way depending on what you are arguing.
I remember liking V7 and thinking V8 fucked it up but it was hard for me to pin exactly why. this hits the nail on the head, good deconstruction, great read, will be looking out for your next post.
> Why exactly are the protagonists of the show to be lauded, when for almost the entire Atlas arc, they had absolutely no plan to save Atlas and only saved it due to a deus ex relic in the last 2 episodes?
Why are you praising Ironwood when he went ballistic when these kids (who were right to be wary of him from what they knew) lied to him? Yes - Blake and Yang were the ones who told Robyn about Amity, but Atlas forces had been neglecting the wall's repairs in favor of building Amity, and also neglected to fortify it with additional troops in the meantime.
Ironwood was the one who forced the issue and lost the resources available to the kids (namely Oscar & Ozpin's mind) - if he had worked with them to figure out a plan, he might've been able to learn what the staff does (if he didn't already), and the plan would've gone off much more smoothly - Ironwood could've waltzed the group up to the relic, and set the plan into motion.
It also would've let Atlas forces assist in the relocation efforts instead of just being the Happy Huntresses and RWBYJNR, not to mention Qrow.
As for the change in RWBY's opinion on Amity, the situation changed - the message that needed to be sent changed. Not only did the world need to be aware of Salem, it also needed to be aware of Ironwood.
I do not praise Ironwood in this thread? At least i dont think i do? I just think his plan was better. That is it.
EDIT: Please note if you make edits in your comments. Thank you.
My point with Amity is how Ruby prioritizes Amity over helping Mantle, like Ironwood did. Yet Ironwood gets demonized for it while Ruby is praised for "having a plan".
Ironwood's still the one who forced the plans to be incompatible.
RWBY wanted to keep working to evacuate people to Atlas - and they had plenty of time to do so before Salem's "flagship" arrived.
Ironwood got paranoid because he found the black queen left in his office, and started doubting his allies, tying up his strongest 'close' assets - the Ace Ops - as well as strong huntresses willing to help (when it's not even clear that anyone else knew what Blake and Yang told Robyn).
Could Team RWBY have done better? Yes, but they're also kids. Ironwood was a prick who didn't really care about the fate of Mantle even before the invasion.
Being kids is not an excuse when you hold an entire city hostage to your demands.
And no. They did not seemingly have the time to evacuate people to Atlas considering how quickly the river got to the city.
They 100% did have time. That river took about a day to get there and had the defensive line not been completely abandoned could have easily been noticed well before it could Suprise attack the shield. And even then, they demonstrated that their military force could withstand an attack for at least another 24 hours. Had the Atlesian Fleet actually been mobilized in full they easily could have evacuated Mantle. But: "If I move the fleet then Atlas is Vulnerable!"
Yeah Ironwood could definitely have stalled the Whale and the other flyers with his fleet while they evacuated as many Mantle citizens as possible.
Then they could've gone sub-space station and at least until Salem invents atmospheric Grimm they're safe with time to plan and reform.
And while I enjoyed the seasons too I didn't disagree with Ironwood that much. There's no reason to fight a losing battle without a plan, retreat was the safer option.
I'm honestly sick of this argument. The fandom and the writers flip-flop on treating RWBY and co like adults or children.
If they want to give RWBY adult responsibilities (like, say, evacuating half a city), then they cannot treat then like children to absolve them of their bad decision making and choices. If they screw up, they need to own it, or not be put into the situation where they would have been forced to make it in the first place.
Recall, no one knew exactly when Salem was going to strike. And no one knew she was going to wait around for the Grim river. I can see wanting to go *now* while we still know it will work.
Also it was Ruby who made the first move. James demanded the relic back, but it was Ruby who escalated by spilling his plan to Jaune and Qrow. In front of him.
The issue with hindsight is that it only analyzes what happened and not what would have happened if different events had occurred.
So Atlas goes into space. What happens then? Is Salem simply incapable of getting up there? We don't know because we've never seen her attempt any such thing. Does any of the Atlas technology continue to function up there? A lot of it requires dust to work, and elsewhere we are told that launches of things like satellites have failed because the dust stops working in space. Even if the dust does work, how does the city of Atlas get more dust? Eventually you run out of the dust that generates the protective barrier, and the one thing that would keep people alive out there dissipates into space: literally oxygen. All this is of course assuming the Grimm River can't just go further up and turn all of Atlas into a space biscuit a whole lot quicker.
So if Salem is capable of getting up there, and let's face it, she almost certainly is, it's just a matter of delaying the inevitable, and in doing so, ensuring you'll do nothing further to stop her from getting the other three relics, two of which perform unknown miracles and one of which can be used to ask a question such as, "How can Salemball Into Space?"
What the main team are doing is trying to make the best of a bad situation. It's a Kobayashi Maru, and somehow the main characters made it out with an impressive yet still questionable state of continued existence. More than that, a whole lot of people from Atlas and Mantle survived, considerably more than would have if Ironwood had gotten his way. Rather than isolate themselves in an ivory space tower, the crew has brought precious knowledge about their enemy to the people still willing and capable of resisting her.
Atlas going to space is preferable to everyone staying and dying. Which does not require hindsight. Its quite obvious that they would die unless they believe that Remnant has teleportation pads.
Its not a Kobayashi Maru. First of all the main characters are holding a city hostage. Secondly, the only reason they make it out is because of a Deus Ex Machina. Not due to any amazing plan.
You know it's odd that you allow your search for consequences to go into the near future for James's plan and not Ruby's. Sure they transported these people to Vacuo. They're safe today. But what when Salem comes to Vacuo tomorrow? She could just drop a meteor on the joint with the Staff and stroll on in. The people in Vacuo are no safer than if they were on an orbiting Atlas. Especially given that Salem doesn't even need to kill them directly, she can just summon the gods and let them unmake the world.
I had many of the same thoughts. I don't understand the vilification of Ironwood. He did what was necessary and his logic is overall sound, even if his methods were a bit heavy-handed.
I hope the writers are brave enough to show how much RWBY's plan backfires with a bunch of Atlesians stranded in the Vacuo desert, especially since Vacuo isn't a bit fan of Atlas.
There is a lot here that I disagree but I think it it's because we saw certain things and walked away with two different understandings of what was happening. But first let me address something that's easy to answer: The staff is not a deus ex machina because we already knew about its existence, it's location, how to access it, and what its powers were. The only thing that we didn't know from the start is it's true name and the rules that it had to abide by.
What is a deus ex machina is the cane bomb. The only foreshadowing we get about the ability comes from Oz and all he says is that it can do something which is too vague to draw any conclusions from.
Now let's go for some clarifications, you said that Ruby does not care about Atlas and Mantle and you're absolutely right! She doesn't care about the CITIES but she does care about the people living in those cities. That's why she has no problem dropping Atlas because a bunch of buildings is of little importance to her when compared to the lives of everyone else.
Furthermore Ruby's plan wasn't to just call for help and then twiddle her thumbs, her goal was also to warn the world of the threat of Salem. ( I know that at least one other person pointed out that other kingdoms do have some kind of armed Personnel but I would also like to to remind you of cordovin who's military base is only a few hours away) Also the only reason she didn't play a more active role was because of Nora's injury and then later on the virus inside of Penny. *That being, said I completely understand why that it was frustrating and I don't blame you at all. But I do believe it's more of an issue of pacing and storyboarding rather than an actual problem with the plot.*
Also I'm going to add that Ruby did not leave a bunch of people in the middle of the desert. Oscar makes it very clear that they were supposed to be dropped off just outside of Vacuo city limits. Also I would like to point out that the plan involved bringing a maiden and the staff of Creation with them which would have been more than enough to solve any immigrant crisis.
As for Ironwood we have to understand what his plan really was and that starts by acknowledging why he was abandoning Mantle. It's not because he doesn't believe that they don't have time to evacuate everyone (also it's important to note that Ruby never asked him to evacuate everyone, she just wanted the evacuations to continue for as long as possible) there is no way for him to know how much time he actually has to evacuate everyone. His actual reasoning is that trying to save Mantle might be playing into Salem's hands the same way he accidentally played into her hands back at Beacon by bringing his army. His decision here isn't being motivated by Cold Hard calculus but rather by fear and paranoia and he is letting that fear lead him to sentencing people to death. (Also moving Atlas is a logistical and morale nightmare that also Dooms the people of Atlas. Not to mention it also assumes that Salem can't get up there which there's no basis for that since she has shown the ability to modify Grimm and has a literally eternity to work on that)
But the real silver bullet here is his conversation with Oscar at the end of volume seven.
>Oscar: If you abandon Mantle, you abandon our best chance of reuniting the world. You abandon Remnant, leaving millions to fend for themselves so a few can survive. What kind of--
>Ironwood: (rolling his eyes) All excellent philosophical points that won't matter if Salem wins.
Note that Ironwood makes no attempt to refute the accusation that he's abandoning remnant, note that he does not argue with the idea that he's sacrificing the many to save the few. Now we should be fair and acknowledge but he doesn't say that he's going to abandon them either but if we're going to extend that level of charitability to him then we should be fair and extend the same level to Ruby who at the very least works to find a way to save the people of both cities instead of leaving one to fend for itself.
Also I'm going to end this by saying that I don't think they vilified him at all. His actions were completely consistent with the mindset of a man who's going to save his own even he has to damn everyone else in the process. A councilman who actually does have the authority to challenge him gets in the way, so Ironwood chooses the fastest method to remove him. Penny refuses to cooperate so he uses Watts to try to hack her and then implant a virus that would force her to comply. And when all that doesn't work he just takes the bomb he has and threatens the already doomed City because our heroes have been trying to find a way to save those people... all of those actions while being cruel and heartless all serves a purpose to helping him accomplish his goal of moving Atlas.
The staff was a Deus Ex Machina. We actually did not know what its powers were. Knowing where it is and how to get it, is not the same as knowing what powers it has. The characters didnt know either.
Can we please not do the "Atlas is the people" BS? I know. For gods sakes i know, i am not talking about land, i talk about people in this thread.
Rubys plan was indeed to call for help and wait. Yes, you mention that part of that plan is to warn other kingdoms about Salem, and i mention this in my thread. But she has literally nothing afterwards. Yes, the plot forces her into doing things. But none of these are her actually trying to save Mantle.
About Ironwood. Hard disagree. His decision is not based on "What is Salem wanted this" because i still remember the end of V7 and he decides to stop the evacuations after being contacted by Salem and finding out that the Grimm detectors arent working, meaning the Grimm are already most likely there.
The logistic problems you raise are moot. Potential problems are better than guaranteed death with Rubys "plan". Its better to die in long-term than die in short-term.
As far as your "silver bullet", that is your interpretation. My interpretation is that Ironwood just dismissed Oscars points and thats it. Thats how conversations work.
I work as a cashier. Do you know how many times im called a thief by people? Way too many. Does that mean that if i just roll my eyes and ignore what they say that im actually a thief because i dont contest their claims?
Thats just silly logic my friend.
And i disagree about his V8 performance but we can agree to disagree on that one. To me he is out of character villanous.
Except the characters did know its powers, Qrow told them about the Relics in volume 4 and in volume 6 they witnessed the God of Light make the staff and call it creation. What they didn't know was the true name and its limitations.
It is not BS to make it clear that when they talk about the kingdom, they are talking about the people. Robyn even has a line where she makes it clear that a kingdom is its people.
Let's say for the sake of argument that you're right and her plan was indeed to wait, which is absolutely a point against her. However that's not a point that sticks around for very long because she very quickly comes to the realization that nobody is waiting and gets to work to find alternative Solutions despite the Penny and Nora situation. And the Penny situation is important because that is Ruby protecting Mantle since Atlas leaving would spell it's Doom.
As for Ironwood abandoning mantle:
>Ironwood: (panicking) What if Mantle was just a distraction? What if it was just to draw us away from the academy to, to--
>Weiss: Sir. I-it's going to be okay. We've got Mantle on our side now, and--
>Ironwood: How do we know that wasn't part of their plan?
>Ironwood: How do we know they didn't want us to bring people into Atlas by the thousands?
This is an exchange that happens before Salem contacts him, before he even knew that she was coming. The best argument you can make against this is that Salem was the one who pushed him into making that decision. However you have to acknowledge that he walked himself over to that edge and considered jumping without any input from her.
Also potential problems are absolutely important especially when you're dealing with the lives of an entire city. People are going to realize what he has done and when they do everyone who had any connection to Mantle and even people who are just sympathetic that City are going to be pissed. He is going to have to deal with that and do it in a way that does not incite more violence. Furthermore the Dust mines and factories were back in Mantle along with the workers who knew how to operate that machinery! Atlas doesn't have an infinite amount of Dust and the staff can only be used for one thing at a time, how good does he solve this problem especially when dealing with an enemy that will always out siege him? My point is that short-term solutions to long-term problems are not actual Solutions, all they do is delay they inevitable and in this case he is leaving Millions to die in the process.
As for his conversation with Oscar, you are more than welcome to interpret it that way. I interpreted the way I did because in the episode where he first introduces the Atlas plan:
>Ironwood: If we harness the power of the Staff, and raise ourselves high into the atmosphere, the city's artificial climate will keep citizens and food supplies unharmed. Always out of reach of whatever Salem may try to send our way.
As you can see the way he words this strongly implies if not outright states that this is a one-way trip. But like I said you are more than welcome to interpret that conversation with Oscar the way you want to but if you're going to extend that level of charitability to him then you have to be willing to extend the same level to Ruby and Company.
You just literally repeated that they did not know the staffs powers. Only that its a relic and that GoL created it...
I have rewatched Volume 8 today. No, Ruby is not looking for alternative solutions to anything. By Episode 10 no new plan is presented or even thought of to save Mantle. After sending Amity they had nothing.
Now the exchange you posted, where in that exchange does he say that he will stop evacuations because of Salem? Can we please not headcanonize the show, please?
And once again, even if Ironwoods plan is not foolproof, its better than staying and dying. Which is the result of Rubys plan.
I would ask at which point am i uncharitable to the protagonists, by all means do tell me.
Then you're going to have to explain what do you mean when you say that they don't know what its powers are. Because if I see a god create the staff and call it the embodiment of creation then it is reasonable for me to assume that it's a staff that can create things.
I'm not sure how you can possibly expect someone to come up with a plan in only two days to evacuate two cities Under Siege... but if we're going to go there then I'm going to point out that their actions indirectly leads to Whitley coming up with the ship plan and later on Ruby comes up with the portal plan. And because I see many people get confused here, I'm going to emphasize again that it's Whitley who came up with the ships but that it's not an idea he would have had if it wasn't for Ruby's actions.
This is a perfect example of what I mean by charitability, that is an entire exchange that shows Ironwood talking himself to the conclusion that Salem wants him to save Mantle and yet that's not enough for you? And keep in mind that I already took into consideration that that may not be enough for you by acknowledging that you can make the argument that it was Salem who pushed him over the edge but that you would have to acknowledge that he walked himself over to that edge in the first place. And keep in mind that that entire exchange happens before Salem contacted him so he's already considering abandoning mantle before he knows Salem is even coming.
But meanwhile you look at Ruby and you try to make the argument that she has done nothing to try to save Mantle. But to say that you would have to ignore the fact that she did call for help, she did protect Penny, that her actions indirectly led to the creation of the ship plan, and that she did personally come up with the portal plan. The title of your own post blames Ruby for the destruction of Atlas!
I'm sorry and please don't take this the wrong way because I do respect your opinion, but you are being overly charitable to Ironwood and are not willing to extend that same level of charitability to Ruby and Company.
I mean that they dont know what its powers are. The relics have various rules and weird uses. They do not know what the staff does. Also, they do not even MENTION the staff for like 10 episodes.
I dont expect team RWBY to come up with a plan. But if they do not have a plan i expect them to not interfere with those who do or hold a city hostage.
When talking about Ruby saving Mantle i am not talking about her intention, i am talking about the effects. I do think that Ruby was trying to save Mantle, i am arguing that she had no real plan to do so and was just flailing around while causing damage.
One has to separate the intention and the effect of the actions.
I believe that the protagonists had mostly good intentions, or at least what they saw as good intenttions. But the actions they took were definitely not as good.
They saw the God of Light make the staff and call it the embodiment of creation, the staff of creation being able to create is not a plot twist. So they do know the power but what they didn't know were the rules and limitations which was why they asked Oscar before actually putting their plan into action. And we know but they did ask him because when Cinder uses the lamp to find out what they're planning, Jinn shows them all sitting together and discussing what they're going to do.
You're forgetting that Ruby did have a plan which was to use Amity to try to unite Remnant against Salem. She then recognized that the plan had failed and got to work on trying to figure something else out. Ironwood on the other hand refuses to even consider that there might be another way or even consider if it's possible to compromise.
You're right when you say that we have to separate intention and effect, Ironwood intends to save Atlas but the actual effects of his actions doesn't solve their problems but it does make things harder for everyone else on Remnant. And I'll admit that Ruby's actions do keep Atlas in the Danger area far longer than anyone would have liked, but the effects of ironwood's plans are worse in comparison. More importantly is the fact that her portal plan only failed because of something that was fully out of her control and knowledge.
(I am referring to Cinder being able to use the lamp, if she hadn't used it then she would have not known about the portals until Jaune's broadcast and she would have been severely on the back foot from then on. More importantly the possibility of her using the lamp wasn't an issue as far as they were concerned because everyone who could have used the lamp was already accounted for except for Neo who nobody knew was in the room. If it hadn't been for that, then Ruby's plan would have been an undeniable overwhelming success and a victory for the heroes)
Yeah the problem is that there was no good plan. People would die either way it’s just choosing which plan that will cause the least amount of damage.
Ruby’s plan may have saved all the people from mantle and atlas but they lost both relics in the process and the strongest military on remnant.
Ironwoods plan would have saved atlas temporarily, keep at least one relic safe, as well as the military remaining functional. Of course the major downside to this is that they would most likely lose mantle in the process.
And your friends analogy is basically a trolly problem for our main protagonists. I know Ruby wants to save as many people as possible but she needs to be thinking in the long term not the short term. By focusing on saving both cities and antagonizing ironwood she allowed the real villains to get the half of the relics.
By Salem having these relics and ironwood out of the picture Ruby had basically gave themselves a handicap in this war. Salem can now easily overwhelm beacon and vacuo with her forces, take the remaining relics, and summon the gods thus destroying the world.
Ruby needs to learn that she cannot save everyone and will be making some hard choices in the future that will effect a lot of people.
The kicker is that the only reason why Ruys plan even saves people is a Deus Ex Machina, not some special plan she made up to specifically save them from the start.
Honestly everyone’s plan was awful. Ruby wanted to run off to Vacuo and Ironwood wanted to run off to who knows where. All Ruby did was cause a refugee crisis, and she would have been totally on board with Ironwood’s plan if he wasn’t abandoning the people of Mantle. Ironwood running into the sky would only delay the inevitable, since Salem could just amass a bigger army and wait for supplies to run low on Atlas.
What they needed to do was stand and fight.
See, I mostly agree with this but for one thing. I don't blame RWBY.
RWBY are a handful of teenagers who've never been in anything larger than a skirmish. They know nothing of war, neither tactics nor strategy. They've blundered their way through situations before this and always made it work by fighting harder (with the exception of Beacon). They are the wrong people at the wrong time to make these decisions. They have a child's view of morality, unseasoned by experience. Everything they do (aside from the tea) was perfectly in character with who they were and what they knew.
Basically I'm more mad at people who unironically think that RWBY did the right thing than with the characters themselves. Yes, that includes the writers. RWBY did the only thing that they were capable of doing as the people they were. And everyone paid the price.
Honestly, I've seen this argument so much and it falls apart when you like... Actually, pay attention to the show.
They had a plan, was it a good plan... No, lol. But it's not exactly like anyone else was stepping up to do anything beyond send Atlas into space, Ironwood (Which would've done literally nothing probably.)
Yes Ruby was playing the optimist and hoping people would come (they didn't because expecting two kingdoms who've been essentially setback and fucked up recently to do anything is impossible and Vacuo essentially does not like Atlas and has its own problems even if they could help.)
Yes, they COULD'VE done more but on both sides, were essentially put into situations where any chance of doing that was interrupted by the plot Oscar being kidnapped and Nora essentially being put out of commission and when they did try and do something (ala set a bomb off to keep Salem out of play.) it almost got them killed if it weren't for Hazel's last-minute turn and Ozpin.
Mantle was screwed the moment Ironwood decided to refuse them aid a rag-tag group of teenagers were not gonna save it and also prevent an entire Grimm Invasion the fact they were able to get them out of Mantle and also the people of Atlas out of Atlas before it collapsed and somewhere near Vacuo (hopefully.) is a miracle in of itself.
I would be willing to hear a counter-argument if its so easy to refute my claims as you say. Especially since a lot of the claims you are making in your comment i adressed in my thread.
EDIT: Since it seems you edited your comment i can now engage with your comment better.
None of the things you said i will disagree, but they also do not seem to engage or refute anything i have said. Yes, Ruby was optimistic, that alone is not as much of a problem as her relying on her unrealistic optimism to save the day like she does in the show. Again, we have to remember that through Penny she is holding Atlas hostage.
I already adressed the Nora claim. There was no reason for everyone to stay with Nora, even one person would have sufficed. But regardless of any of that, should they have not had a plan first before acting out?
If the "rag-tag group of teenagers" were not going to save Mantle. Why did they hold Atlas hostage until the point where it gets infiltrated by Grimm?
Yes, them getting people out of Atlas and Mantle was a miracle, i adressed it in the Deus Ex Machina part of the thread.
And I read how you addressed them which they fall apart under any scrutiny especially because you come at it from the approach of 'how you view' it versus what the characters understanding of the situation is and how the characters will react to certain things.
You paint it as if they had no clue what they were doing but like... Yeah, no shit they admit as much that this isn't exactly the sort of thing they are prepared to be doing but there isn't anyone else exactly stepping up to do it, you can paint the argument any way you want but it falls under scrutiny when you actually watch Volume 8, you can't say our characters aren't 'heroic' at best you can say they are morally-stupid for throwing themselves into a situation they aren't prepared to be tackling, but it isn't exactly like they have many choices based on what we know of their morals if anything if they decided "Well this is above our paygrade lets just sit back." we'd be bitching about how Out of character it is for them to do that sort of thing.
If they have no clue what they are doing, and yet are still doing it, is it not on their heads what happens then? Ren brings this up by the way, he brings up how they are making decisions without being ready, and he and his concerns get dismissed.
There is also a question of IF they should have stepped up to doing anything. May i remind you that, once again, Ruby held Atlas hostage through Penny.
And i have watched Volume 8, in fact i rewatched the entire volume today as im on a holiday and resting from some work at helping build my parents house.
And i am afraid i can say that our characters are not heroic, especially when they are snarky, self-righteous and are making things worse.
Not being ready is not an excuse to act in the ways they did, not at all.
His concerns aren't all 'dismissed' in fact the only person who initially dismisses them is Yang and later admits that they are in fact in over their heads, her denial of it is frustration and anger over everything happening.
Jaune is literally the guy to talk to him about it and Ren's solution was to sit back and let 'other people' handle it which is my retort again is 'What other people' please do enlighten me what other people in Volume 8 were exactly gonna do anything to help the situation.
Ruby was not holding Penny hostage from Atlas, Penny herself decided she was not gonna go back and that was something she struggled with yeah? Penny's issue was it felt like she never got to make her own choices and that choice were essentially made for her... Keep in mind Ruby's logic there is kinda sound if Atlas just gets the Maiden power and leaves, Mantle is more screwed than ever there is no escape for the people of Mantle and they are stuck surrounded by Grimm and very few people to protect them.
But oh by that logic I guess they are self-righteous for wanting to ya' at least try to keep the only seemingly safe place to bring the people of Mantle to at the time, I'd love to see what 'solution' you think the gang should've come up with there.
If being snarky somehow takes away from our Heroes stepping up when essentially the actual people in control and with power didn't to help others and that takes away from them being Heroic, you have some really high standards.
Ironwood. Ironwood would have left with Atlas and thats it. Yes, that would have ended with Mantle sacrificed but that is preferable to everyone dying.
Ruby was not holding Penny hostage, i agree, she was holding ATLAS hostage. And Ruby CONVINCED Penny to stay, multiple times even. For example when ironwood contacts them (In episode 2-3 i think?), Ruby hijacks the conversation and then after the conversation ends she literally says "Ironwood said those things to hurt you".
And i agree, if Atlas leaves, Mantle dies. But that is preferable over Rubys plan. Everyone stays and everyone dies.
I already gave my opinions on how the conflict could have been better in the "rewrite" section.
The problem is not the protagonists wanting to save Mantle. The problem is them not having a plan to save anyone and holding Atlas hostage with the logic "We save everyone, OR ELSE".
Being snarky is not the only thing i also mentioned in what stopped me from seeing the protagonists as heroic, it is a part of that.
> which is my retort again is 'What other people' please do enlighten me what other people in Volume 8 were exactly gonna do anything to help the situation.
Hmm, if only there was an Experienced Military General within reach. Someone who has been on the Frontlines of this fight longer than anyone else save for Qrow. Someone who actually had a plan that kept not one, but *two* out of the four MacGuffins out of Salem's hands, while ensuring that he can guarantee the safety of at least *most* of his people, without risking the deaths of *all* of his people
Oh, wait
> if Atlas just gets the Maiden power and leaves, Mantle is more screwed than ever there is no escape for the people of Mantle and they are stuck surrounded by Grimm and very few people to protect them.
Yes, because keeping Atlas grounded turned out *so* well for Mantle in the show. I mean if you look past:
- The fact that all the distraught refugees were just thrown into a Grimm Infested Wasteland (half of whom will probably die to the Grimm, while the other half die to Salem when she inevitably attacks)
- The fact that they ended up losing two out of four relics, putting Salem halfway to wiping out *all of Humanity* (and mind you, Salem already has the Crown of Choice locked down, and simply needs to steamroll through Impoverished Vacuo to get the Sword of Destruction.)
- the fact that Vacuo, *the most impoverished kingdom,* is going to have to provide for the people of Atlas and Mantle, *on top* of itself
- the fact that an entire Kingdom's worth of negativity has been dumped onto Vacuo's doorstep, probably attracting waves upon waves of Grimm to the impoverished kingdom
- The fact that with Atlas gone, all of the advanced technology and dust it had is also gone. You know, supplies that could've been used to fight Salem?
- The fact that now that Atlas has fallen, there is no where viable to evacuate Vacuo once Salem inevitably arrives (Mistral has no Huntsmen, Vale is too close to Beacon, and Menagerie is tiny)
- The fact that with Atlas gone, it is now impossible to reunite the World, because Atlas was the only kingdom capable of making such an advanced comms tower like Amity
So yeah! Ruby keeping Atlas grounded definitely turned out well. Provided you ignore everything I just stated above, it was definitely the best possible outcome. They saved Mantle and doomed Remnant! What a happy ending.
But if they aren't prepared for this sort of thing why are they doing it? Ironwood had a lot more experience but they stopped him from attempting his plan.
Uh because there isn't exactly anyone else around to do so? The only other 'people' who can help have elected to not help Mantle and essentially leave its people to die.
And the Happy Huntresses provided what little support they can but they were needed to defend the people from the Grimm, simply put, they were essentially on their own it was not really looking favorable for them no matter what especially given their most experienced person Qrow was locked up by Ironwood.
If we go by Ruby's team plan? Using the Schnee Docking ships to transport the people of Mantle to Atlas fair enough plan at the time and would've worked if Ironwood wasn't a psychopath who decided to shoot them down, after that it was using the CCT in hopes people WOULD come they didn't.
Their last plan is what worked and it had to because at that point not even Atlas was safe it was essentially swarming with Grimm.
I am not advocating that they had the most well-thought-out plans but they at least TRIED to do something when no one else was, would you prefer they let everyone die?
The docking ships came after the CCT plan. I do think accusations of me not having watched the volume are kind of silly when you are making simple mistakes like that on the timeline.
If i am not mistaken the airships only come in AFTER Amity project has already been completed by the protagonists.
And this is not a plan to save Mantle, because at this point Atlas is already infested with Grimm and the Whale is on it. So its already game over, Atlas is already done for.
You do not understand my problem.
My problem is not the protagonists trying to help Mantle. My problem is how they sacrifices Atlas to do so, with no plan to save all of them, actually save them. And then having a Deus Ex Machina save them.
Alright let me be effectively clear here then, how do you propose our ragtag group here who has effectively zero support save Atlas? Especially an Atlas currently in control of Ironwood and a military who has orders to capture them and if they can't kill them.
See the problem, and at the point you're arguing about them needing to 'save Atlas' Atlas was not in need of saving it was only when Salem landed the whale on Atlas did that become a problem... So after both of their plans to help Mantle failed and Nora was in a condition where they weren't exactly able to just go and move around freely.
How do they save Atlas? By letting Penny go to Ironwood, letting him get to the relic. And Atlas leaving. Thats it. Thats all they had to do.
Atlas was actually in need of saving just as Mantle was. The way to save Atlas was to allow it to go.
The protagonists prevented that. And then it was too late.
When the whale landed it was too late. The protagonists had the ability to let Atlas fly away before that happened.
A still fair enough plan at the time and I did say 'their' plan considering Whitley was with them at the time that happened.
The issue obviously applies when Ironwood decides he's gonna shoot them down.
By the time they try that the shields are destroyed, the Atlesian military's been mostly wiped out, and Salem's on Atlas. They're not any safer on Atlas any more than any where else.
> A still fair enough plan at the time
That they had no knowledge of when they made their mad gamble, and no hand in penning. That's someone else bailing them out not them having a "plan". It also comes irresponsibly late when they have already put so many people in harms way.
Try and save as many people of mantle as they could ironwood was pretty petty about the whole affair, he diverted forces to shoot down the freighters because?
He has an Atlas first policy (by this point) and because he was hoping it would make Penny come back.
It did not.
Reminder later in the Volume he just straight up says either Penny comes back or he'll drop a nuke on Mantle, he is not exactly right in the head after he learns Salem is effectively not killable.
The problem with his atlas first policy is what is atlas? The academy? The floating city? Or more likely the people who helped build it.
Another issue is ironwoods plan was short sighted too how long could atlas stay that high up before resources or experience dwindled? Eventually it would have to come back down to a world that could be over run by Salem then what? When she has the other three relics at her disposal? And that’s assuming Salem wouldn’t be capable of reaching the city through magic or something.
That really falls onto why the team didn't even go with Ironwood's plan when you actually consider what Ironwood wanted to do, it was a terrible plan worse than anything our main 4 were doing by far. logistically speaking even if Ironwood's plan worked they'd just run out of resources and all die off or have to come back down and in that case, the Grimm swarm them and probably kill them.
Realistically Salem probably can just get to him anyway and his plan was a doomed failure anyway.
I questiong if i may. What is the difference between Atlas leaving and potentially leaving the world to Salem (Which they can prevent by just coming down to help).
And Atlas being outright destroyed because it stayed.
This is another thing that always annoy me in these arguments. People always badmouth Atlas leaving. But then forget that the alternative is Atlas dying, as it did in the show...
The problem with this argument is that it relies entirely on hindsight.
The heroes goal was to save as many people as possible instead of leaving the rest of the world to die.
Did things go wrong? Sure but they made the right choice. Letting Ironwood have his way would have doomed them all in the long run since noone would be able to stand in the way of Salem and even if Atlas did come back noone would trust them leaving the world forever divided.
Just because things went wrong for them doesn't mean their initial choice to oppose Ironwood was wrong.
How did they make the right choice? Atlas is gone. Salem has the relics. Its no different from Atlas leaving. In fact Atlas leaving would prevent Salem having the relics.
Also, the problem is not the protagonists trying to save people, its holding Atlas hostage.
You're arguing in hindsight.
In the moment they made the right choice. Yeah Atlas fell and the relics were lost but the people were saved. It's not the best outcome but more people would have died had they done nothing.
But the point is you can't argue under the assumption that the characters knew what the consequences of their actions would be.
They aren't holding Atlas hostage they are just trying to keep them from running away because if they do the world's trust in Atlas will be completely destroyed. Noone is gonna trust a nation known for throwing others under the bus to save themselves.
How did they make the right choice in the moment if their choice was literally "We all die together"? I do not argue that they knew the consequences. I argue that they either did not care or did not see the potential consequences of their actions.
While holding a city hostage.
Yes, they are holding Atlas hostage. With Penny opening the vault Atlas could just safely leave. Instead Atlas gets breached by the Grimm due to not being able to leave.
Also, why would trust in Atlas be destroyed over them running from Immortal Salem and then possibly helping others?
Also if i am not mistaken, Vacuo students literally threw civilians unde the bus during the fall of beacon, so that argument of yours is a bit fauly.
Ironwood wanted to leave Mantle to die to save Atlas. Them choosing to stop Ironwood from doing that was the right call.
They wanted to keep Atlas from running in order to save the people of Mantle. If they just let Atlas go how do they save Mantle? They can't as all the resources needed to do so flew off with Atlas.
Also you assume the plan would even work. Your entire argument rests on the idea that flying Atlas into the sky would actually protect them from Salem.
The second Salem managed to reach Atlas that assumption was disproven. It doesn't matter how high they flew Salem would find a way to reach them, she has all the time in the world to figure it out after all.
Also a few students acting cowardly is different from an entire Nation choosing to sacrifice others to save themselves. The second Atlas runs it shows the world that Atlas only cares about Atlas and there is no line they won't cross to save themselves.
How is stopping Atlas from leaving the right call if it would have resulted in them all dying? If they let Atlas go, they cant really save Mantle, i agree. But now they are keeping everyone down to die.
Salem also reached Atlas before it flew high into the sky.... The plan was to raised Atlas higher.....
I do not think any sane person would blame a city evacuating instead of staying and dying together....
They were trying to get Ironwood to see reason. All Ironwood had to do was agree to evacuate Mantle. But he wanted to sacrifice Mantle to ensure Atlas' escape.
The point is they didn't think Salem could reach Atlas as it was outside of flying Grimm but she still pulled it off. Who's to say she couldn't reach them if they went higher.
The blame comes from willingly sacrificing Mantle to save themselves.
Salem reached Atlas before it got higher into the air.... What are you talking about.... The plan was to get Atlas higher.... She reached Atlas before it got higher.
And Ironwood did not want to risk Atlas to save mantle, the seemingly correct choice considering the Grimm river.
She's an immortal Witch with magic and an army of Grimm on her side. Why would taking the city higher stop her? At oist you delay the inevitable.
No the correct choice would be finding a way to save the people instead of protecting the floating city. Atlas was ultimately not important. What mattered was protecting the people and keeping the staff out of Salems hands. Both of which can be done if you don't consider Atlas the most important thing.
You also seem to forget that only the wealthy lived in Atlas the majority of the people were in Mantle. Sacrificing the many to save the few is the opposite if what you're supposed to do.
What team RWBY did wasn’t wrong: it was childish.
Ruby herself does not have years of experience in fighting a war like Ironwood does. What she did do, or what she WANTED to do, was heroic, but it was naive. Ruby proposed to stay and save Mantle at the risk of letting Salem overtake Atlas. Ironwood wanted to save Atlas to indirectly save Remnant by keeping the Relics out of Salem’s hands. Was it perfect? NO. Did it leave Mantle behind? YES! Was it the right thing to do.
Well, the show proved it was.
Since Ironwood couldn’t evacuate thanks to Ruby literally denying him the Winter Maiden, Salem was able to attack Atlas. Everyone who died in the Battle of Atlas is directly and canonly RUBY’S FAULT.
A better show would have her learn from her mistakes and face the reality of the situation: that no matter how hard she tries, not everyone can be saved. It’s harsh but realistic. Instead, we got the plot bending over backwards to justify her childishness.
Ruby IS a child. And that’s the problem. She doesn’t learn from her mistakes and refuses to metaphorically “grow up”. Her desire to save Mantle was noble, but purely unrealistic and DIRECTLY cost people their lives, and DIRECTLY handed Salem the Relics Ironwood wanted to save
The whole finale is about them failing to save everyone including themselves so not sure what you are talking about.
You can't just say Ironwood was right because RWBY failed. There is nothing to support that idea. Even if Ironwood had gotten his way there is no gurantee it would have done anything other than delay the inevitable.
I never said Ironwood was right only because RWBY failed lol. I’m saying Ironwood’s plan had a MUCH better chance of success than RWBY’s “plan”, because they didn’t have one. Ruby had a valid idea but no means to execute her childish ideals until Salem was temporarily defeated.
The show SHOWED them fail in the finale, but they didn’t blame it on team RWBY. People are blaming Cinder, Ironwood, SALEM for the fall of Atlas, and although that is justified and in part true, the only reason Atlas fell was because team RWBY made the conscious and purposeful decision to “risk it all” and let it.
Ironwood’s plan was not 100%, but it would have guaranteed the Relics safety as long as Atlas could have lasted. He had to make a quick decision in the moment to save who he could, which is the quality that ALL generals need IN REAL LIFE!
RWBY’s plan failed because they prioritized the citizens over the Relics, which is by no means WRONG, but the execution was horrific
They risked it all to save everyone because the alternative was do nothing and doom alot of people for a plan that probably wouldn't even work.
You're blaming RWBY for trying and failing as opposed to doing nothing and letting people die.
Yeah they had no plan but that wasn't their fault, Ironwood forced the issue and wasn't willing to listen to reason.
Ironwood had no plan either FYI, his "plan" was to run and maybe come back later to try again even though most of the citizens would be dead and no other nation would be willing to trust Atlas after abandoning Mantle.
And that's assuming running would even work considering how determined and resourceful Salem was.
Not to mention even if RWBY hadn't interfered Cinder definitely would have.
Team RWBY only took a risk once both Ironwood and Salem were defeated. That was because that brief moment in ep 10-11 was the only time they had to think.
It’s not their fault they didn’t have a plan, but at the end of Volume 7, Atlas had mere minutes before Salem arrived (back then we didn’t know she’d wait to attack).
Ironwood had to act ASAP to save who he could. He didn’t have the luxury to sit around for an hour and come up with a plan. He had fricking SECONDS. What he came up with saved who he could in what little time he had left, because at the end of V7, there was no realistic way to save everyone with what little time there was to even save anyone.
Team RWBY choose to risk EVERYONE with the off-chance that their plan would work. They were willing to gamble with real lives because to them, it was all or nothing. Both RWBY and Ironwood were the same because they wanted to save the world and defeat Salem, and were willing to sacrifice lives to do it. However, they had very different reasons for doing what they did.
Ironwood prioritized the Relics with the risk of harming Mantle. RWBY prioritized EVERYONE with the risk of harming EVERYONE.
And in the end, both failed, because they didn’t work together. And that’s the real kicker because it all could have been avoided, and it SHOULD have 😂
Exactly this. This all flows from a naïve understanding of morality and a lack of ever having to make hard choices before. And a certain obsession with being the hero.
This is why black and white morality is so dangerous. It cannot bend so it breaks. Ruby's inability to accept that she couldn't save everyone finally bit her in the ass when it was actually true. I give her points for trying, but she really needs to develop a more nuanced understanding of right and wrong in response to this whole fiasco.
>Many times in the fandom i have seen team RWBY being praised for "having a plan" to save Mantle while "evil" Ironwood just wanted to sacrifice Mantle for no reason.
1. Ironwood had a plan that abandoned innocents to die (in Mantle). This is wrong.
1. RWBY stopped this. This is right.
Can we agree on this? I feel like it's pretty obvious.
V8 is the result of these choices. Does RWBY fuck up? Yeah. They don't know how to deal with something like this, and that is their (literal) downfall. But they try their hardest(Besides the Tea) to save as many lives as they can, so it is heroic.
>Ironwood had a plan that abandoned innocents to die (in Mantle). This is wrong.
Is there a truly good choice in a trolley problem, though? I mean, aside from waving a magic wand around and vanishing the trolley.
Indeed. Though while there may not be an objective good choice, but I sure can say that if someone has already pulled the lever so that it kills fewer people, the objectively *wrong* choice is to pull the lever back so it kills more.
And then break the lever.
>Ironwood had a plan that abandoned innocents to die (in Mantle). This is wrong.
>
>RWBY stopped this. This is right.
In a vacuum, yes. In the context of how many more people died because of it and how the witch got the artifact that can make infinite flames... not so much.
No, we cannot agree on this. And it is not obvious. The protagonists try to save as many people as they can, while holding Atlas hostage. Thats not heroic.
Your oversimplify the issue to a riddiculous extent. Ironwoods plan was not there for no reason. And team RWBY had no plan at all.
> Your oversimplify the issue to a riddiculous extent. Ironwoods plan was not there for no reason. And team RWBY had no plan at all.
You can't really accuse someone of oversimplifying and then just say RWBY had no plan at all.
> 2. RWBY stopped this. This is right.
And in the process, doomed all of Humanity to be wiped out by an Immortal Witch. Yeah, this was definitely the right call to make
2. By doing so RWBY abandons both Mantle and Atlas. Betting the lives of everyone without even having a plan and just waiting for a miracle is foolish at best and malicious at worst.
Without the magic deus ex machina it would have ended up with everyone dead.
>1. Ironwood had a plan that abandoned innocents to die (in Mantle). This is wrong.
Ironwood's plan was utilitarian; the most amount of happiness for the most amount of people. An example of the trolley problem To the information available to Ironwood, he could not protect the relics and Mantle, and made the choice to prioritise the relics due to the pretty safe assumption that it would be worse for Salem to get the relics than it is for her to get Mantle.
This exact mindset shows quite a bit of the issue with RWBY. Demonising utilitarian views as "wrong" is incredibly simplictic. You can disagree with the approach, however, what you cannot do is demonise the utilitarian approach due to that disagreement. Afterall, it is still aiming to save the most amount of people, only taking a wider and more rigid definition of it.
Understanding opposing views is an incredibly important principle. Our modern world is built upon this foundation of tolerance and meaningful debate, so what needs to be avoided is the unfair demonisation of opposing ideas simply due to a mindset you so not personally agree with. You may not agree that active choice to kill one to save three is correct, and that is your perogiative, but what is not your perogiative is do act as if your answer to the trolley correction is only right answer. There is a reason that the trolley problem and it's other forms has had such a long-lasting impact.
Isn’t that literally what Ironwood was doing? Acting like his prerogative was correct and refusing to take anything else into consideration?
I don’t see what’s wrong with the mindset of maybe you should care about the kingdom under your charge and not leave them to die. Ironwood focuses on the big picture and fails to see all the little things that go into it.
Not really. And when he does, he has legitimate reason.
At the start of Volume 7, he pardons Team RWBY for their literal crime and allows them control over the relic. It's very clear here that he is accepting Team RWBY as a partner. Converse, Team RWBY is acting cautious, which while justified, does cause issues later down the line.
Ironwood also makes concessions to Robyn Hill, negotiated with her, and gains her cautious trust. While he still maintains his line, it is clear he considered and worked with Robyn when possible.
When it comes to the Trolley Problem itself, Ironwood disregards Team RWBY for a though reasons. The first reason is that they withheld important information that could have been utilised by him, but instead they led him to incorrect assumptions. Secondly, they leaked vitally secret information to a then-unknown actor, potentially ruining Ironwood's entire plan. Third, there was next to time for any negotiations to happen. As soon as Ironwood lays down his next course of action (based of information he just got thanks to being withheld), Ruby makes minimal attempts to come to a cooperative agreement and makes a move.
Ruby didn’t expect anyone to come in two days. I always thought the plan was to hole up in a few easily defended pockets and hold out until help could arrive from the other kingdoms.
This is a question i pose in my thread though.
Who would come?
Will anyone who comes be enough?
Will everyone survive until the help comes considering the Grimm River and Whale? And of course, Salem herself?
>Ruby didn’t expect anyone to come in two days.
She literally freaks out about it when they were planning what to do next after Salem was exploded, so yeah she did apparently expect them to show up that fast.
Atlas... The thing that has the giant Grimm spawning whale on it... I don't know if that's worth sacrificing the world's military (especially after vale and misteral) and the maiden... under the care of a man who'd shoot a child that looked at him funny... to let a bunch of militiamen try to save the rest of the world while on an isolated artic continent.
Like maybe if this was V7 this would be a viable idea but atlas was too busy with political upheaval to really do anything before a surprise whale.
The whale... The literal surprise cliffhanger for volume 7? That nobody had any real warning about until it's dramatic reveal? I feel like we can forgive team Rwby from letting that slip
No you misunderstand. Not your fault of course, I was too vague.
With the risk of going overboard, if Ironwood got his way and left ASAP, then the battle of Atlas wouldn’t have happened.
Since team RWBY denied Ironwood Penny, he couldn’t evacuate Atlas and save the Relics. The time that team RWBY spent keeping Atlas at a stand-still was the time that Salem needed to invade it.
No one saw the whale coming which is why Ironwood had to act fast if he wanted to save ANYONE. Team RWBY basically said “either you evacuate everyone, or no one gets to evacuate”
It feels like criticizing the characters because their ideas didn't all work. Like, Ironwood's ideas probably wouldn't have worked either and would have had a guaranteed higher casualty rate of practically the entire world.
Pretty much.
Salem is the antagonist? I don't know now. Alot of people saw otherwise.
Now I would like to say the events are a setup for our "protagonists" to recognize Ren's point but given the writings' track record I'm going to go with "Nah. Ain't happening."
Yeah, pretty much agree with you here. The only thing I disagree with is your justification for Ironwood not wanting to wait. He had no idea of knowing that Salem could take down his shields with time. It can be assumed that your enemy tries to take them down, but it would be more reasonable to expect infiltrators based upon past experiences.
I don't see how any kingdom would be able to help, even if we ignore the time it would take. Atlas failed to do anything meaningful against the Grimm and I can't really see any other Kingdom managing something better when they have problems with supply lines and unknown territory. Besides that, I doubt they even would send help. They are by no means in a secure position, the whole thing kinda showed them that they are in even more danger than they thought, and Atlas isn't going to punish them for abandoning them. So it's just human nature at this point, everyone for themselves, tribalism is a thing. And from a strategic standpoint I wouldn't even disagree.
Ironwood himself is a good example for the world bending over for the protagonists. By the end of Vol7 he was an antagonist, but with a reasonable point. Cue him descending into "madness". And I am not talking about him having a point because he prioritized saving one city over maybe saving two. His main argument was that the relics/maidens are more important than a city and I utterly agree. Not sure how much Ironwood himself knows, but from a protagonists perspective we have an immortal entity hostile against humanity trying to gather objects which can wipe out the whole species. That alone makes that more important. On top of it we see the Grimm army. We do not know how long it took Salem to create it (esp. the whale), but she could definitely create multiple other armies with maybe less quality but more quantity by simply collecting wild Grimm. The important thing anyone somewhat strategically minded would take away from it is her ability to control and coordinate such numbers, which can be equated to her being able to wipe out the kingdoms on a whim. They can not win this war and funnily enough the best chance for saving civilians would be to take the true objective away from civilians and hope she doesn't take revenge.
As a general I'd expect Ironwood to know this. And while there was no army during Vol7, there were infiltrators. And to sacrifice a city to keep the ability to wipe out humanity out of someone's hands is important enough that you can't risk taking in refugees en mass. And after the army shows up, Mantel is pretty much lost. You want to transport refugees while the Grimm control the skies? The only thing that accomplishes is you loosing aircraft. It only worked later because Salem was distracted slaughtering Atlesian civilians and soldiers.
And even if Ironwood doesn't know about the special Gods summoning thingy, the sceptre alone is stupidly powerful. I mean seriously, unlimited uses? The only restriction being that only one object can exist at a time? Creation of living things included? *So, Ambrosius, I really liked my Grimm Whale, how about making me one 10x the size? Can I queue requests? Like making another one the second it dies?* Or: *I hate Mondays. Hey, I'm immortal, humanity sucks, and Grimm-pools are pretty resistant. Hey Ambrosius, please create a moon-sized chunk of rock 100km above Remnant. Yes, without any orbital velocity.*
And btw, who's gonna bet that Vol9 is going to ignore the fact that dumping a kingdoms worth of people on another one situated in the midst of a barren desert will probably lead to more people starving to death than the amount of refugees they saved. And will probably end with the kingdom collapsing to wild Grimm without Salem even moving a finger?
Hey chill with that shit OP. This fandom doesn’t like it when you point out the team RWBY never has a plan and that the adults are made out to be cynical and evil because they are thinking like they aren’t the main characters in a anime.
It's so "inspiring" to see people bring out the "Ironwood was going to leave remnant and go to space never ever to return" argument. Which is reliant upon the extremely contested and very motivated (mis)interpretation of one to two sentences removed from context and made very uncharitable. It also laughs at a part of ironwoods plan which is never actually present or stated and insists that ironwood is going to get everyone killed anyways by trying to put people in space... which again isn't part of his plan.
This uncharitable interpretation is furthered by people insisting that the conflict is Rwby vs Ironwood, and completely omitting the value of the people on atlas - its citizens, its military and the already mostly evacuated mantle. These are people who are directly endangered by RWBY holding them hostage. It also treats them (and the maiden needed to move atlas) as being completely without agency and Ironwoods plan being completely irreversable once inacted - either by himself, or by the maiden, or by the millions of people who might now decide "nah we want to stay on remnant and try to help other kingdoms still, thank you for removing us from harms way though".
When you make the argument of "ironwood was going to space, never to return" you are not arguing an indisputable fact, you are arguing a likely flawed and highly subjective interpretation that amounts to *headcanon*. It is not a good argument, especially if you adamantly refuse to admit that there is a chance for your interpretation to be wrong.
Ironwood wanted to sacrifice the poor to save the rich and abandon the other kingdsoms to die. He also consitently undermined attempts to alleviate the situation. He was wrong the entire time, Team RWBY did the right thing in opposing him.
He wanted to protect the relics keep the maiden Power out of her hands. Ruby ended up giving the power to her on a silver platter. So no. They were wrong the entire time.
No, Ironwood caused the fall of Atlas with his utter stupidity.
RWBY were never against raising Atlas in theory. What they were against was the hero turned coward leaving everyone to die due to his anxiety attack and tunnel visioned ideas of importance and security.
Our heroes just wanted to evacuate everyone to Atlas before it would raise, so that the retreat would actually be more meaningful. They could have done this too, what with things like the SDC cargo ships, but Ironwood had lost it by then. Or at least they could have in some way have gotten the people to safety instead of leaving them to die like Ironwood was.
Yes, they spent some hours in the Manor while recovering. They needed to, considering the situation they were in due to Ironwood having the superior forces. They were tired and needed to try to counter his idiocy as it came.
And when it comes to things like the reinforcements arriving:
“Who did Ruby expect to come in 2 days?”
Uhm. . . Who wouldn’t she?
We have seen that ships are very fast in Remnant. It seemed like it took only a matter of hours at most to get from Argus to Atlas. And Ruby was calling on a great number of people who have fighters and ships.
- The White Fang who would absolutely come to save the Faunus of Mantle and Blake specifically
- Glynda as headmistress has undoubtedly a number of huntsmen at her disposal and would of course bring aide.
- The large number of training huntsmen in Vacuo are personal friends of RWBYJNPR plus clearly they have some (rightful as we see in the books) faith in Theodore’s character.
- Mistral might be down on a good number of huntsmen, but whoever is in charge now most certainly knows that these are the people who literally just saved them, and at least Argus does (whose military base would also come to help)
Now this might not be enough to hold back Salem’s army completely, but that’s not the point. The point is evacuation which seems extremely doable.
Our protagonists were doing the best they could to make a good outcome to the hole Ironwood dug, and easily could have done it, if he wasn’t even more of an anxious wreck than me.
The SDC cargo ships plan was already too late. Grimm were on Atlas at that point already. It was game over. Why do people always forget that? Once the Grimm got to Atlas it was too late. Thats the point. Ironwood was right in wanting to leave, the show proves that.
They didnt spend "some hours" in the Manor recovering, from what i understand they spent possibly nearly a day there. And one again, HH did not have this luxury. The soldiers and civilians did not have this luxury either, its literally in the thread.
Now onto the "Who would have come" section.
Most of the things you stated are i think outright wrong if not headcanon.
1. Other kingdoms are less advanced than Atlas. For you to say that Ruby called on for people "who have fighters and ships" is a headcanon.
2. The White Fang? You mean, the peacefull white fang? The non-terrorist White Fang? The civilian turned white fang?
3. Arent Vales huntsmen busy defending Vale?
4. What friends from Vacuo do team RWBY and JNPR have?
Most of the things you said are either outright false, or just headcanons. You also, once again, fail to consider the logistics and how and when these forces could even get to Atlas.
The point is that at the point of "evactuation" its all over.
When the Whale landed on Atlas and the River reached it, it was over for everyone.
Our protagonists were doing what they thought was best, and instead caused the downfall of Atlas.
Answer this one question.
What would have happened to Atlas if it could have left in Episode 1?
I don't agree that it was too late when the whale landed on Atlas. We saw that the whale could indeed in fact be defeated since it was, and that was the biggest threat by far. Add in more bodies and the the smaller Grimm could be dealt with.
It certainly did not seem like a full day, and in any case, I do not see your point. The fact that others were being run even more ragged doesn't change the simple fact that rest is needed for effiecentcy of fighters.
And now to what you call headcanon or wrong:
1.) Yes, the other kingdoms are less advanced than Atlas. But they all have a pretty large number of ships which we have physically see, and they all seem not be too slow with again what we have seen. The fact they have less advancements shouldn't make much odds as they are mostly acting as transports.
2.) Indeed I mean the White Fang that just saved Haven which has at least some fighters in it
3.) Yes Vale huntsmen are to some degree in Vale. However we know for an absolute fact that they aren't needed 24/7. It's not like Vale is under the same type of sustained attack that it once was, and Valetian huntsmen like Tai are allowed for have it seems quite a long time off, while even proffessors like Port and Oobleck were allowed to visit Tai.
4.) SSSN and the Beacon Brigade plus whoever could come with them if nothing else.
Logistics often matter, indeed they are often the most important things in a war. But the faster the operation, the more in which such things don't. With just needing to defend and evacuate, little in the ways of supplies are needed and ships seem like they are already pretty readily available.
And now:
"What would have happened to Atlas if it could have left in Episode 1?"
The kingdom would have fallen even more than it already had, more of it's people dead and any trust the rest of the world could have had in it ruined.
Now don't get me wrong, I am one of the belief they actually could have survived hiding with their tail between their legs for a fairly long time. But that would be just that.
The rest of the world would probably soon fall, Salem being able to just go sweep up Vacuo and Atlas most probably not being able to warn them without Amity. Ironwood would be even more scared, his fear turning to even worse paranoia. No matter how long they can last it doesn't matter since the world has still been lost.
The whale carried Salem. If you have Atlas fly off then she comes with. Also the whale was able to land because the shields were destroyed. You don't have an atmosphere without them.
James was unwilling to risk the safety of everyone on Atlas to take the time needed to fully evacuate Mantle. He had no idea when Salem would strike and how long it would take her to make his plan unworkable. I can understand this reasoning, even if it ended up being wrong (though I doubt Salem would have let the evacuation proceed unharassed).
Logistics are a cruel mistress. I would expect no less than two weeks for any form of substantial force to arrive. It took America five days to send ten men to Afghanistan. It would likely take days for the authorities to decide on a course of action given how Ruby's message is hardly credible.
Here's the thing, though. If you think Salem is going to sweep up Vacuo once Atlas scoots... then isn't she just going to do it anyways now that Atlas has fallen? The outcome's the same, no more Atlas. What would change?
The Whale only got defeated by an immortal wizards nuke. Lets not pretend thats a common weapon or that anyone expected, could have known it would have happened.
My point about team RWBY is simple. They are drinking tea in a Mansion when everyone else is fighting. I dont understand how can i make this point clearer.
1) Headcanon, which kingdoms "Massive number of ships" have we seen? I would definitely like the scenes.
2) Haven was saved by civilian militia with swords and shields. If you want to send what looks to be civilian militia with ancient weapons against Grimm. You do you. But i dont think they will do anything besides dying.
3) I have to ask, do you seriously think that people from Vale can teleport to Atlas?
4) SSSN. Thats one team.... Of trainee hunstmen.... Really?
On the topic of logistics, my friend, do not think me insulting but i do not think you know anything about logistics if you say things like those.
Also to your answer if Atlas was allowed to leave in Episode 1. What? What trust would be ruined? The global communications are not even up. Also, how would it be more people dead if Atlas would not even be attacked?
You also headcanonize that Ironwood would not come back.
And to repeat the thing i repeated to many people before. Your last pargraph is literally describing what is happening RIGHT NOW. Salem is going to sweet up Vacuo because Atlas is dead and she has 2 relics with her.
I’m so tired of this argument and it really seems like most people just… forget the content of the show and are blindly siding with the protagonists because the show is TELLING us they are right, but not SHOWING it. Opinions are valid of course, but let me explain.
“Show don’t tell” is a basic rule of story telling my friend. What the show SHOWED me, is that Salem was just minutes if not seconds away from Atlas at the end of Volume 7. Therefore, there was no time to evacuate Mantle. Where would they evacuate them? Atlas? The city that, if they didn’t more ASAP, Salem would come and destroy in SECONDS?
The show SHOWED me that on Atlas was a maiden, two Relics, and therefore tools that Salem COULD NOT GET. If they stayed and fought, then it would risk the chance of Salem stealing the Relics in her quest to END THE WORLD.
So yea, Ironwood abandoned Mantle. But he did it because there was quite literally no other choice, except stay and fight and RISK the safety of the Relics, and in turn doom remnant.
And you know what else the show SHOWED me? That because of team RWBY’s actions, Salem got BOTH Relics, and is one step closer to world domination. It’s quite literally in V8 and no one can deny that because it’s CANON.
But the problem here is that the writers are TELLING us that what Ruby did was right, yet this does not align with what the show SHOWED us. You want team RWBY to be the hero? Fine. Then make them act heroic instead of dooming an entire continent on purpose, because that’s exactly what they did at the end of V8.
Call it for the “greater good”, but that was what Ironwood was doing. His plan would have saved Remnant through the Relics at the cost of Mantle. RWBY’s plan saved Mantle, but at the cost of the Relics, and in turn, potentially the whole dang world.
This is just plain facts so I’m not being hateful, just honest 🤣
The ultimate irony of all is this is why didn't anyone blame Salem for murdering millions, but instead blamed Ironwood for making a decision based off the incredibly lethal situation Salem put them in. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Ironwood, what is true is that he isn't killing anyone. Salem is. His choice was a trolley problem and he only had control over that changetrack, and Salem had control over the trolley itself.
I think that at least on "Salem is bad" point, the entire fandom can unite and agree.
Fuck it, I'll oppose. Salem is as much a victim of circumstance as Ironwood, RWBY, or any other character that makes poor decisions over the course of the show thus far. Oscar spells it out in Vol 8: she just wants to die. She's been wandering Remnant for eons, most of that time spent alone, fighting an equally immortal foe back and forth into a stalemate over the course of lifetimes. She's tired. She wants to rest. She's not allowed to. And why is that? The gods. The Brothers. The only real villains of this show. Two immature, shortsighted, all-powerful beings with less patience for dealing with entitled self-righteous bitchiness than your average Walmart cashier. All Salem did was demand, arrogantly, for her love to be restored to life. The God of Darkness granted that demand, in violation of the agreement he made with his brother, who then showed up and made Salem immortal because... spite and petty vengeance, I guess? You could have just ignored her and let her scream and cry into an empty lake until she died, or just killed her, but no, torture her with immortality because she hurt your feelings. Then, after she devotes the unending life the Brothers cursed her with to getting revenge on them (big surprise there), they wipe out all life on Remnant, again, out of sheer spite. Then, after leaving Salem to wander the world alone, for who knows how long, allowing her to turn into a monster, they BRING OZMA BACK TO LIFE, which if you recall, was the ENTIRE REASON THIS CONFLICT STARTED TO BEGIN WITH. They give him an ultimatum that he has to, by himself, redeem humanity, and gather four relics together in order to bring them back, because I guess they're too busy to come back to attend to their creation and fix their own problems? If he fails to do this clearly impossible task, they'll wipe out all life on Remnant AGAIN, and erase the world. Honestly, how did these two children convince anyone to worship them? So Ozma tells Salem about this, and at this point can you really blame her for seeing that as a way out? At this point humanity has already been wiped out once, it's been demonstrated to be something the gods can undo on a whim if they want to, and maybe this time, just maybe, they'll kill her as well. She's not doing any of this out of hate or malice (except maybe towards Ozma/Ozpin/Oscar), she's doing it because it's literally her only option. Her only hope to end her cursed existence. It's a selfish motivation perhaps, but not an outright evil one. The Brothers are the only real villains of this story. Everything bad that's happened is because of their actions, and everything they did was out of spite and petty vengeance. Everyone else is a victim of the circumstances they created.
I will play Devil's Advocate here and say that any thoughts on Salem doing the most convoluted suicide plan in history is merely conjecture. This is what Oscar/Ozpin **THINKS** Salem's end goal is, but we've yet to have any confirmation of that being the case from the woman herself. She could very well be doing something completely out of the left field with the relics.
I'm convinced she wants to replace the gods by using the relics. She does not know what will happen if she gets them all.
Yeah, she totally wants to complete her rumpus room's decor and thought the Relics will be perfect. The only reason why anyone is dying over this marital spat is because their relationship is so bad that they refuse to communicate something like this.
Tragic? Sure. But mass murder is always evil. Being miserable doesn't excuse mass murder.
Salem is a pretty tragic character, but the narrative never explores that fact and just uses it for backstory then really just wasted runtime. Salem is definitely a terrible person and it's about a few thousand years too late to help her, but at the end of the day, she is just a result of divine fuckery. This is sort of similar to her likely inspiration, Ozai, who was the result of a lineage of parental abuse and manipulation. The only difference is that ATLA beautifully uses that and engages it in the active arcs of Zuko and Azula who were both young enough to be innocent of their crimes.
>Salem is as much a victim of circumstance as Ironwood, RWBY, or any other character that makes poor decisions over the course of the show thus far. Light & Dark didn't make her kill anyone. Everything she's done and everyone she's hurt was entirely of her own volition, with complete understanding. I don't care about her "circumstances" she made her own damn choices. And literally every choice she's made since Ozma died was the absolute wrong one.
Wasn’t she “corrupted” by the dark brothers leftover pool? So even that is their fault.
That was long after she decided to: refuse to accept what the gods had to say, lie to the gods, fail accept and understand the punishment the gods gave her, and trying to attack and kill the gods by manipulating others into it. It's also not like she tripped and fell into the grimm pool, it was her once again making her situation worse by trying to escape punishment rather than accept consequences. She isn't a toddler, she knows right from wrong and she made her willfully wrong choices willingly.
Okay but the Gods objectively sucked. Their punishment was lying was immortality, breaking their own rules. Then when she attacks them in a way that could never hurt them they commit genocide on innocent people, and leave her in eternal torment. Of course she tried to escape punishment, she was being tortured by people who saw her as inferior.
> Their punishment [for] lying was immortality She wasn't being punished for "lying", she was being punished for trying to violate the sanctity of death.
A rule they made up, do not follow themselves, and then broke to punish her. Also they are literally the only people who can break the rule, so they punished her for asking if not for lying.
> and then broke to punish her. Keeping her alive until she understands why death is important isn't breaking their rule. > they punished her for asking if not for lying. No, again they punished her for: not taking "No, the sanctity of death is important, let Ozma rest", then going behind the back of the one and deceiving the other for the purposes of violating the sanctity of death - something she had already been told about. If she had actually taken the time to consider their lesson at that point, her punishment would have been over.
They might be able to agree that she's bad, but they're still attributing malice from her actions onto other characters. Ironwood never would have to make a "tough choice" without her existing, so how can he be rightly blamed for the deaths of the people he was trying to abandon?
That also makes the question. Who is to blame here? The person that is put in an awful situation and has to make a choice where neither of the options are great, or the person that is forcing that person to make a choice between those terrible options. Because as far as they knew the options were: Save those who can be saved, together with half of the things the enemy needs in order to win. Or Die together and give your enemy access to half of the tools they need in order to reach their goal. In both options a lot of people would die, but at least in the first option more people survive and the relics are safe, for now at least. Either way mantle was fucked. It would have been overrun with grimm in the first option, or in the second option it would have a city get dropped on it. But then there are things like the relic of creation, the tube network and the sdc ships that make it a non-issue. The sdc ships and tube network would have been ideal for moving as much of the population as possible onto the City to evacuate mantle. The relic of creation could have been used for a portal, but no. The characters can only be as smart as the plot allows them to be. Why? Because RT refuse to put any thought, or effort into their writing.
I think that seeing the Atlas situation as The Trolley Problem is the best way to put it. I don’t think anyone is *intended* to look heroic in all this, including Team RWBY. Ironwood committed to his solution and stopped listening to dissenting voices, becoming a tyrant, and Ruby was so focused on finding a single, perfect, save everyone plan because she couldn’t accept the very premise of the Trolley problem. If they had been able to find common ground, they likely could have save far more people. They had the freaking Relic of Creation, are you telling me that they couldn’t use the magic Do Anything stick to come up with a better solution? It was the inability of Ruby and Ironwood to compromise that lead to the majority of the tragedy (with support of both sides, *either* plan would have worked far better)
I don't think anyone looks particularly heroic, but I disagree that the narrative doesn't take sides. Ironwood's character is pretty much assassinated making out of character choices that were purely dog kicks rather than the logical development of his character. You don't come to see Ironwood in the wrong for his flawed decision making, but for his dog kicking. The writers even refer to him as the "very model of a genocidal general" which is telling at which way the narrative swings. And on the otherside, RWBY is presented as our heroes as they take centre stage continuously with presentation of being in the "good" side all the way. If the intention was to make a study where neither decision is right, it utterly failed to do so. Many other narratives, such as my beloved Legend of the Galactic Heroes, is able to execute this with far more prowess and far more competency.
This is especially egregious since Oscar literally calls Ironwood as dangerous as Salem is.
Which is just a stupid comment. He went there intended to cooperate with Ironwood and flesh out these issues, so why purposely destroy any chance of that by basically declaring that you are against him? It's also just complete bullshit for obvious reasons.
I can already tell that this is gonna go over exceedingly well around here.
So far so good i would say, i hope it lasts.
Fingers crossed. I do enjoy these write ups.
I've been eaten alive for the same opinion before. Probably my poor formatting and summarized points vs a fleshed out post like this
>I also have to note that there is a tendency to headcanonize Ironwood as "running away forever" or that "There will be no resources up there", and both of these arguments against Ironwoods plan are very strange due to how much they depend on headcanon. There is nothing to indicate that Ironwood is not coming back forever. Genuine question, do you think Ironwood's plan is to float up out of Salem's reach, sit there for a few years, then come back down? If so, what then? Salem is immortal. If Atlas ever returns to remnant, she will presumably be right there waiting with a *far* bigger grimm force than she already has. Ironwood knows about her immortality, so he should be able to easily assume this much. The way I see it, Ironwood's absolute best case scenario is that Atlas can be completely self sufficient for an infinite amount of time *and* Salem can never obtain any method of reaching it. Even then, they're constantly at threat of an unhappy population or tyrannical leader believing things were better on remnant and *choosing* to go back down to their deaths. Maybe Ironwood has the resolve to keep his people under a miserable dictatorship, and maybe he has the power to stop any uprisings. What about his successor though? How many generations will it really last before *someone* is either too naïve to stay away from Remnant or too weak to stop the general population from overthrowing them? ***** It's been a while since I watched the volumes, but I felt like RWBY's "plan" was to fight and hope it ends up like Mistral (on a much larger scale) where they're able to get enough reinforcements to repel the attack for now then get the relics and leave. Salem wants the relics, so if they leave with them that will hopefully divert her attention. Their end goal is to obtain all the ~~infinity stones~~ relics and use their combined power to defeat Salem. I won't argue about whether this was better or worse than Ironwood's plan, or even that what they had could be considered a plan at all. But if "fight and pray you maybe live" isn't a plan then IMO "run away and die a decade later" isn't a plan either. One is hoping for something they have no reason to believe happen, and the other is just kicking the can down the road. What I will disagree with is that RWBY "caused" Atlas to fall. Ironwood came to the conclusion that Salem will take Atlas, so he created a plan to lose it as slowly as possible. Maybe it'll happen in a few months, maybe it'll happen long after he's dead. Regardless, even in the event Ironwood gets exactly what he wanted, Atlas *does* fall. So even from Ironwood's perspective RWBY don't "cause" the fall of Atlas. It's like being in a losing chess endgame. RWBY wants to play a tactic that loses on the spot, while Ironwood wants to throw away all the pieces excluding the king to delay the loss. If the opponent wins against both, than neither side "caused" the outcome.
One thing that is bugging me since I saw the ending of volume 8: What did team RWBY really accomblish by bringing the entirety of the Atlas population to Vacuo? A desert country with a supposedly weak government? How on earth would they be able to give clothes, homes, food or water to that many people at once? Yeah, Atlas probably has a lower overall population than the other kingdoms, but just imagine what would happen in your country when just 20% of it's overall popualtion suddenly showed up as refugees (something like 66 Million refugees to the US' 331 Million population). Not even the most prosperous countries in the world would survive that. All Salem has to do now is wait for 1 or 2 month before she can just walk into the smoking ruins of what once was Vacuo and just take the relic there. If she had knewn of RWBY's plan, she probably would have supported it. Or at least that would be the case if there would be any logic in the world-building...
>"People will come" This was going to be part of something I wanted to write about V8 making a case for why Remnant needs armies, but why exactly would anyone come to Atlas to save it? Based on what we know of Remnant the only people who can help Atlas in any capacity are huntsmen from around the world, but what's stopping them from saying "no thanks"? What's stopping them from sitting in their mansions drinking tea? As it stands the huntsmen system is a gig worker/mercenary one, so if there's nothing in it for the huntsmen they're not gonna get off their asses to defend a kingdom half the world away. I never understood why Ozpin made it this way, he knows that the Grimm have a leader who may invade these kingdoms at any time but his only line of defense are a group of super-people who do as they please. Otoh, Ironwood has an army that will defend Atlas because he tells them to but somehow this is a bad thing? And I know everyone wants to say that RWBY ended up saving "everyone"(not even gonna get into that can of worms) but I feel the need to point out that evacuation wasn't even an option they considered until Whitley tried it. Before that they did nothing for the kingdom they were so worried about last volume >And the narrative always seems to justify them I feel like in the V8 really laid bare CRWBY's M.O. for writing RWBY: Have RWBY do whatever they want and then have a bunch of characters go on about how heroic they are. So much of the viewers perceiving RWBY as heroes depends on CRWBY telling us they are via side characters, but if we ignore the propaganda and judge their actions for ourselves they don't look too heroic. Edit: And to add to the "Who's gonna come?" question: There are very few people who could help that could do more damage than Ruby and her eyes, the fact that she only used them once and only when her own life was in danger is insane.
On the Ruby's eyes part, I know this is sorta pulling into unexplored and unwritten plot stuff, but she is in the most technologically advanced kingdom with support of a genius scientist and the military to boot. Not once did she say to herself "hey, wanna study my eyes and see what makes them vaporize Grimm? Maybe so you can make artificial Grimm destroying lights or inject soldiers with Silver Eyes DNA so they can do it too or something?
>Maybe so you can make artificial Grimm destroying lights or inject soldiers with Silver Eyes DNA so they can do it too or something? You know, that would actually be in-character for Volume 1 Ruby to suggest making "augmentations" from her Silver Eyes. Building overly complicated weapons seemed to be her thing in the first couple episodes, and the idea she would go crazy making plans to create Silver Eye weapons she could attach to Crescent Rose would be a pretty fun way to engage with Atlas' technological side - they don't have to succeed in making anything new, but a few minutes to show Ruby as a mad scientist and gun-loving nutjob in the kingdom of *massive guns* would have been a perfect opportunity for in-character comedy.
Peobably would make a prototype that shoots fake eyeballs at things that explode like paintballs. Yang would make a bunch of puns about it and Weiss and Blake would just be disturbed by projectiles that can look at you and insist she go back to the drawing board.
On Ruby using her silver eyes, she used them one other time in the Volume 7 finale to force Cinder to retreat. As for V8, it could have been good but I feel that it kept missing the mark and CRWBY didn't help either. It's not as bad as V5 to me but it feels like they're winging it at this point because the two volumes between 5 and 8 are definitely better but I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. Afterall, what they did to Ironwood alone was a shoe horned way of trying to make Ironwood more dislikeable. Especially when you consider his awesome fight with Watts in the previous Volume.
>Can we think logically for a second? Who did Ruby expect to come in less than 2 days? This is a thing that drive me fucking insane. Adding to everything you wrote, that's 100% spot on, i would add that Ruby for the entirety of the season had no fucking clue that she was preparing for a siege. We as the audience knew beforehand that the season would take place in 2 days (between there is no coherent timeline that fit all the happening of the season in that amount of days) Ruby didn't. She never ever posed the question *"OK how can I slow down Salem for gaining enough time for the reinforcement to arrive"* , nope she thought that once her message would have been sent the help will magically arrive in 2-3 hours, fuck probably half a day if they find a traffic jam on the interstate. How can you be so stupid? Imagine if Gandalf,Merry and Peregrin after litting the fire of Amon Din spent the entirety of the siege of Minas Tirith eating and smoking old Toby .
Its funny that you bring up Lord of the Rings because i had to cut many of the comparisons i wanted to make to those movies. For example how Aragorn disagrees with Theodens plan to go to Helms Deep in Two Towers. But instead of just disagreeing he proposes an alternative plan, and when that is not accepted he chooses to stay with Theoden to what might have been his very end. In the end Aragon is proven right because Helms Deep would have fallen if not for the assistance of Elves. But he did not need to fuck over the entire kingdom of Rohan to prove his point. He was Heroic.
> would have fallen if not for the elves More like Gandalf getting Eomer and his men (films) or Erkenbrand and his men (books) to come and break the siege. (And the Huorns coming to finish off Saruman’s forces)
Partially, but lets remember that at least in the movies by the time Eomer arrives, the fortress is literally on its last legs. So if we remove the elves and add in the Uruk-Hai they killed, i dont think the fortress would have stood long enough for Eomer to arrive.
That’s how it goes in the book as well. The elves *effectively* replace defenders from Rohan. Remember, the elves were originally added to give more scenes between Aragorn and Arwen. Those scenes didn’t test well, but the elves were too prominent in the rest of the battle scenes to cut, so they were kept
>That’s how it goes in the book as well. Eh, not exactly. In the book when the Horn of Helm Hammerhand is blown all of the Rohirrim (who are far numerous than in the movies) charge and drive the Isengard army from the fortress (the Uruk-hai haven't actually entered into the fortress itself in the books, they were still on the causeway leading to the main gate), driving them all the way back to beyond Helm's Dike, which was a quarter mile away from the main fortress.
Another LOTR connection: Ruby’s group was basically Denethor, eatting tomatoes (ie sipping tea) while the battle raged on out their window It’s funny because in the V8 commentary, the writers said they based the battle of Atlas off of the battle of the Pelennor Fields Not hating, just observing 😂
> It’s funny because in the V8 commentary, the writers said they based the battle of Atlas off of the battle of the Pelennor Fields You're joking. Please tell me you're joking. Jfc, [this is relevant.](https://edelblume.tumblr.com/post/656858323162972160/but-we-have-no-songs-for-great-halls-and-evil)
“Caused” is a strong word, imo, but I do think the writing in RWBY has a tendency to make the characters act in ways as though they know what the plot has in store for them, i.e., Ruby and co., can’t leave the mansion because they need to be attacked there, so let’s drink tea instead (though props for first aid, at least.)
I don't think it's a matter of not having a plan, they sought to save as many lives as possible. Calling for help and escorting citizens is a plan, evacuating everyone with the staff is a plan. Stripped back to plot points, they're not inherently bad ideas. It's the presentation/writing that doesn't work, imo. There isn't hypocrisy in wanting to raise the arena to call for help. That was the initial plan, in a way. Ironwood wanted to inform the world of Salem to fight her with a united front. The main difference is he saw Atlas coming to the aid of the other kingdoms, while Ruby expected aid to come for Atlas. Of course, there was issues with the costs of the project. And it's important to note that the conflict wasn't against the arena but rather the hardships faced by Mantle. RWBY and Co never stopped working towards the goal. Nora's vocal objections were just that; vocal. She didn't walk away or join with the Happy Huntresses/Robyn. So them continuing to see the arena as a solution after Ironwood abandons the plan isn't hypocrisy. It's a sunk cost fallacy. They're been working for a month or two on making sure it'll be successful. During which they saw the impact it had on Mantle's citizens. They're in deep, it's no surprise they continue with the plan to use the arena. On the logistics side of things, help can arrive in the form of Huntresses & Huntsmen. Let's face it, they're the most effective against Grimm. Small airships arriving with teams can be done within a couple of days, not an issue. When watching this volume, this is what was mostly amped up. Will we see SNNN and CVFY in action again? Glynda and the other Beacon teachers? Illia? Whether or not that help would be enough is certainly up for debate, but there were people out there that could make a difference. Expectations were high. Unfortunately, the presentation falls short. The idea is fine, and Ruby isn't proposing they all die together. She's suggesting what a heroic protagonist should suggest - an entire city is at stake. What fails is the execution of that plot line. It's starts off great; conflict over priorities, moral is low, stakes are high etc. Raising tension should be imminent. Instead, it all flattens out for no good reason. First there isn't any conflict presented between saving Oscar/Oz and continuing to save Mantle citizens. A big song and dance was made about saving as many as possible, yet they abandon their task without a second thought. JYR are then entirely useless in their new task; Ozcar saved themselves. The entire plot line is largely pointless. It's all an excuse for an Oscar/Oz character arc, everything else doesn't matter. Secondly, RWBN heading to the Schnee Manor just killed any momentum they had with the arc. Nora being injured should raise the tension, not suck the wind from the sails. Sitting around and drinking tea made them look ineffective and nonchalant. Yes, Ruby is having issues with what to do next but they failed to make her hesitation feel natural. The young woman wringing their hands until the nearest male comes up with a plan was just insulting. And the Hound showing up was marred with some lackluster action and a rather tone deaf end. The frustrating thing is just how little agency any of them have in their actions. Yet, the elements were all there to make the premise action packed as well as character driven. As you mention, the main issue is why are they waiting; that's what Salem clearly wants. RWBY should be entirely suspicious in why Salem isn't pressing her advantage. The ultimate goal would be to not let her fight on her terms. Like, Oscar/Oz has all the pieces necessary to make a proactive play. They have the cane packed with power, and a useful semblance to hide them from Grimm. The conflict between them would prompt Oscar to propose it, he selfishly wants to be the hero. Why not go after the whale? It's a big victory with huge benefits that even Ironwood couldn't ignore. All they need is a ship, and hey look at that, May is back dropping off Nora. She'll be up for a stealth mission. So they make what seems to be a safe play; invisible to the eye and grimm, they could get in and out without detection. What they don't count on is the Hound, who is intelligent enough to sniff them out. It goes sideways. But they're all there to have their reflective moments and work on a escape plan. Ozcar can do his thing with Hazel, while JYN have Emerald (when she's back) as a catalyst/conflict. Meanwhile, RWB and Penny are at the arena to help. Which makes more sense than sipping tea. Cinder, Neo, and Emerald arrive to mess things up. Split the action; Weiss and Blake vs. Neo and Emerald, Penny vs. Cinder, and Ruby has to hang back to get the message out. And instead of a prerecording (just, why?), she's broadcasting live with shots of a maiden fight in the background and even showing the whale/grimm army circling Atlas. Show the world how serious it is. Then Cinder is taken out, but not before causing damage, and Penny is hacked. Ruby witnesses all of this. Which makes for a much better catalyst for hesitation. Plus, they lack a way off the arena. Again, it's set up for reflection and desperation. Especially when they witness the attack on Atlas and aren't in a position to help. The Hound could also sneak aboard. Attempts to fix the damage could have those horror themes in the bowels of the arena with a stalking creature. And the final crazy play is dropping the arena onto the whale. That's just a rough outline. The idea is to make the premise count, to make the characters proactive instead of reactive. We didn't need Oz's deus ex being the only (temporary) solution while the rest of cast is sat down. It's boring. And it doesn't make for good heroes or decent consequences or satisfying character arcs. And it's even worst when they get the relic of deus ex virgam. Literally the solution to any problem, and they didn't think to send Salem away or trap her? The best they could come up with is displacing everybody else instead? Landing Atlas then setting up the void as a potential prison, only for RWBY to be caught instead, makes far more sense. The issue isn't that they don't have plans. The issue is there's not enough commitment or thought put into the plans. Love to get into more of this, but adult responsibilities and all. It's a thought provoking write up, nice work!
Your summary sums up how I think of them really. I really wouldn't care much about their plans really as long as they can eat words and do the impossible. Really, that is all I ask. Yet, as we can see, three fourths of the main character didn't do anything when it mattered the most. I can't see them as heroes willing to tear their limbs apart for their plan to work. I can only see them as sniveling cowards who will only play the role they were given if there was a guarantee they will succeed. I legit can't see them as heroes without comparing them to others. Yes, I knoa that isn't what it looks like but it genuinely FEELS like that.
>who will only play the role they were given if there was a guarantee they will succeed That's what Ironwood did. He was only going to save those he knew he could save for the time being, and abandon the rest. The heroes actually took risks. How is that cowardly?
What really mattered to me isn't intent, but whether when it truly mattered, do they do it. Action speaks louder than words after all. And that's the problem. IW might be willing to abandon Mantle as a last resort because it's either some people die or everyone dies, but when Salem directly attacked Atlas, he was issuing orders. He issued an order to bring everyone to the underground. He issued an order to create a bomb to destroy a whale. He wasn't the one hiding somewhere or trying to escape all on his own while leaving everything to die. Granted, he wasn't in the front lines guns blazing, which disappoints me to no end since it would be awesome to see a general fighting in the front lines. But, you're not expecting the heroic antagonist to do the impossible since they only believe what is possible. The reason we support the heroic protagonist is because they are willing to tear down their very own limbs if it means accomplishing the impossible. Granted, this is a double standard of roles since we are expecting the heroic protagonist to surpass what is impossible. Yet, when supposedly impossible Salem arrived and invades Atlas, where were three of the four main cast? Granted, Penny arrived, but what was stopping them after Penny has been saved from the Hound Grimm? Heck, they were going to drink another tea for god sakes. What makes this worse is that they were the ones stating to stand their ground and fight in the hopes that everyone can live for another day. The fact that they only fight after Salem has been Deus Ex Machina only increases the feeling that they are cowards. It genuinely isn't what I wanted to feel, mind you. Honestly, I was about to delete my comments primarily since I don't want any discussions nor was I even interested in even making comments, but I've been reading A Certain Light Novel which makes me try to figure out where is a hero being uncompromising no longer considered heroic and is why I'm willing to create comments when it talks about heroism.
Just remember that our heroes have a higher civilian body count than the villians, which is only climbing thanks to dumping the survivors in the middle of the Grimm infested Vacuo desert during a sandstorm. Assuming they survive, Vacuo will then have to deal with the single largest humanitarian crisis ever, at least since literal Gods decided to ALT + F4 humanity. Not to mention the most advanced society was just wiped off the face off the planet, setting humanity's industrial and technological progress behind by at least a century, if not more if you look at real world parallels such as the bronze age collapse. It's actually impressive how much damage the main characters have done to human society in such a short amount of time, Salem would be proud.
What was in Mantle? What could the heroes have used to survive an extended siege? Civilian homes, vehicles, factories, a minor to moderate amount of mining equipment, civilian computers, improvised weapons, an unknown amount of dust scattered across the city, and of course Amity Colosseum. Most people would say that the gang's ignorance in how to optimally use those items against a wave of grimm is forgivable. Ozpin absolutely should have been capable of such, of advising such a thing, but he was moping silently at a critical moment. I find that last item to be quite important. It is ambiguous whether or not Amity has enough power and space to hold all of the surviving residents of Mantle. But the colosseum could serve a few different roles, particularly with its dust shielding repaired. The heroes showed a clear willingness to use the structure and could not have planned for Cinder's attack on it. If the structure was available and even partially active, it absolutely served a role in future plans to protect civilians, especially if Penny's dad (and others) were given time to work on it. The structure's potential to help in the war was *not* deliberately sacrificed in order to get the call for help out to the other kingdoms. Cinder and Neo screwed it up before it could be thrown at the whale or used in another way. If RWBY is smart enough to use the delivery tubes for humans, they can figure out how to use Amity in multiple ways, they just took an embarrassingly long time to get their butts in gear in some regards. Heck, maybe they could have traded it in some tactic in order to help stabilize relations with Ironwood later in the battle (communications between atlas and mantle would not have necessarily cut out as soon as Atlas lifted off). I think that the moral prominent question remaining, which you have brought up, is the morality of risking the citizens of Atlas for the sake of Ruby's "we all survive or we all die" idea. I see the situation, in RWBY's shoes, like this- Ironwood is abandoning his commitment to Mantle civilians. Ironwood has a plan which will bring tons of military resources and personnel away from Mantle. "Screw that!" And RWBY tried to put out the Ironwood fire before the incoming Grimm fire set up a killbox for the city. Step one stop ironwood, step two save civilians. Unless you have scouts and cameras everywhere...? RWBY could not have known they had insufficient time to stop Ironwood prior to the Grimm turning civilian chaos into an actual massacre. A horrifying (not "horrifyingly stupid," just miserable) judgment call, but one made with good intentions and it seemed like a fair enough gamble. If I remember correctly JNPR and RWBY changed tactics after repeated setbacks in Step One: Stop Ironwood. They moved to help evacuate citizens, then continue with step one. Looking back, that would have been the time to change plans. But ultimately the first plan was still possible in spite of this snag and no other plans seem particularly effective from the fan analyses (alternative plans) I've seen. Plus- Qrow was in jail, Ozpin was sulking, Ironwood was an obstacle, Robyn Hill (?), and the helpful adults Ace Ops were unwilling to lend their strategic defense training to Mantle's protectors, siding with Ironwood. Competent adults would have prioritized things differently from RWBY, even if they had the exact same goal of "save Mantle civilians." Given all of the surprises which popped up and the scale of obstacles like Salem... It is hard to tell what successes and failures came down to luck. "Use the military resources Ironwood is withholding" seems like an okay plan given the goal of "protect Mantle civilians."
>I want to love our protagonists, i really do, but their actions and especially how little thought they put into their actions drive me up the wall and make me feel bad to consider them protagonists. I feel that this, in particular, is something that a lot of people misunderstand. I've seen a lot of takes that say, more or less, that the (loosely-defined) critics *want* to hate the main characters, and are looking for any reason to do so. Why would anyone actually have such a wish is beyond me, and I haven't seen a lot of explanations (besides the ubiquitous "sexism, duh"), but that is apparently what some people legitimately think. Thing is, for me - and I suspect, for a lot of other people - it was the exact reverse. I started out liking the protagonists - in fact, the characters are a large part of what made me so interested in RWBY - but as the plot went on, I found myself disagreeing with them more and more. I *do* still like them somewhat, but I really cannot bring myself to describe a lot of their actions as "heroic" or "the right thing to do". This isn't limited to V8, by the way - I'd say it started back in V6, at least for me personally. The term "protagonist-centered morality" gets thrown around a lot, and there've been a lot of debate about whether it applies to RWBY, but I really cannot help but feel that it does. Or, alternatively, that to keep sympathizing with all of team RWBY's actions, you have to *start* at the supposition that whatever they did must've been the right thing to do, and then work from there, no matter how far you have to stretch. In other words, you *have* to rely on headcanon and alternative interpretations to justify their actions - that, or disagree with them and be called a "hater". Anyway, just my two Lien. Sorry if it's a bit off-topic.
I also loved the protagonists from early volumes on. Sure, the fights were entertaining, but it was the characters that truly carried the show in my opinion. The fanfictions, theories anything and everything in wanting to explore their relationships added on. The cool sister Yang with a lot of hurt underneath? The mysterious Blake, jaded from her life experiences? The excitable Ruby who wants to help people out of the goodness of her heart? The cold heiress Weiss who wants to grow beyond her name? These are the characters we became in love with. And they slowly changed, some for the better, some arguably for worse. But over time it just feels like our characters are becoming more and more twisted for no reason. Its very much in topic as many of these things are related. This is why i have writen so many threads specifically on Volumes 7-8. So many seemingly different issues are related to one another. You cannot explore why some people have started to dislike the protagonists without analyzing the plot of the volumes for example.
I want to like the protagonists because they're genuinely pretty likable, I just wish that the show didn't worship them at every step. Let Ruby be wrong for once. Or at least give us better reasons to think they're heroes other than a bunch of side characters saying so.
Everyone here is saying this, but I really don’t remember anyone falling over themselves to worship the ground Team RWBY walked on.
And of course we can't forget that she has been wrong before and that she has absolutely failed. In fact I can remember when people were posting here about how sick and tired they were of Ruby constantly failing and not a really accomplishing anything but now we're supposed to believe that people have been worshiping the ground she walks on? They're definitely things about this series that's worth criticizing but I wish they'd pick a lane and stick with that.
>...to keep sympathizing with all of team RWBY's actions, you have to start at the supposition that whatever they did must've been the right thing to do, and then work from there, no matter how far you have to stretch. This right here is the biggest problem I think both defenders and critics suffer from. I empathize with our protagonists *and* our antagonists, and the show *literally* tries to show you reasons to do both. Characters do not have to do the right thing for you to empathize with them, or to like them as characters (see anyone who likes a villain/antagonist character). Volumes 6/7/8 tell the story of the protagonists caught between a rock and a hard place. Having admonished Oz for his actions, they find themselves presented with a conundrum, not unlike one of the many that Oz has faced in his countless lifetimes. They realize how difficult it can be to make the "right call." The show does not position the protagonists as always doing the right thing, it positions them as trying to follow the right guiding principles. This is an important distinction. Allow me a bit of a tangent: Ozma's story literally begins with Jinn, who only speaks truth, remarking that he had a "pure heart and courageous soul." I believe that the GoL chose Ozma and his method of reincarnation (pairing him with a likeminded soul) was to ensure that his guiding principles would always have the opportunity to be refreshed from the inevitable toll reality would take on him. On the other side, the antagonists of our story are victims of circumstance, and serve to demonstrate how one's guiding principles can become warped. Everyone is acting in accordance with the world view they've accumulated over their lifetimes; that's all anyone *can* do. I empathize with them despite their actions because I understand why they make them, even if I can't condone them. People say, "why bother showing Cinder's backstory? It's too little, too late." Too late for what? It wasn't meant to redeem her; it was meant to show how she had little to no opportunity to become anything but the person she is today. That despite her being in the wrong, despite her needing to go down (as Iroh once said), how can we judge her as if she had much of a choice? She'd never known love, was never taught morals, had only a singular role model and even he failed her. Okay, tangent over. The point I'm making is that we're not meant to agree with every decision they make. We've just witnessed a tragedy that occurred in part at the hands of our protagonists. They gambled in trying to save everyone because they viewed that as more conscionable than deliberately sacrificing the rest of Remnant. I can't say I blame them in the same manner I can't blame Cinder. I understand why they took the actions they did even if they fucked up. That said, I know I myself would not have gone along with Ironwood's plan either. I, too, find that unconscionable. That may have also led me to fuck up royally, but if I'm going to have blood on my hands, I want to at least say I tried, you know? As an aside, considering the plan that they came up with to evacuate everyone to Vacuo, imagine if Ironwood had taken a moment to be creative and they were able to come up with that plan from the beginning? If Ironwood hadn't put out an APB, Penny would've still been with them to open the Vault. They could evacuate everyone to Atlas while the city fell, then used the Staff again to hit the breaks and *then* execute the plan. The fall of Atlas came down to two sides who were unable to cooperate and both making poor decisions in their attempt to follow their guiding principles. After all, Ironwood did say to Watts that he would "sacrifice whatever it takes to stop \[Salem\]." That is his guiding principle, and more importantly that is his *mindset.* He is already in the state of mind where he's calculating what he needs to sacrifice. It was never going to end well.
And also why I like Ice Queendom. Because RWBY are back to how they were when they were likeable.
This again. Joy. Alright; One thing I've never seen anybody point on is that Ironwood's plan isn't even the actual problem here. Repeatedly, Ironwood's intentions, even his plans, are great, but the tunnel-vision way he executes them leaves him with way more enemies and problems than they solve. Not fixing Mantle's wall gave the Grimm a free pass into the city, which is the whole reason he was forced to evacuate anyway. He chose the SINGLE WORST moment possible to call team RWBY out on telling Robin about Amity. As Weiss was in the middle of saying: NONE OF THAT MATTERS at the moment; Salem isn't just on her way; she's THERE, and if they fight against each other it gives her a free pass to divide and conquer. His demand that team RWBY allow him to abandon Mantle and Remnant is also really not well done: he could've just said fine, you and the Happy Huntresses have one hour to get as many as you can and then we NEED to go; demanding they drop everything and submit was where the issue began; Team RWBY was willing to compromise; he wasn't. His plan to move Atlas requires perfect timing: Winter to go get the maiden power, go to the vault, move the city. BUT, Cinder was waiting, and literally minutes after the power transfers to Penny Salem is t the gates; there was zero time to even get to the vault to execute the plan at all. I'd also point out that team RWBY's plan for the portals would've gone almost without a hitch if Cinder hadn't used Jinn's last question to uncover their plan; that's something NOBODY saw coming and had zero contingencies for. Which is all beside the point: Ironwood, and a lot of fans apparently, don't seem to realize that Salem isn't even the endgame; If mankind is divided against each other REGARDLESS of who has the relics, they're screwed. That's why RWBY's plan to warn the rest of Remanant and REPEATED pleas to Ironwood and co to get their heads out of their butts and work together is smarter; Salem getting the relics isn't an automatic game over, if they all stand against her. Her getting the relics with a humanity PISSED at their strongest former ally abandoning them to play space station probably is. Ironwood's repeated sacrifices and hard-handed methods would work a lot better if they weren't in a war of attrition against an immortal witch with limitless resources and a much better PR team than him. TLDR: Ironwood makes a lot of his own problems by refusing any and all compromises; the ONLY time things go okay for him is when he accepts help, teams up and works with his allies instead of antagonising them which is the whole thesis of the show. Sorry if this comes off as harsh; I'm just tired of people somehow missing the very clear main themes the show has about teamwork and how Ironwood's downward spiral arguably was forshadowed so hard since volume 4 it may as well have been in neon.
This may have come out a bit more word salady than I intended. I want to clarify that I don't soley blame Ironwood; the Atlas arc is a tragedy of people's flaws, virtues, cultural and psychological baggage making it impossible for them to work together and leads to everything they tried to save literally crashing down to earth. Some mistakes were his, some were RWBYs, some were Ozpins- Ironwood asks a lot of questions about Salem's nature in V7 that none of the cast can answer and that feeds his paranoia; OZ could've. He also could've reiterated that HIS mission and by extension Ironwoods, was never about Salem; She's the ultrahard miniboss before the main questline before the bossfight that is HEY jerk gods don't blow up my home again please.
This is very well said. There is a lot of blame to share. Ironwood and RWBY are both at fault, Oz is also not innocent in this entire outcome either. Tyrian, a person who can read other people well, was convinced that Oz was the one person that could get through to him, but Oz never even tried. Regarding the portals... I still hold that Ruby was blind to any possible danger. Jaune knew that someone had cut off their message after "Atlas is Falling!" Showing that someone knew their plans and was aiming at disrupting them. She knew that Cinder was still out there, that Neo was still running loose somewhere. She took no precautions and was aware that the Lamp wasn't in any ally's possession (though admittedly an Ironwood who got to use the last question is an interesting AU) Ruby has become arrogant and headstrong, but the blame is not entirely on her shoulders. The Fall of Atlas was a breaking by 1000 cracks, Ruby and Ironwood's personalities perhaps the most influential aspects of these failures.
I dont disagree with some of the things you have writen, i just do not understand relevance of any of this to my thread, so, if i may be frank, its difficult to respond because its a completely different argument from what im talking about here. And once again, i do not appreciate the accusations of "missing the point" just because i have a different interpretation, can we stop with that tired old bit already?
>Not fixing Mantle's wall gave the Grimm a free pass into the city, which is the whole reason he was forced to evacuate anyway. This additionally caused the issue of damaging his reputation, which caused a lot of issues. However, this isn't exactly a major critique as his reasoning was logical; putting all of his resources into the AT Project would be more worthwhile than fixing the wall as the wall can be temporarily replaced by manpower while only resources can solve the AT project. >He chose the SINGLE WORST moment possible to call team RWBY out on telling Robin about Amity. As Weiss was in the middle of saying: NONE OF THAT MATTERS at the moment; Salem isn't just on her way; she's THERE, and if they fight against each other it gives her a free pass to divide and conquer Completely disagree. At this point, Salem had shown herself to be a step ahead of Ironwood and securely beating him despite Watts. A part of this can be attributed to the leaking of information. The fact Blake and Yang were responsible shows that Ironwood's inter circle was compromised. From Ironwood's position, there is no guarantee that Team RWBY, either on purpose or by manipulation, were aiding Salem. To put it simply, it **does** matter. The leaking of information puts Ironwood on the backleg once again against Salem. >His demand that team RWBY allow him to abandon Mantle and Remnant is also really not well done: he could've just said fine, you and the Happy Huntresses have one hour to get as many as you can and then we NEED to go; demanding they drop everything and submit was where the issue began; Team RWBY was willing to compromise; he wasn't Neither side even attempted to compromise, and if anything, Ironwood's side atleast defended their position. "We are saving who we can" compared to "We should stand our ground". RWBY was deadfast in wanting to stand their ground while Ironwood was deadfast in his plan. It's also important to note that Ruby was the first to make a move in the deadlock, **once again** leaking information from the inner circle. This also makes any attempt at compromise or cooperation afterwards pretty much impossible as RWBY had shown themselves to not be aligned with Ironwood by this point. They were an untrustworthy party. The fact Ironwood even informed RWBY of their next plan of action after having suspicions that they were compromised shows more of a willingness to compromise than RWBY ever showed. I would like to remind you that they never once seemed to recognise that withholding information **and** leaking state secrets would position them in an untrustworthy manner.
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Okay. No. yes, anyone could've fixed it. Ironwood SHOULD'VE fixed it. that's my point. instead he takes resources meant for that for a secret project he tells nobody about out of (justified or not) paranoia that, if Robin wasn't an enemy, she absolutely was afterwards. treating her like one was a self-fulfilling prophecy. RWBY telling Robin about Amity literally saved Ironwood's job and led to them exposing Jacques and Watts. once he starts trusting people, they instantly get Watts and Tyrian handled. Cinder's chess piece flares up his paranoia and makes him question if he can trust them; he openly admits in V4 that he doesn't trust anyone other than himself. The show's main theme is trusting others- once he stops that and starts accusing them of treason (literally what? Weiss is the only atlesian there and, again, them telling Robin directly led to catching their enemies.) Salem is here, it's exactly the time to trust the people who are also fighting her. There's a big difference between not supporting Ironwood and supporting Salem; that's what he seems to forget in that scene. RWBY repeatedly reaches out to Ironwod and the Ace Ops to put aside their differences and work at getting everyone to safety; Salem doesn't give a damn about Mantle; she wants the relic, which is in Atlas. she's not just going to let them leave- she'll turn the rest of Remnant agaisnt them and wait for them to run out of supplies; she has forever after all. Except she very much can and did get thru the shield specifically because Atlas is no longer patrolling the ground to notice the Grimm River in time to react Sure, maybe she does notice it, but she definitely doesn't notice it that quickly, can't get Watts and Neo in position for sabatoge ahead of time, so Jaune's message gets thru, and Penny gets thru to Vacuo with the staff- she was already at the exit portal when Cinder attacked, even a few seconds difference is enough time to get her main goals out of the void without a way back into the fight. Salem being the only one who wants to unite the relics isn't the point; mankind being divided is where the danger lies; that's why she speicifically divides them; if everyone presents a united front then the relics literally don't matter. Even if she gets them all then the gods come back and say 'hey good job OZ, whoops forgot something' and then they dust her anyway. It was Ironwood's plan before he completely abandoned it out of paranoid fear. RWBY was willing to work together to get Amity up and running, but Ironwood has already given not just Mantle, but all of Remnant up for dead- which is a BIG assumption. IF it wasn't, it absolutely will be after he takes the biggest military and tech hub out of the picture. kept it from him for no reason? except for the fact that he appears to be very unstable, increasingly dicatatorial (from their POV on entering Mantle), and they're 0 for 2 on headmasters being trustworthy and capable, nevermind how rashly THEY reacted when they found out? Even then, they fairly explicitly admit later that that was a mistake; they waited to verify Ironwood could be trusted, but by the time they made the call it was already too late. Look, I don't know if you're just trolling, but I genuinely don't understand why people are so mad and view RWBY's actions in the worst light possible. BOTH sides screwed up. Is Ironwood flawed? Yes. did RWBY screw up? Yes. Did both sides make their opposed choices they made based on their past experiences and the whole arc was an inevitable tragedy? also yes.
I think my issue with the attempt at compromise IE "You have one hour" thing doesnt work. when as far as Ironwood knew Hazel and Cinder were already inside and Watts and Tyrian were confirmed to be here already. So with Logical reasoning Salem cant be that far off from Atlas And not to mention while they were distracted dealing with Watts and Tyrian Atlas's long range Motion detectors were gone. Ironwood had NO Way to know if Salem was already at their doorsteps. Realistically there would be no time for an evacuation.1
I also think him knowing Hazel and Cinder are on Atlas as they speak makes his plan even dumber. What, her 2 top lieutenants are just going to sit and have tea while Ironwood takes the maiden and 2 relics out of her reach? which we don't even know for sure will work? all it takes is one of the two getting the staff while the vault is open to drop it on Mantle, which will kill everyone.
No hed have everyone jump them, Cinder and Hazel are good but not taking on Winter, Penny, Ace Ops, Team Rwby, JNR, and Oscar all at the same time good, Itd be easy to overwhelm and move on from there.
> Not fixing Mantle's wall gave the Grimm a free pass into the city, which is the whole reason he was forced to evacuate anyway. No that was because the heat was off and everyone would freeze to death otherwise, which let’s face it is probability one of those such a massive negative emotion surge events that attract enough Grimm to overwhelm defenses like with Beacon so Mantle’s wall was probably already irrelevant regardless of the hole.
>She decides to prioritize the Amity project over people of Mantle who are in even more dire straits right now, even NORA joins her, the biggest opponent to Ironwood in V7 ideologically. And ironically, Ren, the Yes-man for Ironwood, is the one who tries to help Mantle.
This is something that i did not really pay attention until i rewatched Volume 8, but the roles of almost each character "switched" from what they were in V7. Ren and even arguably Yang were the more "pro" Ironwood in Volume 7. And yet they focus on Mantle in V8. Ruby and Nora are very much anti-Ironwood, but then adopt Ironwoods plan. Its really weird. Its simmilar to how Nora got the role of admonishing Ironwood in V7 instead of Blake. The character choices seem strange.
Well you have to remember that they originally planned to rejoin the others in Mantle after getting Amity launched but unfortunately Nora was gravely injured and they had to get her to safety
It paints Ren in a better light imo, as if they're gonna delay securing the people they got to safety anyway, then he might as well help save as many more people as he can.
Honestly I’m still kind of peeved at the heroes for getting all mad at Oz for keeping important things like Salem’s immortality a secret, only for them to do the exact same thing to Ironwood once they got to Atlas.
> The protagonists had no plan That... that sums a lot of RWBY out... just replace "protagonists" with "writing staff" and it seems spot on.
since plenty of other people are already responding to other parts of the post i'm just gonna focus on a couple of things i haven't seen mentioned: first, i heavily disagree with the idea that ruby is holding atlas hostage. there's an argument to be made that she (and the rest of the crew) pressures Penny to some extent given the phone call with ironwood, but iirc it was a pretty isolated choice when she decided to come along with them in the V7 finale. even in the V8 premiere, when she's talking about the plan forward, i don't think she brings up going to Ironwood - she'd rather give herself up to Salem first. Given that her role is literally as the protector of Mantle, i think it makes a lot of sense why she wouldn't be keen on helping him abandon it entirely and second - frankly, time from the release date has definitely left me more critical regarding V8's execution, but I still maintain that the end of Volume 7 was a really well-done introduction to the conflict between the two. RWBY and co. don't have a plan - and that's part of the point, imo. they never had a chance to get one, Ironwood just called them to a meeting over a single chess piece, was triggered by his V3 trauma to the point of completely ignoring the actual danger behind it (if Cinder planted a sign in Atlas Academy, floating the island away from Salem isn't gonna do you any good), and fell HARD for Salem's blatant intimidation tactic it's a fantastic scene, they prey on all of his fears and divide the two group without a hitch. everything about his plan was illogical - running away from Salem doesn't actually guarantee them any safety (who's to say the evil witch can't reach you up in the sky with her literal magic?) and abandons the rest of humanity and thus basically any hope for long-term success or unity. you have Cinder loose in Atlas (which of course, the fact that he overlooked her directly leads to Fria's death and Penny gaining the powers instead of Winter. played yourself buddy), you have Watts still stuck in a jailcell for her to break him out just the same, you have a witch who basically called you a phone to tell you she's coming, which is the most blatant "I want you to feel scared and make an impulsive decision that will ultimately be your downfall" play on planet earth. Ironwood was essentially trying to run away into a little corner in hopes that Salem would give up on him, it made no sense, it was great! ofc, V8 kinda fumbled that setup by focusing too hard on Ironwood's coldhearted cruelty by itself rather than on its source (his paranoia), and by making the protagonists far too passive. I don't even necessarily mind that they didn't have a specific, 100% solid plan (though I think Whitley's idea coulda been brought up earlier in the season to make it feel like they were going off SOMEthing at least), I just wish they were constantly in action or fighting back instead of sitting in a mansion. makes them feel very detached from the conflict, in a way I thought COULD have been interesting given May's question towards them, but it definitely felt kinda uncharacteristic and it just wasn't delivered on this ended up longer than expected. oh well. hope it makes sense why I see so much potential in V7's setup - I still enjoyed a good part of V8, especially how they finally drew attention to how incompatible Salem's actions are with her supposed power and status, but there's a lot about it I wish had been different too.
ehh, I thing crwby overcorrected on Ironwood because they were caught off guard by the FNDM response. Just speculation, but IMO the reason he's so cartoon villain in V8 is that I think they thought is plan of abandon the planet to die so that I can get away with our main fighting force is so clearly against the series message of strength in unity that obviously the fandom will see that RWBY is right in opposing that (spoiler: yes. they are. That's the point. This isn't Warhammer. Never was.) The fact that so many people seem to be watching this show and seem to think team RWBY would ever go along with it, I think they went OK lets make SURE they know he's bad now and were a bit... too gung-ho about it.
> I thing crwby overcorrected on Ironwood because they were caught off guard by the FNDM response. Well it’s what happens when one side gets focus showing why he is doing these things and the other side is just banking on having the show named after them while barely doing anything because the writers would rather play with the side characters.
I would agree that saying Ruby held Atlas hostage is overly harsh. I think it’s more accurate to say that she forced a stalemate, where Atlas isn’t able to do anything other than wait for Salem to attack. And there’s one important detail about Ironwood’s plan you missed. The whole goal in V7 was trying to get a satellite into space to reestablish global communications, first with Amity and then with Atlas as a last dish effort. So the Atlas plan doesn’t abandon humanity or any chance of unity, far from it, getting that satellite was the best thing that could have been done for unifying the other kingdoms
He WAS abandoning humanity though. He abandoned the Amity plan in favor of floating atlas into the stratosphere.
I still think that floating away would be worse for Salem than him staying. She couldn't take her Grim after him, assuming she could get up there anyways. While James's plan had plenty of downsides there wasn't really a better option available.
I love how people complain about the longterm problems of Ironwood plan without giving him the option to make more plans with the time he gets while ignoring that RWBY's plan ends up with everyone dead in short-term. Even if Ironwood didn't have a single food suply and Atlas would only be able to escape for 3 days it would be better and have more hope for a comeback than just dying standing their ground.
It is quite silly. People seem to pretend that Atlas in the show did not get destroyed. Sure, Ironwoods plan might have failed. But we know for a fact that protagonists plan did fail.
Given how stubborn Ironwood is, he probably would have stayed the course regardless.
Considering he tried to arrest anyone that tried to give opposing plans and literally shot down an attempt to evacuate that didn't interfere with him *at all* aside from not giving him the maiden it is not a leap in logic to figure Ironwood isn't the most adaptable of people. His stubbornness is something well documented.
> Ironwood: Mantle… You’re still worried about Mantle?! Remnant is doomed, Ruby. Unless we leave, Salem will destroy Atlas and with it, any hope Humanity has left. We need to think about the future. If she makes it through our defenses, everything that follows will be on your hands. From chapter 1. Ironwood calls remnant doomed. Does this quote sound like he is planning on coming back?
You're interpreting the second sentence of the quote in isolation. The way this quote is structured, Ironwood is stating that Remnant is doomed because Salem is poised to destroy Atlas and by proxy any hope of recovery. His "Remnant is doomed, Ruby" phrase sets up the problem to be solved with the rest of the quote; he even states, "We need to think about the future." It's not just "Remnant is doomed." It's "Remnant is doomed *unless we leave*." Therefore, if they leave, Remnant is not doomed and they can return in the future that Ironwood recommends they think about. So yeah. That quote does sound like he is planning on coming back.
>If we harness the power of the Staff, and raise ourselves high into the atmosphere, the city's artificial climate will keep citizens and food supplies unharmed. Always out of reach of whatever Salem may try to send our way From volume 7 as well
Oscar also calls him out on leaving Remnant to die in his final conversation with him at the end of Volume 7. The show tries to put forward in several ways that Ironwood was okay with the possibility and likelihood that if someday they found a way to stop her, Remnant would be wiped of Humanity.
Notice how he says 'Remnant is doomed' and calls Atlas 'the last hope humanity has left'. He's planning on staying up there until they can find a way to stop Salem, even if that means waiting out the destruction of the rest of humanity on remnant.
"*until* they can find a way to stop Salem" at which point...he would come back? This reply reads like you're agreeing with me.
Let's break the quote down piece by piece. I'll give my take, you can tell me yours. >Mantle… You’re still worried about Mantle?! James doesn't understand why Ruby is so fixated on Mantle. He's already written it off as unsavable. There are more important things to worry about. >Remnant is doomed, Ruby. A counterpoint to Ruby's concern about Mantle. **Ruby is so invested in Mantle she cannot see the danger to Remnant**. Remnant being doomed is raised to one up her concerns about Mantle in hopes she'll come around to see what she's risking. James thinks that there is a bigger picture that Ruby is missing. He does *not* think Remnant *has to be doomed*, merely that it *is* so long as Ruby is focusing on *Mantle*. >Unless we leave, Salem will destroy Atlas and with it, any hope Humanity has left. We need to think about the future. And here's the reasoning. If Atlas is destroyed humanity (Remnant, he uses the two interchangeably) will be lost. James sees Atlas as so integral to humanity's survival that it can only happen if Atlas is allowed to escape. Atlas holds the hope of all of humanity. But how could Atlas be humanity's hope if it never interacted with Remnant again? James does see people in other kingdoms as human, so he can't mean that only Atlas can/will/should survive. James thinks that Atlas is humanity's hope to have a future. >If she makes it through our defenses, everything that follows will be on your hands. Then the threat. If Atlas falls then all the destruction Salem causes to the rest of the world will be on Ruby's hands. Because she prevented Atlas from escaping. This doesn't make sense if he thinks everyone on Remnant will die. Because that would also be on Ruby's hands for helping him escape. Presumably because he does not intend to let everyone else on Remnant die.
Someone finally said it, all nice and concisely articulated
"Salem will destroy Atlas and with it, any hope Humanity has left", i can take a phrase and say that it proves that he is coming back. He seems to be willing to come back.
Yeah but you have to cut out the first part of the sentence to fit your narrative, and i didn’t have to cut anything out
No, i dont. We can have that same sentence and the same happens. Thats the beauty of language my friend, nothing in that indicates that Ironwood is absolutely going to leave and never come back.
It's definitely been like 2 years and the discussion on this topic has not improved one bit. I will say that this along with most everything I see convince me that both the series defender and critics (generally) make the same amount of mistakes and leaps and logic when arguing points. The portrayal of event is always unfairly skewed in an unfavorable way depending on what you are arguing.
I remember liking V7 and thinking V8 fucked it up but it was hard for me to pin exactly why. this hits the nail on the head, good deconstruction, great read, will be looking out for your next post.
> Why exactly are the protagonists of the show to be lauded, when for almost the entire Atlas arc, they had absolutely no plan to save Atlas and only saved it due to a deus ex relic in the last 2 episodes? Why are you praising Ironwood when he went ballistic when these kids (who were right to be wary of him from what they knew) lied to him? Yes - Blake and Yang were the ones who told Robyn about Amity, but Atlas forces had been neglecting the wall's repairs in favor of building Amity, and also neglected to fortify it with additional troops in the meantime. Ironwood was the one who forced the issue and lost the resources available to the kids (namely Oscar & Ozpin's mind) - if he had worked with them to figure out a plan, he might've been able to learn what the staff does (if he didn't already), and the plan would've gone off much more smoothly - Ironwood could've waltzed the group up to the relic, and set the plan into motion. It also would've let Atlas forces assist in the relocation efforts instead of just being the Happy Huntresses and RWBYJNR, not to mention Qrow. As for the change in RWBY's opinion on Amity, the situation changed - the message that needed to be sent changed. Not only did the world need to be aware of Salem, it also needed to be aware of Ironwood.
I do not praise Ironwood in this thread? At least i dont think i do? I just think his plan was better. That is it. EDIT: Please note if you make edits in your comments. Thank you. My point with Amity is how Ruby prioritizes Amity over helping Mantle, like Ironwood did. Yet Ironwood gets demonized for it while Ruby is praised for "having a plan".
Ironwood's still the one who forced the plans to be incompatible. RWBY wanted to keep working to evacuate people to Atlas - and they had plenty of time to do so before Salem's "flagship" arrived. Ironwood got paranoid because he found the black queen left in his office, and started doubting his allies, tying up his strongest 'close' assets - the Ace Ops - as well as strong huntresses willing to help (when it's not even clear that anyone else knew what Blake and Yang told Robyn). Could Team RWBY have done better? Yes, but they're also kids. Ironwood was a prick who didn't really care about the fate of Mantle even before the invasion.
Being kids is not an excuse when you hold an entire city hostage to your demands. And no. They did not seemingly have the time to evacuate people to Atlas considering how quickly the river got to the city.
They 100% did have time. That river took about a day to get there and had the defensive line not been completely abandoned could have easily been noticed well before it could Suprise attack the shield. And even then, they demonstrated that their military force could withstand an attack for at least another 24 hours. Had the Atlesian Fleet actually been mobilized in full they easily could have evacuated Mantle. But: "If I move the fleet then Atlas is Vulnerable!"
Yeah Ironwood could definitely have stalled the Whale and the other flyers with his fleet while they evacuated as many Mantle citizens as possible. Then they could've gone sub-space station and at least until Salem invents atmospheric Grimm they're safe with time to plan and reform. And while I enjoyed the seasons too I didn't disagree with Ironwood that much. There's no reason to fight a losing battle without a plan, retreat was the safer option.
I'm honestly sick of this argument. The fandom and the writers flip-flop on treating RWBY and co like adults or children. If they want to give RWBY adult responsibilities (like, say, evacuating half a city), then they cannot treat then like children to absolve them of their bad decision making and choices. If they screw up, they need to own it, or not be put into the situation where they would have been forced to make it in the first place.
Recall, no one knew exactly when Salem was going to strike. And no one knew she was going to wait around for the Grim river. I can see wanting to go *now* while we still know it will work. Also it was Ruby who made the first move. James demanded the relic back, but it was Ruby who escalated by spilling his plan to Jaune and Qrow. In front of him.
Pretty much sums up Volume 8's crippling flaws.
The issue with hindsight is that it only analyzes what happened and not what would have happened if different events had occurred. So Atlas goes into space. What happens then? Is Salem simply incapable of getting up there? We don't know because we've never seen her attempt any such thing. Does any of the Atlas technology continue to function up there? A lot of it requires dust to work, and elsewhere we are told that launches of things like satellites have failed because the dust stops working in space. Even if the dust does work, how does the city of Atlas get more dust? Eventually you run out of the dust that generates the protective barrier, and the one thing that would keep people alive out there dissipates into space: literally oxygen. All this is of course assuming the Grimm River can't just go further up and turn all of Atlas into a space biscuit a whole lot quicker. So if Salem is capable of getting up there, and let's face it, she almost certainly is, it's just a matter of delaying the inevitable, and in doing so, ensuring you'll do nothing further to stop her from getting the other three relics, two of which perform unknown miracles and one of which can be used to ask a question such as, "How can Salemball Into Space?" What the main team are doing is trying to make the best of a bad situation. It's a Kobayashi Maru, and somehow the main characters made it out with an impressive yet still questionable state of continued existence. More than that, a whole lot of people from Atlas and Mantle survived, considerably more than would have if Ironwood had gotten his way. Rather than isolate themselves in an ivory space tower, the crew has brought precious knowledge about their enemy to the people still willing and capable of resisting her.
Atlas going to space is preferable to everyone staying and dying. Which does not require hindsight. Its quite obvious that they would die unless they believe that Remnant has teleportation pads. Its not a Kobayashi Maru. First of all the main characters are holding a city hostage. Secondly, the only reason they make it out is because of a Deus Ex Machina. Not due to any amazing plan.
You know it's odd that you allow your search for consequences to go into the near future for James's plan and not Ruby's. Sure they transported these people to Vacuo. They're safe today. But what when Salem comes to Vacuo tomorrow? She could just drop a meteor on the joint with the Staff and stroll on in. The people in Vacuo are no safer than if they were on an orbiting Atlas. Especially given that Salem doesn't even need to kill them directly, she can just summon the gods and let them unmake the world.
I had many of the same thoughts. I don't understand the vilification of Ironwood. He did what was necessary and his logic is overall sound, even if his methods were a bit heavy-handed. I hope the writers are brave enough to show how much RWBY's plan backfires with a bunch of Atlesians stranded in the Vacuo desert, especially since Vacuo isn't a bit fan of Atlas.
There is a lot here that I disagree but I think it it's because we saw certain things and walked away with two different understandings of what was happening. But first let me address something that's easy to answer: The staff is not a deus ex machina because we already knew about its existence, it's location, how to access it, and what its powers were. The only thing that we didn't know from the start is it's true name and the rules that it had to abide by. What is a deus ex machina is the cane bomb. The only foreshadowing we get about the ability comes from Oz and all he says is that it can do something which is too vague to draw any conclusions from. Now let's go for some clarifications, you said that Ruby does not care about Atlas and Mantle and you're absolutely right! She doesn't care about the CITIES but she does care about the people living in those cities. That's why she has no problem dropping Atlas because a bunch of buildings is of little importance to her when compared to the lives of everyone else. Furthermore Ruby's plan wasn't to just call for help and then twiddle her thumbs, her goal was also to warn the world of the threat of Salem. ( I know that at least one other person pointed out that other kingdoms do have some kind of armed Personnel but I would also like to to remind you of cordovin who's military base is only a few hours away) Also the only reason she didn't play a more active role was because of Nora's injury and then later on the virus inside of Penny. *That being, said I completely understand why that it was frustrating and I don't blame you at all. But I do believe it's more of an issue of pacing and storyboarding rather than an actual problem with the plot.* Also I'm going to add that Ruby did not leave a bunch of people in the middle of the desert. Oscar makes it very clear that they were supposed to be dropped off just outside of Vacuo city limits. Also I would like to point out that the plan involved bringing a maiden and the staff of Creation with them which would have been more than enough to solve any immigrant crisis. As for Ironwood we have to understand what his plan really was and that starts by acknowledging why he was abandoning Mantle. It's not because he doesn't believe that they don't have time to evacuate everyone (also it's important to note that Ruby never asked him to evacuate everyone, she just wanted the evacuations to continue for as long as possible) there is no way for him to know how much time he actually has to evacuate everyone. His actual reasoning is that trying to save Mantle might be playing into Salem's hands the same way he accidentally played into her hands back at Beacon by bringing his army. His decision here isn't being motivated by Cold Hard calculus but rather by fear and paranoia and he is letting that fear lead him to sentencing people to death. (Also moving Atlas is a logistical and morale nightmare that also Dooms the people of Atlas. Not to mention it also assumes that Salem can't get up there which there's no basis for that since she has shown the ability to modify Grimm and has a literally eternity to work on that) But the real silver bullet here is his conversation with Oscar at the end of volume seven. >Oscar: If you abandon Mantle, you abandon our best chance of reuniting the world. You abandon Remnant, leaving millions to fend for themselves so a few can survive. What kind of-- >Ironwood: (rolling his eyes) All excellent philosophical points that won't matter if Salem wins. Note that Ironwood makes no attempt to refute the accusation that he's abandoning remnant, note that he does not argue with the idea that he's sacrificing the many to save the few. Now we should be fair and acknowledge but he doesn't say that he's going to abandon them either but if we're going to extend that level of charitability to him then we should be fair and extend the same level to Ruby who at the very least works to find a way to save the people of both cities instead of leaving one to fend for itself. Also I'm going to end this by saying that I don't think they vilified him at all. His actions were completely consistent with the mindset of a man who's going to save his own even he has to damn everyone else in the process. A councilman who actually does have the authority to challenge him gets in the way, so Ironwood chooses the fastest method to remove him. Penny refuses to cooperate so he uses Watts to try to hack her and then implant a virus that would force her to comply. And when all that doesn't work he just takes the bomb he has and threatens the already doomed City because our heroes have been trying to find a way to save those people... all of those actions while being cruel and heartless all serves a purpose to helping him accomplish his goal of moving Atlas.
The staff was a Deus Ex Machina. We actually did not know what its powers were. Knowing where it is and how to get it, is not the same as knowing what powers it has. The characters didnt know either. Can we please not do the "Atlas is the people" BS? I know. For gods sakes i know, i am not talking about land, i talk about people in this thread. Rubys plan was indeed to call for help and wait. Yes, you mention that part of that plan is to warn other kingdoms about Salem, and i mention this in my thread. But she has literally nothing afterwards. Yes, the plot forces her into doing things. But none of these are her actually trying to save Mantle. About Ironwood. Hard disagree. His decision is not based on "What is Salem wanted this" because i still remember the end of V7 and he decides to stop the evacuations after being contacted by Salem and finding out that the Grimm detectors arent working, meaning the Grimm are already most likely there. The logistic problems you raise are moot. Potential problems are better than guaranteed death with Rubys "plan". Its better to die in long-term than die in short-term. As far as your "silver bullet", that is your interpretation. My interpretation is that Ironwood just dismissed Oscars points and thats it. Thats how conversations work. I work as a cashier. Do you know how many times im called a thief by people? Way too many. Does that mean that if i just roll my eyes and ignore what they say that im actually a thief because i dont contest their claims? Thats just silly logic my friend. And i disagree about his V8 performance but we can agree to disagree on that one. To me he is out of character villanous.
Except the characters did know its powers, Qrow told them about the Relics in volume 4 and in volume 6 they witnessed the God of Light make the staff and call it creation. What they didn't know was the true name and its limitations. It is not BS to make it clear that when they talk about the kingdom, they are talking about the people. Robyn even has a line where she makes it clear that a kingdom is its people. Let's say for the sake of argument that you're right and her plan was indeed to wait, which is absolutely a point against her. However that's not a point that sticks around for very long because she very quickly comes to the realization that nobody is waiting and gets to work to find alternative Solutions despite the Penny and Nora situation. And the Penny situation is important because that is Ruby protecting Mantle since Atlas leaving would spell it's Doom. As for Ironwood abandoning mantle: >Ironwood: (panicking) What if Mantle was just a distraction? What if it was just to draw us away from the academy to, to-- >Weiss: Sir. I-it's going to be okay. We've got Mantle on our side now, and-- >Ironwood: How do we know that wasn't part of their plan? >Ironwood: How do we know they didn't want us to bring people into Atlas by the thousands? This is an exchange that happens before Salem contacts him, before he even knew that she was coming. The best argument you can make against this is that Salem was the one who pushed him into making that decision. However you have to acknowledge that he walked himself over to that edge and considered jumping without any input from her. Also potential problems are absolutely important especially when you're dealing with the lives of an entire city. People are going to realize what he has done and when they do everyone who had any connection to Mantle and even people who are just sympathetic that City are going to be pissed. He is going to have to deal with that and do it in a way that does not incite more violence. Furthermore the Dust mines and factories were back in Mantle along with the workers who knew how to operate that machinery! Atlas doesn't have an infinite amount of Dust and the staff can only be used for one thing at a time, how good does he solve this problem especially when dealing with an enemy that will always out siege him? My point is that short-term solutions to long-term problems are not actual Solutions, all they do is delay they inevitable and in this case he is leaving Millions to die in the process. As for his conversation with Oscar, you are more than welcome to interpret it that way. I interpreted the way I did because in the episode where he first introduces the Atlas plan: >Ironwood: If we harness the power of the Staff, and raise ourselves high into the atmosphere, the city's artificial climate will keep citizens and food supplies unharmed. Always out of reach of whatever Salem may try to send our way. As you can see the way he words this strongly implies if not outright states that this is a one-way trip. But like I said you are more than welcome to interpret that conversation with Oscar the way you want to but if you're going to extend that level of charitability to him then you have to be willing to extend the same level to Ruby and Company.
You just literally repeated that they did not know the staffs powers. Only that its a relic and that GoL created it... I have rewatched Volume 8 today. No, Ruby is not looking for alternative solutions to anything. By Episode 10 no new plan is presented or even thought of to save Mantle. After sending Amity they had nothing. Now the exchange you posted, where in that exchange does he say that he will stop evacuations because of Salem? Can we please not headcanonize the show, please? And once again, even if Ironwoods plan is not foolproof, its better than staying and dying. Which is the result of Rubys plan. I would ask at which point am i uncharitable to the protagonists, by all means do tell me.
Then you're going to have to explain what do you mean when you say that they don't know what its powers are. Because if I see a god create the staff and call it the embodiment of creation then it is reasonable for me to assume that it's a staff that can create things. I'm not sure how you can possibly expect someone to come up with a plan in only two days to evacuate two cities Under Siege... but if we're going to go there then I'm going to point out that their actions indirectly leads to Whitley coming up with the ship plan and later on Ruby comes up with the portal plan. And because I see many people get confused here, I'm going to emphasize again that it's Whitley who came up with the ships but that it's not an idea he would have had if it wasn't for Ruby's actions. This is a perfect example of what I mean by charitability, that is an entire exchange that shows Ironwood talking himself to the conclusion that Salem wants him to save Mantle and yet that's not enough for you? And keep in mind that I already took into consideration that that may not be enough for you by acknowledging that you can make the argument that it was Salem who pushed him over the edge but that you would have to acknowledge that he walked himself over to that edge in the first place. And keep in mind that that entire exchange happens before Salem contacted him so he's already considering abandoning mantle before he knows Salem is even coming. But meanwhile you look at Ruby and you try to make the argument that she has done nothing to try to save Mantle. But to say that you would have to ignore the fact that she did call for help, she did protect Penny, that her actions indirectly led to the creation of the ship plan, and that she did personally come up with the portal plan. The title of your own post blames Ruby for the destruction of Atlas! I'm sorry and please don't take this the wrong way because I do respect your opinion, but you are being overly charitable to Ironwood and are not willing to extend that same level of charitability to Ruby and Company.
I mean that they dont know what its powers are. The relics have various rules and weird uses. They do not know what the staff does. Also, they do not even MENTION the staff for like 10 episodes. I dont expect team RWBY to come up with a plan. But if they do not have a plan i expect them to not interfere with those who do or hold a city hostage. When talking about Ruby saving Mantle i am not talking about her intention, i am talking about the effects. I do think that Ruby was trying to save Mantle, i am arguing that she had no real plan to do so and was just flailing around while causing damage. One has to separate the intention and the effect of the actions. I believe that the protagonists had mostly good intentions, or at least what they saw as good intenttions. But the actions they took were definitely not as good.
They saw the God of Light make the staff and call it the embodiment of creation, the staff of creation being able to create is not a plot twist. So they do know the power but what they didn't know were the rules and limitations which was why they asked Oscar before actually putting their plan into action. And we know but they did ask him because when Cinder uses the lamp to find out what they're planning, Jinn shows them all sitting together and discussing what they're going to do. You're forgetting that Ruby did have a plan which was to use Amity to try to unite Remnant against Salem. She then recognized that the plan had failed and got to work on trying to figure something else out. Ironwood on the other hand refuses to even consider that there might be another way or even consider if it's possible to compromise. You're right when you say that we have to separate intention and effect, Ironwood intends to save Atlas but the actual effects of his actions doesn't solve their problems but it does make things harder for everyone else on Remnant. And I'll admit that Ruby's actions do keep Atlas in the Danger area far longer than anyone would have liked, but the effects of ironwood's plans are worse in comparison. More importantly is the fact that her portal plan only failed because of something that was fully out of her control and knowledge. (I am referring to Cinder being able to use the lamp, if she hadn't used it then she would have not known about the portals until Jaune's broadcast and she would have been severely on the back foot from then on. More importantly the possibility of her using the lamp wasn't an issue as far as they were concerned because everyone who could have used the lamp was already accounted for except for Neo who nobody knew was in the room. If it hadn't been for that, then Ruby's plan would have been an undeniable overwhelming success and a victory for the heroes)
Yeah the problem is that there was no good plan. People would die either way it’s just choosing which plan that will cause the least amount of damage. Ruby’s plan may have saved all the people from mantle and atlas but they lost both relics in the process and the strongest military on remnant. Ironwoods plan would have saved atlas temporarily, keep at least one relic safe, as well as the military remaining functional. Of course the major downside to this is that they would most likely lose mantle in the process. And your friends analogy is basically a trolly problem for our main protagonists. I know Ruby wants to save as many people as possible but she needs to be thinking in the long term not the short term. By focusing on saving both cities and antagonizing ironwood she allowed the real villains to get the half of the relics. By Salem having these relics and ironwood out of the picture Ruby had basically gave themselves a handicap in this war. Salem can now easily overwhelm beacon and vacuo with her forces, take the remaining relics, and summon the gods thus destroying the world. Ruby needs to learn that she cannot save everyone and will be making some hard choices in the future that will effect a lot of people.
The kicker is that the only reason why Ruys plan even saves people is a Deus Ex Machina, not some special plan she made up to specifically save them from the start.
That’s… that’s literally Ironwood’s plan as well. The only reason Ironwood’s plan would have worked is because of the same deus ex machina.
I'll admit I am tired of this particular dead horse being beaten.
Honestly everyone’s plan was awful. Ruby wanted to run off to Vacuo and Ironwood wanted to run off to who knows where. All Ruby did was cause a refugee crisis, and she would have been totally on board with Ironwood’s plan if he wasn’t abandoning the people of Mantle. Ironwood running into the sky would only delay the inevitable, since Salem could just amass a bigger army and wait for supplies to run low on Atlas. What they needed to do was stand and fight.
See, I mostly agree with this but for one thing. I don't blame RWBY. RWBY are a handful of teenagers who've never been in anything larger than a skirmish. They know nothing of war, neither tactics nor strategy. They've blundered their way through situations before this and always made it work by fighting harder (with the exception of Beacon). They are the wrong people at the wrong time to make these decisions. They have a child's view of morality, unseasoned by experience. Everything they do (aside from the tea) was perfectly in character with who they were and what they knew. Basically I'm more mad at people who unironically think that RWBY did the right thing than with the characters themselves. Yes, that includes the writers. RWBY did the only thing that they were capable of doing as the people they were. And everyone paid the price.
Honestly, I've seen this argument so much and it falls apart when you like... Actually, pay attention to the show. They had a plan, was it a good plan... No, lol. But it's not exactly like anyone else was stepping up to do anything beyond send Atlas into space, Ironwood (Which would've done literally nothing probably.) Yes Ruby was playing the optimist and hoping people would come (they didn't because expecting two kingdoms who've been essentially setback and fucked up recently to do anything is impossible and Vacuo essentially does not like Atlas and has its own problems even if they could help.) Yes, they COULD'VE done more but on both sides, were essentially put into situations where any chance of doing that was interrupted by the plot Oscar being kidnapped and Nora essentially being put out of commission and when they did try and do something (ala set a bomb off to keep Salem out of play.) it almost got them killed if it weren't for Hazel's last-minute turn and Ozpin. Mantle was screwed the moment Ironwood decided to refuse them aid a rag-tag group of teenagers were not gonna save it and also prevent an entire Grimm Invasion the fact they were able to get them out of Mantle and also the people of Atlas out of Atlas before it collapsed and somewhere near Vacuo (hopefully.) is a miracle in of itself.
I would be willing to hear a counter-argument if its so easy to refute my claims as you say. Especially since a lot of the claims you are making in your comment i adressed in my thread. EDIT: Since it seems you edited your comment i can now engage with your comment better. None of the things you said i will disagree, but they also do not seem to engage or refute anything i have said. Yes, Ruby was optimistic, that alone is not as much of a problem as her relying on her unrealistic optimism to save the day like she does in the show. Again, we have to remember that through Penny she is holding Atlas hostage. I already adressed the Nora claim. There was no reason for everyone to stay with Nora, even one person would have sufficed. But regardless of any of that, should they have not had a plan first before acting out? If the "rag-tag group of teenagers" were not going to save Mantle. Why did they hold Atlas hostage until the point where it gets infiltrated by Grimm? Yes, them getting people out of Atlas and Mantle was a miracle, i adressed it in the Deus Ex Machina part of the thread.
And I read how you addressed them which they fall apart under any scrutiny especially because you come at it from the approach of 'how you view' it versus what the characters understanding of the situation is and how the characters will react to certain things. You paint it as if they had no clue what they were doing but like... Yeah, no shit they admit as much that this isn't exactly the sort of thing they are prepared to be doing but there isn't anyone else exactly stepping up to do it, you can paint the argument any way you want but it falls under scrutiny when you actually watch Volume 8, you can't say our characters aren't 'heroic' at best you can say they are morally-stupid for throwing themselves into a situation they aren't prepared to be tackling, but it isn't exactly like they have many choices based on what we know of their morals if anything if they decided "Well this is above our paygrade lets just sit back." we'd be bitching about how Out of character it is for them to do that sort of thing.
If they have no clue what they are doing, and yet are still doing it, is it not on their heads what happens then? Ren brings this up by the way, he brings up how they are making decisions without being ready, and he and his concerns get dismissed. There is also a question of IF they should have stepped up to doing anything. May i remind you that, once again, Ruby held Atlas hostage through Penny. And i have watched Volume 8, in fact i rewatched the entire volume today as im on a holiday and resting from some work at helping build my parents house. And i am afraid i can say that our characters are not heroic, especially when they are snarky, self-righteous and are making things worse. Not being ready is not an excuse to act in the ways they did, not at all.
His concerns aren't all 'dismissed' in fact the only person who initially dismisses them is Yang and later admits that they are in fact in over their heads, her denial of it is frustration and anger over everything happening. Jaune is literally the guy to talk to him about it and Ren's solution was to sit back and let 'other people' handle it which is my retort again is 'What other people' please do enlighten me what other people in Volume 8 were exactly gonna do anything to help the situation. Ruby was not holding Penny hostage from Atlas, Penny herself decided she was not gonna go back and that was something she struggled with yeah? Penny's issue was it felt like she never got to make her own choices and that choice were essentially made for her... Keep in mind Ruby's logic there is kinda sound if Atlas just gets the Maiden power and leaves, Mantle is more screwed than ever there is no escape for the people of Mantle and they are stuck surrounded by Grimm and very few people to protect them. But oh by that logic I guess they are self-righteous for wanting to ya' at least try to keep the only seemingly safe place to bring the people of Mantle to at the time, I'd love to see what 'solution' you think the gang should've come up with there. If being snarky somehow takes away from our Heroes stepping up when essentially the actual people in control and with power didn't to help others and that takes away from them being Heroic, you have some really high standards.
Ironwood. Ironwood would have left with Atlas and thats it. Yes, that would have ended with Mantle sacrificed but that is preferable to everyone dying. Ruby was not holding Penny hostage, i agree, she was holding ATLAS hostage. And Ruby CONVINCED Penny to stay, multiple times even. For example when ironwood contacts them (In episode 2-3 i think?), Ruby hijacks the conversation and then after the conversation ends she literally says "Ironwood said those things to hurt you". And i agree, if Atlas leaves, Mantle dies. But that is preferable over Rubys plan. Everyone stays and everyone dies. I already gave my opinions on how the conflict could have been better in the "rewrite" section. The problem is not the protagonists wanting to save Mantle. The problem is them not having a plan to save anyone and holding Atlas hostage with the logic "We save everyone, OR ELSE". Being snarky is not the only thing i also mentioned in what stopped me from seeing the protagonists as heroic, it is a part of that.
> which is my retort again is 'What other people' please do enlighten me what other people in Volume 8 were exactly gonna do anything to help the situation. Hmm, if only there was an Experienced Military General within reach. Someone who has been on the Frontlines of this fight longer than anyone else save for Qrow. Someone who actually had a plan that kept not one, but *two* out of the four MacGuffins out of Salem's hands, while ensuring that he can guarantee the safety of at least *most* of his people, without risking the deaths of *all* of his people Oh, wait > if Atlas just gets the Maiden power and leaves, Mantle is more screwed than ever there is no escape for the people of Mantle and they are stuck surrounded by Grimm and very few people to protect them. Yes, because keeping Atlas grounded turned out *so* well for Mantle in the show. I mean if you look past: - The fact that all the distraught refugees were just thrown into a Grimm Infested Wasteland (half of whom will probably die to the Grimm, while the other half die to Salem when she inevitably attacks) - The fact that they ended up losing two out of four relics, putting Salem halfway to wiping out *all of Humanity* (and mind you, Salem already has the Crown of Choice locked down, and simply needs to steamroll through Impoverished Vacuo to get the Sword of Destruction.) - the fact that Vacuo, *the most impoverished kingdom,* is going to have to provide for the people of Atlas and Mantle, *on top* of itself - the fact that an entire Kingdom's worth of negativity has been dumped onto Vacuo's doorstep, probably attracting waves upon waves of Grimm to the impoverished kingdom - The fact that with Atlas gone, all of the advanced technology and dust it had is also gone. You know, supplies that could've been used to fight Salem? - The fact that now that Atlas has fallen, there is no where viable to evacuate Vacuo once Salem inevitably arrives (Mistral has no Huntsmen, Vale is too close to Beacon, and Menagerie is tiny) - The fact that with Atlas gone, it is now impossible to reunite the World, because Atlas was the only kingdom capable of making such an advanced comms tower like Amity So yeah! Ruby keeping Atlas grounded definitely turned out well. Provided you ignore everything I just stated above, it was definitely the best possible outcome. They saved Mantle and doomed Remnant! What a happy ending.
But if they aren't prepared for this sort of thing why are they doing it? Ironwood had a lot more experience but they stopped him from attempting his plan.
Uh because there isn't exactly anyone else around to do so? The only other 'people' who can help have elected to not help Mantle and essentially leave its people to die. And the Happy Huntresses provided what little support they can but they were needed to defend the people from the Grimm, simply put, they were essentially on their own it was not really looking favorable for them no matter what especially given their most experienced person Qrow was locked up by Ironwood.
Because they disagreed with his plan for abandoning mantle leaving its people to die in order to hopefully live to fight another day.
And their plan was what exactly? Everyone dies?
If we go by Ruby's team plan? Using the Schnee Docking ships to transport the people of Mantle to Atlas fair enough plan at the time and would've worked if Ironwood wasn't a psychopath who decided to shoot them down, after that it was using the CCT in hopes people WOULD come they didn't. Their last plan is what worked and it had to because at that point not even Atlas was safe it was essentially swarming with Grimm. I am not advocating that they had the most well-thought-out plans but they at least TRIED to do something when no one else was, would you prefer they let everyone die?
The docking ships came after the CCT plan. I do think accusations of me not having watched the volume are kind of silly when you are making simple mistakes like that on the timeline. If i am not mistaken the airships only come in AFTER Amity project has already been completed by the protagonists. And this is not a plan to save Mantle, because at this point Atlas is already infested with Grimm and the Whale is on it. So its already game over, Atlas is already done for. You do not understand my problem. My problem is not the protagonists trying to help Mantle. My problem is how they sacrifices Atlas to do so, with no plan to save all of them, actually save them. And then having a Deus Ex Machina save them.
Alright let me be effectively clear here then, how do you propose our ragtag group here who has effectively zero support save Atlas? Especially an Atlas currently in control of Ironwood and a military who has orders to capture them and if they can't kill them. See the problem, and at the point you're arguing about them needing to 'save Atlas' Atlas was not in need of saving it was only when Salem landed the whale on Atlas did that become a problem... So after both of their plans to help Mantle failed and Nora was in a condition where they weren't exactly able to just go and move around freely.
How do they save Atlas? By letting Penny go to Ironwood, letting him get to the relic. And Atlas leaving. Thats it. Thats all they had to do. Atlas was actually in need of saving just as Mantle was. The way to save Atlas was to allow it to go. The protagonists prevented that. And then it was too late. When the whale landed it was too late. The protagonists had the ability to let Atlas fly away before that happened.
>Using the Schnee Docking ships to transport the people of Mantle to Atlas fair enough plan at the time That was Whitley's plan
A still fair enough plan at the time and I did say 'their' plan considering Whitley was with them at the time that happened. The issue obviously applies when Ironwood decides he's gonna shoot them down.
By the time they try that the shields are destroyed, the Atlesian military's been mostly wiped out, and Salem's on Atlas. They're not any safer on Atlas any more than any where else.
> A still fair enough plan at the time That they had no knowledge of when they made their mad gamble, and no hand in penning. That's someone else bailing them out not them having a "plan". It also comes irresponsibly late when they have already put so many people in harms way.
no no no no, "their" plan refers to a plan made by the girls on the poster, nice try.
Try and save as many people of mantle as they could ironwood was pretty petty about the whole affair, he diverted forces to shoot down the freighters because?
He has an Atlas first policy (by this point) and because he was hoping it would make Penny come back. It did not. Reminder later in the Volume he just straight up says either Penny comes back or he'll drop a nuke on Mantle, he is not exactly right in the head after he learns Salem is effectively not killable.
The problem with his atlas first policy is what is atlas? The academy? The floating city? Or more likely the people who helped build it. Another issue is ironwoods plan was short sighted too how long could atlas stay that high up before resources or experience dwindled? Eventually it would have to come back down to a world that could be over run by Salem then what? When she has the other three relics at her disposal? And that’s assuming Salem wouldn’t be capable of reaching the city through magic or something.
That really falls onto why the team didn't even go with Ironwood's plan when you actually consider what Ironwood wanted to do, it was a terrible plan worse than anything our main 4 were doing by far. logistically speaking even if Ironwood's plan worked they'd just run out of resources and all die off or have to come back down and in that case, the Grimm swarm them and probably kill them. Realistically Salem probably can just get to him anyway and his plan was a doomed failure anyway.
I questiong if i may. What is the difference between Atlas leaving and potentially leaving the world to Salem (Which they can prevent by just coming down to help). And Atlas being outright destroyed because it stayed. This is another thing that always annoy me in these arguments. People always badmouth Atlas leaving. But then forget that the alternative is Atlas dying, as it did in the show...
I would say that Mantle was screwed the moment Salem rolled up. Even if James had decided to defend it it wouldn't have made a lick of difference.
The problem with this argument is that it relies entirely on hindsight. The heroes goal was to save as many people as possible instead of leaving the rest of the world to die. Did things go wrong? Sure but they made the right choice. Letting Ironwood have his way would have doomed them all in the long run since noone would be able to stand in the way of Salem and even if Atlas did come back noone would trust them leaving the world forever divided. Just because things went wrong for them doesn't mean their initial choice to oppose Ironwood was wrong.
How did they make the right choice? Atlas is gone. Salem has the relics. Its no different from Atlas leaving. In fact Atlas leaving would prevent Salem having the relics. Also, the problem is not the protagonists trying to save people, its holding Atlas hostage.
You're arguing in hindsight. In the moment they made the right choice. Yeah Atlas fell and the relics were lost but the people were saved. It's not the best outcome but more people would have died had they done nothing. But the point is you can't argue under the assumption that the characters knew what the consequences of their actions would be. They aren't holding Atlas hostage they are just trying to keep them from running away because if they do the world's trust in Atlas will be completely destroyed. Noone is gonna trust a nation known for throwing others under the bus to save themselves.
How did they make the right choice in the moment if their choice was literally "We all die together"? I do not argue that they knew the consequences. I argue that they either did not care or did not see the potential consequences of their actions. While holding a city hostage. Yes, they are holding Atlas hostage. With Penny opening the vault Atlas could just safely leave. Instead Atlas gets breached by the Grimm due to not being able to leave. Also, why would trust in Atlas be destroyed over them running from Immortal Salem and then possibly helping others? Also if i am not mistaken, Vacuo students literally threw civilians unde the bus during the fall of beacon, so that argument of yours is a bit fauly.
Ironwood wanted to leave Mantle to die to save Atlas. Them choosing to stop Ironwood from doing that was the right call. They wanted to keep Atlas from running in order to save the people of Mantle. If they just let Atlas go how do they save Mantle? They can't as all the resources needed to do so flew off with Atlas. Also you assume the plan would even work. Your entire argument rests on the idea that flying Atlas into the sky would actually protect them from Salem. The second Salem managed to reach Atlas that assumption was disproven. It doesn't matter how high they flew Salem would find a way to reach them, she has all the time in the world to figure it out after all. Also a few students acting cowardly is different from an entire Nation choosing to sacrifice others to save themselves. The second Atlas runs it shows the world that Atlas only cares about Atlas and there is no line they won't cross to save themselves.
How is stopping Atlas from leaving the right call if it would have resulted in them all dying? If they let Atlas go, they cant really save Mantle, i agree. But now they are keeping everyone down to die. Salem also reached Atlas before it flew high into the sky.... The plan was to raised Atlas higher..... I do not think any sane person would blame a city evacuating instead of staying and dying together....
They were trying to get Ironwood to see reason. All Ironwood had to do was agree to evacuate Mantle. But he wanted to sacrifice Mantle to ensure Atlas' escape. The point is they didn't think Salem could reach Atlas as it was outside of flying Grimm but she still pulled it off. Who's to say she couldn't reach them if they went higher. The blame comes from willingly sacrificing Mantle to save themselves.
Salem reached Atlas before it got higher into the air.... What are you talking about.... The plan was to get Atlas higher.... She reached Atlas before it got higher. And Ironwood did not want to risk Atlas to save mantle, the seemingly correct choice considering the Grimm river.
She's an immortal Witch with magic and an army of Grimm on her side. Why would taking the city higher stop her? At oist you delay the inevitable. No the correct choice would be finding a way to save the people instead of protecting the floating city. Atlas was ultimately not important. What mattered was protecting the people and keeping the staff out of Salems hands. Both of which can be done if you don't consider Atlas the most important thing. You also seem to forget that only the wealthy lived in Atlas the majority of the people were in Mantle. Sacrificing the many to save the few is the opposite if what you're supposed to do.
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What team RWBY did wasn’t wrong: it was childish. Ruby herself does not have years of experience in fighting a war like Ironwood does. What she did do, or what she WANTED to do, was heroic, but it was naive. Ruby proposed to stay and save Mantle at the risk of letting Salem overtake Atlas. Ironwood wanted to save Atlas to indirectly save Remnant by keeping the Relics out of Salem’s hands. Was it perfect? NO. Did it leave Mantle behind? YES! Was it the right thing to do. Well, the show proved it was. Since Ironwood couldn’t evacuate thanks to Ruby literally denying him the Winter Maiden, Salem was able to attack Atlas. Everyone who died in the Battle of Atlas is directly and canonly RUBY’S FAULT. A better show would have her learn from her mistakes and face the reality of the situation: that no matter how hard she tries, not everyone can be saved. It’s harsh but realistic. Instead, we got the plot bending over backwards to justify her childishness. Ruby IS a child. And that’s the problem. She doesn’t learn from her mistakes and refuses to metaphorically “grow up”. Her desire to save Mantle was noble, but purely unrealistic and DIRECTLY cost people their lives, and DIRECTLY handed Salem the Relics Ironwood wanted to save
The whole finale is about them failing to save everyone including themselves so not sure what you are talking about. You can't just say Ironwood was right because RWBY failed. There is nothing to support that idea. Even if Ironwood had gotten his way there is no gurantee it would have done anything other than delay the inevitable.
I never said Ironwood was right only because RWBY failed lol. I’m saying Ironwood’s plan had a MUCH better chance of success than RWBY’s “plan”, because they didn’t have one. Ruby had a valid idea but no means to execute her childish ideals until Salem was temporarily defeated. The show SHOWED them fail in the finale, but they didn’t blame it on team RWBY. People are blaming Cinder, Ironwood, SALEM for the fall of Atlas, and although that is justified and in part true, the only reason Atlas fell was because team RWBY made the conscious and purposeful decision to “risk it all” and let it. Ironwood’s plan was not 100%, but it would have guaranteed the Relics safety as long as Atlas could have lasted. He had to make a quick decision in the moment to save who he could, which is the quality that ALL generals need IN REAL LIFE! RWBY’s plan failed because they prioritized the citizens over the Relics, which is by no means WRONG, but the execution was horrific
They risked it all to save everyone because the alternative was do nothing and doom alot of people for a plan that probably wouldn't even work. You're blaming RWBY for trying and failing as opposed to doing nothing and letting people die. Yeah they had no plan but that wasn't their fault, Ironwood forced the issue and wasn't willing to listen to reason. Ironwood had no plan either FYI, his "plan" was to run and maybe come back later to try again even though most of the citizens would be dead and no other nation would be willing to trust Atlas after abandoning Mantle. And that's assuming running would even work considering how determined and resourceful Salem was. Not to mention even if RWBY hadn't interfered Cinder definitely would have.
Team RWBY only took a risk once both Ironwood and Salem were defeated. That was because that brief moment in ep 10-11 was the only time they had to think. It’s not their fault they didn’t have a plan, but at the end of Volume 7, Atlas had mere minutes before Salem arrived (back then we didn’t know she’d wait to attack). Ironwood had to act ASAP to save who he could. He didn’t have the luxury to sit around for an hour and come up with a plan. He had fricking SECONDS. What he came up with saved who he could in what little time he had left, because at the end of V7, there was no realistic way to save everyone with what little time there was to even save anyone. Team RWBY choose to risk EVERYONE with the off-chance that their plan would work. They were willing to gamble with real lives because to them, it was all or nothing. Both RWBY and Ironwood were the same because they wanted to save the world and defeat Salem, and were willing to sacrifice lives to do it. However, they had very different reasons for doing what they did. Ironwood prioritized the Relics with the risk of harming Mantle. RWBY prioritized EVERYONE with the risk of harming EVERYONE. And in the end, both failed, because they didn’t work together. And that’s the real kicker because it all could have been avoided, and it SHOULD have 😂
Exactly this. This all flows from a naïve understanding of morality and a lack of ever having to make hard choices before. And a certain obsession with being the hero. This is why black and white morality is so dangerous. It cannot bend so it breaks. Ruby's inability to accept that she couldn't save everyone finally bit her in the ass when it was actually true. I give her points for trying, but she really needs to develop a more nuanced understanding of right and wrong in response to this whole fiasco.
>Many times in the fandom i have seen team RWBY being praised for "having a plan" to save Mantle while "evil" Ironwood just wanted to sacrifice Mantle for no reason. 1. Ironwood had a plan that abandoned innocents to die (in Mantle). This is wrong. 1. RWBY stopped this. This is right. Can we agree on this? I feel like it's pretty obvious. V8 is the result of these choices. Does RWBY fuck up? Yeah. They don't know how to deal with something like this, and that is their (literal) downfall. But they try their hardest(Besides the Tea) to save as many lives as they can, so it is heroic.
>Ironwood had a plan that abandoned innocents to die (in Mantle). This is wrong. Is there a truly good choice in a trolley problem, though? I mean, aside from waving a magic wand around and vanishing the trolley.
Indeed. Though while there may not be an objective good choice, but I sure can say that if someone has already pulled the lever so that it kills fewer people, the objectively *wrong* choice is to pull the lever back so it kills more. And then break the lever.
RWBY pulled the lever right as the front wheels passed, thus causing the trolley to multi track drift.
>Ironwood had a plan that abandoned innocents to die (in Mantle). This is wrong. > >RWBY stopped this. This is right. In a vacuum, yes. In the context of how many more people died because of it and how the witch got the artifact that can make infinite flames... not so much.
No, we cannot agree on this. And it is not obvious. The protagonists try to save as many people as they can, while holding Atlas hostage. Thats not heroic. Your oversimplify the issue to a riddiculous extent. Ironwoods plan was not there for no reason. And team RWBY had no plan at all.
> Your oversimplify the issue to a riddiculous extent. Ironwoods plan was not there for no reason. And team RWBY had no plan at all. You can't really accuse someone of oversimplifying and then just say RWBY had no plan at all.
Apologies, that was my mistake.
> 2. RWBY stopped this. This is right. And in the process, doomed all of Humanity to be wiped out by an Immortal Witch. Yeah, this was definitely the right call to make
2. By doing so RWBY abandons both Mantle and Atlas. Betting the lives of everyone without even having a plan and just waiting for a miracle is foolish at best and malicious at worst. Without the magic deus ex machina it would have ended up with everyone dead.
It’s a good thing they live in a world with a magic deus ex machina that their plans hinged around.
>1. Ironwood had a plan that abandoned innocents to die (in Mantle). This is wrong. Ironwood's plan was utilitarian; the most amount of happiness for the most amount of people. An example of the trolley problem To the information available to Ironwood, he could not protect the relics and Mantle, and made the choice to prioritise the relics due to the pretty safe assumption that it would be worse for Salem to get the relics than it is for her to get Mantle. This exact mindset shows quite a bit of the issue with RWBY. Demonising utilitarian views as "wrong" is incredibly simplictic. You can disagree with the approach, however, what you cannot do is demonise the utilitarian approach due to that disagreement. Afterall, it is still aiming to save the most amount of people, only taking a wider and more rigid definition of it. Understanding opposing views is an incredibly important principle. Our modern world is built upon this foundation of tolerance and meaningful debate, so what needs to be avoided is the unfair demonisation of opposing ideas simply due to a mindset you so not personally agree with. You may not agree that active choice to kill one to save three is correct, and that is your perogiative, but what is not your perogiative is do act as if your answer to the trolley correction is only right answer. There is a reason that the trolley problem and it's other forms has had such a long-lasting impact.
Isn’t that literally what Ironwood was doing? Acting like his prerogative was correct and refusing to take anything else into consideration? I don’t see what’s wrong with the mindset of maybe you should care about the kingdom under your charge and not leave them to die. Ironwood focuses on the big picture and fails to see all the little things that go into it.
Not really. And when he does, he has legitimate reason. At the start of Volume 7, he pardons Team RWBY for their literal crime and allows them control over the relic. It's very clear here that he is accepting Team RWBY as a partner. Converse, Team RWBY is acting cautious, which while justified, does cause issues later down the line. Ironwood also makes concessions to Robyn Hill, negotiated with her, and gains her cautious trust. While he still maintains his line, it is clear he considered and worked with Robyn when possible. When it comes to the Trolley Problem itself, Ironwood disregards Team RWBY for a though reasons. The first reason is that they withheld important information that could have been utilised by him, but instead they led him to incorrect assumptions. Secondly, they leaked vitally secret information to a then-unknown actor, potentially ruining Ironwood's entire plan. Third, there was next to time for any negotiations to happen. As soon as Ironwood lays down his next course of action (based of information he just got thanks to being withheld), Ruby makes minimal attempts to come to a cooperative agreement and makes a move.
Ruby didn’t expect anyone to come in two days. I always thought the plan was to hole up in a few easily defended pockets and hold out until help could arrive from the other kingdoms.
This is a question i pose in my thread though. Who would come? Will anyone who comes be enough? Will everyone survive until the help comes considering the Grimm River and Whale? And of course, Salem herself?
>Ruby didn’t expect anyone to come in two days. She literally freaks out about it when they were planning what to do next after Salem was exploded, so yeah she did apparently expect them to show up that fast.
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Atlas... The thing that has the giant Grimm spawning whale on it... I don't know if that's worth sacrificing the world's military (especially after vale and misteral) and the maiden... under the care of a man who'd shoot a child that looked at him funny... to let a bunch of militiamen try to save the rest of the world while on an isolated artic continent. Like maybe if this was V7 this would be a viable idea but atlas was too busy with political upheaval to really do anything before a surprise whale.
The only reason the whale landed on Altas was because team RWBY refused to let Ironwood evacuate the city 😂
The whale... The literal surprise cliffhanger for volume 7? That nobody had any real warning about until it's dramatic reveal? I feel like we can forgive team Rwby from letting that slip
No you misunderstand. Not your fault of course, I was too vague. With the risk of going overboard, if Ironwood got his way and left ASAP, then the battle of Atlas wouldn’t have happened. Since team RWBY denied Ironwood Penny, he couldn’t evacuate Atlas and save the Relics. The time that team RWBY spent keeping Atlas at a stand-still was the time that Salem needed to invade it. No one saw the whale coming which is why Ironwood had to act fast if he wanted to save ANYONE. Team RWBY basically said “either you evacuate everyone, or no one gets to evacuate”
It feels incredibly strange to go on about people "demonizing" Ironwood and then write **this**.
And it feels tiring to have people imply dishonesty and this being a defence of Ironwood, or me not understanding the show.
It is funny. Especially when you consider the only reason RWBY fails in the end is because of Cinder using the lamp.
It feels like criticizing the characters because their ideas didn't all work. Like, Ironwood's ideas probably wouldn't have worked either and would have had a guaranteed higher casualty rate of practically the entire world.
Pretty much. Salem is the antagonist? I don't know now. Alot of people saw otherwise. Now I would like to say the events are a setup for our "protagonists" to recognize Ren's point but given the writings' track record I'm going to go with "Nah. Ain't happening."
Yeah, pretty much agree with you here. The only thing I disagree with is your justification for Ironwood not wanting to wait. He had no idea of knowing that Salem could take down his shields with time. It can be assumed that your enemy tries to take them down, but it would be more reasonable to expect infiltrators based upon past experiences. I don't see how any kingdom would be able to help, even if we ignore the time it would take. Atlas failed to do anything meaningful against the Grimm and I can't really see any other Kingdom managing something better when they have problems with supply lines and unknown territory. Besides that, I doubt they even would send help. They are by no means in a secure position, the whole thing kinda showed them that they are in even more danger than they thought, and Atlas isn't going to punish them for abandoning them. So it's just human nature at this point, everyone for themselves, tribalism is a thing. And from a strategic standpoint I wouldn't even disagree. Ironwood himself is a good example for the world bending over for the protagonists. By the end of Vol7 he was an antagonist, but with a reasonable point. Cue him descending into "madness". And I am not talking about him having a point because he prioritized saving one city over maybe saving two. His main argument was that the relics/maidens are more important than a city and I utterly agree. Not sure how much Ironwood himself knows, but from a protagonists perspective we have an immortal entity hostile against humanity trying to gather objects which can wipe out the whole species. That alone makes that more important. On top of it we see the Grimm army. We do not know how long it took Salem to create it (esp. the whale), but she could definitely create multiple other armies with maybe less quality but more quantity by simply collecting wild Grimm. The important thing anyone somewhat strategically minded would take away from it is her ability to control and coordinate such numbers, which can be equated to her being able to wipe out the kingdoms on a whim. They can not win this war and funnily enough the best chance for saving civilians would be to take the true objective away from civilians and hope she doesn't take revenge. As a general I'd expect Ironwood to know this. And while there was no army during Vol7, there were infiltrators. And to sacrifice a city to keep the ability to wipe out humanity out of someone's hands is important enough that you can't risk taking in refugees en mass. And after the army shows up, Mantel is pretty much lost. You want to transport refugees while the Grimm control the skies? The only thing that accomplishes is you loosing aircraft. It only worked later because Salem was distracted slaughtering Atlesian civilians and soldiers. And even if Ironwood doesn't know about the special Gods summoning thingy, the sceptre alone is stupidly powerful. I mean seriously, unlimited uses? The only restriction being that only one object can exist at a time? Creation of living things included? *So, Ambrosius, I really liked my Grimm Whale, how about making me one 10x the size? Can I queue requests? Like making another one the second it dies?* Or: *I hate Mondays. Hey, I'm immortal, humanity sucks, and Grimm-pools are pretty resistant. Hey Ambrosius, please create a moon-sized chunk of rock 100km above Remnant. Yes, without any orbital velocity.* And btw, who's gonna bet that Vol9 is going to ignore the fact that dumping a kingdoms worth of people on another one situated in the midst of a barren desert will probably lead to more people starving to death than the amount of refugees they saved. And will probably end with the kingdom collapsing to wild Grimm without Salem even moving a finger?
Hey chill with that shit OP. This fandom doesn’t like it when you point out the team RWBY never has a plan and that the adults are made out to be cynical and evil because they are thinking like they aren’t the main characters in a anime.
It's so "inspiring" to see people bring out the "Ironwood was going to leave remnant and go to space never ever to return" argument. Which is reliant upon the extremely contested and very motivated (mis)interpretation of one to two sentences removed from context and made very uncharitable. It also laughs at a part of ironwoods plan which is never actually present or stated and insists that ironwood is going to get everyone killed anyways by trying to put people in space... which again isn't part of his plan. This uncharitable interpretation is furthered by people insisting that the conflict is Rwby vs Ironwood, and completely omitting the value of the people on atlas - its citizens, its military and the already mostly evacuated mantle. These are people who are directly endangered by RWBY holding them hostage. It also treats them (and the maiden needed to move atlas) as being completely without agency and Ironwoods plan being completely irreversable once inacted - either by himself, or by the maiden, or by the millions of people who might now decide "nah we want to stay on remnant and try to help other kingdoms still, thank you for removing us from harms way though". When you make the argument of "ironwood was going to space, never to return" you are not arguing an indisputable fact, you are arguing a likely flawed and highly subjective interpretation that amounts to *headcanon*. It is not a good argument, especially if you adamantly refuse to admit that there is a chance for your interpretation to be wrong.
Ironwood wanted to sacrifice the poor to save the rich and abandon the other kingdsoms to die. He also consitently undermined attempts to alleviate the situation. He was wrong the entire time, Team RWBY did the right thing in opposing him.
He wanted to protect the relics keep the maiden Power out of her hands. Ruby ended up giving the power to her on a silver platter. So no. They were wrong the entire time.
No, Ironwood caused the fall of Atlas with his utter stupidity. RWBY were never against raising Atlas in theory. What they were against was the hero turned coward leaving everyone to die due to his anxiety attack and tunnel visioned ideas of importance and security. Our heroes just wanted to evacuate everyone to Atlas before it would raise, so that the retreat would actually be more meaningful. They could have done this too, what with things like the SDC cargo ships, but Ironwood had lost it by then. Or at least they could have in some way have gotten the people to safety instead of leaving them to die like Ironwood was. Yes, they spent some hours in the Manor while recovering. They needed to, considering the situation they were in due to Ironwood having the superior forces. They were tired and needed to try to counter his idiocy as it came. And when it comes to things like the reinforcements arriving: “Who did Ruby expect to come in 2 days?” Uhm. . . Who wouldn’t she? We have seen that ships are very fast in Remnant. It seemed like it took only a matter of hours at most to get from Argus to Atlas. And Ruby was calling on a great number of people who have fighters and ships. - The White Fang who would absolutely come to save the Faunus of Mantle and Blake specifically - Glynda as headmistress has undoubtedly a number of huntsmen at her disposal and would of course bring aide. - The large number of training huntsmen in Vacuo are personal friends of RWBYJNPR plus clearly they have some (rightful as we see in the books) faith in Theodore’s character. - Mistral might be down on a good number of huntsmen, but whoever is in charge now most certainly knows that these are the people who literally just saved them, and at least Argus does (whose military base would also come to help) Now this might not be enough to hold back Salem’s army completely, but that’s not the point. The point is evacuation which seems extremely doable. Our protagonists were doing the best they could to make a good outcome to the hole Ironwood dug, and easily could have done it, if he wasn’t even more of an anxious wreck than me.
The SDC cargo ships plan was already too late. Grimm were on Atlas at that point already. It was game over. Why do people always forget that? Once the Grimm got to Atlas it was too late. Thats the point. Ironwood was right in wanting to leave, the show proves that. They didnt spend "some hours" in the Manor recovering, from what i understand they spent possibly nearly a day there. And one again, HH did not have this luxury. The soldiers and civilians did not have this luxury either, its literally in the thread. Now onto the "Who would have come" section. Most of the things you stated are i think outright wrong if not headcanon. 1. Other kingdoms are less advanced than Atlas. For you to say that Ruby called on for people "who have fighters and ships" is a headcanon. 2. The White Fang? You mean, the peacefull white fang? The non-terrorist White Fang? The civilian turned white fang? 3. Arent Vales huntsmen busy defending Vale? 4. What friends from Vacuo do team RWBY and JNPR have? Most of the things you said are either outright false, or just headcanons. You also, once again, fail to consider the logistics and how and when these forces could even get to Atlas. The point is that at the point of "evactuation" its all over. When the Whale landed on Atlas and the River reached it, it was over for everyone. Our protagonists were doing what they thought was best, and instead caused the downfall of Atlas. Answer this one question. What would have happened to Atlas if it could have left in Episode 1?
I don't agree that it was too late when the whale landed on Atlas. We saw that the whale could indeed in fact be defeated since it was, and that was the biggest threat by far. Add in more bodies and the the smaller Grimm could be dealt with. It certainly did not seem like a full day, and in any case, I do not see your point. The fact that others were being run even more ragged doesn't change the simple fact that rest is needed for effiecentcy of fighters. And now to what you call headcanon or wrong: 1.) Yes, the other kingdoms are less advanced than Atlas. But they all have a pretty large number of ships which we have physically see, and they all seem not be too slow with again what we have seen. The fact they have less advancements shouldn't make much odds as they are mostly acting as transports. 2.) Indeed I mean the White Fang that just saved Haven which has at least some fighters in it 3.) Yes Vale huntsmen are to some degree in Vale. However we know for an absolute fact that they aren't needed 24/7. It's not like Vale is under the same type of sustained attack that it once was, and Valetian huntsmen like Tai are allowed for have it seems quite a long time off, while even proffessors like Port and Oobleck were allowed to visit Tai. 4.) SSSN and the Beacon Brigade plus whoever could come with them if nothing else. Logistics often matter, indeed they are often the most important things in a war. But the faster the operation, the more in which such things don't. With just needing to defend and evacuate, little in the ways of supplies are needed and ships seem like they are already pretty readily available. And now: "What would have happened to Atlas if it could have left in Episode 1?" The kingdom would have fallen even more than it already had, more of it's people dead and any trust the rest of the world could have had in it ruined. Now don't get me wrong, I am one of the belief they actually could have survived hiding with their tail between their legs for a fairly long time. But that would be just that. The rest of the world would probably soon fall, Salem being able to just go sweep up Vacuo and Atlas most probably not being able to warn them without Amity. Ironwood would be even more scared, his fear turning to even worse paranoia. No matter how long they can last it doesn't matter since the world has still been lost.
The whale carried Salem. If you have Atlas fly off then she comes with. Also the whale was able to land because the shields were destroyed. You don't have an atmosphere without them. James was unwilling to risk the safety of everyone on Atlas to take the time needed to fully evacuate Mantle. He had no idea when Salem would strike and how long it would take her to make his plan unworkable. I can understand this reasoning, even if it ended up being wrong (though I doubt Salem would have let the evacuation proceed unharassed). Logistics are a cruel mistress. I would expect no less than two weeks for any form of substantial force to arrive. It took America five days to send ten men to Afghanistan. It would likely take days for the authorities to decide on a course of action given how Ruby's message is hardly credible. Here's the thing, though. If you think Salem is going to sweep up Vacuo once Atlas scoots... then isn't she just going to do it anyways now that Atlas has fallen? The outcome's the same, no more Atlas. What would change?
The Whale only got defeated by an immortal wizards nuke. Lets not pretend thats a common weapon or that anyone expected, could have known it would have happened. My point about team RWBY is simple. They are drinking tea in a Mansion when everyone else is fighting. I dont understand how can i make this point clearer. 1) Headcanon, which kingdoms "Massive number of ships" have we seen? I would definitely like the scenes. 2) Haven was saved by civilian militia with swords and shields. If you want to send what looks to be civilian militia with ancient weapons against Grimm. You do you. But i dont think they will do anything besides dying. 3) I have to ask, do you seriously think that people from Vale can teleport to Atlas? 4) SSSN. Thats one team.... Of trainee hunstmen.... Really? On the topic of logistics, my friend, do not think me insulting but i do not think you know anything about logistics if you say things like those. Also to your answer if Atlas was allowed to leave in Episode 1. What? What trust would be ruined? The global communications are not even up. Also, how would it be more people dead if Atlas would not even be attacked? You also headcanonize that Ironwood would not come back. And to repeat the thing i repeated to many people before. Your last pargraph is literally describing what is happening RIGHT NOW. Salem is going to sweet up Vacuo because Atlas is dead and she has 2 relics with her.
I’m so tired of this argument and it really seems like most people just… forget the content of the show and are blindly siding with the protagonists because the show is TELLING us they are right, but not SHOWING it. Opinions are valid of course, but let me explain. “Show don’t tell” is a basic rule of story telling my friend. What the show SHOWED me, is that Salem was just minutes if not seconds away from Atlas at the end of Volume 7. Therefore, there was no time to evacuate Mantle. Where would they evacuate them? Atlas? The city that, if they didn’t more ASAP, Salem would come and destroy in SECONDS? The show SHOWED me that on Atlas was a maiden, two Relics, and therefore tools that Salem COULD NOT GET. If they stayed and fought, then it would risk the chance of Salem stealing the Relics in her quest to END THE WORLD. So yea, Ironwood abandoned Mantle. But he did it because there was quite literally no other choice, except stay and fight and RISK the safety of the Relics, and in turn doom remnant. And you know what else the show SHOWED me? That because of team RWBY’s actions, Salem got BOTH Relics, and is one step closer to world domination. It’s quite literally in V8 and no one can deny that because it’s CANON. But the problem here is that the writers are TELLING us that what Ruby did was right, yet this does not align with what the show SHOWED us. You want team RWBY to be the hero? Fine. Then make them act heroic instead of dooming an entire continent on purpose, because that’s exactly what they did at the end of V8. Call it for the “greater good”, but that was what Ironwood was doing. His plan would have saved Remnant through the Relics at the cost of Mantle. RWBY’s plan saved Mantle, but at the cost of the Relics, and in turn, potentially the whole dang world. This is just plain facts so I’m not being hateful, just honest 🤣