RWBY & RT General Discussion Thread (V1)
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Matrix Dragon
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Team Whistleblower. Nice.
Interacting with the RWBY fandom (or discussing RWBY with people outside the fandom) can be extremely frustrating at times. Especially the outright RWDE crowd. But at times posts like this one comes along and demonstrate how the fandom can be a fascinating and kind of horrifying look at peoples attitudes and beliefs.
I mean sure there is the usual RWDE idiocy of whining about things that aren't really a problem (Weiss specified that it takes hours for the cold to kill, there are scenes showing people using Burn Dust to keep warm and Robyn was only lying out in the cold for a few minutes before being stowed onto a warm airship) but what fascinates and scares me is how this person can get all these facts together, line up the equations and then so thoroughly miss all the red flags that they should be seeing.
Yes Robyn's life is in danger. She is potentially injured and is at risk of suffering from hypothermia if she doesn't get to shelter or recover her Aura in time.
That is precisely why it is scummy and manipulative of Clover to hold her life hostage to pressure Qrow into letting himself be arrested.
Qrow who mind you had not committed any crimes at all when the order was put out for his arrest.
Qrow's only crime was being related to a whistleblower.
And again he was not being brought in for a police interrogation because the Atlas police/military wanted to ask him some pointed questions about his niece. He was not being brought in to talk with Ironwood so that Ironwood could convince him that Operation Sky High was the best idea and ask him to talk sense into his niece. He was not even being specifically brought in for temporary holding or being put under surveillance to ensure that he couldn't join up with his niece.
He (and 4 other entirely guiltless people*) was flat out being placed on a Atlas Most Wanted list and ordered to be put under arrest just because he happened to be related to someone who defied Ironwood. He wasn't even related to someone who broke the law, just someone who refused to follow the illegal orders of a military organization that she was not actually a part of.
If we look at this from Qrow's perspective his niece makes a panicked call to give a desperate warning about Ironwood suddenly and without warning doing a 180 and deciding to abandon the people of Mantle to die to the cold and the Grimm. That call is abruptly cut of for reasons that Qrow can only speculate on.
We the audience know that Ironwood pushed a button to jam their comms (possiboy with a backdoor he had installed on the phones he so "generously" gave them) but for all Qrow knows Ruby's call was cut off because Ironwood saw a child right in front of himself.
Then right after Ruby's attempt to blow the whistle is aborted under suspicious circumstances the ensuing eerie silence is broken by a Scroll.
But it's not Qrow's Scroll that's beeping because Ironwood sent him a message or is calling him to explain the situation. No, it's Clover's Scroll that's beeping because he just received orders for Qrow's arrest. Just orders mind. No warrants, no charges, no crimes, no nothing. All Qrow gets is a "you're under arrest" without a single word on what he is under arrest for. Not that any such things are required, everyone in that airship knows that Qrow isn't guilty of anything except being politically inconvenient.
Which brings me to what's so freaking creepy about that post that started all this: Qrow is the victim in this situation.
It's clearly not right for Clover to arrest him. He has no reasonable justification for arresting him beyond "because my boss said so" and said boss is a dangerously unstable dictator who at this point is perfectly willing to shoot a defenseless child because said child attempted to peacefully talk him into changing his mind.
Granted Qrow doesn't know that Ironwood has become that bad. But he also has no way of knowing if Ironwood is or is not even worse.
For all Qrow knows Ironwood intends to execute everyone on that wanted list, and maybe even any and all political dissidents as well.
There is absolutely no reason why Qrow should feel like himself, Robyn (who has now attempted to resist arrest and is therefore also on the wanted list) or his family are going to be safe if they turn themselves in and let Ironwood arrest them. And hell, if Robyn had been conscious (but unable to move/fight) then she would have absolutely told Qrow to kick Clover's ass and taken her chances with the cold.
Then here comes Clover. He looks at these entirely unreasonable orders and decides that the only thing to do is to follow them. He looks at Qrow trying to deescalate the situation by talking to Ironwood and decides that Qrow still needs to be arrested. He looks at Tyrian crashing the plane and Robyn potentially being on death's door and decides that the first and only priority should be to place Qrow under arrest (because he doesn't have to understand orders, he just has to follow them).
And there are people in this world. Real people who look at this situation and conclude that the problem is not that Clover is holding a woman's life hostage to arrest an innocent man, but that the innocent man refused to be taken in by such underhanded tactics. To these real people it apparently never occured to them that Clover could have simply let Qrow go, or at least suggested a temporary ceasefire to get Robyn some medical attention before resuming the fight elsewhere. Or that he could have decided to postpone Qrow's arrest to first deal with the dangerously unstable serial killer that just crashed their plane and is potentially on the loose**.
This stuff is actually kind of scary when you think about it. Because despite Qrow spelling out the fact that Clover was being manipulative and the show giving us plenty of context for why Clover was in the wrong there are so many people like this who seems to have completely fallen for Clover's manipulation and are utterly blind to how he's trying to coerce an innocent man into a potentially very dangerous/outright lethal situation.
And the scary part about that is that if these people can't recognize manipulation and gaslighting when it happens (and is pointed out as such) in fiction, then how incapable would they be of spotting abuse and manipulation happening in real life? A depressingly reoccurring theme in stories about real life abusers, gaslighters and manipulators is how quick people are to blame the victims and give the abusers a free pass and here we see how eager real people are to excuse fictional abuse even when there is a literal narrative that is clearly telling them who the bad guy is. How much quicker are these people to defend abusers in the murkier scenarios of real life, where the facts are so much harder to come by? Thinking about it is not giving me warm happy thoughts I can tell you that much.
As a final note can I just point out how utterly baffling it is that this person is simultaneously calling for the show to depict hundreds/thousands of people perishing from the cold while also calling Qrow selfish for not cooperating with the people who want to let tens of thousands of people perish in the cold?
* Oh, and I just realized another way Ironwood's paranoia screwed things up in regards to Team ORNJ and the Lamp. Because Ironwood activated his Greek Gift and took away Team ORNJ's ability to communicate with their Scrolls they were unable to warn him, Team RWBY or even each other about Neo's attempt to retrieve the Relic. So combined with the Atlas soldiers covering for Neo so she could escape with the Relic later on Ironwood basically ended up helping Salem's agents retrieve the lamp twice over.
** And while it's not mentioned in that post it's telling that so many people like this person rage against Qrow for "siding" with Tyrian while ignoring how Clover effectively did the same thing several times beforehand by attacking Qrow every time Qrow turned his back on Clover to deal with Tyrian.
this is basically 2 things together
point 1 - the protagonists can never be right or get away with things because that is to easy and bad writing
point 2 - people have a craving for carnage so they have more mature proof that there really are stakes in the plot (grimm are not a threat, if salem doesn't stomp then she loses her threat factor, etc. etc.)
we also have people that hate on Ironwood's semblance because;
1 - "It's not a superpower! It's something you are trained to fucking have in the military"
2 - "It's not big and flashy"
3 - "It's lazy/bad writing"
4 - "If this is his power then why is he making poor choices?"
5 - "It's a completely self-contained semblance and thus breaks everything that has been shown about since the beginning"
6 - "It doesn't fit his theme as the Tinman and he should of had something like Ren's Semblance. Heck, what the hell does Ren's power even have to do with Mulan?"
(these are, no lie, all reasons from various people I saw over the weekend in regards to Mettle)
Oh, that would be a NICE call back.
Ironwood - "Why?! I am trying to save lives here! I am doing this for the good of Atlas! For all of Remnant!"
Ruby -"And I am being a Huntress, just as you once praised me for!"
Ironwood - "What...?"
Ruby - "I recognized a threat. I chose what action to take. And I am doing the best I can."
Ironwood - "Then WHY is Atlas still in danger?! Salem is HERE!"
Ruby - "Because Salem isn't the only threat!"
Ironwood - *glaring daggers* "So....you also think I'm a threat....just like he did..."
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My eyes rolled so hard they almost swiveled out of my skull.
Oooh nice callback in a callback!
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Matrix Dragon
Well-known member
Hey, depending on how accurate Tyrians internals are to some scorpions, she may have literally torn him a new asshole.
So Ironwood is certainly fairly charismatic and amicable enough with his staff that he'd engender a lot of personal loyalty, but personal fondness or loyalty alone won't generally cause someone to be an obedient enabler, condemn a whole city to die or arrest people for being related to whistleblowers.
The problems with Atlas go deeper than Ironwood, he's the major symptom, but he's not the source. The real issue is that Atlas is a doggedly hierarchal culture where loyalty is viewed as obedience and superior officers are more important than the people. Kill a young Ironwood and some other general, maybe a bit less amicable or a touch more awkward and you'd still likely run into the issue of them wielding too much power with your best hope being they didn't become a Headmaster too, but thanks to Specialists... Yeah even that would only count for so much.
So how do you address a problem like Ironwood?
Or more.
Atlas.
Well here's my hot take in point form!
The problems with Atlas go deeper than Ironwood, he's the major symptom, but he's not the source. The real issue is that Atlas is a doggedly hierarchal culture where loyalty is viewed as obedience and superior officers are more important than the people. Kill a young Ironwood and some other general, maybe a bit less amicable or a touch more awkward and you'd still likely run into the issue of them wielding too much power with your best hope being they didn't become a Headmaster too, but thanks to Specialists... Yeah even that would only count for so much.
So how do you address a problem like Ironwood?
Or more.
Atlas.
Well here's my hot take in point form!
- The position of Headmaster & general must be de-politicized, military and combat officials have no place being in charge of civilian affairs; they can advise on security matters but they cannot vote.
- Dissolve the position of general and turn it into its own council, likely an air force, ground force and perhaps mechanical warfare or domestic guard force separate from the main military to make it hard to concentrate power. Also dissolve the Specialist position and recruitment program.
- End the role of soldiers as police and replace them either with a militia or detective/police force that is self run, totally transparent and under the control of the civilian government. (If you must have cops at least :/)
- Have the soldiers go through de-programming and empathy training, and consistently send them out to do public service stuff when possible to build trust in the communities but also to make them feel integrated with and not separate from the people they are meant to protect, soldiers shouldn't be a special class.
- End any and all prison labor programs. If you really want prisoners "Productive" make it optional, ensure they are given training, health coverage and payment for their work.
Le Marquis de Kinky
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- 001Collette
Howdy, friends. Mind directing me to some nice wholesome RWBY content? Yes i consider schadenfreude wholesome content. I need some RT related pickmeups right now and im currently avoiding the non narrative bits of the RT fandom for personal reasons.
Thank you kindly.
Thank you kindly.
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Man it's only about 11ish days until RvB Zero. Time sure flies. And hopefully it will be less than a week until my Storm Warning order arrives in the mail.
Gosh time moves too fast haha, good to know though thanks and best of luck with that!
Matrix Dragon
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Seriously, it's amazing how the Ironwood Stans try and ignore that he ordered the murder of an elderly woman to steal her car keys.
This is the funniest summary of that order ever XD
Matrix Dragon
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Is it wrong?