User blog comment:Zathronas/Analysis by an author - Ruby Rose/@comment-5426254-20160407005852/@comment-24122714-20160409185108

@Zathronas Every time that Ruby is seemingly progressing the plot, she isn't. For example, when Ruby found out about Mercury and Emerald being frauds, that wasn't plot progression as that did nothing but give exposition on an event [Pyrrha Killing Penny] that would have occurred regardless if Ruby found out their true intentions or not. Ruby didn't even tell anyone about it either. It was just dramatic irony. The story is completely reactionary since we the audience can predict what is going to happen very easily unless the person completely shuts off their brain like most people who watch anime nowadays. Seriously! People saying that Pyrrha's death was unpredictable are completely out of it. Everything from her backstory to her character design gave it away.

And as for Ruby chasing after Roman's Airship, everyone else saw what happened, it's just that she decided to go. This is literally the only time Ruby has relevance in the plot, but that hardly justifies her existance in the first three volumes. If you're gonna argue characterization, Ruby can easily get her characterization from volume 4 which is a completely fresh start. Ruby actually commandeering her team was never even shown, most of what we have seen is just the team fighting bad guys with practically no communication with each other other than the occasional team or partner attacks, if that's what you call leadership then I don't know what to say. For the rest of team RWBY, their characterization is either non-existant, bipolar, or is completely discarded in the following episode they show up in (i.e. Weiss being nice then going straight back to being a racist asshole in LITERALLY the next episode she shows up in). The characterization is very good, but unfortunately it's scrapped rendering that good characterization meaningless. Sorry, but Ruby's role in the first three volumes is practically meaningless.