User blog comment:ChishioKunrin/How the plot has used Ruby Rose/@comment-71.175.63.159-20170719201510/@comment-4010415-20170720101141

@Highlighting Ruby being the reason Penny was at the docks:

I never said there was anything wrong with it. I highlighted it because it was an example of the writing using Ruby as a means to get Penny to the docks to scare Roman off. One of the reasons I wrote this blog was to count how often Ruby gets put in the spotlight or foreground for the sole purpose of moving the plot vs how often Ruby gets to be a character/person in the spotlight or foreground more deeply than just reacting to the current situation and not in a subtle way that gets overshadowed by the rest of her teammates' character moments.

And like I said in the Summary section for Volume 3:

"I'm not saying it's a terrible thing for a character to stumble into plot. I'm saying it's bad that they frequently use Ruby to do this, and it wouldn't be quite so bad if they actually spread it out among the characters. When you set one character as your designated "Stumbles into plot and is a vessel to make plot things happen" character, that's bad, especially when you stop giving that character moments to actually act like a person, more deeply than them just reacting to the current situation or having a physical conflict with the bad guys."

@Ruby's interactions with Penny and how her keeping Penny's secret ended up:

That would've been a lot better if they had actually addressed that instead of leaving it to be a subtle thing. The only mention we got of Penny in volume 4 was when Jaune said this in Kuroyuri: "We lost… We lost Pyrrha. You lost her, too. And Penny, and your team, and in a way… your sister. But you're still here, despite everything you've lost, everything you could still lose, you chose to come out here."

It would've been a lot better if we had actually gotten something from Ruby herself about how she feels about what happened at the Fall of Beacon and how she's handling it, more than just a couple dreams about when Pyrrha died that were simply brought on because she could hear Jaune's training video in her sleep (according to the writers).

They let Yang talk about it in End of the Beginning. They let Blake talk about it in Taking Control. Weiss exploded in frustration after a rich woman said Vale deserved what happened in Tipping Point. But the show has not had Ruby herself say or show much of anything about how she feels or how she's handling it. Instead, Jaune talked about it for her, just like how Yang spoke about how torn up Ruby was about Summer's disappearance but we haven't gotten anything about it from Ruby herself.

Yes, Ruby has had subtle stuff about her character, but she hasn't had stuff where she overtly and openly showed or spoke about it deeply since volume 1. Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune, Pyrrha... and finally, in volume 4, Nora and Ren. Even after volume 1, those characters have had character moments that are actually overtly and openly shown to us. That is what I have a problem with. All the other characters get actual, serious, OBVIOUS focus on that stuff, but Ruby doesn't, and because of this, she gets overshadowed and seems less interesting by comparison to a lot of people.

It seems like you're not quite getting the point of what I'm trying convey with this blog post.

I know that Ruby has SUBTLE character moments and developments, but that's not good enough when ALL THE OTHER CHARACTERS get OBVIOUS character moments and developments because they were actually focused more heavily on for those moments and the show actually took the time to really and truly show all of that more deeply and address it instead of just hoping that the viewers notice the subtleties in their actions and dialogue and read between the lines.

Ruby rarely gets pulled into the foreground or a spotlight for that stuff. Most of the time, when she gets pulled into the foreground or a spotlight (read: is the scene's MAIN FOCUS), she's just being used to further the plot, not having a character moment. I wouldn't have anywhere near as much of a problem with this if they would actually put serious and obvious focus on her emotions, character moments, and development alongside that.

So, in the end, it's not necessarily that Ruby has had zero development or character moments, it's that the show doesn't pay as much attention to them as it does for literally everyone else! Ruby's get left as subtleties that we need to take a magnifying glass to, while everyone else's get put front and center on the stage for us to actually notice without having to try so hard!