Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-24032889-20190105161936/@comment-14909251-20190113192531

Alhazad2003 wrote: I fear it may be too little too late in Adam's case, not a lot of people will care about his story after what's already gone down, though if CRWBY did a better job of showing Faununs discrimination rather than simply telling us then we'd all have a better idea of what the White Fang was fighting against.

Alas, the Fang is splintered and destined to crumble, as has Adam's dream of becoming the savior of his people. Now he's a broken man at the end of his rope, desperately trying to hold on. Though I fear he'll lose that grip in episode 12, and will fall to his doom as Gaston did. And scant few will actually mourn him. This is why I think the idea of him being blind could be so major. If he were blinded by racist humans throwing acid in his face or something of that nature and it happened when he was very young, then this would be hard not to understand. You'd have a whole "because of humans I have spent my entire life in darkness" mood to him and his whole character would make a lot more sense. Even more significant would be if his parents were killed during such an incident. One other thing is it would give his obsession with Blake and relationship with her a very different character, especially if she didn't know about it. Up to this point we'd be understanding him as a guy obsessed with a beautiful girl, but if he blind that ain't doing anything for him and it suggests his obsession has a deeper emotional element to it.

Also, people should stop comparing him to Gaston. He is not an allusion to Gaston, but an allusion to the Beast. I think people misunderstand that story if they think he is meant to reference anyone else. For one, Gaston is entirely a creation of Disney and while that wouldn't preclude him from being an allusion, it also doesn't fit well under scrutiny. Belle never had a romantic interest in Gaston at all. More importantly, Adam works as a subversion of the Beast from the traditional tale. Despite being treated as a heart-warming fairy tale story, the fact is the Beast is not exactly a moral character. He holds a woman captive to try and woo her. When you get down to it, the main reason people don't like Gaston in the original movie is because he is a pompous jerk and they like the Beast because he is a tortured soul with poor social graces. However, the Beast's actions in the story are really more morally heinous than Gaston's.

Now, the reason the Beast can still be a sympathetic character is because you see the good in him and the good he does. That is probably the only way in which the Gaston comparison fits in that Adam is not shown doing any good. Part of that is because we don't really see what is so horrible about the way the Faunus are treated. Would Adam being blinded and orphaned by humans do anything to change that? I do think it would shift perception a bit over Yang being disarmed. She lost an arm, but then got a bad-ass prosthetic because he has an in with the most powerful person in the most powerful kingdom on the planet. Being a Faunus, wouldn't be shocked if Adam just doesn't have the same access to that kind of medical care even if he could afford it.

Revealing something major about his character and then killing him off would be a bit cheap. Killing him off without really casting any more light on his character would be cheap and poor writing. Overall, I'm opposed to killing him off. The real question is: what exactly would they do with his character after this point? Him continuing his obsession with Blake would not be useful and his overall effectiveness with the White Fang has been diminished. Only way to make this work is to start a shift in his character and have the events of this Volume be like him hitting rock-bottom.