User blog:HalointheSkye/Volume 3 Chapter 12 - End of the Beginning

Why does it hurt so much?

Before I get started, I'd just like to give a huge round of applause for the RWBY team, cast and crew. This volume was amazing and absolutely heart-breaking. You did a wonderful job. Monty would be so proud of all of you.

On that note, fuck you Miles. I love you and I hate you so much.

So... who's ready for the last in-depth review of Volume 3 season finale - End of the Beginning? Because I'm not.

1. The Wizard and I...

OZPIN AND CINDER FIREWORKS? OZPIN AND CINDER FIREWORKS!

So I've been hyped up for Ozpin fighting since pretty much... PvP, so to open up with this made me really excited.

And holyyyyyy crap Ozpin is freaking amazing.

I'm still thinking that he's got something to do with time. There were some moments in the battle where the same movement repeated a lot of times, as if time was rewinding back over and over again, like a loop. And through that Ozpin got quite a lot of hits on Cinder, which was pretty cool. I also love the shield globe that he summoned against Cinder, and how he flew towards her. That was a great shot.

Where is Ozpin now? Why did the fight only last about half a minute? I really have no idea. Cinder seems rather victorious, but she doesn't seem too smug about it. She doesn't mention it once either (and I would think that she'd at least gloat it to Pyrrha or something), so either Ozpin fled himself or she managed to capture/imprison him somehow.

Personally, I don't think that Ozpin is dead. Clearly, there's something between him and Salem (new evil boss lady that looks freaking amazing - we'll talk about her later) that needs to be resolved or expanded on. They obviously both don't like each other very much. Salem's last words were also referring to Ozpin in present tense, which makes me believe that he is still alive.

Hopefully, fingers crossed, because I can't wait to see Ozpin fight more.

'''2. Team RWBY is back together! Temporarily! And missing an arm...'''

So we have a very brief reunion of RWBY in this scene, and I'm left wondering where the hell Sun's team is. Poor guy.

I already started tearing up when Blake held Yang's hand and apologised to her tearfully, which alerted me right away that I was absolutely screwed up for the rest of the episode. Nora and Ren also seem to be hurting a lot from the hits they took last episode, however they still seem bent on finding the rest of their team. That Paladin must've packed quite a punch compared to the prototype.

Ruby and Weiss then go announce that they'll go find Jaune and Pyrrha, which only lead me to having a horribly, dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach.

'''3. Fuck. Me. In. The. Feels.'''

Okay, deep breath, I can do this.

3.

2.

1.

*bawls in tears*

Fuck, this episode really got me. I was sobbing for the whole entirety of the thing, which means air tacos to the CRWBY team at RT.

So. This happened.

Before when I watched the preview, I was really excited that Jaune and Pyrrha would have a scene together. Now it just makes me awfully sad.

Jaune and Pyrrha run out of the tower, and Jaune prepares to call Glynda on his scroll (shout-out to any existing JaunexGlynda shippers out there... if that ship even exists...) while he asks Pyrrha about what happened back there. I'm surprised he didn't even try to dig deeper. She was screaming in a pod when a woman with fire powers came in and shot the other person dead. Good juan, Jaune.

And I had to totally call it, of course Pyrrha would be thinking of doing something selflessly stupid. I knew it as soon as I watched the preview, in the tone of her voice (and I'm really salty about it too, dammit).

So then Jaune follows her line of sight to the tower, and then starts to protest against her when Pyrrha finally gains her senses and kisses him.

AGHHHHHHHHH MY FEELSSSSSSSSS.

Actually I wasn't even squealing in joy at that point. I was sobbing even harder because somebody had spoiled me what happened later on in the episode and I just felt horrible.

As part of my recovery session after I watched the episode, I did in fact continually watch this scene more than twenty times. Is it just me or did I see Pyrrha popping her leg a little? (and that made me squeal, yeah). Another little thing that I also noticed is when they broke up, Pyrrha holds Jaune in the exact same pose as she did when she first unlocked his Semblance in the Emerald Forest. Don't know if it was on purpose or not, but it was really a bittersweet moment.

Of course, as soon as they break off, Pyrrha says "I'm sorry"  and then slams Jaune into a rocket launcher! In fact, how many times has Pyrrha shoved Jaune into something? She pinned him to a locker when they first met, pinned him to a tree, punched him to the ground during team-forming, shoved him to the ground when she told him his stance was all wrong, and slammed him to a wall and shattered it!

''Far out. ''

It makes you even sadder when you realise that Pyrrha's last words to Jaune were "I'm sorry."

I'm hurting so much on the inside.

Why do you do this, RT?

4. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

*screams in anguish*

So I know that the whole fandom had this death pretty much predicted since Episode 6, but that doesn't make me feel any better about what happened.

GAHAEOGHOAEGNJAKGHAWOJGEAGK

I'm just gonna say that damn that was a good fight. Pyrrha actually managed to wipe that smug smile off Cinder's face (which I'm glad about) and actually had her for a couple of instances, if it were not for Cinder's bloody Maiden powers. Even I knew that during this whole fight, Pyrrha would lose. It was just inevitable really, especially when I saw Cinder break Milo to pieces. The symbolism in that was too real.

The Maiden powers won over eventually. Damn Cinder and her damn arrows, and damn the whole allusion to Archilles - it was very well done. I'm also very bitter that CInder decided to disintegrate Pyrrha into ashes. Not even a body left to bury or mourn over. Just her headpiece, which I feel might be symbolic in coming episodes, or just left entirely forgotten. Depends if Jaune gets his hands on it.

Talking of Jaune, far out man. S.S. Arkos was sailing and then it literally burned to pieces. Both my favourite character and OTP got destroyed this episode. I don't know how to feel.

5. Ruby goes Super-Saiyan

So, I know some people are probably yelling "CALLED IT, RUBY'S EYES ARE SPECIAL!" And I have to admit, kudos to you. That was a pretty good call.

Although I still will fight any Ruby Is A Maiden theory. I still don't think she's a Maiden.

I really love how everything is connecting back to Volume 1, back to Episode 1 when Ozpin told her she had silver eyes. It feels like everything's come back into a full circle, which makes sense, seeing as the episode name is "End of the Beginning".

Damn RT being deep here.

So well then - Ruby's special. And I guess everything makes much more sense - why Ozpin allowed such a young girl to attend Beacon, why she's the lead in the show, and why she was chosen to be the team leader of RWBY (apart from it being the show's name).

Cinder must know something about these famed silver-eyed warriors, because she has an absolutely shocked looked on her face as she shouts "No!" I'm so glad we finally got some sort of expression out of Cinder apart from the "I planned everything and everything is going exactly to plan" smirk. Thank goodness.

I want to 1v1 Cinder right now for everything she's done.

Going to applaud Ruby's voice performance this episode, and Jaune's as well. Miles did a great job of Jaune yelling at the Scroll and throwing it on the ground. I found it ironic that he was yelling at Weiss, where in the previous volume he would never do such a thing. Shows how much he's changed, actually.

Also... Taiyang has upgraded from cardboard to a model! Ey! Also, he's voiced by Burnie, which I found surprisingly fitting in that fatherly way. I still like Qrow much better though. Heaps more.

6. Yang's extreme saltiness

Damn gotta admit - this scene made me cry harder.

I'm such a sad person ;-;

So Ruby comes in, and Yang acts all cold about it, but then she calls out back to Ruby, who in turn hugs her. Yang's obviously still trying to get over losing an arm (with only one Ember Celica beside her bed table, so the other one must really be gone, I guess).

Yang also seems extremely bitter about Blake running away, which is understandable, seeing as we all thought that Blake was over that kind of thing, after all the character building and team bonding they went through in the past few volumes. I do see Blake's side of things about not putting her teammates further in danger, but I still wish she could've talked it over or something. Now RWBY's all torn up in different places, which I had also called before.

And now...

7. On a journey to Haven with Jaune, Nora, Ren and Ruby...

So I'm not using the coined-term "RJNR" because I still feel like it's too early for that now.

I'm also willing to fight any Lancaster shipper that is currently jumping up in joy over their ship possibly leaving docks. How dare you.

It's winter now, which makes me feel like we've come a full circle since the Red Trailer. JNR and Ruby are following the enemy's trail to Haven, which I also don't understand. Who's the enemy? Is Cinder frozen on top of the tower like the Grimm Dragon is or did she flee?

I'm also curious as to how Ruby knew Cinder's name, because I'm pretty sure she hasn't ever mentioned it before. Unless she saw her and recognised her as the person who was fighting in the tournament with Emerald and Mercury, but yeah.

I also totally called (and so did many others) that the battle at Beacon would not be resolved this volume and that the heroes would be forced to evacuate and go on a journey to the other kingdoms of Remnant. I'm glad we get to see more world-building and plots for future episodes. I'm really excited :D

I do have some predictions/wishful-thinking: I'd really like for Jaune to have some interaction with Pyrrha, either being reminded of her through some sort of symbolism or my second idea - that she appears to him in some sort of dream sequence. Their parting was pretty tragic. I just want him to have some closure at least. Nora, Ren, Jaune and Ruby should also have a night when someone can't sleep and everyone wakes up and then talks over about their feelings. It'd be really emotional, but I think it'd do them all some good.

I also want to see Pyrrha's mother. RT mentioned that she might be important later on in future episodes/volumes, so maybe JNR and Ruby visit her to tell her the awful news that her daughter is dead (and coming from Jaune, it would break whatever's left of my heart). I want to know if Jaune has Pyrrha's headpiece that Cinder didn't disintegrate, but I think it'd be a little unlikely that he does, because he probably didn't climb his way up that tower. Maybe Qrow picked it up while he was flying up there... Talking of which...

8. QROW IS A CROW AND WE ALL CALLED IT

Not very surprised that Qrow can turn into a crow, especially when I saw crows during the Winter vs Qrow fight in Chapter 3.

What does interest me is Qrow holding Ozpin's cane. I wonder how he got it? Maybe he went down to the vault to check on everything but instead just found his cane left lying. Ozpin must've already been missing by the time Qrow got there.

Flying Qrow also explains how he probably does his missions. I'm glad that he can now fly alongside the four teenagers travelling to make sure they're okay. Makes me feel better about for next volume.

Talking of next volume...

9. SALEM IN MORDOR

Salem may just possibly be my new favourite villain, seeing as Cinder dramatically dropped in ranks, Roman is dead and Neo has gone AWOL.

She looks freaking great! I mean, damn she is creepy, but I'm just in love with her character design. Her hair, her costume (her cape!), her face and her eyes are all just perfect.

Also, free chips to all the people who called that Jen Taylor would be the Big Bad. Great job :D

I seriously love the background of this scene as well. I've chosen to name it Mordor, since it seems all dark and hell-ish. I wonder if it's on the continent that hasn't been named yet. That would be interesting. We can still see the Broken Moon in the sky though, so judging from that I'd still say she was in Remnant.

Is she half-Grimm? Is she the mother of Grimm? Is she the Queen of Grimm? I have absolutely no idea, but I'm guessing that she's pretty close to one of them. Her symbol on her cape bears a striking resemblence to the symbol on Cinder's glove. The scarring on her face also reminds me of the Grimm-bug, creepily enough.

She seems to be severely and highly-intelligent, and almost civil to Ozpin, before she does the whole "I shall watch you burn with my glowy eyes" thing at the end. If her costume and background didn't remind you of Grimm, that eye glare at the end certainly did it for me. Damn it, creepy people with eye glowing stuff.

Can't wait to see her more in future volumes to come :D

And that's a wrap! Thank you guys so much for all the support and comments you've posted :) It's been a little tedious writing each blog, but it was definitely worth it. I don't know what I'm going to do for the next six months to a year (depending on how long this hiatus is) but I might do an occassional blog from time to time, depending on the updates we get from RT.

I'd love to hear some of your predictions for next volume. If you get it right, you'll join all the cool kids who have accurately predicted things over the past few volumes. It's quite a feat, really :D

And that is a final ending to the last in-depth review of Volume 3. I hope you enjoyed it. I shall see you all later :)