Ruby Rose


 * For the episode of the same name, see Ruby Rose (episode).

Ruby Rose is the main protagonist, the leader of Team RWBY, and the first character introduced in RWBY. Ruby's weapon of choice is her High-Caliber Sniper-Scythe (HCSS) known as Crescent Rose.

She first appeared in the "Red" Trailer released on November 5th, 2012, in which she fought Beowolves. Her second appearance was at the end of the "Yellow" Trailer, greeting her older half-sister, Yang Xiao Long, and asking what she was doing at The Club.

Default Outfit


Ruby appears as a young, silver-eyed girl dressed in a black blouse and a skirt with red trimmings, complete with a red cloak. She is the youngest character in the show so far. Her entire outfit is made up of various shades of red and black, with black as the primary color on the main suit and red on the cloak. Even her shoulder-length hair is black with a red tint to it.

As of her second appearance, Ruby has cross-shaped pins holding her cloak to her shirt. Around her waist is a belt which holds large cartridges (possibly .50 caliber or comparable) in individual loops, as well as a magazine pouch. In the "Red" Trailer, as well as the promotional logo for RWBY, she had a silver cross on her belt, but it was eventually changed into a silver version of her rose symbol.



Ruby's physical appearance resembles the Little Red Riding Hood archetype, which is further reinforced by the appearance of the Beowolves in her trailer. Director Monty Oum confirmed that she indeed alludes to, but is not based on, Red Riding Hood.

Unlike the other students of Beacon, Ruby wears part of her original outfit, her cloak, along with her school uniform.

Pajamas
Ruby's pajamas consist of a black tank top with a heart-shaped Beowolf design on the chest and white long pants with pink roses as decoration.

She also wears a black sleeping mask with triangular red eyes reminiscent of the Beowolves in her trailer.

Alternate Outfit (Slayer)
During the events of "A Minor Hiccup" and "Painting the Town...," Ruby wears a long-sleeve, light gray shirt with black belted cuffs near the ends of the sleeves. Over top of the gray shirt is a black piece of clothing with two vertical lines of red stitching that resembles a cross between a corset and overalls.

She wears a red skirt with a large black-colored print of her rose emblem on the side of it, and the inside of her skirt is black. She still wears her black stockings and black-and-red boots. A few pieces of metal arranged in an abstract shape are attached to her sleeve on her left shoulder, likely as a form of armor such as a spaulder. As usual, she wears a red cape with this outfit. This cape is short like the one she wears with her uniform, but with a scarf as part of the hood.

This outfit was codenamed "Slayer."

Dance Outfit
During the Beacon Dance, Ruby wears a short red sleeveless dress with a thick black sash around the waist and black edging at the bottom. The dress reaches about halfway down her upper leg. At the chest, the dress splits vertically down the middle and each half covers each of Ruby's breasts. Across this vertical split is black criss-crossing ribbon. The fabric covering her upper chest, her shoulders, and her upper back appears to be black mesh. The collar of the dress is black, and from midway up each sleeve, a thin black line of fabric extends up to the front middle of the collar. With this dress, she wears semi-transparent black pantyhose and a pair of black pumps, which she has trouble walking in.

Personality
Monty has described Ruby as being “innocent” and still a “little sister.” Most of Ruby's personality is shown through her childish nature, as well as her fighting style. She is shown to be impulsive, naïve, and innocent, but when necessary, she can be serious and dependable.

Ruby is a self-proclaimed dork when it comes to weapons; she is quite intelligent, having designed and built Crescent Rose during her time at Signal Academy, although she admits to going "a little overboard" with its design. She feels that seeing new weapons "is like meeting new people, but better." She seems to be fascinated by any type of weapon, even robots, as seen when she became entranced by James Ironwood's presentation in "A Minor Hiccup." Monty has said that she relies on Crescent Rose quite often in battle, which implies that her weapon is the primary source of her confidence in battle.

Ruby has a strong sense of moral justice, a trait she obtained from stories about heroes and monsters that her sister used to read for her, as well as the way her parents raised her in childhood. These stories are what gave her the ideals that she wished to live by and uphold throughout her life, and are the reason for her love for books. Because she is shown to be childish even when in class, she tends to study by herself to cover the necessary knowledge.

Ruby is shown to be naïve, as although she doesn't like to be the center of attention, becoming a Huntress has effectively put her in the spotlight. In addition to her dislike of attention, Ruby prefers to either be alone or with Yang. However, she has become comfortable with Team RWBY and Team JNPR. She does not lack social skills, but has problems when meeting new people. This is mostly because of her childish nature and lack of social grace, as she can be bad-mannered (only out of ignorance) and sometimes speaks without thinking. However, because of her enthusiastic personality, she can become very good friends with people who share her enthusiasm.

Although she is highly skilled in battle, Ruby seems reckless and impulsive, attacking on sight instead of thinking the situation through beforehand, as seen during her first fight alongside Weiss Schnee. Also, Ruby at times doesn't seem to analyze the battlefield at all or take the time to study an opponent, such as when she attacks a Death Stalker on sight before learning of its high resistance to bullets and blades. She seems to lack experience when it comes to fighting as a team, as she is seen to have almost no coordination with Weiss during their fight with a pack of Beowolves in "The Emerald Forest, Pt.2."

Despite this, Ruby's leadership skills make her a worthy teammate. While she may occasionally act without thinking, sometimes she seems to understand the situation better than others. She can then use this ability to quickly formulate plans. This was seen during Team RWBY's battle with the Nevermore, in which her teammates' positions allowed her to come up with a successful plan. Ozpin most likely assigned Ruby as team leader to ensure that she grows as an individual. This proves to be the case as she becomes a resourceful and dependable leader who studies so hard and so late, she falls asleep in the middle of the task. This is all to impress her teammate Weiss, but also shows how determined she is to be a good leader. She was also able to pass her beliefs as leader to Jaune Arc, thus helping him find a new sense of responsibility for the safety and well-being of his own team.

Ruby is also shown to care for all her teammates equally, despite their race. This is seen in how she expresses sympathy for Weiss' bad childhood after she explains her family's history with the White Fang. She shows the same concern moments later for Blake Belladonna when she runs away, after revealing herself as a Faunus. Ruby's concern is further expressed in her desperate search for her teammate. This sense of care is later shown not to be limited to her teammates. She also shows some worry for Penny, telling the latter to stay out of the fight between Blake, Sun Wukong and Roman Torchwick.

Ruby is seen to have a dislike for formal attire, that being dresses and heels, as shown in "Burning the Candle" during the dance, where she wanted to change back into her hoodie, and even complaining on how it's possible for Weiss to fight on heels, despite Yang telling Ruby that she looked beautiful in a dress.

Abilities and Powers
Ruby is very skilled in combat, despite her small stature and age when compared to those around her. This is a result of special training from her Uncle Qrow, who Ruby claims took her under his wing in order to improve her skills. As a result, Ruby is a master at using her scythe; even Ozpin admits that he hasn't seen someone of Ruby's skill since Qrow himself.

Ruby's first display of her skills was in the "Red" Trailer, where she single-handedly fends off a large pack of Beowolves without injury. Later, in "Ruby Rose," she is able to defeat Roman's group of henchmen after they tried to rob From Dust Till Dawn, forcing Roman to retreat.



Ruby's main weapon in combat is her scythe, Crescent Rose, which she designed herself, as all students at Signal do. Her weapon is a combination of a scythe and a high-powered rifle, which causes a large amount of recoil when fired. Ruby uses the recoil from Crescent Rose's shots to augment the speed and force of her strikes. However, she is also able to spin Crescent Rose with exemplary skill and power without the recoil, often executing chain attacks with this technique.

Even without the use of special abilities, Crescent Rose is incredibly sharp. In "The First Step, Pt.2," Ruby was able to cleanly slice through a large tree with a single, non-recoil-augmented blow, causing the tree to fall. She also uses the weapon itself as a platform from which to attack, shown when Ruby laid down completely on the handle of Crescent Rose while firing at opponents. Sometimes when she plans to fire the rifle from a stationary position, she twirls Crescent Rose's scythe tip into the ground to give her a monopod for stability and a way to absorb the recoil that would otherwise cause Ruby to be thown backwards.

Ruby carries two kinds of ammunition with her: unmarked and Cross Clips. The unmarked magazines will fire off a high-caliber bullet with a white muzzle flash. Cross Clips (technically magazines), on the other hand, give off a black muzzle flash and are shown to have significantly greater power than the unmarked magazines. This lends her even more speed and power. With Cross Clips, Ruby is able to use Crescent Rose to propel herself with extraordinary speed before rotating herself axially in midair to execute a devastating spinning slash attack.

To add to her already impressive battle prowess, Ruby's Semblance is speed, as stated by Pyrrha Nikos. Because of her Semblance, she is able to move from place to place so quickly that that she appears to be teleporting, as she seems to materialize out of nowhere. She does so to avoid the first Beowolf's lunge in the "Red" Trailer, and later shows it to Weiss during a conversation in the Emerald Forest. In "Best Day Ever," Ruby was shown using her speed to great effect, as creating a powerful whirlwind that blew away not only Team JNPR, but also most of the loose objects in the room, slamming them all against the cafeteria wall, causing it to shatter and form a crater.

However, Ruby doesn't seem to have full control of this ability or is only able to use it when concentrating, as she didn't use it when being chased by the Death Stalker in "Players and Pieces," leading to her being pinned by the Nevermore's feather. Whenever she uses her Semblance, she leaves a cloud of rose petals in her wake that quickly dissipates. It is unknown what causes this, but these rose petals are not merely symbolic and can be perceived by others, as shown by Weiss who once waved her hands trying to brush them away.

Additionally, in "A Minor Hiccup," she had difficulty stopping. This may have been due to her carrying Penny and not being used to controlling her powers whilst carrying a heavy load equal to or greater to her body weight.

Ruby has enhanced endurance, showing no signs of fatigue in battle at all. In "The Emerald Forest," Weiss and Ruby are forced to retreat from a pack of Beowolves, and when battling the Nevermore, she showed no signs of fatigue. After running a certain distance to safety, Ruby shows no signs of weariness, while Weiss is seen trying to catch her breath. Her endurance is also seen after the battle with the Nevermore, where she is aided by Yang, Blake, and Weiss in defeating the large Grimm by dragging it up a cliff and beheading it; upon landing, she doesn't appear to be exhausted in the slightest. However, despite her endurance, in "Search and Destroy," Ruby is seen to be exhausted after fighting several groups of Beowolves, but this could've been due to the fights having been one after another, possibly having no break.

Ruby also seems capable of jumping extraordinary heights, even without her weapon's recoil. In her confrontation with the Beowolves, she jumped several meters into the sky (augmented with her Semblance) and took a couple seconds to return to the ground. Later in her first skirmish with Torchwick, she dodged his cane's explosive flare by jumping unaided several times her height into the air.

Ruby is not without weakness however. In contrast to her sister, Ruby's hand-to-hand capabilities are rather poor; in "Mountain Glenn," after losing Crescent Rose when a section of the ground collapsed underneath her, she was easily defeated by a nameless White Fang soldier despite attempting to fight back, ignoring her first punch, blocking her second and knocking her unconscious without much of a struggle. Later on, in "No Brakes," she is unable to land even a single unarmed hit on Roman. These incidents show that, for all her amazing skill, Ruby is still a child two years younger than her peers. Her body is likely not as strong as her comrades, and thus she has less natural strength than they do. Which is a major contrast to "Ruby Rose," when she was able to take down two of Roman's men with relative ease without the use of her weapon.

Outside of combat, Ruby has expressed great knowledge regarding weapons, which shows in her complex design of Crescent Rose. On occasion, she has also shown the ability to quickly formulate and execute plans for her team, which may have contributed to her appointment as team leader.

Trivia

 * Ruby alludes to the fairy tale character Little Red Riding Hood.
 * This allusion has affected her appearance, causing her to almost constantly wear a red hooded cape.
 * In the "Red" Trailer, she fights a large pack of Beowolves, possibly a reference to Little Red Riding Hood coming face to face with a wolf in the story.
 * Her name alludes to a type of gemstone that is often found in red. Furthermore, "Ruby" is the name of an actual shade of red. Meanwhile, her surname alludes to a type of flowers that are also found most often in red.
 * Monty stated that Ruby and the other girls will have no ties to any fairy tale at all. However, in a past interview, he did say Ruby's design was influenced by Little Red Riding Hood and that all the other main characters' physical appearances will be majorly influenced by other fairy tales and mythological tales.
 * Monty has confirmed that Ruby is left-handed. However, she is seen wielding her weapon with her right hand just as easily. Monty has stated that it is "common to switch both hands while fighting, especially to make it interesting."
 * Despite sharing similar emblems and a red-and-black color scheme, Monty confirmed that Ruby and Adam are not related to each other, and that their emblems differ from each other in terms of "scatter and wilt."
 * Although Ruby is often depicted to favor sweets like cookies, her favorite food is actually strawberries.
 * Early designs for Ruby were set aside and later used for Miltiades Malachite, one of Yang's foes in the "Yellow" Trailer.
 * Ruby is the first character to be playable in RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. Her playstyle revolves around stringing together long combos on enemies.
 * Ruby's alternate outfit appears to be based on the early sketch shown in the second production diary.
 * Ruby is originally from an island named Patch.
 * If one includes her original design from the trailer, Ruby has the most outfits out of any character.
 * Ruby, alongside Nora Valkyrie, is one of the few characters who owns one object which is in sale at the Rooster Teeth store. In this case being her Rose Pajama Pants.
 * Ruby takes her mother's maiden name rather than her father's surname. The reason for this is unknown.