Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-4141313-20181124081953/@comment-4141313-20181124164602

Okay, my thoughts in particular.

Neo's back right off the bat, and as we all thought, she blames Cinder for Roman's death. Her Maya model is definitely nice looking, and its awesome we got a fight not even a minute into the episode. More impressively, is that Neo managed to hold her own against Cinder. Neo may have gotten stronger, but Neo's still holding her own against a full grown maiden. True, Cinder wasn't using everything, as she didn't use her Grimm Arm, nor did she fully utilize her maiden powers, but its still abit impressive. A two and a half minute long 1v1 fight, and a nice song in the background. Nice.

They now have an alliance though, albeit reluctantly on Neo's part. And Neo doesn't seem to be voluntarily silent, more like she seems incapable of talking. So she really is a mute.

The Song actually may be Neo's image song, just listening to the lyrics in the beginning.

Kill for Kill, Eye for Eye

Blood for Blood, It's time to die

Retribution tastes so sweet

I can't hear all the lyrics, but it seems to be Neo having nothing left but a thirst for revenge now that Roman is gone. Roman was her whole world it seems. Plus, her real self didn't look to be in a good place, her clothes torn and her expression lacking the sadistic edge it once had.

Now, onto Brunswick farms. To start off, its an entire town, and everyone died in their sleep. Their bodies were already mummifying it seemed, so they'd been dead for some time. And while I may be reading into it too much, while looking at the portrait of the family, towards the right there is an orange haired man and child, presumably father and son, and in the center, a little girl with brown hair parted in a particular manner.

One of the two orange hair guys is probably Roman, and the little girl is Neo.

'But wait Blizz, Roman's name is Torchwick, not Brunswick. And Neo has Heterochromia and dual hair.'

Well, its possible Roman used an alias for operating in the criminal underworld. He was wanted as Roman Torchwick, but if he was in his civilian identity of Brunswick, he could cast off suspicion. Or he was the survivor of the incident that killed the rest of the Brunswicks and didn't want to remember it. As for Neo, hair dye is a thing, and the heterochromia could be a result of her constantly using her Semblance. Remember, back when she fought Raven, her eyes did turn pale before she fled, so that may be her natural eye color, or she lost control of her semblance due to emotional instability. Would also explain her reaction to Raven. The Branwen tribe is pretty infamous in Anima, and the Brunswicks lived on Anima.

So what does that make him and Neo? Either siblings, or a father and son relationship if its the other orange guy and not the kid.

Would further explain Neo's song. She really doesn't have anything left. Her family from the farm is dead, and only Roman was left. But now he's gone too. So she has nothing left but the thirst for revenge.

Now, its pretty clear that whatever that Grimm is in the opening is what killed the Brunswicks, but how so? Well either:

A) It can drain the life energy of things it touches, and the arms it has are the only things it can get past the door, and they touched everyone in their sleep.

B) It releases some kind of toxin that when inhaled, kills those that inhale it.

Now considering the arms were reaching for Ruby in the opening and already grabbed Qrow, I'm thinking its the former.

And what about character interactions? Well, they don't seem to be taking their anger out on Oscar at least, so thats good. And Maria I continue to enjoy for her nonchallant attitude to all this shit. Qrow however is trying to keep his distance from everyone, and like Ruby points out, he is not in a good place after last week. And Ruby's busy worrying more about others than herself as usual.

Weiss though understandably is asking, why go to Atlas if it all seems pointless. I like that it was Weiss who asked this because, she just escaped Atlas and the only reason she was even entertaining the idea of going back was so they could stop Salem. If Salem can't be stopped though, what's the point in it all? She doesn't want to go back to her fucked up home if it doesn't matter. Not to mention she's exhausted after seeing Ozma's past, the cold affecting her, and tired all around. So it makes sense that she asked it.

As for Yang, here we see that Yang never even got close to getting better. She just made herself look better so she could train with Tai and go after Ruby. Her PTSD is just as bad as it was when Ruby left home. Seeing Adam is proof enough of it and her elaborating she still suffers nightmares about him. Blake had the right idea in trying to comfort her and reassure she won't leave, but made the mistake of saying she'd protect Yang, which insulted her because it made it seem like Yang can't take care of herself. While I want to say she can.... she can't. 

Yang's issues coupled with PTSD have made her RWBY's weak link. She still has issues with her temper and can't read the situation properly, has a bad habit of picking fights with those either stronger than her, or trying to help her. And it was her temper that got her into trouble with both Mercury and Adam in the first place. Whereas the others could fight on their own at Haven, Yang needed to get help from Ruby to tag team Emerald and Mercury. And while Weiss did lose to Vernal, Jaune healing her let her fight on her own again. Sadly, Yang is the team's weak link.

Next time, lets find out what this Grimm looks like.