Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24934890-20170925142224/@comment-25936766-20170930034301

Animalia555 wrote: 1) You see it as Ruby staying the same. I see it as Ruby putting on a mask and PRETENDING everything is the same because she doesn't know how to cope with her grief.

2) It's subtle, but if you look for it the signs ARE there. In V2 when she wakes up to Pyrrha's voice follows it to find Jaune training to a recording of it.

3) When she refuses to listen to Qrow's advice and REPEATEDLY gets in the way of his fight against Tyrian.

4) And last, but not least, when she scratchs out "for the ones who are no longer here" on her letter home in the volume finale."

5) Like I said it's subtle because in some ways the focus on those who are still living would generally be another portrayal of Ruby's characteristic optimism.

6) RWBY is trying to ignore her grief. Whenever it bubbles to the surface she pushes it aside and thinks of something else. Just like in that letter. 1) I see it as Ruby staying the same because everyone else shows actual signs of being affected by their experiences. Blake, Weiss, Yang, Jaune, Ren, Nora, even Oscar in what little time he had, showed actual effects from their experiences before and during the Volume.

Ruby doesn't. She experiences a lot, but those experiences never have any effect on her character, on her personality, on her attitude, she hardly even shows any emotion over them except on rare, usually-small ocassions.

Everyone else gets development from their experiences in Quantity, Quality, or both. Ruby, gets hers in neither.I'll let Chishio explain what I mean.

2) Nightmares that appeared twice in the entire Volume, never had any effect on her beyond their scenes, were never even mentioned in the slightest, and most jarringly, they were just voices.

For comparison, Yang's entire own Nightmare about Adam. Even if Yang only had 1 Nightmare shown, it showed miles more than Ruby's 2 little nightmares did.

3) Yes, and because both Qrow and Tyrian were under a Dumbassity spell the whole fight, Qrow got poisoned at the end. And then Ruby just dismembered Tyrian's tail, so she did manage something.

Ruby deciding to intervene and help Qrow despite being nigh-useless against Tyrian doesn't really say she has developed. At most, it's just a reminder of what kind of person she was and is.

4) Which is better than what she's gotten in the entire Volume, but is still too little, too late.

5) ....No, it would've been much worse. As if she didn't care about those who died, like Penny and Pyrrha (whose deaths she hasn't even mentioned for nearly the entire Volume, and when she does, Jaune steals her scene). It wouldn't have been a good reflection of her optimism as much as making the issues with her character development more obvious.

6) That is just speculation. Don't speak of it as fact.

She's not "ignoring her own grief". She literally acts almost-entirely as if she had no grief to speak of. She doesn't show any effects on her character from her experiences except on small, almost unnoticeable moments that are too few and far between.

If she truly is "ignoring her own grief", then Miles and Kerry have made a terrible job or portraying that, or showing the audience that. They've showed everyone else being affected by their experiences in past Volumes, and in this Volume. But not with Ruby.

A Stepford Smiler is not one who literally acts like nothing wrong ever happened. The audience is supposed to see not just their Masquerade, but either see that it is a Masquerade to begin with, or that the Masquerade is not perfect and it's clearly noticeable that the character is not all Happy and Cheerful.

"Ocasional frowns" are not that. "Ocasional nightmares that don't affect shit" are not that.