Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26173711-20200204212304/@comment-4010415-20200205070734

It's funny, Fatmanfalling and co. actually loved episode 12, and they're usually really critical of the show.

And yeah, despite all the wonky writing, I've actually enjoyed Volume 7 quite a lot. It's my second favorite volume after 3.

While they do seem to have Ironwood as somewhat being a bad guy, I still feel like they made the argument scene in Gravity be pretty morally gray, especially with how the Ace-Ops explain the points that Ironwood's plan has and the faults of Team RWBY's idea.

Ironwood is depicted as being emotionally overwhelmed to the point where he bounces around between anger, terror, paranoia, and numbness. It's not that he has become heartless or evil, he's just overwhelmed and doesn't know what else to do. As if it wasn't bad enough that Team RWBY lied to him and went behind his back, now they're telling him that he should have his exhausted and weakened army try to save everyone when time is limited, Salem has who knows how many Grimm, and Salem herself is unkillable. Of course he's going to do what he can to make sure Team RWBY doesn't ruin his plan and potentially get the entire kingdom killed.

The Ace-Ops also aren't depicted as just mindless lapdogs. Vine and Harriet believe Ironwood is right, Elm is scared and feels betrayed, and Marrow doesn't feel right apprehending Team RWBY but also knows that it's probably for the best if he follows orders. The four of them acting through their own personal thoughts and emotions led to them being out of sync with each other and even conflicting with each other and then Marrow didn't get serious until Vine's Aura broke, which led to their defeat since Team RWBY were all on the same page, used teamwork, and defended each other. Basically, the story didn't really treat them like utter villains for trying to arrest RWBY, and there was a reason they were beaten.