User blog:SomeoneYouUsedToKnow/SYUTK's V5E6 -Known By It's KRAAAW - Impressions/Recap

So, last week's post, despite being posted a whole day late, still got tons of comments in response.

In fact, it got about 59 posts. This makes it the current Record-Holder for my most commented-on blog, beating the previous Title-holder: The Impressions/Recap blog about V4E11, which got 40 posts.

....Must have been Yuma. He drawed much attention when he showed up.

In other news:

@Chish: I tried using Paint.neet, and it looked and felt like a discount Photoshop. I could see that it was superior to Microsoft Paint in many ways. However, the different interface did complicate things for me a bit, and I simply don't have the time to bother learning how to use it, especially when Paint is at the very least sufficient.

So, not using it until I finish my current semester, at the very least.

In other news, this thing.

For newcomers to this thing, this is basically me, making an informal recap of what happened in the episode, while giving my thoughts about what happens. It also includes fancy color speak. 2 are particularly notable:

Red means truth, fact  in the eyes of the user, le me.

Blue means a guess, an hypothesis, a theory.

This was made before/during Tuesday, but is posted after the episode because when I post it, the Recent Activity page gets filled with all the images I use, which would spell Spoilers-Galore. I also have classes on Tuesday from 10am to 5:30pm with some lucky exceptions, and then I have to spend time uploading every pic I'm gonna use. It's time consuming, but it doesn't spoil everyone in one flash.

Now, onto the episode. We start our day with:

Triumph. Or Triumph!
Now, before getting into the actual stuff, I just wanna talk about something that The Devil's Advocate mentioned (and I completely missed) in this thread, which is important since it's related to the Timeline.

See, 3 things are known:

1) Hazel was in the same train Oscar was, so he arrived in Mistral at the same time he did.

2) Hazel met up with Adam and he carried out his plan to kill Sienna and become King of All Faunus. Oscar met up with RNJR, and Ozpin told them they have 1 month before the Fall semester begins.

3) The Albains found out that Adam killed Sienna. And Blake's arc in Menagerie ocurred 2 months before RNJR's as of V5E3.

This means that, at the very least, Adam killed Sienna and became High Leader, about 1 month after Ghira's speech, and that's before considering the unknown amount of time it took for the Albains to get the news.

This also means that Sun and Blake have gotten 0 support in about 1 month, and that they finally caught up to RNJR's story and are now at least mostly parallel.

The question now is, how close are they? As of V5E5, it's been weeks since the day RNJR met Oscar, meaning it's, at the very least, 2 weeks before Fall, potentially only 1 week or maybe less than that. As of the same episode, Blake's story might be either 2 weeks behind, or less than that, or even happening at roughly the same time.

Sigh.....it's miles better than in Volume 4 where we had no idea of when things happened in relation to other things, and if one assumed that everything happened at the same time it makes no sense at all. At least now we do have a vague idea of the relative time.

It's still confusing though.

"Okay, you're my only hope"
Oh, look! A "No Faunus" sign!

Oh my god....they are actually showing Faunus Discrimination! ....Well, kind of. But it's better than in past Volumes, this time we are not being told without showing us any discrimination, we are being SHOWN discrimination without telling us anything, which is much better.

Hell, if it wasn't for that note on the wall, you would never think Marty discriminates Faunus. That's more realistic. Let's hope they keep it up.

3 hours of recapping later....
.....And....that's it?

Because if so, this is one of the most worthless scenes I've ever seen in this entire show, and that's including things like Jaune's Generic, 1/4-of-a-Season long Arc in Volume 1. I'll explain why in the Conclusions.

Conclusions
The very first thing I have to say about this episode is......it's the worst episode of this Season, and easily one of the worst episodes in this entire Show. Yes, alongside eps like the Breach.

Raven's scene with Freezerburn is by itself easily more worthless and unnecesary than probably even all of Jaune's scenes involving Weiss and the stupid dance in Volume 2. I'll explain why.

First, regarding Qrow's half:

This one was of questionable writing, especially at the beginning. We literally start with Qrow looking for Shiro and pissing his pants when a fat old cook threatens him with a knife.

If it had been Jaune or Ruby or even Ren, it would've made sense for them to get scared and walk away. But we're talking about Qrow, a seasoned Huntsman who has fought monsters of all kinds, has literally been in the base of things "that ARE fear", and has seen his own share of shit. Someone who, unarmed, could kick that cook's ass.

The scene is very funny, but it's comedy effect is severely diminished by how it only works because the writers made Qrow act Out-of-Character. The rest of Qrow's half of the episode does give a few funny reactions from Qrow, which are pretty funny and are not really OOC for him, making them more legitimately funny.

However, the entire half on it's own is basically just an 10-so minutes long sequence of Qrow trying to find anyone able to join him and Ozpin, or at the very least alive. I got the point before it even reached the 7-mins mark. It feels excessively dragged on.

One thing I did LOVE about this half, however, is that instead of telling us about Faunus Discrimination, they are actually SHOWING us instead, for the very first time in this show's FUCKING life.

Like I said, on the wall near the door of the cook's restaurant, there's a note saying "No Faunus Allowed". Nothing is ever said or mentioned about this guy discriminating Faunus. If you didn't notice the note the guy would just look like a serious old chef who really hates people in debt to him....and people who know people in debt with him.

This is how it should be done. Even racist people can be nice, or at least acceptable, in other ways. Not every racist person is an asshole, a bully, or a sadist. Some racist people are otherwise-normal people like everyone else.

That note shows us that despite what we see, that guy doesn't like Faunus. And that's the way to deal with the Faunus Discrimination topic: Show people actually doing so. Like they did now, even if in a subtle way. Baby steps are better than no steps at all.

Now, regarding Raven's half.

For like 2 whole thirds of this part of the episode, Raven just drags on the topic about Ozpin's "Big and Terrible secret that could make mankind crumble in fear". Afterwards, she does nothing but "reveal" stuff literally anyone who bothered to watch even just the episodes in Vol.5 so far would already know to perfection.

This is horrendous, and much of the reason I say this is the worst episode of this Season. Because the information is 99% old news, things that are extremely common knowledge in this Fandom, and even casual fans would know just by watching the show.

So, spending multiple minutes telling us all those things as if they were an unexpected revelation of things no one foresaw, <font style="color:#DC143C">is a massive waste of time and resources, completely pointless, completely unnecesary.

Sure, Yang and Weiss don't know that. But WE do, the audience. The entire explanation about Salem and Ozpin could, and should, have been skipped almost entirely, because it's things we already know, and nothing new is brought to the table either to justify the massive waste of time. The whole scene is like this:

>What we heard: "Raven's gonna tell Yang and Weiss Ozpin's secret!"

>What we expected: Raven tells them something we didn't know, something unexpected that paints Ozpin in a whole new light.

>What we got: Raven does nothing but tell stuff we knew since like 2 years ago.

The only new thing here is Qrow and Raven's original reasons for going to Beacon. Everything else is just old news, even Team STRQ being so great they get Ozpin's un-subtle attention, we already figured that was the case.

<font style="color:#DC143C">And it doesn't really justify or explain why Raven likes Ozpin so little. Sure, he's using them as "Pawns", that's the most cynical way one can put it. And yes, Qrow sucks up to him too much, no one ever questions his decisions, and the only person who did got a sermon for it from Glynda.

But she's literally explaining the kind of danger Salem is, she literally says that she won't stop until humanity is all dead. <font style="color:#DC143C">And in fact, the way she tells the story makes Ozpin sound like a much better person than he does if you watch the show proper.

It all sounds like "Salem cannot be stopped, and Ozpin is still trying to defeat her. He's an idiot, don't trust him for it". <font style="color:#DC143C">She never says anything to make us doubt Ozpin beyond "Salem is undefeatable", which if anything makes her more of a threat, and gives us less reason to doubt Ozpin or even at least see him more negatively.

I think Ilia's "ARGUMENT" against Ghira's speech in V5E3 was better built than whatever Raven was doing in this entire half. And, after (not) explaining Ozpin's "secret", the "new stuff" afterwards is minimal still.

Vernal reveals her weapon, basically a chakram with a pair of rectangular gun barrels attached, <font style="color:#DC143C">that I seriously have no remote idea of where she even puts the bullets. Raven reveals she and Qrow turn into a bird and that it is indeed magic, which everyone already figured since if Qrow's Semblance wasn't turning into a bird, Magic's the only explanation.

And speaking of turning into a bird, it feels <font style="color:#DC143C">horrendously lazy of the animation team to not show any transformation at all. They show Raven/Qrow in Bird Modo flying, hide them behind something, then suddenly they are fully human, clothes included.

At the very least, they could've had their bodies glow white and shapeshift into human form, like Pokemon when they evolve. Or they could've had a flash of light occur to hide the shapeshifting on-screen, like in videogames from the early 2000s. But nooo, that's too expensive.

She also says "Ozpin did this to us", but she never explains how, or why, or if it even was a bad thing that could make us question Ozpin. She just tells WY to ask Qrow. Who she knows sucks up to Ozpin and sees no wrong in anything he does.

It's like the writers wanted to make her look Neutral in the conflict with legitimate reasons for it, but couldn't think of any legitimate reasons, so they had her just hate and distrust Ozpin because "Salem cannot be stopped". <font style="color:#DC143C">Which overall just makes Raven feel Stupid Neutral.

The best part of the scene is pretty much Raven and Yang's interactions. Which in itself is also old news since we all figured out that Raven's an asshole and Yang's patience is tested with her. All this episode did was remind us that.

They seemingly tried to paint her more grey by having her seemingly acknowledge that she treated Yang like shit, after she left, <font style="color:#DC143C">but that's too little too late.

Overall, this scene serves next-to-no purpose for the plot, development, or world-building. Nearly half an episode, just telling people stuff everyone already knows, with nothing really new brought to the table, just a waste of our time before Weiss and Yang are sent to Qrow. <font style="color:#DC143C">You could cut out basically everything before Raven turns into a bird, and nothing of value would be lost.

Breach, for comparison, was similarly worthless beyond setting up Ironwood's army being in Vale and Roman being arrested. But even then, both things were important for V3's finale, and at the very very least, we had a cool song in the episode.

And finally, the last scene

I liked the Ren-Ruby interaction. It's always nice to see people who haven't even looked at each other for years, actually interact, even if it's a small exchange. Until now, Ren hadn't really talked to anyone who wasn't Jaune or Nora, so talking to Ruby directly like that feels fresh with him, and with Ruby herself too.

The reunion in itself was lovely, too sugary for my tastes, though Oscar's appearance feels almost shoe-horned in.

It's small, but it's probably the best scene in this episode, even if that's not saying much, given the heartwarming moment and Ruby's reaction when seeing Yang again.

So overall, in summary:

Part 1) Starting joke that required Qrow to be OOC, then drags on for basically half the episode to deliver home a point that was already delivered home many minutes before it ended. Also, an scene with an Inconsistency of very, very major proportions (the "Ghost Kids"), that basically eclipses all other Inconsistencies so far in this entire show, even including the ones in Volume 1.

Part 2) 99% of this is telling us things that we already knew, and 1% confirming something we all pretty much figured out already, making it effectively worthless and pointless.

Part 3) Fresh but small Ren-Ruby interaction. Lovely reunion, but that's pretty much the entire scene.

Now, for comparison, with the Dance Arc in Vol.2 we had Jaune and Pyrrha showing development, and Jaune showed how he's willing to humiliate himself if he gave his word. We also had Weiss's opinion of Jaune improve, which is more noticeable in Vol.3.

Hell, not even the arc in itself, just the episode of the actual Dance, served more of a purpose than Raven's entire half of this episode.

<font style="color:#DC143C">This is the worst episode in this season so far. A massive spike downwards.

Now: Total Number of images used: 230. Quite high, though I don't think it beat my record.

FUNNY V5E6 PICS!!! :D
I got absolutely none.

Yes, seriously none. I didn't like this episode to bother trying to find any funny images on purpose, even less ones that could be used in a chat.

I did find 1 interesting bit in Raven's map, however.

Kinda looks like Summer calling a taxi.