User blog:Zolnir/RWBY Episode 8/General Reviews & Speculations

The Review:

Apparently they dumped the majority of their time on the 'most important episode of the arc' instead of focusing on everything else equally. Couldn't really say that it was a bad choice, but at the same time this hopefully would be good lesson for the animators.

So I didn't bother to review or speculate anything last week because it's too short, point. This week's episode showcased a much, much more Monty Oum quality production with breathtaking battle scenes and soul rocking music. Most notable would be the return of sharpness in the characters' movements such as when Yang dished out a couple of Dust bullets trying to keep the bird occupied or when Blake soared around the sky. Make no mistake though they are still not on par with the trailers' quality themselves, and I would expect that the Blue Ray disc versions to have equalize that difference then.

Missing Holes Here and There

Onto the not-so-good issues for the entire arc in general. There are obviously scenes and stories that were cut out from the episode because of various constraints (would expect to see in Blue Ray disc versions). As mentioned before, we did not get to see how Ruby and Weiss get themselves entangled with the Nevermore. Likely the scenario would involve the girl again tried to show off (this really is just another word for proving herself) by coming up with the insane plan off hanging off its legs and find the temple from atop the skies, and Weiss with no choice but to follow through because she acted way too fast, again.

There's also the Beowolves' scene where we never got to see a resolution to that conflict. That scene was the one most likely to either initiate further cold tension between Weiss and Ruby, or melt it down slightly. Otherwise their making up would've been too fast and generally just felt like there were many things left unexplained. It was one of the biggest flaws of the entire arc in general, other than the shoddy quality we've seen from a couple of the episodes so far.

Ren The Weak

Unexpectedly, Ren did not perform as well as he did during the fight against the Basilisks. In fact he outright ran out of stamina nearly from the very beginning where he was trying to catch up with the rampaging Nora riding on an Ursa until it died. Do take a moment to ponder that rather singular impossibility, because I'm sure it would make a funny joke in the future.

Anyway, we can speculate from this episode that Ren had a weak body. He may be sickly by nature and was plagued with much diseases since young. His stamina is also the poorest out of all members and even when compared to the girls, as he took just a single blow from the Death Stalker and looked as if he was going to running out of health points already, not to mention that he outright collapses to the ground once the fight was really confirmed to be over.

From the above, we can even deduce that Ren was constantly being protected by Nora because of his weak constitution. Ren may even be a pathetic crybaby who was constantly bullied by his surroundings until Nora jumped into the fray and saved him from trouble. It is in fact very possible that Ren was far more gloomier and depressed in the past, and couldn't even hold half a conversation without breaking out in cold sarcasm. Nora must have a really hard time trying to help him, because she would be the one person Ren could not stand most in the entire world. The person you love most is also the one you could hate worst.

However, Ren is obviously conscious of that fact and as you can see, the issue looked to be solved as he tried to grow up as a person in both strength and mind so that he would no longer be relying on or being dependant to Nora.

Nora The Strong

Nora fights and enjoys the thrill of the hunt like a true berserker in the current time. Her skills are insanely good, she has a sharp eye for the situation, she has incredible reaction and even has the leeway to fool around in between while fighting the Grim. Her fighting style is the exact opposite of Nora, and yet the two personalities seemed in sync (currently) and would never clash with each other. Right now she's probably the strongest out of the two teams, and I believe that she could've taken on both of the Grims at once and while she may not be able to defeat them, running away safely even while protecting Ren was definitely not a problem at all.

Which brings us to the question: Why is Nora Valkyrie so strong in the first place? Following my above speculation, I deduce that it's possible she became strong because she needed to protect her childhood friend, Ren. Since Ren was weak in the past and couldn't protect himself, Nora stepped up as the protector as she faced down anything that would try to threaten her friend. It's even possible that she had cultivated a berserker-like facade that revels in conflicts just to scare away most assailants that might see them as a target. The ones that wouldn't, well, beating them into a pulp always works.

Nora knows her limits however. She does not show her berserker side out of a fight and generally acted like a beacon of cheerfulness, spreading love and childishness wherever she walks to. This is in contrasts to Ren's general mood - in fact she very likely acted that way so as to share her happiness with Ren, while keeping him occupied with her antiques so that he won't relapse into depression. She also tries not to be overprotective and suffocate Ren, as we could see during the Basilisk fight where she held back and let Ren clean up before dropping into the show.

This brings us to the worrying issue, however. If her normal, cheerful self in daily life is a facade, and her strength was but a tool used to protect Ren, then where is her true self? Have we actually seen her acting for her own sake even once? The arc is ultimately too short to make any actual speculations, but I believe that this issue would be discussed in the future and act as one of the major character developments for both of these characters.

Ruby and Weiss

With the recent display of their skills and maturity, it's probably safe to say now that the Red Trailer are most likely events in the future. For one, the Ruby in Red Trailer was all seeing and could see through the enemies' attacks no matter where they were coming from. In Emerald Forest however, she couldn't even realize Weiss' path of attack and nearly got herself ran through by a rapier while exploding into a burning corpse. Also, Ruby had decided to use her 'Ultimate' attack almost immediately after surveying the Beowolves, most likely deciding to show off/prove her worth yet again by cleaning up all of the Beowolves solo, while completely ignoring the fact that this time there were a lot of obstacles/trees around that her movements, and the fact that it would literally render Weiss useless within the eye of the storm.

Another assumption (if we are still going to assume that Red Trailer happened in the past) would be that the Ruby in Red Trailer was 'possessed', but this is an event that could still happen in the future.

On the other hand, the White Trailer's timeline is still an unknown, though I'd like to believe that it also happened in the future. For one, Weiss had attacked with far less hesitation in the White Trailer unlike how she faced the Beowolves for the first time. However, that was not the only possibility.

1) Past: she does not want to rely on Dust and tries to use her own strength to defeat the Golem. She later realizes that it was a fool's action to abandon her greatest strength and proceed to roflstomps the poor Golem with colors.

2) Future: She is now a trained warrior, and as you can see her attacks are far more planned and sharp than they were in the episodes. However, she did not use most of her Dust at the beginning because, as mentioned above, she had wanted to prove her own strength. Train of logic follows the same as above.

There isn't much to talk about Ruby and Weiss at the moment. Very likely future scenarios would showcase Weiss being very dissatisfied that the impulsive brat was made her leader yada yada yada and so on. This will be the plot device to develop (and improve) Weiss' character.

Blake

As observed by some people, her bow twitched whenever Blake hears something. That Yang did not hear the voices she could suggested some very good hearing. So yes, she very could be a fauna.

Though not a full one. As you can see - well, if you believe the 1% not-silhouettes students can work solid references - so far there hasn't been a single students in the school that looked like a fauna. This meant that faunas are not permitted into Beacon Academy on the surface, or it would spark public outrage from the human community.

However, Blake is an exception. Faunas should be very distinguishable from the various animal features (ears, tails, furs, whatever) and could generally be spotted outright. Blake is a half fauna however, being the cultivation of love between a fauna and a human, which explained why she looks mostly human and only had to hide the top of her head with the black bow.

Some of you would've noticed by now, but in the future Blake is going to have a lot of troubles with Team CRDL. As you could see from the stern, no-nonsense look of Team CRDL that they were a bunch of higly disciplined warriors, but that wasn't all. Deducing from their team name, which could be read as 'Cardinal' (related to Catholic Church), they could very likely be a group of zealots that believes that all faunas should be purged because they are dirty, evil, or whatever suits their philosophy.

The logic behind here would most likely be evil, however. As you may have noticed, the Grimm are all animal-like. It is not hard to imagine that some people had grouped the faunas and Grimm altogether as one side of evil, since all faunas have animal-like features. They could say that the faunas were people that were tainted by the Grimm, and that they must all be purged/killed/exiled/whatever in order to keep the purity and safety of the human community. Yes, Blake is going to have one helluva time with Team CRDL alright, I'll guarantee that with my middle finger at least (so I can shove it at you bastards if I'm wrong DUH).

And that's about it. I have nothing to say about Yang since her main storyline (The Missing Girl) hasn't popped up yet. Episode 8 is a great one, but I am definitely still expecting something better than this in the future, and hopefully the improvements would be consistent and not relapse into the horror that is Episode 7.