User blog:SomeoneYouUsedToKnow/SYUTK's V4E11 - ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL - Impressions/Recap

So, we're at the probably-penultimate episode of the season...

Retrospective
There are quite a number of threads that need at least a present resolution, and also threads that feel ignored. Overall, the Volume seems very focused on building up the next Volume instead of trying to stand on it's own and get anything done, but at the same time it seems to be desperate to get that build-up done in time.

Like I've mentioned before, Yang's, Weiss's and Oscar Mayer's development felt rushed, given how they skipped their development somewhat. Never saw Yang's difficulty with the arm the first few days, never saw Weiss fail at her first few Summon attempts, never saw Oscar start thinking leaving was the right choice.

Cinder and co. have barely even appeared or done ANYTHING of importance, Merc hasn't even spoken yet. Watts is a ghost and the most Hazel has done is give Oscar a free ticket, appearing for like 1 minute after spending 9 episodes without an appearance. Raven came for 1 episode, had a small talk, and left, and hasn't done anything since then.

Not to mention we have barely even heard of Vale, let alone the other kingdoms, since the first 1/3 of the Volume. Even less of the Hunters, like CRDL, SSSN (sans Sun), FNKI, Glynda, and especially the fragging Winter Schnee.

And the few bits that are revealed have little-to-no foreshadowing for the most part. Qrow's Semblance being Bad Luck, Ren's Semblance being Zen Injection (Though it at least fits his personality a bit, better than Qrow's), Oscar being related to Ozpin for X reason, and so on.

And in other areas, we get no explanations. How did Ren and Nora manage to leave Kuroyuri or what did they do after that? Why did Bob and Steve, Gods of Light and Darkness, leave the 4 powers of Creation/Destruction/Knowledge/Choice in the world? Why are the Grimm attacking humanity if they were also made by Steve? Why is Oscar related to Ozpin enough for him to merge with him?

Overall, this Volume feels....disapointing, in retrospective. The fights lack Monty/Shane's magic, the plot threads take longer than they need to to get to the important parts, much is ignored if not skipped, some things come out of the blue for no good reason, and so on.

So in the end, compared to V3, the fights are not as awesome for the most part, and the writing is actually worse.

Assuming this Volume really will be just 12 episodes long, there's only this and the last ep remaining. There's no way they can wrap things up well in such short amount of time. It's like it gave up and just wants to pass the baton to V5. What can we expect to see done in this short remaining time?

Language of Truth:

Red means Truth, Fact , in the eyes of the user.

Blue means hypothesis, guessing, wondering, pondering, and anything in between.

Now, let's prepare for the semi-finale.

1. "That is Disappointing"
We begin our episode with Cinder starting to become badass once again. More precisely, by killing the Grimm's equivalent of Ratattas: Beowulves.

All while the tears turn to laughs. He keeps beating the Beowulf up all night long, while Cinder expresses mild discomfort.

There's something...strange about Tyrian's..."reaction" when he was attacked. He was still crying and all, his face was screaming despair, but he still, without flinching, countered the dog and beat it up. The despair only turns to joy after he starts doing so.

...The way he reacted...it looks like pure instinct. Muscle Memory, in a way. Like he does it unconsciously. It gets me thinking...the easy answer is that he's crazy, which is believable-enough to me, but that reaction makes me wonder other ideas...

Maybe Tyrian is that afraid of death? And the way he switches from despair to joy mid-beating makes me wonder if he's just a sadist, or if his crazyness is the result of something. Maybe some thing inside him that pushes him to fight when threatened, and stimulates pleasure from doing so?

The possibility reminds me of an idea I had long ago, not RWBY-related. Some syndrome or virus that made one gradually gain a desire to kill. Medicine existed to help resist the urges, but without them, should one spend too much time without killing, their sanity would drop until they did. In extreme cases, it even made one a temporary cannibal with little awareness of their actions until it's too late.

I wonder if Tyrian has something along those lines...

Of course, he could've just been venting his frusfration and anger on the poor puppy.

2. All Patched Up and Ready to go
Now we return to Patch.

Something many people predicted was that Yang would put on the arm before the end of the Volume. So she did. Another thing many people predicted was that she would paint the arm to evoke Ember Celica's colors. So she did.

The following conversation indicates Yang's "recovery" is finished, at least to the extent she can do more than mope nihilistically. Taiyang knows she's going to leave, and says this time, he won't stop her.

However, he does ask her: Where, exactly, does she plan to go? She wants to find Raven, and he knows Qrow told Yang more or less where she's been recently. At the same time, they both know Ruby's headed to Mistral.

And while not mentioned by him, Yang probably wants to help stop the WF, if not "Cinder's" group.

Overall, it is pretty much stated in all but words that she'll be going to Anima, to Mistral. Raven is there, and so is Ruby, so it kills 2 birds with 1 stone. And unlike RNJR, she has a motorcycle so she can traverse the land much quicker.

Really, where else would she go?

3.1. Chill Out, Bro
Now we switch to Weiss Schnee, who is now trying to escape...and not by jumping out the window like some expected.

He's going to start an oppressive dictatorship, and that never ends well. RWBY vs Atlas arc incoming?

As he tries to leave, Weiss locks the door with a black Glyph, then runs to the Library as Rustedwood starts bashing the door.

3.2. So Long, and Thanks For All The Abuse
Weiss finally reaches the Library.

After thanking Klein, he closes the door and Weiss inmediately frowns.

4. You Won't Be Alone Dammit
Now we go back to Polystralia, and are met with the sight of shirtless Sun Wukong.

5. <font style="color:#DC143C">Death Flags Rising
Now we go back to the Black Lily, Guroyuri.

We first have Ren and Nora running on Kuroyuri, <font style="color:#6495ED">apparently having gotten there, somehow, before the Nuckelavee did, somehow, without being noticed or running into it. Which means they went around it in a curve away-enough from it for it to not notice them at all.

I'm no expert, but, then, considering they also had to go down the mountain, it should've taken them longer than it seemingly did, meaning the Nuckelavee, who went there in a straight line unhindered by the trees, <font style="color:#DC143C">should've gotten there before them unless it was going at a snail's pace.

Now, Ren is especially relieved when they see Jaune and Ruby are ok, though Jaune is still shitting his pants from the noise.

Conclusion
Like I expected, this episode proves the Volume was meant to build, not to resolve.

Unlike what I expected however, WBY's arcs are practically finished and they have already decided to leave to Mistral. I thought that would happen next episode, in the finale.

Speaking of Mistral, I'm not entirely happy about all of them going to Mistral. The whole team reuniting so soon feels...well, too soon. And it kinda hurts the potential of each RWBY member being active in a different place, allowing us to see more of the world as the story develops.

We have never seen Vacuo, even though Monty supposedly really wanted to show us that kingdom. We have not seen Atlas at all since all of Weiss's story took place in the Schnee Manor. We have not seen current-Vale either.

It's just a waste of potential. Besides, what do they do after reuniting? Either fail to stop Adam, making the whole thing seem more hopeless and just re-enacting Vol.3, or they succeed...and then what? Go straight for Salem? Go to another Kingdom and deal with the threat there?

1-...I'm starting to think they really were overhyping some characters for this Volume. Watts, like I said, has done absolutely nothing so far after ep1, hasn't even been mentioned, despite being in the opening with as much prominence as Tyrian and Cinder. Hazel and the Albains are barely better.

The Beringel also has done nothing beyond a small 3-sec appearance. RT could've, you know, shown RNJR or Qrow fighting a Beringel, even if just a small fight. But noooo, "We should put a Beowulf over there! And another one! And one more! Maybe an extra one there!".

2-Tyrian sounds more like "happiness is suffering" the more I rewatch that scene.

3-Sigh...I never expected myself to start liking Jacques more than Ironwood. The former may be a jackass and the latter is a badass, but the former at least thinks rationally most of the time, while Ironwood is swimming in Paranoia and making stupid choices.

Alright, so something big is building up in Mistral. Alright. Now, how will blocking off all entrance and exit from Atlas without his authorization going to help? How will it help stop whoever is planning what from going through with their plan? How will it save the people of Atlas?

I mean, blocking off entrance from Mistralians, alright, just to be safe. But from the entire world? That's just ridiculous. Not letting anyone leave? Unnecesarily dictatorial.

Now I see why Ozpin didn't trust in him. Regardless of how hipocritical it was to ask for trust when not giving any, Ironwood does have trust issues that can get obstructive.

<font style="color:#DC143C">It's like setting a room on fire to kill a single roach.

4-Klein keeps showing his eye-chameleoness. We even see it change straight from Red to Brown at one point without him closing his eye entirely.

Now we just need Neo to finally appear. 'Come on, RT, you promised us NEO! Give us V4 Neo so we can complete the Trinity of Eyeshifting!'

5-The animation when Klein and Weiss are walking seems...<font style="color:#DC143C">kinda mediocre. It looks like the usual walking animation but sped-up, making it look weird more than anything. Combined with them still looking like 3D figures walking in front of a 2D picture, it looks rather bad.

6-There were some pretty funny faces this episode. Especially from Weiss. Some of my favorites.

7-Yang seems to think she's ready to go, but....how long do you think she'll last before breaking for a while? I mean, <font style="color:#DC143C">we never saw her deal with the PTSD, only return to fighting-condition.

<font style="color:#DC143C">She'll likely crack once Adam shows up again.

By the way, I thought Taiyang would go with her. I mean, he did say he would have to go look for Ruby eventually back in Ep4. <font style="color:#6495ED">Is he not going? Will we get no Tai-Raven reunion anytime soon? :C

8-We finally get a good look on the Nuckelavee. Well, on it's faces. I have to say, <font style="color:#DC143C">the Horse head doesn't look like a horse, and the Humanoid head looks more like a...demon chewing a marshmallow.

I was expecting it to look more...creepy. The way the humanoid head looks like it's kinda funny actually.

9-It seriously would be nice if RT wasn't lazy enough to NOT avoid at least mentioning a few things, like Adam planning to take over the WF, or Winter being busy in Mistral.

<font style="color:#DC143C">Mentioning something in passing is miles better than not saying anything, <font style="color:#6495ED">you know.

10-Mmm....by now, there are still characters that have barely even appeared despite prominence in the opening, things that were either not explained or partially explained, and questions still in the air.

I'm thinking of making a blog once this season is over, where I write down the things that suffered those fates (counting the WoR's episodes). This season feels rushed every time more.

11-Now that I think about it, the Nuckelavee appeared in the contrary direction to Ren and Nora. And they came from the entrance.

<font style="color:#6495ED">....How did the Nuckelavee get there so quickly and easily? The apparent routes both Renora and Nuckel seemingly took make this rather confusing.

12-In hindsight, Whitley's pic in Jacquess's office was down. Wonder why...

There's also a portrait of Young Jacques behind his desk, which I didn't notice before (or noticed and forgot).