Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-4830106-20140725003808/@comment-79.97.93.179-20140726010532

The food fight was awesome, but I do have a small gripe; Ruby, Pyrrha and Nora came off as far, far too strong next to everyone else.

Jaune being taken out immediately is a given, because he's Jaune, so no probs there.

Poor Ren got beat down in about ten seconds, which I found funny, if a little odd. Yang completely outclassed him, I thought they'd have been more even.

Weiss didn't even get any real offense in, she just knocked Nora back for about a second then got KOed by her.

Yang admittedly came off looking really strong after the fight with Ren, but Nora cleaning her clock with one hit (funny as it was) was a bit much. Granted, it seemed to just be a matter of Nora's weapon having a longer reach rather than her being stronger or more skilled, and Yang wasn't really beaten what with her still being 100% after falling from heaven apparently, but still. When you take into account that Nora had already landed a solid hit on Ruby and taken Weiss out of the fight altogether, it makes her seem overpowered when she punts arguably team RWBY's physically strongest fighter to the moon with one shot.

Blake's role in the battle was what kinda bugged me the most tbh, because there's no two ways about it - she got her Zack Ryder on. And for those of you who don't watch wrestling, that means she jobbed out, AGAIN. I mean seriously, it's getting a bit ridiculous - Blake is slipping into the Worf spot of the team. In her own trailer, she lost to the spider droid so Adam could be established as a badass. Episode 16, she lost to Roman so Sun could be established as a badass - then, Sun and Blake lost to Roman so Penny could be established as a badass; and now it's happened again. Shortly put, besides landing a glancing shot on Nora that she basically completely ignored, Blake didn't get any decent offense in throughout the whole thing - both times to spotlight was put on her, her opponent was Pyrrha, and both times she was made to look crazy inferior to her. The first time they fight, up-close, woman-to-woman, baguette-to-baguette. Blake-- and this is important to why I think it was bizarre she lost-- ''Blake uses her semblance this round, and Pyrrha does not. ''We plainly see Blake using her shadowclones to her advantage, while Pyrrha just sticks to her combat skill, meaning the odds were stacked against her... and Pyrrha wins. Pyrrha, not using her semblance, cleanly and fairly gets the better of Blake, who is. If one were to watch that fight and none of the ladies' other fight scenes, they'd get the impression Pyrrha is better than Blake by a LOT, which I don't believe to be true. Blake should've gotten the better of Pyrrha here to set up some semblance payback later, but nope. Instead Pyrrha won fair-and-square, then just annihilated Blake with her semblance later to add insult to injury.

That about covers the unfortunate few who came off as relatively weak in this particular fight; personally, I'm hoping they all get payback/a stronger showcase in the episodes to come. Now for the three who came off as bizarrely powerful...

Nora... well, I love Nora. In fact, I like all these characters, I just think a certain few shouldn't be put on a pedestal above the rest; and Nora basically took out Yang and Weiss by herself (though Yang wasn't really beaten so much as she was sent for a two minute long trip, haha). She didn't even use her semblance, just smashed the both of them (and granted, Weiss barely used her semblance and Yang didn't use hers at all, but the point stands).

I know Pyrrha is the Mystral champ and all, but she got the better of just about everyone who stepped up to her during the thing. I know she's good, but she shouldn't be portrayed as being that good next to the others; particularly Blake, who she worfed like there was no tomorrow. Already ranted about that earlier.

And then, after all that... Ruby basically just does what the other three members of her team couldn't do working together and single-handedly stomps team JNPR into the dirt? I mean, I get that she's leader and everything, but way to make everyone else on your team seem like feeble little kids. Also, Ruby's semblance took a WICKED step up in power between volumes one and two, as did Pyrrha's; I'm really hoping we're gonna see Yang, Blake and Weiss use their semblances in similarly more powerful/creative ways than we have thus far, because they come off as a matchstick next to a bonfire in comparison to what Ruby and Pyrrha just did. Blake was actually seen using her semblance fairly frequently during her fights and it didn't seem to pack nearly as big a punch as Ruby's, so hopefully she has some trick up her sleeve that hasn't been revealed yet.

I understand this is Ruby's show when it gets down to it, and that this volume will feature a Pyrrha arc and focus on her pretty heavily; I'd just rather the rest of the cast weren't made to seem like chumps next to them. I still really loved the episode, it's just something that nagged at me.

Also, I'm pretty sure we saw more of Yang in that episode than we did in Volume 1 after, like, episode 3. This pleases me.