User blog:Zathronas/Zathronas - Let's talk about the elephant in the room

 I want to discuss with you about the elephant in the room. Not as the Author but as Zathronas.

 As you know, I’ve been back recently after a hiatus of a year. Since I’ve been back, I’ve received a few curious comments about Monty’s death in accordance to certain subjects that I’ve tackled in my blogs. I’ve responded to them in the comments but I think I need to address them in a broader scope.

 There seem to be some misconception about the death of Monty. I’ve even had a comment that gave the impression that he killed himself. Nothing is further from the truth, Monty died during an operation because of an allergic reaction to the anesthesia.

 This affected me on two fronts. As a fan of his work, it saddened me to lose a man which was really starting to show his talent to a greater audience. We will always wonder what could have been. He was in the forefront of a media revolution that might have propelled him to superstardom, we’ll never know.

 The other was on a much more personal front. My best friend and I know each other for 35 years (Where has the time gone!) and he has given me permission to explain what happened to his mother.

 The mother of my best friend was a successful woman in pretty much all aspect of her life. She was the head editor of an international magazine and was married to a university professor and successful artist.

 23 years ago, she went into surgery to resolve a small problem with the cartilage of her nose that was a little bit deformed and made her snore at night. It was nothing really but she hated the fact that she snored. She was told it was a minor surgery and would be up and about in one day.

 Unfortunately, she had the same allergic reaction that Monty suffered. I’m not sure you can call it lucky but she survived, if you can call it that. She has been in a vegetative state ever since and still lives today in a residence for long term care. My best friend goes to see her every Friday and reads to her or takes a stroll in the nearby park with her. But she doesn’t recognize him or anyone else for that matter.

 So as you can imagine, the news of Monty’s death and its circumstances hit me in the gut.

 I’m telling you this so that what I write next isn’t construed as me being disrespectful to Monty’s legacy and his death.

 The curious reaction from some commenter’s on certain aspects of my blog made me think. I do not want them to believe that I’m pointing at them. No, it’s more about how their reactions made me think.

 There seemed to be a group out there who thinks that several aspect of RWBY should never be touched because it would somehow cheapen Monty’s legacy.

 I know that some said that Monty wrote five years of RWBY but that’s false too. What the actual quote said was that he had stories planned out for five years already. That is not the same as actual scripts, far from it. I’m sure that Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross are using outlines from Monty but that give you only broad strokes.

 They cannot write RWBY by constantly asking yourself “What would Monty do?” That would be a disservice to Miles and Kerry and impossible because they are not Monty Oum.

 Here’s where I think I might get some flak. I think volume 3 is better written than the two previous volumes. The narrative is tighter, the plots flow much more organically and the pacing is constant. These are all things I’ve wrote about as problems BEFORE Monty’s death and I respect him enough to still say so after his death. That doesn’t mean I hated the two previous volumes, I wouldn’t have been on this wiki if I did but I am able to differentiate between the man and his work. Monty wasn’t perfect, no one is.

 We’ve lost a great potential with Monty’s death and RWBY, RvB and his other projects are his legacy. That doesn’t mean that everything Monty did was perfect and should not be changed by respect to his legacy.

<p class="MsoNormal"> If Monty really thought that way then Gray, Miles, Kerry and the others at Rooster Teeth would never have resumed the show.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Sorry if this is long but I thought I should explain myself before I go any further with my blogs. As usual, I welcome your opinion below in the comment section.