Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-26417457-20190727003315

I might be posting on the wrong board but a lot of people seem to have negative opinions on RWBY villains so I want to know if the fans of RWBY have similar opinions on the villains. Here's my opinions:

Cinder: We've known her for about 6 years and still know nothing about her. She was interesting in Volumes 1-3, but since Volume 5, she hasn't changed. We know she wants power but why? Why didn't Ruby recognize her during the dance? I'm pretty sure Ruby knew a little about Cinder prior to the Fall of Beacon considering the fact that she knew Cinder's name in Volume 4. Cinder should've changed since Volume 5, she shouldn't still be conscending. And her dialogue makes her sound like she's intentionally evil and knows what she's doing is wrong, even if that was the case, why do she still do it? At this point it's best to give her character the axe by Volume 7, it already should've been done by Volume 5.

Neo: I'm neutral on Neo tbh. She does have a lot of potiental and it's yet to be wasted but she has no personality as of now. I doubt she'll be the same without Torchwick, Torchwick and Neo had good chemistry while with Cinder, Neo feels almost like a slave to her. She could be entertaining if her actions speak louder than words and could have the potential to have a sympathetic  backstory, but the problem is, who will tell it? Roman's dead, Neo's mute, Cinder forgot Neo was mute, and Emerald and Mercury never said a word to Neo. Maybe her backstory is that she was abused by her parents, had her throat cut, failed to grow over 4'6" due to a poor (if any) nutritional diet, and found/was rescued by Roman? But I sorta think it would be better if she didn't reappear in Volume 6, leave her fate ambigious, let the fans write fanfics about what happened to her.

Emerald: Emerald like Neo has a lot of potential. She seems to regret what she's done but I really don't want her to join Team RWBY because she caused the death of Penny without hesitation, which is basically irredeemable. I doubt she would be evil if it hadn't been for Cinder. A good character arc for her is her meeting Cinder who disregards her and later tries to kill Emerald for failing to kill Ruby, Emerald realizes Cinder is a monster and truly never cared about her, before coming to terms with that realization later. I'd be pissed if Ruby just kills her before anything happens to her character. Another issue I have with Emerald is that in the opening for Volume 2, we see Emerald fight Weiss, but it's almost Volume 7 and that never happened. To quote Mercury Black,

"It's false advertising!"

I don't recall them even speaking to each other, at least with Ruby and Cinder there was buildup for a fight between the 2, with Weiss and Emerald there is none, in fact there's potential for a rivalry between the two, Emerald grew up poor, Weiss grew up rich.

Mercury: Mercury is cool...I guess. He was funny in Volume 2, but since Volume 3, he's basically an edgelord. He lacks the sympathy that Emerald has, while Mercury's backstory is tragic, he's basically disregarded it for all we know. He has shown little remorse for his actions so the only reason for him to redeem himself is because Emerald's doing it. I dislike how Mercury gets nerfed in Volume 5, in Volume 3 he easily defeats Coco and Yatsuhashi but Ruby easily defeats him in Volume 5. One way to give Merc some character development would be if he realizes that he became his father, the person he hated ended up living on in him and shaping his way of life, realizing he has become his father he allows himself to die, knowing that his father would've wanted him alive to carry on his legacy. But that's just my opinion. Mercury is entertaining but he isn't that deep so touching more on backstory could give him more depth.

Roman: Roman was imo one of the best villains, he was akin to the Joker and was very entertaining to watch. At first he was a shallow but entertaining villain, until Volume 3 came and he revealed to Ruby he was doing the things he was doing to survive, having pessimistic outlook on life in contrast to Ruby's optimistic outlook. This had a lot of potential...until they kill him right after he says this. It's clear from the start that Roman wouldn't be the main antagonist throughout the entire series. Miles and Kerry should've shown the contrast between Ruby and Roman's idealogies more, before killing him. But whatever.

Tyrian: Tyrian is an enjoyable character, however I can't see him replacing Roman. There aren't many flaws with him and he's entertaining and steals almost every scene he's in. Other than that I don't have much to say on Tyrian.

Hazel: Hazel used to be an interesting character. He seemed pacifistic, shown when he expressed disapproval when Adam killed Sienna. He seemed like honorable villain, until later in Volume 5 where he reveals that he wants to kill Ozpin because his sister trained to become a huntress and died. If his sister got killed by a Grimm then why did he join Salem? Also Grimm get easily defeated, even Volume 1 Jaune killed one, you'd have to be a very incompetent huntress to fail to kill Grimm. How could it possibly be Ozpin's fault, unless Ozpin intentionally killed Hazel's sister for whatever reason. Overall, Hazel's motivation is ridicolously ridicolous which ends up ruining him.

Watts: Watts has no depth at this moment, which is bad because he should've by now. He's a douchebag but that's basically his only trait. He's so shallow as of now that I hardly have anything to say about him. Next.

Lionheart: Lionheart is one dimensional. His only personality trait is that he's cowardly, and the series constantly spites the guy. While the idea of someone betraying the heroes is an amazing concept it's wasted on this forgetable character.

Jacques: We don't know much about him other than the fact that he's an ass to Weiss, but he has potential to be good. It would be amazing if he used his atlesian androids to fight against Team RWBY, it would be a little different if we got someone leading an "army" rather than someone fighting physically.

Vernal: Vernal has no real personality, she's not a character, she's a plot device who was killed off for shock value but it failed to shock us in anyway. She's loyal to Raven but that ends up causing her to lose her own personality. Also what does she have against Weiss, the rivalry could've worked better with Yang, because Raven clearly loves her more than she loves her own daughter. Also she looks like a pirate themed baby doll.

Raven: I don't understand why they are trying to make Raven sympathetic, she's clearly responsible for the deaths of innocents. She's not an anti-hero she's a villain. Her actions can't really be excused and I feel no sympathy towards her. She was interesting back in Volumes 2,3, and 4 but now that we actually know her, she's very uninteresting.

Adam: Oh boy. Adam is a waste of potential. In the black trailer he easily decimates a Spider-android and he's depicted as menacing in Volume 1-2. His motivations were possibly the best, he wants to stop Faunus discrimination but believes Peace is out of the equation. Then Volume 3 comes, Cinder intimidates Adam into joining her...okay....Adam finds Blake and easily defeats her, Yang comes and Adam easily slices her arm off. Volume 4 comes, no Adam. Volume 5 comes, and this is where things start to go downhill. Adam tells Sienna, humans should serve the faunus then kills her. What's worse is that he tells the White Fang members to say Sienna was murdered by a human huntsman which could indicate that Adam has been indoctrinating the WF with lies about humans and may not necessarily believe them, it would be better if Adam took responsibly for it claiming that it was necessary for the Faunus. Then Adam starts obsessing over Blake and tries to blow up several Faunus including himself, then he grabs a WF member who questions this and screams, "I AM MAKING HUMANITY PAY FOR WHAT THEY'VE DONE!" like edgy teen leaving everybody confused. Adam tries to cut Blake but Blake one-shots him and Adam runs away like a little bitch abandoning the White Fang. I also begin to wonder if the faunus were in the right in the war between humans and faunus. In Volume 6, Adam kills a bunch of Faunus for rightfully pointing out his unhealthy obsession with Blake. He later stalks Blake then finds her. He fights Blake and Yang saying a bunch of stupid shit while fighting them too, then he gets stabbed by them both and dies. He went from a menancing man fighting for the faunus to an obsessive boyfriend fighting the faunus. His voice is also bad, he sounds like a whinny teenager, it would work better if he didn't say much at all, most of his dialogue is unnecessary and he loses his cool too early in the series. And obviously he was nerfed in the series.

Salem-Salem's motivations aren't clear, what does she want? Why does she want it? Getting revenge on her ex husband seems very underwhelming, and she's basically evil because she fell into a black pool. Additionally she doesn't really do anything, we don't really get to see her demonstrate her power. I don't really care about her anymore, she seemed promising in Volume 3 but it was wasted.

Here's a Tier list for the RWBY villains that I made. Since Volume 1-3 Adam and Volume 5-6 Adam are basically different people I seperated them and put them in different tiers. 