Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-4141313-20181110034633/@comment-14909251-20181118235636

My thoughts:

1. I agree Oz is the likely source of the fairy tales told in Remnant. However, they notably differ from the true stories in that they have fairly happy endings. The girl in the tower lives happily ever after with her rescuer, when the truth is he dies of sickness early in their life together. Rather than staying and living with humanity only to eradicate them following rebellion, the gods flee immediately after creating humans. What changes with these stories is that the horrible events of his life and Salem's are expunged. One could take this as him yearning for a better outcome, but it could also be an extension of his habit for telling lies to "protect" humanity. He gives them happy stories that would make them respect and revere the gods rather than fear and loathe them. You could call a lot of it false hope.

2. The "false hope" part is the aspect of the truth that will really tear at RWBY. Yang may no longer hate Oz, but she will still feel as if she was betrayed and lied to over some false promise of defeating Salem. Plus, he has been exposed as lying about a lot of things, even down to his "curse" as he calls it. Oz gave them a vision of a mission that essentially boiled down to "help defeat the bad guy to lift my curse and save the world" when defeating her is just another step in a multi-phase plan, and a pretty weak one at that given Salem's immortality. His lack of faith in humanity will only magnify this problem. Oz keeps the relics separate because he doesn't trust that humanity can satisfy the gods and he thinks Salem must be stopped because humanity will easily fall to her whims (as he did, I might note). In the end he isn't that much different from Salem in this respect as neither really trust humanity, seeing them as easily manipulated into deceit and evil, thus eliminating any hope at meeting the demands of the gods. Salem's attitude toward humanity's hopelessness is more contemptuous, while Oz's is more mournful.

3. As far as the fairy tales, if we assume two of the tales are essentially lies at the end it does allow that perhaps the tale about the Maidens is also a lie or partial lie. Whether or not he intended them to manipulate humanity, they could still be examples of him fudging the truth because it makes him feel better as well. That being the case, if the Maidens were originally his daughters then it could be that he really wanted to fudge the truth on that one to where it is essentially a lie. Maybe they died and he believed they were gone, but in some later life he meets four women who somehow obtained their powers. If the magic was passed down by blood, it could be his particular issue affected it so that when his children died their powers passed to someone else in a manner similar to his reincarnation. Granted, it is possible his Maiden story is essentially true and it is a genuinely uplifting tale.

4. The crown being the Relic of Choice and potentially having been used by Oz when he was the King of Vale sets up another wrinkle in his future. Was that really the only time he used the Relic? He often commands loyalty from his subjects, but how many times has that loyalty been genuine? Given that he resided where the Crown would supposedly be located, he could have retrieved and used it any number of times within its limitations. That still raises another question. It is fair to say after the Great War that humanity was at its most united ever. Sure, there were issues, but they were in an unprecedented period of peace as was often the refrain earlier in the series. Yet he still kept the Relics hidden away. Says a lot about his faith in humanity that even then he didn't trust humanity could meet the test. Perhaps part of that was because it was built on lies, manipulations, and even forced through magic.

5. Salem's story is a lot more sympathetic when you think deeply about it. After being trapped her entire life in a castle by a cruel father and rescued, she thought she might be able to finally have a happy life together with Oz only to have him taken early in life. It was the one thing good in her life taken from her without reason. Had they lived a longer life together, no doubt her attitude would have been different. Madness at the world pretty quickly gives way to anger at the gods when they refuse to bring him back after doing that whole "killing him then unkilling him over and over" thing, which definitely didn't help improve her impression of them. Were they just a tad more united and manganimous, perhaps things would have played out differently, which makes their demands of humanity extremely hypocritical. Probably, this whole matter of her having been held captive for all her early life only to have her rescuer and lover taken from her shortly after is going to get her some sympathy points. The gods definitely didn't leave a good impression. Being right from a philosophical perspective doesn't mean it is okay to just do whatever you want to those who are wrong.

6. Oz's return may seem like a contradiction given their reasons for cursing Salem, but there is a method to the madness, especially given the nature of his return. Had there really been a desire to have Oz come back to unite humanity and prove their worth, that could have been achieved without making him go through the whole reincarnation issue. Could have easily brought him back as an immortal. Seems unavoidable that the intent was to have Oz get through to Salem and help Salem break her curse. It was probably also anticipated that it would take some doing so Oz would end up dying a lot, while also having a taste of the same immortality Salem has experienced. Oz is now better positioned than anyone to speak both about the value of the cycle of life and death, as well as the consequences of seeking to subvert that cycle. His interpretation of his mission is thus misplaced as he thinks destroying Salem is the only way to win, when the point is really that he is the only one who can save Salem from herself and that will be the path to victory.

7. The big theme in all of this is deceit and truthfulness. Both Oz and Salem have developed a history of deceitfulness. Salem demonstrated it first, but Oz demonstrated it without any need for her prompting. He kept the true nature of his return a secret for years, even after they became rulers of a great kingdom with four young children. Keeping that secret was probably the biggest factor in their subsequent fight. Might things have played out differently if he had been upfront from the start? Wouldn't be shocked if someone points out that him deceiving Salem and it blowing up in his face, like literally blowing up in his face, is an example of why honesty is the best policy.