Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24032889-20180213075134/@comment-24032889-20180219175106

I do agree that Lionheart seemed more of an addition merely for external conflict than something that affected the plot in the longrun. And I think the idea of "Salem uses fear and other people to get what she wants" pretty well established that she was going to kill him there, so to me... I think Salem's killing him was a pretty big statement on her part of her confidence in the plan, etc. But I do see where you're coming from.

I guess RWBY has this difficult balance of how it uses screentime. It's a balance of focusing on characters as plot devices and as people. What I mean is that Vernal and Lionheart were plot devices for the volume more than they seemed to be people because there was never much time to resonate with them before their specific role in the plot was put into question. I've heard M&K say (I think on RWBY Rewind 13 but idk) that a lot of character moments specifically have hit the cutting room floor in order to stay on schedule or not go over budget. So what's left is a bit dryer.

I think the solution to this was not to cover more events with a larger budget like V5 did, but instead to give characters a good enough time to breathe in what events are already there.