Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-14138255-20180123171649/@comment-34633327-20180123235058

73.Anon.52 wrote:

Then look at Yang's arc, she had this whole speech given by Tai telling her to go around problems and misdirect/ect.... and she did that in one fight against noob bandits... then she goes all bullheaded into the final fights and the most "around" she shows is disarming herself literally... not dodging pretty much at all, just dropping her weapon as though she was being charged with a fetch or time trial quest... which she wasn't. Had she not been lucky enough Cinder and Vernal were down and Raven didn't want to fight she by all rights should have died and failed... I am so dissapointed her combat skill growth wasn't really shown at all... instead just a tad of emotional growth It's one thing to learn something. It's another to put it into practice. Yang has one major flaw and that is her emotional imbalance, Yang's emotions dictate most of her actions. And while Tai tried to instill unto her that such a thing can just land her into trouble, its a lot harder to put into practice after only being taught it for a few weeks, especially when there are stressors that trigger her at every turn.

Shay touching her hair. Touching Yang's hair has been established to be one of Yang's biggest Berserk Buttons, so him touching it after she refutted his advances would naturally set her off.

Seeing Raven. She tried to keep her cool at first, but having prolonged interactions with her mother, who not only abandoned her before she could even remember, but is vastly different than how her father described her, would easily set someone like Yang off. The longer they were near each other, the more it would worsen.

Blake being brought up. The last time Yang consciously saw Blake before the Battle of Haven, she had lost her arm to a psychotic edgelord, and woke up to find her gone. Through the association effect, Yang associated Blake leaving with the loss of her arm, which we've seen she has nightmares about. Not to mention she had confided in Blake about her abandonment issues, and felt betrayed that Blake ran off. So bringing Blake up triggered numerous stressors that set her off. The only reasons she didn't get set off during the Battle was because there were more important matters to deal with at the time, Weiss had already talked with her about it, and she had already used up a good deal of emotions when confronting Raven.

Mercury. The only fight Yang had this volume aside from the bandits was Mercury, someone she detests. This is part due to the frame up caused by her match with Mercury and Emerald's semblance. As Mercury she believes is the main cause behind the frame up, which was the first in a domino effect of Yang going through an emotional beatdown, she naturally would be triggered by him. Add in Emerald playing off her emotions by generating Mercury illusions, and later Raven illusions, and she would naturally go berserk. She only just managed to pull back from Mercury because getting the Relic was more important than a grudge.

So while Tai may have ingrained the message into her head, its a lot harder to follow when every opportunity to follow it was filled with stressors.