Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-14061097-20131111023452/@comment-82.12.156.248-20140115023106

That's why Vegeta and Penny are in the tournament. Remember at the end of the day that Ren, Nora and Yang are still just another set of students attending a training academy. There are likely academies just as prestigious as Beacon in Vacuo, Atlas and Mistral so it comes to reason that the very best from those academies WOULD be able to defeat RWBY and JNPR.

Yang and Nora, as good as they are, Penny at the end of the day has been portrayed as near omnipotent and I do believe that they would fail to overcome Penny. Especially Yang since she never actually saw Penny fight so she may have went in expecting a half-friendly contest between acquaintances of equal standing only to be met by a highly aggressive super android.

As for Ren... He is certainly going to be a tough one to write out. His expert use of aura makes him one of the best one on one fighters in the series. In tourney style rules I doubt there's much he couldn't overcome just rElying on his aura. But I don't see him winning the tournament. He and Nora are definatley the two bit players out of the main characters at the moment with Yang a close third. However they created Penny seemingly for the purpose of not having RWBY and JNPR as not being the omnipotent protagonists so often portrayed in anime, it makes sense that they could create a second charater like that from the Atlas or Mistral equivalent of Beacon (since the Vacuo batch has already arrived). But you are right that Ren definately deserves more credit then I keep giving him in my ideas for Volume 2. Perhaps Ren vs.Vegeta and Ren vs. Sun could also be given screentime.