User blog comment:SomeoneYouUsedToKnow/"They are just standing around and talking"/@comment-34633327-20171126210248

Except their is another aspect that needs to be considered, and that is the impact of the fights when compared to the narrative. If you look at each volume's fights, don't focus on the number, focus on the impact. Volume 1: Of the fights before the halfway point, the only one without narrative importance was Ren vs. Taijitu. That fight served no purpose but to be a demonstration to go with Pyrrha's exposition on Aura. Volume 2: Of the fights before the halfway point, the only one with any real importance was RWBY vs. the Paladin. The Food fight was gratuitous. There was no point to it in the grand scheme of things. Pyrrha vs. Merc on the other hand didn't really feel like a fight. Volume 3: Of the Fights before the halfway point, the only three of the fights had narrative purpose. RWBY vs. ABRN served no purpose besides giving RWBY a 4 v 4 match, same for JNPR v BRNZ, SSSN v IDGO, and a 2 v 2 variant for WY v FN. Qrow v Winter was meant to show just how strong Qrow was while also highlighting his not liking Atlas' involvement. Emerald and Mercury vs Coco and Yatsuhashi was to establish them as credible threats, and Yang vs. Mercury was to highlight the tension and delve more into Cinder's plan. The rest were pretty much just gratuitous. Volume 4: Of the fights before the halfway point, the only one with any narrative purpose was RNJR vs. Tyrian, as it showed how out of their league RNJR was while establishing Tyrian as a big threat. The Geist and Sea Dragon were gratuitous. Volume 5: Of the fights before the halfway point, the only ones with any narrative purpose were the Weiss Short and Weiss vs. the Lancers. There had to be a way Weiss could end up in Raven's camp, and as such the fight occured, and the short was supposed to highlight just how bad she was starting out and her unintended reliance on Winter. Yang v. Shitty Mcdouche Bandit and her short fight were gratuitous. When I hear people complain about the lacking of fights, I think to myself: "Really? Are the fights all you care about?" I understand that the fights are what brough attention to RWBY, and that of course people would want to see cool fights. But RWBY isn't just fighting. It is a story and is trying to tell one. The first few volumes however, where people say the fighting shined, is where the story was at its weakest. Volume 1 sucked in the Story Department (Like making Jaunedice, putting Weiss in the wrong for Burden and the Badge when Ruby was being OOC), and Volume 2 was barely better (As you've made clear, the Breach may have looked cool but killed the story aspect, and the Raven Stinger was so bad it got made Non-Canon), and while Volume 3 got better, it still sucked at the Story as most was of it was relegated to the 2nd half. Yes, there was some story in the first half, but Pyrrha's crisis over being a Maiden, Cinder's plans really launching, Adam returning, that was all second half. And they still closed it off with that damn Deus Ex Machina.Conversly, Volume's four and five, where the fighting became less, is where the Story aspect picked up imo. The Menagerie Plotline, Ren's backstory, Cinder's rise back up, Jaune's grief over Pyrrha, Yang's issues with Raven, Weiss' family issues, Oscar being thrust into all this, yes there were problems of course with the execution is some of them, but it still picked up. While yes, one shouldn't have to be sacrificed for the other, having more action with little story is worse than having more story with little action. If people just want gratuitous fight scenes, they can check out stuff like Death Battle. But personally, I would prefer less action so long as we can actually have a story. Cause when we watch the fights, not all people want just gratuitous violence, they want a meaningful fight. Let's use Ren for an example. Say Ren had died in the Battle for Beacon during Volume 3, killed by maybe Mercury after a glorious fight scene, and we watched it, would we really care? I believe people would be a tad upset, but not too much because at the time, Ren was the least developed character on JNPR, he was just there half the time. Now what if Ren fought in a battle set in Volume 5 after we got to know more about him, after we got to sympathize with him, what if he fought Hazel in a beautifully animated scene and died? Would we care? Yes, because he had been developed. Because he wasn't "Just There" anymore, he was near main character status. Because the Volume actually made us like him.Volumes 4 and 5 seem to be, in essence, the opposite of Volumes 1-3. 1-3 prioritized the fighting over the characters. Blake barely did anything in the first half of Volume 3, Ruby many said was reduced to a plot device after Volume 2, and Jaune was either loved or hated for his behavior. 4-5 prioritize the characters over the fighting though. Yes the fights are minamilistic and some are bad, but their focus on the characters is getting better. Ruby is slowly feeling like a character again, Nora and Ren have more meaningful apperances, Qrow is more than just the Badass, always Drunk, Snarking Uncle, Taiyang has actual personality shown. I guess the best thing right now would be to keep the character progression, but include more fight scenes, so long as they have meaning to them. No pointless fights like the Food Fight, and no Fights that undermine the story like the Breach.