Talk:Ruby Rose/@comment-24038268-20130927212306

(Warning: super long post and contains speculation)

I think it was actually in-character for Ruby to have done nothing, or at least hesitate to act. It's been stated that Ruby's the most naive and innocent of all the characters; she has a dream, but she doesn't really know how she's going to pull it off besides "become a Huntress." And as I said on the Jaundice comments (was it that page?), she's probably still self-conscious about her age and doesn't want to have people criticize her for her actions (also, there's a possibility of Glynda or Ozpin berating her if she starts an out-of-school-bounds fight). After almost getting killed out in episode 8, she might also be wary of starting fights without fully knowing the opponent's capability, and especially against a person being trained to fight.

Also, if Ruby's very naive, it's possible that she's never even encountered bullying to this extent. In unfamiliar situations, people tend to base their own judgments off of what others do -- and in this case, no one did anything, so Ruby backed off, unwilling to start a battle, literal or not, that she didn't know how to handle. She doesn't comment after Pyrrha, Yang, and Blake's comments of Cardin and just calls him a bully for what he did to Jaune. Blake sees her comment from a more experienced POV, while Ruby's statement is very general and her goal is very simplistic -- become a Huntress and protect people. Her flaw is that it's so vague that she herself doesn't even know the boundaries and extent of who or what needs to be protected, or how to judge who really needs saving and who can save themselves.

I think this event (or the events that will soon follow )might lead to some character development for Ruby. She probably has her sights set on Cardin, since she knows that he's not a good person in the slightest (from her POV at least), and would be her first "target" for making the world - or the school - a better place.