Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-26512661-20200118161649/@comment-4134422-20200120213706

In the end, RWBY+co were controlled by fear: Fear towards Ironwood's reaction to the truth based on their own. It's really sad that Ironwood's honesty towards Mantle had just a short time reward... because now he'll betray what little trust he gained from the city because of a small group that couldn't trust him with the truth.

Now, with all the loyalty talk in this episode in the air, I went and read the script from the WoR episode about Huntsmen/Huntresses and technically their role makes them not owe him any loyalty whatsoever:

"As an additional precaution to maintaining peace, the founders of the Academies believe that their graduates should be kept separate from Kingdom allegiance."

"Once finished with their training, Huntsmen and Huntresses are free to choose who they work for, as well as what kind of work they will do, through the use of mission boards. Allying with a particular Kingdom or village is entirely up to the individual."

The reason why Ironwood was so sour is because of Atlas Academy's indoctrination into the military, thus basically keeping graduates on a leash in terms of allegiance. The fact he gave them their licenses (which they didn't ask for in the first place) doesn't mean they're obligated to be loyal to him or Atlas in the slightest. Let's not forget Ironwood is possibly the one that restricted outside licensed Huntsmen/Huntresses on Solitas, like what happened with Qrow.

So yeah, Ironwood and the Ace-Ops questioning about loyalty has zero weight for Huntsmen/Huntresses. Is essentially an exploitable loophole (Carmine Esclados being a prime example), but that's how things were set ever since the academies were funded.