User blog:Bluethunder25/Whitley's Motivation

It's more than safe to say that Whitley has become probably the least liked character on RWBY so far. As for me, I'm taking him with a grain of salt. From a lot of reactions, people just flat out state that they hate him without even considering what motivates his character. They don't even consider the question that Weiss asked about him. But I'm here to do just that.

Now let's think about said question that Weiss asked her brother. ''Are you jealous? Is that it? Is that why you hate me? Are you jealous of my abilities? Of Winter's?'' Now, I'm not sure if Whitley is jealous, but if he is, then I'd say it's a pretty realistic and human motivation. Put these things into consideration; the youngest of a rich family, two of your sisters have abilities and have mastered them, while you were born with none. That can make a person angry and anger leads to jealousy which leads to hate. It can suck having a chip on your shoulders when you're the youngest sibling. If it were me, I'd probably feel the same way.

Now, when asked this, Whitley says he isn't. You could interpret it as being in denial and that's realistic too. Sometimes, we can't admit that we're jealous, so we deny it. This could be the same with Whitley. I mention this on a comment page on this wiki and a user brought up something that I think should happen. If Weiss and Whitley ever meet again, Weiss should ask Whitley again if he's jealous. Whitley will deny it again, but Weiss will continue to press the issue by saying hurtful thing that just dig into his skin until finally, he snaps, screaming and yelling at Weiss, letting out all his anger, rage, jealousy, and frustration. Saying something like, 'You and Winter think you're so much better than me just because you were born with abilities and I wasn't!' Winter would probably be the best at something like that considering how she acted towards Weiss in Volume 3.

Another thing he mentions is that he finds Hunstmen and Huntresses barbaric, claiming that they aren't better than an army. This to me says that Whitley is a kid who has no real experience out in the real world, which again makes sense considering his background. Weiss was at Beacon while he was at home. Weiss was fighting monsters and such and therefore knows what Huntsmen and Huntresses can do. Whitley does not. A way for him to learn this would be for to actually go out into the real world, which he probably will do now that he is the new heir to the SDC. He will probably see what it is like out in the real world by seeing the people who have suffered due to Grimm attacks. And even more so, maybe he'll learn better by surviving a Grimm attack on him.

One thing I hope doesn't happen is that later on is that Weiss takes back the SDC and makes her brother eat a big slice of humble pie. And I really hope she doesn't give a 'Reason You Suck Speech' either. I'm really not a fan of those tropes. What I hope happens is that she tries to bring her brother down to her level, reason with him and hopefully, they work things out. However, if that does happen, I don't Whitley to just accept his defeat and immediately want to make amends with his sister. He should still hate Weiss and then Weiss should say, 'Even though you still hate me, I still love you.' And then Whitley ponders that for a while.

So yeah, even though Whitley is hated, it's not fair to not put these thoughts into consideration. Only Volume 5 will tell just what Whitley's role will be, but until then, think about what you have just read.