User blog comment:SomeoneYouUsedToKnow/SYUTK's V5E11 - Being Weiss Is Suffering - Impressions/Recap/@comment-34633327-20180103231431/@comment-25936766-20180104000853

Regarding Sadism:

1) "...That line right there is the tell tale line of a sadist"

...........Obviously it is not. Are you freaking serious? That's a quite efficient, at times necesary, strategy. Take away the enemy's assets and victory becomes much easier.

If you think that line marks her as a true sadist, then Tsun Tzu is the God of Sadism. It's quite the stupid logic, "taking away what power they have" is a basic, practical, and sometimes the only good and viable strategy.

For example....do you think Cinder could've achieved even half as much as she did back in Vol.3 if she didn't take care of the CCT or the Atlesian Military? She would've failed if she just let them be. But by "taking them away", Vale lost both the chance to call for help in time, and their only reliable means of defense at the moment, allowing Cinder to achieve her, and Salem's, goal.

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2) I mark a difference between sadism and just being a condescending asshole.

So far in RWBY, Cinder has not been really Sadistic (until now). She's been condescending, she's been an asshole, but that does not mean someone is automatically a sadist. That just means they are a condescending asshole.

But in this episode, that got amped up, and she went from just being condescending towards everyone and mocking them for lolz, to being practically a psychopath at them, complete with psychotic faces that are just plain out of character for her.

A real sadist, is Roman, what with blowing up Ruby's face back in V1E16, and inmediately laughing about it. When was the last time you saw Cinder laugh her ass off after sending someone flying?

3) " She wants Ruby to suffer" 

While I agree with that....consider the fact that she kept toying with Jaune, and left Ruby entirely to Emerald. She never ever even looked in Ruby's direction.

You'd think that if anyone wanted to fight Ruby and pound her into the ground, it would be Cinder. You'd think that if anyone wanted to blast her to ashes and cripple her or whatever, it would be Cinder.

....But no, she never pays attention to Ruby even after the Silver Blast. She doesn't even, say, throw a 2nd fireball at her, or something.

She treated Ruby there about as much as Ruby treats the Silver Eyes. If "wanting Ruby to suffer" is proof of her sadism, then the way she ignores Ruby is proof that she isn't.

Regarding Insanity:

1) "Only after the jump to Maya did the facial expressions really get good, so it could be Cinder was intended to have those expressions in V1-V3, but Poser made it impossible."

This is complete spitballing so it has no weight. And let me tell you, Monty released back in Vol.1 a series of images of Ruby with different facial expressions, to see how far he could go with Poser.

And he could go damn far. If he wanted, Ruby could make expressions that would be more in line with a kid's cartoon. So if they wanted anyone to show psychotic faces, they perfectly could have.

Even with Maya, we got Tyrian in Volume 4 making tons of psychotic faces. Faces that Cinder had never even tried to copy ever, for the entirety of Volume 4 and Volume 5, until exactly this episode.

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2) "That together can cause someone to snap imo."

Yes and no, and you're leaning on No. See, to someone prideful, all those things would definitely hit deep, at the very least.

But it would not make them snap at all, and especially not lead to them making psycho-faces like those. More believably, it would make the prideful person quite angry. Not crazy at all, angry. At most, angry like V1-3 Yang whenever she used her Semblance.