Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24198837-20140803015950/@comment-25641997-20140803220155

The Devil's Advocate WP wrote: You see, that is part of the problem there. "Spoiled and self-centered" does not really describe Weiss at all. That really gets to the root of the problem. Weiss and Blake are on opposite ends of the social heirarchy. One is the heiress to a massive energy conglomerate who would receive any material desires she sought and the other lived in squalor while constantly confronted with discriminatory barriers due to her heritage.

It is more class warfare than anything and plays into the notion of racial privilege as well. Because Weiss is a human who lived a life of luxury due to being from a family of considerable wealth she is generally seen less sympathetically than a Faunus who lived a life of struggle in impoverished conditions due to her heritage. Most viewers can relate more to Blake than Weiss as there is a tendency to view all rich people as "entitled" and "greedy" simply due to them being rich.

Weiss is treated judgmentally due to her family's wealth. Blake treats Weiss like she and the SDC are one and the same as do many of the fandom, despite all evidence pointing to her having a troubled home environment and not really wanting the life that has been thrust upon her. I would say there is a similar issue among the fandom with Ruby and Weiss, though it is more pronounced with Blake simply because of their respective pasts and the nature of the fan following.

The way I see it, both Blake and Weiss just want to be normal girls and do not want their heritage to determine how they live their lives. However, I have a feeling I will only get heated objections with regards to Weiss on that point. I see what you mean and I agree with it, but in a way, isn't Weiss entitled and self-centered? She and Blake both? In episode 15, when they argued, they both played the victim. Blake unfairly judges Weiss based on her heritage, but Weiss does the same to Blake. She even proclaimed herself as a victim, while Blake ignored her friend's justification of her beliefs and kept treating her like an enemy. Note that Blake was the only person who made personal attacks throughout the whole argument. They both believe they are entitled to victimization, when they have to realize that they're not. She may speak of how humanity doesn't respect the faunus, but she refuses to take off her bow. She's not giving people a chance to prove her wrong, even when she knows that her friends, the people who matter most, don't think of her any differently knowing that she's a faunus. She scolds humanity in their feeble efforts to strive for equality, but she's not doing anything to help the issue. And Weiss was blaming all of her and her family's issues on the White Fang, when in truth the SDC brought it upon themselves. The White Fang isn't responsible for her father's actions when she was young; he did what he did of his own volition. She also fails to recognize that the SDC gave the White Fang a reason to resort to violence just as the White Fang gave her father a reason to be angry. They're not just terrorists for fun.

Again, I do agree with what you're saying. But the way I see it, both Weiss and Blake are on top of a high horse and they need to get off them in order to truly understand each other. They need to see that they've both suffered and neither of their suffering is more important than the other's. The quote in the White trailer sums this up well. In the sense that they both flaunt their sorrow as if it takes precedence over that of the other, I think they are entitled and self-centered.