Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-94.8.59.184-20140809221526/@comment-204.80.5.182-20160101215236

MPGuy wrote: Just some observations... things that have been bothering me about Ironwood and his place in things and some other stuff...

I think that Ironwood is a useful tool that is too enamored of his pet projects to detect the fact that he's being used. He means well in his own mind, which makes him a well intentioned useful tool and easily manipulated. He seems to understand that maybe he overplayed the situation as he is in conference with Oz, Glynda and Qrow.

It still bothers me that he was touting the Atlesian Paladin claiming they couldn't have any there on that day, yet Torchwick has train cars full of them. Certainly he noticed that when Oobleck climbed up out of the hole in one during Breach. He has to wonder where the Paladin came from.

I guess this bears the question: Who does Ironwood answer to and how much does he know about where these paladins are being shipped? He is nominally listed as the Commander of the Atlesian Military and the defacto Headmaster of the Atlas Academy. You would think he would be in the know or at least suspect that the SDC is up to no good. He has to know they are being produced... but what black hole could they be dropping into when his troops aren't getting them but inventory is disappearing? Certainly he would ask... but to not question how one showed up in Vale during Breach would be negligent.

In the latest episode, World of Remnant, Huntsmen it is stated that Atlas is a defunct Kingdom. Does that mean that no kingdom exists? Has the Schnee Dust Company used Ironwood's Military to rise up and take over the Kingdom, making it a militaristic state (or worse, an SDC proving ground)? We need to understand the Governmental aspects of Atlas before we can truly understand Ironwoods place in things I think.

It seems clear that the heads of the Academies are not always in concert on how to handle things that arise. In the conference, Qrow states that the heads of the academies are fairly well in contact with each other through back door meetings and such.

Come to think of it... did anyone notice the "W" in the upper corner of Cinder's Scroll right after Ironwood's pic showed up and as she was setting up the next fight? I wonder what the significance is? Atlas is a nation lead by it's military. A few time it was mentioned that the chief of state is more or less the headmasters of the educational system in Remnant nation. In Atlas's case, the headmaster is the army's general, in this case James Ironwood, meaning that in Atlas, the military is therefore the government itself. Weiss and Winter also mentioned how different Vale's and the other nation government were from Atlas, whose education system, government and military aren't separated entities.

This make Atlas a very military state with Ironwood at it's head. Unfortunately, Ironwood seems overly naive, easily influenced and too stubborn to see problems in his own actions and projects. While he is seemingly the head of Atlas at the moment, he might be played like a pawn against his own friends.