The Ever After[2] is another realm that exists beyond Remnant, which was accessed via the void beneath the Evacuation Central Location. It also serves as the main setting of both Volume 9 and the in-universe fairy tale The Girl Who Fell Through the World.
Following Cinder Fall's attack in the central location, Team RWBY, along with Jaune Arc and Neopolitan fell into the void and found themselves there as a result. At the center of the Ever After is the Great Tree, which manages the process of Ascension and is surrounded by various acres built for the Afterans and their designated roles.
The Ever After is also where The Gods originated, before they eventually departed from the realm to create other worlds such as Remnant.
Description[]
Underneath the pathways created by Ambrosius, another realm could be accessed by falling into the void, as this was where Crescent Rose and Ruby Rose landed after falling.
The shore is covered in sand and palm trees. Further inland, a large cliff towers over the shore.
The Ever After's main feature is a gigantic tree with cloud-like green, purple and yellow leaves. The gigantic tree sits on top of a cliff surrounded by seemingly regular-sized palm trees. The cliff towers over the shore that is also covered by palm trees before turning into a sandy beach with yellowish water.
The sandy beach is tropical covered by curvy palm trees, purple bushes and orange plants and features giant seashells, giant sea stars, and birds. It also features two suns in the sky.
The Acres of the Ever After
The Ever After appears to be divided up into several different acres all connected via bridges. Each of these acres seem to exist as their own self-contained realms and operate under their own set of rules, mostly independent of others' influence in a form of anarchy. Because of this the Ever After is seen by outsiders as an extremely confusing and bizarre place where nothing ever makes any sense.
Past the beach is the Jungle Acre where the plants are shown to be overgrown, and the vines are able to capture anyone and anything that gets caught in them. Among the plants in the jungle are cheese plants that the mice eat for food.
Past a bridge is the King's Acre where the citizens are all living toys under the rule of the Red Prince. It is populated with many red trees, similar to those of Forever Fall, with patchwork-patterned grass and many sprawling yellow dirt paths. In the acre, there is a town with a large market where the toy citizens live and further down the path is the Crimson Castle where the Red Prince lives.
Past another bridge is the Garden's Acre where the Herbalist lives. In the acre, there are multiple mushrooms. There are also trees with mushroom on the bark of the plants. This acre houses a place known as the Garden, where the ingredients for a Growgurt Parfait can be found.
The world is inhabited by animals such as a dodo-like bird and mice. Unlike Remnant, these animals are sapient and able to speak, such as a mouse Ruby met and called Little and the Jinxy Peddler who is a raccoon. Similarly, there are also living toys such as the Red Prince and living objects as well. These inhabitants of the Ever After are called Afterans.[3] Unlike the people of Remnant, the Afterans can't actually die and instead "ascend" after completing their roles while being given new roles by the Ever After. When this happens however, they lose any of their memories from before they ascended and sometimes their personalities also change in the process. The Ever After also "fixes" Afterans that failed to complete their role and causes the same prop to happen to them, such as when the Red King failed his role and became the Red Prince as a result. The only way an Afteran can truly die is if they are devoured by a creature known as the Jabberwalker, preventing them from ascending in the process.
Due to existing before the creation of Remnant, it is completely devoid of any Humans or Faunus living there, as Little didn’t know what Ruby was when asking questions. Also, there are no Creatures of Grimm existing anywhere inside of the realm either.
It is shown that time works differently in the Ever After compared to Remnant. Alyx, the protagonist of The Girl Who Fell Through The World, and her brother Lewis arrived a decade or so before the start of Volume 9, even though the two lived in Vacuo before the Great War and the creation of the Huntsman Academies. During their travels with Jaune, they learned that Afterans don't keep track of time using days like the people of Remnant, so they created the day "Splaterday" for the trio to have every day.
Although Team RWBY, Jaune, and Neo entered the Ever After through the Central Location, it is likely not the only way, as both Alyx and Lewis entered the realm through unknown means.
It is revealed in "Of Solitude and Self" that the The Gods originated from the Great Tree in the Ever After and used their powers to shape the realm into its current state by creating both the Afterans as well as the different acres for them to live based on their purpose. Eventually, the Brothers outgrew their role and created both the Curious Cat and the Jabberwalker to replace them, before leaving to a "greater beyond" to create other worlds, one of which being Remnant. Their departure would cause the Curious Cat to be driven mad, stating their curiosity was a curse and wanting to know why their makers abandoned them.
History[]
In the beginning, the Ever After was as a wild and dangerous place where only the Great Tree existed. Eventually, two beings known as the God of Light and the God of Darkness emerged from the tree in order to expand and shape the realm into something new. To accomplish this, they were given the power to destroy and create which they used to create the Afterans as well as the different acres that suited their purposes. They also built homes for the Afterans and gave them their roles. Although the Brothers continued their roles, the two began to grow curious as time went on and wanted to do more.
As they matured, the Brothers outgrew their role, and created two beings in secret that could replace them. The first being the Curious Cat, who could find and fix the broken pieces of the Ever After. The second being the Jabberwalker which would finish the work of the Cat. However the creation came out brutal and terrorized the peaceful Afterans.
The God of Light believed that the Jabberwalker was a mistake and immediately destroyed it, but the God of Darkness did not wish to condemn their creation for their mistakes. The argument over the fate of the Jabberwalker caused contention between the Brothers leading to a feud.
Eventually the Great Tree caught wind of the Brothers’ experiments and the damage they were causing due to their conflict. Understanding that the two had far outgrown their roles, the Great Tree created a special door for the Brothers to leave the Ever After so that they could create worlds of their own in a “greater beyond”. After leaving, the door would remain forever open to the Brothers and any of their creations should they ever wish to return home.
A decade or so before the events of Volume 9, a girl and boy named Alyx and Lewis ended up falling into the Ever After from the world of Remnant. During Alyx's time there, she met the Hunter Mice, got trapped in vines and fought against the Jabberwalker. Later, the Jinxy Peddler stole her weapon and she was forced to barter with him in order to get her dagger back by giving up her happiest and saddest memories. She also defeated the Red King in a board game, met the Curious Cat and the Rusted Knight, and eventually went towards the tree at the center of the Ever After in order to go home. However, she ended up inadvertently starting a war between the world's citizens in the process and her journey changed her. Lewis managed to return to Remnant, but Alyx remained behind, breaking her promise to the Cat in order to fix the mistakes of her journey, which lead to her murder.
Once in Remnant, Lewis immortalized his sister by adapting the events of their journey under the tale "The Girl Who Fell Through the World". This story would become a well-known fairy tale among the children of Remnant and even raise questions over the morality of Alyx's choices.
During the evacuation of Atlas, the Relic of Creation was used by Team RWBY to create a dimensional bridge connecting Atlas to Vacuo. In an attack led by Cinder Fall and Neopolitan, several people were thrown off through an explosion. Eventually, six more people would fall: Team RWBY, Neo and Jaune Arc. The evacuation center was then undone by Cinder's use of the Staff, cutting it off from Remnant.
In the Jungle Arce of the Ever After, Jaune while being the last to fall, unfortunately found an odd tree bearing stopwatch fruit. When he picked one off the tree, it inadvertently activated, causing time to flow backward. In order to stop traveling back in time, Jaune had to destroy the fruit, however he was left stranded in the Ever After's past. In order to reunite with Team RWBY, Jaune realized he had to wait in order to allow time to catch up. By being thrown back into the past, he managed to meet Alyx and Lewis, helping them in their journey and later being known as the Rusted Knight in the tale.
In the present, Ruby after awakening by the shores of the Jungle Acre then proceeds to go into the foliage. The huntress seeing the Great Tree, made several attempts on foot to reach it, but always kept finding herself in a loop.
With help of the Hunter Mice and a run in with the Jabberwalker, Team RWBY eventually reunites and come to the realization that they are in the Ever After from the tale of the Girl Who Fell Through the World. They decide their best course of action is to reclaim their weapons and attempt to follow the original story as best they can in order to find a way to leave.
Notable Inhabitants[]
- See Also: Minor Characters/Ever After
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Former Inhabitants[]
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Trivia[]
- The Ever After is named after the ending phrase from fairy tales. Many fairy tales ended by saying that the characters in the story lived happily ever after
- The term also seems similar to the term "Hereafter", a synonym for the afterlife/heaven. At one point, the team brings up the question of being alive or dead.
- The dimension of the Ever After alludes to Wonderland and Looking-Glass World from Lewis Carroll's books "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass".
- To further the allusion, the Ever After is the setting for the in-universe fairy tale The Girl Who Fell Through the World.
- The Great Tree may be a reference to Yggdrasil, an immense and sacred tree from Norse mythology that has the Nine Realms surrounding it.
- The Ever After doesn't work under the same logic as Remnant. For example, when Ruby attempts to walk towards the giant tree in a straight path, she somehow keeps ending up back at where she started. Similarly, the weather appears to be based on emotions, as it suddenly begins to rain when Ruby starts crying and later dissipates after she calms down a few seconds later.
- The Ever After was originally conceived during the production of Volume 2 when it was envisioned as a place on Remnant.[4]
- The Ever After seems to be partially connected to the dimension that hold the four Relics, as it was the prime inspiration behind the evacuation location, yet it is not established if it is one in the same.
- The concept of money doesn't exist in the Ever After. There is no monetary standard, but Afterans do barter through various mediums such as physical objects, memories, emotions or even items of intangible personal value.
- Unlike Remnant, which predominantly has a binary gender system, many Afterans are gender-neutral, with the outliers here being those with specified genders. [5]
- Characters specified to be male include the Red Prince, the Herbalist, the Hawker, and the Brothers.
- Characters specified to be female include Juniper and the Teapot Lady.
- Characters specified to be gender-neutral include Somewhat, the Curious Cat, and the Jabberwalker.
- The Jinxy Peddler alternates between masculine and gender-neutral pronouns.
- The Blacksmith alternates between feminine and gender-neutral pronouns.
- In addition to the Acres shown in Volume 9, Jaune's map also references several other Acres that went unseen in the show:
- Green Chapel Acre
- Stinky Cheese Acre
- Swan Lake Acre
- Volcano Acre
- Farming Flats Acre
- Blob Acre
- Triangle Acre
- Cake Acre (Cakre)
- In addition to this, there are also nineteen other known Acres shown on the map that do not have names, implying that Jaune had not explored everywhere in the Ever After.
Image Gallery[]
![The Rolling Meadows Bridge[6] between the King's Acre and the Garden's Acre](/wiki/File:V9_04_00040.png "V9 04 00040.png (2.66 MB)")
References[]
- ↑ Raijin Rising Twitter
- ↑ RWBY Twitter
- ↑ Erin Winn on Twitter
- ↑ RWBY Roundtable: Why RWBY Volume 9 Went Fairy Tale
- ↑ Arryn Troche on Twitter
- ↑ Rolling Meadows Bridge Concept Art
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