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The Vytal Festival was created to serve as a celebration of peace between the Kingdoms. Every two years, a Kingdom would be chosen to open its doors to the world, allowing citizens from every corner of Remnant to meet and indulge in one another's cultures.
—Ozpin on the tournament
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A poster for the Vytal Festival, featuring an emblem formed from of all the four kingdoms' symbols

The Vytal Festival is an international festival in Remnant held every two years,[1] where the various cultures of the world are celebrated with dances, parades and a combat tournament. The host kingdom of the festival rotates every two years, and the host opens its borders to visitors from the other kingdoms.

Team RWBY participated in the 40th Vytal Festival, held in Vale.

Background

The Vytal Festival was inaugurated following the end of the Great War, a destructive conflict taking place eighty years before the events of the series. The war was fought between the four kingdoms over questions of individuality and self-expression. Named after Vytal, a small island north of Vale where the treaty was signed, the Vytal Festival was created with the purpose of celebrating the diversity of the cultures of Remnant.

The Festival has a unique symbol, fittingly consisting of a combination of all four kingdom's emblems in order to signify unity.

Tournament

"Vytal Festival Tournament" redirects here, for the World of Remnant episode of the same name, see Vytal Festival Tournament (WoR episode).
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The festival culminates in a combat tournament between representatives of each of the four kingdoms

A major part of the Vytal Festival is the combat tournament, in which students from the numerous Huntsmen academies compete.

The festival seems to be of significant importance and prestige, as Glynda Goodwitch pushed students to practice months before it begins, and the members of Team RWBY showed great excitement upon hearing of it in "Jaunedice". Glynda says that Beacon students competing in the tournament would be representing all of Vale.

Arena

Main article: Amity Colosseum
V3 01 Amity

Amity Colosseum, where the tournament is held

The setting for the combat tournament is Amity Colosseum, a large floating arena or stadium, surrounded by spectator stands. As the Festival grew in scope and size, the stadium was built collaboratively from the resources and contributions of the four Kingdoms, and is capable of traveling across Remnant to each of the four Kingdoms, typically heading to the specific Kingdom hosting the tournament. Transport aircraft are seen bringing spectators and contestants to the floating arena.

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The arena with two different biomes, ice and fire

The fighting itself takes place in a large octagonal arena. The arena is capable of changing its environment into several different "biomes", including grasslands, forest, fire and ice, geyser fields, stormy mountains, desert, an ocean and beach with a wooden ship, and a few others. The arena also has artificial weather effects, such as thunderstorms and an artificial sun. The central part remains the same regardless of the biome. There appears to be a force field protecting the spectators from stray shots.

During the team round, the arena is split evenly into two biomes, which are chosen randomly at the beginning of every fight for each half of the arena. During the doubles round, four biomes are chosen each fight. In some biomes, Dust crystals are also scattered around the arena for combatants to use.

The singles rounds take place only in the central part of the arena, with the outer quadrants being out-of-bounds. The finals also took place at night or evening, in contrast to the preceding rounds which took place during the day.

Rules

V3E01 Rules

Professor Port explains the rules of the tournament

There are three rounds in the tournament, the first being a 4 on 4 team round. The winners of the team round may select two of their team to fight in the 2 on 2 doubles round, the victors of which may choose one representative to fight in the final 1 on 1 round. The remaining combatants will fight through a final round to prove a victor. There are no specific brackets for age or schooling; the only thing that is put to the test in the tournament is skill.

Contenders are knocked out of the battle by falling below an Aura threshold (15%) and/or by being knocked out of the fighting arena. Aura monitors are able to measure the aura of competitors as numerical values, which are made visible to spectators and competitors.

40th Vytal Festival

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Preparations for the Vytal Festival

During Team RWBY's first year at Beacon, the fortieth Vytal Festival is held in Vale.[2] According to Weiss Schnee, the festival takes considerable amount of planning and organization to set up. Preparations for the Vytal Festival were held as early as RWBY's first semester in Beacon.

Representatives of the four kingdoms converged upon Vale beginning in the second semester of Team RWBY's first year. In "Welcome to Beacon", the Atlesian contingent, including Penny Polendina and led by academy headmaster and military leader General Ironwood, arrived aboard three Airships in an impressive show of force. Haven Academy, of the Mistral region, sent teams SSSN and ABRN; Cinder Fall, Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai also claimed to be from Haven. Students from Shade Academy in Vacuo were also shown to be present for the festival, with teams BRNZ and NDGO known to be competing in the tournament.

Visiting students from the other academies received accommodation on the Beacon campus, and were involved in events such as the Beacon Dance (as seen in "Dance Dance Infiltration") and sent on a range of missions supervised by Beacon ("Field Trip").

As seen in "Extracurricular", during the second semester, sparring matches in preparation for the tournament were also held. Participants in these sparring matches included Pyrrha Nikos, Team CRDL and Mercury Black. The same episode also states that contestants must first qualify for the tournament before competing.

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The fairgrounds on the Beacon campus

For the duration of the festival, a large fairground was set up on Beacon Academy's campus, where visitors from all kingdoms can intermingle. In the fairground, you can find stalls such as a noodle stall and a boot vendor.

The 40th Vytal Festival was marked by a stronger security presence than usual, with a sizable fleet of airships constantly overhead as well as android soldiers patrolling the grounds. This was due to the precautions of General James Ironwood, who was appointed to head of security by the Vale council following the events of "Breach", where Grimm were able to enter the city.

Unbeknownst to the populace, the matches of the 40th Vytal Festival were manipulated by Cinder Fall, who had managed to infect the Cross Continental Transmit System with a computer virus, giving her the ability to decide the match-ups in the tournament.

The festival was marred by Yang's apparently unprovoked attack on Mercury in the first singles match of the tournament. This caused widespread controversy amongst audiences. Unknown to the public, these events also manipulated by Cinder. Emerald, working under Cinder's direction, used her Semblance to create illusions that led Yang to attack Mercury, mistakenly believing it to be self-defense.

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The Festival was interrupted by a Grimm invasion

Tragedy struck when Penny was destroyed by Pyrrha in a fatal accident, also orchestrated by Cinder, who attempted to make the accident appear like a cold-blooded murder. Cinder then took control of the broadcast with a computer virus and used it to transmit a message condemning the government. The subsequent horror and panic amongst the audience attracted hordes of Grimm, which somehow managed to slip past the City of Vale's defenses undetected. With the Grimm attack imminent, the Festival was canceled and Amity Colosseum was evacuated.

Tournament Matches

The below listing only shows matches which are known to have occurred and does not reflect the entire tournament.

Round 1 (Team)

Teams
Winner Loser Biomes Episode
RWBY Vale Symbol vs. Mistral Symbol ABRN Ice, Lava "Round One"
Cinder's Team Mistral Symbol vs. Unidentified Team Unknown "Round One"
JNPR Vale Symbol vs. Vacuo Symbol BRNZ Woods, Mountains "New Challengers..."
SSSN Mistral Symbol vs. Vacuo Symbol NDGO Desert, Ocean "New Challengers..."
CFVY Vale Symbol vs. Unknown Unknown Off-Screen
CRDL Vale Symbol vs. Unknown Unknown Off-Screen
FNKI Atlas Symbol vs. Unknown Unknown Off-Screen
Penny's Team Atlas Symbol vs. Unknown Unknown Off-Screen

Round 2 (Doubles)

Winner Loser Biomes Episode
Cinder's Team
Emerald Sustrai
Mercury Black
Mistral Symbol vs. Vale Symbol CFVY
Coco Adel
Yatsuhashi Daichi
Forest, Savanna, Urban, Geyser "Lessons Learned"
Penny's Team
Penny Polendina
Ciel Soleil
Atlas Symbol vs. Vale Symbol CRDL
Russel Thrush
Sky Lark
Mountains, Ocean, Cyber, Geyser "Never Miss a Beat"
RWBY
Yang Xiao Long
Weiss Schnee
Vale Symbol vs. Atlas Symbol FNKI
Flynt Coal
Neon Katt
Geyser, Lava, Desert, Urban "Never Miss a Beat"
SSSN
Sun Wukong
Neptune Vasilias
Mistral Symbol vs. Unknown Unknown Off-Screen
JNPR
Pyrrha Nikos
Unknown
Vale Symbol vs. Unknown Unknown Off-Screen

Round 3 (Singles)

Winner Loser Episode
Yang Xiao Long Vale Symbol vs. Mistral Symbol Mercury Black "Fall"
Team RWBY disqualified due to misconduct
Pyrrha Nikos Vale Symbol vs. Atlas Symbol Penny Polendina "PvP"
40th Vytal Festival ended due to interference
Undetermined Matches / Outcome Unknown
Contestants Episode
Sun Wukong Mistral Symbol vs.
3 other unidentified finalists

Trivia

  • While the World of Remnant episode "Vytal Festival Tournament" states that the festival is held biennially, screenshots from the show proper as well as the official poster indicate that it is held "annually". Series writers Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross have confirmed that the official poster was a misprint and the Festival is held biennially in canon.[3]
  • Given that there are eight contestants in the final round, it can be assumed that a total of 32 teams competed in the Vytal Festival tournament (eight in the final, sixteen in the doubles and 32 in the team round).
  • In an AfterBuzz interview, Miles and Kerry mentioned that Pyrrha and Nora were supposed to face Sun and Neptune in a doubles round match. Unfortunately, the fight had to be cut for time and lack of relevance to the plot. Neptune's fear of water would have played a role in the fight, and the biomes used would have been "anti-grav" (the Tron-like biome seen in background of Penny's fight), swamp, ice and desert. Obviously, Pyrrha and Nora would have won the fight so Pyrrha could progress to the singles round.[4] Given that Sun appears as one of the finalists in "Fall", canonically, this match could not have actually taken place.

References

Setting
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