RWBY Speculation: What Will Happen in Volume 5?

Hey, everyone.

So, just in case you've been living under a rock for the past few months, we are only days away from the premiere of RWBY Volume 5. The official date is the 14th, but a limited screening is being offered through Fathom Events on Thursday evening. I've already bought my ticket. But anywhoozies, since we are so close to the release of Vol. 5, I thought I would take the opportunity to speculate on what I think might happen this season. Unfortunately, many of my speculations weren't based off anything that concrete. But two new pieces of information have arisen offering interesting insights. Those pieces of information are the official Vol. 5 poster and the official Vol. 5 trailer. Let's take a look at them and see what we can see.

Volume 5 Poster

Alright, so while I was looking at this thing, I had a bunch of possible insights.

Starting from the top, the first things we notice are how prevalent Raven and Cinder are. They're also located in the upper part of the poster. This is interesting because we know Cinder is a villain, and with her similar placing, it seems that Raven may also be revealed to be a villain this volume. Another thing I noted was Raven removing her mask, possibly meaning she'll be more prevalent this volume. (If you've already seen the trailer, you already know the answer to that one.) But, I also noticed that Raven is looking straight ahead whereas Cinder seems to be looking down at Ruby, or possibly even Oscar hinting at Cinder's desire for either revenge or destruction. But, I'll get more into that when I look at the trailer.

Moving down we come to Oscar and Qrow. Oscar is holding Ozpin's cane and he looks either pleased or excited as he looks up at Qrow who is resting an arm on Oscar's shoulder and almost smiling. It seems like Oscar is pleased to be of use to someone, and it seems like there will be a relationship of some sort between him and Qrow. Now, we know Oz's soul is in Oscar's body and Qrow will need to watch out for Oscar until he's combat ready, so there's probably going to be a mentor-protégé relationship of some sort between them. I think a father-son arrangement is a bit much at this time, but to me it does seem like Qrow approves of young Oscar. He's a character we'll be watching with a lot of interest.

Finally, we come down to our girls. But, there are two very important things to note here: Weiss and Yang are on one side, and Blake is on the other, and secondly, they all have very intense expressions on their faces. Blake appears to be grimacing, Yang is in the middle of a battle cry, and Weiss and Ruby both look quite focused, but Ruby seems to be a bit puzzled or confused in her expression. All this seems to hint at Blake's continued separation from the group as well as a possibly emotionally painful story in Vol. 5. Yang meanwhile looks like she's ready to throw down or even in the middle of a punch. Now, both of those are speculations, but again, if you've seen the trailer, you already know the answers to those questions. Honestly, I'm having a difficult time reading Weiss and Ruby's faces. The poster doesn't give enough information to draw any immediate conclusions. But, Ruby is the only one of her team with her weapon drawn.

Before moving onto the trailer, there was one more thing I wanted to mention about the poster. As you're looking at it, do you notice anything missing? Or rather, do you notice anyone missing? If you guessed Team JNPR, you're right. Nowhere on this poster is Jaune, Nora, and Ren. I thought that strange myself since they were on the poster promoting the release of Chapter 1 in theaters.

At first, I thought that maybe they wouldn't have as big a part in Vol. 5 as they did in Vol. 4 because of this. But, again, the trailer set me straight. One last little thing I wanted to mention though was that the Vol. 5 poster does remind me of the old Star Wars posters from the original trilogy. There's just something about it that suggests to me we can expect more action and more drama this season than we had last season. Which is a good thing because almost nothing happened in Vol. 4.

So epic.

Volume 5 Trailer

Now, some of you may be annoyed because I call this the official trailer when Weiss and Blake's trailers were official too, but they really had more to do with each character's past than where they're heading. And the interesting thing, and somewhat annoying, is that scenes from both trailers were shown in the official trailer. I would've preferred to see something new. Despite that however, there was plenty of new sh*t to see in the trailer. If you haven't seen it yet, you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVZMaIHhWM. As for the rest of you, let's move on to my analysis.

Alright, so there were a few major reveals in the trailer. The biggest one is that we get to see Raven as two armed men stand on either side of her as she walks up to what appears to be a pit opening. We then hear Qrow say that Raven has the Spring Maiden and that he knows where she is. So, yes, Raven will be featured more heavily in Vol. 5. However, I don't think she'll be an asset or an ally. She won't necessarily be an enemy, but I don't think she's going to play nice-nice with either side. On the plus side, we may get to see the Spring Maiden this volume and the story may quicken pace.

The next reveal I want to cover is Salem telling Cinder that the White Fang were promised the destruction of Haven and that they will have it once Salem has what she needs. Now, I'm not too sure what Salem means by what she "needs." She could be talking about the relic from Beacon, or she could mean the Spring Maiden's power. It's odd that she would speak so vaguely about either. It's possible she's referring to something that the audience doesn't know of yet. But the really interesting thing about that scene is that she seems to be chiding Cinder who looks like she's walking about the room, disappointed. I think there may be a spat between Cinder and Salem over the fact that Cinder is eager for revenge against Ruby. I had never really thought that Cinder would want revenge, but seeing as how she grimaces when Tyrian makes fun of her in the Vol. 4 Ep. 1, "An eye for an eye," and then we see her destroying an illusory Ruby in Ep. 12, we can assume that revenge is definitely on her mind. And who knows what lengths she's willing to go to see it done. Maybe she'll even disobey Salem.

Next, I want to move onto the White Fang. In one scene, we see Adam, who looks like he got a new outfit, walk up some stairs to what appears to be a throne with what I thought was a woman sitting on it. Now, we don't know who that is, but there are White Fang banners in the throne room and the guards standing around the "monarch" are wearing Grimm masks. Adam also makes the case that Faunus are better than humans, that they "have everything that humans have and more." It appears Adam isn't content with just fighting for Faunus equality, but wants an all out race war, and whoever was sitting on the throne, I thought it was implied that this person was holding him back from doing what he wants to do.

Now, moving onto Blake and Illia, we see Illia make a plea with Blake to leave Menagerie and tells her that her plan will fail. But, Blake says that Illia will have to make her leave, and Blake says that if Haven falls, things are only going to get worse for the Faunus. To some extent, it seems like our little kitty cat has finally learned to stop running, but we won't know for sure until we see it. But, as to why Blake is by herself on the poster has been answered: it's because she's still separated from the others. And, she's probably grimacing because of the emotional battle she'll be facing. I was also somewhat disappointed that we didn't get to see Sun in the trailer except for one brief scene from Blake's trailer. Something I just thought of is that it's possible that we'll get to see that scene again in Vol. 5, but with more context and less Illia backstory.

Moving onto Yang and Weiss, we actually don't get to see much of them. We see absolutely nothing of Weiss except for what was in her trailer and one additional scene where her Arma Gigas summon is diving straight out of the sky. I believe her Arma Gigas is in Mistral due to the blue sky and I thought I saw one of the floating islands native to the area, but who can say?

As for Yang, her most prominent role in the trailer is her telling some stoop she's looking for someone and then punching said stoop with her prosthetic arm, and her eyes are red and she's got her teeth clenched. Now, I'm pretty sure the guy attacked her first as she's holding his wrist in the scene right before, but I am concerned as to what it may spell out for her. At the end of Vol. 4, Yang seemed to be upbeat and cheerful again, but seeing that scene makes me wonder if something happens to her that ticks her off and she starts picking fights all over Mistral and in turn, becomes a wanted woman. Interesting to note is that she says she's looking for someone, but doesn't say whom. It could be Ruby, as I thought that's who she was looking for at the end of Vol. 4, but Tai never got an answer out of her when he asked her where she was going. Qrow did tell her in Vol. 3 that he knew where Raven is; could that information still be valid, and could Yang actually be looking for her mother whereas Ruby is second on the list? I think it's possible given the vaguery of her statement as shown in the trailer.

That last major reveal in the trailer is the old guy with the grey hair and beard. I believe this to be Professor Lionheart, the headmaster of Haven. We see him in two scenes: one explaining how difficult some mission that's being undertaken is because of how expansive Mistral is, and in the other one, he's being choked by the tongue or tentacle of what I think is the floating crystal ball Grimm.

Apparently, this thing is called a Seer Grimm.
Who knew?

I must admit I am kind of surprised he's talking about how "we" only get one shot at protecting Mistral because if you remember from Vol. 4, Salem sends Dr. Watts to speak to their informant in Mistral. It's never said who that is, but the next time we Dr. Watts, he's having tea with the headmaster at the end of Vol. 4. At first I thought that maybe Prof. Lionheart may have been a turncoat, but if he is, why is a Grimm strangling him? He could be working as a double agent, or maybe Dr. Watts failed to convince him to change sides.

Anyway, that's it for the major reveals. There are some minor ones suggesting there's something wrong at Haven Academy and that Oscar can't shoulder the burden of what's been put on him, but who cares? Haven being empty might be a blessing because then there are fewer characters to get entangled with, and Oscar will probably come around. Remember, he is smiling in the poster. And there are things I could mention about what I thought we might or might not see, but... screw it.

So, like I said, I will be writing RWBY Critiques posts from here until Vol. 5 ends. And, this will probably include the World of Remnant episodes they release as well. But, like I said, to keep everything spoiler free, I won't be uploading my Critiques posts until after YouTube gets the episodes. So, that means that my first critique will probably be up on the 22nd. And, I'll include the stuff I see at the premiere on Thursday. So, until next week...

Keep writing, my friends.

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