Hey, everyone.
This blog entry is brought to you by my new novels: Remnants of Chaos: Chaotic Omens and Heroes of Majestia: The Company of Flight. You can buy ROCCO here and HOMCOF here.
Anyway, this past Saturday, RWBY Volume 5 Chapter 2 came out to the masses. I actually saw it on a different website a week earlier. (No, not Rooster Teeth's.) So, as you can imagine, I've been sitting on this review for a week. I'm actually writing it on the eve of Chapter 3 so all my insights and questions are still relevant before I get to see Chapter 3 and that way, I won't feel stupid for trying to suppose questions that have already been answered. Anyway, moving forward I think I will be writing my critique/review in a different format. I'll break the episodes down by their major scenes and then talk about what I liked, what could've been better, and then offer any insights or questions these scenes may inspire. So, let's get on with it.
Critique
Scene 1: Evil Council
What I Liked: Alright, so the in the first scene, Lionheart and Watts hold a secret meeting/council with Salem and for some reason, Cinder's there too. What I liked in this scene was Professor Lionheart's cringing because I honestly think his fear will turn into hatred and then self-loathing, and then he'll turn good again. I don't want to see him become another Wormtail from Harry Potter, and I hope instead he does redeem himself. Some of the smaller things though that I liked about this scene is that Watts mocked Cinder, we know for sure that she lost her eye now, we know what the purpose of the Seer Grimm is, we know that Watts can make a tail for Tyrian either suggesting Tyrian isn't really a Faunus or Watts knows a thing or two about cybernetics--perhaps both--and, the last thing I really liked is Salem admitting Ruby could be more than a worthy adversary for Cinder. I'd love to see round two and see Cinder lose again.
What Could've Been Better: I think Salem is losing her touch. She's no where near as scary as the first time we saw her, and I think that's because she showed too much emotion in this scene. Like, she actually looked and sounded happy in this chapter. And, she showed that she too doesn't know everything like when Watts admitted that he learned of Spring's location through Qrow. Maybe "a little birdy" is a little too far for her mind to reach, but if Salem knows who's in Ozpin's posse, she should've been able to piece it together. A villain who doesn't know everything or who can't jump to conclusions on their own is more terrifying than one who can't. A truly terrifying villain should be in control at all times or at least the air they are, so then when something happens that is outside of their control, the audience knows how f*cked they are.
Another problem I had with Salem was her threatening Lionheart. I mean, he helped to find Spring and was just urging her to find Spring before Qrow does. Why did she feel the need to choke him and threaten to kill him? Has he become short with her minions as of late? Even if so, who cares. Is it really that important to keep him that far under her boot? I don't think it is unless there's something to Lionheart that we don't know.
Questions/Insights: The only major insight in this scene is the hint about how powerful Ruby's silver eyes can be. Now, Salem has said things before that make it sound like Cinder hasn't reached her full potential, but if the power of the silver eyes could match the power of the Maidens, what does that mean for the world of Remnant and the relics? Where do the silver eyed warriors fit into the creation story? I really hope we get more info on the silver eyes.
Scene 2: Lancer Fight
What I Liked: Onto the Lancer fight, there are a few quite satisfying things to see here. The first is the gravity Dust crystals. Gravity is one of the those types of Dust we haven't seen and we're not really sure what it does. In Chapter 2, it makes objects defy gravity; in RWBY Chibi, it threw Ruby back several feet. But, since RWBY Chibi isn't canon, I'm going to guess that defying gravity is actually what gravity Dust does. It was also exciting to see a new Grimm and the battle scene was pretty spectacular, especially the ending where Weiss' Gigas performed Omnislash on the Queen Lancer.
And finally, I really liked seeing Weiss' glyphs being used as shields to slow the airship before it crashed and as a way to keep her rooted to the airship without falling. Since Weiss is my favorite character, I do try to understand what all the varieties of her glyphs do, and black does stupefy me a little since in Vol. 3 Ch. 1, it looks like Weiss' black glyphs helped her kick what's-his-face across the arena unless they were actually there to stop her from flying after him.
What Could've Been Better: Now, despite the fact that I was excited to see a new Grimm, it is a bug Grimm. What's wrong with that? Well, tell me: what's the lamest type of Pokémon? Bug, right? I rest my case. Another problem is that the Lancers that hooked the Atlesian airship didn't try to pull the airship apart like they did to the ones from Anima. Why? It could be because the Atlesian one is made of metal, but I suspect it was actually because of plot armor. If the Lancers could pull the hull of an airship apart, and they can hook into metal, they should have been able to tear the Atlesian airship apart. Also, that part where Weiss used an avalanche to kill the Lancers was stupid. I was hoping for something more like out of Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. I was hoping the islands would move together or not all the Lancers could squeeze into the space and kill themselves. That would've been cooler. And my last problem with this scene was that Weiss extracted the Dust from the cartridges before loading them into Myrtenaster. Why is that a problem? Because it's inefficient. It would make more sense to load the cartridges straight into her sword. Now, maybe they were rifle cartridges and Weiss had to separate the Dust from the projectiles, but I don't think that's what happened in this scene. And how exactly does the hammer on Myrtenaster trigger the Dust without a primer attached to it? It could be that the hammer pushes the Dust into a small recess that then allows it to flow down along a hollow channel in the blade, but without ever seeing what the other end of the hammer looks like, who really knows.
Questions/Insights: This scene didn't offer any insights, but it did provoke a question out of me: why was the cargo ship unofficially carrying Dust? The pilot said he wasn't officially carrying Dust, but in actuality, he was. Why is that the case? Is he a smuggler? Does he actually work for Raven and her bandits and he was delivering Dust to them? I mean, why else would he have all that Dust and be on his way to Anima? Unless the original plan was to go to Mistral, but he seemed awfully committed to making it to that shore/beach. I think he was on Raven's payroll.
Scene 3: White Fang Betrayal
What I Liked: Despite the fact that I don't have much respect for bad guys regardless of who they are, it was interesting to see Hazel trying to reassure Sienna and then later tell Adam that no one needed to die. He also seemed a lot more charming and talkative than he did when he was at Salem's evil council in Vol. 4. Maybe he doesn't much care for Salem, but I did enjoy his honesty, boldness, charm, and aversion to murder. I also liked how Sienna saw the White Fang attack on Beacon for what it actually was: a failure and good reason for humans to hunt down the White Fang with prejudice rather than a successful campaign. I actually quite liked Sienna because she believed in a sensible use and show of force rather than an all-out war, and I sincerely hope Sienna somehow comes back from the dead to rip off Adam's face.
I also enjoyed how Hazel now doesn't seem to be willing to trust Adam. Perhaps Adam's fall will come sooner than later since he's not being completely honest with Hazel.
What Could've Been Better: Adam's obvious hubris is obvious. It's pretty clear that while he may be popular, with him at the helm of the White Fang, they may be a lot more dangerous, but I agree with Sienna, the White Fang cannot win a war against humanity and especially not when most Faunus would fight against the White Fang. So, it's pretty obvious Adam has set himself on the road to ruin. Not to mention, everyone saw his plan to kill Sienna from a mile away. He had no reason to climb those stairs other than to kill her. Sienna should've been suspicious. Also, I don't care for his new clothes. Some in my RWBY FB group have suggested that he looks a bit like a Sith now, and while that is true, to me he looks like a lowly Sith warrior, not a Dark Lord of the Sith. Or at the very least, he doesn't look like a leader anymore like he did when he had his Yakuza suit. He just looks like a punk or a sh*tlord now instead of a cool guy. (I mean, he wasn't actually cool, but he did look like it.)
Questions/Insights: I only picked up on one insight in this scene and that was the fact that the leader of the White Fang is called "High Leader." I don't know about the rest of you, but I get a Nazi "der Fuhrer" vibe off that title. I mean, "Fuhrer" does mean "leader," and Hitler was called "Der Fuhrer," or rather, "The Leader." That's not too much of a jump from "High Leader." Makes one think the White Fang is about to start taking inspiration from Nazi Germany.
Scene 4: Raven Returns
What I Liked: The only thing I liked about this short scene is that Weiss ran into Raven. Why do I like that? Well, remember, Yang is out looking for Raven which means there's a good chance Yang will find Weiss, too, and we get that much closer to team RWBY reuniting. Add to that, if you remember in my last critique post, I mentioned how everyone seems to know who Raven is and that she's Yang's mother. So, I do wonder if Weiss knows as well. It does seem like Raven knows who Weiss is, but does she know that Weiss is on Yang's team?
What Could've Been Better: Do you remember how last time I criticized the fact that with Chapter 1 we had now seen most of the scenes from the Vol. 5 trailer? Well, now we've seen all of them. Which brings back all those questions I asked last time: are there going to be more trailers, is all the really important stuff only in first two chapters, or is the rest of Vol. 5 going to be packed with revelation after revelation? Doesn't really matter what ends up happening--it'll still be interesting to see, but I'm really hoping it's either the first one or the last one.
Questions/Insights: All questions are above.
Review:
So, what did I think of it overall? Well, when I first saw it, I liked it better than Chapter 1. But after doing the critique, I felt negative about it. Now, on the eve of the release of this post, I feel sort of ambivalent. I mean, I love the new information and the hints that are dropped, but the presentation needs a little work. So... yeah.
Anyway, that felt fairly organic, so I think I'm going to follow the same format hereon out for the rest of Volume 5. So, expect the next critique and review of Chapter 3 next Thursday. Also, I'll be bringing back the edited versions of RWBY: The Novelization this Friday. So, until next time...
Keep writing, my friends.
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