Revisiting the Corpse of RWBY script

Intro:

The chicken-tooth company is dead. Long live the chicken-tooth company.

So Rooster Teeth, the company which produced RWBY, came undone back in May. And honestly… I can’t say I was shocked. I think a lot of folks who’d grown weary of both the company and the show had seen the writing on the wall for a while up until that point.

Endless controversies regarding high-ranking company members being predators, routine whistleblowers on company culture being rife with bigotry, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and just generally crunching anyone who wasn’t considered a marketable face, and generally failing to assess what it is people actually want. Like, y’all had so many shows that… imma be real, nobody wanted.

It was clear beforehand that RWBY really was the company’s big money maker, and it’s even clearer now. Which means that not only with more viewers swearing off the show and losing interest, but a lengthy hiatus caused by the company’s inability to manage their projects, likely meant the company was going a long time after Volume 8’s finale without that sweet, sweet RWBY money to keep them on life support.

And really, as their parent company Warner Media struggled plenty on their own, it’s also not surprising they struggled to find a buyer for Rooster Teeth. Aside from RWBY and Red vs Blue, what do they have that’s really worth the purchase? It’s a sad thing for sure, given how many people did find themselves fond of the company, its persona, and its star personalities for over two decades.

Truthfully, my chief concern lies with all the animators and low-level artists who’d been treated like dirt by the company for years - some of those years in which I played a part in downplaying their mistreatment. That I apologize profusely for.

And since the company’s dissolution, I hope those artists have since been able to find better footing, be they properly employed artists who’d been laid off beforehand, or contract animators who’d been brought in to replace them for cheaper. Not that that’s an easy task, given the industry - and many industries right now - are basically anti-worker hellscapes. It is morbidly funny though given the company also produced a RWBY Game in which one of the villains is… a union leader? Wow, not even hiding it anymore. Not that they were by making the civil rights activists villains either, but ya know.

So with Rooster Teeth’s demise, it does beg the question of what will happen to RWBY as an IP. It’s since been purchased by Viz, an anime and manga licensing company… which is an interesting choice. To my knowledge, Viz mostly specializes in publishing and dubbing, rather than producing. Perhaps they’ll license RWBY out to someone else at some point? Truth be told, I think RWBY as a brand could use some time off considering the sour taste it’s left for many.

Is it deeply depressing that someone’s beloved, heartfelt creation can be sold for parts among wealthy corporations led by apathetic executives? Yes. But in such a terribly structured world, I am still incredibly bitter Dillon Goo didn’t get it, but that’s just me.

Now, it might seem odd I’m only talking about this now. Where was this when the news of Rooster Teeth’s collapse was fresh? And the answer is… I wanted a break from all things RT and RWBY. My history with both has been quite turbulent over the years, and while I know most folks were receptive to my being more critical, but still loving, of the show, I have to admit, it was nice leaving it behind to focus on other things. Other stories and properties, with far less hostile, reactionary followings.

Even now, I’m admittedly quite nervous to open this door again, knowing what the reactions of some will be. But in honesty… that also provides some freedom, knowing that the people who’ll endlessly rant about my work, and mischaracterize people like me simply for critiquing a thing they like, will do so regardless of how many disclaimers I include.

Every time I critique something, I make a point to tell you that I am not telling you how to feel. That I feel no ill will towards you for our disagreements. And most of you understand and respect this, and for that, I am grateful. But it’s time to stop kowtowing to the small group of people who throw this aside as an excuse to harass and demonize.

All of this has translated into me never really publicly sharing my feelings on RWBY Volume 8 as a whole, or… anything from Volume 9. And gods help me, cuz I regularly forget the Justice League movies exist. Even as I haven’t spoken about it, RWBY has remained with me - a disease which chronically flares up now and then, reminding me of how cool it once seemed, and how cool it could’ve been in better hands.

Alas, my condition is beyond recovery, and one of the few treatments - aside from casual 3D modeling as a hobby, yelling about it with close friends in private, and perusing various fan works that understand the show far better than the late chicken company - is yelling about it for money online. So in a world where everything must be monetized, might as well monetize my malady.

So today, we shall be finding closure. We shall look back upon the last two volumes of RWBY, as well as those… actually you know what? Fuck those god-awful crossover movies. I love myself too much to sit through those again.

But for Volumes 8 and 9, we’re going to discuss their many, many flaws, but also the glimmers of promise within. Because as usual, RWBY is a master at the art of, “Cool idea, but what the FUCK is this execution?” And in that, maybe we’ll find that even if RWBY never finishes its tale, there can still be peace in that.

Volume 8:

Volume 8… is my most hated volume of RWBY. Now, I don’t think it’s the worst on a technical level. That award would have to go to Volume “Let’s sit around and wait for the villains to kill us all” 5 (though you must admit, 8 inherited a lot of 5’s problems). But no. For me, Volume 8 is the culmination of all the show’s worst problems - a betrayal of everything the show could be if it just tried, transforming what should be an action-packed, emotionally heavy war into a boring, baffling slog.

Having everyone except for Team RWBY be treated as protagonists, failing to create a cohesive tone as we yo-yo between melodrama and deeply unfunny slapstick, misunderstanding how character goals and motivations work, and still being concerned with mystery and endless setup rather than focusing on payoff. The only reason I keep revisiting Volume 8 is because of a morbid fascination of how it fumbles at every turn. Of how it flirts with the idea of greatness, only to go right back to RWBY’s usual storytelling woes.

So, where Volume 7 left off on Ironwood abandoning Mantle, Penny becoming the Winter Maiden, and Salem arriving with an army of Grimm to lay siege to Atlas, Volume 8 centers on that siege. Team RWBY is trying to find a way to save both Atlas and Mantle, finding themselves against not only Salem’s forces, but also Ironwood’s army. And for all of that… this volume really doesn’t feel all that much more intense or dire than any other volume.

You’d think a volume where the Big Bad finally rocks up and lays siege to our kingdom would have an action-packed opener. Really set the stakes while getting people hooked immediately. But uh… no. Salem just kinda sits there menacingly in her whale doing nothing, and even when she does attack a few episodes in, it’s just shots of Grimm armies fighting faceless soldiers and robots. There’s no emotional investment whatsoever, and naturally, we always cut away before we have to animate any actual fighting.

And I must admit, on top of all the issues of Team RWBY causing their own problems in regards to Ironwood, their concern for Mantle kinda falls flat considering that Atlas is clearly the main target. When Salem invades, we don’t see Mantle being swarmed or overwhelmed with Grimm. Probably because Mantle doesn’t have anything Salem actually wants. The vault holding the Staff of Creation is in Atlas, not Mantle, and Salem isn’t actively holding Mantle hostage to play up the divide between Team RWBY and Ironwood, so… who cares?

And that writing around General Ironwood… woof. For an in-depth analysis on where the writers failed, I recommend Twiin Iink’s video on the subject, but to recap, the writers essentially amplified Ironwood’s negative traits to transform him from a morally gray antagonist into a clearly evil caricature. Dude behaves like a cartoon villain to remind us that Team RWBY can do no wrong, and all the while, I’m wondering what the writers think moral grayness even means.

It’s undoubtedly one of the elements most folks hate from the Atlas Arc, myself included, but I briefly just wanna say… fuck his Semblance. Apparently, the writers learned nothing from all the complaints of hiding their exposition in supplemental material, and decided to only mention Ironwood’s Semblance outside the show in interviews. According to them, his Semblance is called Mettle, which causes him to hyperfixate to solve a problem… his Semblance is neurodivergence, I guess?

Not only is this incredibly dull, but also just… so sleazy. But also unshocking, given the show’s history of mishandling mature topics. All that aside, if you were to only watch the show, you wouldn’t even know this Semblance exists in the first place, so why even bring it up? What kept y’all from mentioning it in-show, or finding a visual or auditory cue for it?

In theory, it makes sense to have Ironwood become an antagonist. He’s the heartless Tin Woodsman, who instead of realizing he was capable of compassion all along, is a military dictator who decides to uphold order by subjugating the people. Using brute force and raw strength to keep people in line, and viewing those he’s sworn to defend as threats to peace, and as weaknesses against Salem.

And the show did an admittedly decent job at making him interesting, and even sympathetic, while still communicating the potential threat he posed. They could’ve done more though if the earlier volumes realized he and his army, from a kingdom built upon not only rigid class division, but also anti-faunus racism and exploitation, were probably bigger threats than the group asking for equal rights, but what can you do?

But Ironwood’s fumbling really shows the writers’ inability to handle these darker, more nuanced topics. They brag about handling moral grayness, all the while doing everything they can to convert them into purely black-and-white conflicts where Team RWBY can never be wrong, and if they are, then we ought to console them rather than critique them.

Now, before we talk about Team RWBY, we should talk about one of the symptoms of the show refusing to write them as protagonists - the real protagonist of Volume 8, Penny. Well, one of its real protagonists. More on the other one later.

I’ve talked before about my issues with Penny in Volume 8 before in my video, “Penny Deserved Better.” But to recap… why did y’all bring her back only to kill her again immediately? I mean, I know why. To draw back in people who left the show in droves, and then use that cheap ploy to even more cheaply exploit their love for Penny to make them cry. Well guess what? I didn’t cry at her death. I felt nothing, because it was so clear she was nothing more than a tool to you. Ironic, given her story was meant to be about her being more than a tool, huh?

In a story that should be about Penny finding agency, being able to make choices for herself, no one bothered to ask her how she felt about becoming human. No. We decided she needed to be, because despite what Ruby told us many years ago, her being different is the root cause of her problems. And even then, she must die. But not at the hands of someone who actually knew her, or loved her, but at the hands of Jaune, who has endless room in his refrigerator for red-haired women. Women whose legacies begin and end at his angst.

And like the women who live on as a source for his angst, Team RWBY got shafted for his dramatic moment. But that’s nothing new for Team RWBY. Even beyond Jaune, the girlies with the colors - who were the stars of the Color Trailers - once again find themselves on the backburner while everyone else gets the spotlight.

Oscar is the one to take on Salem, Ren and Nora are the ones with romantic development, Penny is the one with the most important arc, the Ace Ops get lots of angst about following orders. Even Cinder finds herself with a story of redemption - not of absolving herself of evil, but of rising to become an actually competent one.

After the split, and their mission into the compound, Ruby, Weiss, and Blake find themselves sitting around Weiss’ empty manor, drinking tea as they debate whether to partake in the plot as a war rages outside. And ultimately, they don’t have to, cuz Oscar blows up the hell whale for them! At least Yang was in the same room as Salem, I guess?

You know, the creators have gone on record to say they wish they called the show Remnants and not RWBY. Guess what, guys? We can tell! What story do the girls even have in Volume 8? Ruby’s just general angst over her bad decisions and nothing else, while Weiss, Blake, and Yang have no real arcs of their own. No character growth, no moments of glory. Just… existing while other characters get all the shine.

Sidenote: who the hell decided hiding in Weiss’ giant mansion was a good idea? You’re Atlas Most Wanted, yet somehow, no one thought to look for you in Weiss’ house that is visible from the goddamn academy? Ironwood never thought to have some of his robots monitoring it in case they dropped by?

Also something that pissed me off… why is this the first time Team RWBY has ever fought Cinder? Cinder has been one of our main antagonists since Volume 1, and murdered Pyrrha, and yet Team RWBY never got the chance to fight her until 8 years into the show? How?! Why is the option always for Cinder to fight someone other than them? Be it Jaune, or Raven, or Penny and Winter, it adds to this disconnect between Team RWBY and the plot.

And even then, there’s no real catharsis in this fight, cuz most of it is Cinder ignoring Ruby to instead fight Penny and Weiss. And when she does finally pay attention to Ruby, it’s to send her falling into the void… which, why is Ruby - our lead character - the second to fall into the pit along with Blake?! Why is Weiss the last one standing alongside Penny and Jaune?!

In fiction, the first and last to do something are considered the most important. Specifically things that happen later or last are given more dramatic weight. They hold more gravitas. So by having Ruby falling in the middle, you’re essentially admitting she doesn’t matter. It’s actually hilarious how spot-on this is to how the show has always regarded her role.

And even worse, why did Team RWBY not encounter Salem? She is our true main antagonist, our Big Bad, and yet our leading ladies didn’t even bother having a run-in with her?! Yang gets the closest by calling her out, but the scene focuses on Oscar and Hazel doing battle with her instead. Utterly insane, especially since Salem dropped the Summer bombshell on Ruby last volume, and we got no follow-up here.

Shifting to Salem, wow, her writing is so inconsistent, and her presence is deeply underwhelming. She’s just generic dark lord number 7, ominously smirking around every corner, insulting Cinder, and shooting ugly-looking laser beams to pretend she’s scary. Like, no, her stretching to reform and grab people isn’t scary - she looks like one of those wavy blow-up balloon men outside of a car dealership.

Salem’s whole deal is supposed to be manipulation. Her ability to exploit people’s darkest impulses to divide them, or turn them to her side. Working with her is supposed to be like a deal with the Devil, promising you what you want in exchange for your help, or your soul. So explain to me why instead of negotiating with people based on their motivations, she instead decides to just… terrorize everyone into doing what she wants?

Like, she tortures Oscar into giving up information about the Relics, and even has Hazel do it for her, but… why? On a real note, torture doesn’t work. Ever. It just makes people tell you what they think you wanna hear to make the immediate pain stop. It’s about as effective as a polygraph test.

And moreover, Oscar already has plenty of reasons to turn on Oz. Becoming Oz’s host has caused him incredible amounts of distress, not to mention the threat of losing himself as their souls merge. Offer Oscar a way out of that, and you have a shot of him revealing Oz’s secrets of his own volition. And also that way, we don’t have to sit through the darkest member of the main cast being brutalized unnecessarily, because the writers think physically torturing characters equals this being a more mature show.

And also… why does no one know what her goal is? Everyone’s on different pages. Hazel thinks she’s gonna make a new world order, and so does Mercury. Cinder never says, cuz I think she doesn’t give a shit truth be told, and Tyrian and Oz say she’s ending the world. But… Salem herself never says. She even says, “In pursuit of a new world,” which has me thinking that Hazel might’ve been right actually?!

But why? Why are we, the audience, still being kept in the dark about the goal of our Big Bad?! If there were ever a time to learn, now would be it. And moreover, why do none of her minions seem to know? Did no one think to double check with her before joining under her? If she’s ending the world, why would you want that? Tyrian, sure, if he’s just a slavish disciple of his goddess, as boring as that is, but the rest of you? Idiots.

Will say, I at least dig her evil lair. Monstro reference aside, her lair being a living creature - a giant whale Grimm - makes her an intimidating mobile fortress, especially with all the gross sinew and bone composing its chambers. The rib-cage air hangar? Genuinely genius. Reminds me of the Atlantis levels of OG Tomb Raider.

Back to things I hate, I love that you can tell that fights aren’t a core pillar of RWBY anymore by the fact our Big Bad has no weapon, and her fighting style is just generic energy blasts. Magic is incredibly uncreative and bland in RWBY. No spells, incantations, or unique aesthetics for magic users, but just… rave lights and basic elemental blasts.

Truth be told, even the fact the Relics aren’t weapons is an insult. One of them is a sword for crying out loud. You couldn’t find a way to have them make for top-tier, innovative combat, and instead just have them be magical paperweights?

Cinder, as I alluded to before, weirdly comes off as the real protagonist of Volume 8. We start with her echoing back to her past, then get her full backstory a few episodes in. She gets her moment to be called out for her many, many flaws by Watts, and in the end, she learns from them to win the day, defeating Team RWBY, securing the Relics, and killing Watts and presumably Neo because petty. Good for her. Except no, fuck her. These are a woman’s wrongs I do not support.

Cinder’s been a very lacking antagonist, wanting power for apparently no reason other than wanting power for years, and losing at every turn since Volume 3. Though she killed Pyrrha, she was somehow severely wounded by Ruby’s silver eyes, even though silver eyes are only meant to hurt Grimm, and she lost human appendages, but who fucking cares at this point?

She then lost her fight with Raven in Volume 5, and lost the Winter Maiden power to Penny in Volume 7. She became an angsty laughingstock real quick. And truthfully, I’m not sure why we only just got her backstory in Volume 8? Sure, she’s from Atlas - at least, she moved there when she was adopted - but why were we made to wait until this moment to learn about her story?

Again, things which happen later in the story hold more dramatic weight. Which means that Cinder’s generic backstory is meant to be more important than that of our Big Bad Salem. Routinely, Volume 8 is described as Cinder’s volume, and I’m sitting here like, “She had her chance at her volume. Let this be Salem’s volume, you fools.”

And on the note of the backstory, it’s just Cinderella, except she kills her stepfamily. How original. Sure, it explains her never wanting to feel helpless again, but it’s not particularly compelling. Perhaps this would feel less frustrating if we weren’t made to wait years for it. I’d honestly have dropped this back in Volume 4 during Cinder’s recovery, when she weirdly came off as sympathetic due to how weak she was.

And connected to Cinder, Emerald. Emerald just really shows the lack of attention given to character motivations. From jump, Emerald has been loyal to Cinder, which is the only reason she went along with Salem in Volumes 4 and 5. So in Volume 8, when Emerald betrays Salem to join the heroes, it’s so bewildering that Cinder doesn’t factor into this twist at all.

Again, her motivation is to aid Cinder, who is in league with Salem. For her to go back on this, you can to make Emerald realize that Cinder doesn’t love her, and thus have her realize her loyalties are wasted with her. But they don’t do that. I think this moment Mercury has in telling Emerald off in Cinder’s backstory episode was meant to communicate Emerald realizing this, but it just doesn’t hit. You don’t intuitively see the cogs turning for Emerald here; you just see her being a bit sad that Cinder’s being mean to her, which is nothing new.

When Emerald decides to help Oscar and the others, she never once mentions Cinder, nor does anyone mention her to Emerald. Emerald has just completely switched allegiances and forgotten about her actual motivation, because to the writers, motives don’t matter - aesthetics matter. The aesthetic of Emerald redeeming herself was more valuable than actually having her see the light.

Also, love that no one realizes Emerald is the reason why Pyrrha accidentally killed Penny in the first place. And that Emerald feels no guilt about it as Penny is once again fighting for her life. How very satisfying to people who’d wanted to see follow ups to that drama all those years ago, back when the show actually held promise.

And finally, the music… does not slay. Revisiting RWBY’s music as a whole, I’ve found that while I do appreciate Jeff’s attempt at expanding on the story through his songs, it’s kinda clear he wasn’t given much material to work with, especially from Volume 5 onward. It compounds upon the issues of his songs having increasingly muddy production, with instruments fighting for dominance and drowning out the vocals, the lack of variety as everything sounds like the same obligatory guitar solo, and crowded lyrics trying to cram too many syllables into every line.

Jeff is clearly a talented musician who works hard, but it’s also clear he was run ragged over the years churning out soundtrack after soundtrack after soundtrack. Even the Volume 8 score is quite disappointing. Ordinarily, I appreciate the way character leitmotifs are woven together, but I can’t remember a bit of Volume 8’s score to save my life. Well, save Cinder stealing Roman’s leitmotif in the sorry excuse that is “The Truth.”

It was so clear Jeff was exhausted, especially as the fandom badgered him for the release of the Volume 8 soundtrack. And I feel for him. I hope he’s enjoying his post-RWBY life and getting a breather, and I really hope this hasn’t tarnished his love for music, as is so often the case when your passion becomes your profession. That bridge in “The Sky is Falling”? Yeah, I know it’s a Lamar rap, but it really gives Jeff just confessing his exhaustion.

There’s plenty more about this volume I can’t stand, but I’m gonna cut myself off here, cuz we’ll be here for 75 years before I’m done. But suffice to say, Volume 8 is so rife with problems, and genuinely aggravates me to no end.

Volume 9 (content warning - discussions of suicide & suicidal ideation because RT doesn't know how to not fumble serious topics):

Volume 9 is… odd. Strangely, it represents both the best and worst of RWBY. It feels unnecessary, removing itself from its own plot for an entire season to needlessly expand lore no one asked for, and at points reads as brain-numbingly juvenile, uncreative, and downright dangerous in its fumblings of serious topics.

And yet, it’s also the first and only time Ruby has felt like not only the protagonist, but an actual character. It took excising the entire cast of screenhogs, and eliminating the world-saving plot that many cite as their reason for abandoning the show, for the girls to feel like protagonists again. It strangely echoes a lot of the mundane, lighthearted antics of the first couple volumes.

Its release also warrants interest. Before Volume 9, RWBY volumes had a pretty consistent schedule: start in the fall, end in spring, then start up again the following fall. But after Volume 8 wrapped up in spring of 2021, Volume 3 didn’t premiere until the late winter of 2023, two whole years later.

By that point, alongside general waning interest in the show, disdain towards Volume 8, and all the controversies surrounding Rooster Teeth, Volume 9 was entering a climate where the world had moved on from RWBY. Well really, the world had moved on for a long while, but even a lot of the diehards who kept the show afloat found themselves leaving RWBY behind.

The way it release didn’t much help either. Where previous volumes were part of the Rooster Teeth FIRST program, hosted exclusively on the company’s website, Volume 9 was held hostage on Crunchyroll for a year before moving to the Rooster Teeth site - just months before the company’s closure.

Not to mention that the delay was also due in part to the mishandling of projects, slave-driving animators on two Justice League crossover movies that literally no one asked for. The spell had been broken, and in the aftermath, it’s no wonder Rooster Teeth went belly up.

The tale of Volume 9’s creation is arguably more interesting than the volume itself. Lord knows it’s more interesting than the first half of the volume, where Team RWBY wanders around hideous environments that burn out my retinas, providing comedy that wouldn’t seem out of place on Disney Junior. Seriously, what happened to the comedy from Volume 2? Why did it become so much slower… and dumber?

But there are things here that hold interest. Namely, the villains. I dig the Curious Cat as a character, in no small part thanks to Robbie Daymond giving it his all. It’s giving Deadpool asking Celine Dion to dial back her 11 to a 5. But even writing-wise, the Cat has an actual motivation. An insatiable curiosity driving them to commit heinous acts just for answers. This is the kind of motivations-based villain writing that Salem, and the rest of the antagonists, are sorely lacking.

And truthfully, I had lost interest in Neo in Volume 8. She’d lost all the fun, playful charm she possessed in earlier volumes, and I found her desire for revenge against Ruby incredibly cliche and uncompelling. It was so clear she’d only be brought back to revive fan interest. Remove her, and nothing about Volumes 7 and 8 would change.

And so, finishing her story here outside of the plot with Salem makes a lot of sense, especially in a realm so strange, it pairs perfectly with her reality-warping Semblance. She gets to be a threat all her own without any other villains getting in her way, and she’s so cruel, it actually makes her interesting again.

But on the note of the Ruby torture… ascension. I don’t mind the concept all that much, since to me it reads as a form of rebirth or reincarnation. But many have read this as an allegory for self-harm and suicide, especially paired with Ruby’s self loathing. Admittedly, I have dealt with these feelings in the past, and Ruby’s struggle most definitely echoed how I felt in those dark depths.

The idea of dying and coming back stronger could’ve worked if it weren’t paired with Ruby’s very real feelings of self-loathing. The episode she sees all her dead friends - along with Clover and Leo for… some fucking reason (how would Neo know about them???) - feels gratuitous. It’s giving edgy torture porn that we’re using to make our show more shocking and mature, like we did with all the Oscar torture last volume.

And her choosing herself? Admittedly, “Guide My Way” slaps and is one of my favorite songs, and I love Ruby actually fighting with her scythe the way she used to against the Cat, even if it only lasted 10 seconds. But that all aside, this rings hollow. Ruby didn’t have to actually face her mistakes or grow as a person; she just said, “I love myself,” and that’s all it took.

It feels like the writers saw all the recent media with a similar “choose yourself” messaging, and lazily copied it, which does track considering RWBY is a hodgepodge of that. See something in another piece of media you like, mimic it without understanding why it worked originally, and make a half-assed version of it with no soul of its own.

And while Ruby finally got something to work with, I am very bitter it took a goddamn decade for her to get anything. Not to mention that Weiss, Blake, and Yang get… nothing. Their smoke cloud scene also pisses me off, as the writers pretend they’ve written fabulous journeys of growth and change. Once more, it is the illusion of a story we were promised, but never got.

Blake and Yang finally get to confirm their relationship, which also, why did that take a decade? In the words of my friend Maxwell Media Inc., y’all are equating time with work. Just cuz it took this long does not make it worth the wait. And no, I don’t care if this was planned or not, cuz even if it was planned, it’s still bad, and it’s still queerbait.

It wasn’t a “Will they won’t they.” It was a, “Are they or are they not queer?” At so many points, the writers could’ve confirmed the girls were queer, but they didn’t. They could’ve had them date earlier, but they didn’t. Because we don’t wanna scare off the homophobic reactionary viewers who also give us money. Not until the very last minute when we need a hail mary as our company lies dying on the floor.

Oh yeah, and Jaune’s here… I don’t care. It’s just more angst about his failures and the red-headed women he’s killed. Even in a volume that’s just about Team RWBY, we simply cannot exclude Jaune. And I can’t find his angst over wanting to protect the Paper Pleasers compelling, because once again, he is getting more of an arc than Weiss, Blake, or Yang, because it is so clear the writers favor anyone who is not Team RWBY.

The Ever After is an interesting location, and while some environments hurt my eyes, others are quite pleasing, like the Paper Village, the Ponderstorm, or the Lily Marketplace. But it all just reads as a lazy Alice in Wonderland clone. We’re not really having fun in reinventing these tales, the way it felt RWBY did in its first couple volumes with its characters.

Though I will say, if you want Volume 9 to matter, have them send Salem to the tree to get ascended, and maybe the Blacksmith will help her ascend into something less homicidal. Just saying.

At the very least, the music is a genuine plus. Casey and her band, OK Goodnight, took over the reins from Jeff, and they knocked it outta the park. Their music has this ethereal quality in its production, and I adore the unusual structures that are more than just, “Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus.” And more wildly, I’m glad RWBY ended before they could be drained dry by Rooster Teeth like Jeff was.

And really, I’m okay with RWBY ending here. If we’re being real, the relics and maidens plot was a sore spot for a lot of people, distracting us from the characters whose antics we loved beholding in the first three volumes. Volume 9 at least tried to return to those roots, and symbolically, I love that it ends subtly saying that all the Ozpin and Salem shit doesn’t fucking matter - the girlies matter. Well, really just Ruby, but I’ll take what I can get at this point.

Conclusion & Outro:

Much like Ruby herself, the show RWBY is ascending. What will she be when she exits the tree? No clue, but as Blake says, maybe that’s not for us to decide. Maybe it’s time to let RWBY go, and move onto the rest of the media landscape.

Honestly, since those days where I’ve expanded my media diet, I don’t get hiatus brain anymore. If something ends, I just move onto the next thing, and it’s a delightful feeling. RWBY will always hold a special spot in my heart, for better or worse, inspiring both love and rage. Both admiration and disappointment. It is more complicated than “I love this show” or “I hate this show,” because it is both, but also neither.

I’m not sure how I’ll approach RWBY going forward, but I know I wanna be more than just this, or just Winx, or just anything else. I wanna share so much about all the media that fascinates me. And I think in that, this has felt quite cathartic. The official end of an era.