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RWBY: Then vs. Now

A. not lying to comrades was supposed to be the big takeaway from Volume 6,

Ironwood hasn't given much of a reason for them to not trust him.

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A. not lying to comrades was supposed to be the big takeaway from Volume 6,

They directly address this. Ruby herself struggles with her decision for the whole volume and worries about whether she's no different from Oz. Several of her friends and allies agree or disagree with her decision. Qrow assures her that what she's doing is different from Oz, because Oz never had any intention of telling anyone the full truth, while Ruby is at least waiting to see if someone with Ironwood's personality can be trusted to handle such sensitive and serious information (Qrow himself literally fell into a near suicidal depression when he learned the truth). Yang believes it's only fair for him to know everything before making big decisions, like they did. The narrative never says Ruby is in the right for her choice, just giving us reasons for why doing so is understandable from her perspective. Because, you know, she doesn't really *know* Ironwood very well. Meanwhile, Qrow, Weiss, Pietro, people that *do* know him very well, express concern about him and his actions. It's called character development. Ruby is learning about the difficult decisions a leader has to make, and they may not necessarily be all the right ones!

And, in Volume 8, when Oz makes his return, they admit that his stance was not entirely unreasonable. "Trust is a risk", they say. They understood the difficult position he was in, because they were just *in* that position, and are willing to give him another chance because of it.

So no, "lying bad" was not the big takeaway. Or at least, that's not all there was to it. Not everything has immediate payoff. In fact, most things in RWBY dont

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Ironwood hasn't given much of a reason for them to not trust him.

I'm sorry, but if nothing about Ironwood's actions and behavior throughout the entire series communicated to you that may not be entirely trustworthy, I don't know what to tell you. There are a thousand potential reasons to be wary of someone who is not intentionally decieving you or is decent to you specifically. Ironwood is a paranoid authoritarian who is shown repeatedly to strongarm people who don't agree with him. He disregards the lower-class citizens of his kingdom (and neglecting to have their security updated is exactly how the villains get in) and is either blind to or considers the consequences his well-intentioned actions have on them justified. He has his good points, certainly, but he's not an overall good person, and only gets worse as he succumbs to pressure and fear.

I agree with some things in the article. disagree with most of them, but this is a talking point I see often and it's incredible how much of it stems from an inability or unwillingness to engage with the material in any meaningful sense, all to defend the military dudebro

That being said, I won't be responding to replies to this because I've been in this discussion more times than I can count and I already have a headache lol

Nothing Ironwood has done warrants deception on their part, and almost everything that goes wrong in this volume can be traced back to them not telling Ironwood the truce.

I'm not that heavily involved with the RWBY fandom, but I believe it's pretty universally agreed that a major dividing line was the death of creator Monty Oum after Volume 2.

The series changed substantially after that, in ways that it wouldn't have if he had still been around.

LuScr wrote:

I'm not that heavily involved with the RWBY fandom, but I believe it's pretty universally agreed that a major dividing line was the death of creator Monty Oum after Volume 2. The series changed substantially after that, in ways that it wouldn't have if he had still been around.

Yeah, Monty's unfortunate loss really i think took the spark that RWBY was built on. Vol 3 was still pretty awesome, probably because Monty did have a hand in it before his passing, but you could really feel the... drastic change in vibe/style/whatever-you-want-to-call-it from Vol 4 onwards (which i never finished and thus dropped).

I came to RWBY from RvB and loved it because it had the same kinda wackiness and eclectic mix of elements that Monty brought to Seasons 8, 9 and 10 of RvB and which, arguably, set the foundation for the awesome fight seasons of vols 1 and 2 of RWBY.

I think it will be interesting to see what Shaft does with the story elements.

Originally, I assumed that Monty was the guy saying 'no' to a lot of ideas. Mostly out of his own creative vision but still, alot of directives to what he wanted. If that was true, then it end up being a good thing... I can't say that I am enthused with the writing direction from Volume 4 onward because it feels... fan-fic like.

The problem that I feel that Ice Queendom will run into is that as much as I enjoyed Volumes 1-2... They are not good entertainment to me. It's alot of popcorn to me. Charming, fun but a bit... empty. It need more to be sustainable. I am not sure the degree to which Studio Shaft can do as they please with the setting, the characters and so on. Still given that, I do wonder if it steps out of its own shadow here but I am realistic in thinking that it likely won't.

Keep in mind it’s going to be mostly an original story. The first 3 episodes were just to provide context to new viewers. The only restriction shaft has is that they can’t contradict established canon, for the most part, there were obviously some allowances for the first 3 episodes.