RWBY: Ice Queendom

Episode 8

We're about to do it everyone, we're about to get the inception level “dream within a dream” troupe next week and I really hope the show doesn't drop the ball with that concept. Before that, let's talk about this week and how it's extensively the equivalent of the Empire Strikes Back moment for team RWBY with things starting to go well briefly, only for everything to fall apart in the worst possible way. Weiss's childhood memories were captured, Jaune was forced into a corner hiding away, and team RWBY got so close to saving Weiss in her inner sanctum, only for everybody to be defeated. Everyone scatters to the wind and to make matters worse, all the events of last week's episode only made the nightmare stronger. The war is not over but this team definitely lost the battle.

This will definitely provide a good lead into next week's episode as we deal with Ruby's insecurities as a leader but I'll get to that when the episode actually drops. What I liked about this episode is how it plays with the idea of balance while also setting up a lot of the inevitable emotional confrontations that need to happen in the show before it concludes. Not only is RWBY trapped within her own nightmare now, but Yang and Blake were also sent to the far corners of Weiss's dream world where apparently all the Faunus are kept. I like the fact that the show addressed that a version of Blake does in fact exist in this world, it was just incredibly far away and now it'll be nice to see how her mind actually treats the closest Faunus Weiss currently has in her life.

This idea of balance stems from the fact that her repressed childhood self was let out and roaming around last episode. Clearly this was supposed to represent the fact that Weiss was suppressing a lot of her true innocent desires for the sake of her family and efficiency. However, this wasn't a subconscious decision and that wasn't the only reason why it was done. Weiss is very much keeping those parts of her locked up in a cage but it was also for their own protection. Her mind provided food and all kinds of circus scenery inside of these cages in order to entertain that version of herself and make them happy, but she didn't want them to be exposed to all of the harsh, Orwellian stuff she had to deal with on a constant basis. It's presented under the guise of growing up and I wonder if that will get touched upon again but I like the fact that this rebellious nature she exhibited this episode in trying to recapture everyone more stemmed from the fact that she didn't want anyone to get hurt or lost and might just be putting on appearances for the version of her father in her own mind.

This might also explain why she's at such odds with Ruby as she sees her as childish but also something that she doesn't want to end up corrupting. Bonus points for her father taking the form of the knight that she physically had a battle with at the beginning of the show as a great representation for how dominant of a presence he is in her mind. Weiss does bring up a good point with this and while the nightmare was able to take advantage of her reaction in order to strengthen its ability to cast everyone aside, I wonder if we're setting up the inevitable message for Weiss to learn it's important to grow up, it's not just a matter of preserving and looking away from your childish side. You also need to distance yourself from the toxic things that hurt you in the past. So much food for thought here and I'm excited for how Ruby will address her inner demons next week.

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RWBY: Ice Queendom is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.