RWBY VI: This thread is also a tribute to Monty Oum

[Metahuman1]

Yeah. Cause, you know, Teenagers never, ever, ever talk about music they like with friends. And never talk about how a song they really like/relate too speaks to them.

Wait.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah. Cause, you know, Teenagers never, ever, ever talk about music they like with friends. And never talk about how a song they really like/relate too speaks to them.

Wait.

hey, I had I thought: wouldn't it be funny if Weiss and Blake liked and identified with each other's songs?

Blake: I've always identified with the song "Mirror, Mirror" it just speaks how lonely things seem to be for me these days.
Weiss: really? I always thought you'd be more a "From Shadows" girl
Blake: you mean the music they always played at White Fang rallies? I guess it was good back then...what about it?
Weiss: oh er, the White Fang plays it erh, I don't like it, I don't like it all!
Weiss inwardly thinks:
They must never know how I secretly play it in my moments when I plot to someday take back my company from my scumbag father.

[LaZodiac]

That'd actually be pretty funny, Raziere. The writing would need some tightening up, but it'd be a nice little joke. Not TO fourth wall breaking, but still a nice nod.

[Metahuman1]

Tweak the dialog some, and yeah, I could totally see that being a perfectly natural friends in the door room moment. =)

[Reddish Mage]

I think it's quite clear that "Red Like Roses" and "Mirror Mirror" exist in universe since they played or were sung in the trailer. Also "this will be the day" played in Ruby's headphones and "Shine" played in the dance hall. Other than that...not sure what greater purpose you would give it. Funny bits like what you give would not serve the plot or set up the fight scene though. I like the little nods they put in there as is.

True, but then brings up the question of "does the song really represent Ruby then if it's just a song she likes?"

Basically what I mean is are the songs, as a collective whole, songs that exist in their world and they just like those songs, or do they exist in OUR world as songs that define them like everyone thought they did.

The answer is quite simple, they exist IRL as songs to describe the characters, they exist IIRC simply as songs. Weiss sung hers simply as a song (she didn't necessarily write it).

[Mrc.]

To fully answer this, we need to look at what exactly music IS. And I'm not prepared to go into quite that much detail, but music along with the majority of the arts is an inherently human quality: creating something that has no material worth (can't be eaten for example) but gives us pleasure. We don't see this in the animal kingdom (and for those of you calling spider's webs an example, they have a practical purpose first and foremost: to catch flies) and it's one of the things that cements our intelligence. So the soundtrack is more than just a bunch of tunes that happen to resonate well with the composer, they're tunes that are the epitome of what the show is to him.

As to their role within RWBY itself, it's possible that they are indeed supposed to be associated with the characters to a greater degree than just background noise, but I think that the music from the four trailers (still some of my favourite music from RWBY) sets the tone for the direction they're trying to go: it's music that tells a story. As to what extent it's biographical, I'd guess that at the very least it hints at that, but knowing how RT can actually be somewhat serious and thought-provoking at times, I'd like to think that if/when we finally hear the proper association it'll be confirmed as linked to each character.

Just my thoughts.

[Sith_Happens]

Ok.

When deathstroke first appeared, you didn't really know all of what his game was. He'd fight them every one in awhile, he learned form fighting them, and he was often manipulating things. It was like this for years.

And then the Judes contract happened, we found out he was planning all of this as revenge for his son, and the titans were very nearly all killed by a combination of a traitor and his careful planning and intelligence gathering over the course of years and years of story-lines.

So the way I read this, a big part of the twist was Deathstroke having a plan at all as opposed to just being a run-of-the-mill recurring villain. Cinder, on the other hand, clearly has a plan right from her first line of dialogue, we just have literally no idea what it is except for an educated guess as to the end goal.

[Metahuman1]

We knew he had a plan. Damned if we knew what it was though. The only inkling we had was he was figuring out information that would be useful for it every time they fought.


It was years before the Judas contract happened and we finally knew what and why and then everything made sense. And then, holy ****.

[Reddish Mage]

So the way I read this, a big part of the twist was Deathstroke having a plan at all as opposed to just being a run-of-the-mill recurring villain. Cinder, on the other hand, clearly has a plan right from her first line of dialogue, we just have literally no idea what it is except for an educated guess as to the end goal.

Are you guys talking about the cartoon Teen Titans? Because I thought Deathstroke was renamed "Slade" in the animated version since the name "Deathstroke" was thought to be too violent graphic for children.

[Metahuman1]

Comic book, which was much, much more in depth, and much, much darker.

[LaZodiac]

Comic book, which was much, much more in depth, and much, much darker.

And, pointedly, worse.

[Metahuman1]

Um, what? Are you seriously telling me the comic book was objectively worse then the show?



Look, I get the sleeping with Terra thing has a considerable "Ew" factor, a very, considerable "Ew" factor, but, seriously?




Or is that just you trying to riff on me as the guy who's always cautioning against going darker pointing at the darker of two versions of a storyline and saying "on the whole this was the better of the two?"

[LaZodiac]

Um, what? Are you seriously telling me the comic book was objectively worse then the show?

Look, I get the sleeping with Terra thing has a considerable "Ew" factor, a very, considerable "Ew" factor, but, seriously?

Or is that just you trying to riff on me as the guy who's always cautioning against going darker pointing at the darker of two versions of a storyline and saying "on the whole this was the better of the two?"

I genuinely consider the cartoon to be better quality then the comic.

The fact that you're also the "darker isn't always better" guy is just a happy coincidence. I'm on your side here

[Durkoala]

I think Voldemort is...average...maybe above average at parts? He fits the minimum needed to make HP work in the first 5 books, and I thought it was downhill from there.

I think Voldemort could really have been both deeper and scarier, especially when HP became much more than a children's book. Voldemort is severely lacking in the depravity department for someone willing to fracture his own soul and possessing an extreme fixation on a young teenage boy. Heck, very occasionally I feel Dumbledore/Harry's relationship is creepier after learning he is gay.

Also, Snape appeared to be more of a master at the dark arts and the combat arts.

Yes, I think Cinder is better, largely because I think her hammy, seductive, mystical, and mysterious ways is the perfect fit. She has all the right moves in all the right places for RWBY.

Mmm, yes, Voldie doesn't stray very far from the Dark Lord mould, really. I'll just put a disclaimer here that I adore the Harry Potter series and find it very hard to critique: I know it isn't the best series ever, but I have trouble working out why.

Part of the reason I like Voldemort so much is precisely because of his "fall": a message that is repeated several times in the series is how the courage to face terror is as important as having the power to take it down. At the start of the series, we see how Voldemort is feared and we learn to fear him too. He is a demonic figure wrapped in mystery, always trying to regain his former power. Under Dumbledore's tutelage and through his experiences, Harry and the reader begin to uncover the man beneath the mystery: while he is certainly powerful, he's not so much the devil incarnate as The Fastest Gun in The Land, with a knowledge of theatricality, completely off his rocker and being terrified of his mortality. He isn't very deep or sympathetic, but I find that he works very well as personification of evil. His influence comes from exploiting the flaws and fractures in society, the petty fears and envy that exists between all of us. In the end Harry defeats him by facing the most common fear of all and accepting it as something necessary: As soon as Voldemort kills him and parades him back to Hogwarts, the dark lord's fate is sealed whether Harry lives again or not.

As to why Voldemort can scare me, it's something that I felt the films lost when Fiennes decided to bring in the ham. In the books, Voldie spoke fairly calmly and paitiently, albiet while talking like he was adressing an audience. There was a touch of the overacting about most his speeches, but it took me a while to realise why I found him more effective in the books. He's drifted so far from his humanity he is literally acting all the time; playing the part of a human, but he can't quite remember how it goes. He cares literally nothing for the lives of other people, and believes his followers should be loyal to him without actually doing anything to earn that loyalty beyond leading them to opportunities to get rich or politically powerful, because he can't truly understand that. To him, the fact that he's the strongest is reason enough to be unconditionally followed. I suspect that the main reason that Harry is so 'important' to him is because of the prophecy: to a egotistical man who will do anything to escape from death, a person prophecised to kill him would be almost impossible to ignore and the more ways Harry finds to escape him, the more anxious Voldie becomes. In a way, his lack of depravity ties back into that loss of humanity as his desires are purely cerebral: he is 100% will and malice in a mutilated body, caring not for sex, art, food* or his followers' petty squabbles. If he had turned out to be an alien possesing the body of a human it would have fitted him just as well.
*Contrast this the constant descriptions of food at every dinner scene the heroes attend.

As to Snape being a greater master of the dark arts, Voldie offhandedly demonstrated a lot of spells he made up himself, including the thought-to-be-impossible feat of free flight with only a wand and knew how to pull off the ritual for his ressurection, which is heavily implied to a very old and powerful magic.

I forgot about what RWBY said in 9. Yes, glass manipulation is apparently some other sort of ability for Cinder, perhaps dust manipulation (dust...is there anything you can't do?).

Dust can't be satisfactorily explained. This is a pretty big problem, imo, because it's apparently an odd kind of technology rather than Magic. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the glass is Dust manipulation, as Blake vs Torchwick conclusively showed us that Dust can create matter.

Incidentally, I think Bellatrix Lestrange is actually a better villainess than Voldemort is a villain, especially in book 5 as opposed to the movie (I liked the first two movies the best by far, but I thought that the books got better progressively until 5, then went downhill with 6 sliding to a low with 7).

I would have kept the first director and done books 4, 5, and possibly 6 as two part movies (I wouldn't have changed Dumbledore's character to make him less imposing). Then cut 7 down to movie and cut out most of the forest (even though I think the movie did a much better job than the book handling that).

I suppose that you rank Bellatrix higher, because she's got a clearer motive and some more nuance with her interaction with her sister? Or maybe because she's got more presence than her boss for most her appearences?

I think that the movies did a great disservice to Dumbledore's character. In the books, he mostly remains in eccentic old man mode until it's necessary to knock people over with the force of his personality; probably one of his best moments is where he takes the blame for the DA and calmly and politely talks through Fudge's thought process without Fudge noticing, before pointing out the flaw in the plan: 'you are expecting that I am going to to "come quietly", Cornelius', then cursing the entire room and escaping via phoenix without showing his serious side.
The movies had him permanently in either 'kindly grandfather' mode (1&2) or 'Gandalf 2.0' mode (4-8).

The Deathly Hallows is probably the weakest book on it's own, but I generally forgive it because it has two of my favourite scenes in the series: Firstly, after a year in hiding with his followers generally just trying to hold faith in him, The Chosen One officially reveals that he is in fact still in the game by riding a dragon out of one of the most secure places in the country and letting Voldemort know that his nemesis knows his weakness.

Secondly, the sequence of almost everything finally being explained and Harry slowly walking to his execution while tranquilly setting up things so that the plan will keep working and unravelling the last riddle Dumbledore left him, is quite possibly my favourite part in the whole series. There's a feeling that this is what everything has been building towards, this is what Harry has grown into, this is the unification of Dumbledore's light and dark sides, this and not the duel at dawn is the true climax of the story. The tension is so thick because we know that both the hero and the villain will play their part, that Harry has nothing to call on to save him, and because we know that there is no return from death in this series. We can see the course, but we can't see a way out. Even though Harry survives, I didn't feel that it reduced any of the emotions that the journey from Snape's memories to the killing curse brought up.

Unlike a lot of people here, I like RWBY for what I view it to be meant: great fight scenes meant to flow seamlessly with a narrative of young naive heroism facing slightly-older more experienced evil charismatic villains with equally smooth moves (set to very upbeat vibrant music). The heroines and even the villains have amazing backstories written for them, but the point is not delving into the backstory, the point of the story is to be well-timed to pace out the fight scenes and make the characters relatable. If there's a chance shine a light on the dark corners of the character's personality, bonus!, if not...I don't like it when the pace of the story slowed way down. What they should do, is subtly show how the characters are three dimensional while keeping pace, not clobber it over our heads by suppressing the action element so that the characters complexes, family problems, and mental issues get a full airing.

I saw all the angles of these characters back in volume 1: Weiss's abusive father and [step]-sister (she also had a caring mother who died btw), Yang's caring big sis-surrogate mom attitude [also, you haven't seen it quite yet, but her adventurous side is really about running away from her fear], Blake (ok we all know about Blake), even Ruby's deep longing for her mother. All of it was all there from the beginning. The songs attest to that entire background. Its if you look for it and its awesome that way!

I don't quite get what you mean by the bolded section; I'm assuming that it's something like I like it because I see it the way I think the writers mean it to be seen.

What I see in this quotation is faith, faith that I lost with the airing of the last episode. You trust RT to get their act together and draw out the potential in the show, and between Breach, Cinder's inflitration and the Paladin's introduction, I can't. Because of this, I won't argue over our differing opinions about the characters** and the central point of the show, because I don't think that we are ever going to agree on that.
**except one: where have we seen the backstories for any of the villains?

I will ask why you think that the soundtrack is upbeat, though. By my count, we have:

Spoiler: Red like Roses

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While it is a calming piano piece (and probably my favourite song of the soundtrack), the lyrics relate to the inner demons of RWBY. Even without knowledge of what they specifically relate to, I wouldn't say they were peaceful or happy lyrics:

Red like Roses fills my dreams / and brings me to the place you rest
--Place you rest immediately brings a grave to mind: a specific place of resting, instead of a bed where the resting will get up and leave during the day. The singer also implies that it takes some distance to travel to, so it isn't close to the beaten path of everyday life, such as a bedroom.
--With RLR2, it's pretty obvious that Ruby is meant to be haunted by the death of somebody close to her, and her entire description in this song, which is about introducing the members of RWBY, is a reference to this.

White is cold and always yearning / burdened by a royal test
-- This one is pretty obvious: "White" is a lonely person under a lot of pressure from the world
--Weiss's flaws are summed up pretty well by this: She has trouble getting along with people, while wanting many things such as companionship, control over the family company & their business ethics and a chance to. She's also trying to reclaim her heritage from misusers, a common theme for royalty in fairy stories.

Black, the beast, descends from shadows
--These are not typical hero descriptions, especially with the use of descends. Is "Black" attacking from above? (an agressive, anti-heroic character, or maybe an outright villain) Is she falling from something? (Loss of power/status/home/trust; also a possible reference to fallen angels? It's also the most likely to be correct) There's also the fact that if Black has descended to the level of the other characters, there must be shadows above them all.
-- Blake is a 'beast', and so is persecuted by many people. She fled a notorious organisation and has no known background to the authorities: she has fallen from her place in the world for about 10 years, and has pretty much emerged from darkness.

Yellow beauty burns gold
-- There isn't really anything in this line to suggest fear, aggression or despair.
-- This suggests that Ruby is the singer of this song, as she looks up to Yang a lot and would idealise her. However, there is also the fact that Yang's most significant flaws are a tendency to rush in and to try to smash her way through her problems, which both directly contributed to her loss against Neo. She lives life to the full, burning the candle at both ends and if left unchecked she runs the risk of burning out.

Spoiler: Red Like Roses part 2

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This one's pretty straightforward: it's a duet between two singers, one angrily lamenting the other's death, the other apologising. It's confirmed by the vocalist that this represents Ruby and her mother.

Spoiler: This will be the day

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While the song starts off about anticipation for a life of adventure, thrills and a bright new stage in life, it quickly descends into darker subjects when it admits that this world is one of 'bloody evolution'. This is followed by descriptions of rising darkness and warnings that even the greatest powers can fall, which then leads to a distorted reprise of the hopeful chorus, suggesting that these ideals of wonderous anticpation have crumpled under the encroaching darkness.

Spoiler: Time to say goodbye

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This one's also fairly straightforward, talking about losing childhood as they face up to the growing threat; the opening lines are all about being pushed beyond your limits. While hope is not gone, with a verse about gloriously fighting the enemy, it leads into possibly the darkest implication of the series: that all the main characters are disposible pawns being used by the people they are fighting for.

Spoiler: Die

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This song pretty clearly talks about the loss of a normal, idyllic world to hatred, greed and war. The second verse portrays a life of violence and uncertainty with nowhere safe to rest and nobody to trust (there does seem to be a suggestion of a close-knit group staying together, but no helpful outside groups are mentioned) in an unending conflict that is only growing worse, and the singer constantly threatens to kill somebody. There's also an implication that this is about Yang (the first verse talks about 'shining like gold' and 'hearts of love' which are images that have been associated with Yang before), whose songs so far have been very upbeat; about love and being invincible. The implication that she's been worn down by this war and has descended into vengeful violence (the constant repetition of the phrase 'it's time to die' and the description of revenge as 'always sweet' and 'chaos is the prize') makes an already oppressive song even more so.

Spoiler: Boop

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While this is certainly an upbeat song, it's ultimately about unrequited love. Nora can't confess to Ren and has no idea if he returns her feelings or not. In combination with the other songs' idea of gathering evil, there's the feeling that perhaps Ren and Nora may never find out about this love. It also adds an element of hypocrisy to Nora telling Pyhrra that she should just tell Jaune about her feelings: while she's telling off the other girl for giving advice she isn't following, she's doing exactly the same thing.

Spoiler: Sacrifice

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Where to start with this one? We've got the villianous singer going on about causing lots and lots of deaths for her plans and her smugness in the death of 'the roses' who oppose her, before revealing that she's opposing something even worse, something that has the general population enthralled, shuts down all that try to escape its influence and that regularly uses up people's lives for its purposes. She was nearly used up, and her own near-identicle plans are her way of fighting back. The only mention of the protagonists is as victims of the villainous singer.

There's a few others I could mention (Mirror,Mirror, From Shadows, I May Fall...), but this took long enough to write as it is now.

[Reddish Mage]

Incidentally, someone should point out that this is filled with HP spoilers...but I suppose everyone and their 3rd cousin twice removed has either read the books or seen the movie (seriously, did you see those sales numbers? I think it has got to be quite close to everybody; Some authors make #1 of the Best Seller list, JKR's actually altered the economics of the publishing industry).

Mmm, yes, Voldie doesn't stray very far from the Dark Lord mould, really. I'll just put a disclaimer here that I adore the Harry Potter series and find it very hard to critique: I know it isn't the best series ever, but I have trouble working out why.

Part of the reason I like Voldemort so much is precisely because of his "fall": a message that is repeated several times in the series is how the courage to face terror is as important as having the power to take it down. At the start of the series, we see how Voldemort is feared and we learn to fear him too. He is a demonic figure wrapped in mystery, always trying to regain his former power. Under Dumbledore's tutelage and through his experiences, Harry and the reader begin to uncover the man beneath the mystery: while he is certainly powerful, he's not so much the devil incarnate as The Fastest Gun in The Land, with a knowledge of theatricality, completely off his rocker and being terrified of his mortality. He isn't very deep or sympathetic, but I find that he works very well as personification of evil. His influence comes from exploiting the flaws and fractures in society, the petty fears and envy that exists between all of us. In the end Harry defeats him by facing the most common fear of all and accepting it as something necessary: As soon as Voldemort kills him and parades him back to Hogwarts, the dark lord's fate is sealed whether Harry lives again or not.

Voldemort doesn't fit this description in the books or in the movies. He isn't the most frightening villain in either incarnation. He begins a demon wrapped in mystery, clawing at his new found power. But killing the unicorns comes across more as more campy than scary. The Dementors struck me as the scariest beings that posed the greatest threat to Harry and his friends.

His origins don't do much to deepen or even describe him. What I get from Tom Riddle, is that it seems that Voldemort was simply evil from birth. I don't see where Voldemort learns to fear death and his quest for immortality seems about as deep as Lord Xykon's ambitions. Voldemort is simply vindictive, entitled, lacking entirely in empathy, a complete sociopath, with a god-complex. I read Tom Riddle the same way.

but it took me a while to realise why I found him more effective in the books. He's drifted so far from his humanity he is literally acting all the time; playing the part of a human, but he can't quite remember how it goes. He cares literally nothing for the lives of other people, and believes his followers should be loyal to him without actually doing anything to earn that loyalty beyond leading them to opportunities to get rich or politically powerful, because he can't truly understand that. To him, the fact that he's the strongest is reason enough to be unconditionally followed.

I don't disagree but still, I sigged something Morty said that describes my reaction to this. His lack of humanity isn't particularly deep to me because we never quite get the full feeling of how deeply inhuman this guy can be, nor does he seem much different as a kid. Recall, its as a student that Tom Riddle contemplates splitting his soul into seven parts.

The Deathly Hallows is probably the weakest book on it's own, but I generally forgive it because it has two of my favourite scenes in the series: Firstly, after a year in hiding with his followers generally just trying to hold faith in him, The Chosen One officially reveals that he is in fact still in the game by riding a dragon out of one of the most secure places in the country and letting Voldemort know that his nemesis knows his weakness.

Secondly, the sequence of almost everything finally being explained and Harry slowly walking to his execution while tranquilly setting up things so that the plan will keep working and unravelling the last riddle Dumbledore left him, is quite possibly my favourite part in the whole series. There's a feeling that this is what everything has been building towards, this is what Harry has grown into, this is the unification of Dumbledore's light and dark sides, this and not the duel at dawn is the true climax of the story. The tension is so thick because we know that both the hero and the villain will play their part, that Harry has nothing to call on to save him, and because we know that there is no return from death in this series. We can see the course, but we can't see a way out. Even though Harry survives, I didn't feel that it reduced any of the emotions that the journey from Snape's memories to the killing curse brought up.

I suppose I got so bored the finale was just too little too late for me after 100s of pages of "Harry Potter and the Forest of Boredom" followed by "Harry Potter and WTF introducing All-powerful MacGuffins this late in the series without the slightest bit of foreshadowing anywhere?"

Gringotts didn't even leave as much an impression on me as the scene where they face the Death Eaters and Dobby dies. Finally, the finale seemed to me like a predictable way out, and the bit about wand-ownership being this obscure magical process that nevertheless didn't seem to neatly explain why Dumbledore had to die or Snape had to sacrifice himself just at that minute. It all felt very contrived. A Hollow ex Machina.

Oh and forget what I said about upbeat...the music gets my heart going on a treadmill and through the morning and evening commute, I'll say that.

[Metahuman1]

I genuinely consider the cartoon to be better quality then the comic.

The fact that you're also the "darker isn't always better" guy is just a happy coincidence. I'm on your side here

En, Here's what I'd do. I'd suggest reading Requiem for a Titan, and then Crisis on Infiant Earths, and then start reading the Titans going form that to the end of the older teams last pre new 52 or pre Geoff Johns runs. (the latter characterized by bringing in a lot of at the time younger characters at the start like Tim Drakes Robin, Cassie Sandsmarks Wonder girl, Conner Kent as Superboy, and Bart Allen as kid flash.)

Read those in that order (Including JLA/Titans The Technas Imperative.). Then reconsider that position.

Though if that comment was just meant to be in reference to the New 52 titans, then yes, I whole heartedly agree.





As for Music, I Burn and Caffeine are pretty darn upbeat, there basically "I am badass hear me roar.": The Song. Boop is about unrequested affections, but there about young teenage unrequited affections form someone who's not precisely being consumed by angst about it's point of view. Gold is "Hey, relax, I got this." as a song. So, there's no shortage of upbeat on the sound track.


That said, I think the word Reddish was looking for was "Energetic." or possibly "Energized."

[Inspector Valin]

Well....hello! I don't generally post in this board, but... well, I did rather enjoy this series, wanted to chime in. Wasn't sure what I was getting into, but a friend talked me into watching the show, and I... really liked it. It's fun, but with enough drama to keep you invested, and the intrigue has me genuinely curious about what's going on. (As opposed to a certian other show with a similar premise, that I won't bring up for the sake of avoiding flame wars.)

Now, back to considering how best to run a RWBY fight in RPG form, and continuing the long wait till the next season. ;).

[Mrc.]

I think a problem is that they didn't really know what direction they wanted to go in when they started this. Initially it was "Let's give Monty his thing to shut him up and to say thanks for all the animating on the past few seasons of RvB." but it quickly took off at a rate they had no reason to expect, and as a result they were suddenly under a huge amount of pressure to deliver on the fan's expectations. And I think that if you look you can see evidence of them feeling the need to try and do something big to match what they thought an audience of this size deserves (blame Hollywood for equating Big=Better) without actually thinking that maybe we don't want to see thousands of things in a square get massacred. Maybe instead we want to know WHY they're there. Make us care about the people of Vale! Make us want them to be saved! And you don't do this by constantly putting them in danger, you do this by showing us WHO they are.

To use a slightly morbid example, I know that several people die every second. Probably hundreds will have passed on in the time it takes me to write this. And I haven't shed a single tear. But when it happens to those close to you, the pain can be so intense you just can't help but cry and cry and cry. Those people throughout the world who are no longer with us may well have been as honest, nice and caring as our loved ones, but because we don't know them we have no real feelings about it.

If RWBY were to learn from this, they'd give us development for the characters, and I want more than just a couple of episodes and a teacher asking deliberately weighted and open-ended questions. I want to feel like I've known these characters all their lives. I want it to be so that if they act odd I notice straight away without needing visual or audio clues. And right now it kind of feels like they're some hyper-active friends of a younger sibling.

[Sith_Happens]

Now, back to considering how best to run a RWBY fight in RPG form, and continuing the long wait till the next season. ;).

My money's still on Mutants & Masterminds.

[Inspector Valin]

What I've seen of Ex3's baseline system has some potential. You'd need a substitute to Charms, but the principle of building momentum for significant strikes is something that feels very RWBY.

[Mrc.]

Monty has been hospitalised.

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that our thoughts are with him and those close to him. I hope he recovers soon.

[Metahuman1]

Holy Crap! Do we know what happened to him?

[LaZodiac]

They're not saying because apparently it's something really serious and personally private.

So uh...fingers crossed that RWBY doesn't get Wheel of Time'd.

[Mrc.]

All we can do is wish him well. And personally I think it's best if we don't discuss this further until more information comes out, beyond any well-wishers having their say. This is clearly something serious, and discussing the future of RWBY is in poor taste if that's the case. Maybe we should all get back to talking about the show.

May he swiftly recover.

[Dasgovernator]

Spoiler: Pulled off that thread

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[Lord Raziere]

I hope he makes it through as well. maybe he isn't the best writer in the world but the guy does great action scenes, talent like that should be allowed to blossom.

[Kd7sov]

They're not saying because apparently it's something really serious and personally private.

So uh...fingers crossed that RWBY doesn't get Wheel of Time'd.

Agreed in principle, although I for one would be really interested to see what Brandon Sanderson could do with the world and concept. (Also at least then we'd know that Dust and Aura at least have specific rules, if not necessarily what those rules are.)

Yes, I'm well aware they probably wouldn't pick him.

[Durkoala]

En, Here's what I'd do. I'd suggest reading Requiem for a Titan, and then Crisis on Infiant Earths, and then start reading the Titans going form that to the end of the older teams last pre new 52 or pre Geoff Johns runs. (the latter characterized by bringing in a lot of at the time younger characters at the start like Tim Drakes Robin, Cassie Sandsmarks Wonder girl, Conner Kent as Superboy, and Bart Allen as kid flash.)

[...]
As for Music, I Burn and Caffeine are pretty darn upbeat, there basically "I am badass hear me roar.": The Song. Boop is about unrequested affections, but there about young teenage unrequited affections form someone who's not precisely being consumed by angst about it's point of view. Gold is "Hey, relax, I got this." as a song. So, there's no shortage of upbeat on the sound track.

I was skimming through the thread and for a second I thought you were reccommending AoT. It was a ... very strange experience.

To be honest, it's hypocrisy angle that I consider to be the darkest (well, second-darkest, after the idea that they'll die without being able to confess that comes from a lot of the other songs) part of Boop. Nora's so far been fairly blunt and loud about her opinions and feelings. Then she tells Pyrrha that she should follow her own advice and ask out the guy of her dreams while being guilty of the same thing herself. I know that it's a petty thing to get annoyed about, but you have 'immortal villain sues' and I have hypocritic protagonists.

Now, back to considering how best to run a RWBY fight in RPG form, and continuing the long wait till the next season. ;).

Whatever you decide to use, it needs a mechanic where you roll to determine the power level at the start of the fight.

Incidentally, someone should point out that this is filled with HP spoilers...but I suppose everyone and their 3rd cousin twice removed has either read the books or seen the movie (seriously, did you see those sales numbers? I think it has got to be quite close to everybody; Some authors make #1 of the Best Seller list, JKR's actually altered the economics of the publishing industry).

Pretty much. It's been four years since the final movie and it's the book series with the most sold copies that isn't a religious text. The number of people here who haven't read it is going to be very small.

Voldemort doesn't fit this description in the books or in the movies. He isn't the most frightening villain in either incarnation. He begins a demon wrapped in mystery, clawing at his new found power. But killing the unicorns comes across more as more campy than scary. The Dementors struck me as the scariest beings that posed the greatest threat to Harry and his friends.

His origins don't do much to deepen or even describe him. What I get from Tom Riddle, is that it seems that Voldemort was simply evil from birth. I don't see where Voldemort learns to fear death and his quest for immortality seems about as deep as Lord Xykon's ambitions. Voldemort is simply vindictive, entitled, lacking entirely in empathy, a complete sociopath, with a god-complex. I read Tom Riddle the same way.

I didn't say that he was the most frightening, simply that he was adequately frightening. The Dementors may get that position, but the fact that they never really act for themselves takes the edge off of them: all of their attacks (except that time in the third book) are directed by somebody, and that relegates them to faceless hired muscle to me. Really scary faceless muscle, but it remains that they don't show much initiative when left to their own devices.

I was about eleven when I first read the unicorn scene, and it's been a number of years since I read over it again, so I can't really talk about it.

When he was young, Riddle's powers gave him a sense of superiority over his unpowered peers and his first reaction upon learning what they really were was denial that his mother could have been a witch, as she died like a common human would. At this point, he wasn't thinking about how death related to him, as he was only eleven. It was during his teenage years that he started his plans for immortality, after swelling his ego and dark powers much futher. To die like a common mortal has been his greatest fear for while: he immediately responds to a prophecy about his death by going to deal with the matter personally instead of his usual tactic of laying low and sending out a trusted minion, during his return, he references his Horcruxes even though (and probably because) his audience has no idea what he's talking about because he is so proud of his experiments working, and as soon as he works out that the Horcruxes are vulnerable he kills everything in the room and then resolves to move all of them to more secure locations. His assumed name can be translated as 'Flight from death'; there's plenty saying that he really doesn't want to die.

I don't disagree but still, I sigged something Morty said that describes my reaction to this. His lack of humanity isn't particularly deep to me because we never quite get the full feeling of how deeply inhuman this guy can be, nor does he seem much different as a kid. Recall, its as a student that Tom Riddle contemplates splitting his soul into seven parts.

For what it's worth, I feel like Rowling did intend things the impressions I got: it feels very much in line with a lot of the other themes in the series and she is pretty good at subtle things. I am a little confused at how to make Voldie come off as more inhuman when he has very few desires beyond increasing his influence and power.

That quote pretty much describes my feelings on RWBY. I'm sorry, but I don't see what Cinder has that Voldemort doesn't (except for being sexier, but that shouldn't be a reason for why a character is objectively better than another).

I suppose I got so bored the finale was just too little too late for me after 100s of pages of "Harry Potter and the Forest of Boredom" followed by "Harry Potter and WTF introducing All-powerful MacGuffins this late in the series without the slightest bit of foreshadowing anywhere?"

Gringotts didn't even leave as much an impression on me as the scene where they face the Death Eaters and Dobby dies. Finally, the finale seemed to me like a predictable way out, and the bit about wand-ownership being this obscure magical process that nevertheless didn't seem to neatly explain why Dumbledore had to die or Snape had to sacrifice himself just at that minute. It all felt very contrived. A Hollow ex Machina.

Oh and forget what I said about upbeat...the music gets my heart going on a treadmill and through the morning and evening commute, I'll say that.

That's a very valid criticism. Seriously, Rowling, couldn't you at least have let us know that the Deathly Hallows are a thing? They could have been mentioned anywhere in Luna's babble and it would have made perfect sense because they're one of the many things that her dad is looking for.

I think that I remember the dragon over Dobby because it's unlike most of the series. Good Guy saves the heroes from Death Eaters, but dies in the process has been seen several times, but using a dragon as a getaway vehicle is something new. There's also the fact that the constant wandering of the country has finally been broken: there's only one unknown mcguffin left (plus the snake), Voldemort is now aware that his secret has been exposed to his nemesis and Harry has revealed to the world that he's both alive and doing something. Time is pressing for the heroes to do something.

I didn't have a problem with following the wand-lore plot thread: wands "surrender" 100% of their power to somebody who overpowers their current owner. Unlike several other parts of the series, I didn't feel like this information needed an explanation why this was so, as it was introduced in the first book (and refenced in most of the others) that wands are strange instruments that choose their wielders. Snape died because Voldemort believed him to be the owner of a wand he wanted; there was no choice on his part. He had his neck ripped open by a giant snake with anticoagulent, spell-resistant venom and it was luck that Harry happened to be nearby. Dumbledore's death had nothing to do with the wand: he died from Voldemort's Horcrux-curse and his plan to break the wand's power by being killed on his own orders fell through because Malfoy got an Expelliarmus in, which set in line the path to the conclusion. Yes, it is somewhat contrived, but a lot of good stories have contrived plots: most of Dicken's novels progress through the right people meeting at the right time, no matter how improbable it is.




I'll agree that most of the songs are good for getting the adrenalin going, and I like most of them to various degrees (Caffine is unbearable, though). I'm tempted to ignore the animation and just get the story through the soundtrack at times.

Edit: Oh. I wasn't expecting that. I send my support and wishes to Monty, with some reluctance, but if it's a choice between no more RWBY or Monty's health, Monty barely wins.
Seriously, I respect his work and hope he's OK.

[Metahuman1]

I'd have though it would have inspired a reaction more along the lines of "I'm gonna go outside to check and see if the Apocalypse is just starting or if I missed the whole thing." personally. XD!

Though I'm now adding "Get's confused for legitimately good super hero comics" to the list of reasons I hate AoT. Moving on.





Songs: Your seriously telling you never had an unrequited crush as a teenager on another teenager that you grew out of because sure when the hormones were going full force you though it was true love but looking back you have to think to yourself "probably for the best."?

Having an unreturned crush is pretty common for teenagers. Hell, Juan had one and might even still have one, yet, we don't feel overly sympathetic to him a lot of the time. Yes, Norra's normally good about telling people how she feels, but this is a thing that's known to choke teenagers near universally. And yes, such teenagers often are prone to having the sentiment of "you should tell him/her" to other teenagers having the same problem.



To say nothing of the fact that while yes, first crush nearly always works in fiction, that's also not realistic at all. I'm certainly glad I didn't end up with my first crush forever. Or my second. Or my fifth. Or my twentieth far as that goes. So, this has room to play to being more realistic. Though if Legend of Korra's response for doing this is any indication people aren't really sick of that and want the first crush to be the one that is true love always.

[Reddish Mage]

Monty has been hospitalised.

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that our thoughts are with him and those close to him. I hope he recovers soon.

Amen hope he recovers soon.