RWBY IX: Fractured Fairy Tales

[Dragonexx]

How Old even is Tai and the rest of his team?

I mean, honestly, Qrow and Raven don't look that much older than the students, minus Ruby and even then.

I'm seriously wondering if Yang wasn't a late teens pregnancy from a one night stand and Raven left as soon as Yang wasn't completly dependant on her, with this experiance leading to Taiyang valuaing qualities other than hotness in a mate and finding genuine love with Summer.

Possibly with Summer, being a teammate of Raven and Tai, out of the goodness of her heart offering to help care for Yang and one thing leading to another.

You know, like one of the less extreme, shorter-lived soap operas.

Until something inevitably happens to disprove this, this is my headcannon. Also, I might be in the minority on this, but I don't want Raven to be redeemed. Not that I don't think she's irredeemable (I don't think anyone is) but it's it's definitely beyond the abilities of the writers to do it satisfactorily. Especially since she has several of the traits of a sociopath (or at least the hollywood version of one): Lack of empathy towards others, compulsive lying to herself and others, extreme selfishness, poor long-term thinking...

[Lethologica]

This just isn’t how physics works. Yang punching a giant robot hand is impressive, but not as impressive as punching a TRUCK. A truck has considerably more mass and strikes with considerably more force. By considerable, I mean several orders of magnitude greater. Its obvious, more weight in motion at approximately equals more force. A giant robot arm is heavy but not as anywhere near as heavy as a truck.

(a) The truck is on the close order of 10 tons (less if empty). The giant robot hand is not anything like 'several orders of magnitude' smaller and is not moving any slower. Even if everything else you said were correct, and it's not, you are stating physical nonsense under the umbrella of 'just how physics works'. If you're gonna condescend to my ignorance of how physics works, the least you can do is not screw up by several orders of magnitude yourself.
(b) Yang stops the hand much faster than Penny stops the truck (a bit more than 1 order of magnitude), concentrating the impulse into a much smaller time interval. The force involved is correspondingly greater.
(c) A punch from a much larger object is not the same as a hand moving through space in isolation. Obviously the mechanics of the robot's punch are not precisely the same as those of a human puncher, but the general point applies. Again, this thing is three stories tall. It's nearly as wide. It's pretty damn heavy, and a lot more than its hand goes into punching Yang.

To say that a robot punch is several orders of magnitude weaker than a truck collision, you have to conclude that a truck would have gone through about a million of those highway support columns in one go. That's what several orders of magnitude looks like, and it's obviously absurd. The more likely answer is that the truck would have gone through one or two support columns, same as the Paladin.

I also think Yang’s feat was anomalous itself, we never saw anything like that before and have yet to see such a feat repeated.

Moreover, Yang’s feat is immaterial, as we didn’t see it yet as of V2E3 when Penny stopped the truck. We didn’t see any feats of strength near what Penny was doing. The greatest feat of strength we saw was Ruby decapitating the Giant Nevermore, and she required significant assistance to accomplish that.

It's literally in the next episode. If we are expecting viewers to have no memory whatsoever, why bother having a series with continuity in the first place?

Some of our other feats are hard to pin down due to being a function of opposed magic. And Ruby is familiar with Yang's strength, so since Penny's action is comparable, it wouldn't be anomalous to Ruby.

[Malak'ai]

How Old even is Tai and the rest of his team?

I mean, honestly, Qrow and Raven don't look that much older than the students, minus Ruby and even then.

I'm seriously wondering if Yang wasn't a late teens pregnancy from a one night stand and Raven left as soon as Yang wasn't completly dependant on her, with this experiance leading to Taiyang valuaing qualities other than hotness in a mate and finding genuine love with Summer.

Possibly with Summer, being a teammate of Raven and Tai, out of the goodness of her heart offering to help care for Yang and one thing leading to another.

You know, like one of the less extreme, shorter-lived soap operas.

Well if we take what we know for certain, that entrents of Beacon are at least 17 years old (not including special cases like Ruby), and that they study there for 4 years that means they are at least 21 when they graduate.
Now if we assume that Yang was born after team STRQ had graduated (most likely since we know Qrow and Raven worked for Oz as huntsmen, not students) it could have been anywhere between the year after graduating for maybe 5 years (because comeone, they don't look to be in their 50's or 60's). So taking the middle ground, Raven would have been 24 when Yang was born, with Tai either a little younger or a little older, depending on their birthdates. Now add on 18 for Yang's age now and you get 42, so I'd ballpark anywhere for 40 to 46 years old.

[Rater202]

Well if we take what we know for certain, that entrents of Beacon are at least 17 years old (not including special cases like Ruby), and that they study there for 4 years that means they are at least 21 when they graduate.
Now if we assume that Yang was born after team STRQ had graduated (most likely since we know Qrow and Raven worked for Oz as huntsmen, not students) it could have been anywhere between the year after graduating for maybe 5 years (because comeone, they don't look to be in their 50's or 60's). So taking the middle ground, Raven would have been 24 when Yang was born, with Tai either a little younger or a little older, depending on their birthdates. Now add on 18 for Yang's age now and you get 42, so I'd ballpark anywhere for 40 to 46 years old.

Ruby was 14 when she entered Beacon and turned 15 sometime during the first season(so assuming a concurrent calander to IRL and the opening semester being in the fall) and she skipped two years. That would make most other students 16, not 17, when they start.

[Malak'ai]

Ruby was 14 when she entered Beacon and turned 15 sometime during the first season(so assuming a concurrent calander to IRL and the opening semester being in the fall) and she skipped two years. That would make most other students 16, not 17, when they start.

Ruby was 15 when Ozpin admitted her. She turned 16 on October 31st (Halloween).

[Anyr]

Its quite clear from the video, Amber is being faced with three top opponents...

Emerald and Mercury are definitely not 'top opponents'. They're just a step or two above the students at Beacon.

And even if there were three top opponents (which there weren't), it still wouldn't be impressive. 3v1 odds are all it takes to overwhelm these legendary figures? That's hardly the kind of power that'd be an essential cornerstone to world domination.

...and she is flinging the elements all around her, lightning, wind, leaves into deadly icicles, and attacking her opponents at once...

No more deadly than the attacks of a talented dust user. The episode really tries to sell Amber's elemental abilities as being impressive. But in terms of actual effect, they really aren't.

...although they have her surrounded.

They only manage to surround her because she has terrible mobility. On the ground, she moves like a normal person; And in the air, she just hovers in place. Compare Amber's sluggish movements to that of Maiden Cinder or Raven. Wait, scratch that. Compare her movements to that of team RWBY. Any of those four inexperienced students surpass Amber in both speed and dexterity.

It's no wonder that the writers introduced Relics. As presented, the Maidens simply weren't worthy of being so coveted. By making them living keys to the vaults of ancient mcguffins, it at least gave a reason for the villains to need them.

[jindra34]

They only manage to surround her because she has terrible mobility. On the ground, she moves like a normal person; And in the air, she just hovers in place. Compare Amber's sluggish movements to that of Maiden Cinder or Raven. Wait, scratch that. Compare her movements to that of team RWBY. Any of those four inexperienced students surpass Amber in both speed and dexterity.

That is actually fairly good evidence for her being UNTRAINED. Which coupled with the lack of guards implies that OZ didn't think Salem would be hunting Maidens (or that he was being subtle enough to avoid that danger). Also remember if someone were to have assigned guards to Amber they would have had to have an explanation for why that would at least sorta pass muster to the average person. Please explain THAT one to me. So Qrow subtly following may have been the best security he could manage.

[LaZodiac]

That is actually fairly good evidence for her being UNTRAINED. Which coupled with the lack of guards implies that OZ didn't think Salem would be hunting Maidens (or that he was being subtle enough to avoid that danger). Also remember if someone were to have assigned guards to Amber they would have had to have an explanation for why that would at least sorta pass muster to the average person. Please explain THAT one to me. So Qrow subtly following may have been the best security he could manage.

I don't think he was subtly following her I think Qrowe's just a half drunk moron who's **** at his job.

[jindra34]

I don't think he was subtly following her I think Qrowe's just a half drunk moron who's **** at his job.

My point was more that Qrow being the only protection is probably because he was about all Oz could manage. And agreeing that Qrow makes a piss poor guardian. He's come within fractions of a second of failing his charge 2 out of 2 times that we've seen.

[LaZodiac]

My point was more that Qrow being the only protection is probably because he was about all Oz could manage. And agreeing that Qrow makes a piss poor guardian. He's come within fractions of a second of failing his charge 2 out of 2 times that we've seen.

Fair, though it continues to raise the question of "why wasn't Amber better trained?" if this school is supposed to be one of the best.

[Rater202]

Fair, though it continues to raise the question of "why wasn't Amber better trained?" if this school is supposed to be one of the best.

Who says she was a student?

Like, I don't remember that from the episode and I'm sorry if it's been mentioned since I haven't really been paying attention to the conversation, but what if she was just like, the daughter of the maiden before her and by the time she inherited her powers it was too late for her to go to even a basic combat school, let alone a Huntsman acadamy.

[LaZodiac]

Who says she was a student?

Like, I don't remember that from the episode and I'm sorry if it's been mentioned since I haven't really been paying attention to the conversation, but what if she was just like, the daughter of the maiden before her and by the time she inherited her powers it was too late for her to go to even a basic combat school, let alone a Huntsman acadamy.

The implication I gathered is that Ozpin had obtained the maidens at a relatively early age. Regardless, we've seen first year students capable of doing some badass things, even some degree of combat training at the COMBAT SCHOOL SHE LIVES AT can be expected, yeah? Like, it feels like something one should do. We know that the Spring Maiden was taught combat at HER school house, but she broke under the pressure. Presumably Amber didn't since she was allowed to go horse riding out on the country side while Drunkle Qrowe kinda wobbled after her.

[Excession]

The implication I gathered is that Ozpin had obtained the maidens at a relatively early age. Regardless, we've seen first year students capable of doing some badass things, even some degree of combat training at the COMBAT SCHOOL SHE LIVES AT can be expected, yeah? Like, it feels like something one should do. We know that the Spring Maiden was taught combat at HER school house, but she broke under the pressure. Presumably Amber didn't since she was allowed to go horse riding out on the country side while Drunkle Qrowe kinda wobbled after her.

Students at Beacon, and perhaps Signal as well, are chosen for their combat ability. You don't get to first year of Beacon without years of training and a rigorous entrance exam. Or cheating, in Jeanne's case, but I suspect he would have died in that first test without Pyrrha. Even including Jeanne, all the members of RWBY and JNPR have big reasons to be there and to improve themselves.

The maiden selection process on the other hand is terrible. Being in the final thoughts of the previous maiden doesn't mean you're cut out to wield that power, be any good at combat, or that you even want it. Having this power and mission suddenly dropped on you out of the blue could be awful. There's also no evidence that new maidens are always young; Raven wasn't. In theory the maidens can try to direct the power to the right person, but I would forgive them for being a little distracted by the whole dying thing.

[Lethologica]

My point was more that Qrow being the only protection is probably because he was about all Oz could manage. And agreeing that Qrow makes a piss poor guardian. He's come within fractions of a second of failing his charge 2 out of 2 times that we've seen.

Qrow is totally unsuited for bodyguard work because of his Semblance. It's bizarre - or telling - that Ozpin didn't put someone else, anyone else, on Amber's tail.

[Rater202]

The implication I gathered is that Ozpin had obtained the maidens at a relatively early age. Regardless, we've seen first year students capable of doing some badass things, even some degree of combat training at the COMBAT SCHOOL SHE LIVES AT can be expected, yeah? Like, it feels like something one should do. We know that the Spring Maiden was taught combat at HER school house, but she broke under the pressure. Presumably Amber didn't since she was allowed to go horse riding out on the country side while Drunkle Qrowe kinda wobbled after her.

No, what I mean, what if she was already a civilian teenager when she got the maiden powers. She never went to a combat school like Signal, let alone a Hunsman Academy like Beacon, and she was too old to start once she got her powers.

Maybe, just maybe, she merely has a crash course in how to use her magic and no direct knowledge of how to fight with or without it, unlike Cinder or Raven who do have combat training(Raven at the very least is a fully trained Huntress and I think it's implied that Cinder is older than she looks.)

[jindra34]

No, what I mean, what if she was already a civilian teenager when she got the maiden powers. She never went to a combat school like Signal, let alone a Hunsman Academy like Beacon, and she was too old to start once she got her powers.

Maybe, just maybe, she merely has a crash course in how to use her magic and no direct knowledge of how to fight with or without it, unlike Cinder or Raven who do have combat training(Raven at the very least is a fully trained Huntress and I think it's implied that Cinder is older than she looks.)

And oh lets add that it looked like she was headed somewhere. Like maybe Beacon where she could get more answers and maybe (not so) discreet training. We know Oz bends the rules for those with unusual capabilities.

[LaZodiac]

And oh lets add that it looked like she was headed somewhere. Like maybe Beacon where she could get more answers and maybe (not so) discreet training. We know Oz bends the rules for those with unusual capabilities.

This is a good answer, that Amber had been newly picked up and that's why she didn't have much actual power.

It still feels weird to me, but it's acceptable. Qrowe's still really bad at the one job he has though.

[jindra34]

This is a good answer, that Amber had been newly picked up and that's why she didn't have much actual power.

It still feels weird to me, but it's acceptable. Qrowe's still really bad at the one job he has though.

So who would you rather send out? Glinda, Port, or Oobleck? Who are all professors and the departure of whom would draw speculation, doubly so if they return with a 'promising' new student with no background to explain the 'promising'. Qrow is/was Oz's shadowy hand, so he's the most logical choice. And I'm seeing how much Oz is probably kicking himself over pushing/informing/whatevering Raven to the point of departure. BECAUSE she's PERFECT for that kind of job.

[LaZodiac]

So who would you rather send out? Glinda, Port, or Oobleck? Who are all professors and the departure of whom would draw speculation, doubly so if they return with a 'promising' new student with no background to explain the 'promising'. Qrow is/was Oz's shadowy hand, so he's the most logical choice. And I'm seeing how much Oz is probably kicking himself over pushing/informing/whatevering Raven to the point of departure. BECAUSE she's PERFECT for that kind of job.

I mean Bigyang still exists, so he could send her. Or Winter if she was part of the group. Or he could come up with any sort of reasonable excuse for one of his competent staff members to go get her, including himself.

They scrapped the bottom of the barrel when they chosen Qrowe, bu they took out everything in said barrel to do so.

[Reddish Mage]

(a) The truck is on the close order of 10 tons (less if empty). The giant robot hand is not anything like 'several orders of magnitude' smaller and is not moving any slower.

My analysis differs from yours, but then I don't see the robot arm as moving with the full weight of the Paladin behind it (I also don't remember the Paladin as being three stories high) and I am assuming the arm is moving at a similar acceleration compared to the truck.

With a lighter mech (or just an arm punching from the shoulder rather than the waist), an arm that isn't so fast, and ignoring entirely the punching through the support beam (which alone implies force unlike everything else we've seen)...and the mech punch doesn't compare to a truck ram. Its fair to say that the weight of the mech is behind the punch though, which closes the distance considerably.

It's literally in the next episode. If we are expecting viewers to have no memory whatsoever, why bother having a series with continuity in the first place?

Some of our other feats are hard to pin down due to being a function of opposed magic. And Ruby is familiar with Yang's strength, so since Penny's action is comparable, it wouldn't be anomalous to Ruby.

What I am saying though is consider Penny's feat as being congruent or not from our experience as the audience at the time, not from what future evidence tells us about the Huntsmen and what the world expects to see from them.

I am critical of the V2E5 mech fight. The series is much better read without that fight given the mass destruction on the highway (which is entirely without fallout or even notice), and the near invulnerability of Yang (Death Battle had Yang beat post-FFVII Tifa basically on the endurance she showed in the Paladin fight).

Yang's abilities, if she really consistently has that sort of power and endurance, is also probably anomalous.

I don't really believe Penny has to be all that different from huntsmen and huntresses to be shocking behavior on the street that draws a crowd staring. Its still atypical behavior on the street.

Grimm are also a common thing in the world but a small hoard of grimm running around the city also caused widespread panic and upheaval even though they were immediately contained.

However, I still think Penny is very different substantively. Rawhide gave the best comparison between HOW Yang and Penny stopped their respective objects. Penny just sticks out her arm awarkardly and everything stops, Yang activates her semblance, takes an initial hit, and then comes back full swing. Penny's abilities don't LOOK like anything you see from the humans and the animation shows that.

[Lethologica]

The Paladin is shown clearing third-story windows. The punch is not moving with the full weight of the Paladin behind it, as punches generally don't, but the portion is greater than the arm alone and much greater than the hand alone. The support column's width as shown when Yang was punched through it is such that a truck could have punched through it, if not quite so easily (Google has some examples but they're not pretty), so the event is not so anomalous that it needs to be ignored.

There is future evidence and there is future evidence; things that happen in the immediate vicinity of the event in question impact the experience of congruity even if they happen afterwards. What happens in v2c4 happens when v2c3 is fresh enough in the memory for viewers to have their congruity undermined. But if we're gonna put the blame for that on the mech fight rather than the truck incident, I'm okay with that. (I don't take Death Battle as authoritative about anything, though.)

I don't see Penny as just 'sticking her arm out awkwardly'--she certainly braces a lot more conventionally than Yang does. I suppose in that sense Penny does behave differently than the human characters, especially in the first two volumes, but that doesn't seem to be what you are suggesting.

I don't particularly care about the reaction of the crowd. They're maybe slightly off from how I would expect them to react, but that's extremely minor. The things that particularly bug me about that scene are (a) the music and (b) Ruby's reaction. Honestly, I see both as significantly out of place no matter how OP Penny's feat was (within a couple orders of magnitude). It's just all the more so for Ruby if she has family who can do similar things.

[Reddish Mage]

I don't particularly care about the reaction of the crowd. They're maybe slightly off from how I would expect them to react, but that's extremely minor. The things that particularly bug me about that scene are (a) the music and (b) Ruby's reaction. Honestly, I see both as significantly out of place no matter how OP Penny's feat was (within a couple orders of magnitude). It's just all the more so for Ruby if she has family who can do similar things.

Oh that’s it? I agree the music and Ruby’s surprise narrowing to concern look seems a bit off. I suppose Ruby can just be concerned because Penny seems concerned, but looking at the timing Penny seems concerned because Ruby seems concerned and everyone is staring.

Instead, Penny should show concern first if Ruby is going to becme concerned (Penny has ample reason to worry since she isn't supposed to show her strength until the tournament and also her metal is showing).

[Callos_DeTerran]

I mean Bigyang still exists, so he could send her. Or Winter if she was part of the group. Or he could come up with any sort of reasonable excuse for one of his competent staff members to go get her, including himself.

They scrapped the bottom of the barrel when they chosen Qrowe, bu they took out everything in said barrel to do so.

The problem is you have to send somebody that won't question any errant displays of magic that might crop up.

And when it comes to THAT, we've only seen Ozpin have Glynda, Qrow, and Raven. Raven would have been perfect but she deserted before Amber was attacked and Glynda is both needed at the school and would be noticed if she suddenly had to leave.

While that does just leave Qrow that we know about, Qrow does have the advantage that he's a regular huntsman to the general public who could have just taken a job to escort Amber to wherever she was going. Qrow still managed to screw that up because Qrow.

...but yeah, I always got the impression that Amber had never been trained as a huntress, she felt like a regular person who had oodles of magical power. Turns out she wasn't trained too which is a plus...er..even if it turned out poorly for Amber.

[LaZodiac]

Again, Bigyang exists. He aint doing anything, and was at least on par with Qrowe given he was part of it.

[Reddish Mage]

Its quite obvious why it was Qrow. They didn't give Amber any bodyguard, perhaps because they felt keeping the maidens a secret to all but their inner circle sufficed for security (also I put still put Amber as above every non-maiden character in combat with the possible exception of Pyrrha).

Qrow, however, spies on Salem for Ozpin as a bird and learned that Salem has learned who the Fall maiden was and was planning an attack. He flew immediately to Amber and arrived just then.

[LaZodiac]

Its quite obvious why it was Qrow. They didn't give Amber any bodyguard, perhaps because they felt keeping the maidens a secret to all but their inner circle sufficed for security (also I put still put Amber as above every non-maiden character in combat with the possible exception of Pyrrha).

Qrow, however, spies on Salem for Ozpin as a bird and learned that Salem has learned who the Fall maiden was and was planning an attack. He flew immediately to Amber and arrived just then.

The way Ozpin talked about it feels like this isn't how it happened, but details aside it's probably that Qrowe wasn't her bodyguard, he was sent to go pick her up and she got ambushed and hadn't been obtained yet. It just feels like that's not the case.

[Calemyr]

The way Ozpin talked about it feels like this isn't how it happened, but details aside it's probably that Qrowe wasn't her bodyguard, he was sent to go pick her up and she got ambushed and hadn't been obtained yet. It just feels like that's not the case.

Qrowe is a good agent, but a poor bodyguard. If he was assigned to be Amber's bodyguard, he likely played it the same way he did in Volume 4, hanging out at a distance and trying to bait Grimm into going after him. The ambush wouldn't have looked like much at a distance, with just Emerald sitting on the road and Cinder and Mercury rushing in from a distance. Coupled with Amber's illusion-induced body language, it probably didn't look like anything at all until Amber flinched. By then, the trap was sprung and it was all Qrowe could do to get there and save what was left of Amber.

[Lemmy]

The way I see it, it's basically a case of the animation not being able to measure up to the plot.

- Was Penny's strength meant to be incredible even in the context of the show? Yes.
- Were Amber's supposed to be impressive and beyond what normal characters can do? Yes.
- Did the animators make a crappy job of conveying those points given the feats we see other characters achieving? Also yes.

[Reddish Mage]

The way I see it, it's basically a case of the animation not being able to measure up to the plot.

- Was Penny's strength meant to be incredible even in the context of the show? Yes.
- Were Amber's supposed to be impressive and beyond what normal characters can do? Yes.
- Did the animators make a crappy job of conveying those points given the feats we see other characters achieving? Also yes.

Either that, or everyone here is so use to the anime way of showing differences in power by scaling thing immediately to massive explosions and mountain-busting and so on. Showing things more along the lines of the difference between a college all-star and an Olympic athlete isn’t such a great difference on that scale.

Penny and Amber may not strike you as being all that impressive, but they certainly came in and did things that no one else was doing and in ways that no one else did and with an ease and immediacy to their power no one else has.

[LaZodiac]

Either that, or everyone here is so use to the anime way of showing differences in power by scaling thing immediately to massive explosions and mountain-busting and so on. Showing things more along the lines of the difference between a college all-star and an Olympic athlete isn’t such a great difference on that scale.

Penny and Amber may not strike you as being all that impressive, but they certainly came in and did things that no one else was doing and in ways that no one else did and with an ease and immediacy to their power no one else has.

I feel stopping a giant robot punch is more impressive than stopping a truck, otherwise why bother with the robot punch when you could just drive trucks at everyone.

Also, I highly disagree on that first point. A show can show the subtle difference between those two things very clearly, they just need to know HOW to do so.