Finally The Rock has Come Back!!! - YouTube
...at long last. The promised day has arrived. After having spent...(does a quick date check) 1 month and 14 days wandering the wilderness, I have come back to set things right...or at least share what I've learned in my wanderings.
A little over a month ago, I had officially quit the subreddit and gave the fandom a break. Volume 9 was still airing and it was around the time of...the episode where Ruby drinks the tea after a breakdown and getting browbeaten by her "friends". I got reeeeeaaaaaallly pissed off at how the subject of mental health and suicide was...well I wouldn't say handled, more like manipulated by a inebriated squid attempting to delicately handle a nuclear rod.
Yes, I'm talking about you.
Long story short, I...didn't react too well. And by not reacting well, I meant giving characters like Jaune shit for something that the writers clearly forced him to do instead of analyzing and discussing why I felt the plotlines didn't work. So to begin, I firmly apologize if I had upset anybody with my ranting. It's also why I ultimately decided to take a break and...well, figure out what went wrong.
So I did some soul searching via watching some movies, a Netflix series, a couple of YouTube videos, and also read some RWBY fanfics. You know, the unofficial pieces of work made by fans who actually do care a lot about the setting and characters. The idea was to rediscover what got me into RWBY in the first place and how things had gone so wrong.
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Okay, she was part of the reason I got into RWBY. Sue me.
But...yeah. What initially got me into RWBY was the idea of over-the-top characters with really awesome designs fighting ferocious monsters in spectacular fight scenes. Granted it wasn't the deepest reason out there, but it was enough to get me interested. And yeah, I will admit the first few seasons did have their flaws here and there. Problems that would continue to plague the series and spiral out of control.
The thing is though, while the characters weren't exactly "deep" per say, I could accept the show was just starting out and what we DID see from them hinted at interesting ideas and dynamics just waiting under the surface. Sort of like how the show was initially this light-hearted action series with hints here and there about exploring deeper and more serious concepts down the road. Mainly stuff like the White Fang, the Grimm resurging, things like that.
...and then we actually got to that.
When I left, I wanted to know what exactly got under my skin. How exactly did we get specifically to that moment where I just threw my hands up and said "Screw you guys, Imma going home" (I am of course referring to the heroes, not you guys. You guys are awesome).
Simple...RWBY got too damn dark.
I know that seems like an oversimplification of RWBY's problems, but ultimately everything boils down to the whole series getting meaner, more cynical, and nastier. Characters' flaws ballooned out of proportion and completely subsumed their character. Themes like racism, the rise of fascism, or the aforementioned mental health were handled in the most hate filled way possible. The world just kept getting worse, and things just kept getting darker and darker.
Look, I might not be able to handle some pieces of dark media, but even I know they have some kind of purpose. Sometimes to spell out an important message in the most blunt way possible. Maybe the characters were just that fascinating to see them unravel and dig their own graves.
But RWBY is supposed to be about hope. The light that shines through the darkness and leads the way to salvation.
Except that light keeps getting dimmer and dimmer with each season. It's like the creators are just dangling it right in front of the characters, but every time they reach, they kick them in the face and pull back just a little more. These characters are put through so much crap, become so awful as a result, yet little to no victories are achieved. No meaningful character development. Just...nothing.
So my question is...why? If the characters just keep getting worse, what's left? I mean we can't root for them, but the writers also seem obsessed with making the villains (especially Cinder) as vile as possible so they're not engaging to watch either. In essence, we have a crappy setting, with characters we care about getting dragged through the mud, becoming their own antithesis in the pursuit of "justice", and villains we can't stand cause either they're too vile or too stupid for us to care.
And with aaaaaallllllllllll this going on...we're left wondering why the hell we should care. If everybody's an asshole and the world keeps getting worse, what's keeping us from just turning the show off in disgust? Especially since in this cynical day and age, when it seems like we keep getting hit with tragedy after tragedy?
I think I'll let a goblin say it better than I ever could.
Look, there's nothing wrong with wanting your work to be darker. There's nothing wrong with putting your heroes through the wringer, but unless you've got more of this-
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https://preview.redd.it/gvqbxrr9u33b1.png?width=1192&format=png&auto=webp&s=6db1e46d7f39f54084fee6f4e3880d38c40ca3fc
Then what's the point of slogging through the darkness if we don't care about anything? Cause all I'm seeing is the writers keep proving Salem right if all they're doing is shoving shock value down our throat.
Give us a reason to care. That's the light that gets us through the dark. Not the torture porn the writers turned RWBY into.