[hider=My Hider]
You're right. This is supposed to be a long and cohesive story, but it's been confirmed by M&K that these three volumes are supposed to comprise what would be, in a 23/24 episode anime, a full season. Looking at this through the lens of a season finale, it's infuckingcomplete. If Breach wrapped things up all at once and is considered a bad season finale for it, then why is wrapping up literally nothing and just putting more pressure on the spine of the plot any better?

That doesn't change the fact that she's a loose thread. Her impact on the plot was negligible given that it doesn't seem like Yang is going to be hunting for her while moping in bed and missing an arm.

I'll grant you Ironwood, and that he has a lot to take care of on his plate right now, but the fact that we know more about Papa Schnee's whereabouts than the man who runs Atlas and is part of the Ozlluminati is just more proof that things needed to be tied up on more fronts.

In just last week's episode, she talked about how "she wasn't running." Blake owning up to her problems and believing in the ability of herself and her friends to take care of each other has been pretty much all that keeps her character going since she first met Sun. It makes sense for her character to run (I personally think she's a total coward when push comes to shove) but it would have made more sense to do it when the going is rough next volume, as opposed to her scampering off while her teammates all lay injured.

Playing Jenga with a series of increasingly vaguely-defined superpowers in a universe where more often than not Semblances are OP to begin with is not the way to properly reestablish your main characters as badasses. Ruby couldn't even beat Roman, Neo, [i]or[/i] Mercury head on over the course of the past few weeks, but when they figured out that they had written out or shoehorned away everyone who could plausibly stop the dragon or Cinder's conquest of the tower, Ruby's silver eyes suddenly came into play. I'm not arguing that they're potentially valid as a power. Monty had two decades in his head for RWBY; clearly at some point the silver eyes had to come into play. But you don't do it after you've spent half a volume building up to Maiden powers and how much they can change the world before trumping them whenever Ruby gets too stressed out. A good writer would have used them against Salem (who looks, unless we're being thrown for a serious loop here, like she's far more hellish than Cinder) to show that Ruby had really matured as a warrior the way that silver eyes imply. Time away from the rest of her team, on her own adventure, learning more about herself and fighting on her own, would have led to the point where that kind of reveal would have felt like a [i]reveal,[/i] not a throwaway line of dialogue from Volume 1 that got pulled out of the ass when Cinder looked like she was too close to winning for good.

You're looking at what I meant re: Cinder's plan too broadly. Obviously her plan to sow disunity between Atlas and Vale worked; Yang confirmed that much, and it makes sense. 

I mean Cinder's [i]personal[/i] stake in this plan. It's clear that she really fucking wanted to be the Fall Maiden, and given that that's literally [i]all[/i] we know about her character (she's an incredibly flat villain) the fact that she could be dead, frozen along with the dragon, or have escaped to go serve Salem again is a loose thread. All the end sequence would have needed was one more addition to the frame: Cinder on her knees in that hellscape Salem was in, head bowed and eyes glowing while Salem finishes the monologue. This establishes:

She's alive
Her Maidenhood helped her weather Ruby's silver eyes
Although as a Maiden she's incredibly powerful, wielding powers almost no one else in Remnant possesses, she's still totally subservient to Salem
She can be sent out again as a competent threat against RWBY in the future.

Just adding Cinder to that scene would show not only that she's licking her wounds and ready for a rematch, but that whatever Salem is, she's strong enough to totally [i]trump[/i] a Maiden we saw obliterate Pyrrha, intimidate Roman, and stand toe to toe with Ozpin. This establishes the mindsets of both the people we know to be major villains at the moment, as well as their hierarchy. It tells more about Cinder's character, that she would be willing to prostate herself before this mysterious woman. It [i]resolves what Cinder's been up to.[/i] Instead her whereabouts are about as intangible as Pyrrha's corpse.

I think a good many of my questions are valid, and patronizingly calling me naive for questioning a writing staff that has given us no reason to trust their latent skill in writing this genre over the past three volumes doesn't change that. Cliffhangers to one or two plotlines are a way to foster interest going forward in those characters - and for characters that are somewhat interesting, like Ruby or Qrow, they work. But making almost every character MIA or leaving their motivations for the future dangling isn't something you do in a finale. It's not good writing. It's waving your hands and expecting that the problem will resolve itself next time we see the characters - a lot like how the whole battle for Beacon ended in the first place.
[/hider]

[@Prince of Seraphs]