Lady Seraphina

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

SPOILERS

Pyrrha's dead. Yang's out for the count. Weiss is firmly under the thumb of Papa Schnee and high-tailing it to Atlas. Jaune is once again proving that while he may not be strong, he's not going down. Ren and Nora have licked their wounds and are ready to give a licking.

Ozpin is gone, possibly dead. Ruby is probably the Winter Maiden in a thoroughly frustrating reveal. I get that it was a moment of true "We fucked, son" and if any moment was going to bring out the apparently latent power in Ruby, that would be it, but it was still a deus ex machina like Raven's arrival. Dropping a very minor hint that could have realistically meant nothing to the grander plot does not change that.

And Salem. That monster. The only word I have to describe her. A real monster. I'm betting a Maiden corrupted by one of those "Possession-Type" Grimm the manga so lovingly introduced.

All in all, I'd give it a 6.5/10. Answered the hype, but did so in the fashion of RWBY: with a story that really just...could be done better.

But I still liked it.

@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN

Spoiler

Granted the Silver Eyed Warrior could have been introduced more organically and been hinted at throughout the volume rather than just suddenly just solving everything at the very end. Still I think it was well done though I still sort of wish we'd seen a Pyrrha Vs Cinder Partial Fall Maidens fighting for the remaining power type battle. Might have worked better if Pyrrha having some of the Fall's maiden's power had essentially lost that battle and in the hour of need Ruby's Silver Eyed ability had manifested to charge Pyrrha's powers and give her the ability to best Cinder but then arguing on the different paths a story could take is an infinite and meaningless debate.

I did really enjoy it but you're right, some parts could have been handled with more finesse. Like some of the character's exits. It would have been more meaningful had we gotten to see Blake's departure or see her secretly outside Ruby's house making sure they are actually alright before finally leaving them.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Spoiler

I'm sure if he had found a body he wouldn't keep it a secret from everyone. Also, that new antagonist being played by Jen Taylor kept referring to Ozpin. I think he's still alive at the very least, though I can't be sure he's in good health.

@Guess Who

Spoiler

I don't think he's dead, he went toe to toe with the Fall Maiden and held his own. We didn't even see her land a hit that did any damage so very easily she may only have wounded him forcing him to escape.

I'd say that Qrow having his cane though means that Qrow is responsible for Beacon's fate now.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Spoiler

I agree with Plank that Cinder being MIA and the silver eye warriors being shoe-horned in is annoying. Everything else though, I have to agree with Lucius and Seraphs on (except Lucius wanting to bring back Pyrrah and Penny as one being or Penny and Yang becoming like the main character of that Cybernetic Commando remake. I say, let the dead rest. Penny can come back as Penny 2.0 but anyone else being brought back will irritate me, personally).

Also, are we all going to ignore the fact that Qrow turned into a real crow after the credits?

@Guess Who

Spoilers

I totally didn't watch that far, having now done it what does Qrow having Ozpin's cane say about the Headmaster's fate?

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Don't we need to Hider this? :o

@NarayanK

It hints at stuff that might have happened but doesn't really spoil anything definitely.

Mark of the Demons - A World Turned to Hell

Hey guys, looking on the map would it be reasonable to think that traveling from Vi'Zur to Veiron would be around a two day trip with a horse and cart?

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

There's also the fact that, to be quite honest, Adam's interactions with Blake came off rape-y as fuck. Pardon the bluntness.

@Krayzikk

Made a hundred times worse by the fact that they used to date.

Mark of the Demons - A World Turned to Hell

@Saint Girralo This'll be clearer when I get more of the lore up but Orcs aren't stupid mindless beasts despite what their pictures might look like.

Look on the Map, Vi'Zur has four other towns in fairly close proximity, one of which is a fortress with one would assume trained and well outfitted soldiers. Orcs attack towns for very specific reasons, for resources, to kidnap certain people or because a demon told them to. While Demons might like mindless carnage they're not going to send loyal followers into a death trap for no reason. Loyal followers to demons are uncommon, while the demons might not care too much about keeping orcs alive they're not going to send them to their graves without a reason or the orcs might stop following the demons.

I realize that kind of thing might not have been obvious since I haven't put all the information up yet and for that I apologize but unless their is something very rare and very valuable in Vi'Zur that orcs or demons desperately need and can't get anywhere else there is no reason they'd be foolish enough to attack that particular town.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

SERIOUSLY, SPOILERS

I didn't like it. Really didn't like it. It confirmed a lot of the bad feelings I was starting to get last week and amplified them.

The finale gave no REAL resolution to the events of the last three volumes (seriously, not even a scene detailing what happened to the individual members of CMEN? Roman confirmed dead in a livestream? What about Raven? What about Ozpin? What about Ironwood - communications or not, why hasn't he just flown back to Atlas and explained the situation by now? Clearly the Schnees can still traverse kingdoms, you're telling me fucking Ironwood can't? Blake just RAN THE FUCK OFF?) and instead offered a plethora of new shit for us to care about. (Taiyang was cool but needed to look like less of a beta shithead around Qrow, and mentioning silver eyes offhand one time doesn't count as foreshadowing when you've built up the Maidens as the super world-breaking power of choice for the back half of the volume and then suddenly blow everything the fuck out with Ruby's silver eyes. Why would they trigger for Pyrrha's death and not for Penny? Where the hell was Jen Taylor's character standing? What was the point of invalidating all that time we spent waiting for Cinder's plan and compounding the fact that we don't even know if she failed or not?)

It's not the way to end a season, especially when you've rushed most of three years of plot into one volume to begin with and we expect real answers and endings for some of the characters after all this time.

@Plank Sinatra

Well... (Guess Who don't click on this)

The entire point was to leave us with questions. This isn't supposed to be resolved. It may not look like a cohesive story but from a human stand point all of it makes sense. A lot of the questions you have we're not supposed to know. This is a continuing story not something to be wrapped up each volume and start anew in the next one. It's supposed to be a very big and very long journey not a bunch of small story arcs.

Raven said she wouldn't come for Yang again.

The last time we saw Ironwood he was looking injured and intent on finding his Grimm infested ship, we can likely assume he's missing and even if he's not let's say you're Ironwood. You have a giant army that from all outward appearances attacks the school of someone you've had major disagreements with for a good long while is anyone going to believe that your entire army was hijacked by four random people no one has ever heard of? No, it's going to sound like an excuse or a cover up and a pretty lame one at that, made worse by the fact that he can't talk at all about the Maiden's Power.

Think of it from Blake's point of view. To her this is entirely her fault. Maybe not true in the strictest sense but in her mind the fact that Adam and the White Fang were involved with the plan was a direct result of her leaving Adam. To her maybe if she'd stayed with the White Fang she might have been about to extradite them from Cinder's schemes or keep Adam on a less murderous path. Can you image sticking around your friends and loved ones knowing in your heart that all the suffering they're going through is your fault and believing that every time they look at you they think as badly of you as you do of yourself. Blake would believe that leaving them would be the best way to keep them safe from her and from Adam as his threat to "Destroy everything she loves" still stands.

The exact point of building up the Maiden's Power as world breaking was to introduced the Silver Eyed Warriors. It was an emphasis on the kind of power that RWBY truly possesses if she can freeze an Alpha Grimm and banish one of the four Maidens. The fact was that while Penny's death may have been a devastating shock for Ruby at the time of Penny's death things weren't that bad. Penny was dead sure and Grimm were descending on the school but their was still hope of winning. At the time when Ruby saw Pyrrha die that hope was gone and what's more their was a single target that Ruby could focus on as the cause of all of the death and destruction that had happened: Cinder. It wasn't just about Pyrrha's death but about Yang's lost arm, Blake and everyone else's injuries, the destruction of the school, the Grimm terrorizing the place. All that grief caught in one place, the lynchpin for Ruby's breaking point was seeing the strongest Huntress of their year and a good friend mercilessly gunned down.

Cinder's plan was obviously a major success. Think about it, she turned Atlas' army on Vale, brought the White Fang to Beacon, and set Grimm on the place. From an outside standpoint it would appear that Atlas was working with the White Fang to destroy Beacon and Vale. The result of that on the people's of the kingdom would be massive distrust for one another and extreme disunity. Now if any one Kingdom is attacked by Cinder or someone else the other Kingdom's will be hesitant to come to their aid fearing a trap. Essentially it disunified the four kindoms and planted the seeds from them to turn on each other. That was what the ending monologue was explaining.

Some of the question you are have valid (if a bit naive) which is the point. This isn't meant to be wrapped up in a nice neat bow. It's meant to make you come back for more. If everything got resolved nice and clean with some obvious path for the heroes to follow next it wouldn't be much of a story and it wouldn't be much like real life where nothing is ever clean.

The only real question we should be asking ourselves is, who the fuck is this:

I'm not going to click on a hider that says spoilers. I'm not going to click on a hider that says spoilers.

Edit: Also, I just rewatched the last episode because I don't see what everyone means by Adam sounding creepy and I still don't see it. Seriously, I've met people in real life who are far creepier than this guy, he doesn't even compare to some of the creepiest characters I've seen in fiction like Hisoka from Hunter x Hunter. Adam just sounds to me like another bad guy threatening a protagonist that he's going to make their life a living Hell.

@Guess Who

He basically is. This must be taken in the context of the fact that he's Blake's ex-boyfriend and someone she trusted very very much. The creepy part is the fact that their relationship devolved to the point where he wants to see her suffer. Imagine someone you trust a lot. A friend from high school that you've known for years, now imagine that they're saying this stuff. The creepy part isn't in what he's saying, what he's saying is fairly generic bad guy talk. The creepy part comes in his connection to Blake.

Mark of the Demons - A World Turned to Hell

It may have been in the Interest Check but I don't see it here, and I do see the issue with the math now. Approximate population of Vi'zur?

@Saint Girralo

This is a pretty vast world and while our characters should be interacting the probability of 6/8 ending up in the same bar seems rather low especially considering we all carry the mark of the demons and those that actually survived Veiron were maybe two hundred of a city that housed almost a hundred fifty thousand.

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Mark of the Demons - A World Turned to Hell

How big (how many) is an Orc Charge? What was the Population of Veiron pre-fall? What percent of that survived the fall?

@Saint Girralo

The size of an Orc charge would vary from charge to charge. I'd say for every three people of they're target town one Orc, so at bear minimum around thirty.

I believe I said this early but Veiron had a population of around 150,000 and if that two to three hundred escaped. Less than 0.2% Survival.