Steven Universe: The Gem War on Earth

What we know:

• Rose Quartz rebelled against the Gem Homeworld because she saw the beauty of it and didn't want the Homeworld to destroy it.
• Pearl chose to follow Rose into battle.
• Amethyst was recruited at the abandoned kindergarten, and some things about her, such as size, were not up to the standards of a usual amethyst.
• Rose, Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst are the only surviving members of Rose’s army, to Jasper’s surprise.
• The remaining Gems (both Crystal and Homeworld) on Earth were corrupted and turned into monsters that Rose couldn’t heal.
• When the war was lost, the Homeworld left the cluster behind to destroy Earth millennia later. 
• Lapis Lazuli’s gem was cracked and stuck in a mirror.

Motivations:

I think that the war on Earth coincided with another event in Gem history, which would be the decision to use fusions solely as weapons. Why would an experiment on forced fusion be left to cook in the core of the Earth if fusion experiments weren’t another major Homeworld project?

This could shed some light on Garnet’s motivations. Peridot expresses discomfort with Garnet remaining fused outside of battle. In addition, when Garnet first deals with the Gem Shards, Ruby and Sapphire almost split, one of them wandering if it was their fault. I think that around the same time as Rose’s rebellion, Ruby and Sapphire chose to remain as Garnet as their default state. This brought Garnet under the scrutiny and persecution of the Homeworld Gems, which lead to her leaving to join Rose’s rebellion. Garnet is particularly hostile towards Homeworld Gems compared to the other Crystal Gems. Lapis is afraid of Garnet, although this could be because Garnet’s a full time fusion. The Centipeetle Gem is terrified of Garnet’s gauntlets, and Garnet is hostile to it in turn. I think that Centipeetle started as an anti-fusion Homeworld Gem.

If Jasper was on Earth during the Gem War, she fought because she opposed fusion. I think Jasper’s hatred of fusions is partially because fusion can make non-warrior Gems into warriors who might be able to defeat her. I’m not ready to say her motivations are pure loyalty, because “Jailbreak” shows that she is willing to act on her own agenda instead of Yellow Diamond’s. Why couldn’t they swing by the Cluster and check on it before heading back with Steven? Jasper made Steven's capture priority. In conclusion, Jasper fought for her beliefs about fusion and for the sake of fighting.

Lapis Lazuli was probably drawn to Earth because she is a hydro-kinetic gem, and Earth is mostly water. Before the war, there may have been attempts to put hydraulic energy to use for gem or weapon production. The potential failed project that I mentioned could be part of the reason that Lapis didn’t believe that Earth had potential. Regardless, Lapis didn’t want to stay on Earth, and the only way to go back to Homeworld would be to fight for the Homeworld. While Rose does operate on a morally gray scale, I don’t think that keeping Lapis imprisoned and injured in a mirror is something she’d allow. I don’t think this was done by any of the named characters. Lapis either was injured and captured by a Gem fighting for Rose then presented to Rose as a mirror, or Lapis was found injured by a Homeworld Gem and “recycled” as an object to spy on Rose with the false promise of rescuing Lapis later. The latter would explain why Lapis did at some point give information to the Crystal Gems, although the former would explain her hostility towards the Crystal Gems.

An Overcooked Amethyst:

The obvious side effect of Amethyst being overcooked is that she’s smaller than the standard quartz-type gem. Pearl calls her the one good thing that came from the Gem Kindergarten. I think that implies that Pearl (and probably Rose) felt that there was something “wrong” with the other quartzes made on Earth. Perhaps the Homeworld found a way to create quartz Gems that were naturally inclined to fight. Jasper is obsessed with strength and battle. Rose is motivated by her compassion, can create plant armies and heal, and is a skilled strategist making her a type of warrior-leader. Amethyst is light-hearted and goofy but plagued by a lot of self-consciousness that she tries to cover up with a laid back attitude. She’s also loyal but can chafe under too much authority, as shown in “Tiger Millionaire.” She's a capable fighter but can be reckless. These traits combined with her small size made her undesirable to the Homeworld Gems, and if they knew of her, she was probably abandoned.

Since she doesn’t know the role of quartz gems in society, she must have hatched much later than the other quartz gems, and that if any other gems hatched at the same time as her they were small kinds not meant for combat. Rose, as a fellow quartz, could have shared their ancestry but chose not to, probably because she either didn't want to keep the Homeworld hierarchy or was disgusted with the other quartz type gems made in the Gem Kindergarten.

Rose’s Army in the End:

Jasper is surprised that there are only three survivors of Rose’s army. The amount of hostile gems on a planet is valuable information that would have to be as accurate as possible, especially if they were sneaking noncombat gems on to check on the cluster. I say one or more because the Crystal Gems may not have known about Peridot if Steven hadn’t accidentally stuck his head out of the warp beam. The amount of enemies that could be faced would be passed on to Jasper, the warrior in charge of subduing the Crystal Gems. However, the small number surprises Jasper. This makes it seem like the Crystal Gems lost Gems between the first war and Steven's arrival.

My theory is that there were more who survived the Gem war at first, but they eventually became the corrupted monsters that Rose and the others fought to protect Earth from. Another possibility is that they could have artificially enlarged Rose’s army using Pearl’s battle holograms, but I find that one less likely. Surely the Homeworld Gems would be able to tell the difference. Also, I'm not sure if only her Pearl holograms were able to attack.

RWBY: First Round

I'm trying an episode recap this time.

The episode has a beautiful beginning, with Ruby talking to her mother’s grave and giving her mother a catch up. It’s really sweet. I like Ruby’s little joke about keeping Yang in line, and I think Ruby got her sense of humor from her mother. The photo in the opening theme implied that Summer might not have been the best with social interaction, and maybe she’d miss the joke after it was explained like Ruby. Overall, the animation is great. I love the reflection of sunlight on Ruby’s eyes. It’s so beautiful. The one problem is that Tian Yang looks to have been drawn in a completely different style. The shading style looked a lot different and he didn’t move.

Next we go to the fight. The beginning was a bit off. I prefer knowing what’s going on at the start of a fight. Ruby and Weiss got some cool battle poses, but who were they fighting? I mean yeah, Bolin and Nadir since Blake is in one on one against Reese while Yang and Arslan are throwing down, but what are Ruby and Weiss doing? I guess Weiss was launching a glyph from far away, but Ruby seriously looks like she was just striking cool poses. I had the same issue with Pyrrha’s fight with Team CRDL. There are flashes of her fighting Cardin, Dove, and Lark, but Russel takes his time getting to the fight, so does he just spend some time practicing back handsprings while the others fought?

Professor Port and Dr. Oobleck deliver banter and exposition. The tournament setup is good, and it sounds like all students get to the team round. It’s a good style for huntsmen and huntresses in training, since it requires teams to think about who will best represent them and will likely give a lot of them a chance to observe other fighting styles. It also means that Penny will have a lot of time to test herself in fights. The large amount of ships taking people to and from the fair ground suggests that the Dust shortage in Vale, I think, so I swear to God, Velvet and Russel if you get fight scenes you better do more than kick people. I want to see more Dust usage. Weiss and Cinder have each picked a favorite element to destroy people with, so I need more Dust users in the show to satisfy my Dust need. I have no faith in Cardin providing a lot of cool Dust usage, because in Volume 1, he had Jaune do his Dust homework. Seriously, Weiss just made a giant ice fist out of Dust. That had to have taken some intense Dust manipulation. How does she do that? The stadium will give a good opportunity since Bolin was able to snag some lava Dust for Reese to use.

Anyways, once the doctor and professor are finished, the fight scene gets good. Blake and Reese are going toe to toe, as are Yang and Arslan. They’re good match ups. Yang and Arslan are tough brawlers, while Blake and Reese’s weapons have a good amount of surprises. Someone also said it was very Spiderman-esque. Team RWBY has great teamwork between Ruby and Weiss, and it gets even better with the ending move, a team up to prepare the ultimate punch. It was deliciously over the top.

I liked what little I saw of Team ABRN. Arslan’s use of the wire is really cool, and kind of like Blake’s ribbon. Hopefully more characters will put this strategy to use later since large Grimm or really strong fighters can send a lot of them flying. I think Reese’s hoverboard uses wind Dust as a default Dust type, but obviously it can take other crystals, such as the lava one to use in addition to the wind. ABRN seems to have a better balance of individual combat styles than a lot of the Beacon teams. Arslan, Bolin, and Reese are primarily fast melee, while Nadir is primarily ranged. It’s not that balanced, but of the sixteen shown Beacon students, Coco is the only one who isn’t a melee fighter or a melee fighter that can fall back onto ranged attacks. How does Beacon not have teams that are poorly balanced? I suppose it fits Ozpin’s style to stick kids together and say, “alright, it’s your job to find the strategies for this to work.”

We find out that Cinder and her group destroyed another team. Neo in disguise is the fourth member. It’s a cute disguise. Cinder also has skill in hand-to-hand combat, in addition to archery, dual wielding swords, and lava Dust. It’s going to take a lot to stop her. On top of that, the tournament celebrating peace just played perfectly into her hand. Also, I think Cinder has some Dust infused in her body, since she popped a popcorn kernel with her bare hand.

I adored the little bit with Team JNPR and RWBY at the noodle shop. It was great to see their views on their future missions. Ruby is excited, while Blake and Pyrrha are more realistic. It’s expected, but it’s fun to see. Since it seems likely that Weiss’s father cancelled her card, there is going to be some quality Schnee family drama for Weiss to deal with. What I really loved was Ren getting a chance to goof off a bit (“Nora, that’s disgusting, but if you feel the urge…”) as well as Nora taking a break from being her usual bubbly self to reveal some insecurities. Nora and Ren, precious warrior orphans. Also a more self-aware Jaune was nice to see. I have my fingers crossed for Pyrrha and Ren being doubles partners because there haven’t been a lot of combos between them. Also, Ren seems like he’d be better than Nora at countering fighters that Pyrrha may have trouble with.

RWBY: Cinder's Plot

With less than a week until RWBY Volume 3’s first episode, I’m going to try to figure out our current main villain’s possible endgames.

War
This has been built up as the worst thing that could happen to Remnant, specifically one that pits the kingdoms against each other, and that the Vytal Festival is the ultimate symbol of peace, so destroying the Vytal Festival would very likely ruin the peace.

I’m not sure of a why yet. I know Cinder wants to take power from others, and a war between the kingdoms would leave them vulnerable to attacks from Grimm. The Grimm from Mountain Glenn didn’t seem to bother Cinder’s group, so they, especially with the White Fang, could still work while the rest of humanity is under siege. One possibility is that all of her other plans would greatly weaken her enemies, so why not go all in and star a war.

Dust

“It’s not about overpowering the enemy. It’s about taking what power they have.”- Cinder Fall, “Extracurricular”

Creating an artificial dust shortage would align with Cinder’s statement. Dust is used in weapons and is the source of power for pretty much everything. In addition, Cinder is doing something that would get Adam to convince the White Fang to continue the alliance with her, in spite of her plan resulting in a lot of dead White Fang members. I think Cinder was also using the Dust robberies to focus attention on protecting Dust shipments and away from the mines. Taking control of the mines using White Fang members/sympathizers among the workers would severely cripple, if not destroy, the kingdoms’ source of Dust. If Cinder has a lot of dust, then she’ll have a massive power source for her main fighting style, and her ability to give her followers Dust-based weapon upgrades would only be limited by their discipline and skill with Dust.

Base of the Coliseum
Amity Coliseum is four parts. The part contributed by Vale is a massive crystal that serves as a power source and/or a source of the dust used in the tournament battles. With the theory of Cinders taking Dust to deprive the kingdoms of it, taking this massive crystal would be necessary, since with the war, what would stop one kingdom from splitting the Vale crystal to make up for its Dust shortage?

Why Pose as Huntsmen and Huntresses in Training?
“The Vytal Festival Tournament” reveals that academies were started as a part of the peace treaty. Cinder and her group are going to pretend to be the hope of the kingdoms to create the most symbolic destruction of peace.

Why Haven and Mistral?
Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald have infiltrated Haven Academy. Haven is the only other school to have students officially introduced (SSSN and now ABRN), but there isn’t much known about Mistral. They have trade routes and the Regional Mistral Tournament, which Pyrrha won four times, so it’s likely that Sanctum Academy is there too. Mistral provides the arches for the Amity Coliseum. There’s not strong reason for why they’d choose Haven, or why not.

There’s a chance that we might learn more about Mistral. The opening is promising that Team SSSN will still be somewhat prominent, so maybe they’ll learn something about Haven. Perhaps Haven was the first school established from scratch while the rest were built on pre-existing infrastructure.

Another possibility is that this is simple convenience. Neptune and Pyrrha are from Haven and based on Greek and Roman mythology, so Mercury may also be from Mistral. It’s not clear what his age is, so it’s possible that he was a student at Haven when Cinder recruited him. I don’t have anything to back up guesses about Emerald’s place of origin, but Sun proves that Haven does get transfers from other kingdoms, so she could be an actual student of Haven too. Cinder may have gotten in and joined the team with a forged transcript. It’s not the first time in the series.

Semblances
Taking semblances of talented students such as Pyrrha would make it even harder for huntsmen and huntresses to defend the kingdoms and civilians, so that dovetails with destroying the kingdoms nicely. Also, it’s not clear what the criteria for putting students on the list are. Pyrrha’s semblance is powerful, but she keeps it hidden and uses it to shift things to her advantage. Of the current characters, Cinder, Glynda, Velvet, and Weiss are the only ones who could hold their own against Pyrrha’s semblance because their fighting style relies more on dust and semblance than metal weapons, plus most have more combat experience. Revealing that some huntsmen and huntresses use semblances to shift things to their advantage without their opponents knowing.

It might not be coincidence that Pyrrha’s first opponents in that episode were ones who are completely screwed against her semblance. Cardin, Dove, and Lark are covered in metal armor that could also be manipulated, and Pyrrha could easily swat Russel away, so she could probably take him down with pure strength unless he reveals some really impressive skills with Dust.

With friendly competition a part of encouraging greatness in training huntsmen and huntresses, it might be hard to do that if some huntsmen and huntresses may have skills that other huntsmen can’t detect and can’t defend against. Some huntsmen and huntresses could be discouraged. Others may feel that people who fight like Pyrrha don’t fight fair, such as Cardin. This could sow some type of dissent. Cardin would try to get his team to ambush Pyrrha some way because she’s too powerful of an opponent for them. It may also sow discontent between kingdoms if they suspect the other who have students who hide their true strength.

I'm trying to do a regular update schedule of Wednesdays and Sundays. If I build up a bigger backlog of posts, I'll start updating more often. Although there may be an additional one this week, because I'd like to do an analysis of the lyrics of the Volume 3 opening in regards to references to past songs.

Steven Universe: Homeworld Hierarchy

There’s a slight change of pace. I’ve still got plenty of ideas for RWBY posts. I just wanted to do something because I really loved the episode “Too Far,” which has fantastic character development, even by the high standards of Steven Universe, and some intriguing bits of world building.

I should preface this with the fact that geology is one of my areas of geekdom, especially when it comes to gemstones, so I may be using more science than other Steven Universe theories. Future posts are especially in danger of this. On the capitalization, I capitalize gems when referring to a specific character, but not when referring to that group of gem. The word gem is capitalized when referring to the race in Steven Universe, but not real world gems.

My basic premise is that Homeworld runs on a caste society, and that system is based real world mineralogy. The caste system contributes to the hatred of fusions. There may have been a way to get an honorary position into a higher caste, but that was likely abolished after Rose Quartz rebelled.

Popular fanon believes that Renaldo is somewhat on point with his Diamond Authority conspiracy, and the rulers of Homeworld are the diamonds. Before the war for Earth, there were images four diamonds in Gem art: white, blue, yellow, and pink. The Homeworld ship used by Peridot shows only three diamonds: white, blue, and yellow. A gem called Yellow Diamond is Peridot’s commanding officer. Yellow Diamond, if she isn’t the lead diamond, is in charge of the section of space that Earth is in, since a yellow figure is shown in a mural of the Gem’s war on Earth, most likely as the leader of the Homeworld forces.

Popular theory states that Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond. This could explain why there was no attempt to find a new Pink Diamond. Rose has some abilities that don’t seem standard for a warrior. Her summoned weapon is a shield; she has healing tears, and she can make warriors from plant life. Amethyst and Jasper have not displayed these abilities (although this could be because Amethyst is overcooked and relatively young, while Jasper is very focused on physical strength), so Rose Quartz might be far stronger than the average quartz, possibly other rose quartz, because she can function as a healer and commander of her own non-Gem army. This could’ve earned her promotion to the status of Pink Diamond.

Next is the quartz warrior class. Although Peridot had been working on Earth for a while, and Lapis had been forced to stay on Earth for even longer, command was given to Jasper who might not have been to Earth since the war with the Crystal Gems, if ever. The theory I proposed in the above paragraph could’ve given Rose fame throughout Gem society as the most powerful quartz, so Jasper wouldn’t necessarily have fought on Earth to hear about Rose’s prowess. To me, this is a sign that warriors are a higher class. Of course, Jasper also probably has more battle experience than Lapis and Peridot, so that could’ve been a deciding factor too.

Homeworld seems to be an intergalactic imperialist power, so for the conquering they do, they’d need a lot of warriors, and those warriors would be well respected, as shown when Peridot was ecstatic that Amethyst thought that she was funny and was much more upset about hurting Amethyst’s feelings than the other Crystal Gems combined.

Interestingly, the sardonyx gem is a type of quartz. This means that fusion can give Gems a chance to change social groups, which could be a factor in why Homeworld doesn’t like fulltime fusions, because they have the potential to make a pearl on par with a quartz without the approval of the Diamond Authority.

Next is heading into a lot less substantial territory. Scientists like Peridot are probably another class. Another class I propose is an elemental ability class composed of Gems such as Ruby, Sapphire, and Lapis Lazuli. This is a less stable theory. Ruby and sapphire are variations of the gem corundum and lapis lazuli is a variation of lazurite, so this doesn’t have the same cohesiveness as the quartz warrior class. Plus, while Lapis’s skills are based on manipulating water, Sapphire and Ruby have skills besides that, such as Sapphire’s super speed and future sight or Ruby’s strength and weapon summon.

I think the proposed elemental class Gems would be above the scientist Gems. The elementals have a stronger source of power than the scientists, and Peridot’s comment in “Back to the Barn” about a peridot having a pearl suggests that the science class is lower, so possibly one or more classes below quartzes. Granted, based on the kindergarten, it seems likely that warriors are mass produced at times, so it could be a very large class, and since I’m making them second highest, they may just take up the majority of pearls.

Pearls and other Gems that contain a mix of organic material and minerals (petrified wood, for example) work as personal servants. This may also contain materials like glass and obsidian, that aren’t minerals per say but are sometimes considered gemstones. Alternatively, they could be a lower class.

Most likely because of the severe discrimination against Garnet and Pearl, the Crystal Gems do not practice this. There is still a clear hierarchy based on experience, which implies that Garnet (or maybe Ruby and Sapphire individually) is either older or fought in the war longer than Pearl.

Other Steven Universe analysis that I’m interested:

• Potential fusion analysis
• Character analysis
• Real life gem properties and Steven Universe
• The Crystal Gems during the War
• Gem mass
• Guesses about how weapon summons are determined (emphasis on guesses)

RWBY Retrospective

Edit: Error about Neptune's home kingdom. Fixed 10/17

First, I’d like to say that I enjoy RWBY. It’s a great show, with great art and a lot of potential that unfortunately hasn’t been realized. I aim to get some followers for this blog by shamelessly riding the RWBY hype train. I’ll be starting with a retrospective of the trailers, music, and Volumes 1 and 2. I’m not going to cover “Vytal Festival Tournament” in this post because that is Volume 3.

The Trailers:
I didn’t watch them in order. I saw Yellow on Tumblr, and it is the best of the trailers, in my opinion since it balanced fight scenes and the intrigue surrounding the characters and world. I didn’t watch the trailers until I got around to watching the episodes, which was sometime after the “Emerald Forest,” maybe “Players and Pieces” episodes were released. The trailers sort of slow burn to a better-developed story in my opinion. Red is almost pure fight scene, while White uses music to reveal bits of information about the depths of the characters. Black and Yellow show characters and intrigue, and in Yellow, Yang is having so much fun with it. Also, I’m a sucker for cool character designs, and the Malachite sisters definitely have that.

Volume 1: story
The first volume is okay. The best part is the initiation episodes, which balance out character interaction and fight scenes nicely. They steadily introduced the main 8 students and their relationships with each other and built distinct personalities for each of them. My favorites are Yang, Nora, and Ruby. They have fun killing monsters to save humanity. The fights with the Nevermore and Deathstalker had great collaborations that confirmed that these kids were fun and definitely going to be great Huntsmen and Huntresses.

Then came the “Badge and the Burden” which dug up the slightly resolved issue of Weiss’s relation with Ruby and made it a big issue. It was disappointing to see Weiss return to being impatient with Ruby a day after saying that she’d give Ruby a chance. Professor Port and Professor Ozpin sort out Weiss’s sense of entitlement and Ruby’s self doubt, respectively, and somehow Port’s words have more effect on Weiss than her own decisions the day before

Next came the Jaune episodes. Yay. Half of this arc exists because the characters just won’t do anything. Ruby becomes a huntress because she loves helping others, and Blake wants to find a way to help Faunus outside of the White Fang, but both just watch Velvet get picked on by Team CRDL. The closest anyone comes to doing something about the fact that Cardin is a bully is rubbing the fact that he was wrong in class in his face and comments about breaking his legs. Yes, Jaune’s macho posturing meant that he wouldn’t ask his team for help with CRDL, but Nora and Ren suspect that something is up with Jaune, and Pyrrha knows Jaune shouted that he broke the law on top of the roof of the dorms, but no one asks him anything. It just leads to Jaune feeling bad and getting a talk with Ruby, who also doesn’t feel like helping people during this arc. The resolution of the arc bothers me. Jaune is isolated from the group by macho posturing and blackmail from Cardin, so the best way to solve the problem is for Pyrrha to use her semblance to manipulate Jaune’s body, so that he gets a kill. How does Jaune not stumble when his arms suddenly change position? Is Pyrrha really so desperate for the one person who didn’t put her on a pedestal at first to be happy that she wants to give him a false self esteem boost? Why is there a band of two-dimensional characters that the writers don’t seem to take seriously in the cast and at the main school on top of that? How did Team CRDL survive initiation in the Emerald Forest or their previous huntsmen schools? Cardin is too lazy to do homework, even when it’s relevant to his weapon, therefore fighting style, therefore reason for being at Beacon, and since Grimm are drawn to negative emotion, one of the first lessons at Huntsmen Academies should be “control your fear.”

“Stray” and “Black and White” are solid episodes. The Faunus prejudice shown by Team CRDL last arc leads into Blake’s backstory and what the most of the audience figured out. That Blake is a Faunus. How does most of the school think it’s not suspicious that Blake’s bow twitches on its own volition? I’m disappointed that Weiss is once again the antagonist in team dynamics. Her motivation makes sense, since the Black Trailer showed Blake and Adam attacking a Schnee Company train, but are the others only allowed to get mad at each other when they have sympathetic reasons like being a victim of racism? Fight scenes are solid, and there is some great team bonding at the end, although it doesn’t feel like a finale the same way that the end of Volume 2 did. I think it’s because most of Ruby was left after the fight, and Sun and Penny did a lot of the fighting, so a lot of the fight focus was on “check out these badasses.” On that topic, I’m not entirely sure if introducing Penny at this point was necessary since her status as a robot isn’t revealed until next Volume, and that could have been an interesting dynamic to add to the human and Faunus conflict. On the other hand, Rooster Teeth didn’t anticipate Velvet’s rise to popularity when writing this volume, and I think Penny is going to play a major role in next volume.

Music:
When is the day we waited for? Seriously, I love the theme songs and the animation that goes with them, but a consistent issue I have with them, and the soundtracks as a whole, is that the lyrics build up to more than the series shows. I probably wouldn’t be as invested in Weiss if it weren’t for the song “Mirror, Mirror,” because the show never tries to show the loneliness that was the focus of the song. Maybe showing her having moments of doubt or regret when she’s away from the team after an argument would help.

Anyways, the opening theme is a great song that will get you pumped up for the main characters doing a ton of triumphant stuff, but they’re just starting out. Even after Volume 2, there’s still hope and peace. The dreams are introduced, but the heroes have no plans for accomplishing them outside of become huntresses. They haven’t found the door to the main villains.

Volume 2’s opening is very much the same. RWBY doesn’t have a reason to question their path until Oobleck questions WBY, but there’s no time for WBY to think of potentially negative consequences of their choices because they’ve got to get to work on saving Ruby and stopping Torchwick. The opening theme animation is even worse as far as hyping events that don’t happen in the volume. Promising RWBY showing down with Cinder’s group and the teens all coming together to protect Vale, and only parts of the big promises are shown, such as RWBY, JNPR, and CFVY defending Vale and Blake having a showdown with Roman. I’m going into the next theme song with caution.

Volume 2: Story
Volume 2 suffers greatly from a bloated cast. It doubles the amount of characters who are deemed important enough to make the theme song, but a lot of them don’t get anything. RWBY have some great adventures and bonding, and Sun and Neptune get screen time as RWBY’s delightful sidekicks/potential love interests. However, Pyrrha still seems to have little presence outside of Jaune’s character arc. Nora and Ren are still fairly minor. Team CRDL’s contribution to the volume is getting their ass kicked by Pyrrha (and themselves because Cardin is some kind of achievement hunter when it comes to sucking). While Sun and Neptune are promoted to secondary characters, Sage and Scarlet might as well not exist. It’s revealed that Penny is a robot (just like the fans guessed), and then she gets a cameo at the dance before disappearing from the volume. CFVY appear as total badasses, but Velvet, the fan favorite voiced by a fan and designed in a fan contest, isn’t given much time to shine. WHAT IS IN THE TRUNK??? I want to see her do something besides some nice jump kicks next volume. She has at least one year of school at Beacon under her belt. She has to have more than a trunk and kicks up her sleeve. The adults fare better in terms of development. Complex relationships between Ozpin, Ironwood, and Glynda are nicely established.

This volume was great for Team RWBY’s development overall, but not so much for Ruby herself. She doesn’t get a chance to really grow this arc either and remains the slightly goofy young idealist we met in the first episode. I guess Ruby doesn’t have to say goodbye to the innocence of youth. The Volume 1 song “Red Like Roses Part II” suggests that Ruby was shaken up by her mother’s death, and that her parents may not have approved of her and Yang becoming Huntresses. There’s build up to a big arc for Weiss with Weiss questioning how she’ll achieve her goals for Schnee Dust Company and her sister Winter’s arrival. However, her interest in Neptune is too sudden. Last volume she was still prickly around people unless there was an immediate benefit to befriending them (such as Pyrrha). Neptune is from Mistral Atlas (I believe Weiss is too since that’s Schnee Dust Company headquarters), values studying, and dresses nicely. The only reason to assume that he isn’t after her family money, which is implied to be the reason Weiss is cold to potential suitor, is because he flirts with most girls equally. Blake was great in this season as her relationship with Sun and her teammates grow, and she also questions her methods and learns from Yang. I’m glad that Yang is getting some development, and hopefully next volume her backstory will help her develop instead of just Blake. Raven’s appearance should help with that, although her appearance feels a bit like a deus ex mother.

Then there’s Jaune. Last volume, Jaune stands up to Cardin after a talk with Ruby about leadership and Cardin tries to make Jaune hurt Pyrrha. I thought this would lead to him being a more confident and conscientious leader. Nope. He’s a better fighter thanks to practice with Pyrrha but that’s it. He babbles about his love life to Pyrrha (who is blatantly interested in him) and an uncomfortable Ren (who really wanted to have more than a towel on during their talk). He seems to have no interest in Nora’s opinion on romance and tries to shut her out when she tries to clarify things for an uncomfortable Ren. He still hits on Weiss, even though by now it’s obvious that she is not interested. The only reason there is a stop seems to be that he realized that Pyrrha liked him, and he decided to go out with her. When his team comes to the battle in “Breach” Pyrrha leads the attack while Jaune just groans in discontent.

The villains fare somewhat better. Junior and the Malachite sisters make a brief reappearance, and Adam reappears at the end. Roman has a lot of great moments interacting with the other villains and a captured Ruby. Cinder, Emerald, Mercury, and Neo all have interesting personalities and make great villains. However, the motivations are questionable. We don’t see anyone being affected by the Dust robberies that Roman is doing. Maybe it’s the reason that Weiss, Cinder, and Blake are the only people who use Dust, and Cardin, once, but he doesn’t count to me because I enjoy hating him. I feel like the reason that Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury are undercover as students is purely left to fan speculation, although fans didn’t seem to come up with ideas for why being students instead of spectators would help them until the World of Remnant from Volume 3. They’re going to destroy the city with Grimm, robots, and a Dust shortage, as well as steal semblances (are they going to start ripping out souls?) and make the CCT have a screensaver of a queen chess piece because “sow the death and reap the seed?”

Volume 2: World of Remnant
I love Remnant and would like to see it explored more, but these were largely unsatisfactory this Volume. “Kingdoms” is the only one that I felt contributed information to the series that the audience needs. The only characters that would talk kingdom politics would have to explain the council, which they should already know about. Still, there are a few nitpicks. Kings, not councils, run kingdoms, so why are they called kingdoms? Also, the way the map is colored to represent the kingdoms makes it seem like the only way for communities outside the kingdoms to exist is for them to be on continents that don’t have kingdoms on them.

“Dust” is informative too, but I’m a little biased against it because it didn’t fully answer my own Dust based questions. What do all the colors mean? Also, if Dust is used in everything, what kind of Dust is in Nora’s explosives, or does her aura just dye it pink? “Aura” is DVD exclusive but can be found on Youtube. It’s okay in the same way that “Dust” is. It gives some new information but doesn’t answer my burning questions.

“Grimm” is a weak entry. Oobleck explains a lot of the details about Grimm that are mentioned in the video in the next episode.